atailoralwaysknows-blog

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

Joyce Ballantyne - “Blonde Champagne” - 1956 Calendar for Premier Hosiery Company

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

((*distant OOC coughing and hacking.* Oh my God. What time is it. Where did the Wayback Machine take us, Mr. Peabody.))

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

Alternative Model

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

Reblog if it is totally, 100% fine to send anonymous comments to your muse pertaining to the events in your RP

Example, if your muse kisses another muse, it is totally fine for you to get on anon and congratulate my muse, or to say that the other muse isn’t right for them. I will answer ic.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

Reblog if your muse can sing.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

((Well, shit, now it needs to be canon.))

could you draw snowman and that stitch (atailoralwaysknows) smooching

You GOT IT

Hey @atailoralwaysknows

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

☱

It’s been crumpled up more than once. The page looks at though someone has thrown it away, repeatedly, only for it to be scooped out of the trash and smoothed back out to be read over again. The words are lazily constructed, with no real thought or effort put into them. At the very bottom, a second hand has left a tiny note in looping, curling script.

To be entirely honest, when we first met, I could only take in how disgustingly haphazard he looked. He had the appearance of someone who slept in their suits and just dragged their sorry arse out into the open without so much as a pause to straighten the tie. I couldn’t understand how anyone that disturbing in the wardrobe department could order Droog around.

But seeing him in action is something in and of itself.

I don’t respect the man himself, and I doubt I ever will. But he’s a tenacious hound. A rat. Slimy and sneaking and all too good at making people bleed. I should know. He has had an incredible talent for always sending the boy in battered up and bleeding. That first time had been one of the worst.

He’s not a trustworthy man, or one worthy of anything more than a passing remark. But he gets the job done. He runs a city well enough on his own time.

I just wish he’d turn his killing to more productive suits. There’s a fabric seller that dearly deserves a visit from Spades Slick.

And at the very bottom:

i keep finding these in the trash! it’s really very silly. mister stitch should watch his journals more carefully.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

☱ -absentsovereign

The page is pristine, kept in an entirely separate notebook and set on a high shelf in Stitch’s room, rather than his workshop. The ink is fine, the strokes making up the words almost elegant. If it weren’t for the few smudges where his own excitement got the best of his waiting for the lines to dry, the entry would be absolutely perfect in appearance. The only other indication of mortal mistake is the slight wear-and-tear to the upper corner of the page, a sign of rereading on his part.

I found Her again. I know it isn’t the one that I know, that I remember, that I love even to this day, but it is Her.

So much is different, despite all the similarities, despite how Herself She manages to be. It must be a multiuniversal constant, which is only fitting, considering Her…

She’s so different. So beyond everything my memory could garner because I know. I remember details and faces and numbers for years to come, but I feel as though with every second I was without Her, a little piece of Her perfection would chip away. I remember it all, and yet it’s all just a faded photograph, locked away in the room of Her projects, my gifts.

This one, however, is more. She is real, breathing, pressing into the fibers of my universe even after I left Her presence. I can feel Her in every inch of my bones, and it feels so… right. It’s what I’ve been missing, all this time. The cold, the age, the way I couldn’t look at the photographs so meticulously clean. It’s all fallen away and all that’s left is Her.

I feel calm again. Strong again. How much of it is in my head? How much of it is only the remnants of an adrenal high, triggered by Her existence? Her realness? I don’t know. I don’t care.

I want to clothe Her in the finest silks the multiverse has to offer, with every inch of Her shell polished to an ebony rich enough to contain the stars. She is the stars, the heavens, the moons, the very air I breathe in. During my visit, She held me even after such a brief acquaintance. She assured me. Soothed me.

Is it wrong to love a woman so utterly in an instant?

I don’t know. I can only pray that She might forgive a doddering old fool his rampant need to feel complete again.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

It takes one final shove for the old man to get moving again, and it’s then that he’s on his feet. Too slow, however, with Droog’s hands flashing to get the weapon that has so dearly cost Stitch in the past. He staggers back, out of range, and nearly topples a desk in his retreat. But it’s not all in vain, because in this desk, so close to the effigies, lies an incredibly important turnaround. He rips open the lowest drawer and pull out a tie of silken crimson.

In seconds, Stitch pulls one of the unmarked, undesignated dummies down, shoving the contents of the desk aside, to the floor, so he can cinch the tie around the effigy’s throat easily. It tugs tight, a noose in and of itself, with only the mutinous glare of the graying-out leprechaun to warn the other before a fist collides with the same knee previous elbow-slammed, now a plush-and-fabric replica capable of transmitting the sensation that much further.

It’s not fair. But with the rules on Droog’s part broken, there is nothing Stitch can do but oblige in the dirty fight. There’s a rush down his spine. It’s bee so long since he’s had a dirty fight.

Pin

“Fuck!” Droog grasps at his knee and goes down, groaning. “God damn it, you old, useless fuck!” He tries to get back up, but the knee is too sore at the moment, and he hisses in pain. He gets it up, reaching into his suitjacket for his deck of cards. he isn’t up, but the cuestick is. “You really want to fight back, now of all times? Just stay down and take your goddamned medicine.”He growls out his words, holding the cuestick defensively. He knows that Stitch is going to get up, and try to come at him So he stays on defense until he can get his bearigns on his leg back. Fucker probabably cracked the joint. 

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

☱

The page is wrinkled slightly at the edges, as if it has been turned to time and again. The upper corner is nearly falling apart from the number of times it has seemingly been fiddled with. The words themselves, written in a heavy hand, are made up of ink. A blotch or two, a bit in the center of the page nearly torn through from the weight put into the scrawlings. Legible, but messy. Emotional.

They call him Diamonds Droog.

The first time I heard it, I knew I’d hate him on sight. Even before he sent the boy in with a slice through the gut and a crack in his skull, I knew I’d hate every single thing about him.

I wasn’t wrong.

He came in today, if anyone can believe it, with a gun leveled. Apparently, there’s been some sort of information leak, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that damned jig-happy runt. He runs his mouth too often and his legs never rest. I don’t trust a man who won’t sit down.

But getting back to Diamonds Droog. He had information. Not just on my position, but on my damned work. Tailoring is obvious, and there’s been no attempt to hide that, but he’s smart. Too smart. He leveled that gun on the boy’s effigy and called me “doctor��� in the most condescending tone that it took every damn fiber of me not to snap him there.

Diamonds. He’s nowhere near as precious. The man’s nothing more than a snake in the field. A viper in the reeds, with a silver tongue. Literate. Quick. I hated him before he even opened that mouth, and the second he started wheedling away for a favor, I knew I’d never sleep without that voice in my head, biting into every good feeling I have. Thinking about him now is putting a fire in my gut, and I don’t say that lightly.

He had the audacity to mention how poorly the other tailors take to his persuasion, as if it were somehow my problem. He’s self-righteous. Arrogant. Self-absorbed. Too much of him reminds me of–A blotch so hideously thick that the word beneath cannot be read.–and I can only hate him more for it.

They call him Diamonds Droog. He’s too sharp. Too clever. Too pleased with himself.

He’ll be damned if he ever earns an ounce of respect from me.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

Your character has just discovered my character's journal/diary.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

The woman straightens almost instantly, her eyes going a little wide. Her feather duster rests over her heart in and instant, maybe in some attempt to pledge respect, but before she can open her mouth and start babbling away, she’s getting a sternly-worded order to go polish something. She stammers, pointing weakly in the general direction of the younger leprechaun before skittering off under the power of an incredibly forceful glare.

“Th’ word you want, boy,” he starts, wending his way around a table containing haphazardly ordered pins and cushions, “is professional.” But there is a teeny tug of a smile at the corners of his lips as he settles beside another table containing a whole host of measuring tapes and tiny books with stubby pencils, all awaiting the appropriate touch, the skilled hands, of a tailor.

There’s a peek from around a stack of velvet, and the little Prospitian slips out of sight before she can be apprehended. Stitch glares in her general direction before turning a critical eye to the younger man in the room. Already, he’s running through patterns and designs and formulating just how he’ll make room for that incredibly secret appendage.

Appointment.

“I see.” He replies quietly, his eyes trailing away for a brief moment to take in his surroundings. Green everything, as always. Sometimes he’d wonder why everything was so green, even if a fair bit of his own home town was quite green itself. “Pleasure to meet you then, Stitch.” He speaks honestly, even if Stitch had called him snot-nosed before. Like mother had always said, respect your elders. He’d at least try to.

Crowbar peers into the room from behind the older leprechaun, a brow raised curiously. He remembers seeing a room like this in his own version of the manor, but not quite like this. He offers a friendly little wave and a smile to the lady working the sewing machine in the corner before he brings his attention back to the task at hand.

“Nice place ya got here.” he says, glancing up at Stitch again from the corner of his eye. “Looks pretty cozy.”

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

His blood is boiling over, attention trapped on that offending cigarette. So many other things he could take. The biting of the remarks, the way his own ability to function comes into question. His failings, his loneliness, the perfectly-cared for shoe knocking into his ribs to knock the wind right out of him once he and Droog have worked together to him situated on his side. Another kick, and even that he can take, but that damned cigarette is burning in his mind because for all the playful jabbing or outright attacks, that was too far.

When the cigarette drops, too close, still burning gently, near his ear, Stitch can only go still. It’s burning a hole in the carpet beside his head, and the grinding of that pristine shoe is the last straw. The old leprechaun lurches, rolling onto his back, only to lift his arm and slam his elbow into the side of Droog’s knee. Tit for tat, and he’s moving to roll onto his hands and knees, attempting to get up first.

Pin

“You had your boss’s hand so far up your ass for years that I doubt you’re qualified to remove anything.” He puffs another cloud of smoke into the air, looking at him. “You’re nothing. I can’t believe I came here, but then again, I don’t give up easily.” he takes his foot off of Stitch’s back to push him onto the side, and he gives his ribs a swift kick. 

“Ths is what you deserve.” Another kick. A bit gentler than the first. “I should just fill you with lead and watch you sputter and die like the weak little flame you are. But somehow it’s much more satisfying to watch you waste away, bit like bit. When will it happen, Stitch? The day when you finally give hin? The day when you come to my fucking heel at beck and call?” He drops the cigarette too close to Stitch’s face,a dn extinguishes it with the grind of a heel.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

The words bite, just as the always do, but the passion is all wrong. Stitch can taste the hatred in the air, and it’s clogging up his lungs with an anger to match Droog’s fury. He’s throwing a temper tantrum up there, leaving the soft green man to wheeze slightly at the pain radiating from the stomp. It hurts, the heel of the pristine shoe digging in just above his old hips. A grunt of pain, but he’s not about to flail like a gigantic green cockroach.

“You’re actin’ like a child,” he snips, finally managing to leverage an elbow beneath himself and push his torso off the floor to better angle his glaring. His scar pulls tight over the fierce expression, teeth bared in a snarl that he hasn’t worn in so long. Stitch finds that he’s missed it, even if the tension is boiling over.It reminds him of the first altercation they ever had, in a way. Not a pleasant memory, but not unpleasant either. “Is it so damned difficult to pull your head right outta your ass, Mister Diamonds, that you’re wantin’ me to do it?”

Pin

Droog is angry. This wasn’t some planned pitch stint, this absence. Absences like that are somehow different, they feel right, and not empty. This? This was akin to abandonment, and Droog was going to show Stitch that he didn’t stand for it. He looks him straight in the eyes, takes a deep inhale, and then exhales harshly through his nose slits. He brings his foot up, and slams it back down onto Stitch’s back. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

He pockets the lighter, and breathes heavily. Droog never smokes this… profusely, one might say. He never takes these kinds of breaths, quick, filling his lungs with smoke just so he can expel it. “You’re a lazy old fuck. Serves you right, letting yourself get tossed around. No king here. Just an empty manor witha  frightened woman, and a man who can barely go to the shitter on his own.”

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

He’s still disappointed, even knowing that it really isn’t Her fault. He really can’t sit there and bitch, or blame Her for not being faster. “Idiots,” he muttered beneath his breath as a wad of sterile bandage is pressed against Her wound. He’s pulled four pieces of the bullet from Her, as well as a few shards of shatters shell. He laments it, in his own way, glaring down at the blue-smudged metal and pseudo-bone before he pulls out a roll of gauze.

Around Her shoulder it goes, wrapping and tucking under his expert hand. Once She’s been secured, the rough pin of his hand against Her stomach lifts so he can urge Snowman into a sitting position. He keeps the arms bent, tucked up against Her front while he none-too-delicately loops a triangle of cloth around the injured limb and Her neck. Appropriately mobilized, he clumps around to the other side of the cot to start moving his patient along to settle in the rocking chair he so often denies the existence of.

“Sit there’n think about that while I clean this mess up.” Cold, bitter words, despite the worry furrowing his brow just slightly. Stitch turns to begin the process of cleaning and sterilizing, with the ever-constant glancing over his shoulder to ascertain her current state.

Embedded

When it hurts, it hurts. She cries out, owning her onw pain - she will not sit like a good soldier and take it, she hurts. The world deserves to know that she fucking hurts. When the pain is over with and everything starts going numb, probably due to something Stitch has done to her, she breathes a bit more evenly. Her shoulder burns, upper chest feels enflamed. 

And Stitch insists on digging around in her tissues, if the situation wans’t bad enough. She knows that he’s thorough and that if there was some shrapnel, she’d thank him for taking care ofit, but right now, she just wants all foreign objects out of her body. It’s enough to make her existence flicker  for a moment, an embodiment of her absolute discomfort. It’s a relief when the instrument is removed, and Stitch starts bandaging her properly.

“Someone wanted to end it all, I suppose. They aimed for the heart, that’s for certain. Didn’t stick around to watch the aftermath. Got scared.” She hisses softly at the pain. “I felt someone enter the mansion, so I went to investigate. As soon as they saw me, they shot. No hesitation.”

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

The door clicks behind her after a few moments of near-silent tittering. She may be a smart enough girl, but there’s little to no real comprehension of relationships until... well. Another click, and Stitch finds himself fumbling at the collar of his tie when he’s dragged back from the wall, choking briefly before the floor meets with his chest and forces anything he had in his lungs back out. It’s with a rasping wheeze that he processes the carapacian’s words, finally spurring him into a snort. (After he gets his wind back. He’s not as spry as he used to be, after all.)

But before Stitch can speak, retort, tear the other man down and build him back up with insults they both know so well, there’s the tap of a box he knows well, the click of a lighter. Another twist of his old neck, still aching from the veritable death grip of before, and the Tailor glares up at the other man with a hiss in the depths of his chest. There’s some comfort in knowing that Droog had received the gift, but watching the dark clouds of the Dersite’s exhales is proving to set the old leprechaun’s blood to boil. “You- get that filth out of your mouth. Now.” His words are harsh, fingers curling against his palms as he glares up from the prone position on the floor.

Pin

“You shut up,” he hisses at Stitch. He looks at Miss Pillow, who’s trembling a bit, doe eyed and frantic. “Leave us. And lock the door.” He doesn’t want to run the chance of having any more interruptions. This was his time - time he had to fight for. He shouldn’t have to barge in here, flaming up and hot around the edges. He can feel the bones of Stitch’s neck. He wants to break them.

When the maid leaves, He pulls Stitch back by the back of his suitjacket, and throws him, splayed, to the floor. “Pathetic,” he says. “Fucking worthless. I don’t know why I even came, if this is all you’d do.” He presses his perfectly shined oxford to the small of Stitch’s back and digs the heel in. “Piece of shit. Unfaithful, unreliable. I’d teach you a lesson, but you’re too old to learn anything new.” All of this is talk, in a way. There’s always been this language between them, harsh and unforgiving. But when Droog takes out his cigarettes and lights one, starting to puff like a chimney, it’s the true sign that he’s pissed. Even he respects that you don’t smoke in Stitch’s workshop, if only to preserve the fabrics.

[atailoralwaysknows-blog]

He had heard the shot, ringing through the mansion, in the instant that She appeared in the workshop, he could feel it like a punch to the gut. The sudden hole in the fabric of the universe Herself. Her presence is still one that he’s growing used to, knowing of, being capable of feeling in every fiber of his being. By the time he has Her shoved down onto the cot, he’s actually able to comprehend the blood soaking into that beautiful coat. He’ll have to fit her for a new one.

The bullet is buried deep in Her shoulder, far too close to more important portions of Her anatomy than he would like. He may not always be one for self-preservation, but this is the universe he’s discussing here as the extraction goes on. When he finally manages to brush up against the harsh metal with the tips of his instrument, he gruffly finds it in himself to speak, “This here’s goin’ to hurt like blazes, Miss.”

And he’s not wrong because the drag out is accompanied by a disgusting sucking noise as sharp points pull at sensitive flesh. He presses down harder on Her shoulder, jaw tight as he moves the bullet to a small tray. Blue, beautiful blue is painting all over the cot, his tools while he opens the initial entry would in a brief search for any additional pieces. The blood is difficult to quantify, simultaneously scalding and frozen to the touch. In a way, the contrast, the beauty, is addicting.

There’s no time to linger, however. Not when he’s being forced to turn away and return with a fresh set of bandages pressing over Her wound. “And what was promptin’ this jackass thinkin’ this time?” Yes, he’s a little ornery, and no, he’s not about to just let Her walk off scot-free after getting shot. In the mansion. He’s almost disappointed.

Embedded

It wasn’t often that someone tried to shoot her, but occasionally there was someone wo thought it’d be nice to die, and bring everyone with them. And that was exactly what had happened, this time around. She’d been enjoying an evening with a glass of wine and a movie when she heard someone enter the house, the air crackling with the disturbance. These days she was so acutely aware of her surroundings that the manson itself just felt like an extension of her being.

She had gone to investigate, silent, as always. But when they’d eventually seen her, they shot. No warning, no speech. Rather in poor taste, if you asked her, but it was still a bullet to her upper shoulder, closer than anyone had gotten to her heart in a long while. 

They fled just as soon, long legs carrying them out, as if seeing the Universe bleed was enough to tell them that this wasn’t the right idea. Snowman’s hands were covered in blood, blue and slick, and she had appeared to the person she knew would take care of her.

She had appeared in his shop, still clutching at the wound. “Stitch.” He’s turned and out of chair in an instant, so fast Snowman almost mistook him for someone else. “I was shot, I need medical attention.” It’s the most straightforward and perhaps redundant thing she’s ever said, given the look of her. But she doesn’t expect the semi-harsh treatment that folows - quickly ushered to a medical cot, shoulder pinned to the padding, gloves snapped over hands and sutures picked up. There’s a splash of antiseptic and with that, pain. She grimaces when he tries to find the bullet embedded in her shoulder, hand on her abdomen keeping her still. “Fuck,” she breathes. She doesn’t squirm, she doesn’t complain. This is medicine. And medicine hurts, but it works. 

She had forgotten how cruelly efficient Stitch was, when it came to keeping everything running.