#corset train forever famous

[halfmoondaze]

hi darling. I want to request a fic with jack where he and famous!reader are acquaintances and they have a sexual tension between them. They're at the Met Gala and she's using a dress like the one anastasia is wearing. She's posing in the middle of the stairs and Jack sees her and he's like 😯🥺🥵https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLoXEMuj/?k=1 (THE SCENE!!!!!) and he run to her, they take pictures together and the world goes crazy bc he didn't even think twice

Delicate

After several months of fittings, her gown was finally completed. The 2022 Mat Mala theme was "In America: An Anthology of Fashion", with the dress code emphasizing Glided Glamour and white tie. Channeling the time period between 1870 and 1890. And Y/N didn't disappoint.

She made her first Met Gala appearance wearing a corset gown with a floor-sweeping train, made with upcycled fabric.

As she walked the famous stairs of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art showing off her extravagant look, she started posing for the cameras.

As she turned around, she exchanged glances with Jack Harlow who made no effort on hiding his radiant smile upon looking at her.

"You look beautiful" he mouthed.

"Thanks"

Even though the interaction lasted a couple of seconds, it was forever engraved on everyone's mind, as it became the most talked-about moment of the night. Most notoriously, everyone kept comparing the moment to that one scene in the film "Anastasia".

If that was their attempt to keep their relationship under wraps from the public eye, well then…they terribly failed. But they did win the hearts of a bunch of viewers who were now rooting for them as a couple. A perfect night to say the least.

[seoracle]

DRIVERS LICENSE; i

Pairing: Bang Chan x Idol! Gender Neutral Reader

Genre: Fake Dating! AU, Angst, Lovers to Enemies(?), Occasional Pining, Comedy, S for potential smut(??)

Summary: Y/N has become an overnight sensation with ‘Drivers License’, Breaking records left and right...But what if the press gets wind of the ill-matched lovers and their company decide it’s the perfect attention ploy?

Word Count: 3.2K

Warnings: Swearing (a lot near the end), Drinking mention

A/N: this was meant to be a drabble... now it’s becoming a series...i’m sorry

“...and the winner of Inkigayo today is...Y/N with ‘Drivers License, Congratulations!”

You step towards the center of the stage and take the trophy and bouquet from a rookie idol, who flashes a bright smile at you, but you can see the envy in his eyes. You once had that same hunger and ambition that he seems to reek of, it’s a reminder of how far you’ve come.

Taking the mic, you begin to sing a more sultry and edgier vibe than usual, which seems to gather more screams from fans than usual. You remember what Seulgi taught you and gaze at the camera lens with a subtle pout, trying to capture the angst of the song in your gaze.

It feels ridiculous, feigning emotions you no longer feel, singing a song you begged the company not to put out in a corset fitted shirt that’ll leave your ribs sore and reddened. It’s pathetic and cliche, you quite literally sold your soul (well, heart) for fame. 

“Yeah, you said forever, now I drive alone past your street…”

Everyone behind you waves at the camera, signalling the show is ending. You leave last, taking several confetti bits for your scrapbook, which is the only thing keeping you from remembering this is all real. 

Backstage, Iris and San are waiting in your dressing room, they greet you with proud grins and slaps on the back. 

“Well, if it isn’t miss twelve...no, thirteen wins in two weeks.” San praises, enveloping you in a hug.

“Could be thirteen by tomorrow~” Hums Iris in a sing-song tone.

A groan leaves your lips, while slumping into an uncomfortable chair. You tune out their excited plans for your makeup and hair tomorrow, San says something about an end of year Award show.

All you want is to go home to your empty dormitory and sleep.

When you finally arrive to the ‘comfort’ of your ‘studio apartment’ (box room), it isn’t long before you strip down to your pyjamas and aggressively rub off the layers of makeup that seem to cling to every pore and fine line of your face. The cold air from the fan soothes the aching of your body from your strict workout routine. You stay awake until 4am, reading comments from netizens and replying to fans on your fancafe, it  was hard not to become obsessed with checking what people thought; whether they loved or loathed you.

[+184 -93] Y/N is talented, but they look devoid of emotion since last week...maybe singing a song so personal isn’t a good idea….what if the person it’s about hears it…..

User FYL**8 was right, it had become draining trying to convey emotions you’d long let go of. Your debut song was fresh and fun, it didn’t garner much attention but at least you hadn’t had to fake emotions and relive your first heartbreak.

Although the memories of the breakup didn’t hurt as much, the happiest ones were the most painful. The feeling of ignorance, thinking he meant forever and believing him completely...it was all so distant yet felt a fingertip away.

That night you slept with a heavy heart, remembering what it felt like when he’d hold you close and right and kiss you on the head to soothe your worries. Why did it have to end? Why like that? You try to drift into a nice sleep after another exhausting day but to no avail, thoughts of him are flooding every thought. Has he heard it? There was no way he hadn’t, he loved to check out every ranking song for inspiration or for another artist to add to his monthly playlist. 

Would he get angry? Sad? Laugh at your pathetic feelings? He was right in the end, when it came down to it you only shared your feelings when it was too late.

Stupid Christopher fucking Bang.

It wasn’t often you’d refer to him as Chan, you had met him when he only saw it as another name for himself that he hardly used. Back when his hair had been fluffed up curls that he couldn’t contain and his light freckles weren’t covered by BB Cream. When he didn’t belong to the world and only loved you.

After months of forcing yourself not to, you hastily search “Stray kids Bang Chan + Y/N”, Then “Stray Kids Y/N” and finally “Skz Y/N”. The results are minimal and far inbetween, mostly tweets from fans wishing for a collab and oddly enough one person making edited photos of you and them, which are so convincing you have to remind yourself you hadn’t met them.

Thoughts drift to his friends, the ones who didn’t know Chris was even seeing someone and had been for over a year. They tried to sugarcoat it, say they forgot, it’s hard to keep track when you’re training and all that. 

The sinking feeling you felt when Minho asked how long you’d been together, guessing a month at most. When you did reply, ears burning with embarrassment he coughed and muttered “Oh.’, That had stung.

Everything had seemed so perfect, until you opened your eyes and saw it for what it was.

You don’t end up sleeping much, two hours at most, Then it’s time to get ready and head to the Broadcast Studio for today’s event. All you know is it’s a show about giving advice, the reviews aren’t great but you aren’t allowed to turn anything down because fame is a double-edged sword that you can barely grasp as is.

Iris and San are already waiting for you when you get there, within minutes makeup is being patted into your skin and your outfit is laid out on the chair next to you.

“Sleep more, Y/N-ah, I had to use a double coverage concealer to hide your dark circles.” Iris said in a fretful tone.

“I try, it’s hard being famous.” You reply jokingly, flipping your hair the best you can. Iris smacks your hand away and frantically finds her hairspray.

Within twenty minutes you’re dressed and not one hair is out of place, San pulls you aside with an uncharacteristically stern face. 

“The company have specific goals for sending you here, they want you to delve into a story of heartbreak to comfort today’s victim, while keeping anonymity and remaining as vague as you can.” 

Of course, even a show about helping others is fictional.

You nod solemnly and prepare to go on air, sitting on a cushion next to a popular comedian who doesn’t bother to even look at you. A well-known Streamer is on your other side and you begin polite small talk, which seems to irritate the host.

“We’re on in 3,2….1!” A sharp click follows the director’s queue and the host bursts right into the introduction.

After you’re introduced it’s easy to tune out, you couldn’t give a shit about that stuck-up comedian and the actress to their right. Instead you think of how the fuck you’re supposed to conjure up an emotional performance with little to no time to prepare.

‘My ex-boyfriend hid me for almost two years’ no, not even worthy of a cheap gossip magazine. ‘I thought my boyfriend loved me, turns out he loved his career more’ Maybe...but you sound too needy. 

“Today’s guest is Lee Chaeun of Suwon! Tell us your story, please.” 

You turn to look at the guest who walks onto the set and sits at the head of the pillow mats. She’s clearly a young girl, her baby face is covered by face-framing layers of shiny black hair and her eyes are already glassy.

“Last year, I began dating my crush after years of admiring him from afar...Everything seemed so perfect until last week….He dumped me by text message saying he needed space and now he’s with someone new..” Chaeun bursts into tears and the host fakes a sympathetic face and passes her a box of tissues.

“Ah, you’re young...you don’t know anything yet. This is a normal phase for teenagers, men realise themselves and break girls down so they become beautiful women. It’s just a case of a little girl not wanting to grow up!” Chimes in the Comedian, who talks about his falsities as if they’re facts.

The audience erupts into laughter and the heartbroken teenager lowers her head in embarrassment. Which only makes you more enraged, Who told that guy he was funny?

“Chaeun has every right to be upset!” You exclaim, cutting through the laugher like a hot knife. “When a relationship ends when everything seems alright for one person, it's cruel. Being blindsided isn’t a joke. It hurts and she deserves closure, and to move on someday to a better person..What happened to her shouldn’t happen to anyone!”  You barely register a gentle hand on top of yours, far too surprised by the fact there are tears dripping down your face. Crying wasn’t an option, so you pull yourself together and apologise to Chaeun and the host you cannot stand.

“Y/N, You seemed personally moved by Chaeun’s story, have you experienced a painful breakup?” The host asks curiously.

“You could say that,” You begin with a wry smile. “I was with someone who lived a double life, they were completely different when they were with other people...Things ended when I was still planning for future dates...it made me realise how fake they were.”

The guests all nod and you squeeze Chaeun’s hand, she smiles at you seeming relieved that she isn’t the only one who has felt this kind of pain. 

Everything goes smoothly after that, other guests chime in and the actress that seemed snobby is openly discussing her ex vomiting all over her Valentinos. You can’t help but wonder if the company really suggested this, or if it was divine intervention (Choi San, your manager). 

You don’t feel so alone anymore, everyone is guaranteed several things, two being love and heartbreak of some kind. 

“Thanks to singer Y/N and actress Sojung, Chaeun was able to feel a little better...Thank you for joining us on ‘Help No Counsellor!’, Join us next week when…’

“Choi San, you sneaky bastard.”

He tries to act surprised but a shit-eating grin soon overtakes his acting, Iris shakes her head and zips her makeup bag closed. It isn’t long until you’re all at The Min’s enjoying red bean bread and warm tea.  “What does inept even mean? I’m assuming it’s a good thing because Wooyoung kissed me after saying it.” San mentions, his lips curving upwards at the fond memory.

“I’d have to agree with Woo, it fits you perfectly.” You reply, circling around his question while Iris tries not to choke on her food.

Fits of laughter die down when you spot a familiar face, Lee Mijoo. 

Her blonde hair flows down her back in loose curls and her soft eyes seem to enchant everyone, admittedly even you for a short time.Behind her is a slightly taller figure dressed in all black and your stomach drops.They don’t seem to notice your presence, so you decide to use this valuable time to hide behind a menu. 

San and Iris try to play along best they can, but it is quite distressing that all of this has happened so suddenly, with no prior warning. But he did bring you here, a lot. So it’s amusing to see his date ideas haven't changed. 

As he’s walking past you he pauses, and you want to shrivel into a hole and die, He’s clearly recognised you but can’t be 100% sure due to The Min’s menu covering your entire face. 

“Y/N?” 

Shit. You cannot hide from this.

Slowly taking the menu away and placing it down on the table you smile at him, maybe a little too forced but it’s the best you can do. His hair is blonde now, his curls are long gone but his smile is as genuine as ever. 

Stupid Christopher Bang and his stupid ‘I-totally-didn’t-break-your-heart’ attitude.

“Chan, nice to see you. Still obsessed with their double shots?” You humoured, he seemed grateful for that.

“Oh, absolutely...and I see you’re still not saving any bean bread for anyone else.” 

You laugh, it’s a bittersweet one at best but nevertheless it’s a laugh.

'Well it’s great to see you again, I’d love to exchange numbers if that’s alright?” 

Without thinking you nod and oblige him, much to your friend’s disappointment which is evident by their glares. Mijoo exchanges smiles with everyone, who could hate her? She was funny, kind hearted and beautiful in every aspect. 

When they finally leave to their outside seats you breathe a sigh of relief and sink into the chair.Iris strokes your hair and San grabs more snacks to go, the walk home isn’t peaceful. It’s awkward and silent, which only makes your head spin more. When you drop off Iris you know a lecture is coming, San hates doing it but you know he tells you what you need to hear, even if it hurts.

“Look, I’m happy you were able to brush off all the hurt today but earlier on you were crying about….this. Don’t give him the power to hurt you twice.”

“You’re right, thanks Sannie.” You reply, taking his arm and smiling at the warmth of his (Wooyoung’s) fuzzy coat. 

Once San leaves and you get inside, it’s a matter of minutes before you hop in the shower and get rid of all the hairspray and mascara that’s been making you itch all day. The warm water soothes away your nerves and the impending frostbite from being outside in the cold for far too long. 

Once you feel clean and somewhat scalded you step out onto warm fluffy towels (cheap warm fluffy towels with holes in them) and get situated for bed.

Just as you exit the bathroom your phone rings and you answer immediately, it’s probably Iris wanting you to play a new Among Us mod with her. 

“Iris?”

“Uh, no, Chris.” 

“Oh.” is your initial reply, why would he call you at midnight?

“Where you asleep? I’m sorry I’ll call back another ti-”

“No!” You interject, much too eagerly. “No...it’s fine. I’m not even in bed yet.”

“Oh” He sounds relieved, much the opposite of you.

“I just wanted to congratulate you...The song, it’s great. What’s it like actually singing one you wrote?”

“Great,” You admit with a smile he can't see, “It feels...genuine. I Couldn't stand the thought of giving the song away.”

“I can see why.” He replies in an unreadable tone.

“Did it make you uncomfortable? Me singing...about-”

“No, why would it?” He cuts in, he sounds slightly agitated.

“Look, Chan, I’m sorry. I should’ve texted you, well I did but you changed your number. But it’s my story too, okay? I needed to heal somehow.”

Minutes pass with no answer, as if he’s trying to think of exactly what to say without getting more irritated or to spare your feelings.

“When did I become Chan?” His voice comes out wavering,and it hurts you.

“That’s what everyone calls you now, you’re not just Chris the trainee anymore.” You reply in a gentle way, trying to ease the building tension.

“But to you, when did I stop being Chris?”

“Probably when you broke my heart,” You deadpan, before adding a ‘kidding’ and bullshit reason.

“You weren’t kidding, but you broke mine too. Don’t make me the bad guy.”

This had taken you aback, you had been in a perfectly happy relationship for almost two years and then he changed his mind, said he wasn’t happy and it wasn’t your fault. When the fuck did you break his heart?

“When exactly did that happen?” You query, “Before or after Mijoo?”

Chan lets out a dry laugh, “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.”

“Well what does it matter? You never told me shit anyways.” You snapped.

“That’s because you wouldn’t fucking listen. Maybe to you it was all sunshine and roses but I was struggling, I changed and outgrew us. I didn’t want to but you were stuck in dreamland where we’d debut at the same time and live happily ever after. I realised it wasn’t going to happen and set you free so you wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?” You bark,”Fucking embarrassed of what exaclty? I left that shithole you call your company by choice and worked my way up. I’m not embarrassed, but you should be. You’re a fucking sellout Christopher Bang.”

Before he can reply you end the call and throw your phone at the wall, it would’ve broken only for the forty dollar case the store assistant convinced you to buy. You burst into tears just like you had that night when it all came crashing down. He must’ve loved seeing you in pain, because he keeps doing it even now.

That night, you wish for everything to go back to a time before him and the heartbreak that followed.

It’s early on a Friday when you’re called into a board meeting with the CEO, Director and San, who looks like someone stepped on his clay masterpiece. You still haven’t been told anything and as the minutes pass by you wonder if they found out about you getting drunk at Club Suran several weeks back. What if someone saw San there too? What if–

Suddenly the doors open and in walks JYP’s CEO, followed by several others and finally Chris. He looks as confused as you, but you quickly look away before he spots you. Last night was still fresh in your mind and you didn’t need anymore reminders or conversations with him.

“Dispatch has sent us several photos of you two together, spanning several years.” Your CEO announces, an Executive pulling the photos up on the screen behind her. “Including one from yesterday.”

“That was a coincidence, we broke up a long time ago.” You admit, she seems satisfied with your answer and nods, which makes you remember that damned dating ban you have.

“Usually, we’d shoot down these rumours immediately...but this could be quite beneficial to both Stray Kids and Y/N.” JYP’s CEO adds, “Stock prices have shown a rise for both of your albums, and real time searches are at an all time high.” 

“I have a girlfriend.” Chan states, arms folded. “So that’s out of the question if you’re implying we fake a relationship.”

“Look Bang Chan,” Begins one of the Advisors, “It’s all for show, we’ll plan every detail and your girlfriend will keep her mouth shut if she knows what's good for her. Frankly, our sales aren't what they used to be and you need this, if you want complete musical and artistic control.”

Chan takes a while to think, you know this is all he’s wanted. Control over everything he and the boys put out there, with no censorship or edits by anyone else. Your CEO assures you you’ll also benefit from the agreement, including your debt fully cleared and money in your bank account as soon as you sign on the dotted line.

“How long does this last?” You ask, pen in hand.

“Twelve months, then you’re free again.” 

Chan looks to you for conformation and you ignore him, signing it and standing up to leave. You only stop to sign more formalities and then you and San head back to your local coffee shop. 

“Well, you sure have a funny way of moving on.”

[altumvidetur]

Kaishin Fic Recs

Previously: Haikyuu!! Fic Recs

So, I was thinking about the coronavirus pandemic and what I could do to help people out. I’m isolated because I’m at higher risk, so I can’t really offer to go out for my elderly neighbors or my family… but I thought I could try to help keep people entertained.

Because I don’t have an AO3 account right now, I’ve been compiling fic recs for my own amusement for a year or so. And I thought – maybe that’s the time to share these with everyone? So everyone will have plenty of things to read while they have to stay at home, or even to escape anxiety a little bit if you’re forced to go out.

Of course, these cater to my own tastes, so you may find stuff you don’t like around here. I never include works in progress. The Mature and Explicit works will be in italic. I ask you to READ THE WORK’S TAGS before continuing, so you won’t find anything that makes you uncomfortable.

I’ve decided to split it in a series of posts, and, well, when it comes to DCMK, I have one major OTP. So here’s enough Kaishin to keep you entertained for a year:

The Dwelling Night, by proser132

Three shot. KaiShin. Brief moments were all they had, but dwelling on dreams is sometimes enough.

In Theory, by orphan_account

Kaito's got a whole list of cheesy and awful pickup lines to use on Shinichi.

(Un)fortunately for him, Shinichi's got just as many to throw back.

As You Wish, by orphan_account

Shinichi hasn't been doing a very good job of pretending he isn't hiding something from Kaito, and Kaito is more than determined to find out what it is -- even if it means asking everyone the detective knows in order to do so.

He just wants to know what all the boxes are for.

you’re the reason i come home, by LunaDarkside

Shinichi comes home after a two-week investigation in New York. Kaito could not be more thrilled.

Lovesick, by DragonSorceress22

"You know what I want? I want a fic where Kaito sends out a heist notice but then he gets sick but he can't NOT go. I guess it could go the other way too, where Conan solves a heist notice but then he gets sick but he can't NOT go. I want to read that fic." "There's tons of fics like that..." And now there's one more.

whispers and nicks and all these tricks, by LunaDarkside

In which there is sex pollen at a heist, and Kaito and Shinichi end up in the same room. Coincidentally enough.

Be Real, by DragonSorceress22

This, KID thought, was what someone reaching their limit looked like.

a study in scarlette, by kittebasu

There are people who want to live forever, and then there is Shinichi, who just wants to live a little longer than this.

wait a minute (so you’re not just losing the dress), by LunaDarkside

Everything is overwhelmingly good. And then Kaito has to go and say it.

“I’ve never done this before,” he mumbles mindlessly against the pliant softness of Shinichi’s lips, and everything immediately stops.

“Wait, what?” Shinichi jerks upwards, eyes wide.

Or, neither Shinichi nor Kaito has any experience, but they make do.

The printer’s a lie, by OrphanText

In which Kuroba has an annoying printer, a very good looking (and mildly terrifying) RA, and general bad ideas up his sleeves (but it works out in the end).

The Alcohol Test, by DragonSorceress22

When your rival-turned-best-friend is a phantom thief who has recently reached legal drinking age, there’s really only one responsible way to approach the matter. Spreadsheets.

Getting Off Track, by solomonara

The easiest way to find out what someone wants is to ask them, so of course neither Shinichi nor Kaito KID is going to do that. (OR: In which Shinichi and Kaito KID take turns falling into each other's arms.)

Wouldn’t Change A Thing, by BlackKatJinx

“Don't you get tired of it?”

“'It'?” He asks.

“Stealing.”

By Any Other Name, by AngelicSentinel

the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you hear them say your name.

Snowed In, by DragonSorceress22

Shinichi and Kaito are exceptionally bad at quiet nights at home.

Go Out With a Bang (Since We’re to Wilt Anyway), by KXL

Love can be cruel, and painful, but Kaito knew that already. Maybe he's just a masochist.

take in another breath (get closer), by Melomaniac

He paused on the threshold of the door between the pseudo-corridor and the seating area, and faintly corrected himself. Not as alone as he thought. Not as alone at all.

Sat by himself, with his chin resting on his hand, an arm loosely propped on the small table, an explosion of paper and assorted important looking documents in front of him, flask of (presumably) coffee held to his lips, was Kudou Shinichi, whose eyes had met Kaito’s when he walked into the carriage, had widened, and hadn’t looked away since.

In which there is a late night (or an early morning), a train, copious amounts of flirting, a phone, a name, and a stolen heart.

Last Day Again, by Phantoms_Echo

(Summary by me: Groundhog Day!AU with Kaito becoming more and more unhinged as he desperately tries to break the time loop he’s stuck in.)

Net Force, by LunaDarkside

Ran decides it's high time for Shinichi and Kaito to get together. Awkward matchmaking ensues.

Of Corset Hurts, by KXL

Shinichi and Kaito are both pretty much done with the situation, though for somewhat different reasons. Both reasons involve overly long dresses to some degree.

Ace up Their Sleeves, by Procrastination_Sensation

Summary by me: Soulmates!AU in which seeing your soulmark in someone else (your soulmate) causes debilitating pain until the two of you kiss.

Murder by Cremation, by KXL

Capturing the lawless monsters who ate people after burning them up was, apparently, the easy part.

Halloween Heist, by Phantoms_Echo

Because Halloween Scavenger Hunt doesn't sound as nice.

Trick or Treat, Tantei-kun! Up for a little Halloween game? I’ve left clues all over town. Find them all, you’ll get a treat. Fail to find them in time, you’ll get a trick. Good luck, Tantei-kun. -Kaitou KID

the suffering of fools, by AngelicSentinel

It's Las Vegas; the lights are bright, the liquor is flowing, and Ran married someone other than Shinichi. He just wants to drown his sorrows, but a half-familiar face steals his drink.

♠ ♦ ♣ ♥ Case Files, by AngelicSentinel

Solving life's little mysteries, one at a time.

one-shots in the suffering of fools universe

A Study in Trust, by Calculatrice

Conan swallows anger and condemnation and, for the very first time, gives Kaitou KID the benefit of the doubt. ________________

In which Conan constantly has to revise what he thinks of a certain thief, and is frankly getting pretty sick of feeling like his subconscious is already ahead of him.

Jacket, by Calculatrice

He turns to look at KID, grimacing as his overlong sleeves swish around him.

“It doesn’t exactly fit me,” he frowns as he points out the obvious. “Does this do anything for you?”

Kiss and tell., by DragonSorceress22

Shinichi might have gotten a little ahead of himself. And KID. Luckily, Hakuba has a level head and a soft spot for lovesick genius-idiots.

the goat one-shot, by helloimtrash

They're family now.

Interrogation, by Calculatrice

Admittedly, there are many things Kaito could probably be blamed for, but pulling Shinichi into the nearest empty hallway to kiss him senseless isn’t one of them.

So It Goes, by Calculatrice

It goes like this.

(In which Murphy’s Law isn’t much of a law - more something to be gleefully stomped on.)

Mii Plaza, by Calculatrice and helloimtrash

“Okay,” Kaito grins as the opening notes of Wii Sports ring out. “Are you ready for defeat?”

“Can’t we just play Mario Kart,” Shinichi frowns, crossing his legs as he watches Kaito push the coffee table out of the way. “It’s like, one in the morning.”

The Forensics of Falling, by LunaDarkside

[FF.Net Link] When fans of world-famous magician and actor Kuroba Kaito begin turning up dead, Inspector Kudou Shinichi is put on the case.

the toxicology of trust, by LunaDarkside

World-famous magician and actor Kuroba Kaito and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force's star inspector Kudou Shinichi finally get some much-needed time off. Or they would, if there wasn't a killer on their cruise.

(sequel to The Forensics of Falling)

On Familiarity, by lastdream

No one had ever known Kaito quite like Shinichi did, and Kaito wasn't sure he could take it.

Lies and the Art of Relaxation, by DragonSorceress22

Shinichi is stressed and Kaito is a liar. Business as usual.

And Again, by Calculatrice

It’s late, late in the night, and while on another night they may have been awake and neck-deep in plans, or perhaps delirious and making silly conversation, tonight he and Kaito are both curled in bed.

the only bed worth sleeping, by LunaDarkside

Kaito's not a detective, but he's pretty sure there's no logical explanation for Shinichi's disappearance from his apartment. Or for the cat that's shown up in his kitchen.

Magic Eight Ball, by Rikkamaru

Shinichi chases Kaitou Kid into the Blue Parrot thinking he's injured.

(For the Kaishin Discord, which made a "challenge" that a few people took up.)

swing for the fences, by LunaDarkside

"How to Fall in Love with Kudou Shinichi (Featuring Pink Panties, Dead Bodies, and Ill-Advised Bets): A Comprehensive and Kind of Embarrassing Guide" by Kuroba Kaito.

In The Soul, by Calculatrice

Shinichi ferries souls from the shores of the living to those of the dead, so they may pass safely on to an eternal afterlife. It’s really not a difficult concept, and definitely not one he thought could be wilfully ignored, but Kuroba Kaito obviously didn’t get the memo.

even miracles, by LunaDarkside

“No, Mother,” Shinichi says pleasantly. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to host a dinner party to find me a wife.”

bros before, by LunaDarkside

Shinichi needs a fake date for his parents' vow renewal ceremony. Naturally, he asks his best friend, Hattori. 

maybe I was going too fast, by Ann1215

A year after Kaito faces off Conan, who'd figured out his identity, he comes across Kudou Shinichi during their first year of university.

Trouble is, Kudou has no idea who Kaito is.

swear i’ll never leave again, by Ann1215

When Kaito eventually grows tired of his mother's relentless matchmaking tendencies, he ropes Shinichi into tricking everyone they know and love that they're both engaged. To each other. And it's easy enough, because all they have to do is:

1. Don't lie to each other. 2. Don't tell anyone about their plan. 3. Don't fall in love with each other.

At least, it was supposed to be easy.

(See you) Next Illusion!, by PhantomsEcho

Collections of Oneshots too long to fit in Next Conan Hint.

beneath a waxing moon, by kittebasu

The man stares at him, and then shakes his head, messy hair shaking with it. “Car trouble, Detective?” The way his lips curl around the word ‘detective’ strikes Shinichi as strange, eerily familiar, and Shinichi almost has to physically shake the feeling away before he can reply.

“Engine’s making a weird noise,” Shinichi says, and then his thoughts catch up with alacrity, his muscles tensing all at once. “What makes you think I’m a detective?”

“Police tags on your car,” the man replies, grin growing wider. “Plus this is a Camry from the nineties. No one drives those but police, these days, and regular officers drive patrol cars.” He leans forward a little, gloved hands circling his helmet and lowering it slightly to his handlebars for extra balance. “Far from undercover, if you know what you’re looking for.”

The cloud cover shifts, revealing the gorgeous full moon, and the light catches the man just right, surrounding him in a pearly glow and putting his face in shadow. “And you know what you’re looking for?”

broken glass, by jadedgalaxies

KID presses Shinichi into the wall, covering his mouth with a gloved hand and shushing him quietly. Shinichi’s heart thrums. KID isn’t looking at him but every part of KID that is pressed against Shinichi is electrified. Even amidst the circumstances that led to this moment, KID’s heartbeat is steady under Shinichi’s trembling fingers. His hair tickles Shinichi’s nose, his scent sweet and overpowering. KID is warm, alive, thrilling. Shinichi’s face warms.

In this moment, beneath the pale moonlight, helping KID evade arrest, detective Kudou Shinichi realizes he’s in love with the Phantom Thief, Kaitou KID. And he probably has been for a long time.

-

Shinichi realizes he's in love with Kaitou KID and that's just the beginning.

Owned and Never More Free, by Curry Jolokia

Kaitou Kid is uncatchable. Except for this.

about a love that glows, by LunaDarkside

The good news is that it’s not an overt time limit on his life, and it’s not anything parasitic. It’s not a life-force drainer, or a bad luck charm, or a magnet for unfortunate circumstances. It’s not going to bother him in day-to-day life.

The bad news is that if Shinichi falls in love with someone, he’ll die. And they’ll die.

(There is no good news, really.)

the empty vault of night, by AngelicSentinel

Shinichi offers Kid a gift. For a price.

Sound of Silence, by Cesela

His return to being Kudou Shinichi was not everything he had hoped for, not with Ran moving on, a limp and a shattered soul as he struggles with the return to normalcy. And then there’s the neighbour with a soft smile slowly battering down his walls. Kaishin / Shinkai

A Case Closed Carol, by solomonara

With apologies to Charles Dickens. Shinichi is working way too hard and has zero time for Christmas or anything else, really. But a rather unlikely source is about to put him back on track...

where villains spend the weekend, by aishiteita

A former teen sleuth enlists a should-be-retired-thief's help to slap ennui in the face.

(Alternatively, a study in motives.)

always ends in a hazy shower scene, by LunaDarkside

Shinichi didn’t mean to shack up with an internationally wanted thief.

[mainadjacent]

Sticking to the Script

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x Reader, one-sided Ben Hardy x Reader

Summary: You are the star of the hit TV show, “Winthrope Manor” and you’ve just got a new costar, Gwilym Lee who happens to bring around his friend, Ben Hardy, to set. You develop feelings for Ben, but they’re not well received. Lucky for you, your costar is there to help make things better.

Author’s Note: I’m just getting the hang of fic writing so hopefully this is coherent! I’d like to thank the lovely @sevenseasofky for being so kind and inspiring me with her fic, “Nothing but a Number” which this fic is heavily inspired by. Really, if you haven’t read her work, you are missing out.

PART 1

“Bohemian Rhapsody” star Gwilym Lee joins the Award-winning Cast of “Winthrope Manor” as possible love interest

You sigh exasperatedly at the Google Alert on your phone. You knew that this was going to be a possibility, the press has a habit of making a big deal of your show’s guest stars and it really took away from the quality of the show.  It wasn’t even like he was the most important guest star you’ve ever had.

“Anything wrong,” asks your costume designer, Nicole, as she laces you into your corset.

“Nothing,” you say nonchalantly, “just a bit tight is all.”

“Sorry, but you know how they want it, it has to be authentic.”

“Right, right, the good name of Winthrope Manor rests on the tightness of Violet’s corset,” you grumble.

Nicole giggles but does not loosen your laces, and even though you’ve been doing this for a whole season, you can feel your own organ rearranging painfully.

It’s a small price to pay, really, as much as you complain to Nicole about it. You are consistently at a loss for words at how lucky you are to be in this position: one of the stars of the award-winning television show, “Winthrope Manor.”

“Winthrope Manor” or “American response to ‘Downton Abbey’” as critics often put it, was the story of the wealthiest textile family in America at the turn of the 20th century. It was soapy and dramatic and lots of fun. You played Violet Winthrope, the intelligent and determined oldest Winthrope sibling who was constantly trying to establish herself in the industrial world while dealing with all sorts of romantic and personal entanglements.

The show premiered to critical acclaim in part because of the writing, in part because of the star-studded cast, and the amazing production value didn’t hurt either. “Winthrope” had had an amazing first season, sweeping in awards, amassing a pretty impressive fanbase and gaining all sorts of acclaim. Apparently, Meryl Streep was in negotiations to play your grandmother for the upcoming season.

As for you, you were still adjusting to the fame since you hadn’t really had much exposure beforehand. In a way, “Winthrope” had really changed your life in that aspect; you were relatively unknown before it—most of the younger cast was—and now you had been catapulted into some sort of fame. You weren’t super famous, it wasn’t like you were getting mobbed by paps constantly, but you had gained a substantial following. People tweeted you, approached you on the street, and even had whole internet presences dedicated to you and your character. It still took a while to get used to it, but you were trying to handle it with the most grace you could muster, but you would be a liar if you said it wasn’t exhausting at times. It was a small price to pay though.

Nicole finished with your laces and you gave yourself a second to adjust. Speaking of prices you pay.

As Nicole is pinning up the hem of one of Violet’s evening gowns, you hear a knock at the trailer’s door.

“Come in!”

You were expecting any one of your female costars, as this was the woman’s costuming trailer, however, you were surprised to see your character’s newest love interest and the subject of internet articles, Gwilym Lee.

“Hi,” he says as he awkwardly stands at the trailer’s threshold.

“Hey” you great him coolly while holding the hem of your dress up as Nicole took measurements.

“Right, hi, anyway. I was wondering if you had lunch plans today? One of my friends is on the lot today and I thought we could all get lunch together?”

You lean down to fix the train of your dress while you think about it. In the last month on set, Gwil had never invited you to do anything, which you were completely fine with. You had tried to keep Gwilym at arm’s length for the last few weeks of table reads and preliminary filming. You’ve learned not to get too close to the leading-man type, and you have yet to figure out whether or not he is someone you can trust enough with your friendship. Your experiences have been mixed with male actors on your set, to say the least.

“Who’s your friend?” you ask, slowly rising upright.

“Ben, Ben Hardy. We were in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ together. He’s on the lot doing some post for ‘X-Men.’”

“Um, sure,” you say, although you’re not entirely sure why.

“Great, so, I’ll see you then,” Gwil takes one last look at you before heading out the door.

You catch Nicole giving you a long look.

“What?”

______

You spend the first half of your day in fittings which is pretty exhausting. Nicole remains cryptically silent on the significant exchange this morning, which strikes you as odd because she loves to talk about any possible set drama. Instead, you keep the conversation light and talk about how nice it is to be back on set and what each of you did over the break. While Nicole and a few other designers pin and prick and pull at your complicated wardrobe pieces the tv hums in the background and you comfortably set into a rhythm. You are too entertained that you don’t even notice three short knocks at the door, you also miss one of the seamstresses letting your costar and his friend into the trailer.

“Hello,” says Gwil, “is this a good time?”

You look up from the inseam of a pair of riding trousers you’re trying on. Gwil is back in plainclothes and behind him is a shorter, blonder man. You recognize him instantly from his feature films and even though you knew to expect him, you’re caught off guard by how handsome he is. He smiles flittingly at you and you can feel a blush creeping on your cheeks.  It’s at this time you realize that you did not have a shirt on and instead were still in your 220th-century underthings. Now you’re really blushing.

“Oh, sorry, we kind of lost track of time. Give me a second,” you say as you step down from the fitting platform as you try to keep cool, “let me change.”

Two costumers usher you behind a partition and both try to help you out of your costume and back into your plainclothes which is an affair all of its own.

“Hi nice to meet you!” you say as you stumble out from behind the partition extending your hand out.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Ben,” the blond man chuckles as you reach to shake his hand, “I’m sorry we barged in like this but Gwil just wouldn’t stop raving about his beautiful new costar and I wanted to meet the famous Violet Winthrope myself.”

You can feel yourself growing redder by the second, Ben Hardy had called you beautiful.

“Well, I hope I don’t disappoint, Violet is much more interesting than I am.”

“I beg to differ,” Gwil says, reminding you of his presence.

The three of you decide to eat close by since Ben only had 30 minutes until he had to be back on set (“Those angel wings take forever to get on!”) so you find one of the cafes on the lot.

While you eat, Ben tells you about his recent shoot on the “X-Men,” what he hopes his next project and asks you if the Richard Winthrope was going to lose ownership of the family business to his brother.

You laugh, “There is no way you watch ‘Winthrope Manor’!”

“What do you mean by that?” Ben gawks playfully, “I will have you know that I am very interested in the rich tapestry of 20th century American life woven by ‘Winthrope Manor’ and maybe I might have had a crush on the beautiful and charming Violet.”

You blush, which you seem to be doing a lot today, “Well if you must know—”

“We aren’t allowed to spoil anything!” Gwil interrupts forcefully.

“Right,”—since was Gwil so concerned about spoilers? —" I guess you’re just going to have to watch and find out!” You smile cheekily.

You and Ben carry most of the conversation during the short lunch, which you really don’t mind. You would be lying if you said you didn’t find yourself utterly charmed by Ben: he was funny, interesting and very attractive.  Before you knew it, though, your short lunch came to an end and the three of you had to go to your respective sets. Before leaving, Ben shares that he would be on the lot tomorrow for some time too and promised to try and stop by your set if he could. You try to not look too giddy when he says this and instead play it cool while you bid him goodbye.

______

“He’s nice,” you say casually to Gwil as the two of you walk back to the set. He hadn’t talked much during lunch and while you did not know him well, usually Gwil was talkative between takes and during reads. He had always struck you as someone who was naturally friendly, as someone with something to say.

“Yeah, Ben’s a nice guy,” Gwil says, his brows furrowed.

“Yeah, I mean, I can see why the two of you stayed friends after filming ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.”

“Right.”

A beat of silence.

“I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?” you ask, and regret it almost instantly when you see the look Gwil gives you.

“No, why would you think that?”

“Well, it’s just,” you sigh, “you just seemed really quiet at lunch and now it’s like you don’t want to talk to me. Which is honestly confusing, considering you invited me to lunch.”

“You think I’m confusing? You’re the one that won’t say more than a sentence to me at a time but when Ben I’m-a-literal-angel Hardy shows up suddenly you can’t stop talking.”

“Wait, this is about me being friendly to Ben? I thought you wanted us to get along, he’s your friend,” you stop in the middle of a crowded lot.

“No, that’s not it,” he reaches a hand to his temple, “its just that, we’re supposed to be playing love interests and you barely talk to me. At first, I thought you were just shy, so I invited you out with someone else to make it easier for us to get to know each other, you know? Without so much pressure. But you aren’t shy, at least not with Ben which sort of leads me to believe that you just don’t like me, which is fine I guess, you’re not obligated to like me, I just thought—”

“You worried that I don’t like you?”

“Well, you never really talk to me and whenever I’m around you find a way to not spend time with me unless you have to,” Gwil says, almost sheepishly, “and with everyone else, you’re so nice and personable.”

It’s true. You had been avoiding Gwil, but it wasn’t because you didn’t like him. Up until this point, you hadn’t really formed an opinion on him.

“You’re right, maybe I have been avoiding you, but it’s not because I don’t like you. I just haven’t decided what to make of you yet,” you say, biting your lip.

“What?”

“Well, last season I got involved with the guy who played William, Charlotte’s love interest. The actor’s name was Aaron Mayfield and, well, it ended badly, like, really badly. Lucky for me, William died on the front lines, so I didn’t have to see Aaron again. After that though, I decided to keep my relationships with any new costars as professional as possible, until I could figure out if I could trust them to be friends with. I guess I didn’t really think that through though, because now I’ve hurt your feelings and you actually do seem like a really nice guy,” you say all this with your eyes trained on the ground, part of you relieved to have come clean.

After some silence, you look up slowly, hoping to gauge Gwil’s reactions.  His head is tilted to one side, and he looks like he’s trying to figure out some sort of mathematical equation, his bright eyes catching the midday sun.

“So, does this mean we can be friends?”

PART 2

[decomarc]

One of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood in the 1940s was Linda Darnell. Darnell was under contract at 20th Century-Fox from 1939 to 1952. She starred in a great number of costume and adventure dramas that would have been all right without her but gained enormously from her participation. Linda Darnell was touted by Hollywood wags as "the girl with the perfect face," and for once the description fit. Her cameo-cut china doll face was enough to ensure stardom in glamor-obsessed 1940s Hollywood; surely Darnell could easily fit into the top ten most beautiful women the screen has ever known. And as she matured, her voice deepened into a torchy throb that added intensity to the eventual siren image. Linda's screen image was as a sultry, dark-eyed beauty with a sort of gleaming sincerity she had the perfect complexion and was always an asset as she made the transition from virginal heroines in mantillas and lace to women not adverse to revealing a tough streak beneath the deceptive sweep of their wardrobe. Like many of the popular stars during the contract system, her career tailed off as soon as she left her studio's fold, but her popularity in her day had been real enough and would have been the same if she had worked for any other studio. United Artists cast Darnell on loan-out for a Chekhov adaptation, "Summer Storm" in 1944. She wasn't ready, but the publicity--with Darnell lolling about a la Jane Russell, combined with that face--launched a transformation beyond pin-up to apprentice love goddess. The rest of the decade found her often in interesting roles that displayed her as willful, sometimes venal, smouldering trouble. Memorable portraits in the Darnell's career include the strangled (and left to burn) music - hall trollop in "Hangover Square" (1945), the floozy waitress of "Fallen Angel" (also 1945, in which she acted circles around reigning studio queen Alice Faye.) Linda said of Otto Preminger, that she found him “terrifying.” But her fabulous reviews in the noir classic must have soothed her nerves, and she seemed to have found her stride again., the ill-fated concubine in "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946, in which Darnell dies prophetically by fire.) Her most famous role was as the sultry celluloid vixen in Forever Amber 1947. On Forever Amber, Darnell was again paired with the tyrannical Preminger. She had dieted strenuously for the corset-heavy costume drama, and twice collapsed on the set from hunger as well as nervous exhaustion. And for all the misery she endured, the film fell short of its massive hype: while audiences cheered, the critics mostly yawned, and the film didn’t give Darnell the boost, either in confidence or in clout, that she’d hoped for. In Unfaithfully Yours, produced, written and directed by Preston Sturges, she’s the wife of an egocentric orchestra conductor (Rex Harrison) who concocts an elaborate revenge fantasy when he suspects she’s cheating on him. She’s so gasp-inducingly gorgeous, you’re almost distracted from how fabulously funny she is — a Sturges heroine who throws away her lines with the ease of a Colbert or a Stanwyck. In 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives, written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, Darnell earned the best reviews of her career. As Lora Mae Finney, a social-climbing beauty who’s literally from the wrong side of the tracks—the whole house shakes whenever a train roars by — she’s hard-edged, touching and hilarious. She gets some of the best lines in a flawless script, and casually belts every one of them into the stands. Determined to marry Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas), who owns the department store where she and half the town work, Lora Mae wangles a late-night meeting to discuss a promotion, though both she and Porter know it’s a prelude to something more. As she sweeps into the kitchen before the date, her mother’s friend Sadie (Thelma Ritter), who deems her dress much too simple, asks, “Doncha think you should wear something with beads?” And Lora Mae replies matter-of-factly, “Ma, what I got don’t need beads.” She’s not vain, just realistic—but she thinks she’s savvier than she is. She plans to snag Porter by playing the naif, but soon discovers just how out far of her depth, and genuinely innocent, she really is. That Darnell wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar for her performance was criminal; they should have just dispensed with the ceremony and mailed the thing to her house. As the studio system began to collapse, so did Darnell’s film career; Fox dropped her contract in 1952. She freelanced for a while, with little success. “I thought in a little while I’d get offers from other studios, but not many came along,” she said, more out of confusion than bitterness. “The only thing I knew how to do was be a movie star. No one expects to last forever in this business. You know that sooner or later the studio’s going to let you go. But who wants to be retired at twenty-nine?” She did received good notices for "No Way Out" (1950), a race relations drama ahead of its time, but as happened with Rita Hayworth, Hollywood tended to treat mature beauties in nonglamourous roles as if they were finished commercially in the business. So she turned to television and then the stage, where, to the surprise of skeptics, she thrived in plays as far-flung as The Children’s Hour, Critic’s Choice and A Roomful of Roses. In 1956, she took on the daunting role of the compassionate teacher in a Miami production of Robert Anderson’s controversial Tea and Sympathy, opposite a 20-year-old Burt Reynolds. “I’m scared stiff [about the play],” she confided to local reporters“But this marvelous, magic world of live theater is one of the high spots of my life.” The Miami Herald called it a “sensitive, absorbing presentation” in which “Miss Darnell gives the role a new dimension.” Throughout her last years Darnell continued to work sporadically. In the spring of 1965, while preparing for a play near Chicago, she stayed at the home of her friend and former secretary, Jeanne Curtis one of many former Fox staffers who still adored her. Late one night, she turned on the television only to find her 17-year-old self staring back at her in Star Dust, her second big film. Not long after drifting off to sleep, she was jolted awake by the smell of smoke and the sounds of panic: the house was on fire. While Curtis, her husband and her daughter leapt to safety from a second-floor window, Darnell, too terrified to jump, tried to escape through a downstairs door. But a neighbor had run over and smashed a back window with a shovel, and the inrushing air fed the fire and spread the flames throughout the first floor. Darnell, who had a lifelong fear of fire, was found crouched behind the sofa, burned over almost 90 percent of her body. She died at the hospital two days later, regaining consciousness only once, briefly, when Lola arrived at her bedside. She was 41 years old.

Linda Darnell as Stella FALLEN ANGEL 1945 | dir. Otto Preminger

[all-of-the-musesarchived]

Long Awaited Showdown (Ace and Cassie VS Blackbeard)

So this is part of a fan fic my dear friend and I are writing together. She simply asks when I name her that she goes by Anonymous Stoat, we hope you enjoy this. 

“I just got visual confirmation Ace.” Cassie stepped out of the alleyway, her hair tucked up under a black headscarf and her corset and top covered by a black and blue overcoat. “Blackbeard just anchored in the harbor two hours ago, they were headed inland for the nearest village.”

It had been a few weeks now since they’d departed from Alabasta on a false lead, and finally the monster they’d been hunting was in their grasp. Both Commanders had been overtaken by both a sense of relief and dread. It was almost unreal, to think that soon Teach would be in their grasp.

“Just don’t jump the gun on this.” Ace said tipping his hat up a bit with his thumb. “We finally found him, if one of us let’s out emotions get the better of us, then this was all for nothing and we’ll be back to square one.”

“I told you back at Alabasta, I’d follow your lead.” Cassie explained tightening her headscarf a bit. “I’m not going to be the reason he slips away again. It’s just hard to believe it’ll finally be over.”

“I know. Now come on. We should figure out what they are planning before we get involved.” Ace said shouldering his bag. Cassie simply nodded, her waterskin on her belt shifting as she turned and followed her brother in arms down the road. There was a feeling in the back of her mind she couldn’t quite shake, but it was better not to bring that up. Not when it was probably just her expecting the worst. They asked around for what felt like forever but most people they asked didn’t seem to even know who they were talking about.

At least, until they came across a rather shaken older man.

“Why would ya be askin’ about him?” The man huffed, tensing up immediately.

“Please sir, I’m begging you. We’ve been tracking this man for months now. He’s hurt a lot of people, we just want to stop him.” Cassie explained.

“Here. have this.” Ace said pulling a waterskin that had actual plain water and some dried fruit from his bag. “This man has done nothing but bad things. All we want to to stop him from making things worse for the people on this island.”

“You… Thank you…” The old man accepted the gifts before bracing his hands on his cane. “About two hours north of here. The man you speak of, Blackbeard, he’s ransacking villages left and right. The next he plans to hit, if he follows the road, is two hours from here.”

“Thank you. We’re going to do our best to make sure that this ends here.” Ace said think a polite bow. Unlike many people and pirates, Ace was somehow the most polite and well mannered person to exist. Despite his random narcoleptic eating habits which seemed to run in his family. Or just those that had “D” in their names.

“You have our word. This won’t happen again.” Cassie said. She made a note that he was bruised under his shirt, no doubt thanks to Teach’s crew. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stop him sooner. Let’s go Ace.”

“Yeah. Sir, please do me a favor. Do what you can to stay away from the town. When you can, try and get to the coast.” Ace said standing up and pulling bag over his shoulder. He bowed again to the old man before he started walking towards the the town direction. He was going to find out why Blackbeard had killed Thatch. He was going to to know what had driven him to take a the life of his friend. To ruin the love of Thatch and Cassie, the one couple that authors and poets wrote about. No he was going to get answers.

It took them a little under two hours to reach the town in question. The entire time, Cassandra had been uncharacteristically silent. Her mind was swimming with anger, pain, sorrow, rage, and an eerie calm that laid beneath everything. Thatch was her everything. He’d saved her life, shown her she wasn’t a waste of life or cursed like she’d believed, and had been the first true love she’d ever had.

“Ace… It’s way too quiet.” She finally said, noting that the town almost felt like a graveyard.

“I noticed that too. But this is better. The less people, the less risk getting hurt.” Ace said closing his eyes and listening for the ruckus that was bound to follow Blackbeard. It was easy enough, Teach wasn’t anywhere near silent or subtle. Even with them being across town, Ace could still feel the boisterous laugh that had long since turned from funny to a threat. They were occupied which meant that they could get the drop on them. “Let’s go that way. We can get up high and listen to them.”

The Fire Fist spoke pointing to his left and glancing at Cassie to make sure she was alright.

“Alright. Let’s hurry.” Cassie said, her hands trembling a bit as she tried to keep her composure. “The building over there looks like it has decent cover.”

She could hear the sickening laughter in the distance, and her form became a bit tense. All she wanted to do was to put an end to this nightmare once and for all. Without waiting, she jumped up to the nearest rooftop ready to kill their quarry and be over with all of this. Ace watched her go, wondering if had been a good Idea to bring her along. There was so much riding on this moment and the possibility of it not ending well for them nibbled on the back of his mind. Still he followed her up the buildings with ease and caught up to her before she could get too close.

“Stay behind me.” Ace whispered wanting to protect what he considered his sister. She made no indication that she was going to go ahead of him, instead she crouched down just behind him to his right, eyes fixed on the road below.

“Zehahaha! That crazy bastard! Get a load of this! It’s about Straw Hat! That crazy bastard and his crew attacked The Tower of Justice! His bounty should go through the roof after that!” Blackbeard cackled looking at his crew.

“Hm. That’s next to Water 7 yes? I wonder if they hijacked a sea-train to get there.” A very tall, slim man with a ghostly pale pallor spoke.

“It’s not that far from here…” An equally tall man wearing a scope like eyepiece and carrying a long musket commented. “At this rate, we might meet them again.”

“If fate is kind enough to place him in our sights,” A third said, the wet wheezing rattle of sickly lungs breaking his otherwise soft voice. “we’re obligated to pull the trigger aren’t we?”

“HAHAHA! What’re we waiting for!?” A fourth wearing a wrestlers mask and carrying a rather large sack cackled.

“Nothing! Let’s go! Zehahahaha!” Blackbeard cackled leading his crew down the road back the way they’d come from. “We better cut ‘em off before they get away or the Navy gets to them first.”

“Hey, hold on a second there Teach. We need to talk.” Ace called down just loud enough to be overheard by the small band of five. He was crouched on the roof of a building, balanced just so that he wouldn’t topple over. His hands were linked together with his forearms resting on his knees.

“This is a long time coming.” Cassie added, standing to her full height with her hands in her pockets.

“Oh! Whaddaya know! It’s Commander Ace and Commander Red Hair!” Blackbeard said with a big smile, his gaze lingering a bit long on Cassandra.

“You have no right to call us that anymore. Use those titles with respect or don’t use them at all. I won’t have you disrespect us.” Ace said calm despite his feelings for Blackbeard.

“Ooh, so this is the famous Fire Fist Ace.” The Slender man with the top hat and cane said. ”And his little Water Witch.”

“Yep. You guessed it, that’s us.” Ace said playing the man’s comment off. “So this is your crew. It looks like you’ve become a Captain now huh? Captain Marshal D. Teach of the Blackbeard Pirates.”

“Tch, you don’t deserve that title.” Cassie muttered, the very thought leaving a bad taste in her mouth. Something about the way he stared at her was unnerving, but she tried not to think on it too much. Ace gave her a warning glance. A silent ask for her to let him handle this.

“Zehahaha! C’mon Ace! Cassie! Lighten up! It’s good to see ya!” Blackbeard cackled, still smiling at the two. “What brings you here? You weren’t lookin’ for me were ya?”

“You son of a bitch…” The red head clenched her fist, only to be stopped in her actions as Ace motioned for her to stand down.

“Let’s stop beating around the bush now shall we? Even if you play dumb I know you’re a crafty bastard. There’s only one reason for us to be here and you know what it is. So spare us the chit-chat.” Ace spoke with a hint of annoyance in his tone.

“Fine! Have it your way.” Blackbeard replied, completely unphased by the show of aggression. “But there’s one question I’d like to ask first! Well, two rather! Instead of fighting, Ace, why don’t ya join my crew? And Cassandra…”

Violet hues shifted to focus on Blackbeard, an uncomfortable tension eating at her.

“Zehahaha, why don’t you become my woman?” The redhead froze, her already pale complexion paling further and her form began trembling. Was he being serious? Surely he didn’t think she would say yes to the likes of him.

“I’ve got the perfect plan to rise to the top!” Blackbeard said. “Stick with me and I swear we could rule the world! Whitebeard’s days are numbered and you know it! I’m gonna be King of The Pirates! First I’m headed off to Water 7 to kill Straw Hat Luffy as a special gift to the World Government! Wouldn’t hurt to have you along for the fun! And what kind of King would I be without a Queen at my side!?”

“Luffy huh? You’re outta your mind.” Ace spoke clenching his jaw just a hair. He knew Teach had gone a little crazy over the years, but he didn’t think the man was this far gone from sanity.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Cassie snapped, finally recovering from her shock. “I would never be your woman!”

“Oh? You know him?” Blackbeard asked, completely ignoring Cassandra’s response.

“Of course I know him you sack of crap. I’m not going to let you kill my little brother!” Ace said glaring down at Teach. “And we’re not joining your crew. You can take your little offer and shove it up your-”

The sniper wasted no time in firing off three rounds at Ace, though he was a bit surprised to see it did nothing to harm him. Instead of blood, flames licked the bullet holes.

“Well you get it.” Ace said holding onto his hat. It amused him to think that Teach’s crew would so willingly enter a fight they stood no chance of surviving. He had warned Cassandra about letting her feelings get in the way, but there was nothing stopping either of them proving just how much difference there was between those serving under Teach and themselves. The fire cackled and licked along Ace’s skin till the holes left behind sealed without a mark left.

“Huh, seems like you need to teach your crew some manners.” Ace said with a scoffing smirk. He stood up suddenly hands curling into mock pistols at he aimed at th sniper. “Fire Gun!”

The gunner below had mere seconds to start running as bullets of flame were fired at him, one right after another. Cassie on the other hand glanced down to note the mask clad crewmate had been missing from the whole mess. He quickly made his reappearance though with a full on building he planned to bring down on the two commanders.

“Flame Commandment: Fire Pillar!” Ace shouted waving his hand to surround him and Cassie. This was not the first time he had done this and knew that he wouldn’t harm her as long as she bubbled herself. It took all of two seconds for Cassie to encase herself in a sphere to keep from being boiled alive.

The fire coiled up over them, skirting off the water rising high to meet and destroy the top half of the hotel that hand been thrown at them. The pressure alone was enough to break the wooden building apart and the fire began eating at the remains. The pieces left behind fell in a shower of burning panels and splinters.

“Both of you! Stay out of this fight!” Blackbeard ordered in frustration. “Until you get stronger this guy is out of your league!”

“Oh! Sorry!” The masked member of the Blackbeard said putting his hand on the back of his head.

“Fire Fist!” Ace called out and a horizontal column of fire shot out towards Teach’s back. It was enough to blast the entire Blackbeard crew through the building opposite of Ace and Cassie carving a path through the building to the next street over. Teach screamed in pain as some of his men recovered. They had not been the target, only collateral damage at that moment.

“You didn’t have to split the building.” Cassie commented, the water that formed her bubble now wrapped around her arm like a curled up whip. Ace looked over his shoulder at her and shrugged at the Blackbeards that could stand surrounded Teach. He jumped down afterwards and headed to meet them on the ground walking through flame and cinders without hesitation in his calm strut. The fire pooled at the bottom of the wreckage before being put out at Ace’s will. Cassandra was just behind him, walking just far enough behind to keep from getting burned.

“Zehahaha… Alright… You wanna finish me… Don’t you?” Teach asked, pushing himself to all fours after being extinguished. “The murder of a fellow crewmate is a serious crime… And yes, I killed 4th Division Commander Thatch with my own hands! But there wasn’t any other choice!”

“No other choice!? How about not stabbing your crewmate in the back!?” Cassie snapped.

“It wasn’t personal. But he had the Devil Fruit I had been searching for. And he had you!” Teach said pushing himself up to his knees and throwing his hands out to his sides.

“Me?” Cassie felt that pit in her stomach again, and a thing sheen of sweat dotted the back of her neck.

“You know the rules on Whitebeard’s ship. Whoever finds one gets to eat it.I memorized the shapes and colours of all the Devil Fruits that they discovered. So I knew that was the one I needed. Whether I liked it or not I spent decades biding my time on Whitebeard’s ship because it was the best shot I had at finding that one single fruit.” Teach said dropping his hand so they hung limp at his sides. “And all that time I watched as he wooed and stole the heart of the only person I ever cared about other than myself.”

“You… You bastard!” Cassie snapped before feeling Ace put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from lashing out.

“You were the only thing on that ship that helped me Cassie. But you never noticed did you? No because you were always with him.” Blackbeard chuckled a bit. “And just when I thought there was no hope left, there it was, right in the hand of my friend.”

“Then you murdered him in cold blood and stole it without a second thought.” Ace asked seeking the answer to his question. Teach was always easy to provoke into long winded explanations.

“Heh, bad luck for him.” Teach said getting to his feet. “There’s no other way. This ability has chosen me! Zehahahahaha! And its power has made me the strongest man in the world! Watch.”

Blackbeard extended a ringed hand and slowly the edges of his form began turning dark and grainy.

“Even among the Logia Fruits there’s Nothing quite like it.” There was a dull hum in the air as a colleum of dark almost mist shot up into the sky. It swirled in a chaotic manner that seemed to barely be under control. Along the ground it oozed from his feet to match the pillar in the air. “Ace... You’re body is made of fire. And you Cassandra, you’re made of water...”

“What is this?” Cassie muttered, her eyes growing wide. Out of sheer instinct she shifted the water whip to her actual grasp.

“Zehahaha... My body is darkness!” Teach said leveling a power glazed look upon the two.

“Darkness huh?” Ace said having long ago set his body in a pose that had his foot on a pile of rubble and with one hand on his hip and the other dangling free.

“You’ll see soon enough Commanders. I think you’ll wanna reconsider my offer. In the history of all Devil Fruits, this is said to be the most dangerous power of them all.” Teach spoke training his sight on Cassie. “The Logia type Dark Dark Fruit. In other words I’ve become a Darkness Man. I’ll give you a taste of its power. I wouldn’t blink if I were you.”

“Hm. Stop yapping and just do it.” Ace smirked, keeping the best poker face he could. Cassandra on the other hand had fallen silent again, her form trembling like a leaf in the breeze. Her gaze met Teach’s and she all but froze in place. His crew began running, shouting at one another about this or that, it all became static in Cassie’s ears. The black smoke poured off of his form and flowed across the ground as if a dam had been busted holding it back.

“Ace… This…” Cassie started, steeling her form to keep Teach from letting him know he’d gotten under her skin, though it may have been too late. “We need to end this. Fast. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Get out of here.” Ace said not taking his eyes off of the man.

“I’m not leaving you to fight him alone. We’re doing this together.” Cassie said, putting her foot down in the matter.

“We don’t have time to argue Cassandra. Either run or stay out of the fight.” Ace snapped with worry. Not for himself but for her. He was younger but he knew how to be an older brother, and those instincts were kicking in.

“Forget it! I’m not leaving your moron.” Cassie snapped.

“Then protect yourself. I can’t stop him and save you.” Ace said as Teach laughed. The swirling void spread out from him surrounding the two standing on the wreckage. There were screams of warning but they were too far to make out.

“You’re assuming I need to be saved.” Cassie replied, stiffening her whip into a rapier like shape. What unnerved her the most about all of this was the fact that save for the wreckage they’d been standing on like an island was just, everything was being cloaked in this blanket of darkness.

“Darkness is gravity. It swallows everything around it.Even light itself can’t escape! Its power is infinite!” Teach yelled out.

“That’s nice but it’s nowhere near us. You sure you got the hang of this?” Ace asked unimpressed by the man in front of them.

“Calm down, I’m not aiming at you yet.” Blackbeard turned from them to look at the ground below his feet. “You’ll be glad when you see what I do to this town.”

“BLACK HOLE!” He shouted as he slammed his palm into the black mist. The light around them dimmed and the smoke began swallowing the buildings and anything else left in the streets. In a mere matter of moments, all that was left of the town was the dirt it had been built on, and the small pile of rubble Ace and Cassandra had used as a safe haven.

“Within these shadows lies the power to compress anything and everything within them, to crush whatever they touch.” He cackled, as the last bits of darkness recoiled back towards him. “And that’s just the beginning. Now I’ll show you what happened to the town. Or whatever’s left of it I should say. LIBERATION!!!”

With a sound of mass effort, the shadows exploded and the remaining rubble of what was once the town began raining down around them. The carnage was impressive, an entire town reduced to scraps of wood and metal without one building still in tact.

“Zehahaha, so do you get it now Ace? Cassandra? This is what I was willing to kill a mate for.” Teach cackled before he noticed small green floating orbs around him.

“Firefly Fiery Doll!” The orbs ignited against the man’s skin, bursting into a large brilliant flame and throwing the man to the ground as he screamed and writhed in agony.

“The Darkness part I get, but this not so much. I wonder what’s going on here. If you’re a Logia Type that shouldn’t hurt you. Or rather, that shouldn’t even hit you.”

“I already told you. My Darkness swallows everything around it. Whether it’s punches, blades, bullets, lightning, or fire. Unlike you two I can’t just turn into an element and dodge an attack. And the pain I absorb when I get hit is much greater than what it normal human feels. But the trade off for that inconvenience is worth it.”

“So, what you’re saying is you’ll feel every moment of agony when you’re given what’s coming to you.” Cassie clenched her fist and raising her water forged rapier to strike.

“Yes. Cause there happens to be one more thing I can absorb.” Teach said holding out his hand towards them. “Black Vortex!”

“ACE!” Cassie tried to reach out and grab the Flame man but wasn’t fast enough as his arm just brushed her fingertips before he found himself in Teach’s grasp. Out of sheer instinct, the redhead sprinted forward, blade raised high and murder in her gaze.

“First I use the gravity of Darkness to pull a Devil Fruit power holder into my grasp.”

“Too... strong...” Ace muttered trying to break free.

“And then when I touch them.” Ace grunted in pain there was a split second when he tried to burn teach but then he realized he couldn’t. “You’re smart. Have you figured out the secret yet? Huh?”

“It can’t be-” Before he could say anything, Teach reared back and punched the raven haired man as hard as he could in the stomach, sending him flying across the ground.

“Bastard!” Cassie jumped up, using the recoil from Teach’s punch to bring her blade of water down towards his throat. “You won’t leave here alive!!”

“I will. ANd I’ll take you with me.” Teach said reaching around and grabbing Cassie’s arm in his. He pulled her to his side and locked his arm over hers to keep her from struggling too much. “Zehahahah! Ahahahaha! It’s been a long time since you’ve been hit. I bet you forgot how much it hurts, Ace.”

He turned to face the Commander laying against what was once a building.

“But you both understand now. You understood the second I grabbed you.” Blackbeard continued. “Not only can my Darkness pull you in. It can also absorb your Devil Fruit Powers! In other words as long as they’re in contact with me, someone with Devil Fruit powers is not different than a normal human! Logia, Zoan, Paramecia. All of those who have become dependant on them are in for a surprise.”

“You sick… Let me go!” Cassie snapped trying to writhe free of the man’s grasp. “You traitorous bastard!”

“One little touch will make them realize how weak they really are.” Blackbeard spoke oblivious to Cassandra’s struggling. He was so trained on Ace that he gave no mind to her protests. He had all that he wanted. Next was taking down Ace and Luffy before he could move on to becoming the King of the Pirates.

“Then all I have to do is avoid you.” Ace spoke looking at Cassie with worry. He could care less of the blood running from his mouth. But he had to figure out a way of beating Teach without hurting her.

“You think you can escape gravity that easily… ” Teach taunted. “I’d like to see you try!! Black Hole!”

He raised his free hand up and reached towards Ace, pulling him in towards his sickening grasp. The black smoke once again swirled and Ace was yanked from where he’d landed.

“St. Elmos’ Fire!” Ace hurled two large fireballs at Teach, the flames piercing his form just as the offending man brought his fist down on Ace’s neck.

“Damn it! Get this Thing off of me!” Teach all but threw Cassie aside as he clawed at the flames which now resembled spears protruding from his body. Cassie took the opportunity to put some distance between herself and Blackbeard, taking up a defensive stance between him and Ace with a shield of water between them and Teach.

“That Bastard almost broke my neck. His ability’s gonna be a bigger pain than I thought...” Ace hissed before forming his fingers into a cross and aiming just past Cassie at Teach. “Cross Fire!”

The flames impacted, but it was hard to see what was happening through the cloud of darkness surrounding Blackbeard. There was an explosion before one of the mountains surrounding the town crumbled.

“Everything fall before Darkness. Even you can only struggle for so long. Still, finishing you off here here and taking her, would be a waste of your talents.” Blackbeard cackled staring at Ace who was on all fours, breathing heavily. Cassie was standing just to Ace’s right, two orbs of water hover over her shoulders as she prepared to strike once his guard was down.

“Don’t Fight it Ace. Cassandra. Join me!”

“If I surrender to you, then I can never call myself a man again. I won’t submit, and I won’t live with regrets no matter what.” Ace swore an oath to himself. “You got that, stupid?!”

“You killed the only man I loved, and you expect me to drop my loyalty to our Father and join you?” Cassandra snapped the orbs turning to javelins. “You can forget it! I’d rather die!”

“Once you die your morals are useless. I’m sorry you can’t understand that Ace.” Blackbeard said. H knew where Cassie was and so could avoid her all together as he threw his hands out to his sides. “Darkness take you!”

“Run Cassandra... Run!” Ace said pulling his arms in as fire began swirling 20 feet out and moving in towards the raven haired Commander. “Great Flame Commandment: Flame Emperor!”

“Zehahahaha! The Sun against the Darkness, huh? Only one can win!”

“I’ll make Whitebeard King, or die trying.” Ace said with determination. Ignoring him completely, Cassie turned her two water javelins into a wall of small, sharp looking needles.

“Something you’ll never understand Teach… Family always has each other’s backs no matter what.” She said before hurling the water needles forward, creating a rain of pain falling upon Blackbeard. It didn’t take much effort for Blackbeard to counter the water attack, using his repelling force to push Cassandra back against one of the piles of rubble before he focussed his efforts on Ace.

“Ace! You can do this!” Cassie called out trying to break free of the invisible force holding her in place. “Show this bastard who’s boss!”

“This ends now, Commander Ace. Black. Hole.” Blackbeard spoke. Ace had been too worried about Cassie to remember that the Dark mist would spread around his attack and swallow him into what was essentially oblivion. In the blink of an eye the black haired Commander was gone and all that was left was Blackbeard, barely standing and badly burned. He turned to look back over his shoulder at Cassie. “You should have listened to him. But now, now I have you right where you belong.”

What the hell? It had all happened so quick, and now all that was left was an empty place where Ace once stood, and his hat covered in dust and tattered.

“You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you for this!” Cassie cried, tears brimming in her eyes as she tried to lunge forward at Teach. “You’ll pay for this!!”

“You don’t get it do you.” Teach spoke pulling Cassie into his hands. He pulled her till she was pressed flush against him. A demented but loving smile was given as he trapped her. “I saved you. In time you’ll understand that.”

The feeling of his hands on her skin, his form pressed against hers, the dampness of his sickeningly hot breath sent a fearful chill down her spine sickened her to the core.

“You bastard… What are you going to do with Ace?” She snapped trying to push herself away from his grasp to no avail.

“If I can’t kill that Straw Hat what makes a better offering to the World Government than a Commander of the Emperor Whitebeard?”

“So that’s it. You’re going to turn us in for the bounties?” She snarled.

“Not you. Just him. I’ll tell them that you decided to join me after realizing that it was your best chance. And then nothing will stop us from getting to the One Piece.” Blackbeard said with a grin turning from demented to lustful. “You know I’m right. That I am the only one to give you all that you ever wanted.”

“All I ever wanted was to be with Thatch. You took everything from me!” Cassie cried once again trying to writhe free, her defiant expression being taken over by fear. “What I want is for you to die damn it!”

“My my, Captain.” Lafitte, the top hat clad man chuckled walking over. “She’s quite outspoken, isn’t she? Shall we lock her in your quarters until she calms down?”

“Where else is my woman gonna sleep. I’m certainly not trusting you to be in the same room as her.” Blackbeard said, moving an arm up around her throat. He wasn’t going to kill her. Just put enough pressure to knock her out. Cassie struggled, her throat constricting under his grasp. In an act of desperation, she did something she was probably going to regret, she reached up and pathetically tapped on his chest.

“Please… S-Stop…” Cassie gasped, hoping he’d keep from knocking her out completely.

“Hm? What is this now?” Blackbeard looked down to her and released his grip a fraction. Just so that if it was a trick he could continue choking her till she lost consciousness for her own safety.

“You…” She swallowed a few gulps of air before looking up at him with half lidded violet eyes. “You’re right… You… You’re the only one that can give me what I truly want…”

Blackbeard wasn’t sure he believed her. Not so soon after refusing him. And yet she looked so pathetic that he had no choice but allow his ego to inflate.

“What I want… Is to live. And…” Cassie swallowed again, her throat still aching a bit. “To overthrow Whitebeard… H-He doesn’t… He doesn’t deserve power. I was blind…”

“It’s okay. You were lied to. But I will change all of that. For now, sleep.” Blackbeard said hating that he had to do this to Cassandra, but it was the only way to make sure that she didn’t trick him into letting her go. “I promise that this will be easier if you do.”

Cassie let out a choked gasp as his arm reapplied the pressure before she pressed against his form, sweat dotting her brow. She wasn’t dead, that was the important part of all of this. Not that he would’ve killed her anyway, but now she had her insurance. She just had to keep up the act until they reached another port.

“I know you are confused, but I swear this will make sense. Once we leave here I will get you a Seastone necklace. I’ll keep you safe so you never have to fight again.” Blackbeard said strengthening his hold on her neck. “This hurts me more than it is hurting you Cassie.”

“We’d best leave, Captain. Wouldn’t want Straw Hat to get too far ahead of us.” Lafitte chuckled watching the red head go limp in his grasp.

“Zehahahahah! Let’s go boys.” Blackbeard said pulling Cassie up into his arms. Now that he had her, he wasn’t going to let her go. At least not until they were far enough out to sea where there was no chance of escape.

[kitten-and-crow]

Kuro Art Prompts

Here are a few Kuroshitsuji (and Godchild) art prompts that I’m considering doing, but that you are more than welcome to use.

The ones crossed out are the ones that I’ve already decided to use. You can still use it though. I’ll be deleting the line-item after I’ve posted the picture.

Alois and Ciel: Rivals: Polite hatred? 

Beast: BeastMaster: Close-up pin-up of beast with a whip (Betty?)

Beast: Natural Beauty: A softer version of beast without her circus get-up.

Beast: Elephant Rider: Circus pic.

Beast: Training Betty. 

BeastxDoll: Fairies.

BeastxJoker: Little Performers. 

BeastxSebastian: Under My Umbrella.-Couple Pic.

CainxMerryweather: Cover Art Draw-like Yuki’s.

CainxMerryweather: Big Brother: A precious pic w Merryweather being proud of her older brother.-Mine!

CainxMerryweather: His Shadow: Merry following Cain like a little duckling.

Ciel: Restrained: Ciel in a corset and restraints.

Ciel: Devil’s Bride: I just want to see him in a wedding dress.

Ciel: The Blue Star: A little space prince-type thing.

Ciel: School Boy Uniform

Ciel: Caged Bird: Lady Ciel in a Cage.

Ciel: Nautical Victorian Pic.

Ciel: Adult Ciel (maybe with Sebastian still??)

Ciel: King of Hearts

Ciel2: Nautical Victorian Portrait.

Ciel2: Future Queen’s Watchdog. -Military Uniform. 

Cielx2: The Shining: Evil twins with weapon. 

Cielx2: My Toy!

Cielx2: Victorian Portrait

Cielx2: Victorian Portrait2-with Sebastian (the dog)

Cielx2: Staring Contest

Cielx2: Voices in My Head: R!Ciel’s ghost haunting the mind of O!Ciel.

Cielx2: Nautical Victorian Pic.

Cielx2: Victorian Portrait-Younger.

Cielx2: Skull Illusion. 

Cielx2: Fem versions.

Cielx2: Tweedledee and Tweedledum

CielxLizzy: Forever: Wedding day!-Couple Pic.

CielxLizzy: Childhood Porait

CielxLizzy: Beauty and the Beast-like Yana’s.-Couple Pic.

Ciel2xLizzy: Death of Love: Dark murderous pic with real ciel. -Dark Couple Pic.

Ciel2xLizzy: Victorian Portrait-Couple Pic! Awkward on his part. 

CielxSebastian: Butler Eternal: Ciel as Sebastian’s demon overlord. 

CielxSebastian: Hellsing Xover.

Claudia: Victorian Portrait. 

Dog!Sebastian: Victorian Portrait.

Doll: Circus Girl: Simple portrait.

Doll: Princess of the Circus

Doll: Doll: As an actual doll.

Doll: Natural Beauty

Doll: Baroque

Frances: Sailing Forth: BOA snapshot

Frances: Victorian Portrait.

Joker: Bleached: as a Pierrot. 

Lizzy: Wedding Blues: Crying bride Lizzy.

Lizzy: Sleeping Alice (alice in wonderland)

Lizzy: Victorian Portrait.

Lizzy: Princess Lizzy.

Lizzy: Sweet Shoppe Lolita.

Lizzy: Close-Up.-Beauty.

Lizzy: Ballet with a Bite: Fencing ballerina.

Lizzy: Captive. imprisoned.

Lizzy: Little Girl. Vulnerable Lizzy w stuffed animal.

Lizzy: Modern Portrait.

Lizzy: In BOA outfit-ripped and bloody (with swords if possible)

Lizzy: Ninja.

Lizzy: Xmas Sweater.

Lizzy: BOC costume.

Lizzy: Nautical Victorian Portrait. 

LizzyxCharlesGrey: Feud: Fencing.

LizzyxDog!Sebastian: Victorian Portrait. 

LizzyxFrances: Mommy and Me: A Victorian portrait. 

LizzyxFrances: Mommy and Me: Full-length Victorian portrait.

LizzyxFrances: Mommy and Me-Xmas version. 

LizzyxMerryweather: Victorian Portrait. 

LizzyxSullivan: Victorian Portrait

LizzyxSullivan: Little Fairies 

LizzyxSulivan: Modern Ver-w flowers. 

Madam Red: Fashionista.

Madam Red: Queen of Hearts.

Madam Red: Pinup.

Madam Red: Sorrowful Youth-haunting.

Madam Red: Youth: Victorian Portrait.

Madam RedxCielx2: Victorian Portrait.

Madam RedxGrell: Santa and Mrs. Clause

Madam RedxRachel: Sisters: Cute little girls playing together. 

Madam RedxRachel: Victorian Portrait.

Madam RedxRachel: Haunted Portrait

Madam RedxRachel: Fairies 

Merryweather: Victorian Portrait.

Merryweather: Girl w Doll: A simple, precious image. 

Meyrin: Pinup.

Meyrin: Black Widow

Mikaila: Living Dead Girl-in the graveyard.

Mikaila: Miss. Psychotic: Homicidal maniac with weapons. 

Nina: Miss Independent

PeterxWendy: Wicked Children: Kind of evil looking. 

Ranmao: Geisha (a take on her Season 2 outfit).

Sebastian: Sit Like a Boss: Or like a man that takes up too much space.

Sebastian: Kitty Love. Sebastian with a cat.

Sebastian: Betty.

Sebastian: Stripper.

Sebastian: Maid

Sullivan: Victorian Portrait.

Sullivan: Victorian Portrait as the Green Witch.

Sullivan: Little Girl: Playing with toys like a normal child for once.

Sullivan: Little Witch: Halloween Costume-Young. 

Sullivan: Dr. Alice.-In Blue Cult Arc. outfit. 

Undertaker: The Corpse Bride: Dancing with skeletons. 

VincentxRachel: Love’s Gaze-Couple Pic!

VincentxRachel: Happy Wedding!-Couple Pic!

Multiple: Visage in Sapphire: Have the broken sapphire shards of the Phantomhive ring show the previous lords.

Multiple: Meyrin, Beast, Madam Red as Fairies

Multiple: Victorian Portrait: Phantomhive family portrait-Parents and Children.

Multiple: Reapers (all)-suit and tie

Multiple: Harry Potter Xover

Mutliple: Sailor Moon Xover

Multiple: Precious Girls of Springtime: Merryweather, Lizzy, Sullivan

Multiple: Lizzy, R!Ciel, O!Ciel: Mad Tea Party (Cute Edition)

Multiple: LIzzy, R!Ciel, O!Ciel: Mad Tea Party (Dark Edition)

Multiple: Peter, Wendy, and Doll: Little Performers. 

Multiple: Xmas pic of angel Rachel watching over sleeping twins

Multiple: Tarot card set

Multiple: Iconic Series: Kuro characters as famous/popular characters from other fandoms

*The ‘x’ between characters does not denote a ship. 

[juniperpublishers-fashion-b-blog]

Fashion and Death Ethnographic Explorations on Ubiquitous Styles - Juniper Publishers

Abstract

My anthropological glance will focus one a fashion shows in Rio de Janeiro and a “passista” carioca in the carnival 2011; a Karl Lagerfeld’s fetish design (body-corpse); a bizarre mannequin I met in Belem (Brazil). I’ll try to demonstrate the deep connection between living body and death corpse in a meta-fetishist perspective and - by the meta-morphic dialogue written by Giacomo Leopardi - on fashion and death (Figure 1).

Fashion Rio

The model is stationary, as a doll-like, in the sense of “dollifyng” her body: an empty gaze directed towards nothing, both arms inert by her side, her legs in a hopelessly waiting. The trained eroptic (8) eye targets her without hesitation, not so much the bikini, but what is tattooed just above her pubis: a vida não é assim, nunca, para nem para sempre (‘life is not like this, never and even less for ever’). A philosophical statement presented by fashion as a reflective affirmation of itself. A meta-communication of the profound meaning of ‘what’ is actually fashion. Rio’s designer is a philosopher as much as Zaha Hadid. Philosopher in both, the show composition and the public / pubic text tattooed for the observer’s sexualized eyes. From this ‘eroptic’ dimension, I offer two reflections based on dialogues with two poets-essayists, Horace and Leopardi [1].

Horace

The Roman poet known for his proposition on time that, in the unsurpassed simplicity of the Latin language, offers an oblique perspective through which time can be observed. Indeed, a time that is not only Kronos, as the Greek masters taught, but also Kairos: a nonlinear time, less mathematic and relentless time in its orderly flow, but also casual, random, sudden as his god. Indeed, Kairos’ hair is just in front, placed forward whilst his back is bald. When he presents himself, a unique, unrepeatable, irregular opportunity faces the subject and, if missed, taking it back will be impossible as his hair is just in front of his head. Carpe diem ... this famous ‘carpe’ refers to Kairos’ hair, passing quickly, before our undecided eyes. For this uncertain reason, life is not what the “usual” pubis seems to offer: Eros’ pleasure is ephemeral and it does not exist forever in this carnal temporality. So, the carioca designer is a kind of philosopher who addresses every glance from the model body to the bikini style and finally to her tattoo. My emotive reflection about the style is crossing through the three contiguous but not identical panoramas. And the last one, the tattoo, is offered as a novel (or a myth) that threatens the model’s beauty: in every moment, the doll-like body may become a skeleton, a pile of dismembered bones without any connection. In my fantasy, this reflexive fashion designer updates the famous sentence of Horace in an original composition: he reinvents and accentuates the seduction of the unrepeatable and unstoppable caducity [2].

Leopardi

The poet of Recanati was also an essayist. In his “Operette Morali”, Leopardi plays a philosophical dialogue between Fashion and Death, with a capital D because both are living beings. Fashion is what defies Death: she says they are sisters, claiming a deep consanguineous affinity between them; she explains to the hasty Death that they are both daughters of transience.

Fashion: I am Fashion, your sister.

Death: My sister?

Fashion: Yes, don’t you remember that were both born from transience?

Death: What I remember is that memory is my capital enemy.

She, the Fashion herself, cannot tolerate the life of a present dress, that’s why she imagines how to eliminate it with the next trend. The fashion, better saying, Fashion, as a person without the article, cannot stand what is alive and present. She-Fashion looks at the impeccable design of a transience dress that is quiet obsolete when it is worn even for the first time: in the wrinkles of cloth, folds of flesh have already traced what makes it old, oldfashioned not in the sense of antiquate but in the sense of a recent one. Only the revival of vintage retains the buried items (hidden in attics, drawers and warehouses) and makes it rise again with a sense of chic. This Leopardi’s affinity between Fashion and Death sparks reflections and phantasmagoria. Buying new clothes is not just a quirk of the consumption more or less encouraged by news agencies or advertising: it is a challenge to feel alive, to become life, to challenge through the new style the heaviness of the older one. What was just worn, is already assimilated as dead. There is something of theology in Fashion that challenges eternity with its creatures. One talks about Fashion creation, but in effect, they seem more like creatures: a concept, as some may remember, that challenges the only possible creativity, at least according to Christianity - the divine one... A Fashion show has something about agrarian archaic rituals that, at the end of winter, not only celebrated but favoured (‘caused’) spring’s arrival and with it the rebirth of the floral nature, frozen by wintry season.

I say that our nature and common custom is to continually renew the world”, Fashion explains. This generative cult is what makes Fashion and Death sisters: both make life reborn because both cut off what is alive; Leopardi clearly expressed the reason for this decisive act: “As if I were not immortal”, Fashion proudly replies when Death threats to fetch her; and then Death, intrigued by this bold statement, questions more information to her unexpected sister. And Fashion’s answer is brilliant [3].

Well, although it is not good manners to speak plainly, and though in France nobody speaks so as to be heard, yet, since we are sisters and need not stand on ceremony with each other, I’ll speak as you wish. I say, then, that the tendency and operation common to us both is to be continually renewing the world. But whereas you have from the beginning aimed your efforts directly against the bodily constitutions and the lives of men, I am content to limit my operations to such things as their beards, their hair, their clothing, their furniture, their dwellings, and the like. Nevertheless, it is a fact that I have not failed at times to play men certain tricks not altogether unworthy to be compared to your own work; as, for example, boring men’s ears, or lips, or noses, and lacerating them with the trinkets which I place therein; or scorching their bodies with hot irons, which I persuade them to apply to their persons by way of improving their beauty. Then again, I sometimes squeeze the heads of their children with ligatures and other appliances, rendering it obligatory that all the inhabitants of a country should have heads of the same shape, as I have ere now accomplished in America and Asia. I also cripple mankind with shoes too small for their feet, and stifle their respiration, and make their eyes nearly start out of their heads with tightly laced corsets, and many more follies of this kind. In short, I contrive to persuade the more ambitious of mortals daily to endure countless inconveniences, sometimes torture and mutilation, aye, and even death itself, for the love they bear toward me. I say nothing of the headaches, and colds, and catarrhs, and fevers of all sorts, quotidian, tertian, and quartan, which men contract through their worship of me, inasmuch as they are willing to shiver with cold or stifle with heat at my command, adopting the most preposterous kinds of clothing to please me, and perpetrating a thousand follies in my name, regardless of the consequences to themselves.

In short, all the previous practices and also the current ones (from tattooing to piercing, from the brand of fire and cranial or bone deformation) are anticipated and offered to Death’s listening, and to all of us, who - still alive - are listening this Leopardi’s lesson. At the beginning of XIX century (1824), for the poet fashionquestion is much more complex than contemporary common sense or simplistic sociology have been imagined: fashion as as conspicuous consumption, manipulated homologation or a caprice to be ‘up-to-date’. Fashion emerging in the Western culture is not a simply dressing up, she first affirms herself globally, then is reworked locally and finally she presents glocal fragments, in which styles of different cultures are coexisting in a body assemblage made of fabrics, stitching, accessories, makeup, folds that the designer draws and each subject adapts or reworks to his/her own figure. Fashion incorporates the anxiety of changing an identity as one, a fixed and packaged identity, an ambivalent anxiety that characterizes a currently cultural dynamics toward continuous inventions under the sign of extreme diversities. Presenting Fashion as a whole is almost impossible: she has a multiverse that does not coincide with cool designers, pret-a-porter productions, discounts department stores, fake imitations, outlets with delayed brands, immortal vintage, individual recycling and etc. Fashion is immortal and metamorphic. Her destiny is to delete or to melt all that is solid because its immanent fate is mutation - where life pulses. She is immortal and polytheistic: there is no fashion god, but a brotherhood and competitive different deities who, each in their specificities, marks the future as philosophers were used to imagine few decades ago. If now philosophers are silent and rethinking only about their past history, with no desire or ability to interpret nor to change the present, it is because philosophy migrated to visual artists or street artists, fashion or sound designers. Zaha Hadid, Pan Sonic, Gaetano Pesce or Cindy Sherman emanate philosophy with their liberationist speeches, dissonant architectures, compulsive music, eccentric design, and mutant photos. They use a different alphabet from the one based on words: sensorial concepts that can conquer each person and anticipate what will be an innovative way of thinking about public/private body’s aesthetics. This dichotomy is perhaps even questioned by a few daring designers. Some of these, Armani, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen are to be placed on the same level of Zaha Hadid. They have their own philosophy [4].

So, in addition to the words written above the pubis, what does the model, or Fashion, says? The words are ambiguous and can be read in a traditional, almost obvious sense, and then in a more complex one. “Life based on the desire for sex, insolently shown in this catwalk, not only will never be forever like this, ever, but even now it is not so. In fact, what I show is the bright object of desire, a mix of bikini and vagina, but none will ever be yours, not now or never. So, please surrender, you male and female spectators to a vision at a distance that represses you to the same extent that excites. This object of desire is not to be given to you, not in the past, much less in your future. And then I, my own self, will never be like this to you nor to anybody else, even if I wear or show it. Never. That’s why I assimilated myself to an amorphous doll, a half-living thing and a half death body. My seductive bodycorpse is dedicated to Madame Death, my inspiring aunt, because I know that, even incorporating at least for now a carnal Fashion, soon I will be rotting flesh and my caducity will be the triumph of my relentless sister. I am only a temporary appearance. I am here to affirm The Triumph of Fashion and Death. Buying a piece of fashion is booking death in advance. I said ...”.

And that is what whispers the model, a caducous still life, a sublime beauty that is undoing the triumphant exposition of her body and writing in front of immobile spectators. Following my synchretic and fetish perspective, I find a “caducity” affinity with a Samuel Cirnansck’s fashion show in Rio de Janeiro. Some models parade with their body covered with very traditional veils and fabrics. One of these stops with her hands on her hips as if challenging the viewers, showing bizarre fingers ringed with black cylinders that anticipate her menacing nails just as black. Has long been that accessories are no longer marginal, but they became as essential as the rest of the performance. At large, everything is an essential accessory in a catwalk. But here, a special accessory emerges: the mordaça de ferro (scold’s bride). What impressed me most is to see that this parade takes place in Rio, probably near the church Nossa Senhora do Rosario dedicated to the Escrava Anastasia‘s (‘Slave Anastasia’) cult: every models wear a mordaça as an accessory, without expressing a single tribute nor even mentioning the tragic and symbolic story concerning the whole Afro-Brazilian movement or the Anastasia’s liberationist role against slavery. Perhaps such a bizarre staging needs an interpretation. Of course, the key is the culture of fetishism that relentlessly expands in the different genres of contemporary sexualized communication. What was once a torture instrument, the gag, became now an accessory. This instrument owes its invention to the need of taming animals making them thus docile. Domesticated, in fact. The Western culture transferred this instrument from animals to human beings, especially heretics, a few centuries or perhaps a millennium later. These heretics were considered by the Catholic Inquisition not worth using the ultimate expression of humanity: the language (Figure 2).

Language is what differs animals from humans; hence, an heretic is not a human, being diminished to an animal state, having to be tamed and subordinated to a dominant ‘specific’ power that removes the right of the word whilst waiting for the final punishment. Giordano Bruno, philosopher and humanist, was burned alive in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome with a muzzle on. In the same period – around XVI century - another phenomenon changes Western political and cultural geography: the conquest (or the so called “descobrimento”) of America with its consequent imperative of imported slaves, whilst the native populations preferred to die than to work in such conditions. In this way, the rebel slaves coming from Africa have their mouth gagged, to show publicly that any slave was an animal, that s/he had to work in a domesticated way, eventually copulate and eat to survive. Toni Morrison - the great African-American writer - recreates in her novel Beloved what a person with a piece of iron in his teeth for 12-15 hours a day would feel. A madness withheld and violated by the capillaries of one’s reddened eyes, from the slow drool clotted on one’s lips, the heavy breathing and an explosive and diverted anger.

He wants me to ask him about what it is like for him – about how offended the tongue is, held down by iron, how the need to spit is so deep you cry for it. She already knew about it, had seen it time after time in the place before Sweet Home. Men, boys, little girls, women. The wildness that shot up into the eye the moment the lips were yanked back. Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye” (Morrison, 2004). And then, what does it means a fashion parade with this accessory inside the model mouth, in a country that last abolished slavery and in a city where Anastasia is venerated as a saint? (Figure 3).

The symbolic power of the slaver or heretic iron bit is decaying, it evaporates into a simple code through a de-symbolized process, an exciting sign is ambiguously parading between political amnesia and liberationist pleasure. A kind of s/m performance offers an apparent feminine submission playing with symbols and signs as gadget to be offered as a dark desire to the audience that may imagine some quiet private games. So, this model, as a Fashion’s amnestic body, fractures the historical link with the slavery past, cancels the force of the oppressive symbols, displays a seductive excess that dominates by showing herself as submissive ruling woman. And it is precisely this apparent submission that proclaims, in contrast, the triumph of fetishism. I’m sure that the visual proliferation of fetish current meanings expresses the subtle connection between Fashion and Death (Canevacci, 2015). In Leopardi determinant dialogue, visual fetishism is the missing link that manifests the deep sisterhood between these two restless Ladies through the impudent mordaça de ferro. Perhaps, Anastasia will not be scandalized by this tampering, maybe she perceives that - through the symbolic emptying of what was her instrument of torture - justice is finally served. Perhaps now Anastasia can finally smile and show those magnificent white teeth and her carnal lips that made very jealous the wife of the slave master, a wife in turn slave of a jealousy based on her classist privilege (Figure 4).

Karl Lagerfeld is a famous fashion designer. The obvious decision to add him to a research project on syncretism comes from this photo and a more general hypothesis: new visual fetishisms have in cultural syncretisms one of the potential applications in the field between the unstable and mutant zone of fashion and art. Visual fetishisms and cultural syncretisms develop the potentialiality of wandering arts. These are the ones oscillating among different genres and with the tendency to suppress boundaries. Lagerfeld designs clothes for humans; designers dress things, objects and goods. Coca-Cola has in its body, that is, in the body of the bottle and in its written vintage, its brand and style, perhaps even its taste. Coca-Cola’s feminine design form has been long discussed. Why is a sophisticated and dandy stylist as Lagerfeld entrusted to create the new look of the brand?

The first reflexion is simple: the body of the bottle is a bodycorpse, meaning that it transits between a living body and a dead corpse. This tendency of visual fetishisms distorts and amplifies the traditional analysis on the “nature” of fetish objects. Accordingly, this ambiguous drinkable body is always in need for new clothing and has to find temporary solutions between tradition and innovation. Examples are indeed endless on this subject. The interesting point here is that most classic products of mass culture do intersect an equally classic elite’s designer. The super fetish Karl. The mentioned dissolution of boundaries between genres is a gray area (or a brilliant one) where oscillating syncretism flows. To achieve a fit-for-purpose result, syncretisms hybridizes with fetishisms [5].

Whilst observing the picture with some sort of careful obsession, a few obvious points came up: the bottles are actually two, perhaps a male and a female version. Both are Coca Cola Light written with the traditional font but with different colour, so conscious and faithful consumers can even compute the calories swallowed from a glass of a coke. Above the drinkable brand, there is the designer brand: KARL in bold letters and LAGERFELD in thin ones. Below, the year of production is shown, like a vintage wine: 2011 - 1/3; 2/3. Looking with more attention, it is possible to discover on one side a black silhouette observing the result. Widening the perspective on methodological fetishism, my glance understands that the bottles are three: he, Lagerfeld, is the third bottle, a good between the goods, his value added is the fetish art he manages in order to incorporate himself into the two bottles. His dark identity transits between the polka dot and the sinusoidal striped dress on the bottles. It is well-known that Lagerfeld always dresses in the same way. Paradoxically, his diversified styles occurs whilst he wears always the same dress. A man in black with an eternal dandy collar, sacred accessories, impenetrable glasses as much as his face-mask is. Clearly, Karl Lagerfeld is also the hyphen ‘-‘ where syncretic fetishisms flows. He is the body-corpse creator. He objectifies himself as the third bottle, as much as he enlivens the other two with their glamorous clothes. The Coca-Cola bottles come to life and can be dressed like any human being, only because he assimilates himself to a living commodities. Observing a little bit closer, and even better, being a little bit naughty, one may notice that his body rests on one foot, in this way his silhouette creates a slight curve that accompanies both bottles’ sensual curve (the sexiest coke hips). Finally, Lagerfeld’s crossed arms assimilate even more him to the two ‘persons’ on his side. Everybody lack of arms.

These three beings are perhaps trans-gender. The final result of this fetishism/syncretism crossing reaches the sex-game: visual goods, with their hyper-sexed design that spreads and mixes organic and inorganic, nature and culture, mass consumption and elite’s art, are alive because they transit between identities, styles and beings (Figure 5). Belém is a city on the source of the Amazon River. As all of Brazil, Belém is changing fast, the co-presence of different codes is even more enlarged than the ‘normal’. The city’s markets are an excess of colours and flavours, as its craftsmanship and, off the coast, the large island of Marajó where traces of pottery and other products of great beauty were left by a refined ancient culture. Whilst casually visiting a popular market on a large, beautiful and messy square, I was drawn to a mannequin. Clearly, this was a mannequin of Chinese origin, as nearly all popular ones everywhere, not only in Brazil. I believe the production of these beings have really invaded the world. Yet, here I am, blocked by astonishment looking at her. I reckon it is a spontaneous work of art in which, once again, the ‘objective’ fetishism built into each mannequin is crossed and augmented by some sort of Sino-Brazilian syncretism. Colour is the first thing: a well-defined orange I have never ever seen on any another mannequin or person for the matter, Chinese or Brazilian. A mutant being for sure, I reckon. Then, a missing arm, the left one, leaving an emptiness that looks like a round eye-mouth hollow yawning its surroundings [6].

The most disturbing ‘thing’ is her head: clearly detached, perhaps lacking internal support, like the cervical one, properly connecting it to the torso. Right there in the usual spot, slightly tilted though, looking like a guillotined head that has been put back into place simply to enhance the show. A baldhead with such a smooth skull looking like no wig would remain seated there. Finally, the eyes: the mannequin’s eyes and even the eyebrows expressed infinite sadness, something I have never seen in other mannequins, usually displaying a dull face, rather expressionless. Here, however, the pain is obvious, something terrible must have happened to this mannequin; of course, the arm is missing; the head, detached; all hair is long gone; but it is not only that. Mannequins are used to such misfortunes. This one, however, must have suffered a recent experience that printed in her physiognomy a sense of anguish, anxiety, perhaps even horror due an encounter or even a terrible fate. Eyebrows and lips are bent down, its eyes troubled and plain sad.

Go to

Dismembered Body

Maybe this mannequin feels it might be a work of art, living art, jetting globally around galleries and museums; perhaps it feels its destiny, created by an artist or artisan, is unique. Maybe it is not like the other mannequins, always a bit vulgar and yet, ever so identical. This one is unique. It is the only one expressing these unusual colours and a dismembered body. Certainly, the mannequin cannot exactly recall how it happens to land there, in that beautiful square, but surely, not worthy of her status. Her memory is confused. Clearly, a princess she is. Her extreme nobility is expressed by her behaviour, which continues to be dignifying even in such disastrous and inadequate situation.

I understand very well what disturbs her more than anything: it is the bra she wears. Really ugly, she knows, the mannequin feels it. How is that possible that her person is forced to expose herself with such an … awful object. Yes, the bra is handmade, but is not gracious, it is too wide, with three strings attaching behind. Who would buy a similar object? And how long was she forced to wear that cover, thankfully other garments cover her bottoms, also not appropriate but eventually bearable. No, not the bra, though. If the mannequin had both arms and a less stiff neck, she might have been able to take it off and proudly show her beautiful orange breasts. But she cannot. And her dismay increases, becoming rather uncontrollable, reaching out and making even me worried. would have loved to buy that orange woman-mannequin. I thought about it for a long time whilst going around her in circles. Truth is, this was an encounter with a well-lived work of art, one that has travelled and suffered, that resists despite or because of her semiabandoned condition. She should really be displayed again, as in her recent past, in a wandering art gallery.

Her beauty is vague. Vague is the only appropriate adjective to her bodily condition. The madam of that outdoor stall, seen in the background, was an elegant woman, mastering her movements, organizer of her goods. What kept me from asking her about the price of the orange mannequin, was the idea of travelling by plane with her. I was embarrassed with the idea of having she sat next to me, whilst departing to São Paulo and the other travellers giggling. I was an incompetent or a coward. I abandoned setting she free from her current fate, saddened as the expression on her face, only because of my timid hypocrisy. And the mannequin, so shiny and sweaty, dismembered and erected, so sad and resolute, royal, would lie abandoned who knows where. She is a spontaneous work of art, mixing and exposing all the syncretic fetishism of its body-corpse. A mannequin, travelled from different continents and cultures, incorporating the ambiguous desire of a being that is still alive even in most disastrous situations. For me, it / she is more attractive and desirable than the other three hyper-fetish human bottles previously observed. She is alive and vague.

My final cut on fashion: Madame Fashion is and even more will be ubiquitous, syncretic, plyphonic, meta-fetishit and metamorphic

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4-Year-Old Learns Important Lessons by Dressing Up as Great Women of the World

4-year-old Ana recently dressed up as Wonder Woman. (Photo: _analabanana/Twitter)

Daniela Peña, who goes by @_analabanana on Instagram, has found a fashionable and fun way to teach her 4-year-old daughter, Ana, about powerful and influential women in the world.

The mother and daughter, who hail from Bogotá, Colombia, team up to recreate famous images of women — similar to the way that others, including this Brooklyn family, have used Instagram for stylish teaching moments. As a fashion designer, Peña developed the idea for the Instagram account when Ana was even younger than 4.

“I choose to stay home with Ana to take care of her, and that was a decision I made with my husband. At the beginning, it was a lot of free time because she was napping a lot because she was a baby. Then she grew, and she was enjoying it a lot,” Peña tells Yahoo Style on the evolution of the account. “She was saying, ‘I want this and I want that!’ She really loved posing for the pictures. One day I found a book for kids, and it was telling stories of great women of the world.”

Ana has dressed up as a number of notable women in history, film, and pop culture — many of whom have made great contributions to society. She recently dressed up as the popular superheroine Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jun 16, 2017 at 2:19pm PDT

“Ana got really excited when I told her we were dressing up as a superhero from a movie,” Peña shares on her daughter’s costume.

Diana Princess of the Amazons, trained Warrior, Wonder Woman was designated by the United Nations as its Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, a gesture intended to promote gender equality and empowerment of women and girls.

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jun 16, 2017 at 2:08pm PDT

“She got even more excited when she learned about Wonder Woman — a female superhero who was a princess but also a warrior with super strength,” Peña says.

She needed a hero. So that's what she became.

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jun 16, 2017 at 2:09pm PDT

“You can see the fierceness in Ana’s face in the pictures she really got into the heroine character,” Peña shares. “She also learned how she can be like Wonder Woman in her life by believing in her strength and fighting for what she believes!”

Ana also recently copied Emma Stone’s look for her character Mia in La La Land.

Mia (Emma Stone) La La Land "Here's to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem. Here's to the hearts that ache. Here's to the mess we make. She captured feeling, sky with no ceiling, the sunset inside with rain."

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Feb 27, 2017 at 9:27am PST

Peña captioned the image, “Mia (Emma Stone) La La Land ‘Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem. Here’s to the hearts that ache. Here’s to the mess we make. She captured feeling, sky with no ceiling, the sunset inside with rain.”

She also made a miniversion of Emma Watson’s look from the Paris premiere of Beauty and the Beast. The caption notes that the actress’s custom Louis Vuitton dress was created from used plastic bottles.

Emma Watson  is making the rounds on a press tour for her forthcoming movie Beauty and the Beast, and taking on a little fashion activism on the way With a Custom @louisvuitton dress designed by @nicolasghesquiere and created from used plastic bottles.

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Feb 22, 2017 at 11:33am PST

Peña “loves” Watson because she’s “a role model that I want for my kid who teaches girls that they can be intelligent, and that beauty is not only what you can see with your eyes but something that’s in your soul.”

The dress that Peña created for her daughter looks very similar to Watson’s Louis Vuitton frock, designed by the creative director of the house, Nicolas Ghesquière. Peña’s creation appeared to impress Ghesquière, as he liked the three posts she shared of her daughter wearing the homemade piece.

Watson’s stylist, Rebecca Corbin-Murray, also appeared to love the re-creation. She posted the image with the caption, “Major fashionista in the making!! Never too young to love fashion — and never too young to care about where your clothes come from and who made them!”

In the past, Ana has channeled others who have made an impact in the fashion industry. In early February, the 4-year-old sported a blond wig, black sunglasses, and a sleek black coat with white sandals to mirror Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue.

Anna Wintour

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Feb 7, 2017 at 1:50pm PST

She dressed up as another Vogue icon — the magazine’s creative director at large and renowned stylist, Grace Coddington — a month before.

Grace Coddington, The Greatest Living Stylist

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jan 18, 2017 at 5:38pm PST

For this costume, she slipped on a rather large red wig — similar to Coddington’s signature untamed mane — and a black jacket.

Another fashion figure Ana has emulated? Jackie Kennedy. In December 2016, Ana wore a red coat, with a matching hat and white gloves, that mirrored the Oleg Cassini suit that Kennedy wore in 1961.

Jacqueline Kennedy

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Dec 3, 2016 at 10:47am PST

She even posed as Coco Chanel! “Gabrielle Bonheur ‘Coco’ Chanel was a very talented and creative French fashion designer and businesswoman,” Peña wrote in the lengthy caption of the image.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a very talented and creative French fashion designer and businesswoman In 1917 She was so inspired by the sailors’ uniform that she incorporated the stripes into her nautical collection. The casual design helped break away from the heavily corseted fashion of the time, changing the world of Fashion Forever. There is a special set of books: "little people big dreams" biography books for children about inspiring women. A major inspiration for this project. Thank You @mariaisabelsanchezvegara and @ana__albero ❤️

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on May 30, 2017 at 3:38am PDT

“In 1917, she was so inspired by the sailors’ uniform that she incorporated the stripes into her nautical collection,” she continued. “The casual design helped break away from the heavily corseted fashion of the time, changing the world of fashion forever. There is a special set of books: ‘little people big dreams’ biography books for children about inspiring women. A major inspiration for this project.”

Another influential figure Ana is inspired by? Rosa Parks. She created Parks’ famous booking photo from her February 1956 arrest, with her hair pulled up in braids and wearing oversize glasses.

This wonderful woman is Rosa Parks she was a very influential leader and I admire that she continued to fight for a better life for future generations until the day she passed.

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Feb 4, 2017 at 5:39am PST

“This wonderful woman is Rosa Parks she was a very influential leader and I admire that she continued to fight for a better life for future generations until the day she passed,” the caption reads. 

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was the subject of another hit re-creation on Instagram.

Frida

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Nov 16, 2016 at 2:21pm PST

“I told Ana the story of Frida, and she loved the story because when Frida was a little girl, she was very different from the other girls. That made her feel so special,” Peña explains to Yahoo Style. “When I told Ana the story, she loved it and told me she wanted to dress like Frida. So I did it.”

Peña teaches her daughter about each of the people she dresses up as. “I tried to choose people that were really inspiring — the stories of really empowering women,” Peña says. “That’s what I want for my kid. I started to think of course we love Disney princesses, but I don’t want her to think that the only role model she can have is to be a princess.” She continues, “I want her to think that she can be more like Princess Leia — she can be against the empire and fight with the rebels, things like that.”

Peña continued, “She’s always asking to dress like Princess Leia because we’ve seen the movie three times. She loves Star Wars.”

Princess Leia Organa

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Apr 10, 2017 at 1:49pm PDT

Ana’s favorite character so far? Rey, the great fictional female lead from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Rey

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Dec 14, 2016 at 2:54pm PST

Considering that Peña loves strong female characters, Mayim Bialik, an accomplished actress and neuroscientist, was another fitting costume choice. Ana dressed up as Bialik’s character, Amy Farrah Fowler, from The Big Bang Theory.

Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler • • • We live in a world where girls can assume a number of roles So here is a person that truly embodies brains and beauty. @missmayim is a mom, neuroscientist, actress and role model.

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jan 3, 2017 at 10:52am PST

“We live in a world where girls can assume a number of roles, so here is a person that truly embodies brains and beauty. @missmayim is a mom, neuroscientist, actress and role model,” Peña wrote in the caption. 

Other re-creations have included iconic female characters in history, like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy Gale

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Jan 25, 2017 at 6:13am PST

The duo really enjoys the process. “We also do costumes just for fun. She loves Toy Story and all the Pixar movies,” says Peña.

Bonnie Toy Story 3

A post shared by ANA (@_analabanana) on Nov 11, 2016 at 6:57am PST

Peña and Ana are excited about creating future costumes together.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

La La Anthony Tests Out Khloe Kardashian’s Denim Line

Mandy Moore Doesn’t Own a Scale: ‘It’s About How I Feel in My Skin’

Nicole Kidman Has Pulled Off a Lot of Risky Red Carpet Looks

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