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blueiskewl · 7 months

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Why These Imperfect Korean ‘Moon Jars’ Sell for Millions

Old, round, imperfect and beautiful — that’s how fans of Korean art describe the moon jar, or “dalhangari.”

These unassuming, plain white pots have entranced everyone from rapper RM, of K-pop sensation BTS, to philosopher Alain de Botton.

The former director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Beth McKillop, has called the moon jar an “icon of Korean identity.” And if price is any indicator of popularity, one recently sold for over $4.5 million at a Christie’s auction.

This month, a rare example from the late 17th or early 18th century will go on sale at Sotheby’s in New York, where it’s expected to fetch more than $3 million.

“A large moon jar has always been expensive, but I think the big uptick in prices and value is… because their appeal is now global,” said Angela McAteer, Sotheby’s international head of Chinese art for the Americas and Europe, over video call. “You’ve got an international cohort of bidders competing for them, so it’s gone beyond the traditional connoisseur collecting community of Korean art.”

Huge price tags also result from the jars’ rarity. Although made for over a century in the royal kilns of Korea’s last kingdom, the Joseon dynasty, few are thought to exist today. Estimates for the number of larger ones (those more than 40 centimeters, or 15.7 inches, tall and wide) that have survived over the years range from 12 to 30.

Having passed through auction houses and antique dealers across the world, several of these are now in the collections of institutions like the British Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in the hands of private collectors.

‘Owning a piece of happiness’

The first moon jars were created in the royal kilns in Gwangju (a city just outside Seoul, not the larger southern city of the same name) from 1650 to 1750. They were made from pure white porcelain and kaolin clay, and, following the neo-Confucian fashions of their day, the pots reflected values such as propriety, humility, frugality and purity. They were likely used at court and in upper-class homes as containers for food and liquids, or as decorative vessels.

In the mid-20th century, moon jars began gaining international appreciation thanks to influential admirers such as Japanese folk crafts scholar Yanagi Soetsu and British potter Bernard Leach, who bought one from a Seoul antique store in 1935. Leach once said that having a moon jar was like “owning a piece of happiness,” and would later give his to fellow potter Lucie Rie for safekeeping during World War II. It stayed in her studio until her death and was later acquired by the British Museum.

Charlotte Horlyck, lecturer in Korean Art History at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, wrote in the Art Bulletin journal that after World War II the moon jar “caught the attention of an early generation of postcolonial Korean artists and scholars who sought to restore Korean art history and national identity,” as the pieces “resonated with the visual language of international modernism and minimalism of the mid-20th century while remaining a distinctly Korean work of art.”

The moon jar’s allure

When Sotheby’s announced its forthcoming sale, the auction house described its 44-centimeter (17.3-inch) moon jar as an object that inspired, astounded and soothed those who “stand in its presence.” It’s a funny thing to say about a pot, to speak as if it’s alive, but the jars’ visceral, emotional impact on people is something that comes up time and time again in the literature.

Choi Sunu, a former director of the National Museum of Korea, has described the museum’s moon jars as being like companions, or muses that have inspired his writing and stirred his creativity. Bernard Leach admired the pots for their “natural unselfconsciousness.” In 2012, South Korea’s then-Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik used the pot as a metaphor symbolizing a reunified Korean peninsula (moon jars are created in two hemispherical pieces and joined in the middle).

More recently the rapper RM, of K-pop group BTS, posted a picture of himself hugging a modern-day moon jar on Twitter, telling fans that the pots made him feel calm.

“It’s hard for someone to really comprehend how a pot can make you feel that way,” said McAteer. “It has this real meditative presence. If you’ve sat in front of a great (painting by US artist, Mark) Rothko and you feel this kind of palpable energy emanate from it, and you could sit for hours and just feel something in its presence — the moon jar has that too.”

“The more you look at it, the more there is to see. It looks different from every angle,” she added. “We had real issues with the photography and the catalog because it looks like a different piece every time you rotate it, or you change the lighting. The surface is just alive, you know.”

“You can see how the glaze coalesces; you see these spontaneous bursts of this blush color that’s happening in the firing. You can lose yourself in its surface.”

Modern masters

Modern Korean potters have been inspired by the jars, and a number have come up with their own homages. Ceramist Kim Syyong covers his pots with a black glaze, while Yun Ju Cheol’s versions look spikier like a pufferfish and Choi Bo Ram’s unvarnished, textured blue vases have a denim-like quality.

Others, like Kwon Dae Sup, have looked to closely recreate the process used by the potters of yore. The 71-year-old ceramist produces unadorned white jars and allows for all the beautiful imperfections produced to shine through. He works out of a studio in Gwangju, where the royal kilns that produced moon jars were once located.

There’s a great deal of preparation that goes into making a moon jar traditionally. It’s labor-intensive: washing, sifting impurities from the clay, kneading and rolling it to remove air bubbles, carrying around these large hunks, not to mention hand throwing the clay itself to that oversized bowl shape without collapsing, and the work keeping a pine wood fire burning for 24 hours while the pot hardens in the kiln. Kwon also built his own kiln to replicate the old process as closely as possible.

“I do this because it’s fun,” he said in a phone interview. “Every time I make something, it’s novel … The quality of the material is different every time. The conditions in which I make the pots is new every time.”

Kwon said he also feels an emotional connection to the moon jar. As a student he was so moved by a one he saw in a Korean antique store that he decided they would be his life’s work. “They feel alive,” he said.

In a 2019 book on his work by Axel Vervoodt Gallery the potter is quoted saying he tries to produce art that needs no addition or subtraction. “I wish to create work that has an imposing presence but harmonizes with its surroundings regardless of where and when it is displayed. It should give peace of mind and a sense of comfort to all who look at it.”

By Christy Choi.

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fatehbaz · 8 months

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In the district of Garhwal in the Indian Himalayas, at 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) above sea level, forests of sycamore, chestnut, and rhododendron gradually give way to gently sloping grasslands.

Known locally as bugyals (from the Garhwali word bug for soft grasses), these meadows were the favored grazing grounds of communities of trans-Himalayan traders [...]. High-altitude meadows are home to musk deer, moonal pheasants, and a variety of flowers, grasses (such as the scented jambu), medicinal herbs, and roots (jadi butiyan). Garhwali villagers had long used the jadi butiyan of bugyals for household consumption and trade. Customary restrictions [...] made this usage sustainable.

The advent of [...] [colonial and institutional] forestry in the princely state of Tehri-Garhwal (the Tehri Durbar), together with the growth of an urban elite Hindu market for Ayurvedic potions, arguably transformed the social lives of Himalayan herbs. [...]

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Works by upper-caste elites, such as the Maharaja of Gondal’s Aryan Medical Science (1895), claimed an exclusively “Hindu” provenance for the medicinal practices of Ayurveda. The nationalist reinvention of modern Ayurveda generated a market for medicinal herbs dominated by over a dozen firms by 1910. This emergent urban [...] bourgeois market for herbal medicines provides the context for the Tehri Durbar’s arguably unique project to commodify Himalayan herbs. Whereas the British government was reluctant to expand the plantation and manufacture of indigenous drugs, the Durbar established a separate department for the purpose, called the Vanaspati Karyalaya, that worked closely with the Forest Department.

Subordinated to the British government, the Tehri Durbar had begun contracting out vast swathes of pine and deodar forests to timber traders from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. In 1879 the Durbar’s Forest Department [...] restricted peasant access to common resources. Restrictions on the sale and collection of forest produce were put in place between 1878 and 1885, [...] precipitating numerous forest dhandaks (uprisings) as a consequence. Rules governing forest access changed in response to such protests and by 1930 prohibitions on the collection of and trade in medicinal herbs were lifted in certain areas.

The foundation of the Vanaspati Karyalaya prompted the systematization of the Forest Department’s initial efforts to monetize the collection of herbs through taxes, contracts, and tenders. By 1927 the department was working with the Karyalaya to carry out the sale of medicinal herbs, such as Gugal, Mashi, Atis, and Kawri, yielding an income of 18,294 rupees. [...] From the Durbar’s Annual Reports, [...] the Karyalaya’s preparation of Ayurvedic medicines seemed to have commanded “ready sale” primarily in the domestic market. Subsequently, therefore, the Forest Department focused on the overall sale and plantation of herbs while the Karyalaya specialized in the processing of herbs.

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Anticipating an extension of markets “as demand for Himalayan medicines grows,” the Durbar charted a project of mass plantation to overcome the “expense and difficulty of searching for herbs of indigenous growth” that were “scattered among other herb plants and weeds.”

The bugyals of Garhwal were thus classified as “wastelands” from which “practically no income at present can be derived.”

This justified plans for the cultivation of aconites such as kut and atis on a projected area of 2,000 square miles (517,997 hectares) of alpine grassland. In the 1930s, the Durbar initiated the plantation of kut in the Ganga Bhillangana Forest Division, employing trained gardeners as well as “coolie” labor to transplant herbs from nurseries to enclosed meadows. Thus, bugyals hitherto controlled by villagers [...] were gradually being enclosed for herb plantations. The Karyalaya also opened a pharmaceutical works just outside the town of Rishikesh at Muni ki Reti [...]. Graduates of [...] colleges in Delhi and Calcutta [...] were hired for these operations. [...] [T]he Tehri Durbar’s move towards the mass plantation and processing of herbs risked dispossessi[on] [...] as well as eliding local knowledges related to jadi butiyan.

The story of the Vanaspati Karyalaya arguably suggests how complex cultural associations between the Himalayas and healing were becoming commodified.

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Image, caption, and text by: Nivedita Nath. "Histories of Central Himalayan Herbs: Vanaspati Karyalaya in Tehri Princely State c. 1879-1950". Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Spring 2020), no. 13. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

#ecology #forests #colonial #imperial #plantation #abolition

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mosneakers · 11 months

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Coni effortlessly crafts an image of her desired future in elaborate detail. "We'll have a huge mid century-modern home on the top of a hill in Oasis Springs." She begins. "Business will thrive for Sunglo there, and the desert heat is similar enough to Strangerville, so Aurora won't have any difficulty adapting."

Coni then gazes down lovingly at Aurora, playing peacefully with her homemade cardboard rocket ship and blocks, undoubtedly lost in a world created by her very own imagination.

"Aurora will be the best big sister." Coni beams. "I'm expecting Glo and I to have at least two more curly-haired Darling babies at that point... a boy and a girl would be ideal."

"...And who knows? We might even have more on the way!" Coni smirks. "I know Glo and I are gonna make such beautiful babies, so the more the merrier."

Coni then pauses, leans back in her pool lounge chair and crosses her arms. "...And I suppose Cecilia will still be around too." She sighs. The disdain in her voice is palpable, but a hint of love and admiration can also be detected. "Although, she'll have all the necessary enhancements that technology can bring to ensure that she is far less stupid and knows her place as a bot... cooking, cleaning, research and maintenance, where she belongs."

"As for Glo and I... we'll still be passionately, deeply in love, we'll finally be married, and I'll proudly wear the name Mrs. Darling!" Coni declares to Coraleye, who is mirroring the gleam in her eyes. "I'll have earned enough simoleons to retire from OnlyPixels, and after an abundantly successful engineering and bot sales career, Glo will soon go on to follow me in retirement within the next two years."

Coraleye gazes at Coni in adoration, giving her forearm a light squeeze to show her affection. "Wow, Con! Looks like you really do have it all planned out. My brother is so lucky to have you. I admire you so much, you know? Sometimes it just seems like you really conquered this world we live in, and made it your own. I mean that in the best way of course- Like your mind is just- otherworldly! " She giggles.

Coni immediately notices the irony in Coraleye's innocent words, and stares forward to retain her composure. Coni finds Coraleye's naivety endearing and a slight smile forms on the corner of her lips. "Well, anyway... that's my ten year plan. Did that give you any ideas for your dumb assignment?" Coraleye smirks. "Not at all."

"Well, Tycho should be here soon. Let's go make sure the guest bedroom is ready. That should lead to an epiphany or two," Coni mumbles, "...hopefully."

#ts4 #sims 4 #MD4 #Coraleye Darling #Coni Breeder #Strangerville #Sunglo Darling #Aurora Darling #Cecilia Bot #MD4season10

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gamora-borealis · 2 months

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The spaceship scribble house in phil's video is something I've actually been obsessed with for a long time. It was created by an architecture professor and was meant to be a live-in sculpture. He passed away before he could finish the inside and it was sold a couple of years ago to some developers who remodeled the inside (supposedly guided by the architect's original vision) and have it listed for sale and as an airbnb. It's a shame the university didn't buy it to preserve it and keep it more open to the public.

#dan and phil #dnp #amazingphil

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hometoursandotherstuff · 1 year

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“Mai Tai Manor” was built in 1977 in Palm Springs, California. It’s owned by “Mean Girls” star Jonathan Bennett, widely recognized for his role as Aaron Samuels. The 3bd. 2ba. mid-century modern home is for sale for $1.15M.

Double doors open into the combination kitchen/living room. I’m not sure that I like the kitchen being so close to the front door.

I like those vintage phones on the wall.

So, this is the kitchen/living room layout.

The kitchen counter is very long.

Looks like the stone fireplace has been painted white and the wall was painted blue, but it was probably originally natural wood. Gives it a more updated feel.

A hall to the bedrooms & baths leads off the main living area.

The main bd. doors appear to be on a track and fold open.

There’re also double doors to the back yard.

Nice bath remodeled with mosaic tiles and a floating sink.

This children’s bedroom is unusual.

The bunk beds collapse. I wonder if they’re built in and come with the house.

A covered porch spans the length of the house.

There’s a lovely pool and patio with a fire pit.

I love the turquoise accents.

And, look at how beautifully it lights up at night. Love the purple tree.

https://www.priceypads.com/mean-girls-star-jonathan-bennett-selling-1-15m-mai-tai-manor-in-palm-springs/

#celebrity homes for sale #mcm home #remodeled mid-century modern home #houses #house tours #home tour

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don-dake · 2 days

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As part of the promotion leading up to the special 28 minutes long Bluey episode, The Sign,

a fake real estate listing for “everybody's favourite (quaint, animated) family home” was put up by the creators/producers of the series!

I'm late to the news as usual; this was put up for some time already apparently (since the end of the episode Ghostbasket), but it's still a really funny piece of news! 😹

I can't get over how humongous the Heelers' home is! 🙀 Check out the rest of the very humorous 😹 property description (and all the other bits — Bucky Dunstan!) below:

“Withdrawn from sale” Brisbane City QLD 4000 3 Beds | 4 Baths | 1 Parking | 800m² | House

“Everybody's favourite family home”

“A quaint, animated family home nestled in an undisclosed Brisbane location, that could be in Red Hill or The Gap (we'll never tell), with mid-century design aesthetics offset by whimsical touches. The quintessential Queenslander, radiating heritage charm, complete with upwards of 100 hidden small long dogs to be found.

Illustrated lovingly at the end of a cul-de-sac, this house sits atop a hill with views of Mount Coot-Tha. This 3 bedroom, 4 (ish) bathroom home boasts of work from home spaces, lovely period floorboards and mysterious hallways that don't logically seem to join spaces together but always feel cohesive and purposeful. Perfect for endless play and games with the family.

The kitchen is flush with a cozy colour palette whilst featuring silky oak worktops that are perfect for most culinary feats (duck cakes excluded) and revered by fancy french chefs. Bi-fold doors provide an open flow to the large back deck, creating an airy and idyllic setting for Birthday parties, BBQ's and Origin nights (QLD's gunna FLOG YA).

Watch the 28-minute Bluey special episode The Sign at 8am on Sunday April 14, on ABC Kids and ABC iview. This is an exciting opportunity for all families around the world to see if this beloved, iconic house becomes home to a lucky new family.”

All images: Ludo Studio

#They went all out with the marketing for #Bluey #Humour #Long Post

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ladamedusoif · 2 months

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Hi Rose!

I'm back with my Ask games again!

This time we have a spring based prompts theme. You get a spring prompt and a character and I'd like to know your head canon/immediate thoughts on the combination.

Character: Mr Ben

Prompt: brick house

With love,

Hi El!

So - per the DMs we exchanged I’m going to, uh, read brick house differently to the usual slang definition and go with just… house. And I’ll be thinking about “my” Ben, aka Visiting Ben for this one.

This is a man who loves his house and is houseproud without being a total neat freak (how can he be? He’s got books and papers and all sorts of things in piles around the place). I like to think he gives his beautiful brain a rest from all that thinking by doing some home DIY projects - he definitely built the fitted shelves in his living room, and he enjoys picking up nice vintage furniture that he can refurbish or spruce up a little. His favourite chair, near the shelves with his records and record player in the dining room, is a mid-century number he picked up at a garage sale not long after buying the house and restored himself. It’s not a perfect job, but he loves it - and he’s proud of it.

When spring comes, he likes to check what might need to be done around the house and make a list. There’s usually some paintwork to do, maybe some basic repairs here and there. He’s got a nice little deck/veranda at the back of the house, overlooking the garden, and that usually needs a clean-up and sprucing up before the weather gets warm. He had two single Adirondack chairs on the deck, once upon a time. But when Lydia comes into his life, he swaps one for a two-seater. It’s just that bit cosier.

Thank you so much for the prompt and the ask!

#asked and answered #lovely moots #mr ben snl #mr ben #visiting fic #professor!ben #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal

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apuckishwit · 1 year

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For your prompts: Steddie, and "Want. Take. Have." *tiny voice* maybe make it a little dark? As a treat?

Not SUPER dark, but anyone who has read my AO3 works knows I have absolutely nothing against a little Dark!Eddie now and then, lol. Hope this pleases!

CW: dubious (at best) consent via magic (nothing explicit, though the ending certainly implies more)

Eddie absolutely loathes Starcourt.

It’s loud, overly bright, and always crawling with other Fae, creatures, and—most annoyingly—human magic users. In general, he avoids the place like the plague unless he’s in need of a particularly rare spell component, or his uncle asks him to help out at the shop he’s been running here for the last few centuries.

Today, it’s the latter.

Eddie is lounging behind the counter, idly flicking bolts of his magic at the flowering vines that twine around the entrance to his uncle’s shop and watching the pretty little pink and white blooms (shaped like stars, because of fucking course they are) wither and shrivel before the power inherent in the site brings them back to life. He’s got probably another hour before one of the garden fairies comes to yell at him for straining their preservation spells. He’ll probably stop before then…he doesn’t want to get his uncle fined, after all. It’s been a slow day, fortunately, and his uncle—Eddie can’t quite remember what name he’s using for business these days…something that starts with a W, something depressingly human, as he makes most of his sales to witches and warlocks and using a human name makes them more comfortable or some shit—is due back from his business in their home realm sometime tonight. He’s almost daring to hope that he’ll be able to close up the shop without dealing with any other customers when there’s a soft pop of air and magic right outside the entrance and a group of humans appear in Starcourt’s receiving area.

Bored and feeling a little mischievous, Eddie straightens and leans forward, taking a look at the group. They’re almost all children. Well, all right, mid-teens, probably, but Eddie’s started counting his age in millennia—all humans are children to him, even the most elderly. A decently-powerful witch with curly brown hair is looking around Starcourt with wide, dark eyes, clutching the hand of another witch with two long, flame-red braids. A warlock wearing an eye-searingly bright colored shirt and possibly the stupidest cap Eddie’s ever seen looks far too excited to be here and behind them, bent over with his hands braced on his knees and clearly breathing through the nausea that some humans experience when they step through the portal to Starcourt…

Eddie straightens even further. Well now.

Eddie doesn’t care for humans, in general. They’re noisy, clumsy things in his experience, always thinking they’re wiser and more powerful than they are and making it everyone else’s problem. They do occasionally, however, produce absolutely lovely specimens.

The young man with the teenagers is fucking beautiful. Not a drop of magic in his veins, which surprises Eddie…magicless humans aren’t forbidden from entering Starcourt or anything, but it’s pretty unusual. The man finally straightens, running a hand through his hair. The sleeve of his shirt—he’s wearing a dark blue polo shirt and lightwash jeans, it should look stupid, how is he making it work?—bunches just so over his bicep and Eddie kind of wants to sink his teeth into the muscle.

There are rules for interacting with humans. Customs, traditions, and no few laws that have been written over the centuries. His uncle has adapted well enough, seems content to go through the intricate motions that let him build business and personal relationships with the humans that come to his shop. Gaining things you want from humans has become quite complicated. Eddie’s personal beliefs on the matter are a bit simpler.

Want.

Take.

Have.

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. Never mind getting fined, if Eddie’s caught fucking around with a human under the protections of Starcourt’s guest rights, his uncle could get his shop license revoked for the next hundred years. The magicless human listens to something the warlock is saying, before throwing his head back and laughing. A few shafts of sunlight filter down from the roof onto the receiving area, kissing his skin golden.

He just won’t get caught, then.

Eddie raises his forearm to his mouth and blows a gentle breath across the bats tattooed on his pale skin. They flutter their wings briefly before lifting right off his arm, tiny wisps of shadow and darkness. Eddie nods towards the little group with a smirk and the bats dart away, flapping through the air and becoming nearly invisible as soon as they cross the threshold of the shop. Eddie sits back on the little stool behind the counter, closing his eyes as the bats land unobtrusively on the beautiful young man’s back. He feels the little shiver that wracks through the human as his familiars slip down the collar of his shirt, cling to the back of his neck and shoulders.

There’s protection magic woven around him, spells constructed with more strength than skill and pressed into his skin. The magic feels like the warlock currently examining the map of Starcourt set up in the receiving area, like the red-haired witch and the other, dark-haired girl. There’s other magic in the spell, but it’s all young, not fully trained, not fully developed. Eddie tilts his head curiously—why would the only protections placed on this pretty thing have originated from a bunch of half-grown witches and warlocks? It’s quite unsafe for magicless humans to go about this world with no protections. Just about anything could happen to them.

Eddie feels along the threads of magic connecting him to his little familiars, prods just lightly at the protection charms woven around the enthralling human. Strong. He opens his eyes and flicks his gaze to the dark-haired girl. She’s going to be a force to be reckoned with when she comes into her full power. She’s obviously the one who wove most of the spells, though the feel of the warlock’s magic is also very present. How sweet…they must love the young man very much.

Alas, the fairy tales are not entirely accurate, and even reinforced by true love, spells made by half-trained children are still spells made by half-trained children. It is the work of seconds to slip past the protective magic, one of his bats sinking right into the skin at the pretty thing’s nape and going still as the others dissolve into mist and shadow. Eddie watches him sway slightly on his feet, blinking rapidly, before he shakes his head and tunes back in to whatever the kids are saying. Eddie slips from behind the counter and saunters over to the shop entrance, positioning himself to hear the conversation under the guise of coming out of the shop to smoke.

“Steve, c’mon! We’re old enough to go shopping by ourselves,” the warlock wheedles. “I just want some new alchemy tools and El wants to look at the crystals in that dryad’s shop we saw last time. You don’t even like alchemy!”

The pretty human crosses his arms over his chest, levelling the boy with an unimpressed look. “Correct. Hell, I can’t even see half the shit in this place. However, I promised your parents I’d keep an eye on you.”

“Which you can totally do! Just, you know, with, like hourly check-ins or something,” the red-haired witch says, rocking back and forth on her heels. “Steve come on…we’re not going to do anything stupid, and we’ve all got guest rights while we’re here.”

“Max,” the human, Steve apparently says warningly…how funny, most human names (the one he himself often uses notwithstanding) sound stupid to his ears, but he kind of likes this one. ‘Max’ elbows the dark-haired witch in the side and she unleashes a truly lethal set of puppy eyes.

“Please, Steve? Hop never lets me go anywhere by myself. Dustin, Max, and I promise to stay together, and we will check back here every hour.”

Steve narrows his eyes, and Eddie takes the opportunity to brush his fingers over another of his tattoos. The puppeteer’s hand twitches, the strings glowing silver briefly as Eddie whispers, “Let them go, lovely. You’re not worried about it.”

His pretty new toy shivers again, frowning slightly before his face clears and he sighs heavily. “Fine. You have three hours. You check back here every hour on the hour. Don’t make me regret it.”

The warlock and the redhead rear back. “Wait, seriously?” the warlock says. “Dude! Thank you!”

The witches jump up and down in excitement as Steve fishes his wallet out of his pocket and hands them each a few bills of human money (Eddie personally prefers gold, but a lot of Fae and lesser creatures have been switching over to the human monetary system for convenience’s sake). The dark-haired witch hugs him briefly, and then all three children scamper off, leaving his pretty standing in the Starcourt receiving area.

Eddie’s smirk edges into dangerous. Predatory. It’s a bit foolish of the children to leave a completely magicless human by himself in a place where so many magical beings and creatures congregate, even with guest rights. Eddie has no intentions of hurting this beautiful thing, after all. The guest rights aren’t really going to help him. He passes a hand over the puppeteer tattoo again, setting the fingers twitching, the strings glowing.

“Come over here, sweet thing. Let me have a better look at you.”

Across the way, Steve turns towards the store his movements growing slow and a little dreamy as Eddie pulls on the threads of magic connecting them. Eddie stubs his cigarette out in the flowering vines, licking his lips in anticipation as the human draws closer. “Hello,” he purrs when his pretty is standing in front of him, a dazed little smile on his face. Eddie takes his chin in his hand, tilting his head this way and that, stroking that temptingly plush lower lip with his thumb as he does. “Oh, we are going to have some fun,” he whispers. He flicks a bolt of magic at the clock behind the counter, setting it to chime when they have ten minutes before the children are due to check in. Then he shuts the shop door, flips the sign to Closed, and curls his arm around Steve’s trim waist. “Step into my office, pretty.”

#steddie #stranger things #stranger things fic #my writing #steve harrington #eddie munson #magic and fae #fic prompt #dark fic prompt #dubious consent

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lit-works · 1 month

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Pt 1.

--This fanfiction is a part of my 'Decades of Marvels' one-shot series that celebrates an era near and dear to me. This story is a love letter. First and foremost, to fellow comic book aficionado, artist extraordinarre, and fanboy Kevin Smith who wrote/started/directed the movie that shares this stories title. It is also an homage to nostalgia, and the most nostalgic generation so far. I shamelessly name-drop as many pop culture refs from the 90s as I can, including the OG MCU (90s X-Men, Spider-Man & Friends, The Fantastic Four animated series).

"Hey, Shogo, how was school today?" Jubilation Lee asked her adopted son as he entered their home on the island of Krakoa.

"lame! Mr.Summers is teaching stupid Quadratic Equations. But, it got me thinking about when he used to be your teacher." Shogo whined as he kicked off his shoes and sat heavily on the living room couch.

"Old Cyclops' mutant math, I remember the concept. He tried to teach me trigonometry." Jubilation recalled as she sat next to her son.

"Seriously? That's crazy. Anyways, do you remember the Danger Room's Shopping Mall Simulation?"

"Ah, the infamous Danger Mall -where Sentinel sales were always booming. No, I do not remember that one. Is that the exercise they had you running today?" Jubilation joked before becoming seriously curious.

"well, yeah, and I started wondering The X-Men had a place to hit up like that to buy stuff before people started ordering on Amazon. Like, was there ever just merchandise instead of a battle looming over the horizon?"

"You bet we did!! There was this one time, a peaceful day off, before I was a full-time X-Person, and I decided to check out a mall. But, you know your mom, trouble has it's way of finding me...even in the food court."

"wait, what's a food court?"

"Ermahgawd, you poor uncultured swine, so...

Once a mecca of American commerce, a gathering place for adolescent youth, and a nice place for an indoor stroll, the mall no longer holds the same place in our daily lives as it did in the summers of the '90s. In the heyday of the indoor shopping mall, one could buy a ham, watch a movie, haggle for a Gucci purse and cap off the day with a round of ice skating. Store fronts were elaborately decorated to look like barns and castles.

Malls across America were filled with seemingly lost or harried, or both, families navigating their way through these temples of consumerism, a long with playful teens in Jnco Jeans and South Park shirts, pink misfits and scene kids lighting up indoors, and the aged mall-walkers.

Families spent a large part of their miserable lives at shopping malls. For generations of Americans, there was no better way to pass time than to completely encapsulate themselves in retail outlets. Wrapped tightly in their warm blanket of commerce, they would loiter aimlessly for hours, often not spending a dime.

There was no greater monument to American capitalism in the latter half of the 20th Century than the mall. The history of the shopping mall can be traced back to the Roman Empire, where teenagers of the day surely milled about in their equivalent of Hot Topic and Spencer's gifts.

The first American shopping mall was built in 1826 in Providence, Rhode Island. Considering the coolest thing to do as a member of previous generation American teenagers was to fight in the wars of 1812, this was an absolute godsend.

The next great thing to happen to America's future adults was the advent of the automobile. The car shook up a number of things, including shopping malls. Shopping mall locations shifted from downtown areas to decentralized suburban spaces that were now accessible to the driving population.

Over a period of a half a century starting in the mid-50's, a staggering 1,500 shopping malls opened in the United States. Countless other mini-malls and strip-malls came into existence during this period as well.

The basic makeup of the new suburban shopping centers followed a very set pattern. Large chain department stores would serve as "anchors", familiar places that would drive traffic to the mall and thus the smaller stores located within the tile strewn floors. Anchors quickly became the key to a Mall's success.

The mall evolved into more than just a shopping center, adding other features than just retail outlets. The American populace could now take a trip to the mall and enjoy movie theaters, restaurants, and by the 80s, the newly ubiquitous video game arcade. By this time, the shopping mall had firmly become an entrenched part of American culture.

For decades, shopping malls appeared as the financial rocks. Individual stores would come and go, but the vacancy rates would always stay low.

And then something magical happened, the malls that teenage girls and soccer moms across the country could only dream of : the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota!

Since opening it's doors in 1992, Mall of America revolutionized the shopping experience of tens of millions of visitors a year. A leader in retail, entertainment and attraction, Mall of America became one of the top tourist destinations in the country and is known around the world.

Back in 1982, the Minnesota Twins and Vikings relocated from the Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington to the HHH Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. This created an unprecedented development opportunity for 78 acres of prime real estate. Three years later, the Bloomington Port Authority purchased the stadium site and began entertaining proposals for development. Mall of America was chosen from four proposals, and on June 14th, 1989, developers ans local dignitaries broke ground. On August 11th, 1992, when Mall of America opened it's doors, 330 stores opened for business and more than 10,000 employees started their first day of work.

Mall of America now hosts more than 400 events annually, ranging from concerts, to celebrity appearances and fashion shows. Each year 40 million people from around the world visit the Malls generating nearly $2 billion each year in economic impact for the state.

Word had gone out! A once in a lifetime concert being held at the Mall of America in Minnesota: the interstellar pop sensation Lila Cheney was teaming up with America's disco diva Allison Blaire, The Dazzler! The power pair had embraced the grunge movement and would be singing as a duet with a newly formed band called The Resistance in a one-night-only event in the concert Hall of the mall...

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