#picturesofthegoneworld

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XXI ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqL2RpRp-fn/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ratinayellowbandana]

Hello! Can I request a number 22 "Do you trust me?" "I don't know." from the angst prompt list if this appeals to you at all?

Best of luck with getting back into the grove, I look forward to reading anything new <3

hi! thank you very very much for this prompt - it's delicious. might even reuse it for another idea I have rolling around. i hope you enjoy how this one turned out; it was a great warm-up piece and i got to play around with second person (very sorry if that's not your thing). and on a personal note - I'm a huge fan of yours, so this was a wild ask to wake up to!

cw: mild gore, self-doubt

length: ~1250 words

~~~

You watch as Imogen steps forward. Once. Twice. Her head tilts, and her eyes narrow. Another step. You back away. Your chest is heaving. Why are you shaking? The cold calculation in Imogen’s gaze is unfamiliar. You have been reduced to an object—a threat to be sized up before you are dispatched by those capable hands. And, in a way, you are, aren’t you? A threat. An object. A strung-out puppet without a home.

She is-was-could-be your home, you think. Maybe. She has been. At least, you want to believe that is the truth of it. But how can you be sure? Home has always been an abstraction to you, a thing kept just out of sight, dangled like a lure bobbing just beneath the surface, tempting you up from the depths. It remains just out of reach, it seems. You feel yourself sinking, sinking back into the places the sun cannot reach. It’s safe there, you have learned. The shadows protect you. They are just as much a part of you as the scars that litter paper-thin skin, reminders of rising a little too close to the warm-bright world above.   

Imogen’s stare is piercing, the faint purple glow radiating faintly, only detectable in the darkness. Two pinpricks of violet that bore into you from a safe fifteen paces away. 

Jagged rocks loom, emerge from the ceiling, the walls, like fingers crooking accusingly in your direction. The heel of your shoe catches on a massive hooked chain, snaking and coiling and disappearing in and out of the shadows. Mist curls around your ankles. Hands clutch at a corseted chest as if fabric and boning could freeze the magic leaking from taloned fingertips. 

“This isn’t me,” you swear, and the words sound hollow, distant, echoing, like the air is swallowing them up before they leave your lips.

“It isn’t,” Imogen replies sardonically, but her hands remain pinched at her hips, a faint crimson flickering at her fingertips. “Did you do this?”

Your brow furrows. Three crackling purple spheres appear overhead, and the mist thins. Shriveled corpses sprawl across the stone floor between you. Their skin is ashy and gray, lips dried and drawn back in wild grins that reveal stained, rotting teeth. Bulging eyes too wide for their sockets, bloodshot and unseeing, stare vacantly at the ceiling. Stiff fingers curl into claws, digging into bodies contorted and frozen in expressions of agony. 

“No,” you say, “no, of course not.” You shift back, away, away, and stumble over a red-robed thigh. “I wouldn’t,” you insist. 

“No?”

You repeat, “I wouldn’t. I–”

“How would you know?” Imogen’s tone is cool, “If you did.” She steps over one mangled body, tutting, thunderously calm. A spark flashes in her fist.

“I–”

“You wouldn’t know, would you? If it was you.” She pauses, stares. Her words are biting. “You told me yourself. Maybe it was Delilah.” You shrink back, away, away, until your back hits the jagged wall, and you relish in the pain because it means that something is solid. The fog in your head is thick, clouding, as Imogen stalks toward you. “Is there a difference anymore?” 

A chill runs through you, and the beautiful new corset you wear seems to constrict around your chest, squeezing, strangling. Imogen doesn’t believe you. She doesn’t believe you, and if she doesn’t believe in you, can you believe yourself? She was your home, once, (right?) but the foundation is cracked, leaking ichor and electricity that fries your toes. You need to know. Suddenly, it is the most important thing in the world. Imogen’s confidence in your goodness. That something in you is worth saving. Worth something. (There must be something.)  

“Do you trust me?” Your voice is thick, rattling, when you whisper through dusty cords. 

Imogen is five paces away, now, and moving closer as you press all you can into the wall. Perhaps you could become a fossil for the next generation of adventurers to find. Compressed and hardened between shale and mineral and away, away from piercing violet. Imogen studies you, unmoving, untouching. 

“I don’t know,” she says at last. She brings a hand up to grasp your chin, and you flinch. You have never flinched from her before. (You haven’t.) Her grip is firm. “Should I?”

“Yes,” you say, desperate. “Yes. Please.” Because you need her to understand so badly you could tear your heart from your chest and lay it at her feet if only so she would know it’s there. 

“You hurt us. You hurt your friends, Laudna. Look at them.” She releases your chin and spreads her arms.

Bathed in dim purple light, the corpses wear the clothes of your companions. (Have they always looked like this?) Fearne in FCG’s tattered coat, seafoam hair limp and stringy. Bor’dor, his green shawl stained dark with ichor. Chetney, his throat torn out. Orym, bruised, with Seedling and the Summit Blade fallen at his side. Ashton, arm in pieces.

“I didn’t.” You sound uncertain even to yourself. 

Imogen scoffs. “Running away again?” (Again?)

Always running. You always run. It has always been easier to run. It would be easier to run. (Why can’t you run?) You want to run away. You cannot go far from Imogen. (Can’t you?) The wall is moving. (The wall shouldn’t be moving. Walls can’t move. Why is the wall moving? Are you moving? Are you? A r e  y o u) 

“This is your fault.”

Your tongue refuses to move. It sits limp in your mouth like rotting meat. Sour. Disgusting. Useless, useless. Imogen doesn’t believe you. Doesn’t believe in you. Did you do this? This is your fault. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault your fault your fault your fault your fault

You shudder and gasp, and suddenly, Imogen is holding you, but that cannot be right because she doesn’t trust you and why should she because who are you if you are not yourself and maybe you are just Delilah but how can you be sure and and and 

“Hey, woah,” Imogen croons near your ear. “Hey, you’re all right; you’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Stale cavern air that tastes of death and decay floods your lungs, and you heave. Your hands and knees scrape against the floor. You need to get away, away. Away from her. You need to run. Before you hurt anyone. Before you hurt her. 

“Okay, hey, you’re okay, honey. Dominox got you good, huh?” 

Your vision darkens, and your ears ring, and your teeth lengthen.

“What’d you see?” Chetney crows. 

Imogen’s arms tighten around you, and you stiffen.  

“Give her a minute.” 

You shake your head against Imogen’s chest. Bits of debris lodge in your palm, and you savor the sting. Dark hair hangs in a curtain where it has been torn loose. 

“Take your time,” Imogen murmurs. Her eyes are not glowing; her hands do not spark. They trace small circles along your back where you can still feel the imprint of sharp stone, and you shiver at the dissonance. “It wasn’t real, Laudna. Whatever it was, it was the demon messin’ with your head.” 

A shaky exhale escapes your lips. “Do you trust me?” 

“What?” Imogen pulls away slightly to meet your wide eyes. She hesitates. Her mind presses against yours. You can feel her skimming, paging through your surface thoughts like a stone over water before she settles, bobbing, tempting. 

“Is it her?” Orym asks warily. 

“I think so,” Imogen says, but she remains intently focused, searching.

You repeat yourself through the weight that has settled low in your stomach. “Do you trust me?” 

“I… Why are you askin’ me that?”  

[avalencias]

yes I was inspired by the latest chapter of this fic, no I don’t want to talk about it.

(fic by @picturesofthegoneworlds)

[distant--shadow]

When Imogen wakes it is with an ache in her neck

a drop into reality unusually cushioned

a hand combing through her hair

and she can’t help the smile that breaks when she meets Laudna’s watchful eyes peering down at her, flushes shortly after.

“Sorry, did I fall asleep?”

Laudna smiles back at her, halts the hand playing with her hair.

“You did.”

An unspoken mutual agreement allows the moment to stretch in silence –

that or time is still fucky from Imogen only just waking up. It gives her enough of it to contemplate.

The sun must be high, the atmosphere muggy and the fauna all bustling as if it were a market day and the critters had stalls to set up and produce to bring home for their litters in the burrows. She feels the layer of sweat on her skin wherever the sun directly touches it, smells in waves where it heats the floor and diffuses the groundcover as if it were potpourri-

Above her, backlit - Laudna’s wearing a halo. The giant leaves of the giant trees are so high above them that the scale almost looks normal, the light breaking between the canopy in beams, sparkling in places where it catches insect wings and pollen, silhouetting edges of wiry strands of hair that act as though curtains on a canopy bed, all giving cover from the storm (should it come). It all feels so hazy, could be the vision starting to turn to grains of sand in her eyes like before a migraine but it’s also unusually clear, her head weightless despite the aching neck – funny what a handful of hours of good sleep can do.

The unspoken mutual agreement is ended.

“Did you rest well?” what did you dream about?

“I did, yeah...”

Unintentional, excusable really - waking with her defences down.

Wouldn’t be outta the ordinary to share.

“…dreamt we were back at Oddrún’s, was nice-” she withholds the details, just to save a little face. Exposes it anyhow, when she finds herself inadvertently taking the hand that had stilled in her hair, holding her palm up above her head with Laudna's lying flat on top of it “-then the roof caved in again and the place got swarmed with birds.”

“Birds?”

Imogen's thumb traces the knife-edge of the long nail on Laudna’s.

“Birds.” Imogen confirms, distracted, half-awake, giddy. The word already sounds funny; thrown back and forth between them. She chuckles at how her lips form around the repetition of it, says it again in Marquesian to see if it feels as abstract- that causes Laudna to quirk her brow from behind the fan of their fingers. “All different kinds, real cute and stuff, mostly. Place got furnished in feathers, was pretty chaotic - parakeets nestin’ in the cups and saucers and kingfishers in the rafters…” Laudna exhales a single syllable of a choral chuckle and Imogen has never felt so relaxed. “There was a kinda shady lookin’ big one standin’ on one leg in the corner by the hearth though, kept squawkin’.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, think it was a shoebill. You ever seen one of those?”

“You know, I’m not sure. I wonder if there was any significance…”

Their fingers interlace, under Laudna's initiative. Imogen stares at the long nails now reaching to her wrist like plates of fine ebony gauntlets.

“I could try draw it for y’all, but I don’t think it’d help…” comes out audibly distracted, the points of Laudna's talons gently making contact with Imogen's scarred skin-

“Allow me to get my notebook~” Laudna enthusiastically sings – nearly cutting Imogen, their hands separating - and Imogen is left staring at the empty space that was occupied by the shape that the two of them made, wonders if there is a word for that, like ‘bird’ - each hand a wing of some amalgamation, dream chimera, released between palms.

Probably a word she doesn’t have the language for.

(passage and illustration from @picturesofthegoneworlds ' intertwined)

[astoriacolumnstaircase]

I am so in love with the quiet and contemplative travel years story Intertwined by @picturesofthegoneworlds and i wanted to draw a scene. This comes from the eighth chapter, Rain, when Laudna mended some crockery for a woman who offered them shelter in exchange for help fixing the roof. If you haven't read it yet, you are in for a treat.

[picturesofthegoneworlds]

Posting here with @distant--shadow's permission - a painted illustration to go with this piece of my writing:

<3 <3 <3

[antlereed]

top 5 fics?

1) high speed connection by hoodieheda ( @wvearp)

listen. listen to me. im a sucker for a good modern au and this is the holy grail of modern fics for critical role as a whole for me. i reread it once a month just because i love barista laudna with an army of grandmas

2) intertwined by picturesofthegoneworld ( @picturesofthegoneworlds)

the way the girls are in this is just!!! the way their relationship is still new but just as volatile as running away with the witch in the woods would really be. always in love with how goopy and weird laudna is, i love her so much in this (this is a theme in my favorite fics. laudna is my babygirl i love her)

3) Lives Like A Haunted House by AstoriaColumnStaircase ( @astoriacolumnstaircase)

this fic has it All. ghost laudna, morally ambiguous imogen history, crafts, just. i want to live in it so bad i want to be ghost besties with laudna so so so bad

4) Shit, Let’s Raid Area 51 by Caubool ( @caubool)

obligatory homestuck fic. this was writren, if you cant tell, during the area 51 raid meme craze, and while it does focus very heavy on that it takes the idea and Runs With It so well. one of my favorite fics of all time, i love the formatting (and rose) so much

5) Time of (un)Death by Antlered (meeeee)

is it cheating to list my own fic? who cares, i still think this is the funniest thing ive written, the idea of laudna being a world record holder still makes me laugh just from the sheer hilarity of the idea that a world record rep would find this deeply traumatized woman to give her a certificate and medal for her Literal Death. also laudna and chet being woodworkers together is still a great idea and im just patting my own back for that lmao

[distant--shadow]

I will allow myself to (along with witches be switches) claim ownership for coining the term (g)love language.

anyhow, go read picturesofthegoneworld's fics on ao3. glove master

the role reversal of laudna now being the one wearing gloves and imogen having her hands free is INSANE you guys… cue the (g)love language

[nightphlox]

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

This is a fun question. I don't remember what I was proudest of when I hit publish, but scrolling back through, this (and just above) is the part of wanting me wanting you where I started to figure out what kind of things I could do with the idea of telepathy + sex, and it still makes me go, hey, that was a pretty good brain blast I had, thank you brain can we do that again?

“Oh,” Imogen says incoherently, and she lets herself settle backwards against the bed. In Laudna’s mind’s eye she sees herself, dress pooling around her, flushed and wanting. There’s a confusing rush of arousal at the image—Laudna’s, she realizes. She is seeing herself in the mirror of Laudna’s mind’s eye, and aching with need. It turns her on deliriously.

And this paragraph in push/pull has gotten some love, which makes me happy because I am still very pleased with it:

“Good,” Laudna breathes, reaching for the words to try them on, “Good girl,” and Imogen moans, her hips bucking wildly against her. Laudna rises and falls with them and loves the way that it feels, Imogen rolling into her, Imogen connected to her, Imogen part of her, the drag and push of Imogen’s cock in her cunt, filling her to bursting, the dull grounding pain of Imogen’s electric fingers bruising her skin, marking her, and that’s all she wants, always, ever, this feeling of being Imogen’s, being full of Imogen, being possessed by Imogen, possessing her, Imogen gasping under her with her tits and neck and mouth stained with Laudna’s ichor, Imogen inside her and under her and everywhere, only Imogen, just Imogen, nothing in the world but Imogen.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

Answered!

24. Are there any easter eggs in [insert fic], and if so, what are they?

Hmm, nothing that anyone wouldn't have caught, I think. push/pull has revivify cock ring and monkey gun. Does it count as an easter egg if in my mind the rest of the Hells one million percent knew Imogen and Laudna were heading off to fuck even though they went to bed "not so early as to be indecent"?

Also not sure if this counts as an easter egg, but I always have an internal battle over whether to be consistent with dropping Imogen's gs, and this is a spot where I went back and forth and back and forth and ultimately could just not bring myself to do it.

“You’re dripping,” Imogen says as Laudna lowers herself onto Imogen’s thigh and rocks her hips into it, and she doesn’t know what ravenous part of her the words are coming from as they spill hotly from her mouth.

"Drippin'." absolutely not i'm sorry just. i cannot

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I mean here is how my smut-writing career began:

so honestly, writing smut to begin with was a big step outside my comfort zone! I'm glad I started with a First Time fic because it let me explore things more slowly rather than vaulting in with more of a charged dynamic. I think it's probably safe to guess that the more smut I write the more interesting the range of attached tags is going to get.

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

When in doubt I'm pretty much always going to default to talking process! My process was really different for these two fics--wanting me wanting you is the least-outlined fic I've ever written (had a typically thorough outline for the introductory scene, but almost nothing for the sex, just a little section at the bottom of the doc labeled LET'S INCLUDE SOME OF THIS STUFF with some ideas/scraps of scenes below it. I figured out what I wanted to do with the fic, including the entire telepathy sex conceit, as I was writing. push/pull, however, had not only an outline but a beat-by-beat bullet point sketch of almost the whole fic before I sat down and started writing any actual sentences. (My usual for non-smut is somewhere in between these two things, although definitely closer to the push/pull side of things.)

This was fun, thank you for the ask!!! <3

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XX ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqL1aCiJxjb/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[kingsavetattoo]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MIKE RUBENDALL (@mikerubendall)

The Highlight Reel to Ed Hardy's "Pictures of the Gone World" is now up on the Mike Rubendall YouTube page. Thanks again to everyone who came out and was a part of this amazing weekend! #kingsavetattoo #bowery #EdHardy #PicturesOfTheGoneWorld #deth #donedhardy #kingsavenyc #kingsave #tattoo (at Kings Avenue Tattoo)

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XIX ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqL08_iJqtG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XVI ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpizN8qJtJZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XVII ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpizlfnpvn2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XVIII ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpi0mpzJ5RG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[funnybunnymusic]

LUCY’S XV ******************************************** @lucyindisguisewithdiamondsatx @loleyedecay @gimmiesomekimmy @hyperbad__ #lucyindisguisewithdiamonds #austin #atx #tx #texas #southcongress #art #patterns #tile #architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #vintage #wallpaper #photooftheday #picturesofthegoneworld #LSD @thebeatles #beatles #thebeatles @johnlennon #1967 #johnlennon (at Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpgU5Gtv6EV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=