#ephemeral ribbons of light

[griffworks]

Tho king on Reapfreak since I can't drawwww <\3

[historiaxvanserra]

Whatever Our Souls Are Made Of | Chapter 2

Pairing: SingleDad!Rhys x Reader

Summary: The High Lord of Night makes a bargain with a beautiful Priestess and he has come to collect.

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: allusions to sexual assault, allusions to depression, abandonment, broken homes (y'know keeping it light, in all seriousness this is not all angst it's quite sweet actually).

Last night you dreamt you went to Hewn City again.

You are a girl; coloured in the shadowed jade light of the Moonstone Palace, and your body feels unlike your own. A hostile vessel-- empty and aching-- longing for some semblance of release. You call into the darkness words akin to prayers; Mother, save me; Father, please. 

From the darkness no answer comes. 

Then, as all dreamers are, you are possessed of a sudden magic; you walk the halls of The Moonstone Palace. As a shadow or a memory. The cursed daughter of a capricious Lord. An Ill-faded bride to a mercurial God. The time passes strangely there in the dark dreamscape; the passing of time marked only by the slivers of opal light that pierce through the blanket of the dark each night. Fractured rays of pearlescent light that dapple the marble floors and high, onyx ceilings. You cherish those fleeting moments where hope bleeds into you with the rapidly falling night. It is those moments you cling to as dawn breaks.

The morning light creeps in like hunger; veins of first light that cascade-- all golden and ephemeral-- cutting through the darkness of your dormitory as the dream slips away from you again. A figure, obscured by your sleep addled haze, falls into view and you feel it as their weight settles at your side. The feeling of a fine bone hand runs along your bare arm, soothing and gentle and she whispers words close to comfort to you as the world around you comes back to life. 

A myriad of light and color. 

“Clotho is looking for you,” Gwny smiles down at you and her eyes shine in the first light. All glinting cerulean -- flecked with gold -- reminiscent of a diadem your mother had worn when you were a girl. That diadem and all memory of the woman you called mother is little more than a distant dream now. 

A cruel reminder of the home you left.

“What does she want?” You murmur lowly as the fleeting remnants of sleep still cling to you. You rise with haste from your bed with a quiet reluctance and make quick work of pulling on your heavy pewter robes before the morning chill has time to kiss its way up your bare skin. Judging by the slivers of gold light that spill onto the plush rug beneath your bare feet it must only be about 9am but nonetheless, you’re late at starting the day. Gwyn hovers by your cluttered desk, flicking over some of the parchments there, as you dress hastily. By the time you’re covered and running a comb through your unbound hair you turn to face her. 

She’s dressed in dark training leathers and her long auburn hair is adorned with white and silver ribbons that make her look as though she is crowned in starlight. She is every inch the Valkyrie in this light you think. Half-divine with an ethereal look about her.

Like a tragic heroine from some old myth.

“I didn’t ask,” Gwyn shrugs and her eyes meet yours in the broken mirror as your fingers twist and braid your hair as it cascades over your shoulder. Something flickers in those blue gold eyes then, some devilment pools in them as she regards you with a delighted smile that arches on smirking.

“Come on, you’ve got a visitor too.” You smooth a hand over the ill-fitting robes and sigh dramatically as you collect the scrolls and the hastily written notes you’d been studying. Gwyn retreats from your dormitory laughing and humming playfully as you fall into step with her as she rounds the corner into the Library itself. A night chilled breeze graces you as you descend into the lower levels where Clotho will be waiting for you and as you approach the balcony overlooking the ground floor you catch the scent of night blooming jasmine and citrus. 

That smell seems to follow you these days. It smells so much of the home that you left all those years ago.

A cruel trick of the mind.

Sunlight filters through the large stained glass window that lights the antechamber of the library and as you round the stone pillars the world as you know it is crowned in gold light as the shadowed sun beams illuminate the great cavern of the Library. The Library deep in the bowels of The House of Wind is a feat of architectural grandeur; Like Hewn City, the house itself is carved into the dark stone of the mountain that looms over the City of Starlight, and everything within is saturated in shades of coal and bone. The Library itself is made up of a series of levels and floors, all held in place by dark pillars of the same stone. The large Gothic archways are adorned with carvings and intricate patterns and tapestries -- embroidered on black cloth -- illustrate the mythos of the court you were born into. Tales of dark Gods and gentle maidens. As a girl you had spent many nights enamored by the dark magnetism of the Gods of old and the cruel and beautiful Goddesses they loved. The Library, sacred as it is, breeds a strange sense of reverence in you. For the knowledge contained between its sanctified walls. 

The Library is home to the High Lord’s vast collection of Prythian’s mythological texts; Holy relics of the arcane Gods which had once been venerated and revered in these lands so long ago. All that is left of them now, resides in the deepest part of the Library, where you spend most of your days. There in the bowels of the Library something ancient and foreboding calls to you. The knowledge contained here in the dark heart of Velaris could bring kingdoms to their knees if one were so inclined. And in truth, you had thought about surrendering yourself to the call of the darkness that lies dormant in the depths of the mountains more times than you can count or would care to admit. In it, you feel something kindred to you; something aching and empty that resonates somewhere deep in your soul. 

As if the very fibers of your being are composed of the same darkness. 

When the High Lord  had first brought you to the library-- broken and aching-- there existed in you a vengeful wrath that longed to rage until the mountains gave way beneath you. Until the men who had hurt you were nought but dust and age-worn bone. All that rage. All that grief. It had been a terrible thing; haunting and terrible. But it had been yours. So you clung to it, until the girl you were was dead and buried beneath that mountain. And from her ashes the woman was born; tempered by time, and made strong by the faith you had found there in the library’s darkening aisles, in sisterhood, and in forgiveness. 

Your thoughts are interrupted by Gwyn’s gentle humming as you are cast out of the memories that come back to you in flashes of jade and twilight. 

“I best get back to Merrill before she comes for my head,” Gwyn exclaims loudly, smiling so bright that you’re sure she must be up to something. You offer her a small nod and a polite goodbye which she returns in earnest as her footsteps fall in sporadic succession and they echo down the aisles. You smile at her fondly and descend further into the main floor of the library still clutching onto the hastily compiled notes that are stuffed into the small cloth bound book you had been reading. Anxiety pools in your stomach, coiling and twisting as you approach Clotho’s office. 

The office is situated on the main floor of the library and as you approach through the long, empty aisles the door to Clotho’s office falls into view and the swings open with a magical flourish. Through it a large figure emerges followed by the beautiful Priestess, who looks utterly impassive, even in the presence of such an intimidating figure as the High Lord. 

You had always admired Clotho; her unwavering courage and fierce devotion to the Priestesses in her care. Her soothing presence and gentle smiles had been a source of comfort and strength for you in those first few months where you had thought you might surrender yourself to the mercy of the darkness that lurks in the bottom of this sacred Library. Since then it is her courage that had made you strong and her friendship that you valued above all else. There was a faith in the sisterhood you had found here, bonds forged of suffering and healing, made strong by the time in these sacred walls. 

Now you must find something else to put your faith into. Who or what that might be you are not entirely certain. Yourself perhaps. And though Clotho was hesitant about your decision to leave the library and her behind, she had offered you her support and comfort all the same. 

You approach the Priestess and your High Lord with a quiet caution as your school your face to a neutral expression that doesn’t speak to your rippling anxiety at the thought of leaving the place you had come to know as home or the women who you had come to call family. 

The High Lord catches your eyes first; he’s swathed in shadow as he steps out and then the light cast through the windows wreaths him in a halo of topaz light and when his violet eyes find yours in the empty aisle he smiles at you. A carefully curated thing that glitters with false charm and behind the violet of his irises you see the darkness that lurks within them. Something kindred to you. 

Made of the same darkness.

“There she is!” The High Lord of Night muses, his well-sculpted arms branching out towards you as if in prayer, “my favorite acolyte.” The High Lord's voice is tempered and light, with an air of arrogance about him that makes you smile shyly as he makes three long strides towards you. 

There it is again; night-blooming jasmine and mandarin. 

Clotho waits a few paces behind him in wordless silence but the silver lined eyes and sad smile she offers you is an indicator of her true feelings at your leaving. And though you don’t broach the subject at that moment you offer her the promise to find her soon. So that you might say goodbye to your dearest friend in the privacy of her office. She only nods and quietly retreats into her office with a few books.

“I’ve sworn my vows,” You offer gently, surrendering yourself to the enigmatic male that stands before you.

Rhysand leans casually against the desk in the forum, his violet eyes trailing lazily over the elaborate cursive on the parchment left by another Priestess, one of his hands is buried in the pocket of his suit pants and the other flexing around the lip of the lectern. In this light, as the sun bleeds through the stained glass windows, he looks like an old God from one of the tapestries hung along the slate walls.

Cut from the same holy cloth.

At once The High Lord meets your eyes and you resist the urge to avert that arresting violet gaze. Instead you offer him the ghost of a smirk as you address him again.

“So, I believe it is Priestess to you, High Lord.” The High Lord’s laugh is a wondrous thing as it permeates the air, rich and deep, and shaded with that same dark magnetism you had witnessed that first night.

“Well then, Priestess, I believe we made a bargain,” Rhysand pushes himself from his perch on the armoire and closes the space between you. He’s so close that you swear he will hear the flutter of your heart as he meets your eyes, “and I’ve come to collect.” His voice drops an octave and the words are tainted with an air of seduction that makes you feel anxious even if you’re certain he doesn’t mean it. Even if you see the morose darkness behind those violet eyes. 

Rhysand studies you carefully and you feel his eyes on you even as you turn to shelve the book that you had cradled in your arms. Your silence does little to calm the air around you as you turn swiftly from him. “You still want to come, yes?” Rhysand sounds hesitant and quiet as he broaches the subject. You swallow thickly and cast your eyes along the long aisle of the library you had called home for the last few years. 

“Would it matter if I didn’t?” You laugh lightheartedly, gesturing to the tattoo brandished into your skin, still unable to meet his gaze. The High Lord doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t so much as smile half-heartedly. Rather, the High Lord draws dark, thick brows together as the swell of his bottom lip moves into a deep frown. So mournful and aching that you’re sure you feel your heart ache for him in response. 

“Of course it would matter,” The High Lord’s voice wavers once more as he addresses you with a sad smile. He’s so beautiful in this light and you regard him as you do all holy things, with equal parts reverence and anxiety. 

“You know that, don’t you?” There’s an uncertain quality to his demeanor that disarms you. He’s always struck you as this enigmatic and confident male, with an almost louche quality to him that seemed to exude and air of rehearsed arrogance. But now. Now you see him for what he is; something dark and beautiful and fragile. There is a hesitancy about him as he steps away from you as though the mere distance between you is enough for him to feel untethered to this plane. Left to drift amidst a vast, starless sky

It is you, who closes that gap once more in a bold display of trust and despite the tremor of your own hand when the heat of the High Lord’s golden skin melts into yours, you smile at him as one might smile at something lovely and full of sorrow.

And he smiles back-- as though you and he are not both broken, fragile things. 

“Yes,” You admit truthfully. 

There is so little that you are certain of now but you know this: that you and he are made of the same darkness -- born from the same star perhaps -- and that with him, you will always have a choice. 

“Yes, I do, High Lord.” 

______________________________________________________________

“This will be your bedroom,” Rhysand offers with a wave of his hand before it wraps around the burnished gold doorknob to reveal the room nestled between the nursery and his own chambers “I hope it is to your liking?”

The guest room in the High Lords townhouse is just as beautiful as the rest of the house; sunlight, golden and ephemeral, cuts through the drawn linen curtains and cascades along the dark mahogany floors. Through the open window you can hear melodious birdsong from the garden below and as you step into it’s heart, the view of the dark marble fountain at its center that looks as though it is carved from the same mountains that flank the city.  The garden itself is coloured with the climbing ivy and moonflowers that arch up the trellis and is shaded by a thick canopy of cypress and bergamot trees, whose citrus scent seems to bleed into the room itself. 

“It’s absolutely breathtaking,” You say, smiling so brightly that you’re sure it must rival the midday sun as it bathes you in its radiant light. The rooms' furnishings are made of rich rose wood and the walls are painted a muted sage blue color that reminds you so much of the robes you wear and the bed nestled into the alcove is adorned with many quilts and duvets of cream and pewter and mauve. You don’t think you’d ever seen anything quite as inviting. 

The High Lord crosses the threshold and instead of joining you in the center of the room to admire the view of the gardens in the sunlight he opens the door to the adjoining bathroom. The bathroom itself is almost as big as the guest room, with a beautiful claw-foot tub in the middle of the room and both the walls and floors are made of a champagne marble with decadent flecks of gold. You take a few steps towards the washroom and perch by the door frame to admire the craftsmanship. Rhysand does the same and makes no effort to put any space between you as the quiet settles over you both as the shadowed sunlight illuminates the gold accents in the marble. 

“There’s a writing desk over there,” Rhys says, retreating back into the main room, pointing towards a matching rose wood desk and chair with a mirror hung above it so that it doubles as a dressing table. “And an armoire there.” he points at the ornately carved chest of drawers by the desk.

“Though if you find you need more room for your clothes there’s plenty of space for another.” 

“I think I’ll be alright with just the one,” You say lightly, eyes traveling to the small, worn leather bag at your feet that contains all of your worldly possessions; a few sets of nightclothes, two dresses that are half as old as you are, four well worn books that you had sequestered from the Library and a small collection of trinkets you’d collected over the last half a century. Hardly an extravagant amount of personal belongings but they were yours. 

The High Lord hums thoughtfully at you and for a moment you think that he won’t think anything of it but then violet eyes drift to the worn leather satchel and though he doesn’t speak you see the look in his eyes as it morphs from neutral to something akin to pity. 

You don’t want pity, you think, and you feel something dark and ravenous nip at the back of your throat. It’s an ugly thing that you bite your lip and swallow down lest you bite the hand that feeds you. 

It had been so long since that anger and pride made itself known in your heart. 

“If you need anything you just have to ask,” Rhysand says, offering you a polite smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, he looks somewhere far off and you catch the scent of lilacs and pears when the breeze shifts, “whatever it is you want, you just have to ask.” 

“Really Rhys, I don’t need anything else,” You make a move to haul your bag onto the plush velvet armchair by the window but in a flurry of movement Rhy takes it from you and places it on the small end table near the bed for you. “it’s beautiful, thank you.” 

The High Lord does not respond, only smiles slyly at you from the end table, turning one of the straps of the brown leather bag in his deft fingers. 

“What?” You ask with an accusatory tone, narrowing your eyes at the beautiful male beside you. 

“Nothing,” The High Lord holds his hands up in surrender to you, his voice is velvet and lilting with his mirth as he looks at you again, “it’s just the first time you’ve called me my actual name.” 

“I wonder what it would sound like in other situations.” He all but purrs and neither you nor he can manage to keep a straight face when you roll your eyes dramatically at him and elbow him sharply in the ribs. 

The lull in the conversation comes with the passing of the afternoon clouds. They come in hordes of flowering grey and ivory, undercut with a darkness that spells a coming storm. In those quiet moments you watch as the confident facade that the High Lord wears so well melts away and he reverts back to the male you know him to be, tender and morose as the darkness in his eyes melts into a neutral expression that speaks to how truly tired he is.

“Get settled in and then come and find me later, Love.” Rhys voice is quiet and smooth and he offers you a gentle touch on your shoulder as he slips out into the hallway.

“Yes, High Lord.”

The High Lord’s eyes, iridescent and violet, meet yours and for a few moments while he is looking at you, you and he exist somewhere in the darkness between the stars.

TAGLIST: @awkardnerdd @ladybirdbeetle7 @lalaluch @saltedcoffeescotch @mybestfriendmademe @coisas-da-dani @justdreamstars

[luna-rainbow]

Do you think the Winter Soldier ever stood by the window of the jets bringing him back to Siberia and watched the Northern Lights weave across the starry skies, casting their ethereal colours over snowy peaks that had always been such grim shades of grey, white and black?

Do you think he’d turn to his side, wanting to show it to someone, someone who liked pretty lights and colours and pigments, who could tell him if the ribbons of light were scarlet, crimson or carmine?

Do you think he’d glance around the faces in the jet and frown, not finding who he was looking for? And then he would wonder who he was looking for. Did they exist or did he dream them up in his long cold sleeps?

He’d turn back to watch the dancing lights, ephemeral, intangible, just like the snatches of broken images of a blond head and a metal shield and a gloved hand, always just out of his reach.

What was his name?

—

Source: (1) (2)

[covencupid]

We've Never Met

CW/TW: Violence, stalking, manipulation, amnesia/memory loss, minor character death, harassment, police mismanagement, eventual smut.

Pairing: Danny "Jed Olson" Johnson X F!Reader

Tags will be updated as needed.

Summary: They called you the "Miracle of Lily Lake" after you woke up from your month-long coma. You were alive after a brutal attack on New Years by a vicious killer that had targeted the residents of the sleepy town of Lily Lake, Texas. They say it's a blessing not to remember what happened that night. After several futile attempts to aid authorities, and countless therapy sessions that ended equally fruitless, you concede to the loss of your memory. Maybe it is better that you don't remember. He's gone after all. After you were found, there were no other murders that followed. It ended with you.

It was time for a change. Lily Lake held the remains of a life you could hardly return to. No one knew how to treat you, everyone wanted to be the one to wrestle a memory out of you. When the opportunity arises for a fresh start you welcome it with open arms and make your way to sunny Florida to give yourself a chance at a normal life.

Lily Lake was too much of a close call for Danny. The bitch totally went off script. It was time to ditch Texas. People were far too neighborly, and these state troopers hid in the long stretches of uninhabited land like lions in tall grass. Nope, fuck that.

Danny has started over in Roseville, Florida and everything is going peachy-fucking-keen. His job at the paper allows him to have one hand on the crime and the other on the reporting. Everything is coming up Danny in his new habitat, until he spots a far too familiar face, back from the dead and slinging coffee in his favorite coffee house. What the fuck?

A/N: Before you begin I would like to thank y'all for the support. When I say I'm rusty, I'm rusted, sat unused in a shed rusty. I will try to be diligent about tagging, but please don't hesitate to bring up anything you'd like tagged. I hope y'all enjoy. This chapter is pretty much all exposition, but we're getting to the meat soon. BIG HUGE FAT THANKS to @mamamemequeen for feeding me with inspo and reading this first. The title and this story is inspired by the Neko Case song of the same name. Listen to Neko. She will change your life.

We've Never Met

I

February 1991

        The cold chill of a soul snakes its way up the breathing tube into your lungs. With a lightning rod of pain electrifying your senses from within, this is what it feels like to be born. But there are no awakening cries from you, only a blearily shifting gaze that seeks to make sense of the blurs and sounds that are developing around you. As the soft edges harden into complete shapes, you pick up on the chorus of bell tones and chimes that heralded your arrival into this room. The world seemed to form beneath your weight that felt at once painfully dense and nearly ephemeral. While your senses flickered to life, your mind began to take stock of the room you found yourself in. 

       Your eyes scanned the clean, clean room. The blinds have been drawn closed but thin ribbons of light streamed into the room. The realization that you were in a hospital room hit at the same time as your throat felt the tube hitting its walls. The panic at the sudden awareness of your senses made your heart race. With a chorus of bells, two nurses burst into the room. There was a moment before they rushed to help you where they seemed to be just as shocked as you were to be in that room. 

What followed was a stream of questions that made you feel like an alien being interrogated after landing on Earth. Every answer you gave seemed to disappoint and prompt another question. After your back and forth with representatives from Earth you were left alone in the clean room for some time. You could hear excited chatter outside the door. Through the windows you could see the scrambling, scattering movements of the team of nurses that were previously fussing over you. They dispersed like a swarm of insects would under the flash of a sudden light. The moment of peace that followed was punctuated with an encroaching feeling of dread, but you couldn’t exactly place where it was coming from. As it stood, finding out the source of your anxiety was the least of your concern when your body felt like the meat had been wrenched from the bone and put back together in the wrong places. The dim light still felt like it shone too bright. You looked down at your arms to find them littered with cuts and bruises in the places not covered by a cast. The more you looked at them, the less you felt certain that they truly were your arms. 

Did your arms always look like this? Underneath the injuries, did they always look like that? What did your arms look like before? Before? Before what exactly? Something had to happen. If it did, and it most certainly did, you had to remember. You would remember, right? You could not possibly forget something that made you feel as though you were turned inside out. But where was the memory? Your mind desperately tried to grab at nothing. You tried to refer back to a blank space in your head. There was nothing to pull from. There was nothing but the clues of your wounds to make sense of. The click of the door being opened broke you from your steady spiral.

You looked up to see three men eyeing you with what looked like a mix of reverence and trepidation. The man in the clean white coat, the doctor, walked ahead of the two other men. He wore a warm smile and spoke in a measured, reassuring tone. 

“(Y/N), my name is Dr. Ortiz. I’m very glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

“Uh, I’m ok.” The pleasantry rolled off your tongue without thinking. No, definitely not ok. “I’m not, I mean-” you took a moment to process what exactly you wanted to say to this doctor. Of the millions of questions racing through your head, none came to mind. Each complaint and doubt that bubbled in your mind died in your throat. You stared blankly at the doctor hoping he could look at you and just know, as a doctor, what was wrong with you and how to fix it.

“It’s ok, you must have a lot of questions, and we’re here to help.” Though you felt a bit more at ease at the warm reassurance from the doctor, that nagging dread kept ebbing in from the corners of your eyes. The doctor turned to his left and gestured to the man closest to him. “This is Detective Keller,” the detective responded by flashing a tight smile that did not reach his eyes. “And this is Lieutenant Garza,” the doctor gestured to the man on the detective’s left who opted to sport the same rigid smile while eyeing you closely. The doctor pulled a chart by your bed and flipped through the pages before exhaling a breath he didn’t seem to know he was holding. “What is the last thing that you remember?”

Well fuck.

Your mind went back to grasping at unseen straws. You had memories. You knew the sky was up, the ground was down. You… worked. Yeah, you worked, you had a job. At… somewhere. You remember your mom, her yelling at you before a winter dance your sophomore year of high school, her making you an easter basket of alcohol when you turned 21. What was in between? You remember drinking coffee with your sister when she bought that fancy espresso machine. That machine, she bought it with her bonus money. She got a bonus because… what did she do? She sold stuff? No, she wrote something? Advertising! She wrote copy, and she’s really good, and that year your old jeep broke down on the highway and you called your sister scream-crying about how much you loved her and how scared you were. Right, you loved rides in that thing. The Jeep. You remember going inside the car while it was raining hard. There was something wrong. It smelled wrong. Strong cologne, a presence you can taste. But there was nothing after or before. When did that happen? You held loose pieces that weren’t enough to give a satisfactory answer.

“I remember things, like my family and stuff. I don’t remember how I got here, if that’s what you meant.”

The men exchanged looks, a whole conversation had before you with eyes only.

“(Y/N), we know this is probably all very confusing, and we will answer any questions you have about what I’m going to tell you,” the detective inched closer. His tone was soft, but his face remained cold and speculative. “You were attacked in a home you were housesitting. We believe it was an assailant that we suspect is tied to a string of break-ins and murders around Lily Lake. What we know is that there was a struggle starting on the ground floor that moved to the second floor balcony. Is any of this sounding familiar? Any details you remember?”

Attacked. Assailant. Murders. Struggle. Balcony. Nothing.

“I was housesitting? For who?”

The men exchanged looks again. Silent disappointment shared between them.

“Kenneth and Delilah McGary. They told us you’ve house-sat for them before. We have reason to believe that you were not the intended target for this attack. Mrs. McGary had reported strange, threatening phone calls in the days leading up to the attack. The McGary’s believed that Delilah McGary was being targeted so they decided to make a sudden trip to the in-laws for the new year out of fear for her safety.” The lieutenant finally spoke up.

The names did not sound familiar, nor did any of the details that they claimed you lived through. Still, you felt a tug of resentment knowing that it shouldn’t have been you. It should be whoever Delilah McGary was. She should be the one that is lying broken in this bed. She should be the one trying to piece together her life. There were no words that would properly translate the rage you felt towards a woman you at one point knew, and the person that wanted to kill her. The person that existed in the shadows of your memory, sheltered in the dread of whatever it was that you lived through. Instead of words, a blur of tears muddled your vision before falling freely down your cheeks.

The men spoke in their silent language for a moment before the lieutenant took a seat by your bedside. “This is a lot. I know.” Lieutenant Garza’s face broke from its neutral demeanor to shift to a weary gaze. You hate the look of pity he gives you. “But if there is anything, anything at all, that you recall from that night. No matter how insignificant it may seem. Any stray detail you may remember. It’s ok if nothing comes up now-” you cut him off.

“The new year- you said it was the new year. When it happened, I mean.” You couldn’t remember the holidays.  Who had you spent them with? Why did thinking about the new year make the hairs on the back of your neck rise and make you feel as though your brain would come to a head through your skull and spill out. 

10…9…8…

“Yes, we believe that the perpetrator used the commotion of all the fireworks and parties on the block to cover his attack.”

Right. The fireworks. 7…6…5…

“Thankfully you had been found not too long after midnight after a neighbor happened to see you on the ground from their second floor window following your fall off the balcony.”

The fireworks. The balcony. The fireworks. The balcony.

“The witness had said that she had seen you holding onto something, possibly a hood or a type of mask, but we were not able to find what she saw. Maybe the perp retrieved it before fleeing the scene?”

4…3…2…

Balcony. Fireworks. Mask. Balcony. Fireworks. Mask. Balcony. Fireworks… that smell. Someone on the block had started their fireworks early. It scared me, but at that moment I felt something else. I smelled it first, that overwhelming presence. Cologne, just like the one in the jeep.

”New Years alone and nothing to do...”

1…

“Poor bunny.”

[imasloid]

SHINY COLORS FASHION ANALYSIS: Kiriko Yukoku (幽谷霧子)

"It's not that I have an injury, but... the reason I'm wearing these bandages is… a secret."

This is a project analyzing and taking a look at the fashion design and application in the multimedia series, The IDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors. This section is about the mysterious and soft-spoken bandaged girl of the series, Kiriko Yukoku! If you want to jump to a specific section, go here!

(This is a reprint of my thread on Twitter. I put it on Tumblr for easier reading and for archiving purposes. Enjoy!)

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INTRODUCTION

“Kiriko is a silver-haired girl who exudes a mysterious atmosphere, most notable by her ephemeral nature and being wrapped in bandages. Soft-spoken but kind-hearted. She is very empathetic, sensitive, and interacts with the world around her in a very peculiar way. ”

---

Profile

Age: 17

Birthday: September 23rd

Height: 160 cm

Weight: 51 kg

Blood Type: AB

Hometown: Fukushima

Hobbies: Collecting cute things, handcrafts, blood donation

Special Skills: Wrapping bandages beautifully, stepping silently, peeling apples

CV: Yuina Mizuki

---

Before starting the analysis, I would suggest if you haven’t already, read her W.I.N.G. (introductory) commu (through the broswer game's English patch or on YouTube). If you don’t play the game, I would listen to her image song and read the lyrics to get a better sense of her character.

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STYLE BREAKDOWN

Kiriko’s fashion style takes great influence from girly-kei fashion, a feminine style that emphasizes cuteness. However, Kiriko turns it into her own by making it more casual, desaturated, and minimalistic, fitting her mysterious, dollish, ghost-like first impression.

Before going into fashion influences, Kiriko has doll-like qualities that aren’t clothing-related that synergize well with her simple design like porcelain skin & light, natural makeup. The attributes listed here combine with her dolly clothing to make her look like a mannequin.

Girly-kei fashion is the main influence on Kiriko’s style, following a common silhouette and typical elements of the style, like ribbons, lace, and heeled dress shoes. She makes it her own by dressing the style down as well as simplifying the outfit composition and silhouette.

Many of Kiriko’s coords take common elements from other girly-kei subtypes leading to a versatile but reined-in wardrobe. Though the style inspirations are varied, a consistent silhouette and repeated bijou elements like ribbons, frills, and ruffles unite her looks.

Another prominent influence on Kiriko’s style is “classical,” an adult, elegant fashion inspired by film actresses of the 1940s-1970s. It comprises of layering basics and a balance of both bold and natural colors, bringing out Kiriko’s mysterious elegance in a less dollish way.

Preppy influence in Kiriko’s wardrobe is easily seen in the her early outfits and forms her usual silhouette & outfit composition that’s seen as the foundation of many of her outfits. Though it really defines her early wardrobe, the influence is more subtle in her later outfits.

Her bandages are a huge part of her identity & how she presents herself. Kiriko doesn’t wear them for fashion reasons or having a fragile body, but they act as a “good luck charm” for her extreme anxiety. It also ties back to her dollish demeanor and how she lives at a hospital.

Kiriko’s image color is an icy light blue, perhaps relating to her mental fragility and her use of bandages. It’s a very dreamy and ephemeral color and synergizes with her doll-like lightness and girly elegance.

Kiriko’s color palette comprises primarily of dull & light neutrals used as a foundation for most of her outfits. This palette often either colors the whole outfit or takes a back seat to a secondary palette of vibrant cool tones and grays.

-----

STYLE ANALYSIS

Kiriko auditioned at the production to be an idol to “boost her self-confidence” and improve her timid nature. When Producer asks her about her bandages, she lies and said she “bumped into something.” Kiriko says putting them on makes her feel at peace.

Kiriko’s name in kanji (幽谷霧子) contains the character “幽 (yu)” commonly attributed with the word for ghost “幽霊 (yuurei)” and the character “霧 (kiri)” meaning “fog” or “mist.” As such, Kiriko is most known for her fragile and ephemeral appearance.

As touched on in the last section, Kiriko has many qualities that make her feel like a living doll. This sentiment is shared by the other members of L’antica, often complimenting her and how just looking at Kiriko makes them feel “at peace.”

Many of her earlier outfits had her outfits in the same silhouette, like a fashion mannequin, with a collared top and flared above-the-knee-length skirt. Before major development, she was characterized with this dollish silhouette in the beginning.

Also mentioned in the previous section, Kiriko is a huge worrywart: constantly anxious about other’s physical and emotional states and very sensitive to how others interact with her. She tends to bite her tongue and finds it hard to speak freely to others.

Her extreme anxiety isn’t limited to just people, but also real-life events and even inanimate objects’ feelings. As stated before, her bandages are a “talisman” Kiriko uses to calm herself down and “protect” her before she gets “injured” by her pangs of unease.

The frequency and size of her bandages have a direct relation to how much her anxieties are hindering her, bigger size & higher frequency relating to a weaker mental state. Kiriko wore them constantly, but as her character got developed she started relying on them less & less.

She only wears her forehead bandage and sometimes even doesn’t wear any at all in her most recent cards, showing her growth in how she interacts with her anxiety. To add, Kiriko has never been “ashamed” of her bandages either and considers them a part of her identity.

Her bandages also relate to her medical background with both of her parents being doctors, living in hospital dormitory housing, having a hobby of donating blood, and often volunteering at said hospital. Her main color palette of whites/light grays also relate to this.

Kiriko is also very smart to where her career advisor encouraged her to become a medical professional. She is a methodical person with a sharp memory; her preppy influences in her fashion also call back to this as well.

Another trait about Kiriko is her “ephemeral” and “fantastical” aura like that of a fairy-tale character. Some things she does are personify inanimate objects, have vivid daydreams that tend to bleed into reality, and having a very surreal sense of humor.

Though she has notable anxiety, Kiriko’s personality is simple, positive, and tends to see the good in the world and in others (which is why she worries so much about everything). She is easily awestruck and has a high sense of wonder for the world.

Her fashion really suits that side of her personality well with lots of hazy, muted colors, soft fabrics, light textures, bijou detailing, and flowy and oversized clothing pieces. It makes the viewer feel like they’re also in one of her daydreams.

Kiriko’s fashion evolution is subtle, but you can see how her style influences change in the beginning, middle, and end as her character develops. Though her fashion changes, her dollish, plush, mysterious, and dreamy aura stays intact.

-----

This is it for Kiriko Yukoku!

If you liked this thread, check out my Twitter and give me a tip on Ko-Fi so I can do more things like this with other idol series! Thanks for reading <3

Next section: Houkago Climax Girls

[beastscribbles]

Religion ( or just me babbling, it gets off track:)

Religion

In the early days of humans, they had gods. From the very beginning of time. It meant to people what they wanted it to. It was unique to each culture but there just the same.

But in my opinion, why follow one unified religion? I want something to believe in, to give me hope. Something sacred to me. But what does that for me is different from the world. So, here I go, here is my religion. My religion is the forest, the rough tree bark, and my fingers tracing the labyrinthine engravings as I sit on the branch, the sun brushing its fingers across my cheeks. My religion is the soft pink flush of our palms intertwined as we walk, pure, innocent, untainted. my religion is the soft yellow lighting kissing every surface of my room, from the piles of clothes on my floor to the covers on my bed to the shelves carrying my numerous notebooks journals, and sketchbooks

my religion is the rain, crystal beads falling from the heavens, compiling into puddles, miniature oceans pleading for you to come splash and splatter your skirt

my religion is creating, and being consumed with a purpose, passionate brushstroke, furious typing, careful sketching, lyrics, compositions, and concepts crowding my mind. My religion is peace, solitude, and introspection, those stolen ephemeral moments spent alone,  and just being, or coming up with my own philosophies, and theories concerning my behaviors, tendencies, and character. My religion is girlhood. Or at least the way I view it. It is a visceral, cunning thing, and yet so beautiful. The juxtaposition of the diaphanous haze that clouds it, and the sharp, cutting experiences. From yearning for the moon, and to howl wildly under it, to collecting shimmering trinkets, and making everything pleasant. But there's also the other aspect. How the anguish and pain writhe inside me, wanting it to crawl up my throat and tumble out of my mouth, a scream bursting from my lips. Longing to be cherished and loved as a whole complete person, not an object of pleasure. But trying to cover it up with concealer, ribbons, and kindness. In the end, how you can cover up your skin and your hair, and all of your self-proclaimed hideousness, but you can’t cover who you are. You can’t stamp down your soul, at least not without losing it. 

And my religion is my childhood. How it was so exceptionally lovely and enlightened. Yet at the same time dark, misunderstood, and shattered. How one day my mother would be making me a beautiful birthday cake, and the next dragging me down the stairs, as I stumble tears blurring my vision, spilling over my face. How one day my father would be watching a movie with me, and the next yelling in my face, and shaking my shoulders. They didn’t know how to handle me. And my child self thought that I was a monster. That there was one inside me and it would one day claw open the soft skin of my stomach and burst out of me, leaving the “sweet version” as my parents called it, an empty shell. And I would claw at my face, screaming that I hated myself. But I also played with my sisters, making up stories of fairy dust and rose petals, aliens, and goblins. And we would walk downtown to buy ice cream and go on hikes in the forest. my religion is everything that makes up me. it is the very essence of my being.

[yokelish]

A sin in two parts (Second part)

✏ Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs ✏ Characters: Nakajima Atsushi, Dazai Osamu, Armed Detective Agency ✏ Part 1. ✏ Warnings: someone will die! of shame!

Dazai was a clever man indeed. He understood things instinctively, immediately, interminably. His mind was a sharp blade, a steel trap, a machine of incredible computing power. Yet if you asked him what the meaning of life was, define the value of living, he wouldn’t be able to measure it. Despite the weight of existence he experiences each and every grueling day. The same dilemma was posed by his relationship with Fisher. It was light, it was ephemeral, natural and instinctive as breathing air. It was heavy, it was complicated, ever-changing as the moon. There were days it was a beautiful flower blooming. There were days it was needles in the collar. Extraordinarily rare it was for him to encounter a person he couldn’t define, place into a neat little box, and unravel like a simple ribbon. The complexity of Ryōshi wasn’t their fault, after all, the fault couldn’t be placed solely on them.

“We can’t force you to join,” Dazai said, sounding rather accepting of the situation, “but then I can’t help but worry for your future. You’ll need to vacate the room company got for you, and you don’t have any special skills, or friends in the city, so a job will be hard to come by. Not to mention—"

He could tell Atsushi was half-listening ASDbut that was half the point. Overwhelming the newbie would only help achieve the outcome desired. He had to start fretting about his future not because of having to worry about shelter or food, but because of his newly discovered ability. And the value it held.

“Shot dead?!” Nakajima screeched, leaning forward.

“Now, if you were with our agency, that would be a different story,” the dark-haired man offered a signature smug smile. Hook, line, sinker.

“Then that means…” Atsushi gripped the bomb tighter, closer, and fell against the back of the chair. 

Naomi stepped in first. She was always quick to read the air. “We look forward to working with you, Atsushi!” She threw her hands around Jun’ichiro. “Don’t we, brother?”

“Follow the rules, brat,” Kunikida added flippantly.

Dazai had to take the reigns of the conversation again, “Well, not that the matter was settled—”

The door to the office opened with a swing as a new person entered the office. “Is the newbie here already?” they asked, excited. They too were always quick to catch up.

It was a mystery to Dazai still. How can a person understand him so well, play into his hands like a loaded dice, without prompt or instruction. It was rare for him to have such synergy with a person. He had only ever experienced it twice before. It was similar with Fisher, like having a partner he could depend on no matter the circumstance, they had unique submissiveness to them. As he said, it was simple, it was light, like a beam of sunlight. And equally unique stubbornness and strength of will. Ryōshi tossed the dice with him just as much. It wasn’t that he gained their trust or was forced into it. They allowed themselves to trust him and his schemes just as easily as they defied them. As he said, it was complicated, it was ever-moving like tides obeying the moon.

“Ah, you are just in time,” Dazai welcomed them.

As ever, Ryōshi had a certain aura around them. It always seems to fit in with whatever air surrounded them. Calm in the face of adversity, welcoming when least expected, distant when seeming within reach. When they first met, Dazai assumed it might have been an unexpected side-effect of their ability. What is the mood if not a probability? But he was wrong to assume. This effect was simply Ryōshi. No greater mystery behind it.

“Meet the newbie, Ryōshi,” he spoke, bemused, offering his hand to them. “We’ve just finished his employment paperwork.”

“Yeah, no,” Fisher shook their head, “I was standing behind the door for a few minutes now,” their touch against his skin light and gentle, fleeting as if startled. But before it could end, the bandaged hand trapped their fingers between his, “I know that was more of a blackmail than employment negotiation.”

He could feel it, the balancing of the scales, the impossible trapped between their fingers. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Yet here they both were, destroying.

“It was nothing but negotiation, right, Atsushi?” Dazai looked at the boy again. The shared touch lingered for a moment longer before finally breaking. Atsushi took a deep breath in.

Ryōshi directed their attention to the white-haired boy and smiled. One thing about Ryōshi that was as constant as anything can be is the smile. Never fake, never treacherous. Always genuine, always. They introduced themselves first.

“I’m Nakajima Atsushi,” weretiger said, sounding dumbstruck.

“You have a lucky name, Nakajima Atsushi.”

Atsushi was following Dazai as they were supposed to help Ranpo back to the Agency after solving the case. Today was a productive day. Not a successful day. He didn’t manage to drown. He never did manage it. Perhaps drowning wasn’t destined for him? Perhaps it’s a fateful sign that he is destined to leave this dream-like world by other methods. He found the weretiger. Then, he arrived at a crime scene as planned. The only issue was Atsushi mentioning anything about a suicide attempt in front of Fisher. That would certainly complicate and taint matters for a bit.

“I get it now,” Atsushi said, contemplative. “Ranpo doesn’t have an ability, but everyone else does, right?” Dazai hummed in agreement. “Then, do you know what Ryōshi’s ability is? Can I know what it is?”

“Oh?” Dazai flashed a grin. What a curious question posed. Revealing. Atsushi could only disclose more if he made an outright confession. “Why the sudden interest in my partner?”

“I thought Kunikida was your partner,” the boy replied, confused.

“Kunikida is my partner, but Ryōshi is…” the man thought for a moment. How could he describe something so complex and wonderful and damning? How could he define something he himself contemplated often and came up with a different answer each time? Is there a way to describe the beauty of a storm without installing fear of it? Dazai couldn’t think he could find the right words, not concise ones. Partner is too professional to be applied to the touches they shared; friends was misjudging the sort of trust they shared. Everything was a misnomer. Everything was a contradiction. A smile appeared on his lips, growing wider and winder.

“Haha! Nevermind!” he shook his head, still smiling. “Anyway, yes, I do know their ability, and, no, there is no reason you can’t know. You are a member of the Agency, after all.”

“What it is?” Atsushi sounded too excited.

“Probability manipulation,” Dazai offered a flippant answer. He long had lost interest in Fisher’s supernatural ability. There are many other things he found intriguing now. Things unspoken. “Or, simply put, luck is their ability.”

“Huh?”

“What, don’t get it? Ryōshi manipulates probability. The odds are ever in their favour. Imagine a deck of cards, shuffled between you, me, and Ryōshi. They would be the one with a royal flush, every time.”

“Woah. That’s…That seems like a very powerful ability. In a casino, especially.”

The bandaged man shrugged. “Luck is zero-sum. Once Ryōshi draws a royal flush, all other bad cards must go into someone else’s hands.”

Atsushi stopped in his tracks. “What?”

The man stopped two steps ahead of him. This odd sensation began to bother him, nonetheless, he provided an answer. “Exactly as you heard it. When Ryōshi gets lucky, it always means someone must receive a dose of bad luck. Zero-sum, equivalent exchange.”

“Why would someone like Ryōshi be in the Agency?”

The questions didn’t stop. Nakajima was being greedy. And greed is a known sin.  Dazai could understand the curiosity. It was, after all, very rational to question things, people around you. But the frequency of the questions irked him right now, deep inside he could feel a single needle prodding at his sternum.

“Protection,” the man replied. “Such an ability could be viewed as highly beneficial by many powerful people who would like to have even more power. Politicians, businessmen—”

“Port Mafia?”

The man smiled mischievously, “Alright, I’ve told you quite enough about my Fidus Achates. If you want to know more, ask them yourself.”

Perhaps Atsushi committed a sin of coveting. Just for a moment, he gave in to the temptation of greed. Dazai later reflected that he was no pious man either. He had committed the very same crime.

It was nice to see familiar faces, visit familiar dungeons. But every game ends, and time for reminiscing and walking the memory lanes was over. He got what he wanted. He infiltrated Port Mafia again, now as a traitor, and came out of there a victor. And the suicidal maniac would rejoice in his easy victory if not for understanding the complications that came with it. He had been toying with a line for some time now, almost ritualistically. As if he wanted to summon divine retribution upon himself. He had no doubt with this little stunt, he had succeeded.

Once he returns to the office, there will be consequences to face. Ryōshi will not welcome him with a smile on their face. There will be no smile at all. Those eyes would be filled with anger and with hurt. And there is no stopping a storm, only weathering it.

There were days when what they shared — whatever its name was — was like a feather’s brush, a sea breeze, a fire in the hearth. There were days that were reminiscent of stormy seas, thunderous skies, and raging bonfires. The calm weather is lovely. Tempests have their beauty and purpose. He has called upon a storm himself.

It’s not as if they didn’t trust each other. Trust was there. They could turn their backs to each other, knowing no knife would come. They’d put their hand in his, knowing the grasp would be gentle and easy instead of entrapping. He’d speak the first wicked thought that crossed his mind, and they’d merely tell him to think again. Perhaps they cared too much. Perhaps they both didn’t care enough.

The moment Dazai showed his face at the office, Ryōshi asked for a private conversation in the infirmary. There was no escaping just like there were no hiding. The sheer absence of any tangible emotion attached was deafening. Just like that, the two of them were gone behind a closed door. And only they will know the weight of the words they’ve shared. Only they will know the sharpness and cold steel of it, the gentleness of the hands that swung the sword.

Only Dazai will know the accusations, but everyone would confirm it to be true. He was no gardener; he knew nothing of nurturing. He was an observer. He’d watch whatever came his way — sunlight or rain — he’d weather it with nothing but entrapment of life.

Dazai watches his subordinate’s blank stare with unbridled curiosity. It’s like reading a novel. Every thought projected on Nakajima’s face like an old film. He contemplates, remembers, analyzes, and tries to understand. He covets. Dazai appreciates inquisitive minds. He, too, is often perplexed by his complex relationship with Ryōshi. He, too, tries to explain it, define, and explicate it. It’s not Ryōshi alone that pulls him like a moth to a flame; it’s what they create together. No, they do not work well together, their skills aren’t complimentary in the slightest. They both rely on the same weapons: schemes, wits, and human faults. Their abilities are about taking something away from another. Yet, despite their likeness, they are just as equally different. It’s not opposite forces at work when it comes to the two of them. It’s complimentary. Ryōshi is guarded, wanting nothing but peace of mind. Whether they are alone or in company, all is an active choice. Dazai enjoys indulging in the idea of their unusual harmonious cooperation as natural, but he suspects that, too, is a choice. And he covets it. For the odds to be in his favour, for luck to be on his side, to draw a good hand each time he plays, to manipulate the probability.

“At-su-shi,” the bandaged man says in a joyful staccato.

The boy flinches at the sound of his own name. “Yes?”

“You are not eating,” Dazai points at the plate.

“Ah, sorry,” the boy mumbles, “not hungry, I guess.” He rubs the back of his neck and avoids eye contact. It’s not hard to read his thoughts that are so shamefully unhidden. The boy doesn’t care about the food being taken off his plate.

Dazai reached into Atsushi’s plate without asking. “Yen for your thoughts?”

The man doesn’t need to ask. He could tell every thought Nakajima conjured in his head. But that would be tactless and embarrassing for both. Then their eyes meet.

“Go on then,” the nullifier prompts, picking up a strip of grilled meat with chopsticks, “I can tell something is on your mind.” He offers a knowing smile. “Or should I say someone?”

Atsushi recoils in his seat, face turning furious pink. He chooses to look at anything but his mentor. Dazai would tease the newbie about age-inappropriate crush but then again, he could understand it. An orphan who never received affection meeting someone who had no qualms about giving it. Rationally, the suicidal man understands the innocence of such a sin as coveting. Just as he could understand the lack of innocence in his own. He covets the same things, just grander, greedier.

“They are a good person,” Nakajima says still averting his eyes, “that’s…”

Dazai continues to regard his subordinate with an intrusive stare. “Mhm.”

Atsushi drops his head on the table, pressured under a scrutinizing gaze and the weight of his own thoughts. “That’s why I want them to be happy.”

The man cannot help the smile forcing its way. “That so?” What an innocent desire. Perhaps that’s what keeps Atsushi from corruption. Nakajima is doomed and saved by selflessness.

“I don’t want them to hurt, Dazai-san.”

Something stirred in Dazai’s mind, but he couldn’t say anything to that.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Evening Glow in the Junggar Basin

An astronaut on board the International Space Station took this photograph of northwestern China on a partly cloudy evening (local time). This view offers a small glimpse of the Junggar Basin, a low-lying area between the Altay Mountains to the northeast and the Tian Shan range to the southwest. Sedimentary rock layers and geomorphic features characterize the Junggar Basin landscape.

This photo, taken around 9 p.m. local time (13:00 Universal Time) on June 1, 2023, shows the western sides of sand dunes illuminated by the setting Sun. The space station serves as a unique remote sensing platform for photographing Earth due to its inclined equatorial orbit. This provides opportunities for crew to take images during day or night, depending on the timing of the station’s orbit path over a given ground location. Astronauts can use varied lighting conditions to highlight features that may be more visible depending on the time of day—especially smaller features such as dunes. Clouds (out of view of this picture to the northwest) cast long shadows that further darken parts of the image.

The reddish ribbon across the middle of this photo marks a change in local topography. Uplifted, older sedimentary layers to the north—part of the Luliang uplift—slope down toward a geographic depression to the south. Eroded rocks have drainage patterns that lead to an ephemeral stream at lower elevations. On both the top and bottom of the photo, long sand dunes oriented north-south overlay the bedrock. Beneath the surface, organic-rich rock layers preserve fossils and contain extensive coal, oil, and gas deposits.

Astronaut photograph ISS069-E-16826 was acquired on June 1, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 400 millimeters. The image was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 69 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Andrea Wenzel/Jacobs-JETS II Contract at NASA-JSC.

[mahayanapilgrim]

The Royal Song of Saraha

HOMAGE TO ARYA MANJUSRI!

Homage to the destroyer of negative energy!

The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers;

The kingmakers multifarious identities form out of unity, seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha.

The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two;

The vision and the viewer are one, You broken, brittle mind!

Many lamps are lit in the house, But the blind are still in darkness;

Sahaja is all-pervasive

But the fool cannot see what is under his nose.

Just as many rivers are one in the ocean All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth;

The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners.

Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth

And there is neither increase nor decrease;

Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky.

Replete with the Buddha's perfections Sahaja is the one essential nature;

Beings are born into it and pass into it,

Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it.

Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, Hoping for mundane pleasure;

Your mouth is full of honey now, Swallow it while you may!

Fools attempt to avoid their suffering,

The wise enact their pain.

Drink the cup of sky-nectar

While others hunger for outward appearances.

Flies eat filth, sourcing the fragrance of sandalwood;

Men lost to Nirvana further their own confusion,

Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar.

The rainwater filling an ox's hoof-print

Evaporates when the sun shines;

The imperfections of a perfect mind, All are dissolved in perfection.

Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet;

The venom of passionate reaction

In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir.

The unutterable is free of pain;

Non-meditation gives true pleasure.

Though we fear the dragon's roar

Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest.

The nature of beginning and end is here and now,

And the first does not exist without the last;

The rational fool conceptualizing the inconceivable -

Separates emptiness from compassion.

The bee knows from birth

That flowers are the source of honey;

How can the fool know

That samsara and nirvana are one?

Facing himself in a mirror

The fool sees an alien form;

The mind with truth forgotten

Serves a untruth's outward sham.

Flowers' fragrance is intangible

Yet its reality pervades the air,

Just as mandala circles are informed

By a formless presence.

Still water stung by an icy wind

Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes;

In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts

The unformed becomes hard and intractable.

The Mind Immaculate by nature is untouched By samsara and nirvana's mud;

But just like a jewel lost in a swamp

Though it retains its luster, it does not shine. mental dullness creases pure awareness' ribbon,

As mental sloth increases suffering also grows.

Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches.

Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms;

Who is more deserving of pity than he

Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open?

Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace The fool believes he knows ultimate truth;

He is like someone who stands at his door

And, flirting, talks about sex.

The windstorms in the House of Emptiness Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure;

Fallen from celestial space, stung, The tormented yogin fades away.

Like a Brahmin taking riceand butter

Offering sacrifice to the flame,

He who visualizes material things as celestial ambrosia

Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality.

Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle

Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release,

The vain fools calls himself a yogini.

Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness,

He mistakes the lock for the key;

Ignorant of the true nature of the gem

The fool calls green glass emerald.

His mind takes brass for gold,

Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished;

Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss.

With a discursive understanding of the symbol

EVAM,

Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment,

He labels his peak experience sahaja:

He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror.

Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water

Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms

And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined,

They idealize their prison, pretending happiness.

The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs,

And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind,

And this is the supreme, the highest of the high, immaculate;

Friends, know this sacred high!

In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free,

Passion is immaculately pure;

Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom,

This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence.

Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream

And you attain transcendence, Instantaneous realisation and equanimity;

A strong mind binding the demons of darkness Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished.

Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance,

And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped;

It is a continuum of unique meditation, In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind.

Thus the l is intellect, mind and mind-forms, I the world, all seeming alien show, I the infinite varieties of vision-viewer, I the desire, I the anger, I the mental sloth - And bodhicitta.

Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness

Healing the splits riven by the intellect So that all mental defilements are erased.

Who can define the nature of detachment?

It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, And ungrasp - it is inconceivable.

Through conceptualization fools are bound, While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja.

The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration;

Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom.

Cognition of radiance is strong meditation;

Abide in a calm, quiescent mind.

Reaching the joy swollen land

Powers of seeing expand, And there is joy and laughter;

Even chasing objects there is no separation.

From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure,

And so long as outflow is contained Unutterable bliss will surely mature.

What, where and by whom are nothing, Yet the entire event is imperative.

Whether love and attachment

The form of the event is it's emptiness.

Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire

But what can stain our pearly mind?

Nothing can ever contaminate it, And by nothing can we ever be bound.

[astralyavie]

Heart's on Fire

Tagging: Yavie, mentions of Hayliel, Farenduil, Meryasek, Somniar, Robin, and Fen'Harel.

Timeframe: Oh gosh oh gee oh wow

Location: Adrift in the Astral Sea

Notes: How Yavie got his space groove

Content Warning: Death and Depression TW

A spectacular fight. The illithid N'ghathrod and his crew had been relentless, their pisonic prowess was crippling, but in the end Yavie destroyed the crew and the captain. There had been no way to win without destroying the ship in the process; so amidst the wreckage he drifted - magic depleted in its entirety. The Astral Sea bent Yavie’s most ephemeral being as he was pulled in every direction imaginable, the creatures of this realm brushed past him but the fey could sing no song to stop them or greet them. He thought that this would be his end, that the final pages of his story would be written into an infinity of timeless floating. A thousand years in this Sea while only a day would pass back home. Each day was another day that Hayliel would wait for him and each day was one that Yavie had to remember what he’d given up so that the others might escape.

Infinity stretched before Yavie’s mind’s eye with agonising force until there was nothing but quiet light. It was the stillness of dawn before the rise of expectation, a baby’s first breath and the death rattle of the old. Why are you sad? Came the soratami’s voice, though when Yavie spoke it was to the open Sea, stars that crept across his tongue with every word.

“I’m always sad.”

Atar had died shortly after Amille. Yavie rarely said their names anymore, names had power and speaking them felt like iron in his chest - fire in his veins. Atar the warder and Amille the fall noble, Queen of the Amazonian fey. A protector. She’d wanted a daughter and the son that she was given took her life in the process. Yavie was told by the satyrs who’d attended his birth that in her final moments Amille had held him, whispered in his ear, and then passed on.

You’re always sad. He heard the soratami again, reiterating what Yavie already knew to be true. The eladrin had gotten very good at lying to himself, unending confidence as he ran fearlessly into battle. Fearlessly into confrontation. Danger implied loss but Yavie couldn’t remember ever being afraid of dying. If nothing else he might feel unfinished, his last brush had brought that feeling to the surface. Yavie thought that chasing after Theneras’ dreams might somehow fill what felt so broken in him but it never did.

“I’m always sad.”

Atar told him often how being Amille’s warder had been the great privilege of his life. King in name only, he receded further and further into himself. Yavie remembered growing up with the nymphs and the fey of Amille’s court, those who, like her, had not given up on the mortal realm and had hidden away in the Otherworld. Atar was hardly present, the satyrs would play and sing while the young Yavie grew over the course of a decade, then another. Small, thin arms that twirled his mother’s sword as it bent like a ribbon without losing its edge.

Clairvoyance came with the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, Yavie sought out Atar and found him weeping once more. Crying as he so often did. Atar was always sad. The great and proud warder, a ruin of the warrior that he’d once been, a palace overgrown by grief. Yavie saw the stone that grew slowly over Atar’s frame, touched his hands to his father’s cheeks, and begged him to stay. Small hands that were too little to hold the man in place. Too small to keep him from disappearing. The small eladrin called out and pulled at his father, even as the man petrified completely, but Atar had stopped listening. Rock blanketed skin and while the eladrin had escaped the Underdark, death had come for him just the same.

“I’m always sad.”

Yavie felt the tears before he knew what to do with them, it wasn’t as if he never cried, it was more like they felt… Foolish. Silly. Why was there water on his face? The fey’s fingers brushed against his cheek and gathered some of what fell across his index. In the Astral light they shined like diamonds, lethal and sharp. Yavie saw the petrification now, how it inched across his fingers; he couldn’t be sure how long he’d been drifting, forever is what it felt like. Fear slipped away, worry as well. Here in the Astral Sea it didn’t matter how quick he was, it didn’t matter how much he had trained, it didn’t matter how bright or inquisitive he was, and it didn’t matter how badly he had wanted to make it home.

Petrification inched at his throat as he thought about the god-isles that floated in this place, a spark of power remained but they were dead mounds cast adrift for eternity. It felt poetic that he should follow in Atar’s footsteps, who knew - maybe something else laid beyond. Yavie’s mind hadn’t stopped for as long as he could remember, the quiet of the Astral was terrifying, but it was also peaceful. While the fey had not aged or breathed, neither had he slept or felt any real pain, sorrow wasn’t so bad, if nothing else it was a very old friend. It hadn’t been there his whole life, but certainly for most of it. The sorry excuse for a man he’d first fallen for was a testament to that, maybe the next said a great deal as well, but people could change and just as surely as the fey had shifted the heart of the fallen, Hayliel had done the same for him.

Stone fed Yavie’s lungs as the eladrin opened his mouth, closed his eyes, and welcomed the Sea within. Life played itself for him in reverse: Yavie’s perch within Sky Home, wonder and fascination dancing in his heart but confliction as well. The way he’d laughed as Cloud conjured stones. Travelling by Farenduil’s side once more as he’d done so many times in the past, walking backwards on his hands if only to make the prince smile. How he’d come running when he heard his old friend was going off into danger. Manic scribblings on parchment he left for Hayliel, betraying Hayliel before falling even deeper in love with him. Meryasek’s disapproval. The dedication that came to his pursuit of Theneras’ works and Severon’s tutelage but neither had ever quite been to Yavie’s shape. The way The Tinkerer’s lights filled the sky, the intense training Yavie had undergone after the drow’s blade had almost taken him. That feeling of indelible failure. Fen’Harel’s betrayal.

Making up with Hayliel, the argument that divided them for decades, that feeling of pride when Titania told him to kneel as she appointed him Farenduil’s warder. Meryasek’s beaming face, they were friends: best friends back then. Yavie saw the people that he lured into the forests, laughing alongside Mery as they turned them into beasts and watched them roll around in the mud. Meeting Hayliel on the cusp of heartbreak, Somniar’s death which felt more joyful than anything, and then of course the time spent with the former eladrin himself. Cruel and cutting, even as Yavie trained it was impossible to feel anything but inferior. Still, back then the fey was just grateful to be told that he was loved. Seasons within the Amazon, training among beasts, fey, and nymphs alike: a self-appointed protector of the wilds.

Atar’s death.

Yavie’s story played in reverse as his life flashed before his eyes. He remembered the listless days that his father had laid in bed, eyes open but fixed on some part of the wall or on the ceiling. Yavie would pull at his arm or his tunic, too young to understand that no matter how much he begged there was no tearing Atar out of the pit he’d fallen into.

“Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.”

Nestled in his mother’s arms, her breath ragged and ruined; despite this there was a smile on her face and hopeful optimism in her eyes. Yavie had no memories of her, but she looked down on him now just the same, more beautiful than any portrait that had ever been conjured or painted. They said that she’d been born wild, a Queen in her own right that refused to abandon her home in the mortal realm, mirthful and strong all at once. As he grew up they said that he was just like her, and that when she’d held him for those few moments she’d spoken something to him, not a spell or a prayer, but a wish.

Amille had whispered to him: set your heart ablaze.

A hum reverberated from within the petrified fey as stiff limbs cracked: after so long without the eladrin’s song to propel him every joint and ligament protested. Adrift through the Astral Sea rocks shifted and fell from his tunic as Yavie quietly shed the earthen skin. Slowly at first, then all at once, Yavie drew his mother’s sword and turned with a great flourish, a ribbon of stars danced around him. An eladrin no longer, Yavie was reborn.

So many years he had stared at the stars and wondered what waited for him beyond the realm that the fey left behind. Mortality and anguish, expectations and promises: the eladrin was beholden to no one now but himself.

An Astral Whale swam near, Yavie smiled, and grabbed hold of its fin as he flew within its jetstream. Where was it going? What was it doing? Where did it come from? Did it have any friends? Did it have any enemies? Had his friends made it to Arvandor okay? He wanted to know, he needed to know, and now time and space opened up in front of him.

[milkstoner]

journal entry for today,

My prose reads like thousands of little ribbons unraveling so very sweetly. Every thought is something smooth; if you dipped your fingers into them, they would ripple iridescent. This morning, on my way to university, I took a look at the grass, which was vibrant green, and I marveled at each little sparkle pearling on each little strand, like beads of blue morning sunlight. This is where the divine sleeps. Holy water. I crack my fingers, I render them supple. I remember my mother saying the most beautiful hands she had seen belonged to one of her children, me; I remember my siblings’ cousin telling me I got my hands from who he believes is my grandmother. I remember, when my mother told me my father was somebody I never knew, asking her about my hands, where they come from, and she told me they came from her. My height comes from my father. My hair comes from my father. My eyes come from my father. My lack of soul comes from winter.

Judith declared that God manifested Himself through her hands, the hands of a woman.

My fingers are always so cold and stiff and trembling. They crave gentleness, warmth. They are repulsed by unwanted touch. My fingers are sacred. When I offer my hands, I offer one of the layers of my intimacy. It is a gift. I want to present my hands, give them up to be caressed and admired. A kiss on the knuckles, easing into trust. I want to hold with this subtle tenderness, this supple caress, because I want to hold much sweeter than I behold. I want someone to take notice, how the moon-kissed sunlight shines so bright on my hands and renders them translucent. How my touch is fleeting, how it carries my calligraphy, my craft, my muscle memory, and how it writes itself on its most longed for surface, a loved one’s skin, like my prose, like thousands of little ribbons unraveling. so very sweetly. How water drops from my nails after washing. This is where the divine sleeps. Holy water. Counterculture—it’s contradictory.

I went to day camp at the museum when I was thirteen, obsessed with Lana Del Rey and Marina and the Diamonds. There was a bitchy little gay boy who hated on everybody; he said of me that all he liked were my hands. An odd but still cherished backhanded compliment. From May of 2022 through June of 2023, I slept next to a lonely and miserable man to whom I offered my hands; he rejected them on account that they were cold. The temperature of his body was always so warm and welcoming, but his spirit and muscles recoiled from my touch. I stuck my hands between my thighs.

All that emits light is holy, and all that takes on a circular shape is mystical. I own forty CD’s. I especially like eating from a bowl. My favourite metro station is Peel, with all of its circular ceramics by Jean-Paul Mousseau embedded into the walls and floating floors. Witches work best in circles because women’s histories operate in cycles. Circular shapes are infinite. Women summon from them. The moon is eternal. Street lights are her daughters. Grapes are the sweetest fruits, blueberries are angels. Ladybugs are feyries, and those who carry exactly seven dots wear the burden of Mary’s sorrows. Eyes own, seize, and possess. They are simultaneously window and mirror, a paradox. A classmate of mine told me my eyes were baroque. My eyes are empty. There is only one path, and it leads to the ferris wheel.

I always watch my step, and I’ve just seen a butterfly resting on the sidewalk; I kneeled right then and there, because catching such an ephemeral creature immobile is the rarest experience. Lace fabric is a pastiche of the wings of a butterfly; it tries to replicate the delicately carved veils and their perpetual apotheosis; what it can’t emulate is the hypostasis, that of weightlessness. This butterfly, she was beautiful, showing off her wings for me and letting me take note of the purple bleeding into orange, which reminded me of myself, and of October by James Tissot, which hangs on a lilac wall at the museum. It reminded me, also, of the leaves turning copper; as she lay there, shining her brightest, iridescent, waiting for someone to step on her, she served as a memento mori. Nature morte.

[thecurioustale]

(Part of) A Song from After The Hero

Early on in my fantasy novel After The Hero we meet Kayaju, a city runner in the desert metropolis of Soda Fountain. City runners have the job of delivering timely missives and messages across the city for whomever should have need to send and receive them.

Like virtually all city runners, Kayaju is a member of the Runners' Guild, the Guild of Corir, which also goes by other names locally including the Azure Winds (for their bright blue uniforms and fast running) and the Errant Septembrii (for their errantry and for the fact that they have historically had seven great Guildhalls across Relance).

I share all these names with you only to tell you to keep them in mind!

We first meet Kayaju at work by dawn's early light on the highest day of the city's most important festival in many years. Her blue uniform with rainbow tassels flutters in the viator's wind—the "traveler's" wind that we feel when we are moving—as she speeds along to deliver her message to its recipient.

A bard joins her (not our Afiach Bard; another bard). In the festive spirit, the bard has prepared a song to praise the city runners, who are much beloved by the people of Soda Fountain, and she had told herself that she would sing it to the first runner she found—who happens to be Kayaju. City runners don't stop for much, so the two of them run along together as the bard performs her song.

This song is inspired by, and in my mind is set to the music of, "The Yew Tree," a modern folk song that I first found on the early Internet as a kid, known to me for most of my life as a wordless MIDI music file with the hopelessly generic name "dove.mid" from the website Glorianon. (Anyone remember her?) It was only in the past year that I thought to check the MIDI file metadata, which happened to contain—and had contained all this time—the name of Brian McNeill, the song's creator, and the name of the song, "The Yew Tree."

It's a good song and I think you should listen to it. But, either way, the story in my song—or rather the song that the Sodish bard sings to Kayaju as they run together in the morning light—begins thematically in a similar vein to "The Yew Tree" and then steadily moves off in its own direction. I have been working on it for many months and it is not finished yet! The song is quite lengthy, but here are a few selected verses:

"The Errant Blue Wind"

On a chilly dirt street, in the shadows of dawn, Blows a wind that's lived four hundred years. And the wizened ones say that our cares last a day, But take care when the Errant Wind hears you— For the noise of the gale is a story Of thirteen generations blown by, And their proudest conceits, or their bitterest defeats, Rattle on while their perished bones lie. O, errant blue wind... Tell me, where will it end?

When the Soda Dome rose o'er fountains below And the last ray of sun hit those waters, Did you print what folk said over bubbly and bread As they toasted the King and his orders? Did you carry good news of the revels? Did you spread the great speeches and songs? Were you warmed by their spark as you dashed in the dark Of that palace of ribbons and bronze? O, errant blue wind... Tell me, where will it end?

Did it grieve your blue spark when you carried command That the Tenants' Aedes Riots be smothered? And those letters of tears set in smudges and smears Of broken lives never recovered? As the Landlessors reached their conclusion, And the infamous words underlined: "You may think it untoward but put all to the sword And their families be found and be fined!" O, errant blue wind... Tell me, where will it end?

Though the letters you bear are ephemeral as we— Every edict and perfumed love poem; And your visages change like the flowers o' the range— Gone the day after we saw them! Yet the beat of your footfalls forever Sounds canty in all Sodish ears: For the toast and the feast o' the folk of the East Is: "Live like the Errant Wind hears!" O, errant blue wind... Tell me, where will it end?

As you can see, the song is partly a retelling of Sodish history and partly a reflection on how we are joined together by sharing in the same experiences each in our own hour and our own way. The Azure Winds, the city runners, have been a beloved fixture of Sodish society since the beginning, and they are a common thread that all Sodish have known. Though the individual runners change, they are the voice of the city, and they are its continuity.

The song has a really fun rhyme scheme: Lines 1 – 4 are ABcCB and Lines 5 –8 are DEfFE, with the lowercase letters being internal rhymes in a single line. The original song sometimes adds internal rhymes in the first lines too (aA), but I decided it against it in mine.

By the way, the thousand-year-old yew tree in Brian McNeill's song is real.

[ao3feed-ineffablehusbandz]

Tell Me Why My Gods Look Like You

Tell Me Why My Gods Look Like You

by cheerios_and_wine

Then the air above Aziraphale's head ripples and distorts, until his halo shimmers into the mortal plane. It's a ribbon of pure light, wound in a loop without beginning or end. The power within it sings at a low hum Crowley can only barely hear. He can sense the heat of its divinity, the nature of it scorching to the demon he is.

Aziraphale reaches up and curls his fingers around the rim of it. It's ephemeral, and grabbing light shouldn't be possible, but he does, and he carefully lowers it toward Crowley's body where he lies underneath him.

Aziraphale and Crowley try out a scene involving Aziraphale's halo. It's a dangerous game, but Aziraphale will never let Crowley be hurt too badly.

Words: 700, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Good Omens (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Other

Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens)

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)

Additional Tags: Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sub Crowley (Good Omens), Divinity Kink, somebody please let me know if there's a canon tag for that I can use instead, Temperature Play, Burns, Halo Kink, damn didn't expect that tag, Non-Sexual Kink, although i'm tagging this as mature instead of teen bc it borders on sexual, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aftercare

From https://ift.tt/VOy7BPp https://archiveofourown.org/works/43260336

[vesselforcrushedstars]

🌟artist appreciation post

music of Mitski, particularly songs such as ‘Thursday Girl’, ‘My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars’, and ‘Last Words of a Shooting Star’, which detail themes of beauty and aging, with the overarching theme of femininity, and depression and suicide. A lyric that especially empowered my work was “I always wanted to die clean and pretty”, which connects with my artwork through its undertone of defeat and interaction with the constructs of beauty in society.

Karla Black’s art practice: taking unconventional approach to sculpture, creating large-scale works that reposition how we view everyday materials such as plaster, cellophane, and makeup; engages with themes of fragility and ephemerality, which I was interested in in my own work (portraying a woman sewed onto a flyscreen mesh layer using light thread and lace ribbons — engaging with themes of femininity and domesticity like in Karla Black’s “The Academy”)

[violetvaughnart]

In the heart of the city, beneath a sky draped in a veil of alabaster clouds, a boulevard unfurls like a monochrome ribbon, bordered by towering spires of glass and steel. Here, amidst the cacophony of urban life, time seems to dilate, offering a canvas where moments blend into brushstrokes of existence.

The air is thick with the whispers of countless passerby, their forms a procession of silhouetted phantoms; they are the keepers of untold tales, each a staccato note in the symphony of the street. Among them, a lone figure stands motionless, a sentinel in a transient world, gazing upon the scene with a gaze both pensive and distant.

Citadels of commerce rear above, their faces blazoned with the neon sigils of a modern age. The city's pulse throbs in the hum of bass and the murmur of midday chatter, yet within the lone observer, there stirs a quietude that belies the ambient tumult — a sanctuary of solitude amidst a sea of faces.

They stand as if within the eye of an urban storm, their form dissolving into the strokes and splashes of the grayscale backdrop around them. Their eyes, reflecting a sky borrowed from old silent movies, seem to drink every detail, as if memorizing the cadence of the city's unspoken poetry.

The scene etches into the fabric of the soul, a tapestry of light and shadow, of ephemeral connections eternally sketched in the book of life. A gentle melancholy envelops the air — not of despair, but of wistful contemplation. A sorrow for the fleeting beauty of the present, for the transient embrace of a world eternally in flux.

Yet, as the sun threads its golden whispers through the gathering mist, there is a nascent shimmer of hope. It's there, in the vignette of stillness, where the promise of new beginnings peeks through the monotonous grays, suggesting that within impermanence lies the potential for rebirth.

For this solitary figure, the street becomes more than a pathway between destinations; it is a voyage within, a chance to commune with the silent symphony of existence, timeless and boundless. Here, life pauses, and for an ephemeral heartbeat, the essence of what it means to simply be is felt with profundity.

In this solitary introspection, there is resilience. In the quiet acknowledgment of the world's ebb and flow, there is strength. And in the midst of this empyrean theatre of spirits and stories, inked against the canvas of the city, there exists a connection so profound, it transcends the mere pulse of the passing crowd.

[niamhmcdonaldspatial]

Edith Meusnier creates large-scale environmental installation pieces that both conform and contrast the natural surroundings. She uses mostly gift wrap ribbon creating a tactile quality that moves with the surrounding area.

When describing her work she states:

"Light, transparent, colorful, convertible, serial and ephemeral.

I have been working on the borderline between textile art and art in situ, I choose very trivial materials, I craft them with primitive textile techniques to produce simple geometric shapes, then I install these flexible structures in different urban or rural areas.

Playing with opposites, natural-artificial, continuity-brittleness, fragile-solid these parenthesis  underline the tensions between realities and fictions of a selected landscape."