#this is not a fair curator this is just stolen art like come on

[dopepoisonivyoncrack]

I don't like callout posts but you guys really haven't noticed that carolnx0 reposts fanart and edits with no credits or permissions??

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Nothing and Everything - Part 2

Summary: Certain times of the year are harder than others. This is the first year where they have all been present to face the memories of all the trauma. How can they come together when they each have their own traumas to face?

Pairings: Gen fic (they love Layla and she loves them)

Warnings: Heavy dissociation, Mentions of child abuse, some mentions of violence, Depression, mentions of self harm, PTSD.

Word Count: 4182

Part two: Sometimes bad days escalate. Steven is having a bad day. How do you cope with the loss of your dreams?

Part one HERE.

----

“I’m better off.” Steven muttered to himself as he walked past the building. 

He ignored the banners on the light poles along the street. Banners that boasted incorrect information. 

He moved past the familiar steps he had stumbled up and down so often in a state of near sleep. 

He didn’t turn left at the fountain and he didn’t push past security to be misnamed at the door by a bloke he worked with for a solid year at least. 

He glanced up once to take in the familiar columns and looming windows. He could remember the slick tile floors, the staff room with the lockers where he would put his bag, the smell of the coffee brewing at the cafe, and the sound of the beep of his inventory gun. 

He hated the gift shop. He hated pushing candy and badly designed toys on the children. He hated that they learned incorrect things at a place that they trusted. He hated the stolen artifacts and the guilt of knowing they were there for his viewing pleasure when a culture cried out to curate their own history. A fact that Layla had instantly taken the time to imbue on him right away. 

Yet… There had been something sacred about knowing he could see it all. Of knowing he could turn left at the hall of ancient history and find himself looking at the Rosetta Stone. 

How long had he wanted to be involved in it all? Those first Natural Geographic magazines they had handed out in school had delighted him. Steve Martin’s ridiculous song about King Tut had enchanted him when they had shown it in art class in some misguided attempt to get the kids excited about hieroglyphics. 

Steven’s hand tightened on the strap at his shoulder, pulling down on the bag as if it might hold him in place. 

He recalled taking a career placement test in school and being told he should be a museum curator. He remembered how baffled he had been, not understanding what that was at the time. 

Life had taken him on a different path. Or so he had thought. College? Well, it just hadn’t really been his cup of tea, so he told himself. He was more of a home school self taught sort, wasn’t he? 

It explained why he couldn’t remember graduating high school or applying for colleges. Perhaps money had been a factor? College wasn’t cheap, after all, and his family had… He wasn’t sure? 

You had to have degrees to curate a museum. You had to have work experience to be on a dig site. A man of his age… How old was he again?

A tour guide position had appealed to him. Walking through the museum on a path he picked and teaching his passion to them. Correcting the wall cards and dropping knowledge bombs on everyone… 

Steven applied despite his lack of schooling. He remembered the interview. The look on their face as he babbled and smiled and fidgeted. He didn’t understand a few of the questions. How could he? They hadn’t been fair. 

“I’m sorry. I just don’t feel it would be a good match for you at this time. It’s quite a demanding position. But… We do have openings elsewhere…” Pity laced the suggestion and then he was in the gift shop. 

With Donna. 

Steven looked up at the sky. It was very blue. A hot summer with an unforgiving sun that beat down on them much like it had in Egypt. 

A sun that tanned his skin that had gotten pale in the English light. Coming home, he was almost as dark as he used to be as a kid running around outside in the streets of…Chicago, he supposed was the right answer.

Another memory that didn’t line up with the story he had told himself. Who was he really? Where had he come from? 

Questions in interviews that he couldn’t answer. What school did he have? What background? What was the source of his knowledge? 

All hopes and dreams of the museum were gone. 

He had re-applied. Of course he had. The second he was back from Egypt, adventure and first hand knowledge fresh in his mind. 

Not to the gift shop. He would never set foot in that place again if he had anything to do with it. 

He didn’t even get a call back. He gave it a month. 

Applying again, this time he called and spoke to HR directly. 

“No, but I’m better now. It’s all sorted. It was all just a terrible misunderstanding.” He promised and smiled, pleading silently to get back in. Maybe not as a tour guide… But he could work up to it. If they’d just give him a chance. 

“With your history, we just can’t allow it. You are, of course, welcome to visit and use the friends and family discount.” They had offered. They might as well have spit in his face and called it a blessing. 

And now? Well… Now here he stood. Looking up at the peak museum that he couldn’t bring himself to set foot in again. Not now and maybe not ever. Seeing them look at him with pity. Like he was crazy. Like he was an idiot. 

“Better off…” He turned and continued down the street. 

It was hot. Muggy, really. It wasn’t the dry heat of Egypt. This one got into his pores and made him sweat and feel the heaviness of his eyelids. 

There was no AC in his flat and it was hard to sleep in this heat. 

Harder to sleep when someone kept waking them up in a panic. 

Marc perhaps? Maybe Jake? Maybe himself. He really wasn’t sure. Dreams of being buried alive left them waking in heavy sweat and gasping for air. The real kicker was that all three of them could sympathize thanks to their various experiences of death. 

One man should not have that many deaths to point to. 

Steven approached a familiar group of fountains and joined a small group of people to watch a man painted head to toe in gold strike statuesque poses. 

Once the people grew bored of him and moved on, Steven stepped up and placed a well wrapped sandwich in the offering bowl. 

“Slim pickings today, eh?” He smiled and took his old seat. “Tourist season is pretty much over. They hate this heat, you know. Utterly dreadful. I don’t know how you put up with it in all that.” 

The man didn’t move, but he listened. It was all Steven could ask for. All he ever asked for. 

“I had an interview today. I don’t think it went well. I think I’m aiming too high. I’m probably on some sort of watch list.” He chuckled to himself till he realized that Marc probably WAS on some sort of watch list. Probably more than one. 

“Marc says I don’t have to work. He’s got enough money to handle things.” He talked about the others openly now. Though sometimes he left out little details, like the fact that the others shared a body with him. “Jake works. Why shouldn’t I also help out? I’m the only one not making my own way…” 

The man in gold adjusted his pose slowly till he was sitting in a new pose. He really did look like the sort of statue you might find in Venice. 

“I miss the museum.” Steven sighed softly. “Don’t miss Donna. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely do not miss her.” 

Her look of disgust when he walked into her gift shop the first time came back to him now. Her judging glare as he stumbled into a display that had no business being in the middle of a walking path. Her eye-roll when he reorganized the keychains from small to large because it made more sense that way. Her pursed lips when he corrected the pronunciation of the names of different gods and goddesses. 

Steven was quiet as he looked up at the sun, wishing it would go down faster. The night only helped a little. Once the sun was down, the heat that had baked the city now was free to rise back up, like opening an oven door. It was somehow almost worse. Stale and stagnant as it lingered in his home that quickly became hotter inside than it was outside. 

“You’re doing alright, aren’t you?” He looked up at his golden friend. “Tough crowds out these days.” 

The statue looked hopeful, even a little contemplative. Steven took it as a good sign. 

He nodded then glanced at his watch. “I gotta run. I’m meeting Layla for dinner. Let her know how dismal the interview went. Next time I’m up in this area I’ll be sure to stop by for a real chat, though.” 

Steven smiled as his golden friend gave the smallest of nods before adjusting his gaze further towards the plaza, hands reaching for some imagined something or someone that the statues always seemed to need. 

Hurrying back past the museum, Steven didn’t bother to look this time. It hurt too much. 

He was only part way to the restaurant when his phone chimed. Glancing down, he stopped in his place to read the message from the last place he had interviewed. 

“Thank you for your interest and application, but unfortunately we are looking for someone a bit more qualified.” Steven deleted the text then slipped his phone back into his pocket. 

He didn’t need to reply. Couldn’t even bring himself to check his phone when it chimed again. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk, watching the people walk by and cars zip around. 

There went the bus he used to take every day going home from work. This was about the time he’d catch it. It was usually less busy late at night if he got stuck doing inventory. He could easily sit in his favorite seat, partway in the back over the wheel. He liked that he could curl his legs up a bit and that the seat was a little higher than the others. It made looking out the window easier. 

He had perfected the fine art of dozing on the bus just enough to not miss his stop. Shutting his eyes, he’d listen to the cars and feel the sway as the bus curved and turned down the streets. 

Left turn at the light, three stops, right at the corner store, four more stops and a light that they always seemed to get stuck at for ages. Another left then a meandering street that went on for ages. On the final right, he would sit up and watch for the old building that used to be a pharmacy and was now under construction. 

If he felt up for it, he might get off a few stops early and pop into the shop with all the novelty items. He’d used to call his Mum in that shop and laugh about all the bobbleheads and weird tea jokes on the post cards. 

Steven was dimly aware of his phone chiming again and then finally it started to sing a jaunty tune. 

His hand moved and fished it out on its own accord. “Hm?” Was all he could get out as he answered it. 

“Steven? I’m at the restaurant. Are you nearby? I can snag a table for us.” Layla’s voice called to him and Steven closed his eyes for a moment. 

“Yeah. Uh huh.”  He fished for the ability to speak. “Okay.” 

There was a pause and Steven ran a hand through his hair, tossling it as he realized his fingers were trembling. 

He had no business being this disappointed. He knew it went poorly. He knew he wasn’t going to get it. He had no business applying for anything other than bag boy. 

“Are you alright?” She felt across the divide, sensing the deep silence that was lingering over her normally chatty boyfriend. 

“Mmm Hmm.” He at last found a few words. “I’ll be there in a bit. I’m just down the street.” 

He fumbled with the phone then hung up, wincing as he did so. He never cut the conversation so short normally. He didn’t even remember to tell her that he loved her or thought the world of her or was so happy… So happy to…to have her…

He rubbed his eyes and started to walk towards the restaurant. His toe caught the side of a bit of uneven sidewalk and he stumbled forward, trying to catch himself. 

His shoe landed wrong and he ended up rolling his ankle, but at least he hadn’t ended up on his ass. 

By the time he made it to the restaurant, Layla sat waiting for him at a table near the back. It would be a bit quieter there with less traffic and chances of people bumping into him. A table she knew he would appreciate. 

Steven hobbled over and sat down, forcing a smile that felt more painful than it should have been as smiling was the last thing he wanted to do. 

He couldn’t focus. Layla was talking but her voice was faded into the background and so was he. 

He blinked and felt a familiar shift and spin. He was aware of the sensation of time passing and suddenly he was no longer at the restaurant, but in his own apartment standing before the fish tank in his pajamas with fish food in hand. 

He looked into the tank for signs of having fed the fish already before he sprinkled some flakes into the tank, watching as the fish happily gulped them up. 

He assumed he was doing his bedtime routine and glanced around to try to figure out how far along they had come. The door was locked, the kitchen looked clean, his mouth tasted minty fresh, and the lights were off in the living room. 

He set the food down and switched off the fish tank lights. “Good night, Gus and Gus.” He yawned and took a step towards his room. The ache in his ankle made him limp and the day slowly came back to him. 

Glancing to the bedroom, he found Layla already in bed and on her side, facing away. Was she mad at him? He was supposed to have dinner with her and tell her about his interview and plans for a job. Plans that now felt meaningless. 

Who had been left at the table? Had Jake been forced to sit there and socialize or had Marc taken the time to enjoy a meal with his wife? Marc hadn’t been out in a day or two. 

In fact, Marc hadn’t even so much as spoken to him in the past three days. Jake was even being quiet and Steven had never felt so alone. 

The lost time was upsetting too. It had been ages since he’d felt a solid amnesic barrier and simply been deposited back in his flat as if it had all been a bad dream. Just like in the start. Ignore it all and feed the fish. Let the adults handle things. 

He felt angry. He wanted to yell about the unfairness of it all. He wanted to throw things and demand that he be given a chance. Just one chance. 

Standing silently in the dark, looking at the shape of Layla sleeping soundly, Steven started to cry. 

The tears fell, large and slowly at first. 

He was a child again, standing in his dark room and looking out the window. Why didn’t he have any friends? Why did no one want to play with him? Why did they call him names and run away? 

Of all his missing memories and secrets that had been kept from him, why was this the one that he had been allowed to keep? 

His father that didn’t want to hear him speak. You talk too much sometimes. If you would just speak normally then maybe the others would want to play with you.

Was this what it was like? Was this why Marc never let him do anything? Marc had spent so much time trying to protect Steven from his own traumas that he had failed to see that Steven had his own form of suffering. 

“I’m alone.” Steven’s voice wavered. He remembered eating steak alone at the restaurant. He remembered the routine of sand and tape and shackles. He remembered the ridicule and outright bullying from Donna. He remembered being left out of work get togethers and parties. Of not being invited to birthday parties at school. Of sitting alone at his own birthday before a cake and wondering why no one else was there. 

“I don’t want to be alone!” Steven sobbed, unable to contain it anymore. 

There was a shuffle and he heard Layla sit up then jump out of bed and scramble to him. 

“Steven!” She gripped his shoulders, looking him over as if looking for the source of injury or pain. “Steven, what’s wrong? What is it?” 

Steven could only sob louder as he pulled away and sank down to the ground, pulling his knees to his chest and hugging them tightly as he rocked. 

Layla took a moment before she slowly sat down next to him. She watched him for a moment, trying to work out what to do. She had seen Steven break down like this only once before and that had been shortly after she first met him when he had been overwhelmed. 

She started with a hand on his arm, gentle and light to see if he would tolerate being touched. When Marc had his moments, he would push her away and block himself off. Steven had always been the opposite of Marc, open and honest. 

When Steven didn’t pull away, she wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. He resisted for a moment, mumbling something. 

It took her a moment to make out what it was he was saying. 

“Sorry… I didn’t mean it… I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. Please…” He sniffled and buried his face into his arms, clinging to his knees tightly. 

“I’m not mad. Why would I be mad?” 

“I didn’t go to dinner. I didn’t… Didn’t get the job. They hated me.” He wiped his eyes angrily and looked away. “Not good enough. No one wants me!” 

“No, sweetie! That’s not true! Of course people want you! Those people are just idiots to pass you over. They don’t know you and what a wonderful and amazingly smart person you are!” She stroked his back and tried to get him to look at her. To see what he was indeed loved and wanted. 

“No one wants me.” Steven stubbornly refused to look at her. He was lost in memories that he used to just brush aside. Memories that he had forgotten. 

“I wish you would stop playing that game.” His father looked at him with frustration and concern. “There is no Steven. People are starting to talk and the school says it’s becoming a problem. You aren’t this Steven Grant person, okay? You’re Marc. You can’t keep doing this.” 

“I am.” Steven muttered angrily. “You’re wrong.” He argued with the voices of the past. “You’re wrong.” 

“Hey… Steven…” Layla brushed his hair back and looked at him sternly. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re here with me in your flat.” 

It was something she had learned with Marc when he had his flashbacks. Give him something to cling to. Make him safe. Make him present. 

She didn’t know what Steven was seeing, but he was lost. She got up and turned on the lights, trying to guide him back. 

Steven gave a slow blink then wiped the tear from his cheeks. He glanced around then sat back, sniffling. She had never seen him look so lost before. Normally one of the others would have stepped in by now. 

That was how it worked, right? If one felt bad then another would come in and set things right? Steven kept them happy and peaceful and Jake kept them safe and Marc kept them going. 

She watched as Steven looked down at his hand then moved to rub his sore ankle. He looked puzzled for a moment as if trying to figure something out. 

Jake had said very little about their day to her over dinner. He had mentioned about Steven tripping and about the poor interview. He had said that Steven wasn’t taking it well, but that they would handle it. 

Had Jake lied to her? Did Jake really not know how badly Steven was taking it? 

Doubt crossed her mind and for the first time, she wondered if maybe things weren’t the way she thought they were. She had let them tell her how their system worked. How they had their own jobs and aspects to keep it going smoothly. How things would be fine. 

Maybe they didn’t know. 

Steven took a deep breath and looked up at her. “Sorry. M’alright. Right mess I am, huh? I should ice this. I don’t think it got iced yet. Last thing we need is for us to be hobbling around tomorrow. Do you know if we’ve had any aspirin or anything?” 

“Jake took something when we got home.” Layla crossed her arms over her chest tightly as she realized Steven didn’t know who had taken them home and there had been zero communication. 

Steven nodded and slowly got to his feet. “I didn’t think I’d get the job. I’m such a nut… Crying over something I didn’t even want.” 

Layla moved to help him and sat him down on the bed. “It is perfectly reasonable to be upset over things like this. Just remember that you aren’t a failure or unwanted. You are amazing and I love you so much.” She kissed his forehead lightly. “Wait here. I’ll get you some ice.” 

She moved to the kitchen to sort some ice into a bag and to give Steven a moment. When she returned, Steven was right where she’d left him, looking sad and dejected. 

“Marc and Jake aren’t talking to me.” He sighed. 

“It is late. Maybe they uh.. Are asleep?” She had no idea how that worked. Did they fall asleep on their own? Where did they go when they weren’t up front watching or talking? 

Steven shrugged noncommittally and accepted the ice, putting it on his ankle gingerly. 

“I suppose. It just feels like… Like I’m alone.” He shook his head and she got the feeling he was leaving something out. 

“No one’s mad at you. Especially not me.” She sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. 

He leaned in but still seemed so far away. 

“Yeah.” He at last said. “Has Marc been out at all?” 

“Not today as far as I’m aware. I did see him a bit yesterday morning. We had some coffee and he watched part of a baseball game.” She thought back to yesterday. 

Marc had gone through the motions. Kissing her good morning, making the coffee and toast. He had watched the game, clapping and heckling the players accordingly, but it had seemed like more of a script than a real reaction. 

Marc had gotten quiet halfway into the game and Jake had come out for a bit before letting Steven slide in. Did Steven now know that Marc had been out? 

Jake had assured her that Marc was just feeling down and needed some time. Jake had looked tired. 

Come to think of it, that had been the first time she had seen Marc in over a day. 

Layla frowned and gave Steven another squeeze. “Feeling better? Do you need any tea or some water?” 

Steven shook his head. “I’m fine. I think I just want to sleep it off. Tomorrow I can put it all behind me. Just needed a little cry, huh? Let the feelings out so they don’t get bottled up like certain someones.” He gave a little jab and smile but it faded instantly. 

Steven set the ice aside then crawled to his spot on the bed and settled between the covers. He bundled himself up tightly in the blanket and lay still. 

Layla got up and switched off the lights before sliding into the bed. She gave it a moment then slowly reached out and slid a hand over him. Steven made a small sound and slowly scooted over to let her curl up around him protectively. 

“Shhh…” She stroked his hair as he breathed deeply, his breath hitching slightly now and then as he struggled through an emotion that she didn’t understand. 

Eventually his breathing evened out as he fell asleep. She peeled back the blankets just enough to get a look at his face, calm and relaxed, but still carrying the lines of stress. 

She kissed his hair, breathing in deeply before allowing herself to relax at last. 

Layla was going to have words with Jake the next time she saw him. 

--

Next Chapter HERE

[awisetoad]

warning: 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ muy caliente, 5 million scoville post, be warned all ye who enter here 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

this thread, tho. second one I've seen recently about moodboards, (even if it is old). and holy bazooka batman—

this is one of the strangest threads I've ever seen. truly wild. like, I said it before after I saw the first one of these posts, but where did y'all learn what moodboards are? it's like, tell me you haven't worked in a (visual) creative professional capacity without telling me. honestly.

tho i admit it's really interesting how fan spaces have effectively minted popularity/clout in lieu of any kind of currency with literal monetary value.

(DISCLAIMER: idgaf if I'm not changing anyone's mind, I'm not genuinely trying to join this discussion, I'm just noting my thoughts about this whole topic bc it honestly seems like the strangest take IMO; please feel welcome to ignore or disagree, I really do not care)

like the entire thing protecting fan spaces from litigation at all is the fact that it can't really be for profit (like real, big profit).

(isn't that the point of OTW? to protect poeple's right to make fanworks but that hinges on fan works not making real money at all, yeah?)

when fan artists make $$ of their work, they can absolutely still be taken to court by the owner of the original IP if they so choose (whether or not fan artists have a chance of winning that lawsuit using "transformative" and "fair use" arguments is another story, and not the point I'm making).

so truly, the fan spaces only exist by the grace of two groups:

groups protecting the rights of fan artists who create for 0 compensation and

IP owners who know even if a fan artist makes some money, the monetary damages aren't worth suing over, and who understand that one of the reasons it isn't worth suing over is because it's all basically free marketing for them & their brand, and the monetary value of this free marketing and brand loyalty far outweighs what they would recoup in damages.

(tl;dr, it's good business not to sue fan creators, usually, because what they gain is far more valuable)

so this post is just an interesting case study of how, in fan spaces, given the lack of actual monetary damages to sue over (and where there is no "good business" argument to make), we choose to perceive the value of social currency as if it equates to monetary value.

that is, social clout for its own sake holds enough "actual" value within our circles that we should be "afraid" of the social backlash that comes from creating unwelcome derivatives, or derivative-of-derivative fan works (or, in this specific case: curating inspiration for fan works?)

unless we create in a "legit" way— as in, a way that's acceptable by way of a collection of made-up, undocumented group-norms that we ourselves determine— we risk becoming a social pariah and excommunicated from fan spaces. (isn't that wild?)

if we take the moodboard in its regular definition— as a visual artifact created from various sources for inspirational/creative distillation purposes in service of creating something else— then almost literally everyone in a professional creative role (especially jobs like art director) is "stealing" or has "stolen" at some point in their career jsyk

not a single one of them has asked permission. really.

I can't literally guarantee it but I'd say probably in like 98.9% of cases, creative professionals do not ask permission to use anothers' work as inspiration/on their moodboard. (the idea of that is so unhinged it's laughable)

the only difference is they're not usually being public about their inspiration/moodboards or where their inspiration comes from, and in agency/commercial/professional settings it's not surprising to see "INTERNAL USE ONLY" stamped on those kinds of strategy docs. the exception is during the press tour when artists are asked in an interview about what inspired them and they can usually point to several specific works or name several artists directly— aka offering credit, which per above is "not enough".

but here, in fan spaces, the "rules" of the conventional professional creative process often don't apply. fan audiences are often encouraging, collaboratively making, and offering real-time feedback to fan creators; and, we're doing so on public platforms in public online spaces with (usually) 0 expectation of monetary compensation in any way. We're often deeply engaged with each others' process in a way that the commerical-to-consumer audience process is usually not. so, in these cases, should "INTERNAL USE ONLY" still apply?

(example: head canons spread to become so ubiquitous they've been absorbed into popular "fan lore" about an IP, such as the braiding/beads thing with dwarves in the hobbit. to the point where there's so many takes on this that giving credit isn't even wholly necessary. explain to me how that's different than a moodboard in its use as creative inspiration. I'll wait.)

what incentive is there to keep that stuff "private" when so much of fan spaces is public, collaborative excitement? and why on earth are we holding ourselves to a stricter standard than those who do the same to make real, actual profit?

(it really reminds me of the smooth-brain argument about using reference image to draw lol and how that's not "real art". not exactly the same, but these issues are definitely cousins a few times removed. like, these two issues could get married and they'd be accused of consanguinity, lmfao)

y'all might think I'm missing the point of "aesthetic moodboard" posts because they're "different" somehow, but I promise I'm not. two big reasons: 1) it does not equate to the same kind of influencer account as you might find on instagram or TikTok 2) IMO, what are aesthetic moodboard posts other than shared and effectively outsourced curated inspiration? (again, see widespread head canons and also fic prompts and imagines as non visual examples, but it's the same fucking thing)

The reasons it's different than what you see with influencers on TikTok is because usually here on Tumblr we're not actually aiming for landing sponsor deals which bring us income. On influencer-centered platforms, the size of the following and other stats about reach & impressions are grounds to negotiate better compensation for sponsored posts, and all posts associated with an account are created with the goal of usually growth or sales, and both ultimately directly impact compensation (in the form of cash or gifts). what I'm arguing is that none of that really applies here in ao3/tumblr's fan spaces bc in theory nothing is sponsored at all, even if posts are made to expand reach, the other half of the equation ($$$) isn't there.

and truly, I'm not arguing that these kinds of posts should be devoid of credits. obviously, including credit/sources is the courteous and right thing to do, but I have never once assumed that the poster of the moodboard made the images used in it, even if there are no credits, is the point.

bc mood boards are generally not made with your own images, lol. like, inherently. purely by nature of the thing (see above: a visual artifact created for inspirational purposes, etc etc). so, I don't think outright "theft" is exactly right; they may have curated the images, but they didn't create the images and I don't think anyone is confused by that.

(which is literally one of the arguments in copyright/trademark: public confusion about shit)

I think it's a bit ridiculous to think that you should only be finding and curating inspiration from the public domain. that's not how inspiration works, first of all. (and y'all aren't ready for how inspiration DOES work bc if this topic gets you hot you will boil about the AI part of that ted talk) and I think aesthetic accounts do a lot in service of other fan creators, by distilling creative direction to serve as a jumping off point. for the third time, non visual examples of this are literally imagines and widespread head canons, but I think the outrage about those is far less than with moodboards. and I'll even go a step further and make the controversial statement that moodboards could be considered derivative-of-derivative fan content, even when cropped and/or lightly edited.

(and I'll really go here and broach the philosophical topic: why should someone ask permission to make transformative works based off your edit/cosplay of sam & dean, when y'all didn't ask kripke, et al? is that not technically a double standard? again, not arguing that you SHOULDN'T ask permission, or arguing that you SHOULDN'T give credit. but, I'm posing the question of what is the difference, especially in spaces with no monetary gains? and I'll follow up by asking: should we be more cautious because social currency is all there is to gain, or should we be more lenient because we're all just supposed to be having harmless fun here?)

It's not really like the cake analogy. If anything, it's more like snapping a pic of the cake in the bakery shop window and using it, along with several other pictures of cakes you pulled off the internet, to maybe attempt to DIY a similar cake for yourself, or to send to your baker to explain what you want, or even to send to your friends' group chat or frame and hang on your wall bc you simply like the vibes.

(y'all be acting like these folks are claiming they are the dp of outlander or some shit, the way you believe they are "taking credit" for that fucking still of Jamie & Claire on the damn horse. and that's just laughable)

at the end of the day, you need to understand: you no longer have complete control over anything that gets posted publicly. online or offline. regardless of whether you actually see how it gets spread and used or not. once it's out in the world, it's free of your control.

(just like how artists can't control how others' interpret their works, ultimately. people will hold their own opinions regardless & often aggressively in spite of artistic intent.)

and then you need to ask yourself: is the inclusion of this work/fanwork in this not-for-profit inspirational moodboard actually causing harm to the artist/fanartist, and if they are, in what way? is it damaging to their brand? is it causing the artist to miss out on sales or opportunities? can they legally win statutory damages, and is going after all that going to be monetarily viable? is it worth it? and if it's not, should you care? especially if the moodboard isn't making money, maybe it's better and healthier to just… chill, maybe?

I honestly suspect that screeching and heated and generally overly-strict vehemence about these kinds of topics is alienating to people who may not pick up on social cues well (for example, some neurodivergent folks) as it ultimately ends up making the space feel unwelcome and unfriendly out of fear & anxiety of making a social faux-pas, so it's better to not engage at all for fear of social ostracization which is absolutely the nightmare timeline for a lot of people who may not socialize well in general, and may turn to these spaces as one of their few sources of community/inclusion.

I personally would rather have a relaxed, welcoming fun space to enjoy than another one I have to worry about getting yelled at in, lol

tl;dr: offering credit is plenty good enough and way more than what creative professionals actually do daily, what the fuck are y'all talking about

…fascinating subject and I also kind of hate it a little :)

(DISCLAIMER AGAIN: feel free to disagree, I MIGHT respond to a real discussion/counterpoint but don't bother trying to pull me into some kind of fight because you will not succeed. it's literally not worth my time & I guarantee you have not met someone who gives less fucks than I)

[deepdreamnights]

Of course, everyone who actually knows how the tech work and how IP works has been saying this from the start.

The question is, why has this argument not been more widely disseminated. You'd think the critics would want to bring it up preemptively to demonstrate why their reasoning negates that point.

It is wild how frequently my posts on this get responses like "I've never heard anyone present this case, interesting." because my points aren't 'out there' and I'm not a genius. But not too wild, because every major argument thrown against AI has been based on complete misinformation.

The power use numbers and concerns were heavily manipulated, going so far as to blame all increased datacenter use on AI.

The technology has been presented as 'push button, get final result' but it does not work that way. Every good gen you've seen was curated and likely edited. Every shitty gen used to show how AI is evil and stealing has also been curated.

The claims of theft depended on misunderstandings of copyright and misunderstandings of how generative AI works.

The technology was represented commonly as a 'collage machine' that would reach out to the web and snatch parts of pictures to blend together. This is not how any of this works.

Glaze, Nightshade, and Artshield are all frauds.

Most users of generative AI use it as a toy rather than a means to replace art commissions. Impact on art commissions is anecdotal, and the position that every AI gen was a stolen commission was literally the same argument the RIAA used when suing Napster grandmas for millions.

AI was represented as the primary strike issue for the writers and actors' guilds, and was represented as a binary yes/no option. This was not the case, and the unions didn't want to ban AI use, but to make it an optional tool for the writer/artist to use if they desire, and they won that.

Workplace replacement by major entertainment corps, while a real issue, would not be addressed by regulation. Megacorps like Disney and Nintendo have enough material to create their own internal datasets. Labor action is how you solve this problem, and the guilds already took those steps.

And those are just the big ones. Even the little hullabaloos are rife with lies and misinformation.

These kinds of talking points have to start someplace, and I'm pretty sure that place is the copyright alliance.

A supposed nonprofit that works for the likes of Disney to expand the power they have over media and "intellectual property." What the heritage foundation is for Christian Nationalism, the Copyright Alliance is for Media Consolidation.

The same people are going after archive.org.

An honest critic would come forward with honest arguments and address the oppositions counterpoints. But instead we see arguments crafted to keep things as angry and heated as possible.

When an arguement is debunked, the base assumptions are never addressed, another argument is simply put in its place. When the copyright argument doesn't get traction, all of a sudden its about power use. Power use gets debunked and we've got people talking about chains of provenance for ideas.

Each time the policy prescription is something that would greatly advantage the Disneys, RIAAs, Adobes and Nintendos of the world and expand their power at the expense fair use and everyone else.

And as they say, the system's results are its purpose.

Am I saying that it's likely that the Copyright Alliance and their corporate backers are using R.J. Palmer and his pals to manipulate people worried about new technology into becoming a reactionary mob to further their own economic advantage?

Yes. And if they aren't, then the end results are exactly the same regardless.

If you hate AI, and the reasons you started hating AI are all debunked arguments, but you still hold that position, you might want to evaluate that position from square one with the new information. And while you're at it, you might consider why the people that told you the misinfo didn't think it was important enough to check for accuracy before sending out, yet imperative enough that it demanded immediate rage and action.

Yes, the AI companies are all out to make money (they're companies, after all). So are the people "opposing" them. Just because OpenAI sucks doesn't mean that Adobe has your best interests at heart.

And notice who they sue. Midjourney (the most popular public generator, and one that appears to be funded solely by subs and not VC cash) and Stable Diffusion, the free, open-source version of the tech.

It's fair use for me, lawsuits for thee.

Edit: Fixed Links.

Quoted Tweet:

Like yeah, it might be the case that fair use comes in. It's just that it hasn't yet. Look at the lawsuit over Github Copilot. Basically all of the claims about infringement on outputs were thrown out because they can't prove that code is reproduced....

Me:

right, this is the thing everyone is missing about the ai shit which is why all their cases keep getting basically thrown out of court - copyright infringement happens on output, not on input. the most compelling arguments i've seen are centered around DMCA (...)

i.e, that the people building datasets are doing so by circumventing DRM. but anything about fair use and shit is putting the cart before the horse because the model is self-evidently not infringing on anything... it's not, like... a picture, or a story or whatever. it's numbers

that's the hurdle they have to jump when trying to argue that the model is infringing - you have to prove that this model (NOT ITS OUTPUTS), just by itself, is copyright infringement on your images/words/whatever. and since it's a stack of numbers that's... proving to be hard!

if you wanted to sue someone for infringing your copyright with stable diffusion you have to wait for them to infringe your copyright first, like generating an illegal mickey mouse, and then sue THAT PERSON. but they're trying to short circuit the process - suing the paintbrush

[beskarberry]

Devil’s Advocate

Bargaining with Beskar, Chapter 5

(The Mandalorian x f!reader)

“That your girl over there?” Mando followed their gaze wordlessly, reluctant to make friends right now while he was busy waiting for you to call him back to your side. “Thought so.” The stranger took a long drag on an inhalant, blowing vibrant pink clouds into the smoky room. “Sorry for your loss, Elios always gets what he wants.” Mando turned again to the stranger, fixing them with his black hole glare, but they only shrugged; watching the drinking game unfold between you and the devil himself.

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 11.2k whoops

Content warnings: VICES: gambling/smoking/drinking (reader drinks) Introduction of chapter-specific OC characters. Lots of angst to fluff, sexy times of course.

A/N: This might be more self indulgent than the first chapters but not because of the smut. I kinda go off about fancy clothes so long descriptions of costumes are a big chunk of this chapter.

<-Previous Next->

You hated everything about Canto Bight.

Everything about the city was so... artificial. The stadium flood lights, the glowing neon signs, even the ocean herself had been excavated from the planet’s stubborn sandstone surface instead of eroded naturally by the march of time. To you it was like looking at Corellia’s gold painted twin, a monument to the hubris of all sentient life.

 Even the patrons of the gilded city were fake; their clothes, their makeup, their personalities. Every aspect of them was perfectly curated to deceive and lie, whatever fanciful display would work best to cheat their way to the jackpot. You almost wished you could look past the falseness of it, experience the visual fanfare of light and color that reflected on every surface. You wanted the music and the art and the decor that had been so carefully picked and placed to mean something to you, to sparkle in your heart just as it sparkled in the eyes of the teeming masses. But, all for naught, the gleaming metropolis stung your eyes; and you turned away from it to admire the quaint little space that actually mattered to you.

 You shared the tight quarters of the cockpit with the two strange boys that had recently whisked you away to the stars. Mando was seated in the pilot's chair with his tiny green son perched in his lap, trying to get him to eat his dinner without making so much of a mess. You had already eaten, and you were turning the last hunter’s puck over in your hand, reluctant to get this chase started and take away from the familial scene beside you. It would have to happen sooner or later, and you gave the puck a squeeze to fire up the projector. A ghostly blue fog glowed up into the space above your palm, and the face that looked back at you was surprisingly fair; if not for his crimson skin and long black horns you wouldn’t have known he was Devaronian by his elegant features alone.

 Elios Blackwater was a dapper debonair, his high cheekbones angled sharply under devious eyes towards a sly, sharp toothed grin. The puck notes didn’t specify what he was wanted for, though from the looks of his charming smile and shifting eyes it could easily be anything from a gamblers quarrel to breaking hearts, with a higher reward for being returned alive rather than dead. He would most likely be in a heavily inhabited area, probably as close to Canto Bight’s aurelian heart as possible. You didn’t know why Mando had taken a bounty puck for such a densely populated world, and you would have loved to know what his plan was to get to the city’s casino center before you had arrived in his life. A pair of ragamuffin bounty hunters and their floating baby bucket would stick out like sore thumbs in this gilded mecca of gamblers. If you were going to get to your quarry without being arrested, you were going to have to blend in.

 “We’re going to have to do something about...this.” You said, waving your hand in front of your partner’s ferocious attire, though truthfully you weren’t dressed any more appropriately for the mission at hand. “They’ll see us coming a mile away.”

 He glanced down at himself with a tilt of his helmet, ignoring the mess his son was making of his meal. “What do you have in mind?”

 You weren’t entirely sure yet. From where the Crest was parked you could see the glittering city’s reflection sparkling on the water far ahead of you down the beach, a sight most would find alluring, but to you it was just harsh glare. Nearby where you had landed were other space craft parked up and down the gravelly, machine-carved beach; the pleasure cruisers of wealthy betters made your little scrapheap look even worse than it already did. You watched out the cockpit’s transperisteel window, noting the movement of patrons and their attending droids loading skiffs with piles of luggage, and got yourself a mighty fine idea.

"I think so, but you're probably not going to like it. Stay here." You rose from your seat and kissed the baby on the head, earning yourself a soft, mush-mouthed chirp before you slid down the ladder and let yourself out of the old rust bucket and into the salty sea air of the Cantonican night. Gravel crunched under your boots, and you took a moment to turn and glance back at the Crest, catching the faintest flicker of scope glare where Mando was nervously watching you from the flight deck. Ahead of you a large cruiser was being unloaded by droids, the owners having long since made their way to the casinos, and you made yourself known to the robotic servants with your most charming damsel-in-distress voice.

"Hello! Excuse me! My luggage is too heavy to carry, can you help me? It's just over here on my ship..." The droid nearest you made a stiff bowing motion and tottered after you with the loaded hoverskiff floating along behind. You guided the droid up the open ramp and into the bowels of the ship to where your difficult luggage lay. It never stood a chance, bits of wire and duraplast flew across the cabin like confetti from the blaster shot to its head. Mando lowered his gun back to his holster, freeing his hands to help you haul the skiff into the narrow cabin space, then quickly close the ramp behind you.

The sled took up most of the walking space in the ship, so you got up on top of it and began looting through the stolen designer bags, pulling resplendent finery out into the hazy light. The first tote was full of piles of silk sewn for something with more arms than the two of you put together, so most of those items were tossed to the floor. The second bag was just capes, each a unique and lovely pattern, but nothing more. You demolished the remaining bags, making piles on the floor for ‘maybes’ and ‘definitely-nots’ until you found what you were looking for: a humanoid woman’s clothes.

Most of the unknown lady’s elegant garments would be just slightly too big on you, but you were able to settle on a soft, garnet colored evening gown that would go just above your knees, with extra length in the back. It had a sloping neckline that plunged at your cleavage, and around the bell of the skirt were silver rhinestones that caught the light of the cabin like dewdrops, the weight of them giving the dress a wistful sway. You wouldn't be able to carry much in such a revealing article, but a blaster and a knife alone had gotten you out of more trouble than you would care to admit.

You were fishing through the feminine things for something to do about your hair when you caught Mando in the corner of your eye. He was leaning against the hull wall, just watching you as you made a fat mess of the Razor's interior. You smiled down at him from your floating perch and held up the fanciful garment that you had picked out for him to see. "You like it?"

"It doesn't suit you, mesh’la." He said with a lazy tilt of his helmet. You had begun to mentally keep track of all the Mando’a he used around you, and you were starting to notice his frequent use of affectionates. You spun slightly so he could get a good look at how the fabric moved in the light, but the hunter gear you currently had on took away from the loveliness of the expensive clothes. You guessed he preferred your killer garb anyway over the flimsy, delicate fabric. Or nothing at all.

"Well, it’ll have to do, and if you don't start picking something out for yourself I’m going to dress you up like a dandy.”

He sighed, long and tired before turning his attention to the silken pile on the floor. You went back to the luggage, finding some knee high boots that were close enough to your size, but had a heel height that was going to make your ankles cry. You picked out some tasteless accessories: some bracelets, and big, jewel-encrusted hair pins to wear as well. The glitzier that you were, the less you would be noticed in this bass-ackward town. When you had made your frivolous selections you hopped off the skiff to help Mando with his costume. He was worse at finding something to wear than you were, having only picked out some of his own black leather gloves and two pairs of pants that were not made for human legs. Mandalorian armor did not come off as far as your metal man was concerned, and you were going to have to find a way to hide his bulk. You convinced him to lose his cloak, chest belts, and the bandoliers on his hips and boots, anything to lighten the load. Loose silks and stiff fiber combos would be your best friend, and you cobbled together what you could for your beskar-burdened buddy.

After what seemed like an eternity you had him dressed to the nines, or at least the eights. You had covered his chest plate in a black silk shirt and stiff black vest. The shirt had wide bottomed sleeves and neat, tight cuffs that hid his vambraces well, but you still made him wear a cinched-waist blazer plus a long, black and silver cape that almost reached the floor. You found a dark red pocket square that matched your dress and tucked it into the pocket of his vest, a subtle, but unmistakable announcement to the world that he was there with you. It was a ridiculous amount of fabric on top of an already massive mountain of metal, but the look was very in-style for Canto Bight. All together he actually passed for something besides a murder machine, and you gave yourself a mental pat on the back for a job well done. Mando held still for you while you fussed with his outfit with only the occasional huff. As much as he didn't like the idea of walking so boldly through the gilded city, he did enjoy your brazen touch each time you added another article of clothing.

“And now for the finishing touch.” There was nothing you could do about his helmet, so you were just going to have to make it look as nice as you could. You hadn’t changed into your chosen disguise yet, so you strode through the messy cabin with ease until you reached the lock box next to the cot. Inside you found the krayt’s teeth that you had gifted him and pulled them out into the light, waving them at him as you stretched over the heaps of fabric on the ground. He raised his hands in protest.

“What if I lose them?”

“You can wear these or you can wear whatever the hell this is.” You held up an enormous chain of jewels that looked like it belonged in the treasure case at an arcade instead of around somebody's neck. “Besides, I know you won't lose them, you like them too much.” He tilted his helmet at you with disdain, and you realized that was precisely the reason he didn’t want to wear them, such lovely gifts should be kept safe and secure. But he let you press the precious trinkets into the recess of his helmet where his human cheeks would be anyway. The frozen pools of moonlight tied everything about his sin-city look into a perfect, glittery bow. You had grown to admire the look of him in his cultural armor, the ferocity of it, the utility and strength of the beskar that shined no matter how much damage it took; and you were a bit sad to see it hidden. The look of the man standing before you had a wildly different feel, though it was not one you were opposed to.

“You look nice, Din.” The sound of his own name coming from your lips made his heart swell, and he reached out for your hand on instinct to pull your knuckles to his brow in the sweet gesture of his people that you both now used. His movements caused the finery he was masquerading in to catch the cabin’s hazy light, and you got excited to put on your own costume and join him in looking like a fool. When he let your hand fall, you bounded over to your pile, throwing the hunting clothes off of yourself as you went. When you were standing there in nothing but your Tattooinian muck boots you cast a sly glance over your shoulder. As expected, the single black eye of your Mandalorian was locked on your almost-naked form, and you realized that in the time you had been together he had never seen you fully naked; just the parts of you he needed to get to in the moment. “How’s this? You like this better?”

When he didn’t answer right away you looked down at yourself and saw what he was staring at. You had forgotten about the marks of conquest he had put there when he had been driven to a sexual frenzy by the last quarry’s poison, still dotting your thighs with dark purple splotches. Not once had you been upset with him for his actions, you were just thankful you both made it through the ordeal alive, but he still looked at the damning marks with shame. He had been forced to break his protector’s oath against his will, inflicting injury to your precious body with his own two hands. You waited until his visor made its way back up to meet your eyes, and you reached out for him to give you his hand. He sheepishly obeyed, and you brought his hand to your lips, kissing at the all-black leather slowly until you heard him sigh through his modulator. You would forgive him a hundred times if you had to, and then a hundred more if it meant he could forgive himself. You pulled his hands to your waist and leaned up against him, enjoying the feel of new clothes on your skin and letting your hands run up his silken arms. “Well you can have this,” You nodded down at your bare everything with a mischievous grin, “As soon as we catch this fucko.” 

This was the last bounty you would need before you made the trip back to Nevarro, but you were still on the fence about how completing your mission made you feel. On one hand you would be free of the Guild’s relentless hunters, but on the other your partnership with the strange metal man and his adorable beanbag of a son would come to a close. You turned back to your outfit and began cinching a pair of thigh holsters to your legs, hiding your wincing face as the leather closed around your bruises; a blaster on one leg and a knife on the other. You pulled on the dress and fixed up your hair as best you could, then stepped out of your good boots and into the slutty knee-highs. There was only one loose end to take care of.

 “Where’s baby?” You glanced around the messy cabin, looking for your foundling. In the corner under a pile of capes there was movement, and you cleared the flashy finery away to reveal your bestest little friend. Big, glittering orbs looked up at you from the pile of fabric, and a tiny toothy grin shined from his cute baby face. “Heya booger, you ready to go?” You scooped him up in your arms for a hug before picking a big shiny scarf up to wrap him up with, then placed him carefully down in one of the gaudy designer bags. “If anyone asks, he is a pet.” The child didn’t seem to care, he was just happy to be included, waving his little pudgy baby hands up at you to hold. You squeezed his tiny paw, then turned to Mando, “You ready to go, Lord Beskar?”

He glanced down at himself, tilting his palms up and shrugging. “I guess so, I feel ridiculous.”

“Good enough!” You made for the exit ramp with a big stride, and almost broke your damn ankle on the first step, falling gracelessly into the arms of your partner. He caught you with ease, and your cheeks went red with his strong, gentle hands on you again for the hundredth time. You got to your feet, but you would be leaning heavily on him for most of the night until the boots were broken in. With you hanging off of his arm the two of you looked like a proper couple, just heading out for a night on the town instead of two bloodthirsty bounty hunters on the prowl. You might let yourself pretend though, just for the night.

You took a transport speeder from the beach to the city’s entrance, then made your way through the gilded streets, following the red blink of the bounty fob towards your quarry. You had to stop multiple times, the fucking boots making your feet hurt like you knew they would. Mando stood patiently with you each time, and more than once offered to just carry you. His visor would glide from side to side, always on the alert for anyone that might be following you, or worse, hunting you down. The tracking fob led you to the most obvious choice of casino: the tallest, brightest, shiniest temple of vice smack dab in the city’s center. 

The front entryway was dominated by a roaring, gushing fountain, shooting geysers in a perfectly timed pattern high into the Cantonican night sky. The fountain was lit up with bright, multicolored spotlights so that every stream of water and drop of spray glittered back in defiance of the stars that had inspired them. Inside, the casino floor was packed with patrons, ranging in size and species in an infinite array of wealth and power. Chandeliers hung high above you from the soaring cathedral ceilings, sending sparkling lights racing around the endless room like shooting stars. Every surface was bright and gleaming, dozens of pillars and statues illuminated by blinding limelight. Even the floor was magnificent, black and white marble with huge inlaid stars, guiding gamblers through the limitless space towards their wildest desires. Again you wished you could appreciate the extravagance of it all, though the way the lights streamed like mercury over the beskar of your pretend date made something else sparkle behind your eyes. 

 The smell of inhalants and alcohol burned in your nose, and you took a moment to make sure your purse puppy’s face was covered with something so he wouldn’t have to endure it as much as you were. The sound of gamblers and music and roaring competition was louder than the screams of the hyperspace engine aboard the Crest, the cacophony of it all making you anxious. You were thankful that you weren’t hunting this bounty alone, and you still held on to Mando tightly, letting him lead you over the cosmic marble floor through the streaming masses. The people paid you no mind, moving out of the way without casting a second glance. Your costumes were working exactly as you had intended, and you applauded yourself for how well you had deceived the City of Lies.

You had guessed that if your bounty would be anywhere, it would be at the center of attention, and you were right. Elios Blackwater sat at the atrium bar, surrounded by beautiful and interesting people. The glint of gold jewelry caught the radiant casino lights every time he moved, drawing the eyes of all those around him. He was telling some kind of wild story that had his little crowd hooked on every word, though you could tell from a distance he was all bullshit. Immediately you knew this was a man that was used to having everything he desired, never being denied a single whim in all his days. A plan began to simmer in your skull, and you knew right away your partner was not going to like it. If you were going to get the quarry alone, you were going to have to persuade him to leave the company of his fans, and you only knew one sure-fire method for a man of Blackwater’s tastes. You let yourself off of your escorts’ arm to turn and face him, pulling his hands to your hips and letting your own rest on his shoulders so that to any outsiders you two would be just another pair of passionate dancers making their way through the counterfeit cosmos. 

“Mando, do you trust me?” His hidden eyes were still glancing around the room, scanning for any lurking threats.

“Of course.” His words went right over your head, his ears too full of the sounds of potential danger to really hear you. You huffed and ran your hands to his bedazzled helmet, pulling it down to meet your eyes. 

“Pay attention, bucket boy. I need to hear you say it and know that you mean it. Do you trust me?”  He cocked his head, confused that you would have to ask twice. 

“Yes, ner cyar’ika, I trust you.”

“Good.” You let your hands fall back to his armored shoulders, pressing yourself up against him tighter. Your fingers fidgeted in the heavy material of his cloak, he was going to hate this. “Because I need to do something. Alone.” 

That got his attention fast. 

“No, it’s too dangerous here. I want you where I can protect you. What if there’s hunters?”

“I know, I need you to cover me, but from a distance. I think I can convince Elios to walk right into the carbonite freezer, but I can’t do it with you looming over me.” You wrapped your hands around the back of his helmet, pulling him down so that his forehead met with yours. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it would work.” He sighed between your hands, the steam of his breath slipping out from under the helmet’s edge. There was nothing he would rather not do than be away from you, but he did trust you, and he nodded against your embrace.

“I’ll call for you as soon as I’m ready, ok? Just keep your eyes on me, and don’t cause a scene. No matter what.” You couldn’t kiss him like you wanted to, but you still pressed your lips to the side of his beskar before letting go, pulling yourself away from his tender grasp. His hands still floated in the space where you had been as you turned away from him and made your way to the bar, the heavy purse bumping against your weaponized thighs with every flint and tinder step of your sky high heels. As you got closer to the bounty you could hear the shreds of his conversation starting to make their way over the noise of the casino.

“...And I said ‘Darlin’ if you didn’t want to take it home with you, ya shouldn’t have put it in your mouth!” The way he was telling his story gave you the impression that it wasn’t one you wanted to hear, and you started to regret your foolhardy plan. Gold rings and precious jewels sparkled all the way from his fingers to the caps on his horns, making it impossible for most to look away, a fact made apparent by his captivated audience. The beautiful boozers laughed and cheered at his every word, though from his stupidass sounding story you wondered how much of the affection was alcohol induced. You pulled a seat up at the bar a few stools away from the crowd and ordered yourself a shot of spotchka and a couple packs of cookies. You slipped the snacks into your bag for Din’s foundling, you would be needing him for your plan to work as well; and the promise of treats would keep his bright-eyed attention on you. 

The taste of spotchka was vile, but you had started your journey though the galaxy on the gigantic starcruisers that were built on your homeworld of Corellia, and you had gotten to know the taste of the sailor-favorite drink at a tender age. You sipped at your brew, listening casually to the Devaronian’s conversation, but never turned your eyes to him. Every once in a while another bar patron would swagger up beside you to offer you another shot. You turned down anything you didn’t order yourself, but you started telling them fabricated stories about your life among the stars, most of which were wild tales of fancy from old holovids you had seen. You wished you could turn around and find your favorite rust bucket, wherever he may be hiding among the festivities, and give him something to reassure him. A nod or a wave, anything to let him know you weren’t just making him jealous on purpose. 

Soon you were throwing back brightly glowing shots of brew, and a handful of interested patrons had gathered around you to hear about how you had jerry-rigged a star cruiser to run on spotchka when you were a space pirate smuggling kyber crystals for the resistance, among other things. When you had your head tilted back you cast a glance towards the bounty, and saw what you had been waiting for. His hooded eyes were watching you intently, he didn’t like that someone was getting any of the attention pie that he believed was his alone, and you knew it wouldn’t be long before he had to do something about it. Soon enough the dapper devil rose from his entourage, running a painted claw through his long dark hair before making his way to you, sauntering with every step.

Hook.

“Well hello there, darlin’, name’s Elios. What’s a pretty little thing like you doing chugging spotchka when you could be drinkin’ something as fine as you are?” The debonair’s words were long and slow, making sure that every drawn syllable would be heard. “Bartender! Get this lovely lady a real drink, if ya please.” You weren’t sure what counted as a ‘real drink’, but the dark liquid that was slid over to you stank even worse than spotchka with the strength of its proof. Elios couldn’t stand that someone else might be having more fun than he was, and he was determined to put you out of commission. He wanted to do it in such a way that you would be thanking him for it, preferably while on your knees. “What’s yer name, baby cakes?”

From the other side of the busy casino you could feel the void of a visor making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Mando was standing on the far side of the slot machines where the light was just a little less glaring, so motionless he might have been part of the decorations. He wasn’t sure what your plan was, or how you would talk the quarry into being captured without gaining the suspicion of the wandering security enforcers. He bristled whenever a bar patron started trying to make nice with you, and only got progressively more frustrated when more and more started hanging around you. When he saw the bounty slink his way over to you he wanted to dash across the marble floor and break his fucking neck just for being in your airspace. ‘Don’t make a scene, no matter what’ is what you had told him, and you had asked him to trust you. So he did as he was asked. Watching, waiting.

“Hmm, I don’t think you could handle it.” Oh, Elios didn’t like that one bit, nobody told Mr. Blackwater ‘no’ without consequences. He swirled a glass of the same dark liquid around in one perfectly manicured hand, his polished claws clicking on the side of the glass. You continued to ignore him, but you started on the new drink in front of you. Yucky, at least spotchka was familiar. He took your acceptance of the drink as an invitation to join you at the bar. 

“You’re awful sly, baby cakes, tell me yer name so I can make you forget it later.” His pointed teeth flashed out from his crooked smile, and you could smell the stench of expensive cologne and aftershave. You rolled your eyes big and wide so he could see just how unimpressed you were, but your nose was burning from how bad he smelled. This was a bad idea, but only because of how well it was going to work. Fresher soap, where are you?

“I’ll tell you what, if you can out-drink me, I’ll tell you my name.” His wicked smile split his face, showing off rows of brilliant white fangs. Party-boy could probably hold a few good shots, but you were raised by sailors, and you were gonna drink his ass under the table. 

“You’re on, sweet cheeks. Bartender! Another round!” Another set of shot glasses plinked to the counter, and vanished just as fast. Elios was eyeing you up and down, seeing if you were all bark and no bite. If he could just get you drunk enough…

Far from where you were drinking the Mandalorian you had asked to trust in you was furious, trying not to thumb the handle of his blaster that poked out from the side of his hip under his cloak. It would be so easy, he could hit the target from here and it would be over, you would be back by his side and not being drooled over by that fucking pathetic excuse for a man. 

“He has that effect on people.”

Mando’s helmet snapped on the sounds’ source, so lost in vicious thoughts that he didn’t hear the stranger come to lean against the wall by him. They were tall and thin, translucent green skin and a mop of hair-like cilia growing from their head to their flowy chiffon clothes. They looked exhausted. “That your girl over there?” Mando followed their gaze wordlessly, reluctant to make friends right now while he was busy waiting for you to call him back to your side. “Thought so.” The stranger took a long drag on an inhalant, blowing vibrant pink clouds into the smoky room. “Sorry for your loss, Elios always gets what he wants.” Mando turned again to the stranger, fixing them with his black hole glare, but they only shrugged; watching the drinking game unfold between you and the devil himself. 

“Another!” You hollered, but the glasses were already in front of you, then gone again. The Devaronian hissed back the sting of the high-dollar liquor, shaking his long mane that had started to come undone. You pretended to reel from the liquor's effects, leaning back just a tad too far on your seat. “Again!” The third round of shots came and went, and Elios nearly fell off his stool. Right where I want you. You waved at the bartender for the fourth and final shot that would probably put the devil right on his ass, but that’s not where you were headed with this show of tenacity. You had to get him alone before you made your capture, or the security enforcers that littered the casino floor would descend on you like vultures. 

You waited til he had thrown his drink back before you tilted yours, purposely spilling a few drops down your front so the booze would trickle down between your breasts. Elios nearly choked, and you knew you had his full, undivided attention. Din, I’m so sorry.

“Woo! I don’t think I can do any more, Mister Blackwater, you win.” you feigned, holding the back of your hand up to your forehead, trying to convince him that the room was spinning for both of you and not just him. His sultry laugh made your skin crawl.

“Please, call me Elios.”

Line.

“Well, Elios, you still wanna know my name? You’re gonna have to work for it.” You placed a hand on his leg, running your fingers up his thigh and around the edge of his waist, pulling at his pockets seductively to drive the point home. Does he have SCALES? What the fuck ew ew ew. He took the hint like a drunk takes to spotchka, flashing you a slurred smile. 

“Well… sugar lips, we can take this... elsewhere.” 

“Sure thing, Elios, lemme just have my attendant take my Poochie up to my room.” You held the heavy purse up so he could see the big black eyes hiding in its depths. 

“What the fuck is that thing?”

“He’s a pet, obviously.”

“What kind’a fuckin’ pet?”

“Purebred.” Your quick answer seemed good enough for Mr. Drinky, and he nodded like that made perfect sense. You raised your fist to the air and snapped your fingers.

The human fortress was at your side in a heartbeat, towering above the two of you. You stuffed the purse in his hands before he could ask where to point his gun. “Here, take Poochums up to my room, mama’s not coming home tonight, if y’know what I mean. Get him washed and fed, and don’t forget to scrub his feet!” 

“Yes Ma’am.” The bag was lifted carefully from your fake-drunk hands, and you tried to flash him your best ‘Please-don’t-be-mad-at-me-I-hate-this-too’ face at your partner, but you guessed the look was lost on his visor. The scene did not escape Elios’s eyes like you had hoped it would. 

“Now what in the Mmmmaker’s Mammaries is that big ass fuckin’ thing? That some kinda droid? It’s damn fancy.” Shit balls of hell.

“Uh.. Yes! This is the finest in personal assistant droid technology! See, look.” You grabbed Mando’s empty arm and pulled back sharply on the fabric, revealing the delicate button panel of his vambrace. “Only the best money could buy...” 

“I gotta get me one of those...” Elios stared bewildered as your personal petsitting droid turned and left. “Well, honey tits, you wanna take this upstairs?” Ugh.

“Oh suurrre… Oh Mr. Blackwater I’m ~soooo~ drunk ahaha…” You were barely buzzed, and you worried that your life among the stars had given your liver bigger balls than a bounty hunter. You wobbled on your stool, for phase two of your plan to work you would have to delay Elios as long as possible. You watched as the man whose heart you had stolen faded away from you, the fancy purse hooped over his shoulder and knocking up against his leg, cape billowing behind him as he went. Alright, Baby Beans, it’s up to you now!

Din was seething under his helmet, pissed as shit that this was what your elaborate ‘plan’ entailed. He was trying not to storm through the casino as he left to take your ‘Poochums’ up to your room, whatever the hell that fucking meant. How could he be so fucking stupid? This was exactly the same ruse you had tried to pull on him from day one. Seduction was your real talent, luring your lovers to their untimely demise. How many times had you pulled this stunt? Was this your master plan all along? Ouch. Play with his heart until you were free of your Guild warrant? Ow. You were just using him to get to Nevarro, then you would fuck off to the stars and leave him behind. After everything you had been through, he was just another notch on your bedp- 

“OUCH!” 

Din looked down to his side where the pain he was trying to ignore was coming from, and saw a fat green paw sticking out of the ugly expensive purse, digging vicious talons into the side of his leg. His foundling was trying to burrow through his thigh, and his claws might actually have drawn blood. “What, womp rat? What do you want?” There was something in the baby’s other hand, something golden and flashy. Din reached into the bag and pulled the embossed card from his son’s grasp. What’s this? There was a set of numbers etched in gold filigree in the top of the card, their shimmer blasting away the destructive void he had been spiraling into.

Key card! PENTHOUSE key card! You had tricked the bounty into getting close enough to you that you could pick his pocket without him noticing. You were luring Elios right into a trap, and your Mandalorian was the snare. Din felt a mix of emotion ranging from relief to shame, how could he even think for one second that you might be deceiving him? You had asked him to trust you, and he couldn’t even contain his jealousy long enough to make it through one hunt. He felt like such an ass, you were putting your skills to good use, at great risk to your own safety, just like he had asked you to from the beginning. This wasn’t just his hunt anymore, it was a joint effort between the two of you, and it was his turn to run the next leg of the relay. The heavy, silver-laced cloak was tossed to the side as he raced to the elevator, fluttering away behind him as he flew to beat you there.

Meanwhile, you were trying to keep the bounty from falling flat on his face, and the only way to do that was to hold him up yourself. His hands were all over you, the nick of sharp, neat claws catching on the fabric of your evening dress and scratching along your skin. I’m gonna break those fingers, motherfucker. He was slurring his words, making disgusting promises of what he was gonna do to you when you reached his private penthouse. You were just out of range of his boozehole, the lippy thing trying to steal a taste of you. Wobbly steps slowed you both down to almost a crawl, which was exactly what you were trying to do, anything to give Mando time to find the hotel room first. You passed a discarded cloak on the floor, the familiar silver inlay catching the light, and you worried that you might have pushed your partner too far. What if he left? What if he didn’t see the keycard and I’m heading up alone? Please be there, Din. Please don’t leave me with this fucking creep. You both reached the elevator, and Elios fumbled to find his wallet, thankfully having a spare key that he didn’t know he needed. The doors opened, and you realized you would be stuck in your own personal hell for the entire trip up to the top floor suite. Fucking super. 

Elios was getting impatient during the ride up, and it took every fiber of your being to keep from retching as his well-moisturized hands ran up and down your spine. The elevator door opened directly into the penthouse, and his perfectly manicured claws dug into your ass to usher you into the room. The top floor suite was dark, save for the lights of Canto Bight shining in through the cathedral windows. You took a mental note of the speeder parked out on the balcony, you would be needing it later. The Devaronian was at your ear, breathing hot, boozy steam around your neck until he was facing you. He went to bite at your mouth, but you stopped him with a finger to his lips.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." You whispered in your most convincing lust-laden voice. The devil chuckled and ran his slimy, forked tongue around the halting digit. Barf.

"Oh yeah, baby cakes? Why’s that?"

You batted your eyelashes and bit your lip into a wry smile before meeting his half-lidded eyes. "Because... you're going to make Daddy very angry."

His lips turned upwards in an aroused sneer, flashing his dazzling, daggerlike teeth, "How could getting a taste of that fiery little mouth’a yours make me angry, darlin’?"

Sinker.

"I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about him."

Elios didn't even have a chance to turn around to see where your eyes were looking before a black and silver fist broke his nose and sent his perfect teeth soaring across the room, throwing him down to the marble floor. Seeing his busted prettyboy face bleeding at your feet made you feel so relieved that a vicious shiver made its way from your head to your toes, and you let your body shake the devil’s touch off of you like a big wet bantha.

"Fuck! Oh fucking hell, Mando, you have -no idea- how hard it was to keep that up, he’s so gross! I’m gonna chuck his ass in carbonite so fucking hard his horns’ll break off!" Your partner was still squared up, just waiting for the interloper to try and get up and fight. He wanted the bounty to get up, flail, scream, any excuse to hit him again. But Blackwater was out cold, staining the white marble floor with his blood.

"You looked like you were handling it."

The deadpan tone of his voice told you that wasn't exactly a compliment, remembering the jealousy that had seethed out of him on Tatooine after that Trandoshan had tried to capture you. You had two choices: you could either try to defend yourself and your unconventional bounty catching method, or you could turn that jealousy in your favor. He didn’t remember much from his toxic encounter with the Ardennian, but you knew that every filthy, possessive thing he had said to you that night was still somewhere in that chrome dome of his; and you became determined to bring them to the light. You crossed one arm over your chest, raising the other to tap a finger against the corner of your lips.

"Oh? You didn't like that, did you? Didn't like that he had his hands on me? Touching things that don’t belong to him?" He didn't answer, but the creaking of leather from his fists tightening told you what you already knew. "Tell me, Mando."

"N-no." His visor remained fixed on the unconscious body still bleeding on the floor. Not good enough.

"No what?"

"No. I didn't like that." His voice was low and raspy, but only because he was trying to keep the boiling rage in his chest from blowing his fucking helmet off.

"Tell me what you didn't like." You stepped over the quarry to your man, running your fingers from his balled fists over his silk and steel arms until you were at his shoulders. You could feel the slightest shudder under all his layers at your touch.

"I didn't like him touching you. Nobody should put their hands on you, cyar'ika" His fists lowered to his sides but his visor was still on the floor. You let your hands wander up his neck to the bejeweled recesses of his helmet and turned him to meet your eyes.

"Why not?"

"B-because..."

"I want to hear you say it."

"Because you are mine." He growled through his helmet so hard that you swore you saw it vibrate, sending a delicious tingle though your spine. Atta boy.

“Again.”

“You are mine!” Even behind the beskar you could hear the clench of his teeth biting back deeper desires. His hands went to your waist, pulling you tightly to his chest. The fire coming off of him was scalding, you had pushed your luck too far with this one, and you could feel the volcano inside his ribcage boiling over. He was furious. His heavy armored head pushed against your brow, and you let your thumbs wrap around the bottom of his helmet to find the thinnest sliver of skin where the metal met the man.

“That’s right, I’m all yours.” When you had said that line to him the first time, you had been plotting your escape from his clutches, but as the reassuring words left your lips you knew there was nobody else in the galaxy you would have running their hands up your sides; and you mentally crossed ‘seduction’ off of your list of hunting skills for good. His oath of me'dinuir had swore him to your side alone, and now you knew without a shred of doubt that you wanted it to go both ways; whether you were Mandalorian or not.

You kissed at the bottom of his visor, so close to getting to feel the true, living flesh of him, and yet so far. You had to have him, you had to purge the demon’s touch from your body with the purifying fire of your protector’s rage. A choked, needy groan made its way out of the modulator, and you felt the heat of his breath on your skin. How desperately you wanted to taste it, fill your mouth with the flavor of him to replace the vile spotchka. You pushed up on his jaw, giving you just a tiny glance at his scruffy chin, and you forced your kisses into the tight, unyielding space of the beskar prison. It wasn’t enough for you, but it was a start, and you could feel his body starting to unwind at your touch. “Kiss me. Please, Mando.”

“Cyar'ika, it's not safe here.” He hated the sound of his own words, the denial of them crushing his very soul. You glanced around the dark penthouse and saw you were alone save for the crumpled devil on the floor and the designer purse that had been stashed in the corner of the room, its occupant still working on the bags of cookies. No eyes on us.

“I won’t look, just... lift your helmet a tiny bit, tin man, I need you, I need to kiss you.” You guessed you were safe enough from prying eyes, but you wouldn’t spill his name to the night just in case there were any sneaky listeners. You squeezed your own eyes shut and nipped at the armors edge again, and just ever-so-slightly began to push up on the unforgiving metal with your thumbs. You were just waiting for his hands to shoot up, to grab your wrists and halt your actions, but they were locked to your sides. Inch by inch you gradually lifted the armor, he would have all the time in the world to stop you, but when you felt the heat of his lips crash against yours you almost let your knees buckle out from under you. His strong arms were tight on your back, pulling you into him so he could kiss you harder.

So much better than spotchka. He was delicious, his taste, his feel, his scent, everything about him was intoxicating. So much more so than the despicable brew you had been throwing back all night, and a thousand times better than anything Elios could have offered. Blech. You realized then why the bounty had smelled so bad to you, though his perfume was expensive and his clothes freshly pressed, he was wrong for you. The wrongness was so overwhelming that it had nearly made you lose your drink, and you didn’t realize how wrong something could be until you tried to compare it to what was right. Din was right, he smelled of leather and beskar and the sweat of a man that had nearly combusted when someone else was at your side. And fresher soap! Thank the Maker.

A soft leather hand went to your head, pulling you into him so he could taste you better. His tongue ran over your lips, darting into you to find yours so they could dance together. You bit him playfully, and the way his breath hitched in his throat sent the fire of your core shooting all the way to your fingertips; and you knew right then that not even kissing his forbidden face would be enough for you. You pulled yourself from his lips, the snap of teeth following your retreat, reluctant to let you leave from the heat of the moment. Carefully, you let the beskar slide back down to cover him, and the anguished whine he let out into the night air almost broke your heart.

“I know, I know, I’m so mean to you, aren’t I?” With him covered you glanced around the room until you saw the private bar. With your thumbs hooked in the pockets of his borrowed vest you guided the two of you towards it until the granite countertop knocked against your ass. You used his shoulders for leverage, hopping up onto the cold surface and wrapping your knees round his waist, happy to find exactly what you were expecting to throbbing between your legs. He pushed himself against you, the feel of his stolen silks on your holstered thighs giving you goosebumps. His heavy metal head fell against your shoulder, and you wrapped your arms around him to hold him close while he ground up against your heat. He couldn’t contain himself around you, though you wouldn’t want him to if he could. You rocked your hips in time with his needy thrusts, and the growls in your ear almost made you think he would come undone with his pants still on. Can’t have that now, can we? "Mando, please fuck me, I can't wait anymore."

You heard thunder rumble out of his chest, sending electricity from where he was pressed to your shoulder straight down to where he was pulsing against your core. He was going to bring you the stars, alright, but not the ones in the night sky. He pulled back so he could look into your eyes from behind his visor, bringing a hand up to caress your pleading face.

"No, I don't want to fuck you." Your eyes shot wide, shocked that he wouldn't want you when he was rutting so hard into you that you could almost feel the dampness of precum through his layers. He saw your face and shook his head. "Elios wanted to fuck you, all of those creeps at the bar wanted to fuck you.” His helmet shook, trying to loosen the words he wanted to say. “No... I- I want to be better than them, I want to give you something else, s-something more.” He was struggling, his inexperience making it difficult to say what was on his mind. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be like them, he wanted to be worthy of you in ways they never could.

“Then make love to me instead.”

 “Yes!” The words leaving your lips were like music to his ears, so much more lovely than any song. “I want to do that! I want to make love to you, cyar’ika, if you’ll have me?”

You laughed, nodding your head to hide your bright red cheeks. How he managed to be so ferocious and so sweet on the same day was a mystery you didn’t want to solve. He quickly glanced around the room one more time just to be sure you were alone, the light of the gilded city sending streaks of color over the charms you had pressed to his cheeks. Satisfied that you were the only ones awake in the room, he leaned away from you to rip the constricting blazer off of himself so hard the fabric around his chest and shoulders started to tear. Beskar plates twinkled in the limelight, sending stars flying around the room while he worked his pants open. The sight of him springing into view made your heart flutter, among other things. Long and strong, a pearl of precum glimmering in the dark of the penthouse. His hands went to your legs, the leather of his palms snagging on the straps still belted to your thighs as he pushed the elegant fabric of your dress up to your waist. 

“You’re soaked.” You wished you could see what he saw through his visor, the sound of hitched breath telling you he could see you blooming for him clear as day, drinking you in with his hidden eyes. He hooked a thumb in the wet fabric of your panties to pull them out of the way, using his other hand to grip his cock and run the tip over your entrance, bumping against your clit while he lubed himself with your slick. You had to lean back until you were laying on the cold granite countertop, tilting your hips to the edge of the bar so he could see all of you on display. He pressed himself up and in, filling you slowly so he could indulge in every inch that disappeared inside. Your stretched walls clenched around him, making him shiver with each coiled squeeze. The Mandalorian you were giving yourself to pulled himself out of you carefully before thrusting back into you again, fighting every animalistic urge to just plow you into the bar. He was going to make good on his word, he wasn’t going to just fuck you.

But maybe he should have.

“Bing!” 

The penthouse elevator door chimed, and both of you pointed blasters on the figure that walked out from the pink haze of the lift into the dark of the room. “Elios? I know you’re up here, I’m just going to get- Oh. There you are.” The stranger spotted the crumpled, unconscious body on the floor, crossing the room until they stood over him. “About time someone split that beautiful lip of yours, Lee-lo.” The stranger that Mando had run into on the casino floor turned their tired eyes to the pair of you, noticing your obvious state of passion. “Oh please, don’t stop on my account, that’s not the worst thing I’ve walked into up here.” They squinted in the dark, then gasped softly, “Wait, it’s you! Oh good! I saw you when you were dancing and was just heartbroken when Lee-lo came between you.” The tall stranger did a little dance. “Fucking Elios.” They kicked at the Devaronian on the floor, “All he lives for is breaking hearts. I’m glad you two made up.”

The wisp of a stranger bent down to the motionless figure on the floor, yanking one of the gold rings from his horns. They said something too low for you to hear, then got up and left in another cloud of pink smoke, the elevator door closing behind them.

You both lowered your blasters, trying to wrap your collective heads around what had just happened. Mando was still buried to the hilt inside you, and you could feel him pulsing with need; but he had been right from the beginning. You weren’t safe here.

“That’s probably not the only spare key. We should go.” You whispered, trying to get your blaster back to its holster under your dress. He groaned, he was getting sick of being torn away from you. He pulled himself almost all the way out, thrust in one more time for good luck, and released himself with a pop! He pulled you to your feet, helping you down from the bar and onto the Maker-forsaken boots you still had on. Fuck these. You ripped the boots off, chucking them somewhere into the dark and crossed the room barefoot to where the oversized purse held the foundling. You were happy to see him all tuckered out in a pile of cookie wrappers, probably not the healthiest thing for him, but it worked. Behind you, your armored companion was hauling the quarry over his shoulder none too gently, ‘accidentally’ knocking his bloody head against the wall as he turned back to you. You both made for the balcony door to the speeder you had noticed earlier, tossing the bounty in the back seat like a bag of garbage. 

The ride back to the Crest was thick with anticipation, you weren't finished with each other just yet. Mando pulled the speeder right up to the ramp so you wouldn’t have to walk across sharp gravel, chucking the bounty in after you so hard he slid through the messy cabin and smashed into the wall. You slung the damned devil into the carbonite chamber, punching the freeze button with gusto. The ramp closed behind your armored companion, barely giving you a chance to get up onto the hoverskiff that still dominated the cabin floor before the lights went off. You yanked the dress over your head, listening for the sound of more fabric hitting the floor, then the clanking of beskar being tossed carelessly aside. Belts and snaps and zippers went flying, and you had to try not to laugh at the absurd amount of clothes he had to take off. The skiff tilted with new weight, and the body of a Mandalorian was on top of you, warm lips hunting for yours.

He’s naked! Every piece of armor and shred of clothing was gone, and the feel of bare skin against your body was electrifying. His mouth crashed against yours, fervent kisses desperate to taste you again. You let your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him into you to kiss back. He was hungry for you, biting at your mouth and tongue like a man starved. Plush lips made their way from your mouth down your neck, nipping at your throat and sucking the tender skin until you had bruises to match the ones on your thighs. His hands wandered down your body, rubbing at your breast and teasing your nipples until you were gasping for more. The devious digits moved on until his hand was between your legs, pushing at your folds and finding your clit to spin circles on. He was becoming an expert at finding what made you squirm and whine from his touch, rolling callused fingertips into you until you were making a delicious mess on the pile of stolen silk. 

But he wasn’t done there. The fuzzy kisses went from your breast down your belly to where his fingers were working into you. He pulled his hands from your soaked cunt and replaced them with his face, pushing his tongue up against the tiny ball of nerves that had so much power over you. Short, quick circles between long, languid licks had you arching your back and pulling his hair, demanding more. Lost in the heat of your thighs he was happy to give you everything, pushing the smooth muscle of his mouth into your slit and upwards against your clit until you were seeing stars again. 

Your hands couldn’t stop exploring him, from his thick head of curls to the strength of his shoulders. The muscles kept going, tight coils on his back and the warm, rigid wall of his chest. The trail of fuzz on his belly went up farther than you were expecting it to, and the fine hairs tickled your fingers on almost every inch of his skin. Your hands trailed over the numerous, vicious scars that marred his flesh like a road map of every near-death experience he had lived through. Gashes on his arms and burns on his sides had healed over into smooth, textureless skin, the marks of a seasoned hunter that nobody but their barer had ever seen.

Having drank his fill, he pulled his face from the apex of your thighs, pushing your knees apart and quickly sheathing himself in you with a ragged groan. Mando’a praises poured from his lips, some you were familiar but many you weren’t, though all of them made your heart flutter. Strong hands wrapped around your knees to keep you in place on the wobbly sled while he pounded into you, the feeling of bare skin on the backs of your legs making you wish you could see him in the light. But the darkness was the greatest keeper of secrets, hiding your love making from the condemnation of his creed. 

Make love. Though the phrase was just another on the long list of euphemisms used for sex, the pair of words weighed heavy with meaning in their new context. You wanted to explore the concept the way your hands explored his body, but the fire of your core was thrumming with heat, demanding your undivided attention. Din fell forward to your chest, the sweat of his efforts sticking to your breasts. Wandering kisses sent fire over your skin as he made his way over your peaks, sucking hard on their tender buds. Beskar-strong hips rocked against yours until you saw fireworks again, bearing down so hard on him with your orgasm that he sank his teeth into the crook of your shoulder. Bites made their way from where he had surely drawn blood on your flesh up your neck til they turned to kisses again. His brow pushed against your forehead, though your lips were right there he still defaulted to the only show of affection his armored inheritance allowed. Hot gasps of air puffed over your skin from the heat of his breath, and you knew he was close. You locked your legs around him, forcing him to pump every last drop of himself into you, painting your walls with his seed until it was spilling down your ass onto the piles of clothes.

The strength of his arms gave up, and he let himself fall against you, his face pushed against your cheek. You could feel his bristles brushing over your skin as his breath heaved, soft but scratchy. His hands wrapped under you and up your back, hugging you to his bare chest so hard the air was squeezed from your lungs. Fuzzy-lipped kisses dotted your cheeks and face, taking extra time to kiss your lips, each one a promise of more to come. You dragged your nails over his back, making him groan and shake at the touch. Never had anyone to scratch that itch, have you, tinman? Tight muscles loosened under your careful touch, making him sink harder onto you until you couldn’t tell where he ended and you began. 

You wanted to stay there forever, but as the sweat on your bodies cooled it became sticky and made pulling yourselves apart a chore. Both of you reluctantly made your way off of the skiff, clinging to the walls of the cabin while he hunted for his helmet in the dark. Lights came on gradually once his bucket was back in place so you could find your own clothes, and when you had both gotten yourselves put back together you piled everything you had stolen onto the hoverskiff and pushed it back down the ramp of the Crest. The Mandalorian was back in his beskar, and he cocked his vambrace back and shot a wall of fire onto the little sled, incinerating all evidence of your thievery and passion. The bonfire burned brightly on the gravelly beach of the Cantonican ocean, sending flaming ash into the light of the new dawn. 

You decided to keep the red pocket square that you had tucked in on his costume, though you weren't sure what you would need it for again. Sentimental. You went to the supply crates where your backpack and droid mask were kept so you could squirrel the thing away, when you caught the familiar glowing blue of spotchka at the bottom of the larder. The horrible color made you fucking nauseous after today, but even more distressing was that you realized it was just sitting there unsecured when there was an impish child onboard that could easily get into the bottled brew and make himself sick, or worse.

“Din, we need to put this somewhere safer.”  You held the liquid lantern up for him to see what you were talking about. “What if our foundling gets into it? He might get really sick or-”

“Our?”

Shit. “Sorry, your foundling. Your foundling might get-” Din crossed the small space of the cabin until he was standing close to you, the child in question tucked against his chest. The baby’s big, nebulous eyes glittered up at you, and you couldn’t help reaching out to rub his sail-like ears. He chirped happily at your touch, and as much as you wanted to keep your eyes on him, his father was towering over you, making you squirm under his tilted glare. 

“Say that again.”

“Your foundling.”

“No. The other word.”

“Our?” 

“All of it.”

“Our foundling?”  His helmet cocked to the other side, doing his big metal bird impression. The arm that wasn’t holding the child pulled you up against his chest, squeezed right against the baby in question. The familiar galaxy-erasing hug made you realize how many times you had thought of the child as your own, he was your little buddy, your missing baby when he had been stolen away, your secret weapon that you had hidden in your purse. But he wasn’t your child, he was Din’s, so for him to also be considered as yours…

“Ours.” Above you the word was spoken like it was new, as strange on his tongue as Mando’a was to you. “Our foundling. I like that.”

You couldn’t turn your head up to look at the man who had you wrapped against himself so tightly, but you could smile at the green little child that was flashing you his adorable toothy grin. You little fart, you thought with a laugh, you’re gonna make me go all soft. Almost as though the creature could hear your thoughts he squealed in delight, patting your cheeks with his fat baby paws. You let your arms circle around the boys that had made your life a roller coaster of emotion blasting through the endless sea of stars. It might be a hell of a ride, but you weren't ready to get off any time soon. The memory of the sands of Tatooine where you had been trying to forget the dangers of the universe was starting to fade away, replaced by the moment you were losing yourself in. You were happy to see it go, though your past self would be shocked at how comfortable you had gotten with a magic alien baby and a man with no face.

“Yeah… I like it too.” You hummed into the beskar, feeling Din’s arms tighten even more. You were glad he couldn’t see your face, because the lovely smile had vanished. This is all going to end soon. You buried your face in the tiny space between the foundling and his father’s armor, trying to ignore where the coaster’s rails ended. Only one stop left.

Nevarro, here we come.

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[aethersea]

I do not want to say anything rude on the original post when op was so sensible and polite about handling the question, but what the hell guys. what the hell. “I don’t care if every museum has to shut down if it means that culturally significant pieces are returned to the people they were stolen from” what fucking fairy tale world do you live in where that’s how this goes? we’re halfway through 2020, in the city of money in the country of money in the disastrous reign of money, how do you understand that cultural artifacts should belong to the living members and descendants of that culture and not understand that you have to fight tooth and fucking nail if you want that to happen? how?! how are you here, now, with this misguided goddamn notion that museums are some kind of big bad boss villain?? for fuck’s sake, not everything is the british museum refusing to return the parthenon carvings or all that shit they stole from egypt, the whole goddamn point of a museum is history is valuable, knowledge is valuable, art is valuable, culture is valuable. pay our entry fee so we can keep the lights on and COME SEE OUR EXHIBITS, come learn come learn come LEARN. you think there aren’t thousands of museum curators out there who fucking yearn to develop working relationships with the peoples their artifacts come from? to treat these pieces of culture with the respect they deserve, get context and histories from the descendants of the people who made them, display replicas and modern art instead of just stolen goods? you think there aren’t thousands of them already fucking doing that?? maybe it’s not happening fast enough to suit you and honestly that’s fair! no amount of repatriation is going to make up for centuries of violence and genocide! but where did you get this idea that we have any better options?? guess what jackass! money is power! and there’s no money in giving shit away just because it’s the right thing to do!! if those museums shut down permanently, all that’s going to happen to these cultural artifacts is, at best, they go into some sort of permanent storage in a basement somewhere, and if we’re very lucky they get placed in decent enough conditions that they don’t fucking rot. more likely they get sold off at auction to rich people, and then what? you think any of them are going to give any of it back? hell, maybe someone even will, in a sudden fit of highly-publicized philanthropy, but you think that’ll be more than a tiny blip in the vast horrific loss? 

and god fucking dammit do you think museums exist as nothing but repositories of stolen shit for white people to cackle and twirl their mustaches over? there are science museums! art museums! museums of dance! museums of architecture! even the history museums chock full of stolen goods are trying to teach people. you think the GOP wants you to learn jack shit about anything? you think the goddamn government, any government, Republican or Democrat or the fucking Green Party, wants an informed and educated populace with access to beauty and wonder at anything that even approaches an affordable cost?

I am irrationally angry about this, I fully acknowledge that this incandescent rage is disproportionate and probably I should get something to eat or go watch a tv show instead of writing out this whole stupid rant, but you know what while we’re fucking here, one last goddamn point. just one. 

“I just don’t see how a museum can be compared to an aquarium or zoo that contains living creatures.”

what is wrong with your goddamn brain. what is an aquarium but a fish museum anyway?? and if you’re so concerned with repatriation that you cannot fucking tolerate reading the assertion of “hey it would be ruinously bad if museums were allowed to die out en masse during this pandemic” without chiming in to say “any talk about museums needs to be handled very carefully” then just!!!!!!!! I’m not even going to make the argument because actually I think zoos and aquariums are great considering how many of them devote so much effort, money, and manpower to conservation efforts and zoological research, but!! they’re the same! in both cases you took the thing from the place it belongs, stuck it in your fancy building for people to come gawk at, and refuse to put it back!! how! is friggin sea world fine! if a museum is not!

you know what. it is possible that they meant “it’s more urgent that money go to aquariums & zoos than to museums bc there are living animals there that will die if there isn’t enough funding to keep them fed and cared for.” that is a reasonable stance to take, that is not something I would argue against. 

I am winding down now, having expelled my fury onto the page like this, but. I am still baffled and enraged by this stupidly moronic notion that museums are somehow these monstrously powerful institutions staving back the dominant forces of society, which would just love to give these cultural artifacts back to the rightful owners. as if the government wants so badly to make up for all that imperialism, but the mean museums just won’t let them. as if there’s some superrich cadre of rich people just itching to go buy up all these stolen things and give them away for free. as if we live in a just and generous society but museums, oh, museums are the real fucking powerhouse threat.

[beckzorz]

A Private Tour (one-shot)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Words: 2020 Summary: Captain America and his brooding friend get a private tour of an art museum. As an intern, your only job is to keep a low profile. Oops? A/N: Happy Fluff Friday! Wrote this in a flash and wanted to share :3 For anyone curious, the museum is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. All the descriptions of the art are sourced from the museum website. Thanks (as always) to my amazing beta reader @kentuckybarnes, who is more patient than any saint <3

“And here we have the 1888 portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner by John Singer Sargent. After its initial showing, her husband asked it to not be publicly shown again until after his death.”

“Fascinating,” Captain America said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and tilted his head as he peered up at the milky face of the museum’s mastermind. The curator studied him with blatant interest.

You rolled your eyes.

“What?”

You flinched. You’d been invited to accompany the curator on Captain America’s private tour, to shadow her and learn—a high honor for a lowly intern such as yourself. You were just supposed to keep a low profile and pay attention to how the curator conducted the tour.

Of course, you’d blown it now. Captain America’s friend, the dark, brooding fellow trailing at an uneasy distance, was staring at you with raised eyebrows.

“What?” he repeated.

“I didn’t say anything,” you whispered.

“You rolled your eyes,” he whispered back.

“Er…” Your face burned.

He cracked a grin. “I won’t tell.” He winked conspiratorially at you and strolled up beside Captain America, who started to point out some brushwork to the strange man.

Martha, the curator, joined you by the far wall as the two men chatted.

“So, what do you think?” she asked.

“I’m curious why you picked the pieces you did,” you said. “But I guess I have weird taste.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I get why you’d point out the Sargent—it’s a classic. Plus, the whole idea of locking something splendid away for ages does kinda resonate. But a few of the others you picked were pretty obscure.”

“Well, I like to highlight some of the things that speak to me.” Martha tapped her chin. “And you do get some extra autonomy on these private tours. No need to follow a strict script like with the regular tours.”

“Mm.”

You eyed the two guests speculatively. Captain America was still staring up at the Sargent while talking to his friend. His friend, on the other hand, had his head turned towards you and Martha. You raised your eyebrows when he glanced back at you, but he looked away so fast you weren’t sure if he’d even noticed. He was dressed like Captain America in a button-down shirt and jeans, though he had his sleeves rolled down and gloves on as well. His shirt wasn’t quite straining over the muscles of his back, but it was a close call. The black jeans across his butt, on the other hand…

“What’s the other one’s name again?” you asked Martha in a whisper.

“Don’t you recognize him? That’s Bucky Barnes!”

Bucky Barnes definitely looked back at you this time. You ignored his badly disguised smirk.

“I guess I’m not up-to-date on the real world,” you said lightly. “Not that I’m so up-to-date in the art world, either…”

“Ah yes, your penchant for impressionist landscapes.” Martha’s lips twitched with amusement. Captain America turned back to her with a smile, and Martha hurried forward to lead on.

You kept to a reasonable distance. Bucky Barnes stood by the Sargent until you pass by.

“So,” he drawled. “Impressionist landscapes?”

“I’d say they’re classic, but that’s a couple millenia off-base,” you told him.

Bucky grinned. He hooked his fingers in the loops of his snug jeans and kept pace with you as you followed Martha and Steve.

“What about art of people?”

“Eh,” you said with a shrug. “ I see people every day. We’re all works of art, in my opinion. You just have to look at people the right way to see it.”

“So how should I pose?” Bucky stopped short and twisted his legs and torso, raising his arms in a fair facsimile of the composite pose of ancient Egypt. His muscles strained against his shirt, and you stepped back to try and take in the whole picture and not just the stark outline of his abs. His long hair brushed his cheekbones, and his cheeky grin was nothing like the serene profiles depicted in tomb chapels or on palace walls.

He looked… ridiculous.

“A good effort,” you said, trying not to laugh. “But I prefer contrapposto.”

Bucky chuckled, and Steve glanced back at you both with a smile. You blushed and hurried after your boss.

Martha was already telling Steve about the seventeenth century Japanese fold screens by the time you were back in earshot. It was the standard fare, a speech you’d already mostly memorized. You studied the illustrations, wondering vaguely if you’d ever get around to reading more than a synopsis of the source novel.

“Wanna catch me up?” Bucky asked.

You glanced at him, trying to ignore your racing pulse at the sight of his bright blue eyes. “Illustrations from the Tale of Genji,” you said quickly—Martha was almost done with her speech. “Kano Tsunenobu, 1677.”

“Isn’t that the first novel ever written?” Bucky leaned forward and peered at the bottom left corner. His arm brushed your sleeve, and you bit your tongue to keep cool as a whiff of his spicy scent flooded your senses. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about a man named Genji, who was the ideal man. A really talented artist, super attractive, and—” you flushed— “a great lover.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky stood up, still dangerously close. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips as he gazed at you. You were frozen in place, barely able to breathe. There were sweet crinkles around his eyes, and gosh, his lips were pink as anything. He was barely a foot away. You swallowed.

“And so as we move on…”

Martha and Steve were wandering off. You took the opportunity to step back, breaking the spell, and follow your boss. A deep breath took the edge off your sudden hyper-awareness of the man behind you. Then you remembered Bucky had asked a question.

“The book spends a lot of time on his relationships. I guess things haven’t changed much,” you shot back over your shoulder. Your voice sounded normal. You hoped.

“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” Bucky murmured. “But I hope you never change.”

You didn’t know what to say to that.

Martha made quick work of the chapel and the long gallery, and now you were all clustered in the Titian room. Martha and Steve made their way to the far wall, but Bucky grabbed your elbow and steered you to a table by a window. You recognized the painting propped in a dark wooden frame.

Giovanni Bellini, Christ Carrying the Cross, about 1505-1510.

“He looks like he’s wearing a backwards baseball hat,” Bucky whispered.

You clapped a hand to your mouth before you laughed out loud. “Shh!” you scolded.

“What?” he said, blinking innocently. Gosh, what eyes! “I’m just sayin’.”

“Well, you’re not wrong, but I’m supposed to be paying attention,” you said. You extricated your arm from his hold and hurried over to where Martha was going over Titian’s Rape of Europa with Steve.

“Crazy to think how much European art developed in a hundred and fifty years,” Steve mused. “This is so different from the Proto-Renaissance stuff. The motion, the colors…”

“It’s fascinating,” Martha agreed.

You blinked. Did Martha realize she was echoing what Steve had said not ten minutes ago?

Maybe. Martha was good at reading a room.

Hopefully she wouldn’t scold you for not paying attention to her tour.

Your eyes slid back to Bucky, who mimed spinning a cap around his head, and you pressed your lips together to keep from smiling. What a goof.

By the time you all headed back downstairs, Bucky had attached himself to your side again.

“So,” he said as you made your way down the stairs, “what’s your deal?”

“I’m interning,” you said. “Summertime gig and all that.”

“Do they pay you?” he asked.

“Uh, no, this is an art museum,” you said, startled.

“So how do you live?”

“Grants, and other paid jobs. I’m a grad student in my spare time.”

“Oh yeah? Art history?”

“Whoa, how did you guess?” you joked.

Bucky leaned in to whisper, “It’s hard to tell, but I’m secretly brilliant.”

You giggled. “You know,” you said, “I believe it.” Your eyes lingered on his smile before you looked away as you reached the bottom of the stairs.

This all had been fun, and Bucky Barnes was definitely the most beautiful person you’d ever seen, but it wasn’t real. Captain America’s private tour was over, and now that it was, you and Martha and the rest of the skeleton crew still left behind could go home.

Except Steve was still talking to Martha.

Well, you weren’t going home yet. You turned back to Bucky with a smile.

“Art is more Steve’s thing, but I had fun,” he said, knocking his shoulder against yours.

“Good!” You smiled brightly at him.

Bucky blinked, a hint of pink coming to his cheeks as he looked at you. The silence held a few seconds too long, and your smile faded slightly. He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“So what’s your end goal, then?” he asked.

“Make something magical out of other people’s work,” you said promptly. “And…” You glanced hesitantly up at him. Why not tell him your secret dream? You’d never see him again, and his eyes and face were so guileless that you couldn’t imagine any harm would come from telling. “And it’s never gonna happen, but I want to be the one to find the paintings that got stolen from here.”

His eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yes,” you confessed. “I always love heist stories, and when I found out someone had done it in a museum, I was so excited. I’ve wanted to figure it out since I was a kid. I minored in criminal justice, even.”

“So… bring the thieves to justice and restore the paintings to their rightful place?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds fun.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “When do we start?”

“Oh, please.” You laughed.

“No, seriously, when do we start?”

Your mouth dropped open. “You’re not serious,” you said, but he ignored you.

“I suppose we could start with dinner, but we can stick with a good old-fashion briefing room if you prefer,” he said with a wink. Your heart skipped a beat.

“I like dinner,” you said weakly. “Briefing rooms sound boring.”

“God, you have no idea,” he said fervently. He rolled his eyes, but when he was done, all he smiled. “So do you have plans tonight?”

“Well, I was going to just hang out at home, but I guess I need to solve a decades-old mystery with a stranger first,” you teased.

“Having been a decades-old mystery, I think I can offer a unique perspective,” Bucky declared, still smiling. He reached out and squeezed your hand briefly. “I’m glad Steve dragged me along. Never woulda come on my own.”

“Is it too soon to say I’m glad too?”

Bucky’s grin was infectious. “Nope. Besides, I think your boss will be impressed if you can get the paintings home safe.”

“You do know they’ve been missing for almost thirty years, right?” you said.

“After a century, that doesn’t sound so bad.” Bucky glanced behind you at Martha and Steve, but before you could check what they were up to, he grabbed your hand and pulled you around a corner.

“Excuse you!” But your protest was half-hearted. Bucky’s right hand was still linked in yours, his eyes bright and happy, and you couldn’t help but catch your breath at the wonderful sight of him so close. “You know,” you murmured, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw, “you’re a work of art just as you are.”

Bucky’s eyes smoldered as he tugged you closer until your chest brushed his.

“Well,” he said, dropping a kiss on your nose, “maybe for my next pose I’ll try a reclining nude.”

He stifled your laugh with a searing kiss. Warmth burst in your chest, and you hummed happily into his mouth. When he finally pulled back, his lips were swollen but his eyes were gleaming.

“So,” he said, “dinner?”

“Dinner,” you agreed.

[captaindibbzy]

Ok so I have a lot of opinions about this.

You can break this down in to a few categories. The first, what is Art and the second what is AI, third does that give you a right to it?

The first part is incredibly complicated to define and wrap your head around, but litterally anything can be art because art doesn't have to mean nice, or pleasant, or kind, or anything else. Art simply exists because we say it does, and sometimes that's gobshite and induces permeant psychic damage. This can stretch from highly realistic oil paintings to pissing in the snow, and the walk you take from one to the other.

Leading on from that, when it comes to curating Art does the fact something is art give it the right to exist? Is art alone reason enough? That's a complicated answer for most people but gets worse very fast. Does art made in hate have a right? Does art that creates damage have a right? Does art need to be good to have a right? All complex stuff.

Second, what is AI? Now we call it artificial intelligence but a better term for it is applied statistics. It looks at millions of pictures and determine that statistically based on this parameters this is what should probably go here. Ultimately it's a game if averages. This is why AI art tends to add weird water marks to things, cause the data tells it statistically if you are making art this goes here; why? Cause that's what everyone else does. Like writing, statistically the next word should be this, and in art statistically the colour that goes here should be this.

So what are the rights involved?

First is copyright. Someone has the right to their work. It is their work and they can decide what is done with it. They can sell that right, give it away, let it expire, share it with the world, but the copyright of something lies with the creator at creation and it is an active choice about what to do with it after that.

Extended to this is the copyright of the work made by the AI. Does it belong to the person who prompted it, or does it belong to the person who made the tool? Does it belong to the company who owns the tool? What rights did you sign away to use the tool to make the picture?

Second, the right to satire and fair use, "transformative" works This is the right to take something and use it to make something of your own. This has laws around it, about monetisation and what counts as plagiarism and what counts as fair use. This can get very complicated: the difference between collage and the death of your academic career.

Third, not in law but in society, is what we are doing fair? Is it fair to take this from someone and use it without their permission, just because it is legal to do so?

All of this is untested in a court of law so the legality of it is essentially legal until proven otherwise.

As for the fairness of it, people who have their work stolen to make these algorithms have made their opinions known about it. They do not like it and would like you to stop doing it. They do not want their art taken and used like this.

So is AI a valid form of expression? I don't think so, not in my personal opinion.

I can tell you it is art, but that is a meaningless title and does not lend it virtue.

I can tell you it is not intelligence, only average. It will only ever be average. It is all it can be.

I can tell you the people who's art was stolen to make it don't want you to do it. They do not want their art to be used like this.

There's a longer essay in here on the desire for aesthetically pleasing passive consumerism in art and the Instagram effect, effortless beauty, but I won't go in to that. There's a lot to say about AI that I haven't said here. People will be writing thesis about this for decades.

My personal opinion is using AI makes you a dick, but you are in fact perfectly entitled to be a dick if you want to be. People are also entitled to think the art is worthless, harmful, cruel, degrading, and silly.

The other day i was talking with my girlfriend about the use of AI in art. I as an artist myself believe that as long as there's transparency and honesty on the fact that IT'S AI, people shouldn't be judged for using it to express their own feelings.

There's multiple reasons why someone who likes expressing with art may use ai; maybe a disability, bad coordination, or even just not "being good" at art.

so i wanted to ask tumblr, mostly because I'm bored and i wanna see the opinions on this. Of course feel free to reblog and comment!

again, pls feel free and encouraged to comment and reblog!!

[ravenqueensspecialboi]

Cat and Mouse

Ship: DaiSuga Rating: M Summary: A string of art thefts at a local museum lands Sawamura Daichi his real private investigation gig. But after a run-in with the thief, known only as Sugawara, Master Thief Extraordinaire, Daichi realizes that he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Especially when Sugawara leads him on a year-long game of cat-and-mouse.  A prequel fic to The Detective and the Thief. Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282228

Fic under the cut!

"This is not how I imagined my first professional job to go," Sawamura Daichi grumbled to himself as the third hour of staring at a security monitor became the fourth.

Sawamura Daichi was a private investigator, or at least that's what it said on the door to his office. He had started his private investigator job a year and a half ago, and the most he had done was catch some cheating spouses for housewives who suspected their salarymen husbands were seeing their secretaries behind their backs.  The usual beginner stuff.  Tonight, however, Daichi had been hired by a local art museum.  There had been a rash of break ins at the museum, break ins that the guards failed to stop again and again, so the curator had reached out to Daichi to catch the culprit.  

"Why didn't you go to the police?" Daichi had asked (after he had accepted the job, of course).

"We did," the curator had replied, "they sent us to you."

Daichi had refrained from asking if "they" meant the police force as a whole or if the museum curator was referring to his friend on the force, Captain Ennoshita Chikara. The two had been friends in college and remained so after graduation, so Ennoshita knew all about Daichi's burgeoning career as a private investigator.  Daichi had brushed off the feeling that the suggestion of his hiring was a pity move and had set up to wait for the thief.  But four hours in, there was no sign of the thief and Daichi was getting bored.

"I wonder if they'll show," Daichi mumbled as he reviewed his notes.

The museum hadn't given Daichi much to go on.  It was one thief who had been breaking in once a week for the last five weeks, and always on the same day.  They only took one item at a time, usually something small but extremely valuable, and then made their escape with little fanfare.  They knew the layout of each floor, they knew the patrols that changed each night, they knew when high priced items were being moved off the floor. They knew everything about the museum. Daichi wondered if it was an inside job, but the curator had scoffed at the notion.

"Every museum personnel have been thoroughly interrogated by the police," Daichi had been told, "and every one of them was 'clean', as your people say.  It has to be someone 'on the outside'."

Daichi highly doubted that anyone in his industry really used such cliché jargon, but he had even bigger doubts that the thief wasn't a member of the museum staff.  It was too clean of a job for someone outside of the staff.  He may not have been at this P.I. business for very long, but Daichi's intuition was rarely off.  There had to be something that the curator was missing-.

"Hello, what's this?" Daichi muttered as one of the security monitors went dark.

Daichi crosschecked the camera with the room the curator said things were going missing from. Sure enough, that was the right camera and the right room.  Right on time.

"Looks like my night's about to get way more interesting," Daichi said.

Daichi pressed an alarm button that the curator had given him in the event the thief showed up. The security staff would be alerted of the break in without the thief knowing.  Alarm tripped, Daichi bolted from the room, his handcuffs secure in his pocket.  The room was a floor down and a hallway over.  He'd have to move quick if he wanted to catch the thief.  Hopefully security would get there at the same time as Daichi and they could swarm the thief before they could run.

Once Daichi made it down the stairs, he slowed his sprint to a steady walk.  The thief would have to get into the display case without tripping the alarm; that would take time.  Daichi's approach had to be slow and quiet, otherwise he'd scare off the thief, and then they'd be back at square one.

Reaching the room, Daichi slowed to a halt.  He peered around the entryway and surveyed the room.  To his surprise, it was empty.

"Where'd they-?"

"So the museum really did hire a private investigator to catch me," an amused, voice said over his shoulder.  "I didn't expect you to be this much of a looker, though."

Daichi whirled around and threw a punch at the source of the voice.  The thief, who had been standing right behind Daichi, barely ducked out of the way in time, throwing both himself and Daichi off balance.  They hadn't been expecting the punch, and hadn't really known how to block it, so they weren't a fighter as far as Daichi could tell.  Well, neither was Daichi, but the thief didn't need to know that.  The thief was about Daichi's height, covered head to toe in black and had amber eyes the glittered with mischief behind the thief's black face mask.  

"Easy there, Detective," the thief said.  "That was a little uncalled for."

"Put down whatever you've stolen, get down on your knees and put your hands on your head," Daichi barked.

"Well, I would, but I haven't actually stolen anything yet," the thief said.  "As for the whole 'gonna arrest me' thing, that works a lot better when you're, you know, armed."

Daichi launched himself at the thief.  The thief let out a squeak of surprise, jumping away from Daichi before he could tackle them.  Turning on their heel, the thief took off down the hallway.  Daichi sprinted after the thief, steadily gaining on them. Something about the whole situation felt off to Daichi.  The thief knew that Daichi was going to be there.  They purposefully didn't take anything, despite being in the room where they had taken other things.  Were they waiting for Daichi to show up?

"I must say, you're being awfully quiet, Detective," the thief called over their shoulder.  "Do you have a name?"

"What kind of question is that?" Daichi snapped.

"Touchy.  I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours!"

"Perfect, then I'll have a name to write on my report when I catch you."

"If you can.  The name's Sugawara, Master Thief Extraordinaire. The man with the stickiest fingers in the city."

"Sugawara?  No first name?" Daichi asked, ignoring Sugawara's most likely self-appointed titles.

"Come on now, I'm not an idiot.  That'd be too easy," the thief said.  "Now what's your name?"

"Like hell am I telling you," Daichi snapped.

"That's hardly fair, Sawamura.  Or can I call you Daichi?"

Daichi almost tripped over his feet.  Almost. He recovered quickly enough that he was able to surge into grabbing distance.

"How the hell do you know my name?" Daichi asked.

"I have my ways," Sugawara replied.

Daichi snarled, lunging forward once more.  As his hand closed around the back of Sugawara's shirt, he crowed in victory.

"Gotcha!" he shouted as he tugged Sugawara backwards.

Sugawara let out a yelp as he was tugged back into Daichi's arms.  The momentum of Sugawara slamming into him was something Daichi had not prepared for, however, and the pair slammed back onto the museum floor. Daichi's breath left him in a rush, and in his surprise, Daichi let go of Sugawara.  Sugawara scrambled to his feet, panting as they stood over Daichi. His mask had been knocked askew, enough so that Daichi could see silver locks as he tugged it back into place.

"Detective, that was a valiant effort on your part," he said in between gasps. "However, I really must be on my way.  Next time, you should tell the curator not to rely on technologies I can easily get my hands on."

Sugawara tossed a small earpiece at Daichi.  It landed next to Daichi's head and he could hear the beeping of the alarm.

"I hope I'll see you more often," Sugawara added as he turned on his heel and gave Daichi a wave over his shoulder.

Before Daichi could get back to his feet, Sugawara was gone.  Daichi groaned; he hadn't failed per se, but he hadn't caught the thief either. His breath was almost back to him by the time the museum security staff got to him.

As he discovered the following day, Daichi's hunch that the thief had been working for the museum staff had been correct after all.  Registered under a fake identity, Sugawara had infiltrated the museum staff months before. He was a model security guard, the best the museum's day staff had.  He was never late to work, he always covered shifts when they needed to be covered, he made friends with everyone.  He had infiltrated the museum so well; they'd never dreamed that Sugawara would do anything against the museum's interests.  It left the curator speechless.

Still, it was no longer Daichi's problem.  The security staff had found a note from Sugawara that simply said, "It's been fun, but I have bigger fish to catch".  Sugawara was no longer targeting the museum.  So Daichi collected his pay and left, glad to never have to work for the museum or deal with Sugawara ever again. Hopefully.  

The thief seemed to think otherwise.  When Daichi made it to his office the following day, he found an addressed envelope taped to his door.  He opened it with caution, finding a handwritten letter signed by Sugawara inside. He'd taken a picture of it and sent it to Ennoshita to see if matched any handwriting records.  To his dismay, it hadn't.  So he'd chucked the letter into a desk drawer for two weeks until he finally worked up the energy to read it.

Daichi,

This was fun.  Let's do it again sometime.  I'd love to get to know the city's newest rough detective a little better. Something tells me that you'll be fun to work with.

Until next time, Detective,

Sugawara

When he'd finished the letter, Daichi buried his face in his hands.  It was just a hunch, but this Sugawara was going to be bad for business, he could tell.

***

As it turned out, Daichi's hunch had been correct.  The year following Daichi and Sugawara's run-in at the museum turned into what could possibly be considered the world's most elaborate game of cat-and-mouse.  It started off with a string of seemingly unrelated break ins over the course of three months.  Nothing was ever stolen, but little notes were left at each crime scene. Each one addressed to Daichi and each one only containing a single four-digit number: 1026.  No matter how much Daichi and Ennoshita looked into the number, there was nothing significant about it.  Then came the bank robbery.

It was an afterhour's robbery, when the only victim was a lone security guard who was left hogtied in the lobby along with another note for Daichi and Ennoshita to find.  It had the same number on it, but this time, little hearts had been drawn on the paper.  Sugawara had stolen a number of things from the bank's vault, and Daichi knew it was Sugawara, because he'd flashed a victory sign and a cheeky smile at the security camera as he'd left.

"This Sugawara guy's got a thing for you, doesn't he?" Ennoshita had asked as they reviewed the security footage.

"Yeah, a thing for pissing me off," Daichi muttered, trying to ignore what the smile was doing to him.

Much to Daichi's surprise, he had started looking forward to finding Sugawara's little notes at crime scenes.  Technically Sugawara hadn't been doing anything seriously illegal up to this point; he hadn't been stealing anything, just trespassing.  He was sending Daichi on a ridiculous, but somehow charming little scavenger hunt with only one clue to where the prize at the end was, but still, nothing super illegal up until now.  Stealing from a bank was definitely illegal.  

They couldn't catch him, however.  There were too many Sugawaras in the city for the police department to question them all, and there was no guarantee that the Sugawara they wanted wouldn't skip town as soon as they tried.  Daichi also couldn't be certain that the silver hair he'd seen hadn't been a wig, so they could try looking for a Sugawara with gray hair, but there was a real chance they'd miss him.  It didn't matter much anyway.  After the bank robbery, Sugawara went mostly underground.  He'd gotten back into trespassing to leave Daichi little notes, but otherwise, his activity stalled out for about ten months.  

Daichi just about lost interest in chasing Sugawara during that time.  Other cases—non-Sugawara related cases—popped up and Daichi was glad for the break in the game.  He looked into more cases of cheating spouses, some cases involving fraud, easy stuff.  But in due time, Sugawara returned to his old antics.  He started targeting a different museum from before, but this time, he started waiting for Daichi to arrive before running.  Daichi would have been annoyed with having to literally chase after Sugawara if he wasn't secretly happy to see the thief.

"You're a lot slower than you were last time, Daichi," Sugawara called over his shoulder as Daichi chased him one night.  "Were you not doing enough legwork with those cheating husband cases?"

"Excuse you, I didn't plenty of legwork during those cases," Daichi snapped.  "It was just metaphorical legwork instead of physical."

"It's a shame, because your thighs have lost some of that toning that made them especially nice to look at."

"Flirt with me later. I'm trying to arrest you, remember?"

"You must have been doing a lot of upper body training," Sugawara mused, clearly ignoring Daichi.  "Does spying on people give you a lot of time to do pull ups?"

"Sugawara," Daichi warned.

"Please, call me Suga," Sugawara said as Daichi chased him down an alleyway with a low wall at the back.  "All of my friends do."

"Are we friends?" Daichi asked.

"I think so," Sugawara said, sprinting at the wall and leaping for the top.  His fingers caught the edge and he scrambled over the top with a fleeting, "Until next time, Detective."

As Daichi watched him go, he really couldn't bring himself to be annoyed.  Like it or not, Daichi was starting to enjoy their game.  A wave of cold realization washed over Daichi.

'Oh god, I am enjoying this,' Daichi thought as he leaned against the wall.  'I'm fucked.'

When Daichi returned home that night, he found another letter from Sugawara.

Daichi

Room 1026 at the Hasu Motel.  Come alone, it's time we talked.  Knock five times, then wait.

See you there,

Sugawara

***

The Hasu Motel was a two storey motel fairly close to where Daichi lived.  It was a two and a half kilometer walk, but Daichi had enough running experience that he made it there in no time, despite being in his work clothes. As Daichi approached Room 1026, he could see the lights on inside.  He slowed to a halt.  He had no idea if this was a trap or not.  His instinct told him that it wasn't, but to say that Sugawara's intentions were impossible to read was an understatement.  What did Sugawara want to talk about anyway?

There was only one way to find out, Daichi supposed.  Steeling himself, he walked to the door and knocked exactly how Sugawara instructed. Then he took a step back and waited. A minute passed, then two.  Daichi was about to leave when the door clicked open, and he got his first view of Sugawara's full face.

The man standing before him had arguably the softest face on the planet, all gentle lines and wistful smile that Daichi swore was glowing.  His nose crinkled as he smiled, his amber eyes squeezed shut in delight.  A small mole rested just below his left eye.  If Daichi hadn't been chasing Sugawara for a year, he'd almost believe that the man standing before him was a literal god. The image was ruined by Sugawara's fist connecting with his diaphragm at what must have been terminal velocity.

"I knew you'd show up!" Sugawara crowed as Daichi collapsed against the doorframe in agony. "Come inside, I need to talk to you."

He walked inside without waiting for Daichi to regain his breath.  Apparently, he had learned how to throw a punch.  Daichi took a minute to compose himself and then walked inside, closing the door behind him.  The motel room was small, with no obvious trace of anything Sugawara had stolen in the last year.  Not that Daichi had expected it to; Sugawara would never be so obvious.  Sugawara sat down on the bed and pat the space next to him, giving Daichi an expectant look.  Daichi decided to remain standing.

"So, I wanted to talk to you-," Sugawara began.

"Why?" Daichi asked, cutting him off.

Sugawara blinked. Daichi's question had clearly thrown him off.  "Why what?" he asked.

Daichi inhaled, then exhaled, "You've had me running around the city for a year, chasing you and your clues.  Clearly you want something from me, so what is it?"

Sugawara's brow furrowed in confusion.  "Because I had your attention and I wanted to keep it?" he said his sentence more of a question than a statement.

"Why?" Daichi asked again.  He knew full well where this conversation was going, but he wanted Sugawara to say it. He needed Sugawara to say it.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Sugawara-."

"Because I find myself attracted to you," Sugawara said.

It was exactly what Daichi wanted to hear, but he couldn't help the quiet "what?" that escaped his lips.

Sugawara let out a snort as he got to his feet, "You're cute when you're oblivious."

"You're attracted to me?" Daichi repeated.

"And I assume the feelings are mutual, based on that blush you’ve got going on," Sugawara pointed out.

And damn it all, he was blushing.

"Suga, why?" Daichi asked, his voice weak.

"Why what?"

"Why the theatrics?" Daichi pressed.

"Have you met me?"

"Suga."

"Okay, fine," Sugawara said.  "I started doing this because it was easy money.  I'm easy to trust, just look at me!  People just let me into places and then let me leave with things because they trusted me enough to let it happen.  I started to get noticed by people who wanted to steal things, but had no way to do it.  Mostly people who had things stolen from them and wanted to steal them back.  It was better than just stealing things and pawning them off.  I got hired for the museum gig in order to steal back some family artifacts that had been stolen and then sold to the museum-."

"You were stealing stolen items?" Daichi asked, incredulous.

"I know, I'm such an altruist, I wouldn't even accept their money.  Now don't interrupt, I'm monologuing," Sugawara quipped.  He flashed Daichi a smirk as he asked, "That's what you wanted, right?"

Daichi glared at Sugawara, but gave him a curt nod regardless.

Satisfied, Sugawara continued, "Where was I?  Oh, right, the museum.  My employer hired me to steal back family heirlooms.  I got a job as a daytime security guard so I could learn the layout of the museum.  For the first break in, I got some other new hire to let me back in.  'I'd left my phone in my locker, let me in to get it, I'd say, 'I'll show myself out once I have it, so don't worry about locking the doors'.  It was as simple as flashing him my ID and a smile, and I was on my way.  Got the first item, got out, and I erased the footage the following morning before I started my shift.  Once the police got involved, I created a keycard that wouldn't register any employee's name in the security system.  I could slip in and out as I pleased, and when it came my turn to be interrogated, I was as charming as ever.  And then you turned up, and things became infinitely more interesting.

"I started doing more obvious things.  Letting myself be caught on camera, leaving little notes for you, waiting for you to show up so that you could chase me.  Things to draw you to me.  And to my surprise and delight, it worked like a charm."

"Well, congrats," Daichi said, trying to sound annoyed, "you played me like a cheap kazoo."

"Oh, Detective, does that strike a nerve?" Sugawara teased.

"Watch it," Daichi said with nothing behind the command.

"Well, true, I may have been toying with you," Sugawara admitted, "but it's not like I didn't have my reasons."

"Those being?"

Daichi made a mental note of Daichi: 1, Sugawara: 110 as Sugawara rolled his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh, as if he had been the one chasing a thief for a year.  "Daichi, I've already told you.  I'm attracted to you.  And deep down, I think you're into me too."

Daichi sighed.  This was not an ideal scenario.

"This isn't some kind of crime noir thing, Suga," he murmured.

"Really?  Could have had me fooled," Sugawara teased as he took a few steps closer.

Daichi couldn't help himself.  He closed the distance between himself and Sugawara, grabbing Sugawara's shoulders in a bruising grip as he pulled the other man in for a deep kiss.  Sugawara seemed to anticipate the kiss, but not the force behind it as he let out a yelp of surprise.  Once Sugawara was close enough, Daichi adjusted his grip.  He cupped Sugawara's face with both hands and backed him up against the nearest wall.  Once he had Sugawara pinned in place, he tilted his head to deepen the kiss.  Not one to be upstaged, Sugawara slotted a thigh between Daichi's, his own hands coming up to cup Daichi's face as he rubbed the top of his thigh against Daichi's crotch.  Daichi moaned, and Sugawara grinned against Daichi's lips.

Daichi pulled away from Sugawara's lips to kiss a trail down to Sugawara's throat.  "You know there are better ways to get my attention, right?" Daichi asked in between kisses.

"Yeah, I know," Sugawara replied, his voice breathless. "But you have to admit, this way was infinitely more fun."

As Daichi allowed himself to be dragged into another searing kiss, he couldn't find it in himself to disagree.

***

It really didn't surprise Daichi that Sugawara was a post-sex snuggler.  Really, having known Sugawara for the brief amount of time that Daichi did, he came across as a snuggler in general.  So it made sense that he was clinging to Daichi like an octopus and snoring softly.  If Daichi didn't know any better, he'd say it was cute.

But this also complicated quite a few things.  He was actively trying to help Ennoshita arrest the man.  Sex wasn't an indication that Sugawara was going to go on the straight and narrow.  Not to mention that he may have been stealing things for altruistic reasons, but that didn't make endangering other people's livelihoods okay, did it?  Daichi groaned as he rubbed his forehead with his free hand. This made things complicated.  Way too complicated.

"I can hear you thinking," Sugawara mumbled into the crook of Daichi's neck.  "And smell the smoke coming out of your ears."

"Ha.  You're funny," Daichi deadpanned.

"I think so," Sugawara agreed, lifting his head.  "What're you thinking about?"

"Things."

"Specific.  What kinds of things?"

"I'm not usually one for pillow talk," Daichi said.

"Neither am I," Sugawara murmured before pressing a kiss to Daichi's lips.

Daichi took the opportunity to roll Sugawara onto his back, not breaking the kiss as he pinned Sugawara's wrists to the mattress with one hand.  He pressed a series of kisses to Sugawara's throat as he reached down to the floor with the other hand.  He scraped his teeth against Sugawara's neck.  Sugawara's breath hitched, then he let out a soft moan.  God, Daichi could listen to that forever.  Alas….

"Suga?" Daichi asked.

"Yes Daichi?"

Daichi clicked one handcuff around Sugawara's wrist.  Before Sugawara could react, Daichi looped the other through the headboard and locked the other one around Sugawara's other wrist.  He sat back once he was positive Sugawara wasn't going to slip away.

"You're under arrest."

Sugawara tugged on the restraints, glee apparent in his eyes.  "Real funny, Detective.  You have a kinky side.  You can uncuff me now."

When Daichi made no movement to uncuff him, Sugawara's smile dropped.

"Oh god, you're serious."

"Like a virus."

Sugawara groaned, flopping back onto the bed.  "I can't believe I fell for that."

"Hey, at least I didn't try earlier," Daichi pointed out as he climbed off the bed and gathered his clothes.

Sugawara's eyes widened as he watched Daichi get dressed.  He thrashed against the handcuffs, his face red with fury as he spat, "Damn it, Sawamura, are you really going to leave me like this for the cops to find?"

"Not at all," Daichi said, picking up Sugawara's boxers from the floor.  

He walked over and grabbed Sugawara's leg, narrowly avoiding a kick to the head as he slid the boxers onto Sugawara's ankle.  Once the boxers were in place, Daichi pulled on his shirt and picked up his jacket from where Sugawara had dropped it.

"You're an asshole, you know that?" Sugawara snapped.

"Consider it payback from when you almost got me run over by a taxi."

"That was one time."

"One time too many."

"Daichi, come on, you can't leave me here like this," Sugawara pleaded.

Daichi paused.  He turned to look at Sugawara, studying the man carefully.  His silver hair—already somewhat flyaway—was disheveled, his cheeks pink from the exertion of fighting against his restraints.  His eyes, however, were what got to Daichi the most.  Those amber eyes that flashed with mischief were wide with fear. It tugged at Daichi's heartstrings, but he couldn't bend.  Not when his reputation was at stake.

"I'm sorry, Suga," Daichi whispered.  "I wish our circumstances were different."

"Can I at least have one last kiss before you go?" Sugawara asked.  "Before I'm arrested like I'm some common criminal?"

Daichi bit his lip, hesitant.  He wanted to point out that Sugawara was, in fact, a common criminal, but he knew that wasn't true; Sugawara was special.  He approached the bed.  He placed one knee on the bed, crowding in close to Sugawara and grabbing his chin. He forced Sugawara's head up and captured his lips in one last passionate kiss.  Sugawara moaned into Daichi's mouth.  He dragged one foot along Daichi's thigh, trying to entice Daichi into more, more than what would be appropriate in a situation like this. Daichi pulled back, leaving Sugawara to chase after him for more.

"Goodbye, Sugawara," Daichi whispered.

"Goodbye, Sawamura," Sugawara replied.

Daichi got up and walked out without a backwards glance.  As he shut the door, he could feel the press of Sugawara's lips against his and something heavy in his heart.

***

Daichi was almost home when he got the phone call from Captain Ennoshita.  He almost let the call go through, but something in the back of his mind told him he shouldn't.

"Your guy wasn't there," Ennoshita said when Daichi answered.

Daichi stopped, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk.

"He what?"

"He escaped by the time we got there," Ennoshita explained.  "Left a couple of notes—one for you, one for us—and cell phone with a single picture on it.  Can you guess what it was?"

"A note for me?"

"Did you really leave this guy handcuffed in nothing but his boxers for me to find?"

"Listen, I-."

"Sawamura, I really don't want to know, okay?  I changed my mind," Ennoshita said.  "I'll send you a picture of your note."

With that, Ennoshita ended the phone call.  Daichi stared at his phone, wondering how in the hell Sugawara had managed to escape. Then it hit him: The kiss.  That one last kiss.  Daichi searched his pockets for the handcuff key, but it was nowhere to be found.  Somehow, Sugawara had managed to slip it out of Daichi's pocket.  He'd been outsmarted again.

Daichi was pulled back to reality by the gentle vibration of his phone.  It was text notification from Ennoshita with an attachment.  Daichi opened the message, which contained nothing but a string of judgmental-looking emojis and a picture of the motel's stationary. Daichi clicked on the picture and zoomed in to read Sugawara's message.

Daichi,

Fair play to you for that sneaky handcuff move.  You're finally starting to think like me.  I look forward to seeing more of you in the future.

Love,

Sugawara Koushi.

The love had little hearts around it.  In spite of himself, Daichi felt butterflies in his stomach.  Maybe seeing Sugawara again wouldn't be a bad idea.

[dipulb3]

People are calling for museums to be abolished. Can whitewashed American history be rewritten?

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/people-are-calling-for-museums-to-be-abolished-can-whitewashed-american-history-be-rewritten/

People are calling for museums to be abolished. Can whitewashed American history be rewritten?

Written by Brian Boucher, Appradab

After years of resisting calls for its removal, New York’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) has asked the city to dislodge from its front steps an equestrian monument to Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth US president, which depicts him charging forward, and towering over two mostly nude figures, one Black and one Indigenous.

In a statement dated June 2020 sent to museum staff, posted on the museum’s website, Ellen Futter, president of the institution’s board, said, “As we strive to advance our institution’s, our City’s, and our country’s passionate quest for racial justice, we believe that removing the statue will be a symbol of progress and of our commitment to build and sustain an inclusive and equitable Museum community and broader society.” (After the announcement President Donald Trump tweeted, “Ridiculous, don’t do it!”)

Might this concession be a harbinger of other changes ahead for American museums? How can institutions whose leadership is often overwhelmingly White rethink their staffing, collections and exhibitions, much less move toward more truly equitable governance? Or, some ask, should museums continue to exist in anything like their current form?

The controversial statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt outside of the Museum of Natural History, featuring a Black man and a Indigenous man at his sides Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

The Natural History Museum’s statement places the monument’s removal in the context of “the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd,” a Black man who was killed by four police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of whom knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. After a video of Floyd’s killing went viral, tens of thousands took to the streets in protest in the US and around the world, even in the midst of a pandemic, to demand accountability for police brutality and to call for the defunding, or even the abolition of local police forces, among other demands.

The presence of an Indigenous figure in the Roosevelt monument, and the museum itself, have a very personal meaning for Wendy Red Star, an artist and member of the Crow tribe. She created a project, “The 1880 Crow Peace Delegation,” about a group of Crow chiefs who traveled to Washington, DC, that year to try to negotiate a peace treaty. In researching for the project, she found that the remains of one of those chiefs, Pretty Eagle, had been stolen from a burial site and later sold to the AMNH. The tribe was able to repatriate the remains in the 1990s.

“It wasn’t until I did this project that I learned about that,” Red Star said in a phone interview. “The Roosevelt monument was the first thing I thought of. To me, it’s a really direct connection to how my people have been presented at the museum — along with the dinosaur bones as part of the natural world. It’s always been such a surreal experience to see my community’s objects on display and watch people observing them as if these were peoples of the past.”

Just as government, law enforcement, and all forms of authority are being questioned in this moment of upheaval, museums worldwide have come in for intense scrutiny, and the situation on the ground is changing very fast. Earlier this month, dozens of current and former staffers of multiple cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art as well as institutions nationwide, published an open letter accusing the institutions of unfair treatment of employees of color and saying that “your covert and overt white supremacy that has benefited the institution, through the unrecognized dedication and hard labor of Black/Brown employees, with the expectation that we remain complacent with the status quo, is over.”

Apsáalooke Feminist #4, 2016, by Wendy Red Star Credit: Courtesy Wendy Red Star

Within days, staffers at the Guggenheim and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art openly accused the institutions’ leadership of racism. In an emailed statement to Appradab, Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, said the institution was prepared to address these concerns:

“As a society, we are confronting sustained injustices never resolved, and feel today the pain and anger of previous moments of turmoil. The Guggenheim addresses the shared need of great reform, and long overdue equality, and want to reaffirm that we are dedicated to doing our part.

“In this period of self-reflection and reckoning, we will engage in dialogue with our staff and review all processes and procedures to lead to positive change,” he continued. “We are expediting our ongoing … efforts to produce an action plan for demonstrable progress.”

The Metropolitan Museum declined to comment. The Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art did not respond to requests for comment.

Museums have also been critiqued for issuing anodyne statements that failed to mention Floyd or the Black Lives Matter movement. The Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, posted an unspecific call for “equity and fairness” on Instagram, and later apologized; the director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art privately apologized to Black artist Glenn Ligon for using a work of his from the museum’s holdings on social media without his permission, according to the New York Times.

Decolonize This Place protesting outside the American Museum of Natural History Credit: Andres Rodriguez/Decolonize This Place

The AMNH’s statement does not mention the groups that have for several years organized protests calling for the Roosevelt monument’s removal. In a phone interview, Decolonize This Place (DTP) organizer Amin Husain pointed out that removal of the monument was just one of three demands that Decolonize had placed on the museum, which include internally renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day and rethinking the museum’s displays.

“Many of the museum’s galleries contain Indigenous remains and objects,” he said. “Those things need to be sent back to the people they were taken from, and the exhibitions must be completely overhauled in consultation with, and with the active participation of, the relevant stakeholders.”

While many U.S. museums have made moves toward what the field calls “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” fellow DTP organizer Marz Saffore called for much greater change. “It’s critical that we move past identity politics,” she said. “It’s not enough to hire an Indigenous curator. It’s not enough to have one Black person on your board. Museums as we know them have to be abolished. I don’t want my voice to be added to museums that are often trophy cases for Imperialism.”

Institutions like the AMNH will continue to be sites for debate, some of which may echo heated arguments among historians and activists on how to handle monuments to objectionable historical figures. This includes leaders of the Confederate Army in the US Civilw War, which were erected by Confederate sympathizers oftentimes decades after the war, with a conscious white supremacist purpose.

Some ask whether these monuments could, rather than being destroyed or removed, be altered by, for example, adding contextualizing information. In an interview with National Public Radio on Tuesday about the Roosevelt monument, historian Manisha Sinha suggested that this tribute to Roosevelt’s efforts toward nature conservation could still stand, if the subjugated Black and Indigenous figures were simply removed. (DTP pointed out in an emailed statement that the land Roosevelt “conserved” was stolen from Indigenous people, so they would hardly find that an acceptable solution.)

By contrast, Abraham Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, former public affairs czar for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and author of books including “Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion” (2014), wrote an editorial this month for the New York Daily News saying that while he had earlier asked whether Confederate monuments could be altered, he’d concluded that they must be removed. “I was not only wrong,” he wrote; “I was insensitive.”

Michael Diaz-Griffith, executive director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, has written a pamphlet on how to be an anti-racist preservationist Credit: Michael Diaz Griffith

Michael Diaz-Griffith, executive director of the New York-based Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, which supports the Soane Museum in London, is author of “The Anti-Racist Preservationist’s Guide to Confederate Monuments: Their Past and a Future Without Them,” a pamphlet that succinctly explains how such monuments have a foundation in white supremacy, and outlines why they should be struck from the public realm. “In the case of the Confederates there’s no public legacy to detach from their wrongdoing,” Diaz-Griffith said over the phone.”The Confederacy was an immoral enterprise.”

Diaz-Griffith envisions a future, sooner or later, free of tributes to any such contentious figures.

“I think that all named buildings, all named places, will end up being reevaluated,” he said. “Who should they be named after? Do we continue to focus on those who were recognized in their own times, or do we shift our attention to those who fought for justice but weren’t publicly honored when they were alive? Since all people are fallible, it may be a good idea to erect monuments to principles, like justice, rather than to individuals.”

US museums, dependent as they are on the largesse of wealthy individuals and families, are far from a future in which controversial donors, who, for instance, hold views that run counter to science, nonetheless have galleries or other features named for them. The AMNH itself was under scrutiny for taking money from Rebekah Mercer, a major donor to the Republican party, whose leader Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the existence of climate change during his time in office. Mercer left the board when her term ended in 2019. Meanwhile in 2014, the Metropolitan Museum of Art named the revamped plaza on Fifth Avenue for donor David H. Koch, likewise a Republican donor, who is notable for funding efforts to undercut climate change science.

But the activists who had called for the removal of the Roosevelt monument have more foundational questions in mind than who funds such cultural organizations. Representing the group NYC Stands with Standing Rock, Sandy Grande, using the Lenape people’s name for Manhattan, said in a phone interview, “We should underscore that the city (Mannahatta) wouldn’t exist without the land and labor of Black and Indigenous peoples. This is Lenape land and the Mohawk and Seneca peoples built much of the city. In addition to Black people’s labor, their settlement at Seneca Village was destroyed.”

“So,” she said, “the removal of the monument has been a long time coming, not just for the museum but for the city itself, and we will continue to press for change.”

Makeba Clay, the Phillips Collection’s first chief diversity officer Credit: Rhiannon Newman/Courtesy Makeba Clay

“This is an historic moment — a pause and reflect moment for individuals and institutions,” said Makeba Clay, the chief diversity officer at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, over email. “The systemic and unrelenting injustices against members of the Black community have existed for hundreds of years and continue to exist all around us, including in our museums. We know we have work to do and that means being actively anti-racist — not passively non-racist.”

Clay was the inaugural appointee to her role, which she took on in 2018 and her message is that it’s not enough to “amplify” voices and messages, art institutions must take action. “We are looking at our staff and board, both overwhelmingly white, and actively examining our hiring and recruitment processes to promote greater diversity,” she said. “We recently held a town hall, which uncovered stark differences between staff of color and white staff.”

Clay also said that art does not exist outside struggle. That while it can be used for “constructive discourse, building empathy and creating community,” art also “can confront current issues and topics that aren’t neutral.”

Adding: “What appears like radical action is exactly what museums need to pursue to prove that they have a valuable role to play in this national discourse.”

Top image: Fall, from the series Four Seasons, 2006, by Wendy Red Star.

[fa210]

Week 8 Q&A Compendium

Thanks for the interesting questions! I’ll be adding to this all week, so keep checking back! Send in a question or comment of your own by email or tweet. 

Q: In museums, when objects are put on display how do they do this for "art of the world" so they put things in a sort of timeline next to each other like this was happening in China at this time and also this was happening in Africa at the same time? Because sometimes two regions have similar styles. Or are things arranged in their own regional timelines like this was happening in China in 1800 to this was happening in China? 

A: Museums today almost always arrange things by geographical regions. I believe that’s largely because museums are in the business of educating people about different cultures. We call them art museums, but in a way they are culture museums that specialize in art. 

This is going to be a long post, so to read the rest of the Q&A, click on!

Q: Will there ever be any artworks that come from certain cultures, that symbolize other cultures values or their style of art? I guess what I’m trying to ask is- just like the work we did with Picasso & him referencing African style art; if I am in the museum looking at art pieces will our steps we’ve learned so far in identifying art help me recognize the two coming together ? 

A: Sometimes this happens -- and sometimes there are special exhibitions (usually temporary) that are specifically about these connections and overlaps. 

Here’s an example of that: African Art, New York and the Avant-Garde -- a special exhibition at the MET in 2012. 

 Q: After writing a one-page explanation of notes to define what I have learned I developed a question on the arrangement of the objects within the museum. As we take a deeper look into the gallery and notice that artworks are similar or related, my question is does similarity dictate where the objects are placed such as the most important arranged as the focal point for viewers upon arrival? Are artworks arranged to depend on their similarities such as time periods, cultures and collections from artists of a specific era or is it by a monthly schedule that is planned by the museum? 

A: The selection and arrangement of objects in a museum is a highly specialized kind of design work. There are lots of principles and concepts and approaches. This slide show -- “Think Like a Curator: How to Design an Exhibition” -- helps explain! 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to understand museums and exhibition design, Caz has a class for that:  FA 351 Museum as Medium

C: I thought it was pretty cool how in Nigeria the people would make a stylized head of an Oba but then would carve that obas life out of the elephant tusk. I like the elephant tusk because if you wanted to know what kings oba you were looking at you would have to look through their story of the tusk. 

C:  just have a comment today because the reviewed was well said 👍🏻I was looking back at my notebook and one thing I remember we talked a lot about in class was about the scarification on the Oba heads. The scars represented power, especially on the queen of Benin statue, which I was happy we got to talk about the pendant in class because I was very interested.

Q: The head of the Oba along with the other works of art that we studied in Africa, as we discussed, have a heavy emphasis on the concept and stylization of what they are meant to represent in the culture as opposed to individualized features. Through this we see that their community values leadership, ancestors, gender roles, and paying respect to their culture. Despite this, looking at the influence of African art in Europe during the beginning of the 20th century, they still looked at African art as artifacts instead of legitimate art, and therefore did not understand the cultural significance it held. As we head into looking at Oceanic art which has similar stylized forms, my question is: Was Oceanic art viewed as primitive art in the same way that African art was during much of the 20th century? If so, do you think this affected the way that Europe viewed the sophistication of the people in Oceania?

A: Yes, definitely. All art from “pre-industrialized” societies was seen as “primitive” and art from places like China, India, and the Middle East was often seen as “exotic.” These can now be seen as code-words for “not as good as ours.” I would say that it’s not entirely arrogance; part of it is a desire for self-knowledge: how did we, in Western society, end up so different that we have so much technological and politico-economic power? what makes us us? Anyhow, that’s why there were separate museums for Art and for Anthropology. 

Q: So we know the ivory tusks are taken from the ritual hunt of elephants so they may be carved into, telling the stories of the oba. I’ve noticed that we haven’t seen too many examples of the tusks. Is this because ivory has been considered a precious commodity, and therefore stolen/ taken into private collections?

A: ok, so a lot of the art from Benin currently in museums -- and especially in the British Museum was, in fact, stolen. 

Here are some examples of the altar tusks. I wish we had time for everything about Benin -- including the ikegobo objects and the palace plaques. 

Altar Tusk 1888-1897. Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Benin Ancestral Altar Tusk. Smithsonian Institution

Altar Tusk. Brooklyn Museum

This Art Was Looted 123 Years Ago. Will It Ever Be Returned? New York Times (Jan. 23, 2020)

Okay so I'm thinking about the Oba head and how the features were not representative of what he actually looked like, but how he ruled. It's stylized. I'm also thinking about the United States and how we portray our presidents and other important historical figures in art. We don't really do that stylization thing do we? In art, we've always portrayed our presidents as they appeared, perhaps emphasizing what made them unique as a president.

A: Well, actually (haha, I hate using that phrase) we have done a fair amount of stylizing, but it’s hard for us to see. It looks realistic to us, but it’s actually idealized. Photography did have an impact, so that we really do know what Lincoln looked like. But our official statues make him look better than he did.

Here’s George Washington as a Roman Senator 

And the Lincoln Statue from the Lincoln Memorial 

C: re the Chi Wara: I think so far out of what we learned I find these pieces the most interesting. I like how these people would take a wooden sculpture and incorporated it in dances and in representation of life. With everything we have learned so far everyone in different cultures have used something to represent life, like peaches, trees, these wooden animals

A: Nice point. Let’s keep looking for life. 

Meanwhile, Cassy sez pliz don be stres. 

Top illustration: Musee Quai Branly (in Paris -- one of the great non-Western art collections in the world). top image source: NYTimes

[artificialqueens]

A Different Kind of Art (Sashea) [Part ⅔] - May

Being the digital art curator at a gallery is never easy, especially when inspiration is nonexistent, no one takes your art seriously and you start to get attached to the talent you’ve sourced.

A/N: Here’s part two where the drama starts to thicken ;) Thanks to Scoobert for betaing, and I hope you guys enjoy this part.

Sasha’s phone meeting with Shea Coulee had gone well, Shea seemed up for the idea, but hadn’t been able to talk at that moment. As Aja had predicted the dancer was performing in the spring festival, and had been just about to go onstage. Sasha had offered to call back, but Shea had told her to come down the festival, which Sasha had been only too keen for - any excuse to watch Shea perform, she thought.

To Sasha’s great relief, the wind had died down, but a chill still remained in the air, despite the bright sun hovering overhead. Grateful for her long coat, which she pulled close around her, she consulted her phone, which told her the park where the festival was located was a short walk away from the gallery. Deciding the exercise she’d get from the walk was better than taking the subway, she set off in the direction of the park.

Before she knew it she was there, making her way though marquees and stalls that sold jams and fruits and all kinds of arts and crafts. Trying to figure her way out of the market section of the festival didn’t take too long, the noise coming from the other end of the park was inescapable, and though the sun was momentarily hidden behind the festival seemed a bright place. Shea had mentioned her troupe was going to be performing, and Sasha figured they were nearing the end of their act, so she leaned against a nearby tree to watch the performance unfold.

There were a couple of watchers scattered around, most giving the dancers onstage a passing glance before returning to their conversations, bubbling to see the rest of the festival. Sasha felt a pang of sympathy for the dancers, she knew what it was like to have her work skimmed over, or skipped because more important things were ahead. Although those who were watching were enraptured, and rightfully so. The performance was different to those that she’d spent the morning watching. Even through she was out of a darkened, flashing club and with another group of performers, Shea was still the star, but there was an element about it that seemed a little more subdued. The nightclub performances were raw and sensual, but the way the dancers moved held a timeless grace to them.

For the first time in a long time, Sasha’s fingers itched to grab her stylus and start drawing, so she made do with a napkin stolen from a food truck and a biro she’d found in her pocket. As Shea swayed onstage, Sasha’s pen told the story of her dance through the curving lines, and the subtle shading at the corners of the piece. As the music swelled to an end, Sasha looked at the napkin critically. It might not be the best, but it was more than she’d had to work with over the past few weeks. Stowing the napkin and the biro back in her coat pocket, she made her way over to the side of the stage where Shea had told her to meet, the girl in question undoing her high ponytail and shaking her hair out down her back. Sasha took a deep breath in to calm her nerves.

Shea noticed her before Sasha had time to say anything, a questioning look on her face as she walked over, confident, yet still open and friendly. “You must be Sasha,” she asked, “or else it’s not really what you do to loiter around backstage after a performance when you weren’t even in the show.” Sasha laughed weakly. “Yes, yes I am Sasha,” she said, her voice a lot more even than she felt. Normally Sasha was a pro at these kind of meetings, contacting the local artists but for some reason with Shea’s cool, calm face with one eyebrow slightly perched in front of her, she felt frazzled. “We spoke on the phone earlier, I wanted to ask you if you’d be interested in performing at the gallery for the digital art department’s exhibition,” she started. “We want to showcase local talent and show that digital art and even modern art can have many forms and-” Shea cut her off. “Want to go get coffee while we talk?”

The two of them wandered through the park, through the booths and the stalls, hands clutched around large paper cups holding steaming caffeinated drinks. Shea had kept shivering, and despite her protests that she was absolutely fine and didn’t need anything, Sasha had shed her long coat and given it to the taller girl, even though now it was her who was wincing at the bite of the wind through her turtleneck. They’d ended up walking to a corner of the park that was secluded, an oddity at a time like this. There wasn’t a lot in that corner, the earth was dry and dusty rather than springy, and the single bench was covered in obscene carvings and old wads of gum. Objectively, Sasha could see why this little area was bordered by a large white marquee, so no one would see this ugly side to the city.

Nonetheless, the two of them sat on the bench, their initial conversation of the gallery and the exhibition had run its course before Sasha had even been able to pick up her latte, Shea was excited, and would definitely be there. The conversation had moved on now, to something different, not between two potential work colleagues, but between two potential friends.

Everything had been going brilliantly, the two warmed from laughing despite the cold. Sasha felt giddy, finally someone else was there to talk to her about the world with a similar eye to her. An hour passed, and then another half, and the two were close together now, for warmth, Sasha reasoned, that was the only reason why. There needs to be a storm, Sasha thought, something that can break this weather and get everything back to normal.

The conversation had lulled a little bit, and Sasha knew at some point she’d have to stand up and leave, go back to the gallery and her office, and start firing off emails, scrambling together an exhibition for the coming month. She was drawing up a to-do list in her head, people needed to be emailed, people needed to be paid, spaces needed to be cleaned. And hell, she had to actually draw something. The list was coming together in her mind, and as her schedule began to lay itself, she turned to Shea.

“So you’ll be able to make rehearsals right? There’ll be a couple a week, and I guess you’ll need to choreograph something, I’m not really a dancer, so I wouldn’t know,” she trailed off, Shea looking at her with a slightly quizzical expression. “A couple a week? Like more than one?” “Well, yeah, it’s a reputable gallery, and just because we’re a small department doesn’t mean we don’t want to have a kickass exhibition,” Sasha responded. “I’m not going to have the time, I’m sorry,” the taller girl responded, “I made the commitment to the festival-” “I mean, we’re still a pretty big department, and in one of the best galleries in Brooklyn,” Sasha bit back, stung a little that Shea would think herself above such an exhibition, assume that only one rehearsal would be adequate for the department. “Sash, it’s not that I don’t want to do it,” responded Shea, setting her mouth defiantly, the nickname she’d spontaneously chosen making Sasha melt a little inside. “I’m just so busy with the performance, and I made a prior commitment to the troop, it wouldn’t be fair.”

Despite Shea’s apologetic smile Sasha felt a brief flash of annoyance behind her eyelids - odd, since Sasha usually considered herself a calm and chilled person. “Well yeah I guess,” retorted Sasha, wincing at how whiny her voice sounded, “but this would mean so much to me, and the gallery.” Shea narrowed her eyes, apparently taking offence to Sasha’s tone. “And no offence Sasha, but you are literally no one to me, we literally just met. And yes, you seem like a pretty cool person, and I’d love to support your gallery, I’m not going to blow off my friends and people I committed to long before you.” Sasha was speechless, the annoyance in Shea’s voice resonating hard somewhere deep inside her, sparking an anger she herself didn’t even know she held “Fine,” shot back Sasha. “I’ll find someone else. New York’s pretty big - you’re not special because you can dance.”

Shea rolled her eyes, and Sasha chose that moment to push herself up from the bench, hoping her shaky movements weren’t betrayed by a tremble of a limb. “I guess I’d better go then,” she continued, fighting the quaver that threatened to poach its way into her words. Sasha hated fighting people, especially people she liked. But for some reason she couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the lean girl remaining seated, regal features set and motionless like a porcelain doll.

She stormed off, the turn of her heel kicking up a little patch of dust that had previously been packed into the earth. She wound her way through the marquees and stark white tents, willing herself not to do something like cry, or run back and throw herself down and apologise. She was strong, but she could feel Shea’s eyes burrowing into her back as she left the park. She picked up her pace.

Sasha’s storming off slowed down considerably about a block away from the park, due to the panic, lingering anger and shame she was feeling and also somewhat due the fact she hadn’t done any exercise since she’d graduated high school. Her thoughts clouded around in her head, too many questions all being asked, and for once, her logical mind wasn’t able to pull any reason for anything that had just happened, everything was blurring too fast, too together, unable to yank any cohesion from the tight knit tangle in her chest and her brain.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she had been affected the way she was. She wanted Shea to accept her, and Sasha couldn’t help but feel as though Shea didn’t take her seriously, just another person who thought modern art didn’t belong in a gallery - until she realised Shea concern’s had been perfectly reasonable, and Sasha had charged in like a bull in a china shop, accusing Shea of not caring and unjustly taking her own anger out on the girl. The angry ball of tension that her body had become dissolved into a well of shame, no matter what she did to try to distract herself, the reminder of what she’d said and how she’d overreacted popped out at her like camera flashes on a red carpet.

Thankfully something did float to the surface that didn’t shout Shea Coulee in neon bright screams - she needed to email the board of executives to tell them about their current project. Her gratefulness at having a distraction from the dancer waned almost immediately however, as the hundred other little tasks she’d been planning started bobbing to the surface of her mind, like the scummy flotsam of a polluted harbour. Knowing she’d never remember everything that was coming to her mind, she patted her hip absentmindedly, searching for the biro that she knew was in her pocket before realising Shea still had her coat.

+++

When Sasha arrived back at the gallery, once again taking the groaning elevator and passing the leaky and creaking water pipes ornamenting the basement corridors, Aja was on the phone, debating something in a muted tone. Sasha could tell it was something important the girl was discussing, by the fact she was bolt upright in her chair, and was twirling the cord of the phone around her finger with an increased urgency. Sasha dumped her bag on a table and took a seat next to it, normally she hated Aja’s dismissal of conventional furniture, but Sasha was stressed enough to break her own rules and follow the younger girl’s habits.

A thump echoed through the office, as Aja’s hand connected with the desk, causing Peppermint to pop her head out of the room she’d been occupying and come out to perch on the table next to Sasha and start scrolling through the emails on her phone. “How’d it go with Shea-” she started, and thankfully was cut off by Aja’s voice raising, and a the beginning of a fiery string of insults from the desk in the corner. “No way, you do not get to say that you bloody good for nothing-” Peppermint plucked the phone out of Aja’s hand, cutting off the rant and preventing the receiver from hearing the main part of what Aja had to say. “I’m very sorry,” said Peppermint, a congenial professionalism to her voice, her mouth tightening as muffled monologue was emitted from the receiver. “Yes, yes, I am aware. Well thank you,” she finished, handing the phone back to Aja. “Yeah thanks for nothing,” Aja spat into the phone.

She slammed down the phone with an angry vehemence. “That,” she said sourly, “was Valentina,” speaking the name with a kind of disgust she usually reserved for country music and furries. Peppermint smiled sympathetically, and Sasha followed - she knew how dealing with the newest member “They’re forcing us to either change our launch date or scrap it altogether,” Aja fumed. Sasha felt as though the bottom of her had been opened up and her insides were falling out. Vaguely, she could hear Peppermint asking why, and she remembered the calendar of events she’d been emailed ages ago that had mentioned the arrival of a soft sculpture exhibition by leading artist Serena Cha Cha that would have its own opening, that had been highlighted as Very Important. Valentina had been in charge of organising the event, and while Sasha had nothing against her, the younger employee had a tendency to have everything done exactly the way she wanted, no matter what she had to do, or who she had to twist around her finger.

Aja was just finishing up a rant when Sasha returned from her dissociative fog “Apparently our event will be too loud, and they’ll be disturbed all the way up in the fucking main gallery,” Aja fumed, before beginning to say exactly what she thought of Valentina. “A week before the event? That’s deliberate sabotage!” continued Aja, and Peppermint put a hand on Aja’s shoulder in an attempt to calm the younger girl down. “I’m sure it’s not sabotage,” she said, although her mouth was set in a thin line. “I’m sure it was just a coincidence, the launch isn’t completely over, we’ll just have to rethink what we’re doing.” Peppermint nodded. “Well, at least we have Shea Coulee performing, that’ll draw people no matter the date we put on the flyer.” Sasha’s blood ran cold, and she realised that she had completely, royally fucked up. “About that,” she began, already envisioning the disappointed reactions the others would display when she told them what had happened at the park. “I may have blown that chance.”

[caveartfair]

The Artists Everyone Talked about during Art Basel in Basel

Laure Prouvost, Lèche Car, 2019. © Laure Prouvost. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

While Art Basel in Basel celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, I experienced the fair—and the city—for the first time. On assignment to discover the “artists everyone was talking about,” I quickly learned that the week of festivities didn’t quite work like that. When I’d visited Art Basel in Miami Beach and Hong Kong, a certain amount of hype built around particular young artists, or older artists just getting their due. At a dinner in Miami, for example, a collector shared photos on his phone of work by an artist that he and his cohort had already deemed the next hot thing. In Basel, the old guard still reigned.

“Art fairs are not a good place to discover artists,” art historian, collector, and dealer Sabina Fliri told me at a Monday night dinner for Lisson Gallery at the Restaurant Schlüsselzunft.Over plates of fish and white asparagus (spring in Europe: asparagus season!), she explained that at the fair, she’d be interested to see high-profile or blue-chip pieces that she hadn’t seen before. She collects work by Georg Baselitz, among other artists.

Installation view of Lucy Dodd, David Lewis Gallery’s booth at Art Basel, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

The next day, Art Basel in Basel opened to a flurry of activity at the Messe Basel hall. Some booths were too crowded to enter; many dealers were reticent to speak with me until the halls calmed down—“come back tomorrow” was a common refrain. As Gagosian announced its new gallery outpost in Basel, film crews swarmed the booth.

On Wednesday, I went back to speak to Lisson executive director Alex Logsdail about how his booth was faring. After the first day, the gallery reported sales of four works by artist Laure Prouvost, priced from €4,000–€10,000 (around $4,500–$11,200). Prouvost is now representing France at the Venice Biennale. “I think it’s attributable to Venice and also her kind of general rise,” Logsdail said about the sales, also nodding to a recent write-up on the artist in the New York Times. Though busy, he’d found time to visit Unlimited, Art Basel’s specially curated exhibition organized by Gianni Jetzer. There, Logsdail enjoyed a Lucy Dodd installation in which her large-scale canvases form the walls of a small room. “I thought her ability to make a sculptural structure out of her paintings was very interesting,” he offered.

Unlimited also served up Art Basel’s biggest scandal of the week. News broke on Wednesday that participating artist Andrea Bowers had appropriated Twitter photographs of Helen Donahue—a journalist who was physically abused—without her consent. Bowers’s installation Open Secrets Part I & II (2018, 2019) listed details about and images of approximately 200 people, mostly men, who were recently accused of abuse and harassment during the #MeToo movement. Bowers removed the image of Donahue from the installation.

William Kentridge, Ubu tells the truth, 1997. © William Kentridge. Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum.

At a dinner celebrating Galerie St. Etienne’s 80th anniversary, gallery director Jane Kallir told me she looked forward to seeing the Kunstmuseum exhibitions of William Kentridge and “The Cubist Cosmos: from Picasso to Leger.” Between the latter show and the Fondation Beyeler’s “The Young Picasso—Blue and Rose Periods” exhibition, Picasso was the best-represented artist in the city’s major institutions.

Kallir told me the gallery’s been attending Art Basel for 15 years, and she considers it “far and away” the best fair. “It has an intellectual level, a level of connoisseurship that you get in no other fair anywhere,” she said. At dinner, as if to prove her point, I’d been seated next to a man who collected mostly prints by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and works by Francis Alÿs; he told me he enjoyed learning about how artists’ practices developed over time.

Fernand Léger, La Femme en bleu, 1912. Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel.

Pablo PIcasso, Portrait de jeune fille, 1914. © Succession Picasso 2019, ProLitteris, Zurich. Courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris. © Centre Pompidou, Mnam - CCI / Jean Claude Planchet.

Even gallerists who didn’t participate in the fair benefited from the influx of international collectors. Alfred Kornfeld, who runs Berlin’s Galerie Kornfeld, held an apéro at one of Basel’s oldest “fasching” cellars, where a group meets throughout the year to prepare for annual carnival festivities, which include parades and musical performances. Clown figurines, paintings, and stained glass hung on the walls above platters of meats and cheeses. “Being a gallerist means also having the passion for collecting,” Kornfeld told me. “You also want to enjoy Basel.” At the König Galerie booth, he’d bought a painting by Peter Dreher of a water glass—half full or half empty, depending on how you look at it.

Still on the search for the next hot thing, I made my way to the Liste fair on Thursday. A more relaxed atmosphere immediately greeted me. At the entrance, visitors indulged in fresh-grilled sausages. Located in a former brewery, with galleries setting up shop in irregularly shaped rooms, the fair offered a winding maze of presentations that led visitors up and down stairs and around corners.

Diana Ursan, of Bucharest’s Ivan gallery, was showing an installation entitled Debrisphere (2017–present) by Romanian artist duo Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan. It involved a lot of rocks—in UV prints, collage, and sculptural installation.

Patrick Goddard, Bin Juice, 2019. Courtesy of Seventeen Gallery.

Outside the fair, Ursan had enjoyed the Parcours presentations—a series of installations in public venues throughout Basel, curated by Samuel Leuenberger. She was particularly fond of the figurative sculptures by Cathy Wilkes at Museum der Kulturen Basel. Parcours, Ursan added, leads viewers to discover spaces they might not otherwise encounter. In her case, it was the Natural History Museum of Basel, which she visited to see an installation by Ad Minoliti.

London’s Seventeen Gallery exhibited one of Liste’s most striking installations. Artist Patrick Goddard created 200 lead fish for a piece titled Bin Juice (2019). They lay atop the booth’s appropriately blue floor. Associate director Victoria Al-Din shared that Goddard had “stolen, or reclaimed” the lead from pipes of Victorian terrace houses, which were going to be destroyed and replaced with high-rise flats. “They’re effectively made of gentrification,” she said of the fish. The artist scattered them so visitors would have trouble navigating the floor, implicating them, too. The piece sold the first day of the fair, for £10,000 (around $12,600), to a private collector in Germany.

Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, Debrisphere, 2017–ongoing. Courtesy of Ivan Gallery.

Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, Debrisphere, 2017–ongoing. Courtesy of Ivan Gallery.

Al-Din and gallery director David Hoyland told me they’d attended a Simone Forti performance at the Kunsthaus Baselland. “Two people underneath wooden boxes, with whistles, trying to play music together; can’t hear each other, can’t see each other, all alone under the boxes, separated from each other, whistling to each other!” Hoyland described. “It was beautiful!”

That night, the old brewery threw a party on the terrace (full disclosure: Artsy hosted). Trey Hollis, P.P.O.W’s art fair director, was enjoying Basel for the first time. “I’m utterly enchanted, beyond measure,” he said. In addition to its own booth, P.P.O.W was showing a presentation of Martha Wilson photographs and films from the early 1970s at Unlimited. “There’s a connection between the emergence of second-wave feminist work and its critical relationship to Conceptualism, which is exactly what she was exploring,” Hollis explained.

Meanwhile, gallerist Alexandra Rockelmann was exhibiting work by U.S.–based artists including Claire Ashley, Bailey Romaine, Megan Stroech, and Jeffrey Teuton. Rockelmann splits her time between galleries in Albuquerque and Berlin. “We did a very conceptual booth,” she said, adding that she wanted to show the potential of paper as an artistic medium. Rockelmann offered an opposing sentiment to what I’d heard at the beginning of the week. According to her, Basel is indeed a good place to show artists who haven’t yet exhibited in Europe: “It doesn’t guarantee you sales, but it guarantees you certain publicity,” she offered. “It is seen.”

from Artsy News

[mystery-moose]

FIC: Angus McDonald and the Flight of the Flying V (6/?)

[AO3 link]

They’ve come a long way, but even ten years after the world was saved, they’re still not quite where they should be. A whim, a missing painting, and a handful of near-death experiences help a flip wizard and his apprentice bridge the gap.

Taako does his best. Angus takes some risks. Introductions are made, bonds are tested, and lessons are learned — better late than never.

Taako was a real asshole sometimes. (Okay, most times.) It was a part of his personality he had no intention of ever fully excising. You go for the goof, you commit to the bit, and if some people can't take a joke, that's their problem. He knew Angus was fully aware of this, so Taako wasn't bothered when he didn't speak to him for the next few blocks. He simply twirled his umbrella and followed along quietly to wherever it was they were going.

He didn't have to be a detective to figure it out; the southern edge of Neverwinter butted up against the World's Teeth, the mountains separating the northern and southern halves of Faerun. They were heading towards those mountains along the main thoroughfare, and when the train station came into view, Angus turned to him and smiled.

"Feel like a day trip to Rockport?" he asked.

Taako shouldered his umbrella and grinned. "Why not?"

Getting tickets seemed easier these days — there were two larger trains on parallel tracks, and they operated in sync with each other. By the time they finished paying and stepped out onto the platform, the Rockport Limited was pulling into the station. Angus was a little disappointed ("I hoped you'd get to see the Neverwinter Express, it's totally different.") but Taako was happy to bask in the nostalgia of one of his more memorable escapades.

The train itself was new, since the Reclaimers had trashed the last one pretty thoroughly, but it was largely the same. Fancy gilded exterior, very ornate, with lots of gold and bronze, and an equally plush interior, full of wood and silk and velvet. The train had been Rockport's baby, Angus explained — they'd been the ones to spearhead the tunneling operation, and it was the sole thing they could lord over Neverwinter — so they'd spared no expense in its reconstruction. The only difference Taako noticed was the lack of the empty archway in the dining car. Guess after Jenkins killed someone with it, they reconsidered the whole port-wand pleasure-room thing.

Their conductor was a friendly halfling, cheerful and pleasant and totally boring. No fun goofs to be had at his expense. Angus must have noticed Taako pouting after the halfling led them to their table in the dining car, because he snorted under his breath.

"Sorry you don't get to be mercilessly cruel to someone this trip," he said after the conductor was out of earshot.

"Just nostalgic, is all," Taako said, glancing out the window as the train began to move. "'Sides, not like Jenkins didn't have it coming."

"You didn't know that at the time."

"I had a hunch." Taako tapped his temple. "Elven intuition. You wouldn't understand, being human and all."

Angus smirked. "Uh-huh."

"You wanna play keep away with your notebook for old time's sake?"

"No, I'm good."

As their waiter approached with two full trays of goodies in his hands, Taako nearly did a double-take; he was an absolutely gorgeous dark elf, broad shouldered and built like a house with luscious Fabio-esque hair. He smiled and offered them their choice. Angus took a muffin and coffee, plus a newspaper. Taako took a blueberry scone and a cup of tea. The waiter poured his tea, smiled again, and then took the two trays and headed down the car to another occupied table at the far end. Taako leaned out and watched him walk away. When he settled back into his seat, Angus was shaking his head.

"What? I'm married, I'm not dead."

"Gross, sir."

"Do I have to bring up how you were looking at Silvia? Oh, I'm sorry." He leaned forward. "Lieutenant?"

Angus' grin disappeared and he turned his attention to the newspaper. Taako grinned and took a bite of his scone.

"Y'know," he said with his mouth full, "that sorta dom-sub stuff ain't really my bag, but you chase your bliss, Ango."

"I'm not listening," Angus said in a sing-song voice.

"Right. I'll leave you to your paper. I won't say another word about Silvia." Taako leaned in an stage-whispered, "Miss Hayden, if you're nasty."

Angus rolled up his newspaper and smacked Taako upside the head with it. He started laughing again, and Angus blew out the exasperated sigh he used when he wanted to stifle his own laughter.

The journey was thoroughly uneventful. After they'd taken lunch (and Taako had asked the waiter to bring him a hot towel just to watch him leave a couple more times) they'd retired to the sleeper car. Taako had dozed lazily while Angus read the paper, then they'd played a game of cards where they both cheated mercilessly, and after a few hours, they pulled into Rockport.

Last time, Taako had killed a weird crab monster, stolen a bunch of shit he shouldn't have, thrown a serial killer off the back of a runaway train (well, that was Magnus, but he'd been present for it) and then saved hundreds of people by teleporting said train into said serial killer's private garden. It was wicked awesome.

This trip was pretty good too, though.

Rockport was a fishing and farming town, largely, and that much hadn't changed; it still smelled like fish when the wind blew from the west, and like flowers when it blew from the east. The ticket seller at this end was still the spitting image of Tom Bodett, though a fair bit older than when Taako saw him last. He probably recognized Taako, too, considering how he turned on his heel and walked away the moment he saw him.

It wasn't nearly the size of Neverwinter, but Rockport still qualified as a bona fide city — there were wagons traveling up and down the white cobblestone roads, many pulling cargo trailers full of crates. Stalls and small markets were set up all along the main road from the train station toward the city center, hawking everything Rockport was famous for, which was mostly beef pasties, fish and chips, or bouquets of lupines. Not so many souvenirs of the Rockport Limited anymore, Taako noted. Made sense; if Neverwinter had built their own, it couldn't be that special.

Angus led them off the main road into a narrower side street. Taako narrowly avoided a puddle as he stepped alongside Angus.

"So who are we visiting in Rockport?" he asked.

"There's an artist here," Angus explained, adjusting his glasses as he walked. "He's sort of a historian. Rocco, the owner of that curio shop? They introduced us."

"And this artiste will know... what?"

"Well, the curator gave me the broad strokes—"

"Nice."

Angus rolled his eyes. "—but after talking with Rocco, I'm sure this wasn't about the money. I want to learn more about this painting, and about who painted it."

"What's it even a picture of?" Taako asked, realizing he didn't know the first thing about what they were doing.

"It's a flock of birds flying above the Sword Coast. They say it's the pinnacle of the proto-naturalist movement in the art world."

"'They' being stuffy old professors and ultra-nerds."

Angus opened his mouth, then closed it and shrugged. "Yeah, basically."

"And it's worth a lot?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Shyeah!"

"How much?"

"A lot."

"We talkin' six digits? Seven?"

Angus hesitated, like he didn't want to say it out loud. "More like eight or nine."

Taako stumbled a bit and caught himself with his umbrella. "Pumpkin?"

"Yes, sir?"

"That's a lot."

"Yes, sir."

While Taako's mind reeled at the amount given (and idly fantasized about how he'd waste it) he followed Angus down the road a few more blocks to a shabbier, dingier part of Rockport. A place where the roads had a few more potholes, the wagons were fewer and farther between, and if anyone bothered to clean the streets, they did it a lot less frequently. Not quite a slum — Taako knew slums — but certainly less well-to-do than anywhere they'd been today. Hell, he was pretty sure that shady curio shop was in a better neighborhood.

Angus stopped in front of a four-story apartment building. There were no wagons on the road, no one walking the streets. Taako suddenly felt very alone, isolated, like there was no one but him and Angus on the whole block.

"Your fancypants art historian lives here?" he asked, glancing around.

"Yep." Angus started up the stone steps. "I think he got caught up in some scandal, years ago. Kicked out of the university."

"No shit."

"Pretty sure he helps Rocco forge the occasional painting," Angus said idly, opening the door. "Or at least do some clean-up work if they're damaged. Fetches a better price that way."

The place was empty, no one in sight. There was a small foyer with doors on either side, a short hallway leading deeper into the building, and a stairway leading up. Angus led the way upstairs. Taako kept glancing around. He heard the occasional signs of life, but they all seemed distant. Nothing sounded close by. It made him nervous. Brought back memories of his time on the lam, after Glamour Springs, when it seemed like even silence and solitude were out to get him.

They walked up four more flights of stairs, and Taako was about to start complaining about it when Angus stepped in front of a door at the top.

"This guy might be a bit... nervy," Angus said diplomatically. "Try to go easy on him, okay? I really need his help."

Taako straightened his back, crossed his heart, and held up two fingers.

Angus stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and knocked on the door.

It slowly swung open.

Angus' eyes widened. He looked at Taako. Taako looked at him, then gestured at the door. Angus held his hands up like how should I know?

With a gentle push, Angus opened the door. "Uh, Mr. Wendell? Sir?"

The apartment was a mess. It was hard for Taako to tell how much of it was always like that. There were paintings propped up along every wall, four or five deep in some places, and paint cans and palettes strewn everywhere. Drop cloths lay in a haphazard pattern on the floor, though paint had still spattered onto some exposed hardwood. A number of easels, one folded up and tipped onto its side, lined the near wall, opposite the windows. There were old takeout boxes on the small kitchen counter to the left, dirty plates on a tiny table to the right, and in the corner, a large trash bag filled with what looked like stale popcorn. It really made Taako feel a lot better about the state of his own home.

Angus walked in, examining the place intensely. Taako took the time to check himself out in a stand-up mirror on the far wall. As he stepped towards it, his nose wrinkled.

"You smell that?" he asked, sniffing the air.

Angus didn't answer. Taako sniffed again. It smelled like something burning. Or... not burning. Charring? Like meat seared too long.

"Taako."

He turned around. Angus was staring at a space beyond the kitchen counter. Taako stepped closer and followed his gaze. An old human man, bald with a grey beard and spots on his forehead, lay face down on the floor. A pool of red surrounded his head.

Oh, good.

"That's not paint, is it."

Angus reached into his jacket and drew his wand. A new one, Taako noticed — fine grained wood, with a longer handle built for a duelist's grip. Nice.

Wait. He sniffed again. Is it wood? Charcoal? Or... is it even a smell?

Taako looked down. Something wasn't right. He was definitely picking up something, and if it wasn't a smell... he reached up, tapped his temple, and cast True Sight.

The ring appeared immediately, a series of invisible, glowing runes stretching from the door to the far wall and back again. Like a summoning circle, or a—

Angus stepped forward, towards the body. Taako's eyes widened as Angus stepped onto the runes.

"Don't!"

Too late. Taako threw himself forward, tackled Angus to the floor next to the corpse, and popped his umbrella. The space behind him flashed and flared as the air itself caught fire. There was a sudden breeze, like an inhale, as the oxygen in the room fed the blaze.

Taako rolled over. His boots were on fire. He kicked at the flames angrily — he loved those fucking boots, god damn it — before Angus cast a light ice spell over them. The boy pushed himself to his feet, eyes wide and hand up to shield them from the waves of heat.

That incantation must have been some serious shit, because the fire wasn't going out. It was getting bigger, growing hotter with every passing second. The drop cloths were already ash, the hardwood floor was charring to black, flames were licking up the walls and flowing across the ceiling, and everything in the apartment that was combustible (which was everything) was catching fast.

Taako held up his umbrella and fired a Ray of Frost at the inferno. It did about as much as good as spitting into it. He swung it from side to side and tried Ice Storm. It melted before it even fully formed.

"We gotta go!" Angus shouted, glancing around. "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go—"

"Go where?!" Taako shouted back, waving his hand towards the fiery expanse between them and the door.

Angus didn't answer. He had already found their exit. He ran past the kitchen counter, stumbled over an empty paint can, and made it to a window. He tried to open it, straining against the jam, then looked down.

"It's painted shut!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Taako cursed, shoving him aside. He raised his umbrella and fired a spell which blew out the window and most of the wall with it. He turned to Angus and grabbed his hand, and he didn't have to say a word — they both jumped.

Taako popped his umbrella again, and the Featherfall enchantment kicked in immediately. He and Angus floated gently to the ground. The air cleared and the heat faded as they fell, but Taako could still feel it like a forest fire at his back.

As soon as they touched down, Angus turned around and looked up. The fire was spreading fast, already licking past the top of the hole Taako had created.

"Is anyone else in there?" he asked.

"Nah, don't think so," Taako said, shaking his head. Then he looked at Angus, who was starting for the steps. "If you think you're going back in there—"

Angus spun on his heel. "We can't just leave!"

"So call the fucking fire brigade, dingus!" Taako yelled, throwing his arms up.

Angus clenched his jaw. He held his wand straight up and, with a fairly intense use of Prestidigitation, fired a bright, screaming flare high into the sky. Taako stared up at the fire, at the holes it was burning into the roof, at the pillar of heavy black smoke rising into the sky, and scowled.

It had been such a nice day, too.

[buffster]

Becoming Part 1 (BTVS 2.21)

This is part of my ongoing Buffy Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the show. You can find the full list here. Gifs are not mine.

Whistler: Here’s the thing. There’s moments in your life that make you. That set the course of who you’re gonna be. Sometimes they’re little, subtle moments. Sometimes they’re not. I’ll show you what I mean.

There’s a lot of time spend on Angel’s backstory in this episode, which I love. It was about time. It begins in Galway, 1753, with a young Liam drunkenly exiting a bar. He tells his friend they’re going to come back with some of his father’s silver. Then he spies Darla.

Liam: My lady, you will find that, with the exception of an honest day’s work, there is no challenge I am not prepared to face. 

He is excited by her proposal to see the world and she turns him. We return to present day where Buffy has decided she is taking the fight to Angel. Apparently she was hoping he’d attack and force her into what she has to do, but she’s tired of waiting it out. She assures her friends she is ready.

After a vision from Drusilla, Angelus decides to steal a relic from the local museum. It is Acathla, a demon who came forth to swallow the world. It was killed by a knight and turned to stone, as demons sometimes do (well, ok?). It was buried where no demon would look until some people decided to build on it. Angelus wants to be the worthy one to pull out the sword and send the whole world into hell. Giles says that only non-demon life will suffer there, but when Angel is sent there he suffers. This might be explained later but I don’t remember it.

The next flashback is London, 1860. Drusilla is praying and goes to confess. Unbeknownst to her Angelus is in the other side drinking the priest’s blood. She confesses to him that she is having visions and her mother says she is cursed. This is when she drew Angelus in: she wanted to do good and not give in to the devil. He can’t resist turning light into darkness.

Drusilla: No...I want to be good...I want to be pure.

Angelus: We all do, at first. The world doesn’t work that way.

Willow is tutoring Buffy for finals. She has no patience for Buffy calling herself a moron and tells her not to waste her time if she’s not going to try. Buffy says she really is a good teacher (kind of surprised Willow didn’t end up in this profession?). Buffy’s prophetic abilities are used again when she is able to locate Ms. Calendar’s missing disc after experiencing deja vu. 

The next flashback is in Rumanian Woods, 1898. There’s a glimpse of the body of the gypsy girl being grieved over and the old woman saying the spell to restore Angel’s soul. It’s returned to him and he begins to feel what he’s done. Just like with Spike in season seven, it overwhelms him. 

Back at the school Buffy and Willow are telling Cordelia, Xander, and Giles about their findings. Giles doesn’t think he can perform the ritual because he doesn’t have the required knowledge of the black arts, but Willow nervously admits she has been studying enough that she thinks she does. 

Giles: Willow, performing this kind of ritual--channeling such potent magicks through yourself--it will open a door you may not be able to close. 

They are continuing to argue (with Willow being the most passionately pro-ritual) when Xander jumps in with one of his worst moments of the series. He’s got Issue Face (as in, I’ve got personal issues here that are making me Non-Objective guy). Sorry, but I’m going to note the entire conversation for my future reference:

Xander: This spell might restore Angel’s humanity? Well, here’s an interesting angle: who cares?

Buffy: I care.

Xander: Is that right?

Giles: Xander, let’s not lose perspective here--

Xander: I’m perspective guy. Angel is a killer.

Willow: Xander--

Buffy: It’s not that simple.

Xander: What, come back home, all is forgiven? I can’t believe you people.

Cordelia: Xander has a point--

Xander: You know, just once I wish you would support me and I realize now that you were and I’m embarrassed so I’m gonna get back to the point which is that Angel needs to die. 

Giles: Curing Angel was apparently Jenny’s last wish...

Xander: Yeah, well, Jenny’s dead.

Giles: Don’t you speak of her in that insolent--

Xander: Can’t you see what I’m saying--

Buffy: Alright, stop it!

Willow: (to Buffy) What do you want to do?

Buffy: I don’t know...what happened to Angel wasn’t his fault...

Xander: What happened to Ms. Calendar is. You can paint this however you want. Way I see it you want to forget all about Ms. Calendar’s murder so you can get your boyfriend back. 

Cordelia: Wow. Even I know that was insensitive.

Xander: Am I wrong?

I think his issue here is multi-faceted. One is that he doesn’t see any distinction between Angel and Angelus. It’s almost as if he views Angel as a muzzled dog that’s too dangerous to let live. Which, to be honest, is a fair point. Angelus will always be a possibility that’s pretty dangerous for the world. I also don’t think some critics are wrong that there’s a part of this that’s about jealousy over Buffy. My third view is that he has seen Angel as That Guy from the beginning--the guy that’s a total jerk but the pretty girl and everyone else can’t see it. The kind of guy that probably bullied Xander a lot. I think he’s been looking forward to Angel’s death for awhile now and he doesn’t want to let that go. My least favorite part of this scene is that he accuses Buffy of not caring about what Angelus did to Ms. Calendar. We know that’s not true and how much the guilt weighs on her. Xander’s character is a bit uncompromising and very black and white.

Buffy and Willow later talk on the phone, where Willow condemns Xander with some strong language. Buffy isn’t sure what she wants but then finds her Claddagh ring at the bottom of her drawer. 

Kendra returns to help them fight. She brings a sword blessed by the knight who first slew the demon. There’s another crazy moment where a vampire bursts into flames in the middle of a classroom delivering a message to Buffy. These kinds of events lead to all the students helping in Graduation. Buffy decides to meet Angel while Kendra guards everyone else. 

We go to Manhattan, 1996. Whistler approaches Angel (sent by the Powers that Be?), who looks horrible and is feeding on rats. He tells him to stop feeling sorry for himself and shows him Buffy, who has just become the slayer. I love flashback Buffy even more than flashback Angel. She is very much season one Cordelia, sucking on a lollipop and talking about boys with her friends (she’s clearly the ringleader). Her clothes are very different; she’s dressed in bright neon colors. Her first Watcher, Merrick, approaches her. Buffy barely manages to kill her first vampire as Angel watches.

Back in present day Buffy goes to fight Angelus. While she’s there the Scoobies are attacked. Willow is knocked down by a shelf, Xander is injured fighting, Giles is taken, Cordelia flees, and Kendra is killed by Drusilla. I’ve read before that her obedient nature is what made her susceptible to Dru’s hypnosis, which I think is pretty interesting. Buffy returns to find chaos and Kendra’s dead body. She is approached by a policewoman.

Whistler: Bottom line is even if you see em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really, but it does. So, what, are we helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come, can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.

As Angel performs the ritual to bring forth Acathla, he says, “As I ascend, as I become”. He also says he wants to become someone to Whistler (there’s our title). 

Character Notes:

Cordelia Chase: Cordelia actually compliments Willow and her dedication to teaching and tutoring. 

Principal Snyder: He is upset about Cordelia and Xander and Willow and Oz’s PDA. He also tells Buffy she should just give him a reason to kick her out.

Rupert Giles: Giles is the best authority on obscure relics in Sunnydale and a professor refers him to the museum curator. 

Hank and Joyce Summers: The original script had a scene where Joyce tells Buffy that her and Hank are agnostic. In the actual show there is a flashback where they argue because Hank wants to be tougher on Buffy.

Whistler: Whistler is the one who gives Angel the information to find blood at the butcher’s. He says his real name is hard to pronounce unless you’re a dolphin. 

Buffy Summers: She mentions she has stolen lipstick when Merrick approaches her. Possibly something she did for her parent’s attention like Dawn in later seasons?

Kendra Young: She gives Buffy her lucky stake, Mr. Pointy. 

[chocolateheal]

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Candice Breitz Demands the Absolution of Imprisoned Aid Artisan – South African artisan Candice Breitz is calling for the absolution of Sarah Mardini, a refugee aid artisan who has been in bastille in Greece for 100 days. The adolescent Syrian, herself a refugee, appeared in Breitz’s video Love Story (2016), which was apparent at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Mardini, who acquired absorption for affairs a biconcave baiter alteration refugees to safety, faces accuse including espionage and illegally acceptable refugees to access the country. (The Art Newspaper)

Egypt Unearths Eight More Mummies – Archaeologists in Egypt accept apparent eight mummies, three of which are in acceptable condition, at the Dahshur complex, about 19 afar south of Cairo. The mummies and the limestone sarcophagi in which they were were activate will eventually go on affectation in museums due to be congenital in the resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. (AFP)

Vermeer Architecture Comes to Aggrandized Absoluteness – There are aloof three dozen paintings by Vermeer, advance beyond 18 museums and clandestine collections about the world. Several of them are too brittle to biking (and one—long in the accumulating of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—has been stolen). But all 36 accept been affiliated in a new aggrandized absoluteness app developed by the Mauritshuis architecture in the Hague and Google Arts & Culture in Paris. The basic museum, blue-blooded Meet Vermeer, is chargeless and attainable today to anyone with a smartphone. (New York Times)

Activist Accumulation Targets the Brooklyn Architecture for Colonial Artifacts – A beef led by activist accumulation Decolonize This Abode active the access to the exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” at the Brooklyn Architecture on Friday. Participants continued banners with phrases including, “How was this acquired? By whom? At whose cost?” to alarm absorption to the altar in the accumulating plundered during the colonial era. A agnate affirmation was captivated aftermost anniversary at the RISD Architecture in Rhode Island. (Hyperallergic)

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Art Basel in Miami Beach Gets Serious – Racial and beastly violence, altitude change, and clearing will be advanced and centermost at the about agleam and sparkly Art Basel in Miami Beach, which opens to VIPs on Wednesday. The political affection extends to accessory shows and fairs like Pulse, which is including an accession by Ann Lewis, who will use braid and clothespins to append women’s underwear for her assignment One in Five of Us—an accepting that 20 percent of American women will be raped during their lifetimes. (Wall Street Journal)

James Cohan Arcade Will Move to Tribeca – The Chelsea gallery, which represents artists including Bill Viola and Yinka Shonibare, is relocating its flagship to a new two-floor Tribeca arcade abutting September. “I feel like I’d rather assignment for my artists than for my landlord,” Cohan says of the decision. (ARTnews)

The Russian Art Bazaar Is Wavering – Sanctions and biking bans imposed on Russian oligarchs assume to accept put a damper on their art-buying power. The latest Russian art sales in London were not as well-attended as in antecedent years, and one art adviser confirms that it is acceptable “more difficult” for Russian collectors to participate in the British market. (New York Times)

Pace’s Massive Flagship Gets an Opening Date – Mark your calendars: Pace’s astronomic flagship arcade in New York is basic to accessible in September 2019 in Chelsea. The eight-story architecture spans about 75,000 aboveboard anxiety and will accommodate a research library, an alfresco terrace gallery, as able-bodied as achievement and programming space. (Press release)

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Hoor Al Qasimi Will Curate the Expanded Lahore Biennial – The arch of the Sharjah Art Foundation, Hoor Al Qasimi, has been broke to adapt the abutting Lahore Biennale. The additional copy of the Pakistani biennial, due to accessible in aboriginal 2020, will aggrandize to accommodate artists from West Asia and the Middle East as able-bodied as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. (Press release)

Baltimore Architecture Commissions Mickalene Thomas – Thomas will actualize a all-embracing accession to transform the Baltimore Museum’s East Lobby. She is the aboriginal artisan to be called for a biennial commission, adjourned by the philanthropists Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, that will brace a ascent babysitter with an artisan to actualize new works. Thomas says she hopes her addition will “represent, engage, and accompany visibility” to the city’s African American community. (Press release)

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Announces Scholarship Funding – The artist’s foundation is ablution two new initiatives: Frankenthaler Scholarships and the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative. The foundation will accomplish ancient award ability of $500,000 to the art schools at Columbia, the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA, and Yale to armamentarium scholarships for MFA painting students. Future ability will abutment MFA and PhD art history scholarships. Meanwhile, the foundation has donated prints by Frankenthaler to ten museums. (Press release)

Minnesota Art Architecture Reopens in St Paul – The Minnesota Architecture of American Art has reopened in its new home in St Paul. The 100-year-old institution, which is accepted as “The M,” affairs to activate an amplification in 2020. New York-based Sheila Pepe will actualize a site-specific accession for the museum’s Sculpture Court. (Fox)

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Would You Give a Architecture Your Biometric Data? – At the Hirshhorn Architecture and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the exhibition “Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Pulse” requires agriculture visitors’ biometric abstracts in adjustment to function. The exhibition, which appearance all-embracing alternate installations powered by visitors’ fingerprints and heartbeats, comes with a aloofness warning: No added claimed abstracts will be collected, “making identification impossible.” (Washington Post)

Espace Cabu Honors Murdered Artisan – The French artisan Jean Cabut has been accustomed in his hometown of Châlons-en-Champagne with a new cultural space. Accepted as Cabu, the artisan was murdered forth with colleagues at the abusive annual Charlie Hebdo by extremists in January 2015. (Le Figaro)

Tate Artisan Dreams of a Slimy Christmas – The artisan now accepted as Monster Chetwynd has covered the access of Tate Britain with an aflame fungus aisle and installed a brace of behemothic bobcat slugs on its steps. The Winter Commission, which is in abode through to the end of February, reflects the artist’s absorption in bioluminescent beastly life, as able-bodied as another activity sources. It was aggressive by a David Attenborough attributes documentary. (Press release)

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