#because that was the only way to get deep symbolic art on the canvas

[monstertsunami]

you're coming back,

and it's the end of the world.

2023 -> 2024

[crazylittlejester]

Do you have tattoo ideas/headcanons for the chain?

-catreginae

I do!!

Time: I can see him as someone who’d either have a decent number of tattoos or none at all, there’s no in between, but I can can really see him piecing together a sleeve full of memories from journeys only he knows. Its a visible reminder for him that it actually happened and he’s not just going crazy. He strikes me as the kind of person who’d only have tattoos on either one arm or just one side of his body

Wars: If he DOES have a lot, the majority of them are in places you cannot see because they’re for him and they’re personal. He doesn’t really care if people CAN see them, but he’s not going out of his way to make them visible. They go where HE wants, he gets to be in control of that. I think he would probably have some sort of tattoo on the inside of his wrist maybe, as a reminder of all the friends he’s lost in the war tho I’m not entirely sure what that might be, but it’s meaningful to him

Twi: You cannot tell me he doesn’t have tattoos. I CANNOT be convinced he doesn’t have tattoos, that’s his therapy. In a modern au I could see him as a tattoo artist. I think he’d view himself as a canvas for beautiful art with deep meaning to himself, he definitely has tattoos to remind him of Ordon, Rusl and Uli, Midna, Colin, Ilia, everyone he loves. But also? He’s got a dorky ass lookin goat on his leg somewhere and it looks ridiculous but it was his first one and he loves it. He did that one himself for sure

Sky: Definitely has a feather or just a straight up loft wing on his forearm. The color looks crazy good too, it’s incredibly detailed, it’s the only one he has

Wild: FOR SURE has tattoos. None of them are super connected, not all of them are super meaningful, he definitely is the kind of person who’d let his friends pick out a tattoo for him to get he definitely has a silent princess tattoo

Legend: Doesn’t have any. He’s scared of needles. But he will not admit that and he simply says he’s not interested in tattoos but that is the world’s biggest lie. Those 2 week temporary tattoos would be life changing for him

Hyrule: He’d be down, but I don’t think he has any yet. Wild could convince him to go get a matching one with him for the price of a single cornchip

Four: He’d probably either have something for the colors or nothing at all. But like, it’s definitely some little inside joke between him and the colors that NO ONE else gets

Wind: Once this kid gets over his fear of getting his ears pierced it’s the end for him, he’d have a bunch of tattoos and piercings. I think he’d put together a sleeve that just looks absolutely cool as fuck and subtly integrates parts of his journeys. It’s pattern heavy and symbolic and he loves it

[manga-summaries]

Gachiakuta vol 4 summary

Rudo tries dessert and candy for the first time and falls in love. Sweets were not something available to underclass Spherites but it's available on the ground due to Givers who specialize in food. I taste a theme being built: Is life better as underclass in a privileged place or as an equal in a poor place?

Training time! Zanka, Enjin, and Riyo spar with Rudo to help him figure out the details of his powers. Zanka realizes that he can only use items that are broken or discarded. He can also only do it so many times before giving himself a nosebleed because his physical skill is far outclassed by the quality of his gloves. Riyo postulates that his temporary vital instruments dissolve or die once they've meet their purpose and are no longer needed. So he's not "killing" the items (which he was worried about) but giving them a second chance to fulfill their purpose. They speculate what it means that his gloves are part of a "series"

Jump to Jabber and Cthoni meeting their boss. He mutters a bunch of different nonsense phrase (ie plot teasers for future developments) and we get a zoom in on something he's wearing: the same symbol from Rudo's gloves

That night, Rudo washes his gloves. He whimpers and moans through it because of the pain that the mystery injuries on his hands cause him (which the gloves usually dampen). Riyo breaks into his room to check on him. She asks about the injuries, and Rudo says only his good for nothing dad would be able to answer what they really are

We meet the crew for this journy: Enjin, Zanka, and Riyo from Akuta (the name of our HQ); Delmon and Tamsy from Eager (another Clearn base?); and three supporters Gris, Follo, and a recorder named Tomme

We also learn they have a resident artisan mask maker who cannot be restrained by deadlines or expectations. He's still working on Rudo's mask, and they can't venture into No Man's Land until it's done. So in the meantime, they go to get supplies and art charms in Canvas Town

Canvas Town- or the City of Graffiti- is an artist town. Every single surface in town is fair game for graffiti. It's protector, the Spellcaster, has a special vital instrument passed from generation to generation that grants the owner the ability to imbue anything they want into their art. It's rare for a vital instrument to be passed on like that, but it happens here and there. The Spellcaster works regularly with the Cleaner, giving them charms and graffiting their HQ (whether they want it or not). Unfortunately, the current one died just last night: not from deliberate violence, or an attack, but from body pollution- an every day tragedy on the ground. Personally, I think this calls to mind a parallel to the opening of the volume: Is life better as underclass in a privileged place or as an equal in a poor place?

The Spellcaster named his successor Remlin Tysark, a kid who's been sobbing in the corner this whole time. Enjin is good natured and resigned to the situation- oh well we can't get what we came for so we'll just go normal shopping- but the kid takes a deep breath, then screams that they're ready.

They go to the roof. The very first thing they do with their instrument is to launch spray can fireworks in memory of their predecessor. The town collectively joins in. Rudo looks at his own gloves. Did he give them power, or did he inherit the power they already had?

They get their charms. Enjin and the Mayor of the town (who's looking out for the kid) discuss the nature of the inherited instrument while the kid talks about artistic value and freedom.

On the way back to bade, Enjin lets Rudo go trash picking for supplies for the trip. Unbeknownst to Rudo, we get a close up of a TV. It flickers to life. There's a figure on it. The leader of the boss antagonist? Is he wearing Rudo's gloves...?

Back at HQ, Rudo gets his mask. The mask artisan is named Augustus, he's boisterous, and his sister is the healer Giver from last volume. Enjin also lets Rudo go trash diving for supplies for the trip. In the next chapter, we see Rudo has brought this TV along in the car as a supply

Enter No Man's Land! They immediately fight a hoard of giant scorpions. All of the Givers we've seen before get a chance to show off, including Rudo.

As the literal dust settles, a girl shows up. She's not wearing a mask. She asks if they're there to talk to Amo. Is this the woman they're looking for? She seems to know about people coming and going safely from the Sphere, so perhaps? Riyo and Enjin have a few cryptic lines about whether he'll be okay to handle this or if Riyo should take over. Our last few pages are a teaser presumably back at her house, Enjin falling to his knees and puking

[morganharpernichols]

May every brushstroke you paint with your life play a small, yet meaningful part in exploring how the process of painting itself is its own work of art. One of the most common questions I am asked is why and how I share my work every day. I am also asked some variation of this: "Why don't I work on something and post it weekly? Or monthly?" I tried that, but it didn't work for me. Due to my particular version of autism/ADHD, I prefer to break things down into smaller sizes. This is still difficult because I don't want to "clog" people's feeds or take up too much space. Even though it's natural for me, I still get insecure about sharing often. However, there has been an image that has helped me: a paintbrush. And here's how that image became important to me: I came across a quote by the African American sculptor Augusta Savage one day while researching her: She said, "I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent, I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work." This quote holds even more significance to me because it highlights the unfortunate fact that despite being the only black woman commissioned by the World Fair, Augusta Savage's work was destroyed after the fair in 1939. This quote made me realize that sharing my work in my own way can help others learn, even if it's just how to be present or take a deep breath. My daily work can help others learn in their own way. For me, a paintbrush symbolizes the process and how I can return to it daily in my own way. Often with help, those little things become books and more! But most days, it's just moving from one little piece to the next in my own way. I definitely challenge myself to make larger works like books, and at the same time, the small daily sharing helps me stay with the process. Each piece of my work is like a brushstroke on a larger canvas that will not be finished until the end of my life. Augusta Savage's words have taught me that letting the work live beyond me in the way it wants to is what matters. And if it ends up being broken up into a million tiny pieces, I am more than okay with that. -- Morgan Harper Nichols

[littleoddwriter]

Hi can you write the Sinclair brothers (separate) , the sawyers(separate), Chucky, and billy and stu (together) with a reader who gives themselves a lot of tattoos and piercings

Slashers x GenderNeutral!Reader, who has a lot of piercings and tattoos | Headcanons

Thank you so much for the request! I really hope you enjoy these. :) <3 [If anyone has any requests, feel free to send them my way! But please read this post BEFORE you do, thank you!]

notes; Body Modifications; Tattooing and Piercing oneself and another; Mild Oral Fixation; Touching; Domestic Fluff; Poly-Amorous Relationship.

Characters: Billy Loomis & Stu Macher; Bo, Lester and Vincent Sinclair; Bubba/Leatherface, Chop Top and Nubbins Sawyer; Charles Lee Ray/Chucky (Human).

Billy Loomis & Stu Macher

Frankly, Stu is actually quite a big fan of body modification, he thinks piercings and tattoos are really neat, so he absolutely loves all of yours – and the fact that you do them yourself mesmerises him

He also takes the chance to finally get a tongue piercing, and he is super happy about it when you do it for him

Billy has never cared much about these things, but he can’t deny that your tattoos and piercings piqued his interest when he first saw you – and when he found out that they were all your own creations, he was just as entranced as Stu was

Whenever you went about giving yourself a new piercing, they’d ask to keep you company and watch you do it – you don’t mind and let them; in fact you really enjoy it

Stu really likes to get involved and help you out with whatever he can – sterilising your utensils, giving you a hand whichever way you may need, while Billy just looks on, smiling to himself

Even though you have plenty of ideas for tattoos that you want to put on your skin, you sometimes ask them both for designs – you love them and their minds, and they come up with such wonderful images, symbols, etc. it only feels right to wear something they made on your body for the world to see (or not, depending on where the tattoo is situated after all)

Bo Sinclair

Your body modifications definitely interest him a lot and he thinks they make you look even more beautiful

Loves kissing you all over your body and running his tongue over your piercings and mouthing at them

Traces your tattoos any chance he gets – it soothes him, so he’ll especially do it when he’s angry

Admires that you do them yourself and enjoys observing the process; he also helps you out however he can – he’ll take any excuse to get his hands on you

He’ll let you tattoo his arms and chest with little designs he’s come up with or seen in your folders that he liked

Lester Sinclair

So in love with you and everything about you – he is super impressed with your skills of turning your entire body into art like that

He really enjoys the way the piercings on your lips feel when you kiss, or when he touches you and feels them against his fingers; it’s so exciting to him

Loves all your tattoos and the different meanings behind them, or how they came to be, what inspired which, etc. – listening to you telling him these things makes him really happy and also feel special

Sometimes he’ll scribble or write something down in a stroke of genius and sheepishly hand it to you as he asks if you would like to either tattoo it on yourself, or on him (or both)

Definitely would ask you to pierce his earlobes – he was always fascinated by earrings especially and now he could get them!

Vincent Sinclair

You’re both artists and he really admires the way you use your body as a canvas

He’s very fascinated by the various tattoos and piercings you’ve got and regularly spends hours just looking at them and touching them gently with such deep appreciation in his eye

Would ask you to tattoo a design he’s had on his mind for a while onto his skin

Really likes the way your piercings look, feel and make you look so much more unique compared to every other person he’s ever seen – it’s strangely soothing, because he obviously looks different too, and it makes him feel less ashamed around you

Will always watch you add to your collection of tattoos and piercings – he just enjoys watching someone else make art for once

Bubba Sawyer/Leatherface

In a way, he sees your body modifications as something similar to his masks – they’re art, you make them yourself, and they’re a part of you

Asks you to pierce his ears, because just like Lester, he’s always been so fascinated by earrings and he always wanted to wear them – especially when he chose to wear his more feminine attire

It’s really stimulating to him to feel you up and stroke his fingers over your piercings

Is absolutely mesmerised by your tattoos – they’re so beautiful and your skin isn’t plain like all the other people’s he’s met, it’s just so exciting all around

Enjoys watching you do it; it’s so nice to just sit there and quietly admire you as you work

Chop Top Sawyer

Super excited about your piercings especially – he really likes to get his mouth on them!

Asks you to pierce his tongue, because he likes the way it feels

Loves to make suggestions for designs or where you should pierce yourself next

He does enjoy watching you do it, but he’ll also try to convince you to let him poke into your skin (you may let him do it once after he’s worn you down enough)

Some day he shows his favourite badge to you and asks you to tattoo it on the two of you, as a symbol for your love – it is so strangely romantic and you really love doing it (especially when it doesn’t stay at just one of these matching tattoos)

Nubbins Sawyer

In contrast to Chop Top, he rather traces all your body modifications with his fingers – it’s a very enjoyable sensation to him

He has an almost hungry look in his eyes when he watches you pierce or tattoo yourself and when you ask him if perhaps he’d like you to do something to him he declines – he just enjoys looking

Some of the animal bones he’s found actually become part of your tattoo designs eventually, because they remind you of him and in a way, they just look gorgeous

He certainly admires the art behind it all and loves to hear you talk about all the different inspirations for tattoos you have, or why you pierced certain areas – even if there is no “real reason” behind it, he enjoys the fact that you just do it

Takes a ton of pictures of your tattoos and piercings up close and decorates his room with them

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky

He really enjoys the fact that you do these body modifications all by yourself

Loves to admire your tattoos and piercings all over your body, especially if they are at places that only he is able to see them up close

He likes to be present when you decide to pierce yourself especially, something about it is just so weirdly soothing, yet exciting, to him

Makes sure he gives you some inspiration for new tattoos (sometimes he’ll even see something on his victims that he think you might enjoy and shows it to you)

Would fucking kill you if you ever told anyone about it, but he loves playing with your piercings and just touching them gently, gingerly stroking his fingers over the jewellery and also your tattoos, just outlining their shapes lazily – this goes in hand with his aforementioned admiration

[bts-weverse-trans]

201128 Weverse Magazine ‘BE’ Comeback Interview - Namjoon

RM: “I spend a lot of time thinking about where I am now” BTS BE comeback interview 2020.11.28

The story of BTS’ new album BE started on April 17, 2020 when group member RM announced its production on the BANGTANTV YouTube channel. In the seven months that followed until the album’s release, RM’s mind was full, his thoughts flowing in and out of his head.

How do you feel about the unique approach you took to making your new album, BE? RM: The other members were a ton of help to me. My lyrics made it on the album, but the music I composed didn’t, so I’m really thankful to the group for the music. How should I say this? I feel like everyone is doing a great job. There are so many parts in these songs that I’m indebted to them for. “Stay��� was originally going to be the title song on Jung Kook’s mixtape, but everyone liked it so much, and they all agreed to put that on our album. That’s how much influence they had. I’m really happy my room idea was chosen to be the album photos. Since we’re spending a lot of time in our rooms because of COVID-19, we laid out the idea of each of us decorating a room in our own style. I can’t remember for sure (laughs) but I think I’m the one who came up with that. I made a comfortable room, one that’s modern and warm because that’s what I like.

There’s a painting in the middle, and symmetrically arranged figurines. RM: The figures are from my own collection. I wanted to show one of my paintings, but that didn’t pan out. But still, those are the things I hold most dear to me right now, so I let the room embody the things I wish I had, too.

It’s well known that you like art and frequent exhibitions, but how do you feel when you look at art in your home or another space where there are no people, like in the album art? RM: Someone said, “You don’t have to buy this painting; it’s yours so long as you’re looking at it.” That’s my favorite sound bite these days. What I most envied about painters was that, even after they died, their work would be hanging up somewhere, maybe even in another country, still defining that space. Musicians leave behind their songs and videos, too, but it’s only through fine art that viewers in the future are able to completely meet artists from the past. I’m envious that this is only possible for painters. These days I’m trying to find spaces where I can have more relaxed viewing experiences.

There’s a full experience involved, from the time you get ready to leave your house until the time you’re actually looking at artwork in the gallery. RM: That’s perfect to me. There’s art you can keep at home, and then there’s art that should always be viewed in museums.

What effect do you think that type of experience has on your music? You didn’t compose any of the songs but instead participated in writing the lyrics to all of the tracks. Did that experience affect your lyric writing in any way? RM: I think it’s helped me develop a way of thinking using all the senses. I used to be attuned to speech and focus on language and auditory textures, but now I can look at my thoughts from many different angles. That’s why I spend more time studying art now. I’m waiting for the day that it all comes to the surface, like when you paint the base on a canvas over and over so the colors pop. It’s hard to answer in one word if it has a direct influence on my work, but I think people who create music develop a way of seeing the world through their personal experience and their creative process. Painters naturally exhibit their art over a very long period of time. I think it gave me an eye for looking at the world in one long, continuous stroke. So now it’s become a little challenging for me to write lyrics these days. I’ve become more cautious.

Why is it so challenging? RM: I used to have so many ideas pouring out that it was hard to pluck one out. So I would stack them up like a Jenga tower and ponder over which one to remove. But now, it’s hard to even add a block to the stack. I’m not sure why but, when I look at these artists whose works span their entire lives, I sense that the rhythm of my creativity is slowing down more and more. That’s the source of my dilemma. I’m only 27 years old. I still need to wander around and get tripped up a little. But am I just trying to imitate what the fine artists are doing? Or maybe BTS experienced so much in the past seven years, that now it’s time for us to take a breather? I’ve got so many questions, I feel like my hair’s turning white. That’s why none of my songs are on the album. I wrote some, but they were too personal to use there. I don’t exactly like myself like this, but I have to see through to the end in this direction and find the answer.

Maybe for that reason, your rapping has shifted focus to the lyrics more so than trend or musicality. It emphasizes the feeling of the words over a particular format or beat. RM: Exactly. In—was it 2017? Pdogg was talking to Yoongi, Hobi and me about our style, and said, “Namjoon, it feels like you’re becoming a lyricist,” and it really stuck with me. I have a lot of thoughts lately when I watch Show Me the Money or listen to hip hop songs from the Billboard chart. My music started out all about my life as a rapper, so I spend a lot of time thinking about where I am now.

So you’ve started to ask yourself who you are as a musician? RM: I listened to Lee So-ra’s seventh album again today. I keep changing my mind but, if I had to pick between her sixth and seventh album, I like her seventh a little more. And then I listen to the most popular songs on Billboard, and I feel kind of thrown off. Um … There’s something Whanki Kim said that’s been running around in my head lately: After moving to New York, he embraced the style of artists like Mark Rothko and Adolf Gottlieb, but then he said, “I’m Korean, and I can’t do anything not Korean. I can’t do anything apart from this, because I am an outsider.” And I keep thinking that way, too. That’s my main concern lately.

You can feel that on BE. As the members take on more prominent roles as songwriters and producers, characteristics of old Korean music—the kind of music you likely listened to in middle and high school—gradually entered your sound. But your music isn’t from that era, and it sounds like pop, but not quite. RM: The sound has to fit with the whole album so I couldn’t incorporate that feel into BTS songs, but the songs I’m listening to most lately have been Korean. Songs like P-Type’s “Don Quixote,” Dead’P’s “Spread My Wings,” Soul Company’s album The Bangerz. The impressions the songs from back then have left on me, the lyrics from back then and the lyrics from now, they’re different. So BE is both Korean and pop; it’s very unique, in my view.

I think that’s especially true for “Life Goes On.” It’s got a pop melody, but compared to “Dynamite,” it has a very different feel. It doesn’t slip deep into the sentimental, instead allowing the melody to flow naturally. RM: Exactly. The chorus is totally pop, and one of the writers was also American. But the song doesn’t really follow American music trends, weirdly. So I don’t know how “Life Goes On” is going to be received. It’s really calm, almost contemplative. So there’s lyrics, like, “Like an echo in the forest,” and, “Like an arrow in the blue sky.” The song kind of feels like that: It could just float off and disappear. It might even come off as bland next to “Dynamite.”

If nothing else, it seems the song will stick around for a long time. Maybe kids now will listen to it later on in the future. RM: I hope so. That’s the one thing I really hope for, people in the future, thinking back and saying, “Oh, right! Remember that one song?” That’s what my favorite artists and other people who leave a lasting impression on me have in common. One thing common among the songs that have affected me a lot, like Lee So-ra’s seventh album, is that the lyrics they utter in their voice along with the overall sound stick with me. I hope when people look back, my words uttered with the sound of my voice, echoes for a long time in an auditory or visual way, or even throughout their entire lives. But that’s the dilemma: We have all these bling-bling symbols of our success, but we’re not that kind of team.

And yet, BTS’s career path is even more “bling-bling” than ever. “Dynamite” was the top song on the Billboard Hot 100. RM: I was the first one to check our position (laughs) but I didn’t want to get too excited about it. I was scared of facing disappointment so I put the brakes on out of habit, and restrained myself. But on the other hand, I feel like I should relish this moment. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing; shouldn’t I enjoy myself a bit? But I disliked that sensation of only feeling elated so I tried to be as objective as possible. I was just one small part of everything that made this happen.

It reminds me of that part, “Running faster than that cloud of rain /  Thought that would be enough / Guess I’m only human after all,” from “Life Goes On.” RM: “Only human” sounds so appropriate for me right now. One time, I saw a dark cloud over the N Seoul Tower while I was walking along the Han River. I was with a friend and we talked about where the border between where it’s raining and where it’s not might be, and suddenly, we came up with the idea to run and find that spot. But after running for 10 minutes, the cloud was even further away than it had been. At that moment, the puzzle pieces snapped into place. You think you can go faster than that dark cloud? No. That’s what I realized then. And I just like what Whanki Kim said, that maybe I can’t do anything not Korean, because that’s what I am. I used to work late and then stay up all night when things weren’t working out, sometimes walking from Samseong to Sinsa station, thinking everything through. But now, like the saying, I realize that maybe I can’t do more than what I am.

On Weverse, you said that you gained some muscle from working out. Could the change to your body improve your creativity in the long term? RM: I started to think I better change myself a little, physically or mentally. I’m talking about being steady. I used to bombard myself with challenges and worries and just get over them, but now I think it’s time to find that one sturdy thing and plant myself there. The best choice was working out, and I think it’s changing my behavior a lot. I’m hoping that, if I keep working out for a year or two, I’ll become a different person.

Music is your job, but also your life. Like you expressed in “Dis-ease,” how would you say you feel about your work? RM: This is my job and my calling and I feel a great sense of responsibility. I think I’m lucky and happy that I can solely worry about my creative process. And I feel very responsible to those people who put their trust in me, so I try not to cross any lines, judge myself honestly, and always be professional. Those are the responsibilities that come with the job—the things I have to do and the promises I won’t betray. But if I’m going to do it, I’m going to be happy while I do it. That’s not always going to be possible, but that’s generally how I feel.

Well then, how do you feel about BTS at the moment? RM: BTS is … Well, it’s really hard to tell. (laughs) When BTS started out, I thought, “I know everything there is to know about BTS,” but now it’s, “I don’t know a single thing about BTS.” In the past, I felt like I knew everything, and that anything was possible. Call it childish or ambitious. But if I were to ask myself, “What is BTS to me?” I would say, we’re just people who met each other because we were meant to. But it feels like the stars aligned and a startup company became a unicorn, with perfect timing and lots of smart people. Looking back, there were a lot of ironies and contradictions in this industry. I thought I figured them out one by one, and then finally understood the whole thing. But now I feel like I don’t know anything at all. Anyway, to sum up: My young, reckless twenties. The events of my twenties. There were a lot of contradictions, people, fame, and conflict all tangled together, but it was my choice and I got a lot out of it, so my twenties were an intense but also happy time.

And what about you, as one individual person? RM: I’m a real Korean person. (laughs) A person who wants to do something in Korea. I think millennials are charging into society stuck between the analog and digital generations, and what I chose is BTS. So I try to integrate myself into our generation, try to understand what people like me are thinking, and try to work hard to capture that feeling without being a burden on them. This might be another kind of irony itself, but this is who I am. I’m a 27-year-old Korean. That’s what I think.

Trans © Weverse

[romeoandjulietyouwish]

Fjorester Week Day 3: Family

Read on ao3

Jester clutches Fjord’s hand nervously as they walk down the street. Nicodranas is bustling at this time of night, more so than usual. In the recent weeks the city has been abuzz with gossip as the Ruby of the Sea’s secret daughter returned to her hometown to open up a new art gallery. And tonight is the grand opening. 

Jester fights down her nerves as they get closer and closer to the gallery. Both of them are dressed up to the nines. Jester is wearing a glistening white dress with flowers embroidered on the hem, the skirt falls almost to the floor. Fjord’s tie matches Jester’s dress and he wears a light grey suit and a lollipop tie pin. 

Jester is sure Fjord can feel her sweaty palm as they turn the corner. Only three buildings down from the Lavish Chateau is a small brick building with the words Lavorre Art Gallery painted on the facade. It’s still early so there’s no crowd yet, but Jester knows that within an hour the street will be packed. It had been surprisingly easy to find and purchase this building, especially considering it’s proximity to the Chateau. Jester and Fjord spent the last five months transforming the building into the art studio of Jester’s dreams. 

The whole second floor has been converted into an art studio with plenty of room for canvases, paints, pencils, and any art supply she could desire. The first floor was renovated into a gallery with more than enough room for all of Jester’s paintings. 

Jester takes a deep breath and leans into Fjord’s shoulder as they walk towards the gallery. He smiles down at her and squeezes her hand. When they walk inside Jester breaks into a huge grin at the sight of everyone inside. She invited all of her friends to come early so they could have some time before the crowd comes. 

Inside are Beau and Yasha looking at a pastel drawing of  Xhorhas. Caleb and Essek talking with Kingsley, all three of them holding champagne flutes. Veth and Yeza are walking around, just looking at all the paintings while Luc swings off of Caleb’s arm. And Caduceus talking to Marion and Babenon. When Jester and Fjord enter everyone turns to look at them. 

“Hi!” Jester says. She goes to add on, but before she can her mother crosses the room and scoops her into a big hug. 

“I’m so proud of you, my love,” Marion whispers in her ear, planting a kiss to the side of her head.

“Thanks, mama,” Jester says with a grin. When she looks up, all of her family is surrounding her with proud smiles. Fjord stands a little behind them all and when she meets his eyes he's looking at her with such adoration that it nearly makes her melt. 

“Thank you guys for coming!” She bounces on the balls of her feet in excitement. “Okay so,” she looks at them all, a glimmer in her eye, “part of why I wanted you to come early is because I have gifts for all of you.” Jester claps her hands together and rushes over to the storage closet where she had stashed seven paintings the day before. 

“You didn’t have to do that, Jester,” Beau tells her. 

Jester shakes her head, “You guys are my family and you all helped me get here. I wanted a special way to say thank you.” With that she takes the first painting off the stack. 

“Beau and Yasha.” She hands the first canvas to Beau. On it is a painting of the two women facing away, holding hands. They are silhouetted by a brilliant sunset and the ground by their feet is filled with wildflowers. 

“Caleb and Essek.” This painting is of Essek and Caleb in profile, their heads bowed together, eyes closed. Around their heads are stars and fractals. 

“Veth, Yeza, and Luc.” This painting is of the three of them at the beach. Veth and Yeza hold onto Luc’s hands as he splashes in the water, all three of their faces scrunched up in happiness.

“Mama and dad.” This painting is a traditional portrait. Babenon stands behind Marion, looking over her shoulders with a small smile. In Marion’s arms is a little blue tiefling child, about four years old who looks at the two of them with adoration. 

“Kingsley.” This painting depicts Kingsley in his full pirate garb, swinging on one of the ropes, smiling brilliantly, the rest of the Nein behind him cheering him on. 

“Caduceus.” The last painting shows Caduceus with his arms around his family in the Blooming Grove. The seven of them smile happily, dirt on their faces and hands. 

As everyone is looking at their paintings, thanking her and telling her how beautiful they are, Jester walks over to Fjord and extends the last one to him. Of all the paintings, this is the one she is most nervous about. He gives her a fond look and takes it silently. 

The image is of the two of them dancing, smiling at each other in the way only two people deeply in love can. In the background is the beach and both symbols of the Traveler and the Wildmother. But the part she’s nervous about is the two gold bands that clearly are painted on both of their hands. 

It takes Fjord a moment to find the detail and when he does he looks up at Jester with a smile, “Does this mean what I think it means?” 

Jester grins and from her pocket pulls out a gold ring from her pocket. “I’m not going to get down on my knees because my dress is too pretty to get it dirty,” Jester begins. He shakes his head with a laugh. “Shush,” she tells him, “I’m trying to propose.” He shuts up. “Fjord, we both know that I don’t always know the right thing to say or the best way to express my feelings. But I know I love you and I know that there is nothing I would rather do than spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” 

“Of course I will,” Fjord says. She hears their family cheer as he pulls her in by the waist and kisses her. They’re both smiling too wide for it to be a proper kiss, but it feels just as magical. When they pull apart, Jester takes Fjord’s hand and slips the ring on his finger. Fjord blushes and says, “I, uh,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black ring box, “I was going to propose tonight too.” Jester laughs and stands on her toes to kiss him again. 

“You can propose to me after the party,” she tells him. “You can talk about how proud you are and how much you love me and-”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Fjord shakes his head fondly. “You can’t spoil my whole speech.” 

“Then you should have gone first,” Jester teases. “I thought mine was pret-ty romantic, good luck topping it. You know-” Fjord cuts her off by pulling her into another deep kiss.

[anotherghoul666]

I’m glad that my love and adoration for knives was conveyed in my last message. I assure you I would keep my eyes shut tight, I want to loose myself in the feeling, the pure helplessness of being at your mercy and yet trusting you to not make a fatal error. And trust you I do, despite having just met your words truley put me at ease despite the precarious situation.

So to answer your question, yes. It would be an honor to have a lasting tangible memento of such a night. I trust you will create something beautiful on my body, art I will admire for a long time to come and remember fondly.

-🗡

(obvious disclaimers for knives and blood)

To recieve such an amount of trust from you, dear knife anon, is an honor that I will carefully treasure and craddle. I do so hope that I will rise to the occasion for you and maintain said trust as we go, and I will work in this direction.

I'm glad to hear my own trust I placed in you to not open your eyes has been rewarded. You're obedient, and I mean, who wouldn't be when faced with a knife really, but you have obedience at your core, it's natural to you and I value that highly. You'll stay sat, immobile, careful when you move, eyes closed, by the sheer weight of my word and my command. No need for external force with you. You understand the value of the gift I bestow, you wouldn't want to risk missing out on it in any way.

Then if drawing blood has been agreed upon, let's see what I can come up. When you'll feel the sharpened delicate point of my blade scrape your skin, like a scratch at first, only the surface, no cuts yet, you'll wonder, what am I crafting? What is the image I want to permanently etch in your flesh? I'd say, since this is Ghost blog we met on after all, I'd assume an interest for the occult, if only in aesthetics? Now, to draw is not my main talent, I leave drawings to the visual artists of this works, I paint with words, so the designs I so lovingly want to carve into you won't be intricated or super detailed, but! I can efficiently transfer basic shapes and symbols into flesh. Would a pentagram be too on the nose? A lucifer's cross, somewhere intimate so it won't interfere with your daily life and risk impacting it negatively (aside from the pain and healing process of course ;) ) but you'll be able to look at it and remember me? I could craft a sigil for you, for us, for this, I make those, put intent into them, for your growth maybe, for you to attract the beautiful suffering and rapture you so crave more into your life. I do have a signature scar I make, that only very special people get to wear, and it requires care and maintenance for multiple sessions to set in just right. We've just met, but stand by my side for a long time and do good by me? We may discuss it later.

Yes for now, let's go with a sigil. I'll put it on the top of your thigh, the upper section close to the junction with your hip. Not hidden by underwear, but hidden by most clothes you would wear on the daily. You'll see it, and any future partner or people you so choose to undress for will see it, see the depth of our shared experience. I will start to lightly scrape your skin in the shape of my design. A sketching phase, if you will. So if it's not to my liking, this will heal and fade into nothingness and I can change for your other leg to have a fresh canvas. But I won't miss. You'll feel the scrape of the blade repeatedly, like a cat scratch, but over again on the same spots. Would you hold your breath? Would you, instead, force yourself to breathe deeply to process? What about when I'll line up my blade straight on the lingest of the sketch, and start to press in? Trace my line deliberately slow to ensure my sigil is clean edged when your skin splits lightly on either side of the knife, just a small cut for now, just the hint of small droplets of blood beading, because I don't go deep on a first pass. How will you breathe now? Now that I let adrenaline flood your nervous system finally, flood gates cut open with my knife. Now that I let endorphines start to build slowly, knowing full well the first 15-20 minutes of this will be the roughest part for you until your body's natural pain killer sets in. Will you shake? Will you quiver? Will you sit still? Will you clutch something? How do act under a knife, dear knife anon?

[just-here-for-the-moment]

You just had to bring the symbol of Victory into this didn't you?!???? Is this some sort of euphemism I should look forward to or!??!?!?????

Yes!! Let me “paint you a picture” (groan)... Also, I sat down to draft my response and it's somehow *gestures at this whole mess* 2300+ words!?? And confession time! I’ve never even SEEN "The Mentalist"! Everything I know about Marcus Pike has come from cute GIFs and the Internet and fanfics… so… I don’t even know what’s going on with me today. But thank you! :D

(This is leaking over from this post if anyone needs to play catch-up)

Paris

Word count: 2300+

Rating: mature, 18+ only

Outline: Marcus Pike x “You” in Paris, reader is an Art History Professor (cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slow burn; cute Marcus Pike; coffee and pastries; kissing and stuff; public-ish sex in the Louvre after hours; spontaneous P/V sex (probably unprotected, idek) we're all adults here, wrap it before YOU tap it!

It’s like, you and sweet Marcus have definitely hit it off and you’re really into each other after that field trip meet-cute and your date, but you haven’t slept together yet. He gets called away for a case, so you wish him good luck and hope that you can see each other again soon.

A few days later it’s spring break and you have a trip to Paris planned to complete some research for your next publication. You email Marcus while you're waiting to board. You let him know that you’re going to be out of town for a few days, but that you hope his case is going well, and maybe when he's back you two can pick up where you left off?

You land in Paris and check your messages, and you see that Marcus has replied to your email. He says he can't share the details of his case, but that he hopes he'll be wrapped up by the end of the week, and that he definitely wants to see you again. He asks about your research trip, so you shoot a quick email back to fill him in on the details.

You get to your hotel and sink into a hot bath with your phone. You open your emails, and your brain tells you that you're just checking to confirm the details of your appointment with your research contact in the morning... but the little uptick in your heart rate tells you that you're actually looking for another reply from Marcus. And it's there. He says that he loves Paris and that your research sounds exciting. He asks where you’re staying? You give him the name of your hotel, and tell him that you haven't stayed there before, but it's cute.

Before the water even gets cold you have another reply, sending the butterflies behind your navel into a tizzy. He says that he's stayed there once or twice and that the café in the lobby has excellent pastries. You smile and let yourself imagine a vacation with Marcus, here in Paris, sharing pain au chocolat over a little table in the café. You refill the tub with hot water and sit daydreaming for so long that your fingers prune up.

You get out of the bath and wrap yourself in a plush robe, and sit on the edge of the bed. You email Marcus back, wishing him a good night and telling him that it's late where you are, but that you promise to try one of the pastries in the morning with your breakfast coffee. By the time you're in your nightgown and ready to sleep he's responded, wishing you sweet dreams and hoping that your research goes well. You smile and reply, "Thanks," and then drift down into pleasant dreams.

The next morning you take yourself to the little lobby café and treat yourself to a café crème and an almond croissant. Marcus was right, and you nearly moan aloud as you wrap your mouth around the flaky pastry. You open your email and send him a picture of your croissant with one bite missing, and you joke that you blame him for ruining you for any other boulangeries you might visit during your trip. By the time you're done with breakfast he's responded with a wink emoji and a quick "Sorry I ruined you," and you desperately want to email him back and boldly ask him to ruin you in other ways. You stop yourself, and your brain can't think of anything appropriate, so you just don't respond and you leave to go to your research appointment.

The day is long, and the dusty archives and a few misfiled papers cause small irritations. But you find a few of the things that you needed, so you call it productive enough. You break at 3 p.m. and decide to start again fresh in the morning. Maybe an early dinner and another scalding hot bubble bath will set you right. You decide that the weather is nice, and that your hotel is close enough that you can stroll back and people watch, disconnect your brain from your work and transition into relaxation mode along the way.

You arrive back at your hotel and go to your room to change. There is a card slipped under your door, the front desk letting you know that you have a delivery of some kind to pick up. You try to remember if any of your colleagues or your boss mentioned that they would send you anything? Is it paperwork? Some kind of file for your research? You decide to shower and change into a nice dress to lift your mood, and then head back out for dinner.

You take the card to the lobby desk and hand it to the desk clerk and he disappears into the back office. When he returns you're surprised to see that he's holding a floral arrangement, not huge or ostentatious, but lovely and cheerful and somehow your favorite color exactly. The clerk sets the vase on the desk. You reach for the card and open it.

"Good luck on your research. -Marcus"

You break into a wide grin and you practically float back to your room. You set the flowers on the room table and open your email to thank him. You send him a photo and an effusive "Thank you!" and a winky kiss emoji. Is that too much? No - if one little emoji scares him off then he's not the guy you thought he was.

He responds within minutes, a quick "You're welcome. Glad they arrived in one piece." and his own winky kiss emoji. Your heart flutters and you reply immediately, "They're really lovely. Thank you for thinking of me."

A moment later his next email pops up: "Can I take you to dinner and pick up where we left off?"

You reply: "Absolutely! I'll let you know as soon as I'm back in town!"

He responds: "No, I meant tonight."

You hesitate, does he want to call you and chat on the phone while you eat dinner? Some kind of video call, like a virtual date? Before you can type your reply, a new message pops up: "I'm actually in Paris. My case is here and I arrived a few days before you did. I didn't want to scare you off or come to your hotel unannounced, but I'm free tonight and I'd love to see you."

You throw your head back and laugh. This is definitely way more fun than eating alone and people-watching. You message back an enthusiastic, "Yes! I'm ready when you are!" and he emails you and says he'll see you in 30 minutes in the lobby. When you get downstairs he's waiting by the front desk, all soft scruff and loosened tie and warm brown eyes, just as you remembered. You smile and hug him, and in that moment you feel like a fairy-tale princess meeting her prince, being swept off your feet in the most romantic city in the world.

You have dinner at a cozy bistro around the corner, Marcus making you bubble with laughter as you talk. He listens to you moan about the missing pieces of your research, your pressing need to track down a letter from one artist to another that was mentioned in an old diary but which hasn't yet surfaced. You're sure it's around the archives somewhere, just waiting for you to piece it together with the rest of your project. Marcus tells you that his case is almost wrapping up, and if you want he can arrange to catch the same flight home as you. You smile and tell him that would be nice.

You finish dinner and he asks if you want to go to the Louvre, and you check the time and say that they're almost closing. Marcus smiles at you and says, "Don't worry about it," and he looks a little mischievous. You tell him you're up for an adventure, and he takes your hand and ushers you into a taxi.

When you arrive he asks the desk staff for someone he knows, and you make a quick run to the restroom. When you return, Marcus has two laminated badges, special access for professionals and visiting staff that allows you to stay for a few hours past closing. You can't believe your luck, being allowed to spend extra time in one of the most special places in the world, not to mention that your escort is the most handsome and charismatic man you've ever met.

You start in the Denon wing and wander through the museum, talking and laughing quietly, enjoying the opportunity to see things that you would normally have to fight hordes of tourists to see. And maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word, because if someone asked you how you were feeling right now, you would say you were "on cloud nine" or "elated" or "floating." It feels like a dream, and you're not sure if you're going to remember all of it later, but you desperately want to, and you're trying so hard to file every sight away into your brain.

When you reach the Mona Lisa, an odd hush falls over you, and you realize it's the first time you've ever seen it without a crowd twenty deep in front of it. Marcus seems to know what you're feeling, because he takes your hand, almost shyly. And he keeps holding it, warming your fingers as the two of you walk on. You stop in front of Delacroix, "Liberty Leading the People," and you tell Marcus that it's the first painting you ever fell in love with, a million years ago in high school during your very first art history class. You look at the painting and he looks at you, and when you finally turn toward him he captures your mouth in a warm, urgent, soft kiss. You can feel your eyes sparkling at him when he pulls away, and you don't say a word, you just smile and hold his hand as you walk through doorways and up and down stairs.

You come around a corner and there it is, probably the most famous statue in the world: the Venus de Milo. She takes your breath away, and then Marcus does, too, stealing a kiss when you least expect it. And you're torn completely in half, unsure if you would rather keep kissing him or just stare at the curves and planes of her body. So you try to do both; you kiss him and keep one eye on the Venus and you start to feel dizzy, like you've overloaded on sugar, but it's just the impossible circumstances that you've found yourself in.

And you break apart from him, and take his hand again, leading him into a corner that's a little more private. You back yourself against a wall and pull him to you by his tie, and you kiss him the way he deserves, with your full attention and precision. Minutes pass slowly, and you only come up for air because you're afraid you're going to faint. Your thigh is blazing hot where Marcus's hand has raked up under your skirt, and the only reason you don't fuck him right there is because of a security camera keeping watch on the alcove.

You tell him that you both should finish your tour and go back to your hotel, and he agrees. You try to keep your mind on the art, and you tell Marcus about how awestruck you were as a student when you learned about the way that sculptors could depict every curve and dimple of a woman's body through the wet drapery technique; the sensuality of the human form made only slightly more modest when viewed through a veil of fabric; the sheer awesome impossibility of marble carved to look like gauze.

You both get lost in the conversation, and you wander up a staircase and around a corner, and there it is: your absolute favorite piece of art, the piece that you have studied and memorized and dreamed about. And you've seen it before: you've been to the Louvre a handful of times, but this time there are no noisy footsteps echoing off the marble, no tourists trying to capture the glory of it with their tiny and unworthy cameras and phones when there are perfectly good books and postcards available in the gift shop... the Nike to end all Nikes, the Winged Victory of Samothrace. You are, quite simply, blown away.

And if it had been a normal weekend walking tour of the sacred Louvre, if you had been there with anyone else... you wouldn't have ended up wedged against the wall of the archway to her left, skirt hiked up as Marcus pounded into you, one of your bare legs hooked over his hip and your arms wrapped around his neck. If it had been any other day or any other time, you would have stopped him before he unzipped his fly and pulled his erection out; you would have had some remaining shred of propriety, of decency. But it wasn't a normal day and he wasn't a normal man, and you really weren't yourself.

You had gotten carried away by the late hour and the thrill of being allowed to wander the empty museum, and if you were being honest, you really wouldn't have wanted to stop it. You wanted to give in to the romance of the city and the priceless treasures on display and the heady conversations with Marcus. You wanted to be exactly where you were, with exactly who he was, doing exactly what you were doing and feeling exactly how you felt as he thrust into you and grunted your name like a chant while you traced the lines of the Nike with your lust-blown eyes.

You didn't make it to the Richlieu wing until a year later, on a sunny Saturday morning with your new husband Marcus.

--- Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

Roll call: please message me if you don't want to be on my "all fics" tag list!

@221bshrlocked @danniburgh @starlightmornings @honestly-shite @spacedilf @anaaaispunk @silverwolf319 @greeneyedblondie44 @maxwell–lord @nicolethered @the-queen-of-fools @driedgreentomatoes @juletheghoul @dihra-vesa @anxiousandboujee

[corie-the-writer]

Won’t Let Go - Chapter 5

  Jay had woken up several hours later to check on Sophia since he had not felt her move against him in quite sometime. He had looked to see that Sophia was still sound asleep cuddled against him laying mostly on her stomach. She had went to bed covered and now the large comforter was off her body, and he knew that she had to be hot due to the sunburn. He had stretched as gently as he could without disturbing her and then glanced to the alarm clock, seeing that it was going on two in the afternoon. They had been sleeping for the past six hours. Jay had decided to carefully let go of Sophia so he could get out of the bed and go to the bathroom. Once he had went to the restroom, he had checked the fridge to see if there was any aloe vera for her sunburn, and noticed there was none. Jay had decided to run to the corner store and pick up some food for them once Sophia had woke up. The detective was being as quiet as possible so he didn't wake her as he left. As he made his way down the stairs, he had decided to call in an order for pick up to a Mexican restaurant, as he headed to walk across the street to the local grocery store. Once he had found the aloe vera, he had decided to get stuff to make a breakfast for them in the morning, having every intention to spend the rest of the day and evening with Sophia. He had also decided to grab a couple junk food items for that night as well. Once he had grabbed everything he had needed, Jay headed to the check out and paid for everything. Jay quickly ran across the street and back into Sophia's apartment to quietly put everything away. He went to check on her once more before he headed back out to get the food he had ordered. Jay had drove a few blocks to get the food, then headed back to Sophia's apartment, and had changed back into his pair of sweatpants before attempting to wake the sleeping woman. "Soph..." Jay gently rubbed her bare leg, "Baby..." Jay continued to speak softly as she started to stir, "I went and got us some food. You need to eat. We've slept for most of the day." "Mmm...come back to bed." Sophia reached for his hand. Jay chuckled and shook his head, "Not yet. Gotta eat first." Jay stated causing Sophia to form a deep frown on her face, "I got Mexican food..." Jay taunted playfully watching as Sophia began to stir a little to sit up. "How dare you use food as an advantage." Sophia stretched her body as she sat up with her back resting against the headboard, "Where is this food you speak of?" Sophia questioned. "It's in the kitchen, come on, get that pretty butt up." Jay tugged on her hand and she groaned as she moved out of the bed. . . Sophia and Jay had posted up on the couch to eat their meals, and once they were done, Sophia had decided to start painting to get rid of the last few blank canvases she had laying around. Jay watched as Sophia had sat on the bar stool near the easle in nothing but his t-shirt painting away, and he had been mesmerized by her ability to concentrate. The detective had decided to look through the artwork that was behind different canvases leaning against the walls as Sophia painted away. The first piece of art he had came across that he had not seen before was a piano key laying across rocks, with a woman in a ballerina out fit dancing on a tree trunk that laid across the piano keys with the sky looking bright as ever behind the dancer. The second piece was a portrait of down town New Orleans shops, with people gathered around doing different things. When he had flipped to the third canvas, he had realized it wasn't a canvas, but an actual frame photo of Sophia. "What..." Jay questioned his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, his jealousy rising up quickly. In the photo there was a dark haired man in a dark blue dress suit, with a white shirt unbuttoned, and Sophia had been in a black lace lingere set, on her knees, leaning across the dark haired man, her ass on full display with a man's hand on her butt, and her hand on his black belt, biting her bottom lip as she looked at the camera. Jay just couldn't see the face of the man in the photo due to Sophia's dark wildly long hair blocking it. "Did you say something?" Sophia questioned focusing on the painting in front of her. "Who is this?" Jay questioned causing Sophia to look over her shoulder to see that he was looking at a portrait that she had with Noah. "Oh god..." Sophia groaned putting her paint brush down and moving off the stool to approach Jay, "I haven't had time to get rid of it..." Sophia moved to take the framed photo but Jay had stopped her. "Soph, who is that?" Jay looked down to her with his jaw tensing. "That's just someone I met in New Orleans." Sophia explained vaguely, noticing that Jay was wanting more information, "He is a guy I hooked up with for a few months." "And why do you still have it?" Jay questioned and Sophia let out a chuckle, mumbling the word jealous under her breath, "I'm not jealous..." Jay practically growled. "I still have it because I had all of my art work shipped here when I moved back. I didn't stick around to see what they were shipping here, it had gotten mixed in with the other pieces. I hadn't figured out how to get rid of it yet. I wanted to do something symbolic with it." Sophia explained, wrapping her arms around his waist. Jay hesitated for a moment before wrapping his arms around her, and then pulling her close to him, "Sorry...I just...don't like the idea of another man touching you." Jay admitted carefully, "I know it's from the past, but to see it..." Jay shook his head. "I get it." Sophia stated, "I would be the same way." Jay lifted Sophia and she instantly wrapped her legs around his waist and he had carried her to the couch and sat down with her sitting on top of him. Jay brushed his fingers against her cheek as she looked down to him. "I think we should have that talk now..." Jay spoke licking his lips, and watched as Sophia began to toy with the hem of the shirt she was wearing, "I don't know what is happening between us, but I know that I want to be with you." Jay stated, "I don't want to be with anyone else, only you." Sophia's heart swelled, "I don't want to be with anyone else either..." "So can we make this official between us?" Jay questioned and watched as Sophia nodded her head, "You gotta get rid of that photo though..." Jay added playfully causing Sophia to grin and laugh. "Whatever you say Detective."

[the-starryknight]

ART + DRARRY RECS: ARTIST!DRACO

In many of these fics, Draco’s art practice is a vehicle for his redemption and his healing. It’s also often a symbol of his (growing or established) connection with Harry. He’s often a painter, but this list also includes Draco as a graffiti artist and a burgeoning knitter. I hope you’ll enjoy!

[Fic] Painted Bodies, Painted Minds by Lomonaaren 2008 | M | 3k

Harry keeps interrupting Draco at work, and Draco is getting tired of it.

★ Sexy and funny all wrapped into one, this fic was written by the incomparable Lomonaaren.  Draco being incredible competent at his job was a delight, and Harry’s obvious eagerness made this fic such a treat to read. ★ 

[Fic] Paint It Red by @dictacontrion 2014 | E | 5k

Draco's a graffiti artist with a bone to pick. Harry's the P.I. tasked with catching him. Or, apparently, stalking him all over town, asking a lot of questions, and showing surprising artistic talent.

★ Dicta_Contrion has written some of my favorite Drarry fics, and so it was no surprise that this fic had all of the hot intensity between these two. With snappy dialogue, tension that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and an incredibly creative plot, it’s amazing what Dicta has packed into 5k. ★

[Fic + Podfic] Exposure to Morning Light by Geneva, podfic by create_serenity 2015 | M | 4k, 25 minutes

Harry's taken up photography. Landscapes are great, but his muse beckons.

★ Evidently I was asleep when I made the Artist!Harry list because I slept on this brilliant one! Nearly all the eighth year students are artists in this fic, including Draco and Harry.  And wow, the dynamic between these two is incredible! Geneva has created such vivid images I feel I’m gazing on Harry’s photos myself, and Sivany’s voice brings gorgeous life to this fic. ★    

[Fic + Fic Rec] The Destiny You Sold 🔒 by @tryslora, rec by @dewitty1 2015 | E | 59k

In which Draco knits, Harry makes wands, and things get very tangled up between them.

★ This fic is dripping with shared desire between Draco and Harry, spoken, felt, and needed between them. Their constant negotiation is one of the biggest draws of this accidental bonding fic.  Plus, there’s an incredible stream of creative yarn names, wand lore, and an excellently written cast of side characters that make Tryslora’s world feel vast and beautiful. Check out Dewitty’s thoughts and excerpts too! ★

[Rec List] Drarry + Career: Artist by @dragontamerdame​ 2016 | 12 fics 

★ Though Ash is no longer doing rec lists (and instead is making stunning art), this list is chock full of great fics (some of which I haven’t yet read!). I highly recommend you check it out if you’re still thirsting for artist-centric fics after this list, including both Artist!Harry and Artist!Draco. ★

[Fic] Borrowing Courage by @xxthedarklordxx 2018 | E | 70k

After years of being a Magical Artist and painting for other people, Draco decides it’s time to paint for himself for once. The secrets pile up as he tries to unravel the mystery of his relatives but the only thing he didn’t count on was having to go to Potter of all people for approval.

★ A poignant, intimate exploration of Draco’s redemption, this fic is full of incredible magical portrait theory, a deep character study of Draco and his portrait sitter, and so many soft moments shared.  Though Harry does not appear until almost half way through the fic, he is unmistakably present.  This is not a fic to miss! ★

[Fic] All Your Stars In View by @alpha-exodus 2019 | M | 18k

Life after the war is difficult for Harry, especially when the only thing that makes him feel better is, oddly enough, being around Malfoy. So when Malfoy asks to paint his portrait, Harry can't refuse, even if it means baring himself in more ways than one. 

★ This is a truly unusual take on the eighth year trope, and I absolutely loved it.  Alpha_exodus has created a gorgeous story of these two growing closer over the deep intimacy of having one’s portrait painted, made more poignant by the challenges between Draco and Harry. ★

[Art] [Draco Painting Harry] by @mad1492​ 2020 | G | Illustration

After the war Draco gets  home confinement for a year. Being at home almost alone gives him time to thing about things he suppressed before and figuring out certain feelings.

★ I have adored this illustration since the first time it came across my dash! The dynamism of Draco’s hand holding the palette, the expression on Harry’s face, the open window (a nod towards Draco’s soon to come freedom, perhaps?). It’s stunning! ★

[Fic] Prepare The Brush For Me (I'm Craving With This Need) by @ladderofyears 2020 | E | 3k

Harry Potter is feeling artistic. Draco is his canvas.

★ Did I mention the edible paint? This fic is a sweet treat of an established relationship + flirting + paint.  I love the dynamic between these two as they seduce each other through the tactile and visual deliciousness of a little tube of green paint. ★

[Fic] Potter's Portrait by @ariz0nababy​ 2020 | M | 50k

After the war, Draco spends his days at Malfoy Manor, curtains drawn, paint brush in hand. When Harry Potter requests a portrait, Draco scoffs. However, Pansy has other plans for Draco. 

★ This fic is stunning, with such gorgeous dynamics between Draco and Harry as Draco completes the portrait (Draco looking at Harry while he paints? It’s the longing, baby). Plus, add in some wild happenings at the conclusion, this fic is not one to miss! ★

More Art + Drarry Lists: Artist!Harry | All 

[dothwrites]

worried Dean @ Cas: “I’m not bothering you, am I?”

---

It’s a widely accepted tenet in the art department that Castiel Novak is a genius. 

Dean first hears rumors of Novak’s skills when he’s a freshman. He doesn’t believe them at first. He suspects they’re overblown by groupies who are too interested in trying to get into Novak’s pants (not that Dean can blame them: with his shock of dark hair, ice-blue eyes, and delicate scrollwork of tattoos spiraling up his arms to disappear under the sleeves of his very tight t-shirts, Novak is a walking wet dream). Then, at the end of his freshman year, he’s busy setting up the annual art show when a piece catches his attention. 

At first glance, the painting is deceptively simple. A shadowed figure stands in the center of the canvas, his arms raised up to the sky. Around him are swirls of red, black, and gold, somehow blending into one color in the background. The more Dean looks, the more ambiguity he finds in the painting. Are the swirls of gold lifting the figure up or restraining him? Is the figure fading into the black or breaking free? Is the red coming from him or is he drawing it in? Are his hands raised in supplication or defiance? 

Dean loses track of how many minutes he spends staring at the painting, admiring the shading, the color, the symbolism. Transfixed, he reaches out to touch at the rough surface of the painting before he recalls himself and snaps his hand back to his side. 

“You can touch it if you want.” 

Dean whirls around at the deep voice, his eyes widening when he sees Castiel Novak standing behind him, hands tucked deep into his pockets. Castiel raises a pierced eyebrow at him. 

“Seriously. Go ahead.” 

Dean shakes his head, aware of Castiel’s reputation. “I can’t...we’re not allowed to disturb the artwork--”

Castiel’s mouth twists and Dean doesn’t know whether he’s angry or deprecatory. “Well, I’m the artist, and I say you can.” 

Castiel’s eyes rest heavily on him. Dean swallows, his heart picking up a rhythm that seems attached to the flick of Castiel’s tongue over his lower lip. Hand shaking, he reaches out to brush his fingers over the textured canvas. 

“It’s rough,” Castiel says from right behind him (when the hell did he get that close?), “because becoming is always rough.” 

And that’s how Dean Winchester decided Castiel Novak was a genius. 

---

As school and life continues, Dean admires Castiel Novak from afar. 

From what he can tell, Castiel doesn’t have many friends. He has admirers, which he ignores, and he has a few people who hang onto his fame, which he disdains, but actual friends? The only thing keeping Dean from volunteering is the thought that Castiel will turn the same withering look on him. 

Castiel haunts the art building and, as Dean continues delving into the Art program at Carver Edlund University, he does the same. Sometimes he’ll pass Castiel on his way to his studio. Castiel always nods at him, but it’s a companionable gesture, the same that you might give to someone at the grocery store. He never stops to chat, doesn’t even remove his earbuds. 

And that’s fine. So Dean’s harboring a crush that’s as much intellectual as it is physical. Plenty of people have crushes. It’s fine. It’s not like he’s obsessed. Not like he lurks around just so he can leave at the same time Castiel does. Not like he skulks through the dark halls so he can get a look at Castiel’s new project. That would make him creepy and pathetic, and those are two adjectives which certainly don’t describe Dean Winchester. 

After a while, denial doesn’t even taste bad, just a little bitter. 

By the end of his sophomore year, Dean’s accustomed to the status quo. He notices the light in the private studio allotted to Castiel (all senior Art majors get their own studios, but Castiel got the nicest of them), but he doesn’t stop on his way to his own (shared) studio. When he arrives, however, he screeches to a halt. 

His studio is filled to the brim with snotty freshmen. His personal workplace has been completely commandeered by a freshman with a (barf) man bun. “What the hell?” Dean sputters. He can feel his face turning red with rage. “This is my time.” 

Man-Bun pops his gum as he looks at Dean. His eyes are so hazy Dean’s surprised that he’s not deep-throating a bong at that very moment. “Um, guess again? We totally booked the studio for tonight?” 

Seething, Dean storms to the schedule and checks. Sure enough, there’s a long list of names on the door for the studio space. “I always have Thursday,” he protests, but it’s an empty sort of rage. “I’m always here for Thursdays.” 

Man-Bun shrugs, turning back to his psychedelic smattering of colors. “Not this Thursday, dude.” 

Dismissed, Dean gathers his remaining dignity, and leaves. Standing out in the hallway, he reviews his options. He’s kicked out of his regular studio, and he needs to work tonight, otherwise he’ll never get his final project for figure drawing done. Every studio he passes is booked to capacity; clearly the art program is full of procrastinators. In fact, the only studio that has any sort of room...

“No. No. Shit.” Dean weighs the consequences of failing his class versus metaphorically throwing himself into a volcano. Finally, his fear of failure takes over, and he knocks on the door of his last remaining option. 

The door swings open, revealing a Castiel who looks significantly more disheveled than normal (though normal Castiel usually looks like he was rode hard and put away wet). A smear of blue paint decorates one cheek while his earbuds dangle from his neck. Dean tries to ignore the spirals of Castiel’s tattoos, especially where they disappear under his shirt (he especially tries to ignore the thoughts of what those tattoos look like underneath Castiel’s shirt). Castiel blinks in surprise. 

“Dean. What are you doing here?” 

(The fact that Castiel knows Dean’s name comes as a shock. Dean assumed that he was one of the thousands of nameless faces Castiel passes every day.)

“Um, first let me say, it’s totally awesome if you say no, I don’t expect you to say yes, it’s a huge imposition--”

“Dean, you’re rambling.” 

“Can i use your studio? Or share it? I wouldn’t ask, but a bunch of douchebags took mine and there are no other spaces open, and I really need to finish this project--”

“Sure. Come on.” 

And with that, Castiel steps back and beckons Dean into his studio. 

Dean crosses the threshold with something resembling awe. He never imagined, in his wildest dreams, that he would be allowed into Castiel’s inner sanctum. He tries not to gape too obviously as his eyes dart from corner to corner of the room. It looks...like a studio for the most part. Several canvases are hung around the room; if they’re discarded attempts or inspiration, Dean doesn’t know. They could easily function as either. Castiel finally steps in front of him, directing Dean’s attention to one corner of the room. 

“Would there be good?” 

Dean nods. “Yeah, that’s good.” He pauses, eyes darting nervously around the studio. “I’m not bothering you, am I?”

Castiel frowns, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “No, of course not. If you were, I wouldn’t have opened up the door.” With that, he seems to consider the topic of conversation closed, and retreats back a few steps. 

He sets up his work and tries to ignore the fact that Castiel Novak is watching him. It’s almost impossible not to feel his eyes; the skin on the back of Dean’s neck prickles in awareness, but he perseveres. 

He sets his sketch on the easel before casting a critical eye upon it. He frowns as he notices every imperfection. it’s based off a series of sketches he jotted down in class earlier that day. Dean remembers the careless grace of the model, the way that the fabric had draped artlessly over his waist and shoulders, but he can’t recapture the specific atmosphere of the room, which was what made that particular model striking. Every time he tries to put onto the paper how the room felt, his figures end up wooden and two-dimensional. 

“You’re paying too much attention to the form.” 

Dean jumps, his charcoal pencil scrawling an ungainly line across the page. Not a huge loss, he was already going to toss this one anyway. He turns around to find Castiel standing directly behind him. 

Castiel nods towards his sketchpad. “In your drawings. You’re paying too much attention to the form. That’s why it’s coming out wrong.” 

“The form is all there is,” Dean replies, a little peevishly. He knows the sketch sucks, but that doesn’t mean he wants Castiel freaking Novak pointing it out to him. 

“The form is one part. But you have the lighting and shading and you have the intention. The intention is...the feel of the room. It’s what remains unsaid and unseen to those who weren’t there. It’s what you’re trying to capture by paying so much attention to the form. Of course, by concentrating too much on the technical, you lose the abstract.” 

Castiel flicks over to a new page with a deft flick of his wrist. He plucks the pencil from Dean’s grasp with one hand. With the other, he poses Dean’s hand close to his face. Castiel stares at Dean for a few excruciating seconds before he turns his attention to the empty page. 

Dean hardly dares to breathe as Castiel sketches. He’s not sure how he’s going to return to real life, knowing now the tiny crease that knits between Castiel’s brows or how the tip of Castiel’s tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth. How is he supposed to live, knowing Castiel hums tunelessly as his hand works? 

“There.” Castiel flips the sketch to face Dean. In it, Dean finds his own face, rendered in a few lines. It’s rough, certainly, but it’s a close enough likeness. More than that, Castiel’s managed to capture...

“Do I look that scared?” Dean blurts out, before he can stop himself. 

Castiel actually laughs, deep and rumbling, from the diaphragm. It’s a lovely sound, one that fills the studio, and one Dean would gladly hear again and again. “You don’t look scared.” He sets the pencil down on the easel and turns fully to face Dean. “Anxious maybe. Hovering on the edge of anticipation.” He steps closer. His chest almost brushes Dean’s, which could be misinterpreted as Castiel not understanding the concept of personal space. 

What can’t be misinterpreted is the unsubtle drop of Castiel’s eyes to Dean’s lips. 

“I guess now would be a good time to tell you that I’ve really wanted to kiss you for almost a year,” Castiel says, his voice scraped rough around the edges. His eyes drag up to Dean’s, and Dean’s taken aback at the wild glint in them. Castiel steps closer and his clever fingers slip into the spaces between Dean’s fingers. “Please Dean,” Castiel breathes, raw and needy, “please, can I kiss you?” 

“Fuck yes,” Dean murmurs, which is all he gets to say before Castiel’s hand cups the back of his head and his lips descend upon Dean’s. 

Not that Dean’s bragging, but he’s had quite a few good kisses in his life (and been told that he gives quite a few good kisses). Castiel blows them all out of the water. Dean’s never been kissed so thoroughly before, like Castiel wants to own him, like Castiel’s interested in finding exactly what makes Dean tick. His teeth nip at the swell of Dean’s lower lip while his tongue delicately traces the seam of Dean’s lips. Dean eagerly opens his mouth, moaning into Castiel’s mouth as Castiel’s tongue slips in along his. 

Hours or days later, when they part, Dean realizes that while one of his hands is cupping the spur of Castiel’s hip (holy fuck, those hips feel like handles for his hands), his other hand is still holding Castiel’s. It’s certainly the sweetest kiss that’s ever given him a boner. 

Castiel laughs, a little breathless. It’s only then Dean realizes he’s a little taller than Castiel. “You do live up to expectations,” he murmurs, and Dean’s not sure whether Castiel’s talking to himself or not. 

The words spark a recent memory in Dean, and suddenly nothing is more important than finding out the truth. “You said you wanted to do that for a year?” Castiel nods, his eyes suddenly shifting to the side. “Why?” 

“Everyone always goes on about my art. How groundbreaking it is, how I’m a ‘once in a generation talent’.” Castiel uses finger-quotes, which should not be as endearing as Dean finds it. “And it’s nice, but none of them even bother to see my art for what it is. They just see my name attached to it and they lose their shit. But last year...You saw that painting. It didn’t matter to you who made it. You saw it and appreciated it for what it was. And I...I saw you.” 

Castiel swallows. For all his suave confidence earlier, he looks oddly vulnerable now. “So, anyway. Yeah. For a year now. Um...” He glances at Dean’s easel. “I guess I’ll leave you alone now. Or if you want privacy, I can go.” 

“Or,” Dean says, the pink flush on Castiel’s cheeks giving him all the bravery he’ll ever need. “You could stay.” Castiel’s eyes slice to him, their blue intense and jaw-dropping. Dean grins, a little predatory, like they’re on even ground. 

“After all, I’m going to need a model for this sketch.” 

[gentlemancrow]

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

OK so I saw @hey-there-hunter ‘s JMart Wedding Challenge and I pretty much fan ficced immediately??  Like it was an instantaneous plot bunny that stabbed me in the brain and would not let me free until I made it exist.  SO HERE YOU GO!  Read it here or head on over to AO3 below!  And enjoy some unapologetically aggressive fluff with weddings!  Also subtitled someday Crow will stop abusing excessive astral imagery and symbolism for extended metaphors, but today is not that day.

Read on AO3 instead!

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

Jonathan Sims always thought of himself as a man with a deep appreciation for the great literature of the world.  A passionate turn of phrase, crystalline motes of clear imagery like snowflakes reflecting light in his mental scape, a devastating contemplation on the nature of good and evil in the hearts of all mankind, everything that could express the beauty and tragedy of the world in ways he never could.  Prose was a bright paintbrush on a ragged canvas of the universe he had known from an early age was swathed in shadow and pain and evil, and those words on those pages, for at least a moment, were another world he could hold in his hands, could cradle and protect, could mourn.  He liked the power of them as well, of the tinkling brightness of alliteration, the oaky sophistication of a well-aged metaphor, the evocativeness of the idiosyncrasy in a simple simile, laying bare truths in ways he never could have articulated for himself.

There was one thing he could not abide by in language, however, one cardinal sin liable to besmirch any piece of lush and sparkling verse or prose and taint it forever.  And that was idioms.

Jon loathed idioms and their dismally quirky cliches dressed in familiarity’s tacky clothing almost as much as he hated spiders.  Perhaps it was something about their reliance on common knowledge and repetition.  He couldn’t bear reading the same book twice, or even a book that felt too familiar, it only made sense that hearing a hackneyed phrase repeated in that awful singsong sardonic tone of someone who knows full well they’re saying something asinine that has been repeated ad nauseum for millennia would scrape at the back of his skull and down his spine.  They were too whimsical and blasé, crutch words for when one’s limited lexicon came up empty, or worse, for ill comedic effect.  They reinforced that staunchly English notion of skirting about the true depth and breadth of emotion for clipped niceties and unfeeling banalities.  Idioms to him were mere verbal window boxes, colorful and meaningless, dressings for untold disasters behind the shining windows they peacocked before.  

He hated them all with vaguely equal rancor, but there was one he could definitely single out as the one he hated the most, and that was the one about hanging the moon.  Such and such thinks you hung the moon, to me you hung the moon, and so on.  This particular rhetorical felony attracted his wrath only marginally because any moon symbolism never failed to feel outlandish and infantile, a mawkish image of love and care rampant in nursery rhymes and cheap commercialized slogans for t-shirts and wall art.  That was the least of it.  He hated the idea of hanging the moon mostly because once, another lifetime ago now it seemed, Tim Stoker had lobbed it in his face in a fit of smoldering rage and he had been completely, complacently, ignorant of its magnitude.  

Funny thing was, he couldn’t even remember what the actual fight had been about any longer.  Though he could remember exactly where he was standing, cornered next to the file cabinet for the year 1985, January through February, and the label had been peeling up on the upper left-hand corner.  He remembered he’d discovered a hole in the elbow of his jumper that morning and he had been obsessing over it all day, fussing with the dangling green thread and tugging at the knit as if it might magically close the wound.  He’d put his finger clean through it with his arms crossed haughtily over his chest without even realizing he’d been fiddling with it when something flippant about Martin came out of his mouth.  It hadn’t even been cruel, he couldn’t even remember how Martin had come up in the argument in the first place, he could only remember Tim’s mouth moving like he wanted to say something else, then him forcibly stopping himself before he snarled.

“Yeah well, god knows why, but he thinks you hung the moon, so you might try treating him at the very least like a human being once in a while.”

It was such a small thing.  Small words for a small feeling cloaked in a chintzy veneer of idiomatic dismissal.  A trembling little bird cupped in his scarred and battered hands and smothered.  Or so he thought.  Sometimes trembling little birds turn out to be phoenixes, and those who looked to someone else to hang the comfort of a wise, silvery moon in the sky already have the hammer and the picture wire at the ready.

As far as Jon was concerned, the moon only rose on their Somewhere Else because Martin deigned to pull the strings every night, not him.

It was Martin who brought him tea every morning, set it down on the breakfast table with that little flip of the tag and the deft, one-fingered turn of the handle toward him.  It was Martin who scolded him because whites are a separate load, Jon, were you raised in a barn?  Martin who talked him through every episode of the Doctor Who reruns that were the only thing their ancient aerial could pick up.  Martin who planted flowers in the garden and brought muffins from the sweet old lady at the grocers because they traded baking recipes.  Martin who still looked at him with diaphanous pools of ethereal moonlight in his eyes and his smile like he alone hung it in the sky over his head to wash him in its radiance.

Even after everything.

Even after it had been Martin who had to hold the knife buried in his chest as he lay gasping wetly for breath in an alleyway in Another Chelsea to keep the hemorrhaging at bay.  Martin who had cupped his face in his bloody hands with tears streaming down his and forced him to focus, furious love blazing in his sea mist eyes as they locked with his, screaming at him and him only, heedless of anything else.

“Look at me.  LOOK at me, Jon!  Stay with me!  Stay with me, DAMN YOU!”

Stay with me had not been a plea, it had been a command.  He had never once said please because it was never an option.  Shivering, breathing blood through his teeth, the streetlights a fading, star studded halo in Martin’s strawberry blond curls be damned, he was right.  Against every tangled thread of fate twisted deep into his flesh, or perhaps because they had been the only thing that held his torn innards together, he made it to the part where he awoke a few fractured times to nothingness, and then to fingers he knew every inch of inextricably bound up in his and a fierce whisper in his ear.

“I’m here, Jon.  I’m still here.  I’ve got you.  I’m going to fix this.  I’m going to get us out of here.  We’re going to be okay.”

It had been Martin who orchestrated their clandestine escape from the hospital the moment they both agreed he was well enough to survive under his rudimentary medical care and before the authorities got too invested in an urban ghost story of two men who didn’t exist.  Not to mention one of which should, by all medical and logical law, be dead.  It had been Martin who had stolen the necessary antibiotics, drugs, and wound care supplies, Martin who had picked enough pockets to buy passage on a midnight train to the only place they could think to go, and expressly told Jon not to ask where he learned how, even though he knew full well he would later.  Martin who had fought for everything and kept him hidden and safe while he lay in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Scotland, drifting in and out of consciousness between kisses, cold compresses, spoonfuls of whatever he could get him to swallow and keep down, and desperate ‘I love you’s.

Martin had been the one who hung the moon even on the nights Jon couldn’t see it, just so he knew it was there, that the light might finally guide him home.  Not him.  He could have never done something so selfless and simple and beautiful.  No not him.  Not The Archivist.  How could he have ever known that?  Stupid, myopic, pedantic, all-seeing and blind.  A blustering, sanctimonious Tiresias in a sweater vest and half-moon glasses.  And how important was the moon, anyway that he was expected to hang it too?  Would not night still come and the stars still shine?  The stupid, vapid saying should have been about the sun anyway.  Something that nourished and guided and warmed.  Not the moon.  Not the thing of night and hungry wolves and quiet loneliness.  Not a thing of the darkness they fought and still not won, not exactly, not in a way that mattered.  How could he have known the weight of such a thoughtless, frivolous, meaningless phrase and how far and how long Martin had borne it for him to protect he who hung his moon?  

He could see the weight of it so clearly now.  He could see it especially on the darkest days, which came, in grotesque mockery, the moment they found something like their safehouse and rest at last.  Jon had conned his way into a job at the village library with an ancient head librarian who didn’t care much for too many questions, or background or credit checks, and was more than happy to pay in cash.  With Martin’s help of course.  Martin himself had taken up stocking at the village grocers, and their life had teetered onto something so close to quaint and normal it suddenly laid bare the gravity of the depths of darkness they had escaped.

No longer did they have to run, no longer did they have to fight, they could finally lay down the chase and curl in upon each other to lick their wounds in quiet.  But without the driving, primal instinct to live, to survive, that ushered in the days where all the hurt came back to roost and brood and fester.  The days where he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed, or the days Martin couldn’t bear the sound of his voice, or the days they shouted themselves hoarse, stormed apart for hours then came back, silent and broken, red-eyed and exhausted to hold each other and weep into the spaces between neck and shoulder where it still smelled like love and home.

He could see so painfully clearly the toll following him to the ends of the cosmos and back had etched its marks into his goodness, his body and soul, see how often he would walk down the road from their cabin, just a little ways, to stand on the heather spotted hills and gaze out into the frigid infinity of the gray sea.  Cold terror would grip him then, incite a desperate want to run after him, to throw his arms around him and bring him home, but also the fear it would only be to have him turn to mist and slip through his fingers forever.  He always had a cup of steaming tea waiting for him when he came back, just in case.

But again, and always.  It was Martin who would pick up Jon’s hands, kiss every slender, scarred finger through his tears and be the first one to utter ‘I’m sorry.’  Martin who told him with just a single scathing flash of stern blue eyes and not a single word uttered that he was certainly coming to bed and not banishing himself to the couch like an idiot.  Martin who wrapped him in his arms and warmth and boundless love and reminded him, “One way or another.  Together.  That was the deal, right?  You don’t get to back out now.  No returns, refunds, or exchanges, I’m afraid.”

And even through the deepest sobs he would find the laugh Jon didn’t think was in him.  Martin sifted through the mire and the muck and held fast to the tiny, shining things so easy to lose in the darkness.  Things Jon was certain were lost forever, only to be reignited and hung in the brightening sky of their story.  Even if they weren’t quite the moon yet.

It had also been Martin who, on a perfectly ordinary day, on a simple walk through the local farmers market, stopped to peruse one of the usual unremarkable stalls filled with crystals and oils and trinkets.  Jon had wandered off to procure the parsnips and the strawberries, unrelated recipes Martin swore, he had been tasked with finding.  When he returned he found him, a radiant monument tall among the faceless locals, rusty curls caressing his face in the salty breeze, carved of marble and rose quartz and gazing down at a pair of hematite rings on a velvet display box.  His eyes were distant, but not in the enthralled, disembodied way they were when he looked at the sea, or the broken way when they weren’t speaking, but in the contemplative, regarding of puzzle pieces way when he would look into the fire during their talks and turn his words in his mind over and over again like a rock tumbler until they were polished just right.

“Getting into crystals now, are we?” Jon had joked, “Surely I’m not so dull to be around that that’s becoming an attractive hobby.”

Martin snorted and shook his head.

“Supposed to mean healing, or grounding, or something.  Aligning your meridians, I think the lady said?  Whatever that means,” he elaborated, reaching out to touch.

They clinked weightily together, thick and glossy and the dark astral gray of a moonless night.  Martin turned over the card that went with them and read.

“’A grounding stone that belongs to the planet Mars.  It strengthens our connections to the earth and aids the warrior on their journey.  It is a stone of invincibility, but also fragility.  It balances yin and yang energies with its magnetic properties for the perfect reflection upon one’s own soul, astral, physical, and spiritual.’”

“Hematite, is it?” Jon asked, “Also more commonly called bloodstone.  You know if you scratch it, it leaves a red mark.  Like it’s bleeding.  Watch.”

He picked up one of the rings and firmly ran it down the corner of the card Martin had been reading from.  Sure enough, the black stone had left a faint, but starkly crimson mark on the yellowed paper.

“It BLEEDS?” Martin exclaimed in horror.

“It’s just a kind of iron oxide, so, rust, basically,” Jon explained with a chuckle, “Kind of weirdly romantic if you think about it?  This intimidating shiny black stone like armor, made of iron to boot, but with a bleeding heart at its core.”

“I just thought it was pretty, I didn’t know it bleeds,” Martin had laughed in that incredulous way he always did when Jon was telling him something he didn’t actually want to know, but appreciated anyway.

“I find that the strongest, prettiest things often do,” Jon had said in reply.  He remembered saying that particularly clearly, waxing poetic, feeling a swell of affection for the hugely beautiful man he leaned against and was adorably aghast at bleeding rocks.

“Yeah, I reckon they do,” Martin murmured back.

And then his cheeks had flushed bright red under his freckles and the stone steps of his shoulders crumbled a bit under the crushing ancientness and vastness of what he had originally been pondering.

“So, I mean, before you spoiled it with the blood thing.  I was thinking… Well, I was just having a browse and I saw these and I thought they were quite fetching, and then the lady told me they meant grounding and healing and a journey, like on the card.  A-And there were two of them, all by themselves, and everything else was so colorful and flashy these were just so… Um.  Maybe the blood and rusty iron thing makes it more poetic now, actually?  I don’t know.  Sorry I-  This sounded so much better in my head.”

It wasn’t his fault, Jon remembered thinking.  Martin couldn’t find the words because there weren’t any.  Not in this universe or any other.  Not for what they’d gone through, and especially not for what they meant to each other.

“I guess I was just thinking.  If… I bought one.  And wore it.  Sort of like.  Um.  You know.  Would… Would you-?” he had asked, his voice trembling.

Jon had never said yes, yes of course he would, faster or with more conviction in his life.  And there was that look again, rising from the ashes, that flooding of golden, unbound love and light, of eyes turned sky blue, of looking at the man who hung his moon in the sky come back to him.  He could still hang Martin’s moon all over again after so many nights of black clouds and darkness, even if it was only paper.  They’d paid for the rings in rumpled bills, exchanged them right then and there, and kissed each other as the crowd of oblivious people in a world they did not belong in flowed like a river around them.  Jon forgot the bag with the parsnips and strawberries.

But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t even matter that Martin’s fit nicely on his ring finger, but Jon had to wear his on his thumb, and even then sometimes on a chain around his neck for fear of losing it.  It didn’t matter that it was the closest thing they were ever going to get to a proposal and a wedding, consigned now forever to the shadows in a borrowed reality with only each other.  Because it was theirs, and they could begin to figure out how their broken pieces fit back together again.

But like most things that don’t matter, it didn’t until it did.

It began as simple things.  Seeing a wedding on some program they weren’t actually paying much attention to and Martin making a flippant, innocuous comment as he combed his fingers lovingly through Jon’s long and silvered chestnut hair in his lap about how he would have loved to have a cake that had a different flavor on every tier at their wedding.  Just so everyone could have something they liked.  And Jon woke up from his half catlike stupor and looked up at him with such aching regret as those words settled into the pit of his heart alongside ‘he thinks you hung the moon.’  

And soon they began to gather a collection of completely innocent remarks that ran the gamut from ‘would they have worn black or white?  Or one of each?  I don’t know… does it really matter?  And were these engagement rings or wedding rings?  I don’t know.  Neither?  both?  And do we say husband instead of boyfriend now?  Fiancé?  Whatever you want, Martin…’ To the heavier, cancerous weights that sank to the bottom of his gut, even below hanging the moon, like ‘I know Tim would have thrown the most amazing bachelor party for both of us, and his mum had always talked about him getting married someday like it was a farfetched pipe dream, but she would be happy for them, he thinks.’

He could never answer those questions.  There was too much at stake, too much finality and familiarity in them, a strange weightlessness in a world that weighed far too much.  The sun and moon continued their eternal dance of time, ignorant, unbothered, but Jon kept collecting those silent debts of normal life, secreting them away in a hidden singularity in his heart that only grew heavier and metastasized farther the more times Martin walked out at night, not him, beaming starlight from his eyes and his fingertips, to hang the moon again.  So soft, so full of wooly cows and pink heather and the smell of tea and sea salt and Martin’s shampoo on the pillow next to him did it become, that it was almost inevitable that one morning Jon awoke absolutely convinced none of it could be real.  

The moment he decided that, everything made so much more sense.  He could breathe again.  There was a reason he could never sit still, never just feel at ease or talk about the future like it was a real thing that could still happen.  He knew why the silence made his brain itch and why he still glanced around corners and glowered at anyone who dared let their gaze linger on his Martin too long.  Why Martin’s ring fit and his didn’t.  There was too much debt to the universe to be paid, too many broken promises, too many corpses in his wake, he had done nothing to deserve this idyllic life of love and peace and smallness and Martin.  It had to be Her doing, It’s doing, some carefully woven torture chamber that would lure them to the apex of their joy, the center of the web, where they would just be devoured over and over to empty husks and set up like chess pieces to fill with love and light just to knock down again.  He wasn’t free after all.

Jon had been halfway into his coat and halfway out the door to do, he didn’t know, something, anything, to go to the library to use their computer and research something he didn’t know he was looking for when Martin had seized his hand and whirled him around.

“Jon.  STOP.  It’s over.”

And he’d stopped.  He’d looked into those baleful blue eyes, fallen into their depths, landed on the precipice of madness, and broken.  It wasn’t over.  Not for him.  He finally understood.  It was still there.  The Eye.  It always had been.  Though not really, he understood slowly as he wept on his knees in their doorway into Martin’s chest, it had indeed closed forever on him, but it lingered as distant static, like a phantom limb, a metaphysical itch that could never be scratched.  Martin had cradled him close and listened, listened so patiently as he ripped the jagged black fear from the deepest, ugliest part of his heart, hauled it up bloody and messy from his throat and finally laid it bare for both of them to see.  And when it was done and he couldn’t cry anymore Martin had locked eyes with him in a way that made him forget any others could have ever existed outside of crystalline blue and filled with moonlight.

“Listen to me.  I know you think you have some cosmic burden to bear.  That you’re still wearing some… some fucked up crown and sitting on a throne of skulls and death and eyeballs or whatever image you want to put there, and that you have to sit and hurt and watch over everything so it doesn’t happen again, but...  Sorry, Jon, but that’s bullshit.  It’s just a scar now.  That’s all.  Just like the rest of them.  Ugly and beautiful and proof that you —Jonathan Sims— are still alive.  And you are not The Archivist anymore.  You’re just mine.  My Jon.”

He’d held his Jon’s stunned face in his hands and peppered kisses over the pock marks in his skin, over the slash on his throat, the burnt fingers that still couldn’t bend quite right, even the one on his chest, the one almost always hidden by fabric but the one he didn’t need to see to find.  His heart and fingers would always remember exactly where it was.  And he’d kept his lips there a moment, then turned his ear to his chest and wrapped his arms around his waist to listen to his heartbeat like a trembling little bird.

“If I can hear it and feel it.  So can you,” he whispered.

Unsteady fingers curled desperately into Martin’s silky locks, hematite loop cool against his scalp, “Thank you…”

Martin stayed for the kiss on top of his head he knew was coming and smiled.

“Okay, so it’s simple to fix if you think about it,” he murmured into Jon’s chest, “We just need that thing, you know?  The thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing the thing, but you’re not.  What was the word for it again?  A placeholder?  Like when you quit smoking and you hold a pencil or a straw or something that’s not actually a cigarette so you can wean yourself off the ritual?”

Jon blinked owlishly down at him as he dried his eyes.

“A… placebo?  Are you talking about a placebo?”

“Yeah!  That’s it!  We just need to find you a placebo for Knowing things!  That’s all.  Like… reality shows, or-or zoo cams or something!  We’ll figure it out together.  Alright, love?  I promise you.  It’ll be okay.”

Jon was skeptical, so very skeptical, but if Martin was determined to find a balm to soothe his jagged, ontological scars he would happily play the part of lab rat for him.  They’d tried a myriad things to replicate the feeling of Knowing and looking something deep within him still craved.  The zoo and animal livestreams were a bust, cute and entertaining as they were, but animals weren’t ever the purview of The Eye and the camera itself was barely a scrap.  Reality shows came closer, the more salacious the better, but even that temporary fix wore off when Jon’s disgust with the overall content and participants outweighed any benefit.  Martin was just happy to have finally converted him to Bake Off, at least.  They tried people watching in the square in the village, but it made Jon far too self-conscious and guilty.  He used the binoculars exactly once, and that was to look at the cows in the fields, and the choose-your-own-adventure books Martin had been certain would strike a sagacious chord wound up in the donation bin at the library.  But that was when he was struck with a bolt of genius.

Unbeknownst to Jon, which brought him no small measure of glee, Martin ordered, received, and then set up with a literal bow in their back garden the finest telescope he could afford on his meager savings.  He’d researched for days, asked on every amateur astronomer forum he could find, and had it delivered to the grocers so he could make it a proper surprise.  He’d even gone so far as to attack and blindfold a hapless Jon the moment he made it home from work on the day it was ready, and stood behind him giddily bouncing as he tore the tea towel away from his eyes.

“A… Telescope?” he’d blurted dumbly.

“Yes!  It’s perfect, right?  I asked around to find the one that had all the best features, and this one has the best overall magnification and the most lenses, but it doesn’t have the little satellite positioning thing?  I figured you wouldn’t want that anyway, you always like figuring things out and finding things on your own better.”

Martin had been positively radiant.  Jon had just stared at the gawping black tube and chewed the inside of his cheek as he processed what to say.

“I mean… thank you, Martin, really.  It was a sweet thought, but if the binoculars didn’t-“

“Screw the binoculars!  This is different!” Martin happily insisted, “You can look at so much more!  Stars and planets and galaxies and what have you, and it can maybe be sort of like you’re looking for other worlds?  Wormholes or whatever?  Or signs of The Fears and where they’ve gone?  Or even if the stars are the same here as they were back before?  Space literally has so many things to LOOK at we can’t even count them!  This has got to be it!”

Jon tried to smile and laugh and agree to try it out, at the very least, if only because Martin was beaming so sweetly with pride and hope.  Though that first night he didn’t, ushering them back in with promises of tomorrow, Martin, I promise tomorrow.  Tomorrow had been a lie.  As had been the next night.  In fact, it took Jon a full week to even remember they even had a telescope, and that was only after getting the smuggest, Cheshire grin out of Martin after casually mentioning there would be a visible, if partial, lunar eclipse that night.  He’d relented, only because he’d entrapped himself, and they’d both bundled up, looked in the manual for the best size lens to view the moon with, poured a few glasses of wine, and turned their eyes to the stars.

Martin had gone first, gripping the eyepiece and adjusting the focus all the while gasping in awe.  It was so beautiful he’d burst into poetry with a crooked grin.

“Art thou pale for weariness?  Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy?  Sounds a little familiar, eh?” he joked, casting a wry look over his shoulder.

Jon rolled his eyes fondly.

“Gross.  Keats again?”

“Nope, Shelley this time, and even he thinks you ought to have a look at the moon.  I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.”

Jon had sighed obligingly and shuffled to the telescope, fully expecting to look at something bright and round with a bit of a shadow on it that was distinctly unremarkable, have another glass of wine, and then go back inside to snuggle by the fire.  What he saw in that tiny pinhole of light pierced straight through the hazel brown of his eye and plunged him into another world entirely.

The sands of the moon glowed the purest white in the refracted light of the distant sun with which it waltzed.  He could see in crisp, shadowy relief the innumerable scars she bore, the depth and breadth of Ptolemaeus, the boundless lonely flatness of the maria, named for the oceans they were once thought to be, an insult to the rock plains forged a millennia ago in birth by cataclysmic fire.  Every crater remained wrought in perfect, frozen detail with no erosion or foliage to slowly heal them over, and she beamed them proudly, ostentatiously in her heavenly light.  A hulking, ancient protectorate, hung by the hands of creation at the dawn of time for a fledgling planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and yet so crystal clear and unafraid as he perused her millions of years of cosmic sentinel through a lens.  It was dwarfing, humbling, viscerally awe inspiring in a way he dared not voice for fear of snuffing out the fragile glow of wonder and excitement welling in his chest he had been so certain was gone forever.

Astronomy had never been something that had particularly interested Jon, back when his entire reality from the moment his childish hands had touched a single book was spent peering into shadows and watching his own back.  There was no point in wondering what lay among the stars when danger and death lurked so close behind with slavering jaws ever poised at his throat on terra firma, but now.  Now, he had been living in an alternate world, dimension, reality, somewhere, he couldn’t even say for sure.  He’d been hurled potentially through the very stars that twinkled coquettishly above, flashed through their nebulous veils and curtains under their indifferent gaseous gazes, but seen nothing.  Here was a vast expanse of complete chaotic indefiniteness inviting him in to see what few had ever seen, to guess and hypothesize and gesture wildly at secrets only the stars could keep.  To Know.

Jon had jerked back so suddenly from the telescope to survey the entirety of the astral dome above them that Martin had choked on his wine.

“Jon?  Are you quite alright?”

“Yes, I…” he’d murmured, only even half hearing that Martin had said anything at all, stars reflected in his wondering dark eyes, “I’m fine, I just… How… How much more can this see?  How deep does it go?”

Jon hadn’t seen the victorious smirk on Martin’s face as he set down his wine glass and picked up the instruction manual and lens guide.  They’d watched the rest of the eclipse, of course, marveling through the lens at the inky trickle of shadow over craggy white, but then they’d changed the lens to the strongest one, according to the guide, and spent the rest of the evening triangulating their position beneath their slice of the universe and plotting out the various stars, planets, and constellations above.  Jon had even dashed inside to grab a mostly blank notebook and had filled several pages with notes and observations and things to research later, all while Martin held back tears watching him come so alive over a project he didn’t even know he needed.  Eventually though, sleepiness and cold claimed him, and he kissed his beloved goodnight and left him, more than gladly, to ride out the intellectual flare up until it burnt both him and itself out.  

Martin had no clue what time it was when he finally returned, and it didn’t even matter.  All that mattered was at some point, a practically frozen Jon had climbed into bed, snuggled up close behind and wrapped his arms around him to kiss the back of his neck so softly like the wings of a butterfly and whisper.

“Thank you.”

Another victorious smirk and a loving murmur.

“Told you so.”

Where there had been nothing but an Eye shaped hole in him, scarred around the edges and aching in its vacuum, Jon had filled it with the names of nebulas and quasars, of the myth of Andromeda, and Orion, and Castor and Pollux, or Hercules, and why they had all been hung in the stars for eternity.  The stories were much the same as he remembered, but he’d found slight eccentricities, tiny irregularities in the sky which fascinated him even more so.  Night after night he would look at a different astral body, chart it down in his notebook, then come bounding in with starlight beaming from his eyes and his fingertips with some cry of eureka.

“Martin!  Did you know here Polaris is in the south and Sirius is in the north?”

“Martin!  Did you know the Andromeda Galaxy is actually a little closer to the Milky Way here?”

“Martin, you have to come see this!  Oh, no it’s not weird this time, it’s just I finally got Saturn in the telescope and you can actually see the rings!”

His nightly herald would always be different, but Martin would always rise from the comfort of the couch, put his slippers on, and let Jon talk as long as he needed to about his latest discovery, watching him smile again while he, too, watched the matching smile it never failed to ignite illuminate Martin’s face and they lit each other up in the fused brilliance of a binary star.

Martin no longer hung the moon for Jon, he’d finally just up and quite literally given it to him, and there was no mortal way to repay him for that.  Or so he’d thought.  It came to him, as most flashes of brilliance do, on a night he hadn’t even been thinking about it at all.  All he had been doing was sitting in a lawn chair with his telescope long after Martin had gone to bed, chewing his pencil idly, vaguely missing a cigarette and pondering notes on Vega and Lyra between watching it through his lens.  He’d been stuck for days on Vega and its potentiality for another solar system and what that could imply for their new Earth and their new sun, as well as Lyra and the tragic tale of Orpheus and his doomed love.  Even in their new reality he still turned back at the end of the story, still could not contain the roiling, effusive adoration to his own downfall.

Bitterness had risen like bile in the back of Jon’s throat as he replayed the myth again in his head, unsure why it was vexing him and rewinding in his brain so torturously.  “Stupid, stupid man, if he’d only just…” he’d thought again and again, each time giving the star-crossed musician a different decision, a different choice, urging him down another path somewhere, anywhere along his journey, but in the end, he’d always looped back around to the original.  It was the point of the story, after all.  Not so much the love itself or even the loss of it, but the power of it over one man and the creation born from his mourning and eventual destruction.  Patently Greek.  But the chorus would always begin again in Jon’s head.  If he’d kept his Eurydice, if his songs had been happy, if he hadn’t spent the rest of his life mourning so intensely he was eventually destroyed for it, would he have become the paragon of healing he was, the oracle, the lynchpin of the fate of the world he had eventually become?  Which of them was the stupider man?

Jon was only mortal now, he was no longer all-seeing oracle and dark savior, he had no authority to say, but it was a trifle easier to ponder the hubris of Orpheus instead of his own.  He couldn’t help but think, achingly, sometimes the heroes just deserved to pull their beloved from the pit of Tartarus, promise to love them for eternity, and then simply get married, ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after.  A story wasn’t a story if it didn’t write itself upon the very bones and sinews of its heroes, that was the law of the universe, but when the story was done and the cracks and fissures in their tissues had faded to myth and legend, what became of the heroes who did not die a tragic or heroic death and were not hung in the stars?  What happened to heroes left behind?  Twisting his bloodstone ring on his thumb idly as it caught the shivering fire of those stars in its dark mirrored surface, the musical arrow of the muses pierced his heart, wide-eyed in wonder.  He’d asked the universe, but he already knew the answer.  He’d always known.  He knew, and he knew it with such clarion joy as he had never known anything before.

He could no longer be the man who hung Martin’s moon, he hadn’t been for a long time.  That much was clear to him, but he could certainly do something else.  Perhaps they had grown past the need for moon hangings in the first place.  He knew how their story ended.

It took months of saving, secreting, preparation, and then finally just simply waiting for the perfect, clear night.  The moment it came, the moment he knew it was the night, Jon struck without hesitation.  Poor Martin wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the couch, into Jon, when he returned from a late shift at the grocers, but found himself instead stuffed right back into his coat with a picnic basket in hand and hauled out into the frigid night in a flurry of Jon with little time to protest.  He bounded up the hill behind their little cottage beneath a perfect blanket of stars flaming coldly overhead, trailing Martin’s hand in his behind with his breath coming in silvery puffs of clouds, and paying no heed to the whining.

“Jon, whatever it is, does it have to be NOW?” Martin panted, “I am absolutely knackered and it’s beyond freezing and wouldn’t it be nicer just to curl up with a cuppa and fall asleep in front of Star Wars or something?  Doesn’t that have enough stars and space in it?”

Dauntless, Jon only tugged harder.

“There’s tea in the basket, and I’ve seen Star Wars.  And yes, it has to be tonight, it’s really important, I promise.”

“Look.  I love you.  So much.  You know this, and please know it is with the utmost love and deepest affection in my heart that I point out that you say that every time, and you’ve still shown me Pluto like, a hundred separate times.  While I quite like it, and I still feel sorry for it being bumped out of the solar system and all, it’s just a dot?  How many times can you look at a dot?” Martin sighed.

His words finally threw a caltrop into Jon’s warpath, and he paused, turning over his shoulder woundedly.

“What?  No, it’s not Pluto, I swear just- Please, Martin?  I’ll never ask again if you don’t want to, but just for tonight, please?” he pleaded.

Martin winced, and immediately folded under the onslaught of doleful honeyed brown eyes under a nimbus of stars.

“Oh, lord there you go with the puppy dog eyes.  Okay, okay fine, but there better be a nip of whiskey in this,” he chided lovingly with a gesture at the thermos in the basket.

The smile flared back to life brightly on Jon’s face as he turned back up the craggy little footpath to the top of the hill.

“Of course, hot toddy with tea.”

“Ooh, lovely, you do know me.”

The rest of the way was trivially short to the small, flat hilltop surrounded by heather where Jon had already set up a blanket and the telescope over a pristine vista of the dark line where the stars sank into the sea.  He ushered Martin to sit down first, then perched on his hip beside him and poured him a generous helping of tea and whiskey from the thermos before pouring his own.

“Thanks, much.  Right then, what exactly are we up here to look at that we couldn’t see from our garden?” Martin asked, accepting his cup of potent hot toddy and sipping it gratefully around the lemony steam that billowed up.

Taken aback by the sudden logic lobbed into the center of his romantic posturing, Jon looked momentarily stunned, as if someone had slapped him upside the head.

“Oh!  Oh, um, well-!  Ahah, that is to say- Uh.  There is a reason for all this.  It’s not that we couldn’t see it from our garden, we very much could have.  B-But it’s so beautiful up here, and you can kind of hear the sea?  And it’s nice and peaceful, and the heather is still blooming a bit and um…” he trailed off, cheeks burning.

“Okay…?” Martin probed, frowning a little.

“Er, actually...  It’s less about the stars than it is- W-Well it is about the stars.  Let’s get that clear.  But to be completely honest I mostly just… I-I well.  There’s something I need to tell you?”

Jon was ill-prepared for the look of abject horror on Martin’s face as he went paler than the moon overhead.

“Shit, what is it?  Did you find something?  You saw something?  There’s been a sign of The Fears?  Oh god it’s not HER is it?” he asked frantically, nearly slopping hot toddy all over his lap.

“What?  No!  No, none of that!” Jon spluttered, aghast.

Martin regained a modicum of color in his face and breathed in measuredly.

“Okay, so then what is it?  Oh god, you’re not… Jon you’re not ill, or something, are you?  Please, you can just tell me if-“

“No, I am not ill either, damn it, Martin!  If you would just listen to me!  I-!” Jon moaned exasperatedly, “I just wanted to do something… nice.  Something nice for you.  And nicer than I normally would because I am apparently much worse at crafting romantic moments than I thought and-“

“Wait…” Martin cut in, eyes gleaming with realization, “Jonathan Sims… Are you grand gesturing?”

“Well I am certainly trying but you are making it exceedingly difficult!” he retorted, red in the face and breathless.

“Oh my god, you are!  I’m so sorry!” Martin laughed brightly, “Oh god Jon you poor thing I’m so sorry, I’m awful, I’m the absolute worst!  No please!  Don’t let me spoil it.  Please go on.”

Grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead, Jon tried to summon the words again, only for Martin’s strong, warm hands to take it from him and tip his chin up to gaze into his eyes.

“Hey.  Hey, Jon.  Look at me,” he breathed, looking into his eyes idolatrously, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  You can tell me.”

Taking the steadiness from those clear blue depths he needed, Jon focused on them, on the strawberry blond curls tossing in the icy breeze, of the kiss of chilled pink under his freckles, and that eternal, sunshine smile.

“Okay,” he finally answered, smiling softly.

With a deep, shuddering breath, and a long swig of whiskey laced tea for good measure, Jon drew himself up and fished deep in his soul for the words he had waited a millennium to say.

“Okay… So here it is.  Um… I’ve um, I’ve had a lot of time alone lately with my new hobby, as it were.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  A lot of it is overly complicated and ridiculous and doesn’t deserve to live outside of my head but… a lot of it has been about you, about us.  And I know we don’t need to-to put a label on us or put us into a… a box or anything like that.  But every time I look at this ring on my finger, I can’t help but remember we never actually talked about what they meant,” he began, holding out his left hand and fidgeting with the loose band around his thumb.

“Oh Jon, don’t worry about that.  It was just me being a big sappy, sentimental dork.  And if I recall correctly, we’d had a pretty awful row a night or two before, and I just wanted to feel close to you again, I guess?  We both know what they mean to us.  It doesn’t matter,” Martin assured him sweetly.

“Except that it does!” Jon insisted passionately, “That’s the point!  You are a big sappy, sentimental dork, Martin.  I bet you were the kid that had a dream wedding all planned in a notebook with pictures cut out of magazines and everything.  I adore that about you, but big sappy sentimental dorks should have big sappy, sentimental moments like huge, expensive seaside weddings with three-flavor cakes and all your friends and family and rose petals and dove releases and whatever else your heart could dream up.”

Martin snickered and shook his head, charmed at least by the mental image of kissing Jon on a seaside cliff at sunset while doves flew in glorious formation around them and everyone they had ever known and loved cheered.

“Pfft, I don’t need a grand wedding and all that, I just need-”

“Me.  I know,” Jon finished for him with a smirk, “I knew you’d say that.  Maybe not.  But you deserve one.  And I know I don’t use that word lightly, but it’s necessary in this case.  You deserve it.  All of it.  Me on one knee with a ring in a box, you deserve us picking out flowers and tuxedos and arguing over the font on the invitations.  You deserve Tim’s awful bachelor party and laughing at me at the altar because I had to read my vows off a card and they’re still so stiff and awkward and they pale in comparison to the beautiful poem you wrote about me.  You deserve smiling so hard your cheeks hurt and crying as we exchange rings.  All of it.”

Martin weighed his words carefully on his tongue with a sip of his boozy tea to chase away ghosts of things that never even were.

“I mean, sure, not going to say I never wanted that.  And I did have that stupid wedding notebook, by the way.  But all that became a pipe dream the minute we wound up here, right?  No use being upset about something that can never be.”

“That may be so, but the crux of it is… you also contented yourself with the idea of it never coming true not because we’re here, but because you didn’t think I wanted it,” Jon answered, his unspoken truth hanging heavy in the chill night air between them, “Every time you tried to tell me you wanted to be with me forever, I brushed it off and painted it gray and tucked it away and carried on the way we always were like nothing happened and it didn’t matter.  Because it was alright, really, you were just so happy to have what we have, that I didn’t die in your arms that night, that we were still together after everything.  That I at least kept that promise after I’d broken so many.  You were so grateful just for what you were gifted after we thought we would end with nothing you didn’t dare think to ask the universe for more and I am so, so sorry it took me so long to see that, Martin.  I’m so sorry.”

His voice broke.  The breath caught in Martin’s chest as he reached out to touch his wrist comfortingly.

“Jon, I-“

“No, please.  Please let me finish I… I can’t give you any of those things.  I can’t give you our friends back, I can’t give you cake and doves and the sunset and crying through vows in front of the vicar.  I can’t even give you an elopement at the register office because we still don’t legally exist.  And I guess for a long time I resented myself for that.  For all of it.  For stealing that from you, for dragging you through literal hell only to give you a shadow of a life stuck here with me because I betrayed you.  But- no stop, don’t say anything yet I’m not done.  B-But now I finally realize.  You’re right, Martin.  You were always right.  It doesn’t matter.  Those things are all just… things.  I said to you once, a long time ago, and I’m still not even sure if you really heard me, that I didn’t want to just survive.  It was true then, and maybe it wasn’t true for a while, but it’s certainly true again.  We did not fight tooth and nail to just survive.  We fought to live, and live together.  So what I’m saying is… I know now I don’t have to give you tuxedos and white roses as long as I give you something… Something to prove to you that you are my everything, my entire world, something to show you that I love you more than I have loved anything in my entire life.  That I want forever with you.  S-So I…” he trailed off, sucking in his breath to give his gesture of undying love the ardor and grandeur it deserved, “I bought us a star.”

The proclamation rang out like the toll of a bell, its gravity sonorous and quaking.  Martin blinked.

“You… I’m sorry?” he squeaked.

Jon set his empty thermos cup aside, flailed his hands in the air and shook his head frantically

“I-I know, I know it sounds mental just hear me out!” he protested, “Technically I didn’t buy the star, if we want to get picky about it.  I mean obviously no one can own a star.  Just the rights to name it?  It’s a thing you can do online.  I was a bit gobsmacked it was real to be honest.  I just had this silly idea when I was out looking at the stars.  I was looking at Lyra and thinking about you and Orpheus, and I… W-Well I just typed it in, ‘can you name a star?’ and it came right up.  Right then and there.  It um… comes with… hold on.”

Remembrance placed a gentle bookmark down on Jon’s fluttering thoughts, and he rummaged in the picnic basket for a moment before pulling out a navy-blue manila folder covered in stars and full of the paperwork and certificates that had come with registering theirs.  He handed it to Martin, who took it in place of his own empty cup, numb, muscles quivering under his jaw, and opened it to the glittering gold typeface that proclaimed ‘Congratulations!’.

“It comes with paperwork, too!  See?  So, it’s official, at least?  The Jon-Martin star.  Not a marriage license I know, but at least our names are together on something legal?  Our real names?  I figured even if we manage the fake identity thing we’d have to get married as not us.  Not really.  So…  I-It could be like our marriage certificate?” Jon explained, chewing his lower lip.

Martin said nothing as his hand turned the pages of the documentation, his eyes distant in a way Jon had never seen before.  Not disembodied and enthralled, not broken, not even regarding puzzle pieces.

“Oh!  Um, also I-I got us a binary star.  I forgot to mention that bit,” he went on, filling the sudden void, “It’s, ah- What a binary star is- It’s technically two?  But they’re caught up in each other’s gravity and they orbit each other so tightly they look like one star together, one that just shines a little brighter.  They’re bound together forever by the most powerful cosmic force in the universe.  Just like us.”

Only silence answered, punctuated by one last crisp whisper of paper, and then the folder closing with Martin’s spread fingers atop it, bloodstone gleaming in the vivid pale light of the night.  Jon’s heart pitched frantically in his chest, and desperate, stranded tears pricked at his eyes.

“I uh… I would have rather gotten us a whole constellation.  Heh, you know?  But they don’t do that, obviously,” he tried softly, his fingers barely brushing Martin’s knuckles, “They record heroes in constellations, after all.  Great deeds, doomed romances, lovers who can be together no other way… That would have been a better way to honor us, I think.  Our story.  A-And who knows?  Maybe back on our world there are a few new stars to remember what we did, to mark the place we left it, so that everyone we left behind can look up and remember us.  They don’t know how the story really ended, and they probably never will, but we do.  We do, and I want to end it right here, right now.  With our star shining above us ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”

Martin still said nothing, but his head bowed, casting a slice of shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders quivered as a thin, bright line of wet silver trickled down his cheek.  Jon felt the very sky shatter above and begin to crumble around him.

“Please… M-Make no mistake, Martin.  P-Perhaps the gesture is silly and meaningless, but it was all I could think to do to go with everything I’ve said tonight.  Martin… Martin, don’t you see?  These are my wedding vows to you.  This is me saying ‘I do’ and also ‘Martin K. Blackwood would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the universe?’  All at once.  This is me saying I swear to you I will be yours, through everything, until the end of time.  M-Maybe I wasn’t before.  Maybe I was still punishing myself, but I’m telling you, I’m ready now to have my happily ever after.  With you, Martin.  If you’ll have me.  If I haven’t-“

He would never finish.  In a dizzying blur of blue folder, flashing hematite, and a wreath of golden curls, Martin kissed the words off his lips.  He kissed him so hard and so fierce, through wracking sobs with his hands woven so raptly into his long, wavy locks he thought his lips would bruise and his fragile soul would finally shatter to pieces in Martin’s arms.  Undone, all Jon could do was surrender and kiss him back with equal passion, thumbing away the hot tears as they spilled freely down his cheeks and anointed them both with their cleansing, hoary heat.  Their lips parted and they panted softly against each other in the space between, each afraid to break the sacred, pulsing silence.

“You’re crying,” Jon whispered at length, “I’ve said something wrong. Martin, darling I’m so sorry.  I never meant to-”

Martin laughed, raspy with tears, but ethereal, sparkling, like stardust floating on the breeze.

“People are allowed to cry when they’re happy you stupid, silly man,” he murmured in between kissing him again, and again.

“Oh.  Oh.”

He kissed him one last time, that idiot man who always burnt the toast and always knew the facts but never knew what to say, who finally figured it out and bought him a star, and threw his arms around him, enveloping his slight, fragile form protectively in his embrace.

“I love you.  I love you so much.”

Jon sank into that warm, familiar comfort and buried his face in his shoulder.

“I love you, too, Martin.  I want to be yours for the rest of my life.  I want to be me, I want to be us.”

“I know.  I’ve always known.  Oh god, you do know that right?  I know that you love me, it’s written in everything you do and say.  I have never, ever once doubted you love me with everything you are.  Even in the moments I was afraid that… that maybe we just weren’t meant to be together, I still knew it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love me.  Never because you didn’t love me.  Just maybe that we didn’t fit together anymore,” Martin replied in a small voice through his tears as they spilled down his cheeks.

As much as he wanted to vehemently deny there was ever a chance they might have not fit back together again after they had both been so shattered, to kiss him and tell him not in a million years would there ever have been a future where they weren’t Jon and Martin against the world, Jon knew it to be inescapably true.

“I’m so sorry you ever had to be afraid of that,” he swore, digging his fingers into Martin’s back pointedly, “After everything.  After we fought so hard to escape fear itself.  That I almost let it truly win in the end.  That I couldn’t just let go… Because… Because this was never about The Eye, was it?”

A heave of breath and its shuddering exhale shook Martin’s body free of lifetimes of grief, and fear, of ugliness carried far beyond the borders of their souls.  His fingers curled tighter in unspoken reply.

“No Jon, no it wasn’t, but I’m so very glad you finally figured that out.”

“Me, too…” he whispered.

They held each other in the quiet wake of being a moment and let the astral plane wheel calmly overhead.  An impatient star twinkled.

“Wait… you never answered me,” Jon finally said as he pulled back, sliding his elegant fingers down Martin’s strong arms.

“Huh?” Martin blurted, scrubbing under his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“About marrying me tonight.  You never actually said yes, so…”

A twinkle in his eye and a slight mischief to his grin, Jon dove back into the picnic basket and emerged with a velvet ring box.  Martin’s hands flew to his mouth.

“You didn’t.”

“Of course I did!  Nothing fancy, but I thought it was high time to retire the blood rings,” he explained rising from his former perch on his hip to kneel properly.

The box cracked neatly open, and inside lay a simple, white gold band with a tiny circle of milky moonstone embedded in it on a midnight-blue satin cushion, blindingly bright against the dark.  Martin sobbed joyfully all over again.

“So, uh… I suppose if it had just been us, if we’d just been together, without everything, and we’d arrived at this moment.  I would have done much the same.  I would have brought you somewhere beautiful, somewhere I could teach you some inane fact you didn’t actually care about, but liked because it came from me.  Emulsifiers in ice cream and rum raisin…” they both snickered, “And I would have tried my best to make it into some sort of romantic metaphor but completely bunged it up and you would be laughing as I got down on one knee, just like this.  And it would have just been simple.  To the point.  Just… Will you marry me?  So…”

Jon assumed the traditional position, on one knee, arms outstretched, his every slender point a star in a perfect constellation of love.

“Will you marry me?”

Their eyes met, across a thousand different realities, across a thousand different worlds, carried on celestial winds to fall hopelessly, inexorably, into each other’s orbit.

“Yes, yes I do believe I will.”

With one last farewell kiss upon it for what it had meant for them both, Jon slipped the bloodstone ring from Martin’s finger and replaced it with the delicate band made of starlight.  It took its place radiantly, and shone as Martin drew his hand back to admire it with an equally radiant grin before it dimmed with concern.

“But what about you?” he asked worriedly as he watched the old ring entombed lovingly in the box.

Jon only smirked and produced a second box from the basket, which he offered on his open palm out to Martin.

“Naturally, I got one for myself.  Couldn’t pass up a chance to get a wedding ring that actually fits, could I?  It’s just… Don’t you think you deserve to give it to me the way you would want?” he urged.

Martin took the box eagerly, biting his lower lip in thought.

“Not sure you want to give me that freedom.  I had about five different ways of asking you in my head and all of them you would have hated so, so much.  But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t kind of the point,” he answered wryly.

Jon chortled.

“Sorry I, the unromantic one, sprung this on you, the romantic one.  But I did want to surprise you.  I-I mean you can still write me a vows poem later?  If you want to, of course.  I’d love to have it, even if I don’t actually get to hear it at our wedding.”

Martin’s face flushed immediate crimson and his eyes darted coyly away as he toyed with the wedding band box in his lap.

“Oh that?  A-Actually I… I have it memorized, i-if you really wanted to hear it.”

“You- WHAT?” gasped Jon, his cheeks flushing in tandem.

“Oh yeah, I wrote my vows poem for you ages ago and I’ve gone over it so many times I know it by heart.  It was comforting, okay?  I-I’d read it again when times were good and I thought maybe you’d actually- um… a-and when times were not so good, when you were gone, in your own head, when I was afraid we were broken for good, whenever I needed it.  I’ve read it over a thousand times and never changed a thing from the first time I penned it.  Never needed to.  I’m surprised I haven’t recited it in my sleep at this point,” Martin admitted sheepishly.

Jon’s entire body flushed with a solar heat that melted his joints and his heart into a swirling flare of adulation.

“I can think of no better way, then, to receive my ring,” he breathed, reaching out to cup Martin’s cheek in his hand, “I’ve had my turn, now it’s yours.”

In mirror ballets of love exchanges, Martin cradled Jon’s hand against his cheek as he spoke the first lines of the vows etched ever on his being softly into his palm.

“Let he who, shadow dwelling, must In paper, pen, and book be bound Shake off the chains of dark and rust And chart his own bright fate unfound.

Let he with lifelong burdens borne Cut paper wings with thread of gold And hand in hand, the sky forsworn Flit clouds and sun in laughter bold.

Let he whose blood and soldier’s ken The world did shield from dark and fear Heal fast those wounds, be whole again And sleep at last, held close and dear.

Bring him to me with spirit free With stars in eyes and music sung From lips a joyful promise be One soul conjoined, one fate’s thread strung.

Two hearts rejoice in love renowned. We lift our heads, alive, uncrowned.”

He waited until the last couplet to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto Jon’s finger where it too, fit perfectly, like it had always been there, and shone defiantly bright in the moonlight.  Jon wept.  He had been weeping since the first words of verse left his beloved’s lips, but seeing that ring like a piece of his missing soul returned to him undammed the tears effusively.

“God that was… Martin, I don’t have words.  I-It was… so beautiful.  You’re so beautiful.  Thank you,” he cried fervently, “I wish I could tell you properly how much that meant, but I just-“

“Hey… That’s alright.  I’m the words guy.  You’re the emulsifiers guy.  Making you cry is all I need to see to know how you feel,” Martin assured him warmly, reaching out to brush his tears away as he chuckled.

“Yeah… add this one to the running tally.”

“Oh, I have,” Martin snickered, “Speaking of!  Now we’ve done the crying through vows bit.  Shouldn’t we say the ‘I do’ bit, as well?”

Jon pursed his lips with a shrug as he reached out with his left hand to take Martin’s left as well, twining their fingers together

“Yes, I suppose we should.  I don’t see why not.  Well then, Martin, do you?”

“I do.  And Jon, do you?”

“I do.”

“You may now soundly snog the groom.”

“Martin…”

The emphatic drawl of his name the way Jon only called it when he was frustratingly enamored of him perished gently against Martin’s velvet lips as they caressed his.  They kissed slowly and reverently, sealing a pact ordained by the heavens long before either of them had seen the stars in the other’s eyes, lighting with white flame the torch to guide them for the first time, forward.  They broke it only to punctuate it with two more featherlight kisses and a breathless laugh, bowing their foreheads together in deference to the forces of fate and the universe.

“I know this isn’t the wedding either of us ever dreamed of, but as far as I’m concerned, it was perfect,” Jon murmured, nuzzling closer into his husband, swaddling the new, fledgling and beautiful word in his heart.

“Well, hey, what is a wedding really other than just a formal declaration that this is it?  This is us, we’re forever, no matter what.  We did it.  And you did it for me, in the STARS, Jon… Can we just remember that again?  You put us in the actual stars.  I am so writing a ballad for our constellation later, you do know this.”

“Oh lord.  Of course you are.  But really, it was the least I could do, after you’ve done so much for me, sacrificed everything for me.  Waited for me for so long.”

“And you came back to me,” Martin reminded him passionately, “And I don’t just mean back to life, here, in this world.  I mean you came back, Jon, MY Jon, the Jon I was in love with the moment I laid eyes on him.  The fidgety and obstinate Jon who can’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life, who puts on two different socks in the morning because his nose is already in the paper or a book, who teaches me about bleeding rocks and binary stars and still reacts to the simplest acts of kindness like a warm cranberry orange scone without asking for one like they’re divine miracles he is undeserving of, who looks at me like I hung the moon or something every time.  Even when I thought I was a complete and total waste of a human being, you, Jonathan Sims, the most beautiful, amazing, brilliant man to ever walk the Earth, looked at me like I hung the moon.  And that was… Still is… everything to me.”

The heavens shifted, the stars wheeled, the last piece clicked smartly, smugly into place.

“W-What did you say…?” Jon asked with such urgency, grabbing his hands so fiercely, Martin startled.

“Wh-I-I don’t-?  Which part?  The moon hanging part?” he stuttered, rolling his eyes fondly as he realized mid-sentence, “Oh, right.  Ugh, Jon are you seriously going to get after me about your weird vendetta against idioms at our wedding?  Because if you are that would be annoyingly adorable and so intensely you and kind of perfect, but also can you not on THIS particular occasion?”

The laugh that tore from Jon’s throat was half mad, half euphoric as the weight of the moon lifted from his shoulders and became naught but an indifferent sentinel disc in the sky once more.

“No no no, it’s just… It’s funny, I had more than a few things very, very wrong for a very, very long time.  That’s all.  Don’t worry about it,” he explained, leaning in and pressing a delicate kiss to Martin’s forehead, “If you’re the one who hung the moon after all, then I suppose ‘written in the stars’ will have to do for me.”

Martin lit up with literary glee.

“Oh ho!  Two space related idioms in one go?  What a rare treat!  Maybe this is your gateway drug into puns…” he teased impishly.

“Absolutely no chance in hell.”

They both laughed, laughed with the billowing icy breath that reached with victorious fingers up to the heavens.  They laughed, messily sniffing back the pesky drip of tears and cold.  They laughed with lightness of the encumbrance of hematite armor shed, its bloody protections no longer needed to cage wounded hearts and keep them safe and close.  They laughed in breath and also in the dancing points of light in their eyes as they fell into one another free from gravity.

“So uh… Do I get to see my star tonight, or don’t I?” Martin finally remembered, relishing the utterly horrified yelp from Jon.

“Oh god I completely-!  Y-Yes!  Yes of course, it’s already set up at the proper coordinates!” he had already sprung to his feet, “Oh, though, hang on, it took longer to get to the star viewing part than I anticipated, so I might need to adjust it a bit.  Oh!  And I have a little strawberries and champagne, if you like?”

“I do like, please and thank you!”

Jon set to readjusting the telescope to the proper ascension and declination while Martin poured them two glasses of crisply bubbling champagne.  They twined their arms to drink a toast from each other’s glass, ‘to us’ or ‘to happily ever afters’, or to several other messily rambled toast worthy sentiments.  They couldn’t decide and toasted to all of it.  They ate plump red strawberries and licked the juice from each other’s fingers as they looked at their star, which was, after everything, just a dot, just like Pluto, but Martin had to admit that he rather liked looking at dots after all.  And that one was their dot.  The warm intoxication of love and champagne begged for music, and someone fumbled in the cold for a wedding playlist on some app, somewhere, it didn’t matter, just as long as they could join hands, gaze into each other’s eyes and dance inelegantly, stepping on each other’s toes, under the umbrella of stars in a gentle rain of moonlight.

“I don’t see your problem with cliches, idioms and all that, really…” Martin mused at length, laying his head on Jon’s shoulder as they slowly spun to the rhythm of a longing ballad and the song of the sea, “Like this stupid, great song.  They’re familiar and cozy and everyone knows them.  They’re like… like old friends.  Always there to rely on when we can’t come up with the words ourselves, because sometimes we can’t.  And if something trite and silly sums up the way you feel, why not just let it be?  Sometimes things are said over and over again because some truths are universal, you know?  They’re just… human.”

Jon pressed a kiss into the mop of curls that tickled his nose and smelled faintly of toasted sugar and lavender and mused on all of the romantic cliches that had just passed through his mind unbidden.  Who was he to deny he was but one star in the sky, a single gear in the grand mortal mechanism of the universe.  If he had handed himself over to the humanity of it all instead of rusting, stopping, looking outside where there was never anything to see, perhaps he could have had this dance much sooner.  It didn’t matter though, until it did, because that night Martin took his breath away, made his world go round, he was head over heels for his match made in heaven, and better than heaven, they were written in the stars.

“You know what, Martin?” Jon laughed in reply, “Tonight, being what it is, I am willing to concede.  You are absolutely right.”

“I’m glad…” came the tender acceptance, followed by a distinctly puckish beat of silence, “Then does this mean I can I start saying love you to the moon and back?”

“Don’t push your luck...”

[maybe-your-left]

Hi!😊

This is my first time writing to you ever😱 I've been following you for a couple of weeks and read through a lot of your work on your masterlist and OMG I LOVE IT! ESPECIALLY Good Intentions - I've read some chapters like three times already, it's so good

I love how you write the boys and how you describe everything - I can envision everything that's happening so easily. You are truly such a good writer, but hopefully you already knew that❤

I saw you were doing your ask friday and read something about Valentine's day present from one of the boys? I would really love to participate in that, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna do it right haha

I'm just gonna write it here: my fave color is petroleum blue (like a deep turquoise), my favorite flowers are roses, random fact is I'm 5'10. I'm struggling with which boy bc I can't really choose between the triplets, I love them all so much, but I feel like I'm in a Kylo mood atm

Pls let me know who your favorite triplet is, I need to know for "research purposes"/curiosity

Hope you're having a great day/evening/whenever-you-see-this✨ I will be more active here from now on now that I've built up the courage to send this haha

Love, Sierra

HI SIERRA, 

Matt Organa-Solo:

Oh baby-Matty wants to give you anything in the world. If you wanted the moon he would throw a lasso over it just to see you smile.

Matt’s favorite color is blue too! Who would’ve thought? Everyone always gets him stuff that's orange, but he only wears it because in art class he learned that it was a complimentary color to blue.

He really wants to make today special... he knows he’s not the most eloquent when it comes to his feelings for you but he wants you to know he's listening to you. He’s been working really hard on the perfect Valentine present, that you’ll cherish for the rest of your lives together, which Matt is planning on forever so jot that down.

A beautiful bouquet of roses will find its way to your work/school, rivaling anyone else's that were received earlier in the day. Along with a note that explains for you to get dressed in the outfit he laid out when you get home. A stunning blue set sprawled on the bed, your favorite color. Along with some deep blue earrings to adorn your ears, Matt wants them to twinkle, for when he bites them later.

Ben Solo: 

Sweet sweet Benny boy... the most precious boy who needs all the attention and affection you can give him. He thrives on it okay, don't make him beg, because he will crawl on his hands and knees just for an ounce of your attention. 

For Valentines? 

Ben is a regular CUPID OKAY. HE LIVES FOR ROMANCE. HE OOZES SEX, LOVE, DEVOTION, EVEN CUM OKAY. 

He spent so long on his present for you, a beautiful painting made of you. Scandalily clad in deep hues of blue, complete with blue butterflies around your body on the canvas. He absolutely loves it, and has a copy of it for himself, he thought about getting professional photos of himself naked for Valentines' but his brothers gave him a hard no... so. next year. 

A beautiful blue stone set in gold, perfect to wrap around your finger, a symbol of his love for you. 

You really thought he wouldn’t propose on Valentines? Think again! 

Why not? 

its a romantic day, and he loves you more than anything. 

Kylo Ren: 

Ummm... wtf is Valentines' day? 

is this something he should’ve known about? 

why is everyone wearing pink? 

someone kissed him because he was wearing red but he SWEARS he didn’t ask for it okay. 

Roses? 

Okay. 

Kylo gets you a rose GARDEN. Filled with exotic and hybrid Roses that come in every color you can imagine. Just because he got overwhelmed at the florists when they asked about the size he wanted. There's no size of flowers that can amount to his love for you, so a garden seemed like the next best step. 

He has hidden gifts throughout the walkway, which he pretends to not know about when you stumble upon one. Wrapped in black velvet, a big red bow atop. 

Jewels. 

Necklaces. 

Purses. 

Shoes. 

A fucking tiara. 

Along with tickets to fly to the ocean because he knows your favorite color is a deep ocean blue, which whatever. Red is far superior but he will let you live under the guise of blue being good. So he can walk on the beach with you, hand in hand while the waves crash against your feet on the shoreline. 

Also sex. 

------

My Favorite Triplet????? 

geeeeee idk....

i don’t know... 

there's so many options man 

idk dont make me choose babe. 

-------

TAGGING: @finn-ray-nal-beads​​ @onlykyloscenes​​ @candycanes19​​ @historyandfandoms50​​ @caelum-phyriina-vermillon​​ @ghoulian13​​ @mrs-kylo-ren​​ @millenialcatlady​​ @mrs-zimmerman @relationshipwithmybed​ @dancingmicrobes​​ @wayward-rose​​  @contesa-lui-alucard​​ @daydreamsofren​​ @insufferablelust​​ @ohdamnadamm​​ @mariesackler​​ @caillea​ @safarigirlsp​ @jalexunderthestars​​ @shesakillerkween​​ @glassythoughts​ @zimmermansbrat​ @not-the-teen-witch​ @jynzandtonic @roanniom 

[bravonovel]

The Man's Decree novel read online - Jared Chance - Bravonovel

The Man's Decree https://www.bravonovel.com/the-mans-decree-9668

The Man's Decree novel is a Adventure & Action story about Jared Chance.

You can read this novel on Bravonovel app or web.

Android Click : https://zhangyunbravo.app.link/el9668 IOS Click : https://ibravonovel.app.link/el9668

Chapter 1 Released From Prison

“I'm finally out,” Jared Chance exclaimed as he forcefully took a deep breath of fresh air.

Behind him was Horington Prison, where he had been locked up for the past three years. Today was the day he was released.

“Hmm, I wonder how my parents are doing.���

With a torn canvas bag on his back, Jared hurried home right away. Over the last three years, his parents never visited him. Hence, he was worried about them.

On the way home, Jared kept looking at the bronze-colored ring he was wearing.

There was a lifelike dragon carved on it. On top of the dragon's head was a special symbol.

The ring was given to him by Draco, a friend from prison.

Draco was a strange man. He would constantly ramble on about how he was the leader of the Dragon Sect and knew everything, including astrology, geography, medicine, and many more. Not only that, he even claimed that he could bring back someone from the dead.

Everyone treated Draco as a madman and ignored him accordingly. Only Jared would chat with him and share his food occasionally.

Draco would tell Jared all sorts of strange stories about the Dragon Sect and Dragon Island. These were names that Jared had never heard before.

Moreover, Draco would get Jared to accompany him in his meditation and martial arts training. Given how bored Jared was in prison, he gladly went along with it.

At the end of three years, Jared had learned a plethora of martial art techniques and medical skills from Draco.

On the fateful day of Jared's release, Draco gave the ring to Jared and told him to go to Nameless Island within the Eastern Sea on the fifteenth of July that year. There, he was supposed to flash his ring and someone would pick him up. When that happened, Jared would be bestowed with a wonderful opportunity.

Considering how much he had learned from Draco, Jared naturally took his words seriously and promised to do as he was told. Nevertheless, there were still a few more months to go before July.

Before he knew it, Jared had arrived at the entrance to his home. When he saw the dilapidated house in front of him, he felt a sense of bitterness, as he had no knowledge of how his parents held up during the three years. Due to my rash actions, my parents must have suffered a lot.

Thinking back to what had happened three years ago, Jared was filled with anger.

Back then, he and his girlfriend, Sandy Gibson, were at the stage where they were talking about marriage. They were classmates at university and had been in a relationship for two years.

One day, when he was walking Sandy back home, both of them ran into Leyton Scott, who was drunk.

Leyton was a rich kid in Horington, well-known for all his misdeeds.

When he saw how pretty Sandy was, he harbored lecherous intentions against her and began touching her physically.

As a famous rich kid, Leyton didn't even bother to look at Jared.

Consequently, Jared was incensed when he saw his girlfriend being taken advantage of.

Picking up a brick from the ground, he smashed it onto Leyton's head.

One didn't need to be a genius to guess the outcome.

Considering how powerful Leyton was, he called the police, who arrested Jared.

Because of that, Jared was sentenced to three years in prison for assault.

After hesitating for a long time, Jared knocked gently on the door.

“Who is it?”

When the door opened, a hunched-back old lady with a headful of white hair popped her head out. Reaching out one hand as if to feel something, she asked, “Who is it? Who's knocking on the door?”

The old lady's eyes were closed shut. It could not be more obvious that she was blind.

Jared was stunned the moment he saw her. His eyes widened in shock while his entire body trembled slightly.

He could not believe that the old, wrinkled lady was his mother, Hannah Thompson.

How did Mom end up in such a state in just three years' time?

“Mom, it's me. Jared!” Jared called out emotionally as he stepped forward to support her.

“Jared? Is it really you?”

As Hannah used her hands to feel Jared's face, tears could not help but roll down her cheeks.

“Mom, it's me. It's really me.”

Tears were also welling up in Jared's eyes. “Mom, what happened to you?”

Jared was baffled as to how his previously healthy mother turned out this way after just three short years.

“Um, it's a long story. Come in first before we talk.”

Hannah pulled Jared into the house.

Seeing how empty their decrepit house was, Jared was shocked beyond belief.

Although they were not rich, his father had a steady job. Therefore, they previously led a simple yet comfortable life.

“Mom, what happened to our house?” Jared questioned in horror.

Hannah let out a sigh. “After you left...”

His mother then related everything to him. After Jared was sent to prison, the Scott family didn't look past the matter. Instead, they demanded a million in compensation.

Left without a choice, Jared's parents sold the house they bought for his marriage and borrowed a lot of money. Even then, it was not enough. Finally, they had to pay the last three hundred thousand in installments.

Thus, Jared's father lost his job and could only find work as a street cleaner. As for his mother, she cried all day long until she went blind.

That was also the reason why his parents never visited him.

While listening to his mother, Jared gradually clenched his fist as his eyes glowed with murderous intent.

He had not expected the Scott family to show his family no mercy.

“Mom, did Sandy not help you at all?” Jared asked in a puzzled tone.

Sandy and I were about to be married. Furthermore, I was jailed defending her honor. Hence, there's no way she can sit idly by and watch my parents end up in this state, can she?

Letting out a sigh, Hannah replied, “Let's not bring that up. Not only did the Gibson family ignore us, but they also didn't even return the betrothal gift when I asked for it back. They claimed it wasn't their fault that the wedding fell through because you went to prison. That's why they refused to return it.”

“When your dad argued with them, he was even beaten for it.”

The more Hannah talked about it, the more depressed she became. In the end, her tears just would not stop.

......

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LOVE DOING - The Analysis

Intro:

I try to never analyse my work while still working on it, because I believe that the painting must be born from an image in your head, or a feeling, and not from a concrete idea. That is the foundation of abstractionism. Then when you’re finished and you are kind of star-gazing your own work, you try to find what made you create all that, what made you use that colour or this shape. I did that and I saw that all the dots were connected in the same theme: Love.  

Love as a broad concept and my experience with that. I think love is a very liquid sentiment, like water, it takes the shape of its every container you put it, but pretty much it’s still love. That same impulse is there. It can be like water also in the way it reflects the sun light, how it changes colours and distorts shapes. Love can be illusory; it can be lysergic but it can also be the answer to many simple questions in life. In its gas form it can be contagious and performative as it inhabits imagination, but it can also become solid when under pressure, just like water becomes ice under high pressures. In difficult situations, the love you feel for that person may be the only thing that keeps you going. I experienced that, and I think many people did too with so many people getting ill and dying during the Covid pandemic.

Like water it nurtures, like water it drowns. Love can be represented as a substance, like it just did, but also it persists as an action, an abstract action at so, an actual verb. In abstractionism, it’s to be said that colour is verb while shape is noun (I won’t remember to said that), for that reason I focused in this collection mainly in two colours in their variations, red and blue. Without the political branding aesthetic, red is seen in psychoanalysis as a active colour, the colour of human blood. Blue could be described as a “calmer” colour, but not so lacking in action. As Rebecca Solnit said, I quote:

“Water is colourless, shallow water appears to be the colour of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance.”

So I dedicate this four paintings to the people I love and whomever loves things, but also to all the feelings that come about with love. Some of these paintings are capable of calming me and I could keep looking at them for hours, forgetting about myself. Others make me feel angsty, uncomfortable and looking at them oblige me to think about my own existence and fear my future.

I really hope you look at the paintings before you read the whole thing, and suffer through the same. Thank you.  

Love Escaping Into the Blue:

This one was the first painting I made, before I imagined it to be a collection, and it was born from the experience of decompressing love from a place of deep passion; where you are taken by this sudden and enormous sadness but also relief. I felt free, really. I read this biology paper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, called “Light in the Deep Sea”, and it explains that there’s some uniformity of colour in the ocean animals according to how deep in the water they inhabit. Animals living in the great depths of the sea, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters deep, have commonly a very vivid red colour, but closer to the surface of the water, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep, most animals are silver and grey. That’s because in this depth the brightness of sunlight is fragmented into a blue colour, and grey reflects the blue light creating the illusion that the animal is, in fact, blue. A Blue Whale is actually grey, not blue.

[Seadevil Fish (Cryptosaras couesii), left. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), right.]

The painting shows a leak of red coming into blue and bluer space, which is this feeling of infatuation and selfish desire, possession, fear and jealousy that is very red in colour and has connotations of violence and anger, moving into a place that is not so deep in the water but clearer and wider as the open sea, illuminated by this navy-blue light. It’s like you can finally breathe and see that your love is still there, but it has changed. In hope by being closer to the atmosphere it is also somehow closer to the divine. I imagine some people might feel lost when love escapes into the blue, and I get this sensation too, but it’s about loving freely, learning how not to feel love so deeply into ourselves, but widely like the ocean.

Love Growing in the Pit of the Stomach: 

When I looked at this painting in particular after it was done, I had this sensation of angst that was difficult for me to name. It’s about desire, it’s about this feeling growing inside of you that you know it will be something more than what you want, but what you need. I’ve become obsessed with the image of holes, looking like they are piercing the canvas; I think they show this emptiness I feel, like a window showing how hollow I am inside, but also, they give me this satisfying feeling by looking at them, like opening a wound and poking a bubble. I think this emptiness comes from the idea most trans women cannot take away from the back of their heads, which is if you do or do not have a “female genitalia”. Gender in our culture is very centred around genitals and biological sex, for centuries being a woman has been defined by the person who’s able to carry a man’s child. There is this little fantasy of mine where women have this little hole in them that can swallow the world. The idea of it, for me, has grown into a very real desire very much like the desire for sex. Actually, very close to sex too. But the roots growing out of the hole, in green and blue, represent pain and fear, because I’m not sure if I’m okay with the idea of having to undergo a surgical procedure to fulfil this fantasy, neither I am sure if it is a fantasy or a need.

Most of my work resembles yonic shapes (resembling the form of a vulva), either in this work or in former ones, and it’s never intentional, it sort of just slips from my subconscious. I believe that the vulva, as well as the womb, are under-shadowed symbols of power. Phallic shapes are very common in art and what-not, they are usually associated with offense and aggression. Like when school boys draw a dick on the toilet stalls as if marking their territory. The vulva, however, is never quite portrayed like that.

I read about this Japanese visual artist, Megumi Igarashi, who made several pieces of art shaped after her own vagina, including a yellow vagina-boat (which I absolutely loved) and she got arrested and fined for “obscenity”. I think that for her subversive art-form she should be considered a national hero. Many man-made constructions are phallic images, look at the Washington Obelisk, or the Eiffel Tower, but in nature we most commonly find yonic shapes, like the Grand Canyon.

There is a profound violence in desiring this, feeling as if a part of your own anatomy is lacking, but you can’t grow it naturally, you can’t do it in a god-intended way. The bright red colour represents violence and sex, and in this case both. It’s way more complicated than the concept of having kids and being a mom, it’s a lot more than to be seen as sexual beings, and sexuality, and to feel loved; it’s about symbols of power and somehow getting that denied. It’s about learning how to love this new body, a body that is foreign, infertile, obscene and unconventional. That love is hard to achieve and it is violent because women, and especially trans women, have been taught to hate their bodies.  

Love Falls In The Bathroom:

This one took the longest to finish and left me with the most unsure brush-strokes, much perhaps because it isn’t based off on an idea but on a memory, on dream. In three more years I’ll be the same age my mother had and she had me, 29 years old. Somehow it feels like a looming date. Having kids and getting pregnant, specifically, have been sporadic subjects of therapy sessions – the antithesis is always the same: you are not lesser of a woman for not being able to get pregnant, you can still be a mom through other means, you are not even sure if you want kids or marriage, you can always adopt – Those answers feel reasonable, but none of them ever could appease the deep feeling of something missing in me, like something is perpetually wrong with me. Then I understood that in this painting, I was trying to evoke these feelings. Love and grief.

[My mother, pregnant with me, in the 90s.] 

My friends tell me I seem to be older than I actually am, and sometimes I wonder if that’s not because I had never been a happy child. I feel like I had my childhood robbed from me. I mean, I had an okay, comfortable childhood, and a problematic teenage-hood, but I never had a girlhood. I am still grieving it. I had been assigned male at birth, I’m still grieving that too.

In July of this year, I experienced a very vivid dream, in which although short all the images and the sensations were, felt very real. I was taking a shower in my bathroom, I close off the water, wrap myself around a towel, my usual pink one, and when I’m stepping out of the shower stall I fell. I hit my right elbow against the toilet lid as I fell with my legs open in opposite directions, a sharp pain struck me under my thighs, close to my groin, and a light string of blood followed right after that. It wasn’t menstruation blood, thin and clear red, but thick and dark. It was all very quick but I knew, right then, right there, exactly everything that was happening. I was pregnant, 13 weeks, alone in the bathroom floor, surrounded by blood. I wonder how many days of my recent life, how many hours a day, I am really just sitting down alone on my bathroom’s floor surrounded by blood. I woke up and it still felt very real. I had spent the next two days very quiet, not wanting to speak to anyone. I wanted to tell someone as soon as I was back from the dream, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to call someone, a friend, anyone, and say “I lost it. I lost my baby”. I realised then, in that post-dreamy state, that I have been silently grieving for a lot of things, things I haven’t yet allowed myself to grieve for. Things I still did not have a chance.

Love Lost In Imagination:

This one is the only one what doesn’t forecast red and blue colours, but instead in red and blue paint mixed together in a royal purple colour. It was the last one I made, and it’s the one that differs the most in shape. I like to imagine it was love in it’s gas form, vaping inside your brain like Nitrous-oxide, with white-coloured cloud shapes and yellow peacock eye-feathers. It’s about how sometimes love can only exist in imagination, how we often elaborate better scenarios in our heads, and we think “what if things were different?”. I believe to be okay to fantasize, anyway the utopia is what moves us towards a reality, but sometimes we can get lost in imagination, and in questioning the same questions over and over. “What if I hadn’t done this and done that?”; “What if I hadn’t said no?”; “What if I had stayed longer to watch that movie?”; “What if had come out as trans earlier?”; “What if I had become a professional writer?”; “What if I had born a woman?”. Is love real if it perpetrates only in thought?

I would be more than happy to quote some of Saint Augustine here, and his theological virtues, love being one of them, but I wouldn’t like to make this essay even longer and complicated.

I think to myself sometimes, when was it that I started to prefer having peace then pleasure. My head has always been very noisy, very noisy, and I wanted it to stop. Now it feels like I’m constantly too quiet about everything. That somehow, like the Little Mermaid by Hans Christensen Andersen, when transitioning into a woman I exchanged my legs (my body) for my voice, and now I can’t voice or even pinpoint what I want. I’m just so tired. So, so tired. My mental health hasn’t been great for more than one year, and the pandemic didn’t help. I’m constantly anxious around people, even the closest ones to me (especially the closest ones to me), I’ve been eating like a bird and sleeping like a cat. Still, sometimes I imagine what future I would like, and I imagine myself living somewhere with open space, trees, breeding horses just like my grandfather did, space for dogs, musical instruments and the kids. Space for being big.

The painting makes me think that sometimes I can only love myself in this imaginary place. Otherwise, it just looks slightly like a chicken’s head. You decide.    

- Original work, G.L. Alódio.