#madame-helen

[macro-microcosm]

[Image description:

First image: What appears to be a TSA screening. A white screen contains blue text that reads "Are you a terrorist?" Beneath the text are two buttons that read "Yes" and "No." A hand overs over "No."

Second image: The decision button meme. One button is labeled "Make it on time to the flight." The other is labeled "See what happens if you press 'yes.'" A white gloved hand hovers between the two buttons.

Third image: Tags from tumblr user crappylineofbestfit. They read: "#my dad did this!! #turns out they do NOT let you get on the plane :)"

End description.]

[lutheban]

None of them are equivalent to eachother but you get the point

[altcvnningham]

waning moon

helen park x madam shell

summary: helen park sees the cracks in her lover's façade. (inspired by @mickstart and their amazing post on perhaps the most underrated ship of all time??) read on ao3

tags/cw: nsfw, wlw, angst, pre-cw, betrayal (but vaguely unspecified), light choking, younger woman/older woman, age gap, references to coercion, vague references to abuse of authority, so much bird imagery, doomed sapphics wc: 1.1k

a/n: i literally read @mickstart's park x shell (shellen???) post and got possessed, blacked out for an hour and wrote this. i have 0 memory of how i got here or what this means and though it isn't like 100% what the post was talking about it DID inspire me to spill out this ramble ab a character who has 0 canon appearances outside of dialogue. sorry for pretentious purple prose and rough editing!! it's 12am forgive me

She doesn’t know when she sees the change, but it slips in slow and sweet, like a paling knife glinting in the moonlight. How sand sifts to the bottom of an hourglass, she too feels just as suffocated under the weight of borrowed time.

Yet Shell’s eyes are paler still even in the dark, the waning moon of this interminable night, one that feels to Helen Park like the bookend of something. An answer, unspoken, but as implicit as though it had been there all along, a truth she’d known deep down but refused to acknowledge. And why would she? How could she? It had been three long years since Shell took her under her wing, her pretty little bird, three years that had changed everything. Irreparably. Even now as Park finds the pieces of it all scattered and frayed with Shell’s silent betrayal, she sees the beauty in each and every one, too besotted with the finer details to bear looking at the bigger picture.

Shell is lying.

She knows, more certain than she has ever been of anything in her life. As the older woman climbs languid atop her narrow hips, smothered in perfume bergamot and liquorice, plum coloured lips close over her own in a lazy mimicry of a kiss. Helen parts open her mouth, as she had her legs countless times, like a good little protégé, showing her madam just what she’s learned. All for her. Tongue hot as she kisses back with hooded, half-open eyes, curling around Shell’s like a proclamation. I know what you are. I know what you’re doing.

(And do you know, how powerless I am to stop you? As if I’d even try?)

And Shell knows it too. In the dark of this Parisian hotel room, blinds drawn to cast away the world’s prying eyes, she can see it on the girl’s face plain as day. Sweet Helen is a pretty thing, much too clever for her own good, but wears her heart on her sleeve, with eyes as big and shiny as a doe’s- and now hunting season had come for her sweet girl, and how wide they had looked at Shell upon her return, hands smothered in blood. Blood that she hadn’t bothered to scrub, knowing Helen had likely smelled it coppery on the air when she’d walked in. Her fingers are still tinged pink with it, even as she traipses them up the girl’s waist, cupping the plush undersides of her breasts.

That is to say, Helen isn’t the best at hiding her expressions. It’s what Shell had loved about her. The shrill gasps when Shell would come up behind her, grasping her waist in lieu of a polite excuse me; the way she’d avert her eyes shyly when she’d caught hers across a room, crowded, empty; how she’d been so young when Shell had met her, blushing like a schoolgirl at the mere whisper of praise; and how when Shell had asked her but a month later if she’d ever been touched before- properly, darling girl, like a lover might- Helen had flushed red and bright as a virgin. Perhaps she had been, too proud to admit it. For a girl who is as sharp as a knife and twice as lethal, Shell had held in her hands a mourning dove, cooing softly in her palm, willing to piece together its nest there. Right there. With her.

Now, not so much. Her songbird doesn’t sing as she used to, her eyes parsing through the fog she’d been happy to let Shell pull over them. Helen sees her for what she is now, and they both know it.

It isn’t a strange thing, what she’s doing. Not at all irregular. It’s a gesture Shell had exercised over her innumerable times before, a kind of sordid foreplay, staking her claim over her. Shell’s hands lay flat upon Helen’s sternum, her heart thrumming steady but beating violent as a war drum; the older woman smiles- how well she’s taught her. Calm, girl, slow breaths. Don’t let them see you falter. Don’t let them feel you shiver. Don’t let them hear you breathe. In the face of fear, Helen had grown around herself flesh of stone, unyielding. That doesn’t change, not even around Shell.

But this isn’t a test. This isn’t one of her many lectures, her teachings. Very rarely does Madam Shell separate work from pleasure, seeing the two overlap rather conveniently; but for Helen she had all the time in the world. Perhaps not after tonight, given what they both know now. But pleasure is a special thing she keeps locked in a drawer for Helen to pry open and play in, rifle curious fingers through until they snag on something that piques her interest.

And yet it always ends the same way. Like this. The older woman atop her, faraway look in her eye, warbled smile on her lips. Hands around neck.

Her fingers slide slow, deft, thumb parted to curl her hand around the pale column of Helen’s throat. And she can do nothing but be still for her mentor, her lover, holding her breath in wide-eyed submission, a devotion that spoke beyond words, beyond meaning. A kind of reverence she knows only Shell would understand, a stillness like prey clutched within a lioness’ maw. Playing dead, prettily.

Shell’s eyes fix upon her, steel grey boring into vivid green, alight with something akin to amusement; in the daytime, Helen mistakes the glint for adoration, something like love, when she’s drunk enough on Shell’s affections to believe it.

Now, in the waning moon of their last night together- as they are, as they could have been, if only she didn’t know what she knows at the very pit of her being is true- she recognises the errant flicker for what it is. Kindling. A struck match, willing to burn it all down, even if it means taking sweet Helen with her. Her mourning dove. Cast to the fire like everything else. For a terrifying moment, Park isn’t even sure she’d much mind it at all. Ashes to ashes, as they say.

And as Shell squeezes her hand soft and gentle around her favourite girl’s neck, Helen surrenders her head against the pillow, spilling back with a moan shrill like a song. It’s the last time she knows she’ll ever sing for her again, so she makes sure it’s a good one.

[zatdummesmadchen]

BLOCK 🚫

im going thru the notes of this dumbass zionist's top posts and blocking everyone who agrees with them and i keep having to take breaks for the sake of my blood pressure. i am going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet

[riversofmars]

Eighth Doctor out there collecting wlw companions like some kind of sticker book and honestly? Good for him!

[zlataisawsome]

ANYWAYS chuck e cheesers come get yo GRUB (rings dinner bell)

[contremineur]

Arthur Benda/Madame d'Ora, Helene Jamrich wearing a hat designed by Rudolf Krieser (1910)

from here

[fuckyeahcostumedramas]

Helen McCrory as Madame Kali in Penny Dreadful (TV Series, 2014-2016).

[beautifulgiants]

Penny Dreadful article - Radio Times I think, before season 1 premier in UK

[zippocreed501]

Helen McCrory as Evelyn Poole/Madame Kali 

Penny Dreadful

[nathalieskinoblog]

[who-platonic-ships]

Doctor Who Platonic Poll: Round 1, Teams 13

[thegueststargals]

hi!

we are the guest star gals!

History: we all used to work for chuck e cheese's pizza time theatre and now we're roommates!

the gals:

I used to sing disco songs, and I've widened the genres of songs I sing now! (i'll post the most probably!)

-Sally

📀💿

I sang Irish folk songs for Pizza Time and still do but not for Chuck E. Cheese anymore! (like Sally I'll probably post the most frequently!)

-Foxy

🍀

I'm a former country singer and currently dating Jasper <3 (I will post a lot but probably not as much as Foxy & Sally)

-Harmony

🤠

I'm from France and used to sing French songs at Pizza Time Theatre! (posting semi often!)

-its ✨MADAM OHNK✨ not Madame Oink 😚

🇫🇷

I'm a former Hollywood star and current Broadway star! (I'll probably post the least often because of that ^^)

-Helen

🎭

also Bella B. is friends with us and has access so she might post occasionally! -Sally

🦨

🦊

🐺

🐖

🐔

(the Wolf emoji is there because a coyote emoji doesn't exist yet! -Foxy)

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Here is Fluttershy examining Helena Blavatsky’s veil.

At the College of Psychic Studies, in London, England.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Could pink be Earth’s oldest color? That’s the implication of a 2018 study that found bright-pink pigments in 1.1 billion-year-old rocks — thanks to the fossils of the billions of tiny cyanobacteria that once dominated oceans.

The natural world has long been painted with every permutation of pink — whether embedded deep in ancient rock, sported by shrimp-hungry flamingoes, or simply lining the shores of Bermuda’s pink-sand beaches.

And yet the color carries a lot of cultural baggage.

As pink made the jump from nature’s palette to human adornment, it gathered connotations of colonialism, beauty, power, and gender.

How did pink become such a cultural flashpoint? As the world takes a revitalized interest in the hot-pink planet inhabited by Barbie, here’s a short history of the compelling color.

Admiration for pink in the ancient world

Early humans quickly transitioned from admiring pink in the natural world to attempting to wear it.

For example, in the Andes Mountains about 9,000 years ago, fierce hunters in what is now Peru wore tailored leather clothing with a pink hue thanks to red ochre, an iron oxide pigment that is one of the oldest natural pigments used by humans.

Humans weren’t content just to smear this pigment on cave walls or use it while tanning their leather garments.

As far back as ancient Egypt, humans used ochre to tint their lips and cheeks.

When applied to human skin, the red pigment created a blush-like pink that onlookers associated with love, sexuality, and beauty.

Lookalike concoctions prevailed around the world, employing everything from crushed strawberries to red amaranth.

The color of cosmetics—and colonialism

Though the word’s etymology is unknown, the word “pink” was used to describe the color in the 18th century.

By then, pink had become inextricably tied with colonialism — as demand for the pigment for cosmetics drove Europeans to harvest natural resources in other parts of the world.

For example, in a bid to make pinkish pigments from the bark and red sap of brazilwood trees, European traders forced enslaved workers to cut down so many of Brazil’s eponymous trees that the country was left deforested and the tree nearly driven extinct.

During this Era of Exploration, consumers also got their pink cheeks and lips from other pigments like carmine, derived from cochineal insects harvested in Central and South America under similar conditions.

Meanwhile, the color also had a more literal association with colonialism:

During this time, the British Empire grew so massive that the color pink — which mapmakers used to mark its territories worldwide — dominated the world map.

Pink becomes a bona fide fashion craze

As red tints became more accessible and cheaper, 18th-century European aristocrats indulged a passion for pink.

Art historian Michel Pastoureau writes that “the most privileged classes of European society wanted pastels, halftones, and the newest innovations in color shades in order to distinguish themselves from the middle classes, who now had access to bright, strong, and reliable colors.”

Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV of France during the 1740s and 1750s, used the color as a signature.

The artists who painted her and created fine objects for her many homes used pink in all their designs, even her carriages, and she helped further popularize the hue throughout Europe.

The emergence of synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century — which gave rise to the purple-pink color known as mauve — made pink more accessible than ever before.

By the 1930s, bright pink had become a bona fide fashion craze.

Avant-garde fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli made “shocking pink” her signature color, helping spread the vogue for women’s wear.

It worked: By 1935, even local newspapers like the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, were declaring that “PINK IS FAVORITE.”

And in 1939, a royal commentator wrote in London’s Daily Telegraph that pink was so popular, it was nearly ubiquitous for both bridesmaids and debutantes.

“So general is the pink craze,” the paper wrote, “that some women are rebelling against it.”

Pink is for…boys?

Around the same time, pink gained relevance in another realm: baby fashion.

Gender and baby fashion had intersected for years; around World War I, etiquette guides and fashion advice columns began advising that mothers dress their children in clothing with gender-specific hues.

But which colors? A 1927 retailer survey on infant clothing colors published in TIME shows a split nation, with retailers like Filene’s and Marshall Field’s recommending pink for boys, but Macy’s, Bullock’s, and others claiming pink was best for girls.

By the 1960s, however, mothers began buying pink clothing for their female babies, dressing their male children in pastel blues.

“None of this transition happened by childcare expert fiat or industry proclamation,” writes historian Jo B. Paoletti.

Instead, pink gained steam as a signifier of a baby’s female sex as part of a post-World War II push to reinforce traditional gender roles in American homes — and the realization by retailers that they could make more money that way.

“The more baby clothing could be designed for an individual child — and sex was the easiest and most obvious way to distinguish babies — the harder it would be for parents to hand down clothing from one child to the next, and the more clothing they would have to buy as their family grew,” Paoletti writes.

Soon, retailers featured entire “pink aisles” packed with pink-colored clothing and toys for tiny consumers.

The dark side of pink

Pink was also rejected by some as a symbol of weakness or even sinister intent.

In Nazi Germany, for example, the color was used to brand gay men in concentration and death camps.

As the Cold War emerged, suspected Communist sympathizers were given the derogatory name of “pinkos” — a term that referred to a person with “red” tendencies toward radical politics.

Meanwhile, members of the women’s liberation movement attempted to distance themselves from a color that had become inextricably linked with femininity and sexuality — think: Marilyn Monroe slinking down a staircase in a shocking pink gown, surrounded by tuxedoed men.

Anti-feminists, meanwhile, embraced pink.

Author Helen B. Andelin, for example, made public appearances in all-pink ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s during lectures encouraging women to abandon feminism and embrace lives as housewives.

Reclaiming pink

Pink remains associated with femininity to this day — but in recent decades, groups once disdainfully branded with the color have made moves to reclaim it.

In the LGBTQ community, for example, people who were once forced to wear pink as outcasts have adopted the hue as a symbol of their movement for social justice.

In 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) adopted a bubble-gum pink triangle in its “Silence = Death” campaign to increase awareness of HIV-AIDS and destigmatize the disease.

It was just one example of pink being used to represent gay pride.

Some feminists have also reclaimed the color, fighting gender stereotypes with a tongue-in-cheek adoption of all shades of rose, fuchsia, and bubble-gum pink.

At the 2017 Women’s March, for example, a sea of protesters wearing pink, cat-eared “pussy hats” protested the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose lewd remarks about female genitalia during a leaked interview drew worldwide condemnation.

Today, pink is what you make of it — and it has grown in popularity once more.

In 2016, Pantone announced that a shade of dusty pink — dubbed Millennial Pink for the generation that had embraced it—was its Color of the Year.

This year, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie helped fuel the rise of the pink-drenched “Barbiecore” aesthetic, inspiring admirers to saturate their homes and wardrobes with every shade of pink.

According to Axios, searches for the term “Barbiecore aesthetic room” rose over 1,000 percent between May 2022 and May 2023, reflecting consumers’ craving for as-pink-as-possible interiors.

There’s no telling which permutation of pink will captivate us next — but given the colorful history of the hues that fall somewhere between white and red, pink’s next heyday is probably right around the corner.

Barbie would approve of the pink petals on this beach morning glory.

Pink flowers like this one get their rosy tinge from a group of biological pigments called anthocyanins, which attract pollinators — and human admirers — to colors ranging from the palest carnation to the most ostentatious tropical fuchsia.