#i keep thinking about the way he paints men....like the delicacy and beauty of every man he painted regardless of how ‘attractive’ they were | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stiltonbasket · 3 years

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Beauty & the Beast AU Prompt: Jiang Cheng is the Beast and Nie Huaisang is Belle. Lan Wangji is somehow sent to rescue Nie Huaisang but he refuses to leave - no one is making him train! He can paint and decorate fans all day long! Plus, Jiang Cheng just showed him a library with a very interesting section... Lan Wangji is getting frustrated, and it doesn't help that an annoying candle called Wei Ying keeps following him around and will. not. leave. him. alone!

“I was very beautiful when I was human, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji glares at the smiling candlestick and aggressively reshelves another book. “Indecency is forbidden,” he repeats, wishing he had a tablet of Lan sect principles at hand so he could make Wei Ying copy them down as punishment. “Vanity is a stain upon the mortal soul, and wise men eschew it. Please remember that in the future--whatever you may know of the human world as it is now, we are not all Nie Huaisang.”

Inwardly, Lan Wangji laments the fact that Nie Huaisang had been kidnapped by this beast, of all the rampaging creatures in the countryside that could have run across him. The young Nie scion has as many delicacies as he wants to eat (courtesy of the beautiful porcelain teapot that usually accompanies Wei Ying, who said she was the lady of this empty household, once upon a time) and plenty of paints and brushes and fans, not to mention a whole section of yellow leaflets in the library--which this shameless candlestick, Wei Ying, claimed to have collected himself.

“This is because I gave A-Sang my longyang books, isn’t it?” Wei Ying mourns, while Lan Wangji makes a violent choking sound and piles more cooking manuals--the ones Jiang Yanli lent him, so he could show the kitchen implements how to make his favorite foods--over the shameful scrolls before debating setting them on fire. “You haven’t even looked at me since you found out they were mine.”

Lan Wangji feels his face burn. “Perhaps,” he hisses, “I would be more inclined to look at you if you could go more than two minutes without mentioning them!”

“How can I?” Wei Ying demands. “That’s the reason you haven’t been getting along with me! We have to talk this out!”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Lan Wangji snaps. “You are--frivolous, and shameless, and talking to you makes my forehead ribbon curl.”

And it distracts me from what I’m supposed to be doing, he thinks guiltily. I should have been home with Nie Huaisang two weeks ago.

“Oh?” the candlestick says slyly. “So you don’t even want to stay and see the new portrait I’ve been working on?”

Something aches in Lan Wangji’s chest at the thought of refusing him, even though Wei Ying’s teasing is a deeper source of suffering to him than Nie Huaisang’s refusal to stop wasting time with Jiang Wanyin (current beast, and ex-crown prince) and go back home to his brother. “You may show me your portrait if you promise to behave,” he says stiffly, trying not to blush as Wei Ying leaps up to the drawn curtains in glee. “And then I must go to help the washtubs with the laundry.”

“You don’t actually need to help them, you know,” Wei Ying points out. “Our bodies aren’t human anymore. We don’t get tired.”

“Nie Huaisang and I are two of the only three people in this place who wear clothes. It would only be polite to help them.”

“Ah, that’s right!” chirps Wei Ying. “Well, just look at this portrait, and then you can go.”

He jerks on the tasseled rope fastening the curtains and capers in sheer happiness as it falls back to reveal a portrait of a young man in white robes, seated on a bench with his shimmering gown spread out on the floor around him and holding a fluffy rabbit in his lap.

The youth in the painting has a smile on his lips, and Lan Wangji feels the breath catch in his throat as he recognizes his own face represented above him in ink and brushstrokes and paper.

“Good, isn’t it?” Wei Ying preens. “What do you think, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji never makes it to the laundry that day. But upon later reflection, perhaps the washtubs and irons will understand.

---

Two months later, when Nie Huaisang manages to bring the Jiang household and all its inhabitants back to their former glory, Lan Wangji discovers that Wei Ying is every bit as beautiful in his human form as he always used to claim he was.

“Now I can woo you properly,” his beloved gloats, as the two of them revel in the precious feeling of actually holding each other for the first time. “You won’t be able to resist, sweetheart! I’m never giving you back.”

“I have already been wooed,” Lan Wangji says honestly, smiling as Wei Ying throws his lovely face into his equally lovely hands and wails. “I fell in love with Wei Ying the candlestick, and I love Wei Ying as he is now. You need never do anything to keep me, for I am already yours.”

“You can’t just say things like that!” groans Wei Ying. “Have mercy on my heart! Lan Zhan!”

“I’d advise against kissing Lan-er-gongzi in the courtyard, Xianxian,” Jiang Yanli laughs, appearing in the doorway with her son Jin Ling--the ex-teacup, who liked to wake Lan Wangji up in the mornings by jumping on his back--in her arms. “Nie Mingjue’s here, and I think he might tear the manor down with the way he’s chasing poor A-Sang.”

---

(Nie Mingjue does not get the chance to tear down the manor, because his brother falls to his knees in front of him and begs to be permitted to marry Jiang Wanyin before he can really get started. But that is a story for another day.)

#wangxian #sangcheng #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #beauty and the beast au #my fic

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msjr0119 · 4 years

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Sneak Peek Sunday

Thanks for the tag @cordonianroyalty and @thecordoniandiaries 👍🏼, as many of you already know I’ve been on a semi hiatus but have a few things nearly ready to post. Below is just a few of those snippets 😊

*****

Cordonian Wags

Book: The Royal Romance A/U

Zooming into the photo her eyes widened. Amy Amaranth. The name rang a bell for some reason but she couldn’t pin point why. It had rattled her mind all night, upon her arrival - she noticed Olivier and suddenly a lightbulb struck.

“Hey....” Sounding panic stricken, Olivier looked her concerned.

“Bonjour belle. Que se passe-t-il?” Hello beautiful. What is the matter? Luckily Riley knew French, not fluently but enough to hold a conversation out.

“Amy Amaranth....” Riley didn’t require to say anything else, the look of horror was now painted across the Frenchman’s face.

“That’s a blast from the past...”

“Sneak away with me for a bit? I need you to refresh my memory, Olivier.”

*****

The American Adventure

Book: The Royal Romance (part canon with a few twists/ part A/U)

Warnings: Mention of abuse.

“I think that you and I need to talk young Walker... over the years, the injuries... they weren’t accidents either?” Remaining silent, Drake concentrated looking at the crack on the floor. As if he was hypnotised.

“Drake! Answer me! I promised your father that I would look after you. If you don’t tell me I can’t help you.”

“No they weren’t accidents, Bastien. I lied. I’m sorry.” Kneeling down, he looked into Drakes eyes- reassuring him that he would be there always. “Who did all of this to you, son. Tell me.” Drake removed his shirt, Bastien gasped as he could visibly see markings. “The Ki-the King did this....”

Drake explained how every time he stood paralysed with fear, attempting for his body not to tremble as it would result in more abuse. “He was embarrassed.... that he had to take myself and Savannah in. Every time I avoided doing noble things he would shout at me, saying I was lucky that I had him ... asking why I was ungrateful. Why I couldn’t act noble like Sav?” Explaining all this felt like relief in some way. That he didn’t have to hide the abuse from everybody. The ‘sulky’ attitude that he had helped cover the true facts up. Describing how the King would have bloodshot eyes, as well as the thick saliva that formed around his mouth as he spat towards him. Once he was in this rage, Drake just responded with a gesture such as shaking or nodding his head or one worded answers- fearing what would occur if he said or did anything wrong.

“He threatened to put me up for adoption if I didn’t abide by his rules. There are blanks, half of the time I don’t remember things. But he just acts all normal as if nothing has happened. I want to leave Cordonia as soon as I can, Bast. But what would people think?”

“Don’t you worry about it. You have me. I will not allow him to hurt you again. Do you understand me? Go back with the others. I need to go and see someone.” Drake brushed past Bastien, knowing that he was about to re-enter the cabin and be questioned by everybody. Keep up with the fall lie. “Oh Drake, I think that Andy appreciates you for defending his daughter. But she can look after herself. Trust me. She’s stronger than she looks.”

“How do you know?”

“Instinct. Just like instinct tells me that you wouldn’t defend any girl. I know how young men’s minds work. That girl punched Nate back. I wouldn’t worry about him anymore, she’s got your back. See you later, son.”

*****

A Proposal

A/N: This has been in my drafts since January, I never posted it- just because I’ve been so busy with other things.

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairings: Liam x Riley, Maxwell x Riley

Liam poured himself a scotch in his quarters, ever since his unexpected introduction with her- for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about everything regarding the mystery lady. Inviting Drake and Maxwell over, he needed a distraction. A big one at that.

“Li? Are you okay?” Drake asked the moment he set foot in the room. Usually Liam wouldn’t send out an SOS, he would just get on with things. As a future king would do.

“Yes, I’m sorry for disturbing you both. The whole situation regarding Leo’s abdication- it’s just not fully sunk in yet. I don’t know if I will cope with the social season- I don’t want that.” Pausing, Drake chewed on the inside of his cheek- not really knowing how to respond. All of their life they had assumed that all the responsibility would revolve around Leo. The eldest prince. The rightful future monarch. “I met someone today......” Liam continued, both of his friends gazes focused onto him- both noticing the sudden sparkle surrounding his baby blues.

“A little birdie told me that you met Riley today...” Maxwell interrupted, whilst scoffing his face with a box of an unknown delicacy to the two men stood near him.

“Who?”

“Riley Brooks. Liam’s new ‘personal assistant’. She’s awesome. A bit boring when she’s at work, but she’s very motivated- she delivers her work to the highest standard. You’ll be fine with her by your side, you can trust her with anything.”

“And how do you know her, Beaumont?”

“She worked for us, but then we got into a bit of money trouble. Don’t ask. Bertrand will kill me if you both knew. Anyway.... I promised that I’d find her a new job as we had to let all of our staff go. I had to grovel with the King to give her a chance. That wasn’t a pretty sight, I’m surprised that I’m still walking to be honest- he looked as if he was going to kill me. Once your social season ends she will probably go back to New York. I will miss her.”

“Maxwell, tell me everything about her. I’d like to know.”

“Erm... what exactly do you want to know, Liam?”

****

Tags- if anybody wants to share their work as part of Sneak Peek or Six Sentence Sunday:

@pedudley @kacie-0156 @loveellamae @annekebbphotography @kingliam2019 @burnsoslow @kimmiedoo5 @lodberg @walker7519 @drakewalkerisreal @axwalker @bascmve01 @ladyangel70 @texaskitten30 @yukinagato2012 @indiacater @queenjilian @drakewalker04 @cmestrella @hopefulmoonobject @rainbowsinthestorm @desireepow-1986 @jared2612 @twinkle-320 @princessleac1 @custaroonie @princess-geek @bebepac @nikkis1983 @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @rafasgirl23415 @notoriouscs @seriouslybadchoices @furiousherringoperatortoad @shanzay44 @choices97 @gardeningourmet @sanchita012

#choices trr #theroyalromance #riley brooks #maxwell beaumont #liam rys #drake walker #bastien lykel #trr au the american adventure #trr au cordonian wags #tw abuse mention

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turtle-paced · 5 years

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Appreciation Post: Daenerys Targaryen

Her brother held up the gown for her inspection. “This is beauty. Touch it. Go on. Caress the fabric.”

We meet Daenerys being pushed around by her brother in preparation for a marriage she had no say in. By the end of the book, it’s clear that one of the driving questions for Daenerys’ series arc is what do you do with power once you have it? Over the course of the series thus far, she’s gone from having little but the dubious protection of her name, to a political figure whose reputation spans half a continent and more.

Dany’s storyline across the series is one of the most overtly high fantasy plots in ASoIaF. In a series known for its focus on the low fantasy elements, Dany openly and unabashedly fills a classic high fantasy protagonist role. She dominates her storyline to the point where she shares screentime with no other PoV character until book five.

The structure of her story in the first book starts her out as a pawn in her brother’s plan for the reconquest of our home. She’s been bought and sold before we meet her. And yet, despite what she goes through, in AGoT and after, we see Dany learn and grow. The first step is her outstripping her brother, as she learns that Drogo’s khaleesi has more power than Viserys’ sister. Still nowhere close to real agency, though, for all Khal Drogo swears to invade Westeros in her name and for their son. She has little to no power over the conduct of the war in her name, as she discovers. Just as quickly, she discovers her own deep unease with the brutality inflicted on the Lhazareen. She is unable to prevent the suffering, and as Mirri Maz Duur shows Dany, this sort of thing cannot be fixed so easily after the fact.

When Drogo falls grievously ill, however, Dany starts claiming her own power, culminating in the literal and metaphorical waking of dragons that concludes the first book.

She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.

- Daenerys X, AGoT

The next two books, and the first half of Daenerys’ story, consolidates her as a figure of power in her own right. She leads her people through the Red Waste and protects her dragons in Qarth in the process of determining that what she wants is to be a dragon in her own right. This is the note we leave her on in ACoK, when she tells a disguised Barristan to rename her ships.

"As you wish," said Arstan. "What names would you prefer?"

"Vhagar," Daenerys told him. "Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned."

- Daenerys V, ACoK

In ASoS she follows through. It’s a defining book for her.

Astapor represents the first time Dany gets to - and has to - choose how she’s going to fight for what she wants. In Astapor, she decides that some sacrifices aren’t worth it. She still has the empathy she felt for the Lhazareen, but now she has the capacity to do something about the injustice she sees. Unlike then, however, she enables the Unsullied to fight for themselves, and then orders them to attack the slavers of Astapor.

"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air...and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!"

"Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire.

- Daenerys III, ASoS

Dany takes her care for her people to an extreme, here. Despite advice she refuses to abandon the refugees who followed her, and instead moves on to Yunkai and Meereen, freeing slaves (and outwitting slavers and mercenaries) as she goes. ASoS ends with her decision to stay in Meereen, for a few reasons:

"But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?" He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. "My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I've freed all over again." She turned back to look at their faces. "I will not march."

- Daenerys VI, ASoS

She’s aware of the gaps in her experience and the fragility of her gains for the freedpeople of Slaver’s Bay, and sacrifices her immediate interests for her followers and in the interests of learning how to do the job she wants well. Dany is not just determined to be a queen, she’s determined to be a good queen.

In many ways that comes back to bite her in ADWD, where she’s promptly caught between her desire for peace and her desire for justice. She makes compromise after compromise for very little success, culminating in two of my favourite ADWD chapters - Dany IX and Dany X. These chapters are where Dany realises that her compromises threaten her integrity:

One step, then the next, but where is it I’m going?

I am not your mother, she might have shouted back, I am the mother of your slaves, of every boy who ever died upon these sands while you gorged on honeyed locusts.

- Dany IX, ADWD

Followed by the symbolic reclamation of her identity as she leaves Meereen on Drogon’s back, and her decision to stick with what she’s good at.

“Fire and blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

- Dany X, ADWD

Okay, so that’s what Dany’s done. It’s impressive, to say the least, and it promises more to come. But simply conquering cities isn’t what makes her an impressive protagonist. Dany is constantly struggling with the moral dimension of her use of power. What is a just war? What are just measures to keep the peace? Sometimes Dany gets it wrong.

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

- Dany VII, AGoT

She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood...

Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

- Dany VI, ASoS

Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon's mercy. "Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply."

"I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him."

"Do as you think best, but bring me names." Her fury was a fire in her belly.

- Dany II, ADWD

What we can see in these quotes, though, is that even in those low moments, Dany is doing her best. There’s her ongoing hazard, though: her tendency to believe that the ends justify the means. As with Catelyn, Dany’s virtues have their downsides. Those best of intentions don’t always translate into the best of actions.

The other incredibly poignant thing about Dany is the extent to which she is motivated by a desire for home, family, and community, encapsulated in her dreams of a house with a red door:

"We will have it all back someday, sweet sister," he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. "The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King's Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back." Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

- Dany I, AGoT

Home? The word made her feel sad. Ser Jorah had his Bear Island, but what was home to her? A few tales, names recited as solemnly as the words of a prayer, the fading memory of a red door…

- Dany VI, AGoT

She grew up an exile. Her most reliable and loyal caretaker died when she was young, leaving her homeless and dependent on the charity of others. Her brother was her only family, but he was as much threat to Dany’s wellbeing as protector, and certainly not capable of providing for them both. Even as Dany grows up and grows stronger, capable of making her own home, she does not feel at home in the lands she travels through:

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood at her elbow wrapped in a bedrobe, wooden sandals on her feet. "I woke, and saw that you were gone. Did you sleep well? What are you looking at?"

"My city," said Dany. "I was looking for a house with a red door, but by night all the doors are black."

- Daenerys VI, ASoS

Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all.

- Daenerys III, ADWD

And that lack of feeling plays into her decision at the end of ADWD.

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

- Daenerys X, ADWD

So we leave Daenerys with her search ongoing. We know she wants the wellbeing of the slaves she’s freed. We know she personally wants to go home. These are sympathetic and heroic objectives. The challenge is in what she’ll do to achieve these goals. She is the hero of her story, and one of the main heroes of the story. She is allowed to take the starring role in facing down continental and global problems, and she’s allowed to fight those problems and her own flaws on her own merits as a character. Dany is allowed to struggle, as a hero - and I still believe that eventually she will be able to overcome.

#ASoIaF #valyrianscrolls #cw: violence #cw: abuse #daenerys targaryen #a game of thrones #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #a dance with dragons

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nerianasims · 3 years

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Billboard #1s 1966

Under the cut.

Simon And Garfunkel – “The Sound Of Silence” -- January 1, 1966

This song is beautiful and thoughtful and I love it. People apparently talk about its naivete, but it's more a sermon than a political tract. And, above all, it is gorgeous and interesting music.

The Beatles – “We Can Work It Out” -- January 8, 1966

You'd have a better chance of working it out if you weren't blaming the whole fight on the other person, Paul. But that's so often the case. Thinking you're the only one trying, when the other person is trying just as hard, and you're talking past each other. I really like John's interlude, which also makes me think he's the one fighting with Paul. It happened plenty. This isn't a top tier Beatles song, but it's good.

Petula Clark – “My Love” -- February 5, 1966

Her love is greater than any other great thing in all of the entire universe, apparently. Sunshine? Oceans? Stars? Nothing compared to how great she is at love. Petula Clark could always sing, but by the time the chorus comes around the second time, she sounds sort of embarrassed. She doesn't hit the notes with her normal confidence. It is a thoroughly embarrassing song.

Lou Christie – “Lightnin’ Strikes” -- February 19, 1966

Well I'm creeped out. This belongs a few years back, if it had to exist at all. It starts with "You're old enough to know the makings of a man" -- just how young is she? Young enough not to smack him with a brick when he tells her he just can't help but cheat on her since that's what men do, but she needs to stick around waiting for him and not do the same. If she does, he promises he'll marry her... eventually. Plus falsetto. I hate this song.

Nancy Sinatra – “These Boots Were Made For Walkin'” -- February 26, 1966

And this song is a good answer to it. Lyrically, it's the pinnacle of what a country song can do. "You keep thinking that you'll never get burned/ Ha!/ I just found me a brand new box of matches/ And what he knows you ain't had time to learn." The narrator's cheating scumbag whom she's in the process of dumping is so low, she's not even bothering to get angry with him. She's got a new, far hotter guy anyway. Musically, the instruments are themselves a Greek chorus making fun of the guy and heralding the singer's triumph. Love love love it.

Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler – “The Ballad Of The Green Berets” -- March 5, 1966

More machismo, but of the lawful rather than chaotic variety this time. This must have made a lot of people very angry at the time, but it also must have felt triumphant to a lot of others. "Fearless men who jump and die" -- that's not good! It's The Old Lie! A man dies because apparently that's just what Green Berets do, and his last request is that his son be a Green Beret too. For what? The song doesn't even say what they're fighting for! There's a line about dying for those oppressed, the same bullshit we've been fed for so long, but absolutely no details. Because it's a death cult. Oh, and the song is musically terrible too. This is horrific.

The Righteous Brothers – “(You’re My) Soul And Inspiration” -- April 9, 1966

It's another heartbreak song from The Righteous Brothers. She wants to leave, but she's his "soul and inspiration." I would like it better if it weren't a heartbreak song. It doesn't have to be. The chorus would go perfectly well with a song about how happy they are together. Meh.

The Young Rascals – “Good Lovin'” -- April 30, 1966

He says his doctor has prescribed "good lovin'". He's got the fever, you've got the cure. This could easily be creepy. It's not, because it's so fun. It's a seduction song where the seducer is trying to make his target laugh, which is the right tactic if you're light about it. Fun, good song.

The Mamas And The Papas – “Monday, Monday” -- May 7, 1966

John Philips was one of the worst people in pop music, and that's saying something. The Mamas and the Papas were a good group musically, though. This song is about how Mondays typically suck, but the narrator is happy because this Monday morning, his girlfriend is still here. And then Monday evening, she's left. He doesn't sound too upset. I find this song repetitive and boring.

Percy Sledge – “When A Man Loves A Woman” -- May 28, 1966

I don't like this song. Sledge's version is obviously better than Michael Bolton's, but the problem is the lyrics. The song doesn't say so directly, but the implication is that a man should never fall in love with a woman because she'll bring him nothing but pain. Nope.

The Rolling Stones – “Paint It Black” -- June 11, 1966

The song is about depression, specifically the depression coming from the sudden death of one's romantic partner. Which makes it a love song, in a way. It's rock, and it goes hard, and it's more achingly sad than thousands of schmaltzy songs about the same thing. It makes me cry every time. Amazing, heartbreaking song.

The Beatles – “Paperback Writer” -- June 25, 1966

This became a #1? It's mean and petty. Someone who has made it as thoroughly as it is possible to make it should not be scoffing at the little people trying to claw their way up. Musically it even sounds kinda half-assed, for the Beatles. Very much a lesser Beatles song.

Frank Sinatra – “Strangers In The Night” -- July 2, 1966

He and some woman were strangers in the night, but fell in love at first sight and became lovers, and are still together. I love the song. Sinatra was getting older, and that comes through -- his voice doesn't have the modulation and delicacy it did when he was younger. At the same time, that age gives the song a lot of heft and truth. "And ever since that night/ We've been together/ Lovers at first sight/ In love forever/ It turned out so right."

Tommy James And The Shondells – “Hanky Panky” -- July 16, 1966

His girlfriend fucks. And he shouts this fact to us over and over and over and over and... okay, look. I understand being thrilled with your first relationship in which you get sex. A lot of sex. A looooot of sex. But it's generally much more interesting to the people doing it than the people being told about it. Dull.

The Troggs – “Wild Thing” -- July 30, 1966

I don't understand anyone who doesn't start dancing, even just in their chair, when this song comes on. It's a rocking love n'sex jam with an ocarina in it. There is nothing not to love.

The Lovin’ Spoonful – “Summer In The City” -- August 13, 1966

This song comes down to: It's hot in the city during the day, but cooler at night, plus you can pick up chicks at night. The lyrics are a big nothing, but the music is great. Somehow the song got associated with the various protest movements happening at the time. Is that gonna happen with W.A.P.?

Donovan – “Sunshine Superman” -- September 3, 1966

It just occurred to me that R.E.M. may have been inspired to write "Superman" by this song. It's the same basic premise, except that unlike R.E.M., Donovan doesn't realize he's being egotistical to the point of being scary by saying he will use every trick in the book to get this girl. Well okay, "Donovan" and "scary" are tough to put in the same sentence. The song is musically great. Think about the lyrics for a minute, and they're disturbing. I don't really know what to do with this.

The Supremes – “You Can’t Hurry Love” -- September 10, 1966

"Love don't come easy/ It's a game of give and take." Yep. And if you do try to hurry it, you're likely to end up with one of the jerks from the first few Supremes hits. Normally I would say to avoid getting advice from pop songs, but I'll make an exception for "You Can't Hurry Love." This is a welcome evolution, and an excellent song.

The Association – “Cherish” -- September 24, 1966

Glurge. Such glurge, I thought this was a 70s song before now. I actually cannot listen to the whole song. The music hurts me somehow. So I read the lyrics to see what they are, and blurgh. It's about how he can't figure out how to say he wants her and none of the other guys really care for her and that's it I'm done. Atrociously bad.

The Four Tops – “Reach Out I’ll Be There” -- October 15, 1966

A phenomenal song. You need a hand to hold. Yes, you. And The Four Tops will be there for you. Huge numbers of pop songs -- a plurality, at least -- are sung to "you." But this one feels like it really is. Levi Stubbs is going to be there for you. And this song has been there for me throughout my life.

? And The Mysterians – “96 Tears” -- October 29, 1966

So, this guy renamed himself ?. I would expect a song that involved someone named ? to be much odder. Maybe it was at the time, though the organ sounds mostly like Baby Elephant Walk (though not as good.) ? speak-sings that he's gonna get the person who dumped him back, and then he's going to dump them, and they'll cry 96 tears. That is odd, admittedly. Why 96? That doesn't sound like very many. One good cry would probably do it. The organ is the most interesting thing about the song, which is sadly not nearly weird enough for the band's name.

The Monkees – “Last Train To Clarksville” -- November 5, 1966

One of my friends was a huge Monkees fan when we were teenagers. She was born in 1977. The Monkees were on Nick at Nite (I think), so I did see a few episodes. She watched them religiously. She insisted their music was great, and I was like... really? Sadly, I was snobbish about it, and entirely because the show was so doofy. Their music really was pretty damn good. Though this song sounds like the younger brothers of The Beatles trying to copy them. Still, they did a pretty good job of it.

Johnny Rivers – “Poor Side Of Town” -- November 12, 1966

The narrator's girl left him to be with a rich guy. The rich guy discarded her, so now she's back on the poor side of town. The narrator rubs it into her face for a verse and a half, but then he says that to him she's "the greatest thing", and he doesn't blame her for trying. By the end of the song, he says he and the girl will be able to make it together. The lyrics are good. Unfortunately, the music and singing are dull. Someone should take these lyrics and make a much better song out of them.

The Supremes – “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” -- November 19, 1966

For once, Diana Ross gets to be appropriately angry at a jerk. By the end of the song, she's commanding him to get out of her life. I have been where she is in this song, and it ties you up in knots. It deserves more of a full opera than a high-energy dance song. But this song is still great.

The New Vaudeville Band – “Winchester Cathedral” -- December 3, 1966

This is a British music hall song. Whether you like it will depend on whether you like that very singular genre. I do, in small doses. If it had been a #1 hit at any time when I was listening to radio, I'd have hated it. I can only identify "Winchester Cathedral" out of the lyrics, and the rest don't matter anyway. The song is fun and annoying in equal measure, and hearing it once every five years or so sounds about right.

The Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations” -- December 10, 1966

This is my favorite Beach Boys song. Musically, it's astonishing. It's the song that persuaded me of the "Brian Wilson is a genius" stuff I kept hearing. It also has much better lyrics than most Beach Boys songs, as they are like the lyrics of a typical pop song. Except with a lot more "om bop bop" and the word "excitations." It sounds like it's going to have a slow, soft fade-out, and then the main chorus comes roaring back. One of the great pop songs.

The Monkees – “I’m A Believer” -- December 31, 1966

I think this is the best Monkees song. He didn't believe in love, then he "saw her face", now he's a believer. Has he even talked to her? Doubtful. That's okay, it's not meant to be anything but a cheery pop song. The beginning guitar does sound sort of like George Harrison, but the rest of the song is a bit more distant from the Beatles than "Last Train to Clarksville." They sound like a confident, real pop group, though they weren't allowed to play the instruments on it, which most of them were not happy about. They still ended up participating in a memorable song.

BEST OF 1966: This one is hard. I was tempted to make it a tie between about a half dozen songs. I think I have to give it to "Paint it Black" though. Maybe. Then again, "I'll Be There" is a heartlifting titan. And "You Can't Hurry Love" is timeless and something more people need to hear. And "Good Vibrations" is a musical triumph. Then there's "The Sound of Silence." And... discuss amongst yourselves. WORST OF 1966: No question. "Ballad of the Green Berets." Nothing in any year is worse.

#billboard number ones

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haveanotherkpopblog · 5 years

Text

Painted Stories

The Shrew and the Bunny

Pairing: Kim Dahyun x You

Genre: Angst, Historical!AU, Horror, Yandere!AU

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: Death, animal cruelty and murder, stalker themes

Masterlist

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful you woman. She was so beautiful, that everyone who saw her immediately fell in love with her. This upset her a great deal. Not because people thought she was beautiful, but because that’s all people noticed about her. Suitors from near and far came to win her heart and hand, but were all rejected when they would only talk about her beauty.

While she refused to marry someone who only loved her looks, she was still lonely. To compensate for the lack of true love in he life, she bought a bunny. It wasn’t a pretty bunny. It had been abused for quite sometime and yet the woman thought it was the most perfect bunny. She loved the bunny like how she wished she would be loved.

Years went by and still, no one could when the woman’s heart. Her beauty never faded, but her kindness for the world did. She became ill-tempered and soon refused any suitors, whether they thought she was pretty or not.

While most of the town’s people had grown to fear and loathe the Shrew, one girl still loved her very much. Kim Dahyun had loved Y/N L/N since they were children. Of course she didn’t understand it back then, Dahyun never got over her childhood crush. While Y/N was a handful and hated public interactions, she was tolerable with Dahyun. Everyday Dahyun is happy she and Y/N had been childhood friends.

Though she loved her friend dearly, Dahyun was too afraid to voice her feelings out loud. More than once she’d seen how angry Y/N became when someone would start proclaiming their undying love for her. It never ended well for anyone involved.

Just earlier today, a man who had her of Y/N’s legendary beauty had come to see for himself. When he stood outside her door, calling for her, she opened the door and began beating him repeatedly in the torso with a shoe. Because as any mother will tell you, shoes don’t leave bruises.

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” Y/N said once she sat back down. Dahyun sipped her tea silently, gazing out the window at the man limping away and clutching his sides.

“Not at all,” Dahyun said, turning back to face Y/N. “Well, here’s some good news. He’s only the third one in, what, a month? Much better than when there were five a day.” Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Oh don’t remind me. Honestly, when will people learn that there’s more to me than my looks?” Dahyun set her cup down. Y/N’s bunny came hopping into the room, settling itself onto her lap. Y/N began dotting on the creature, making Dahyun glare.

“Well, I say don’t settle until you find someone who appreciates how smart you are, how resourceful and clever you are, how friendly you can be,” Dahyun added in a teasing voice. Y/N offered her a rare smile, and Dahyun felt her heart sore.

“If only everyone was like you Dahyun,” Y/N sighed. She glanced at the clock before sitting up straight. “Oh good gracious look at the time. You best hurry home before your mother has your head.” Dahyun nodded, giving her friend a tight hug before making her way to her own house.

All the while she dreamt of what her and Y/N’s life could be like. They could get married and move to an island. They could have three kids and a pet, maybe a dog or a cat. Just not that stupid bunny. While Dahyun loved Y/N, she hated her bunny. It was like a harsh slap to the face whenever she saw Y/N being so affectionate with it. It’s not like the thing could do much. It couldn’t hold conversations, or make her laugh, or love her like Dahyun could.

Dahyun brushed off her petty jealousy as she entered her house. Immediately she was filled with the smell of her mother’s cooking. She let out a content sigh, walking into the kitchen and sitting at the table. Her mother stood at the stove, stirring a pot with a wooden spoon.

“There you are. I thought I was going to have to send the dogs after you,” her mother said.

“I was just at Y/N’s house,” Dahyun told her. Her mother tisked.

“I don’t understand how you can spend so much time with that shrew.” Dahyun rolled her eyes. “She’s so nasty with everyone, especially men. She’ll never marry if she doesn’t stop her ridiculous behavior.”

“She’s not like that with me, and she’s not a shrew. She just doesn’t want to marry someone who only likes her for her looks. She wants someone who loves her for her, someone who sees her as more than a pretty face, someone--”

“Like you?” he mother interrupted. Dahyun stared at her with her mouth wide open. “It’s no secret sweetness. Everyone can see how you look at her. After all, you’re the only one she even talks to anymore.” Dahyun’s cheeks turned bright pink. “You know, if you like her so much, you should tell her. Like you said, she needs someone to love ‘her for her’. Who better than you?”

“You think so?” Dahyun asked. She had a goofy grin on her face. Her mother nodded.

That night, Dahyun went to sleep happier than she’d ever been. Her mother was right. Who could love Y/N better than her? No one, and she was going to win her heart. No matter what.

Roses were a cliché. Well, red roses were a cliché. White roses were a symbol of pure love. What flowers could be better than those representing pure love? Dahyun held a vase full of them as she made her way to Y/N’s house. She had everything all planned out. She would walk up to her house, she would knock on the door, and when Y/N answered the door, Dahyun would tell her how she really felt.

It was a real shame when, after Dahyun knocked on the door, she put the vase down and ran away. Her heart was pounding as she hid behind a tree. She placed a hand on her chest to magically calm down her breathing. Peeking from behind the tree, she caught a glimpse of Y/N looking around. She hid behind the tree again, leaning her head against the trunk. It wasn’t exactly going as she had planned, but it was better than nothing.

The next day, Dahyun prepared homemade chocolates. The delicacy wafted through the air, earning the attention of multiple people from the street. She had her mother buy a beautiful box and gold twine for the chocolate. Once the chocolate had cooled and hardened, Dahyun wrapped them up individually, placing them in the box carefully before using the twine to tie a pretty bow. She, once again, failed to stay to confess her love, but she saw Y/N pick the box up before she ran of giddy.

That night, she stayed up to pour her heart out into the most romantic letter ever written. Everything she thought about and felt about was written there on paper. The confession flowed out her like water from a waterfall after storm. She wrote and wrote until the early hours of morning.

When she had finished, a huge grin rested on her face. Swiftly she made herself presentable. She put on her favorite dress, did her hair nice, and even spritzed on her favorite perfume. She skipped down the stairs with a spring in her step. Her mother stood in the kitchen, humming a tune as she made breakfast.

“Good morning!” Dahyun called, dancing around the kitchen. Her mother let out a laugh, watching her daughter with a happy heart.

“Someone’s in a cheerful mood,” her mother commented. Dahyun nodded.

“I’m going to do it. Today is the day I go and tell Y/N how I feel. Well, let her read how I feel.” Her mother smiled fondly.

“I’m so proud of you dear. What you’re doing is very sweet and very brave. There’s no way she’d say no.” Dahyun hugged, her mom, thankful for her confidence. “Now go before you chicken out. Invite her over for dinner!” her mother called as she ran out the door.

The whole way down she was positively buzzing. Today was the day. After today, she didn’t have to hide her feelings anymore. People would stop avoiding her and suitors would stop chasing her. She and Dahyun could walk hand in hand instead of at a distance. So many cute domestic thoughts filled her head as she made her way to Y/N’s house.

How life would have been had Dahyun not looked at Y/N’s trash can. A familiar gold twine had caught her eye. There, right on top of the trash, was the box of chocolate she had worked so hard on, unopened. Under them were the roses she had hand picked for her. She stood frozen, her eyes trained on her disregarded tokens of affection. Her heart shattered in her chest. Did Y/N really not return her affection? They’d been friends for so long, had the feelings only been one-sided.

Dahyun refused to believe that. There was no possible way Y/N hadn’t developed feelings for her. The letter still clutched in her hand, Dahyun went back home. She brushed her mother’s questions off as she went to her room. She sat on her bed, her heart and mind racing a mile a minute. So the gifts didn’t work. All she had to do was find a way to impress Y/N in a way that she’ll accept. The only question is: how?

For the next few days, Dahyun followed a very specific schedule. She checked the mail every day to see if Y/N had sent a letter inviting her over. When no such letter was found, she made her way to the backwoods around Y/N’s house. Dressed in trousers and a loose shirt, she climbed up a tree that was close to Y/N’s house, but not so close that Y/N would see her. For days she would watch Y/N move around her house. She watched her clean and read and eat. She watched as she bathed and dressed herself and dotted on that damned bunny. Her eyes followed her movements carefully with every action she did.

Despite all this, she was no closer to an answer than she had been when she started her, ahem, observations. She sat at her desk, frustrated beyond belief. Her mother entered her room slowly, moving to sit on her bed.

“Sweetheart, you should really just talk to her. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why she, ahem, didn’t keep the gifts. I’m sure she just thinks it’s from another silly guy who doesn’t know her. A good relationship is built on honesty and communication,” her mother told her.

As her mother stood up and left, she turned her words over in her head. Her mother was happily married, so surely she knew what she was talking about. With nothing else to do or go on, Dahyun heaved herself off her bed.

While she was walking to Y/N’s house, she came across a peddler with strange vials and jars. Against her better judgement, Dahyun stopped at the peddler’s cart. An old woman stared at her, her eyes dark and emotionless.

“I sense great turmoil in your heart,” she said. She rummaged around in the cart before producing a small vial with a glowing pink liquid in it. “I promise dearie, this will solve all your troubles.” She wrapped her long, slender fingers around Dahyun’s wrist, pushing the vial into the palm of her hand. “Take this, but be careful. Don’t let jealousy win the battle, because then you’ll lose the war.” Then the little old woman picked her cart and began to walk away, leaving Dahyun stunned.

She shoved the vial into her pocket, continuing on her way to Y/N’s. She stopped just outside the gate, anxiety weighing heavily on her heart. Her hand went to her pocket, pulling out the mysterious vial. The pink liquid swirled around, looking like something out of a fairytale. Taking a deep breath, she uncorked the bottle, brought it to her lips, and tipped her head back.

Whatever it was, it was awful. It smelled like turpentine and tasted like Indian ink. Dahyun threw the bottle away coughing as the thick liquid ran down her throat. No sooner had she recovered from that traumatic experience, Y/N burst out her front door, running to Dahyun.

“Dahyun! Please, help me!” she called. Dahyun opened the gate, meeting her halfway. Y/N was hyperventilating and there were tears brimming in her eyes.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dahyun asked. She help Y/N steady her breathing enough for her to talk.

“It’s my bunny. She’s missing. She was by my side moments ago and I went to get a book and the next thing I knew she was gone. I saw the back window open and I think she got out,” Y/N explained, fanning herself.

“Hey, she probably is in the backwoods. She couldn’t have gone too far. I’ll help you look for her,” Dahyun said. Y/N threw her arms around Dahyun, pulling her into a hug and muttering out her gratitude. Dahyun relished in her touch, her heart speeding up in her chest.

They split up and headed off in separate directions. She wasn’t really trying to find that accursed bunny. After all, Y/N didn’t need it anymore. Dahyun was there for her. That bunny couldn’t care Y/N the way she could, it could comfort Y/N the way she could, it couldn’t love her the way she could. Dahyun wouldn’t feel bad if she never saw that blasted bunny again.

But luck was not on her side tonight. Like she had said, the bunny hadn’t gone far. It sat on the stump of a tree, watching Dahyun with its beady, black eyes. It didn’t move as Dahyun approached it. It simply stared at her, unblinking. A fit of jealousy roared in Dahyun’s heart.

She grabbed the bunny by its neck, her fist squeezing. Her eyes held the flames of hell, yet they were so cold and desolate. The bunny began to squirm in her grip, but she didn’t let go. She squeezed and squeezed until she heard a loud snap.

All at once her jealousy left her. She dropped the bunny, its limp body hitting the ground with a resounding thump. The weight of what she’d done began to weigh down on her as she stared at the dead bunny. She began pacing, her mind going over every scenario. Then the peddler’s words echoed through her head.

Picking up the small corpse, she ran out of the woods and back down the road to find the peddler. She was sitting on the road, a warm cup of tea in her hands. She glanced up at Dahyun, her eyebrows raised.

“I can save the bunny, but it will cost you,” the peddler said.

“I’ll pay any price,” Dahyun said breathlessly. A brief twinkle sparkled in the peddler’s eye.

“Everything comes with a price.” She handed Dahyun another vial. However, this one was a sickly green. Placing the bunny on the cart, she uncorked the vial and tipped it back. It tasted better than the pink vile, like sweet honey with extra sugar.

A sharp pain hit Dahyun in her chest. It was so bad she ended up passing out.

When she awoke, she was slightly disoriented. She wasn’t on the street where she had been before she passed out, but she definitely wasn’t in her room. In the distance she heard crying. She tried to stand but her legs felt weird. She tried to look down but found she couldn’t. Glancing around, she had to do a double take when she saw herself in the mirror. Her body wasn’t her own.

Instead of her body, she was a bunny. Not just any bunny though. She looked just like Y/N’s bunny. This had to be a dream. There was no way she was the bunny. Attempting to move, she began hopping as best she could. She stumbled along until she was in Y/N’s parlor. On the couch was Y/N and Dahyun’s mother. Both were in tears.

“It’s all my fault,” Y/N sniffled. “If I had never sent her out to find my bunny, she wouldn’t have broken her neck.” Who broke their neck?

“Oh my dear,” her mother sighed. “Dahyun would have done everything for you. She never had the chance to tell you, but she loved you.” Her mother pulled out the letter she had written just barely a week ago. “This is for you. I’m sure she’d want you to read it.” Y/N accepted the letter, immediately reading it. She began to cry more, burying her head in her hands.

“I wish I’d known sooner. I feel the same way. God, why did I have to be so stubborn?” Dahyun’s mom rubbed her back soothingly. “I miss her so much.”

“I do too,” her mother whispered. “But she’s in a better place. She died doing something for someone she loved.”

Dahyun stumbled to the room, trying to tell them she was still alive and stuck in a bunny’s body. But all that came out was annoying whines. Y/N picked Dahyun up setting her up on her lap. Y/N stroked Dahyun’s back, soothing her. She may not be able to love like she could have as a human, but now Y/N would love her. And only her.

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akaspiderman · 5 years

Text

starlight

pairing: 40s!Bucky Barnes x reader

word count: 2.5k

warnings: none

plot: Bucky has devised a crazy plan // inspired by starlight by taylor swift

A/N: i don’t know how the military works so i’m sorry if it’s wack. // part of the red collection

“Bucky, what are we doing?” You ask under your breath. Your eyes flitter around, absorbing the scene that surrounds you. Everyone dressing in their finest clothing. They were decked in dresses that graze the dock, gloves up to their elbows and men who wear tidy suits, who wrap their arm around their dates. The couple in front of you puts you to shame with their clothing, they were practically dripping gold. You shift your weight, unsure of what you’ve gotten yourself into. These were not the people you associated with.

“It’ll be fine, trust me doll,” Bucky says with a wink. His arm slithers over to your waist, pulling you closer as you take another step closer to the yacht.

“I do, but-“

“You’re worrying too much.” Bucky leans closer to you, his lips centimeters away from your face. His voice comes out quiet and quick as the couple in front of you enters the yacht. “Follow my lead.”

“Invitations?” The guard asks, his eyes scanning you and Bucky.

“Dear, you have them right?” Bucky says with a mock accent that must have been made up.

You shoot him a look, in disbelief that Bucky would throw you under the bus without warning. You give him a tight smile, imitating his ridiculous accent. “No, I thought you had them.”

Bucky cocks his head at you, his eyebrows scrunched. “I explicitly remember you saying you had them.”

The bouncer sighs, crossing his arms. “You can’t go in without an invitation.”

Bucky unhooks his arm from yours, reaching out and patting the bouncers arm, who looks at Bucky with distrust. “I can assure you we were invited.”

“No can do sir, you need the invitation.”

Your heart twists as he stands firm. You shoot a quick glance behind to see the small amount of people lined beginning to look impatient. They were clearly the type of people that have grown acquainted to quick and fast service. Bucky snaps your attention away from the women who fanned their faces and the men who stood around bored. The words that fell out of his lips made your eyes widen, he’s oh so stupid at times. “I don’t want to make a scene, but you will let us through.”

“Who do you think you are?”

Bucky bites his lips, clearly not prepared for that question. If given a few more seconds, he would’ve grabbed you by the arm and got the hell out. Instead, you clear your throat, grabbing the bouncers attention. “The Duchess and the Prince of Romania.”

The bouncer scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Right.”

You gasp dramatically, flinging your hands up to your heart. “How dare you? Este inacceptabil. Va trebui să raportați asta regelui. Prințul nu va fi tratat așa.”

The guards eyes widen, the language striking him unfamiliar. “S-sorry your majesty? I wasn’t aware, um,” he gushes out apologies, stepping to the side to let you walk through.

You brush past him, your head held high as you huff a little. Bucky trails behind, shooting the bouncer a snotty look. He makes his pace quicker, before slowing down to match yours. You walk in silence, convinced the guard was watching you strut in. He would notice that you didn’t blend in, the way you carried yourself didn’t match everyone else and how your heels have been scuffed and worn. Despite that, a proud smile was painted across your lips as you dive deeper into the party.

Bucky finally takes the chance and glances over to see the bouncer accepting heavy white envelopes, signaling that you were in the clear. Bucky swings around to face you, his hands instantly reaching for you face. He lightly squeezes your beaming face, causing you guys both to burst into laughter. Maybe it was the wrong thing to take pride in, but you did that. That situation would definitely age into a story that you would be re-telling to every person you met.

“That was incredible!” Bucky says between the laughter that was hurting his side.

“I know!”

Bucky rolls his eyes at your cocky response, there was no way you were ever going to let this go. He releases your face to move down to your arms, the adrenaline still running through his veins as he clutches you. “How did you do it?”

“I’m learning Romanian. They’re sending some people over to Romania to get coverage of the war. I butchered some of the pronounciation but he dosen’t know any better.”

“The perks of dating a journalist.” He brings you closer to his chest, planting a soft kiss on your forehead. You were all dolled up, just like Bucky told you. A silky dress that hit just below your knees and fake pearls wrapped around your neck. You scope out the yacht to see everyone dressed to the nines, a small feeling of insecurity creeping up. Their dresses were much more extravagant and their heels echo through the night. Diamonds dance around women’s necks that reflect the faces of their dates who wore tailored suits. You swore you could smell the money everyone had.

Yet, Bucky’s eyes twinkle at you. Stars illuminate you and he silently swears he would hold on to you. The wind runs through your hair as the boat starts to churn, pulling away from the coast. You are absolutely divine. You place your hands on his chest, a small smirk playing on your lips. “What?”

Bucky shakes his head, “Nothing, nothing.” A waiter walks by, a tray filled with flutes of bubbling champagne. Just one glance and you know that champagne would single handedly be the most expensive drink you’ll ever have. Bucky grabs two, nodding thanks to the waiter. He holds one out as an offering, titling it so the champagne was about to fall out. “My lady.”

“Shut up.” You take it, lightly clinking it against his. “I can’t believe you wanted to do this.”

“I’m just trying to have fun.”

Your smile falters, what a sad sentence. Seemingly, it was an innocent sentence, but it wasn’t. It was the sentence that confirmed your theories that you’re brewing. Your theory that Bucky was trying to embrace life and not waste any second. The whole sneaking into a yacht party was an attempt of living life to the fullest before he was shipped off to training. Then after that, to war. Your beautiful, charming boy will be gone, fighting some battle in a foreign country alone. A dangerous war, a war that made you want to beg him to stay, but you can’t.

Bucky watches your smile fall of your face and he knows what entered your mind. You picked up a habit of finding the sad in the happy. “Look at you worrying about things you can’t change. You’ll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way.”

“I know, I ju-“

“I love this song,” Bucky interrupts in an attempt to distract you, “We should dance.”

“I’m not done drinking,” you say waving your glass around.

Bucky throws his head back, gulping down the champagne. If people were watching, you would bet they were gasping, maybe on a brink of a heart attack. You take small sips of it, savoring the delicacy. Bucky watches you taking your time as he taps his foot to the beat. One look at you, he could almost regret enlisting. He was terrified at thought of leaving something this great behind. He didn’t want to let go of the most loving thing he’s ever known. You were always there for him. He got so used to you being a support system that he could see himself collapse at the thought of you being gone. But he had to brush it under the rug most of the time, you did enough stressing and worrying for both of you. If he laughs it off, he could see the tension release from you. You trust him, so if he says he’ll be fine, you’re almost convinced that he would be okay.

You take your time still, Bucky watching you. There was no doubt in your mind he was trying to make up for all the dates he’ll miss. He was just trying to get a kick before he left you high and dry. Carnivals and museums were more your style, and usually Buckys, but you would go anywhere he asked you to. Even if it was to some mysterious location that Bucky wouldn’t give any context on except for dressing nice.

“I don’t have all the time in the world doll,” Bucky teases.

You pull the champagne away from your lips, laughing at him. He seizes the opportunity to snatch it out of you hand, turning to a waiter, who held a tray, to place the flutes on. He’s grabbing your hand before you could say anything, dragging you towards the middle of the yacht where the music completely surrounds you. “Oh my, what a marvelous tune,” you joke with a fake accent.

Bucky lets out a chuckle before he starts moving his shoulders to the rhythm. He shimmies in front of you, but you were somewhere else. You stand stiff as Bucky dances in front of you, your eyes wandering around. Everyone was prim and proper, holding glasses with the lightest touch. They were conversing in conversations that must have been dreadful based on the way they were so uptight. Their laughter could only be described as fake as they clinked their drinks together.

“Dance! Stop being a bore,” Bucky says, pulling your attention away. He reaches out, grabbing your arms. They stood firm at your side though, your heart quickening as he started to gain attention.

“I am not a bore.”

“Then why aren’t you dancing?” Bucky says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I’m a horrible dancer, you know that,” You whisper.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You’re the finest dancer in all of Brooklyn.”

Heat rushes to you face, but you try to brush off his flattering. “Besides, no one else is dancing.”

“So?”

Maybe it was the gleam in his eyes or his charming smile that could enchant anyone. Maybe it was the fact that you don’t know anyone and this would all be forgotten. But maybe it was because you know this would bring regret if you don’t do it, time was slipping away from you and Bucky. If he wants to dance, you’re gonna dance. When you offer your hand up, accompanied by an over dramatic eye roll to hide the pain, Bucky can’t help but take it instantly.

“That’s my girl,” he whispers into your ear when he pulls you in, but that changes quickly. He eagerly steps back, creating space between you. He’s swinging your arm around to the rhythm with enough energy to make up for the energy you lack.

After a few missteps on your end, the music takes over. You’re stepping into time, with Bucky guiding you through the beat. He was definitely more experienced that it should have hurt your pride that you were dancing so foolishly, but it didn’t. He had this way of easing you, like it was just you and him messing around in a secluded room rather than a boat full of people you don’t even know. Your dress twirls around with every twist and turn you make, it feels like you were actually the Duchess of Romania. It was crazy how everything just seemed to melt and disappear for the short amount of the upbeat song was left.

When the song fades out to be replaced with a more sultry, slow song, he lets go of your hands to place them on your waist. Your hands find their way to his neck. Bucky looks at you like you were the most precious thing that’s ever been created, that his gaze almost made you want to duck your head, but you don’t. Instead, you hold the eye contact, soaking in this moment.

As much as you try to push it away, it still enters your mind against Bucky’s wishes. Everything was slipping out of you hands, there was no more surety. It was letting Bucky go and hoping for the best. Hoping that you would see him again and that everything could pick up from where it left off. That was just a hopeful view though, there would be endless obstacles that challenged the happy ending that you want. Thoughts that you don’t even want to think about, but still do, keep you petrified of the future.

Bucky frowns as he picks up your thoughts. The sparkle in your eye always dulls when the idea enters your mind. “Hey, it’s going to be fine.”

An unscheduled sigh parts your lips, your voice somber. “I know, it’s just-“

“No. Everything will work out. I’m going to get back and we’ll be okay. We’ll get married and have ten kids and we’ll teach them how to dream.”

A small laugh arises from you. It should have comforted you and it did to a certain extent. It almost humored you though, those things felt impossible. They were so far out of your control. The way Bucky could remain so clam with always be a mystery to you. “I don’t know,” you finally whisper.

“Do you see the stars?” Bucky asks.

You follow his gaze up into the sky. They never look this clear before. They were piercing through the dark and shining down upon you. Thousands of them were gracing you with their prescense, it was hypnotizing. “Yes.”

“I’ll be able to see the stars out there,” Bucky says. He looks back at you. You were so amazed at them, he wishes he could see that same look everyday. They were never this clear in the city.

You snap out of your trance with his words. You meet his eyes again and he leans forward, resting his forehead against yours. His eyes were so familiar, they felt like home. “The stars?”

“I’ll be able to see them wherever I am and so will you. The starlight will shine on us wherever we are. We aren’t that far apart doll, it’ll be okay. Even if it isn’t, I’ll follow the starlight back to you. I’ll always go back to you,” he says softly.

It was so cheesy and so hopeful, but you want to believe in it. That’s all you can really do, believe in ideas that seem almost impossible. Those were the ideas that keep your spirits high. The ideas that make you believe everything will work out, even if it was clinging onto the idea that starlight will reunite you. You can’t control what happens, you know that. So all you can do it believe in Bucky’s words. You reach out to brush your hand against his cheek. You ask him with the most gentle voice, “Promise?”

“Promise.”

108 notes · View notes

lesbianarcana · 5 years

Text

Luceo non Uro - Chapter 1

Concilio et Labore (by Wisdom and Effort)

Relationships: Asra/Apprentice

Rating: Mature

| Read on Ao3 |

The crowds were rarely avoidable in Vesuvia during the day, especially in the central district, but they were particularly bad at this time of year. Even after sunset when the night market opened to the crowds of the Masquerade, the bustle was almost overwhelming.

Daya ducked and weaved through the throng of people, hopping to and fro across the boards placed above the canal. Her purchase she cradled close to her chest, and the smell of the hot, fresh bread made her stomach rumble. It was her luck that the market was open almost constantly during the days of the Masquerade, if only because it gave her something to do at night. The vendors always made a killing when the Count’s birthday celebrations rolled around, after all. Artisan bakers made cheaper versions of the delicacies served at the palace, tailors sold costumes of chiffon and cheap gold leaf, and winemakers offered tastings of rare imports from Atapra and Milova. A sea of fluttering costumes, glittering baubles and painted masks surrounded her, dazzling her with the colours and patterns of a hundred people. It was enough to be overwhelming. The palace had to be worse, surely…

For a moment Daya glanced wistfully at the stone stairs that wound out of sight, all the way up to the palace. What would it be like to wander the gardens in an elegant costume, she thought, perhaps dancing in a glittering ballroom and eating tiny sandwiches.

“Keep dreaming,” she said out loud, and blushed at the odd look a passing reveler threw her. As if she would ever be invited to the Masquerade--as if she would ever have enough money for fancy dress! And who cared about tiny sandwiches, anyway?

If she dawdled any more the bread would get cold, and the fortune-teller might disappear into the night--not to be seen for another year, maybe more.

The shop was open late for once, the lantern still lit with an iridescent blue flame, and when Daya glanced at the side window she could see the faint, blurred outline of her aunt striding past. But it wasn’t time to go inside. Not yet. She slipped past, shoes padding silently on the cobblestones, and around the back of the building.

To her relief the booth was still there, a hastily constructed thing of a few upturned barrels and a tent poles draped with blue and purple cloths. She’d seen him setting up just after dawn, though the window’s frosted glass turned him into little more than a sunlight-dappled figure. When she’d gone to run errands later that day there had been a line; old men and mothers and a few street urchins shoving and pushing each other. Even though it was after dark the streets were still full of people, but...nobody lingered at the tent now, and the flap was still fastened to allow entry. Daya hesitated a moment, brushed away the shyness that clutched at her chest, and ducked inside.

There was barely any room inside the tent and yet, all she could see of its occupant was a pair of shoulders and a head of fluffy white curls, both illuminated by a central light that hovered above them. Then the drapes fell back with a rustle, throwing the space into darker shadows, and the fortune-teller straightened up. She caught and held his gaze; eyes of purple with delicate white eyelashes.

God, he was young. Barely into adolescence, she realised, about the same age as she. His gaze dropped to the bread in her hands, and Daya blushed.

“Here,” she said, and hastily shoved the bundle at him. “You’ve been working here all day, and I thought you might be--this is from my favourite baker.”

He looked so surprised it was almost comical, and for a moment he just stared down at the wrapped bundle.

“It’s pumpkin bread,” Daya added. “The best in the city. Well, I think so, anyway.”

The fortune-teller unwrapped the linen cautiously. His fingers dug into the loaf, pulling it apart, and the scent of warm spices filled the tent. He closed his eyes, inhaling. A dimple flashed in his cheek.

“It smells amazing,” he said, when he opened his eyes again. “You didn’t have to do that. Thanks.”

“Nonsense,” Daya said, and sat herself on the nearest barrel. “Everyone deserves to eat. Besides, you’ve been bringing customers to the shop. My aunt should be thanking you.”

He placed the bread on the makeshift table between them and began to tear it into smaller pieces. Half of the pieces he wrapped up and tucked away into his bag. He offered her a piece from the remaining half, and began to eat the rest enthusiastically.

“This shop is your aunt’s?” he asked between bites. The bread disappeared at an alarming rate, confirming her suspicion that he hadn’t eaten all day.

Daya shook her head at another proffered piece and swung her legs idly, then started as the barrel wobbled.

“Magic ingredients, potions, spells, and divination,” she said. “She’s been teaching me a few things.”

Her lessons were supposed to have begun an hour ago, but he didn’t need to know that.

The fortune-teller looked at her curiously. “You can do magic?”

“Ah, sort of. I’m still learning.” She watched him pick crumbs off the table, and something like pity stirred in her chest. “What’s your name?”

The flash of a dimple again. “Asra. And yours?”

“Dayana. But you can call me Daya, if you want.”

“Daya,” Asra said, almost to himself.

The scarf at his shoulder rose upwards, and moments later a serpent’s head peeked out. Its tongue flicked, tasting the air, and it looked around with red eyes. Asra appeared completely unsurprised, glancing down and smiling.

“Who’s this?”

Asra lifted one finger to stroke under the snake’s chin. “This is Faust. She’s my familiar.”

“Oh,” Daya sighed, somewhat enviously. “I wish I had a familiar. She’s beautiful.”

Faust yawned widely, slithered down Asra’s shoulder and deposited herself on the table. He looked cautious for a split second as the snake brushed over Daya’s arm, cool and smooth...then visibly relaxed.

“I’m glad you’re not afraid of snakes,” he said by way of explanation. “Some people are. You said you don’t have a familiar?”

“Not yet. I wish.”

“Not every magician finds their familiar right away, but it’ll be worth it once you do.”

Asra brushed the remaining crumbs off the table, then opened his hands. A deck of cards splayed out between his fingers.

“Let me read the cards for you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Daya began, pulling the barrel closer, “but if you’re offering, I’ll say yes.”

He smiled. “It’s the least I can do. Do you have a question you want answered?”

Daya shook her head and leaned forward eagerly, hands clasped on the table. She’d seen her aunt read the cards for customers before, and some of her spreads were far more complex than she could hope to create. Most people who came for fortunes, however, preferred the simple three card spreads: past, present, future.

Asra shuffled and cut the deck with practiced ease. Daya watched avidly as he laid out the cards facedown; four in a square and one in the centre.

“An archetype reading,” she noted. “The five aspects of the self. The persona, the shadow, the opposite energies, the heart’s desire.”

“That’s right.” He smiled at her, and flipped the first card. An image of a snake curled around a polished wooden stick. It reminded her of his familiar.

“The Queen of Wands.”

“Yes. A person of focus and passion, drawing others into her orbit.” He smiled. “Or their orbit, if you prefer.”

Daya shrugged. “I don’t care which.”

Asra flipped the second card.

“The Seven of Swords, reversed. The second card, the shadow. A secret shame, or a refusal to acknowledge a situation or a truth. This can represent...running away from a difficulty instead of facing it.” Asra gave her a sly look. “An example would be avoiding magic lessons and having your fortune told instead.”

There was a split second in which they looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

“You got me,” Daya said, grinning widely. “I’m avoiding my aunt right now. I should have known I couldn’t hide from the cards.”

“Not these ones, at any rate.” Asra flipped the third card. “The World. Opportunity, success, and a journey. But in this specific context…” he paused for a moment, hand hovering over the illustration. “A suggestion, to be proud of all you have accomplished thus far.”

Their eyes locked again, and Daya felt a shiver run down her spine.

She wasn’t new to the reading of the cards. Tarot and other divination techniques were part of her lessons: she read runes, bones and tea leaves also. And from time to time, Daya had spent her spare coin on happiness or success readings at some of the other fortune-teller booths found at the central market. Those were for idle curiosity, and the vendors little more than snake oil salesmen. She knew how to spot genuine skill, and Asra had it. Her eyes dropped to the fourth card, and she watched in anticipation as he turned it over.

“The Eight of Pentacles, reversed.” This time he looked up, a mischievous glint in his eye. “A struggle to maintain focus. Do you think the cards are trying to tell you something?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” she retorted, and he laughed. Deftly he flipped the fifth card...then sat back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“The Fool,” he said after a moment.

"Wow. Rude.”

Asra glanced up at her uncertainly, his white eyebrows quirking. He relaxed when he saw her grin. “You scared me for a second.”

“I’m learning the cards, remember? I know what the Fool means. A cliff’s edge, with limitless potential for the future, if I only make the leap. Am I right?”

“Yes. You have all you need to move forward.”

Daya sat back, mirroring his pose, and watched as he gathered up the cards.

“May I?” she asked into the silence.

Asra paused in the middle of shuffling the deck, and his gaze fell upon her outstretched hand. For a second she thought he would refuse. It was somewhat of an audacious request, if she knew anything about magicians and tarot. But then he smiled and passed the deck over.

“Are you going to practice on me, Daya?” he asked, teasing.

She laughed. “I can try.”

Her fingers closed over the cards-- then a sudden rush of wind extinguished the lantern, throwing the booth into darkness.

It was magic, she realised. Pushing and pulling within her like a tide; rolling over her in a heady rush, tingling and warming under her palms. She gasped involuntarily, squeezing her eyes shut

The light returned moments later, throwing wild, swinging shadows over the booth. Daya drew in quick, ragged breaths.

“Mmhm,” Asra said. He had an air of smug satisfaction about him, as he leaned his chin on one hand. “I thought so.”

She threw him a quizzical look but he said nothing further, so with a shrug she began to shuffle.

“Past, present and future,” she said, and let the cards flow through her hands. She could almost hear her aunt’s voice.

Relax. Empty your mind and let the cards speak to you in the silence.

She’d had trouble reading the cards most days, but this deck...this deck was special. How else could it have reacted to her magic?

Daya drew three cards, face down, and chose the far left. The Five of Cups.

“You had a great loss, many years ago,” she said tentatively.

A flicker of pale eyelashes; otherwise no reaction from him.

“Someone who was important, and sometimes, it seems as if pain is all you will ever know or feel.” The words came unbidden, drawn from her mouth in a whisper. “Sometimes...it’s easier to keep hurting, because hurting is infinitely less terrifying than feeling nothing at all. Hurting means the loss meant something. It made them real, and it keeps them alive, in a way.”

Asra said nothing. Embarrassed, Daya swiped at her eyes and let go of the card. “I’m sorry. That was totally inappropriate. Um...should I continue?”

A soft, tentative reply. “Please.”

Turning the second card took more courage than she cared to admit. The Magician stared up at her in the form of a fox, a small smile playing around its mouth.

“The Magician,” she said, and Asra’s eyebrows rose. “For your present.” Daya tapped her chin with one finger and closed her eyes, exhaling slowly. “You’re...performing an act of creation, shaping something from nothing. A place of pure magic, created from and shaped by your willpower.”

Asra’s eyes widened. “Huh.”

“I know...I’m not making much sense, I’m sorry. I still have trouble with my focus, as the cards pointed out.” She turned over the third card. “The Hermit, reversed.”

This time the words were easier to hold on to.

“The Hermit implies solitude, even when upright...reversed, it represents a deliberate isolation. A withdrawal from the world.” Frowning, she glanced up at him. “If you aren’t careful, you could lose your connections to this world...or fail to form new ones.”

Asra was silent for a long moment, staring thoughtfully at the cards laid out before him. Then he smiled. There was no hint of mischief in his expression, only interest.

“I thought you might have the skill for tarot,” he said, “and I was right. You’re the real deal.”

Daya opened her mouth to reply--then the slap of feet on cobblestones made her pause. More and more footsteps; some hurried and some leisurely. The sound of flutes floated from around the corner, clear and high and melodic. Voices growing louder.

Curiosity drew her up, and she peeked outside. Asra had picked a good spot for fortune-telling, that was for sure--the booth opened up to the wider part of the street, giving them a good view of the marketplace. Her skin prickled as she felt Asra’s presence at her shoulder.

“Look,” he said, pointing. She followed his gaze to a glittering carriage making its way past, headed for the town square.

“Fancy,” Daya mused. “Do you think it’s the Count? I’ve never seen him before.”

“The Count?” Asra said. “I don’t think so..”

There was a strange note in his voice she couldn’t quite pick out, but then he brushed past her and she promptly forgot in her curiosity. She followed him out into the street and joined the crowd gathering to watch.

The carriage was close now; close enough to snatch glimpses of its passenger. A cascade of violet curls. Brown skin. A long nose and elegant fingers. Red eyes.

“She looks like a noble,” Daya murmured, and Asra hummed beside her. “I wonder who she is.”

“Dayana!”

The sharp, rich voice rang over the mutter of the crowds. Daya blushed violently as several people turned to look at her, then above--to the woman leaning over the balcony.

“Ah, it seems I’ve been caught.”

Asra laughed.

A little awkwardness settled over them as they turned back to face each other. A few moments of silence, then Daya finally spoke.

“Same time next year?”

Asra laughed again, quieter this time. “Who can say?”

“Even if I don’t see you...” she offered her hand, and he took it. “Thank you, Asra. I’ll take your advice if you do the same for me.”

“I will,” he promised.

“Dayana!”

“Coming!” Daya called, and let go of his hand. An awkward smile, one more glance and he disappeared back inside the tent. The flap unfastened and fell over the entrance, and the light went out.

She went back to the shopfront, extinguished the lantern with a snap of her fingers and turned back to watch the carriage disappear around the corner. The last thought before she crossed the threshold was of purple eyes reflecting the lantern light, and a strange feeling in her chest that could have been intuition.

It wouldn’t be the last time she saw Asra, though--she was certain of that.

#the arcana game #asra alnazar #asra x mc #asra x apprentice #fan apprentice #dayana firestone #im reposting cause i did some revisions #my writing #luceo non uro fic

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mentalmimosa · 5 years

Text

come at once, part IV

part I here: [https://mentalmimosa.tumblr.com/post/183190416525/come-at-once]

part II here: [https://mentalmimosa.tumblr.com/post/183212457065/come-at-once-part-ii]

part III here: [https://mentalmimosa.tumblr.com/post/183212497805/come-at-once-part-iii]

The next morning, when he walked into Mr. Bond’s study at five minutes to nine--after knocking, of course--he was somewhat surprised to see the ruffian from the night before replaced by what look like a gentleman. His hair smoothed into shape, all of his clothing in place, Bond was the picture of order from his cravat to his boots. There was an empty teacup at his side and a dip pen in his hand. He looked like he’d been at it for hours.

“Q,” he said, not looking up from his work. “You’re early.”

“Am I?” For most of his previous employers, five minutes to the hour was considered on time.

“You are.” The pen lifted from the paper, went back to the inkwell. “Wait outside, please.”

Q flushed--was he damned to always do so in this man’s presence? “Sir, I can--”

“Outside.” Bond’s voice was deceptively placid. “I won’t ask again.”

And so, at four minutes to nine, Q found himself back in the corridor, standing awkwardly beside a closed door, his hands curled rather uncharacteristically into white-knuckled fists. He closed his eyes and breathed and flipped through the mental catalogue of the many other gentleman he’d worked for, of their various quirks and seemingly silly demands. Lord Haycomb and his insistence that Q use a quill, for example, no matter how much it slowed down his scribing; or Mr. Beecham of High Street, Esquire, who regarded a malformed letter or a wobbly comma as reason enough to toss an entire page of correspondence in the fire and insist that Q do it again. Indeed, he consoled himself, there in Mr. Bond’s silent, well-carpeted hall, even his favorite employer, a Mr. Post from Mayfair, had had his eccentricities; he’d always insisted, for instance, that his mind was clearer, their work more efficient, when Q divested himself of his coat and set about scribing in only his shirtsleeves. It was the way of rich men, was it not, to bend the world to their will? Even when the bit of the world to be bent was merely their clark.

The clock struck nine. Q opened his eyes. When the last bell tolled, Mr. Bond called: “Come in.”

Inside, all was as before, except now there was a chair beside Mr. Bond’s desk, its back to the window. A small scrivener’s table laden with paper, pen, and ink bottle pulled just so to its side.

“Sit,” Bond said as Q approached. Again, he did not look up. “And do be quiet until I finish, please.”

Q sat. The air was cold at his back; no colder, though, he thought sardonically, than that in the room itself. Outside, the sun was shining, fighting valiantly against the stark wind that rattled the panes. Inside, there were three lamps ablaze--again, he thought, too many; why was Bond so eager to burn his money?--and a fire that flickered amiably at the far end of the room. Tall shelves lined the wall opposite him, crammed just this side of too full with acres and acres of books and there was a low settee near the fire but otherwise, there were few signs of life; no knick-knacks or paintings, no novel tossed half-read on a chair, no signs of a dog, no woolen rug tucked around Mr. Bond’s legs. No, the study, for all its beauty, the fineness of its furnishings, had the air of a museum rather than a homeplace.

“Now,” Mr. Bond said abruptly, drowning his pen in the ink bottle, “shall I tell you about your work? I’m sure you’ve wondered.”

Q started. He wondered if that was the point. “I was told you required help with correspondence. And perhaps with”--here he hesitated, sensing the need for delicacy--”assistance in sorting through papers related to an estate.”

Bond’s face swung towards his, that sharp gaze already drawn. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re on trial, remember? There will be only correspondence for now.”

Q was ready for him this time. This time, he didn’t flinch at the touch of the blade. “As you like, sir.”

“Fine. I have three letters to dictate between now and elevenses. Do try and keep up.”

Bond’s dictation was a hail of bullets, rapid fire. He pushed back from the desk and moved about the room, firing words in every direction. To Q it seemed he hardly paused for breath.

It was a test, of course; that much was apparent. The nature of his letter--greetings sent to a colonel in India named Fletcher, an old commander, Q gathered--was neither urgent nor especially complex. They had not spoken in years; Bond was asking after him now, driven perhaps by guilt or the passage of time. Q couldn’t tell. Q wasn’t interested. Q’s mind was settling happily, finally, into the familiar earth of his job.

“Have you got that?” Bond was standing by the fire, an unlit pipe in his fingers. “All of it?”

“Yes.”

Bond tapped the pipe into his palm and tossed the ash in the fire. “We’ll see. Read it back.”

“Sir.” He felt vaguely insulted. He figured that was rather the point.

“You heard me, man. Read it back.”

Q blew gently at the ink of the the second page and drew up the first. “Colonel Fletcher,” he read, “Are you well?”

It took him perhaps five minutes to read the thing out. Bond didn’t interrupt him. Simply struck a match and watched him like a hawk.

“Have you ever taken a letter for a colonel before?” he said when Q was done.

“Yes.”

This seemed to please Bond. His mouth quirked around the stem of his pipe. “And have you ever heard such a letter take a tone like this one?”

“How do you mean, sir?”

“How would you describe this letter’s tone, Mr. Q? What assumptions would you make about the two men between whom it would pass?”

Q was not certain where this was headed and yet he had the uncanny sense that Bond was deliberately leading him out onto thin ice. “That you are well acquainted, for one thing. That you may have served under him for another. That there is some fondness between you, perhaps, though that would be only a guess.”

Bond regarded him for a moment. His face was clouded by smoke. “What would you say if I told you I’ve never met the man in my life?”

“I would find that almost impossible to believe, sir.”

A chuckle, the same one Q had heard at his back the night before. “Would you, now. Well. That doesn’t say much about your imagination, does it?”

“You’d write in this way to strangers?”

“And what way is that?”

Q resisted the urge to shake the letter at him. “Fondly. Familiarly. As if you had a shared past.”

That got Bond’s eyebrows up. “And what if I do? Is it any business of yours?”

“No, but it seems quite peculiar. Don’t you think?”

“Indeed it does.” Bond’s lips turned up. It was the closest Q had seen him come to a smile. “Are you always quite so impertinent with your employers, Mr. Q? No wonder you were in need of employ.”

Q felt a stir of irritation. “Most don’t pepper me with questions, sir, or intimate that I do not know how to do my job. They hire me because they know that I can."

“Tch. They just take you at face value, do they? Well, that’s their mistake. Don’t let it be yours, eh?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you learn nothing else from me during our brief acquaintance, Q, by god, let it be that.”

Q’s head hurt. He ached for a cup of tea and a respite from those blue glacier eyes. “I don’t follow.”

“Don’t take anything I say at face value. In my speech, in my correspondence: very little about me is as it seems. I've worked very hard to make that the case.” A flash of white teeth. “If you can understand that, then we’ll get along swimmingly. Until, that is, we don’t.”

“Sir,” Q said, because it was easier than arguing. “I’ll endeavor to do my best.”

“Very good. Draw a fresh sheet, please.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “We have two more letters and only just more than an hour. Let me know when you’re ready to begin.”

It felt like a challenge. This whole morning had, actually, from the moment he’d been sent back to the hall like a misbehaving dog. Screw this man who wrote letters to strangers, or people he’d made up just to test Q’s mettle. And his rapidly thinning patience. Part of Q wanted to chuck the ink bottle at Bond. Part of him wanted very much to lay his head back and to scream.

But part of him, too, gripped the pen a bit tighter. Set his jaw and sat up straight. He’d be damned if he’d let himself be chased off--as Bond seemed determined to do, for some reason-- on his very first day.

The man wanted to annoy him, to shake him? To talk in riddles and then smirk when Q’s hackles went up? Very well. Bond could amuse himself as he liked; he was paying for the privilege. But Q, after all, was the the one getting paid. He could take this rich man’s ridiculous behavior, and more.

He met Bond’s gaze, his face placid, each breath smooth and steady. “Thank you, Mr. Bond,” he said. “I’m ready.”

#00q #19th Century #boss/employee #antagonism

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leopardprinttrashchild · 5 years

Text

An Empty Sun

[Lilia POV, surrealism; written for the @yoiprimadonnazine] [AO3]

It is quiet.

This is the first thing she notices – or no, maybe it is not the first. Time is as faint and distant as the flecks of light scattered across the inky expanse that lies before her.

Perhaps this is an old realization as well as a new one, or perhaps it is a flicker of knowledge from a future self, a different self.

She does not know.

It does not matter.

It is quiet.

It isn’t a silence borne of hushed noise, of the sudden loss of sound: it is the absence of sound itself, of the idea of sound, of its past and present and future.

It is quiet.

She does not know why.

It does not matter.

She is alone.

This is the first thing she notices – or no, maybe it is not the first. She does not remember if anything has come before. The stars lie before her, constant, constantly changing. They are what they have always been. They are not what they will be. They are faint and distant.

She is alone, and she does not remember why.

It does not matter.

She has not forgotten: to forget is to lose something that was once known. It is an absence made notable by the presence it used to have.

Perhaps she has not yet learned what it is to remember, to be remembered.

It does not matter.

She is alone, and she does not remember why.

It is quiet, and she is alone.

Perfect silence. Perfect stillness. And yet, they are not perfect – cannot be, can never be. Perfection is the opposite of imperfection, its balance and counterweight. Without imperfection, there can be no perfection.

Silence. Stillness.

It is not silent. Silence is the absence of sound. Without the possibility of sound, it isn’t silence. It simply… is.

Stillness.

Is there such a thing as stillness without the potential for motion? Nothing without something is not precisely nothing. It simply… isn’t.

She speaks aloud, and her voice echoes into starlight.

It is not silent.

She dances.

It is not still.

She is alone, and she does not remember why.

She dreams.

She remembers.

She is not alone.

In her new world, she is old.

Or: she is not young. She is not old compared to the rocks that make up the stone steps leading up to her front door, nor even to the large, leafy tree whose shadow falls across the pavement.

She is not young. She is not old.

She is.

As usual, Lilia’s feet ache in the narrow points of her shoes. She barely notices, but in the moments when she does, she thinks that it is a fitting echo of her past. Her feet always hurt when she was young.

Her doctor had insisted that she spurn heels of any height. Instead, he told her, she should fill her closet with the sort of sturdy, sensible loafers that women are meant to wear once they reach a certain age.

She’d allowed him to speak for exactly sixty seconds when he brought up the matter, talking about bunions and knee strain and arthritis. Once the minute came to an end, she nudged him into silence with a slight nod.

Lilia doesn’t think back to his courteous displeasure as she strides into the athletic complex. Her heels count out sharp, measured, twinging clicks against the tiled floor.

“Lilia. Thank you for coming.”

“Good morning, Yakov,” Lilia replies. He is unsure of himself. His voice is too loud and his movements are tense as he tries to find the balance of their meeting. It is tiresome. “If you would introduce me to your student so that I may make my decision?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

Yakov hadn’t been a bad husband – he was merely unexceptional. Lilia does not surround herself with the mediocre.

She does not regret her choices. She does not doubt herself.

She does not reconsider.

Yuri Plisetsky is talented and ill-mannered, brittle and bristling behind his sneering, arrogant veneer. Above all else, he is changing, growing, evolving; he is a flickering spark that must be guided before it bursts into an uncontrolled blaze or gutters out in a wisp of smoke.

He will do, even if his flexibility leaves something to be desired.

“People who can be reborn as many times as necessary are the strong ones,” she tells him, and Yuri understands in a way that Yakov never had.

The self cannot be constructed from memories. It must be created anew each moment, willed into being again and again and again. There is no room for doubt.

The present cannot be remembered. It can only be.

She wakes, and she is.

Before her dream, she was not silent, because there could be no sound. She was not still, because there could be no movement. She was not alone, because there could be no others. Before her dream…

But no, not before. Nothingness has no space even for something as small as time.

Rather: she was not. Now there is a now, and in that now, she finds herself. She finds silence, stillness. She is alone.

She remembers.

The flaws of her dream haunt her. It is an unfamiliar sensation.

It feels like being trapped.

It feels like being free.

She isn’t sure if they’re truly so different.

She remembers, but she does not understand.

“I miss you.”

She murmurs her confession to the distant stars. They do not hear. They are not listening.

“You never knew me.”

She is remembering, and she is dreaming. She is not alone.

“I created you,” she says.

She speaks to a young man who holds a golden ring. The metal is impure, but it is beautiful. She speaks to him – a different him, who knows a different her. He is older, greying. He stares down at the ring in his palm. She speaks to a boy who is everything she is and everything she isn’t. She speaks to Lilia with her sharp eyes and ruined feet.

“But you never knew me,” they reply.

“I made you.” She turns her thoughts to Lilia. “I am you.”

“You are not.” Lilia is not lost in the nowhere that is everywhere. She stands, confident in herself, confident in her judgement. “You are not. You are nothing.”

“I was, and I am.”

“To be is to become. It is to act, not to remember, not to dream. A memory is nothing more than a ghost of what no longer is, and a dream is a ghost of what never was.”

“You taught me that,” Yuri adds. “That’s how you created me, Madame Lilia. A beautiful, ever-evolving monster, born and reborn as many times as necessary.” He grins, quick and bright and sheepish. “Yeah, I know you kept that article. I found it in your desk.”

“When?” She does not remember this.

“Huh.” He tilts his head. “I guess you haven’t gotten there yet.”

“You keep a lot of things,” Yakov tells her, tells them, tells Lilia and she-who-isn’t. He holds up the golden ring but doesn’t put it on. “Your name. Your shoes. Your dreams. They must be more than ghosts, Lilechka.”

“Whatever they were, they are not now,” Lilia retorts. “They are nothing. We are not our pasts.”

“We are who we have made ourselves.”

“We are who we make ourselves.”

They – Yakov and Lilia and Yuri and a thousand other faces – turn to her. “Who are you?”

“I am me. I am now.”

Lilia frowns. “Who are you becoming?”

“Myself.”

“Who were you?” Yakov asks.

“I…”

“Why?” Yuri looks up at her, as if he’d heard the answer she couldn’t give. He’s young, a child both driven and directionless.

“I don’t know,” she finally replies. “I haven’t gotten there yet.”

She is young.

She is young, but she is not new. Lilia has seen enough of the world to scoff at its mysteries. She has seen enough to tell gilt from gold.

The difference is this: gilt will eventually be tossed aside. Gold will be treasured.

Lilia sometimes wishes that she hadn’t chosen to dance, but it is who she has always been, even if it’s not who she always will be. It is who she is, and so Lilia walks in every day on torn feet.

She keeps her pointe shoes from the Bolshoi’s last show of each season. Lilia does not look at them where they rest, stained with old memories and dried blood, but it is safer to store the final performances in a box than in her mind. The future will hurt her if she allows the past to creep in too frequently, and that is something she is not allowed to forget.

“You are art, lily girl,” the director croons. Her title is not capitalized on his lips: there are many lilies and many girls. Both are transient, fleeting. “I am the artist.”

The dancers are tools. They are the canvas, but not the hand that holds the brush; they are the flute, but not the breath that calls the notes to life.

The dancers are tools, and Lilia is the prima ballerina assoluta. She is art, and she is beautiful, and she is to be discarded once her bristles begin to bend and fray.

“Yes, Kostya,” Lilia says. She smiles with the sweet delicacy of water thawing beneath a frozen surface. She is spring, and she is blooming, and she is dangerous. Art can hold more power than its artist, even if she has not yet learned to wield it. “I am art.”

“Do you hate him?” Yakov asks her. He scowls before grumbling, “I do.”

“I can’t hate him, Yasha. I need him.” Lilia knows that he does not understand, will not understand. Yakov will skate, though he may not win, and then he will teach. He is a man. He will not expire. “There are many dancers.”

“Not like you, Lilechka. You’ve always been more than he’ll ever be.”

“I dance his steps.”

“For now,” Yakov says, his eyes soft. “Don’t forget that.”

She sighs. “I never do.”

Lilies wilt. Girls grow up. Men die.

A heart attack. It’s explained in short, soft, gentle words by men who look down on the gathered ballerinas as if they’re speaking to children. The male dancers have been told already.

A few of the girls begin to cry. What will become of the season? they ask each other. What will happen to us?

The new director will be another artist. He will have his own visions, his own palette.

But Lilia is the prima.

“We will continue,” Lilia tells them sharply. “We will dance.”

She leaves lilies on the grave of Konstantin Pavlovich Ignatyev. She does not cry. She does not gloat. He is nothing, and she is here. She is art.

She will not be painted, played, written. She was created, but now she will create.

She is not a lily girl.

She is not gilt.

She is gold.

She watches the stars.

Did she dream them, she wonders, or did they dream her? Neither feels true. They are and she is, without beginning or middle or end. There is nothing to shape her.

There is nothing.

In this emptiness, she has no past to remember and no future to await. She is only what she creates in each moment.

Lilia stands beside her. “It is perfect.”

It is nothing, so it is perfect. There are no flaws. It is everything that her dream is not, was not, will never be.

It is nothing. It is not perfect.

“Why can’t it be?” Yuri asks her.

“I dreamed it. I am not sure that I created it.”

He huffs. “We can make it better.”

“Would you change everything, Lilechka?” sighs Yakov.

“We are more than our pasts,” she tells him. She looks to herself, to Lilia. “We are more than this moment. We create, and we remember. We are remembered, and we are created.”

She turns to Yuri. Softly, she says, “We are more than who we will become.”

“Who are you?” they query.

“I am the dreamer.”

“And will you dream?”

“No.” She smiles into the perfect, imperfect nothingness. “We will live.”

Lilia dreams and she wakes. She moves and she is still. She is alone and she is not. She remembers and she forgets. She creates and she is created.

She was.

She will be.

She is.

#Yuri on ice #lilia baranovskaya #an empty sun #YoI primadonna zine #my writing

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ellacrossman96 · 4 years

Text

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#How Do I Stop Feeling Guilty About My Divorce Wondrous Cool Tips #Will God Save My Marriage

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hellagaymccree · 7 years

Text

Mi Rey

Something that has been sitting in my files for a while now. In which Jesse knows just what to say to make Gabriel weak at the knees. Some soft praise sex?

Sorry for any mistakes or if Jesse’s talk is too much.

------

He had heard stories of war as he grew up. Saw images that burnt in the back of his little skull. He witnessed death at first hand and saw victims falling. He also saw heroes rise from the ashes and wreckage war left behind. He would see them reaching out to grab civilians by their pleading hands. Somehow they always managed to look good, even with sweat, dirt and blood on their uniforms.

There was the blond, blue eye poster boy. His smile bright as the sun that rose every morning for many thanks to his help. His aim was sharp, hitting targets like a madman. There was the Egyptian beauty, skin brown as tourmaline, shining like copper after a heated battle. And hair black as the void her enemies saw after a shot to the head from her riffle. Jesse saw many posters of them on the streets. People called their names like gods and planted flowers in adoration.

Jesse McCree had no time for heroes when he was on the other side. Jesse wouldn’t take his hat off for anyone. Wouldn’t say a word when his Deadlock accomplices defaced posters or statues made in the honor of Overwatch. He would even spit between the blue eyes of Jack Morrison and he would do it if he would be standing in front of him in person.

But there was one hero he didn’t notice until later on. Until the crisis was over. Jesse saw him behind Morrison, he caught him in recordings, walking amongst the shadows and between the crumbling buildings. He walked between that thin line Morrison would hardly be seen touching. He waited for death with open arms. He stood ready with two shotguns on each hand. He would take shot after shot. Moved swiftly between the smoke as his eyes locked in a target.

If Jesse admired anyone, it was Gabriel Reyes. He walked like a god amongst men. Named after an angel, spared those who were worthy. Jesse never thought he would be worthy enough to fly under his wings. He saw Gabriel as his king, with golden skin and iron fists. Someone to sing acclamations to and write poetry about. He moaned his name like a prayer, caressed his body with praises and kisses every inch of warm skin.

Jesse never imagined he had the power to get such hero on his knees.

“Darlin’,” his velvet voice drawls as his right hand brushes Gabriel’s hollowed cheek.

Gabriel’s eye are almost demonic. Pitch black and filled with lust, starring right into Jesse.

“Always so warm n’ good fer me.” Jesse grins with half lidded eyes at his lover. “Ye look beautiful on your knees fer me. Those soft, pillow lips always make me feel light as air.” A shuddered breath escapes his lips when his cock twitches in Gabriel’s mouth. “That tongue of yers is not just to write sins on my skin. Look at you, a hot mess. I love the feel of yer skin under my fingertips. I can feel you shivering under my touch. Yer muscles trembling to the sound of my voice. Oh, Gabriel, Gabriel.”

As if he was luring him into a trap, Gabriel obeys his calls. He springs forward and catches Jesse with his lips. They kiss like they need the other’s air to breath. Jesse allows Gabriel to devour him. He would let this man ravish him until there was nothing left.

“Jesse, please,” Gabriel purrs between their kiss.

Jesse smirks before moaning to his own taste on Gabriel’s slick tongue. “Your pleas are melody to my ears, sweetheart.”

Jesse knows how weak his words make Gabriel feel. His commander drinks them up like cold water on a hot day. He takes them like a remedy for a fever that never ceases. Jesse is a drug for him, too addictive to quit after months of overdosing.

“Yer built from stone n’ marvel. Yer bones are forged from iron. Gold runs through your veins. And yet I can make you break with a single touch.” Gabriel growls before he starts kissing down Jesse’s neck. He nibbles on his cinnamon skin and tastes soap. Jesse’s natural musk has vanished for now, but Gabriel still inhales his cool, minty scent.

“Everyone sees you like the big dog, the badest man on the planet. But look at you, almost kissing the ground I walk on.” A laugh growls in Jesse’s chest. “Hungry for my cock like it’ll safe your life. Thirsty for my words; you drink them like wine. I can taste myself on your tongue later. I can feel you still crave more of me, angel.”

Gabriel has reached Jesse’s hips. He keeps kissing clean skin and over old bruises his colossal fingers left nights ago. His thumb press on the same spot, repainting them.

“Yer as beautiful as a painting. I wish to have been the brush used to color your skin. I wish I had been there to carve the jewels in your eyes.” His cock is taken by Gabriel’s mouth again and he moans in weakness. “Ya know damn well what you do t’ me. And you adore to hear it. You love hearing what your body does to me. I can feel yer lust all over you, smell yer devotion. Yer falling apart so quickly, I can hardly hold you.” ---- Gabriel rides Jesse with ease. He sways his hips forward with delicacy and exhales moan after moan. His eyes are shut, but his ears pick up every sound that comes out of Jesse’s mouth. Especially his sweet words that make his skin crawl in euphoria.

Jesse keeps his eyes open to watch the way Gabriel moves on top of him. He uses his fingers to travel over every line and curve of his commander’s body. He trails every scar and bruise he comes across, adds pressure to the purple spots. “Yer gorgeous,” Jesse sighs. “Been thinking of ya since yesterday. You move like a shadow in the battlefield. Yer hands know where to go before you turn. I felt yer bullets hitting my chest; you left me breathless, Gabe.”

Gabriel’s head falls back as he shivers. Jesse’s hands rests on his hips, keeping him in place, keeping him still. “Those legs of yours are hard as stone, yet move like feathers over quaking grounds. Yer skin glazed with sweat and the sunlight outlining your profile perfectly. You were as incandescent as the sun itself, darlin’. I could be blind n’ still find my way to ya.”

“J-Jess,” Gabriel mumbles.

“Ye don’t just glow, you burn around me like pure fire. I can see the flicker of flames in your gorgeous brown eyes. I can see them forging the topazes I dream of at night. Don’t ever close your tantalizing eyes on me, Gabe. Don’t take away a man’s treasure.”

Obeying his wishes, Gabriel opens his eyes, but the pleasure weights down on his eyelids. He sees Jesse in a blur, through his dark eyelashes. He wants to answer, say something back, but Jesse words leave his throat clogged and his chest clenching. His lungs are ablaze, flames brushing his heart and starting sparks in his stomach.

Jesse sits up and wraps his arms around his lover. Both sing an ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ in harmony to the lust. Jesse caresses Gabriel’s cheek with his cool prosthetic hand and watches how his commander shivers and hisses lightly to the touch. He catches the power it takes for Gabriel to keep his eyes open on his.

“More, Jesse.” Gabriel orders and Jesse smiles.

“Love it when you order me around, Gabe. Gets my heart racing and I feel like I can take on the world. And you know this, don’t ya? I keep your voice locked in my head when I need to fight. You fuel me, I lose my damn mind. There ain’t a gunshot loud enough to silence yer harsh voice.” Jesse rubs his nose against Gabriel’s chin as he growls. “Sometimes I ain’t sure if yer the gasoline to my fire, or is the other way around. I feel unstoppable by yer side, honey.” His arms tighten around Gabriel and the older man thrusts down harshly, making Jesse groan and then smile. His canine teeth contrasting the darkness of the room.

“Yeah, fuck into me like I’m the devil itself and you want my throne. Do your greatest sin to me and I’ll hand you the crown, mi rey.” Jesse rambles on with his head spinning under the influence of passion and the aroma of lust.

#mcreyes #mcreaper #writingramblings

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lunarcrystal · 7 years

Text

Jade & Sapphire: Sweets

Rating: G Pair: Annie Leonhart & Eren Yeager Words: 2,734

[Ao3] [FF.Net]

Eren told himself that this was going to be a onetime thing; they go to the shop, she gets what she wants, they leave, she’s content with her box of goodies for the next two days, and he’s satisfied he managed to catch another glimpse of that rare smile from the lion-hearted girl. He never told her, but that was his secret price in exchange for covering half the cost of her expensive sweets.

Mostly because—Eren had never seen her get so starry eyed over anything, least of all, over a pastry. Her smile always took his breath away though—it was something quick, and beautiful, and fleeting—he’d have to paint the best picture in his head every night, to remember it. A small quirk at the corner of her lips, innocent—childlike, and happy. Her ice-like eyes—always downcast, and cold—would sparkle the way Armin’s would whenever he spoke of visiting the ocean.

It was quite a sight to behold—being that it was the Queen of frost and pain herself, Annie Leonhardt. He never knew that she harbored such a sweet tooth, he’d found that out about a week ago, Eren thought it was actually kind of cute, of course he would never tell her that. He preferred having legs to walk on, he did, however, ask her how she got to liking this particular pastry.

Eren recalled Annie telling him something about how her roommate ditched some overdue paper work, so she was left with the brunt of it—but she had, instead also ditched the same overdue paper work in favor of a much more interesting case, and the witness she’d been looking for had brought her a pastry called a dough knot.

He scoffed and had told her it sounded just like her to slack off. Though Eren did wonder what the yearly salary was for Military Police Personnel. Probably a much higher percentage than the Survey Corp, that was for sure.

Sweets, cakes and pastries were a rare delicacy, and were considered a special commodity only among the rich. Seeing as how sugar canes were obnoxiously expensive, and taxed as well. Only the noble men, and women, and some high-end merchants who do their business in trade were able to purchase the sugar canes in bulk, and granulate it as an ingredient to use in dishes.

Sugar was like salt in terms of quality and appearance; but instead of that prickle dry taste of salt, it was a fine white sweet tasting powder. Eren had tried it once in his life—and honestly, it tasted disgusting to him. The sweetness made his tongue too tangy, and he had to drink several cups of water to wash the taste away. Sugar was obviously better when baked into treats; but that one experience with it made him picky. Besides it wasn’t as if he’d be wasting his hard-earned pay on expensive treats. So, it did surprise him that Annie would do so, in a heartbeat.

He had first thought she had scared the baker into giving her a discount. Threatening them with the idea that’d she crush their skull between her thighs if they don’t hand over the goods.

The scene made him chuckle out loud.

“Something funny, Jaeger?”

Eren swiveled around, his chest nearly colliding with Annie’s long nose (because she’s too damned short), she stepped back, peering up at him with that bored expression of hers, arms folded, one perfect eyebrow raised.

“Well?”

Eren hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s nothin’, I just remembered something stupid I did once.”

Annie’s blue eyes shone like he had piqued her interest—but he knew that was not the case. “You must have a lot of those memories.”

Another shrug, “Yeah, but they’re the good kind.”

She was silent after that, casting an observant look—making the hairs at his nape stand because even her eyes send chills down his spine—then she focused elsewhere, and continued walking in the direction they were headed. It was their usual routine, traveling to the market square before dusk, to the bakery where they quickly became regulars at. It was considered one of the best in the Stohess District, owned by a wealthy elderly widow.

The first time Annie had dragged Eren to the fancy pastel colored shop; the old woman behind the counter nearly had her eyes pop out her large magnifying spectacles. At first Eren feared it was because she had recognized him from the sketches in the month old news articles—the boy who became a beast—but then she had grinned exuberantly at him, three of her teeth glinted bronze instead of white, and then she congratulated Annie on finding a rather handsome one.

Eren had been confused—and horribly flustered. But then the woman clarified—“Oh Such a lovely duet, I’ll be sure to include the newlywed discount on your next purchase.”—Eren’s jaw had hit the ground, but Annie was already picking out what type of frosting she wanted, that’s when he noticed the silver ring on her middle finger he’d never seen before.

So that was that, and here he was now, her supposed fiancé. He guessed it did benefit her, the discount was fifty percent off, that was a deal you could not even bargain a merchant with. Annie could buy a whole six of the dough knots in a box for some silvers. She’d clutch onto the little pink flowery accented box like her life depended on it. And then she would smile prettily, never directed at him though, just the thought of eating her favorite treats. It’d pass over quickly. But he’d tuck the image away for later.

“Today is the jelly dough knot special.” She said, without looking at him. Horse drawn carriages galloped passed them, Eren sub consciously tugged Annie closer to the side of the road. She didn’t shake his arm off her shoulders, so he held onto her a second longer. They were nearing the bakery, Annie was just keeping appearances up.

He scoffed, “It’s basically jam and bread.” She shook her head, and he chuckled, musing, “You’re eating jam and bread!”

“No.” She wriggled free from his arm, and he dropped it, looking away sheepishly, “It’s a cake, not bread, and the jelly is sweeter, it doesn’t have seeds in it.” She pointed out. Eren rolled his eyes, “Cake is technically bread, but baked differently.”

He heard a huff come from her, and then she tugged at his wrist, so he was forced to stop, looking down to face her threatening expression. “Never say that again.” Her eye’s flashed dangerously. Eren felt his stomach do a somersault. And because he was never one to back down—and because Annie was irritated, and she was deadly gorgeous when she was irritated—Eren leaned down, until their noses were an inch apart, he smiled when he saw her crystalline eyes widen for a fraction of a second.

“Dough makes bread, and cake. It’s the sugar you’re really craving.” He told her, and when he spoke he swore he saw her eyes flit down, as if to stare at his mouth, but maybe that was wishful thinking, as it was actually him that did the staring. Annie made a hmph noise and pushed passed him—a giddy feeling arose in his chest when he noticed the rosy hue that stained her nose and cheeks, she put her hood up to hide her face, claiming she was getting cold. Annie was a terrible liar.

By the time they reached the bakery, dusk was on their tails—shifting the fiery sunset into a cool indigo. The old woman was wiping down the counter with a wet rag when the chime announced two usual customers. She grinned toothily when she saw them, she always did.

“Good evenin’ young loves’, I was just getting ready to close up—“ She chirped, then slapped the wet rag into the bucket on the floor, “Aw, don’t give me those puppy dog looks, I’ve got your orders right in the back!” With that she hobbled into the little storage room.

Eren glanced at Annie from the corner of his eye, with her hood up he couldn’t tell if she was feeling excitement in that moment. She really was like a little kid, sometimes. She’d gasp whenever the old woman would bring out the treats, and even hum a small tune in her throat when he walked her back to the Military Police HQ, the pastries warm in her hands. No one would ever know of that, but him. In a way, it made him feel special, but also, strange. Because it was like opening another side of Annie she had locked away, buried, and forgotten.

That’s how he knew she was terrible at lying.

The old woman came back, carrying a steaming tray of round shaped pastries, glazed with vanilla frosting, the red jelly Annie had spoken of spilled from the overstuffed ones, Eren may not be a sweets kind of guy, but the delicious aroma that wafted over to him did make him drool a bit. He wiped it off hastily when he saw the old woman smirk his way.

“I hope you two young loves’ have a good one, and oh—“ The old woman snapped her fingers, half-way done with arranging the pastries into one of the intricate pink boxes. “I almost forgot.” She wandered back into the storage, and minutes later, brought out what looked like two heart shaped cookies in plastic. Eren tilted his head, getting a closer look at the cookies, the hearts were frosted in different colors, one a dark blue lined with a white design, the other was two different shades of green.

Then he noticed the little designs that had been done on them. “This is,” Eren gawked, taking the blue cookie from her hands, “The wings of freedom.”

The old woman chuckled, patting his arm from across the counter, she offered Annie the green cookie, and glimpsing at hers, Eren could see the long thin horn of the MP’s unicorn sigil. The designs were delicately made, as if the old woman took extensive care not to spoil the image.

“It looks amazing.” Eren smiled, “Thank you.”

The old woman waved at him, “Bah! I made those in an hour, it’s nothin’ but I’m glad you like them hon’. I figured I’d show my respect to such a young couple who sacrifice their lives every day in the name of duty.” She gestured to the cookie in Eren’s hands, “One who fights for our freedom,” She said, then pointed to the second Annie held “and one who pledges our allegiance to the king.”

Eren turned to Annie was peeling back the plastic of her cookie, nibbling on the edge, she looked timid, small, almost cute. Eren nudged her with his elbow, “What do you think?”

“It’s good.” She bit into the baked cookie, a sound that was akin to a moan made its way out of her throat, Eren swallowed, his face warming up, and it wasn’t because of the steam. “It’s really good, I appreciate you baking these for us.”

The old woman smiled, it was not a joyous one this time, but one of melancholy, like she was reliving a sad memory. “Your welcome…You know, my husband was a member of the Survey Corp…” Her bespectacled eyes down cast to the jelly filled desserts, looking through them, not at them. “He was a lot like you know,” she focused on Eren, “Very energetic. Handsome, and strong. He was a light in my darkest days.”

The old woman was silent for a moment as she finished tying a string across the pink box, she rested both her palms, wrinkled and layered in a flour, on the counter when she was done. Eren felt it would be right of him to console her, but he was part of the Survey Corp now; he knew the toll of sacrifices that were made on each of their expeditions, even if he had just joined. They said It was for the greater future of humanity—especially since the fall of Wall Maria had pushed civilization to an even tighter boundary.

Her husband died seeking freedom, he could tell her that, but in his head, he would only hear the screams of a thousand people, blood raining from the skies, teeth sinking into limbs, tears and agony. So he said nothing, Eren was not such a good liar himself.

“He always told me, I had a pretty smile.” The old woman laughed, her three bronze teeth put on show, she handed Annie the pink box, and Annie in turn dropped the silvers into the old woman’s hand. “He said a smile like mine kept his demons away...” Annie thanked the old woman as she quietly reminisced about her late husband. Usually the old woman was chipper and bright whenever Eren and Annie stopped by her shop; some days though, she seemed to relapse into a memory that she’d retell in abstract images, vague run-on sentences through a nostalgic lens.

She snorted as she adjusted her foggy spectacles. “I had such bad teeth back then though, I thought I was the ugliest farm girl in Sina.” She shook her head, “But he—he said I was pretty, me, a girl with missing teeth. And I knew he was telling the truth.” The old woman leaned forward on her elbows, fixated on a space between Eren and Annie. “I knew because I saw it in his eyes…”

It was night by the time Eren bid the woman a good night and left the shop, Annie following in tow, the pink box in her arms—he felt heavy, strange. The old woman continued to reminisce about her husband even as she closed the shop behind them.

Eren peeked at Annie as they walked side by side in silence; she was resilient the entire way. Their next destination was the Military HQ, and then he’d have to go back to his horse he’d left in their stables and make the long trip back to Castle Utgard.

“So, you’re good now?” He raised an eyebrow, Annie tucked her hood down with one hand, and Eren was glad he could properly see her face again, even if the only source of light was from the dim moon up above. “That should last you a couple of days if you ration them.”

“Why didn’t you comfort her?”

Eren halted in his tracks, back rigid, and he turned to see Annie gazing up at him, sapphire eyes turned silver in the dark, she was curious, her head tilted questionably. Eren sighed, averting his eyes, “What could I have said to her?”

“I don’t know, but I figured you would’ve said something when she talked of the Survey Corp.”

“You know what happened to her husband,” Eren stepped closer to her, it was like the darkness was attempting to swallow Annie. “She knows what happened to him, why should I have to justify a soldier’s death like it meant something for the greater good of our future, I’m not stupid. He died horribly, he was eaten. What could I have said to her to gain her trust that he didn’t die for nothing?”

It was so dark, and the market square was another half mile away—no candle-lit lanterns hung on this side of the rode, so the stark the moon light casted a portion of Annie’s face in an ethereal glow, while the other portion was bathed in shadows—and when she smiled at him, it wasn’t like all the other innocent smiles he had glimpsed before. She looked menacing, like object of his nightmares. The pink box in her hands was the only bright thing on her.

“Now you’re seeing things my way.” She said, and turned her back to him. The chill that crept down his spine was different from all the other ones that he had felt before—it was the thrill of fear. He watched her back, the green unicorn sigil retreating further and further away from him. He admired Annie, he respected her, and silently pined for her, but she would always remain an enigma to him.

Eren huffed, slowly catching up to her. Unaware that would be the last smile he would ever see from her.

#ereani #ereannie #annie leonhardt #eren jaeger #my writing #q'd

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biblical-womanhood · 5 years

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Personal Beauty - Part II By J. R. Miller (1880)

"What, then, is true personal beauty?" Answering the question from a Christian point of view, we know that it does not consist in mere physical charms, in proportion, grace, figure, complexion—but in the life—the soul that looks out through windows.

"What is beauty? Not the show

Of graceful limbs and features. No;

These are but flowers

That have their dated hours

To breathe their momentary sweets, then go.

'Tis the stainless soul within

That outshines the fairest skin."

It is a well-known and universally-accepted principle, that the soul gives to the body its form; and that the life writes its whole history in the features of the face. A beautiful character, will transfigure the countenance. You look into it, and you read refinement, purity, delicacy, peace, love. In like manner, an evil character hangs its curtains at all the windows, and you see at a glance selfishness, cunning, lust, deceit, falsehood, malignity, coarseness, unrest. So all spiritual culture is toward beauty, for as the heart becomes filled with the holy graces of the Spirit—they make themselves manifest in the transforming of the features.

It was sin which shattered the original splendor of the human form. All blemishes, disfigurements and deformities have been produced by violations of divine laws, by over-indulgence of passions and appetites, and by diseases and infirmities resulting therefrom. Hence all true searching for beauty, must be along the path on which it was lost. Those who would recover and retain loveliness of form and feature—must seek to have the divine laws written upon their hearts, and assimilated in their lives.

The observance of the physical laws of our being, is of vital importance. These are inexorable. There is no forgiveness for their violation. A large part of the misery and wretchedness of this world, comes from the disregard of these precepts. The beauty as well as the comfort and happiness of men and women, would be immeasurably advanced if all could be brought to obey, strictly and invariably, the simple laws of physical life.

Then still more essential is the observance of moral, and spiritual precepts. The soul informs its own dwelling. There is no beauty in the idiot's face. The most perfect features have scant loveliness, when there is a vacant mind behind them. Selfishness wipes out the soft and tender lines, and leaves the cheeks faded and cold.Baseness degrades the majesty of the countenance, and takes the kingly glory from the eyes. Greed petrifies the features. Anger, nourished and cherished, writes itself upon the visage. Impurity of soul and life, robs the expression of the bloom of innocence, and hangs its telltale marks all about the face. It is utterly vain to hope to be beautiful—with bad tempers, groveling tastes or base passions ruling in the heart. The face may still wreathe itself with smiles. The greatest pains may still be taken to nourish and retain the bloom and freshness of innocence. But it is in vain. A discrowned soul cannot long preserve in its palace, the splendors and glories of its days of power and majesty. Theinner life writes every line of its history on the features, where the practiced eye can read its every word.

So, also, beauty of soul exhibits itself in the expression. Kindness wreathes the face with gentleness. Holy thoughts refine the countenance. Grand purposes, noble resolves, high aspirations, clothe the form and features with dignity and power. Sincerity and truth transfigure even the homeliest looks.

Those who would cultivate personal beauty, must look to their inner life. As the dweller's taste and refinement always manifest themselves in the adornment of his home—so goodness and moral beauty in a soul will always exhibit themselves in look and manner and bearing.

Hence there is no beautifier of the person—like the Holy Spirit dwelling in a lowly heart. The plainest features are often made to shine in almost supernatural loveliness, when struck through with the warmth and tenderness of indwelling love. The most beautiful people in the world—are truly benevolent people—their hearts full of sympathy and kindness, and their lives devoted to labors of love for the good of the human race. The sweetest faces I ever saw, were those of dear old Christian mothers. All their life through they have kept their hearts at peace. They have never resisted, never defended their rights, never struggled against circumstances. They have quietly submitted to the will of God, and his calm and holy peace has filled their souls and ruled their lives. This blessed peace, indwelling, has made their faces almost transparent, radiant with the radiance of heaven and lowly beyond any picture on this earth.

Old age writes no lines of decay, and leaves no marks of wasting or fading upon them. The sweetness and freshness of youth, linger through all the chill winter of years, like those tender plants and flowers that creep out in springtime from under melting snows unharmed and fragrant. An anxious and fretful disposition, simply reverses all this.

Love is the fulfilling of the law—not selfish love—but the love that goes out in self-denial, in sympathy, in kindness, in continual thought and effort and sacrifice for others. Such love builds beauty for its home, just as the chaste and delicate flower by its own nature fashions for itself a form of exquisite shape and hue. "The angels are beautiful because they are good, and God is beauty because he is love." Men and women grow lovely, even in outward feature—just in the degree in which they become filled with the love of God.

Not, then, to the outside must our care be given—but to the culture of the heart! A beautiful soul—will transform the most repulsive external features. On the other hand, a bad heart will break through natural loveliness, spoiling its delicacy and beauty. When God took from a devoted mother, a precious and her only child, she, to occupy her heart and hands in some way about her vanished treasure, filled the first days with painting a picture of her child. Love wrought very skillfully, and under her brush the very features of the sweet child-life came out in the picture. The picture was laid carefully away for a few days, and when she sought it again the eyes were dimmed and the face marred with strange and ugly blotches. Patiently she wrought it over a second time, and the beauty was restored. Again it was laid away, and again the ugly blotches appeared. The fault was in the paper on which picture was painted. There were chemicals lurking in it which affected the delicate colors.

The analogy holds in human lives. We may adorn the face and features as we will. By art and skill and care—we may try to keep the complexion fair, the skin fresh and soft and the whole countenance beautiful; but if there are within us, selfish hearts, groveling dispositions, uncontrolled appetites, they will work out through the surface-beauty, and will blotch and spoil it all!

The true culture of personal beauty—is not external; it is heart-work. It is not the hot sun, the high winds, or any climatic accidents, that steal from cheeks their truest loveliness. I see ladies taking the most wonderful care to keep their complexions soft and white. They shield themselves scrupulously from wind and sun. If we were all to give as much thought and pains to keep the bloom of our heart's purity untarnished, and the warmth and sweetness of our heart's life unwasted—our faces would soon shine with the luster of angelic beauty!

There are some who can never hope to be physically beautiful in face and form, in this world. Their visages are in some way marred. Accident or disease has left them disfigured. Or the sins of past generations have visited them in the shape of some physical deformity that dooms them to live in a ruined soul-house all their days. But even to such, Christ brings the possibility of the rarest beauty. The deformed Christian will walk erect in beautiful womanhood or majestic manhood, on the shores of immortality! The face once scarred by the flames—will appear in unblemished loveliness in the new home. Wrinkled old-age will get back all the freshness of childhood.

Christ is able to take the basest fragment of humanity—and make it all glorious and divine. As the summer takes the barest tree from the clasp of winter, covers it with garments of green and steeps it in fragrance—so the Lord Jesus can take the most ill-formed, the ugliest and most unsightly character, and clothe it in the garments of grace and love!

A piece of canvas is of a trifling value. You can buy it for a few pennies. You would scarcely think it worth picking up, if you saw it lying in the street. But an artist takes it and draws a few lines and figures on it, and then with his brush touches in certain colors—and the canvas is sold for hundreds of dollars! Just so, does Christ take up a ruined, worthless human life which has no beauty, no attractiveness—but is repulsive, blotched and stained by sin. Then the fingers of his love—add touches of beauty, painting the divine image upon it, and it becomes precious, glorious, immortal!

#j. r. miller #j r miller #1 timothy 2 #1 timothy #titus 2 womanhood #proverbs 31:30 #henry johnstone

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catherinewarnessecondart · 6 years

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In Bloom: Evaluation

In Bloom follows a concept about body positivity and embracing imperfections. Its about how flowers bloom and become beautiful and how people can grow and bloom and become beautiful too. In bloom was a three part photoshoot series moving on from the rose and artificial lighting of shadows and roses. Part one was body paint, part two was working with petals, part three was working with full flowers.

In Bloom was created to explore the ideas of growth and beauty. The body paint was to explore the use of face painting again but in a less sinister tone from my previous body paints. To have a simple flower imprinted onto a person’s body almost as a tattoo but not so permanent. It becomes more personal and delicate when painted on someone. Flowers on bodies to me are stunning but even more beautiful and powerful when imprinted on skin. It holds so much more meaning and permanence. For this I got three different women and body parts to paint on. I wanted them to be more vulnerable and natural so open skin was used; not covered up by clothes and makeup for example. One was a rose. Roses symbolise love and passion, it was on her forearm representing wearing her heart on her sleeve. One was a collection of sunflowers on her back. Representing happiness and positivity. The woman modelling this is the happiest and more positive person I know in my life. I wanted to use her for this and her back as it was the biggest surface area but also shows how she carries people through and supports them. This woman is my mum. The final is lavender on a woman’s torso. Lavender represents delicacy and the purpose of them is to bring calmness. They are subtle and pale plants hence why I used a pale, delicate woman. These were all natural lighting.

Part two was the full flowers. I used different ages for this one ranging from young to older for the three models. I wanted to work with myself in this shoot and more colour to punctuate the flowers. And so I used lipstick colours to match the flowers and put the flowers into my mouth the compliment these lipsticks. Yellow for positivity, purple for creativity, red for love. These I would say are my three main traits. So it was lovely to put this into a metaphor. They are featured with my lips due to the fact I put these points of positivity, creativity and love across with my words and paragraphs a lot of the time so my mouth was a main part. I enjoy making people happy. I then worked with a model whose name is Amber, has amber hair, and has lots of amber clothes. So I took pictures of her with an orange flower to compliment her style of clothes and aesthetic. Sunshine change and fascination. That’s what orange means and that’s what Amber radiates. Sunshine, a change for opinion, and fascination for so many new things. This was natural lighting around backstreets of London. The final shoot I did was with my Nan. She has these striking blue eyes so I wanted to use that as well as her natural beauty and general amazing support for everyone. I had bought her flowers for mother’s day and by this time they were a little wilted. Although not wanting to portray anything bad I think it was a lovely touch to represent the photo even more. Showing she’s still a beautiful woman no matter what; even the age. Just like the flowers continued to look beautiful. She was on a black background to bring the focus to her and all the colours she has in the flowers. She deserves to be the main focus.

Part three was petals. In this I used a variety of petals and colours to create these looks. I wanted to then use the remains of some of the flowers to do a couple of petal photo shoots. Petals to me are more delicate than flowers and have so much colour and texture to them. In these I used different skin tones and genders for these two looks. I wanted to include more types of people in this series of work. Using a young boy model I was able to stick petals to his face and hands and present him in the most delicate and beautiful of ways. He has a very sweet presence to him along with a soft look helping all the more with the theme. And only being young really helps represent the growth of people. His colours were red and purple. Purple being creative and independent. Red showing love and strength. With the female model I used blue and yellow tones against her skin. They were placed across her collar bones and cheeks which are perfect places to represent beauty in my eyes. These petals eventually transcended to her hair throughout the photoshoot. Blue was to show depth, trust and loyalty. Yellow for happiness and optimism. These colours speak so true to her and what she means to me. She is such a capturing and stunning woman and very easy to talk to and instantly feel like you’ve known her for longer. It was lovely to put her in this series. These two shoots were done with artificial lighting.

With all of this I was slowly trying to transition my work into nudity and body happiness. So some models featured without clothes for this reason. All of these photos are usually composed in a centre format with the main subject in frame perfectly centred. I need this to keep the attention on just them and only them. This whole series is about individual people and feeling happy with yourself. Therefore they are centre stage in each of their own photos. Its their chance to tell their story and show their natural beauty. I hope it makes people aware of themselves. And maybe questions how they perceive people. Maybe helping them not to judge people so quickly and learn to see the natural beauty in everyone. I also hope it makes the models themselves think about themselves and see they are beautiful no matter what they say. I guess I want it to bring happiness and awareness rather than raise questions about the work. I just wanted to show the natural beauty of people. Imperfections and all.

Every photo has a different type of texture. The body paint ones are very soft and light/natural in tones. The petals are more textured in harshness and showing of real skin textures in the close ups and the natural veins and movements in the petals themselves. These are very dark in tone due to the background choices and the artificial lighting. The flower shots are all different in texture. The lip ones due to close ups on lips and flowers as well as a wooden background, the London shots with industrials backgrounds with a soft human in the foreground, and finally nans shots with the textures of her dark background and her skin as it naturally sits.

This series of work arises lots of senses such as sight, touch, taste and smell. Sight is a key sense due to the media being photos but also because of the intense colours that catches the eye of so many people. They are bright and intense colour schemes forcing the viewer to look over the photos individually but also seeing them as a collective series and complimenting one another. The colour schemes overall all tell a story as I mentioned before but they also bring positive and happy vibes. Its not a depressing series to look over.

This series made me realise how much I love people around me. How much I cherish them and need them because they all bring different things into my life. They have all grown to these beautiful men and women just like flowers grow. It’s such a lovely moment being able to capture them in a nice light and with so much meaning behind the flowers and the people themselves. Seeing them smile and be comfortable around me was lovely. Everything about this photoshoot feels so natural and genuine which is exactly how I wished for it to feel. That’s why I chose to use photos as the medium. Although it could’ve been a stunning film with a lot of meaning and emotion I instead wanted to catch that one single moment of happiness, confidence, calmness and general beauty.

Overall, you can see how personal this series was to me and the people around me. Everything has a meaning and everything is completely genuine to me and my life. I loved the amount of meaning each photo holds and how each flowers perfectly represents the people especially how they are to me and how I see them. It’s how I feel about those around me. So in a way I guess I’m very proud of this shoot and how personal it is. I’m happy with body paint parts too. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to go so well. I’m then also happy with the petals. Mostly the delicacy of the one boy featured.

Ashs’ shadow pictures were then really stunning and powerful pieces too, perfectly silhouetting her and her form/figure. The flower lipstick shoots came out really striking too and holds such a powerful message to me about speaking out to people and telling those around you how beautiful they are.

The artist that fits with this work is @artsypeach or Noor Adwan. She uploads a range of work from body paint, glass painting and even ukulele painting. They are all usually themed around flowers, fish or the night sky. The natural wonders of the world. Her work is constantly inspiring body positivity and happiness. Her work is incredibly aesthetic and stunning to watch and look at. That’s how he links to me with both bodypainting and spreading messages of love.

Next time I will improve by using more body types. I would continue on with this series and keep it growing bigger and bigger. Feature more people with different shapes, skin tones, unique qualities etc. I would also love to make this into a film to move into a different type of media.

Next I will most likely move onto working with cover up techniques with flowers. Like exploring the covering of one’s body with other materials.

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