#change on the fly

[sognareleggiesogna]

RECENSIONE: Change on the fly di Maren More

Cari Sognatori, Siria ha letto il primo volume della serie sport romance Totally Pucked series scritta da Maren More per la Royal Book Edizioni !!! SERIE: Totally Pucked series VOL 1 GENERE: Sport romance Ebook / cartaceo Affiliati Amazon Immaginate di essere innamorate del fratello della vostra migliore amica. E poi… di doverlo tenere nascosto per anni. Ridicolmente affascinante, un vero…

[golbiey]

happy long weekend!!! i wanted to compile all of my sonic prints in one post...theyre available on my shop!

[humming-fly]

He was feeling left out

and the higher rez stills, since gifs always export as if you're sending messages through a metal can~

[suja-janee]

I’ve been losing my mind over these guys recently

[dinoserious]

kofi comm! was givin a lit of leeway to choose a bug, and im a diptera girlie at heart, so common brown robber fly! smile

[rochenn]

Dooku being killed by Anakin is super thematically satisfying but I can't stop thinking about a slightly altered timeline where he is publicly executed on Coruscant instead. Can you imagine the SCENE

[clone-futon]

Silly things to do with his silly cape

[corvus-frugilegus]

Illario's grab for power is so emotionally complicated I can't stop thinking about it.

Like there's the favouritism and the loneliness and the need for love and connection that I think the title has come to represent. Because favour is maybe as close as the Dellamortes come to talking about love.

(Love is still there, it's fucked up and twisted in a lot of ways but it's there. It's hard for any of the Dellamortes to acknowledge this. But they're family and that means something to all three of them. Family is important to them).

But also for so much of his life Illario hasn't had very much power or agency either. He doesn't get to make big decisions for himself much like Lucanis, he doesn't have a lot of influence on the trajectory of his life because of Caterina's influence. Lucanis is the favourite. In that family dynamic Illario probably has the least power of the three of them.

So taking the reins of his own life and cutting that deal with Zara? The cost of losing Lucanis breaks his heart, but for the first time he's the one deciding the terms in which he lives his life in a big and meaningful way. It's not just small rebellions. It's reaching for what he wants and for once in his life feeling like he's the one in control. He's the one with the power.

And honestly? I can't fault him for wanting that. For not wanting to feel like he's at the bottom of the Dellamorte barrel anymore. For wanting his life to mean something, if only to himself. He isn't wrong to reach for power. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change the imbalance he's lived in.

It's the hubris of it that sets him up to fall into Elgar'nan's hands. Lucanis is back. But Illario can't go back. Illario can't give up what he's sacrificed so much for. Can't go back to being Dellamorte the lesser with no say in his own future. So, of course he doubles down, kidnaps Caterina, and makes a deal with Elgar'nan- the way he sees it he's backed into a corner and has no one but himself. And at this point in the story he's not wrong. He has no idea what Lucanis has become (Other than not dead! Which was the plan!)

It's interesting to me how what I think is Illario's own desire to live on his own terms is... In a very horrible way the thing that ultimately leads to Lucanis also beginning to ask what it means to live on his own terms too.

Having Lucanis killed was heartbreaking and terrible. But it's also the very thing that breaks the cycle the three Dellamortes are living in. Illario is the one who, in a way, decides that what the three of them are doing is unacceptable and starts them on a new path for the first time in roughly 30 years.

Illario having the ambition to reach for what he wants, is what sets both cousins free from a long-standing cycle of abuse. It's just also a profoundly twisted and cruel process.

[eowynstwin]

Blackbird, Fly - One

Cowboy Gaz x mail order bride—only, not his. After exchanging letters for half a year with ranching man Hans König, you finally travel out west to marry him. - You stand alone on a train platform, whole life in your hands, ready to promise yourself to a man you’ve yet to meet. - ao3

You step off the train carrying every one of your earthly possessions clutched in both hands. In one a carpetbag, only half-full, and in the other, a stack of letters tied together with string. A paltry summary of a very small life, you thought months ago, but today you only see how much room is left over where happiness might take root.

It began with an ad in the paper—Widowed Ranch Owner Seeking Tender Companionship—and a mailing address to a livestock town out in the west. Hans König described himself as Austrian, unusually tall, and fair lonesome in a big ranch house with no woman to make it a home. He’d immigrated to the United States as a child, married very young, had no children, and was forced to watch his first wife perish to consumption.

After two years of mourning, he said in the paper, he finally accepted that she would not want him to live and die alone. And thus, if there were any kind-hearted lady willing to give an old widower a chance, he would promise to take very good care of her.

You’d replied as fast as you could get your hands on paper and pen. The fourth child and only daughter of a tobacco farmer, you hadn’t much else to occupy yourself with. And truly, you hadn’t expected anything to come of it. Proficient in the written word though you were, there was not much else to recommend you. You brought a tiny dowry, skill with a sewing needle, a general knowledge of plants, and mediocre cooking to the bargaining table; he was horse man tried and tested by the challenges of the frontier.

You were under no illusions that you were the most attractive candidate.

Still, you wrote your letter. Described yourself to him as honestly as you could—neither especially pretty nor particularly accomplished, but told by friends and family to be of gentle demeanor and useful intelligence. Forgave him preemptively if he never responded, and wished him the best of luck in his search for a wife.

You’d nearly fainted dead away when his response had arrived as immediately as the next mail wagon. Hans König had addressed you by name, as intimately as if he’d known you for years, and said,

I was very pleased to receive your letter, Miss, and am terribly excited to correspond with you in the future. Although you write that you cannot imagine yourself an appropriate wife for a man of my experience, I myself cannot imagine what more you must need to be such. While I will not do you the discourtesy of making any promises with only my first letter to you, I will tell you truly that I was glad of your introduction, and hope you will grant me the pleasure of knowing you further.

Your whole family had been so excited for his response that Pa had broken out his fiddle after dinner that night, rejoicing already that his little girl’s future was secure.

What followed was a whirlwind half year of romance over letters sent back and forth so fast that you kept running out of ink for your pen. When you’d related this problem to Hans, he’d sent not only an entire box of lampblack ink, but a new steel pen, blotter, and lap desk on which to write.

There is no greater misfortune I can imagine now than to lose the pleasure of your correspondence, he’d written.

Pa had cried that day. Your mother had drawn you close and kissed your hair, whispering a thankful prayer that her baby was going to be alright.

In every letter, Hans demonstrated himself to be a kind man, thoughtful and patient, and as the relationship between the two of you blossomed, you started to believe it yourself. You had long given up on the possibility of marriage, thinking yourself too old and plain by now to offer much to any man worth marrying.

Now you stand alone on a train platform, whole life in your hands, ready to promise yourself to a man you’ve yet to meet.

There are only a few people milling about the station for you to survey. The surest way to pick Hans out from a crowd, he’d written, was by height. He towered over most people, and expressed hope in an early letter that he would not dwarf you too much.

But as you look around, no one stands out above the rest. In fact, the people here aren’t much different than what you’re used to; their simple dress and slight grubbiness prove them to be working folk, the kind you’d expect in a town like this, stockyards visible from the station. Your kind of people—at least normally.

Anticipating this meeting, you’d put on the best dress you own, a light frock with little printed flowers all over it. Your hair is braided and pinned up as fashionably as you could manage early this morning, and you’d even dabbed a little rouge on your lips for the occasion. As far as you can tell you are the cleanest, best-dressed person in the vicinity, and you notice not a few people openly staring.

The thought would usually make you blanch, but right now you hope it will only help your would-be husband to catch sight of you. You still can’t find him—

“Mrs. König!”

You whip your head in the direction of the call. Relief trickles through you, soothing an anxiety you hadn’t wanted to acknowledge yet, and then you see that stepping onto the platform is the handsomest man you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Dark skin, warm as a summer’s day. Lips soft and full like a peach fresh-picked from the tree. A serious brow over serious eyes.

Strong and lean in build, with a loose, confident swagger in his step. He approaches, his large, long-fingered hands coming to rest on the buckle of his belt as comes to stand before you.

Tall, to be sure.

But not unusually tall.

This cowboy—profession evidenced by the worn state of his attire—is not your intended husband.

Something in you falls at that.

Swiftly you berate yourself for the betrayal. Your Hans is gentle, generous, kind. So what if this man before you is attractive? Marriages must be built on more, and Hans has already given you more. His looks shouldn’t—don’t—matter to you at all.

“Not as of yet,”you reply to the cowboy, “but soon. May I help you, sir?”

He fixes you with an intense gaze. Up close, you see thick, dark lashes framing even darker eyes—the color of which, you realize, is as black as fresh-turned soil.

The smell of humus fills your memory, powerfully earthy and fresh, such that you could be on your hands and knees with your face to the ground right now. You feel the phantom of it between your fingers; rich and cool, like at the start of the planting season before the rains. So dark and fine as to live between the grooves of your fingertips for days.

“I’m Kyle Garrick,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m a wrangler for Hans König, miss. He sent me to meet you.”

You blink. The fantasy you’d dreamed up on the train ride—of seeing Hans across the platform, recognizing him instantly, and running into his arms—finally crumbles into dust.

“Oh,” you say.

Kyle Garrick frowns. “You’re disappointed.”

“No!” you exclaim immediately. “No, he must be such a busy man, I couldn’t expect him to drop everything for me.”

The cowboy sucks his lips between his teeth, studying you for a heartbeat, then—“He is busy. Mr. König is finishing preparations for your wedding this evening. That’s why he couldn’t come.”

What disappointment had begun to sprout in your stomach immediately strangles down to the root. Joy surges in your chest like birds taking flight.

“A wedding!”

You didn’t need a wedding, you’d written to him—you were so happy merely to marry him, you couldn’t possibly ask for more. All you needed, you told him, were his hands in yours, promising before God to be your husband for the rest of your lives. You’d meant it, too.

But an actual wedding!

“Biggest the town’s seen in years,” says Kyle Garrick. “Folks haven’t talked about anything else for weeks.”

“Oh!” Then suddenly you despair. “Oh, I’m not dressed at all for a wedding. If I’d known, I would’ve worked on this dress more, I would’ve put my hair up better!”

Kyle surprises you with sudden passion. “You look perfect. You’re the prettiest thing that’s ever come into this train station, miss. This town, even.”

“Oh,” you say again. You flush hot up into the roots of your hair. Embarrassed, you avert your gaze, looking down at his worn roper boots. “I’m not, really. But it’s kind of you to say.”

His hand touches yours, the one holding onto your carpetbag. When you look back up at him, his expression is gentler.

“Mr. König will agree with me,” he says, “I promise.” He eases the handle from your grasp. Up close, he has a comforting smell. Leather, and sweet hay, and campfire smoke.

“You think so?” you ask, tightening your grasp on the letters in your other hand.

He nods. “I do. Now come on—I brought a cart. Let me take you home.”

-

next

[appledotcodotuk]

15 cheerily parking himself on a double yellow line is so.... all these years and you still can't drive 😭

[quimser]

trying a linocut-leaning style (best viewed on desktop, mobile crushes the quality massively)

[littledemo0n]

Excuse me im just gonna spam all of these over here...(part 1 [yes there's more])

[pricetagged]

raft of the leucothea

A little Kyle piece for the Gaz lovers 💖 to tide you over while I work on the Nikolai and the Price stuff.

Shipwrecked. Washed ashore, injured and sick, and thankfully not alone. A man called Kyle Garrick has washed ashore with you.

No big warnings, just some ever-so-slight dubcon naked cuddling (for survival!).

----------

The harsh, salty spray stung your cracked cheeks. Like clay left to bake in the sun, you felt the cracking and peeling of stinging flesh. But you felt it, that was the important thing. 

Sunshine seared through your eyelids, a high noon wake-up call. Glowing ember-red, turning the sands to hot coal beneath you. You only had a second to process it before you rolled over, cramping muscles seizing in a paroxysm of a crawl as you hacked and coughed briny, burning seawater.

Alive then. 

You were scared to open your eyes. You could pretend that they were crusted shut, sand and grit and god only knows what flaking over. Irritating, painful. A conjunctivitis of caustic circumstance. If you opened your eyes, it was real.

No, it was better as you were. A temporary balm to a blistering scald. Eyes-wide-shut, blind to the horrible damp marl and putrid air burning through your smarting nostrils. Sea life and smoke; pungent enough to turn your stomach once more.

You moaned as you collapsed on the shore, skin-fever hot and itching. Grit and shell-shards dug in, piercing your sensitive flesh. Clinging, burrowing. Discomfiting. Like the discordant memories swimming to the surface, all driftwood and screams and kicking, aching feet.  

There was no more screaming.

The waves lapped at the shore, a gentle balmy breeze carrying the soft sloshing of surf. Hazy popping and crackling accompanied it, a paradisiac white noise that scrambled your sluggish thoughts. Your eyes fluttered open. Temporarily blind from solar glare, you blinked moisture back. Tried to, at least. You were parched, eyes-dry and throat drier. 

Perhaps you expected to see devastation. Destruction. Flotsam and jetsam and bodies strewn along the beach. There was a fire, yes, but it was not from the casket of the ship. Debris visible, but neat. Collected and organized into tidy little piles by a great smoking fire. Through the heat-haze of the flames, you spotted a flash of green: fresh leaves. Gaseous white billowed up; perfect for maximum visibility. 

"Ah, you're awake." A shadow fell over you, gentle hands supporting your back until you were somewhat upright. "Here, you'll need this."

You grimaced as your cracked lips crinkled around the fruit, harsh little fibres stabbing in. But the relief–

Light, nutty, refreshing. You guzzled it down, big greedy slurps as your hands raised to cup it closer, throat constricting as you lost your breath–

"Hey, hey, slow down," the stranger spoke, easily plucking the coconut from your shaky fingers. "You'll make yourself sick. Again."

"Thanks." You could at least croak out your gratitude, squinting to get a better look at him. "The others–?"

He was gorgeous, dark eyes and eyebrows slanted into the perfect expression of concern. He looked surprisingly normal, given the circumstances. Only a slight split on his full lips, a smear of sand crusted into his curls, marred his handsome face. You watched as his mouth twisted, as he rolled his neck glanced away. A grimace, more telling than words. 

"Just you, me, the sand and the coconuts. Paradise cruise, eh?" He finally spoke, nose scrunching as the joke came out a little flat. 

It wasn't a shock, but it was jarring all the same. Though you swallowed, your voice came out thick. "At least you're here. Wouldn't have gotten this open by myself."

It was feeble, words half swallowed as survivor's guilt and gallows humour met and warred. A dysfunctional marriage of relief and self-reproach curdled the coconut water in your stomach. A third player entered; unease. Anxiety, sending your heart rate spiralling high as your breaths grew shallow. Something stung your eyes, and you couldn't entirely blame the smoking fire–

"Hey, hey, look at me," You couldn't look away, not from his steady, unwavering gaze. Beautiful. Like sunlight filtered through whiskey, warm and soothing. "Breathe as I breathe– in, out, in– hold it– okay, out. That's right, that's perfect–"

He talked you through it, brought your trembling, clumsy fingers to his chest as he breathed in counts of eight. Kept his palm over your hand, cupped it against the rise and fall of his ribs. You could feel the firmness of his muscles beneath, feel the way his heart beat a steady rhythm just below your fingertips, and slowly, you relaxed into it. 

Your cheeks were wet. You realised that around the same time you realised his other hand was rubbing ataractic circles on your back. A shameful emollient, setting you at ease but lowering your gaze. Here, in the arms of this stranger, who were you? Troublesome castaway, retching on the beach as he built a signal fire. Slurping down the fruit that he offered, then crying in his arms–

"Stop that," His hand paused between your should blades, chin tucked as he leaned down to catch your gaze. "You're doing so well, love. Bit of a fucked up situation we're in here."

"How are you so calm? How are you so organised? I feel like I'm going to drift away like–like–"

The hand at your back pushed you forward, pressing until you were draped across his lap. He rocked you, stubble against your temples as he shushed and soothed. Analgesic whispers that slackened your tight limbs, sent eyelids fluttering until you slipped into slumber. Mind numb, docked in restful harbours. 

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

When you woke up, you were hot. Shivering, teeth-chattering, but hot. You could no longer smell the fire, but you could feel it against your bare skin. Toasty, crackling embers smouldering and making you sweat. 

The fever slowed your mind, too. Thoughts turned to sluggish, sticky mulch as you nuzzled into the strong bicep supporting your neck. His skin was smooth, slightly tacky where it met yours, and you whined a little as you tried to pull away. 

But moving sent your head spinning, aching muscles seizing until all you could do was cry. 

"You're alright, just sleep. Don't move–"

"My clothes," you slurred the words, heavy and sticky on your tongue. Crystallising like spoiled honey, you tried to spit them out faster, but they just dripped. Molasses-slow, and murky. Confused. "I'm not– my clothes are– what–?"

"I took them off you–shh, shh– They were tattered anyway, we'll need to dig through the piles and see what we can repair." You felt his arm flex below you, rolling your head until it was resting on the pillow of his chest. You tried to open your eyes, but the image was hazy. Like looking through seaglass. "It's cold here at night, freezing. The fire's good, but body heat's best."

"'m too hot– feel too–" 

"Yeah, noticed you weren't just cold when you wouldn't stop shivering," his forearm banded around your squirming body, pinning you to his. "I know, baby, I know. It's not nice. Gonna try to sweat it out of you. Don't exactly have the luxury of good food and medicine." 

His voice was pitched low, sweet. It made you want to cry, mind adrift and body at his mercy. Holiday turned tragedy, swallowed up by the sea and spat up on the beach like refuse. Control slipped through your fingers, finer and more fickle than the sands below and all you could do was cry. 

You felt his fingers, whisper-soft, stroking through the ends of your salty, parched hair. Your tears dripped down, soaking into your flushed cheeks and the sparse, scratchy hairs on his chest. He paused for a beat, fingers swiping over your damp forehead. Whisps pushed away until you felt a butterfly kiss against your clammy forehead. Quick and gentle and fleeting. 

Small waves kissed the beach, too. Susurrus, splashing caresses that almost sent you drifting off again. The rumble of his voice tickled your cheek, made you blink slowly until you could make out his face through bleary eyes.  

"It's just you and me and this island," He spoke it softly, sting mollified by surety. Bittersweet ointment for a distressing prognosis. "I've got you; I'll take care of you. I promise."

Your answer was faint. "What if no-one comes for us?"

His arms curled tighter around you, twisted until you were splayed atop him. In another time, another place, you'd be flustered by the open splay of your legs, bare against his lean waist. Here, shame withered away, fizzled out. Ephemeral as seafoam. 

"I told you, I'll take care of you. Rescue or not, it's you and me now."

Later, you'd blame delirium, fever dream-fugue, for how the words echoed in your mind. 'Just you and me.'

You and him, and the island.

-----------

[thereweredragonshere]

Just watched the httyd live action trailer and there are so many things I could complain about (just the fact that it exists being one of them) but like

They changed the structure of Toothless' hind legs??? In the original his hind legs function the way human legs do, his heel is flat in the ground and the bend of his leg is his knee, making him a plantigrade. But in the live action the bend of his leg is in his ankle?? They made him a digitigrade??? Why??? For what purpose???

[houseswife]

wilson saying “I need to do this. for you.” is fucking insane actually. in the same episode where house is deciding whether or not he should commit suicide as a result of wilson’s dying. They are each other’s lines between life and death. humans have a biological instinct to preserve their survival at all costs; house has an addiction that governs his life. but they were willing to forgo all of it for one another, because they couldn’t fathom it being any other way. IM SICK

[dinoserious]

invertober day 23, orange-legged drone fly. close up!