#mes demoiselles new collection

[vibratingskull]

Yandere!Thrawn x f!reader part 3

Part 1, 2

Tag list

tag : Yandere behaviors (duh), gaslight, murder, somnophilia

You take a leave after your lover's death. You really needed to get some fresh air, change your idea. You found a cheap hotel on Coruscant and tried all the bars, pubs and clubs the city planet has to offer.

You drink glasses after glasses, you drink to forget. And you dance to free your spirit, you dance with abandon, you cheat on your solitude with cheap beers and unglamorous hook ups with people you met commending your glasses.

Or at least you try, each time you find someone down to fuck with you they all disappear leaving you all alone and miserable with your empty drink.

You always finish completely wasted and walk alone at your hotel but nothing happens to you thanks to an unknown presence looking over you from a distance. You feel like a gaze burning your back each time you leave your hotel bedroom.

One night you're seated at a table, alone with your glass when a young man and a woman come to you. "Hello, hot stuff!" You look at him dead in the eyes, not down to filrt "Get lost." you empty your drink. "Don't take it like that" the woman tries "Me and my boyfriend are searching for someone to have fun with and we thought you looked cute as hell."

You snarl, putting down your glass with a thud "No. Find someone else.", "As you wish, but would you at least humor us a friendly conversation? There is so little friendly face around here."She says visibly saddened, her boyfriend nods understandingly. You sigh deeply, massaging the bridge of your nose "Alright but you pay the drinks. I want the most expensive.", "On it, gente demoiselle" he says with a snap of his fingers like he controls the bar. You have little to no recollection of the next conversation, gulping down alcohol you quickly feel weird "I think I will head home...", "Let us help you, you don't look good." they propose. Putting your arms around their shoulder they drag you out of the crappy bar.

At some point you can't take it "Wait... I need to puke" you warn and run behind a building to relieve yourself. Way too occupied to vomit, you don't hear the commotion next street, it's quick and effective. You react only when someone grabs your hair to move them out of your face. "Who... Thrawn?", "Hello, is it not amusing to cross path here?" He gently smiles at you as you're shaked by a new shiver.

"Sorry, its not glamourous." you present your excuses, way too wasted to notice the weirdness of him being here. "It is good, take your time." he responds understandingly, holding your hair and caressing your back. You head out to the street but the couple's not here anymore. Weird.

"You are searching someone?" he asks innocently, "Yes... I left the bar with two people..." you're so dizzy your head hurt. "You were alone when I saw you.", "I was...? Oh maker, I'm so drunk." You feel the planet pitch "Can you help me to my hotel room, please?". "Of course, this is what friends are for" He delicately takes your hand and put the other on your lower back to gently guide you. "It's in this direction." You indicate. "No it is not."

It is not? weird... You must have taken the wrong path.

So you walk away from the murder scene, never noticing the two corpses with slitted throats throwed unceremoniously in the bins. Thrawn didn't forget to collect the sedative they put in your drink as he walks you to his hotel.

He welcomes you in his hotel suite he especially choosed for you. With the alcohol and the sedative you're in no condition to notice he wipes your face clean, brushes your teeth and changes you in pyjamas.

Isn't it weird that he gots feminine pyjamas exactly to your measurements?

He very gallantly lays you down on the bed and takes the sofa. He wakes up early and prepares you breakfeast himself, waking you up with delicious scents. The first thing you see as you open your eyes is a tray full to the brim and Thrawn's gentle smile.

"Hello, did you sleep well?" he murmures, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. "Like a baby..." you yawn. You talk softly, breaking and sharing bread, clinking caff cups like you would champagne with a chuckle.

This is so perfect... Him waking up his dear little wife friend and sharing a breakfast in bed under the Corustantian sun through the large bay windows. He's already addicted to these displays of domesticity.

You chat about mundanities, you didn't know Thrawn could small talk, him who's always so serious... But he seems so cool and relaxed this morning, you feel like you're starting to discover the man he is behind the Grand Admiral personna. You feel close to him. It warms your heart.

You yawn deeply "I think... I'll stay in bed a little...", "Do as you please." Nothing surprising, it is just the sedative he laced your caff with that started to take effect. He lays next to you, looking eyes in eyes you just smile and soon sleep takes you. "Sleep well, my love" he whispers "I am here to watch over you." He kisses your forehead and caresses your hair, holding your hand.

You wake up in the afternoon in an empty bed, so you head to the showers, it feels so good to feel warm waters running on your skin, you shampoo and condition your body thoroughly to get rid of any remnant of vomit you might have on you. You don't notice the door that opens an inch, just enough for Thrawn to spy and admire your perfect body.

"What do you mean my clothes are unusable ?" You ask surprised, wrapped in a towel, still trickling water. "I am afraid you soiled them last night, I had to get rid of them."

Perfectly untrue, he just wants to keep your clothes with your scent on it, and your underwear for his private times. You have such good taste in lingerie.

"What will I do then?", "Put some of mine, I will take you shopping." You blink "But I dont have the paycheck to buy anything in this neighborhood!", he shakes his head "Nonsense, given the situation I will pay for them."

He takes you to the Grand Magasins and takes pleasure in watching you try on expensive clothes. After such a cute morning and lovely display in the shower he's in the mood to spoil you rotten. He just wished he could choose for you, dress you as he wants... everything in due times.

"Take a dress too, I thought we could go out to a restaurant tonight." he proposes. "How much it will cost you" you worry. "Do not think about that, I am simply happy to spend some times with a friend." he simply respond, closing the matter. It doesn't show but the term "friend" scorches his mouth.

He takes you out for a fancy dinner in a high class restaurant. "Well" You smirk "Shopping and restaurant? You wouldn't be my friend I could think you're trying to sway me, Thrawn. You really do know how to do it with women, why I never saw you with someone at your arm?" His bite almost took a wrong turn in his throat. He IS trying to sway you, and no the fact that you are in this situation prove he doesn't know how to do it with anyone. "I am a pretty secretive person, I do not like my private life exposed to the public." He explains. "True, true." you nod "So it means this is a privilege to be here with you? I better make the most of it;" You wink and clink your glasses. His heart flutters. There will be a lot more evenings like that with you he promises himself. He knows it down to his bones.

"No, you're not sleeping on the sofa tonight. This is a double bed!" You're really adamant. "I assure you I do not mind sleeping on the sofa." He says. "Oh come on, we're both adults, we can both sleep in the same bed, we are not gonna die!"

Talk for yourself, he feels like he would explode if he slept next to you. This is so intimate, he's not ready, he always stayed conscious while you were sleeping, holding you in his arms. But this, this is what couples do, you're not yet a couple, everything is not perfect yet! He still has so much to plan! So much to prepare, he's not mentally ready!

Long story short he backed down before your resoluted mind. But he is far from sleeping. Eyes glued to the ceiling he listens to your deep and peaceful breath. He's on fire, the mind at 100 miles per hour, you're driving him absolutely insane. You're just here! Right next to him! He just has to slide his hand and graze yours. You're so close!! Each breath he takes fills his nose and lungs of your sweet scent, driving him absolutely feral. He feels your warmth next to him, the bed slightly dipping... So many impure thoughts fill his mind, do you not know the impact you can have on men? You're torturing him, bring him to his knees, reveal his most ugly sides...

At some point he can't take it anymore, he starts touching himself, he needs a release so badly... He does it quickly and deprives himself of cuming, to not leave any suspicious traces . He's embarrassed that you have such a power over him, making him the most baseless man, drived by carnal instincts.

But this is not enough, he needs something else... He needs you. In a way he never needed someone before...

Then... He hears a moan

You sigh lascively, caressing your collar bone, deeply sleeping. He listens closely only to hear another plaintive and needy whimper. He feels you pressing your legs together under the covers.

Erotic dreams...

He shakes his head with a carnivorous grin, aren't you a bit greedy and shameless? Having an erotic dream when sleeping in the same bed of your Grand Admiral... How brazen of you!

Any other man would jump on the occasion and have you right here and there, but he's not like that. He's gallant and wants you to have your pleasure for yourself. How thoughtful of him.

He presses against you, deeply inhaling your hair scent and pulls you in a tight embrace. You whine as his hand slides under your shirt to caresses your breast. It is so soft and round, so perfect! He pinches your nipple and you gasp in your sleep. He kisses the crook of your neck and his other hand grazes your venus mount right at the hem of your pants. He draws circles on the skin, prompting you to squeal and sway your hips, grinding your tight ass against his groin. It feels so good! Only you can make him feel like that! And soon, only him could make you feel good!

He breathes deeply and passes by the boundary of the hem of your panties, he trails your slit with his finger and titillate your clit. You mewl, pressing your legs together, imprisoning his hand. He circles your nervous bud, caressing across it, torturing you with rough rubs and soft strokes. He presses it down with his thumb and you exhale a satisfied sigh.

He feels you getting wetter and wetter by the second. What a naughty one! He thinks back to all the time you had to sleep with your comrades in shacks during training, did you act like that back then? He will need to punish you for that. For now he's busy giving you pleasure. He enters you with two fingers and scissors you thoroughly, hooking his knuckles he grazes your gummy spot, you moan louder and press your ass against his loin again, he can't resist and grind himself against your plump ass.

He accelerates his ministrations as he reaches a higher pleasure, you both moan and rut against the other chasing your pleasure. You come with a cry and squirt in his hand.

He's breathless, face hidden in the crook of your neck. He didn't succeed in controling himself and rided you to completion. Looks like he will need to clean suspicious traces after all…

He takes out his hand and observes the mess you made on his fingers. He licks them clean meticulously, you’re the sweetest treat he ever had. He wants to dive between your legs and laps you clean, drinks from you. But he resists.

Just to fuck with you he lets you like that, shirt unbuttoned and pants under the hips with soaked panties. He kisses your cheek and goes to sleep, hugging you tightly, his nose buried in your hair.

You wake up completely untidy. Oops! You hope Thrawn didn't see you like that... You hope you didn't moan in your sleep too, it would be so embarassing! You dreamt of your passed lover, dreaming of a passionate night with him, it looked so real, so vivid...

You dress yourself decently and go to the living room to see your luggages here. "I took the liberty to bring your luggage to our suite." Thrawn says nonchalantly, sipping his hot caff.

How did he knew in wich hotel to get your stuff ?? You must have told him across a conversation, surely.

“Slept well?” He toys with you, you laugh embarrassed “Well… agitated sleep.” He scoffs to himself, it amuses him tremendously.

“Ha! Wait a sec.” You remember you wanted to pay him back dinner at least, you grab your purse and… “Huh?”, “A problem?” he asks, raising his head from his caff, “I can’t find my debit card… My papers and my comlink disappeared too.”

You grab your luggages and search through them, knowing full well you only put those in your purse. You start frantically searching the whole suite. He puts his cup down and helps you search. You put the suite upside down and found nothing. You’re trembling and holding back a sob when you search your purse again with the same result. You know very well what happens to undocumented peoples in the Empire, what if a policeman catches you? What will you do then?

Thrawn puts his hand on your shoulder comfortingly, “Maybe you lost them at the bar or at your former hotel. Someone must have find them and brought them to a police station-”, “You don’t understand!” you almost shout “You’re a Grand Admiral, you’re untouchable. I don’t give off this aura. If they catch me, I’m done for!” 

He gently circles your shoulders with his arm and presses you against him. “They will not. As long as you remain with me they will not dare touch you, I will not let them.”

 He will need to burn down the items rapidly he notes and then gain access to the cardkey of your apartment

@blueninjablade3, @bluechiss, @al-astakbar

[thinkingotherwise]

Hi hello

NPC series fan here again, hehe. Hope you're having a great day✨

I've seen that there's already a new one in work, but I wanted to ask if requests for the series are still open, because I've recently finished 4.0 Fontaine archon quest and Silver is so very husband material I can't👉👈

Thank you in advance💕

Thank you for requesting again and I'm sorry that it took so much, I had quite a busy last few months and couldn't focus on writing. But it's finished, and as it’s here before the new year...

I'm wishing you and everyone else reading this Happy Zhongli Day and Happy New Year 🌌🥂🎊

As for the story I totally agree that he is so... have you seen the suit? surely made of husband material And just a little thing, because I can’t let Hoyo do that to us, some events from 4.2 are nonexistent, they didn’t happen. I don’t want to remember them, therefore they didn’t happen

Silver x Fontaine! Bubbly! reader

I'm a sucker for French terms of endearment Mon chéri - my dear Mon cœur - my heart / sweetheart

Your day off fell on a nice day with a little cloudy but sunny weather, you simply had to take advantage of it. You decided that while spending your afternoon with your overworked man, you might as well go out before the end of his shift. Because of that, you spent your late morning shopping to your heart's content and talking with a lot of people who appreciated your positive personality. When the clock was nearing dinner time you walked out of the Chioriya Boutique with a bag, now havier by the new purchase. Observing the nearest area while deciding where to go next you noticed the familiar black and golden dress and matching hat and immediately your eyes searched for the two attendants who never left Navia's side.

Your gaze fell upon your dark blue-haired husband and you marched up towards him humming to yourself. Coming closer and closer you noticed another two people they were having a conversation with. Seeing as it may be important you stopped and waited for them to finish.

Feeling the non-stop gaze of someone Melus and Silver looked around and when their eyes fell on you you grinned widely and waved at them. Melus nudged his colleague on the side and grinned teasingly while Silver tried to fight off the smile that came to his face whenever he saw you.

After a short moment when he collected himself, he turned back to the conversation. At the same time, you raised your chin up to the sky and started cloud gazing to pass the time. You continued on humming and softly swaying from side to side.

Finishing their talk with Traveler, Silver turned to his companions. "Demoiselle Navia, Melus, Traveler and Paimon, excuse me for a moment." He finished with a slight bow.

Navia looked at Melus questioningly knowing they noticed something before. He, in return, tilted his head in your direction pointing that his friend was taking a short break to see you.

Moving your gaze back forward, your eyes met your husband's, who was walking towards you. Seeing that, you smiled involuntarily and ran up to him. As soon as he noticed you running he opened his arms to let you jump into them and embrace you tightly.

The moment your body collided with his he hugged you tightly lifting you just enough so that your feet left the ground.

"Bonjour, mon cœur." "Bonjour, how is work going? Hope I didn't disturb you much."

Silver let you down and took hold of your hand. In response, you tightened the hold momentarily.

"Don't worry, you didn't disturb. I told you previously that I'll always acknowledge you as soon as an opportunity presents itself." You hummed in response happily swinging your hand that held his.

"As for work, it was fine, not too much trouble today. Now I want to know where did you come from, were you shopping?"

He asked eyeing the bag that you held in your hand, while the other one was holding his. You started nodding your head.

"Yes, I went on a little shopping spree, I found some things that got my attention. Oh! I also have something for you but you'll see it later, for now, it's a surprise, mon chéri."

"A surprise, you just love to spoil me as much as I do you."

Silver then quickly turned to look at Demoiselle Navia and his friend. He sighed softly and sent you a small smile. Seeing that you let go of his hand and gently placed the shopping bag down next to you.

"I'll be seeing you soon."

You took off his hat with one hand while the other tilted his head down by the chin so you had easier access to place a sweet kiss on his forehead. You then quickly placed the hat back on top of his head and tucked in some of his stray hair that fell out of place.

"Don't work too much, mon chéri. I'll be waiting for you at the restaurant when your shift finishes."

Silver smiled at you widely nodding at your words.

"Don't miss me too much, mon cœur." He added kissing your cheek.

You picked up your bag and as your husband gazed at you lovingly you quickly came up with an idea and took advantage of his distracted self. Placing you free hand on his cheek you let it stay there for just a moment before snatching his sunglasses and placing them on you. You grinned at him and left a quick peck on his lips before running away.

He sighed deeply at your antics and was ready to go back to work without his signature glasses but as he turned towards Demoiselle, who observed the whole situation, she waved him off letting him off of work early.

Not thinking twice he bowed slightly and turned in the direction you ran off to. Then Silver started chasing after you quickly catching up and colliding into you while his arms trapped you within his embrace. Your laughter filled his ears and he joined in right after placing his hat on your head.

[danafeelingsick]

Novemetober 2023

@monthofsick

Prompt list | Masterlist | AO3 collection

Day 3: Bad news = Bad stomach

Word count: 1,3k~

CONTENT WARNINGS: descriptions of vomiting, alcohol mention (no one drinks it), character death, grieving, anxiety, angst-focused, major spoilers for the archon quest of 4.2 ‘Masquerade of the guilty’, can be read as romantic or platonic (i think they're cute so uwu)

Character description

Navia is the current president of the Spina di Rosula, an organization devoted to helping the people of Fontaine (kinda like a mafia, but a good one?)

Clorinde is the champion duelist of the court of Fontaine, and killed Navia's father :( They are on good terms now.

A/N: ehehe... i like navia quite a lot so she must suffer (she took me around 170 pulls, no joke). i had the idea to write this before i saw prompts, so it fit in nicely. i wanna add more to this.

“To the ones who couldn't be with us tonight, I propose a toast.”

Clorinde never thought herself to be an empathetic person. She was used to being taken as emotionless, cold, her line of work as a professional champion duelist demanded it of her. So, it was certainly a surprise when her eyes filled with tears, listening to Navia’s speech.

The young demoiselle invited her personally to that commemorative banquet, even though she had been in an errand to invite several others, her visit still meant a lot to Clorinde. After the primordial sea had claimed so many of Poisson's residents, she worried that the glint of hope in Navia's blue eyes would never come back.

Death had become part of Clorinde’s routine, and though an honorable duel and an unprecedented tragedy couldn't be compared, it was hard not to feel for someone who had experienced so much of it in so little time. They were the same, in a sense, choosing to hide their true emotions behind facades: Navia's a cheerful and bright-eyed leader, while Clorinde's a disaffected and calculating duelist, ready to cut down anyone who were to ask it of her.

“This one is for all of the lives lost here in Poisson. For Karina, Desyree, Jonville…”, Navia continued, her wine glass raised high, joined by several others. The emotion was raw in her voice, growing weaker after each name, until — “and Melus… and Silver.”

Her breath faltered, gaze falling away from the crowd, finding no solace in them. When Navia next spoke, her words trembled almost as much as her.

“May you rest in peace.”

The guests took their seats one by one, Clorinde being one of the last. Navia didn't move at first, standing there as front and center of the banquet, serving as the image of a new beginning for Poisson. Though something made her think the president’s heart simply wasn't in it. Something in the way she clutched the glass in her hand, petrified, not ready to let go of it.

Navia raised her head, an empty look on her face, quickly draining of it's color. Her eyes met Clorinde's from across the table, an unspoken truce shared in that brief moment. Her trembling lips moved, but the words that came out were barely above a whisper.

“Please excuse me…”, was what she could made out, before the demoiselle stiffly stepped away from the banquet.

The duelist eyed the rest of the guests as they gradually returned to their own conversations, either out of respect for the President's privacy, or disinterest for her well-being; she didn't think she could do the same.

Even after its reconstruction, the small fishing village didn't look all that different from what Clorinde remembered. That familiar scent of wet soil and fresh catch filled her nose as she went up the stairs of the great underwater ship, picking up hints of rust and salt on the way. All of those thoughts immediately fled her mind as she found Navia, standing there in front of the ship’s entrance, like an abandoned puppy in the rain.

Silently, she walked to her, noticing the young woman had both hands wrapped tight around herself, her breathing labored, her eyes downcast. The duelist stood in front of her, mouth half-opened with so many possibilities of what to say, and sure of none.

“T-Thank you for coming today… Clorinde. I-I know you must’ve been… busy”, Navia was the one to break the silence, her voice choked, the brim of her hat obscuring her face. Though her first instinct was to look presentable, that urge doesn't come now it’s her childhood friend in front of her.

“I wasn’t”, Clorinde responded flatly, not thinking about she came across with that placid tone. Sheepishly, she added: “I couldn't have missed it…”

“I’m glad you haven't”, Navia remarked, her voice still struggling to be heard. “I-I know it's selfish of me, but…”

“It is not. You invited me, so I owed you my company”, Clorinde told her objectively, her eyes affixed to her trembling lips.

Navia shook her head, a grimace flashing across her delicate features, her hands balling into fists. It was then that Clorinde noticed the tears pooling under her chin, hearing the small sobs finally slipping past her mouth.

“I wanted to invite all of them… Melus, and Silver… It is so selfish of me…”, she forced out, her eyes screwed shut. “I am… only here because—”

“Navia”, Clorinde stopped her there, taking a step forward. Though her hands reached out, she still hesitating to touch the woman crying in front of her. How many times would she need to apologize until Navia trusted her again? Until she felt worthy of being her friend again?

Navia could barely see Clorinde through the blur of tears. Her hand floated up to her mouth, hovering over it as her chest began to heave. The noise she makes is one of struggle, of her lungs whistling in her throat. Her stomach writhed, squeezed in by her tight bustier, making it nearly impossible to breathe in.

A whimper escapes her as Clorinde’s hands come to rest around her waist, firm yet gentle, keeping her up as panic slowly engulfs her. That is when Navia raises her eyes, panting heavily as she searches in Clorinde's face for some comfort, noting now that she had never seen her so mortified before. Color drains from the demoiselle's face and she gags, pressing her hand tightly to her mouth.

“Oh… god”, she choked out and a second after, her stomach lurched violently, mouth filling with bile.

Even though Navia tried to press her lips thin, that last line of defense breaks as vomit comes up forcefully, spraying through the cracks of her fingers and coating her hand. She widens her eyes, feeling it soak into the fabric of her glove, messily dripping over her cleavage.

Clorinde winces, some reaching her white buttoned shirt, though the surprise is quickly replaced by empathy as she hears Navia’s sobbing interleaving her gagging. A thick yellow soup cascaded down her chin, no doubt what had become of the Poissonchant Pie that had been served during the banquet, now ruining the front of her dress.

It breaks her heart to see her friend in such a pitiful state, and she gently guides Navia to a kneeling position, her hand firmly on her back. She does so in time, as the demoiselle whimpers and heaves forward, vomit splashing onto the floor in front of her.

“Shh… It’s alright”, though words were never Clorinde’s forte, she tries to comfort her, keeping her voice a low and warmer tone. “I need you to breathe now, can you do that?”

Navia nods weakly, pushing through the nausea as she sucks in a greedy gasp. Clorinde busies herself with gathering the demoiselle's hair away from her face, trying not to focus too much on how intimate the whole situation had become.

“Good, you’re doing good… breathe”, she keeps telling her, running her gloved hand up and down her back. “It’s alright now, you don’t need to cry.”

Though Navia knows it, crying is almost a disservice to the heroes who sacrificed themselves, she can't help it. The woman leans forward, still trying to breathe, though her stomach make it easy. The organ lurched sickeningly, nausea still hanging above her head like a rain cloud.

She purses her lips, coughing violently until she chokes out a thick wave of undigested seafood, falling to the floor with a wet plop. Clorinde can't help the scowl that flashes across her face, though hopefully Navia doesn't see it, her vision growing dark, her chest tightening with each heave.

“There you go, it's alright…”, she repeats, trying to keep the whole situation under control, even as lending comfort to a grieving friend is something she can't recall happening before. The thought crosses her mind, thinking of her father, but she refuses to acknowledge it.

Navia sits back, sniffling, her hand cupped under her chin.

“Come on, let me take you inside”, Clorinde offered, both hands around the woman's shoulder as she helped her stand. “You need to change out of those clothes.”

Navia simply nods, unable to look her in the eyes.

[caramelcat]

Playlist: HopeStreet Radio, Omniversal Hum w/ Mabe Fratti, July 19, 2023

Joanna Brouk - Maggi’s Flute - Lifting Off Lucy Gooch - Rain’s Break Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Joy Jenny Hval - Year Of Love Julia Holter - City Appearing Ariel Kalma - Love and Dream Deutsche Harmonie Mundi, Hildegard von Bingen - O Ecclesia Sun Ra, Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra - Springtime Again Akira Ito - 精美 Essence Of Beauty Craig Leon - Four Floods of the Point Estrella del Sol - Figura de Cristal Laraaji - Om Namah Shivaya Forest Swords, Neneh Cherry - Butterfly Effect Dorothy Ashby - Come Live With Me LEYA - Mary Alice Coltrane - Los Caballos The Durutti Column - Hilary Midori Takada - Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream Dee Dee Bridgewater - Afro Blue Waak Waak Djungi - Rainbow Serpent Joe Meek - Valley Of No Return Kitaro - Mysterious Encounter Organ Tapes - Heaven Can Wait New Age Transmission - Attunement Harmonia, Eno ’76 - Les Demoiselles Surya Kumari - Nidhi Chala Sukhama Lankum - Go Dig My Grave Andrew Tuttle - Overnight’s a Weekend Karen Dalton - Little Bit of Rain Judee Sill - Ridge Rider Cocteau Twins - Lazy Calm Connie Converse - How Sad, How Lonely Yo La Tengo - Little Eyes Animal Collective - Defeat

Harmonia W/ Brian Eno

[itgirlmind]

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ﾟ。 𝒶𝓊𝓉𝓊𝓂𝓃 𝒻𝒶𝓋𝑜𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓈 　ﾟ･｡･ﾟ

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ hello loves! autumn is nearly here, and I am taking this most cherished day to reflect on my favorite material items for the blessed season ahead of us! join me as I express gratitude for all that I do have, and all that I will come to hold in my life!

but before we start, let us start with a simple affirmation and a quick quip expressing the many joys of this moderate season!

♡ "I am so grateful for what I have and excited about what is yet to come"

♡ "I am grateful for the opportunity to align myself with peace, joy, and prosperity"

♡ "I always find a way, solutions and blessings always come to me in multitudes"

"the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. we have had our summer evenings; now for October's eves!" - Humbert Wolfe, poet

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ these are a few of my favorite things

♡ my black patent leather Miu Miu platform heels; a beautiful pair of shoes that I am absolutely in love with. I am genuinely so blessed to be able to add another pair of my dream shoes to my collection!

♡ my GrandeLash eyelash serum; truly a lifesaver for natural beauties as I've heard too many horror stories of damaged eyelids from lash extension appointments to ever give in and schedule one, despite the strong temptation. what's better than an eye full of long, graceful, fluttery lashes? I admit, I haven't been nearly as consistent as I should be with this little bottle but I promise you the results are magnificent

♡ my glow recipe watermelon pink juice moisturizer; the cutest and best smelling moisturizer I've ever had the pleasure of owning! personally, I choose not to wear any skin makeup as I'm afraid of inducing an acne flare up but this moisturizer gives me the most radiant look a girl could ask for nonetheless

♡ my La Roche-Posay 60 SPF anthelios sunscreen; SPF is the most important skincare item you can possibly own! investing in your skin now and preventing damage from UVA and UVB rays will save you from so much stress in the future

♡ my new Mes Demoiselles Paris silk dress; my loves, I have been oh so obsessed with silk lately! it is the perfect material even as the weather turns nippy. I'm a bit conflicted as I want to wear it to attend thanksgiving dinner with my partner's family but I would hate to dirty it running around with the little ones as I simply cannot control my inner child when faced with a gaggle of smiling giggling toddlers terrorizing the yard

♡ my Its A Ten leave-in spray; particularly the blonde bottle! I've recently graduated from Olaplex to Its A Ten as my hair repair treatment of choice, mostly because Its A Ten rests much lighter on my hair and has a soft but sensational scent that hovers around you all day

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ what I'm looking forward to

♡ cooler weather and more opportunities to broaden my style

♡ my skin continuing to glow and look better and better the more I take care of it

♡ wearing my beloved vintage leather jacket again (thrifted, I pinky promise)

♡ knee high boots, tights, plaid skirts, and cute oversized sweaters

♡ the smell of burning leaf piles

♡ toning my hair to a cooler shade of blonde (bye-bye miss sunshine)

♡ lattes! lattes! lattes! being able to enjoy a toasty chai tea with oat milk cold foam first thing in the morning

♡ the feeling of defrosting when coming inside from the cold

♡ celebrating holidays with my partner and I's families

♡ pumpkin, cinnamon, and apple flavored everything

♡ wintering somewhere warmer (I promise I'll elaborate more later, my loves, once my plans are finalized)

♡ seeing the Christmas lights with my loved ones as we drive around (everyone here puts up their lights so early as they always have such elaborate displays)

♡ the warm tingly sense of joy as we get closer and closer to the holiday season

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ well, I'll be signing off here! below is a collage I compiled on the shuffles by pinterest app (I do implore all readers to pop by my personal pinterest to see if the aesthetics suit their fancy) of all of my October favorites!

Much love, Auden♡

[oro-e-diamanti]

Quiet Music: Poco a poco forte

In collaboration with @bethanysnow (whose askbox is always open!)

Jealousy was never a good look with stardust in the other’s eyes. Boundaries are tested. Fantasies are made hot and heavy with some alcohol. Will they make it back to the hotel all in one piece?

Content | Fluff

Pairing | fem!Reader x Damiano

Word Count | 5845

Taglist | @damianodavide @lizstans @unitersmoonshine @its-afucking-mess @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you @vampirtet @lividisuigomiti @juststalking @tabi-toast @ethan-torchio-angelo @cheese-toastie-11 @thewitchinthemountain @ethanesimp @sofckinelectric @man3skin @daddydamiano @finelinejpm @superchrystaldrug @ginny-lily @nientedaridere @rainbowmarta @tiaamberxx @shaunthesheesh @enjcltaire @rocketqueen @aleksanderwh0r3 @damianodavidhands @megann-duff @teatrodellavita @coven-daddy @till-you-scream-and-cry @solasullabarca @fanfictionandfluff @makapaka11 @slave4yourlove @geklutst-ei  @marriedwithmarktuan @bookish0918 @mehrmonga @kanevill @butterfly-skinnylegend @lidiyabest @killerqueen1985 @ccweasley @bluscryn @deluxeplanteater @ohtorchio @messyhairday-me @bidet-and-legolas @maybanksslut​ @fuckim-so-gay @demoiselle-en-detresse00 @petit-poussin @fedorable-killjoys @luvbadass @buttercup-beeee @navs-bhat @etaerealboyv�� @tryymebitch @mell-bell @fenhakwe @solacestyles @softforlukescurls @vicsangel @theimpossiblehologramtree​

***

Copenhagen was a whirlwind that barely left any time to breathe. Even the short break Y/n was granted in between was promptly used to make a dash for the nearest tourist shop. Adding a fridge magnet to her growing collection. No misses so far. She’d be lying if she wasn’t proud of it. Victoria gave a little tour through the city, giving ample opportunity to provide the fans with content via various social media platforms. A mad scramble back to the venue, soundcheck, dinner. A gig full of little mishaps, including Ethan losing a drumstick halfway through and Damiano almost tumbling off stage. At least the crew had gotten into a groove, ‘new tour’ jitters finally forgotten. That night, at the hotel, Y/n had found herself standing outside her door, empty ice bucket in hand. Somewhat wondering, hoping, someone would join her. Not just anyone. Him. But she wouldn’t knock on his door and he didn’t come to hers. It wasn’t to be. At least not that night. 

The morning had brought the band another wake-up call from Y/n. Everyone was starting to settle into their routine. Get ready, get on the bus, get handed coffee by Y/n. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying this little comfort of domestic bliss, taking care of the people she was starting to consider friends. It felt right.

***

Damiano’s morning wasn’t quite as peaceful. His thoughts were plagued by images of Y/n. His decision to ‘cool it’ and back off a little seemed to be biting him in the arse. When she had come around to wake him up, she had been in a partially sheer blouse, black jeans and boots and he thought she looked like the perfect little alternative housewife. Luring him out of bed with the promise of coffee and breakfast. Now he was sitting on the couch on the bus, watching Y/n fly around the little kitchenette and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her bum in those jeans.

Nope, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. Not now. The conversation with Victoria two nights ago was still ringing in his head. He had decided she was right - no use in pursuing anything unless he was certain what he was feeling and what he wanted out of it. He would still have enough time to make his move once he figured it out. Right? He didn’t know what Y/n was thinking. Or what she thought of him, so no use dwelling on it. Still the thought struck him, he barely knew anything about her. He should probably talk to her more. Infallible logic, he thought to himself. Backing off and talking to her at the same time. Great.

“Y/n… how do you usually take your coffee, by the way?”

“Lots of creamer, usually. Sometimes a bit of sugar, if I’m feeling fancy. Or if I’m feeling really fancy at a café, I might get a caramel macchiato.”

“Caramel is always nice.” Of course, she would like caramel, he thought to himself. “Do you normally drink coffee or are you more or stereotypical British tea drinker?”

“I enjoy a cuppa when I’m home, definitely. Italians aren’t exactly known for their tea now, are they?” A smirk appeared on her face, maybe a little baffled by the conversation, but happy to humour him. “Lady Gray is a particular favourite. Followed by breakfast tea with some sugar and milk. Before coffee. I can make you some tea sometime if you fancy?”

“That’d be great. You know, I just had an amazing idea actually,” Damiano grinned. “When we first went to Berlin, there was this amazing tea shop - would you want to go when we have the gig there?”

“That sounds lovely,” Y/n replied. “Of course.”

Another step closer to getting to know her.

***

“Right, we’ve all got an hour until soundcheck and some press things, I’m gonna go take Chili on her walk, you lot do whatever you want until then.”

Y/n had expected a few non-committal grunts, a wave, maybe a “see you later, I’ll go have a nap”, but instead, the whole band seemed to be on their highest energy levels. All of them immediately scrambled to their feet, looking for shoes and jackets, proclaiming they wanted to see the city, maybe take some pictures for Instagram along the way. Y/n wouldn’t dare complain about the company.

It didn’t take them long to reach the harbour, walking along the river as they enjoyed the bustle of town and the view. Y/n found herself pulling out her phone, telling everyone to gather around her.

“I’m no photographer, but I do need some memories of all of this. Thomas, stop pulling that face!” Thomas quickly dropped the grimace as she took the picture, the historic old town in the background. Chili was busy running around between the five of them, loving whoever gave her the attention the most. Y/n thought Victoria was reaching for the leash, already preparing to hand it over, but instead the bassist grabbed her hand. Obviously in a giddy mood, she began swinging their intertwined hands between them as they walked. Y/n couldn’t bite back a smile. She had missed having a close friend ever since she had moved to Italy leaving her best friend behind in the UK and she felt like this blossoming friendship with Victoria could truly begin to fill the void in her heart.

The blonde girl pulled her into a deep hug as Chili decided to go bother Ethan instead.

“I want a photo with just you,” Vic explained, pulling out her own phone for a snapshot. Y/n complied with a sigh but wrapped her arms around her, ready to take the picture. Right as the click went off, Victoria pressed a kiss to her cheek, taking her by surprise. Neither of them could hold back a giggle at her face in the photo.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, by the way,” Y/n spoke up as a little break in the conversation offered itself. If only to distract from the affection and it worked perfectly. All eyes and ears on her. “I’ve booked a little dinner for tonight. But not just any dinner. A burlesque one!”

The group let out various cheers. Thomas immediately ran ahead of the group, shamelessly faking a striptease as they kept walking. Damiano made sure to record the performance, already giggling to himself. Thomas was in the middle of shrugging off his jacket, walking backwards, when - ouch! - he bumped into a pole, heavily bonking his head. Everyone erupted into hysterical laughter, and after rubbing the back of his head with a pour for a moment, even the guitarist joined in.

“You alright?” Y/n asked breathlessly, trying to hide the giggles in her voice, genuinely concerned about him still.

“Besides the fact that I just got all of you to drop your panties for me? I’m great!” The blond grinned at his own joke, as everyone else rolled their eyes.

“Yes! Oh my god, take me Thomas!” Damiano gasped dramatically, pushing himself up against Thomas, who grabbed onto his leg to dip him.

“Wait! Hold on!” Y/n shouted, once again grabbing her phone as the captured the moment. “Now that’s one for the fridge.”

***

Backstage was business as usual. Y/n once again took the time to watch the band soundcheck, always feeling soft looking at the way they played without having to be ‘on’, without putting on a big performance. Yet, she was still in work mode, phone displaying the name of a reporter she was waiting on, along with the name of the magazine she was working for. It didn’t take long for her to appear.

The woman was undeniably beautiful. Thin figure, long, red hair, picture perfect makeup. Even her clothes were pressed, luxury brands decorating her, adding to the pristine image. A press pass hung around her neck, acrylic nails tapping something into her phone. Leaning back, Y/n noticed the particular red leather on the bottom of the woman’s heels.

It was only after putting her phone away that she acknowledged Y/n at all.

“Anywhere I can sit down with the band?” Her eyes barely even met Y/n’s.

“Uh, yeah, once they’re done with soundcheck, they will be in the greenroom,” Y/n said, mustering the woman. “You the reporter?”

“Sure, sure. Can I go there now, sit down, get ready?”

Y/n studied the press pass on the woman’s neck, making sure she was actually the person they were looking for and shrugged. “Alright, follow me.”

She led the reporter further backstage. The greenroom was fitted with a couch and a couple of chairs, a vanity in front of the mirror and makeup already carelessly thrown around. A costume rack in the back.

“Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks,” the woman muttered, looking around the room, obviously dissatisfied with it’s slightly chaotic state and - probably - lack of style. “That’s all I need you for, then.”

Y/n’s eye twitched, busying herself with the clothes, reorganising them to distract herself.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but rules are rules. Can’t be in a room alone, privacy reasons and all that. I’m sure you understand.” 

“Well then.” She carefully placed herself on one of the chairs, highly aware of her posture, her face, and the fact that she’d be right in view of everybody entering the room. “Maybe you can be a bit of help, then. You know, a little insider information between us girls… How into the whole, you know, rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle are they really? I’m talking, drugs, alcohol… groupies?”

It was no question as to what she was hinting at.

“Well, Damiano has a whole tattoo verifying that he hates parties. Plus, they’re not really known for that kind of stuff. And for the interview, I’d rather you stick to the approved questions that your magazine has discussed with our management. There’s no ‘insider information’ here -” Y/n was about to talk herself into a whole rant, when the door opened and the band moved into the room, joyous and hyped for the show that evening.

Victoria was the first to bounce over to Y/n, kissing her cheek, before collapsing on the couch next to her. Ethan, Thomas and Damiano followed suit. Chili had followed the band, now hopping onto the couch and making herself comfortable on Y/n’s lap. Ethan looked over at the reporter, brow raised. “You here to do the interview?”

“Oh you know it,” she winked. Y/n didn’t miss how her whole demeanour had changed and she couldn’t have been more annoyed. “Lovely to meet you all.”

She held out her hand to Ethan, the smirk never leaving her face, before greeting the others in a similar fashion. She held onto Damiano’s hand much longer than the others.

“Nice to meet you,” Damiano said, politely, sitting down as well.

“Oh, that’s no trouble at all,” she beamed at the singer. “Now, you’re here in Hamburg today, and in the part of town most notorious for having Europe’s largest red light district. Do you feel like that’s the perfect background for your gig tonight? You know, with the music you play and the way you dress - it’s not like you’ve been shy about sex in your career so far.” 

They all chuckled slightly.

“Well, sexuality isn’t something to be ashamed about, at least we don’t think so. It’s part of everyday life and part of our own experiences so we put that into music,” Victoria eloquently explained. “And what we’ve seen of the city so far has been very beautiful.”

“Well, maybe I should give you a little tour then, show you the naughty parts of town,” she laughed. “Back on topic though, I imagine touring can be hard, being away from everyone. Do you ever get lonely on tour? For friends or… something else?”

Damiano coughed. “Sure, we get lonely, like anyone else would. But we make a family out of the crew. Everyone on our team is very close to us.” Y/n could clearly see in his eyes that he knew full well what the woman was hinting at. “We love touring, so when you love something, it doesn’t feel like work.”

Ethan nodded in agreement. Y/n could see through all of them easily - none of them wanted to be there.

“Yes, of course, touring can be difficult, but we have fun, so not that bad,” Thomas added.

Y/n didn’t miss the way the reporter briefly looked over her shoulder to muster a reaction from her. “Well I’m sure you’re easily able to find some fun away from your… crew. Lots of parties on tour so far?”

At that point, Y/n was ready to rip the reporter to shreds. But she knew she had to stay professional, and the band was more than able to hold their own, so she stayed quiet. Ethan next to her sat up a little, obviously uncomfortable.

“No, we don’t party. No time.” His vision went dark as he looked at the woman in front of them. As kind and mindful as he usually was, he didn’t shy down when it came to showing his scarier side when he needed to.

“Yeah. We sometimes go to a bar on a day off, but that’s about it. Work is more important,” Victoria threw in as she put an arm around Ethan on the back of the couch.

Y/n felt a wave of pride at the way the band was holding up. It was absolutely no secret to her that they were desperately waiting for this interview to end, annoyed with the reporter and the lines she kept trying to cross, but they stayed polite and professional. She thought that this was what made them real rockstars in that moment.

“Okay, one more question, then. You entered this business really young, you still are, yet you write quite mature music, how do you manage that?”

“We write what we want to write. Perform how we want to perform. I don’t think that has an age limit,” Damiano spoke curtly. His eyes flickered over to their assistant. Y/n was sure he didn’t miss the way she was staring daggers into the back of the reporter’s skull. “And music has always been a passion of ours. We just got lucky really early in life, I guess.”

“Well thank you very much for your time,” the reporter said, standing up, and once again reaching out her hand to say her goodbyes. “Hope to see you around…” As she came to Damiano, Y/n didn’t miss how she stuffed a little note in his hand. “...hopefully.”

“Can I go kick her face now?” Y/n stood up, seething, as soon as the reporter had left the room. “Sorry, no, that’s actually rude. But I’m going to call management and report that woman.”

“Yeah, that… wasn’t cool,” Ethan contemplated. “How about you make that call and then we take your mind off it with the dinner show you booked for us, yeah?”

Y/n took a deep breath, looking at Ethan, whose eyes had turned back to show nothing but kindness. She couldn’t wait to forget about this disaster for the rest of the evening and enjoy herself. With the band in tow, she was sure she would.

***

Damiano hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from dinner that evening - but it wasn’t a table smack in the middle of the first row right in front of the stage. He should have seen it coming, really. When Y/n planned and schemed, she always made sure to get them the best of the best. Determined to make sure everyone was having fun. She truly took care of them like no other.

A waiter was at their table in no time, taking orders for drinks and food, and the openers started before Damiano even had a chance to take a sip of his wine. As soon as it became obvious that the first act of the evening would be pole dancing. The rest of the band started snickering, nudging Damiano’s side. Still, they all watched in amazement as the dancer started their performance, music filling the room.

“You know, I could do that,” Damiano whispered in Y/n’s ear as he leaned in close. She looked over at him - at the performer - back to him.

“Sure you can,” she giggled.

“Oh I can,” Damiano insisted, leaning in closer than necessary now. “And in heels.”

Y/n couldn’t stop herself from coughing, choking ever so slightly on her drink, as her eyes widened and a slight shade of pink appeared on her face.

Damiano simply couldn’t help himself. He knew he had meant to back off, give her a little space, give himself some time to think, but the words simply slipped out. “I can always offer you a private show, you know?”

This time, she only paused for a moment before whispering back, “You teach me pole dancing, I’ll teach you rumba, yeah?”

Fuck, he hadn’t expected her to get the upper hand so quickly. Still, he never once lost his smirk, murmuring a “sure” back at her. She had gotten back her cool, focusing back on her meal now, only looking up to watch the performance every now and then in between bites. She was making it way too hard for him to back off. He wondered if she knew what she was doing to him.

Leaning back into his chair, Damiano watched the performer on stage. They were beautiful, no question about that. Amazing at what they did. It was impossible to keep your eyes off them, even Y/n kept getting distracted. He wondered if she’d look at him the same way if it was him up there. Or if he did a little show himself that night, on stage at their own gig. Catching her attention like the dancer was doing now. Maybe making her lose her mind a little bit. It was worth a try…

The performance was over much too quickly for his liking and only shortly after, the main dancer of the evening was announced to go on stage soon. It didn’t take long for the lights dimming, before fading to black completely. A hush falling over the crowd. A spotlight found a petite, blonde bombshell in the middle of the stage. Perfectly sculpted hair, blue boa feather skirt, a glitter corset that dripped with silver and gold accents. She seemed to be glistening under the stage light, body glitter accenting all the right curves and features. Then she turned around.

Damiano’s jaw dropped - along with just about everyone else’s. She was così bella, un angelo. She walked to the front of the stage as the crowd cheered and whistled. Damiano was enraptured by her. She was mystifyingly beautiful. Each move was carefully planned out, knowing exactly what she was doing and how to do it. She was feeding off the crowd, spurred on by the shouts and comments, as she moved across the stage.

Damiano’s eyes followed her closely. He felt hypnotised by her performance. He had never given burlesque much thought, but this show was changing his mind rapidly. The only thing to pull him out of his was a sigh - a disgruntled noise maybe - coming from his left. It was hard to make out Y/n’s face in the dark, he realised as he turned towards her. But if he’d learned anything about her body language in the past days, he was certain that she wasn’t happy. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she was leaned back in her chair in a way that tried to suggest she wasn’t bothered. But she was. He just couldn’t figure out why.

He was distracted when the dancer was back in front of their table, looking down at them from the stage. She sent all of them a wink, before pulling the elbow-length gloves off one by one and throwing them to the side with a smile. She mesmerised him, even as she moved away from them to give another table some attention. Yet, Y/n was playing at the back of his mind.

Why did she seem so mad? She was the one who had booked this dinner, why wasn’t she having fun? Was she still preoccupied with the reporter from before? Sure, that one had definitely stepped over lines, but he thought they’d all gotten out of there pretty unscathed. And the reporter's number had wandered into the bin immediately. He considered the matter closed.

The woman on stage slowly lowered herself into a split, causing pretty much the whole audience to lose their minds. This was too good. More cheers and applause from everywhere. Damiano heard Vic shouting vague words of encouragement as the woman lost her bra, only pasties covering her nipples now. Y/n let out a little groan and from the corner of his eye, he could see her rolling hers. This time, Damiano wasn’t the only one who noticed. He watched as Victoria and Ethan exchanged looks, then nods, and finally shrugs.

Finally the performance ended, the dancer leaving the stage with another wink and kiss blown towards them. Damiano wished it could’ve gone on for longer. These people knew how to turn sex into art, and he’d by lying if he said it didn’t inspire him.

“Okay, gather up, no time to waste,” Y/n order, getting up from her seat the second the lights were turned back on. “You have a show to play and I don’t want you to be late.”

Damiano threw another look around. Even Thomas, who had been too preoccupied drooling over the dancer to notice anything else, was now staring at Y/n questioningly.

“What’s going on with her?” The guitarist asked as they all gathered their stuff and followed their assistant outside.

“Fuck if I know,” Damiano mumbled. “But I wanna find out, sooner or later.”

***

It wasn’t like her to be jealous. She didn’t care much about what other people found enthralling. But Damiano had looked at the dancer as if she was god’s gift to humanity. Yes, she was pretty, yes, she knew how to shake her arse. Was it all that special? The dancer was petite, a perfect fit for Damiano’s arms. A perfect figure to match his. Y/n was confident, she knew she was beautiful, but unfortunately the rest of the world didn’t always think the same. Unlike the dancer on stage. That woman was more than beautiful… She was palatable, sexy, perfect in all the ways a woman should be. Qualities that Y/n was currently convinced she didn’t possess any of.

Okay, maybe she was jealous. But she didn’t have any right to be. The dancer was simply doing her job. And so what, if Damiano had fancied her? It wasn’t like they were together. She worked for him, that was all. She didn’t have any right to want anything from him beyond that.

The fresh air hit her face as she left the venue, forcing some clarity onto her. She’d have to get a grip and get back to focusing on her job. It’s what she was there for, after all.

***

Victoria bounced over the Y/n as she left the venue, full of adrenaline and happiness from the show she had just watched.

“That was amazing, Y/n! Where did you get the idea for this being today’s dinner?” She asked, hooking onto the assistant’s arm.

“Looked up places we could go online, found this one in a travel blog. Said it had amazing wine so I thought we could check it out,” she explained without looking up from her hands, which were toying with the receipt.

“Well, you sure do have impeccable taste,” Victoria grinned and kissed her cheek. It seemed to pull Y/n out of her head enough to look up at the bassist. But Vic’s smile vanished quickly when she saw the look in her eyes. It was cloudy, gloomy, enough to make Victoria freeze up. Thomas was excitedly chattering about the show in the performance in the background, how hot he thought the performers were, especially the last dancer. Damiano eagerly agreed. Y/n’s seemed to have a flash of venom on her face, and suddenly it clicked in Vic’s mind. Oh, she knew that look well, had carried it herself a couple of times in her life.. She was jealous. Y/n was jealous of the way they all - or maybe, someone in particular - had reacted to the woman on stage. And she was doing a bad job hiding it.

As soon as the car pulled up, everyone scrambled to get it. Y/n immediately started bouncing her leg, still a stormy look in her eyes. If it didn’t seem so serious, Victoria would be amused at the state their assistant was in. Yet, with the expression on her face right then and there, the bassist didn’t dare make a joke.

Damiano was sitting next to Y/n, and Victoria desperately tried to catch his eye. It took a slight kick against his shin to get him to look at her. She flickered eyes back and forth between Damiano and Y/n, motioning him towards the woman. Hoping he would understand. Luckily, they’d long gotten used to reading the other’s face, no need for a verbal conversation. Damiano looked down at Y/n’s hands, still picking at the receipt, and he quickly grabbed one of them. Interlacing their fingers and offering her a smile when she looked up. Her leg stopped bouncing immediately.

“You alright?” He whispered.

“Yeah. Am now.”

Victoria couldn’t bite back the smile on her face, quickly turning towards her phone to be less oblivious. Those two would do just fine, sooner or later, she was sure of it.

***

The concert venue was smaller than some of the others they’d been playing on this tour, but if anything, it had caused the crowd to be even more rowdy. Y/n once again sat to the side of the stage, engrossed in her phone. Damiano snuck a peek through the curtain, before retreating and watching Y/n instead. She didn’t seem half as gloomy as she did at the dinner show. But a certain forlorn quality was still obvious. She had never been this type of obviously sad or upset before. At least not to his attention. Well, he was determined to get her to laugh tonight. Whatever had ruined her mood, he was going to fix it.

The band was getting hyped up, gathering around, some last minute fixes to their instruments among excited chatter. Yet, apparently, it hadn’t been only him who noticed Y/n’s mood. Once again sharing a look with Ethan, Victoria motioned her head over to their assistant. He nodded, before walking over to Y/n, taking her by the hand to get her to stand up, and pressing a kiss to her cheek. Victoria quickly followed suit, then Thomas, who had caught on. Damiano quickly gave a wink before kissing her forehead instead.

“For luck!” He shouted, as he ran on stage, welcoming the crowd. A quick look back confirmed a bashful smile on her face.

Everyone was on fire that night, even Y/n seemed to let go of her bad mood more and more. Damiano didn’t miss the way she sang along to their cover of ‘Take Me Out’, obviously getting into the show more than previous nights. Knowing all the lyrics, dancing ever so slightly… Damiano realised he really had it bad for her.

He decided to go for it during “For your love”. With a pointed look towards her, he slowly started rolling off one arm of his jacket. Then the other. A little mock burlesque show of his own, dramatically shimmying his shoulders as he got rid of the jacket completely. The crowd more than appreciated his little performance, judging by their screams. The rest of the band was eating his energy up, playing harder, going crazier. As Damiano jogged over to grab some water, he didn’t miss the opportunity to turn his back towards Y/n, shaking his arse in a bad attempt at twerking. Turning back, he could see that she was desperately trying to bite back a smile. But he wasn’t done yet.

Making sure she was still looking at him, he began playing with his microphone. Giving it a teasing lick and sending her a wink at the same time. Watching her as he let his hand rest on his chest, slowly wandering lower with a teasing touch, until it rested in his lap. He only managed to keep it up for a second, before he couldn’t hold back the laugh at her expression anymore and turned back towards the audience.

But apparently, Y/n had some trick of her own. Well, it seemed like she wasn’t even aware of them, but they worked on Damiano all the same. She was taking her hair out of the pony tail for the night and he thought the way it cascaded around her face was beautiful. He felt like a movie cliche, watching as the main character let her hair down and everything suddenly happened in slow motion. Yet, here she was, trying to shove a bobby pin back into place, and he was losing his shit. He thought it was ridiculous though. The crazier her hair went, the crazier he went about her. She swayed to the music and for a second Damiano could swear time stood still. 

I wonder if she likes her hair pulled… The thought distracted him to the point that he forgot what he was singing, quickly covering it up by animating the audience to sing it instead. He was glad to be nearing the end of the set. He’d never wish to go off stage, per se, but Y/n was once again occupying his thoughts and the way she was moving to the music now didn’t help.

Another song, another bow towards the audience, another well-practised “Danke!”, and they were off stage. Damiano briefly considered going over to Y/n, only to see Thomas basically chasing her away, threatening her with a sweaty hug. Her slightly panicked squeals proved she wasn’t a fan of the idea. He didn’t mind. He’d make sure there’d be more time to catch up with her later.

Briefly dropping into the dressing room, Damiano grabbed his cigarettes and a hoodie, before heading outside for a smoke. The backstage door led to a quieter alley than the famously busy Reeperbahn on the other end. But there were still more than a handful of people walking past, singing, dancing, shouting into the night, beer bottles in hand. It didn’t take long for everyone else to join him. Ethan headed outside first, bumming a cigarette off the singer, before Thomas and Victoria followed. They were once again involved in some sort of mock argument. Y/n stepped outside a minute later, phone in her hand, already back to work-mode and probably checking the plan for the next few days. Everyone was still on a high from the gig, chatting and giggling, but Damiano felt himself taking a step back. He loved watching his friends, loved what they did, loved that he got to do it with them. And now Y/n too, in a way. Not even a full week in and he knew that this tour wouldn’t have been the same without her. 

He was rapidly pulled out of his thoughts as a group of men came towards them, obviously way past drunk. Yelling and hollering for no reason but to be annoying and get everyone’s attention. Damiano hated those kinds of drunks. In his experience they were nothing but trouble. He had half a mind to retreat back inside before they reached the group, but even in their inebriated stupor; they were quicker than expected. 

“Now, who are these beautiful girls?” One of them slurred, stepping forward.

“Yeah! Bet you give a man a good time,” another one laughed loudly. “And a cheap one too.”

One of them was moving closer now, almost touching Victoria - but without even a moment to process what was happening, Y/n acted. Damiano watched, fascinated, as she grabbed the man’s extended hand, twisting it around his back and shoulder checking him into the brick wall of the alley. No second thought, no hesitation. Shouldn’t the men have been the one to react and take care of their girls? Well, it didn’t seem like Y/n was one to wait to be saved.

In a tone that he had never heard before - and neither had the rest of the band judging by their reactions - Y/n spoke, “You couldn’t afford me, mate. Or my friends. So I’d take your piss drunk self elsewhere, m’kay?”

The men were gone faster than lightning, stumbling to find their footing as they ran, only starting to comment on how she was a “fat fucking bitch” and how they “wouldn’t have wanted her anyway” when they were far enough away. Y/n wordlessly rejoined the group.

Damiano found himself releasing a breath. The whole scene had been over so quickly, he barely registered it. He wasn’t the only one either, he realised. As the other three kept staring at her, amazed and maybe slightly intimidated, while Y/n didn’t even react.

However, Damiano wasn’t just mesmerised by her behaviour. He was thrilled by her - in more ways than one. The way she had handled herself was downright hot. She was fierce, self-confident, and strong. He couldn’t keep himself from contemplating whether this was a side she would let out in the bedroom as well. Was she the type to take control? Order him around? Push him to a wall like she’d done that guy, only with very different intentions? He would be 100% okay with taking orders from her, he decided.

Y/n finally looked up from her phone, apparently feeling everyone’s stares on her.

“...What. I told you I worked security before.” She looked at Victoria, quietly asking her if she was alright. She simply nodded. Damiano still couldn’t keep his eyes off of their assistant. Damn, that woman had more to herself than she let on.

***

Damiano was still thinking about it an hour later. After everyone had gathered their stuff and gotten back to the hotel and split up into their rooms. After he’d gotten in the shower. His mind was still running wild. He quickly turned the water to cold, letting out a hiss at the change in temperature, but he knew he didn’t have the time or the privacy to do anything about his thoughts. Neither would he be knocking on Y/n’s door, desperate for some kind of attention.

Not tonight.

[aryll]

my brain: fire emblem me: why my brain: just do it me: ok

lots of extra info on these 7 under the cut!

SAIHARA

Initially Villager class, secretly has both the Underdog (hit rate and avoid +15 when facing a higher levelled enemy unit) and Aptitude skills (adds 20% to all growth rates)

Only vaguely remembers his past, suffers from some mysterious plot amnesia beyond that

Shadowgift skill allows him to use tomes normally exclusive to the dark magic-wielding classes only

Other skills includes Poison Strike (when user triggers the battle, the enemy’s HP is automatically reduced by 20% after the battle)

Tactician = very tired and stressed, all the time.

AKAMATSU

Dual Dancer/Songstress class; ie, she both dances and sings in battle to rally allies

Rally Heart skill is unique to Akamatsu only (a move that grants all stats +2 and movement +1 to all allies within a 3 tile radius for one turn)

Has a surprisingly good Strength stat, which makes her a great pairing unit

Acts as motivational support to her entire army both in and out of battle!! She keeps this family TOGETHER god damnit!!!!!

Other skills includes Miracle (chance to survive an otherwise fatal attack with 1HP remaining)

OUMA

Combination of Locktouch (can open any treasure chest or locked door without a key) + Pass (can move through tiles occupied by an enemy unit) skills = able to clear any map of treasure and escape in less than 3 turns

Speed demon unit, almost always acts first thanks to Speedtaker skill (steals +1 Speed from each downed enemy)

Specialty: rare/unique staves that debuff/decrease stats, immobilize enemy units, warp allies away from danger, etc

Contrary to popular belief, he won’t kill enemies unless absolutely necessary (he doesn’t even carry a real sword). He steals Saihara’s levin sword when in a serious pinch since his Strength stat is laughably bad (or he just warps Gonta to the closest unoccupied space lol)

YUMENO

Her magic stat is crazy high, but the Troubadour class is unable to use tomes, which relegates her to staves only

Wants to be Mage class VERY badly as a result

Rides a white tiger to battle instead of a horse (?!)

Special skills: Witch’s Brew (Obtains a potion item after moving for the first 7 turns), and Tomebreaker (Hit rate & avoid +50 when enemy is using a tome)

AMAMI

The elusive male Pegasus Knight (both he and his pegasus are very popular with the lads and ladies)

Travels long distances on his pegasus, sometimes disappearing for weeks only to return with a bunch of random rare items & weapons from his travels

Galeforce skill is a carryover from when he used to be a Dark Flier (if enemy is defeated, user gets another full turn)

Other special skills includes Clarity (user recovers from status reductions twice as fast as other units)

IRUMA

Probably is a noble? But rejected the standard aristocratic lifestyle in favour of a more adventurous career path

Demoiselle skill, of course (avoid & critical avoid +10 to all male allies within a 3 tile radius)

She has a unique battle steed (she’s a Wyvern Rider… Kiibo is a Manakete… you do the math)

Salvage Blow skill allows her to collect weapons from enemy units and tinker with them to improve their efficacy in battle

Other special skills: Life and Death (Damage given +10 and damage received +10), as well as Gamble (Hit rate -10, critical rate +10)

KIIBO

Is not human, but has never met another one of his kind before (he’s quite young for his species). He hopes to befriend a fellow Manakete someday

He claims to be proud of his dragon ancestry, but he’s also very fascinated with humans. He likes to travel and visit new places to learn about how humans live, and especially what they eat — though he much prefers looking at human food over eating it. It tastes weird to him

Dragonskin is his only skill, but it’s very powerful: it halves all damage, negates poison damage and some special skills, while also reducing the effects of others. Even though he doesn’t have any other special skills, this one makes him indispensable in battles.

I’m not too sure if I’ll be drawing the remaining characters, but here’s the plan for the rest of the cast! (Not including special skills at this time)

Momota — Hero

Harukawa — Assassin

Gonta — Wolfskin

Shirogane — Sorcerer (appears as Lord class)

Chabashira — Swordmaster

Toujou — Maid (sorry kirumi)

Angie — Diviner

Shinguji — Apothecary

Houshi — Sniper

And lastly, thank you for enjoying my character designs... they range from sincere to deliberately awful or silly, hopefully the difference will be obvious lmffjslkdg

[zwiezraczek]

6 + 1 Underground [Four x OC/reader] Chapter 5

SUMMARY: Sasha is a Polish girl, with a strange past. She has various skills, driving amongst others. So she becomes Eight. And you know that Four plus Four is Eight…

CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3 - CHAPTER 4 - CHAPTER 5: Eight’s Mission CHAPTER 6

Sasha lives her first mission as the Ghost of Kubica. Adrenaline is there.

WORDS: 2.4k

TAGLIST (if you want to be part of it, leave a comment! ^^) : @kingniazx @imjustboredso @pandamanda99 @mustbeaweasleyginger @cooliosmosh @lillymitl 

Sasha's hands covered in white gloves wandered on the steering wheel. She had waited for this moment since she joined the team, and here it came: she was in Paris, waiting for One and Two to come out of the Villa Saïd in the 16th Arrondissement in Paris to step on it. This was the adrenaline rush she needed right here and right now, and nothing else. Five sat by her side, nervously checking the entrance of the Villa, expensive cars going in and out every few minutes, minutes nearer to the moment Sasha could drive as she always did: Kubica had to be awaken. She sat in a nice black car, a black Renault RS, slender and not very noticeable, nothing too flashy as she was once told by Piotr and from then stuck to that rule. Unless told otherwise. But now, they had to blend in, as rich tourists waiting for anything, their husbands, their friends, girlfriends? Who cared as long as Kubica sat behind the steering wheel.

Three proudly called the two of them “bonitas” as he picked their disguises, flowery dresses and satin shawls on their hair, glasses for Five and none for Eight. They looked adorable, nothing suspicious in this chic district, and that was the whole point. Sitting in the front seat, nobody remarked them as they seemed to carelessly chat about the new Louis Vuitton's collection, the one with red scarves and leather bags, whereas Eight asked Five if she had any new information coming from Two. But still nothing. No blond head in sight, nor One's face, no running, no people covered in blood. As a small talk, Five told her how Two got injured in Florence, and what a bitchy patient she was moving around and even going out as she lost a shit ton of blood to shoot some of the guys: this women was unbelievable. Sasha smiled, hands stiff. She could feel the leather under her palms, she felt the engine, this clean machine only waiting to go faster and faster. She could sense it.

“Bonjour demoiselles,” Eight heard in her ear along with Five: Three's voice from the car parked near the Place de l'Etoile.

“Something wrong,” Sasha asked, ready to speed up at any moment.

“Twenty one still inside,” he asked.

“Yes, they are,” Five replied looking at Eight, a bit nervous. “This shouldn't take too long if... Mierda, here they are,” she shouted as she saw from the corner of her eye One, covered with blood and Two having his back as they advanced towards the car. Five went to the backseat, already taking her medical supplies as Sasha had her hand on the lever, ready to go.

“What the hell you did,” Sasha asked, as One was put into the car by Two before she shot some bullets towards the villa and making her way next to Eight.

“He fucked up,” Seven's voice resonated in her ear. He stayed on the top of the building facing the villa, ready to snipe, and apparently he saw the whole scene.

“Go,” Two shouted, as Sasha put her foot down, wheels screeching, One's head bumping on the door as Five tried to make him stay still, him and his bleeding arm.

“Gentle millenial,” he screamed, all painful and fussy.

“Fasten your fucking seat belt, you” Sasha yelled as she sped up on the Avenue Foch.

“Idiot,” Two completed calmly. “To the Place de l'Etoile. He got fucking shot as I tried to gently talk with the man hiding his stick. And this idiot out there threatened him.”

“Three, path's clear,” Sasha's voice was strong, waiting for a reply.

“For the moment yes, staying here until Seven joins me,” he confirmed as she heard a car following them on the avenue.

“I'm not an idiot,” One protested, wiggling and Five had no other choice than slapping his head. “What was that for,” he exclaimed.

“Don't move or I'll be obliged to cut your arm off or take you to a hospital,” Five seemed stressed, as sweat drops appeared on her forehead, but she didn't lose cool.

Sasha drove, wheels screeching, the engine roaring under her control, One cursing along with Five and Two looking peacefully at the road. Three made a good job, she heard him faking a foreign delivering some stuff to the souvenir shop around there, the mafia men weren't pleased at all as they cursed him, making Two smile under her breath. But Sasha had no time to laugh, focused and tense: everything she loved in this job. She remembered perfectly the ways she had to take to reach the Quartier Latin – without Two's help – to reach Four, waiting for them on an old building. A grand finale, he said to her with a huge grin. Nothing good, absolutely nothing good.

“Where are you,” she heard Four's voice inside her head now, as she tried to avoid the cars in front of them and not get caught by the guys behind as Two was ready to shoot some of them.

“Not so fucking far from Notre Dame with dogs... Pigs behind me, three cars for the moment” she correcter herself, One's cursing distracting her from talking as Five scolded him endlessly. “And the mafia of course, five cars. Hope your plan is bomb or I'll have to speed my way to the 91 as soon as I can!”

“We'll be able to lose half of them, pigs and mafia, so be ready to drive fast: trust me!”

“Do I have a fucking other option,” she yelled, a little smirk on her face as she avoided another car while turning next to the BVH Marais, feeling alive and ready. “I guess I have to trust the Eastern guy!”

“Hey, lovey dovey Eastern people,” One interrupted as he laid on the backseat, trying his best to not move as Five tried to get the bullet out of his arm, “we're not on a love mission, you're not Three and Two, so fucking do your thing before I lose my fucking arm,” he yelled, Two rolled her eyes, before looking at One who just mouthed yes I know.

“Coming to you,” Sasha replied, ignoring One's whining, focused on the mission, and the grand finale.

She turned down the road after the bridge, arriving until one of the universities, this was the old building Four talked about, ready to be destroyed it seemed. She sped up, as the cops and the mafia were trying to catch them. She prayed for Four's plan to work out, truly. And if not, improvisation. She improvised many times, in a city she knew but here she felt like in a damn maze, and was still impressed by her ability to find her way out there. As she entered the large street next the building, she felt gas. No way. She sped up, fingers crossed, hoping they wouldn't get injured even more. A great noise, dirt all around, the building fell. Right on the road, right on the cars following them. And now, she couldn't tell how many of them followed them, but she had a moment to lose them, taking another path, and fitting in the flow of the cars. To Corbeil-Essonnes. The place police feared and French mafia too, because these people were something. And luckily, they loved the ones messing with Frenchies.

“Four, do you copy,” Sasha asked, as the adrenaline rush came down. On the road around Paris, she almost lost all of them. Almost. “Four, do you copy,” she insisted, as Two looked at her, intrigued. “Three, you're still in Paris?”

“Oui, mes beautés,” he replied as she could almost imagine Seven rolling his eyes as Three spoke.

“Four went mia,” Sasha said, focused on the road between One's groans.

“We leave the kid behind, he'll be fine,” she heard. One's voice. She tightened her grip around the steering wheel. No, she wouldn't lose her Eastern partner in crime. She gave him a dark look through the mirror before addressing Five.

“Five, if he says that again don't you fucking dare taking that bullet off his arm, and if you do I'll fucking kill him myself,” she threatened as Two chuckled under her breath, nodding as she looked at Eight, before turning her head back abruptly at the window.

“Don't worry Eight, we won't leave him again, as One wanted,” Seven said through the device.

“Again,” Sasha exclaimed, her voice full of reproach. “You're a sick team, and a sick man One!”

“Stop talking and drive,” he retorted, hissing between his teeth as Five still tried to get that bullet off his arm.

“We're not leaving until we find this problematic boy of ours,” Seven said and Sasha could hear Three's humming.

“You see these guys, you see them,” One shouted, moving all around,as a car sped up until reaching them and Two grabbed her gun and pulled the trigger. One less. Five just sighed.

“We need to lose them, you can do this,” Two asked and Eight looked at them, smirking.

“I absolutely can,” Sasha replied. Speeding up? She was born to do this.

~~~

Pretty quickly, Sasha managed to lose them all, with Two's help and her knowledge of the roads here – something Sasha missed truly to master this evasion properly. On the backseat, Five managed to get the bullet out of One's arm, not without him cursing for many, many long minutes as her and Two were trying to totally lose these guys. And they succeeded. And so did Seven and Three, finding Four.

“Good news,” Seven's voice almost blasted in everyone's ears, “Four's alive, his mic went off during the explosion.”

“Great,” One groaned, as Sasha sighed in relief. She grew close to all of them, but him and Five especially, and she dreaded the moment she would lose them under any circumstances. She already lost Piotr and Magda. “See, Eight? Nothing to be worried about with Four, he's a grown boy!”

“Yeah, thought you were too but you screamed during the whole thing as Five was trying to get that bullet out your arm,” she replied, driving calmly as Two just nodded. Eight made her laugh, sharp remarks, really nice to hear.

“... You have the right to remain silent,” he pursued and looked at Two to change the subject. “So, the usb key?”

“I have it, don't worry One.”

“I do worry, we never know with you,” he complained as Two rolled her eyes.

As Sasha drove towards the hotel they were staying in, Two and One discussed about the usb key, some details about what they needed there and how to get round the CIA's protections against intruders on their files. Three and One would certainly work on that.

They arrived in the hotel almost forty minutes before the others. Sasha was amazed by the calm of the man at the reception desk when he saw One's arm covered with blood, cursing as he held it. Two spoke to him in French, explaining some things Sasha had no idea about, as she looked at Five who just looked helplessly at her to escape One's ramblings. A sound, the doors of the elevator opened and two men with two massive guns came out, not even casting a look at the small group gathered around the desk. Two told them that this place was safe for any criminal, and that here having a gun was nothing abnormal, but seeing it with her own eyes, as she was accustomed to hide her weapons in Poland, made it look even more surreal than it actually was.

They had three rooms to share, Eight with Five, Two with Three and the rest of the group together. As soon as the group arrived to the room where the three men were about to stay, One decided to display all his electronic devices in order to begin to hack the whole key, with Two's knowledge. Five was still searching through the medical bag they carried in the car for some medicine for One, and trying to stitch his wound, as he typed on the keyboard. And Sasha, Eight, stood next to the large window from where she could see the parking lot, looking for the boys to arrive. And she saw them, her face lightened up instantly. Four was the first one to jump out the car, his hoodie on his blond locks and all covered with dust, she could see it distinctly from there. Seven carried his gun in one hand, not seeming to care too much about people who could see him – he must have noticed some men carrying weapons here – and Three had his sunglasses on, and walked confidently towards the entrance. Sasha told to the group that they arrived. A dozen of minutes later, Three opened the door, carrying a bag with him, followed by Seven and Four.

“Was it all worth it,” Seven asked as he put his gun on the bed that was his now.

“One says it is,” Two replied, looking over One's shoulder. “The man we got had many information, I worked with him in the CIA, and that key is our key to some true good information,” she continued, putting her hand on her hip.

“So what's the status of the research,” Three asked, standing next to Two.

“Either you fucking let me work this out, or you go fuck in the elevator or whatever,” One snapped, and Five put some medicine next to his left hand with a glass of water. She took a deep breath.

“Nasty move,” Seven commented. Four, who remained silent until now, leaning against the wall, only nodded with a hum.

“So sorry I'm not a romantic,” One ironically apologized, “but either you two move your asses and help me a bit with this or this mission will me meaningless!”

“I'm out,” Seven said, standing up to avoid the argument or the tension between the three of them.

“Coming with you,” Four stated, following him.

“I'm staying here Eight,” Five said to you, as you gave her a look. “Need to watch this bad boy right here,” she precised, pointing One's arm.

“Joining you guys,” Sasha finally said, Four still holding the door for her.

[mihise]

Mes Demoiselles SS17 collection is finally here! Have a look at www.mihise.com

[upennmanuscripts]

“Love and Humility are the sweet bonds of our marriage:” A Book of Hours owned by the wife of a French Catholic propagandist of the 16th century, and the Governor of Pennsylvania!

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 7/52

Book of Hours, Use of Paris, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1924‑19‑1, fol. 24r (miniature of the Annunciation from the Hours of the Virgin)

Books of Hours are highly mobile objects that can often accrue fascinating later histories. Because of their deeply personal nature, they can become associated with historical persons either through legend or fact (or a combination of the two). Only relatively rarely, however, does one later owner purchase a book on account of its earlier ownership history. One such example is a fairly modest Parisian Book of Hours acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1924 (accession number 1924‑19‑1). Unlike the later ensembles of illuminated manuscripts donated to the museum by Samuel and Vera White or Philip S. Collins, this manuscript was not published or described upon its entry into the collection.[1] Its only existing description comes from Seymour de Ricci’s Census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada and its later Supplement, produced by C.U. Faye and W.H. Bond.

In both Census volumes, the manuscript’s early provenance with the Duderé family in France is briefly recorded, as is its later ownership in the United States by Samuel W. Pennypacker, 23rd Governor of Pennsylvania (1843–1916), who served from 1903 to 1907 (and to whom we shall return). The Duderé provenance is evident through two unequivocal inscriptions within the manuscript. The first, on folio 1r, reads:

1924‑19‑1, fol. 1r, with ownership inscription of Michelle Duderé dated to 1577

Ces heures apartiennent a damoyselle Michelle du Deré femme de Me Loys Dorleans aduocat en la court de Parlement et lesquelles luy sont echeues par la succession de feu son pere Me Jehan Duderé conseiller du roy & auditeur en sa chambre des comptes, 1577; Amour & Humilité sont les doux liens de nostre mariage.

(“This Book of Hours belongs to Lady Michelle du Deré wife of Mr. Louis d’Orléans advocate in the court of Parliament and it descended from her deceased father Mr. Jean Duderé counsellor of the King and auditor in his chamber of accounts. 1577. Love and Humility are the sweet bonds of our marriage.”)

It thus transpires that the book was in the possession of Michelle Duderé, wife of the noted French Catholic League pamphleteer Louis Dorléans (1542–1629).[2] In addition to being known for authoring numerous religious tracts, Dorléans was also an occasional poet, and wrote some bucolic verses replete with thinly-veiled references to his beloved wife, but also to his former mistress Catherine de la Sale![3] Interestingly, some of his writings also show an unusual knowledge of Middle French poetry; he even donated a fourteenth-century French translation of the Golden Legend to a Minim convent in Paris in 1561 (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms. 1279). Michelle Duderé, as she herself tells us in the inscription, had inherited the Book of Hours from her father, Jean Duderé, notary and secretary to the French king, whose principal historical importance seems to have been his invocation in a seventeenth-century lawsuit concerning the inheritance of such royal appointments. It appears that the manuscript was then gifted by Michelle Duderé’s blind son to a cousin once-removed, a certain G. Duderé, for on the verso of the first folio we read another French inscription, written some seventy-three years later:

1924‑19‑1, fol. 1r, with ownership inscription of G. Duderé dated to 1650

Ce présent livre m’a esté donné par feu monsieur d’Orléans, fils de mademoiselle d’Orléans nomée Michelle Duderé lequel estoit aveugle et qui estoit digne de cette affliction, mon cousin germain, G. Dudere 1650… les figures qui sont à genoux dans les ymages de ce livre sont de feu damoiselle Michelle de Sauslai [?] mère de deffunct mon frère.

(“This present book was given to me by the late Monsieur D’Orleans son of Madame D’Orleans named Michelle Dudere. He was blind and worthily bore this affliction, my cousin once removed. G. Dudere 1650… the figures which are on their knees in the pictures of this book are portraits of the deceased demoiselle Michelle de Sauslai [?], mother of my deceased father.”)

   1924‑19‑1, fols. 124r and 130r (miniature of the Virgin and Child with Angel with a female donor; miniature of the Trinity with an Angel holding the Crown of Thorns with a female donor)

The supposition that the two donor portraits (on folios 124r and 130r; illustrated above) contained in the book depict a certain “Michelle de Sauslai” (?), grandmother of the owner alive in 1650 is manifestly incorrect, since the book dates from the fifteenth century. But there is no reason to doubt the other pieces of evidence situating the book with the Duderé family early in its history.

Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker (1843–1916)

This is all fine and well, but how did the manuscript come to be owned by the Governor of Pennsylvania, Samuel Pennypacker? Pennypacker was a noted jurist, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and local history enthusiast who collected a large amount of material related to the early German and Dutch settlement of South-Eastern Pennsylvania, most of which is today preserved at the Pennypacker Mills house museum. Other manuscripts once owned by Pennypacker that are still in Philadelphia include another Book of Hours (Lewis E 116) and a series of astronomical tables followed by a short text concerning astrology and planetary movements (Lewis E 3), both of which are today in the Free Library. These manuscripts were all auctioned off in the Pennypacker sale in 1906, together with a small number of other manuscripts. Additionally, for the present manuscript, the Faye and Bond supplement to de Ricci’s Census includes the name of an additional owner, the noted Chestnut Hill philanthropist, John Story Jenks (1839–1923). Jenks was a great supporter of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (the precursor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art), as a short obituary confirms.[4] It was he who left the manuscript to the museum upon his death.

Portrait of John Story Jenks (1839–1923) by Alice Mumford Roberts

So why did Governor Pennypacker purchase this particular French Book of Hours, prior to its acquisition and donation by Jenks? The answer is provided in an all-but-forgotten issue of a regional historical journal, The Perkiomen Region, Past and Present, published in March of 1901 by Henry S. Dotterer (1841–1903). The short article, entitled “A Sumptuous Devotional Book,” vividly describes the book and asserts that the Governor:

…purchased it because he felt convinced that the family of Duderé mentioned in the inscription was identical with an old Pennsylvanian family—that of Doderer, Dotterer, Dudderer, Duttera, Dudderow. This conviction induced him to pay the large sum quoted for it by the foreign bookseller [i.e. James Tregaskis of London], and to bring it, after a service of more than three centuries, from its native France to the New World.

To find the connecting links from the Duderés of the Sixteenth century to the Dotterers of the Twentieth century would be a great genealogical achievement. Doderers and Dotterers appear in various parts of Europe prior to the date of the arrival, about 1722, of George Philip Dodderer, or Dotterer, in Pennsylvania. Tradition, in some instances, asserts that the Pennsylvania immigrants were of French origin; but not uniformly so, for Alsace, Baden, Wurtemberg and Austria are also named as the place of their nativity. We have unbounded respect for Judge Pennypacker’s insight into genealogy, ethnology, and the kindred sciences, and it will therefore not be a surprise to us if research shall ultimately prove that his intuitions are correct.[5]

The prominent Dotterer family of Pennsylvania was established by George Phillip Dotterer (ca. 1676–1741), who was born in Baden-Württemberg and died in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1741. George’s father Hans is thought to have been born in the same region of Germany as his son around 1650. However, this family’s link to the prominent Catholic Duderés of France remains tenuous. As such, Governor Pennypacker’s assumption remains unlikely; perhaps his doubts led him to sell the book on in his 1906 sale. In any case, both G. Duderé’s misattribution of the portraits in the book and the dubious linkage to the Dotterer dynasty made by Governor Pennypacker demonstrate the extent to which an unsuspecting manuscript can become the subject of historical wishful thinking.

[1] Henry G. Gardiner, “The Samuel S. White, 3rd, and Vera White Collection,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 63, no. 296/297 (1968): 71–150, http://bit.ly/2Hc3lI4; Carl Zigrosser, “The Philip S. Collins Collection of Mediaeval Illuminated Manuscripts,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 58, no. 275 (1962): 3–34, http://bit.ly/2Vt3u3u.

[2] See the entry by Christophe Bernard in Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: le XVIe siècle, ed. Michel Simonin (Paris: Fayard-La Pochothèque, 2001), 370–71.

[3] Anne-Bérangère Rothenburger, “L’Eglogue de la naissance de Jésus-Christ pas Louis Dorléans: datation et filiation poétiques,” in Le poète et son œuvre: de la composition à la publication, ed. Jean-Eudes Girot (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 259–87.

[4] Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin 18, no. 77 (May 1923): 16.

[5] Henry S. Dotterer, “A Sumptuous Devotional Book,” The Perkiomen Region, Past and Present 3, no. 2 (March 1901): 166–7.

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[phroyd]

We lost one of the Great Film Makers yesterday.  Her soul will live on In Cinema! Rest In Peace, Agnes! - Phroyd

Agnès Varda, a groundbreaking French filmmaker who was closely associated with the New Wave — although her reimagining of filmmaking conventions actually predated the work of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and others identified with that movement — died on Friday morning at her home in Paris. She was 90.

Her death, from breast cancer, was confirmed by a spokeswoman for her production company, Ciné-Tamaris.

In recent years, Ms. Varda had focused her directorial skills on nonfiction work that used her life and career as a foundation for philosophical ruminations and visual playfulness. “The Gleaners and I,” a 2000 documentary in which she used the themes of collecting, harvesting and recycling to reflect on her own work, is considered by some to be her masterpiece.

But it was not her last film to receive widespread acclaim. In 2017, at the age of 89, Ms. Varda partnered with the French photographer and muralist known as JR on “Faces Places,” a road movie that featured the two of them roaming rural France, meeting the locals, celebrating them with enormous portraits and forming their own fast friendship. Among its many honors was an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature. (It did not win, but that year Ms. Varda was given an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement.)

It was her early dramatic films that helped establish Ms. Varda as both an emblematic feminist and a cinematic firebrand — among them “Cléo From 5 to 7” (1962), in which a pop singer spends a fretful two hours awaiting the result of a cancer examination, and “Le Bonheur” (1965), about a young husband’s blithely choreographed extramarital affair.

Ms. Varda established herself as a maverick cineaste well before such milestones of the New Wave as Mr. Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” (1959) and Mr. Godard’s “Breathless” (1960). Her “La Pointe Courte” (1955), which juxtaposed the strife of an unhappy couple with the struggles of a French fishing village, anticipated by several years the narrative and visual rule-breaking of directors like Mr. Truffaut, Mr. Godard and Alain Resnais, who edited “La Pointe Courte” and would introduce Ms. Varda to a number of the New Wave principals in Paris.

These included Mr. Truffaut, Mr. Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer, all of whom had gotten their start at the critic André Bazin’s magazine Cahiers du Cinema, and who became known as the Right Bank group. The more politicized and liberal Left Bank group would come to include Mr. Resnais, Chris Marker and Ms. Varda herself.

Arlette Varda was born on May 30, 1928, in Ixelles, Belgium, the daughter of a Greek father and a French mother. She left Belgium with her family in 1940 for Sète, France, where she spent her teenage years. At 18, she changed her name to Agnès.

She studied art history at the École du Louvre and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts before working as a photographer at the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris.

“I just didn’t see films when I was young,” she said in a 2009 interview. “I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn’t have made films if I had seen lots of others; maybe it would have stopped me.

“I started totally free and crazy and innocent,” she continued. “Now I’ve seen many films, and many beautiful films. And I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don’t do commercials, I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing.”

Her “thing” often involved straddling the line between what was commonly accepted as fiction and nonfiction, and defying the boundaries of gender.

“She was very clear about her feeling that the New Wave was a man’s club and that as a woman it was hard for producers to back her, even after she made ‘Cléo’ in 1962,” T. Jefferson Kline, a professor of French at Boston University and the editor of “Agnès Varda: Interviews” (2013), said in an interview for this obituary. “She obviously was not pleased that as a woman filmmaker she had so much trouble getting produced. She went to Los Angeles with her husband, and she said when she came back to France it was like she didn’t exist.”

Ms. Varda was married to the director Jacques Demy (“Lola,” “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) from 1962 until his death in 1990. From 1968 to 1970 they lived in Hollywood, where Mr. Demy made “Model Shop” for Columbia Pictures and Ms. Varda made “Lions Love,” which married a meditative late-’60s Los Angeles aesthetic to the New York counterculture. (The cast included the Warhol “superstar” Viva; Gerome Ragni and James Rado, the writers of the book for the musical “Hair”; and the underground filmmaker Shirley Clarke.) During that same period, she shot the short documentary “Black Panthers” (1968), which included an interview with the incarcerated Panther leader Huey Newton; commissioned by French television, it was suppressed at the time.

It was also during that period that she befriended Jim Morrison, the frontman of the Doors, who visited her and Mr. Demy in France; according to Stephen Davis’s “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend” (2004), she was one of only five mourners at Mr. Morrison’s funeral in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris in 1971. That same year she became one of the 343 women to sign the “Manifesto of the 343,” a French petition acknowledging that they had had abortions and thus making themselves vulnerable to prosecution.

In 1972, the birth of her son, Mathieu Demy, now an actor, prompted Ms. Varda to sideline her career. He survives her, as does the costume designer Rosalie Varda Demy, Ms. Varda’s daughter from a previous relationship, who was adopted by Jacques Demy.

“Despite my joy,” Ms. Varda told the actress Mireille Amiel in a 1975 interview, “I couldn’t help resenting the brakes put on my work and my travels.” So she had an electric line of about 300 feet for her camera and microphone run from her house, and with this “umbilical cord” she managed to interview the shopkeepers and her other neighbors on the Rue Daguerre. The result was “Daguerréotypes” (1976).

In 1977 she made what she called her “feminist musical,” and one of her better-known films, “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” which also seemed inspired by personal circumstance.

“It’s the story of two 15-year-old girls, their lives and their ideas,” she told Ms. Amiel. “They have to face this key problem: Do they want to have children or not? They each fall in love and encounter the contradictions — work/image, ideas/love, etc.”

One of Ms. Varda’s more controversial films, because of its casting, was “Kung-Fu Master!” (1988), a fictional work about an adult woman — played by the actress Jane Birkin, a friend of Ms. Varda’s — who falls in love with a teenage boy, played by Ms. Varda’s son. The title — it was changed in France to “Le Petit Amour” — referred to the young character’s favorite arcade game. The film was shot more or less simultaneously with “Jane B. par Agnes V.,” another of Ms. Varda’s border crossings between fact and fiction, which she called “an imaginary biopic.”

After Jacques Demy’s death, Ms. Varda made three films as a tribute: the biographical drama “Jacquot de Nantes” (1991) and the documentaries “Les Demoiselles Ont Eu 25 Ans” (1993), about the 25th anniversary of Mr. Demy’s “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” and “L’Univers de Jacques Demy” (1995).

Ms. Varda was then relatively inactive until 1999, when, armed for the first time with a digital camera, she set about making “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse” (“The Gleaners and I”), which resurrected an artistic career now well accustomed to under appreciation and resuscitation.

“She was a person of immense talent, but also enormously thoughtful,” said Mr. Kline of Boston University. “When you look at some of the films you might think they were more spontaneous than thought out. A film like ‘Cléo,’ for instance, you might have said, ‘O.K., she just follows Cléo around Paris,’ but the film is extremely beautifully imagined and thought out beforehand.”

In “Vagabond,” an 1985 film in which Sandrine Bonnaire plays a woman who is found dead and whose life is recounted, often in documentary style, “the traveling shots in the film are always ending, and each subsequent shot beginning, on a common visual cue,” Mr. Kline said. “It makes you look at film in a completely different way.”

Alison Smith, author of the critical study “Agnès Varda” (1998), called Ms. Varda “a poet of objects and how we use them.” In an interview for this obituary, she added, “Varda as an artist intrigued, and intrigues, me by the constant freshness and curiosity which she brings to her inquiries into the everyday world and how we relate to it, particularly how she uses the detailed fabric of life.”

Richard Peña, who as director of the New York Film Festival helped introduce “Gleaners” to an American audience, praised that film and Ms. Varda’s “The Beaches of Agnès” (2008) as “touchstones for a new generation of nonfiction filmmakers.”

Ms. Varda is represented at the Museum of Modern Art by photographs, films, videos and a three-screen installation titled “The Triptych of Noirmoutier.” “A decision to change direction and move into installation art when over 80 is, by any standards, remarkable,” Ms. Smith said. “But her energy was awe-inspiring.”

Phroyd

[antigonick]

Hope you're having a good day! You seem to have a really nice sense of fashion and I was wondering what your favorite shops/brands are? I'm looking for a nice dress to buy and IT'S SO HARD.

I know right ? I haven’t found a dress I really want in a long time.

I’m always wavering between boho and kooky scandi influences, so brace yourself for a list of complete opposites.

Vintage and indie brands:The Vintage ScenePop SickSyd and MalloryOoto ClothingNotPerfectLinenLinenfox

Mainstream brands:WeekdayLazy OafThe Ragged PriestMonkiNative YouthFree People

I also love Zara new collection (linen ! long dresses ! big sleeves !), but I’m trying to be more mindful of the consequences of fast fashion. 

Oh, and for the aesthetes and the masochists, here are my favourite—

Out-of-my-budget brands:Mes Demoiselles Paris*Antik BatikManoushRéalisation ParAnthropologieGorman Clothing

*I would do anything for any of their pieces.

[shudnwi]

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[dansnaturepictures]

10 of my favourites New Forest walks…another post in aid of English Tourism Week

As promised here is another post inspired by English Tourism week, just saying 10 of my favourite walks in the amazing and wild national park in Hampshire the New Forest. Below I explain why I like them, it’s in no particular order and I have to say it was so hard to get it down to ten with strong places like Shatterford, Denny Wood and Rockford and Ibsley Common missing out. But once again I’ve tried to mix it up in the interest of variety with showcasing some of my favourite places in the forest.

Pig Bush

Pig Bush between Beaulieu and Lyndhurst is one of my top 2 walks from car parks actually out in the middle of the New Forest alongside Deadman Hill, both were ones I first spotted and suggested to my Mum we visit. Pig Bush is exactly what the New Forest is all about for me, mixing beautiful heathland and woodland well. It’s a great photography site, the 1st picture in this photoset of the sun shining through trees in May 2016 is one of my favourites I’ve taken there. It’s a brilliant place for cloud scene pictures as well. It’s great for wildlife too especially two of my favourite birds the Cuckoo and Buzzard, Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher and of course another of my favourite birds the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker a bird I dreamt of seeing where I had two phenomenal moments spotting it in 2014 and 2017.

Deadman Hill 

This is another really beautiful heathland landscape which with Ashley Walk across the road from it forms my favourite landscape in the New Forest, the heather when it goes purple here in the late summer/autumn is divine. I’ve had so many happy memories here and lovely wildlife such as one of my favourite butterflies the Silver-studded Blue as photographed in July 2015 the second picture in this photoset and two of my favourite birds the Cuckoo and Dartford Warbler and Fallow Deer make it a top place to visit always.

Ashley Walk 

Another one I discovered for us as I was drawn in by the attractive curvy path from the road and I have had many great times there since. It’s such a beautiful area and the 3rd picture in this photoset from 2016 sums that up. Wildlife highlights of this walk for me include Redstart, Small Heath butterflies and I even saw a Heath Goldsmith Beetle there once.  

Eyeworth Pond 

This is a wonderful little site, with a pond that hosts birds such as Goosander, Mandarin Duck and Wood Duck as shown in the 4th picture in this photoset from 2016 and the beautiful heathland is also good for Cuckoos, Redstarts, Raven and Fallow Deer. It just beats Denny Wood onto this list, they are fairly similar in that they’re a good quick place to go and are good for photographing feeding woodland birds another key asset of this spot, but the heath and the pond just have a bit more variety to beat out Denny Wood.

Whitefield Moor 

This one mixes a few habitats both sides of the road, heathland, woodland and the Ober Water. The Water is good for Kingfisher and Beautiful Demoiselles and on the heath on the other side of the road which I first suggested we go to is one of my go to places to see one of my favourite butterflies the Common Grayling a New Forest speciality as photographed in the 5th picture in this photoset there in 2017.

Blackwater 

Blackwater is famous for its collection of beautiful and tall trees and we first discovered it thanks to going to see our first ever Hawfinches and this place has dominated our sightings of these marvellous birds over the years, along with the Crossbills we see there they’re the two main highlights of it. It’s also good for butterflies such as two of my favourites the Large Skipper and Silver-washed Fritillary in the season and Foxgloves as shown in the 6th picture in this photoset in 2011 there.

Bolderwood

Again this is one that has a couple of bits to it across a road and one side is one of the best places to see one of my favourite mammals the Fallow Deer in the forest as they sometimes feed them here near to a viewing platform which is a great attraction. I’ve had so many great moments with these animals here and my butterfly interest started here as I saw a Silver-washed Fritillary in 2010 and wished to know what type it was and the rest is history. The 7th picture in this photoset shows a view down a beautiful stream there in 2016. The other side of the road is where we saw our Nightjars there in 2016 a brilliant place for them.

Acres Down 

As shown in the 8th picture in this photoset this is a really beautiful part of the New Forest which I have known for years. We first went there to see Goshawk and did with Honey Buzzard and Tree Pipit life ticks on the same day. I saw my first of one of my favourite birds the Cuckoo here in 2011, the heath is great for two of my favourite butterflies the Common Grayling and Silver-studded Blue and the woods host Speckled Wood butterfly and my favourite mushrooms red Fly Agaric well.

Blashford Lakes 

One of my favourite ever nature reserves which I’ve been visiting 10 years and it hosts such a diverse range of wildlife especially birds like the Grey Heron in the 9th picture in this photoset in 2014. It’s especially good for waders, ducks, gulls and woodland species. Key species that can be seen here include Kingfisher, Bittern, Great White Egret, Pochard, Goosander, Goldeneye, Ring-billed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Brambling, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll and Treecreeper. Badgers and Elephant Hawkmoths are examples of other wildlife the site hosts well.

Lymington-Keyhaven 

Another of my favourite nature reserves this fairly vast and very pretty bit of land is good for seeing so many waders, duck and other species, key ones including one of my favourite birds the Brent Geese as pictured in 2014 in the 10th picture in this photoset, Little Tern, Mediterranean Gull, Pintail, Curlew, Wood and Pectoral Sandpiper, Grey Phalarope, Dartford Warbler, Ruff, Spoonbill, Little Egret, Shelduck, Great Crested Grebe, Avocet, Slavonian Grebe, Spotted Redshank and Peregrine Falcon.

[impressivepress]

The specter of ruin – Cubism and War at the Museu Picasso

In Barcelona, Justin takes in a show at the Museo Picasso that weaves together art and politics to think about artists' responses in the build up to WW1.

The night is warm for November, somewhere in the sixties, and I’m in El Museo Picasso de Barcelona. The street it’s on is thin and feels more like an alleyway than automobile thoroughfare. I laugh at the thought of an American SUV, like a monster truck, powering its way over mini coopers to the museum’s entrance. It’ll be Veteran’s Day soon in the States, Remembrance Day in the commonwealth, but I’m in Spain, and by coincidence or by cause the exhibit here is about war–Cubism and War: The Crystal and the Flame (21 Oct–29 Jan 2017). Next to an array of both horrific an oddly endearing war photos, I see a letter encased in glass. The artist Henri Laurens writes to financier Leonce Rosenberg: “…We must be wary of good taste, beautiful colors, and compositions. The mind must be king, to the detriment of all that flatters the eye. If the road is rocky and unpaved, all the better if it leads to purity. It will never be rough enough to discourage the superficial.”

But this is also the plight of artists under duress: paint, draw, duck, hide, peek, draw again. The exhibit reveals the cubists in Paris were never far from the external specter of ruin, and evidently leery of the internal one. The war to end all wars was only a few hours away, and two of their own had been sent to fight. This is what artists wrestle with, have wrestled with, which is to say we’ve heard it all before: artists respond to their volatile world. Cubism and War is noteworthy in that it pushes to the forefront the turbulent backdrop of a crucial span of the cubists’ movement. And with a focus on the Spanish-speaking world, it includes gems like the evolution of famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The exhibit is generous in its scope and delivers on showing a collision of worlds, a real one and an artistic one.

Specters of influence

Picasso is synonymous with, at least in pop culture, indecipherable modern art. He and Manet, though, were both concerned with breaking away from what art was supposed to be, to arrive at what it actually is. And by this they meant bringing it closer to Earth, to the way things are at the core. We know Picasso’s masterpiece “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was influenced by African art, that he was influenced by Oceanic art. In the analytic period of cubism it’s more evident Picasso is tinkering with the illusionist tendencies of academia, his father’s work, Picasso’s own work. We see the breakdown of a viewing experience. Yes, what happened to Picasso was African and Oceanic art. But what also happened to Picasso was Cézanne, which is to say Pablo Picasso happened upon a few Cézannes. I see it in “Montaña de Málaga,” “Paris,” and “Barcelona Rooftops.” These are in the museum’s permanent collection. Picasso himself is unabashed about the influence of Cézanne, those first deep inquiries into the eye’s reconciliation of space.

In Cubism and War there’s still the echo of Cézanne’s brushwork in the pieces that still include illusionism, but pieces like “Arlequín y mujer con collar” point to a departure from those times, a movement towards color and shape and a medium’s conformity to the two dimensional surface. As one of largest pieces in the exhibit, “Arlequín y mujer con collar” is the embodiment of fragmented space, abstracted nature, in this case figuration. With its wonky Josef Albers-like grey square-in-a-square background, the color of white sparingly implemented, a liberal use of black and blue within the subject’s area on the canvas, and lastly the parts of canvas dotted with black, it looks to me like a nod to his earlier use of newspaper in collage, the way those marks, those words and letters had worked for him in the past.

This is evident in Juan Gris’ piece “El paquete de café,” which is included in the show. Gris uses newspaper to reassign marks used for language, to repurpose them for their visual rather than semantic qualities, the need for language as a material and visual function of everything he sought to convey. Kitchen sink mode. In “El paquete de café,” we get content in earnest, the signified, a collection of signifiers as content and the optical finality of the arrangement, its resemblance to wood grain patterns, if we consider the space between words. Wood grains patterns are included in this piece, next to the news. Juan Gris leaves charcoal all over it, maybe as a wink to unification or the blurring of the exact nature of the separation.

Separation and rift

This is maybe what early cubism foreshadows, a separation. The war period saw a split between Picasso and his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (he ended up with Paul Rosenberg instead). After 1914 he stopped making sculptures for fifteen years. Georges Braque, whose work inspired the critic Louis Vauxchelles to coin the term cubism, was sent to war. His postwar art is in the show, but the war left him badly injured, temporarily blind. The cubists were also split by the path of the movement itself. An essay by cubist-poet Pierre Reverdy criticized cubist portraiture and the artists responsible for it. Diego Rivera, who left Mexico for Madrid, and Madrid for Paris is said to have attacked Reverdy at an event in 1917, causing the community to part ways.

It makes sense then that Rivera’s work shows the most dramatic change over this period. Included in Cubism and War is Rivera’s foray into cubism. Having lived through the Mexican revolution, he was nudged overseas to study under artist Eduardo Chicharro. From there he headed to Montparnasse, Paris, where the major artists of the period gathered. Works like “Maternidad” and “Joven con suéter gris” demonstrate Rivera’s cubist chops, but also predict what would come next. In “Maternidad,” for example, the path of synthetic cubism is subverted to a degree, a critique of that sensibility by an endearing subject–a baby being breastfed by its fragmented mother. Her breast and the infant’s head share a nurturing purple. The deconstructed space is at odds with a subject matter that lends itself to a more naturalistic depiction, not an abstracted one. I’m torn before it. In a world at war, why is the future of art these high-end objects only the wealthy can buy? Rivera wrestled with this before ditching cubism and Paris to study frescoes in Italy.

Return to realism

But I believe it’s his piece “The Mathematician,” included in Cubism and War, that offers the most scathing rebuke. Rivera returns to his roots with a social realist portrait of a seated man. “The Mathematician” is a premonition, inhuman, a calculator as distant as the bartender in Manet’s “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.” But unlike the lady in Manet’s piece, Rivera’s thinker is a bastion of solitude, at home in his own mind. Not lost on the artists of this period was the unprecedented use of applied science in weapons of war: the tank, the war plane, the new and improved machine gun. Death or untimely anti-life was being mass produced, better than ever. The mathematician’s upright, rigid posture aligns somewhat vertically with the canvas. The wall behind him is adorned with math diagrams, geometric shapes, lines, arrows, allusions to a kind of art-not-art. Rivera evades the end game path of his contemporaries like Picasso, whom artist Brassai, in his book Conversations with Picasso, later accused of trying to separate from reality. “The Mathematician” quietly lampoons problem solvers in art, which can be read as a cop out. Importantly though, it questions the taboo of connection as intention. It posits, I believe, that the pursuit of a counter-intuitive or disconnected singularity misses the point. The wellspring of discovery, the riffing and experimentation that birthed the cubist movement was now lost to a burgeoning scramble for an art-formal zenith (i.e. what follows formally as a linear one-up progression).

Perhaps this is the most important effect of the Great War on the cubists, Rivera’s return to realism, to populist murals, his influence on artists, especially minority artists in the Americas, the WPA period in the USA, and his wife Frida. Artist Hale Woodruff studied with Diego Rivera for a year in 1938 before completing his seminal work “The Mutiny on the Amistad,” a piece about a slave revolt on the slaveship Amistad. Cinque, an African slave, the leader of the rebellion had had enough and acted on it. It’s a recurring theme in populist rhetoric, in some war propaganda: we’re fed up, you and I. You and I, we’ve certainly had enough.

~ Justin O. Walker · December 12, 2016.

[sussex-nature-lover]

Friday 29th May 2020

Walking and...Walking. Part I

Starting with a puzzle. What’s this?

It’s Daisy Waldron’s nest of twigs as seen from below and a slightly embarrassing shot (if she knew) of the underneath of her tail. All is well. So that’s Nest Watch for today.

Gosh it was hot yesterday and we embarked on a walk down ‘Linnet Lane’ to go on a different journey across the fields. Because of the heat I tied my hair up in a high ponytail and one of my favourite bandannas around my head as so called Bunny Ears. It’s a bit like No 1 here but shorter ears that stick up. It was a belt and braces job for cooling the neck and keeping all the wispy bits of hair off my face.

I’ll detail the walk

First off we went down to the Station Car Park - not a single car to be seen at all, but some new signs have appeared.

And then off down the lane, past the wires where I got a photo of my first Linnet and almost caught a Goldfinch. Here it is against the beautiful deep blue sky and yes, it really was that colour.

I’ve also had help to ID my first sighting of a Whitethroat

Within a 5-10 minute, very slow amble from our house, where the fields open up more, we’re seeing and hearing different birds each day now.

There were quite a few Swallows in this field - far too quick for a photo though, even quicker than my elusive Goldfinch.

There are lots of missing footpath markers on our walks, but someone’s painted a handy sign here and it leads us over a stile into a field of freshly cut grass 

The scent in the air was just like high Summer.

Next stop was a concrete bridge where we saw some more Beautiful Demoiselles. This is what you have to contend with to spot them, let alone photograph them. Peer very closely at the middle of the screen and the frozen bit at the end - yes, that’s it.

Here’s a still. You’re looking at the tiny grey splodge right in the centre.

Moving on through a field to a nice new gate and yet another stile - one of very many -we were in a further field of scratchy stubble with a clear path across. 

Common Blue Damselfly

The stubble makes for a nice background and the Damselfly was much happier to pose. There were quite a few of them in this field. I put this photo on Twitter along with one of the Beautiful Demoiselle and the British Dragonfly picked it up

You can submit records Here.

The field beyond this was busy, the silage has been bailed and was being collected along to the alarming tones of the automatic bird scarer.

I don’t know so much about the birds, but it can make me jump even though I know it’s there.

We stopped our walk after traversing the whole perimeter and had a rest in the shade looking at the view to the next field which is full of buttercups.

The hedgerows are so pretty and full of birds, so are the margins. We got so close to this female pheasant we wondered if Millie had followed us.

A bottle of water down I was feeling the need for another drink so we started to step it out a bit, just stopping for a very socially distanced chat with the lady at the last farmhouse and to take the usual photo of our trees from yet another angle.

Just before we got home we spotted more hazards in the field of young bullocks

Right in a far corner, a discarded bulk ballast bag, possibly from rail track works and what at first looked like party remnants in reds and purples, but on closer inspection is probably just random plastic waste.  Messages had to be circulated again and we did drive the youth away from the mess, as he was having a sniff and a chew, but it’s now another extra job for someone, becauseit really does need clearing away safely. I’m getting the rage again over the strewing of waste in the countryside and the absolute ignorance of road users.

Back home I was happy to get my boots off and sunglasses. Took the camera from around my neck and went to peel off the bandanna bunny ears but OH NO!

Gone. 

Gone. There was only to be one thing for it. But first tea...

TBC.

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