#pd architecture

[pd-architecture]

NEW HOME IN LAMBLEY, NOTTINGHAM Another new home by PD Architecture is now on the market on rightmove

The dwelling was originally designed as a very traditional brick built dwelling with overhanging oak porch and bay window canopy, heritage timber windows and a pan tile roof.  However, due to a change in circumstances the original developer sold the site with the foundations cast in place, and the new site owner applied a modern twist on the original design with a more minimalistic aesthetic including brilliant white render, blue brick detailing, modern grey windows and roof.

We’ve got to say we like what they did with it!

There are always multitudes of solutions to the same design, and it is important to go with the one that best suits your requirements.

Find our more on our blog at: New Home in Lambley, Nottingham

https://www.pd-architecture.co.uk/blog/new-home-in-lambley/

#PDArchitecture #ArchitecturalServices #ArchitecturalDesign #Lambley #Nottingham #NewHome #NewHomeDesign #Architecture

Architectural Design Brief: To provide a replacement dwelling in the greenbelt

PD Architecture #designed4living

Location: Lambley, Nottingham

View our Architectural Gallery or Case Studies for more of our Architectural Designs in Nottingham

Date Summer 2023

Clients Private Developer

Category New Build Homes

Area Architecture in Nottingham

Site Lambley, Nottingham

Planning Authority Gedling Borough Council

Architectural Design Paul Day

[pdalicedraws]

The durian is under the table. Nimona definitely didn’t pay for it.

[1] [2] [3/?] [4] [5] [6] [7]

[index]

[slut4megantheestallion]

LISTEN TO ME, I HAVE A REQUEST THAT HAS BEEN IN MY HEAD FOR A LONG TIME! Arcane women x reader who is part of the du Couteau and Medarda families. Personally, I would like it to be a Medarda by his mother and a du Couteau by his father. It's okay if you don't want to do it that way. As part of two very prestigious families, the reader has a mansion that is TOO gigantic and, of course, elegant. Basically, my request is this: the reader shows his partner his large mansion for the first time. PD 1: For obvious reasons, if the reader has Medarda blood, Mel cannot be introduced here, it would be incest, basically. PD 2: My instinct yells at me that, if you left her, Jinx would do graffiti with her symbol, or put something characteristic of her all over your house. And even sometimes writing: JINX WAZ HERE. Idk, it's just an idea I had.

Arcane Women x Du Conteau- Medarda! Reader- Showing them Your Gigantic Mansion

Warnings ⚠️: reader is rich, Jinx being Jinx, Reader is part of the Du Couteau and Medarda families, fluff.

Characters: Vi, Jinx, caitlyn, sevika.

Summary: The reader shows the arcane woman her mansion/home.

-Vi

●"Damn.. You livin' like this?" Vi is absolutely floored the moment she steps onto your estate. The sheer size, the towering gates, the intricate architecture - everything screams wealth and power. She whistles, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she glances around. "I knew you were loaded, but this is like the next level." She pretends to act casual, but deep down, she feels a little out of place.

●She grew up in the Undercity, in tiny apartments and makeshift homes - this? This is something out of a dream. She can't help but admire how effortlessly you walk through the halls like you own the world. At some point, she plops down on a ridiculously plush couch and just smirks at you. "I might never leave, y'know."

-Caitlyn

●"This is... exquisite." Unlike Vi, Caitlyn doest gawk - she's from a wealthy Piltover family herself, but even her estate doesn't compare to this level of grandeur. She admires the craftsmanship, refined decor, and the regal atmosphere that surrounds everything. "Your family truly spares no expense," she murmurs, trailing her fingers along the polished wood of the staircase railing.

●She asks about the history behind some of the paintings and antiques, genuinely fascinated by how your lineage connects to both Noxus and Piltover. She's the perfect guess - never touching anything without permission, always polite. That is until she sees Jinx's graffiti defiling one of the pristine walls. Her eye twitches. "She's been here? hasn't she?"

-Jinx

●"Hahaha! Look at all this fancy crap!" Jinx is way too entertained by your massive mansion. The moment she steps in, she's everywhere - running through the hallways, sliding down banisters, jumping on expensive furniture. "How the hell do you not get lost in this place?!" And, of course, she leaves her mark. She pulls out a can of spray paint and, without hesitation, starts tagging walls with neon blue graffiti. 'JINX WAZ HERE.' There's even a doodle of her face sticking its tongue out.

● No surface is safe. Chandeliers? She'll hang from them, Priceless statues? Might add a mustache. Your family's giant portrait? Yeah, she just drew a monocle and devil horns on your dad. You knew this would happen, but she's having way too much fun for you to stop her.

-Sevika

●"Tch. Fancy." Sevika is hard to impress, but even she raises an eyebrow as she steps inside your enormous mansion. She's used to the gritty, industrial atmosphere of Zau - dull metal, rusted pipes, dim lights. This? This is luxury on a whole different level. She takes a slow drag from her cigar, glancing around the towering ceilings and polished marble floors. "Damn. You weren't kidding when you said you had money."

●She strolls through the halls at a lazy pace, her heavy boots making a stark contrast against the pristine, polished floors. She's not the type to marvel at wealth, but she does appreciate good craftsmanship. Running a hand along the intricate banisters, she scoffs. "Bet this place could fit half of Zaun in it." There's a slight edge to her voice- part amusement, part resentment.

● She's seen too many people struggle while rich live like this, but... you? You're different. She can tolerate it because it's you. Eventually, she makes herself at home in the grand living room, sprawling across one of the ridiculously expensive couches like she owns the place. "You got any whisky in this oversized palace of yours?" And, of course, she notices Jinx's graffiti the moment she glances at the walls. Her eye twitches. "That little menace was here, wasn't she?" She exhales a slow breath, rubbing her temple. "I swear, I leave her alone for one damn second..." Sevika's tempted to go hunting jinx down for ruining the mansion's aesthetic, but part of her smirks. Figures.

●She leans back, exhaling smoke as she looks at you. "Guess you're stuck with me coming over more often. Someone's gotta make sure your mansion doesn't turn into Jinx's personal canvas."

[caeslxys]

Ichor and Inkwells

summary: Laudna wonders how much of her hunger is her own, at the core of it all.

notes: I slipped and finished this after over a year. woops

read it on AO3!

A brief history of Whitestone: In 805 PD, the Briarwoods arrived. 

There is, arguably, no more important a moment in its history beyond its conception and liberation. The discovery of residuum, the establishment of The Grey Hunt—none so definitive as the five-year span of brutality inflicted here.

Except, perhaps, that in 790 PD, on the outskirts of the city, in the cold and twisted embrace of The Parchwood, a girl is born.

This girl will not leave a mark on history, she will not be known as a hero or a scholar or even a martyr. Victim, people will paint her. Casualty. History will not remember this girl for her dolls or her love or her artistry. She will not be remembered for reaching out with her craft-calloused hands for more. They will not remember that more reached back.

In 811 PD, one week before the city is saved by its rightful heir, this girl receives a letter. It is signed: Yours in Service, The Lord and Lady Briarwood.

A brief description of Whitestone as it stands today: It is a memorial-city. A sprawling, architectural cenotaph. Every inexplicable ounce of life that exists within its pale walls exists in sheer defiance of fate. At the beating-heart center of this grave-town is a tree. A massive, twisted, starkly alive thing that seems to brush the clouds with the breadth of its reach. 

In 843 PD, this tree rips open at the base in a cleave of light. A group of people and the corpse of a girl step through, and into the sun-spattered light of this living-dead city.

They do not spend more than a day there, do not take the time to explore the veins, roots, tunnels, or alleys. When the corpse of a girl becomes the not-corpse corpse of a girl and is wrapped in the warmth of bodies this city could only ever hope to replicate, they do not venture beyond the grasp of its central roots. They do not find that the city has a secondary heart to its principal, sprawling tree.

The corpse-girl, then, does not find the stone. Does not discover the list of names carved delicately into its surface. Does not run her fingers over the clean, cared for indentations in the written-shape of her fellow corpse-people. Does not see and smell and cry over the fresh flowers lying silently on the monument’s plinth.

She does not get to kneel and gasp and read the name of the girl who, all those years ago, received a letter. She does not see, there, embraced by fresh flower petals and candlelight vigils and the light dusting of snow:

Matilda Bradbury

She does not get to mourn.

—

When Matilda was eight, her mother tried to teach her how to cook.

It was a horrid affair, their oven warming their tiny home to an uncomfortable, weighted heat even in the dense and constant wet-cold of The Parchwood. Her tiny, dirt-stained hands were scrubbed red-raw, eliminating any evidence of the day’s existence from her skin. 

She had moped and stomped and pitched an eight-year-old sized fit in the heavy heated wet-cold of it all. Her mother had taken her hands in her own as she flailed. “Matilda,” she had said, “My love, is helping me cook truly so terrible a fate?”

Matilda hiccupped, “I wasn’t done. Paprika is going to be so mad at me.” 

Her mother tilted her head, hanging like a puppet with its strings cut. “Your doll?”

”She’s a lady and I left her in the barn, Mama! Because I wasn’t done! She’s going to be such a mess. And it's not lady-like. To be so messy.”

Her mother hummed. She brushed tangly, scraggly curls from Matilda’s brow. “Well, I think any lady worth her salt knows how important feeding herself is.”

Matilda had wailed and groaned and thrown her head back. Her hair was dark, but still brown, then, as it followed the force of her spinning, expressive sway. She responded, her lips pursed in a pout, “Nuh-uh. You have to feed me, Mama.”

Her mother had laughed. It was sunny outside. Matilda had frowned even further. Her mother reached out and cupped her little cheeks,  “Okay—Alright, my darling. But soon, yes? And then you can feed me, for once.”

Matilda had grinned and nodded, and that was that. She bounced back-and-forth on her bare feet, on their creaking floorboards. Her mother smiled and tapped her on the nose. “For the record,” she said, “Even the most beautiful, beloved lady is very messy. So, go on then, make a mess of yourself again. Dinner will be ready soon.”

(And, so, Matilda did—)

She rushed back out into the open, persistent fog of the wood, made her way to the barely standing, croaking red barn on the outskirts of the patch of the world she called home, and crawled up and back into the loft where the inanimate audience of her most loved dolls were waiting. Later, as the sun began to truly set and paint the muddy, fog-shrouded mess of air around them into something more closely resembling a forest Matilda could imagine being sewn into the pages of her favorite stories—Matilda pulled her hands from the nest of her creations, palms stained ink-dark. 

(—make a mess of herself, that is).

—

When Matilda was fifteen, the hounds came.

Hounds in the sense that they howled and snarled and hunted like them, but distinctly not hounds in the bone deep, dry gashes that split them apart like a meat pie filled with steam, less of a cutting split than a bloated burst. Not hound-like in the way that the fur of one of its legs seemed a different shade and texture, like an ashen stain against charcoal. Not hound-like in the way their teeth appeared layered and chipped—serrated, almost—like a mouth full of shark skin. Not like a shark’s teeth—those were its claws, hooked at the end and sharp enough to rend the ground beneath them with their every heavy step.

Matilda first runs into them on her way back from school in Whitestone proper, dirt staining the skin of her face and her lovely new dress, tears splitting the seams and tears cleaving a path down her darkened cheeks.

It shambles out onto her path, eyes reflecting like a predator’s, sparkling like they’re too wet. The effect makes it seem like its pair of eyes are instead a cluster of eyes, like a spider’s collection embedded in its sockets. Its claws cut the earth between them, and where it cuts the ground seems to weep with pools or tendrils of shadow. She stops, clutching the hem of her dress in her bony fingers.

From the not-hound-hound’s point of view, she must look the part of easy prey. Tall, slight of frame, young, and completely on her own. It must take it by surprise when the shadows pooling around its shark-tooth paws wrap and bind it, climbing like vines of ichor through its mangy fur, curling around its throat and pulling it to the dirt.

Matilda, ten paces away, lets go of her dress. It drops from her hands soaked black, as if it had been dipped in an inkwell.

Quietly—almost shyly—she begins to cross the distance. Her footsteps do not cut the earth more than they do stain it, every footstep leaving behind a bleed of black that collects in the soil and coagulates like an old wound. The not-hound snarls, tries desperately to force its way out of the bind and by her tenth step—it quiets.

She kneels in front of it, extends a hand out as if to soothe and then seems to physically shake the thought away, pulling her hand back towards her knees and chest. She tilts her head. “Oh, that’s fun,” she says aloud, “That’s not your leg, is it?”

Its front-most left leg—ashen gray—begins suddenly at the bend of its chest and shoulder, separating the limb from the rest of its soot colored body in a sudden cut of color. Again, she starts as if to touch or pet or soothe, and then thinks better of it.

”I should like to know who made you—they’ve got such an eye for detail!” She smiles, her hands coming up to frame her cheeks. “Truly, I’ve not had the thought to mix-and-match bonework before. You’re really something special.” 

The hound studies her. Its eyes are snow-blind. Matilda hums.

”Oh,” she starts, lifting herself back onto the balls of her feet, “I wish you were kind. I’d bring you home if you were. You’d have so many treats and scratches—the good kind of scratches—but, you’re not, are you?”

The hound tilts its head. Its clouded eyes blink slowly up at her. A spear of ink shoots out from beneath her feet and semi-solidifies in her grasp.

”I’ll make it quick.” She promises. “It’s not your fault that you’re hungry.”

The hound huffs. Its head falls limply into the mud, as if waiting, as if intelligent.

”Huh,” Matilda says, “Neat.”

Her shadow pierces the throat of the not-hound in one fluid thrust. As its body is released to lie limply in the mud, its milky eyes blink one final, appraising time—and then seal shut.

—

When Matilda is twenty, she receives a letter.

—

All things considered it is somewhat of a small miracle that it took until Laudna was fifty–or perhaps more accurately twenty and thirty–to give in to her own autophagous body.

In the words of her mother: Any lady worth her salt knows how important feeding herself is.

Bor’dor was a crumb of sustenance, a sip of something cool after decades of ceaseless drought. There is still an ache associated with his death that will likely never leave her entirely, something like guilt and something like resplendent relief. A little like satisfaction. The thought of him is always followed with a low growl; though whether that is the hunting beast in her chest or the warning, begging call of her own hunger she is not certain.

In comparison to his fading and broken soul Otohan’s blade is like drinking straight from the source. Like nectar and honey, sweet and sticky and sluggishly thick in her veins.

They are alike in but one screaming, cleaving way. Like Bor’dor, the mouth-wateringly sweet sensation dripping through her chest is matched only by what follows it: an aching, sharp reminder of emptiness.

One moment she sees Imogen’s face–Imogen, her Imogen–and the next she sees the desaturated kaleidoscope imprints of color behind the lids of her own eyes as power feeds into her chest–and then it's Imogen again. And in the reflection of her distraught eyes she sees it. Herself. As she truly is. As she has likely always been.

It makes her think, for the first time in thirty-five years, of that hound. Delilah’s hound, she knows now. Its mismatched bones and mismatched skin, its aching teeth, its dripping maw. That is what she sees staring back at her in Imogen’s eyes. A salivating mouth. A barghest.

Imogen looks at her—for the first time in all of their time together—with something like distrust and all Laudna can hear is the echo of her own young voice moments before putting the desperate thing out of its misery. It’s not your fault that you’re hungry.

—

She thought, if anyone, Imogen would understand. She doesn’t.

Once Imogen clears the lip of the roof on her descending way back to their collectively shared room, Laudna falls into the shape of a curling wraith in the dark. She wraps her long, wiry arms around her knees and buries her head in the bend of her elbows.

Distantly, a bell chimes. A far away death toll. As if called by its wail, Delilah’s gentle voice rings, They can never understand what we’ve been through.

"She hates me because of you." Laudna hisses, "I think I might, too." 

Delilah clicks her tongue disapprovingly. It echoes in the confines of her skull. Come now, surely you wouldn't doubt her. You can no more rid yourself of love than you can rid yourself of me, dear. Despite our combined best efforts.

The sentiment cements itself in Laudna's chest, ossifying her sluggish heart. It makes her sick. It makes her tired. Delilah continues, And I've not made you do anything. Let us not act like you were not starving. What have I done but indulge your hunger?

"She didn't want me to." Laudna snaps—not unlike a territorial hound, hackles raised at the sight of the hand that feeds. "She didn't want me to. She loves me. She didn't want me to." 

Delilah does something that feels like an almost teasing bite at the heels of her running brain. How could you love something and also allow it to starve?

A sound like a whimper or whine escapes her throat. “She loves me.” She whispers. “She didn’t want me to.”

Delilah pauses. The silence feels twisted, warped. Laudna thinks she might be tilting her phantom head, appraising her, deciding whether best to punish or praise. She can tell because when Delilah tilts her head it feels a bit like her skull is about to explode to make room for the shift. And then, with a calm that suggests she wasn't paying much attention at all: In that case, perhaps you should ask yourself when a tether becomes a leash?

She thinks of Imogen’s hand in hers on the Silver Sun, eyes like the sky at sunrise. She thinks of Imogen’s warm lips pressed against hers in the bustling marketplace of Jrusar, of her hands pillowing her face in the aftermath. Imogen’s beautiful, understanding smile. Her voice saying, Power’s very tempting. And I won’t judge you either way.

Imogen in Zephrah, taking a secret, stolen moment with her on the cliffside. Imogen’s hand in hers. Imogen’s voice, I asked her to bring you back—I asked for help. I prayed to her like she was a God.

Imogen in Whitestone, tears carving her cheeks. Imogen’s voice, I’m gonna try my hardest to make that not happen, alright? 

Imogen in the Feywild, in the trust trials, desperate and aching and sad. Her voice, again, I’m disgusted by the thought of her watching us all the time.

Imogen’s body lifted from the Ruidian soil, glowing a vibrant red. The smile on her face, euphoric. Imogen and Fearne, their bodies or maybe their souls connected—tethered—passing magic between them like sips of water. Was she thirsty? She didn't ask. Laudna would have gotten her water. She’s done it before. So many times.

Laudna sobs, “If it is a leash I’m not the one being held back.”

Oh, Delilah says in a voice that sounds almost as if she were genuinely commiserating, You poor thing. You’re still much too hard on yourself. She loves you, does she not?

Imogen’s voice in The Volition’s hideout on Ruidus, Does that change the outcome? If she’s helping Ludinus, does it matter if she loves me?

”Does it matter?” she cries. “Does it matter if I am a dead end, regardless? She hates you,” she pauses to inhale, the night cooled air passing through her throat like hundreds of tiny knives, “so I will not condemn her to me.”

There is a sweeping sensation in her skull. Pins and needles. Delilah is shaking her head. You’ve still so much to learn, dear.

Laudns sniffs. It’s gross. She’s gross. She should really keep a thing of napkins or wipes on her. For the ichor. “What do you mean?”

The web in Laudna’s brain vibrates as if plucked. The vibration travels through Laudna’s body and into her lungs, forces her into a gasping cough of a sob. Delilah’s spider fingers crawl along her seams in search of prey. You have condemned no one that wasn’t condemned to start.

”Shut up.” She says in an animal hiss, “Shut up. She’s not condemned to anything—”

Anything, Delilah says simultaneously, their voices overlapping, that she has not chosen to condemn herself to, yes.

Laudna shakes her head, her stringy loose hair brushing like spider legs across the back of her neck. “No.” She grits. “No.”

No? All love is a condemnation, of sorts.

Tether. Leash. “You're the condemnation.” She spits, “If you weren’t here—“

Delilah laughs shockingly loud, at odds with her usual sangfroid. Is it truly so fragile for her?

”What?”

Delilah hums and it sounds like a thousand clanging church bells resonating at once. It makes the spider’s web in her skull tremble in response. Darling. Were the roles reversed, would I scare you away from your devotion?

Laudna shakes her head. “Imogen loves me.”

Yes, Delilah chuckles, like she is consoling or tolerating a child, in the way that she loves how you love her. Tell me—all of those nights you woke up to hold and comfort her in the wake of her storm—would she weather yours with you, as well?

”Of course.” Laudna’s reply is immediate. If anyone else might have been listening in they could have mistaken it as defensive, maybe, but—no. No, there is nothing to be defensive of. “Of course she would. She loves me.”

Delilah hums again. Something in her brain is fighting valiantly against the webs and the fingers and the bells. And then the multi-layered susurration of her voice: Then where is she, darling?

Delilah finds the fighting thing first. She sinks her fangs in.

When Laudna picks her ink-stained cheeks up from her knees she is, horrifyingly, all alone. When Delilah’s fangs pull away from the decaying corpse of a piece of a part of Laudna—they are dripping venom.

And when Fearne’s voice rings out, breaking the settling silence of the night with a soft, ’Laudna?’ she feels Delilah skitter away into whatever corner she hides in, whatever corner of Laudna’s brain is not her own.

—-

Later that night, once a relative calm has once more settled over their shared space and Imogen’s relatively stiff body climbs into their shared bed, Laudna stops breathing. An attempt at being considerate and considerately invisible. Imogen doesn’t comment on it, though Laudna knows she notices. Or maybe she just hopes she notices. She’d notice it, were the role reversed. 

Her teeth fit together tightly in her mouth, clenching. That horrid woman. Her wretched words.

And yet, still, Laudna finds herself wondering hopelessly at the truth of them.

Delilah lies. All the time and in innumerable fashion. As often as she lies, though, she tells the truth. She has always been a cornered animal, identifying and utilizing with immediate efficiency that which she thinks will benefit her survival most effectively. Which was this: an outright lie, or a manipulative truth?

She doesn’t know. Maybe she never will. Behind her, Imogen inhales a deep breath that shakes on the exhale. Laudna’s heart clenches in her chest. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Laudna loves Imogen regardless of the magnitude in which it’s returned.

Would Delilah call that pathetic, or would her devotion impress her?

Following the clench of her teeth comes a contortion of her brow as they scrunch together in wrung-out, bone-deep exhaustion.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. What does matter, Laudna realizes, is that it’s unfair.

Not to her, but to Imogen—who she is beginning to realize has not been given the chance to prove Delilah wrong.

She knows Imogen’s breath, the stutter of it if she’s having a nightmare, the tense of her neck if a migraine is about to set in, the clench of her jaw when the voices become too overstimulating, the way her breath shakes on the exhale when she is trying to hold back tears—because Imogen has allowed her to see it. Because brave, beautiful Imogen sits with her ribs and heart bleeding from her chest every day for Laudna to pick apart as she chooses.

And Laudna, in return, has only ever shown her the aftermath. The scars, the stitching, the mended threads. I’ve seen all of you, Laudna.

A trembling, damning thought: that she has not.

When she wakes in the morning to lightning threaded fingers interwoven tightly between her own, she isn't sure whether it's an admission of defeat or declaration of stubborn, bleeding intent.

And if it is the latter, she worries whether Imogen has realized it—that the thought of her love being something that bleeds makes her teeth ache.

—-

There’s no time. There’s never time.

They leave that morning, set across the tundra of Eiselcross in search of FCG’s home city. What happens next is a bleary blur of passing hours and tense traversal and thoughts of how to fix the things she’s broken so rapidfire in her brain that it almost gets her killed as her brain trips and her foot follows and then, finally, with the creaking branches of her mind snapping entirely.

The time Delilah spends at the wheel exists in the same way the world still exists when you close your eyes—lapped in darkness, lacking any form but the print of an impression—nothing concrete but for the simple knowledge of fact that the world did, still, exist. That it would be there when she could wrest control of her own eyes again.

When she did—and this is arguable, whether or not “she” did and not her capable, beautiful family—the world was indeed still there. She opens her eyes to Imogen’s desperate, tear-stricken face, her chapped lips shivering, her lavender eyes swimming and searching. Laudna’s first thought is that she should have brought another coat.

”That can’t happen again,” Imogen whispers tremulously. Her hands are traveling all over, unable to sit still on Laudna’s bleeding body, drenching them in ichor and blood. Some of the bleeding, Laudna knows, was done by Imogen’s hands. I love you, she had said, I’m trusting you. “Laudna. Laudna. That can’t happen again.”

So, Laudna had thought with no small amount of misery, it wouldn’t. 

She had just about made up her mind on a number of things ranging from leaving altogether to suggesting they just keep her in the hole until they need her—it isn’t like she’d be able to break the barrier anyway, what with her atrophied muscle—to begging, pleading to not be left behind, to at least escort her out of this wretched place before—when Ashton brings forth the pinion.

The Pinion of Service, it’s called. There’s something in the back of her head that laughs at that.

The time it takes to get to Essek’s home and formulate a plan passes, again, in an unrecognizable blur of smeared color and voices. She can only stare at this thing that is meant to liberate her, this purple stone Essek is now saying will need to be placed physically within her. That it’s not a guarantee. That Delilah could still take her.

They’re given a handful of hours after that.

For the most part they race around, immediately set out to find ways to make themselves useful for the coming battle. She’s not sure what they’re doing, really. She is still staring at that rock.

What are you doing?

”Laudna?”

You lied.

I’ll fix it—We’ll fix it.

A hand lands on her cheek, suddenly and softly. A gentle strike of lightning. Imogen. “—are you alright? Laudna?”

Her response comes instinctively, bursting from her mouth well before passing through her brain, “Oh, yes. Perfectly fine. Are you alright?”

Imogen’s hand doesn’t leave her cheek. Laudna can see the minute twitches of muscle in her face that mean she is making a valiant and active attempt at appearing neutral. Were she anyone else, she’d be doing a marvelous job. “You aren’t…” She starts, losing the words and picking them up again, “…aren’t nervous?”

Her response comes, again, instinctively and without permit from her mind, “Oh, yes. I’m terrified.”

Imogen makes a noise at this that, like Laudna’s runaway mouth, seems unintentional. It sounds like it should be a wail; like Imogen reached down into some hurting part of herself and smothered it a moment too late. In so doing, she briefly loses the control over her passive expression and Laudna watches her eyes blink rapidly to fight a sudden onset of tears.

In spite of her loose mouth, it would be wrong to say Laudna lifting her hand to cup Imogen’s cheek was a thoughtless action. It would be more accurate to say that loving and comforting Imogen is her natural state of being. It is thoughtless only in that it is instinctive; it is what she is meant to do. It does not shock her to find her hand where it belongs, more at home on Imogen’s skin than attached to her own body, in the way that sometimes her own words take her by surprise.

What does shock her is her next thought, that Imogen might not want Laudna to touch her like this.

It is the first time she’s touched Imogen like this in too long. Others may call this a dramatic thought—a mere 24 hours—but those poor people don’t know Imogen and they certainly don’t know Imogen like Laudna. There’s a part of her that thinks you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows or loves anyone like Laudna loves her.

Her palm feels simultaneously numb and over-sensitive with the joy of it. If Imogen doesn’t want her to touch her like this anymore she thinks she’ll die. Or have to cut off her hands to spare them the ache.

”I’m sorry.” She whispers. Her thumb runs over the curve of Imogen’s cheek. “Was that the wrong thing to say?” 

Imogen shakes her head. “There is no wrong thing to say. Not about that. Not about this.”

Laudna doubts that. “I was thinking about the gnarlrock.”

Imogen blinks hard enough that for a moment it brings her entire face together in a swirl of disbelief. “Oh? I—yeah, It’s—We’ve gotta stop fucking with purple rocks, huh?”

She smiles. “Yes, well, hopefully this one will work in our favor.”

Imogen laughs lightly, tremulously; she laughs as if the consequence of not laughing is sobbing. It is one of the few Imogen-sounds that Laudna swears to become less familiar with. “Yeah. Yeah, hopefully.” 

She pauses. Laudna watches her search for words, sees one escape her mouth and her tongue follow in a stripe across her lips, sees another catch in the twitching not-quite-furrow of her brow, sees more pool in her arms as they come to the familiar cross over her chest and stomach. If the rest of Laudna’s life was just this—watching Imogen think, watching her put together puzzles in her brilliant mind—she could be content. Whether the rest of her life encompassed the next hour or not.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      And then, a new shock, Imogen doesn’t find the words at all. Or finds them and discards them. As Laudna watches her drop the search and settle into silence, she realizes she is not the only one that feels as if she is treading water in an open sea. Imogen must also feel it, that threat of any word being the one to pull them under.

That can’t happen again.

”I’m sorry. For that night.”

Imogen’s voice is a rough whisper when it leaves her throat, “The—the night with the gnarlrock?” 

“Yes.”

”I thought we already apologized for that night.”

She shrugs. ”Still, then. I’m still sorry.”

”Laudna,” Imogen releases her name in a sigh, “Don’t.”

Laudna’s mouth shuts with a loud click. She’s sorry for that, too.

Silence settles over them again, heavy in a way it has only been once before. Laudna hates it. Hates the oppressive, suffocating feeling of it and the knowledge that its weight is one she wrest upon them both. Hates that she may only have an hour left to live and she’s spending it with this woman she loves with more ferocity than there are words to convey in this stilted silence. 

It hits her, then. Her lack of time. She turns her face to Imogen, who is staring ahead and working her jaw. Has it hit her, too? It wasn’t so long ago that she was asking Imogen to do this, to be the one to put her down if what came to pass came to pass. It wasn’t so long ago that Imogen crossed continents and planes of existence just to give her the chance to choose to leave her.

”Could I show you something?” Laudna asks. Imogen tilts her head. Her eyes are a weighed-down noose. Laudna whispers, “I don’t know how to say it.”

Imogen straightens her back enough that when she responds she is looking down at her, if only slightly. “Of course, Laudna. Do you mean—“ and she taps her temple with two scarred fingers.

”No, no. I actually—“ and now she straightens, her spine unfurling like rolled parchment, to reach into her bag. When she finds what she’s feeling for, she pulls it out slowly.

At first, Imogen is confused. For a brief moment Imogen is really confused. And then the past few weeks seem to rush back into her mind and she recognizes it—Ashton’s bullshit magical pipe.

”They gave it to me when—that night. To use.”

”Your…proudest moment, yeah?”

Laudna shrugs, “Or ‘kindest’. Up in the air on what they meant, but that's not new for them.”

”No, they love that shit.”

”We should really speak to them about being more clear. Succinct.”

”Concise.”

”Exactly.”

”If we did he’d just get more obnoxiously vague on purpose.”

“That’s true.” Laudna smiles. There is a smaller, matching smile on Imogen’s face. 

“What—“ Imogen starts, “What is it that you want to show me, with this? That you can’t say?”

Laudna toys with the pipe in her hands, twisting and running the pads of her fingers over the runic inscriptions. “I just…” she starts, her voice a barely there whisper, “I want you to know all of me. Selfishly, I do.”

Imogen looks as if she’s about to argue. Laudna stops her by raising the pipe between them both. “This is it. The last piece of me.”

”I don’t think that’s true at all.” Imogen responds shakily. “I think—I think there’s things about you even you haven’t figured out yet, Laudna.”

Laudna smiles at her. What a beautiful thought. What a beautiful mind. She aches with the urge to take her hand. To feel her split-open fingers toy with the ring on her finger. Has she noticed, yet? The shift in placement. The promise she refuses to utter aloud, lest her tendency to break them rear its head. If she has, she has yet to allude to it.

”Maybe.” She responds wistfully. “Still. I would like to show you. I would…” she trails off, fighting back a sudden rise of emotion in her chest. She swallows. “I would like for someone to…to know. In case. You know.”

”I know.” Imogen cries—because she is crying now. Silent, soft rain on her cheeks, the closest thing to an admission of terror and love she’s made all day. And then, miracle of miracles, Imogen takes her free hand into her own and holds tight. “I know.”

She tightens her grip on Imogen’s hand to what she’s sure would be a painful degree for anyone with less atrophied muscle than herself, but is likely just a mild squeeze as is. “Thank you.” She whispers.

Imogen lifts their hands to her tear-stained lips and presses a kiss to their combined joints. She says nothing.

Laudna brings the pipe up and into the light. With a flick, the runes begin to glow. “Well,” she grins, “bottom’s up.”

Imogen laughs against her hand. “Yeah. Bottom’s up.”

She takes the smallest of moments to close her eyes and memorize the feeling of Imogen’s lips on her skin, her laugh in the air. And then, holding tight to those images in her mind, she inhales.

Inhales.

Holds.

Exhales.

The smoke leaves her mouth with a quiet hiss. It gathers in front of her nose and dances in front of her face in many monochromatic swirls. Beside her, Imogen holds her breath.

As the last waves of smoke leave her lips, it gathers in a tight, twisting ball in front of her and then expands—gently, softly—into the vague approximation of shapes and then people and—

The image in front of them is a familiar one. Matilda—who still looks like Laudna, if Laudna were made of a bit more meat and a bit less bone—sits at a dinner table. It’s a smaller one than the dinner table, and though the smoke does not capture the detail Laudna knows which of the four seats surrounding it are missing a leg or chipped to the point of scratching. She knows which of the seats the apparition of her meat-body will choose, just as she knows the vague silhouette of a person entering the scene is her mother, whose hands had been dirtied and frame had been thin and who moved, at that point, with very little of the grace Matilda remembered her harboring when she was younger.

Her mother sits across from her and leans in, exhaustion pulling her bones into the wood and her skin towards the roots. Matilda is talking, hands shooting around expressively like a gnat, as another silhouette—stockier, his torso almost a solid block of smoke—sits next to her mother. She remembers that her father had leaned forward onto his elbows, wringing his hands on the table. Matilda takes a deep breath that shifts her spine of smoke into an almost straight line and then reaches towards something on the table.

She lifts the smoke from the smoke. In her hands is something small and rectangular.

Next to her, Imogen whispers: ”Oh.”

Matilda takes the letter into her hands and without much grace rips it open at the seam. Laudna notices that Matilda’s parents seem to flinch at the action. A few moments pass of her reading, processing, and then Matilda shoots upright. She’s pointing at the letter with one hand and though the smoke, again, does not capture the detail—Laudna knows there is a smile on her face.

”A dinner,” Laudna narrates quietly, as the smog continues to play out the scene in silence before them, “They must have seen something, Mama. They must have seen something in me. I was chosen.”

The smoke stills mid-scene—and then loses its weight entirely, dissipating in the air. That’s fine. Laudna doesn’t really remember the rest with nearly as much clarity.

Imogen is silent next to her. It feels like she is the farthest from her she has ever been and the closest she has been in days. Eventually, she whispers, “Laudna…”

“Even now,” Laudna starts, “Even now—my proudest or kindest or most heroic moment—whatever the fuck Ashton said this thing does—it’s this. Even knowing…do you see?”

Imogen doesn’t move. Laudna doesn’t lift her gaze, not strong enough to witness what damning expression is on her face. “See what?”

”Me.” Laudna chokes, “That’s the end of my life in my hands. Of my parents’ lives. The life of a little girl and her family. Of some fucking—innocent fucking bear, I think, and i’m still—Imogen. It meant I could become something. Something more than some…” she pauses to gather enough venom in her mouth to properly spit the next words, “…some hedge witch.”

Delilah is still temporarily sedated somewhere within her, but Laudna swears she hears the reverberating echo of her depraved chuckle along the rotting walls of her mind at the words. At the reminder of them.

But it’s the truth. She feels the sting of it in her chest still, sinking like teeth into the viscera of her. Maybe Matilda would have chosen better had she known; but, Laudna knows she wouldn’t. If told, here and now, to make that choice again—then damn them. Damn her parents and that innocent family and that bear and herself. Damn everyone who would keep her from this.

Imogen’s hand grips tightly to her shoulder, almost shaking her. “You don’t mean that.” She whispers, “Laudna. Honey, you don’t mean that.”

Laudna lifts her swimming gaze to meet Imogen’s. She grasps at her wrist. Damn everyone who would keep her from this. “Yes, I do.”

Imogen seems unable to process the words, blinking rapidly at her with her mouth hanging slightly open. As if Laudna hasn’t spent every day for over two years reiterating her devotion, her reverence. It doesn’t surprise her. She has tried to keep this part of her love, this part that is taloned, hidden away with purpose. 

It isn’t that Laudna thinks Imogen loves her any less devotedly, any less reverentially; Laudna may not understand it, but she knows that if Imogen were a more selfish person her own love would be just as barbed. Sharply filed. That’s the real issue. When you break it down to its simplest, core problem it isn't that Imogen loves less wholly; it's that Imogen is a better person than Laudna is.

Delilah lies. Except for when she doesn’t. She is not condemned to anything that she did not choose to condemn herself to.

When the day comes and Imogen is asked that inevitable question—your life or the world’s—no matter how much she rages and wails against even the concept of it, she knows in her bones what Imogen will pick.

Laudna may have been making decisions of her own lately with the intention of the “greater good” somewhere tangentially in her mind, but more than that it was this same indelible, innate desire. She consumes Bor’dor’s soul and even through the thick grief of it she feels relief. She consumes what remains of the Willmaster’s on Ruidus and is filled, however briefly, with that same childlike excitement of picking up a letter that will change her life. She consumes Otohan’s killing dagger and her heart beats for what feels like the first time.

Finally, she admits: “I don’t want to lose it all.”

Imogen’s face trips into something akin to despair. Laudna takes her hand. “But, more than that—more than anything—I don’t want to lose you.”

Her final admission: that her love for the world exists only as a refraction of her love for Imogen.

Imogen’s breath leaves her in a stutter. She blinks rapidly. Her eyes are wet, but not yet or no longer leaking. Laudna takes her in unflinchingly, allowing herself what may be a final moment of selfish, feverish desire. It should feel weighted. Instead, Laudna feels as if she could fly, so light is the weight in her chest.

It is then that she notices the lack of a catching gleam on Imogen’s brow and feels the press of cold metal somewhere against the skin of her thigh, where one of Imogen’s hands is pressed to uphold her weight. Laudna feels a small, besotted smile find her lips, trembling at the corners. She reaches out, catches and then tucks away some of Imogen’s soft lavender curls. Imogen startles at the touch.

Laudna breathes hard through her nose as their eyes meet again. Some ugly and sticky sort of soft chuckle. “You’re going to give yourself a headache, love.”

“I—You—“ Imogen tumbles over the words, wrestles them in her mouth. Laudna recognizes the look on her face the way one recognizes the clouds before a storm. What Laudna cannot decide on is if that means she should seek shelter, or if it is something they can weather.

Imogen must hear her train of thought—which, of course she can—because suddenly her focus solidifies into something incontestable. Her brow is still furrowed, her eyes still wide and wet and wonderful. Laudna is almost excited to hear her final verdict, if only as an excuse to witness that fire again.

But then, Imogen says: “My turn.”

”What—“

Whatever would have come out of her mouth is lost to the sudden flurry of Imogen across her lap, snatching the pipe from limp hands and inhaling deeply all before Laudna regains enough awareness to even comprehend the movements.

Imogen, of course, is thrown immediately into a fit of coughing.

”Oh, Imogen—it wasn’t—I would’ve just handed it to you. I wouldn’t have fought you over it.”

Imogen coughs hard into her elbow, smoke still leaving her lungs and tears in her eyes. She waves her hands in an effort to convey what Laudna assumes amounts to shut up. 

Laudna finds herself suddenly filled with a desperate sadness for all those months Imogen spent pining in silence, because more than anything in this moment Laudna wants to kiss her. Aches with the desire to kiss her. She cannot imagine the agony of this moment stretched out over the course of months. Then again, Laudna highly doubts she'd be half as endearing choking on smoke.

She does her the courtesy of focusing instead on the rising stone-grey cloud spilling from her mouth as it coagulates into an image she recognizes at once.

The smoke presents it in monochrome, but Laudna knows that field and that hill and the exact hue of pink-purple flowers that litter it like stars. She recognizes that dilapidated cabin, that crowd of slobbering people. She recognizes Imogen. She recognizes, barely, herself.

There is no sound but she knows, as clearly as she can remember the echo of Matilda’s voice, the echo of Imogen’s as her silhouette turns to Laudna’s. We’re gonna have to hold off on the courtesies until later.

She knows every moment of what comes next in perfect detail. Imogen, powerful from the first moment, turning that potential onto the crowd. Imogen taking her hand, leading them both fearlessly into some unknown. She remembers the way Imogen’s hands felt in hers that first time, still radiating static. She remembers the warmth of her voice. I just want you here, next to me.

She watches it all unfold again in front of her, utterly taken. At some point Imogen stops coughing next to her and falls silent as well. Smoke-Imogen reacts to Smoke-Laudna’s response in a way that Real-Laudna can still feel the warmth of, as Smoke-Laudna confirms this new and beautiful partnership. And with what Laudna knows are matching, final, incandescent smiles, the smoke fades.

She watches it dissipate for a moment, overcome with a desire to contain it, somehow. To take the smoke back within herself if only to hold onto the tangible memory of it a touch longer. Instead, she turns to Real-Imogen, who is already looking at her.

Her eyes are determined, if still drowning. She twists to grasp at the junction of Laudna where her throat meets her shoulder. “You see?” She whispers. “Doesn’t matter what you do. Doesn’t matter what choices you make. I’m never gonna regret you, Laudna. I’m never gonna think being with you was a mistake.”

Laudna feels pressure behind her eyes building rapidly, but Imogen continues, “I want you to see it so bad, Laudna. The way I love you—it’s—you saved my life that day, as much or more than I saved yours. You can’t—You aren’t going to convince me you’re a bad person, Laudna. You’re not.”

Imogen takes Laudna’s face in the palms of her hands, split-open fingers cradling her jaw. She pauses long enough to lick her dry lips. “You were chosen.”

Laudna nods, thick tears like a river of tar leaving her cheeks sticky. ”I was chosen.” 

”You were. She did choose you.” She concedes. Her voice trembles. “But so did I. Laudna. I did, too.”

And, really, how is anyone meant to respond to that aside from how Laudna then does: by breaking.

She collapses forward, throws the barely there weight of her body into Imogen’s arms, curls her own too-long ones tightly around Imogen's waist and back. She whispers in a hoarse, tear-choked voice, “You’re my best friend.”

Imogen, equally choked up, returns the tight grip tenfold. Laudna feels the heat of her shivering breath when she responds, “You’re my best friend, too.”

Laudna gasps against her skin, “If I don’t make it—If she wins—just—thank you. My very first best friend. My very first.”

Imogen coughs into her neck, squeezes her tighter. “Don’t forget Pâté.”

Or Bella, Laudna thinks, chuckling wetly into Imogen’s hair. “Fine.” She presses a damp, too-deep kiss to Imogen’s hairline. She says against her skull, canines grazing against her skin with every syllable, “Thank you, love. My love.”

She feels Imogen’s fingers grip like claws into the skin of her biceps and a buckling, crippling sob bury itself into her shoulder. And then Imogen pulls back, releases the hold on her arms to once again cradle her face and simply holds her there, runs her gaze over all of Laudna’s blemishes and bloodstains and ichor. She lets her fingers graze across the blades of her cheekbones, the dip of her brow, the bend of her nose, the shadow of her lips. 

Laudna does not think nor hope for a kiss. If only because she does not need it to demonstrate herself anymore. If only because Imogen loves her and that is enough.

Eventually, Imogen nods. “Thank you.” She whispers. There are still tears cutting down her cheeks. Her brows set with determination. “Let’s go set you free.”

—

When Delilah Briarwood is seventy-three—or, perhaps, forty-four and thirty-three—she watches the face of the girl she once invited to dinner fill with something like animal satisfaction as she locks her away in the hollow of her chest, right next to her still slow-beating heart.

Behind that girl’s frail ribcage, beneath her extensive collar, in front of her shifting scapula–it appears to Delilah through the filter of a purple veil of arcane glass as if she is surrounded by many undulating teeth.

—

The first thing she asks for in the aftermath–or, perhaps, the aftermath of the aftermath–is a bath.

And the bath looks lovely, really. The decor it seems Essek and his partner keep isn’t anything as ostentatious as what they had access to in Whitestone, but it’s big enough for two and the water hot enough to burn. And Imogen is there. Imogen is pouring some kind of lovely oil into the tub that smells truly divine and swirling her fingers into the mix, spreading it throughout. It rises along with the steam into the room and fills the air with the scent of something soft and floral and lovely. The light from Imogen’s scars reflects off of the undulating surface like many refracted, tiny pink-purple auroras. It’s lovely. Imogen is lovely.

Imogen is looking at her. Has been for more than a few seconds, by the concern settling into the softness of her face. Oh. Well. It isn’t like Delilah was the cause for her wandering mind. Or the ichor. If the subtle gray smear of it on Imogen’s chin is anything to go by. 

“Laudna?”

Oh! There she goes again, wandering. Always wandering, even in stillness. She should really—“Yes?”

Imogen’s brows join together over the bridge of her nose. “Do you—Are you—“

She juggles the words in her mouth for a moment, bites her lip, and then seems to give up with a sharp, sardonic exhalation of air that could be considered some type of laugh. Her head drops, hanging limp from her shoulders for a long moment before she picks it back up and levels her with a stare that is equally as soft and tender and affectionate as it is determined. Determined? Determined for what?

She lifts her hand from the porcelain edge of the tub, “C’mere, Laudna.”

Laudna does. No amount of her mind’s wandering would lead her to anywhere but Imogen’s hands, anyway.

As their hands find each other and lace together, Imogen stands from the edge in full to meet her. She brings her other hand up to Laudna’s face, uses two fingers to brush oily strands of hair back behind her ear and then, without ever disconnecting, runs them lightly over her jaw to cup her cheek in the warmth of her palm. It’s nice. Still nice. She’s glad she still runs cold. 

She’s not sure she’d trade dealing with Delilah in perpetuity for something that would diminish how Imogen makes her feel. 

Imogen smiles up at her, as if in response to the thought. Which, well, is possible. “Can I join you? I—I mean, I was assuming, but I’d like to ask—“

”Please.” She responds immediately. She hasn’t been alone since the ritual, hasn’t had a moment to really think about—and no one’s really asked, yet—about what it means—“Imogen. Yes. Please.”

Imogen’s smile stretches to display her teeth, then. She loves it. Imogen’s smile and Imogen’s teeth. She hates that so few people love Imogen’s bite. She loves that Imogen is unafraid to have fangs with her. “Alright. Alright. Here, lemme—“ She reaches down to take Laudna’s other hand as well, pulling her along gently, “Tell me if it’s scalding enough for you.” She teases. Laudna smiles. She smiles because even if it wasn’t scalding it would be enough.

Not that that matters, as she steps into the water and to her admitted delight it settles on her skin like wet flame. It draws a sigh from her lungs that is purely pleasure. She hears Imogen swallow behind her, the supporting grip on her hands tightening ever so slightly. Laudna laughs, then. “And I thought I was being insatiable.”

Imogen coughs. “Can you blame me? From nothing to you? I’m making up for a twenty-eight year dry spell over here.”

”From nothing to me,” Laudna repeats, the words leaving her in the light bounce of a laugh, “I suppose the bar was low.”

”Laudna.”

”Hm?”

Imogen rolls her eyes. It is deeply fond. Laudna can’t roll her eyes or they’ll get stuck there. She says, “You know that’s not what I meant. ‘Sides,” and here her eyes darken, “I’d argue the bar was very high. Maybe I was saving myself for someone.”

Laudna grins, lowers herself fully into the water with a deep sigh, and reaches a hand up to cup Imogen’s chin, “Oh, yes, you truly are the pinnacle of purity, darling.” She runs her thumb over the fat of Imogen’s bottom lip. Her finger comes away with a soft stain of gray. She watches Imogen’s stomach clench, sees her physically restrain herself from chasing Laudna’s thumb with her teeth and tongue. “Though, I can’t help but feel as though if I had abs we could’ve been doing this a long time ago.”

Imogen gasps through a smile, blushing and vaguely scandalized, “Laudna!”

Laudna laughs fully, reaching to take Imogen’s hand again in her own and bringing it up to her lips to press two quick, soft kisses to the skin. “I’m teasing, darling.” That’s what people do, right? With their partners. Surely Delilah—or maybe Sylas—well. She should really stop trying to be suave. She presses a third, even lighter kiss to Imogen’s knuckles and then her voice asks, even more lightly, “Get in?”

A sound not dissimilar to a whine leaves Imogen’s chest; though, to Laudna’s ears it sounds—well, firstly, beautiful—but, secondly more like something vaguely distraught than aroused. Maybe she shouldn’t find it beautiful then. If it’s distraught. There shouldn’t be anything beautiful about Imogen in distress.

Imogen stands. One of her hands runs up and over Laudna’s shoulder and then settles against the nape of her neck, where she presses lightly for Laudna to lean forward. Laudna does, feels Imogen step in behind her, and then feels strong thighs bracket either side of her body, settling into her sides. God, she really needs to get Imogen a horse. For her thighs.

She settles fully, Imogen’s stomach pressing up flush against Laudna’s naked back, her arms circling around her waist and knotting at her stomach to press them even closer. She noses at the skin behind Laudna’s ear. Laudna sighs again and whispers, “Hi.”

”Hi,” Imogen whispers back, “I love you.”

The infinite amount of hopes she could hang on that sentence. The things she could build from its bones. She could bundle it up and give it strings and a name and a form and gift it back to her. She presses back, tries in vain to fuse their skin where it meets. Turns her head to brush their noses, and their lips together, “I love you, too. More than anything.”

Imogen kisses her. It feels like it lights her up from within. Which reminds her—and she pulls back—“Could you—I’m sorry, but—“

”Anything.” Imogen interrupts urgently, pressing her lips then to the corner of her mouth. “Anything.”

Laudna hums. Her chest flickers. “I—hm—I feel. Um. Unclean, still. I think. And I don’t—“ her hands, squeezing down on her throat—her hands, running from sternum to stomach and flaying herself open—“I don’t think my hands can—will work. They’ll smear. Does that make sense? I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize.” Imogen says, and then holds her breath for a long moment. Laudna feels her eyes sweep over the whole of her, analyzing. She can always tell when someone is analyzing her, when their gaze is picking apart her muddy pieces and deciding where the worst parts or the easiest-to-cripple parts of her lie. She wonders, What do you think are the worst parts of me? Where would you shoot to kill?

And then thinks: Do you know that if you told me that I would break it within myself, that worst part? If you told me where you’d shoot I would paint you a target. Bullseye. I would never have you miss.

And then, more simply: Love me still. Please. Whatever you find. Tell me which parts of me to keep and I will tend to them. Tell me which parts to lose and they will burn. Please. I promise you can make something lovely out of broken parts.

It’s strange. In the aftermath—the immediate aftermath—Laudna was shocked to find herself filled to the brim with what she could only figure to be abundant, valiant joy. There is a contentedness now glowing purple in her chest that she did not expect and that is only now beginning to wane. There is the feeling of freedom, finally, freedom so light in her bones she could float away with it, but still there is that dreadful thought: that she stains.

She fears that if she looks for herself, if she wipes the grime and the sweat and blood and ichor away from not her body but her mind, she won’t be able to parse what dark parts were Delilah and what is just herself, as she has always been.

Finally or suddenly, Imogen presses another kiss to the portion of skin where her shoulder melts into her throat. She says, softly, “Of course. But, first—“ and shifts, hands landing on Laudna’s hips and pushing her softly, sliding her away so as to turn and ask, “Can you do me, really quick?”

Laudna takes a moment to remember what she was even responding to; but, Imogen smiles, her cheeks and throat still gray and, oh, there’s some in little shapes across her chest, too, and she had forgotten she did that—did she do that? Or did Imogen. She can’t remember.

Imogen says, more softly, “You’re not gonna stain. Promise.”

She blinks, recognizes for the second time the blank amount of space above Imogen’s brow where once a shield sat. Right.  ”Oh. Yes, of course.”

So she does. She turns to face Imogen, their legs an awkward tangle between them. She grabs the soft rag Imogen had lain on the edge of the tub and the bar of subtly scented soap besides—Imogen stops her.

“Just these.” Imogen says, pressing her thumb insistently into the center of Laudna’s damp palm. “You can—the soap is—yes, please, I am gross, but—just these. If that's okay?” 

”Of course. Of course, darling.”

So just the soap, then. She squeezes it in her hands, spreading bubbles and oil along her fingers, dips it all into the water and then repeats the process once more.

She dips one hand—the one not in charge of the soap—into the water, capturing as much in the cup of her palm as she can. She runs the very tip of her fingernail over Imogen’s navel and between the valley of her breasts and sternum as she brings it up from the surface, all the way up to her collar where she loosens her hold in a slow glide. She watches it run from one end of Imogen’s collar to the other, down her carved open chest in a quick and then catching glaze.

She thinks her own chest flickers again like candlelight in a breeze. She runs her hand more firmly over the upper-most curves of Imogen's split-open skin. “You're so beautiful.”

Imogen hums. She whispers, “So are you.”

Laudna shakes her head. Not in disagreement but in disbelief. Not of Imogen's words but of her. The vision of her. Imogen opens her mouth—likely in misplaced protestation—and as much as Laudna adores the cleansing sound of her voice it isn’t what she needs, right now. What she needs is—there—her mouth on Imogen’s wet collar, the feeling of Imogen’s jaw tensing against her hairline.

“Baby,” Imogen gasps, and then laughs, “And you were teasing me.”

“Am teasing you, arguably.” Laudna mutters against her skin, which, fuck, she just said she should stop that. The teasing. But Imogen’s breath does a funny hiccuping thing that Laudna has very quickly learned in the past two weeks means that she is doing something well. Or right. Right or well. They aren't always the same thing with her.

She leans up to press her lips to the cut of Imogen's jaw. She says, “Sorry.”

Imogen leans down; She kisses her. She says against her lips, “Don't be.” 

She tastes—it reminds her—”Oh,” she says aloud, and brings her other hand—the soapy one—up to Imogen's face as well. She runs her soapy thumb firmly along Imogen’s chin, watches the white suds go charcoal-smear gray. Her tongue suddenly feels trapped behind her teeth, like it's swollen, like it's a worm trying to break the seal of her lips for nutrients or sunlight.

She bites down on the wriggling traitor in her mouth, incisors cutting into the flesh with the sharp tang of whatever sludge runs through her veins. Later. Later. She flexes her hands the slightest bit against where they lay at Imogen’s jaw. Just these, she had asked. Just these.

She brings the very bottom of either of her palms to greet each other just below the curve of Imogen’s chin with such reverence that it is almost not touching her entirely. Which is counter. So she presses the slightest bit more, where it is more than shared water that connects them but skin-to-skin directly, and runs her soap-laden thumbs in dragging soft circles over, first, the fat of Imogen’s freckled cheeks.

Imogen’s head lulls into the cradle of her hands, eyes fluttering closed, a bird landing in the damp safety of her creaking, rotting limbs. Their noses brush; Laudna angles her head just so that she can press her lips to the skin there, as her fingers circle and circle and circle and lower, finding themselves behind her ears, now, angling her head up just so that she can press her lips to Imogen’s with no pressure behind it at all. And then lower—the dip of her chin—Laudna curls her thumbs under the sharp cut of Imogen’s jaw so that her nails scrape with a barely there presence against Imogen’s sensitive skin; it still manages to bring forth a trembling sigh from Imogen’s mouth and onto the bridge of Laudna’s trailing nose as she presses her lips more firmly against the subtle shadow below the protrusion of her bottom lip.

She leans back. Her hands drift without disconnecting, twisting, following lavender strikes of lightning and freckled constellations to where her mouth had been. The index and middle fingers of both hands press into the skin there, wiping away the still subtle smear of ichor, stretching up to run lightly over Imogen’s lips. Imogen’s eyes are still blissfully closed, head limp in Laudna’s gentle grasp. Her mouth opens against the barely there press of her fingers and her stomach does that desperate rolling thing it did earlier and this time she does not stop herself—nor open her eyes—as she tilts her chin up so that her tongue meets the lines of Laudna’s index and then further to close her mouth entirely around them and groans—

Laudna comes back to herself, eyes blinking open as if from a dream and face—somehow—buried in the storm-marked expanse of Imogen’s collar. She hooks her fingers into and under Imogen’s mandible, fingers pressing into the wriggling, traitorous worm in Imogen’s mouth as she turns her head to the side and rises back up. Imogen exhales hard through her nose. Laudna kisses her open mouth.

“Not that you aren’t unbelievably sexy,” She whispers, “like, sincerely, holy shit—but, doesn’t that taste like soap?”

Imogen blinks slowly, eyelids heavy as she processes what Laudna said and then chuckles around the joints of her fingers. When the words finally do land, Laudna watches her face scrunch together and a vague sound of displeasure vibrate from her chest. She gently grabs Laudna’s wrist and pulls it from her lips, eyes sparkling. She responds, face still a little lop-sided in its distaste, “Yeah, actually, now that you mention it. Yuck.”

“Yuck, she says.”

Imogen grins. “Incredibly rude of me.”

“Immeasurably so.”

“When you were so considerate with your hands.”

“I do try.”

“A punishable offense, one might say.”

Laudna raises a sharp, simultaneously authoritative and teasing brow. “Is that a request?”

Roses bloom in Imogen’s cheeks, unrelated to the heat of their bath. “Thinly veiled.”

They’re both grinning, their eyes taking in the other in a joyful ouroboros. Imogen’s hands lift from below the water to frame Laudna’s still-flushed face. She softens. “You know,” she whispers, “I was trying to do something super sweet and romantic and heartfelt just there and you went and made it raunchy.”

Laudna grins wider, tilts her head to press her lips to Imogen’s dripping palm. “Would it help to know that even the raunchy bits are also super sweet and romantic and heartfelt with you?”

Laudna chases a river of condensation down Imogen’s wrist with her lips, and Imogen scrunches her eyes and nose in that immeasurably attractive way in response. She giggles, ”Alright, casanova, scooch up.”

Laudna, somewhat reluctantly, does. “What’s a casanova?”

Imogen shrugs, “A bard, I think, or something.”

“You think I’ve the energy of a bard.” Laudna mock-gasps.

Imogen laughs, “I think you’ve the energy of a romantic.”

“Oh. So he’s a romantic bard. That’s the most annoying kind, Imogen.”

“Jeez,” Imogen sighs, lathering her voice with humor and her hands in soap, “Evidently, I’m not very good at the romantic bit.”

Laudna collapses forward, heavy with the mixed weight of joy she doesn’t know where to place and an emptiness she is unsure how to fill, and presses her lips hard to the dip of Imogen’s collar. “That’s not true in the slightest.”

She stays there with her nose pressed to Imogen’s now freshly scented skin. Imogen’s chest dips in quick beats as she chuckles softly against the crown of Laudna’s head and then presses her lips there. “I’ll take your word for it. C’mere.”

A hound to her call, she does. Imogen gently pushes at her shoulder to spin her around where she once again settles between her thighs. 

Imogen starts with her shoulders. The lightning fissures of her hands softly land on the bony protrusions of her scapula and undulate in waves until they meet in the middle atop the bony protrusions of her spine. Gentle, reverent, revelatory. Part of Laudna wishes for the bite of her nails.

Imogen huffs behind her and then kisses, quickly, the back of her neck, “Maybe when you're feeling a bit more settled, yeah?”

Settled is a very nice way of putting it. Imogen is being very nice about it. About that awful piece of undeniable hollowness in the wake of what should be solely freeing. That hunger that is all her own, simmering now instead of at a rolling boil. She is being so accommodating for such an ugly piece of her.

That awful little romantic bard part of her might say that’s what love is. She’s sure that awful little hound part of herself would nip at its heels until it was doing some awful jig in her mind.

She spares a glance for the layered, broken tissue marring her chest. All these parts of her she wishes to be done with. All these parts of her she can't comprehend loving. All these parts of her Imogen loves, anyway.

Imogen’s arms wrap around her, settling on the purple luminance of her heart. If Laudna squints her eyes just so, the lines on Imogen’s skin match. It makes her seem cut-through with Imogen. Intertwined. Entangled. Imogen takes her fingers and runs them gently down her alight ribs, "We'll need to keep an eye on the stitches, make sure nothing gets infected.” She whispers gently. “It’ll scar, but it'll heal."

The breath in her chest trips, like the air in her lungs was a running thing and the words put a stutter in its step. Behind her, Imogen stills. Laudna, again, feels the trace of her eyes as they follow a thought pass over her face. After a moment, she squeezes her tightly against the naturally warm, vibrant rupture of her own skin. She says again, stronger this time, "Laudna. It’ll leave a scar.” She kisses the cutting edge of Laudna’s trembling jaw and then, more softly, the permanently light ring of bruising around her neck. “But it will heal."

Yes, Laudna thinks. It just might.

There is another part of herself waking up within–neither the hound nor the awful romantic bard nor Matilda nor Delilah–something blinking drowsily awake like a newborn at the world. She isn’t sure what to call it, isn’t sure it has a name yet. It is being cradled in the mess of her mind in hands shattered by red and purple storm, slowly coaxed awake by the gentle rumble of loving thunder and the caress of open air.

She isn't sure what to call it  as it takes in the warm, safe bed of Imogen’s doting palms, but she thinks it has wings.

—

Almost two years after the scattering of the divine, four years after Imogen, twenty-two and fifty-two years after her arrival on the world, Laudna begins to feel something like peace.

She realizes this with her hand buried in Carpaccio Caviar’s thick, sticky fur, as he pants with his tongue hanging loosely from his barely held together jaw, draping over exposed bone and ligament. He looks up at her with one wet black orb of an eye and the other a glowing, magenta gathering of magic in the concave of an exposed socket. Slobber like tar drips from his heaving gums.

She knows now. Caviar is hers. Not a manifestation of Delilah, not a taunting reminiscence of that shrew woman’s view. She feels the difference now between the uncomplicated call and response of her own innate magic and the demand and force of Delilah’s. She thinks the once effortless question of power was one of her many plays, an attempt at obfuscating the truth. Now, in her pettiness, she has exposed herself. Herself and Laudna, both.

From beneath her hand he lets loose a ghastly bark, looking out at one of his favorite playmates.

Ashton, who is visiting for the first time in a few weeks but the nth time in as many months, is half-crouched in what is hip-high grass to her and waist-high grass to him with a half gnawed bone gripped in his hands. He smiles with all his teeth in that unique Greymoore-grin of his that seems more-than-vaguely angry. Behind him, in the far distance, she can just make out The Key Breaker bobbing lightly in the wind, awaiting Ashton’s return and departure.

“C’mon, mutt!” They laugh. “Fucking come and get it!”

Caviar gives a low huff and looks up at her as if saying Can I? Can I? She scratches behind his cropped ears. “Go on, then.” She smiles. “Make a mess of yourself.”

Caviar licks her hand once and then takes off, bounding after a cackling Ashton. She watches them for a few seconds, Ashton taunting him with the bone and juking left and right, before that violently sweet grin of his is back and he yells, “Get this!” and throws the bone directly into one of his swirling multi-colored portals as hard as he can. The bone jettisons from the air sixty feet away and flies even further than that. Caviar wastes no time.

“Good luck, fucker!” Ashton yells after him, stepping backwards lazily in Laudna’s direction. He pivots on his heel to face her.

“God, that thing’s the fucking coolest.”

Laudna scoffs. “That thing has a name.”

“Yeah that rules, too.”

Laudna rolls her eyes. Miraculously, they don’t get stuck. Ashton tilts their head at her, twisting the lopsided cut of their smile. “So.” They start, falling back with their full body into the dirt and grass with a loud thump. Their body breaks the threshold for a moment like one would break the surface of water. “How you doing?”

Laudna crouches down next to him gently, the maroon weave of her dress drifting in the calm breeze. The hand-stitched florals lining her skirt sway along with the grass. She chuckles down at him. “How am I doing?”

He hums in affirmation, angling his head just enough to look up at her. His green eye catches the light of the setting sun like the heath around them, suffusing his perpetually sardonic gaze with syrupy warmth. She reaches a too long, bony finger to poke their nose. Their face twists with the quiet sound of shifting shale. “I’m not the one galavanting around Exandria.” She points out.

He scoffs. When he turns his head to sit up, the sun catches his other eye and dissipates amongst the iris like heavy fog. He leans forward onto his now bent knees, his stone chin hitting the base of his palm with a soft, marble clatter. “Exactly. You’re not.”

Years ago their tone might have set her on the immediate defensive, and here still she feels the rising tide of her anger answer to their every provocation. But she knows them, and she knows now how all of their sharpness is only ever the lightest graze. They do not know how to feel or be felt softly; they are not built for gentleness. Perhaps that has always been their mutual connection. The cut of stone and the cut of bone, indelible despite every attempt to soften the blow. She’s never met another living thing that bleeds the same sluggish color as her.

But though she knows them well her voice still leaves her with the slightest of accusatory undercurrents, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His heavy hands raise up to his fractured ears in surrender. “Just wondering if you’re getting antsy is all.”

“Are you about to ask Imogen and I to go on another little bout with you? Is that what this is leading to?”

“It’s not leading to anything.” He lies.

“Will Imogen not approve? Is that why you’re asking me first?” She gasps suddenly and harshly, hands arising to her cheeks, “Do you think I’d lie to my wife?”

“No, gods, don’t fucking–don’t you dare tell her I was telling you to do that!” He says seriously, as close to real fear as he’s been since his arrival. “She’ll never let me hear the fucking end of it.”

“Then what?” She hisses, impatient. “Stop being so fucking vague all the time.”

Again, he scoffs. “You love me.”

“I would love you more if you practiced speaking with some clarity. You know, I still don’t know what exactly that pipe does? To this day, Ashton!” 

“Fine, fine.” They grunt, angling their head once more towards the setting sun. The light cuts their face into hard planes, emphasizing the minute fissures scattered across their skin. When it hits the gilded edges of their scars, it seems to drip like something molten; for a moment, both of their arms match. “I was being pretty fucking clear, though. For the record.”

“About the pipe?”

“The—oh, I have no fucking idea. I haven’t seen that in weeks. Left it with Milo, I think. Shit, I need to remember to get that back.”

“Ashton. What did you mean?”

He shrugs. “Just that you and Imogen have been here for a bit. An uninterrupted bit.”

“You’re here,” she taunts, “I’d hardly call that uninterrupted.”

“Hah Hah. Look, I’m just saying. It was busy as fuck and now it’s not. One of you sucked in a god eater a few years ago and the other—” they gesture to the hallowed lilac glow of her chest, the shadowed image of her ribs turned cage, “—the other likes to interrupt previously uninterrupted moments. Sometimes.”

She hums. “Am I the other in this equation, or…?”

They shrug again. “Take your pick, I guess.”

There is a snapping sensation in her chest. Caviar has finally caught up with his wayward bone. She sighs. The lilac blossom of her chest flutters and flickers with the motion. “It’s been quiet.” She concedes. “Unusually so. I can’t imagine what Imogen feels, after so much time with so many people in her head to have this—but, it’s quiet even for me. So it must be jarring for her as well.”

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly had a serene head-space yourself.”

As subtle as he gets. She smiles. “No, I guess I haven’t.”

The aforementioned quiet settles over them now, soft like a shawl. Uninterrupted. He—gently as he can—elbows her gangly elbow with his own. “You’re good?”

Laudna nods. The breeze whispers across her face, picking strands of her hair up in a swirling, sunlit dance. “Yes.” She says, “I think so.”

Ashton smiles. A real smile, lacking all the violence of their usual grin though with just as much cut. They open their mouth to reply—and then get a mouthful of rotting wolf fur. “Fuck!”

“Oh, good boy, Caviar!”

—

That night, after Ashton said their goodbyes with the stubbly ground coffee feeling of their lightest and tightest hug weighing on both she and Imogen’s shoulders, she stays awake to watch Imogen fall asleep.

It is a normal night, brilliantly cool outside and redolent with the smell of freshly baked bread, carved wood, and drying paint. They carry the joy of having their family visit to bed, allow it to make their steps light and exuberant and full with the weight and warmth Laudna knows only love to bring. She dips—with the helpful aid of a thoughtfully cast telekinesis—a giggling Imogen down onto their shared sheets. She crawls over top of her trembling, sacrosanct body and presses her reverently into their mattress and doesn’t let up until Imogen is trembling from something altogether different and then falls bonelessly into slumber.

Imogen—face relaxed as it ever is, alight scars dim along with her resting mind—suspects nothing as she fades into beautiful, earned, dreamful rest.

She runs her fingers over the round curve of Imogen’s cheek, leans in to press her lips to the cut of a lavender strike of lightning splitting her jaw. She closes her eyes, inhales the vanilla and leather and ozone of the other half of her soul, and drifts—

—into the murky, thick dark of her own heart.

There is not silence but a roaring, like the underwater cacophony of the ocean that is both muffled and all encompassing. Like when you’ve yelled too harshly, too much, and your heart pressures your blood until it’s pounding in your ears. That is what it is: not silence but pressure, building.

She stands from her knelt position—how she always arrives here, as if summoned from the ground in a rising swell of ink that takes her shape—and turns to the cage casting a long, vibrant, fragmented purple gleam behind her.

Delilah sits where she always will, shackled to a wall Laudna can’t see. Her body is translucent, shifting like green flame in the shape of a lithe, desecrated woman. She stares, as she always does, directly at Laudna.

Laudna crouches down in front of the glass. She smiles in a way that feels like a gash. “Hello.”

“When I get out of here I will use what remains of your tattered soul to suffocate that woman. I will do it with your hands.”

The smile does not leave Laudna’s face. If anything, the wound grows wider. “All this time and still no nicer.”

“And then I will bring her back and I will do it again and again and again. I will throw you a thousand dinners.”

“Do you feel trapped?” Laudna questions gleefully. She leans forward to press her forehead against the glass. It paints her grey skin lilac.

Delilah grits her teeth. Frayed, loose hair falls sporadically in front of her face. She spits, “Don’t you?”

Laudna ignores her. “I keep dreaming. I’ve never dreamed before. Not like this.”

Delilah ignores her. “I will use your hands to grow new sun trees and I will use your hands to make a spectacle of everyone you love—”

“—Do you have something to do with it?”

Delilah laughs like a harsh bark. “I would never give you dreams. I would fill your mind with images of your father—do you remember him? The glint of his skin? Sylas was so steady with his hands.”

“Good.” Laudna interrupts, “Good. If it isn’t you then it’s me.”

Suddenly Delilah’s forehead is pressed right up against her own, across the glass. Her arms are pulled taught behind her, almost erupting from their sockets. She hisses, “Don’t your teeth ache, Laudna? Laudna, don’t you want to go hunting again?”

“Fuck you.” She spits, and then wakes up.

Her lips are still pressed to Imogen’s jaw, meeting her skin again and again gently like the steady lapping of waves with every rise of the other woman’s breath. Around them is quiet, uninterrupted. She presses another, more intentional kiss to the corner of Imogen’s mouth. She whispers, “Sweet dreams, my love.”

She pulls Imogen close, seeps into every space left for her to fill amomg the curves of her figure like pooling ink. When she falls asleep she dreams, not for the first or last time, of this: A glimmering cottage, overflowing with life. A towering tree, its leaves weeping glittering bright light between waves of gentle wind. A little girl, rolling in the tall grass. The sun, rising.

[m--rtyr]

um so

i drew like the average PD house (will draw more stuff)

since i wanted to talk about stuff

(i made it on minecraft but also traced over it to show off just a little more accurately how i imagine it. they're basically the exact same tho, so... sorry. would work better with a less simple design lol)

in PD, they don't have a lot of import, due to being very very poor, and so have to rely mostly on local materials to form their houses. this is often just wood. They will do as little work as they need to, so this wood will used in its log form as often as possible.

due to PD being quite hot, they have a lot of thin, slitted windows around the buildings, to keep up ventilation whilst avoiding anything unseemly being able to break in. for similar reasons, houses in PD are built upon a foundation, to make it harder for the undead to be able to reach in.

PD also has a small amount of resources, so smaller, on-storey houses are preferred. they also often have only one room for everything, but older buildings with larger families will sometimes have rooms built onto the sides.

if any residents also work from home/live at their place of work, there will be a room dedicated towards their particular craft.

the architecture isn't paricularly unique, not stylised, as they don't have the luxury to care about anything other than practicality. occasionally, houses will be painted with red paint, since there are quite a few beetles that can produce such a pigment in the area. but it's not very common.

there's also a lot of fireflies in PD, which gave the village part of its name. Fireflies are nicknamed a lot of things based upon superstition, including 'Phoenix Tears', and so there's a lot of mythology and legends surrounded why PD has such a large firefly populace, which helped inspire its name.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Object permanence

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DOYLESTOWN TODAY (Mar 1), and in BALTIMORE TOMORROW (Mar 2). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

#20yrsago Help rat on people who sing Happy Birthday! https://unhappybirthday.com

#20yrsago Comp sci profs smackdown the movie studios https://web.archive.org/web/20050303023425/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000776.html

#20yrsago Costa Rican telco wants to criminalize VoIP https://www.networkcomputing.com/network-infrastructure/costa-rica-may-criminalize-voip

#15yrsago If chess were redesigned by MMORPG developers https://akma.disseminary.org/2010/03/if-chess-were-invented-by-mmog-developers/

#15yrsago Super Punch’s webby Tarot https://web.archive.org/web/20121127052014/https://www.superpunch.net/2010/03/introducing-super-punch-tarot.html

#15yrsago Profile of ex-narc who’s declared war on the “War on Drugs” https://web.archive.org/web/20110522054851/http://trueslant.com/stephenwebster/2010/02/25/barry-cooper-drug-war-insurgent/

#15yrsago Cyberwar hype was cooked up to sell Internet-breaking garbage to the military https://www.wired.com/2010/03/cyber-war-hype/

#15yrsago Petition to make “Hella” the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 https://web.archive.org/web/20160411032355/https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Official-Petition-to-Establish-Hella-as-the-SI-Prefix-for-1027/277479937276?v=info

#15yrsago Architectural fan-drawings of classic sitcom houses https://www.markmoorefineart.com/artists/mark-bennett

#15yrsago Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry motherlode https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/03/acta-leak-with-country-positions/

#10yrsago First-hand reports of torture from Homan Square, Chicago PD’s “black site” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/27/chicago-abusive-confinment-homan-square

#5yrsago Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#necessitydefense

#5yrsago America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#covidclasswar

#5yrsago The US already has Medicare for All https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#NHS2PTOH

#5yrsago The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#plutesinspace

#5yrsago Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#maketolkiengreatagain

#1yrago Amazon's financial shell game let it create an "impossible" monopoly https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

[breezybangtanbebe]

🐍Chapter Two🐍

✨masterlist✨

While most parts or Luminasia wouldnt be considered the safest, they paled in comparison to Mamba District. The central parts of the neon city were basically an amusement park versus the concentrated grit and shadows that made up the reptilian beings' territory with a crime rate so high, local authorities didn't even flag citizens for speeding through it.

Despite its unsavory reputation, there was always much entertainment to find there. Night clubs, illegal gambling spots, *ahem* nightly solicitors, drugs, cheap liqour, debauchery...

Aaaaand Trouble. Never a shortage of that.

Megan hadnt made it her business to spend much time around these parts in years, finding her fair share of all of those things and more. In the time that she did , however, she obtained a decent lay of the land. Which was useful to her when needing a stealthy way in and out on missions like this.

Her bike purred quietly as it came to a full stop in the grime-coated backstreet alley, and her view of the warehouse was centered several feet ahead of her.

Black and brown bricks soaked in the evening rain, the gaping windows and crumbling architecture gave the abandoned area it's ominous appeal. At some point, the building may have been used for mass manufacturing or packaging. But now it stood as a hiding place for the forsaken or rebellious teens looking for a spot to get high or do who knows what else. An extremely peculiar place for something as valuable as a synstone to be hiding.

"Ok Phor." Megan whispers, nudging the kickstand out before swinging her leg over the bike.

The moment her heels touch the moist pavement, a wave of panic rolls over her, sending goosebumps all over her body. Something about this place had that effect on her, whether it be for good or bad reasons. She doesnt show it in her agile stride though, walking with confidence while keeping to the shadows of the alley until she reached its end.

"Im here. What's it looking like?" She speaks lowly to her trusty pup in the chair, who was already working on scoping the scene.

"Uh give me a sec. Im hacking a PD drone with some infared as we speak."

Seconds later, a buzzing drone zips over Megan's head and she watches as it hovered over the baren warehouse. As it scanned it, greenscale images of the building's interior fill Phor's screens. He types quickly, shifting the filters until he manages to get an unobscured high-resolution view of several hulking figures surround one in the middle of the vast room.

"Oh shit." the canine utters. Megan's eyes widen cautiously.

"Whatchu mean, Oh shit? Who in there?" she whispered harshly. All the while, Phor's toe beans tap frantically.

"Oh just your favorite kind of distant planet natives. Most that were so hostile that the mayor of Lumin gave them their own little hidey hold of hell in the ugliest part of the city...hehehe.." Phor chuckles nervously, zooming in on the exact location where the synstone's signature was the strongest.

"I know aint shit funny over there, Pho. Show me what you see.."

Phor obediently sent a live feed view of what he was seeing to Megan's watch. It blinked with the notification and she lifts her wrist just as the hologram rectangular screen materialized.

"Oh shit..." Megan shared Phor's grim sentiment the moment sees what he's looking at.

A grainy image of the cleared space is pulled into view. Large dangling industial lights hum overhead ans in the center one of their beams was a huddle of tall, slender reptilian figures in dark tailored, their massive tails whipping against the dusted concrete floors.

The Vortarians were a unique group of individuals that made up most of Mamba's population. They were a nasty race that had humanoid bodies covered in thick, mosaic green scales that could shift to blend in with their environments. Their sharp-clawed hands and feet could easily gut a man with one swipe, and they had black beady eyes with gold pupils used for tracking their prey in any light. Not to mention their pharyngeal jaws that opened their mouths wide enough to engulf just about anything  in a bite riddled of razor-sharp fangs that leaked acidic flesh-melting venom.

They were quite intimidating to say the least.

But their presence wasn't even the main cause for Megan's shock. She actually expected some Vortarians to be there since this was their neck of the woods. By her count, there were at least 8 of them. Barrelling through them wouldnt be an issue with what she was packing.

It was was the man that seemed to be in their custody, seated at a table with his hands bound and his lips quirked up in an unphased smirk , that had her second guessing the entire mission.

"Of course its him." she grumbles, followed by Phor's hum of agreement.

"Mmhmm..I knew I detected a Bangtanian signature when I was tracking the stone but I had no clue it would be THEE Bangtanian himself. Sheesh. No wonder theres so many Vorts on him."

Megan was vaguely attuned to Phor's assessment, but her gaze fixed heavily on the dragon-eyed leader of one of the most elite squadrons to come from the Intergalactic Hybe Force, straight out of the mystical planet of Purpura's capital city of Bora.

Who he was to the world was slightly different from who he was to her, however.

And knowing he was most likely after the same synstone that she was, made everything a million times more complicated.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

nhw greats powersets and trigger events <3 finally making this post bc i keep talking about them and in my head im like yeah everyone knows about min double trigger event everyone knows alphonz dissociative breaker state this is common knowledge wdym!!! and then i remember i have not discussed it At Length in a full post i have only discussed it with ros and mac. throws them at you like a softball

Strider (hero name Bracer)

lived in foster homes for most of his life and aged out of the system. ended up homeless on the streets for a good few years and lived under near constant stress. he triggered when he got followed around the city by a gang of asshole rich kids and got beat the fuck up!! badly!!! he didn’t originally want to be a hero, but virion’s dad found him and asked him to help protect the city with him and flora

mover 2: uses short bursts of super speed/strength to travel short distances, can be used for climbing, jumping, running, etc. bursts of enhanced speed/strength last for a few seconds at most, and needs a few seconds of rest in between each burst

thinker 5: has an innate sense of most enemies' physical vulnerabilities just by looking at them and can deduce the best way to take them down in seconds

striker 3: enhanced reflexes. deflects attacks faster than any human should be able to. uses bursts of speed/strength to deliver harsh hits to weak points. often uses knives, brass knuckles, and other short range weapons to add more punch behind his blows

stranger 5: similar to pd william's “hide in plain sight” ability (or imp from worm's powers). may be seen but not noticed. blends in perfectly with a crowd. no one questions his presence and doesn't realize he's not supposed to be somewhere unless they REALLY think about it. he’s very hard to focus on, especially if the people he's around are focused on other things. he can't always control this power and may occasionally go unnoticed and ignored in his own group until he purposely makes his presence known. could literally stand in front of a villain's face and they would just talk over him unless they stopped to Really Think About It

Grayson (hero name Gauntlet)

second gen cape!! mother was a cauldron cape tinker who specialized in medieval architecture and father was a case 53 cauldron cape hero in new haven. his parents were separated and he often stayed with his mother, who was typically too busy to pay much attention to him. this resulted in him playing around the towers of their castle when he was ten, falling out the window of an unfinished tower, and breaking his ankle. he stayed on the ground alone and screamed for his mother until his voice was hoarse and triggered half an hour after the initial fall. upon triggering, some of his father's physical traits manifested, and he gained small horns, fangs, claws, and a tail

tinker 4: specializes in medieval armor and weapons, can incorporate technology and modern materials into creations for greater protection and damage. makes armor and weapons for alphonz, gus, and strider (and himself ofc). no other powers aside from that but is still quick, light on his feet, and very capable in battle. not to be underestimated!!!

Ram (hero name Bullseye)

he lived in houston texas as a teenager/young adult. he was Really Fucking Stupid in college and drunkenly played russian roulette with a group of close friends. the bullet changed places many times throughout the game as the gun changed hands, and by the time it got to the last of their friends, they thought the bullet was in another chamber and that he'd be safe. ram's friend ended up accidentally shooting himself, and ram triggered immediately!!! solstice and gauntlet traveled to texas at solstice's recommendation and ended up recruiting him

thinker 5: enhanced visual perception. can't help but pay attention to dozens of small details up close, so small things moving and people fidgeting are incredibly distracting and can be very overwhelming. perception is much better used from distances, where he can perceive small details in order to gain information or pick targets. near perfect accuracy when shooting targets from distances up to 30 meters (~100 ft)

tinker 3: proficient with guns. not good at inventing new kinds of guns or making them from scratch, but he can repair and upgrade any kind of existing firearm. immediately proficient in handling/shooting any new firearm he's given

Min (hero name Icewalker)

she lived in a nice city on the east coast called ranz <3 she'd been studying physics and math in college and was walking back to her dorm with her Good Normal Friend peter sqloint when it started to rain, and then the attack happened and everything went to shit!! she triggered when leviathan directly attacked her college and she saw the bodies of her dead classmates, gaining her hydrokinesis powers. tide found her and directed her to a shelter, but the shelter was attacked and destroyed as well, collapsing around her and trapping her legs under the rubble, and she immediately triggered a second time and gained her changer abilities. the greats freed her from the rubble and got her somewhere safe and she decided to move to fauna with them

shaker/blaster 7- hydrokinesis. controls water in a similar way to tide, but can also change the state of the water she controls by freezing or evaporating it at will, allowing for long distance attacks with ice. limited to a radius of 50m (~160ft)

changer 6: can change parts of her body into water, ice, or vapour, but never the vital parts like anything in the head or torso. often uses abilities to summon ice spikes all over her body for protection, change limbs to ice blades to fight, or partially turn into vapour or water to avoid getting hit. often extends her legs into tall spikes of ice and walks around towering over buildings like some horrifying harbinger of icy death <3

Chungus (hero name Barbarian)

okay fuck you his name is gus and chungus is a mean nickname from school. he only lived with his mother and was held back multiple times in school. he was bullied horribly for this!!! he did a lot of sports but being the best wrestler on the team did not save his ass from teenage cruelty. his trigger event happened after gym class one day, when he waited to be alone in the locker room to take a shower, but a group of other students came back in as soon as he was undressed and beat the shit out of him. badly!!! he triggered in the middle of it, and when they decided they were done and left him there, he went home and skipped the rest of the school day. solstice eventually found him and recruited him

Brute/Changer 4-8: similar to lung from worm, in that he gets stronger the longer a fight goes on. goes from being able to lift up a truck to being able to potentially lift an entire building. his body gets bigger than it already is, muscles get stronger, and his skin gets tougher and harder. it doesn't become completely invulnerable, but simple weapons like knives won't break skin. injuries heal at a much faster rate, healing almost less than a second after they're made, and could even reattach dismembered limbs if he's quick enough. killing him late in a fight would likely take decapitation, bisection, or some other form of dismemberment that severs his vital organs from each other, and even then he will be conscious for much longer than a normal person would be before dying

Alphonz (hero name Justice)

he lived in a midwestern city and was a Good Little Catholic Boy <3 then the simurgh attacked on a random sunday while he was in church and he lost his entire family, and he triggered!! he went. a little off the rails, believing his powers came from god, and he threw himself into religion and devoted himself to getting stronger with the intent to rid the world of fear and destruction, with his end goal being to one day fight the simurgh and kill her himself. some of the greats were there for the simurgh attack, and they found him in the remains of his church dissociated as hell and in his breaker state, and stuck with him through the entire quarantine period. while he hasn't been talked down from wanting to kill the simurgh, he has been convinced to take his training slow and focus on bettering the world on a smaller scale in fauna (at least for now)

breaker 8/blaster 5: his body turns into light in his breaker form. the air around him within a 5m (~16ft) radius heats up, and light around him bends and gets sucked towards him like he’s at the centre of a black hole. shapes of light may begin to form around him, throwing off the perception of those looking at him. if he's in his breaker state long enough, he may form wings of light. can touch things in his breaker state, but his touch burns. can also turn into completely intangible beams of light, and can fire superheated rays of light from his hands. becomes emotionally volatile in breaker state, which will lead to him either being very quick to anger and impulsive, or being unresponsive and dissociated. he may involuntarily enter his breaker state if he's afraid, upset, or otherwise distressed. finds it very hard to leave his breaker state!!

[ritzrawt2]

Chapter 1 of this fic I’m now calling “Mix Mediocre” at the time of writing this. Unfortunately, we still won’t be able to see the Wublins in action until later chapters, so I appreciate your patience!

Zerkett sat at their desk, hunched over a piece of parchment. Their flickering desk lamp was the one source of light illuminating their dark, desolate room. In their right hand gripped a worn-out and chewed pencil, and the parchment covered with messy sketches of their possible next invention. It’s not like they really wanted to do it anymore, but everyone was expecting one sometime soon. They were bored out of their mind.

Meanwhile, under cover of night, a Reebro in a lab coat hid amongst the bushes of Zerkett’s house. It was easily recognizable, a tall, metal structure big enough for a Wubbox with neon blue accents. Zerkett wasn’t really one to want to stand out too much these days, but their eccentricity was noticeable in their architecture. The Reebro tried to stay low, careful not to set off any alarms or motion sensors that they knew were in certain areas while they sneaked to Zerkett’s bedroom window, which was unfortunately on the first floor.

“Ohohohoh, yes….” the Reebro whispered giddily to themself as they slowly held up a camera to the window. They’ve done this multiple times before. Sure, Zerkett caught them a few times, but they couldn’t actually tell who it was because it was so dark outside. They eagerly pressed it against the glass and snapped a picture. However, to their horror, they forgot to turn the camera flash off. Zerkett’s eyes darted to their window, where they saw the illuminated face of a wide-eyed Reebro caught in the act for a split second.

“Shoot!” The creepy stalker muttered as they sprinted as far away as they could from the house.

Zerkett’s shock quickly tuned to fury. They were absolutely sick of this.

“YOU LITTLE PIECE OF—“ Zerkett stomped out the door, shouting at the Reebro. “GET YOUR BURCING UGLY MOTOR BACK HERE OR I SWEAR—“

Zerkett caught their volume and stopped shouting. They really hoped no one was woken up by them.

“Hey Zerk, you good?” Pinkledinkle poked their head from the front door of their house, which was next to Zerkett’s.

“Oh my Gal, I am SO sorry for waking you up at this hour.”

“No worries, I’m usually up past midnight,” Pinkledinkle replied. “The monsters in this neighborhood sure are heavy sleepers. They slept through an entire accidentally summoned ghost party, so I think you’re fine.” They walked over to Zerkett with a concerned look. “Like, what even happened out here?”

“Ugh,” Zerkett leaned their back against the dark, metal wall of their house. “It’s that weird stalker, again. They keep taking pictures of me from my house!”

“Ew, that’s so disgusting.”

“I have told you before that I never knew who the monster was,”

“Yuh-huh.”

“But today I caught a glimpse of their face, and it was that Reebro who keeps pestering me for pictures of my orb for some reason!”

Pinkledinkle shook their head. “That is literally so low, mon.”

“I know,” Zerkett heaved a sigh. “I just too fed up with this kind of Toob-goo. Monsters don’t even act all that normal around me, anymore.” Zerkett stood up. “That’s it. I’m leaving Air Island.”

Pinkledinkle’s eyes widened. “Lea-leaving, yeah?”

“I just, I just need a place to be alone for a while. You know, take a break from monsters, from inventing, and relax and do my own thing.” Zerkett said.

PD thought about how life would be like without Zerkett living next to them. It’ll be lonely, for sure, but they reassured themself with the thought that they would make frequent phone calls, or simply move on. No big deal, right?

“I understand,” PD told them. “That might be difficult, however. Ever since that human-monster world internet project thing like around a month ago, the entire Monster World knows about you. It’ll be hard to find a place where no one really knows you yet, perhaps some parts of Bone Island, or maybe the Sea of G’reen…”

A blue Glowbe suddenly appeared over Zerkett’s head, then floated away. “I know! I’ll move to the bottom of the ocean!”

“Oh, Zerk,” PD placed a hand on their torso, which was about as high as their hand could go. Even when shrunken down, Zerkett still scaled at about seven feet. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s literally impossible.”

“No it isn’t,” Zerkett retorted. “All those G’joobs are able to hibernate at the Sea of G’reen, and that’s around essentially the bottom of the Living Ocean.”

“Yeah, ‘cause they have some sort of platform to rest on. I don’t think there’s any kind of pre-established land down there that’s in any way flat or comfortable, especially for someone your size.”

“Then I’ll just make my own island!” Zerkett rushed into their house to pack everything that belonged to them, in preparation for their move.

Pinkledinkle thought it was the sleep deprivation getting to them. They recognized their eccentricity from the day they met them at college. They did some strange stuff, like building a scream-powered machine that generates cookies, giving their house legs on multiple occasions, setting up a Home Alone-esque defense system in their dorm, and summoning the spirit of a dead millionaire to help pay off their student loans, but they would never think about moving to a different island.

Still, they thought, this may be the best course of action for Zerkett’s situation. They could really use a break, and maybe their passion for inventing will spark once more.

Zerkett then ran out of the house, with a giant suitcase trailing behind them.

“C’mon, I’m gonna rent a skyship.”

…..

Pinkledinkle stood at the steering wheel of the rickety skyship, listening to Zerkett’s directions.

“Just take a left and if you see Psychic island we’re close.” Zerkett instructed.

“Psychic island? That literally on the other side of the monster world. This is gonna take a couple days at least, and I didn’t bring much food.” They looked down at their single can of beans.

“That’s because this skyship isn’t going fast enough,” Zerkett said as they pulled out a rocket blaster from their suitcase. “This’ll shorten the trip by at least five days.” They attached the rocket blaster the back of the ship.

PD looked behind them. “What’s that—AAAHDHDHEJDGSJHWHUEUIWGSHSJWISAAQGHGQH—“

Both travelers held on for dear life as the skyship accelerated at speeds beyond monster comprehension. In just the span of two minutes, they were already at their destination.

The monsters were violently thrown to the back of the skyship like rag dolls in GMOD.

After about 20 minutes of stunned silence, Zerkett finally said, “That was even more faster than I expected. How are you not dead?” They turned to PD.

They shrugged weakly. “I ‘unno,” they whispered, quivering. “Plot armor, I guess.”

Zerkett saw that their ship was right in the middle of nowhere, just how they liked it.

“Well, I’m gonna jump into the ocean now.” They told PD. “Goodbye. I’m gonna miss you.”

“You’ll, you’ll still call me, ok?” PD asked them.

“Of course.”

“Right. I’ll just land the skyship onto the water so you can—“

“BYE MISS YAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” Zerkett had already jumped from the skyship, suitcase in hand, while it was 2,500 feet in the air.

“Oh! Uh, bye!” They rushed toward the side of the skyship to wave back to them. They would survive, they’re a Wubbox, they’re made of Steptanium, it’s totally fine, they thought.

[fantinecore]

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[elderflowergin]

SBS Hyena, episode 1 rewatch (part 3)

Today we will look at cute watch ads, the storm before the actual storm and bonus Yoon Hee-jae being expensive.

Hwang Bo-ra is so wonderful in everything she does. Sim Yu-mi has a great sense of style and an equally loud personality, but she feels quite personable. This means she’s quick to make friends and pull them in, which is what puts Jung Geum-ja in Yoon Hee-jae’s circle.

Kindly note her single earring, the contrast of her aqua blazer, her neon pink nails and her lip. Let's put a pin in that comment by her.

(I live for Hee-jae saying he's expensive. I'm sure you are, babe.)

On any other show, their age difference would have been played for hijinks, laughs or a plot point. Ga Gi-hyeok as the bestie might have told his friend he could do much better (untrue). Boo Hyeon-a might have had an entire jealousy arc with her (you know they would have done that.)

Not on this show. This is the first and the last time a named character says anything on the topic. It’s a sometimes grating comic character who makes the comment, which would have been a sneaky way to slide in something mean or judgmental. But there's none of that here. It’s super refreshing. 

And then, total obliteration: 

Kim Hee-sun is luminous, sexy as hell and completely in control. Yoon Hee-jae may have upped the stakes here by turning up and dropping that outrageous line about leaving with him, but Kim Hee-sun does the metaphorical equivalent of cuffing his chin, smirking and saying "Let me show you how it's done, dear boy." Of course he leaves like he's been lassoed.

Ju Ji-hoon is never going to look like this in a show, ever again. I feel like the costuming team sat down with the PD and went, listen, we have an actor-model in the house. Let us at him. Let us put him in gorgeous suits and saturated colours and lots of great lighting.

This is presumably the Gran Bleu, which is where they met twice more, and...the lighting is not like this on those occasions. Here it's cosy, with lots of warmth on their faces, but there are also plenty of shadows. Almost as if to say that romantic lighting also tends to conceal a lot. 

The last time they do meet here, the lights are up, because the show's over, and the things they say and do are so achingly loving that you won't need any romantic pap. Substance over form. 

This entire sequence plays out like a generic, if extremely posh, romance. Form, rather than substance: two beautiful people listening to the same record, cooking in the kitchen, looking at art dressed like they should be in fashion magazines - culminating in this gorgeous windswept kiss with the sun setting and the mountains behind them. HIGH ROMANCE, or rather, what we think high romance should look like.

I say “generic”, because this could be any couple. There is nothing here that is specifically them. It’s stock architecture over the heart of things that Hee-jae loves, but there is nothing else of him, and absolutely nothing of her. Even that kiss on the rooftop is made to look exactly like those ubiquitous East Asian watch commercials with the blurry slow-motion - and it is, because it’s very smart PPL, I’m certain - but it enhances, rather than detracts from the generic quality of this sequence. 

Anyway, the ad film’s coming to an end because…it’s courtroom time. DUN DUN DUN.

[kavzz]

ooc thing but so glad there's another pd kaveh truther!!!! and autistic kaveh too!!! he's so autistic very sensory seeking and his spin is architecture it's how he hasn't burn out!!!

YA YA !!! YOU GET IT !!!!!

I could go on and on about the headcanons for him

[elliegoestodownton]

So I've been recently to Chicago on holiday and loved the city even more the second time around for many many reasons (theatre, baseball, architecture, the food!). If only I could have stayed... However, visiting Chicago, I obviously went on a little OneChicago location pilgrimage. Any other year, I would have probably found them there filming, but with the strikes going on, no one was around. But it was so great and fun all the same and I'm really glad I did it!

The first night in town I went to Lottie's aka Molly's. It's a really lovely and friendly pub (even kids were there!) and, being a Friday evening, it was in full swing. I managed to get a table and have dinner there. Indoors, it's exactly as you see it on the show. They have done a marvelous job at re-creating it on the sound stage, down to the very finest details like the art noveau style lamp. However, it's not *that* big as a space and I guess it might have been quite difficult to film there with a big cast, crew and all the filming apparatus, besides being quite expensive. Logicistically, it might have been a nightmare, especially if they started to use it for the other two shows besides Fire (speaking of, stop using that ugly Turtles in PD, ok?).

I sampled the Chicago Fire burger for dinner (boy, was it hot! alas no veggie/vegan versions) and the Molly's by Day beer (it was ok). They also have a PD and Med burger.

On a different day, as I was planning to go to Pilsen (check out the National Museum of Mexican Art if there!), I visited the outdoors locations for Fire and PD. First, I went to the Fire Academy, which is THE real academy and, as Chicagoans have a great sense of humour, it was built on the spot where the Great Chicago Fire started. You can enter in the foyer and check a few paraphernalia, including the statue of a rescue dog (miss you, Tuesday 😭). From there, you can also see the corridor that they often use in scenes where the wall with all the badges of fallen firefighters are.

Not far from there, as part of the University of Illinois campus, you can find the 21st District. It used to be a proper district and is now used by the campus police, I think (as someone who works in a uni, it's mind-boggling to me that you should have law enforcement on campus...). There wasn't much movement around there, but you can clearly recognise the steps and entrance.

Last, but certainly not least, Firehouse 51!!! This was probably the most exciting bit for me. It is a working firehouse so when they film they need to work around that. There doesn't seem to be any modification made for shooting as it appears exactly as it is on screen. When I got there, only the truck was in. A couple who was there for the same fangirling reason were also taking pictures and said you could talk to the firefighthers and might go in. I decided not to as they are indeed working and they must be so tired of showing rabid fans (being ironic!) around. If truck was enjoying their time on the couch, who am I to disturb them?

A couple of pictures with my ugly mug under the cut.

[pro-logue-epi-logue]

FAN SERVICE!! FAN SERVICE!! FAN SERVICE!! FAN SERVICE!!

Since when did alex had any interest in Emmy and Damon’s firm, did she even had the slightest clue about architecture or construction, she didn't even knew how to read the map for godsake!, neither she had any qualifications to own an investment firm and board member of banks, SERIOUSLY. And helping in winters humanitarian things, ITS LIKE PD GAVE A HALF OF EVERYTHING OTHERS DID TO ALEX BECAUSE PD WANTED TO DO FAN SERVICE.

PD NEVER USED THEIR BRAIN TO THEY

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【Mini Desktop Computer with 4K Triple Screen Display】Nucbox M6 integrates AMD Radeon 660M 6 Cores 1900 MHz GPU to deliver powerful graphics processing power to easily handle the demands of complex design software, 4K@60Hz UHD video editing, and playback, or mid-range gaming. And it can connect to 3 display screens simultaneously.

【Fast Internet WiFi 6E + BT5.2 Connection】GMKtec Mini PC Ryzen 6600H with WiFi-6E Wireless, have 2.5G/5G/6G triple band, more faster and lower latency. Bluetooth 5.2 allowing you more quickly to connect other wireless devices (headset, mouse, keyboard, etc.) Interface features 2*USB3.2 ports, 2*USB2.0 ports, 1*HDMI 2.0 port(4K@60Hz), 1*USB 4.0 port(PD/DP/DATA), 1*DP Port, 1*Audio 3.5mm (HP&MIC), 1*DC Power Port.

【GMKtec Warranty】 GMKtec offers a 1-year limited warranty for each mini PC, starting from the date of the purchase. All defects due to design and workmanship are covered. With a professional after sales team always ready to attend to your needs, you can simply relax and enjoy your mini PC.

Product information

Memory

Cache Memory Installed Size 16 MB

Memory Storage Capacity 32 GB

Memory Slots Available 2

RAM Memory Installed 32 GB

RAM Memory Technology DDR5

Ram Memory Maximum Size 64 GB

Memory Speed 4800 MT/s

RAM Type DDR5 RAM

Memory Clock Speed 4.5 GHz

Additional details

Operating System Windows 11 Pro

Specific Uses For Product Everyday Use, Gaming, Business

Personal Computer Design Type Mini PC

Color Space Black

Additional Features Gaming PC, Home Theater, Digital Signage, Video Conference, Business, Video & Photo Editing, Education, Everyday Use, Multimedia

Hard Disk Description PCIe 3.0/4.0 M.2 2280 SSD Dual Slot Max. 4TB

Hardware Interface USB Type C, HDMI, 3.5mm Audio, Bluetooth 5, 802.11 ac/b/g/n, USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIE x 16

Power Consumption 45 Watts

Item Dimensions 5 x 2 x 5 inches

Video Output HDMI, Type-C, DisplayPort

Video Output Interface DisplayPort, HDMI

Hard Disk Interface PCIE x 16

Style Name Small PC

Cooling Method Air

Power Plug Type Type B - 3 pin (North American)

Total Expansion Slots Quantity 2

Item details

Brand GMKtec

Model Number M6

Model Name M6

Built-In Media User Manual, GMKtec Nucbox M6 AMD Ryzen 5 6600H Mini PC Computer, Power Supply & Cable, VESA Mount and Screws, HDMI Cable

Processor Brand AMD

Model Year 2024

CPU Model Number AMD Ryzen 5 6600H

Video Processor AMD

Customer Reviews 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (461) 4.4 out of 5 stars

ASIN B0D2X1G4K8

Item Height 5 inches

Manufacturer Shenzhenshi Jimokekejiyouxiangongsi

Warranty Description 1 Year Warranty

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Graphics

Graphics Description Integrated

Graphics Coprocessor AMD Radeon 660M 1900MHz

Graphics Card Ram 32 GB

Graphics Ram Type DRAM

Graphics Card Interface Integrated

Processor

Processor Series Ryzen 5

Processor Speed 4.5 GHz

Processor Socket FP7 BGA 25×35mm

Processor Count 6

Display

Screen Size 75 Inches

Display Resolution Maximum 3840 x 2160 pixels

Display Type LED

Aspect Ratio 16:9

Resolution 4096 × 2160

Native Resolution 4096 x 2304

Connectivity

Wireless Network Technology Wi-Fi

Connectivity Technology USB, Ethernet, LAN, HDMI

Wireless Compability 5.8 GHz Radio Frequency, 5 GHz Radio Frequency, Bluetooth, 802.11ax, 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency

Wireless Technology Bluetooth, Wi-Fi

Ports

Total USb Ports 5

Total Number of HDMI Ports 1

Number of Component Outputs 3

Input Devices

Human-Interface Input Touchscreen, Mouse, Keyboard, Buttons

Keyboard Layout QWERTY

Warranty & Support

Amazon.com Return Policy:You may return any new computer purchased from Amazon.com that is "dead on arrival," arrives in damaged condition, or is still in unopened boxes, for a full refund within 30 days of purchase. Amazon.com reserves the right to test "dead on arrival" returns and impose a customer fee equal to 15 percent of the product sales price if the customer misrepresents the condition of the product. Any returned computer that is damaged through customer misuse, is missing parts, or is in unsellable condition due to customer tampering will result in the customer being charged a higher restocking fee based on the condition of the product. Amazon.com will not accept returns of any desktop or notebook computer more than 30 days after you receive the shipment. New, used, and refurbished products purchased from Marketplace vendors are subject to the returns policy of the individual vendor. Product Warranty: For warranty information about this product, please click here

👍 Pros & 👎 Cons

✅ What I Loved:

Blazing fast performance for work and casual gaming

Tiny footprint with VESA mount included

Tons of ports, including future-proof USB 4.0

Upgradable RAM and dual SSD slots

Solid build and modern design

⚠️ What Could Be Better:

Fan gets loud during heavy tasks

Integrated graphics can’t handle demanding AAA games

Minor driver hiccups (easily fixed, though)

💬 Final Verdict: Is the GMKtec M6 Worth It?

Absolutely. For under $500 (-19% $359.97) (and often less with discount codes like GMKTECSAVE), the GMKtec M6 gives you desktop-class power in a box the size of a sandwich. Whether you’re a student, remote worker, media streamer, or casual gamer—this mini PC is a fantastic blend of performance, portability, and price.

I’d easily give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. If it had quieter fans and a beefier GPU, it’d be perfect. But as it stands, it’s probably the best mini PC I’ve ever owned.

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