#the thumbtack dancer

[zeeposting]

[ donec iterum conveniant, amica mea. ]

[ 🩸 Dagger & Teacup ]

(no, i didn't beta read this i never beta read my fics)

Teacup stiffly stood at the corner of the ballroom, sticking out like a thumbtack, which was quite fitting for his current situation. She was just a commoner at a fancy ball for people higher up — people who had more wealth than them combined.

The room was full of people who were wealthy — they all came from a history of being rich, or successful. The same people who had the power to take down one kingdom, and revive another.

Of course, they were silently judging. It was the nature of these people — judging before meeting a new face was the norm around these parts, especially in such a place where the most powerful of people were gathered.

Teacup wasn't exactly either of these things.

Fancy dress wasn't so bad, but the clothing was so restricting — tight slacks, and the itchiest of gloves, which made his skin crawl. Not to say that they looked bad, no — the right word was gorgeous. Pearls rested around their neck, silver earrings dangling from his ears.

She could be in a romance novel, possibly even the protagonist. But that wasn't exactly true, because Teacup had come to realise that everyone was dressed just like he was.

They had also come to realise that this was the period of time where everyone chose a partner to dance with, but there was nobody who could share a dance with her. As embarrassing as it was, it was also quite expected.

"Pardon me," A rasp voice called out to the latter, making them turn — somebody had finally made the decision to talk to them.

"Oh, uh, yes?" He'd look up at the tall figure, face almost going a slight shade of pink. She'd never seen someone so tall, let alone so attractive.

They had deep red eyes, grey hair which was short, but not too short — clothing being somewhat sophisticated and smart. Oh, this person was very pretty.

"May I have this dance?" She got down on one knee, holding a hand out to Teacup, who was starting to grow flustered beyond belief — nobody had ever been so polite to him in so long.

"Yes, sure, of course!" They blurted out, a crooked smile on their face.

Their feet began to move to the sound of the music, as clumsy as it was due to height differences and positions, but however, they eventually fell into a rhythm.

Teacups eyes were focused on this mystery person, and she didnt dare look away.

When it was time to be bent back, he put all his trust in them. Their body pushed forward, then back. Forward, then back. Hands tightened, and he was spun around like everyone else — the music being the perfect addition to this moment.

The moonlight seeped through the windows, illuminating the floors of the ballroom, casting a magical glow on some of the dancers. Every worry they had melted away, sinking into the deep dark.

Teacup was whipped.

Dagger had formed a small smirk on her face, gripping their side tighter as they spun, keeping them upright, nails clawing into the fabric of Teacup's dress shirt.

He placed a hand to their chin, lifting it up slowly — eyeing the flesh which rest on their neck. The music began to come to and end, and their faces were close.

Dagger could feel Teacup's heartbeat.

"Sir, or.. Ma'am? Mx?"

"Dagger, sweetheart."

Teacup's heart jumped, and a shaky breath escaped his lips, mixing with Daggers own.

"Teacup,"

They came to a stop, but neither of them pulled away, as the grip only grew tighter — it felt like being stuck together. Nothing else mattered to Dagger. Everything was later, and they were now.

Her fangs peeked out, twisting Teacup's neck to the side — before leaning forward and piercing his teeth into her neck. Blood seeped out, and when Dagger pulled away, there was two bite marks on the side of Teacup's neck — blood resting on his lips, licking it away.

"Thank you, darling." Dagger took his hand, kissing the knuckles softly, before pulling back.

"I.. well, it's nothing, really.." They scratched the back of their head, a sheepish smile on their face. Dagger had turned away, but said one last thing.

"Until we meet again, love."

They disappeared off into the crowd, leaving Teacup to think about what just happened — what was he going to do when she got home?

Perhaps after today, they'd meet again. It was possible.

------

[ end ]

i love them both!!!

AUGHAUJ SCREAMS I LOVE IT

HESHEJOIAKHN DIES

@millylostintheosc LOOK!! LOOKKEIOE LIK

OWEUFHJ THANK YOU BRYCE

[scarletunit6]

Colour pallet for Maypole Dancing

Use a mixture of brightly coloured ribbons such as red, yellow, purple, blue, green and white so that the dance creates an attractive pattern and make sure that their length is about twice the height of the maypole. If you wish, you can decorate the crown with leaves and artificial flowers.

However many ribbons you use, you will need equal numbers of at least two colors, depending on the number of dancers you'll have. I recommend at least 6-8 dancers. Ribbons for the pole should be twice as long as the pole and about two to three inches wide. Colors vary according to preference. Traditional colors are red for the God and white for the virgin Goddess. Some use colors of the season -- hunter green for the forest, gold for the sun, or purple for the color of grapes and wine. I've even heard of people using a rainbow of colors to represent the signs of the zodiac. Some traditions request that dancers bring a ribbon in a color representing a certain blessing they might wish for.

The ribbons can be tied just below the topmost branches of the tree or adhered to the top of the pole with thumbtacks, nails, or glue. In Dancing with the Sun, Yasmine Galenorn recommends making crosscuts on the top end of the pole, tying knots on the end of each ribbon, and threading the ribbons through the slits at the top of the pole. The knots will keep the ribbon from sliding out of the slits as it is woven around the pole.

The Wreath

The wreath should be made on Beltane morning. It is traditional to go to the fields to gather May flowers at this time. Fashion a wreath from greenery and decorate with the first blooms of the season. It must be somewhat bigger than the top of the maypole, taking into account any branches you left at the top, in order that it may fall down the pole as the ribbons are wound.

www.earthwitchery.com. (n.d.). The Maypole. [online] Available at: https://www.earthwitchery.com/maypole.html [Accessed 21 Feb. 2024].

www.maypoledance.com. (n.d.). Maypole Dance Set up your Maypole. [online] Available at: http://www.maypoledance.com/maypole.html#:~:text=Use%20a%20mixture%20of%20brightly [Accessed 21 Feb. 2024]. ‌

‌

[balkinbuddies]

Jan Spivey Gilchrist touches audiences through her books, illustrations, and speaking engagements

Jan Spivey Gilchrist, who won the Coretta Scott King Award for NATHANIEL TALKING (Writers & Readers) and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book for NIGHT ON NEIGHBORHOOD STREET (Penguin Putnam) and whose latest titles include WE ARE SHINING (HarperCollins), THE THUMBTACK DANCER (Alazar Press) and A VOICE AS SOFT AS A HONEY BEE'S FLUTTER (Discovery House) recently spoke to students at schools in Romeoville, Illinois and gave an evening presentation at Lewis University as well.

Here is what Pamela Pritchard, the Director of School Partnerships for Lewis University, had to say about Jan's visit:

"Jan Spivey Gilchrist has written and illustrated many magical, magnificent, and mesmerizing books for young people. This work comes easy for her as her personality is magical and mesmerizing as well! To hear her speak of her craft leaves her audience with a feeling of wonder and awe as her energy and passion are palpable and inviting. Bravo to Ms. Spivey Gilchrist and the many lives she has touched through her books and illustrations!"

If you would like your own students to hear Jan Spivey Gilchrist speak, just contact Balkin Buddies and we'll be happy to help arrange the visit.

[ipgbook]

New & Notable

The Thumbtack Dancer By Leslie Tyron, Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist

A sweet story about one talented and creative go-getter. Gus is a most promising, most energetic and most talented young dancer who figures out how to make enough money to upgrade his tip-a-tap thumbtack sneakers to a new pair of real tap shoes that could slap-a-dee-dap, slap-a-dee-dap on a real dance floor. He uses his public street dancing and thumbtack shoes to tap his way down the sidewalk and right up to the big red door of the dance studio. 

[americanegg]

Me fighting Lothric and Lorian vs Me post-game reading about their lore:

[whump-town]

Comfort

Each member of the team comforting Hotch while he’s sick/hurt

1.

“Spencer.”

Reid jerks at the sudden intrusion, his brain struggling to pull itself from the novel in his lap. “Haley,” his eyebrows pinch in confusion before he looks down at his wristwatch and red letters flashback at him the time; 7:15. He’s been here for five hours. “I-I…”

She smiles softly, he recognizes the look from earlier. Hotch had given him the same sad-eyed smile as Reid failed to keep the pressure on his wound. Reid had never seen an example of couples adopting one another characteristics before. He finds it to be both unnerving and amazing.

“Lost in your head,” she asks, coming further into the room. She glances at him once more before going to Hotch’s side. She slides her hand under her husband’s, whispering something too soft for Reid to hear and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “He says you have a-a tendency to get lost in your head.”

Reid is silent. He’s been to their house a few times. Only after Gideon dumps whatever plans they made, it seemed he’d get off the phone with the older man and within the hour Hotch would call. He’d some odd knickknack for Reid to see or a StarTrek marathon to offer.

Haley runs her fingers through Hotch’s hair, unsettling it from the hold the gel Hotch had put it in that morning. “It’s good you’re here,” she says, looking up at him instead of Hotch. Haley’s an intelligent woman, keeps Hotch on his toes. Reid holds a soft spot for her, she makes him feel warm and safe. The same way Hotch does.

A soft grunt sounds from the bed between them, Hotch shaking his head loose of the oxygen canal. His head is turned, his eyes open and all he sees is Haley. “... tried-” he shifts on the bed, pain shooting up his middle as the movement pulls sore muscles. “Sean?” He croaks the name out, lost in times that passed long ago.

Haley glances up at Reid once before centering her focus on her husband. She soothes him softly, shushing him when he tries to pull away from the IV in his arm and the sheets over his hips. “Aaron-Aaron,” she brushes a hand through his hair, smiling when his attention shifts back to her owlish blink. “Hey,” she brushes her thumb across his cheek. “Sean is safe. He’s in New York, remember? Gonna be a chef.”

Hotch swallows thickly, brain turning this information over slowly. “Not-Not a lawyer,” he recalls.

Haley smiles with a shake of her head, “no. Not a lawyer.” She moves over him and positions the oxygen canal back under his nose. “You’re safe too, Aaron.” Her smile fades back into that sad-eyed, soft smile from earlier. “Agent Reid is with you,” she says motioning her head to Reid.

Reid can see the confusion in Hotch’s brow but he turns his head and settles his eyes on Reid. There’s no scrutiny. If Reid didn’t know better he might say fondness is the crinkle in his supervisor’s eyes.

“Your team is okay,” Haley adds squeezing his hand. “Everyone’s okay.”

Concussion. Reid’s mind helpfully deduces. They hadn’t done a brain scan when Hotch was admitted. There was no real reason to suspect brain trauma with a bullet to the abdomen. Not when Reid hadn’t told them about the crack that sounded through the room when Hotch hit the floor.

The concussion is to blame for Hotch’s sluggish thoughts and obvious confusion. “Dad?” Reid’s never heard Hotch’s voice raise to an octave like that, an inflection of fear. Haley’s eyebrows tighten, clearly aggravated but not at Hotch or his confusion.

“No,” Haley says forcing herself to relax. “He’s dead, Aaron.”

Reid’s never seen so many emotions cross his boss’s face at once. Relief immediately followed by sadness and the clench of his fist that Reid loses the meaning to because he can’t tell if he’s reacting to physical or emotional pain or maybe he’s angry.

“Dead,” he echoes. His brow scrunches in confusion and Reid can see the realization cross his eyes. The ‘dead’ sinking in. “Oh.”

Haley tries to direct his attention back to Reid. “Don’t worry with him, Aaron. Spencer’s here,” she nods her head again but it’s becoming very clear that Hotch is fighting a losing battle against the narcotics streaming in his veins.

“Mm,” Hotch turns his head to Reid. He smiles and lifts his hand from the bed, a tired wave.

Haley brushes a hand through his hair again, catching his attention. “Get some sleep,” she doesn’t move away. Instead, her hand continues to work through his hair, slowly easing him lower and lower into sleep. “Shh.”

Reid can’t see Hotch’s eyes flutter shut but he can see the last deep breath he takes before they even out.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Haley says, settling into the visitor’s chair on Hotch’s left. “He worries about the team when he’s away from you.” She says this without looking at him. Her attention is on Hotch’s face, half-turned to look at her. “He worries about you the most.” Her eyes rise to his and she shakes her head with a sigh. “He’s always worried about something or someone.”

He’s a protector. They’re not supposed to profile one another, it’s a rule between them all, but it doesn’t take a profile to note that Hotch is a protector. It’s what he does. “It’s what makes him so good at his job,” Reid looks up, forcing a smile on his lips. “He’s a good boss.”

Haley chuckles, a soft sound and a puff of air from her nose. She sighs, thumb rubbing against the back of Hotch’s palm. She doesn’t say anything. Exhausted, her shoulders are hanging low and for the first time, Reid sees just how tired she is.

2.

“Hey…” Emily puts her novel down. Hotch’s vision is foggy but he catches the horrendous orange and blue blur as she forces the book shut. His mouth feels thick, heavy and his head like tiny dancers balanced on thumbtacks are tap-dancing across his brain. “I didn’t expect you to be up.” Her eyebrows pinch, “doctors said they have you on some powerful stuff.”

He rolls this information over in his head, her voice drowning in and out with his heartbeats. He can feel it, his heart, beating through with the pain in his side. “Vonnegut.” He’s a favorite of Emily’s, he can faintly recall a conversation she’s had with Morgan about him. “It’s-It’s…” he’s read a few of Kurt Vonnegut’s works.

Emily takes a moment to understand his slurred speech. She holds the book up with a smile, “yeah. Kurt Vonnegut.” She thumbs through the pages, confused. “How-How did you know that?”

The title is revealed as she leafs through it. He places it then, a burden lifted from his chest. Breakfast of Champions. Kilgore Trout and his journey through the midwest as his fiction becomes another man’s facts. That’s not her favorite though and that copy, it’s new. It’s the same copy that sits on his bookshelf. “Vonnegut,” Hotch mumbles like she should have put this all together herself. “He’s your favorite,” his voice cracks through the sentence, hoarse rasp cutting off what remains of the sentence.

Emily understands well enough. “How-” she shakes her head at him. “I don’t want to know how you have managed to remember that.” She’s not that surprised. They live by the rule of not profiling one another but it’s hard to turn it off.

“ Sometimes, I get tired of being profiled through my office window.”

“New,” he croaks, he points to the book now on her lap. He swallows thickly, brain forming the words but mouth unable to form the right ones. “You had an older copy.”

Before. Emily taps the cover, he’s right. She carried one of his books everywhere, a comfort to curl up on the jet on the way home with some tea and a blanket. She knows the most of the books by heart, her old copy was dog eared and the cover faded. A small part of her felt comforted, now, just sitting here reading.

Like old times on the jet.

“I lost it,” she answers truthfully. No real point in lying when he might be able to see it. If there’s one thing she knows about Hotch, it’s that you can never underestimate him. “I-I didn’t think to ask JJ to grab them from my apartment.” She shakes her head, “everything was so… It was all so crazy, it would almost be silly to worry about a couple of books in the face of everything going on.”

It takes a moment for him to place what she means but blood loss hasn’t made him stupid. He knows exactly what she means. She must see the clarity in his eyes, the moment he realizes what she means. She starts talking, nervous. Her hands come together and he’s listening to her nervous words but he’s focused on the way her thumb digs into her nails.

“I-I don’t blame you and JJ, you know?” She draws blood but she whips it away. She doesn’t raise her eyes to his. “That’s not important, though, the books or Doyle. You did what you had to do to protect me, I know that.” She moves to the next hand, digging. “It’s funny- well, I mean it’s not funny but you know humor overrides trauma- but the last time you and I were in the hospital-”

She looks up, eyes moving straight past him to the heart monitor. She glances back at him, eyebrows frowning. “Shit,” she stands up but before she can say anything there’s a nurse grabbing her shoulder. She’s pushed out, the heart monitor still sounding in the background. She’s forced to watch from the doorway as a doctor swarms in with the rest of the nurses.

She’d been talking with Rossi earlier in the week, so he knew that she’d been sent back to the states. With her own case solved, she came to Virginia to meet them. To see them. She just hadn’t been expecting Rossi to text her the address of a hospital.

“Agent.”

She turns to the doctor, tearing her eyes away from Hotch. He’s glaring at a nurse, watching her dispense a clear cocktail of drugs into his port. “Y-Yeah?” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“He can’t be put under any strain,” the doctor’s voice is tight, making it very clear to Emily how important it is she listens. “Do you understand, Agent?” They stand, locked until Emily nods her head. It’s like Foyett, that fear and his vulnerability. That same warning, all over again. “Okay.” The doctor leaves her, small frown but no more words.

“Sorry.” His voice rasp behind an oxygen mask now. The straps pushing his peppered hair up in odd directions. His eyes are slits, his battle with sleep a losing one.

Emily settles back into the chair, pulling her book into her lap. “You know, Hotch, next time you want me to shut up you can just ask.” She can see him smile under the mask, a rare sight. “No need to-to stop breathing or have a heart attack on me.” She thumbs the pages, the words feeling wrong. She didn’t come to taunt him. She misses being on the team. Hell, she even misses him profiling her profile him. Mind games. He’s the best.

“Read.”

She’s so lost in her mind that she hadn’t realized she’d opened the book. She looks up, confused, “read? I thought you want me to stop talking?”

He turns, paler than even his normal vampire tan, and shakes his head. “No,” he motions his head at the book, again. “Just read.”

It’s all the “I’ve missed you” she’ll ever get so she cracks the book open. It doesn’t matter where she left off because it doesn’t matter to him. “So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.” She looks up and his eyes have fallen shut, his breathing even and steady. She turns the page. He’s asleep but she continues anyway.

3.

“Woah-Woah!” Morgan’s ears are ringing, his head empty. He gags, falling over himself as he loses half the sandwich he had at lunch. He can’t move, frozen as his stomach cramps painfully. A hand, warm and solid lands on his back. After a moment, his eyes lock onto black dress pants and a blue dress shirt. “Hotch?”

The other man doesn’t react to the sound of his name. Instead, he pulls Morgan up. Hotch’s arm is looped under Morgan’s and they both groan as they stand back to their feet. Morgan, now eye level with Hotch, frowns, “Hotch, you’re bleeding.” He points to the wound but it’s like Hotch can’t hear him.

“We have to get out of here!” He’s speaking too loud, body trembling. Morgan moves as much as he can in Hotch’s grip and sees the side of his head. Two small streaks down to his collar, both starting in Hotch’s ear. Morgan doesn’t mention it but he suspects Hotch knows he’s caught it. “Come on.” Morgan frowns, Hotch’s eardrums really can’t handle being burst again.

They stumble.

Hotch keeps Morgan up, his face unnaturally pale… even for him. “We can’t stop,” Hotch grunts, his own feet shuffling. He tries to take another step but he can’t. He falls to his left knee, releasing Morgan. “Go,” Hotch grunts, body curling in on his right side. “Go, Derek!”

Morgan isn’t a child and no matter how low Hotch drops his voice it doesn’t scare him. He drops to his own knees, exhaustion seeping into his bones. He moves, throwing his right hand out and leaning against the wall as he settles his back on it. “Come on, Hotch.” He waves the older man closer, patting the hard cement beside him.

Hotch doesn’t move, now settled on his side. His eyes dropping, slowing losing consciousness.

Morgan moves and bites down a whimper as it lights up his side. He pushes himself a little more. He grabs Hotch’s shoulder hooking his arms under Hotch’s and pulls them both against the wall. Sighing as he positions Hotch beside him, the other man’s head on his left thigh.

“A fucking bomb,” Morgan mumbles. That’s how it’ll end. Some punk kid and a bomb with their names literally written on it. “This isn’t how I thought it would end.”

Hotch blinks, eyes slowly finding his. Morgan shakes his head, so the bastard isn’t as deaf as he thought. “Not surprised,” Hotch grunts, his left hand pulling away from his side sticky with blood. “Kind of figures,” he lets his hand fall back over the wound, fresh blood pouring over his knuckles. “Get stabbed nine times and some pipe bomb does me in.”

Morgan laughs, his head rolling back to the wall behind him. The mood turns bitter and Morgan can’t help but feel cheated. “Did the other’s get out?”

Hotch grunts, it’s as much of a yes as he can manage at the moment. “Dragged Reid and JJ out myself.” He’s trembling, shivering despite the sweat pouring down his brow. “Emily was going to come back in for you but I-I told her I’d get you.” He smiles, “two kids grabbed her when I turned to come back in. Morons. Garcia looked like she was going to pummel them both.”

They share a laugh at that. The poor kids are probably sporting bruised ribs by now. Almost everything she knows about self-defense Morgan taught her. He’s a dirty fighter and Hotch knows Morgan teaches dirty fighting. Garcia, though neither had ever personally been hit by the tech analyst, they’d seen a person or two get swatted with her purse. She’s got an arm on her.

“Rossi?”

Hotch’s smile falls off his face. Morgan looks away, afraid of the emotions he sees creeping over his boss’ face. His voice isn’t as steady. It’s heavy with fear,” I don’t know.” Silence fills the clouded air between them. Both considering the fate of their friend. “Derek?”

Morgan looks down, Hotch’s head bent away from him. He’s blinking slowly, face ashy. “Yeah, man?” A pang of fear rolls through his stomach, coiling tight in his chest. His heart hurts. They’re running out of time, Hotch is running out of time.

“I never thanked you…” his voice trails off, eyes fluttering as he fails to keep them open.

Morgan swats at his face, keeping it up until Hotch blinks his eyes back open. “Never thanked me for what?”

Hotch swallows thickly around the dryness in his mouth. “After Foyett,” he rasps, “the hole in my wall. I know you fixed it.” He turns his head, blinking owlishly up at Morgan with half-open bloodshot eyes.

Morgan nods. It was the hardest repair job he’s ever done and he wonders what it was like for Hotch to clean Elle’s blood off her wall. Morgan reaches down between them, grabbing Hotch’s hand with a tight squeeze. “That’s what families for.” He doesn’t let go, just lets his hand fall on Hotch’s chest as the other man fights consciousness. “They’ll find us. They always do.”

Hotch hums and Morgan doesn’t know if it’s in agreeance or in pain. It doesn’t matter. Morgan knows they’ll come. They have to.

4.

“You really shouldn’t fall asleep, sir.”

She watches him blink his eyes back open, a dark iris settling on her. She knows he’s not mad at her but his face is still twisted in aggravation. “Garcia,” he says, in a voice much lower than even his normal baritone. “Now is no time for formalities.”

His eyes slide back shut. She glances back at him and kicks his knee, grimacing when he startles. “I asked you not to fall asleep,” she reminds him when he looks less than pleased. He doesn’t shut his eyes though, he stays awake. “How are you, Hotch?” She’s genuinely interested. He doesn’t get to talk to her that much anymore, she feels like she hardly knows him these days.

He leans his head back against the wall, eyes open but unfocused. He’s not sure how he is. His heart hurts. “I’m fine, Penelope.” His dark eyes find hers, half-hidden as his eyes blink drowsily. He catches the hint when she frowns tightly and she’s surprised by the little smile on his lips. “I really am fine. Beside this headache, of course.”

She tries not to dwell on how bad the headache must be if he’s admitting to it. Instead, she soaks in the warmth of his little grin. “Well,” she’s much gentler when she knocks her foot against his knee this time. “Tell me how ‘fine’ is treating you. I feel like you never talk to me anymore.”

She’s keeping him talking. She can see the gash across his temple and she’d been forced to watch as their UNSUB brought his gun across Hotch’s head. Leaving only her to witness the way her boss’ legs crumbled beneath him, limply his body hitting the ground beneath him. He’d been so limp as the UNSUB picked him up under his arms, dragging him to a side room.

His grin falters just a little at her wording and he supposes that maybe he hasn’t been talking to her as much as he thought he was. Then again, how does short phone calls about serial killers count as talking? “Jack’s growing up so fast,” he tells her, his grin a soft mix of sadness and pride. “He’s almost as tall as me, isn’t that crazy?”

She smiles, “it feels like yesterday you were pushing through the bullpen in his little stroller.”

Hotch shakes his head, “starts high school this year and… I’m terrified.” He leans his head to the side, against the wall. “He’s so grown up. I feel like he doesn’t need me anymore and then-” he’s full-blown smiling and Garcia finds is contagious. “Then he comes into my room or he strikes up a pointless conversation and I know all he wants is for me to be there. To ask about his classes and listen to him gush about the girl in his English class. He still wants me around after…”

Garcia can sense the switch and she reaches over, taking his hand. “Hotch…”

He shakes his head, wincing at the movement. He puts a hand up, touching at the edges of the wound. “I killed his mother, Garcia.” His voice is devoid of all the joy it just held and she blames it on the concussion. She wants this to be the concussion and not how he actually thinks. “I would understand if…” he winces again, this time fingers probing a little too hard and he draws blood.

He swallows thickly, face paling considerably. “Penelope, you’ll have to excuse-” he’s half up-right, leaning with his side on the wall as he vomits. He brings almost nothing up, just gagging miserably.

Garcia turns her head, rolling her eyes. JJ always taunts Hotch, behind his back of course, for his ‘southern manners’. She’d seen it for herself a few times but this certainly takes the cake. However, she’ll never betray his confidence to tell the others about Hotch trying to excuse himself with a bad concussion to puke in privacy while being held captive by a killer.

“You okay, boss man?” She only looks back at him when the gagging stops and she can hear him position himself back against the wall. He’s still pale, shaking from the strain of holding himself above his vomit.

His eyes are closed but she can see he’s not sleeping. Just trying to calm back down. “Probably should have eaten lunch,” he replies softly, right arm protectively draped over his stomach. She would be mad if she expected anything different from him. It’s just like Hotch to bring the others sandwiches or coffee and to send them home to sleep but to starve and deprive himself of sleep at the same time.

She hums in agreeance. “You should start eating more period.” That catches his attention. He peels an eye open, frowning at her. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I see it all. I know everything.” She points to his chest, “I’ve noticed your shirts don’t fit you like they used to and when they did fit you, you didn’t have weight to afford losing more.” She raises an eyebrow, daring him to challenge her. “You’re going to put the weight back on, sir. Even if I have to start hand-delivering you breakfast and lunch.”

He opens his mouth but she raises her hand. “Nothing you say can change my mind. In fact, I think I will.” She bites her lip, “let’s see… JJ and Reid. Yeah, they’re your soft spots. The chinks in your unchinkable armor. You won’t be able to tell them you’re starving yourself.”

He sighs, head still tilted back but resigned to his fate. “Penelope?” His voice is soft, devoid of fight and, dare she say, tinged with fatigue. “Thank you.”

She smiles at him and stands, moving over until she’s sitting beside him. She pulls his hand into her lap, squeezing it. “Anything for you, my liege.” Because someone has to protect the man who protects everyone else. He’s hurting and someone needs to be there.

And when his head falls on her shoulder she doesn’t say anything.

5.

“For once in your life-” Rossi is so close to just decking his former protégé in the face and letting Derek haul his body up on the couch. “Goddamn it, Aaron!” Then, at least, Hotch can’t sneak away and refuse to sleep or take care of himself.

Hotch flinches, fever-ridden bloodshot eyes looking at Rossi in confusion. Carefully masked fear trembles down his hands and Rossi doesn’t dare try to act like he doesn’t see it. Right, he’s not being helpful if he’s being an ass. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to calm back down.

Rossi knows Hotch doesn't respond to over-controlling authority. He was abused by his father, Rossi knows that. Hell, Hotch has never once admitted to it, but they all know it.

Rossi runs a hand down his goatee, tired of fighting the stubborn unit chief. “Here,” he hands Hotch a palmful of pills. There’s a vitamin C from Emily, a Tylenol from JJ, and some colored flu medicine from Derek. It wasn’t hard to convince them to fork over their supplies. Hotch had emerged once from his office all day and the man looked like a walking corpse.

With JJ fielding Hotch’s calls, Rossi forging his signature on a few things, and Garcia clearing his meeting with Strauss in an hour they can afford to let him take a well-deserved rest.

“I have paperwork,” he rasps but knocks the handful of medication back into his mouth. He’s smart, he can argue his way out of the nap he’s cornered into but it’s pointless to push Rossi on taking medicine.

Rossi rolls his eyes, “lay down, Aaron.”

He hesitates. Rossi watches Hotch’s inner debate with himself. He frowns, looking away to the couch before nodding. Giving in. Rossi sighs in relief, he thought that was going to be much harder but maybe Hotch going down without a fight is more a bad thing than good.

“Is something-” for once in his life, Rossi isn’t sure what to say. He swallows thickly and shakes the thought away. “Here,” Rossi takes a step back, moving to grab the blanket sent up by Garcia. It looks well-loved and it’s soft in his hands, heavily scented with fabric softener. He lays it over his protégé with a small sigh. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time. He should have never left the BAU.

He shouldn’t have left Aaron.

“Get some sleep, kid.” He cuts the lights off to the office, standing in the doorway a moment too long.

“Dave?” Rossi hums, eyes still on Hotch. The other man’s on his side, blanket pulled to his chin. His voice is nasally, finally giving in to his symptoms instead of trying to pull off his stoic baritone grumble. “Whatever you’re thinking,” he pauses, gathering the right words. “There’s no need to punish yourself.”

Rossi rolls his eyes and opens the door, stepping out. “That’s very thoughtful, Aaron, but we’re not supposed to profile one another.” He pats the doorway, fondly rolling his eyes. “Get some sleep mio figlio.”

Hotch chuckles, “I know what that means, Dave.”

Rather than let himself dwell in being caught, he laughs himself. “Yeah,” he shrugs. “I would certainly hope, Aaron. I told Jason you were a smart boy, quick. I would hope age hadn’t stolen that from you.” He lingers again.

“Dave, I’m fine. Really.” His voice softens, “go.”

Rossi puts a hand up in submission, “alright. Alright.”

As soon as Rossi shuts the door he knows all their eyes are on him. Garcia’s the first to gather the courage to ask, “how is he?”

Rossi’s smile is soft but happy. He shakes his head, rolling his eyes for the pure drama that is dealing with Aaron Hotchner. “He’s getting some much needed rest. He should be fine.” He chuckles to himself, “he’s just a bit stupid. Too hard headed for his own good.” Rossi steps towards his own office, glancing through the window. Aaron’s already asleep. One hand dangles off the couch, a foot on the floor as the other stretches over the edge of the couch.

He’ll be fine.

6.

“Hold still.” Stupid. For such a smart woman, well rounded, and agile she could be so stupid. She knew what she wanted to do. Liaison. She loves talking with people, offering comfort, and engaging the public. Sure, she didn’t give that job up but she’d give anything to go back to the station. “Hotch, please!”

He’s bleeding all over the two of them. His exhales wet as blood trails out of the side of his mouth. A muffled cough that he attempts to spare her as he rolls onto his side but he’s out of his mind in pain and can’t muffle both the cough and strangled cry on his lips that the movement causes.

If JJ had stayed a liaison, she wouldn’t be looking her friend in the eyes as his blood pools wider around them. “Aaron,” her voice is the only soft thing to happen to the room. From the moment Hotch’s knuckles rapped on the door to her screaming, mixing in the living with the sound of guns firing. “Aaron, please don’t do this to me.”

He blinks up at her, cheeks ashy and lips paling. He gasps, voice trembling, “it’s okay- I’m fine.” His left hand moves atop hers, larger than both of the ones she’s pressing into his side. “If you just…” he blinks sluggishly, too much blood around them and not in him. “Just keep applying pressure even if I- even if I pass out.”

JJ shakes her head, “you’re not passing out!” She pats his cheek, blood smearing on his ashy face. There are two days worth of hair on his cheeks and the bags under his eyes so much more prominent. “Talk to me, please?” Dark eyes blink back slowly, his adam's apple bobbing as his mouth opens but no words leave his mouth. “Tell me something. Keep talking because I can’t lose you.” Her voice thickens with unshed tears, “you’re my friend, Aaron.”

His eyes sink back shut but he opens with the first tap of her hand against his cheek. He draws his knee up, body wanting to writhe away from the pressure on his abdomen. He can’t keep his knee drawn up and it limpley slides back down. “Do you-” his voice is thick, sluggish as it leaves his mouth. “How do you not hate me?” He swallows, mouth impossibly dry, “you didn’t need to know about Emily.”

He’s right. Alone he could have faked Emily’s death. He could have bore that cross and she would have been spared the guilt of being amongst the knowing. She wouldn’t have had to work to be friends with Spencer again.

She shakes her head, “you do make me mad, you know that right?” She wipes a hot tear away from her eye, “but I’m glad you told me. It would have destroyed you, it almost destroyed the two of us with each other to lean on.” She looks up, certain she can hear faint sirens coming. She smiles down at him, “we’re like… Sonny and Cher. Batman and Robin. We’re a team and I would hope there is never a time when you spare me, Aaron.”

He smiles but whatever he opens his mouth to say is lost in his weak coughing.

She looks up, this time certain she hears sirens and doors being shut.

“Hold on, Hotch. Helps here.”

He grins, pale and sweaty. He squeezes her hand, “hey, JJ?”

She squeezes his hand back, “yeah?”

“Am I Batman or Robin?”

She sees an unbelievable amount of mirth in his half-open brown eyes. He’s exhausted, tired of fighting and weak from bloodless but he’s smiling up at her. Holding on, for her. She smiles back, gently she leans over him and kisses his cheek. “I’ll let you be Batman.”

The room is flooded in loud noise. Heavy boots stomping right up to them. In the commission she nearly doesn’t hear his whispered remark. As a paramedic hangs a bag of saline above his head and another takes JJ’s place he calls her name.

“I’d be Robin for you.” He blinks much slower, eyes hardly coming back open. “ ‘think you’d look better with a cowl. I could pull off a domino mask.” His eyes fall shut, a lopsided grin on his face. She brushes his bangs from his sweaty forehead, watching the medics do their job. She’ll remind him of this later and she’ll bring up his guilt over Emily.

But for now she just holds his hand.

(I really enjoyed writing this so if you have any idea similar I would be very interested to hear them... also originally posted on A03)

[ottos-pseudopods]

I’ve decided to come up with original characters for the Legion of Stationary:

Highlighter: The Illuminating Illusionist

Eraser: The Dusty Deleter

Thumbtacks: The Puncturing Paladin

Stamp: The Rubber Rascal

Ruler: The Serious Straightedge

Paper Clips: The Chain-Link Clown

Glue Stick: The Adhesive Adversary

Compass: The Debonair Dancer

Feel free to reply with your own ideas!

[kathyprior4200]

Helluva Hotel/Hazbin Boss (Parody)

HELLUVA HOTEL (PILOT) October 82, 9102

 THE PILOT IS HERE!

 Starring the incredible talents of Wat-is Dis, Irma Imp, Johnny Hazbin and Red Doe 666.

 In HELL, Imps are the lowest of the low in society, but what happens when one starts a hotel and recreation business? This happens!

 Follow Blitzo (the “o” is silent) as he pursues his seemingly impossible goal to help demons peacefully express themselves to reduce the mockery of lower class sinners…plus the exterminations of fellow demons by Exterminators and a rival Heaven group. After a yearly extermination and having his previous office set on fire, Blitzo opens a hotel complete with an office for himself. He hopes that patients will become better individuals, grow to appreciate the imps and support Blitzo’s love of musicals and murder. While most of Hell mocks his goals and dreams, his father and his fellow employee Moxxie mocks it doubly so. Moxxie’s wife, erotic dancer and test subject Millie stick by their sides. When a grumpy Hellhound entity known as “Moonlight Howl” Loona reluctantly reaches out to Blitzo to help in his endeavors, his crazy dream is given a chance to become reality.

    HAZBIN BOSS (PILOT) November 52, 9102

 THE PILOT IS HERE!

 Starring the incredible talents of Blonde Disney Princess In Inferno, SJW Aggressor Moth, Porny Horny Spider Boi, Diabolic Deer Daddy, Gambling Grumpy Cat and Maid of DisHonorly Lust.

 Follow Charlie, the princess of Hell as she attempts to run a hybrid rehabilitation/killing residence in a very competitive market and careless chaotic society. She is the head of D.E.M.O.N. (Denizens End Misery Or Not) in correlation to I.M.P. (Immediate Murder Professionals)

 She has help from her weapons specialist Vaggie, her powerhouse Angel Dust and torturer/receptionist Alastor. With the help of an ancient book obtained by one of the rich Eldritch family members, they manage to make their work possible by killing humans at the requests of their demon clients, sending them to the Magne Hotel to be tortured, redeemed or be stimulated by endless entertainment. They also attempt to survive each other while trying to keep their business afloat.

 But a rival company exists as well in correlation to C.H.E.R.U.B (Cherish Human Existence Revive U Back): A.N.G.E.L. (All Nobody’s Get Extended Life) a.k.a. they reincarnate people so they have a chance to life their human lives, worship God, and not have to endure the forced rehab program.

   The scene opened up with “Red Doe 666 Presents…” as shadow curtains opened…

 Against a white background designed with eyes, a shadowy figure of Blitzo was seen riding a horse with horns and a spiked tail.

 Blitzo was heard singing:

 “Here I am…this is me.

There’s nowhere else in Hell I’d rather be

Here I am…what am I to do?

I hope someday I can make my dreams come true

It’s a new world, it’s a new start

Alive with the screaming and the fresh hearts

It’s a new day, it’s a new plan

And it’s waiting for me

Here I am”

 A shadowy pentagram glowed and the camera moved down, showing shadowy figures of humans being killed by the three imps with weapons.

A shadow figure of Blitzo looked up at the princess and Lucifer, his face downcast. He wished for a better life, but Lucifer looked down on him as common dirt. Blitzo then turned to the right and encountered a silhouette of his father and mother. Blitzo appeared to try and reason with them, but they both pointed in the other direction. Blitzo sadly turned around, his parents not listening to him.

 The city spun within a glowing white pentagram as white angels holding spears surrounded it. Imp City appeared to be burning as shadows of other denizens turned their backs on it.

 “Why have I always been a failure?

What can they reason be?

Why don’t they see they can’t take me?

Why don’t they know I long to be free?”

 Blitzo stood small and downcast under a towering horned silhouette of his imp father, Donner, yellow critical eyes glowing. Black tendrils made the screen go black. A spinning globe appeared with white eyes blinking at it. Silhouettes of Exterminators later posed with swords and bloodstained bodies around them. Each of them had an x over their right eyes and creepy grins on their faces.

 The next scenes showed Imp City in disrepair, weapons and bodies littering the streets. The Pentagram moon stood out in the crimson sky. Homeless demons sat in despair under ripped cardboard boxes, with “Satan Bless,” signs around them. One old store read: “Tricksters and Trades,” another said “Pimp Imps: Strip Club.” The most prominent building was metallic with black and white stripped horns extending out for decoration.

 Blitzo slowly walked out from the building onto a balcony. He leaned on a railing, briefly brushing his hand against his face. He was wearing his usual tattered navy blue work suit with orange pink buttons and a red undershirt with a pink straw pin with a face on it. He was also wearing silver cowboy boots.

 Blitzo picked up a trumpet and blew a bugle sound, the notes echoing throughout the area, signaling that it was safe for the other imps to come out. The imps opened their windows and peered out from behind alleyways. Blitzo stared at his phone and the clock tower in the live video on it read “365 days until next cleanse.”

 The title then appeared: “Welcome to the Helluva Hotel.”

 A car barreled through an open portal and ran over a poor imp before screeching to a stop. A red imp with wild black hair stepped out, a bloodstained knife sheathed at her side.

 “Wow that was some kill, thank for the backup sweetie,” said a male imp, Crosser. Both of them had just finished killing their target via a runaway chase. Crosser had dreamed of crossing over to the human world, and had wanted to run the human man over after the man had killed one of his sinner friends.

 Millie shut the door, wearing her usual black tank top, torn black pants and black collar around her neck. Her horns were shirt and black with small white stripes on them.

 “Yeah, listen, I don’t want to let word out that I’ve been helping random clients with unusual requests for their targets. It was just a quick cash grab, you got it?”

 She smiled with large doe eyes.

 “Whatever you say, slut,” Crosser remarked with a laugh that followed.

 “Wow how rude can you be?” she exclaimed. She leaned in dangerously close. “Let me know who you find something better to call me, you scrawny runty pack of bird shit. Tell the boys at the club I said hi.” She blew him a kiss before stepping back. He grumbled and drove away before his car crashed with a sideways flip.

 Millie strolled along the sidewalk and grabbed someone else’s stick of rotten candy.

 “Hey!” the imp yelled as Millie ran off with a giggle. “You snooze you lose, sucker!”

 She couldn’t wait to tell Blitzo of her successful day.

   Later, Moxxie and Stolas were busy helping Blitzo prepare for his big speech. Moxxie was straightening up his navy blue jacket, while Stolas was massaging his horns. They were in Stolas’ room and the meeting would take place in front of the palace.

 “Do you remember what to say, sir?” Moxxie asked Blitzo.

 Blitzo smiled and stood up straight. “Yes, let’s do this!”

 Stolas smiled as well, wiggling his eyebrows. “Just look at me if you’re nervous.”

 “Come on guys, I know what to say!” Blitzo exclaimed. “I just feel like we need to…I don’t know, make things sound more exciting…”

 He randomly played with bobble-heads of Moxxie and Millie before tossing them aside. Then he gasped, getting an idea.

 “What if I…”

 “Sing a song about it?” Moxxie asked with a huff of annoyance.

 “Exactly Moxxie! Now you’re starting to get the hang of things around here!”

 Stolas playfully poked Blitzo’s face, while Blitzo and Moxxie responded with grimaces.

 “Please don’t sing,” Moxxie chided to his boss. “This is serious.”

 “Well you know…” Blitzo said, climbing on top of Stolas’ dresser, knocking things down, “I do find I’m better at expressing my goals through song!”

 “Blitzy, stop knocking over my belongings!” Stolas puffed up his feathers in anger.

 Moxxie glared at Blitzo as he walked over. “Life isn’t a musical, sir. Even if it were, yours would be so atrocious, not even Vox would allow it on that unwatched channel!”

 “Then I’ll just have to use more of your salaries to release a better jingle,” Blitzo responded with a glare and sneer. He reached over for his plastic cup of iced coffee and downed several gulps of the light brown and white liquid. He sighed in content after he finished. Stolas made a disgusted face as some splashes of the drink spilled onto the floor.

 “I’d be more than happy to watch it,” Stolas replied to him. “In fact, I could watch you all day in any form…”

 “Oh please,” Blitzo scoffed at Stolas. “Get over that one time thing already. My credibility is at risk of being lost here!”

 Moxxie folded his arms and opened his mouth in frustration. “Your credibility? What about I.M.P.? You’re just making it look like a fucking joke!” He took a breath and pinched his nose briefly. “We are still a company, even if…things have changed a bit…”

 None of them could forget when someone “accidentally” set their office on fire, and had to start over with several tasks.

 Blitzo grinned and pulled out a piece of paper. “Oh, I have these other ideas of what to say. The highlighted bits are the best parts.”

 Moxxie took the paper, and scanned it in disbelief. “It’s all highlighted. Are these drawings?”

 “Yep!” Blitzo affirmed, pointing to the paper. On it were several drawings of horses of different sizes, colored in with brown, gray, white and black crayons. The drawings looked like those that a child would do. Beside the horses were several names labeled for each one: Thumbtack, Bottlecap, Stapler, Live Wire and Toothpick. The list read: I.M.P. History, Why Blitz Is The Best, Jingle Suggestions, and Ending Song. At the bottom was a crude drawing of Blitzo on a stage, dancing with Moxxie, Millie, and Loona as dead humans with xs on their eyes and tongues out piled up around them. Nearby, imps and demons tossed them money and flowers.

 Blitzo’s eyes were shining in wonder. “See! That’s the ultimate goal! Everyone’s happy and appreciating us. And we still get to kill to our hearts’ content.”  

 “It’s not that simple, sir!” Moxxie groaned with a face-palm. “Just follow the talking points we went over.” He grabbed hold of Blitzo’s collar. “And Do. Not. Sing.”

 “Whatever,” Blitzo said as he shoved Moxxie off him. “If not that, then I can always do my improv skills.”

 Blitzo saluted and walked out of the room, while the others followed. They were soon outside the palace near a round table where several owls had tea one time. There was a camera crew and several imps taking pictures. Blitzo took his seat in a chair, while Stolas stood regally nearby. Millie grinned and gave Blitzo a thumbs up. Loona slouched in a chair and shot avatars of Moxxie and Husk in an app game on her phone.

 “Hi I’m Blitzo,” said the imp to a wealthy demon with white tentacle hair, gray-green skin and a pink dress with fur and matching heels. Her gray skinned brother wore a green suit and a green top hat decorated with living yellow eyes and teeth around the brim.

 “Helsa Von Eldritch,” she deadpanned. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you but that’d be a lie. You can put your hand away. I don’t touch imps and sinners. I have standards.”

 Blitzo withdrew his hand. “How’s that working out for you, Hel?”

 “Be glad that I’m letting you live after you so rudely forgot to address me as Lady Helsa Von Eldritch,” She fluffed her hair. “My time is money and no one really wants you here. You’re only here because Charlie forgot to show up for Hell’s Royal Vogue fashion segment. One that features me as the favorite, obviously.”

 Nearby were magazines that showed Sevaithan, Helsa, Octavia and Charlie wearing fancy clothing while their faces were obscured under wide brimmed hats. Seviathan wore his usual green top hat with eyes on it and fancy green suit. Octavia wore a dress of black, Helsa’s was pink and Charlie’s was apple red in the pictures.

 “But…” Blitzo began, before Helsa cut him off.

  “So don’t get cocky with me clown or I’ll fucking strangle you.” She bared her sharp teeth as Blitzo silently gulped. Helsa sat down in her seat, painting her sharp nails.

 “And I thought that bratty kid was a piece of shit,” Blitzo thought to himself.

 Blitzo spotted Stolas’ daughter Octavia with her mother sitting in high throne-like chairs at an adjacent table.

 “How’s it going, Via?” Blitzo called.

 “Good until you showed up,” she replied in a British accent.

 “Oh!” Stolas added. “We should all go on a family trip to Loo Loo Land sometime! I’ll bring some balloons and popcorn if you want.”

 “That place reeks of corporate shame,” Octavia scoffed in her seat. “It’s just a rip off of Loo Loo World, anyway. Besides, I would much rather hang out with Helsa than die of embarrassment again.”

 “So…you friends with her or not?” Blitzo asked in confusion.

 Octavia rolled her eyes and retorted. “You and my father still a thing?”

 “Blitzo,” warned the white owl queen Melodia, mentioning to the waiting crew.

Blitzo took his seat near Helsa and Seviathan, the two wealthy Eldritch siblings.

 “Right,” Blitzo said, straightening his clothes and looking at the cameras.

 “Hi, I’m Blitzo, the “o” is silent and I’m the founder of I.M.P. Are you a piece of…”

 Moxxie shook his head and mouthed, “Not an ad.”

 “…shit.”

 Blitzo took a deep breath, his smile fading a little. “As most of you know, I was born here in Hell, and growing up, I’ve always tried to see the good in everything around me. Hell is my home and…”

 A stray feather floated in front of Blitzo’s nose, causing the imp to sneeze.

 “…some you are my clients, so I suppose I should try to be more concerned about you. We just went through another Extermination.”

 Millie gave him two thumbs up.

 Blitzo continued. “We’ve lost so many souls, including homeless people, and it breaks my heart to see other imps and hellhounds being slaughtered every year. Same goes for sinners. I mean, they brought it on themselves mostly, but then again, if there were no demons around, then there would be no business for me to run.”

 Sudden anger sparked in his golden eyes. “In our society, imps are not even given a chance!”

 He pounded his fist on the table, spilling his coffee drink all over his jacket. He swore and tried to lick some of it off. Stolas arrived and quickly wiped the stains off as much as he could. Blitzo brushed the owl prince away before continuing.

 “Imps are the lowest of the low? Why is that? Because we’re somehow poorer than sinners? We’re lesser in numbers so imps and hellhounds can be called to service by random strangers anytime they wish? How are imps somehow lower than sinners, who are supposedly lower than the elite hellborn? I mean, imps are born in Hell…shouldn’t we get the proper treatment we deserve? I’m the founder of the most well-known company in Imp City, along with access to the human world, no less! That should definitely count for something! I cannot stand idly by while the place I live is subject to such judgement and death.”

 Blitzo continued… “So, I’ve been thinking…isn’t there a better way to hinder ignorance, and in my case, hinder the lower ratings for my company? Isn’t there a more alternative way to change clients and souls through…recreation? Well I think yes, and that is what my project aims to achieve! Ladies and gentlemen, I’m expanding on my company and making…a conjoint hotel to encourage self-expression and I.M.P. appreciation!”

 Blitzo spread out his arms at the table. He then muttered nervously at the confused faces. “You know…cause when demons learn to appreciate us more and be somewhat nicer…we won’t have to worry about those blasted Cherubs or the angels coming after us…”

 “Angels?” laughed an imp as he watched Blitzo on TV. “Is that imp for real? Oh he’s nuts!”

 Blitzo went on…”and those who come and cheer for me at my musicals will receive a 15% discount the next time they need my gang to kill people! Yay!”

 “Stupid clown,” mocked an imp before Millie punched the cameraman right in the face, sending him off the stool.

 Blitzo looked around in concern. “Look, I know that each and every one of you has something good inside you. I know you do.”

 Then he smirked, getting an idea. “Maybe I’m not getting through to you…”

 He mentioned to his black haired imp sisters Tilla and Barbie Wire, who suddenly walked in view of the camera, wearing black and pink circus outfits.

 Moxxie face-palmed with an “oh no.”

 Blitzo began his song while standing on the table…

 “I have a dream, I’m here to tell

About a wonderful new I.M.P. hotel

Yes it’s one of a kind

Right here in Hell

Catering to bloodthirsty clientele”

 Blitzo’s sisters provided harmonizing vocals.

 “When you want somebody gone

And you don’t wanna wait too long

Call the Immediate Murder Professionals

Your vengeance gone wrong?

Are you looking for a song?

At my new hotel, we won’t do you wrong

 I.M.P. just wait and see

Embrace you inner demons and live free

But we expect, to treat us with respect

Or we’ll have to break your neck

 Yes it’s hard to learn to be good

But to escape stressful lives, you know you would

Give us some green and don’t be mean

This’ll be greatest show you’ve ever seeeeeen!

 Don’t feel blue

We provide service to you

There’s no room for inner strife

When we could have a better life

 There will be no more loss

And there will be no more schemes

Just horsey-horse nuzzles and iced coffee dreams

And traveling a better way

You’ll be like “Yay!”

Once you check in with meeee

 We do or job so well

Cause we come straight up from Hell

We make your troubles go away

And you can find a place to stay

Via the Immediate Murder Professionals

Kids die for Freeeee!”

 Blitzo and his sisters ended with poses on the table.

 One demon with one eye said “Wow! That was shit!”

 Everyone except Blitzo, Tilla, Barbie Wire, Moxxie, Loona, Millie, and Stolas burst into laughter. Blitzo buried his face in his hands on the table, while Millie fired her gun at the crew. Moxxie booed at Blitzo.

 Helsa Von Eldrich sneered at the imp, her brother next to her.

 “What in the Nine Circles of Hell makes you think people would give two shits about becoming a better person? You have no proof that this experiment even works. You want people to be good and pay attention to your measly company just…because?”

 “Well,” Blitzo argued, “I have an employee already who’s dedicated to my cause.”

 “And who might that be?”

 “Oh just someone named…Millie. Oh and we also have a new guest coming as well…Mimzy!”

 Seviathan glanced over and asked, “The flapper girl?” He had previously dated Charlie but would occasionally mess and flirt with sinner girls to mess with them. Mimzy’s fame had appealed to him.

 “You fucking would, Sevia!” Helsa bared her teeth. “Anyway, I bet that girl wouldn’t bat an eye to your company unless you had a million souls.”

 “Admit it, Blitzo,” added Sevia. “You and your gang of imps are dead to us and to Hell. How does it feel being a total failure?”

 The sibling snobs cackled at a hurt Blitzo.

 “Yeah, well how does it feel that your ex loves a sinner over you, huh? Bastard bitch?!”

 Sevia and Blitzo managed to yell and land a few punches before they were forcefully separated via Stolas’ bird guards. The meeting ended abruptly on the spot. Blitzo and his companions felt dejected on their way back to the office. Stolas had generously given Blitzo some money to add another connecting hotel building with rows of rooms, a stage and a bar.

 The three imps arrived at their building and after filling out some paperwork, they met in a lobby of the separate building. There were pictures along the walls of the I.M.P. members. Blitzo posing with his sisters after performing at a circus. Blitzo holding a puppy Loona lovingly. Moxxie and Millie in wedding attire, the couple gazing lovingly at each other. Millie and Moxxie sitting with a large Apple mascot for Loo Loo Land, Moxxie crying in fear and discomfort.

 Millie walked over to the fridge and pulled out a box of popsicles. She happily sucked and ate a black raspberry one.

 “You know you might as well get more food for this place,” Millie mentioned to Blitzo. “To feed all the wayward souls in this place.” She giggled and added, “I can help organize the car wash while you search the fridge for spoiled butter!”

 Blitzo just sat dejectedly on a wooden crate of booze. Millie considered comforting him, but Moxxie gave her a look and shook his head. Millie sighed and followed her husband to let Blitzo be alone. Blitzo stepped outside and called a familiar person on his hell phone. The label read “Stolas, a.k.a. One Night Stand Bird Dick.”

 “Hey Stolas, it’s me.”

 “Hello Blitzy, how may I entertain you tonight?”

 “No you really don’t have to.”

 “Perhaps a show that can make up for today’s broadcast?”

 “Yeah about that, I…don’t think I’m making a difference. I mean, I’m lucky to be alive after the Extermination but, everyone thought my plan was stupid.”

 “Perhaps unusual,” Stolas mentioned. “Redeeming and trying to change demons is like trying to freeze Hell’s fires. It’s just not possible.”

 “Not that I want to do it completely…but if things keep going wrong, I’ll lose my company and maybe even my families’ lives from those in Heaven.”

 Stolas squawked with laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of those flying cherubs and sheep?”

“Fuck that! Those dancing revivers are annoying pieces of shit trying to interfere with my hard work.”

 “How about this way, C.H.E.R.U.B. or whatever those things are, revive humans so you have more humans to kill later on!”

 “But having to kill the same people again and again? How boring is that! I.M.P. needs more variety, less repetition. Thumbtack, my horse, agrees.”

 “Didn’t you tell me about how you killed that bratty kid twice?”

 “It was Moxxie and then me but that’s not the point. If this company goes out of business, then I’ll never get the chance to live my musical theater dreams.”

 “Don’t be sad, Blitzy,” said Stolas. “You have your associates and you also have me. I’ll make sure no one messes around with you.”

 “I think my dad was…right about me…”

 “You’re no failure Blitzy. He can hardly call himself a father to you. And if he ever tries to make you lonely and bring you down because of your goals…”

 Stolas then ranted on with a series of curses and a lot of cringe-worthy sentences. Blitzo laughed nervously.

 “If this is your way of trying to get into bed then I ain’t having it.”

 “No, not this time.”

 “Okay then. Thanks for the advice.”

 “Anytime.”

 “Good bye.”

 Blitzo hung up by tapping on the phone screen. He wiped tears from his eyes as he headed back inside. He leaned against the door, eyes closed, frustrated and fatigued.  

  Just then, he heard a knock on the door. One loud knock that made it sound like someone had decided to punch the door. A smile grew on Blitzo’s face as he opened the door.

 There stood Loona in her usual gray tank top with a black downward pentagram design below her neck. Her pants with a moon on it wore torn and she wore no shoes. Her eyes flared red, her red tongue just visible among her sharp teeth.

 Blitzo beamed. “Loo…”

 Loona slammed the door hard. Blitzo opened it.

 “…ny!”

 Loona slammed it again.

 Blitzo eagerly turned to Moxxie. “Hey Moxxie!”

“What?!” asked the agitated imp.

 “Loony is at the door!”

 “What?!” Moxxie asked. “Oh?” asked Millie.

 Blitzo was cheered up. “What should I do?”

 “Don’t let her in!” Moxxie spat.

 Blitzo waltzed right to the door and opened it.

 “May I rant now?” asked the hellhound.

 “You may,” Blitzo responded.

 Loona stomped inside. “The nerve of you guys to just leave me behind like that. I mean, did you want me to sit through another segment of royalty bitching about their outfits. When my punk clothing is superior anyway. Man Blitzo, I haven’t seen anything so embarrassing since you decided to give me spiders and sleep with that privileged asshole. Heh, you were kinda pathetic.”

 She had her sharp black claws out, and her breath smelled of alcohol.

 Moxxie pointed a gun at her. “Stop right there! I know that look and I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone else here, you lunatic emo meth addicted bitch!”

 Loona just lowered the gun with her fingers. “If I wanted to hurt anyone here, I would’ve done so already.”

 She growled and bared her fangs. “Ya know, I came because…I was thinking of helping.”

 Blitzo looked confused. “Say what?”

 “I wanna help you run this place. Why not, nothing else to do.” She scoffed. “Though Blitzo, your plans are ridiculous as always.”

 “Why do you still have her around?” Moxxie shook his head. “She hardly answers the bone phone and has skipped work too many times to count!”

 “Don’t talk about her like that, she’s fine. Sometimes she has what some people would call…ruff days.”

 Loona flipped the bird before searching the fridge. “Any avocado salads here?”

 “No. I already ate mine early thanks to you eating mine last time.”

 “Nobody claimed it and besides, people like you don’t need lunch.”

 “Hey!”

 “Alright,” said Blitzo. “I’ll be happy to have you help. Just…don’t fly off the handle or get into any trouble.”

 “Fair enough, whatever.”

 The hellhound looked around. “Any hotel visitors around here?”

 Millie mentioned to a chubby short blonde haired woman reading a magazine and humming a tune. “Just Mimzy.”

 “You’re never fully dressed without a smile,” she sang.

 “Meh. Not enough. Hey Millie, any extra things you can do?”

 Millie grinned. I can snuggle you and give you kisses.”

 “Ha! No.”

 “Your loss.”

 Loona sighed. “Hang on, I’ll be right back. I can sniff you a few people who might be helpful.

 About fifteen minutes later, she came holding a squirming blue anglerfish demon in her paw. He was wearing a gray lab coat, yellow goggles and a hanging light from his small top hat.

 “This little amphibian is Baxter,” Lonna said, dropping him.

 “I-I’m Baxter,” the fish stammered. “That mutt over there just tracked me down, right when I was about to gather my ingredients for my next p-project. It’s a top secret formula that I m-must complete.” He raced around to grab more beakers, vials and a burner nearby. “It’s been a w-while since I’ve seen new people. And I don’t want to see any more. No, no, no, stay back! Back off I say!” He pointed a white shrink ray at anyone who came too close.  “If you’ll e-excuse me, I must get back to work!”

 Several moments later, not too far from headquarters, a white and red hellhound was strolling along listening to rock music on 90s headphones.  “Why am I even here?” she thought. “I can’t believe that I’m stuck in this vast scary place.” Music and a tough front hid the insecurity underneath. She received a tap on the shoulder.

 “The hell? The fuck is this?” She turned around and spotted Loona. “You!” she broke into a large toothed grin. She wore black leather, metal rings on her pointed ears and a spiked collar. Her shirt was pink red with a white skull on it. Porn magazines lined her pockets.

 “Crymini,” Loona greeted, hiding a small smile.

 “So glad to see you again, Loona,” Crymini replied. “Anything on your mind? What shall we do? Go for a drink? Vandalize a building after a smoke? Or we could chew on some bones of demons…they’re my favorite snack!”

 “I wish,” Loona rolled her eyes at the more hyper hound. “I feel somewhat obligated to help Blitzo and company recruit more people to help promote I.M.P.”

 “I think I saw commercials of it,” Crymini mentioned. “That imp killing company?”

 Loona nodded.

 “Wait…you work there too?”

“Pretty much. A receptionist. Filled to the brim with paperwork, calling clients and annoying fellow employees.”

 “Your condition still there?” Crymini asked.

 “Syphilis can go fuck itself.”

 “I wish it would for your sake and mine as well.”

 “One wouldn’t say being in a rock band is much easier, but it’s still pretty fun.”

 “I’ve seen you play guitar and sing. Pretty good I must say.”

 “Thanks! I’ll be performing at a concert later this week. Will you be there?”

 “Sure,” she replied with a shrug.

 “Let’s go to your headquarters then!”

 Blitzo, Moxxie, Millie, Loona, Stolas, Mimzy, Baxter and Crymini were soon together at the building.

 “Anyone want some booze and fresh meat?” Loona asked.

 Everyone nodded in agreement.  

 Not too far away, concealed in bushes, a figure was watching them with orange eyes. Roo, the kangaroo Australian demon. She had white skin, wild aburn hair and wore orange. A large wide brimmed dark hat concealed her face in shadow. A parasitic creature slithered from her mouth, its body covered with white spikes and eyes.

  She bared her sharp teeth, blood and liquid dropping from her mouth. One thought emitted from her head, the parasite in sync with her thoughts.

 “Feast.”

[namelessthirst]

I have a request inspired by a song. It's called "Like This" by Jojo (it's my hoe anthem) and you can do FmReader putting on a show for any UA boy of your choosing (except the little grape juice he can sod off) . It can take a smutty turn if you please 😉 Hope you have a lovely day!

I’d never tried to write dancing before and it shows with how long this took ngkjrenkgr ANYWAY

ENJOY THAT

Reader x Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu900 wordsSemi-public sex?, Hoe Anthems, No one ask why the coats are wet okay]

A joint party between 3A and 3B was a surprise, even after years at UA wore away at the animosity between them.

Still, the prep was almost cathartic, memories of vitriol between the classes distant but still clear. Yet, with everyone bustling around the kitchen and common room, moving furniture and throwing party treats together, it was relaxing.

Jiro’s work with the sound system was impressive, and everyone gave a pat to the spent charger who sat loosely in one of the shoved-aside chairs as they continued decorating.

Fairy lights were donated to the cause and strung up with tape and thumbtacks, and Momo was quick to make some flashier lights to set up in the corners.

By the time the sun set, lights were dimmed, decorations lit, food set out and warmed, and the stereo was flooding the room with bumps and beats that was sure to shake the floors above.

Even the quieter members of the classes were here and hanging out!

Tetsu greeted Kirishima so jovially, it was kind of a surprise to see him hugging a wall with just some punch in his hands a few minutes after his cross-class pal went to join the others on the dancefloor.

You made your way over to him from your spot near the drinks to slip an arm around his waist, “Havin’ fun, sweetie?”

With a distracted hum, he leaned down to press a quick kiss to your lips, a habitual greeting that earned a loud gag from any nearby classmates, regardless of when or where it happened.

“Yeah, babe, I’m fine. Why?”

“Well, you’re all alone over here,” You cooed into his ear softly, playing at a pout while you ran a hand over his chest.

He huffed, settling his palm on your back, “Yeah? Should I not be?”

“Lonely without your buddy from 1a with you?” You knew you were right by how his skin firmed under your touch, a bashful habit he’d kept since the beginning of your relationship.

You chuckled at his expense, offering a press of lips to his cheek in payment before you took off toward Jiro’s desk of equipment.

After some excited giggling and grins, and more than a few curious looks from your boyfriend, the music cut abruptly into a new tempo.

Down, down, down, down, down

Your quick take to center stage, or the center of the dance floor, at least, was not missed by silver eyes.

He told me that he like this, he like thisHe wanna take his time with me, like thisLet me show you how I wind it, like thisLemme show you like, like, show you like like

Those already dancing didn’t pay much mind when your hips twitched and jerked to the beat, or when you swung your back toward Tetsu and drug your fingers from your thighs up.

Take your body downtown, but right roundLike you better with the lights down, but right downHigher than the ceiling, hotter than the sunYou want some of me? Baby come get some, l-l-like

It took a laughing shove from one of Tetsu’s classmates for him to join you, the floor already growing crowded as your swaying lured more to dance.

Rap game flow on the radioTwo bad ones with me, we ain’t goin’ homeI’m a good girl, baby, tell me what you wantWhat you want, what you want

A warning hiss left Tetsu’s mouth with the drag of your ass on his zipper, hands firm on your hip and side. Were you really gonna do this now? Here?

I got you blood flow pumpin’ like thisGot you so spaced out, floatin’ on the mistGet you in my backroom in a little bitJust give me a minute, I know you with it

He was no dancer, the best a body built for sturdy rigidity would allow was the slow roll of hips pinned against you. To the unknowing eye, it’d seem like his presence dulled the energetic performance you’d started, but you knew better. With the brush of calloused fingers below the hem of your shorts, and the heavy huff that warmed your ear, you knew things had gotten far more heated.

Can’t keep my name off your lipsJust like your eyes don’t move off my hipsYou’re the thunder, thunder, crackin’ like a whipDon’t resist, just admit…

By the time you’d both disappeared from the dance floor, it was too crowded with invigorated people for anyone to notice.

Tetsu had tried valiantly to shove the jackets away on the floor of the closet before he kicked the door shut, body a lead weight as he steered you down lap first.

It was almost like dancing, the bass coming easily through easily from maybe 15 feet away aiding bared sweaty skin.

The song didn’t call for it, but the high notes you sung out fit so well between the beats and the nape hair clutched in your hand.

He told me that he like this, he like thisHe wanna take his time with me, like thisLet me show you how I wind it, like thisLet me show you like, like, show you like, likeTake your body downtown but right roundLike you better with the lights down, but way downHigher than the ceiling, hotter than the sunYou want some of me? Baby come get some, l-l-like

And if there was a new hole in the wall that happened to match your sore heel you’d thrust out at the crescendo, well, that was just alright.

[puurr]

shehi  everyone  welcome  BACK  to  my  blog,  hi  how  are  ya  ??  *  waves  wand  *  that  was  cringe,  aNYWAYS  i’m  ru,  t,  goat,  whatever  you  wanna  call  me  and  im  bringing  you  THAT  BITCH ™  in  human  form,  like  if  that  bitch  was  a  person,  this  is  what  it  would  be.  gosh,  i  talk  too  much  lmao,  but  if  you  wanna  plot  feel  free  to  mssg  me  on  discord  𝒍𝒊𝒍 𝒖𝒛𝒊 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏.#1643  or  here,  whatever  floats  ur  boat  boo  !!  but  ya’ll  don’t  care  ab  me    😈  so  without  further  ado.  &  did  i  proof  read?  xxx

chicago’s very own 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐃  𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 has been spotted on madison avenue driving a  𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐄𝐒-𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐙 𝐆-𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒 , welcome ! your resemblance to 𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒊  is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐃 birthday bash  . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re 𝐎𝐁𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄  , but being 𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒  might help you . i think being a 𝒍𝒊𝒃𝒓𝒂 explains that .  3 things that would paint  a  better picture of you would be 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒏 , 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒅 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 , and   𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒔 . ( i sabotaged a fellow gymnast, ruining her career forever because i saw her as my only threat. )  & ( cisfemale + she/her ) +  ( ru, 18,he/him,est )

STATS  ;

NAME   :  diamond  tiaira  patterson

NICKNAMES   :   dede,  die,  dee.

AGE   :   twenty   -   three   .

BIRTHDAY   :   october  21st   .

ZODIAC   :   libra   .

GENDER   :   female   .

PRONOUNS   :   she  /  her   .

NATIONALITY   :   american   .

ETHNICITY   :   african-american  .

LABEL(S)   :   the   prosperous   ,   the   athlete   ,   the   diva   .

OCCUPATION   :   gymnast   ,  (  aspiring  )  singer   ,   socialite   ,  dancer  ,  spokemodel.

POS  :  (  ridiculously  )  athletic,  driven,  ambitious,  articulate,  stoic,  intelligent,  (  dangerously  )  witty.

NEG  :  snarky,  sarcastic,  inconclusive,  stubborn,  envious,  deceitful,  greedy,  mischievous,  artificial.

AESTHETIC

atm  machines  dispensing  hundreds  of  dollars,  mink  eyelashes  so  long,  one  blink  might  send  you  flying  away,  10′s  across  the  board,  a  wall  adorned  with  shimmering  trophies,  and  1st  place  ribbons,  hair  extensions  past  your  ass,  extravagant  nails  that  look  like  they’d  be  hard  to  manage,  the  “boujee”  friend,  snapchats  of  you  and  the  squad  getting  lit  in  the  backseat  of  your  bodyguard  driven  cadillac,  still  being  able  to  do  tumbling  passes  and  drop  into  the  splits  in  any  costume,  and  pushing  away  lingering  feelings  of  guilt.

BACKGROUND  ;

some  people  are  born  lucky,  and  others  are  lucky  to  be  born,  and  as  her  name  might  suggest  diamond  tiaira  patterson  was  one  of  thee  few  born  lucky  in  chicago.  her  father  is  a  big  time  music  producer  who  peaked  in  the  90s  all  the  way  through  the  mid  2000s  who  worked  with  all  your  early  childhood  favorites  and  her  mother  is  a  former  elite  gymnast  who  wowed  crowds  in  the  summer  olympics  in  ‘91.

the  patterson  name  oozed  greatness  in  the  city  and  saw  nothing  but  success,  diamond  was  destined  for  greatness  when  her  mom  forced  put  her  into  gymnastics  at  age  four,  and  the  young  woman  thrived  and  excelled  every  since,  even  dedicating  her  talents  to  track  and  field,  cheerleading,  and  volleyball  in  high  school  where she was a 4x  state  champion  between  cheerleading  and  volleyball.  but,  gymnastics  always  came  first  no  matter  what.

the  glory  at  such  a  young  age  was  enthralling,  diamond  loved  the  attention,  she  loved  performing,  it  became  a  2nd  nature,  but  the  pressure  from  her  mom  to  push  harder  and  harder,  and  the  fear  of  letting  her  down  was  something  that  drove  her  competitive  nature  through  the   roof.  but  it  gave  her  an  edge,  her  desire  to  be  great  was  sickening.

but,  she  had  all  the  talent,  and  the  accomplishments  to  back  whatever  she  had  to  say.

the  competitiveness  drove  her  to  sabotage  a  fellow  competitor  who  scored  a  point  higher  than  her,  and  had  the  possibility  of  beating  her,  so  diamond  put  a  teeny  tiny  thumbtack  on  the  balance  beam,  and  her  opponent  landed  foot  first  on  it  and  twisted  that  ankle  all  the  way  up  and  landed  on  her  neck,  her  career?  DONE  FOR.  it  wasn’t  her  intention  of  course  ,  she  was  young  and  impulsive,  but  what’s  done  was  done.

diamond  went  on  to  gain  national  recognition  for  her  accomplishments  even  having  an  OUTSTANDING  showing  in  the  olympics  as  part  of  team  usa  at  the  age  of  19  winning  four  gold  medals,  and  since  then  she’s  been  on  magazine  covers,  guest  starred  on  tv  shows,  modeled  a  bit,  and  she’s  currently  dabbling  into  music  with  the  help  of  her  father.  a  big  reason  why  they  moved  to  nyc  he’s  her  dadager,  and  they  want  to  make  her  the  next  big  thing,  but  with  all  the  personalities  in  nyc,  they’re  in  for  a  surprise.

PERSONALITY

INSP  :  josephine  mccoy  (  riverdale  )  ,  hilary  banks  (  fresh  prince  of  belair  )  ,  whitley  gilbert  (  another  world  )  colandrea  conners  (  dear  white  people  )  jelena  howard  (  hit  the  floor  )  ,  naomi  campbell  ,  mariah  carey  .

A  DIVA.  to  an  extent,  she’s  definitely  sassy  and  sensible,  and  won’t  hesitate  to  let  you  know  it.  she’s  been  spoiled  and  successful  all  her  life,  she’s  a  winner,  and  if  things  don’t  come  easy  to  her  she  just  wants  to  quit  it  all  together.  she’s  used  to  it  being  her  way  or  the  high  way  ,  she’s  definitely  privileged  and  entitled  ,  but  tries  to  be  more  on  the  heartwarming  side  if  the  situation  entails.  humble  with  like  a  half  of  kanye.

we  said  it  before,  but  she  is  THE  boujee  friend.  friend.  as  she  exudes  that  prestige,  that  pedigree,  she  doesn’t  drink  tap  water,  only  drinks  almond  milk,  she  likes  foods  than  cannot  be  pronounced,  she  tries  to  act  cultured,  but  whenever  she  opens  her  mouth  that  flies  right  out  the  window.  she’s  fiercely  loyal  to  those  who  deserve  it  of  course

JUDGMENTAL!!!!  she  is  not  the  friend  that  you  can  bring  to  the  vip  section  of  a  club  and  pop  some  pills  or  do  a  line  in  front  of,  she’ll  really  smack  the shit  out  of  you  ,  or  look  at  you  like  you’ve  gone  batshit  crazy  .

CONNECTIONS

any  former  gymnast  muses  in  da  house  or  sum  ??  maybe  d  literally  mopped  the  floor  w/  them  @  a  meet  when  they  were  younger  or  sumn,  but  they  still  made  friends?  we  have  NO  idea  how.

seasoned  musicians,  who  she  networks  and  mingles  with  to  get  her  foot  in  the  door??  maybe  they  worked  with  her  dad  and  give  her   some  advice,  maybe  they’re  gonna  drop  a  hot  new  single?  something  fun,  something  for  the  girls  *  in  my  saweetie  voice *

RICH  FRIENDS,  IDK,  nyc  is  vasty  different  from  chitown,  and  maybe  her  guide  to  nyc??  whats  the  new  haps  on  fashion,  where  tf  does  everybody  hang  out?  stuff  like  that  yk?

we  need  ENEMIES  too  because  miss  thing  has  ATTITUDE  for  days,  and  i  just  know  she  probably  ruffled  a  few  feathers  walking  into  the  big  apple  like  she  owns  it.

pls  hmu.

[ofelsewhere]

On Twombly’s 50 Days at Illiam

“Good photo op, right there,” Patrick says, gesturing at the museum attendant in Gallery 284. It’s president’s day. We have the day off. And so we’re meandering around the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the unspecific goal of getting inspired.

The museum attendant, framed by the doorway and silhouetted by a piece from Cy Twombly’s Shades of Night series, stares blankly at an empty wall. The Twombly’s rudimentary blossom of paint and scribbled text create an illusion of halo and crown around the man’s head.

It is a good photo op, but I’m slow on the draw. Through the next doorway is Gallery 285, where hangs the Virginia-born modernist’s galvanizing opus, Fifty Days at Iliam. And instead of lining up a decent capture, I start to wonder: what’s the wall got that the Twombly doesn’t?

I get it. He makes art look too easy. But come on. During a previous trip, in almost the exact same location, a museum attendant directed my companion and I, unprompted, to a gallery at the far end of the museum. There, he said, we could find the beautiful stuff. The masterful, enlightening stuff. The Renaissance. The Biblical. (Read: not this shit.) I’ve seen twelve year olds roll their eyes, middle aged men in fanny packs chortle, and school teachers audibly scoff in the presence of Twombly’s work.

So again, I wonder: what the fuck?

You pass by a lot of incredible art on your way to Illiam. As you split off the main hall on your way to the contemporary galleries, Degas’ Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen flanks you immediately to the right. You cross paths with major milestones of European Impressionism, the blurry and familiar pastels that fill kitchen-wall-thumbtacked calendars around the country.

As you head into the Contemporary galleries, you pass by Ellsworth Kelly’s monochrome works, neon 1980s VHS kitsch, cast sculptures of light bulbs and shoes, confounding white gridwork canvases, pre-cubist Picassos, and a sky-blue wash of paint that crawls up the arched ceiling.

That’s when the Twomblys really start.

There are sculptures: a half-formed block of cast bronze that tapers into what seems like a chariot wheel. Another features two of that same circle shape, one tipped over, broken diametrically, leaning against the other. Are these wheels? Coins? Pizzas? Shields? More circular forms, paired with triangle shapes, create thrones, chariots, wheelbarrows.

There are paintings: messes of canvas and oils with more canvas layered on top like the detritus of a complicated feeling.  

These are icons delivered to the world courtesy of id and super-ego. They are thought’s blurred anatomy. They are body parts of our collective unconscious clawing at surface, unable to breach. Not, at least, in any directly intelligible way. These are smatterings of a shared natural language. They are the symbology of a western canon, of all that we call “Classical” sidestepping the brain altogether and to be shot straight from the gut.

Continue past Gallery 280’s Geometric Abstraction, and through the meditative foyer of the aforementioned Gallery 284. And finally, Gallery 285. You are surrounded on all sides by Fifty Days at Iliam, the artist’s ode to The Illiad, Homer’s epic poem of the Trojan War. This is Twombly’s Trojan War. Gestural, gutterall, violent. There are dick-shaped chariots. Blooming scribbles of carnage and chaos. Misspelled character names. The scale is massive. The compositions are coherent, perhaps, only in their sense rhythm.

Tucked away in this chapel-like gallery in the far corner of the modern wing monstrosity and beauty, meaning and pure stupidity. And at the center of it all: a single bench, or perhaps more of an altar, from which to take it all in.

This is where people go to sigh.

[keishiko]

What Gives It Value (Chapter Four)

A lot can happen in five years, and after.

[Chapter 4/?  |  Rated for language, adult themes  |  Angst  |  Natasha x Steve  |  Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3]

[Set during the five-year jump in “Endgame”.  My latest, lame attempt at a fix-it fic]

Extraction in 10 outside yours. Wear the Cap-links :)

Steve stared bemused down at his phone as he absent-mindedly toweled his shower-wet hair. He hadn’t heard from her in a while, not since Morgan’s birthday some months back when she’d suddenly picked him up in the quinjet and neither of them had mentioned how they preferred not to go to the party alone. He had just turned to put the beer back in the refrigerator, still wondering if he should remind her he had retired, when he heard his phone chirp another alert.

Feel free to bring your laundry :p

Headlights glinted off the enameled stars-and-stripes on his sleeves as the sleek silver sedan pulled up to the curb on the dot. The window powered down as he approached, a battered duffel bag of laundry hoisted over his shoulder and contrasting oddly with his crisp black suit.

“Hey, stranger.”

The familiar throaty purr sparked something hot inside his chest. He peered in the open window at gleaming green eyes. “My machine broke down not two hours ago, Nat.”

“I’ve missed you too, Cap,” she drawled. “I’m glad to see you followed orders.”

He grinned at her. She’d given him the cuff links several years ago for Christmas, each designed to look like a miniature shield (official Captain America™ merchandise of course, 100% made in the USA; employee discount, free gift wrapping). This was the first time he’d worn them.

“You know, I had a whole glamorous night in all planned for myself.” He tossed the duffel bag in the back seat and climbed in the front. The car pulled into the street as he fastened his seatbelt. “Couple of beers, pizza delivery, six-hour documentary marathon...”

“Vikings or animals?”

“Anim... I meant Vikings, of course the Vikings—”

“Of course the Vikings.” Street lights glimmered off the sequins on her dress as they turned a corner. “You’ve only done the animals marathon three and a half times already.”

He’d fallen asleep the last time. She looked especially gorgeous tonight, even if she was smirking at his expense. He tore his gaze away from her to look out the window at storefronts streaking past. “Last time I checked, I was retired.” They were heading Midtown.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Sincere underneath the humor, she gave him a sidelong glance. “I’ve got two tickets, but I can drop you off at the laundromat instead if you prefer.”

No doubt she already knew which laundromat was his favorite, even though it wasn’t the nearest one to his apartment. “It’s okay. I suited up, didn’t I?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled in her smile. God, he’d missed her.

They joined a queue of vehicles that snaked glitteringly from the street up into a driveway. “This is ‘Swan Lake’,” Natasha pointed out, although Steve hadn’t missed the huge colorful banners down the front of the building announcing exactly that. “Boy meets girl, girl turns out cursed to be a swan unless she finds true love, boy cheats on her without really meaning to, girl dies. That’s the version with the sad ending, anyway.” Briefing over, her smile turned teasing. “If you don’t fall asleep, I’ll treat you to dinner afterward.”

He’d never attended the ballet before. It had never held any particular fascination for him, but as the curtain finally came down on the third round of crashing applause at the end he found himself wondering how he’d missed it. Already his fingers itched to sketch the long, lean lines of muscle and bone, the elegant lift of a chin, the graceful flutter of a slender hand. Beside him Natasha dabbed at her eyes.

“It was one of my first missions at SHIELD,” she said abruptly, digging into her Chinese takeout at headquarters. She had changed into a ratty sweatshirt, her hair out of its coif and curling around her shoulders, red at the roots. His jacket and tie hung over a chair. Elsewhere in the building, the first load of his laundry tumbled merrily in the machine. “Human trafficking, Eastern Europe. Major revenue stream for terrorists, as you know. Kids mixed in with the adults.” Steve glanced at her, but her face was carefully neutral. “Fury found them places, I’m not even sure where. Not all of them had families. Not all of them had families who would take them back.” There was a faraway look in her eyes as she pursed her lips around her chopsticks. “Oksana made principal dancer a few years ago, but this was her debut as Odette-Odile.” She quirked one corner of her mouth at him. “I didn’t want to miss it.”

He smiled back. “She was amazing. Thanks for bringing me along.”

She shrugged, but looked pleased with herself. “I thought she had talent.”

As she fished around in her takeout box for the last morsels of cashew chicken he strode slowly across the room, his hands in his pockets. Outside the main office the empty complex was shrouded in shadow and, in some places, a thin layer of dust; but inside she had cleared a space for them amidst the books and files, and the lamps threw cozy circles of warm light. Here and there pilot lights glowed green: no urgent notifications. Little had changed in the few years since he’d last been here, watching over the world with her. After Thanos, he remembered, he’d done so with an increasing sense of futility.

In the corner there was still the corkboard he’d put up amidst the screens and monitors, because there was something to be said for actually looking at and holding things that weren’t just electronic pinpoints of light and he refused to be told otherwise. Tony and Clint had noticed right away, of course, and Steve had had to withstand a good thirty minutes of ribbing about his stubborn fondness for index cards. (“So... so analog,” and Tony had shuddered, like it was a fate worse than death.) The photograph he’d tacked up ages ago—“the graduating class of 2015,” Bruce had quipped—wasn’t there anymore; instead he found it framed and hung, with pride of place, on a nearby wall. Natasha’s work, no doubt. The pinhole from his thumbtack was barely visible under the glass.

With an almost physical effort he forced himself to look at the photograph. He didn’t have any photographs at his apartment. It had been the twins’ birthday, and everyone had gathered for a party. Wanda stood smiling up at the camera between Clint and Vision, whose ghastly approximation of “cheese” still made Steve chuckle out loud, even if the sound came out a little strangled tonight. Natasha winked elaborately from behind the bar, both hands full as she mixed cocktails for Maria, Nick, and Pepper. Thor and Tony wore similar broad grins and smears of frosting across their faces, because the cake-smashing would begin in earnest as soon as the picture was taken. Steve himself was off to the side, his smile strained with disgust at the waste of perfectly good cake, and Sam had slung an arm each around him and Bruce while flashing his usual sunny smile. The photo was slightly skewed; Sam had still been trying to get the hang of controlling Redwing.

“I can give you a copy of that if you want,” she said from her seat at the table.

He smiled. Maybe later.

“You’ve really found your place, Nat.” He hefted his bag of clean laundry as they pulled up to the curb outside his apartment building. Inside the car it was heady with the smell of fabric softener. “I’m happy for you.”

“I do what I can.” Her smile softened as she turned to him. “You know you’re always welcome to come back, right?”

He chuckled. “You seem to be doing just fine without me.”

“Steve.”

He glanced at her, almost shy, but she was still smiling. “Tell ‘em I said hi,” he said at last.

She nodded, searching his face. “Will do.”

It reminded him of old times, her looking at him from the quinjet’s pilot seat; sometimes asking, sometimes laughing, sometimes knowing what he needed to see in her eyes even before he did. I’ve missed you, he wanted to say, and more. But then maybe she knew that already, like so much else about him.

“I don’t suppose I could offer you a cup of coffee for the road.”

She knew he was only half joking. Her smile turned wistful. “I’d love that, but I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

“Right, right.” How many times had they said that to one another, the night before a mission? “You know”—he paused, his hand on the door—“I still have my old keys.”

She grinned. “Well, I did stockpile your favorite kind of laundry detergent.”

She’d looked lovely earlier tonight, in her jewelry and coiffure and perfect makeup; but now he wanted to feel her hair curl delicately around his fingers, her soft mouth open to his. He didn’t want to stare, so he looked hastily away and down instead, to where his cuff link caught the light. “You know all my weaknesses.”

He never did get around to having his washing machine fixed.

  to be continued

The previous chapter seemed a bit too bleak, and the latest MCU revelations have got me down with missing my favorite Avengers, so here's a little bit more of a laugh :)

[bigyack-com]

When Department Stores Were Theater

After the hundreds of jobs going poof and the thus-far inadequate discounts, the saddest thing about the closure of Barneys New York is that its signature naughty window displays will recede even further in collective memory.A Hail Mary campaign earlier this year imploring shoppers to go inside even as the store declared bankruptcy (“STRUT STRUT STRUT STRUT STRUT STRUT”) was but a faint echo of the era when subversive tableaus of papier-mâché public figures, found objects, condoms on Christmas trees and the occasional scampering vermin mesmerized crowds, offended cardinals and even sold some clothes.But “we’re in a post-window-display world,” said Simon Doonan, the Barneys O.G. window dresser, in a telephone interview, noting the “impenetrable facade” of Dover Street Market, heir apparent to the luxury avant-garde. Its New York entrance has only small, high apertures above pedestrian eye level.“In the old days, window displays were the primary form of marketing — fashion was the same as butcher shops and fishmongers,” he said. “Now, if you’re waiting till someone walks past your store, you’ve lost the fight.”Indeed, the bustling new Nordstrom on 57th Street dispenses with traditional boxed-in display windows entirely, replacing them with a shallow, wavy facade that John Bailey, a spokesman, assured would be festooned with red and white lights come Black Friday. The facade is “an interactive viewing experience for customers walking by,” he wrote in an email, “connecting the shopping experience in store to the energy of the city.” (And the energy of customers’ phones.) A young employee at the central help desk said elliptically that “our windows are our customer service.”Gather ’round, children, and let Auntie Alexandra tell of when department stores, now mostly glassy, anodyne places you go to exchange online purchases, used to put on a show. Sometimes more entertaining than the theater.First, though, a quick gallop through what remains of New York’s holiday windows in 2019, and the hopeful cornucopias within.At the doomed Barneys flagship on 61st Street, there was of course bubkes, just signs reading: “Everything Must Be Sold! Goodbuys, then Goodbye.” Inside on the fifth floor, female customers were listlessly flipping shoes to glance at the soles and calculate the markdown, as if with muscle memory from the much-lamented warehouse sale. Four creaky flights up, the power lunch spot Fred’s, named for Fred Pressman, Barneys’ charismatic chairman who died in 1996, was full — even as a worker held a headless naked mannequin steady by her neck on a hand truck, waiting for the elevator to go down, down, down.A few blocks away preens Bergdorf Goodman, the beautiful princess whose holding company, Neiman Marcus, muscled recently into the Hudson Yards, like a watchful mother-in-law moving into the guest cottage. There are no old-school windows at the gleaming new Neiman, being that it’s high up off the dirty street in a mall (and incidentally charging kids $72 per head for breakfast with Santa). But at Bergdorf, David Hoey, the store’s senior director of visual presentation, and his team have gamely produced a concept called Bergdorf GoodTimes. Literally gamely. Like, filled with actual games.One window was captioned “Queen’s Gambit” (chess); another, “Jackpot!” (pinball); another, “Winner Take All” (casino — perhaps a dry subconscious commentary on the high-stakes state of retail). Around the corner, a life-size board game, “Up the Down Escalator,” was dotted with fictional gift cards, coin of the online-shopping realm.Mr. Hoey’s sophisticated, colorful creations did not seem intended for little ones — and anyway those were scampering around across the street, splashing in small pools and peering into mirror-glass “sky lenses” outside the Fifth Avenue Apple store. Paging Dr. Lacan!Further east on 59th and Lexington Avenue, dear old Bloomingdale’s was flagrantly violating several of the decorative precepts set out by Mr. Doonan in his seminal 1998 book, “Confessions of a Window Dresser: Tales From a Life in Fashion.” Specifically: “do remember that technology is boring” and “don’t incorporate sex.”If Bergdorf is rolling the dice on the future of the department store — eroded perhaps irrevocably by Amazon’s mighty, corrosive flow — Bloomie’s is searching the stars. Not the celebrities whose daffy effigies used to populate Mr. Doonan’s windows, mostly with enthusiastic cooperation (Madonna, Magic Johnson, Norman Mailer, Prince, Queen Elizabeth), but a lavish commingling of astronomy and astrology titled Out of This World.Robots were placing ornaments on a tree and sitting at a synthesizer ready to play the carol of your choice at the push of a button. Google Nest, a sponsor, was poised to turn on the tree, the lights; the fire. And astronauts were floating in a “3, 2, 1, Gift Off,” or was it a “GIF Off?” Female mannequins embodying various figures of the zodiac were outfitted like go-go dancers, all pearls and feathers and curvature: propped up against each other on a pedestal as a recording played of John Legend singing, incongruously, “Christmas in New Orleans.” Inside, on the main floor, one embodying Cancer the Crab hung upside down from the ceiling: eyes closed, suspended over a hoop, hand-claws splayed, rotating slowly. Her bared, inverted legs conjured less the #MeToo era than the infamous “meat grinder” photo of the June 1978 Hustler magazine that feminists used to protest on Manhattan sidewalks.

Razzle-Dazzle in the Mezzanine

Mr. Doonan had called from Los Angeles, where he was, among other activities, promoting a monograph to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Maxfield, the boutique there. This even though when he was in the window-dressing business, “I was very anti-anniversary and I vetoed all of them. They just made the company seem old and boring. It looks dusty.”Though I agree 100 percent and moreover think the ascription of significance to particular numbers is as ridiculous as astrology, it also happens to be the 40th anniversary of a seismic and undersung event in department-store history: when the performer Elaine Stritch was the M.C. of an elaborate fashion show at Liberty of London, the emporium known for its fine fabrics. (Many women in those years still sewed household clothes from patterns.)Arranged by Peter Tear, then Liberty’s head of marketing and publicity, and choreographed by Larry Fuller of “Evita,” the show somehow managed to cross-promote the low-tar Silk Cut cigarette with a silk congress happening in London. Concordes were deployed with top models on board. Cocktails were concocted by the Café Royal down the road. Fifty-odd designers contributed special outfits for the occasion, including Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Yves Saint Laurent.Another was David Emanuel, who, with his wife and partner, Elizabeth, would design the show’s bridal gown (and later Princess Diana’s).“People gasped,” he said, remembering the Liberty event on a crackly trans-Atlantic phone line. “They were aching for ‘larger than life.’” Mr. Emanuel described Stritch — subject of my recently published biography, “Still Here” (hey, it’s the selling season) — in a sequined tuxedo jacket, singing among other numbers “Falling in Love Again” à la Marlene Dietrich to the enraptured ladies who lunch who had paid five quid admission apiece for the show, which ran thrice daily over the course of a week. “It has more punch and pulchritude packed into its 51 minutes than most West End musicals twice as long,” one newspaper commented.Mr. Doonan theorized that Liberty, fighting a dainty, twin-set image, had taken inspiration from what the storied retailer Marvin Traub was doing then at Bloomingdale’s. “The whole thing was that the store was the stage — the razzle-dazzle of flash and pizazz and lo and behold, there’s a swimwear fashion show with Pat Cleveland coming down the escalator,” he said. “Every day was ‘curtain up!’ at Bloomingdale’s.”Truly, what could be more of an ultimate fantasy set than the department store of yore, with its infinite “costumes,” props and built-in risers, its endless potential for comedy, dance, drama and even horror? Florenz Ziegfeld’s pre-code movie “Glorifying the American Girl,” showcasing his Follies, starts in one. The heroic airman in “The Best Years of Our Lives” returned to work as a soda jerk in another; ennobled by the theater of war, he chafed at his diminishment in the feminine one of trade.Barbra Streisand gamboled through Bergdorf in 1965 for her TV special, trying on fur coats and hats, spritzing perfume and singing a Fanny Brice-ish medley of “Second Hand Rose” and “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” to funny and glamorous effect. James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim’s “Twilight Zone”-inflected broadcast musical, “Evening Primrose,” was set in a department store called Stern’s, and featured a poet played by Anthony Perkins remaining after-hours, giddy at the idea of the creativity that his solitude, enhanced by all the products he needs, will stimulate. At one point he stands on an escalator belting, “I’m here! I’m here!” foreshadowing the famous anthem in Goldman and Sondheim’s own “Follies” taken up late in life by Stritch. (Later a young woman he discovers there sings of remembering snow: “Soft as feathers/ Sharp as thumbtacks.” She had been left there, in Hats, as a child by her preoccupied mother, but now with climate change the lyric sounds like prescient ecological lament.)Even after the fiasco of Andrew McCarthy at Philadelphia’s Wanamaker’s (R.I.P.) in “Mannequin” 20 years later, and the slow creep of the suburban mall, there was yet another remake of “Miracle on 34th Street.”“Where did Auntie Mame go when she lost all her money?” Mr. Doonan reminded. “Selling roller skates at Macy’s.”It’s hard to imagine, though not impossible, that department stores will remain important sites of commerce and culture much longer. But the largest one in the city is not about to go quietly. At Macy’s, which takes up an entire block, there is a jumble of every sort of window.There are old-fashioned windows devoted to the story of Virginia O’Hanlon, the little girl who wrote to The New York Sun in 1897 asking if there was still a Santa Claus. Around the corner, there are high-tech windows giving voice to a little girl who wants to be Santa Claus. And around another corner: still other windows filled simply with giant Barbies. Being female in the early 21st century is nothing if not a series of mixed messages, but this attempt to empower seemed already antiquated; if Mr. Doonan were still working on windows, surely he would have gone straight for Mx. Claus?The ghost of Barneys yet to come is at Saks Fifth Avenue, which has licensed its former rival’s name, and where windows have been themed with glittering corporate efficiency to the international blockbuster “Frozen 2.” This may delight the tourists, but city dwellers remembering the craft and chance and silliness of the old holiday extravaganzas — when the designers and the famous people and the window dressers were all sticking pins in each other, and the audiences crowded four-deep on the pavement for the free sideshow — will probably be left cold. Source link Read the full article

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Six Baudelaires AU, Part Three {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Nineteen → in which Count Olaf is a dick

Nick let out a piercing scream and collapsed on the ground, curling up and throwing his arms over his neck. Violet and Klaus raced to him, and Lilac hesitated a moment before running for Soli, Sunny and Fiona, blocking them with her arms. 

“What’s-” Fiona began. 

They all screamed as the Queequeg was pulled inside the octopus, and was roughly tossed from side to side of the submarine. Lilac and Fiona each grabbed a toddler to hold, and then they ran over to the others, so they were all in a tight embrace, clutching each other and trying not to fall. Nick eventually stopped screaming, only to just grip onto Klaus’s shoulder and sob into his sleeve. 

When the Queequeg finally came to a shuddering stop, the Baudelaires just huddled and shuddered for a bit. But when they heard a door of the submarine slam open, Lilac thrust Solitude into Violet’s hands and then leapt to her feet to stand in front of her siblings, trying to stop shaking. 

“Ha ha ha heepa-heepa ho!” came a villainous laugh from the hallway, and within a few moments, Count Olaf entered, dressed in a similar suit of slippery material, only with a portrait of Edgar Guest instead of Herman Melville. “Tee hee tort tort tort!” 

“No, no,” Violet looked up, giving him a glare. “Don’t do that.” 

“This isn’t fucking funny, you piece of shit.” Lilac snapped. “There’s nothing funny about villainy.” 

“Of course there is!” Olaf crowed. “Just think of it! I made my way down the mountain and found pieces of your toboggan scattered all over some very sharp rocks! I thought you had drowned in the Stricken Stream and were swimming with all those coughing fishes! I was brokenhearted!” 

“You weren’t brokenhearted.” Klaus said, holding very tightly onto Nick. “You’ve tried to kill us plenty of times.” 

“Why, that’s why I was brokenhearted!” Olad cried. “I personally planned to slaughter you Baudelaires myself, after I had your fortune of course, and pry the Sugar Bowl from your dead fingers! To cheer myself up, I met my associates, where they lent me some of their new recruits to get this submarine working again!” 

Fiona gripped onto Sunny, who was growling as if she intended to throw herself at Olaf and bite his limbs off. 

“Of course, I need to be back at the Hotel Denouement by Thursday,” Olaf said, “But in the meantime I had a few days to kill, so I thought I’d kill some of my old enemies! I was looking for Widdershins and his idiotic submarine, but now that I’ve captured the Queequeg, I find you Baudelaires aboard- and this little girl.” 

He stepped closer, putting a hand on Fiona’s chin. Lilac gasped and ran forwards, slapping his arm away. “You must be Fiona.” he said. “Why, you’re all grown up! The last time I saw you, I was trying to throw thumbtacks into your cradle.” 

Nick shot up his head, giving Olaf a glare that could have killed him. “Get away from her!” 

“I don’t think you get to tell me what to do.” Olaf waved his hand, and Nick flinched. Violet flung her arm in front of him, the other arm holding a whimpering Soli.  “Where’s Widdershins, anyway?” 

“My stepfather is not around at the moment.” Fiona muttered. 

“Ah, so he abandoned you.” Olaf nodded. “I suppose it was only a matter of time. Your whole family could never choose which side of the schism was theirs. Anyway, it’s time to lock you all in the brig- which is the official seafaring term for jail-” 

“We know what a brig is.” Klaus hissed. 

“-until you give us the location of the Sugar Bowl.” 

Solitude opened her mouth to say something, only to let out a string of coughs. 

“What’s wrong with that one?” Olaf asked, shooting a glare at Solitude’s suit. 

“Soli’s very ill.” Violet said, slowly moving her other arm from Nick to hug Soli closer, as she didn’t want Olaf thinking the young girl in her arms was a decent target. 

“She’s been infected with a deadly poison,” Fiona said, “And if we don’t get her the antidote in an hour, she’ll die.” 

“What do I care?” Olaf growled. “I only need one Baudelaire to get my hands on the fortune. Now come with me.” 

“We’re not going anywhere, you son of a bitch.” Lilac said, backing up to stand in front of Fiona and Sunny. 

Olaf sighed, and drew a sword from his side; the Baudelaires jumped, having not noticed it before. “You are going to come with me, or I will stab you and throw you out to sea to feed the Great Unknown.” 

Lilac and Violet glanced at each other, and then around, trying to spot an escape route. This, however, was a mistake; Olaf figured out very quickly what they were planning, and before they could do anything, he reached forwards and ripped Nick out of Klaus’s grasp. 

“No!” Lilac screamed, as Nick let out a screech, and Olaf shoved his sword under his neck. 

“Let him go, you bastard!” Violet shouted, and Solitude coughed quite a bit. 

“Nick! No!” Klaus leapt to his feet, as if he planned to tackle Olaf himself. 

Nick shut his eyes, and screamed, in a strangled voice, “You son of a bitch! Don’t touch me!” 

“My dear Nick,” Olaf pressed the sword more against the boy’s neck, and Nick bit his lip to hold back a cry, “What have I told you all? I can touch whatever I want.” 

“Let him go, please! We need to stay here to save Solitude!” Lilac begged. 

“Does it look like I give a shit?” Olaf said, before gesturing his head. “Follow me, or I finally get to stab this one.” 

“We’ll tell you where the Sugar Bowl is if you let us save Soli!” Violet said. 

“That’s not going to work, either.” Olaf rolled his eyes. “I’m not bargaining with an orphan, no matter how pretty she may be.” Lilac reached over to grab Violet’s arm. “My henchperson will simply torture the information out of you.” He smirked down at Nick, who was shaking uncontrollably. “Isn’t that right?”

Nick didn’t respond, barely keeping himself from sobbing. 

“Now, move along, orphans.” Olaf spat. “I’ll give you the grand tour on the way to your doom.” 

He pushed a terrified Nick in front of him, still holding the sword to his neck, and after several panicked looks, the children realized they had no choice but to follow. 

“Don’t worry, Soli, we’ll figure something out.” Lilac said, looking over at the child in Violet’s arms. 

“Nick…” Soli began to say, only to be interrupted by coughing. 

Klaus took Sunny from Fiona, holding her tight, and Lilac grabbed onto her arm as they followed Olaf out of the Queequeg’s hatch. 

There was a large amount of water on the ground as they splashed out, and Olaf pressed an eye on the wall to open a door, leading them down a hall. Nick had his eyes shut, and looked like he’d finally figured out he couldn’t fight, and his only method of escape now was to pretend he was somewhere else. 

“This submarine is one of the greatest things I’ve ever stolen.” he bragged. “It has everything I’ll need to defeat those pesky volunteers once and for all. It has a sonar system, an enormous flyswatter, a lifetime supply of matches, several cases of wine, a closet full of very stylish outfits for my girlfriend, and plenty of opportunities for children to do hard labor.” 

They turned the corner, and flinched as they saw the room. It was filled with benches, and all of those benches were filled with children; some of them were former snow scouts, but some of them they didn’t recognize at all. The children were holding onto large oars, rowing them back and forth to control the octopus’s tentacles. In the middle of the hall was another octopus, this one named Esme Squalor; she wore an outfit of slippery cloth resembling the sea beast, and was holding a long, damp noodle. 

“Row faster, you stupid brats! It’s already Monday, we have to get to the Hotel before Thursday!” Esme shouted. “I will hit you with this tagliatelle grande!” 

“Hello, darling!” Olaf called. “I’ve captured the Baude-brats!” 

“Wonderful! I thought we’d lost the chance to murder them!” Esme turned, scanning the group and strutting forwards, her tentacles swaying as she walked. She pointed at Fiona. “Is that one new? Or did one of the babies grow up fast?” 

“This is Widdershins’s little stepdaughter.” Olaf said. “The captain abandoned her!” 

“Abandoned her?” Esme repeated. “How In! How stylish! How marvelous! I’ll tell these recruits to row this submarine faster! We’ll get the Sugar Bowl before Thursday at this rate! Then everyone will know the name of our wonderful ship!” 

“Let me guess,” Violet spat, glaring over at Esme with fire in her eyes, “This submarine called the Olaf?” 

“No.” Olaf groaned. “Somebody made me change it.” 

“The Olaf is a cakesniffing name!” shouted a familiar voice, and the children turned to see Carmelita strut in, dressed in an outfit that was absurd and varying shades of pink- a wide, frilly tutu, an enormous crown, two cardboard wings, pink hearts drawn on her cheeks, and two pink tap shoes. Around her neck was a stethoscope, and in one hand she held a sparkly wand. 

“What in the actual fuck are you wearing?” Violet asked. 

Carmelita rolled her eyes. “You’re just jealous because I’m a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!” 

“And she’s adorable!” Esme added. “Isn’t she adorable, Olaf?” 

“I suppose so.” Olaf said. “Next time, ask before taking disguises from my trunk.” 

“But Countie, I needed these!” Carmelita whined. “I need a special outfit for my special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital!” 

Several of the children groaned at their oars. 

“Carmelita is the most talented dancer in the entire universe!” Esme growled, slapping her noodle. “You brats should be grateful that she is performing for you!” 

“I’d rather die.” murmured a girl. 

“Umore,” Sunny said, which roughly translated to, “God, that’s a mood.” 

Esme slapped her noodle again, and then turned back to the group. She moved forwards, kneeling down to look Nick in the eyes. He went very pale, trying to match her glare and stop shaking, opening his mouth to try and say something, but failing. 

“What did we tell you, you little beast?” she hissed. “You can’t get away from us.” 

“Don’t touch him!” Violet yelled, her voice rising in a pure fury. 

“Leave him alone!” Klaus said, staring at Olaf’s sword and trying to figure out how to fight him without injuring his brother. 

Lilac, though shaking, took the time to pull out her ribbon and tie back her hair. 

“Dear, I think we should split this one up from his pack.” Esme said, smiling. “He intended to hold me hostage, remember? I think he needs to re-learn how to behave.” 

“No!” Klaus screeched, starting forwards as Nick let out a whimper and Violet let out a noise that sounded like a scream.

Olaf turned to glare at Klaus, and then he put Nick in a tight headlock before swinging his sword towards the twin. “I was planning to split them up anyway. They’re too rowdy when they’re all together.” 

Lilac gave Fiona a look, and after a second, Fiona caught her drift and nodded. 

“Maybe we split them into two rooms, two and two.” Esme said. “I don’t want to walk to six different rooms to find out which one of them squealed first.” 

“I thought two and two made four.” Carmelita said, a bit perplexed. “There’s, like, ten of them.” 

“Well, that’s just what comes from going to school to learn math.” Esme said. 

“Two and two definitely make four.” Violet said. 

“Are we really having this conversation?” Klaus asked his sister, gesturing to Olaf and his sword, and Nick, who looked about ready to burst. 

Lilac grabbed Fiona’s hand, squeezing it as they crept a bit closer, while everyone was deep in their conversation. 

“No, no, there’s…” Esme counted on her fingers. “Four and a half of you brats, plus the Widdershins-” 

“There’s six of us.” Violet said. 

“No, no, the babies only count for half.” 

“First of all, that’s not right at all.” Klaus said. “Second, that’d make five-” 

“No, both of them come together to make half.” 

“So you consider them each a quarter of a person?” Violet asked. 

“I mean,” Carmelita said, “They’re, like, a quarter of your height.” 

“Height doesn’t indicate personhood.” Klaus said. 

“Of course it does.” Olaf said. “That’s why children aren’t people.” 

“Holy fuck,” said a girl at the oars, “What the hell is wrong with you all?” 

“Don’t group us in with them!” Violet said. 

Lilac and Fiona edged into position, before nodding again. 

“I’m getting tired of this.” Olaf said, waving his sword and gesturing at Nick. “You all get to see the first brig, it’s deluxe, as it comes with a noose. I think we should put this one in the second brig for-” 

Lilac leapt forwards as Olaf swung his weapon, grabbing the hilt of the sword and yanking it back, trying to break his grip. At that moment, Fiona flung herself at the arm holding Nick, trying to rip it away. Nick flew his eyes open, realizing what was happening, and struggled in Olaf’s grasp to try to help. 

“What the- you little shits!” Olaf shouted, as Lilac managed to grab and toss the sword. 

“Run!” Lilac screamed at her stunned siblings. “Go, we-” 

She let out a scream as Esme’s noodle whip hit her; it didn’t hurt much, but it was a strange, tingly feeling that she definitely didn’t like. She started to run, only for Esme to reach forwards and grab her, dragging her back. 

Fiona looked up, eyes going wide. “Lilac!” 

Carmelita raced forwards, delivering a kick to the mycologist’s knees. Fiona gasped and stumbled back, and Carmelita wasted no time in tripping her up. 

“Look, Countie!” she shouted as Fiona fell to the ground. “I caught a cakesniffer!” 

Fiona landed on her stomach, right beside a row of children, who looked to each other in a panic, as if wondering if they should help. 

“Let go of Lilac!” Klaus ran forwards to hit at Esme as Sunny growled, but stepped back as Esme swung her whip towards him. 

“None of you brats move!” she ordered. 

Olaf was stepping back, still dragging a struggling Nick with him, bending down to grab the sword before any of the children could get close enough to it. At that, one of the girls at the end of the row by Fiona ducked down to get close to her face, and pressed something into her hand. 

“Hide this.” she whispered, before turning back to her oars as if nothing had happened. 

Fiona opened her mouth to ask, but then Olaf managed to reach his weapon. “Esme, get the Widdershins.” he said, sounding furious. 

Sensing she had to hurry, Fiona shoved the item into her pocket, just as Esme tossed her whip to Carmelita and hauled her to her feet, keeping a very tight grip on her arm. 

“Let go of her!” Lilac shouted. 

“Let them go right now!” Violet cried. 

“For the love of God, shut up!” Olaf groaned. “Say one more word and I’ll pick one of you to stab before we can start the torture!” 

The Baudelaires and Fiona, knowing he was serious and realizing they didn’t have proper medical equipment to treat a stab wound, stopped talking, but did not stop glaring. 

“That’s so much better.” Olaf said. “Now, Esme, I have a better idea than you.” 

“No, you don’t.” Esme said. “My ideas are always better.” 

“I think,” Olaf said, pressing his sword against Nick’s throat, “We should put those two little rebels in with our little Nick.” 

Nick finally started to cry, tears streaming down his face as he almost collapsed, and Violet shouted, “You bastard! Leave them alone!” 

“Esme, help me take them to their prison,” Olaf said, “And we’ll throw the rest of them in the deluxe cell for Hooky to deal with.” 

“Ugh, fine. But I want to be in charge.” Esme said, raising her voice to be heard over Nick’s tears. 

“I’m the captain, darling.” 

“Don’t go near them!” Klaus said, even as Esme kicked towards him to get him to move. “Let us go!” 

“No! No, don’t- Nick! Nick, don’t panic!” Violet shouted. “Nick, I promise, it’ll be okay-” 

“Carmelita, sweetie, watch the recruits while we take care of these brats.” Esme said. “You can whip them if they don’t watch your dancing.” 

“Whoo!” Carmelita cheered, waving the noodle around. 

Violet and Klaus nervously followed Olaf and Esme, who were dragging their siblings and friend down several more twisty halls, desperately clutching their younger sisters and trying to think of a way to escape. Violet was near tears, both of panic and fury. If looks could kill, the glare of pure contempt she was giving Olaf would have burned him alive.

They finally stopped in front of a hall that had three or four doors, each with an eye where the doorknob should have been. Olaf swung open one door, and Esme tossed Lilac and Fiona in first; the two girls hit the floor hard, and Lilac flinched before scrambling to a sitting position, just in time to see Olaf toss Nick inside. 

“We’ll be back soon!” Olaf said in a falsely happy voice, right before he slammed the door shut. 

They heard a lock click, and Nick started to sob. 

[balkinbuddies]

Booklist loves Jan Spivey Gilchrist's THE THUMBTACK DANCER

Clearly, the Booklist reviewer loved THE THUMBTACK DANCER (Alazar Press) written by Leslie Tryon (who is not only a writer but a dancer!) and illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Here is the review, which appeared on Booklist Online on 10/12/2017:

To keep those smiles on your students' lips, why not invite Jan Spivey Gilchrist to your school to talk to them. For information on her programs and workshops, just visit Balkin Buddies. We'll be happy to help arrange a visit.

[southsidepey]

Mother Dearest // Self-Para

Who: Peyton, James, and Leroah July. Mentions of @northsidesebastian (listen i know she has a problem okay? Okay) @astonjones & @msjackiestjames

When: October 8th, 2019

Where: Northside, July residences.

Notes: Peyton went over to have brunch with her mother dearest, however. Her mother had some different plans.

Triggers: Emotional Abuse, Abuse, therapy, death, slut-shaming, alcohol, food, violence tw.

Word count: 1,453

Peyton stood in front of the door, for, at least five minutes, not moving. She bit down her bottom lip, with her mom’s flowers in her hand and let out a sigh. “You’ve danced in front of Sebastian Smythe, you can face your mother when she’s drunk on mimosas.” She whispered to herself, let out a breath and rang the doorbell, hoping that no one was home. She glanced around, then glanced down at her watch and clapped her hands together. “Welp. This was a total waste of my time.” She turned around, then started to head down the stairs, until she heard the door opening and it made her stopped.

“PJ!” Peyton rolled her eyes at the nickname, then plastered a smile when she turned around to face her mother. “Honey! I was hoping you would’ve come and oh my! You brought me flowers?” Peyton glanced down at the flowers that were in her hand and nodded. “Oh! How sweet.” Peyton knew that she was screwed since her mom was already three mimosas in and it wasn’t noon yet. Granted, it could be two in the afternoon and there will be still alcohol pouring in the household.  Once her mom walked back into the house, Peyton quickly looked to see if she had a thumbtack in her purse and groaned when she didn’t see one then entered her parents' house. She glanced around, not seeing any differences, minus the fact that she was no longer on the wall and all of her ribbons that she had gotten in school were nowhere to be seen.  

“Honey, give the flowers to Helena, she’ll take them into the kitchen.” Peyton furrowed her eyebrows as she looked over to see the maid who was standing next to her, waiting to grab the flowers from the girl. “Oh, Im sorry.” Peyton replied as she handed the flowers over and watched the maid go into the kitchen. Peyton glanced over to see her mom heading towards their garden and followed behind her. “So, where’s dad?”

“He’s at work.” Peyton nodded as she reached down and played with her hairband. “Though, he’ll be joining us for lunch.” She paused then swallowed hard, kicking her ass for not bringing her anti-anxiety medication that was she was put on while she was back in LA.  

“About that, mom. I can’t s-stay.” Peyton stuttered out as her mother glanced at her and raised an eyebrow over her sunglasses. “I-I came to drop off the flowers, but I can’t actually stay for lunch.” Leroah took off her sunglasses, placed them onto the table and placed her glass onto the table.  “Peyton Gwen July, you sit your ass down in this chair right now and you will have lunch with us and no need to stutter, we both know that you got rid of it a while.” Peyton swallowed hard as she followed what her mom had said and sat down in the chair. "Now, we're going to sit here as we wait for your father to show up. Oh and speak of the devil." Peyton furrowed her eyebrows, confused on why Sebastian would be there but she glanced behind her to see her father instead of the boy.

"Sorry I'm late, traffic is insane. You wore it was the Fourth of July again." Peyton could feel her body tensed up from his voice and stabbed herself in the leg with her nails as she bit back from speaking up about that day. James stopped when he saw Peyton, then gave her a smile and kissed his wife hello. James said as he sat down by his wife and across from his daughter. Peyton stayed quiet until her mother kicked her, which caused her to look at her mother then she looked at her father.  “Hi, Dad." Peyton said as she looked at him and watched his body language changed. "It's nice to see you."

James adjusted his tie as he nodded. "Its nice to see you too, Pumpkin," James said, hoping that the lunch would off without a breeze. "How's that flower store treating you? It looks like you're doing a great job at it." James reached for his drink and took a sip of it. "I hear almost everyone talk about it at work and heard that someone bought out the Sunflowers on the day they came in."

"It's going well, we just had someone buy a ton of centerpieces for their mom's garden party as well. Ah, yes. The Sunflower buyer, but we're getting more in. I'm actually looking forward to moving it closer to Bethany Cohen-Chang's bakery & bookstore." Leorah kind of perked up when she mentioned moving then she placed her glass down onto the table.

“Oh honey, do you think you should wait until you have more money than you do now?” Leorah suggested, making Peyton freeze her actions when she heard her mother, knowing that this was testing her patience and lunch wasn’t even served.

“I actually have more money than you guys think but thank you for keeping in mind that. Even though I live on the Southside now, I don’t have any kind of  that money.” Peyton replied with a smile plastered on her face and placed the flute back onto the table.

“Speaking of that, the guys at work say that you’ve been working at a Burlesque club, on the Southside? And Im wondering, why?” James asked as he shifted in his seat a bit. “Where, we raised you with morals and better than that.” Peyton let out a laugh when she heard her father say that, slowly nodded, knowing that her father didn’t waste any kind of time to dig at her, especially when it comes to her other job.

“Just because Im working at a Burlesque club, doesn’t mean I don’t have morals. The fact that you just slut-shamed me, is unbelieve- No actually, its believable because you never thought a daughter like yours, would ever work at a Burlesque club and you’re afraid how bad it looks on you.” Peyton said as she looked at her father and made an oh face. “This “legacy” that you’ve built.” She gestured towards their home as she looked at her father. Leroah grabbed another flute, drinking it as she ignored the bickering between her husband and daughter. “That’s it, it doesnt have anything to do with me and having morals at all. You’re afraid that they’re going to find out that your daughter is a burlesque dancer. Which, by the way, I’m not ashamed of. I'm more ashamed at the fact that I have the last name July than as a burlesque dancer. Another thing, working as a Burlesque dancer, had benefited, because guess who doesn’t have any student loans? This girl right here. So go ahead and try and shame me.” Peyton let out a breath, not knowing that she was out of breath and licked her lips as she leaned back against the chair. Leroah placed her flute onto the table and smiled when the butler brought out their food and thanked him.

“I raised you to respect your elders and this isn’t respecting them,” James said as he looked at his youngest. Peyton raised an eyebrow at his words, let out a chuckle.

“Fathers aren’t supposed to lay their hands on their daughters, emotional abuse them, cause broken bones and force them to lie to their friends on why all of sudden you suck at balancing. Also, a father wouldn’t have their daughter arrest in front of the entire block when she comes home from college. I respect the shit out of grandmother and grandfather, but I will never respect you or mother.” Peyton stood up as she looked at him, swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath.

“Please, Peyton. Your father never abused you or broke any of your bones.” Leorah spoke up as she looked between her husband and kid. “That was some of that stupid, therapy shit.” Peyton looked at her mom, feeling tears start to pool in her eyes.

“Maybe if you stop hitting the bottle, every day and every night, then you would actually care about me and stand up for yourself but you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore because you’re just bad as him.” Peyton grabbed her plate, the unopen bottle of champagne and looked at her parents before she downed her flute. “I'm taking these and I'm keeping the china.” She stuffed the bottle into her purse, headed into the kitchen and grabbed some to-go cartons that her parents kept for their parties. Once she had that ready, she headed back to Aston’s and Jackie’s house, hoping that she could fall asleep.