#mail order catalogues

[nudeartpluspoetry]

And the Montgomery Ward catalogue.

[vintageweddingdresses]

JC Penney Spring Bridal 1997 (1 of 2 posts, 31 scans total)

Because Tumblr continues to lose money, I fully expect it to disappear at any time. If this happens I'll simply move somewhere else and keep sharing my scan collection. Should this blog disappear you can contact me at magscans@nym.hush.com and I'll let you know where I've moved to.

[scrappopmania]

Quelle Catalog Spring / Summer 1969 PDF E-Book (with watermark)

Catalogue: Quelle Spring / Summer 1969 Pages: 579 Published: 1969 Language: German Size: 1,11 GB Format: PDF E-Book (digital product)

You will receive high quality PDF scans with a watermark from my Etsy shop.

This is perfect for collectors.

Interesting for finding ideas for the production of vintage items.

Also interesting for fashion designers and tailors and for theater & film to see what things were used in the 1960s.

A wonderful piece of ephemera and an excellent resource for designers and collectors of all kinds.

Instant download.

[sohannabarberaesque]

And you thought Peebles' Pet Shop offering Magilla Gorilla as a house pet was getting rather weird as it is, even with Magilla's escapades galore!

[cressidagrey]

Lightning in a Bottle - Chapter 1

Summary: 

Eira Archeron was neither a Valkyrie, nor a Seer, nor the High Lady of the Night Court. She was actually pretty much useless. The only thing she wanted was to be somebody's first choice for once in her life.

Also known as: Azriel's shadows decide that if he doesn't treat his mate right... they'll just do it for him.

Warnings: 

Elain Bashing, Low Self Esteem, Magical Orthodontry...

(I should probably mention that my thoughts about plastic surgery/any kind of cosmetic enhancement are pretty much that as long as the person who has it done likes the result, it does not matter if anybody else thinks they needed it.

It’s their body, their choice and if they think they look prettier with a new nose/straighter teeth/fuller lips, good for them.

For myself, I love what braces did for my teeth and what one of those heatless curler things currently does for my hair lol)

(super pretty dividers by @tsunami-of-tears)

It was bad. 

Eira shouldn’t have expected any differently. 

Maybe it had been the promise of mail-order catalogues that had made her think that maybe this time she wasn’t going to want to die halfway through her biannual week of torture…

But there was nothing the shadows could do, short of giving her pain potions that rendered her unconscious and plying her with soup. 

She let them. 

She was too weak to protest, in too much pain…feeling like a baby bird that needed them to slowly spoon broth in her mouth so that she only needed to swallow. 

But at least they were there. They didn’t leave her alone. Regardless of when she woke up…at what time of day or night…they were there. 

Ready with pain potions and armed with soup, and when she just needed something to get her mind off the pain, they told her stories. 

Little fables of Illyria and Prythian…children’s stories. 

Maybe one day she could tell the same stories to Nyx. 

It took 4 days… halfway through that week, when there was a knock at her door. 

Elain, the shadows whispered into her ear and she held back a groan. 

She didn’t want to deal with her sister. 

“Come in!” she called nonetheless and only then realised that she still had the key in the lock. The shadows swarmed out to turn it and then disappeared, scurrying underneath her desk. 

She forced herself to sit up, wondering how much of a mess she looked…probably like death warmed over twice, but to be completely honest…she wasn’t pretty on a good day, so what did it matter? 

Becoming Fae had somehow perfected the faces of her sisters. They still looked like themselves, but the cauldron had seemingly made them much more symmetrical, their limbs longer, their ears pointed…and for Elain, the cauldron…it had turned her from beautiful into otherworldly gorgeousness. 

For Eira…it had made her ears pointy. 

No, wait that wasn’t true…Her hair was seemingly even more unmanageable than it ever had been as a human…and her teeth…the less was said about that was better. 

She had already been self-conscious about them as a human. As a fae, surrounded by ridiculously attractive people every day, it was…something else entirely. 

“Good Morning,” Eira said quietly. Elain stared at her, surprise etched on her face. 

“Have you really spent the few days moping in your bed?” she asked, judgment clear in her voice. Eira wanted to bristle. Hadn’t Elain done the exact same thing when she had first been made? And Elain hadn’t had the excuse of a cycle for it. 

“Yes, Elain,” she said back quietly. “It’s….It’s that time of the year,” she mumbled, looking at everything but her sister. If Elain couldn’t even smell the thick cloying scent of blood that was clinging to Eira, she couldn’t help her. 

Elain just harrumphed.  “Look, I do realise that I may have been needlessly harsh,” she said, crossing her arms. Somehow managing to sound gracious even now.“But you do need to realise, Eira, that that is never going to go anywhere.” 

Eira blinked. Twice. 

Somebody put her heart into a vice and crushed it. 

Of all the things she had expected Elain to say…this wasn’t it. 

“Azriel is completely disinterested,” Elain continued. “And it would be better for you if you finally realised that.” 

“What does it matter to you?” Eira finally managed to bring out, her voice thankfully not shaking…And still….she sounded…weak. That’s what she sounded like. 

“I want you to be happy. And thirsting after a male that will never return your affections you won’t do that,” Elain said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s not going to change his mind, Eira.”

Eira flinched at Elain’s words. She couldn’t help it. 

Even when she knew…she knew her sister was right. She knew that…

“You should just stop your pathetic attempts of flirting with him. All you manage is to make him uncomfortable,” Elain continued with a roll of her eyes. 

Pathetic attempts of flirting? What did Elain even mean? Her nervous ramblings? Her stolen glances? The way her heart skipped a beat when she got to see him? 

She had never asked him out…on a date or anything else…she had never even mentioned courting in his near vicinity. She had done nothing, said nothing to Azriel that made her feelings obvious to him. 

It was all just…

“There are plenty of fish in the sea…” Elain said with a sigh. “You’ll find somebody else one day,” Elain told her, sounding some mixture between pitying and bored, as she turned to go. “Do you want me to ask Feyre to send Madja?”

“No, thank you. I have pain potions,”  Eira whispered, and Elain turned on her heel, marching back out of her room. 

Eira listened to her sister leave…she buried her face in her pillows.  

“Would you lock the door, please?” She whispered. 

Nobody else. Just her.

Why shouldn’t Elain once again stab her in the same wound…why not?  Why…

And then…somehow it was like somebody flipped a switch. 

She turned angry. Angry at Elain, at her twin sister. Who hid behind this veil of sisterly worry and only used it to hurt Eira?

She was so…she was so…She was so angry. 

She never was angry.  But right now it was swelling beneath her skin and she wanted…she wanted… Not revenge. Not really. 

She made Azriel uncomfortable with what? With nervous ramblings and stolen glances? 

Fine. She would stop that. She would stop all of that. 

She wouldn’t even talk to him again, so he wouldn’t be uncomfortable. She would ignore him. She would be icily polite and that was that. 

And she would find herself a husband and have all the babies she wanted and that would be that. She would find herself…somebody else. Somebody who wanted her.  Somebody for whom she wasn’t annoying…who she didn’t make uncomfortable.

Somebody for herself. 

Something for herself. 

She would fill her room with stupid trinkets she bought herself because nobody else would do it for her. She would buy pretty dresses that tried to mask that she wasn’t as pretty as her sisters. She would do all of that. 

And what her sisters thought about any of that…well, she didn’t fucking care. Not anymore. 

She wasn’t the only one angry. The shadows were hissing, spitting, swirling menacingly, nearly filling the whole room…and she wasn’t scared. That didn’t even cross her mind.

How dares she? The shadows hissed. She owed you an apology, not…not this.

Maybe for the first time in her life, Eira Archeron wanted to be utterly and completely selfish. 

Nobody was going to put her first. Not if she didn’t do it herself. 

“I’ll be buying myself something horribly expensive,” she finally said, her voice shaking. 

Do it, the shadows said, amusement bleeding into their voice, still angrily swirling, coming to wrap around her wrists. Buy whatever you want.

They dropped a catalogue next to her hands, and Eira reached out to take it with shaky hands. 

Whatever she wanted. 

The problem was only, she had no idea what she wanted. 

Maybe a new dress? Maybe some jewellery…like a necklace? Or a bracelet? 

A ring?

Like the rings her sisters had? Given to them by their mates, who loved them? 

Feyre’s Sapphire? The Ruby that encircled Nesta’s finger since her mating ceremony? 

Or maybe Elain’s ring…gold and diamond, looking like the rays of the sun, so fitting for the future wife of the heir to the Day Court. 

No. No jewellery. 

These godforsaken pearl earrings had been enough. 

Something Eira wanted. Something Eira needed. 

Eira could use a new pair of shoes. She already had brought her old ones to the cobbler thrice. Maybe…that wasn’t a ridiculous request after all…

She opened the catalogue, paging through it until she found the shoe section. She stared at the little pictures accompanying them. Humans hadn’t yet figured out how to do print in full colour, but the drawings on this page were brightly colourful. Clearly not a problem here in Prythian. 

She quickly slipped over the pages that had silk slippers and pretty heels on them. That wasn’t practical to run after Nyx with, right? Then she found a page with practical leather shoes… decisively female, a small heel…they weren’t that dissimilar to human fashion. 

She examined them closer. “Laces or Buckle? What do you think?” she asked the shadows. The ones with shoelaces were cheaper…but if she bought one with the buckles, she could also change them out, buy extra buckles…swap them with a crystal-embellished buckle or silver for gold…

All of that was possible. 

The ones with the buckles! The shadows said quickly. 

“They are pretty, aren’t they?” Eira commented and marked the page by folding down one corner as she turned the page. 

Definitely one contender. 

She couldn’t remember ever having done anything similar before. 

When she had still been human, as a child her mother had reigned over her wardrobe with an iron fist. They had never been allowed to pick out anything. 

And then later…after they had lost their fortune…well, picking out anything involved turning around every clipped copper coin. 

She had never been able to just…leisurely look at things and find the pretty and think about buying them…without even really looking at the price tag attached to them. 

Eira flipped back to the shoes, the tip of her finger tracing the writing…she had always been atrocious at reading. The letter tended to change their position, and it hadn’t changed as a Fae either. and she could never tell that to anybody, because the one time she had, her finger had been violently rapped by a wooden ruler and that had been that. 

If she just took her time…carefully…it worked. Just took her longer. She found the price attached to the shoes, knowing that even without the shadows, she could afford them. 

She had stashed away money in the chest at the foot of her bed after all. Not a lot but…enough for the shoes. 

Eira paged through more of the catalogue…oohing and awwing over dresses, where the shadows tried to talk her into buying herself a ballgown much to her amusement, though in the end, they agreed on a pretty blue-grey dress with billowing sleeves cuffed at her wrist…

Eira would never feel comfortable in the Night Court fashion of cropped tops and pants…she would much rather be covered up completely. But that dress…that looked quite pretty. 

She turned to the next page, and the next after that, trawling her way through skirts and cardigans and shirt waists…

And then Eira found the fabric section, biting her lip. Any time she had gone to a fabric shop in Velaris, it had been to buy fabric for a gift for her sisters. Never for herself. She didn’t need anything. 

That’s pretty, the shadows whispered in her ear, seemingly solidifying to point out a specific cotton print on that page. 

She wondered how they even saw anything. They didn’t have eyes. But then magic seemed to be the answer to nearly everything in Prythian. 

It was pretty. A ditsy little floral print…white ground, green leaves…It was pretty. So was a white cotton gauze with little dots…that was the one that she considered seriously. The price was good…she could use a new dress for her birthday…

She marked that page as well, flipping over to the next…and there it was. 

It was an advertisement that caught her eye, and she was nearly flicking to the next page as she caught the word teeth. 

“Faes can fix teeth?“ she asked weakly, as she read that advertisement, a promise about cosmetic procedures…like full lashes and eyebrows and…perfect teeth. 

Perfect teeth. 

“Could they fix mine?” she asked, desperation bleeding into her voice. 

Her teeth were…well, her greatest insecurity on a good day. They were…fine. It wasn’t painful at least. It was just that her two front teeth were too big for her face…which made her look like…

What’s wrong with your teeth? Do they hurt you? You’ll need a healer for that, the shadows said immediately, worriedly. 

“They are too big. Just the two front teeth. I look like a rabbit,”  she admitted in a whisper. Or a mole rat. Her mother had preferred the latter. 

Everything else could be fixed one way or another…but nothing could be fixed for her teeth. 

When she had been a child she had still hoped that she would grow into them, but that had never happened. 

And not even the cauldron had thought it would be prudent to fix them. Leaving her with them…still standing out starkly. 

They were the reason why she never smiled widely, why she made sure to talk with her lips pulled over them…why she didn’t wear bright lipstick. 

A few dozen things that she didn’t do because of them. 

You do not look like a rabbit, the shadows disagreed with a snort…and then after a moment:  Do they bother you?

They asked that like it was a near foreign thing…like…

“My mother used to…She used to tell me that…” She tried to bring the words over her lips but she choked on them. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t…

Once you feel better, you can go and have them changed to however you want to look, the shadows told her softly. Do they truly bother you that much?

“I know that I won’t ever be the beautiful one. But…if…If I could just feel…just feel pretty…just once,” she whispered, staring at that advertisement. 

If they could just fix her teeth… 

As soon as you feel better, the shadows promised her. But that’s not ridiculously expensive. Neither is one single pair of shoes, that dress….or a few yards of that fabric. Nearly teasing. 

But it was nice teasing. Sweet teasing. Teasing that did nothing but make a small smile appear on her face. 

“I could always buy more fabric,” she gave back, biting her lip and the shadows tugged at her fingers in response. 

But if magic could fix her teeth…maybe it could also fix her hair. 

A light brown mess on her head that never did what she wanted it to do… 

“Is there something for my hair as well?” she asked hesitantly, and the shadows flipped through her catalogue until it brought her to a page with hair care supplies. 

There are potions you can use…enchanted brushes too, they told her. You’ll want something for naturally curly hair.  

They didn’t need to tell Eira that twice. 

The morning she stopped bleeding she was out on the streets of Velaris as soon as the sun rose…dropping off the dresses she had hemmed, and picking up her newest commissions and then walking to that shop that promised her perfect teeth. 

It was a woman, a female, her age who looked up from the magazine she was reading, took one look at her, asked for a handful of gold coins…gave her a mirror in her hand and then drily said: “Just say stop when they have the size you want.”

And that was that. 

Eira could have wept with her gratitude. 

Her teeth looked perfect. Just like she had so often hoped they would look. 

The same could be said about her hair after one bath with her new potions and a run-through with her enchanted brush. 

Unmanageable frizzy hair that never looked like she wanted it to look? 

With magic no more. Thick, perfect, glossy curls fell over her shoulders in fat ringlets. 

To say that she was in a good mood after that…It was the understatement of a dozen centuries at least. 

Eira was ecstatic. 

She loved it. She felt…she felt so pretty. For once. 

“Good Morning!” she chirped as she entered the dining room. Not even the sight of Elain pouring over her wedding binders could put a dent in her happiness that morning. 

“Good Morning,” Elain responded, staring at her like she had gone mad but Eira didn’t care, as she poured herself a cup of tea, took a slice of toast, smeared jam all over it... 

“It’s a beautiful day outside, isn’t it?” she asked brightly, as she took a bite, chewed, swallowed…

Elain stared at her. 

“Eira…what did you do with your teeth?” her sister asked her, staring at her. 

“I got them fixed! Isn’t that great? Magic can do that!” she enthused. They were perfect! They looked just like she wanted them to look!

It was like thunder pulled over Elain’s expression. “You can’t be serious!” she snapped. “What were you thinking?!”

“That I got my teeth fixed?”  Eira gave back questioningly. What did it even matter to Elain? Couldn’t she just be happy? Eira was so fucking happy about her choice. 

“This doesn’t change things, Eira!” Elain said harshly. “It’s still never going to go anywhere!”

She opened her mouth to respond, but she was beaten to it. 

“What is never going to go anywhere?” Feyre’s voice came from the doorway as she entered, Nyx on her hips, staring around the room…waving chubby little arms in Eira’s direction that made her smile at him brightly. 

“Eira’s little crush on Azriel,” Elain said evenly. “He’s completely disinterested. and she has gone and gotten her teeth fixed in some hare-brained attempt to…”

“What does it matter to you?” Eira interrupted her. This had nothing to do with…him. This had been for her. Because she was the one her teeth bothered, long before she had ever even met him.  “They aren’t your teeth.” 

Feyre stared at her and Eira smiled brightly, showing all her teeth…something she would have never done before. But now she did. 

“Your teeth were fine before,” Feyre told her, staring at her like she couldn’t quite believe that Eira had gone and done this.  

“My teeth were too big for my mouth,” Eira disagreed. And really, she didn’t understand why she even needed to defend herself on this. “The last time I checked I was allowed to do with my body whatever I wanted,” she murmured under her breath. 

And this…this was harmless. This was just fixing her teeth. It didn’t hurt anybody. Not her, not anybody else…

Feyre didn’t seem convinced. “How much money did you spend on this?” her sister asked her, a sharpness sinking into her voice and Eira crossed her arms. 

“Not a single coin that belongs to you or your mate,” she gave back, her voice cold. “I spend my money, money I earned, on something that I wanted.” 

She was allowed to want things. Whatever she wanted, the shadows had promised her and they had kept that promise. 

“Did you do this because of Azriel?” Feyre asked, softening slightly. “Eira, that’s not going to work.”

She knew that. 

“My whole life does not revolve around other people,” Eira said calmly, meeting her sister's gaze. “I wanted it.”

“He’s still not going to be interested in you,” Elain snorted. 

Once again. Hitting that one weak spot her sister had sussed out. 

People always thought that Elain was oh-so-sweet. What they forgot was that even the most beautiful, most fragrant rose had its thorns. 

She said nothing. Didn’t flinch away. Didn’t say anything. 

“It’s true,” Feyre said with a sigh, actually agreeing with Elain. “I have wanted to talk to you about that, Eira…” her sister said, visibly uncomfortable. “Could you at least try to get over him? It’s…it would be better for…this court.”

Of course, it would be. This court. 

Because that’s what mattered, right? That’s what mattered to the High Lady. 

That the court was functional. That the spymaster wasn’t uncomfortable…that her sister wasn’t having a ridiculous puppy crush on another member of this court.  

And what was Eira supposed to say to this? 

What was she supposed to say to that? 

Eira’s feelings didn’t really matter anyway. They were nothing but an inconvenience. 

“I am sorry,” she said, her voice quiet, staring at her hands so that she didn’t need to look at two of her sisters…so they wouldn’t see the tears gathering in her eyes. “I’ll make sure that my feelings won’t inconvenience anybody else ever again.”

“That’s not…” Feyre started, but Eira shook her head.

“I understand,” she said, the words tasting like ash in her mouth, all her appetite gone, as she stood to go back to her room. 

[seat-safety-switch]

I am, perhaps, one of the last survivors of the mail-order catalogue culture. In times long past, you would travel to a little store in your neighbourhood. There, you would fill out an elaborate form. Promises of money would be taken. Your swag? Arrives six to eight weeks later, if you're lucky.

Nowadays, we have an army of package-delivery psychos wandering our fair streets, delivering next-minute megaparcels from Taiwan. Nobody can argue about the efficiency. I get froggy these days when it takes two days for me to source a specialized inverter-welder from the internet, especially when I paid over a hundred bucks for it. Unfortunately, I'm starting to think that something has been lost. Call it the humanity.

When you ordered something from a teensy shitkicker of a Sears outlet in your neighbourhood, you'd get to page through a catalogue. It was annoying to fill out with the little knuckle-scraping golf pencils. And then there was the wait, the anticipation, the frantic math around layaway payments in the days before its arrival. All of this made for great human drama, which is gone now that you can type "elevator buttons" into AliExpress and click Buy Now on half a dozen of them.

Here's the solution. I'm calling it the Seat Safety Switch Shopping Snetwork. We're going to take out eensy-weensie, dinky-winky microstores in all the abandoned malls. You'll drive there, find parking, leaf through thousands of pages of printouts from Amazon, then tell us to order the shit. We order that shit, and then we don't call you for six to eight weeks after it arrives.

Will you buy less stuff? Probably. Will you really look forward to it? You bet. And, with our modest 50% service fee, you can tell all your friends that you buy your cheap crap from a premium, artisanal shopping concierge, which is what we'll name guys like Frantic Ed, our very first franchisee. He's fresh out of prison, and ready to spend his employment trapped in a room with metric ass-tons of off-gassing foreign plastic that he has to sit on for a couple more weeks. Hey, there has to be some abuse. It's still capitalism.

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

🥔 My catalogue for Comifuro 19 is here!! 🥔

For now it's only Call of Duty. I'm interested in doing some Tekken in the future though!

This is my first time selling fan-merchs in a convention, so I'm still testing the waters, and unfortunately no PO or order-by-mails. But if everything goes well, I'll try it for the next one 😝👌

See you at me and my friends' booth on I21-I22! (Circle name = Seafood 888)

[capesandshapes]

Astonishing how miraculous ladybug can be so consistently popular and then the toys just look like they were made out of the overfill of Barbie molds and rooted with the iridescent party streamers of 1990s mail order catalogue balloon weights.

[douche-canoe-regatta]

Where does Gideon get her porn mags? I think junk mail never died! I think with every delivery of whatever-the-fuck Harrow ordered from the "Barely Surviving" order guide came w/ magazine subscription catalogues & ads for x-ray goggles & sea babies (made with REAL infant souls! just add blood!!) so Gideon would just sneak "item 69420" or w/e onto the order and hope it got overlooked. next month there's a fart cushion under Pelleamena's chair, a rubber bone in Harrow's pocket and Sick Seventh Butt Sluts in the hymnals

[calciumyum]

COMIFURO 19 PRE-ORDER!!

HAII I finally have my comifuro 19 catalogue! 🗓️ PO sampai tanggal 31 Oktober 2024, 23:59 WIB 📪 Pick-up day 2 and Mail Order available 🛒 Pre-Order Link! 🍀Fandoms: MCYT (Fantasy SMP, Life Series, Hermitcraft)

Reblogs are appreciated!!

[vintageweddingdresses]

JC Penny Spring-Summer 1986 (2 of 2 posts, 31 scans total)

I block all empty and stagnant blogs. Also people asking for money or stupid political viewpoints.

[scrappopmania]

Klingel Catalog Spring / Summer 1969 PDF E-Book (with watermark)

Catalogue: Klingel Catalog Spring / Summer 1969 Pages: 254 Published: 1969 Language: German Size: 191 MB Format: PDF E-Book (digital product)

You will receive high quality PDF scans with a watermark from my Etsy shop.

This is perfect for collectors.

Interesting for finding ideas for the production of vintage items.

Also interesting for fashion designers and tailors and for theater & film to see what things were used in the 1960s.

A wonderful piece of ephemera and an excellent resource for designers and collectors of all kinds.

Instant download.

[teacup-gathering-itself]

Wolfstar imagine where Sirius "Literally has Vanity in his Blood" Black loses it when Remus shows him his first muggle fashion magazine and sees the range of cosmetics.

Give me Sirius making a huge withdrawal from Gringotts in muggle currency, Remus saying "babe that's too much", but sighing and taking him to like... idk Sephora, and Sirius running up the craziest fucking bill at the makeup store.

Turns out he didn't withdraw too much, told you Moony.

They leave with a receipt so long it looks like they went to CVS. Fucking rich kids, what the fuck is this, you could buy a fucking car with this much money, Pads, what the hell.

Remus' rewards account that he made because there’s no way you’re just not getting the free points with this idiotic level of spending, you absolute clown, just use my number, don’t fucking waste them never runs out of points because it's the only phone number Sirius ever memorizes, and he always proudly says it to the cashiers.

Did you know they'll send physical catalogues to rich assholes who refuse to (or can’t) use the online catalogue? And that you can mail order parcels to a magical post distributor? Who transfers your mail to owls? And then your packages can reach Hogwarts? Remus knows, through his ridiculous fucking boyfriend who somehow keeps snagging those catalogues before he can burn them, Merlin knows how he can manage that but can't be bothered to finish his coursework, Pads. --Quit ruining my fun, Moony, I thought you liked ruining my makeup? Don't you like making a mess of me? Why do you hate joy?

They get gift baskets for being top spenders from both the store and from Sirius’ favorite individual brands. This is actually mortifying, Pads, stop laughing at me what the fuck even is this? What did they even send you? Christ.

[cressidagrey]

Indelible Scars - Chapter 4

Summary:

Azriel knew pain. So did Galena.

Also known as: Azriel’s mate is a healer and the first time they meet, he nearly dies on her.

Warnings:

Horrible self image, facial scarring, blindness, people behaving abhorrently...

(thanks to @cafekitsune for the super pretty dividers!)

Breakfast was cut short that morning with the arrival of The Morrigan.

Galena had never actually laid eyes on her. As soon as the knock sounded at the door, she made the trek upstairs, cane hitting the bannister of the staircase with every step she took. She would finish getting dressed and then go down into the stillroom and finish the batch of fertility potions she had been working on.

She had only listened half when her aunt and Zoreen had chattered on the evening before about one of the males working for the High Lord being laid up with a cold. 

For somebody that was apparently some kind of mythical warrior that guy apparently couldn’t deal with having the sniffles, but oh well. It was none of her business. 

Galena’s domain was the stillroom. 

In the back of the apothecary, mixing tinctures and draughts and potions. There, where she could work alone, hidden away, where nobody would see her. 

She liked it like that. 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t do the healing tasks her Aunt Madja carried out…or that she wasn’t good at it. Or that she didn’t enjoy it…it was nothing of that sort. 

She could do it, she was good at it and she did enjoy it. 

But what she didn’t enjoy were the looks she gathered, either pity or disgust or some sick sense of amusement, on the faces of the people surrounding her if they saw her face. 

If they saw the scars that covered most of her body. 

For some people, very rarely, Galena was a proper healer. For Cosima, who was a healer herself and had worked for her aunt for decades…when she had been pregnant, Galena had done all her check-ups…she had brought her son into the world…saved both Cosima’s and Orion’s life that day, when she had cut the baby out of his mother’s womb. Both had survived. She had been right after all. 

But most of the time…all the time nearly…the stillroom was hers, where she could be alone, and nobody would stare at her. Nobody would see her. She could be invisible. 

Her scars didn’t matter. Not here.  

Big windows led out into the garden and the glasshouse they kept there where Galena doted on the more temperamental herbs and flowers she needed, the ones that needed to be plucked on the full moon… or during a specific daytime. 

She loved it. 

Loved being alone. Without anybody else that would just…hurt her. 

She had despised school and the other younglings surrounding her, who were either terrified of her scars or made fun of the same…and so as soon as she had graduated… she had gone into the sanctuary of the stillroom. 

She knew that her aunt worried…worried that Galena, even with nearly 150 years, still lived in her attic…where she had her own little apartment. That Galena didn’t leave the house unless she had no other choice…That Galena had no friends to speak off, unless it were the people she worked with. 

 Galena didn’t go out shopping or to the Palaces if she could somehow get away with not doing it. She knew that if she did, people would stare. People would talk behind her back and she would need to ignore that and act like she didn’t care. 

But she did care.

Aunt Madja tried to get her out of the house. Madja told her to go buy vegetables at the market and every few weeks Galena did that, grinding her teeth and ignoring the whispers and the stares. Unless Zoreen took pity on her. 

Zoreen got her mail-order catalogues and picked up vegetables on her way to work if she could and did everything so that Galena didn’t need to leave. 

Madja thought the world just needed to get used to Galena. Zoreen thought that Galena didn’t owe anybody anything to talk about. 

She loved Zoreen like a sister just for that. 

 And so while Madja and Zoreen were off to see patients, Galena did her work in the stilroom…finishing her batch of Fertility Potions and then stocking up on Sleeping Potions…the usual. 

Most days were similar, unless she had the time and the mood to start and invent something new or make something better. Today, she played around with some Anti-nausea recipes wondering if she should fix the taste of peppermint. Maybe something tasteless would be better... 

She heard the jingle of the doorbell but she didn’t even react to that. Silas was manning the till. He would take care of whoever wanted to buy something from the apothecary…

She wondered how long Silas would survive in the shop because even after two months he was still staring at her wide-eyed, terrified, whenever he needed to actually talk to her. Galena hated it. But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t give him the fault for it, not when she knew how the scars looked. 

Instead, she started to pour her nausea cure into little bottles, humming to herself. It was horrible off-key and she knew she sounded like she was mental, but if that meant that she got Silas to quit because he was terrified of her, then she was quite willing to do it. 

Besides, it was better than outright talking to herself as she was also sometimes prone to be doing. 

She held back a sigh as she heard the knock on her door. 

“Yes?” she called to answer, putting down her work.

It was Silas. She knew that, could see him out of the corner of her good eye.

Galena had long since moved the still room around so that she could see the door with the eye that could still see more than simple blurs of colours.

 “Galena? There is somebody there to see you? He said Zoreen sent him…with a note,” Silas blurted out and Galena nodded, not bothering to look at him. 

Interesting. 

“Just put it on the table, please,“ she requested as she screwed the lid back onto the big bottle of Nausea cure from where she was doling it out. 

“It’s the General,” Silas said. “He’s terrifying.”

Galena highly doubted that, but then,  she had clearly lost her ability to feel fear like a normal fae together with her eye and her face. 

“Could you read the note, please?” Silas said and she finally looked up, facing him with the full brunt of her face and watched how he flinched away. 

It hurt. It always did. Regardless of how often it happened to her. She said nothing, picking up her cane and crossing the room to take the piece of paper. 

Zoreen’s handwriting. 

Galena , both Madja and me don’t know what’s wrong with a patient. 

Madja thought it was just a cold but I think it’s much, much worse than that. And if you can’t figure out what is wrong with him, I don’t know how long he will survive. His fever is getting dangerously high, even with a draught and his lungs are deteriorating as I write this. 

I know you don’t want to leave the stillroom and I understand that…but you are his only chance. 

If you can’t figure it out… He dies. 

He’s the General’s brother and while said General looks terrifying, it’s obvious how much he means to him. So please…ignore the looks and the whispers, and come save a life, Galena.  

Huh. 

It did tickle her professional curiosity.

Something other than making burn cream and Anti-Nausea Draughts…Granted, she would need to ignore the glances and flinches and outright stares at her face and her body…but maybe she would learn something else…maybe he would survive, whoever he was…

Life was precious. Even Galena agreed with that. 

“Tell the General I am coming,” Galena said calmly, folding the note. 

“What?” Silas asked, his voice scaling higher. “You want to leave the stillroom? What are people going to say?” he asked, immediately regretting that question and Galena just stared at him. 

“What they always say,” Galena said drily. “I’ll need to pack a bag.”

Silas went outside and she grabbed the bag she kept packed, adding in this and that, her mind already running with options of what could be wrong with that mysterious patient that stumped bother her aunt and Zoreen. 

And then she grasped her cane and her bag and steeled herself for what she knew was going to happen once she walked into the apothecary.

The General of the Night Court’s Armies was tall and muscular and handsome as well, with a pair of truly enormous black wings, that marked him as lllyrian. 

“General,” she greeted him, her voice soft, meeting his eyes and not moving a muscle as she saw it play over his face. Shock. Surprise. Pity…There was no disgust this time. She gave him credit for that. She had seen that often enough to know exactly when people felt that for her. 

Like the scars that marred her face somehow made her worth less than them…somehow meant that she wasn’t High Fae just like them. 

At least he probably wasn’t going to think that…he wasn’t a High Fae either. 

She watched him swallow and then offer her a broad hand, not flinching away from her own scarred one. She would give him credit for that as well. He was clearly trying. 

“Are you Galena?” he asked her and she nodded. 

“I am. Galena Kosciarz,” she introduced herself. “Madja is my aunt.” Surprise registered over his face and then he nodded. 

“I need your help,” he told her, sounding for such a big male, surprisingly desperately. 

“Zoreen told me,” she assured him. “Where am I needed?” 

“The House of Wind.”

She blinked. “If you expect me to walk up ten thousand steps, I am going to have to turn you down. My leg won’t allow that,” Galena told him drily.

If she had a bad day, her walk to her rooms in the attic was already torture. There was no way she would be able to walk up to the House of Wind, even on a good day. 

“How do you feel about flying?” he asked her, lips pulling into a smirk and she just stared at him. “I’ll carry you.”

Her eyebrows rose at that. 

“Please,” he said, his voice growing desperate. “My brother is really sick and Zoreen thinks you are the only one who could possibly figure out what is wrong with him.”

She had never actually thought that she would get to fly. Nor had she ever thought that that was something that she wanted to do…but…well.

Of all the things she had experienced in her life, why not add flying to it? It couldn’t be that bad, right? Illyrians did it all the time. 

Granted they were born with wings, and she was not, but…

She sized him up and then figured that if he was desperate enough to seek her out, he was probably not going to let her fall and plummet to her death if he could help it. 

“Alright,” she agreed. “But I need my bags.”

His shoulders slumped with relief at that and he happily acquiesced…She did her best to ignore the feeling of his broad hands on her, because she couldn’t even remember the last time she had been touched by somebody other than her aunt or Zoreen…and pressed her eyes closed as he pushed into them sky with one mighty flap of his enormous wings. 

She kept them closed, not daring to open them because she would rather not vomit all over the General.  

“So, what’s wrong with your brother?” she asked him. The more information she could get the better it would be. The more likely it was that she could figure out what was wrong with him. 

“Didn’t Zoreen tell you?” he responded curiously and she shrugged. 

“I would like to hear it from you. You were the first that noticed that something went wrong?” she asked. 

“Yes,” his voice was…tinted with something aking to regret. “He collapsed during sparring. Cutched at his chest….since then he started coughing horribly. Also managed to hit his head on the edge of his desk while trying to get to the bathroom,” he told her and she grimaced, ignoring the way the corner of her mouth tended to spasm at that. 

“Was him collapsing the first time that you realised that something was wrong?” she asked him. “Anything else out of the usual with him during the last few weeks?”

“Nothing that I noticed,” he answered, honestly. “I should have…the one thing was that he got some bruises on his chest, but that was it.” 

“Does he have any ongoing medical problems? Any medication he takes?” Galena asked. 

“No.” 

“Any special abilities? Anything else I need to know?” she asked. 

“He’s a shadowsinger,” the General answered. 

Well, that was rare. 

But Galena highly doubted that his shadows were making him sick. 

“What’s his name?” she asked instead because her aunt always was on her to remember that she was dealing with actual people and not just illnesses. 

“Azriel,” The General answered, just as they plummeted to the ground. The landing wasn’t quite as bad as she imagined it would be. 

And he put her back down onto her feet like she was made out of spun glass. 

“Show me where my patient is,” she told him and he gave her a smile as he led her into the House of Wind. 

A few minutes later they entered a bedroom, where Zoreen and adja were quietly conversing, her aunt looking up as soon as she saw him. 

“Galena,” Madja greeted her and she gave her aunt a nod, before she looked to the enormous bed that dominated the room. 

And then it punched through her. 

No forewarning. 

No. 

No. 

No, no, no, no.

No. 

It punched through her with all the finesse of a boulder, a golden thread tying her to the male lying on that bed. 

Her mate. 

Hers. 

Hers. 

She just stared at him, her hands tightening around her cane, surprised that she didn’t outright faint or collapse to the floor. 

She had never even thought that this was going to happen to her…she had never even thought that…She never wanted a mate. 

Galena didn’t believe in the mating bond. Not really.

And Galena had never thought that she even needed to worry about this, because it wasn’t like she normally left her aunt’s house…wasn’t like she met any males her age that were available for something like that and…

There he was. 

The one the mother chose for her. The one that was supposed to be her other half. 

Andd now she et him. As her patient. So sick and near death that she was considered the last option. 

That was what finally made her move closer. 

She never thought she would have a mate. 

But there he was. 

And even sick and flushed with fever…He was beautiful. Classical handsome. So handsome that he would have no problem whatsoever to have any female he wanted. 

No need to choose somebody like her.

She would never want to saddle any male with herself. And especially not a male that looked like him. 

She swallowed.

“You gave him anything?” she asked, forcing her voice to sound normal, even when it rapeseed in her throat. Something inside her wanted her to reach out to touch him, wanted to see if his skin was as hot as it seemed to be…wanted to check the heartbeat thrumming under his skin…she wanted to do that…but she…

“Fever reducer and a cough draught,” her aunt answered. “Neither have seemed to work.”

Galena nodded.

She took one shaky breath, forcing herself to centre herself…and then cast the first of many diagnostic charms over her mate.

“This is going to take me a while,” she said, forcing herself to concentrate on her work. It always calmed her.  “You don’t need to stay, Aunt Madja,” she promised her.

“Are you sure?” her aunt asked, her voice calm, but Galena could hear the hesitation in her voice. 

“Yes,” she assured her aunt. “I’ll throw every diagnostic I know at him…we’ll know more this afternoon,” she promised her aunt. “I highly doubt I could be safer anywhere but here,” she said pointedly. Right there in their High Lord’s domain. “I’ll send a note if it takes longer.”

Her aunt agreed. “Remember that he’s a person,” she said pointedly and Galena hummed. 

“I will,” she promised.

She waited until her aunt and Zoreen both left the room, before she cast a second diagnostic, letting it run its course as she visually took him in. 

Her mate… Azriel. 

His complexion was paler than what was probably normal, the pallor grey, his breathing was harsher than it should be and he was glowing with fever, sweat pearling on his forehead. Her eyes roamed lower, taking in the muscular chest, covered with a criss cross of white, old scars, and black warrior markings, to his arms and hands that rested on the bedsheets…

His hands…

The scars that covered his hands matched her own. 

Burn scars. 

She wondered how he had gotten his. If it had been as horrible as it had been when her step-father had done what he had done to her…

If…

She wondered…

“Out of pure interest, what did you do that made your aunt remind you that he’s a person?” The General said suddenly and she looked up to find him leaning against the wall, a tall, brown-haired female next to him who was watching Galena with silver eyes. 

Well. 

“You heal a guy without pain relief once, and it’s considered torture,” she gave back drily. 

He stared at her. 

“Why would you do that?” he asked her and she looked back at Azriel. 

Why had she done it? 

Well...It had been over a hundred years ago, while she was still at school…and one of the males her age had taken it onto himself to bully an eleven-year-old girl for being a bastard. 

“He was a grown man bullying an eleven-year-old girl,” Galena said calmly “He deserved worse. I did him a favour. I could have left him to bleed. It was only a broken nose, anyway,” she said with a shrug. 

He stared at her for a moment and then he started laughing.

“You are a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?” he asked her with a chortle and she just shrugged once more.

Sometimes. 

“Do you need anything?” he asked her, growing serious. 

“A chair would be nice,” she answered honestly. “Otherwise, a few hours of time…If it gets late, I’ll need something to eat with copious amounts of sugar…I tend to do use that to fuel my magic,” she explained. 

“We can get you that,” the female agreed, and Galena turned back to her mate. 

Her mate. Hers. 

Even when he would never want her…she didn’t want him to die.

So she would do her damnest to ensure that that wouldn’t happen. 

[eliotlime]

End of October Update

There's got to be a less clunky way for me to title these things but maybe I'll figure it out after a few posts.

Anyway at the top of the order I want to say that uh... the Abacelsus zine is not happening by halloween unforch.. I just started school part-time and it being part-time is still kicking my ass! So tentative release date will be on 11th November unless something else happens....

On the plus side I'm done with the cover so all that's left is the back page and cramming all 24 pages full of drawings 👍

-> As I've said at the end of my previous post I want to make more blog style posts so here's me trying to do that, more under the cut

🔐Abacelsus Zine

I'm still deciding on whether i want to print it A5 or B5 but I'm leaning towards A5, though for the digital release it doesn't really matter lol

As mentioned, I'm done with the main cover so I just need to fill this entire thing with stuff, I said 24 pages but really the total page count is 30. I'm just not counting the cover and the blurb stuff.

I'm half taking a break with this at the risk of burning myself out and half paralysed with starting it. Plus I've kind of been more into Axl & I-no hilariously but I'll always love A.B.A. I think the lack of any real info really lends her well to interpretation which is always fun.

I've never really been one to engage in fandom so I'm probably going to be doing my own thing. That being said if anyone has any suggestions feel free to drop them in my strawpage or ask box :)

🥤 Strawpage & General Socials

The bugs make my pages so decorative, I gotta draw more bugstyle guys.

Speaking of strawpage, I made one of those! It was really fun, I have a short OC info tab with descriptions of some of my main guys. I'd love for you to check it out.

This kind of acts as my ask box for twitter since there's not one there and apparently it's basically my main social media site these days so I'm just mirroring my experience here over there too.

Hilarious timing considering that it's basically collapsing on itself once again, I'll probably still be on that damn site until it implodes but I also have a Bluesky account for those that care about it.

The sky follower bridge extension is really useful for bulk following people from twitter to bsky

I'd love to post there more but there's not a queue function and that's very important to me as someone who is not American and lazy to remember optimal timings.

Did you see? I also have a new pinned for this blog! Wanted to make a new one for a while now, always thought the old one was so freaking long. All the old info is still on my about and faq page though I don't know who actually looks at those.. a relic from years past..

☹ School

Sigh, like I mentioned earlier I'm doing school again! At my big age, but I'm having fun so far! It's part-time but it's still kicking my fucking ass! It's the main reason why I'm a little disoriented this month honestly.

Do you like it? I spent an entire Sunday making my class miro board look niceys and then proceeded to get nauseous from cybersickness afterwards LOL

I'm doing a UI/UX course and I have to say the funnest part about it is making personas, it's like making OCs. Don't particularly like writing though.. but also that's a lie considering the numerous amount of paragraphs in this blog post alone haha

🎁 Merch

I've also gotten confirmation that I'll be boothing again next year in Febuary! So I gotta start locking into making more stickers and general merch. I say this a lot but I do need to look into opening an online store because I just have tonnes of stickers and stuff lying around waiting till the next time I do a convention which is kind of a shame.

Oh, but I will say that if you are from Singapore and would like anything from my previous convention catalogue feel free to shoot me a DM on instagram and I can mail it to you locally, shipping's $2 SGD.

➰Closing Thoughts

All in all, been kind of busy this month with school and various loose threads from September but overall I think I'm doing better! I've also been cooking lately and truthfully that's my biggest achievement this month haha, been also getting really into canned fish. Yummy!

Oh and a last thing is that I've been itching to animate again so I'll end this post with a WIP of a gif I did last night/morning. I almost always never finish my animations but here's hoping this one actually makes it to the colouring stage haha

No prizes to anyone who can guess who these two because of course.

Thank you for reading! I know I can't expect everything to be done in a single month but I just wish I could do everything without getting tired or cybersick! If you'd like to support me, here's my ko-fi page and my itchi.io & gumroad as well.

If you have any questions or just generally want to talk to me, my DMs and askbox is always open! Any professional enquires can be sent towards my email as well: eliotlime@gmail.com

XOXO, Stay weird!

-Eliot :)

[wolfinthethorns]

We see light where others see only darkness.

An urban fantasy podcast of tape recordings by the curator of a secretive London-based art auction house.

The Phosphene Catalogue is a 1970s mail-order catalogue, specialising in those items that cannot be sold at other auction houses: Paintings of lost origin, statues that are too grotesque for public display, and books better left unread...