#'no longer creating art is the DEATH of an ARTIST'

[ottitty]

Its okay to let yourself fall out of love with art or a craft if its not bringing you enough joy to be worth sustaining. You're worth more than what you create, and that's not something you have to apologize for. Thats a lot of grief to handle sometimes too, so be gentle with yourself and remember to not let yourself get weighed down by other people's guilt.

You are not dead. Continue on.

[mitfloya]

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬: 𝐑𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐥

pairings. Rafayel x gn!reader

wc. 6.8K

synopsis. He believes that by isolating you, he can protect you from the outside world and ensure your happiness together. In his twisted mind, this is his way of creating a perfect and eternal bond, you’re his muse, his statue of beauty, his own aphrodite.

warnings. The following content contains elements of obsessive behavior, yandere thoughts, stalking, possessive behavior, and may include poorly written narratives. Reader is referred to as 'you'. Proceed with caution, as this writing may be unsettling or uncomfortable for some individuals.

a/n. Hiyaaa! Thank you so much for the people that have helped me make my post manage to slip through the timeline! I kid you not I had to break my spine with this issues I kept running into (the ori yandere Zayne post is gone, I’m sorry for the inconvenience), if any of you have any suggestions on how to make my post made it into the tags please tell them on the comments section. Get ready and have some snacks and hope you enjoy reading another hc I made

♡ Please reblog and comment on this post are much, much appreciated ♡

A manchild…? you love this guy? Me being a slander and simp at the same time

To put it simply, Rafayel is always the damsel in distress and YOU are his knight shining armor. He needs your attention and protection 24/7, you don’t want him to end up dead, do you? The whole universe will miss him. 

First of all, he loves you. Second of all, he hates you. 

You’re like a goldfish, how could you not remember the vows you both made when you were just a little kid?! The mere fact that you failed to recognize his face shattered his heart into pieces, for you hold immense significance in his life.

The weight of your indifference crashed upon him like a tidal wave, leaving his emotions in ruins. It was like a tornado tearing through his soul, causing a gut-wrenching ache that seemed to consume him from within.

It creates a twisted cycle of emotions that he struggles to contain. He yearns for the love you once shared, yet despises you for not remembering the bond you had. 

Perhaps he regrets not taking action in the past to ensure he could always locate you, to have left a distinctive mark upon you as a means of tracking your whereabouts.

You should’ve recognized him at first glance. Where have you been? He thought he lost you, he doesn’t even want to wish upon your death but you make it harder for him not to.

You’ve grown so much and so many changes but you’re still the same person he met at the beach, and it makes him feels so many emotions at once, it’s the first time he has managed to put a rein over his emotions, he could’ve coax you to come to his studio and locked you up, if you were to recognize him.

His heart longed to show much he misses you yet his mind tells him to seek revenge. It’s like his body and soul is splitting. Do you know how much damage you are causing him?

You must understand, my dear, that he is determined not to repeat past mistakes. It is time for him to take drastic measures, to make a promise that will bind you to him forever. He sees you as his ultimate protector, his unwavering shield. From this moment forward, you will never leave his sight again.

In his eyes, you have always belonged to each other, from the very beginning. Your destinies intertwined, your fates entangled. He craves the security of knowing that you are by his side, guarding his every step, his every breath. No longer will he allow even the smallest sliver of distance to separate you.

From the beginning you are his as much as he is yours.

His artistic talent is both his greatest strength and his greatest weapon. Through his art, he immortalizes his love and hatred for you, capturing the complexities of his emotions with every stroke of the brush. His creations serve as a constant reminder of his twisted desires. 

Initially consumed by hatred, he concealed his love, allowing it to resurface gradually, in subtle and tender ways. 

It’s the slowest burn you could ever imagine. Painstakingly slow.

As Rafayel's hatred gradually diminished, he began to express his feelings more openly, albeit subtly, leaving significant hints about the depth of his emotions towards you. Similar to a small forest fire that grows steadily, each progression was deliberate and methodical until it consumed the entire forest, an uncontrollable blaze that can’t be extuingish.

Say goodbye to freedom and welcome to his world, now that you’re his. He will be the center of your universe.

Clinginess is an inherent trait of Rafayel's nature. He craves your presence and attention, unable to bear the thought of being separated from you even for a moment. He will go to great lengths to ensure that you never leave his side.

You've grown accustomed to his playful nature and constant need for attention, but be prepared for an amplified version, as his demands intensify. Good luck dealing with your man ♡

He is a man of pride, he immortalizes you through his art, proudly showcasing pieces dedicated to you at his exhibitions. While abstract in form, this exclusivity serves to intrigue others, leaving them pondering what makes you so special in his eyes.

Unknown to you hidden away within his personal stash, there is a gallery dedicated solely to you. Every piece of artwork revolves around your existence, capturing his obsession with meticulous detail. The walls are adorned with portraits, each stroke of the brush reflecting his twisted love for you.

But at the very least, he showers you with lots of love and affection, no more holding back.

In relationships, he presents himself as a calm and romantic partner, radiating an aura of serenity akin to the sea. He enjoys spending quality time with you, whether it be casual outings or simply sharing space in silence. With him, you will never feel alone.

But do not be deceived by the calm waters, for they possess the ability to draw you into the depths of darkness, leaving you submerged and unable to resurface. His obsession remains unpredictable, much like the ever-changing tides of the sea. 

Oh, how you've stumbled into his clutches the moment you made that fateful vow. There is no turning back, my dear. You have fallen into the siren's trap, lured by his haunting charm. You are now forever entwined in his grasp, unable to break free. You should have thought twice before crossing paths with him if you weren't planning to stay.

He has two preferred methods of dealing with nuisances. He may choose to be smug and show off his superiority, rubbing his success in their faces. He revels in flaunting his success and talents, using them as a means to intimidate and belittle those who dare to steal you away.

However, if they persist, he is unafraid to resort to physical means, utilizing violence to eliminate them from your life. He goes to extreme lengths, even shedding blood and concealing the evidence of his actions, all in the name of safeguarding your well-being and maintaining his possessive hold over you.

His possessiveness knows no bounds, his desire to claim you as his own overpowering any sense of reason. He will go to great lengths to ensure that no one else can possess you, viewing you as his ultimate masterpiece.

When faced with difficulty or resistance from you, Rafayel won't hesitate to take drastic measures. He is willing to use any means necessary, including drugs, to put you to sleep and kidnap you. He will isolate you in his studio, ensuring that you will be together forever.

His studio, the place where he creates his art, becomes both a sanctuary and prison for you. Within its walls, he controls every aspect of your existence, dictating your every move and stifling your individuality. It is a place where his obsession can flourish unchecked.

You will forever remain under his possession, as he claims you and binds you eternally.

© 2024 mitfloya — all rights reserved. kindly refrain from altering, translating, or repost my works on any platform without my consent, do not claim my content as yours.

[bumblequinn]

on a more personal note: death grips were and are a pretty major source of inspiration for my own music. not in the sense of "i like this sound so i'm going to ape it," but in the sense of "oh i can get this weird with it if i really want to."

a decent chunk of the music in SLARPG would have been a lot more restrained and self-conscious if it weren't all the death gripses out there. sophie, knower, joanna wang, wednesday campanella, KKB, lemon demon... these artists and countless others helped to show me that it's okay and even extremely cool to get weird with it.

i'm reminded of this comment on one of my tracks in particular:

and look, part of me thinks this is more or less harmless, right? i even pinned it, because it made me chuckle. it's all in good fun! (seriously, don't go causing any trouble over a comment like this. i do not condone that kind of harassment.)

and yet - if i stop to think about it a second longer, i start to ask: what is this kind of joke really saying? "this sucks." "turn that shit off." and... i dunno, that feels bad, you know? i was bouncing in my seat grooving to that track when i was making it. i like what i made. that's why i made it.

every time i make music, i'm making something i want to hear but that doesn't exist yet. i'm incredibly, stupidly lucky that i get to do that, and that other people connect with it. but when the end result of that effort is a "joke" like "this is so weird omg, put something normal on," well...

even as a joke that's enough to make me second guess myself the next time i make music. it's enough to make me change the preview track for the album to something a bit tamer so i don't "scare off" first-time listeners. that feels like capitulating, and capitulating is the opposite of authentic self expression.

i have much, much weirder, more difficult and challenging ideas that i have yet to explore and put out there because i already feel like enough of a pariah just as a trans woman in the world.

i'd like to find the inner courage and esteem to create that art without softening its edges, trying to appease, or apologizing for myself. i think i'll get there. i'm already closer than i used to be. but seeing more people respect weird art, rather than quip about about its strangeness, would be a start. a girl can dream.

[ayashitetsuko]

An open letter to David Jenkins

Some fans believe that we should not vent our anger and frustration to show creators. I don’t believe that. The thing about being a professional is that receiving criticism is part of your job—especially if you have done a terrible job.

OFMD went from groundbreaking to disappointing overnight.

There was a momentum to create a queer media that is smart, fun, sexy, and most importantly, respectful. In the way they are writing these queer characters. Especially older and disabled queer characters, a reflection of a generation of marginalised communities that have gone through so much. To give audience a glimpse of hope in their escapism.

But sir, you choose to Remus Lupin him instead.

This is not just about killing off a character. Hell, I might be willing to accept it. After all, I have read and even written fics with MCD in it—involving my favourite character.

But I want you to know that this is a special case. It is not just another popular character being killed off to drive plots.

I have issue with how you kill off a queer character that represents many marginalised communities in his arc.

Izzy is an abuse survivor who becomes disabled as a result of it. Izzy is a queer elder. Izzy is suicidal but manages to overcome it with the healing power of love and community.

Having him killed off just like that is a huge slap for fans who have gone through what he has gone through. Turns out, even in fiction, in our escapism, there is no joy. Only despair.

Also. Father figure? Where does that come from? Ed has never been shown to have any level of respect for Izzy. So let me ask you again. Where does “father figure” come from?

You have an opportunity to make a difference with OFMD; to be remembered in history for the right reasons. Yet somehow you choose not too. You choose to turn this into cheap, sensationalist entertainment where death and torture are thrown around for shock value.

It is like you have no idea how much power you have by being a professional storyteller.

Let me break it down to you. For you as a writer, perhaps killing off Izzy is nothing but an artistic choice. A plot point to figure out. But for audiences in marginalised groups, stories are mirrors. They see themselves in stories. That is how stories give them hope. This is why OFMD has never been “just a pirate story”. Perhaps this is hard to understand if you have never been part of an underrepresented community in the mainstream media, but this is how many are feeling about your work now. Your legacy.

OFMD has truly become an overnight failure. I don’t know how this happened. I would like to blame budget cuts, but your Vanity Fair interview makes me realise this is all deliberate choice.

So, what is next for us Canyonites?

If anything, this convinced me that queer and disabled people should write. And continue to write.

We can no longer trust major media to speak for us. We definitely can never trust David Jenkins again. Any form of progressiveness that he showed earlier was just coincidence, apparently. Even worse, it was fake.

As my friend Sam beautifully puts it, Izzy belongs to us now. We reclaim that character and give him all the happy endings he deserves in our fic, our art. We transform the works. We write about queer, disabled, suicidal characters the way the deserve to be written. If being a published writer is the path you choose, make sure you make wiser decisions than David Jenkins.

Thank you, sir. It was good while it lasts.

But this is a terrible job that you’re doing.

[bi-shop]

i am desperately trying to think of a name for this au but all i could think of is 'get on the whirlwind' and i hate that i couldn't think of anything better please god i need to think of a good name before i tag these

penny lamb , the unluckiest girl in town (=> mischa) - she never got a break in st. cassians no words can describe the amount of bullying she faces . the only reason she wasn't left unidentified is because she has foster parents instead of being left by herself and ezra

"c?" (=> jane) - she was nice . forgot a lot of things including her own name . only remembers the 'happy memories'

ocean o'connell rosenberg , the fiercest girl in town (=> ricky) - got a pretty bad leg fracture that made her slow down on her game , which ruined her as she no longer lives up to her own high expectations . somehow more unbearable than before yet stopped insulting people ?

mischa blackwood bachinski , the gentlest boy in town (=> constance) - was put in a good loving environment so he isn't filled with rage . still , trying to cope with the death of his mother and feeling like he doesn't belong in uranium was tough

richard potts , the most artistic boy in town (=> noel) - has jumped to creating by doing art and writing to make the most of his short life . if he's going to go he'll at least release the stories in his head first

noel gruber , the most determined boy in town (=> ocean) - studies hard so he could leave uranium to move to france . partly because uranium sucks and partly because he'll go there to do drag , why would i Not include his historical oc monique gibeau

you can guess which one i had the most fun developing

feel free to ask anything ! i do put a lot of thought into this !

also virgil and karnak because i Have to include them ... has anyone thought of swapping any of the choir kids with karnak yet

[dsaf-confessions]

I've been in the dsaf fandom for a year or two by now lol. but like I've only been lurking and...some fans take dsaf TOO seriously. Like, no hate. none at all. but,, I wish people acknowledged more often that Dayshift at freddy's at it's core, is silly. like, all three games are full of jokes (some less than others) and that's the original premise. Yeah, there's the serious lore bits and all.. but what about the SILLY bits? Can we have the silly bits appreciated? Jack can piss for 15 minutes straight, Dave ate an entire ashtray of lit cigarette butts and lost his sense of taste after, ALL the phone guys were programmed to say "darn" and "heckin'!" as a substitute for swearing, and Dee is a tickler (not ticklish, a TICKLER she tickled Dave til his springlocks went off in the premature ending, and she can tickle Jack when in the suit to set it off if you don't wind the box). Henry is the reason why they have cameras in the fazbender's bathrooms.

I love seeing the serious bits too, but I wish people spent as much time with the silly bits as the serious ones. Even when it comes to making your own silly bits!!! Like, yess!!!! Go write that Undertale!DSAF AU. Go write about Dave and Jack as kitchen appliances. Go write about what you headcannon Dee's favorite songs and movies are. Go write about Jack having magical princess half wolf demon powers. EVEN WITH THE PAINTINGS!!! I saw a drawing of Dave and Jack in sailor moon get up and they killed it. absolutely. I know the dsaf artists out here are killing it with their art, it's all amazing and I have lovingly gazed at all of them before. and yes!!!!! Go RP as Peter Kennedy having a deep carnal desire for bird watching, go RP as Harry Fitzergald enjoying himself at an aquarium, go RP as Dave Miller spending hours trying to figure out how air fryers work so he can give it a shot at building one at home.

Please do anything your heart desires!!!!! You can look out the car window with your headphones in and listen to music while imagining sad sfms of the characters and keep it to yourself. But if you wish to share, just now that there's people out there that have been wishing someone would create what they've been imagining too!!! Make your funky spotify character playlists!! Even your youtube music ones!! Because there will be someone out there who thinks the same as you and enjoys them the same as you !!

I live for the serious ones too. Please, go write that heartfelt fic about Dave yearning for his soulless friend's presence in the afterlife. Please, go write about Jack despairing that he doesn't just stop existing after death, and is stuck in a void. Please, go write about Dee speaking to the gang in afterlife about how she wishes she had a longer childhood, and how she is sad that the very few things that made her childhood a childhood is gone and that she can never truly have it back( jack, and all the friends and lovely gifts and animals and all the joy). Please, go write about DaveTrap surviving the fire in the good ending and being miserable because no matter how much he was angry and hateful, he missed Jack, he missed having a quarrel with him, he missed asking just one more time, if Jack wanted to kill kiddins' with him, and then him having to visit Jack's grave and despairing that Jack had never lied when he told him his name. And then DaveTrap sees the other graves, all the other ones, of the kids that died at fazbender's because of fazbender's. And he also sees a grave bearing his own name. His real name. And it was right next to four other graves, of people who's names rang bells in his ears, of people with a last name he recognized, of people he remembered betting on whether or not they'll die with Henry.

AHHH I think this might be too long. i just love ranting about my ideas because as much as i have a love for writing, i can never execute the ideas. they are cursed to forever be just an idea i can share to my friends who don't like dsaf but like hearing my rambles.

So, whoever is reading this, please go enjoy the games as much as you wish!! enjoy the silly AND the serious side !!!!!

.

[thephooka]

Happy Webcomic Day! My webcomic White Noise is a labor of love--according to Procreate, this page took me 15.5 hours to complete.* Here's a look into that process!

Some other notes:

The thumbnails are done on graph paper and I script while I do them--there is no separate written script for White Noise. I usually spent a couple hours on weekends as needed thumbnailing, sometimes at a coffee shop or at home listening to records.

I then set up the file in Photoshop, so I can lay in the text and use the template I have with bleeds already set up. The text is rasterized and I shuttle the file over to my iPad via Airdrop.

The bulk of the actual work is done in Procreate, which records timelapses that I sometimes share to my Patreon. I usually spend a couple hours most nights after my day job or on the bus commuting doing this.

Once everything art-wise is done, I shuttle the file back over to my desktop to re-set in the text, add a stroke around the speech bubbles (Procreate doesn't have that took fsr) and do the resizing/exporting for web.

On Sunday mornings I get up, queue the page and write the page descriptions. I don't spend any time on the page descriptions outside of that.

Also, this process goes for the whole first arc of White Noise. I'm done with that arc (which means you can binge the whole thing I'm js!!) and am experimenting with some different methods these days, but my workflow is still generally the same.

*Some more talk about the labor (and burnout) involved below the cut:

This particular page (and most of the pages I did in 2023) took a lot longer than normal because I was heading into a burnout period that I'm still lowkey in/recovering from. It's obvious to me now in retrospect watching the timelapse here and seeing how much noodling I'm doing and how much I'm struggling with the process, but at the time I was just very frustrated generally. When I'm not burned tf out pages take maybe 10 hours max.

2023 was a pretty stressful year--lots of big life changes, uncertainty, pet death, health issues--so it's no wonder it propelled me into burnout, but it just goes to show that even the slowest and steadiest pace is not sustainable forever. I've been doing one page a week following this general process for over a decade! And I stuck to that pace because I knew it was one I could maintain. But even so, by the end of this arc I found myself working more and more slowly, not really looking forward to the work, feeling anxious about being behind, unhappy with the finished work, and extremely annoyed with myself for not being able to give it my all right there at the finish line.

I did stop for a while after the epilogue and took a more or less complete break from drawing for about a month--the longest I have EVER gone without drawing, much less working on White Noise--which did help, but these days my ability to work is...inconsistent. I should probably take another total break, but I'm reluctant. What if my passion never comes back? What if people forget about WN? It's already pretty obscure, and with the general social media collapse, it's harder than ever to get people to read my work. Now that I've left Hiveworks, WN doesn't even get the benefit of being linked to other comics (although objectively very, very few readers actually got referred to my comic that way.) And frankly, I'm also just too proud to go too long without comic updates. I've always told myself, I might not be the best artist or the fastest worker or make a popular comic, but I'm consistent. Difficult to let that go.

This is all to say that webcomics are hard. We do them because we love them, we have stories to tell, we are seized with the human compulsion to create. We spend hours of our time, almost always on top of the paying work that allows us to eat, to make something that we then give away for free. It has consequences on us that the reader doesn't often see, no matter how careful we are about it. If you ask me, webcomics deserve to be valued more.

Happy Webcomic Day! Read webcomics!

[exhuastedpigeon]

I'm going to probably sound old when I say this, but every so often I think about the people (mostly women) who pioneered the modern idea of media fandom.

The people who handwrote fic or typed it on typewriters. The people who took their love of their favorourite show/book/movie to the next level and found other people in real life who enjoyed it as much as they did. The people who started mailing groups. The people who were in fandom before the internet even existed.

People who went to the post office to send their friends the latest chapter of their Spirk fic. The people who lovingly made fan magazines.

The people who created true fandom community.

They probably didn't actually think Kirk and Spock were going to kiss because it was a time when a kiss between a white man and a black woman on TV was groundbreaking, but they saw the chemistry and built a beautiful subculture where freaks and weirdos and queer people living in the bodies of housewives and secretaries and nurses and teachers and everyday people you'd pass on the street could let themselves be freaks with each other.

It really feels like we've lost so many amazing parts of fandom in the last decade or so. It doesn't feel like a community like it was even ten years ago, let alone 50+ years ago when you had to put in work to find fandom spaces and then build community with your fellow fans.

Today you can send someone an anonymous death threat for shipping something. People get doxxed for having a different opinion on a character.

Instead of fandom being a space for weirdos lovingly creating art and writing fic about shows and ships it's become almost an exchange where readers/viewers expect content without understanding the work that went into it. Writing still takes time and energy and work, making fan edits still takes skill and time and energy, drawing fan art takes years of practice and love and patience. We've lost the art of being grateful for that effort. We've lost the community created between writers and readers, between artists and other fans.

Idk, I just miss the fandom community. Sometimes I miss the days of message boards. Other days I miss the tumblr before the porn ban where you could make friends with people by sharing porn and talking about what kind of freaky shit you thought your favourite characters got into.

Maybe I'm just old and not evolving with the times, but I feel like the community part of fandom is the best part of it and it's really missing from a lot of fandom spaces these days. It's no longer about sharing an interest with people, it's about consuming content.

[strawberryya]

The art of seduction - part one

pairing: jeong yunho x reader

synopsis: Since she left you, it feels like your life has been turned upside down, and you're struggling to find your footing. He sees that, and he wants to help. Or maybe it's not as pure as that. Perhaps he's just looking for a new plaything — an artist to inspire, or someone to slowly destroy.

word count: 4.5k

genre/cw: angst, smut, suggestive, fantasy, thriller and/or romance, yandere themes, supernatural au, faery au, leanan sídhe!yunho, human!reader, they/them pronounces for reader, I tried my best to keep all descriptions gn as well - I welcome all feedback on this area ofc, grief and death depicted/mentioned, specific smut warnings will be listed in each part.

rating: 18+

a/n: this has been a big project for so many people this year, and I would like to thank all of the inspiring people in this collab for all the fantastic ideas that has been contributed to make all of these fics possible. it has been a journey writing this, but this fic is only the beginning of the even longer journey that yunho and our mc will be going on ;)

this is part one of my first fic for the wonderful collaboration thrill of the hunt, hosted by @cultofdionysusnet - check out the other exciting and thrilling stories on the official master list here!

the second part to this story will be found here once it's posted. if you wish to be tagged in the continuation you can dm me, send an ask, or comment on this post <3

network tagging: @svthub @cultofdionysusnet @k-labels @kvanity-main

“Oh, he’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, y/n! He’s perfect… I didn’t think anyone could be so perfect until he came into my life. He makes me feel like I’ll never need anything ever again… like he and I are enough forever. I need you to meet him someday soon! I wanna introduce you to him, I promise you’ll love him too!”

You never got the chance to meet him. The more you think about it, the more you regret not making more of an effort to do so. Your best friend Anna had been in love with someone, and you hadn’t even had the chance to meet the man she spoke so fondly of. 

“I haven’t been feeling very good lately, y/n… I’ve been to the doctors and they say there’s nothing wrong. They said it’s all in my head, that I should go talk to someone… y/n, do you also think I’m making myself sick?” 

She only got weaker after that. 

And he had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth after she became bedridden. 

She said he came to visit, but she wasn’t in her right mind in those final weeks. Nobody had signed in at the reception. Nobody had seen a beautiful man with dark brown hair that gleamed blood-red when the sun shone. During all that time when she was admitted into the psychological ward at the city’s second-largest hospital you and Anna’s mom were the only visitors. 

They said she was mad…

You had wondered a lot about who he might’ve been during those times when she had talked about him as if she had just spoken to him, but nobody had seen anyone in her room. Had he been a fraction of her imagination the entire time? Or had her mind created a lie based on a man who had left her before her illness took over her mind and body? 

When she passed he was the one piece of the puzzle that you couldn’t let go of. If you had tried harder to meet him, would her illness have been caught earlier? Could it have been found and treated before it took her life…?

You’ve been staying late at the studio lately, trying to get through your feelings about losing her through your art. The shadows in the room seem to close in on you at every chance they get, and you don’t fight them. Hugged by the darkness is somehow better than being left so completely alone. 

The brush strokes soothe you like nothing else is able to. Fizzling seas crash along the shore, a looming tree stands barren and alone, and her face appears in the dark clouds. 

The only things you know to be true are that: she is gone, you are in pain, and you can only paint this one single picture. The lonesome tree at the cliff, watching the storms and waves trying to pull the ground away from beneath the large oak tree. You paint it over and over again, day after day, and you haven’t even paid any mind to when other artists have come and gone through the studio. People painted right next to you, people posed on the podium in front of you, and you didn’t care about any of it. All that matters to you is that you have been left all alone. 

Your best friend has died, and you can’t even do the one thing you have been able to do your entire life ー paint. You had pursued your passion fiercely, not budging even as your parents pleaded with you to be reasonable and try “having a career worth having”, and let painting stay as a hobby. It was how you had met Anna. She was a dancer, and she had gotten into the same art college as you. Back then you had both been carefree young adults, simply trying your best to survive on your own for the first time in your lives. Now, she has left you, with the bittersweet taste of the last conversations you had had with her on your tongue. 

“He inspires me you know, I’m just a dancer anymore when he looks at me, I become the air itself.” 

You had smiled and nodded at her nonsense, she seemed to be dreaming of it. Her limbs were too weak to be of use, but she had the same smile on her lips as when she performed. You had tried your best not to be mad at her for only speaking of this man even as she lay dying in a hospital, dreaming of her passion was at least better than dreaming of him. The tears had stung your eyes as you held her hand before leaving her to her rambling. 

It has been a while since her funeral, and you have practically been living at the studio. Home doesn’t make you feel any better, so you sleep on the small pullout couch in the corner instead. It isn’t meant to be slept on and your back is sore from the many nights in a row you have spent on it. But the art studio is at least comforting you more than home. You have too many memories of Anna in your apartment. Here you can focus on your art. At least, that’s the idea. You have had no inspiration since her death. It’s strange, she hadn’t exactly been the reason you painted, but everything that happened still affected even that part of you. 

You had begun questioning if you should give it all up, move home to your parents for a few months, and go back to your waitress job until you had processed all of this. But could you give up on your passion? After years of struggling to pass courses and hustling on the side of your studies just to make it all work? What would Anna say if she knew…?

You aren’t sure how it happened, it might've been a dream. It’s barely been three weeks since Anna’s funeral and you woke up with the clearest picture of a man you had never met in your mind. 

He’s handsome, just like she had told you. He has gentle features, and dark, captivating eyes that catch hold of your mind and refuse to let go. You can’t seem to escape the image of the stranger you know in your bones is the same man Anna had known. 

Sometime after the day you had first seen him in your mind, after hours in front of your easel and a blank canvas, you finally force yourself to pick up the brush. This couldn’t be the end of pursuing the only career you had ever wanted. You need to get over it and paint something, other than that stubborn tree and the punishing sea. His features burn your eyelids, and you see him as you blink and dream of him as you sleep. You can’t escape the visions, so you make him real, tangible. You create a portrait of the man in your head. Watching the finished portrait once you put down the brush. 

You look at it until it gets dark again, staring into his eyes until you fall asleep on the couch in the corner. 

You wake up with a headache. You groan quietly since you neither have the energy nor the will to get up and take something for the throbbing pain stemming from the sides of your head. Before you could even summon the will to get up despite this, you almost jumped off the couch in surprise. There is another person in the room. You’re still in the corner of the room, so the stranger might’ve missed that you were even there, you reason. It looks like a man from behind. His short dark hair lay in a rather messy way against the back of his head. He’s turned away from you, watching the painting you had fallen asleep staring at. He’s tall, his shoulders are broad. You panic, because what did this man want, and why was he here in the middle of the night?

“Who are you?” you ask breathlessly, jumping up from the couch, trying to see if he’s someone you know in the dim light. Could he be another artist here to paint at an odd hour? You don’t recognize him, but you aren’t the best at remembering people, so you’re not sure if you should be screaming or apologizing for your hostile greeting. 

The man didn’t even flinch at the sound of your voice. He didn’t seem like a threat, but then again, something about him creeped you out. You ignore the fact that he also intrigued you, and try to catch his attention again. “Hey, I asked you a question.” In response, he simply raises a hand as if to shush you. 

This man hadn’t just broken into the studio late at night – he was also incredibly rude. The air around him is so still, so calm that it’s giving you chills. You want to see his face. If he was going to murder you, you want to have looked the fucker in the eye so you can, at least, curse his existence. You take a step forward, grabbing a long paintbrush from the drying rack. Maybe you can get his eye if you’re fast enough.

“So aggressive, little dove,” the man finally says. His voice is smooth and deep. It’s an attractive voice, at least your murderer has a nice voice, not that that makes this situation salvageable. You’re still prepared to stab him with the wooden brush in your hand. 

“Wouldn’t you be aggressive if you woke up to a stranger in your bedroom as well?” 

You had tried putting on a brave face, hoping that he wouldn’t notice how scared you were. He seemed to see through this facade easily though, chuckling at your attempt instead of turning around to face you. “Not your bedroom. I’ve been to your bedroom and this isn’t it. Also, not really a stranger, am I?” 

Your breath won’t calm down, and your heart is beating mercilessly in your chest. This man had been in your apartment? And you know him? What the hell is he talking about? “Are you some kind of stalker you fucking creep?” you wheeze out, taking a step away from him. 

You desperately wish for this to be some kind of nightmare. 

When he turns around you’re sure it is because there’s no way the man you see in front of you isn’t just a fiction of your imagination. Dark hair, streaks of red when the light from the window hits it. Perfect lips, and captivating eyes. It’s him. The man in your painting, alive right in front of you. Your grip on the brush tightens, the bristles folding backward from the pressure of your palm. The world began to spin, he wasn’t real, he couldn’t be real. You see the edges of your vision blur and his smile widens at the visible panic you were displaying. 

He was right, he isn’t a stranger. 

“I think you might’ve heard about me, little dove. She used to talk about you ー the talented artist she had met in college.”

It couldn’t be, you hear the blood rushing in your ears like thunder. “Who?” 

He smiled innocently, “Don’t you remember your friend? Anna, I think her name was.” 

No. It couldn’t be true. The brush fell from your hand as you fell to the ground. Your already sleep-deprived mind couldn’t handle the thought that maybe the man Anna had spoken about was real, and right in front of you. Knocking yourself unconscious was the only thing your body could do to stop your heart from giving out. 

Have you gone mad as well? Maybe this was your way of grieving? Should you go to the hospital?

The questions spun in your mind. He was gone when you woke up. But the long brush in your hand and the bruises on your knees and shoulder felt like substantial proof that you had not lost your mind. He had been here, you know it, but who would believe you if you told them? Who would even care?

You decide to let it go, instead, you force yourself to go back to your apartment. A change of clothes was needed and you know that the lady down the hallway will be worried after not having seen you for days yet again. She had been at Anna’s funeral, wondering how and why your roommate had passed so quickly at such a young age. You hadn’t known what to answer. You still didn’t have your own answers as to “how” or “why”. At least, none that you could share…

You had managed to shower and get into some clothes when your neighbor knocked on the door. 

“Hi, Auntie,” you greet her as she had insisted you do ever since you and Anna had first moved in. She’s older than any of your real aunts, but remarking on that had felt incredibly inappropriate, so you had both simply accepted your fate and begun calling her “Auntie”. 

"Darling!" How are you? I haven't seen you here in days! I was beginning to worry. You know, this was just how it was with Anna, I didn’t see her for days and then she would show up saying she had been busy practicing and dating and whatnot!”

You don’t respond, forcing a smile. She meant well, but when she insisted on bringing you some food you wanted to refuse her. She didn’t mind your protests, “Oh, dear child, you don’t even know how sunken your face looks. You need some of my home-cooked food to get your spirits back up!” 

In the end, your refrigerator was filled with casseroles and little boxes of different dishes, and a bitter feeling, knowing you wouldn’t be here to eat it. You left your apartment as swiftly as you had arrived, not wanting to stick around long enough to see the traces of a life lived – a life you didn’t feel belonged to you anymore. You brought what you could carry in your bag back to the studio. 

You fall asleep again, after hours of trying to create something, only creating more pain in your back from sitting on the wooden stool all afternoon instead. It’s not like you hadn’t tried your best to think about anything else besides him, you had actually tried your very best! But in the end, your mind kept wandering back to the dip of his lips, and the grin on his face as you fainted. You painted the outline of his lips, over and over again. 

You hated him. 

Would he come back?

He had mocked you with his words.

Why had you felt such a rush when he spoke?

You never wanted to see his perfect face ever again.

Why couldn’t you stop wishing to see him just one more time? 

You woke from a cool hand on your hair. Slowly and gently he patted your head until you opened your eyes. It was still dark out, and he was back. Leaning over your sleeping body, a large hand caressing the side of your head. You scream, and he smirks. He shushes you, and you push him away angrily. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!” you shout. 

“You wanted to see me again, I thought it best to wake you so your wishes could be fulfilled.” His voice coursed through you, giving you goosebumps again. “Don’t be angry with me, little dove.”

“I don’t want you here.”

“Don’t lie. It’s not polite,” he retorts as soon as the words leave your mouth. 

“I don’t care, I hate you. Leave me alone!” You bark out the words, tears stinging your eyes. You don’t know why you’re reacting so strongly to him. 

His tongue darts out to lick at his lips in annoyance. “Little dove,” he chirps menacingly, “Lie one more time and I won’t help you anymore.”

He terrifies you. He’s beautiful, but nothing about him feels true. He’s like those beautiful flowers forever trapped inside glass orbs. You wanted to protect the frozen beauty from getting the slightest scratch and smash it to pieces, all at once. 

“Help me…?”

The gentle smile on his lips came back when you revealed that he had managed to pique your interest. “Mm, I help people. Artists, especially… it’s an interest of mine, the arts.” He winked at you, which caught you off guard. 

“And you came here to help me?” 

He nodded, but you weren’t convinced. 

“Why? I didn’t ask for any help from you.”

He looked around the room, gaze wandering over the canvasses you had painted in the last couple of weeks, all depicting the shore and the dead tree. All except two. The portrait of him, and the sketches of his lips. 

“You did that?” You ask incredulously. His gaze snaps back to you sharply. 

“Of course. Didn’t it feel different? It felt like you had been inspired by something again, did it not?” His voice is honey in your ears, but the sticky feeling is making you want to flee for your life. You don’t. 

“Want me to prove it?”

You frown, “What do you mean prove it? Are you going to inspire me to paint something on the spot in the middle of the night?”

“Tell me you want it and I’ll make sure you feel inspired for the rest of your miserable human life, little dove.” 

His wording is so unnatural, you think for just a moment. You don’t trust him one bit, but perhaps this is the way to convince yourself that he is indeed just some creep that you need to get away from. You take a deep breath before answering, “I’ll agree if you tell me your name.”

The man stepped back, you had made him flinch. You don’t know why you made that exact demand. Maybe you had just really wanted to call him something other than “the one Anna spoke of” in your mind. It hurt each time you remembered her name.

“A name can be more powerful than you think, little dove,” his tone warned you of something. He seems on edge for the first time since you met him. 

You don’t budge, his reaction only makes you more sure that you need to follow your gut. “Tell me, and you can help me.”

He hesitated before seemingly giving in to some innate need that you didn’t understand yet. “Yunho. That’s one of my names… Use it with care, little dove.”

You turned his name around in your mind, tasting the sweet taste on your tongue as you said it out loud. “Yunho… Sure, help me find inspiration to paint again.”

The same excited and menacing grin he had worn the last time you spoke now grace his lips again, and you feel you have committed a horrible mistake. 

You look around the room, the sun is rising and casting long shadows from the easels placed around the podium. How has the entire night already passed you by? You have no memory of sleeping. You look at your hands, they are covered in paint. Why had you been so messy? You couldn’t remember right away. You know that you have painted. Yunho had kissed your hand, you can still remember the heat of his breath on your skin. Then you had picked up your brush. You hadn’t been frightened by the fact that you weren’t in control of your actions. After the weeks of forcing yourself to do the most basic human functions to stay alive, having something else move your hand in your stead was somehow freeing. 

When you look at the canvas your breath stops. It’s him, you have painted him again. He’s not completely like himself, however, he is just as captivating in the picture as he is in reality. You had managed to capture his beautiful features, from the way his cupid’s bow dips graciously on his lips, to the way his hair gleams blood red when light shines through it. But behind him is something new, something you have never seen belonging to a human before. Wings, almost translucent wings, appearing on the canvas as a shimmer of light blue and white, adorned with shimmering ruby gemstones. He looked magnificent. 

“Pretty,” you hear his voice whisper on your neck before you feel his soft lips press against your skin. You shiver, it feels good but you’re still in shock, watching the man who’s behind you on the canvas in front of you. 

“How is this possible?” you mumble.

“You were inspired,” he responds calmly, brushing your hair away from your face from behind. “Did you enjoy it?”

You have a feeling that the answer to that is yes, but you also know you shouldn’t reveal that. “I don’t remember.”

“I think you did… I know you did.” 

The way he seems to know everything, even the things you don’t, scares you a bit. But you might be addicted to the feeling of his touch, you’re addicted to what he can do to you, addicted to what he makes you feel deep inside. He has given you your passion back, he has helped you paint again, and you had enjoyed it this time. This shouldn’t be possible. Why does this man have so much power over you that he could help you paint as you had used to, for the first time since Anna’s passing? 

There’s no way he’s human, no human looked like he did. In the morning light, he was even more dashing, even more unreal. You want to smash his perfect exterior to pieces and see the flower inside rot as the air hits its delicate petals. 

“Go away. I don’t want this,” you choke out, pushing down the sobs that threaten to escape your throat. He kisses your neck again, but you don’t move. “I think I’ll die if I don’t end this Yunho. Please, just leave me alone.”

“It’s possible, but maybe you’ll be the one who makes it out alive.” His honey voice rang in your ears as the day began and his touch against your back disappeared. You cried yourself to sleep. You knew everything was wrong, Yunho was wrong. But there was nothing you could do about it anymore. 

Two days passed without so much as a glimpse of Yunho. The hours of the night when he didn’t come to see you had almost been enough to convince you that you had truly gone mad. But then, suddenly, there he was, as dashing as ever. Pretty eyes watching you stare at an empty easel. 

A chilling chuckle escaped him, nothing more. He stands and gazes upon your hopeless state for a while in silence. You will never get rid of him, you realize. You’re not upset about it. You can’t be upset. Nothing feels real anymore. 

Yunho circles you, a predator watching his prey. You don’t flinch under his gaze this time. When he leans his lean body against the stool next to yours you feel disgusted. You weren’t upset that he would never leave you alone, but you deserved to know why, at least. 

“What do you want from me?”

“Want?” He sounds almost offended. 

“You’re not here just because it’s fun to sit around and watch me paint all day.”

He didn’t give you an answer, he just smiled at you with that perfectly enchanting smile of his. He’s dangerous, his beauty is dangerous. He leans forward on the stool, his face now scarily close to yours. Will he kiss you…? You can feel Yunho’s breath, hot against your lips, his gaze burning as he stares into your eyes and flickers down to your mouth. Do you want him to kiss you…? 

What do you want from him?

You almost forget that he hasn’t given you an answer when he bends forward, his lips inches away from yours. This time you do flinch. Can he read your mind too? No, your eyes stare right back into his, a flash of maroon tints his irises an unnatural color before it disappears just as fast as it showed up. 

His thumb drags across the side of your cheek, a small smirk plays on Yunho’s deceptive lips. “I’ll make you a promise,” he whispers, “I promise to make sure you’re motivated to do what you love the most, for the rest of your life.”

His breath burns hot against your wet lips. You want to kiss him. “A promise…?” you exhale, mind not quite able to focus on his words, but they sound good to you right now. You swallow, eyes flickering to his perfectly shaped cupid bow, his rosy lips, and the tongue that teases behind his plump lips. “What… what would I have to do…?” 

“A clever dove, I knew you would ask the right questions.”

You didn’t truly understand though, too distracted by Yunho’s eyes mirroring your flickering gaze, teasingly watching the way your hands fiddled with the brush in your hand. 

“All you have to do in return is say that you agree, and I will fulfill all of your wishes.” His soothing hand moves around to the nape of your neck, his grip gentle but secure. 

Will he fulfill them all? 

Does it even matter? Almost anything would be good enough to accept right now, at least you can’t think of something that would be worse than walking through life as the zombie you had been since… Since Anna’s death. If you accept his proposal, will you find out what happened to her? 

“I agree.” 

Your stomach flips when plush lips are pressed against yours. It seems he had already begun living up to his word. At least he wasn’t playing a trick on you when it came to that part. His hands travel over your body, he knows exactly how to touch you the way you like it. Has he been watching you for a long time? Or is it something magical, like those shimmery wings you had imagined he had? You’re not sure, but knowing could wait until later. Right now you have a couple of needs. Needs that Yunho had promised to fulfill. His leg firmly presses open your legs, strong muscle relieving some of the intense pressure that had built up in your lower abdomen since the thought of having him in this way had sprouted in your mind. You need more. You close your eyes even tighter as you let the brush fall from your grip. Hands moving across Yunho’s perfect form without hesitation. 

The sound of the brush hitting the floor didn’t reach your ears. You were already lost to the world of humans. 

“Do you believe in fairies? I do. I think there are things we don’t know in this world. Magical things. If I could go there I would, I think it’s a beautiful place, nothing like Earth. I’d want to dance for them…”

Reblogging and commenting is highly appreciated!! Hearing what you thought is what makes writing and being here overall so much fun! Ty and ily 💕

[roughdaysandart]

Rough Day Comic Masterpost

Based on Rough Day by @no-droids. I am editing the smut out ("Abridged for Christian Roomates") but acknolwedge its sanctity. Filler content/arcs will be included to make up for taking it out.

"The immovable object and the unstoppable force are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible and to mutually co-exist, thereby creating an inherently unreconcilable tension. By definition, an unstoppable force, in order to become unstoppable, ought to possess infinite energy. On the other hand, an immovable object is non-submissive to any force of any magnitude, from being palpable to an asteroid attack. That is, it won’t shift from its place at all..."

But what happens when two such forces meet their match...when youre not strong enough to keep that distance any longer...nor weak enough to let go of your rules, of your past...everything?

How can it feel like it's all coming apart...

yet all coming together...

...can they really let it go?

This, dear viewers, is the predicament that our Sweet Girl and a certain tin can man have found themselves in, certainly before, but most especially after one particularly rough day. Join me fellow sickos on this journey, and watch as the unstoppible meets the immovable.

-Madison

SERIES GEN WARNINGS: NON-canon typical gore/blood/violence, emotional supression, bodily self-hatred, implied nudity, implied and explicit trauma (Blood, death, depression, anxiety, bullying, sexual), yearning for a fictional man

BOOK/SEASON 1: "THE EXCEPTIONS"

BOOK/SEASON 2: "TORN"

BOOK/SEASON 3: "TITLE TBD LOL"

BEHIND THE SCENES CONTENT (latest SNEEK PEEKS, FREE backgrounds for artists, storyboards, designing process, SW pinterest megaboard, soundtrack)

NON-RD ART/WRITING/FUN/LIFE STUFF

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ORIGINAL POST] (FEB 2024)

"Fuck it I'll try making a Rough Day Comic" 🤦

I just loved the process of creating that Cantina comic so much, and I really really have been a imagining how cool a comic could look for the entire fic (its just written so well) and I really wanna make it super clean so...I think imma break out the tablet and get this going. Also I just love this work so much that it would really being me so much joy (especially as my first comic) and thats what's important in the end.

No idea if it'll stick or if it'll be just a few or how soon but...I really am excited to try

Also kinda have to get used to drawing star wars environments/backgrounds/people in general, as I'm not used to that at all so here's to learning ALOT of new things ahead!

Probs will start out with the backstory drabble from @no-droids masterlist just for chronological sake and then do the chapters in order.

About the smut...🙃

*sigh* I live with my very christian siblings in a one bedroom so.....just no soft or hardcore smut (idk if i can even get away with any spicy gestures at all lol), and will probs have to clean some of the language up or leave bubbles blank until I live alone and can edit them later then re-upload 🤣

At least for now lol

So yeah I hope anyone who also enjoys this fic has as much fun observing this process as I will have making it!

[avelera]

What religion do we think IWTV show Armand is, at this point?

Because with almost any other character, especially a centuries old vampire, I would add "if any", but that really really doesn't apply to Armand. Religion is absolutely core to his character throughout the books in ways that it is for very few characters even within the Vampire Chronicles.

Below the cut is a rundown of Armand's faith in the books, questions that arose as a result of him pretending to be Rashid in the show, and my fundamental question which is: where does that leave us with regards to Armand's faith as it stands today?

Book Background:

For those not familiar, Armand's religion in the books is, presumably, Russian Orthodox when he was a child or its equivalent in Kievan Rus in the 1400s and he was quite devout.

Presumably, when he was sold as a slave to the Venetians and became immersed in the Venetian art scene as part being an artist in Marius's studio (forgive my somewhat patchy memory of TVA, this is based more on TVL which I'm currently re-reading) he would have been surrounded by and partaken in Roman Catholicism.

When he is kidnapped and indoctrinated by the Children of Darkness, a Satanic cult that believes vampires are a punishment sent by God (in a Roman Catholic tradition) and eventually becomes the leader of the Paris Coven, Armand is still heavily steeped in a Catholic, arguably almost Catholic monastic existence.

Even when the Paris Coven transitions into the Theatre des Vampires, Armand maintains a great many of the rules from the Children of Darkness and the Theatre is very much a spiritual successor, reinvented specifically for the Age of Reason because they were hemorrhaging followers and believers in the 1700s.

(Because the Children of Darkness was a fundamentally Medieval cult, founded in response to the Black Death, and the ways of thinking were changing to make that level and flavor of religious devotion old fashioned and no longer as compelling to modern people of the time, but I digress.)

For all that Armand no longer presents as particularly religious by the time of the Devil's Minion, and even to have left that part of his life behind, the events of Memnoch the Devil show that Armand's religious faith was merely dormant, and when given a sliver of proof that God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell exist, his faith returns in a fiery (heh) explosion. Specifically, his reaction is to evidence of the historicity of Jesus Christ via being confronted with the Veil of Veronica. It's a heavily Christian moment, though one that would be meaningful to Catholic and Orthodox believers.

Ok, so there's the book background. So what about the show?

When Armand was presented as Rashid in Season 1, I was quite willing and indeed excited at the notion of Armand reinvented as a member of the Islamic faith.

While it would require some alteration from the book canon as described above, it wouldn't necessarily be all that different than updating Louis from an 1800s plantation owner to a 1900s brothel owner and business man. Basically, I had faith the writers could pull it off and indeed make it beautiful.

Based on the S1 finale, I had assumed that Rashid was a character created wholly by Armand and, in the manner of all masks, therefore included a piece of his true self including his Muslim faith when he prayed.

But now in S2 we have Real Rashid. And we have Armand's theatrical background to show he's familiar with acting and putting on a character, in this case, the character of a real person he knows. So I'm beginning to think, much like Daniel when he shot those questions about Islam at Armand, that Armand was only praying in order to better 'inhabit' the character of Rashid, based on Real Rashid, who presumably is a Muslim.

That leaves us with a question: was Armand praying out of personal faith, or to better perform as "Rashid"?

Then there's the fact that in this season, we learn what alterations have been made to Armand's background. He is no longer Andrei of Kievan Rus, he is Arun of Delhi.

Thing is, Muslims make up a little over 10% of the population of Delhi today (according to a cursory Google search) so it's still entirely feasible that Armand was born into a Muslim household, rather than say a Hindu one, and practiced that faith as devoutly as Andrei practiced Russian Orthodoxy.

But then we get into the thornier issue, because Andrei/Amadeo/Armand going from Orthodox to Catholic is still a conversion, it's perhaps a less fundamental one. Especially since as a peasant in the 1400s, the differences in dogma between Catholics and Orthodox beliefs would be less relevant to Andrei than they would be to, say, a priest. (Not to say these differences aren't important. Just saying that many laymen at least in the Catholic faith at this time only had a fuzzy idea of what the dogma even was.)

But making Arun, who might have been Muslim, convert to a faith that believes in Jesus Christ as the Messiah rather than Muhammad as the Prophet is a much bigger, more fundamental betrayal and a potentially forceful conversion. Do you see what I mean?

So basically, I'm wondering where we're at in terms of potential later story beats that revolve around Armand's faith being specifically some flavor of Christianity (ex. in Memnoch) and potential prologue story beats of his time as a painter in Venice with Marius which would likewise have been fairly steeped in the Christian faith which this version of Armand was almost certainly not born into (at least, it would be very unlikely, Christians making up less than 1% of Delhi today, I confess I don't know the historical percentages).

So, where do we stand on Armand's faith by the present day? Did he convert wholeheartedly (or perhaps reluctantly, or perhaps neither since he didn't remember his childhood he simply adopted the faith of those around him, who knows?) to Christianity under Marius and the Children of Darkness and therefore consider those faiths as fundamental to him as his book counterpart, since they'd represent 99% of his life, or was his Muslim prayer as Rashid in any way a homage to his childhood faith, if he even recalls it?

[rateaters-sutff]

All FNAF drama is like this:

\> Game dev, "The Slipster" creates a Fnaf fan game "Those 8 Nights at Zopster's Slop Factory."

\> The Slipster gains massive popularity due to their meme-ish and charming personality

\>YouTuber "Slamstest Yah!" covers Zopster's, criticizing gameplay and story while praising modeling and atmosphere

\> Both individuals have suspiciously furry rantsonas

\> Fans of Slamstest yah! go to Slipster's Twitter and threaten to kill and eats Slipster and their family

\> The Slipster @ s Slamstest yah! about the harassment and death threats Slamstest yah! gave them

\> Slamstest Yah! says they did nothing and accuses Slipster of punching down (Slipster has fewer bunger points than Slamstest Yah! but okay??)

\>Meanwhile a discord group of random Fnaf fan creators forms, calling themselves "The Gaggle" with the sole purpose of fucking over Slipster because he was pretty rude and selfish in their past fan game projects.

\> "The Gaggle" leaks all of Zopster's Slop Factory's assets and developer notes, as well as private DMs where Slipster called "B1LLR0xy" creator of FnaF remake "FNAF **-1/12**.", a "small unlovable glop with a trash game" and "ngl I think gungster#37 was right" ("gungster#37" is a controversial figure in the Fnaf community)

\> Slamstest yah! has no clue any of this happend

\>The Slipster starts a 15-page twit longer accusing Slamstest yah! of conspiring against him with "The Gaggle" to take him down.

\>5 minutes later, Slipster starts a live stream on his YT channel "slipZlop LIVE"

\>has a panic attack and begins crying live on stream, revealing a lot of extremely personal trauma to his audience of Slipster and Yah! stans, who all come to eat up the drama.

\>Slamstest Yah! DMs Slipster on stream and says he didn't orchestrate any of this.

\>Slipster goes on a tirade on Slamstest yah! and claims he should be sent to the deepest pit of the inferno, never to breathe anything but ash and fire

\> While this is happening famous offical Fnaf artist "Vensty Yummybunsty" comments "Gungster #37 was a mixed figure tbh" on the Fnaf sub,

\> Vensty gets backlash and apologizes, only for some random Redditor to go into their [timzbus.art](https://timbus.art/) page and it turns out they made infant cannibalism art and a Fnaf fanfic where William Afton eats 15 children.

\> Scott Cawthon materializes out of the black void between voids, grabs Vensty by the neck, and dematerializes with her, leaving swathes of black particle-like mist dispatching outwards in the air where the two figures were once was placed.

\> The Slipster starts a new stream where he comments on the dematerialization of Vensty and claims she was wrongfully dematerialized from our realm.

\>The 800+ FNAF content farms who have embedded themselves in the viscose flesh of discourse, all began to amalgamate videos describing word for word the entire cascading series of events that lead to this spiral point of pain and distress.

\>all 800+ content farms have suspiciously furry rantsonas and are 97% British

\> Slamstest Yah! continues making his Fnaf content and starts a VHS analog horror series called, "The Glerbs Reports"

\> Slamstest Yah! was later revealed to have eaten 15 children 2 years ago, jolting the twitching mess of the YouTube content farms to exsanguinate Slamstest Yah! pulling the veins rich in blood apart from the form, like pulling the thread out of a rigid carpet, weaving them out with so careful yearning, yet with such parched predation, as to leave dark hollow cavities where his circulatory system was once grown, a body now filled with devoided holes, and hollow smooth tunnels instead of veins that fit so snug and warm. All now pulled out and coagulating on the knees of which the creator of this work sucks violently at the wet plastic-like streamers. The corpse placed facing up, beamed by the sun, showing deep dots of drilled flesh. The animals sit and whip more ribbons to their tongues, cramming their mouths with veins palmed up and compressed to fit in between their cocked jaws, day after day they all sit kneed, pulling and balling the wrinkled tubes in their hands, to lastly entomb this dragging crumpled mess into the very back of their head by the gate of their teeth.

\> And when all veins gone, they bend forward their pale shapes, and lumber on.

\> Zopster's Slop Factory is still being developed, though The Glerbs Reports are still postponed

[iinkbones]

My thoughts on AI "art"

Today a youtuber who I've been following for years started giving his perspective/argument towards the usefulness of AI image generators for content creators. It really put into perspective for me how, outside of the art sphere (with the exception of a handful of outliers), the general public has absolutely no concept of the value of art and artists, much less the damage being created by these AI "art" generators. The accessibility of art on social media and the mentality of content creation have completely commodified art, rendering the figure of the artist just another worker to purchase a service or a product from. For years, I've tried to hold onto the hope that a large amount of people still have some semblance of appreciation towards art. Hypebeast imagery, NFTs, and AI "art" have completely shattered any hope I had left.

One of this youtuber's arguments was that, for just $15, an AI could make you hundreds of images to choose from, in varied styles. That it's much more efficient than searching for an artist whose style you enjoy and then going through the back and forth of concept sketches and then the rest of the artist's process. This argument feels like a slap to the face; to completely disregard the artistic process as an inconvenience, to act like the soulless images produced by AI are of equal standing as art made by an artist's hands, born from a creative mind- it hurts.

As artists, every day we are met with a world that continues to lose artistic literacy; we create for audiences that no longer give themselves the time or do the self reflection needed to form emotional connections and intellectually explore the messages of a piece.

Art isn't a commodity, it's a necessity. It's the most human form of self expression. Art has been a fundamental part of humanity since the very birth of our species. There will never be a single line of code in this world that can replicate the all-encompassing complexity of the human experience contained within every piece of art.

It's completely soul-crushing to think that art could be in its dying days. AI "art" is not art. It is the culmination of the death of the artist.

[sjsmith56]

The Flame Burns From Within, Part 6 - Justice

Summary: After the rescue of Lady Arden, Lord Barnes’ forces continue their pursuit of Lord Pierce’s forces, determined to bring the man to justice.

Length: 6.8 K

Characters: Lord Barnes, Lady Arden, Lady Natasha, Father Bruce, John Walker, Ser Scott Lang, Lord Pierce, Ser Brock Rumlow.

Warnings: Minors DNI - Contains sexual content which may be unsuitable for readers under the age of 18. Description of graphic violence resulting in injury and/or death, angst.

Author notes: This is the final part of this story. Although most things are period appropriate there are some changes from normal practices of the times. Bathing was not a regular habit. Men were not permitted in the birthing rooms, except for royal courtiers to confirm the birth happened as reported. Boots were not yet invented as footwear was softer in nature and confined to covering just the feet, although there could be wrappings extending up the leg. Women were not given sovereignty in their marriage for centuries. Muslims living in a Catholic country would be forced to recant their faith and become Christian. Even then, they could expect to be persecuted (as would those born Jewish). The term braies refers to a linen undergarment with a drawstring waist worn by men. They could be long - extending down to the calf, shorter - extending to the knee, a shorter boxer length, or in a stylish version referred to as Italian braies, looking very much like a minimal brief. Source - http://www.cloakedanddaggered.com/related-search/15th-century/#:~:text=Menswear%20at%20it's%20simplest%20consisted,was%20to%20be%20improperly%20dressed. The image above was created by the author using Microsoft Copilot app (because I have no artistic skills to make my own). Divider by vecteezy.com.

<<Part 5

Part 6 - Justice

Lady Arden

When I saw James' tracker in the forest, Natasha had already spotted him and left our hiding place to sneak up on him, giving me no opportunity to tell her that he was friendly. Her skills as she crept through the greenery were impressive. As I wondered how a maidservant could have acquired such abilities that allowed her to take a seasoned soldier as her prisoner, she acknowledged James, releasing his man immediately. I suddenly understood that she was the spy who had spent the past year in Pierce's domain. Obviously, her story was not a simple one, for women in our time were not given free reign to become adept at the art of subterfuge. Then I was called out of hiding and approached James, our passionate embrace taking over my thoughts. With the restoration of my wedding ring to my hand, our marriage was no longer secret. From this day forward I would be known to all as the Lady of the House Barnes.

James offered us the option of staying behind with Father Bruce, who had accompanied him, but once we saw into each other's eyes, Natasha and I knew that we wished to continue on with my husband. Soon, we were on the road, moving at a brisk pace to catch up with the rest of James' force. When they came into view, he sent a rider to bid them stop for a moment so that we could catch up. My uncle came forth, welcoming me with gladness and affection, reconfirming that in our hearts we were of the same family.

After enlightening the others of Walker's plan to intercept us, James gave the order to proceed, and we started again in the direction of the port. After only a short time of riding James' scouts returned with the news that Walker was waiting openly around the next bend, with about 20 of his own men and 10 sell swords. All of them were prepared for battle, by what the scouts could tell from where they hid, unseen by the other party. James had almost 100 men with him, so he instructed half of them to remain back for a short time while he and the others approached Walker's position.

"My Lady, Lady Natasha, please remain back with the rest of my men. I expect to begin a battle shortly after our arrival."

As much as we wished to witness the capture of Walker, we both knew it was better to allow James and his men to focus on their objective without worrying about our safety. We stayed back with those extra men, my uncle and Father Bruce, who approached Lady Natasha.

"I took the liberty of searching for a crucifix on the soldier, Riley," he said gently. "I thought you would want it, as well as what was attached to it. I believed he meant for you to have it."

She said nothing until he reached into his pocket and withdrew the necklace that Riley wore. On it was a small gold crucifix and a ring. Natasha's lip trembled when she read the inscription written on the inside of the ring, then she smiled sadly at the priest.

"Thank you, Father," she answered, with some difficulty. "I will cherish both forever."

Within an hour James and his men returned, with John Walker tied to his horse, his face, and clothes bloody. He glared at me and shook his head in disbelief.

"They said you and the traitorous maidservant disappeared into the forest, taken by demons in the fog. They found your accomplice though, leaving him to his death." He spat onto the road, then looked towards James, whose face remained impassive.

"My father will not stand for this," stated Walker, still defiant. "He will demand my release from the King."

"Your father has already been arrested," said James. "Your association with Lord Pierce and Ser Brock sealed your fates and the fate of his estate. As far as the King is concerned, your father is just as much a traitor as you are, since several of his men, wearing Walker insignia, were at the church, helping to set it on fire. If you are fortunate enough to be allowed to live it will be in a dungeon where you will never see the light of day again. Otherwise, you can expect to be hung, drawn, and quartered as you deserve."

"Then kill me now," he muttered. "I will not be caged."

Natasha rode to him and raised her dagger, ready to plunge it into his chest. He offered no resistance, so she sliced his cheek open instead, in the same manner I had slashed Lord Pierce's cheek. She sheathed the dagger then spat upon his face and returned to my side. Lord Barnes silently acknowledged her self-restraint.

"Barton, assign three men to take him to the nearest allied house." He thought for a moment. "Ser Scott of House Lang would be the nearest, no more than half an hour's ride, and request they imprison Walker there until our return. They can catch up to us later."

Three men were chosen and tethered Walker's horse to theirs, further adding to his humiliation. As for us, we turned to follow the road, intent on reaching the others as quickly as possible. We rode with haste but did not push the horses too hard. Another discarded wagon was passed, along with several disgruntled servants who were left behind. With their years of service to the House of Pierce no longer valued enough to continue with him, they had no loyalty left to his house. They confirmed after a brief conversation that the main host was less than half an hour ahead of us and headed to Sag Harbor where several ships from his overseas allies waited to transport him to safety.

James' force picked up the pace and we passed several other abandoned wagons with servants seated despondently around them. My husband's face grew darker with each encounter, as it signified a total abandonment of the responsibilities of Lord Pierce. As a nobleman, elevated to his position in service of the king, he would have promised in front of witnesses, to be the head not just of his house, but to bear an obligation to the wellbeing of every farm worker, servant, soldier, and tradesperson who lived on his lands. It was obvious he felt no such obligation to them at all, as shown by the ones he left behind on his lands, and the ones he abandoned on the way. His very actions, from the first attack on my family, the more recent attack on the king, to the invasion of the church, my kidnapping, and now this sorry spectacle revealed him to be a man completely devoid of honour.

"My Lord, a rider approaches," said Barton and we paused, awaiting the arrival of one of the scouts.

He saluted James and Barton. "Lord Pierce's force is but minutes away. He is aware of your position and has ordered his men to attack you from several locations. Rumlow's men have taken a side route, but my partner believes he plans to double back and flank you from this direction."

"Why does he believe that?" Barton posed the question. "Is it possible Rumlow goes on to secure the harbour for their departure?"

The man grinned. "Nay, the tide isn't favourable for a departure. It will be morning before they can leave. His wife and daughter have been sent on with his younger son and two men to get them out of the field of battle, but they are the only ones who departed separately in the direction of the port."

James turned to Barton. "Prepare the men for battle."

His eyes met mine with a mixture of regret and determination. Dismounting, he handed his reins to Barton, pulled a package out of his saddlebag then came to me, helping me slide off the horse. Taking me aside, he touched the side of my face, then smoothed my hair which had become unruly from all that I had been subjected to since the abduction.

"You wish me to stay here," I said, anticipating his words. "I am able to fight as well as any man. I am not afraid."

"I know," he replied, smiling fondly at me, then he placed his hand on my front just below the waist. "But if you are truly with child then you carry the future of not just my house, but the House of Rogers within you. Please, stay as far away from the battle as you can. If I fall, Barton or his designate will come for you and take you to the House of Lang. Ser Scott will make sure you return safely to the Citadel."

His attention was diverted by the sounds of swords being unsheathed and bows being strung. He placed the package in my hand.

"I took the liberty of picking this up from your bedchambers. It is the blue dress you wore when I first met you in the library. That is when I first felt the stirrings of love as you declared your wish for sovereignty in a marriage. If I do not return from this battle, you will be the head of the House of Barnes. My last will and testament declares that you are to be regarded as a woman independent of the power of a husband, father, brother, or uncle."

"I would rather have you with me," I answered, touched as I was by his gesture. "I never knew love until I knew you."

"My flame," he whispered, before kissing me tenderly. "My love for you will burn within me forever.”

His eyes were glassy, as were mine, then he strode back to his horse and mounted it, leaving me, Lady Natasha, and Father Bruce, who was given the task of staying with us. The order to proceed was given, and the entire force rode out. I returned to my horse, placed the package in the saddlebag and mounted. Then we found a path into an area where we could see the road but were well hidden from view and began our wait.

Lord Barnes

As we rode into what was certain to be an ambush, I prayed for the safety of Arden first and foremost. Although I desperately wanted to return to her side, I also knew that the years I wasted drinking, carousing, and whoring had made it likely that payment was due for those sins. No quarter would be given to me by Pierce or Rumlow as I felt sure I would face one or both men at some point in the battle to come. Then again, I fully intended to give them no quarter either, although they would be given the opportunity to die as men. Walker was allowed to live after his capture because he was too shallow a man to contribute to the devious plan that Pierce had spent years developing. Rumlow, his own ambitions spurring him, had also personally performed many of the atrocities committed by their men. They were the two architects of their own demise, and I had no intention of allowing either man to live.

An arrow whizzed by my head just moments after this thought and I looked up in time to see one of my bowmen take the man out. As other men on horseback streamed out of their hiding places I used my sword, furiously swinging and hacking at anyone who came within my reach. My horse, Soldier, was magnificent, as if he knew exactly what was expected of him, as he sidestepped, reared, or backed up whenever the need was there. A young man, who I recognized as William Pierce, the eldest son, approached me with raised sword and we fought on horseback for some time. He was good at it. I will give him that, but he wasn't committed to the task, not in the way he should have been. At some point our swords were pressed against each other and we struck each other with our gloved fists about the head and shoulders.

"Your father has betrayed you," I uttered to him. "You have no lands to return to but if you give up now, I will allow you to join your mother, sister, and brother in exile."

I received two more sharp blows to my head as an answer, threatening to stun me. Sliding my hand to my boot I slid out my dagger and plunged it into his side, his cry of pain heard loudly. When I withdrew the dagger the blood that came out was dark and ominous in its volume. His free hand went from pummelling me to attempting to staunch the life force that was pouring out of him. As our horses separated, he looked at me with fear, then hunched over and fell from his horse.

"Barnes!" I turned to see Pierce almost upon me with a furious look upon his face. He glanced at his son, realizing that his heir was gone. "You have killed my son!"

"You were warned it would come to this," I said. "I gave him the chance to withdraw but he would not. His death is on you and your actions."

"Damn you!"

He swung his sword at me, surprising me with the strength behind it. If his son had fought with as much purpose, he would have still been alive, but now my own life was in peril at the hands of this man, who I had once called friend. His own horse, well tested in battle, seemed to be using his own tactics against Soldier, attempting to make him stumble so that I would fall. Afraid for his safety I launched myself at Pierce, tackling him from his saddle so we both fell heavily to the ground. Winded for a moment, we both hesitated before grasping our swords again and began fighting against each other as the battle raged around us. We traded blow for blow and once again I wondered how a man his age had the stamina to fight me, for he was at least 25 or 30 years older than me and fully clothed in chain mail. Then an errant arrow grazed his leg as his sword was raised to strike and he stumbled. I hit his hand with the flat side of my blade hard enough for him to drop his own sword then kicked him backwards onto his back, with the tip of my sword at his throat.

"Yield," I ordered. "Surrender and your men can go into exile with your wife, daughter, and younger son."

"Never," he gasped. "Just end it. I would if you were in my place."

As much as I wanted him dead, I didn't want to do it this way, with him at my total mercy. So, I stepped back and pushed his sword over to him with my foot.

"Pick it up. Die as a soldier."

Breathing heavily, he sat up, grasped the grip of his weapon, and wearily pulled himself up. Then the sounds of an arriving force reached our ears, and he looked at me with a knowing smile.

"Your mercy will be your undoing. That is Rumlow and he has flanked your force. Perhaps, I'll have him finish you off. He has wanted your head for a long time."

I looked past him and saw it was Rumlow, except he was tied to his saddle and his horse tethered to two soldiers wearing the insignia of the House Lang. The force who had him was led by Ser Scott. He rode towards me, keeping well away from Lord Pierce's reach.

"Lord Barnes, I am sorely vexed that you didn't call for my help sooner," he said. "I would have gladly accompanied you to arrest these two. When your men arrived with Walker, I summoned most of my men at once, hoping we wouldn't miss the encounter." He looked around to where his men now encircled the entire scene of the battle. "Lord Pierce, I would suggest that you surrender."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Arden, Lady Natasha and Father Bruce arrive.

"No surrender," shouted Lady Natasha, dismounting. "He doesn't deserve to live!"

Pierce rolled his eyes as she approached. "What did I ever do to you, girl? I gave you a place in my household, food to eat, a place to sleep, and protection. Then you betrayed me by helping Lady Arden escape."

She strode to him, her face resolute. "You really don't remember, do you? My father was Ser Ivan, of the House Romanoff. Eight years ago, you attacked the estate on Lord Dreykov's word that I was the lost heir of Arthur and Guinevere. I was 14 years old, and I only survived because the son of the garrison commander spirited me away."

"So, I was wrong," muttered Pierce, dismissively. "You were of no consequence to me as I learned when Dreykov asked if I killed his nephew like he intended when he gave me that information, knowing of my search for the heir."

"I was of no consequence? My parents and sister slaughtered like cattle because Dreykov lied to you? Then you killed Riley, my one and only love. Well, you might as well kill me, then. Finish what you started."

"Lady Natasha, no, don't put yourself in jeopardy for him," I interrupted. "He's not worth it."

"No, but my family are," she declared, turning to look at me.

At that moment, Pierce raised his sword to strike her down, but she moved so quickly that his sword fell on air as her hand thrust a dagger into his throat. He dropped his sword, looked at her, then at the dagger before he uttered his last word.

"How?"

"Seven years spent learning the arts of subterfuge under the tutelage of a woman master of the discipline. Another woman you wronged when you killed those who were precious to her." She looked at Arden. "Are you satisfied, my Lady?"

Arden nodded, then looked at me with questions in her eyes, questions that I knew she needed answers to. Pierce fell over, dead, his eyes still open. Lady Natasha spat on him, then approached me.

"His death was always my intention," she said. She looked at a ring on her ring finger. "I leave now to seek out a convent. Your wife is a brave and capable woman. She told me of how you promised her sovereignty in your marriage. Honour that promise, My Lord. I know that Riley held you in the highest regard, as do I."

I bowed my head towards her, respecting her right to justice and her right to determine her own path. She stopped beside Father Bruce's horse and waited while he prayed for her, then made the sign of the cross. Continuing towards her horse, she mounted it, then looked once more at me before riding back in the direction we came from.

Many of Pierce and Rumlow's men were dead, and the sell swords escaped when they could, seeing the writing on the wall. Remembering what many of them looked like, I knew we would be able to hunt them down at our own pace. As for the remainder of their men they were herded together in front of me. I mounted my horse so all could hear my words.

"You have a choice," I said. "We can take you into custody and offer you to the magistrates for justice or you can choose exile to Brittania. If you ever attempt to return you will be considered criminals and hunted down, then dealt with on the spot. How say you? Arrest?" None raised their hands. "Exile?" They all raised their hands. "So be it. Barton, please assemble a force to escort these men to the coast. Ser Samuel, I trust you to deliver the news to Lady Pierce and her family of the death of Lord Pierce and his eldest son. Advise her that exile is her only course and that a return will never be possible for any of them."

Before they left Ser Scott invited us all to rest at his estate for as long as we needed. It had been a long journey in a short time, and I knew that Arden needed rest and nourishment. I also wanted the chance to speak with her in private about her true heritage, not to mention have time alone with my wife. His offer was accepted, and we rode the short distance to his home. His garrison made room for my combined force, while Ser Brock was escorted to a cell in the foundations of the castle, where John Walker already was. The rest of us were assigned to guest chambers and I requested a bath be prepared for both of us. As soon as I closed the door and bolted it, Arden wrapped her arms around my neck, and we kissed deeply until I gently pried her arms away.

"We must speak frankly," I insisted. "I tried to tell you in the church, but Lord Pierce was not in a mood to give me more time."

She looked down at her hands then took mine and pulled me over to a padded bench. Before we sat, I unbuckled my scabbard and removed my chain mail, eager to remove the weight I had carried for several days. She sat demurely, which drew a smile from me, as it was not a true representation of her fiery nature.

"You heard what Lady Natasha said about the attack on her family and why it was perpetrated against them," I said. "She is but a year older than you and like you, one of a few noble women who have the same hair colouring. Like you, she was known for her fiery temper and her mother was a foster sister of your mother, a fact that Lord Dreykov used to convince Lord Pierce of her heritage."

I took her hand in my own, and touched her mother's wedding ring. Then I told her how the true history of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere was kept secret, shared only when needed between trusted individuals. She was a descendant of the daughter of those mythical individuals, who was raised by her godparents after her birth in the convent where Guinevere remained. On their daughter's marriage, a love match, she was told the truth, and she wore her mother's wedding ring. It had been passed from mother to daughter over the many years since, as the bloodline delivered only girl children, no boys by means that were unknown.

"I'm a descendant," stated Arden, accepting the truth. "Why was I not told sooner?"

"You would have known if the marriage negotiations had progressed normally, but Lord Pierce found out your identity and made his move, several times. Ser Anthony tried to protect you and even though we were betrothed from the time you were a babe in your mother's arms, he didn't trust me for some time, especially when Pierce befriended me. That in itself showed Pierce to be false as he only befriended me to weaken me in an attempt to take my lands after my father's death."

"You said on our wedding night that our child would secure your House. If it is a girl, how can that be possible according to the laws of our realm?"

I smiled. "Because she will marry the son of Steven and his wife Margaret. It had been foretold already that our daughter would wed the son of the heir to the throne. When Steven's father and brother were killed, he became the heir. The bloodline of Arthur and Guinevere was passed through daughters, keeping it hidden until the time was right. The legend stated there was never to be a son, at least not until a daughter married into a royal house, which our daughter will. I am not a man who needs a son to validate my existence as I see no difference in the value of a man versus the value of a woman. Our daughters and granddaughters will always be House Barnes. When the Duke becomes King, he will begin to change our realm so that women are no longer property, and that marriage is no longer a transaction to cement treaties or alliances. His son, as King and our daughter, as his Queen, will continue the process of strengthening the position of women in this kingdom, using the bloodline of Arthur and Guinevere to make it happen. Their son, our grandson, will continue as will generations of sons and daughters after, but it will come to pass."

She smiled then, and squeezed my hand which still held hers. Then she stood and turned her back to me.

"Undo my laces," she said. "I wish to bathe." She looked back at me. "You're welcome to join me."

I untied the laces which bound her, gently touching her figure as she dropped the outer portion of the stiff bodice. Her dress was undone, and she slipped it from her shoulders, revealing the silk chemise she wore underneath. Grasping her shoulders I lowered my lips to her fair skin and kissed it. Already, I could feel my manhood harden at the softness of her body in my hands. She sat, to remove her boots then her stockings, but I kneeled before her and reached for the ribbons that held her stockings in place, undoing them with a single pull. Rolling them off, I kissed along the inside of her thighs, then took her feet in my hands while I gently massaged them, watching as she visibly relaxed.

As she undid the ties of my tunic, opening it to my bare chest, she leaned forward, kissing the spot where it joined with my neck, before nuzzling up further towards my ear. Her soft breath went straight to my cock, stiffening it so much that it pressed on my braies, making them uncomfortable. Removing my tunic with her help, I removed my boots, then my hose and peeled them off so that I was only wearing my linen braies, which were straining under the fullness of my loins.

"You must miss me," she said, gently playing with the tie that would release that garment from constraining my desire for her.

"Seems like forever," I answered, noticing how the curves of her body were pressing against the chemise she wore. "Can we take this off?"

I undid the front tie of her chemise, opening it to reveal the sight of her breasts, burying my face in them. Her garment fell further down her arms, as I touched and tasted her soft skin. Grasping my hair with her hands, she twisted it in her fingers as she directed me down her body towards her womanhood. Smiling at her efforts I placed my hands on her rounded bottom cheeks, kneading them as I used my body to spread her legs apart. She raised herself so I could slip the chemise off entirely then I buried my face in her sex, taking in that which I had sorely missed in the last few days. With her legs resting on my shoulders and her own hands on her breasts, I was spurred on to make her come in a joyous fashion. When she did, with many cries of ecstasy as the pulses flowed through her, I almost came myself. But that would have been a waste of my seed. Pulling her forward so she had to wrap her legs around my waist I lifted her and carried her to the bed, laying her on it, while I undid the tie of my braies, finally releasing my swollen manhood, almost painful in its need to find its home.

"Do you want me, Arden?" I asked, as I laid between her wet thighs and kissed her neck and shoulders. "Do you want me in you?"

"I want you, James," she gasped.

With her consent I plunged into her, groaning at how well her body accepted mine in our union. Our joining blazed in its intensity as we matched fevered touch with fevered touch, burning kiss with burning kiss, and spoke breathless words of passion between us. During the apex of our bliss our heated skin released the fire that burned within us, making it too warm to burrow into the bedclothes after. Instead, we lay intertwined on top, our nakedness visible in the late afternoon sunlight that still streamed in through the windows. We were physically spent. It was only moments later, in the quiet of our chambers that we heard the sounds of fighting outside our door. Without delay I left Arden on the bed and went for my sword, not even stopping to cover my body. A loud strike destroyed the lock, and the door burst open, revealing Ser Brock armed with a blade and a look of wild fury on his face. He looked from me to Arden and sneered.

"Perfect timing. Once I have dispatched you, I will take my prize."

I was never going to let that happen and I advanced on him, swinging away at all the vulnerable parts of his body, his forearm, legs, and head. Samuel and Ser Scott arrived at the door, taking in the scene of me fighting a battle without armour, without clothes, armed only with a single sword. Yelling at them not to intervene, they watched helplessly as I fended off Rumlow's efforts while Arden covered herself in a sheet and tried to skirt her way around the perimeter of the room towards them. I tried my best to direct him away from her path, then she stopped at her own boot and withdrew a long dagger, sliding it along the floor to me before running for the door and into the security of Ser Samuel's arms. With her safety assured I focused solely on the man in front of me. His scarred face was filled with a hatred that became a madness directed at me. Several times I attempted to get to the dagger on the floor and each time he prevented me from acquiring it. Seeing the package containing Arden's blue dress partially out of the saddle bag I lunged for it, tossing it in Rumlow's face. He swung at it, cutting into the leather but it distracted him long enough for me to pick up the dagger. As he advanced on me, I lured him in closer then swung my sword harder than I had ever done before, staggering him to his knees. With all I had left I thrust the dagger into the side of his neck. His strangled cry was short as he attempted to pull it out and I hacked into the other side of his neck ending his life as he keeled over. Gasping for breath, I stood over him, with my sword in my hand. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and my tunic being offered to me by Ser Scott.

"He killed the guard in the cell, freed Walker then began fighting his way up here." I slipped the tunic on and faced my host, who answered my unspoken question. "Ser Samuel dispatched that sorry excuse for a man." He looked at the blood that now seeped into the wooden floor. "Come. Bring your lady to another chamber. Servants will bring your possessions. My good wife can lend Lady Barnes some clothes as I can lend you some of mine. These men chose their path, and we all knew it would lead to their deaths."

Truer words were never spoken. We were shown instead to a bathing room, then left to clean ourselves and comfort each other. A maidservant waited for Arden to emerge from the wooden tub, wrapped her in a drying cloth, and in an attached dressing room helped her don a borrowed gown of soft green hues. She gently brushed and arranged Arden's hair. I was assisted in the bathing room by a manservant who brought with him a fine outfit of a brown shade. Thanking him for his assistance, I entered the new bed chamber, where Arden sat before the fire, gazing into the flames. She rose upon my entry and paced towards me. Offering her my hands, she placed hers in them and I raised them to my lips, kissing every fingertip.

"I was afraid," she murmured. "Never have I heard of a man in your position being able to defend himself against such an adversary so well, then being successful in the battle. How did you do it?"

"With your love," I answered. "The moment he threatened you I felt the heat of battle rise within me. Your safety was everything. My love for you is like an eternal flame that burns from within. It can never be extinguished, not even by death."

"Then I burn with you," she replied, "forever and always, my husband, my love, and my protector."

"My wife, my dearest love and the reason for my existence."

We kissed, then I offered Arden my arm, and together we began the openly known portion of our life as Lord and Lady Barnes. Descending down the stairs we were greeted at the bottom by Ser Scott and his Lady Hope, Ser Anthony, Ser Samuel, and Father Bruce. Following our host into the dining hall, we felt comforted by the warmth of their hospitality. Despite the blood that had been shed in his home, Ser Scott was gracious and complementary to us both, a far cry from the behaviour shown to us by those who considered themselves superior to all others. It boded well for the kingdom in the years to come.

Epilogue, as told by Lord Barnes

In the time since the events that led to the deaths of Lord Alexander Pierce, Ser Brock Rumlow and John Walker, much had happened in the kingdom. All three traitors were buried in a potter's field, with no marker of any kind. Pierce's family stayed in Brittania, dependent on the goodwill of friends there. They never attempted a return to our shores. Riley, the soldier from my garrison who died while he defended my wife and Lady Natasha from recapture, was buried in a prominent spot in a churchyard near the estate of Ser Scott Lang. A large stone was erected with his name and the inscription Vixit et mortuus est iuste; Latin for "He lived and died righteously." A nun was spied at the gravesite the day after the stone was erected but she disappeared quickly when the priest called out to her. We never saw nor heard of Lady Natasha Romanoff again.

Our arrival at the Citadel, and subsequent formal marriage in a cathedral ceremony performed by the Bishop, was welcomed by my mother and sister, who loved Arden from the moment she arrived. The sentiment was returned by my wife, who was indeed carrying our child, conceived on our wedding night. Soon after our return to the Citadel she felt the first pangs of the morning sickness. It didn't last for long and she soon resumed her daily ride, often at my side. Her presence in my life was a gift and I vowed never to take her for granted.

A month after our return a rider from Crown Prince Steven announced the birth of his son, James Samuel Joseph. It was a great honor for both Samuel and I to be his namesake godfathers. At his christening, the Bishop looked slightly askance at the Moor who arrived at the cathedral for the Christian ceremony, and solemnly promised to make sure that the child walked the straight and narrow path. Father Bruce vouched for his character as a good man and the Bishop took the priest at his word. The friendship between the two was strong and they spent much time together speaking of many things for Father Bruce was a very learned man, even before he became a priest. When Samuel fell in love with a noble born woman he requested that Father Bruce and I act as his negotiators for her hand. Their marriage was performed by Father Bruce who learned an Arabic blessing, May Allah bless you, and shower His blessings upon you, and join you together in goodness, saying it in Samuel's first language at the conclusion of the Christian ceremony. Samuel and Father Bruce became trusted advisors of Steven before and after he ascended to the throne, while I became his Right Hand.

On the day my daughter was born, I was several miles away from the estate, intervening in a dispute between a tradesman and the inn keeper who contracted for the replacement of his privy buildings. As I listened to each man lay out their case a rider from my garrison arrived to tell me that Arden was in labour. With apologies to the two men, I mounted my horse and pressed Soldier to run like the wind. My mother and sister were already with her, as was the midwife. Determined to be there when our child was born, a condition I insisted upon when the midwife was first retained, I entered and was immediately chastened by the scene in front of me. Arden, wearing a short chemise was covered in sweat, her hair hanging heavily over her shoulders. Her glistening cheeks were red from the exertion of childbirth. My mother and sister sat with her, but upon my arrival my sister motioned for me to take her place. After washing my hands, on the order of the midwife, I removed my boots and sat with my wife, holding her right hand as she underwent another round of contractions. The midwife, well versed in her trade, both soothed and encouraged Arden to find more strength to get through the process.

When our red-haired daughter was born, I kissed Arden's head and murmured my love to her, to the surprise of the midwife. Her experience with most nobility had always been that they expected a boy child, but my elation at the birth of our daughter was unexpected. After cleaning the babe and wrapping her in swaddling cloths, she was laid in Arden's arms and immediately began looking to suckle at her breast. Although most women of nobility chose to have a wet nurse, Arden was emphatic that she wished to feed our child herself and I was inclined to support her. As my mother and sister watched Arden, I announced our daughter's name as Ember Lark, for the colour of her hair and for the bird that sings when the morning sun's rays break over the horizon. It was an unusual name, but it felt right to us. Briefly, I left to send a rider to Steven, informing him of my daughter's birth. When the time was right, we would formalize her betrothal to Steven's son, but it would always be her choice to proceed with it, just as Arden was given the choice to proceed with our marriage, and the Duchess Margaret was given the choice to proceed with her marriage to Steven. At the least, she would grow up with the young prince and know him well by the time they were old enough to marry.

When I first saw Arden, in her uncle's library, I was taken by the colour of her hair, and her forthrightness. She was an unusual woman for our times, different from many of the women suggested as a suitable consort. I thought that a flame burned from within her, that illuminated her in ways that made other women seem dim by comparison. In reality, she ignited the flame within me. Although I had left behind many of the hedonistic habits of my youth, I was still consumed with the need to satisfy my physical desires for female company by employing the skills of courtesans. Trained in the arts of seduction and pleasure for the use of men of my status I was satisfied with their attention and skills in the bedchamber, until I met Arden. Once that encounter happened, everything within me burned for her, only for her. There was no judgment on those other women, for they did serve a need, but with Arden I finally found what I really wanted all along; a companion for my heart, mind, body, and soul. Until the end of our time together on this earthly plane, she will be the flame of my heart, burning eternally for her.

The End

Short Fiction Masterlist

Please support the author by comments or reblogging.

[packet-of-staples]

I wanna talk about Elijah Walton and what he and his brother represent in the story because I think it's really interesting.

It's really interesting how Elijah and Don are pretty much an exact mirror of Walt and Roy Disney, even down to their roles in the company. Walt and Elijah were the creatives and Roy and Don were the finance and when Walt died, Roy took over. Atleast this is according to a quick google search. (Though I dont really like comparing Elijah to Walt to a tee just because he was a raging Racist, Sexist and overall bigot while also exploiting his workers and Elijah is propped up to very much be a good person by the narrative, so I'd like to think Elijah wasnt those things atleast for the purpose of this analysis)

Elijah represents those who want to tell stories. The artists, writers, creators etc. He represents the wonder and joy of creating things for others to see and the passion behind it. He is what Walt Disney presented himself as, a fatherly and whimsical story teller sharing art with the masses. His demeanor is warm, inviting and friendly.

Meanwhile Don represents the capital. He looks to what will be profitable, what will make the shareholders happy. He doesnt care about the creativity, evident by the fact their films take a bit of a back seat to American Arcadia and they are willing to let Kovacs go when he is no longer helpful to them. Hes cold, stilted and professional.

In equilibrium Creativity and Money can work, atleast in the society we live in now it does. You need money to create, and creativity makes money, so both are incredibly important. You cant focus too heavily on the creativity otherwise things get too ambitious, people get overworked, it will take too long to finish and you cant fund it. You cant focus too heavily on the money otherwise you will cut corners, exploit people and overall create uncreative pandering art in an effort to make as much money as possible. They need to work together.

And we see them working together with the rise of Walton Pictures.

But what we also see in AA and in our real lives too is the money taking over. We see it in the Arcadians, people who's lives are recorded without their consent, who are brainwashed to remain inside the dome to keep on making money for the company and when they are no longer useful they are basically thrown out. People who are used basically as toys to make Walton more money and for our entertainment. We see it in Disney now, in their under payed Writers, Actors and Animators who have to strike to be payed livable wages. You see it in the sweatshop workers making their merchandise, the exploitation of other people's cultures (see, Disney trying to Trademark fucking Dia De Los Muertos or just the movie Pocahontas) and much more.

The fact that Elijah's death was what caused the turning point for the company to go down into this hellish capitalistic spiral is very poignant. It shows that when Creativity dies and Money takes over, all you are left with greed and suffering.

[a-s-levynn]

A Series of Small Offerings

or a Sleep Token prompt list based on lyrics

A 4 part art challenge that can be an extensive several weeks long endeavour or you can pick and choose the part(s) that interest you the most.

Big or small, wonky or beyond artistic, just a scribble or a masterpiece; drawing, sculpture, drabble, full on fanfic or even a piece of music? Everything has a place here so long you enjoy creating it. No offering is too small to be a worthy one. 🫶🏻

Pick one (or even both) of the lines from the given song. Take it as literal or abstract as an inspiration as you feel fitting and let the creativity flow.

Worship. 🙏🏻

(edited version with Shelter added, a line switched for TMBTE, corrected Blood Sport lyrics)

PART I - ONE, TWO and the singles

Thread the Needle

You turn the lights down / Come on and find out or Just look at where we're lying / An invisible space

2. Fields of Elation

The daylight recedes in unison, this room / Buries the hours like death, in motion or And nobody else can pull me out / And the fields of elation, quiet and loamy

3. When the Bough Breaks

We could stay suspended / Even when the bough breaks or You don't really love, you just hate to be alone

4. Calcutta

I sweat and I ache for / Your eyes and the way you breathe or Melting skywards more than silence broken / I'm whole again for just a moment

5. Nazareth

Building you a kingdom / Dripping from the open mouth, [I'll show you] or Manifest pain at the core of pleasure / I'll see you when the wrath comes around

6. Jerico

Tread, ancient water salt / Like I sink, down like precious stones or My hands are not worthy

7. Jaws

The whites of your eyes burn / From across the room or Caged and always provoked / By prey left unattended

8. The Way That You Were

To tear that knife from what once / Would have been dead fingers or And you will no longer / Stand between collapsing walls

PART II - Sundowning

The Night Does Not Belong To God

The whites of your eyes / Turn black in the lowlight in turning divine or And the night comes down like heaven

2. The Offering

And you are a garden, entwined with all / You are the silence on sacred shores or So take a bite, I want to know

3. Levitate

And we imitate a story of perfect days / A ballad we fabricate or Will you levitate / Up where my love doesn't matter?

4. Dark Signs

And where we met, there must have been dark signs / Omens in your skies or And I hate who I have become (I might break and bend to my basic need to be loved and close to somebody)

5. Higher

And we are exhausted by all this pretending / We just can't resist the violence or When you're alone / I am granting you more than / The debt that I owe

6. Take Aim

And it sends me shivers / How you love like weapons kill or Call, won't you call out my name? / Like a curse on this world?

7. Give

I'll tear the fibre from the filament / I'll be the limit of your light again or Want to give you all that I can give / All my darkest impulses

8. Gods

No more teeth to bite with / No more smiling faces i am alone again or Like fire from the heavens / Tearing me asunder beside you

9. Sugar

We still know how to feed / We still know how to bleed or Let me wrap the chains / Addicted to the pain, oh

10. Say That You Will

Is that a glint in your eye? / Is that a blade in your palm? or In this light you are mine

11. Drag Me Under

And I know the gods will abandon the heavens just to find us or Hold me beneath the surface (And I know the angels tonight are as lost for words)

12. Blood Sport

Even if the sky cracks in mourning / And the heavens just won't open up for me or Tangled with what I never said / You say it doesn't matter

13. Shelter

When it rains, you don't take shelter / You don't take signs from God or And as you become part of my waking rituals, I can tell / You gather up all of my demons

PART III - This Place Will Become Your Tomb

Atlantic

Crumble like a temple built from future daughters / To wasteland when the oceans recede or So flood me like Atlantic, weather me to nothing / Wash away the blood on my hands

2. Hypnosis

Lift, oh, lift me out / Of my own skin or Split my skin, no / Just make me bleed

3. Mine

We balance fire in the earth we walk / Will never stop me reaching forth or With colors over all the wasted years / Eternity will bring you near

4. Like That

New weapons to snap those final strings / Just to watch me fall back or Push down into membranes and layers / Creating a slow dissection

5. The Love You Want

Too many swallowed keys / Will make you bleed internally someday, oh or Now keep the freakshow talk / To a careful minimum

6. Fall For Me

In a city of ice there are burning cathedrals / Turning the skies into glass or And I feel like I'm losing touch with what I am again / And slowly I remember why I cannot pretend

7. Alkaline

It's too late for me now, I am altered / There is something beneath or I see in a different light / The objects of my desire

8. Distraction

'Cause I am broken into fractions / Oh, and I am driven to distraction or Something much more than I could ask for

9. Descending

Create, release or My love withers and chokes in perfect awe

10. Telomeres

And we go beyond the farthest reaches / Where the light bends and wraps beneath us or Through death / My arms are open

11. High Water

When the mouth of infinity / Buries its teeth in me or Wash me clean again before I pull myself beneath the waves

12. Missing Limbs

The blessings rain on battles in the heaven's arms or 'Cause it still makes my blood run cold / To remember what I did before

PART IV - Take Me Back To Eden

Chokehold

A sacred guardian or Even if I can't sleep / Oh, and though we act out of our holy duty to be constantly awake

2. The Summoning

A taste of the divine or Take me past the edge / I want to see the other side

3. Granite

Between the second hand smoke and the glass on the street or Never mind the death threats / Parting at the door

4. Aqua Regia

Following a bloodtrail, frothing at the maw or Between the pain and the way you look / I'm stuck in a time where the mountains shook

5. Vore

You have become the voice in my head or Will we remain stuck in the throat of gods? / Will the pain stop if we go deeper?

6. Ascensionism

Your reflection, your bitter deception / Setting you free or With one eye on the door, other eye on a rail / Other, other eye following a scarlet trail

7. Are You Really Okay?

I was trying to hold back the darkness or But I, I don't believe you when you tell me you are fine

8. The Apparition

I wake up to a suicide frenzy / Loaded dreams still leave me empty or Just let me go or take me with you

9. DYWTYLM

Do you pull at the chains? / Or do you push into constant aching? or Do you ever believe / That we can turn into different people?

10. Rain

Refracted in light, reflected in sound or And I know, I know, I am what I am / The mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb

11. Take Me Back To Eden

We dive through crystal waters, perfect oceans / But no one told me not to breathe or I'm a waking hell and the gods grow tired / Reset my patient violence along both lines of a pathway higher

12. Euclid

The night belongs to you / This bough has broken through or The whites of your eyes / Turn black in the low light

Thank you so much if you took any part of this on or just read through it.

Never forget, that the most important thing is that no matter what,

Worship 🙏🏻