#maybe i might revisit it i think

[shamsshamousa]

I was Happier Before I Became Queen

I just love doomed tragic couples, nothing to see here.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Hi!! Your Cherik is so good and gorgeous 🤩🤩 If you don't mind wanna try to draw some Fall of X Cherik please?

thank you so much !!

i have a couple of ideas relating to the fall of x period specifically since theres. A Lot i wanna play with, so i hope this lil thing may be a satisfactory start :]]

and the obligatory bonus:

[puppyeared]

auggie!!

[katabay]

🎃 THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 🎃

this is a redraw of last years sleepy hollow illustration! I wanted to take another stab at it, and also post it in the month of halloween, instead of in december :) tis the season for pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃

and to use the same citation from last year because it still goes hard

Troubling Our Heads about Ichabod: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Classic American Literature, and the Sexual Politics of Homosocial Brotherhood, David Greven

[quietwingsinthesky]

Dean is such a paradox for me because on the one hand, I have been actively triggered by him in the show, there are moments where, intentionally or not, the writers managed to create a portrayal of manipulation and abuse and control issues that it sets off actual alarms for me. And on the other hand, I would not have him any other way. There is something — not comforting, that’s too soft a word — about knowing where Dean’s actions stem from, having seen and learned all that we do about his childhood neglect and parentification and the trauma he goes through repeatedly in the show, and that he doesn’t come out clean. He comes out a goddamn mess who ends up hurting the people around him in reaction to his own pain!

There’s a reality there that’s. Almost nice, actually. Distressing to watch, but it is a fucking mess, it’s a good mess! He’s got zero healthy coping skills and a healthy relationship with say, his brother, is terrifying because it leaves him open to abandonment!

I’m not sure I’m wording this correctly. There is a way to be a good abuse victim. Take the pain, martyr yourself on it, and then, even if you have no support or idea how to, then you have to become a Good Person who never hurts anyone the way you have been learning to your entire life. Simply toss everything that shaped you out the door and emerge a saint with a tragic backstory. And Dean is not that. And that’s so fucking good. Everything that he has gone through continues to effect the way he treats the people around him, and he can’t fight the behaviors he might recognize as harmful because he also sees them as protecting him (or protecting Sam by keeping Sam with him.)

And sometimes, idk. It feels good to see a guy who didn’t heal the “right way.” Who mostly didn’t heal at all, just keeps the wound open because it’s easier that way.

[solargeist]

GRIANS HAIR CURL IS SO BIG AND CUTE

eheEHE it’s called an ahoge !! I thought it’d be cute to mimic a Halo along with the style being somewhat inspired by early 2000s anime 🫶🫶🫶

[arcticmist0324]

The real question I have about the United Healthcare/Mangione case is if the Monopoly theme is intentional and if he (or whoever the mastermind is) has read Barry Lyga’s “I Hunt Killers” trilogy-specifically the second book Game.

[sabraeal]

a heart felled by you, held by you; Part 2

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2024, Day 1: Quadrille

It’s not that Suzu didn’t know Lata’s name or whatever; it’s impossible to forget when it’s stamped right across the office he refuses to use three months out of the academic year— why should I let the university know where to find me? he’d huff, stoking the forge. If they’re going to interrupt my work to harangue me about class numbers and securing grant funding, I have no interest in making it easy for them— and scrawled on every lower right corner of his notes. It’s what every colleague calls across the university atrium before he hurries to out pace the persistence hunter that is professional collaboration; and what Ryuu had tried to stutter through for a whole week when he confused formality for maturity.

But between the towering aisles of his yet-to-be-catalogued accessions, and the number of times Shirayuki— and sometimes even Suzu himself— have been left to make his excuses to professors and professionals far above their pay grade, the idea that’s he’s a noble— a capital ‘F,’ weasel-thing-rampant Forzeno— well, it doesn’t seem quite real.

Not until now, when the doors on this stately manor swing open, and—

“I thought you lived in a shithole,” Suzu blurts out, momentarily blinded by polished marble and gold filigree. He’s no expert on architecture and has only a dubious grasp on history, but even he can tell this place is old. Storied, his mental Kazaha supplies, buzzing through his thoughts like flies over an ungrammatical carcass. “Or at least, that’s what Shidan said when—”

“I said apartment.” Shidan glares at him, like it’s Suzu’s fault he spent ten highly memorable minutes complaining about the stack of specimens that almost toppled onto him that one time he tried to brave Lata’s front parlor.

“It’s a townhouse.” Lata’s all noblesse oblige now that they’re ensconced in his family’s home, acting generous and tolerant, like they’re a good friend’s dogs that he knows are going to piddle on the carpet and he’s determined to be gracious about it. The kind of patience that’s pushed out between a man’s teeth instead of welling up from some internal font of goodness or whatever. “Private land ownership is the only way to receive permission for a forge of that size. And yes, I do.”

“But why not hang out here?” Suzu peeks into one of the fancy urns lining the walkway— disappointingly empty— before letting it rock back onto its pedestal. “It’s big and fancy and there’s a bunch of people whose job is to wait on you hand and foot. I’d never leave.”

“The commute,” Obi offers, sticking his own head down some fancy pot too.  “Or maybe the wallpaper bothers him.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Lata mutters, steering Obi away from the crockery with a scowl. “This is family land, owned by countless generations of Forzeno since time immemorial—”

“672.” Kazaha strides down the runner with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s the king of the castle— or like it might convince the man who is that he’s not about to have any sticky fingers. “That’s when Motouji Forzeno ordered a fitting home to be built for him within a day’s ride of the capital, which at that point was still based in Wirant, not in Wistal. That only happened once the Wisteria family inherited the throne from a series of strategic marriages over the previous three generations—”

“And in any case, not mine.” He clears his throat, shoulders pulling straight beneath the heavy wool over his tunic, looking more lordly per inch than he ever has at the university. “At least, not in name.”

For as long as Suzu’s known him, Shidan’s never been a confrontational kind of guy; Lata might duck and dodge and, if cornered, bite and rend any interference from the university’s board, but Shidan chooses the path of least resistance. Or more accurately, the path of least surveillance— he might sit and stay and sign the papers the higher up sent his way, but as soon as they had their back turned cajoling some of the more recalcitrant academics in their department, he’d slip right off the leash, doing what needed doing before the deans were any the wiser. That’s how they’d gotten into this whole orimmallys project anyhow, and that all worked out in the end. Mostly.

So when Shidan hums, all considering— the way he does when he’s about to quibble over wording on a paper, but so nicely Suzu won’t even know he’s gotten the run-around until he’s halfway to the dorms— it’s a sign. A portent, even.

“Your father gave you lease over the entire place, didn’t he?” He’s got his gloves caught in his hand, running fingers along some fancy wainscoting. There’s some gold leaf on it, gilding a few fussy fleur-de-lis, and his fingers run slow enough that there’s got to be some grit. Dust, even. “That’s what Garrack said, at least.”

Lata’s brow sours like samples left too long on the bench. “And of course, Head Pharmacist Gazelt would be the expert on my family’s internal affairs.”

“No,” Ryuu murmurs ponderously, so soft they all hush up to hear him. “But she’d be less invested in avoiding them.”

Big blue eyes blink up at his lordship, and if they were any less guileless— or maybe, if Ryuu was any less fifteen— there’d be some sort of dust up. Some flavor of raised voices and shaking fists, and maybe someone would end up with a cold ass on the big field of snow Lata calls the front lawn. But instead he just sucks in a breath, whistling like a hole in a window when the wind’s got its back up, and says, “I thought I was being quite generous offering you all a place to ready yourselves before the gala, but now I’m quite wondering just why I extended the invitation.”

“Because you’d rather be annoyed with us than risk being left alone with one of those lords?” Suzu barely realizes he’s spoken until five sets of eyes swing his way, goggling like he’s hauled off and said something out of band. Again. “Or ladies?”

A laugh’s dour cousin scrapes out from Lata’s chest as they climb what Suzu assumes is the grand stair, if only because it’s larger than the last three. “Yes,” he agrees, more weary than waggish. “Something like that.”

“Hey.” Obi hangs back, lingering on the landing with one thumb hooked over his shoulder. “Is that you?”

There’s a portrait beside him, larger than he is— or Suzu, or Shidan, or any man he’s seen living; so big that it must have taken a whole crew of footmen to install, if only to keep one of them from being crushed under a lordly boot. He’s got to squint to see above the knee, daubs of oils glistening in the gaslight, making it hard to pick out more than the curve of thick, dark hair, or the stern, squarish set the to jaw, or—

“I gotta say,” Obi hums, arms folding over his coat. “Quail hunter isn’t what comes to mind when I look at you.”

“I’m not.” Lata paces a step back toward them, then two, glowering up at the most detailed bird carcass Suzu’s ever seen outside the ruts of a country road. “That would be my father, in his youth. He had a great love of…working his will on the world, one way or another.”

“Ah…” Kazaha sighs, searching for something properly ingratiating to say. “There’s a certain, hm, strong family resemblance.”

Suzu seizes the opportunity to inform the professor, “He means that you both look grumpy.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Right,” he agrees blithely. “It’s what you meant. Like I said.”

Lata snorts, starting back down the hall. “If you think I am ill-tempered, wait until you meet my sire. Why, I’m practically a ray of sunshine next to that old—”

“Oh, are we gonna?” Obi whips around, determined to be underfoot as he asks, “Will I finally get to meet my Knight Grandpa? Sir Grandpa—?”

“I would thank you not to call him that.  And no.” Lata’s mouth thins to a line as tight as his shoulders. “Besides, if we are to take Knight Grandpa at its most literal, it would not be my father, but instead the man who was my master as a squire.”

“Is he gonna be here? Can I meet him?” It’s not physically possible for Obi to wend himself around Lata’s legs, but by the way he bats his eyes up at him, he’s spiritually there. “I promise I’ll be a good little knight. I’ll even bow and scrape and write poetry about women lying in ponds—”

“No.” After a begrudging pause, Lata adds, “He’s dead, actually.”

Obi pops up, shoulders suddenly soldier-straight beside him. “Oh, well. That’s a pretty good excuse. Did he die from some battle wound or…?”

“The drink,” Lata confirms. “He wasn’t, honestly, a very good master. But he was a friend of my father’s. That seemed to matter more back then.”

A laugh saws out of Obi, rough enough Suzu’s surprised it doesn’t take a bit of throat with it. “Seems to matter just as much now.”

The professor doesn’t do anything so obvious as look at Obi, oh no— he just simply clasps his hands behind his back, favoring the hall in front of him with an approving nod. “Doesn’t it just.”

“You frown the same way.” Both men peer over their shoulders, but Obi makes confusion seem casual, whereas Lata just scowls. Ryuu, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice. “You and your father, I mean.”

“Yes.” Lata surveys the hallway over his shoulder before turning back around. “It runs in the family.”

A beat passes before Suzu dares to venture, “Hey, weren’t the girls supposed to get ready here too?”

“Yes.” The professor isn’t known to smile, and he certainly doesn’t now, giving them all a disapproving glare. “They arrived on time.”

*

“What if” —Shidan’s clever little botanist practically froths over the vanity like a flask left too long on the hob, spilling linen and lace where she leans— “I told him I had something in my eye.”

This is hardly the first volley of hypotheticals Garrack’s fielded from that quarter; oh no, the girls had all been down to chemises when the preliminary speculation began— what if…I said I needed some air?— and now what had already been a serviceable set of natural curves has become a feat of human engineering, bolstered by a bulwark of baleen and batiste. There’d been endless layers added on; bust improvers and corsets and girdles, all requiring additional helpful hands, and it lends a weary edge to Izuru’s, “Oh, it’s a him, now is it?”

Shidan’s long-time assistant hasn’t bothered to batten down her hatches— at least, not as much as the botanist girl’s— with only enough corsetry to turn her posture from academic to appropriate. Another assurance that she’s coming along nicely, just the way Garrack always thought she would so long as Shidan’s quiet perfectionism didn’t infest her work ethic the way his little pet project did the university’s water supply.

“What next?” It has to have been ages since there was a woman in this place— heavens know Lata isn’t bringing any inamorata around here to parade around in front of his mother’s mirror— but the painted wood Izuru slumps over is pristine. Or, well, as much as whale bone lets a body slouch.  “Identifying details? A name?”

“He’s hypothetical,” the botanist snaps, which almost guarantees that he isn’t. Too bad she hasn’t caked on the powder yet; even with the lights dimmed as they are, it’s impossible to miss the flush that creeps up her shoulders, pouring onto that pretty face. “He doesn’t exist. Yet.”

There’s quite a bit Izuru seems to have to say about that; her shoulder straighten, her mouth cants, and—

“Is that supposed to be romantic?” Shirayuki frowns into the mirror, hands swallowed up by the untameable beast that is Izuru’s hair. “Having something in your eye?”

“Well, not usually,” the botanist admits, undaunted by the sharp elbow of reality bursting her dreamy little bubble. “But an eyelash…that’s all right. Delicate even! Demure. And when he bends down, BAM.”

Shirayuki blinks. “You hit him?”

“Kiss him!” The girl slumps into a chair— despite all her scaffolding, she makes a better show of it than Izuru— heaving the most world-weary sigh. “I would kiss him, Shirayuki.”

It’s years since she’s been that diligent apprentice, quietly working under Ryuu’s precise direction, but Shirayuki still flushes as red as her hair at the barest mention of grown adults touching in any way but a professional handshake. Garrack would have thought Zen would handle that— three years is a quite a lot of time, and considering what some of her cohort got up to on these cold Lilias nights, she’d have expected the bar for blushing to be a few sexual acts higher. Under the clothes, at least.

“W-wouldn’t that be an awkward angle?” Shirayuki busies herself with Izuru’s hair, letting it twist around her hands as she pins it in place. “You m-might crash heads! And noses.”

“Fine.” The botanist flops on her chair, thoroughly put upon. “What about dropping my handkerchief? I let it flutter, just like this”— there’s no fabric in her hands, but she sticks out an elegant arm, turning away as her fingers go limp— “and when he bends to retrieve it, I—”

Garrack snorts. Not a soft one either; for as unintended as it is, it draws quite the audience. The pretty botanist included, one of her well-shaped eyebrows raised.

It’s a struggle to keep the laugh in her chest from bubbling out, making this whole situation worse. Or injure this girl’s more tender emotions, at least.“Listen, you really think a lord would stoop? For a botanist?”

“He will if he wants to be kissed!” she huffs, arms crossed. Quite a bit of lace froths out over them, like a puffed-out pigeon’s chest. “Which he will, since I’m going to be the best looking girl at this gala!”

There’s one of these girls in every cohort— a little too pretty for their own good, always thinking about which assistants they might be able to catch alone in the fourth floor stock room. Clever, of course— you don’t end up in Lilias if you’re a slouch in that department— but just a bit silly. Whimsical. Destined to be disappointed when they find out royals don’t marry researchers.

At least most royals with most researchers. It probably doesn’t help that the statistical outlier is in the room right now, sending her a long suffering look. “Yuzuri…”

“That’s no slight on the rest of you, Shirayuki,” the botanist— this Yuzuri— assures her, “I’ve just been planning for this my whole life. Or at least since I found out Wirant throws one of the Solstice things.”

“We’re supposed to be here for professional purposes,” Izuru reminds her, having worked for Shidan too long to believe in mixing work with pleasure.

“Oh, boo, Izuru!” Yuzuri straightens, bustling over to the mirror to fuss with the glossy fall of her hair,  pinning up parts of it with her fingers and frowning at the results. “Don’t be dull.”

“It’s not dull,” Shirayuki protests, placing the last pin in hopes that this time, Izuru’s hair might not simply bend the mess of them to breaking. “It’s what Shidan’s asking us to do. I’m not saying you can’t dance too, but if you’re going to be mingling with the nobles, maybe you should try to talk to some of them about what we’re doing with the Phostyrias. Just a couple of them giving permission for us to plant the bulbs would really be—”

“Oh, fine, fine.” She waves one hand— painstakingly manicured, done up in a pearly sort of polish that wouldn’t last five minutes once she was back in the greenhouse— but undeterred. “I can chat them up a little bit too. For the project.”

Tonight might be the darkest night of the year, celebrated in the coldest, most ass-end part of the whole country, but when Shirayuki smiles, Garrack might well be back in her office at Wistal, enjoying the mild summer breeze winding through her window. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“You better,” Yuzuri huffs, twisting her hair in her hands. “Don’t think I don’t notice that it’s the girl with a guy who’s down to kiss her anytime, any place that’s asking the rest of us to consider this a work party.”

“I…” Shirayuki sputters, and hoh, there’s that blush again, with a vengeance. “Obi wouldn’t…I mean…that’s not…”

Well, well. Looks like she’s been a little behind on current events of the frigid north. And maybe not so wrong about royals and researchers after all.

“What if I asked him off into a side corridor? Or an alcove? Maybe a balcony,” Shidan’s botanist continues, saving Shirayuki a few more stumbles. “Those always have the right ambiance. And then I ask him to check the clasp on my necklace, and—”

“At that point you might as well ask him to kiss you,” Izuru is quick to point out, stepping up to help her hold a swag of hair in place. “You’re not really being subtle.”

Yuzuri groans, pins clattering against painted wood. “But where’s the romance in that? There’s got to be some uncertainty, some risk—”

“You do know,” Garrack hums, crossing her ankles on the convenient hassock in front of her. “Shidan and I are here specifically to help keep down the kissing, don’t you?”

The girl sighs, eyes rolling in her reflection. “But you’re not really going to do anything, are you, Master Gazelt? You know how silly this whole rule is. Aren’t you just going to look the other way?”

Her mouth twitches. It would be funny to see that old goat get twisted up over some twenty-year-olds playing mother-may-I with their tonsils. “Maybe,” she allows, “if I thought it was funny enough.”

*

It hardly seems fair to say Suzu is disheveled when he hardly ever seems, well, sheveled, for lack of a better word. But with his shirt still merely half-buttoned and flyaway wisps of blond escaping their tie with every scrape of his hands over his scalp, Shidan has little else to call him.

“Is the mazurka step-step-clap-turn, or is that the redowa?” His half-coat flaps out around him as he marks out the movements— poorly, but at least recognizable, even if Shidan would be at pains to reproduce them. “Or maybe it’s the waltz? Help me, Obi,” — he seizes the knight as he slips through the door, rumpling the black wool of his coat— “I can’t remember!”

“I’ll run you through the steps before we get out there,” he promises, detaching Suzu from his lapel with more gentleness than Shidan would, under the circumstances. Suzu is a valuable member of his team, a long-time collaborator who will perform any number of demeaning tasks to see a project through, so long as he can avoid a single shred of responsibility and complain about his sorry lot the whole time, but well— even Shidan has his limits. “It’ll all come back to you once you got the band to back you up. These things always make more sense with the music.”

Suzu stares at him, utterly blank, and Obi huffs out a laugh. “Theoretical versus practical knowledge, right?”

“Oh.” Suzu endeavors to smooth back his strays, but they only pop back up in his palm’s wake. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Easy, then.”

“Right.” Obi pats his shoulder with a purposeful sort of confidence, as if he could pass it through flesh and fabric with the ease that footrot does through hoofs. “Easy.”

That is until Ryuu glances up from his book, brow furrowed in the faintest vee, and says, “If that’s the case, then how are you and Shirayuki so bad at it?”

Obi whips around, wide-eyed with betrayal. “H-hey!” he squawks. “We’ve gotten better!”

Ryuu doesn’t reply— not verbally, at least— but the look he turns to Obi is eloquent enough to speak for itself. And what it says is: not appreciably.

“Why are you even concerned about all that?” Kazaha’s costume is so crisp carpenters could use it to cut corners, cape and coat and pants and stymieing haircut all in perfect place. “It’s not as if anyone is going to ask you to dance.”

“Why not? I’m dressed all nice.” Suzu blinks down at himself, taking in the uncuffed sleeves and half-buttoned shirt and the coat canted askew on his shoulders, and adds, “Well, I will be.”

Kazaha may cluck his tongue, may shake his head hopelessly, but even still, he reaches out, straightening Suzu’s cuffs before buttoning them tight. “Because you’re a man, idiot. Girls might inquire if you’d like to take a stroll down Pavilion Street when we’re at the university, but in a ballroom, men do the asking.”

Shidan can’t say Suzu’s ever been popular with the female population, especially among the more established academics who are already well aware of his reputation as a rather acerbic eccentric, more apt to be cozened under tables or smudged with sweat and grit from Lata’s forge than doing the more respectable pastime of benchwork. But there’s always a flush of fluttering young freshmen flouncing outside the lab each year, eager to catch a glimpse of— or even speak a word or two with— the herbology department’s most striking scholar. That is, of course, until they actually talk to him.

“Really?” Spoken like a man who has had invitations hurled at his retreating back for five years running. By Kazaha’s strangled sigh, it’s clear he’s thinking the same. “I’m very pretty, though.”

“That may help with young ladies wanting to dance with you,” Kazaha informs him, pulling his lapel into a shape somewhat approaching acceptable. “But it will be expected that you approach them.”

“Oh.” It’s startling to see that sharp face turn thoughtful. “So I don’t have to do this dancing thing at all.”

“You do.” Shidan’s order scrapes out at the same time Kazaha’s does, creating an odd sort of echo before he presses on, “We’re the guests of honor at this gala. The department is expecting us to socialize with potential donors.”

“Well sure, but that doesn’t mean I gotta—”

“You will,” Shidan promises him wearily. “And you’ll have to at least pretend to like it, if you want to continue our work in the lab.”

“And not in some tiny closet,” Obi adds, brightly. “Where you’ll have to knock elbows with Kazaha just to get a beaker on the burner.”

“Well, yeah.” Suzu slumps, waving off Kazaha’s continued ministrations. It’s too late, however— he already looks respectable. Not enough to pass for a peer, but someone well on his way to professor. “But what if I just hung out along the wall instead. Then I could talk to people, and—”

“It’s rude for young men to be idling when there are eligible young ladies waiting for a partner.” Obi’s words nearly sparkle for all their polish, but he ruins the effect with one of his slant-wise grins. “Don’t worry, I told you I’d show you how to cut a rug. It’s better than getting stuck in a conversation with one of those stuffy old—”

There is a gravitas to the way the doors open in this place, a stately creak that does not imply age so much at maturity; this manor was built long before the sovereigns of Wisteria sunk their roots into Clarines’ throne, and it would last long after they were nothing more than musty portraits in halls long forgot. For as much as Lata might chafe under the weight of that history, might complain about the burden of expectation placed upon a son— the son— of Forzeno, he looks every inch the part as he steps over the threshold, trousers tailored and coast pressed within an inch of their lives, more institution than man.

“The guests are arriving,” he intones with all the cheer of a funeral bell. “Are you through with your preparations?”

“Almost!” Obi sing-songs, helping Kazaha tug the sleeves of Suzu’s jacket straight. “There, done.”

Lata surveys them with the same sharpness as he does his specimens, assessing them as if their flaws were as easily apparent as a gem’s through a loupe. With a long-suffering sigh, one pristine glove pinches at his nose, as if it might be any help at all stemming the incoming headache.

“Passable,” he grates out, stepping aside. “Now if you would follow me, I will ensure that you all make it to the hall.”

Obi’s mouth twitches, threatening a smirk. “Can’t trust us to get there on our own, eh, sir?”

“I have been an academic for nearly as long as you have been alive.” The fit of his coat already has Lata at his full height, but he lifts his chin for good measure, just to give his glare a few more momentum before it meets Obi’s grin. “And there is not a single scholar alive that can travel from one point to another in a straight line.”

Both brows raise now, scrunching the scar right to his hairline. “Not even you?”

Lata clears his throat. “If you would all come this way please. In an orderly fashion,” he adds, when Suzu traipses after him, elbows nearly colliding with Ryuu’s nose as he comes up behind. “I would prefer to avoid any accidents before we even arrive.”

Obi slinks closer, like a cat approaching a precariously placed cup. “But not after?”

A heavy sigh flares out of Lata’s nostrils. “I would prefer you not. But ‘after’ is not part of my purview.”

For all that Obi enjoys dogging the professor’s irritable heels, he makes no move to follow him. Instead, he lingers just inside the door, watching as first Suzu, then Ryuu, then Kazaha pass. Being polite, Shidan assumes at first, but then the moment for him to fall in line comes…and passes, utterly unmarked, save for the amused glance Obi turns his way, gold flaring in the lamplight.

He’s a different man than the one that appeared with the snow, all those years ago. Even more so from the boy that simply manifested in the university’s library, slotting himself between the two royal pharmacists with an ease that had Shidan squinting even then, trying to figure out how such incongruous pieces could fit. Lilias drew all types, it’s true, but even so— he’d never seen one quite like this: a knight with a thug’s scar cut into his brow, swaggering through the stacks like they were old enemies.

Don’t be fooled, Garrack had written him once, loops spiking tight with barely restrained humor. He might look a little rough-and-tumble, but that kid cleans up well.

He sees it now— the strong line of his shoulder accentuated by the cut of his coat, the belt at his waist complementing the taper of his torsi, the loose trousers that only barely obscure the acrobat’s body beneath. There’s no way to cover the scar, not even with a judicious application of pomade, but there’s no need— not when it only makes him look roguish, like a man who might sweep a girl into an alcove and teach her the sort of things proper young ladies only learned from novels. Still dangerous, but not deadly.

Worrying, really, considering. Shidan doesn’t make a habit of listening to scuttlebutt, but, well, he does have eyes of his own. And red is hard to miss. More so than the black he always finds bent beside it. “Obi, if I might have a word?”

That brow of his pitches up, amusement apparent in every angle. “You academics really will do anything to keep from having to go where you’re told.”

Shidan blinks, confused, before shaking his head. “I only thought I might remind you, that er…” There’s no delicate way to put it, not when he’s already wearing a smirk that would set every fine young lady’s fan fluttering. “That this year there is to be no Solstice kissing. By Lata’s request.”

“So I’ve heard.” Obi’s head cocks, curious, though when he takes in the emptiness of the room, the pointedness of the request…the slant his brow takes is clearly…confused. “Is there any reason you’re telling me, specifically?”

It’s a romantic sort of night, he might say, and it’s easy to forget yourself in the moment. Or maybe, you already stand so close I couldn’t fit a paper between the two of you, all it would take to close it is a well-timed trip. Or perhaps more accurately, you’ve been together so long all you need is an excuse. Trust me when I say you should take it.

But Shidan knows better than to speak, not when silence is all the more eloquent. The mind, he finds, often finds the most pressing reasons all on its own. Especially when one's thoughts never strayed too far from them anyway...

“Hey!” Obi presses a hand to the placard of his coat. “I haven’t caused trouble for years.”

It’s a feat worthy of song that Shidan keeps from reminding him of the last time him and Shirayuki rode through these gates. And yet, there’s no graceful way to admit that he hadn’t been talking about that sort of trouble anyway.

“Months, at least,” he relents, grudgingly. With a few moments of thought, he adds, “I’ve been really good this week.”

Shidan, with the patience of a saint, restricts his reply to simply, “If you’re sure.”

Obi does him the courtesy of hesitating. “Well, none of that’s been of the kissing variety, anyway. Not like any of the ladies here are going to be looking to make time with a guy like me tonight.”

He gives him another one of those charming grins, and Shidan sighs, resigning himself to an evening of being pointedly unobservant. “So you say.”

[mediawhorefics]

i was just opening tumblr to send you an ask but your reblog was the first post that popped up on my wall, haha talk about cosmic timing. basically i wanted to complain about how you've not written anything new (l and h related) and how sad that is. like i'm just gonna re-read tts and murmur of yearning again for like the 10th time (and happily too cause i love them so much), but it doesnt mean i'm not gonna complain about it. /jk

hope youre doing well :)

well, that's serendipitous !!

i'm sorry i don't have anything new hl fics for you :( it's been a while since i've written fics in general and even longer since i've written 1d stuff. i guess the inspiration hasn't been there lately... on the plus side, i've finally got a new job (yayy) and i'm knee deep in research for a novel i'm so so so excited about. after suffering from writer's block for like 4 years, it's good to get into that creative spirit again haha.

so yeah, very much not exciting for y'all who want more fics, but very very exciting for me who loves this new idea i've been toying with :))

anyways, thanks for reaching out to (gently) bully me about not writing 1d fics anymore lmao and thanks for the multiple rereads, i hope you're enjoying them ??

[batsplat]

from the stuff i’ve heard marc’s former honda teammates (dani jorge and pol in their media careers but joan also i guess) say about him now that they’re racing is generally quite positive, both on a professional/riding level but also seemingly on a personal level? i’m wondering what you make of that given that, yeah, marc doesn’t seem like a very good teammate (unless you’re alex who i’ve left off this list). like MARC wants to separate on and off track stuff and it seems like all of these guys are willing too at least in retrospect, so he can’t have truly burned bridges with them. do you have any thoughts on that

(x, x) most riders are quite good at not burning bridges with each other! it's not like marc's competitors don't know that this stuff is kinda part of the game. I mean, all of marc's past teammates were also trying to assert themselves within the internal hierarchy... you can say that certain teammates engage in 'worse' behaviour than others, but, like, these people do understand they're supposed to be fighting each other! a baseline degree of nastiness is factored in and will be accepted to a greater or lesser extent by your rivals - especially when it comes to asserting yourself in intra-team power struggles. you might hate the other guy in the moment, but generally speaking once the active part of the rivalry is done with... you will probably get over it. marc's fellow riders are aware of how ultra-competitive marc is - and to a certain point they do respect it, not least because they're aware that this is part of the reason why marc has ended up with all those titles. it's like dani said, right, it's marc's strong suit. and in general, you do have to say that there's relatively few teammate pairings that devolve to the level of toxicity that it completely destroys the interpersonal relationship. you might need some level of preexisting animosity... most of the purely competitive sins can be healed with a little time

on the 'separating on-track and off-track' thing... well. this is kind of a question of how you define these things, you can say that marc generally speaking isn't going to massively hold grudges over isolated on-track incidents or whatever... but he doesn't just leave his fighting to the track, and personally I've also never felt he can entirely separate these things out in his mind. can you really say his professional and private relationships with other riders are completely detached from one another? mostly, he's opted to be pretty disengaged from his fellow riders as a collective, and obviously that's a good way to not take things too personally... it's all part of the game, isn't it? sometimes it's good to go with the straightforward approach: marc tells you he will make your life hell, he does indeed make your life hell, and then you both move on with your lives and can maybe actually have a pretty amiable relationship with him in years to come. he's not really defying your expectations at any point here, is he now? it's still a question for each of them as individuals as to whether they think that kind of behaviour is above board and acceptable or not... but everyone by now knows that marc plays these games, so it's not like they're going in blind

and it's not like other former teammates are constantly badmouthing each other. I mean... look, let's just cut to the chase here and bring in valentino as our reference point (as he is for the sport as a whole, which by the way does also help create a certain baseline of acceptability for marc's antics - maybe goated riders are just supposed to be dicks who knows). vale's premier class teammates were 1) nobody (2000-01), 2) tohru ukawa (2002), 3) nicky hayden (2003; 2011-12), 4) carlos checa (2004), 5) colin edwards (2005-2007), 6) jorge lorenzo (2008-10; 2013-16), 7) maverick vinales (2017-20), 8) franco morbidelli (2021), and 9) andrea dovizioso (2021). of these eight men (let's just exclude 'nobody' for now), do you know how many had serious complaints at any point about valentino as a teammate? that's right, it's one guy. one. some of valentino's other teammates, like hayden, checa and edwards, were even quite actively positive about their whole experience. this is the thing - you do need some specific circumstances for teammate rivalries to escalate from 'being kinda bitchy every other month' to 'actively fantasising about stabbing each other'. not accounting for natural interpersonal animosity, let's list some circumstantial factors that you need to get a bridge-burning-worthy level of feud:

you need a competitive bike. it is possible to beef about development direction when you're in the trenches (cf late 2010's yamaha, 2020's honda)... but generally speaking this is going to be quite low-level petty stuff, not actual war

you also need something that approaches competitiveness between teammates. if one teammate is unquestionably stronger than the other one, then it is very unlikely that you are going to get any open hostilities. the tension comes when the two sides are close enough to each other for the internal hierarchy to actually be a contentious issue (this is also basic self preservation... if you're the far weaker teammate then you do not want to make the situation troublesome, because then you will be the one to be fired)

following on from those first two things... well, it doesn't hurt to have a title fight in the mix. there are also other ways you can generate competitive stakes, like, for instance, if you and your teammate know that one of you will be out of a job soon. basically, it helps to have something to squabble over

it is maybe easy to forget how rare it is this century for teammates to be fighting directly for a title, let alone over the course of multiple seasons. only two 1-2's since the year 2000 and they're both for the factory yamaha's (though 2006, 2011-13 and 2017 did all prominently feature two factory hondas). which means that for valentino, the prerequisites were met just the once in his premier class career... and yes, the results were pretty memorable, but (topic! for! another! post!) it's worth pointing out that even that relationship was pretty much 'fine' whenever there was a sizeable disparity between the two of them performance-wise (2008 and 2013 are the most clear cut examples). I think the way I'd frame it with marc is that he has a bunch of mildly dubious strategies up his sleeve to assert himself within the team, which don't really deviate that far from what you'd expect from a rider of marc's calibre and only need to be escalated under specific circumstances. that doesn't mean he doesn't have the potential to be ruthless, but up until now it's mostly been a fairly 'acceptable' level of ruthlessness on the intra-team level... and not something that is likely to make other riders actually hate him

taking marc's teammates one by one... dani was the closest to meeting the bridge-burning prerequisites, though he was only a title rival in marc's rookie season. and marc did go further with him than he did with anyone else, and dani has made some pointed comments about marc's style as a teammate... but yes, he is fonder of marc these days. partly I'd just emphasise again that this is a fairly natural progression when you've stopped directly competing for long enough, and partly it's also just a question of individual personality - dani's not massively into holding grudges. then there's jorge, who... I mean, they might as well not have been teammates, given that jorge was either too slow or too injured to even be sharing any track space with marc. you have to put that one down primarily to circumstance, seeing as jorge's own track record on the teammate front isn't exactly spotless. marc and jorge beefing in 2019 would have been pretty dumb and also a massive waste of everyone's time in a year in which marc singlehandedly won the team's championship. even those two needed more to get things going

moving on to the dark years, pol and marc had an extremely stop-and-start partnership on a honda that was generally pretty uncompetitive... so the only stuff they could get ever so mildly irritable about were riveting incidents like 'marc saying pol wasn't the biggest championship threat' (neither of them were) or 'pol saying he'd copy marc's set up' (which proved entirely useless). not exactly title decider territory, is it now, and marc very much had pol covered as a challenger throughout their partnership. also, those two do have a longer history! they've known each other since they were kids and hold a pretty significant place in each other's careers. now that pol's more or less retired, it's natural there'll be quite a lot of sentimentality there - which will paper over any small cracks that appeared during those two years. and joan was a one year teammate at a time in which the bike was consistently close to offing them both. they only managed to start a sunday race together as teammates on thirteen occasions. it would take some serious effort to engineer a feud with that little opportunity, and, really, why on earth would you bother. maybe if honda had gone for rinsy rather than joan for the factory seat, it could've been a bit more prickly, but it's unlikely that it would have escalated beyond that

this is the thing, right, the only one of these partnerships that would have been worth burning bridges over was dani, and even there marc pretty much had him handled after the first season. in general, marc has been pretty clear on how he's not interested in making friends with the other side of the garage while the teammate relationship is ongoing... which is fine! there's some prominent-ish teammate pairings that are actually good friends, some teammate pairings where one of them is actively helping out and advising the other one, but some riders prefer to just keep their distance. it would have been a little silly of marc to start a feud with a teammate who is galaxies away from being a competitive threat, let alone a title rival, but generally it is possible to toe the line between 'attempting to suppress your internal rivals enough to stop them from becoming a problem for you' and 'taking radical enough action to make your internal rivals despise you'

especially in the post-dani era, marc never really had any need to push things too far... and, let's face it, how many of your teammate relationships end up with burnt bridges is also quite frankly a question of luck and circumstance. do you want to guess which top rider on paper has the worst track record this century with premier class teammate feuds, in terms of a) how many they've had, and b) how little public reconciliation there has been since the end of the rivalry?

yes, that's right, it's the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking of toxic and conflict-prone riders: andrea dovizioso. that old devil, constantly causing trouble. just couldn't stop undermining his poor, innocent teammates. can somebody please stop this ruthless bully before it's too late

I think you get the point. I would personally suggest that dovi is not in fact the worst teammate it is possible to have in a motogp top team. he just happened to find himself in a situation where he was teammates with two separate guys he did not click with at all, in situations that involved a pairing of riders who were (or had the potential to be) competitive with each other, as well as some proper stakes attached to the rivalry. in general, situational factors are going to determine this stuff more than anything else... and marc more often than not does have a reasonably good feel for picking his battles. he's flirted with the line, but he's mostly avoided crossing it. he hasn't had to

[cerealforkart]

What if I revisited some ancient Pokémon gijinka designs from when I was like, 13 for fun. What then?

[transjeffdr]

forces you to look at (most of) my OCs

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[cerealbishh]

"You, sir, are stubborn and... difficult! You know what? In fact, I'm filing a complaint!"

"Yeah? Y- You're filing a complaint about me?"

"Of course, about you. And your ego.""

"Oh, my ego too?"

[medusa-was-innocent]

Wow this sucks

[fattylime]

That bathroom piece you posted looks super similar to a bathroom in one of the Clark County (that’s the county where Las Vegas is located) museum’s model houses! I lost the picture I had of it, but you captured what I loved about it pretty much perfectly!

hi hi ! that's so interesting, i've had a lot of people say it looks familiar which is crazy to me bc i picked it from pinterest since i hadn't seen a bathroom like it before?? like it looked like a movie set bathroom to me haha

anyways i found a bunch of other pictures of it from the remodel website to add to the lore