thatroyalbastard

[thatroyalbastard]

omg whoa welcome back !! we were friends before and i missed seeing u around !!

// Hi!!! I don’t want to be hasty about coming back to this blog but hey! At least muse isn’t DEAD dead yeah?

[thatroyalbastard]

@cigarettes-in-rain continued from x

“Oh heavens, no,” Arthur replied, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Get me a London Fog, and if they don’t have it, then this can’t be reasonably called a cafe.” 

If only his self from centuries past could see him now, willingly settled down in his sweater in the company of Jacques. It wasn’t that he liked the frenchman, far from it, but there was something to be said for the comfort of the company of one who knew him far too well without excuses. 

“And let me set up the board. You can’t convince me to trust you that you’ll do it right.”

[thatroyalbastard]

((Ok tumblr pls don’t take this url away from me))

[thatroyalbastard]

Dan Stevens in Apostle

[thatroyalbastard]

@shelefttheloom The Arthur aesthetic is here ❤

[thatroyalbastard]

//Just kinda.... swings a bat at a hornets nest

[thatroyalbastard]

when mary shelley said “for what have i to thank you? for disappointment, melancholy, and tears; for unknindness, a bleeding heart and despairing thoughts”

[thatroyalbastard]

THATROYALBASTARD

Give thy thoughts no tongue

{promo by @springswallow}

[thatroyalbastard]

THIS CITY REALLY RESTS ON THE BONES OF ITS BUILDERS AS MUCH AS ON THE WOODEN PILES THAT THEY DROVE INTO THE GROUND. SO DOES, TO A DEGREE, NEARLY ANY OTHER PLACE IN THE OLD WORLD; BUT THEN HISTORY TAKES GOOD CARE OF UNPLEASANT MEMORIES. ST. PETERSBURG HAPPENS TO BE TOO YOUNG FOR SOOTHING MYTHOLOGY.  // independent personification of st. petersburg, russia. established september 2014. written by ian. 

[thatroyalbastard]

寧不知清城與清國 There exists no city or nation that has been more cherished

佳人難再得 than a beauty like this.

SPRINGSWALLOW: an independent, historically-based, AU-friendly and selective roleplay blog for the female personification of China, 王春燕 / Wáng Chūn-Yàn.

[thatroyalbastard]

David Haller gifsets [6/?]

[thatroyalbastard]

springswallow:

But it is often those small things we spend so much time thinking of. How one flutters their fingers when they are nervous. How they walk. How they sound when time is seven hours behind. Small things, maybe. But not a small amount of time thinking about them.

“A perfect ten,” she repeats. Those words are derelict on her tongue. She likes how they taste, how they fit. But she is still left dissatisfied. The affirmation is better when it is heard from him. When he says them. How strange. 

It does feel nice. It does. Somewhere in this confusing swirl of emotions — this feels all too much like a betrayal to oneself, a guilty pleasure that one should not enjoy. Should abstain from. “You would give a ten to a liar like me?” she asks. Yes, she lied earlier. Maybe she thought you were a ten, too. And maybe she was lying to the both of you years ago when she said this couldn’t happen. “I should think you should deduct points from me. … Then we would be even.”

Though it’s rather difficult to tell, she seems flustered. Something in the words she’s chosen and the way she says them, betrays her. And he, though he shouldn’t, feels a warm glow in his chest at being able to make her so. It was his words that bothered her, and he takes pride in that fact.

“A liar?” he replies, raising an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t dare make that claim of you.”

They were all liars, the lot of them, and it was just something one had to accept. They all made promises they couldn’t keep, said they were allied with a certain country when that wasn’t the case, and so on. He would never think to hold that against her.

“I would never dock points from you,” he said gently. “I understand, I am not the most handsome of men, and you were being generous. But you are the most lovely of ladies, I must say, and there shall be no points taken from you this day.”

[thatroyalbastard]

springswallow:

Their kind was prone to chain reactions; when one economy fell the other was sure to take a hit. When one ally declared war, the other followed them. And when Arthur Kirkland smiled, Wáng Chūn-Yàn very nearly did, too.

Her eyes followed his fingers trace across his face. Attention to detail in all things, that was what she attempted. How she spoke. How she observed. How she took him in — only with her eyes. For now. “That sounds like a gamble. Are you so sure that it makes you attractive that you think it will earn you a ten next time? Or that it will lower it? I am curious to see.”

Avarice was one of her sins, perhaps her greatest. Which led her to her next question. “It is only fair that I have your rank. I gave you mine.” Her lips remain parted and her eyes fail to waver from his gaze. You’re known to be strict about manners, old man, but do forego the fact she didn’t add Please.

“Hmm, I don’t like it well enough to take that gamble. Perhaps I am just lazy with my shaving at times that I’d like to think it makes me look nice, when really it looks slovenly. Who knows. It is such a small thing to spend so much time thinking about.”

So easily did she draw him into smiles and a pleasant mood. Talking with her was like balancing on a tightrope, so easy to slip and fall though it was the thrill of danger that had him so addicted. He could dance through a conversation with her forever.

“Oh but to rank you as anything but a perfect ten would be impolite of me,” he said, easily side stepping giving her a rank on any serious term. “It’s as if you asked me if that dress made you look fat. All I could say would be ‘certainly not,’ for nothing else is appropriate. For a lady as lovely as yourself, nothing less than a ten will do.”

[thatroyalbastard]

[thatroyalbastard]

springswallow:

“I hope you never forget,” Chūn-Yàn teased. There was been a time where her threats were honest and more malicious… but for now, they were laid to rest. Consider yourself a very lucky man, Arthur. “Teaching you from the start again would be… too time-consuming.” And yet she knows that she would spend the hours doing it. She wonders if he does, too.

What changed. It was a change of heart, really. But easier to blame this sort of thing on him than take any account for herself. “You cleaned yourself up, I suppose. Or maybe I am just paying more attention than I was.”

Oh though he would take that time to be by her side. Though he couldn’t fault her- it had to be annoying to need to teach others something they had been taught before. He knew that he would find it frustrating if he needed to teach someone English again, for how difficult the language was to explain. Hers was just as complicated, if not more. They had that in common at least.

“Ah, perhaps I shaved,” he said, and ran his fingers across his chin. “I am not usually given to letting the stubble grow, though at times it looks almost attractive.”

He grinned.

“I’m glad you noticed.”

[thatroyalbastard]

springswallow:

“… So you remember how to count after all.” 

Consider her bested for the moment — but those with wings are skilled at remaining in the air, especially after a rough gust of wind.

“It is… certainly higher than what I was thinking of you a few days ago.”

“I do remember, such a language you will never forget.”

He didn’t add that he kept it fresh on purpose, to be sure that whenever he spoke to her, it was exactly the way he intended it.

“Oh? And what changed?” he asked with a small smile.

[thatroyalbastard]

@springswallow

“A nine, my dear? Certainly higher than I was expecting. I’m flattered.”