#just a visual artist with words spitting out of my brain

[haiverse]

Back to writing!

Tadano is the antagonist, at least a smaller one. He's a father that is neglectful of his own child and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him.

He feels justified in practically abandoning his son because he did it for "the greater good" and "at least one of your parents are alive". He is sheltering other people and their children over raising his own son. Tadano is kind of a good person but he isn't a good father.

[celestialgaea]

hello, noticed ur requests r open! is it okay if I could ask for a fic of Ezio/F!Reader with the theme of jealousy coming from Ezio? thank you if you accept my request! your works are amazing!

I have been wanting to fulfill this request for such a long time but I went through quite a rough period and I always felt the guilt of letting you wait linger upon me. I am so sorry for letting you wait. I have not forgotten you, your request was always in the back of my mind and I'm grateful for finally being able to write again!

I hope you enjoy the fanfiction!

(Request) Ezio Auditore x F!Reader // Jealousy

Warnings: (slight) mature content

Pairings: Ezio Auditore x (Female) Reader

summary: You are Leonardo's apprentice and have gotten the assignment to draw the naked male body from different perspectives. But when Ezio is paying a visit to Leonardo he doesn't seem very delighted with his lover drawing another man's private part.

You had underestimated the assignment. When Leonardo first told you about drawing a naked man you hadn't perceived the false comfort of your own assurance, who convinced you into thinking that seeing a fully bare stranger is nothing but the nature of a human being, as an illusion. Until the horrific scene of the young male, probably in his early twenties, slowly discarding himself off his clothes manifested itself behind a wooden changing screen.

Your mind kept replaying the former scene of the young male talking in slight shock to your maestro about how the apprentice was a women. A women that would create an image of his private part underneath the blunt end of her charcoal stick. During the open conversation, as the man was not ashamed of his shock whose cause leant more towards the fear of visible arousal than the mysogenistic side, his face and neck began to change into a more reddish skintone.

'Y/N,' Leonardo whispered, pointing towards his chest. 'Cover a bit of your chest, Ragazza. The poor man is quite...weak. I don't want you to get horrified.' You scoffed as you pulled up the fabric of the nightgown underneath your dress. 'Forgive me, maestro, for showing fertility.' You mocked. Leonardo shook his head, as if he were trying to remove his excessive thoughts to make more room for your shameless remarks. 'Ragazza, you know that I have no problem with your breasts, and i'm sure you know why, But this kid is as mature as the mosquitos that flied above Cleopatra's head during a scorching summer night. Be prepared that his "pride" might show itself."

Your heart began beating faster at just the mere thought of it, and the rustles of the male's fabric rubbing against each other as they fell onto the ground, entangled into one big flood of linen and leather, made his presence very clear and thus brought tension in the air that encircled you. 'Giovanni, Dannazione, are you almost done, boy? You're taking too long!' 'Maestro, no!' You whispered as annoyance took a hold of your voice. 'Ragazza, time is precious. And in these times of uncertainty I cannot lose any more.' And with that he turned his back to you and walked towards his desk not far away from your seat. You noticed how Leonardo's slouch has grown heavier over the past months, and his neck was more bent, as if it was bowing to his brain; the holder of his talent and geniusness.

Even though your eyes kept flickering through the various parchments filled with unfinished sketches and scrabbles you were still able to see the faint and disorted sillhouette of Giovanni walking from behind the changing screen towards the small wooden stage in front of you. His feet seemed humid as they loosened themselves from the floor with a sound similar to wallpaper being pulled away from a tacky wall. The boy slowly uncovered his private part, exposing a dark bush of intertwined curls, but when a knock on the door disturbed him he quickly covered himself again as the door was getting pierced by his anxious eyes. You regretted looking at it.

'Maestro, who is visiting?' You heard the sighs of parchment before Leonardo scurried towards the door.

'Ah. It's good to see you my friend!'

'It's good to see you too, mio amico.' The sonorous voice whose melodious words and promiscues groans swiftly danced towards you to embrace you in its tenderness was only able to come from one person only; Ezio Auditore. And it seemed that the young man wasn't fond of Ezio's presence.

'Maestro, I thought no one was allowed to disturb?' Giovanni's voice was a batter of shame and growing annoyance as he stood there with only his hands to cover his private part. Ezio glared at you. He saw you, he observed you, viewed you with spurned astonisment and the displeased look in his eyes made you grasp onto the understandment of why he was as fearsome as he was charming.

'I am unsure wether to turn to leonardo or you for an explanation, mia cara.' Leonardo had his hands up, almost touching Ezio's chest. 'Ezio, I have given her the assignment to draw a naked man.' 'Then why didn't you ask to draw me in nudity? There would be more flesh to capture than what that boy beholds.' Ezio surrenered himself uncontrollably to his impulses and attacked the poor Giovanni with his spit-filled words . 'Ezio, leave the boy out of this! He hasn't done anything and secondly; do not begin with the "Then why didn't you ask me", Because you know how scheduled you are. This is merely for educational reasons.' It felt sinful to get enraged with Ezio, but he had never behaved this attacking towards an innocent man. Along with his birth came his short temperance and even during the scorching season of maturing the searings left by his short temperance refused to heal.

'Educational purposes?' Ezio pulled at the leather skin of his gloves on top of his index finger as if he was planning on slapping the vulnurable model with it. 'Since when did looking at a cazzo become an educational enlightment?' The gloves were put on the table -Thank the Lord- together with his defected hidden blade. Ezio walked, no, he stomped towards a wooden chair that stood desolated in a corner collecting the flying dust and bits of dried paint that fell of a "failed", as the old man is still a perfectionist, da Vinci painting that towered above the chair.

Ezio let the chair ballance on its two front legs and allowed his dissatisfaction to guide his hand as it smacked the pieces of paint and dust particles off of its sitting surface. And how surprisingly odd it may seemed, you felt the muscles around your lower stomach contract in an ebb and flow that left trails along the flesh of your womanhood. He was angry, and so were you, and yet you felt aroused by him just uttering his jealousy to a lonely and motionless chair. For a few seconds you visualized those same rough hands whispering against the surrface of your weeping arse before turning them into a lovely shade of red. Ezio carried the chair and let its feet hit the ground next to you.

'Ezio, what are you intending to do?'

'Accompanying you.'

Oh, how he liked blending himself within the schemes of colours so his robes of red and white were the most appealing to look at.

'I do not need company. I'm doing very well on my own.' Ezio's fingers ran along your clothed thigh and gripped it sturdily. The lack of shame was transparant on him, removing the presence of Leonardo and Giovanni out of his realm of reality, as the humid warmth of his breath hugged your ear lobe.

'Ragazza, stop being hard-headed. I'm surprised that the boy is able to remain his excitement in custody. When I was his age,' 'Your cazzo had impregnated almost half of Firenze's youth. Not everyone is as rebellious as you were.' To your surprise, Ezio had remained silent. It seemed as though the sudden flare up of the middle aged consciousness had possessed him again and the teasing hand was removed from your thigh to fill in his crossed arms. His boyish teases were vanished. The man in his mid forties had appeared again; the outer corner of his eyes were folded into deepened curtains, the corners of his mouth were surrounded by the crescent-shaped smile lines which vitalized the apples of his cheek and if you looked at it with a certain view, not through the eyes of a classical artist, but through the eyes of a daydreamer, a madman, or a child you could play with the lines and follow it until his cheek slowly transfomed into a smooth segment of a rock being caressed by the spirals and curls of waves or maybe strands of hairs or whatever can be curly and spirally. Ezio grunted, focusing on the model, especially his croth area.

'Come one,' Ezio leant in to whisper in your ear, again.

'My cazzo is way more appealing to look at than his.'

'Ezio!'

[soundofseventeen]

Our Dawn Is Hotter Than Day (Joshua Hong)

Summer seems to have arrived early in my little corner of the world, and with everything going on and how busy I’ve been, I realize just how much I miss my bias and Seventeen, but I guess in spite of everything, I’m happy and I’m very much in love with him.

Inspo: Our Dawn Is Hotter Than Day

Word count:1413

A content sigh left your lips as you took a moment to recognize and appreciate your surroundings. It had finally been warm enough to spend a lazy afternoon outdoors and with the smell of meat and wood burning and wafting through the air, it felt as though summer had arrived early. The slight breeze didn’t bother you even with the setting sun and you sipped at the sweet drink in your hand, enjoying the taste and lips nearly puckering at the tangy aftertaste. You called for the boys’ pups, not really caring who came to you first and fed each of them a piece of meat, scratching behind their ears lightly and your heart twinging with a hint of sadness when they begged you for more but you smiled nonetheless.

In front of you, Seokmin and Jeonghan were retelling an encounter that had happened many months ago, but their small audience loved hearing it and it never failed to make them laugh. They loved becoming method actors complete with unnecessary hand gestures and accents to complete their story, often breaking character to chide the other because of a missing detail or calling the other out because something didn’t happen. 

Junhui stood  behind the grill with Seungkwan occasionally sampling whatever was ready and voicing his opinion about the flavor. He’d feed a leftover to his elder who would nod in appreciation and you could swear he was mentally patting himself on the back for not only being the most beautiful visual in the band of brothers, but also the best at grilling. He caught you looking at him and clipped the tongs at you, winking because he had gotten caught in the act. You raised your drink at him, and after searching for his beer bottle, raised it at you and you drank at the same time. 

Out by the grass, Wonwoo and Chan were throwing water balloons at Hansol and Minghao who used water guns in some undeclared war and no one had a clue who was winning. The performance unit had inherited some kind of competitive thing, especially when they were on opposing teams so Chan and Hao took the hits and sprays on a personal level. You waved to get Wonwoo’s attention to aim for Vernon since he seemed more entertained by the fight and when Wonwoo ended up hitting Hansol square in the chest, it was all you could do not to double over in laughter at seeing the look of betrayal. Wonwoo flashed you a thumbs up and you raised your drink at him too and took another sip in a toast.

Soonyoung’s rambunctious laugh could be heard from inside, probably at something that Mingyu had said or possibly elaborated from the same story and you weren’t sure if the window was open or if he was that loud, but you almost covered your ears at the loudness. Mingyu’s cackles followed not long after the warm feeling in your chest returned because you weren’t the only happy one. And when a, “NO MINGYU,” sounded you actually let out a laugh as you pictured what could only happen in that kitchen.

Seungcheol gasped for breath at the peak of the story with Jihoon trying not to choke on his food as he searched for the soda to wash it down. Every so often they’d slap each other’s arms, trying to control the tears that threatened to flow. At one point, Jihoon with his mouth full of his drink ended up spitting it out right on Jeonghan’s bare feet and he fell off the chair, hugging his knees trying to muffle his laughter. 

At the end of the tale, Seokmin called for Mingyu and he arrived carrying the plastic plates and silverware, with Soonyoung at his heels holding a pair of speakers. The storytellers finally bowed dramatically and Seokmin helped Jihoon up to his feet. Soonyoung, after a moment of fiddling with his phone, found the perfect song and let the music fill any silence that may have carried over. He then ran back inside and came out with a bin that held water balloons and dumped them into the kiddie pool for Wonwoo and Chan to use.

Jeonghan used that time to ask Wonwoo for a water balloon and hurled it at Cheol who in turn threw his cup of water at him in retaliation. In that moment, Wonwoo threw another water balloon at Jeonghan who caught it easily and aimed again at the leader who fell back on the chair and scrambled to his feet. He ran to the boys who had the water guns and snatched one from Minghao away, also declaring war on Jeonghan. 

The water still dripped from your hair, a telltale sign that you had engaged in the water activities earlier, but stopping when you had gotten hungry and insisted on eating. The gazebo came along nicely and you commended Minghao for having such a sharp eye for this even if he did have help. The misters would eventually be put to good use, but not today and soon they’d all be smelling of smoke, water and sunscreen every time they got together. You stood up, gathering the empty plates and shoving them into a plastic bag to use as trash and offered refills to those who had finished drinking whatever they held.

Seventeen may have been multi millionaires, headlining world tours and appearing on every magazine that wanted them, but you found it endearing at how their favorite investments for the summer came in the form of plastic beach balls and slip ‘n slides which they would break out once the heat became too much to handle. Your favorite times with them came from whenever they dropped their masks even for the Going Seventeen episodes and had fun without the camera crews and makeup artists. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, you felt at home, happy...alive and you could feel the tears prickle in your eyes at the realization. You didn’t think you could feel like this; a couple of years ago, you wouldn’t have believed it. You would’ve been holed up in your room, curled up on your bed refusing to interact with anyone and just let the negative words poison your brain. You have come a long way since then, and in moments like this, you were grateful you pulled through with life when it was easier to not.

You dropped back on the couch a little, falling comfortably into the boy who just draped his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him, not minding you were still damp. Without breaking the mini conversation with Seokmin, Joshua’s free hand searched for yours and entwined them. You know he didn’t know what you were thinking, but the little gesture filled your heart with lots of love and proved your point that maybe, just maybe you were designed to find joy and meaning in moments like this. Every bad day you had was worth it when things like this happened.

Even when the sun finally set, the boys still played with the water, refusing to call a truce; Junhui still threw more meat on the grill, meaning bigger portions of leftovers for breakfast; Seungkwan opened another bottle of beer; Soonyoung and Mingyu found some chalk and drew cartoons all over the ground, tracing around everyone’s feet; Seokmin skipped a few songs until he found the one he wanted; and Joshua? He continued to keep his hold on you, occasionally planting a kiss to your hair, somehow not getting enough contact. 

You were glad you stayed alive for this moment, especially when you snuggled into his chest and rested your head over his heart. It sped up a little and only when you breathed another sigh content did it slow down again. 

Spring was almost over but it brought life back with it, including yours and you could only guess what summer would bring. Seventeen would still be idols getting ready for their next comeback, and you’d still have to find the strength to get through some days, but you’d be okay with that because just like whenever the world seemed to be falling apart or just like now when all the boys who were playing with the water guns and water balloons forged an alliance and turned against you and decided to hose you down...

Joshua would not pull away from you and still hold your hand.

[affairesasuivre]

kojaque is the dublin soft boy rapping about shitty jobs and irish life

Where England has greasy spoons, Ireland owns the deli. They sell sausage rolls, paninis and melted ham and cheese concoctions called jambons. They’re institutions run on saturated fat and carbohydrates, they’re a hangover’s best friend, but they’re not really the place you expect a concept rap album to be set. Mesmerisingly cringeworthy Bob Marley covers that replace the word ‘jammin’ with ‘jambon’ perhaps, but not rap. Then again, Kojaque is not your average rapper.

The trained visual artist raps in a Dublin accent, deconstructing toxic masculinity with the music he puts out on his own Soft Boy Records. Keeping it local, he wrote an eight track concept album called Deli Daydreams that follows a week in the life of deli owner. But it’s not because Kojaque has a fixation with beige foodstuffs. He doesn’t even eat at the deli anymore. Instead, he whiles away hangovers watching Village Food Factory -- a YouTube channel based in India (exact whereabouts unknown) featuring a man referred to only as ‘my daddy’ cooking a phenomenal array and amount of food on his own -- 1000 chicken gizzards, 100kg of watermelon juice served straight from the shell, fried mutton brains, homemade KFC chicken, a natural viagra recipe made from 3000 drumsticks.

“When you work in a job you don't like, you don't think about the job. It's the last thing you think about, you think about everything else -- what you don't have, what you could be doing, where you wish you were.”

It may seem like mass food production is a common thread in the content Kojaque consumes and produces. But when it came to the album, the job of a deli owner was just a placeholder for any mundane job you have to do to facilitate a living. “It's arbitrary, and that's the point”, Kojaque explains. “When you work in a job you don't like, you don't think about the job. It's the last thing you think about, you think about everything else -- what you don't have, what you could be doing, where you wish you were.”

It’s through this lens of an unfulfilling job that Kojaque traces the tribulations of working class Ireland. Take the opening track, White Noise, there’s run-ins with the Irish police (“weekly standoffs in the streets with the Síochána”) and legal battles (“my court proceedings weighing on me”). There’s universal political problems (“fuck the handouts / give tax breaks to smarmy fuckers in the grey suits / leave me starving tryna find a source of income”) and country-specific ones (“sovereign state / they'd rather see my mother bleed out than build a clinic) though thankfully Ireland’s anti-abortion laws are moving towards change. It’s three minutes and eight seconds of smart, inflammatory flow. “I want to get people pissed off,” Kojaque says. “There's agency to anger, there's no agency to apathy.”

“I think fragile masculinity is the bedrock of a lot of braggadocio and aggression that you see among men."

But the music itself isn’t angry. It’s slow, oozing, melodic. Kojaque flows effortlessly over lazy beats, jazz-inflected piano and saxophone lines. It’s an apt soundtrack for a heatwave, for hanging on someone’s doorstep chatting shit and swigging beers. It’s hints of Odd Future and its offspring -- Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator. Which figures -- they’re the ones who got him in the game in the first place. “I saw Odd Future play at my first festival when I was 16 and it was a complete mind fuck.” So he started consuming everything he could, then started producing, because it looked simple. “I pretty quickly realised it takes a lot of hard work to make shit look easy.”

Clearly, he’s worked hard. Yet while the music feels effortless, the deli life isn’t. Last Pint sees him on a night out, doing bumps off the mirror, passing up a pill because he’s seeing “babies on the ceiling” -- a nod to a gruelling scene in Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor’s character is hallucinating from heroin withdrawals. The film reference figures, given Kevin’s visual background and production approach. “I try to think of it like a movie -- I make pictures with my music.” His most-played track on Spotify, Eviction Notice, is about a breakup. It marries yearning hooks with melancholic lyrics: “I put my pants back on / I put my heart through the wash.”

Politicksis is about politics, a word as jumbled as our current state of democratic affairs. This one, too, is about working nine to five, spending wages at the bookies, not having enough money to eat. The video, which we’re premiering today, opens with Kojaque puking on wet tarmac. He runs into the middle of a road, stops a taxi, hops in, and spends the rest of the video spitting bars in the cab’s neon lit interiors. Friend and fellow Dublin dweller Luka Palm delivers a guest verse from the backseat.

Both the track and the album encompass the dichotomy of anger and fragility, bravado and insecurity, of -- as put so well in another track’s title -- Love and Braggadocio. “I think fragile masculinity is the bedrock of a lot of braggadocio and aggression that you see among men,” he says. “So I try and explore that through characters and in myself.” And with good reason: Ireland, like many other countries, has severe issues with mental health and suicide, especially among men. “If I can articulate a feeling that someone has but can't express themselves, it can act as a kind of release for them,” he says. “As well as for my own peace of mind.”

[weirdotherapper-blog]

Diss Track - HeadShots -

I’ma take a few shots at some rap and hip-hop artist who are not

As cream of the crop; not a heart stops; you wannabe show stoppers; 

Yall just bar hop -and bump hips to hop to the top, 

So lemme get the trigger ready to take a steady shot 

-Head shot number one;

Yelawolf where the fuck did you come from; 

No one even gives a fuck about you son;

Last time you were relevant you were trying to keep up with Tech-N9ne; and Busta-Rhymes;

Now your time to be in your prime has already run outta lifelines;

Then you come and also Diss M.G.K. - I’m Sor-ray your word-play is on-lay okay 

Here comes Headshot number 2; get outta the way 

And M.G.K. you pretend to play, with words even though your cadence is 

Boring making fans snoring as you pretend you are flooring, 

Them with same repetitive nonsense, no one’s in suspense as you repeat clever sentences from a previous artist; don’t start this,

If you can’t finish it; if you ain’t really in it to win it,

Headshot number 3, I used be your biggest fan, Slim-shady sorry,

I said used to be cause honestly as of lately Eminem, 

Been wack and only attacking other artist to continue having a story, 

Marshal Matthers maybe retire and pass down the godly rap glory;

We get it Slim-Shady, Eminem, Marshal Matthers Baby, 

You got a legacy you wanna see thrive, and desperately keep alive 

The problem is you haven’t had a good album since before 2005 

Headshot Number 4; I just gotta settle a score;

Drake your trash; your fake; you’re lame; you only rake and take in 

Money and bitches after some ghost wrote the lines that got you honey and riches;

You’re not raw; you’re not tough; allow me to call you further on your bluff,

Like Jimmy Brooks ima leave you shook as I take the next shot;

You are no 50-cent, Biggie, Or Tupac; stop pretending to be something you not;

Before I give you a reason to not have your legs work; okay I gotta stop 

Head Shot Number 5, 6, and 7 - A trifecta of Music my friend,

Kanye, Dr.Dre, and Jay-Z, can yall just stick making beats, Please?

Kanye you’re already clinically insane believing your Gods gift to us, okay right 

Call me an Indian giver cause get that shit outta my sight, 

God can take back this quack crack-pot gift and lift this curse, 

before I gotta spit another diverse verse so go disburse,

Please just leave and take your barely passable rap skills

At least Dr.Dre has flow and always goes for his kills 

But lets be honest without Slim-Shady coat-tails your ship probably would’ve already set sails 

Jay-Z I respect you freestyle essentially everything,

But could you be a little more interesting?I 

I know your pussy whipped but does Beyonce gotta be slipped into everything, bad enough the illuminati already gotcha nuts gripped, 

I’m just saying I hate when artists step out of there element just to revel in idea of being relevant, 

Speaking of irrelevant relevance 

Headshot number 8 and 9; I don’t give fuck that they are both hella fine,

Kardi-B and Nicki-ménage à trois - we know how yall got ya jobs  

Yall an insult to what women truly represent, saying you are supposed feminist; 

When your words are socially venomous; pretending to be Mean pristine Queens -Mirror Mirror on the wall?

Who is the sluttiest of them all?

That’s a tough question; maybe make more investments in your talent then;

Then your fake asses and barely passes for music my cum-swallowing friends -

Headshot Number 10, this motherfucker doesn’t know if he’s gonna go to hell or heaven,

Marcus Hopsin, you are talented; you can sing, and rip bars and minds apart;c

Cause we get it your fucking smart; being a psychology major I find,

when I see an Ill mind I gotta pull that brain apart;

Your close-minded to what others believe, and even say multiple times weed is the Devil; please, 

Maybe you need to take a few tokes and relax and come to our Level; Marcus see -

you’re becoming Narcissistic, egotistic; eccentric and malevolent  

when you used to be so sentient, and relevant it’s evident you’ve become nothing but bullshit and sediment, 

it fills me with resentment cause at one point I respected your intellect,

Always comparing your cerebral flare to others as though we are mentally bare.

minimal broken individuals, with residual visuals working for subliminal criminals.

when you’re the one becoming a dark individual with critical criticisms becoming catatonic and chaotic, 

a cataclysm of schisms risen out of insecure idioms into introverted introspective Imprisonment, 

Ignorant to inner interference ironically inseminating itself with Ignorance, inevitable isolated intelligence incarnates into immoral idiotic indulgence, 

But honestly,

fuck what I think though speaking relatively, it’s all irrelevant in a universe intertwined in infinite immeasurable possibility,

but seriously though, can we like, stop being so childish and petty? 

[cooperjones2020]

To breathe the fire we was born in

Summary: Filling the prompt “Smut or rather smut with feelings where Jughead wants to have sex with Betty while they look at themselves in the mirror, but she's feeling insecure about watching herself. He persuades her to do it, because watching her come is the hottest thing he has ever seen and he wants her to see that too.” Also turned into fluff and domestic/vacation/future!bughead. Also Dom!Jug cause that’s just how I roll.

A/N: Soundtrack to this fic is (obviously, as you will see) Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album, specifically the A side, but really you should just listen to all of it.Title’s from “Backstreets” off that same album.

Word Count: 3,026

Rating: E (aka smutty smut smut below the jump)

ao3—>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11791893

It’s their last night in the little log cabin in the mountains. From her seat on the porch step, Betty watches as the watercolour sunset melts away, only to be replaced by a circus troupe of lightning bugs.  She stretches out and crosses her legs, brown and bare under a loose dress, and leans back on her hands. Dried dirt falls off her toes in clouds of dust from where she’d tiptoed through the mud in search of cattail stalks and garlic mustard for their salad earlier.

The screen door behind her bangs shut and she tilts her head back to watch, upside down, as her boyfriend hands her a glass of wine and comes to sit beside her.

She shuffles closer to rest her head on his shoulder and slips her arm through his. The night air is still muggy, so the skin of his shoulder is damp where it comes out of the strap of his white tank top.

“I’m not ready to go home.”

“Me either.”

“Are you sure we have to go back?”

“I got no less than five texts from Archie yesterday about what a little monster Scout is being. I normally don’t get that many texts from him in a week.”

Betty laughs. “I got some from Veronica too. In retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have left a fifty pound sheepdog puppy with a guy who forgets to feed himself sometimes and a girl who thinks dogs should fit in purses so you can carry them on the subway.”

“Yeah well, you live and you learn. But that’s tomorrow’s problem.” Jughead turns and kisses Betty’s hair before resting his cheek on her head. “Tonight, the real world doesn’t exist. I have twelve more hours of having you all to myself.”

“Plus the two and half hours back to Riverdale and then three more home.”

“You’re sure we have to have lunch with your mother?”

“Stop it,” Betty nudges him with the elbow looped through his. “Mom’s really excited. And we haven’t been home since Polly’s wedding.”

“I know.” Jughead releases a long-suffering sigh. “I’m just not looking forward to more pointed comments about you busting your ass and your earning potential and the ‘instability of artistic careers.’ I know you’re basically supporting me and this relationship isn’t fifty fifty right now, but—”

“The book will sell, Jug.”

“Yeah. And maybe I’ll get lucky and there’ll be an email from my agent waiting for me.”

“Hey, we said no email-checking on this trip.”

“I’ll wait till we’re within the town limits. Then if there’s nothing, I’ll have at most five minutes to be disappointed before Alice Cooper commandeers all my brain cells.”

Betty smiles up at him, the corner of her lips curving down. “C’mere.”

Jughead tilts his head down toward her and she captures his lips in a kiss. Neither makes a move to deepen it, so it’s sweet, smouldering with the promise of things both past and to come. She sighs when she lets go and when she opens her eyes, Jughead’s are still closed, a dreamy smile on his face. More than ten years and, still, she feels that sweet ache in her chest whenever she looks at him. She lifts her glass and it catches the light, reflecting the facets of the new weight on her left hand.

“Now then, if this is to be our last night in Eden, I want you to dance with me.” Their cabin had come with a turntable and a collection of classic rock vinyls that had caused JB to text her a disturbingly long string of emojis when Betty sent her a photo a couple of days ago. When Jughead refilled their wine just now, he put on Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album, and so the music floats out the window on the evening breeze.

He opens his eyes and squints at her. “Only because it’s our last night.” Then he kisses her on the tip of the nose and pulls her to her feet.

After a minute or two of awkward shuffling, they find a rhythm, barefoot on the bare dirt. Her nails scratch at the nape of his neck and his thumb sweeps across the back of her hand where he holds it.

By the third track, Jughead gets into it, twirling her and dipping her with a skill that she knows he has, but that always surprises her when it emerges. He swallows her laugh in a kiss while she’s bent back, then he launches her forward, catching her against his chest and hugging her tight. Eventually, they settle into a gentle sway, her face in his neck and his arm wrapped around the small of her back, fingers brushing the space between her hip bone and her ribs.

Their mellow rocking lulls her into a trance so that she doesn’t even notice when the music stops. But Jughead breaks it with a husky whisper in her ear: “Have you thought any more about my idea?”

She rubs her cheek on his shoulder before looking up at him. “Yeah, but I’m just not sure about…um, about it.”

“Well, not to put any pressure on you, but we are running out of time.”

She murmurs, “Mhm.”

“And, you know, we’ve done much kinkier shit than this. I seem to recall a certain favourite Hitchcock blonde of mine in a leather get up in a hotel in San Francisco”

“I know, but it’s not that.”

“What is it then, baby?”

“It’s just…Mom’s not wrong when she says I’m working all the time. I can’t remember the last time I went to the gym and we’ve been eating so much take out lately. Some of my shorts are feeling a little snug.”

He pulls back and raises his eyebrows at her. “Really? That’s what you’re worried about, that your ass will look fat? I’ll have you know I stare at that ass every day and every day it just looks better and better.”

She sighs. That’s not what she means. “You may have a slightly biased opinion.”

“So? Plus,” he pauses to drop a kiss on her shoulder. “You don’t even have to see it. I want you to watch yourself, that means face front.”

It’s not exactly about her ass, but the morning after they’d arrived she had caught him looking back and forth between it, where she stood in her panties and one of his t shirts in the bathroom brushing her teeth, and the antique standing mirror in the corner of the bedroom. It’s an ostentatious thing. Ornate and clunky with carved supports and lions’ paws for feet.

She spit and came to stand in the doorway. “What are you looking at, Jug?”

He smiled at her sleepily from the bed. “You, beautiful.”

Betty rolled her eyes and jumped on the bed so she landed beside him on her stomach. “And?”

“I was just thinking of how handy this mirror here is going to be.”

“Yeah, what for?”

He turned dark eyes on her and his voice dropped an octave. “Fucking you while you watch.”

Betty felt all the blood rush to her face. “Jughead!”

“What? Doesn’t that sound hot? I can’t think of anything better. We can put on a show for all the ghosts that must haunt this place.”

“What kind of ghosts haunt vacation cabins in the Adirondacks?”

“The kind of repressed nineteenth century ones that lived here before it was a vacation cabin.”

“So you want to spook the spooks with our crazy sex life?”

“Exactly.”

She kissed him before bouncing back out of the bed. “I’ll think about it if you get up and brush your teeth. I want to go on that hike.”

He caught her around the waist and pulled her back. “But I want to stay in bed and ravish you until it’s dark again.”

“There’s one flaw in your plan. There’s no food up here.”

While he contemplated solutions to that problem, she escaped his grasp and thundered down the stairs, mind whirring with the visual he’d planted there.

He’s still slowly spinning them to the sonata of the bullfrogs and the crickets. She knows he can tell her resolve is wavering. Because she does want to. Anything he suggests in that tone and she’s a goner, molten heat lapping at her stomach.

“Come on, Betts”

“I don’t know, Juggie”

“I’ll do five things on your list.”

“You really want it?”

And she does trust him completely, trusts him to love her and to not see the extra ten pounds where they’ve settled on her hips. It’s her own gaze she’s afraid of.

Somehow, in the course of their dancing, he’s snuck a thigh between hers and he pulls her against him in just the right way. His voice is rough, scratchy.

“Think about it, Betty. You, naked in my lap riding me. Your tits bouncing—”

“My thighs jiggling.”

He pinches her hip before continuing. “The contrast of your skin again mine. Watching yourself fall apart. I love you. You coming is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I want you to know how glorious you are.”

With her back to the house, his eyes are lambent in the porch light. They hold the answers to all of her questions. And they hold the promise that’s sustained her since she was a teenager, frightened and angry but never again alone.

So, she nods against his neck and presses a kisses to his jawline. She feels the muscles move as he smiles and the burst of joy in her chest is like unlocking a door and stepping through to the sunlight. She breathes deeply, thankful in the knowledge that he’ll once again help her to conquer her fears.

Inside, Jughead breaks away from her to flip the record so “Born to Run” can chase them up the stairs. Betty extinguishes all the lights and they meet at the landing.

The stairs creak as they climb them, the old house protesting at the friskiness of its young, lovestruck inhabitants. Yellowed lace curtains flutter like handkerchiefs lifted in horror.

Jughead pauses to take her mouth in a kiss, his hands hurriedly unbuttoning her dress and sliding inside to brush against her breasts until her nipples pucker. Then he tugs her hand and her dress flows behind them in his haste.

The old lamps in the bedroom still have incandescent lightbulbs which—between that and the scarves arranged artfully over the top of them—will at least be more flattering than their more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Betty’s thankful for small mercies, and for the warm, yellow glow glancing off the pine walls and bathing the room in soft light and shadowed corners.

Jughead grabs the chair from its place beside the table and slides it over the uneven wooden floor boards until it’s a few feet in front of the mirror. Then he frowns at it and slides it back a little further. Betty stands in the doorway, bunching the material of her dress in her hands.

“Come here.” He pulls her to him so they’re standing in front of the chair, and hugs her back to his chest. His arms form a stripe of brown where they hug her pale stomach.

“Look at me, Betty.” Her eyes find his in the mirror. “I want you to let go and let me take care of you, okay?” She nods. “Good.” Then he slides one of her arms up so it’s behind his head and he kisses her so thoroughly the air whooshes all the way down her body and back up and she’s lightheaded.

He’s playing with her breasts, pinching and pulling and stroking, and she’s getting antsy, rubbing her ass against him. He releases her mouth with a scrape of his teeth against her bottom lip.

“Now look at yourself again. Look how pink and swollen your lips are. And look at your chest heaving and that pretty blush that spreads down. I wonder what I’d have to do to get it to reach your belly button.” He brushes her hair so it rests over her far shoulder and nips at her ear before kissing her neck. Betty has always hated her pale skin, how anyone can tell what she’s feeling by how she flushes so easily. Once, she’s pretty sure she blushed just cause someone looked at her funny. But when Jughead describes it, when she sees through his eyes, she feels beautiful.

Then his hands reach up and push her dress to the floor, his foot kicking it away so she’s standing in front of him, in front of the mirror, in only her days of the week underwear—it’s the wrong day too. She’s wearing her Thursday panties on a Sunday.

But his hand skims down the plane of her stomach and brushes against her and she loses her train of thought. He sucks a hickey onto the back of her neck as he touches her over the damp cotton.

“Are you wet for me?” He hits a spot that sends an electric current through her body and she gasps. “Yes.”

“Are you ready to take these off then?”

“Please.”

“Go on then.” And she does, bending over and then kicking them away while he slides off his own jeans and tank top. Then he pulls her back against him, all warm flesh and goosebumps. His cock nestles in the cleft of her ass and she fights the urge to roll her hips.

He uses one of his feet to slide hers farther apart, then reaches a hand back down. He dips a finger inside her then spreads the moisture around and strums her clit, before repeating the circuit.

“Do you need a warm-up?”

“N-no,” she manages to stutter out.

“Okay.” He lets go of her to sit on the chair, then pulls her back and guides her onto his lap.

“Jug?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Fuck me now.”

“You got it.” Then he spreads his knees so hers are hooked over his and she can see herself, so wet she glistens in the mirror.

“Lean up for a second.” She complies and feels him lining himself up.

When she sinks down, her eyes roll back in her head, this position stretching the muscles in a new way.

She makes a tentative circle with her hips.

“There you go, honey.” Jughead peppers kisses across her shoulder blades as she experiments with direction and pace until she finds a rhythm that hits her clit on every pass. He intertwines one hand with hers and hugs it against her, while the other continues to caress her breasts.

Her gaze flits around, from their hands to objects in the room. Whenever it lands on the mirror, he’s staring at her, his gaze focused on where their bodies join, on where he slips in and out of her. She knows it should be lewd, obscene. But god if it isn’t the hottest thing she’s ever seen.

After a few minutes of letting her be in charge, she can feel him tensing beneath her, can feel him itching to push them harder. So she leans back and lets her head fall onto his shoulder. She lets him take control of her and lets him free her from herself.

He scoots forward on the seat of the chair so he can brace his legs on the floor for better leverage. His hands move to her hips as he thrusts upward and pulls her down in time. She knows when he starts to lose control because his hips begin to stutter and he pulls back, slowing them down and wrapping one arm back around her stomach while the other moves to rub gentle circles on her clit.

She clenches her hands on the ropey muscles of his arm and squeezes her eyes shut as she feels her own orgasm rushing towards her.

“Are you close?” She nods with her head still on his shoulder. Then she feels him skim a hand up her back and cord his fingers through her hair. He tilts her head forward. “Open your eyes, Betty.” It takes a tremendous amount of effort, but she does and she meets his in the mirror. Her mouth falls open and she knows she’s panting, a high-pitched yelping noise that she can’t control.

His whisper in her ear sends shivers down her spine. “Look at yourself. This is what I see when I close my eyes at night. When I rub one out in the shower thinking of you. When I look at you, I remember this gorgeous, glazed look on your face and I know I put it there. Because you’re mine. You’re mine, Betty Cooper, forever and always.”

Then he sucks a kiss below her ear and she’s gone.

In the years they’ve been together, Jughead’s given her more orgasms than Rain Man could count. He’s given her fireworks and starbursts and glass shattering and earthquakes. Her favourite, though, is the wave the starts in the soles of her feet and rolls through her, curling everything from her toes up to hair, a slow contraction and release that leaves her breathless.

When she gets her breath back, Jughead’s forehead is pressed into her shoulder blade and she can feel his heavy breathing. She can also feel their hot come, where it’s begun to seep out and roll down her thigh.

He lifts her off and holds her steady while he stands, a move for which she feels an appreciation she can’t put into words at the moment. When she can stand on her own, she sneaks into the bathroom to pee and clean herself up.

When she comes back out, Jughead has collapsed onto the bed. She crawls toward him and snuggles up by his side. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and plays with a strand of her hair as she strokes a foot up and down his calf.

“Maybe we should look into getting a cheval mirror.”

She feels more than hears his answering chuckle as it reverberates in his chest beneath her ear.

[houseofvans]

Art School | Q&A with Minka Sicklinger (NYC) 

Born in The Netherlands, growing up in Australia, and currently living in New York City, artist and designer Minka Sicklinger’s artwork is filled with iconography, symbolism and cultural influences from her years of traveling and living abroad. We’re not only excited to feature her and some of her mystical drawings, but we’re also excited to have her design a custom skate deck to be raffled off at this year’s Babes Ride Out East Coast event. We got a chance to chat with Minka on various topics – from her travels and early experiences with cultures and art from other countries to how the most challenging part of art at times can be yourself. 

Photographs courtesy of the artists. 

Introduce yourself. 

Minka Sicklinger…I’m an artist and designer based in New York City…I do illustration, tattoo, build things, design interiors, collect antiques!

Born in The Netherlands and growing up in Australia before coming to the US, how do you think these early experiences – traveling, seeing other cultures & art – has helped to shape your artwork?

It has definitely allowed me to look at anything as a potential source of inspiration —> a crack in the sidewalk or an interesting building facade gives me as many ideas as walking through a gallery…it also means that i don’t identify or feel i belong to any one culture and its iconography. This allows me to move through any space or situation and see it for what  it is without interpreting it through any particular cultural filter —> particularly in our current political and cultural climate this may seem a naive point of view but it allows me to create work from an observational standpoint so it can be more intuitive process for me….and allows the space for a viewer to impart their own personal and cultural interpretation and narrative upon it…

In your artwork/illustration, the works are filled with elaborate patterns and references to symbolism found in alchemy/occult and other various sources.  Can you tell us a little about some of the symbolic imagery found in them?

The symbology is something that came naturally…it was never based upon specific research but more a collection of symbols and images seen over my whole life thus far from traveling, museums, looking through old books and antiques…I am a visual learner so that knowledge gets stored in my subconscious which my brain then likes to spit out at any given moment when I am working on something…often a viewer will tell me  that I have actually drawn something based on a particular  mythology which I don’t actually know the specifics of ! I often dream narratives and images too which end up as artworks…

What’s your process like when creating a new piece of artwork? What do you do when you find yourself with artists’ block?

When I have artists block I go out dancing all night, I go running, I read words, meditate...basically anything to distract myself from feeling bad that I can't think of anything ...a lot of times when creating new work it's an "aha" moment waking up from a dream, having a shower , while walking etc and the image appears in my mind...once I see it I can make it...

This year you’re designing a board for the Babes Ride Out East Coast event.  Can you tell us a little bit about your design and what you came up with?

I like to just let my imagination run free and Tetris construct whatever I'm dreaming of and feeling that particular day...so it becomes a strange collage of subconscious images that I can't really pinpoint in terms of the initial inspiration..

What are your top 5 favorite art tools?  Is there another medium you’re dying to try out?

Always micron pens and sakura gold paint pens, i love working with wire and stitching plastic,  and am trying to embrace paint…i would love to learn welding!

Where do you draw inspiration from for your art? Who are some of your favorite artists, past and contemporary? 

I would say i tend to draw inspiration from my surroundings, from textiles, film and from antiques rather than specific artists… a few favorites would be David Lynch, Bill Henson, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson, Toulouse Lautrec, any of the Dada artists, Vali Meyers, Paul Thek, Federico Fellini…the list goes on! Not only are you an active illustrator / artist, but also a full time custom Tattoo Artist.  When did you first start tattooing and what do you enjoy most about it that is different from being an illustrator or artist?

I started tattooing in 2010…i enjoy the collaborative process with a client, as well as the fact that the work lives and breathes and although it is housed on a fixed object it ages, changes and moves through the world depending on the whim of its owner! It is also very satisfying to bring a visual representation to peoples ideas that they can then build their own narrative around…i have the privilege of meeting and interacting with people from a diverse range of industries, backgrounds and philosophies so its great to have that level of shared experience and learning with a client that i may not necessarily have with a viewer of other work of mine….

What has been the biggest challenge for you in both the art and tattoo world? How have you overcome these obstacles? What has been the most rewarding?

Myself is always the biggest challenge! Dancing the dance with your own demons, your ego, your insecurities…it is the daily reality of making art no matter what the medium and is an obstacle that will never be totally overcome…after going through that process with every single piece you ever do finishing is always the most rewarding, knowing you live another day to tell another story and make something else….

What’s a question you never get asked and would like to ask yourself and answer now?

Do you enjoy making art?  It is like pulling teeth, exceedingly painful, but I am compelled to do it…my analytical thought process that makes everything I see put through some sort of creative filter never stops….EVERYTHING is making work to me, everything counts towards making art…so it gets exhausting and overwhelming which in a backward way can be just as rewarding as the moments when everything flows freely and becomes an almost out of body experience …but I cannot be myself any other way..

Favorite Vans?  

I love classics…always the black SK8 Hi’s.

When you’re not creating artwork, how do you spend you free time? What other activities do you love to do?

Dancing is my favourite thing...drinking wine, hours of walking a day, cooking etc but honestly my brain never turns off from thinking creatively no matter what I'm doing ...so I'm always in some stage of creation just not necessarily producing something material in that moment...

What’s coming up for the rest of 2017?

Hopefully lots of travel, working in some new mediums, and starting a greeting card company! Other than that dancing as much as possible, drinking some good wine and enjoying the New York summer….

Follow Minka Sicklinger Website: www.minkasicklinger.com Tumblr: http://minkasicklinger.tumblr.com