#lark spur

[wutheringheightsfilm]

i didn't get a minor in art history for no reason, so let's talk about

The Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor by Palma Vecchio, c. 1520-1525 (held at the Louvre under the French name L'Adoration des bergers avec une donatrice, here's its collection details)

What's fascinating about this painting (done in the very very late High Renaissance to early Mannerism) is that the identity of the commissioner of the painting is the one kneeling to the far right, who Armand in the episode says is modeled by him, is actually unknown. (So that makes it very handy for the show to claim it's Armand without actually being inaccurate or anachronistic)

What this depicts is the Christmas story (though yes, I know, it doesn't look like Christmastime in the painting) where the shepherds pay Jesus a visit after he's born. There's a lark sitting in the window on the left, which often symbolizes rebirth, and there's a dog all the way to the very right, which usually symbolizes loyalty.

Of course, within the IWTV verse, the choice of using this painting (which doesn't have much, if any literature on it by itself--maybe because for a long time it was attributed to the painter Titian by mistake instead of Vecchio) is extremely fascinating to me. There's a lot of dimensions here: most notably, as another user I saw pointed out, Armand was the model for this, and the painter (Marius de Romanus in the show, Armand's maker) whitewashes Armand. Now, Armand is immortalized in room 711 in the Louvre forever as a 20 year old, looking nothing like himself, his identity effectively completely erased, while thousands of people pass and see this painting every year.

It raises a lot of poignant questions, also: since the commissioner of real life (who is the real life model) doesn't exist in IWTV, what is the motivation for Marius to paint Armand in a Christ scene? Because obviously, Armand would not have commissioned this painting. What spurs him to do that? Since the real life artist, Vecchio, was very influenced by Titian at the point when this painting was made, was Marius also? I really do want to know the team's thought process behind choosing this painting, because it's endlessly interesting to me. It's definitely one of the lesser known works in the Louvre, even just a cursory glance over JSTOR barely has any information. I might literally email my art history professors and ask if they have any material on this or Vecchio because I'm so intrigued... anyone else wanna discuss <3?

[acaptainbyanyothername]

Jonas and Phineas made me think about a piece of writing advice I read once—that a character’s flaws are their strengths in the right context, and vice versa (ex. a selfless character can be a pushover, a overthinker character can be a brilliant analyst, etc). Both Jonas and Phineas demonstrated their primary “flaws” they’ve struggled with in the finale fight, but after all the self-understanding they’ve gone through they were finally able to harness them for the right situation to the point where they became assets.

Phineas tapped into his violent anger issues—but the source of the anger this time wasn’t fear, it was love. Look at how similar these two descriptions are:

(S1 E18: A Good Man)

(S3 E19: Balance)

Both times, Phineas is spurred into this rage by Spahr’s presence. In S1E18, it’s a violent action against a nonviolent man to prove his worth, his VALOR to Spahr. But in S3E19, it’s a violent action against a wildly dangerous monster to protect Spahr. Phineas’ initiative still comes from desperation. The determining factor is what he is so desperate for, and that’s what turns his anger from ugly to righteous. This rage of Phineas ends up saving him, making an ordinary man able to go toe to toe with Weepe’s souped-up tearror-puppeteered final form.

Phineas’ monster versus Weepe’s monster. It takes a monster to fight a monster, but this time Phineas is doing it expressly to not let it hurt anyone else. Phineas stays right in control— contrasted against Weepe, nothing but a puppet now.

Then we have Jonas Spahr. Jonas Spahr, whose primary trait has been being a passive observer, the instigator of problems being unable to step in at key moments. Watched Magdalyne Fleit get murdered by Costigan. Watched Phineas beat Sherman to a pulp. Watched the Trust subsequently abandon Phineas. Watched Imelda torture Weepe. He is a character whose largest flaw is doing nothing to the detriment of the people around him.

But in the finale, he takes action! He saves Phineas’ life multiple times (sniping the guy who shot him, diverting a spear from hitting him) until Spahr is rendered physically incapable of acting anymore, and all he can do is watch as Phineas and Lark take down Weepe.

Once again, Phineas tells him that he can handle this. And this time, Spahr BELIEVES him. It’s not like the Ginsberg arrest where he sweeps in at the last minute, this time Spahr fully trusts (hah) Phineas to handle himself. The ex-Prime Consector himself lets someone else—his ADSECLA—take the lead, and Spahr lets himself settle into the watcher he has always been. Spahr, Phineas Thatch’s designated protector, allows Phineas Thatch to protect HIM for once. That’s what makes this time different: now Spahr makes the active CHOICE to watch, listening to someone who loves him and has his best interests in mind. For the first time, this isn’t an involuntary response on his part, it’s an active choice. A success rather than a failure. And, well, he’s not quite just watching, is he?

Nope, Jonas Spahr is DEFENDING. The way he didn’t defend Magdalyne, or Sherman, or Phineas, or Weepe. Spahr has learned to take action, yes, but in this fight he finds value and defense in knowing WHEN to step in and take action versus when to trust others, step back into defensive formation, and just watch. He made the right call this time around.

Phineas Thatch and Jonas Spahr are still the same characters. Phineas’ rage and Spahr’s inaction haven’t left them, they’ve just learned when and how to use them to benefit rather than detriment.

[boxboxlewis]

galex, only four beds, 2k

George said he would book the hotel room himself. Cara was busy, smoothing out the endless administrative details of George’s life, and it wasn’t work travel, anyway—just a little lads’ holiday with Alex, just a stolen slice of time out of time, away from it, in the hot summer weeks when Formula 1 held its collective breath and waited for the season to restart. A spur-of-the-moment thing, after Alex’s plans with Lily fell through. A lark.

Underneath all that was another secret reason for making the booking himself: a sly secret sideways reason. He called the hotel instead of booking online, to make sure they had the kind of room he wanted available. He barely let himself think about the call even as he was making it, most of his attention fiercely directed at the dense weave of the upholstery Carmen had chosen for the sofa he was sitting on. It had a subtle striped pattern, beige on beige.

They were going to Jersey, because neither of them had been, and because Alex suggested it as a joke and then it seemed funnier, somehow, than it should have: the idea of actually going there. “We’re going to lower the median age on the island by about twenty years,” Alex said, the day before they were due to leave, and George, who had looked up “tourist attractions on Jersey” to have in his back pocket in the event of just this sort of cold feet, said “They’ve got these tunnels from WWII, it looks quite neat actually. And you can windsurf.”

Alex raised his eyebrows and said, “All right, eager beaver.” George thought, without meaning to, of the first time he’d had sex with a girl, wanting to like it, for it to be good.

“I’ve got a deal with the Jersey Tourism Board, as it happens,” he said: the less insane part of him. “This trip is actually hashtag spon.” 

Alex laughed, and didn’t suggest cancelling the trip.

They flew from Nice to Nantes, drove a rental car to St Malo, got a ferry to Jersey. “This is very Planes Trains and Automobiles, isn’t it,” grumbled Alex, even though Cara had arranged all the travel, in the end, and George did the driving.

“Oh, sorry, did you want me to teleport us?” George said. “Because I actually left my superpowers back in Brackley.”

“Oh, ‘superpowers’? Bit of a puffed-up nickname for the W14, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, sorry, remind me what you drive?”

They were still bickering as they walked into the hotel. It felt, to George, more like family than any of his own family’s carefully meted affection.

“Heya,” he said cheerfully to the concierge, “booking for Russell?”

The concierge typed something and smiled at them. “Ah, Mr Russell. Of course, sir. Let me get you checked in, sir.” Alex’s face was carefully blank, in a way that was very easy to read if you knew Alex at all, but George preferred this old-fashioned kind of service to what you got at more modern places where the staff all pretended to be friends with you. Although he turned down the porter who offered to help with their luggage; they only had backpacks.

Alex gestured at the wallpaper as they exited the lift and walked along the corridor to their room. “Bloody typical of you, Georgie. ‘I’ll pick the hotel,’ he said. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. And then you bring us to a place where they probably iron the fucking newspapers in the morning.”

“No, come on,” George said. He found the door to their room and slid the keycard in. The lock clicked satisfyingly and flared green. “It’s all iPads now, innit. They iron the iPads.”

As they walked into the room Alex started laughing, gratifyingly hard, and George basked in how well his iPad joke had landed. Then he clocked what Alex was looking at. The room was nice, spacious, big windows with a view out over the harbour, and—crisp white linens on the beds: all four of them. Four single beds, arrayed in a neat line.

“This is like the fucking orphanage in Madeleine,” Alex said. “Which two do you want, mate?” He was laughing again by the end of the sentence.

“I don’t—this isn’t what I asked for,” George said. What he’d asked for, very specifically, was a nice big room with a sea view and one king bed and no sofa. He picked up the handset on the desk by the window and called the front desk.

“Good afternoon, this is Reception.”

“Yeah, hi, Room 310. Erm, we have a bit of an issue, to say the least. There are four beds in here?”

“Let me just check your booking, sir. Ah, yes. I see you booked by telephone? And there’s a note here that you specifically wanted four beds?”

“No,” George said. He glanced over at Alex, who was definitely listening. “I asked for two beds,” George lied emphatically. 

“I am most sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”

“Well, we just… we’ll need another room, that’s all.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, sir. It’s the Battle of Flowers this week; everywhere on the island is booked up.”

George dug the hand that wasn’t holding the handset into his pocket and pressed his knuckles into his thigh. “Sorry, the what? The what of what?”

“The Battle of Flowers? It’s—”

“Yeah, I don’t care, actually. I only booked last week, how could I’ve done that if everywhere is so busy?”

“You must have got lucky, sir. Perhaps there was a cancellation.”

George attempted to channel Toto at his most disappointed and scary. “Right. Right. So what are we going to do about this, then?”

“Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get this sorted for you.”

George put the phone back into the cradle. Alex was kicked back on one of the beds, feet dangling off the end. “You know,” he said, “I’m sort of regretting letting you do all the planning for this trip. You did get us return tickets, right? You haven’t signed us up for some sort of murder mystery tour with actual murder?”

“Ha ha,” George said, sitting on the bed next to Alex’s. “Didn’t see you offering to do any planning, did I?”

There was a knock at the door, and they exchanged a look. “This better be a complimentary fruit basket and bottle of champagne,” George muttered, and went to answer it. Two hotel porters came in: not bearing gifts.

“Hello, gentlemen,” one of them said. “Sorry about this mix-up. Right.” He gestured at his colleague, who nodded. Each porter seized a bed and with great stamping and flipping and manoeuvring got it wheeled out of the room into the corridor. 

One of the porters stepped back in and touched the brim of his cap. “There we go, sir. Won’t happen again. Thank you for your patience, sir.” He stood looking at George, who looked back at him.

Eventually George said “Thank you,” sternly, so as to show he wasn’t the sort of person to stand for four beds in his hotel room.

The porter touched the brim of his cap again, and left.

“He wanted you to tip him,” Alex said, voice lazy. He hadn’t left the bed he’d chosen.

“Tip him?!”

“Mm. People tend to like that. Being tipped.”

George sat back down on the bed next to Alex’s. If he reached his arm out he’d touch Alex’s mattress. “Well, that’s rubbish, isn’t it. I’m not going to tip them for messing up.”

“The porters didn’t mess up,” Alex said. It was something he did sometimes, arguing a point just because he could, just to be a shit. George shouldn’t have found it attractive. He didn’t reply, and after a while Alex started laughing and said, “You do realise that, thanks to your phone call, we’ve now got one measly single bed each.”

“We could push them together,” George said, voice casual, as if it didn’t matter. “We could make one big bed. And then we’d both have more room.”

He watched Alex’s foot flex where it was dangling over the end of the bed. Up, down. Up, down. “Yeah, go on then. All right.”

It was harder to move the beds than the porters had made it look, but eventually they managed it, slotting the frames next to each other landscape-style, because they agreed that was likely to be more stable than having them next to each other lengthways. Then they went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The food was heavy, French but French through a time machine.

“God, I bet this was the height of fashion in the seventies,” Alex said, poking at his terrine. “The next time I suggest a holiday destination ironically, just whack me on the head, thanks.”

“I think it’s nice,” George said, and Alex snorted. 

“You would.”

George gave him a look that said, he hoped, I’m not flicking a pea at you right now, but only because this is a quite a nice restaurant even though you’re being a dick about it.

Alex flickered his tongue out, and grinned at whatever George’s face did in response.

They went for a walk along the seafront after their meal. “Come on, this is nice, isn’t it?” George said.

“Eh.” Alex scuffed his foot in the sand. “It’s all right, I guess.” He knocked his shoulder into George’s. “Glad this one worked out, you know. After…”

It took George a second to realise Alex was talking about the holiday they’d planned together that Alex had bailed on because he met Lily. He laughed, too loudly. “No worries, mate, all good,” he said. He thought about asking how things were going with Lily, and then didn’t. “Shall we…?” he asked. “It’s getting dark.”

“Yeah, all right, wild child.”

Alex showered first. He came out of the bathroom in his boxers, towelling his hair. Long legs, long arms, his knobbly ankles and wrists, his big feet, his hands. “All yours, mate.”

George’s mouth was dry. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll just—”

He jerked off in the shower, one forearm braced against the cool ceramic tile, the other hand furious and too-tight on his dick, the way he liked it. His orgasm was much more intense than he was expecting and he groaned aloud with it, too loudly, and then bit his lip as if that might suck the sound back inside.

“You alright in there, Georgie?” Alex called.

“Yeah, yep.” He dressed in briefs and a t-shirt, then took the t-shirt back off. It was warm, in the hotel room. Warm-ish.

Alex was lying on the beds, head cushioned on one arm. “You’ll go blind, you know,” he said, half-smiling. “You’ll get hairy palms.”

George thought for a split-second about denying everything but then tried a grin, awkward with it. “Come on, like you don’t do it.”

“Not usually in a hotel room with my mate,” Alex said lightly. “Question for you, Georgie: how many beds did you ask for? Real answers only, please.” 

George settled himself next to Alex and shut his eyes. “One.”

“Uh huh. Because…?”

“Because I thought maybe if we had to share a bed we would.” George swallowed. “You would, maybe, you’d realise.”

“Realise what?” Alex said, very soft.

“Realise that you wanted me.”

“George.” George felt Alex’s hand brushing lightly over his shoulder, his chest. He tried not to breathe, in case breathing might make the moment stop. “What about Carmen?”

“She’s not—” How to explain everything that Carmen was not? He settled on “She’s not here.”

Alex hummed in response, and pinched George’s nipple. George yelped.

“Not going to ask me about Lily?” Alex’s finger was circling around George’s nipple, so delicate.

“I—I know she’s, I know I’m not,” George said, Alex’s fingertip trailing down his stomach, outlining his abs. “Look, she’s not here either, is she?”

Alex settled himself on top of George, the heavy mass of him pinning George down like a weighted blanket: but even better because George’s weighted blanket had never implicitly promised to fuck him. George hadn’t been pining for his weighted blanket for years. “What do you want, George?” Alex asked. “Is this a one-time thing? Get me out of your system? Or do you want something longer-term?” He kissed George’s neck, lighting it up, sparks straight to George’s dick. “Want to be my mistress?”

George groaned. “Let’s see how good your dick game is, mate,” he said, and grinned when Alex laughed.

“All right, you minx.” Alex ground his hips down against George’s. “Let’s see how well you take it.” He bit George’s lower lip and then kissed it, sweet and lazy. George bucked his hips up.

And then the second bed rolled away from the first, and George and Alex both fell through the crack between up and thumped unceremoniously onto the hotel carpet.

They sat in shocked silence for a moment, and then started laughing. “Right, ok, back to Plan A,” Alex said. “We’ll just share the one bed, I think.”

It was good with Alex, as it turned out: it was everything George hadn't quite let himself hope for, and the price of it was simply that now he was going to be wanting it, all the damn time.

it takes a village to raise a crackfic. thank you to beautiful geniuses @accio-ricciardo for chatficcing this concept with me, @ininininininstayoutstayout for crucial george dialogue thoughts, and @onadarklingplain for her incredibly kind and helpful comments!

[doodle-pops]

Cherry Blossoms

Manwë x reader

A/N: First smut piece of the new year and since Kinktober, it's been a long while, hasn't it? :) I felt like I almost forgot how to write a decent piece lol

Warnings: fembod, breeding, size kink, knotting, dom-sub dynamic, manhandling, fingering, cervix fucking, stomach bulging, avian traits and Manwë being a feral King

Words: 6.5k

Synopsis: Cherry blossoms were always Manwë's favourite flower especially when he could taste it on your skin during a spring heat.

The moment you stepped onto the grounds of Illmarin, Manwё was able to smell you and it spurred his temptation to have you into overdrive. He was resisting the urge to leave his solidarity and come find you. The way you aimlessly roamed through the halls of Illmarin, calling out his name or his herald prompted his hand to run down his down and grip the base of his shaft. Your voice sounded sweet and innocent, like the finest cherry blossoms spring had to offer this year. Your honey scent rippled off your skin and waffled through the air, travelling all the way to his quiet domain to assist him with his indulgence.

The hand wrapped around his shaft refused to start off slowly; the heavy grip at the base squeezed and tugged as his other hand fondled his balls. Harmonious moans were sung through the room and echoed off the glass walls, some dancing through the air and into the open garden. For every moan he released, your presence grew nearer and so was your scent; you were ripe for taking. There wasn’t a single thought behind his head other than taking you right the moment you walked through those doors. Just to have you sprawled out beneath him as his hips drove themselves into your heavenly heat while you sang his name alongside the magpies and larks. Just like a spring bird.

His eyes were shut when he heard your footsteps halt outside his room, and he silently and impatiently waited for you to push the cream and blue doors open. Behind his impatience, mutters and growls about you keeping your mate waiting grew to bass-baritone. The hand sliding along his shaft quickened its pace but still kept it under control, wanting for you to become aware of how wild he would become for you. How easily your scent and presence would drive him to the brink of sanity and make him lose all sense of composure.

A quiet knock on the door took him out of his trance and urged him to crane his neck to the right and observe your petite figure entering his room. The moment you walked through the door, you were met with Manwё’s back facing you, naked in the pool with his white hair clinging to his skin. The glow of his skin under Arien’s ray was stunning the longer you stared. His muscles were toned and ripped, and the slight tan to his skin as the light kissed him made you feel jealous. You wanted to be up close and personal with him like she did. Manwё could feel your gaze on him, and he felt pleased knowing that his mate was impressed with his physique. His ability to protect and provide was approved by you.

You were still standing near the door when his voice rang out, missing the hint of him teasing you, “How did you know I was here buttercup?” It was taking every last ounce of restraint from Manwё to not pounce on you right there. But at the same time, he was using the realistic visual to assist his throbbing cock and the precum oozing from the tip.

“I-I don’t exactly know My Lord, I just walked,” the use of his title made his cock throb with more want and a greater desire to ravish you on the cold marble floor. The innocence in your voice was driving him up a mountain. He had yet to turn around and bare himself to you, allowing you to witness the mess you were making of him. Though, he was stunned that you hadn’t questioned his lack of integrity in his nudity, “Apologies My Lord if I interrupted—”

“—You interrupted nothing, you are welcomed…to stay if it,” the growls in his voice echoed while the rigid muscles in his back and arms gave away his tenseness, “pleases you, princess.” His voice echoed inside your mind, melting and turning you into a complete puddle of mess. The use of your endearing term incited butterflies to fly around in your stomach before travelling to your heat. All the while, you still didn’t comprehend what was happening to him.

“Manwё—”

“My Lord, that is to you princess,” his voice was like caramel; rich, sweet, thick and creamy as it poured into your ears and made your core throb. A tiny flow of your arousal leaked and it didn’t go unnoticed by the Elder King. His nose twitched and pointed in the air as he directed a cool flow of wind to pick up your scent. Manwё didn’t attempt to withhold the moan escaping his throat while his wrist flicked his shaft, thumb swiping at the slit, and squeezing his balls. He was close and he could feel the swelling of his balls being filled with his cum and the dire urge to breed you. Lulling his head to the side, his stormy blue eyes slithered over to observe your state of shock; the pheromones radiating off you surely did not assist in covering up your desire for him as well.

You were standing there, holding your arms with doe eyes at your King. This was a new behaviour from him, one you hadn’t experienced nor heard of before. It turned you on which created a stream of flowing mess trailing down your thighs and clinging to your lips, but you weren’t sure how he would take it. As far as you knew, your Lord was reserved with anything that involved intimacy. “M-My Lord Manwё, is everything alright? You do not quite look yourself…” and it was then you saw it, the ring of gold that flashed in the light and the predatory gleam in his eyes told you that this was not your Manwё.

Loving the gasp elicited from you, he couldn’t help but feel in a playful mood; he wanted to toy with his meal before devouring you whole and thoroughly. You were such a pretty prey, why not play with his meal for a bit, rile you up to his liking and then ravish you. The deep chuckle that reverberated within his chest bounced off the glass and marble walls. It echoed deep within your fёa and added to the growing arousal. You believed that from the distance the King stood, he could surely see the small wet patch on your dress that clung to your heat. It made you shuffle your hands to cover up while dancing on your feet.

While you were shuffling, Manwё took the opportunity to turn himself around and bare his naked form to you, though you only saw from his waist come up. Wading through the waters, he glided with elegance until he approached the staircase and bounded up the four-threader with ease before strutting over to you. Naked as he was created, the rise in your heart rate was picked up by him and he smirked at the effects. You were his mate; it was your duty to be affected by him. everything he did was supposed to make you swoon for him because they were all done for you.

His left hand reached up to push his hair back and out of his face, allowing it to cascade down his back. The water droplets clung to his skin with an absolute refusal to let go and the slight tan to his caramel skin made him appear delectable. Your tongue betrayed you and poked past your lips to wet them. Images of you licking the water off his skin flooded your mind and made you grow hotter. Even, the knowledge and reality of your King strolling casually over to you in his naked form was making it hard to breathe. You didn’t know if to inhale twice before exhaling or the opposite. You found yourself struggling to compose your fidgeting, especially the eyes. Where to look other than his leaking cock that dangled like a third leg? The sky, the walls or the pools? He strutted proudly over to you with danger and hunger gleaming in his eyes.

The tip was red and stood out from the rest of his body and it appeared angry and hungry, desperately waiting and wanting to be put out of misery. His veins were engorged and if anything, his cock was engorged as well. You knew and heard enough about what the average male carried, and this was beyond average. Even knowing that he was a celestial being, he wasn’t supposed to be that big, right? His body was beefier than normal as though he spent a copious time building muscles in your absence. And his height, what was the normal nine feet he presented himself as was now ten feet. Your Lord towered over your meek form with feral grins and coy smirks. All this time, you were trapped between the door and his approaching figure. You could run if you wanted, but your legs refused to move due to the desired essences his presence offered. You were feeding off him.

“My, my, my, what have we here. A little bird in my domain in need of helping,” he finally stood above you, thick fingers gripping your chin and tilting it upwards to meet his midnight blue eyes. The flash of desire and the swirling storms raging within told you that Manwё had long given up the internal battle. At the whisper of his words, you rubbed your thighs together to cease the growing pain. You King didn’t miss the action, he smelt it right off you.

His head couldn’t help but dip to meet your face, licking his peach lips as he observed your trembling form. So meek and timid, perfect for his taking to fill you with his cum. You were ripe for his taking and your King wasn’t missing the opportunity. Swiping his thumb against your bottom lip, he marvelled at its softness; cherry blossoms, and he wished to bite or nibble at it.

You were lost in his hypnotic gaze as it sucked you into a never-ending pit of pleasure. You weren’t even aware of the hand that tugged yours and guided you over to the pool. Your legs aimlessly followed his massive figure over to the crystal waters filled with cherry blossoms, your King’s favourite flower during the spring. Eyes locked onto the pool filled with flowers, a hand rose to cup the back of your neck before trailing your skin to meet the laces on your dress. With an easy tug, the laces came undone and your dress loosen around your frame. He was impatient and didn’t appreciate the wait, right now, he had no problem shredding the dress of your body and tossing it to the side haphazardly before tugging your dazed figure into the waters.

Bare before your King, he eyed you up and down, eyes falling on your hips and stomach as images of having you stuffed with his cum while he bruised your hips filled his mind. Oh, your King was going to wreck you from start till end. Any attempt to cover up was removed from the admiration he cast your way. His thick fingers trailed over your skin leaving trails of goosebumps in its wake while ghosting your neither regions. Manwë’s hands didn’t fail to cup your breast, feeling your trembling and marvelling at the perfection they were as they sat in his hands. The shy virgin in you was peeking out from behind her hands at the interaction. She wanted to cower timidly at her Lord, but the lustful looks he gave to her, beckoned her to climb out of her shy shell. Manwë wanted to dance with her and show her the world she was missing and yet to enjoy.

The pleasure and excitement of having him all to herself, giving herself all to him; to be claimed and consumed by a godly figure like himself. He wanted her to experience all that and more. “Be not shy before me arimelda, bare yourself to me, your King—join me and become mines,” his voice reached out to your fëa and tickled you out of your shell. His hand reached out to guide you into the water, and step by step, he pulled you in to meet him. The inviting look in his eyes made you walk to him blindly without a care in the world. You knew that Manwë would never hurt you and that you trusted him with your life.

Leading you over to the miniature waterfall, you stood on the stones to give yourself some height as your King silently pressed himself against your back. His hands ran up and down your arms, caressing your honey skin and covering you with water. You could feel his cock poking your back, rubbing to gain slight friction as his hands began to wander. From your arms, they came to your neck and shoulders, tilting it to the side for him to bring his lips down on your skin. Biting and sucking on the delicate flesh, Manwë was decorating your skin in hues of purple flowers. Your brain was hazy from all the pheromones he was permeating through the air and prompted your body to relax into his. Your hands that covered your breast fell to the side and dragged their nails into his thighs. For every bite he gave, your nail dug deeper into his flesh, barely breaking the skin.

The sounds of water and moans danced through the air as Manwë devoured your skin like it was the sweetest nectar heaven offered him. His hands ran up and down your body crazily, making the most stops around your lower abdomen, cupping the area and giving little rubs as he mentally imaged your skin stretched and filled with his cum. His left hand danced lower past your navel and closer to your heat while the right remained on your abdomen. His lips trailed closer to your ears to whisper absolute filth about what he was planning on doing.

“Right here,” he rubbed your stomach, “I’m going to fill you with my cum so sweetly that you’d beg me for more, hmm sweetness. And right here,” he cupped your cunt, "I’m going to fuck you so perfectly with my cock...make you mine.” His hand cupped your cunt dipped lower to spread your lips and run his thumb through your folds.

Tossing your head onto Manwë’s shoulder as you twisted in his embrace at the newfound sensation, you gasped as you felt his tongue brushing your earlobe at the same time his index finger slunk into your entrance. Everything was overwhelming, it was as though your senses were on fire. You felt everything all at once and didn't know how to process it—push him away or keep him close. All you knew was that the pleasure was phenomenal. Your hands left his thighs to grip his biceps, curling into them and leaving dozens of crescent moon marking for later showings. The flick of his tongue and finger were in synchronicity and knocked the air out of your chest, you were fighting to compute a sentence aside from the musically pleasing moans and whines.

Manwë’s avian traits were feeding into the songs and considered you singing for him. A pleasing response for the King from his mate. He couldn’t help but respond with low coos in your ear while he grounded his hips into your back for greater friction, smearing his precum across your skin and staining you with his scent. The underlying possessiveness of your King. You would hear it in the lowly grows and chirps.

“My K-King! Feels...feels,” you fumbled with your words as his finger caved deeper, brushing the tip of your cervix.

“Go on, tell your mate how he’s making you feel little dove,” he cooed in your ear while nibbling on your lobe. His finger took the right moment to twist and pump with greater vigour causing you to arch out of his grasp and check on a sob, “let him know how much you love his hands all over you.”

Fighting in Manwë's grip as the pleasure grew, he removed his hand from your stomach and cupped your head to turn it towards him and met his lips. His larger ones swooped down to capture yours in a heated lock. There was no point in fighting for dominance, you understood that your King was in charge and there was no questioning it. With ease, he pried your lips apart the same time he traced another finger around your entrance, prepping you before joining the other. He had to ensure you were ready to take him otherwise he'd tear you in half. The thought of you being a tight fit made his head light and giddy. Oh, Manwë wanted to ruin you to complete shatters. To feel your nails digging into his biceps and begging him to slow down as he left your insides battered drove his cock to sputter cum across your back. The loud grunt of his baritone moan echoed off the glass as his hips eased their movement bringing him down from his high.

“M-My King, you came?”

“Worry not my little dove, there’s more where that came from and it’s all for you. I have plenty to give,” he spoke into the kiss before wrapping his tongue around yours and sucking on the muscle drawing out musical notes. He was sucking the air out of your chest, loving the taste of cherries, “but for now, let me feel you around my fingers once more, cream all over them for me, let me taste you.”

“Ngh—oh fuck,” you squealed as his second ginger joined the first, tight was the fit and suffocating Manwë felt. His cock twitched in delight and anticipation. His fingers crooked and pumped their way past your walls, relishing in the hot, gummy sensation. The sponginess of your heat wrapped around his fingers elicited groans from his lips. Manwë wasn’t sure if he could take the wait any longer and decided it was to withdraw his fingers. Crying out at the loss of his digits, your body was airborne for a short moment before your back was pressed against the cold wet hard stone of the waterfall and your legs wrapped around the Elder King’s waist. You were like a doll compared to him, perfect for manhandling about the place to his liking.

His enormous palms reached out to cup your ass, lifting and bringing you closer to his waiting cock. With your short arms around his neck, you craned to look down at where he was slapping against your stomach. The sheer weight of his cock resting against you made you terrified of what was yet to come. “M-My Lord, I d-don’t think you w-would fit...you're too big for me,” whining at him, which caught his attention, Manwë dipped his head down to cup your face while thumbing your cheeks.

“My sweetest little dove, you were made for me, therefore I will fit. We will make it fit,” with that, he easily lifted you with his left hand while the right was stroking his hardened cock, readying it for passage.

Looking down at his leaking cock, you gasped when the head nudged against your entrance, pushing itself past the first ring of muscles. Scrambling in his hold and clawing at his back, once the tip slipped in, Manwë slowly sunk you down on his shaft. His veins kissed your gummy walls, noodling and reshaping you to fit and take him all. You were made for him, your cunt would wrap perfectly around his cock, even if it meant suffocating the life out of him. The weight of his cock nestled deep within your heat with his tip rubbing against your cervix earned him to first pulse and contraction before he felt warmth trickling down. Just his size was enough to give you your first orgasm. Clenching and spasming around his dick and making him hiss in excitement.

Your legs tightened around his waist as the pressure never ended. The hand that held his cock, travelled upwards to rest against your abdomen swallowing your stomach whole. With a gentle press, Manwë felt his cock lodged deep within and where it belonged. The outline was visible from both your angles; however, your eyes were busy being shut and taking in the stretching pain of your walls. You were waiting to be torn in half. Nothing in life could have prepared you for your first time with the Elder King. Everything about him was perfect and it was known from the mewls and whines you released in his ear. His nails on instinct, dug into the flesh of your ass, gripping the soft muscles and squeezing the remnants of it. You were more perfect in real life than some minor fantasy he conjured during his previous heats.

“My Lord...” you cried as you felt the pulsation from his cock, beating within your heat. You wished that he would move and not deny you the pleasure he promised. The young innocent maiden was still there, but she was borderline becoming a wild and ravenous woman.

“Little one, if I move, I'll break you. I can't have that ha—"

“—I don't care about being fragile. I want you to fuck me like you desire My King. Please, just give yourself to me...”

The sound of growls and wet skin slapping aggressively against each other echoed throughout the room. Moans mixed with mewls and cries for more as your hands dropped to press against your King's stomach, begging him to slow down while your legs did the opposite and tightened to suck him in urged Manwë to become more relentless. A quick slap to your hand as he snatched and them above your head, one hand cupping your ass and the other holding you prisoner.

A beautiful and haunting laugh ripped from his throat before he before his face to hover above yours, “Trying to run from what I'm giving dove, you asked for this? Your King is serving his Queen, you should be grateful.” His mouth swooped down to capture yours in a stormy dance of teeth and tongue. They clashed and collided against each other while his hips work their thunderous magic on your cunt. The obvious ring of cream coating his cock at the base told you that he was hungry for more. It was so beautifully created as it told the story of how the Elder King became one with his mate.

Your nipples were hardened as they rubbed against his chest, creating a delicious friction that made your cunt throb and tightened around his cock. The little stutter of his hips as he laughed at the action did nothing to deter his momentum. Your Vala had power for days as he sandwiched you between the stone wall and his muscular body. You couldn’t do anything as his hips and mouth worked their magic of leaving you beaten and battered. The way his cock would slide past your gummy walls, moulding and reshaping it to hug him perfectly as it was always meant to be had your brain delirious.

The diabolical and sinister slaps and rolls of his hips to make his cock punish your cervix had you babbling into his mouth nonstop. He loved that; he enjoyed the mess he was able to make of his Queen. Only a true mate who loved and worshipped his lover would give them the immense pleasure he condoned. He wanted to mould himself with you, reshape you and him so you would both fit each other like perfect pieces to a puzzle. He would give everything to you, and you would give everything to him.

The loud pita-patter of his heavy balls beating against your ass echoed brilliantly throughout the room as his cock drove with aggression in and out of your heat. For every cry of his name, his hips increased their motion until he was punishing and bruising your hips. Pounding away at your gummy walls, the feral grunts of his pleasure were sung into your ear the deeper his cock plunged past your mushy walls.

Dragging his lips away from your mouth leaving only a trail of saliva to hang, he locked eyes would your closed one and growled. The hands holding yours released them and gripped your cheeks, careful to not scratch you with his nails, “Eyes on me darling, look at me as I’m giving my all to you,” his hand gave a gentle shake to your face to get you to open your eyes but to no avail, you responded. He wasn’t pleased with the lack of attention on him as he was pouring his sweat into making you his. With ease, he forced himself to slow his hips, making the dragging off his cock snail's pace. It was enough to gain your attention with a whine and cry of his name, “Manwë—” 

“—Ah, now that I have your attention little dove, eyes on me or I’ll stop,” his nostrils flared as he spoke with a storm in his eyes. If he was about to give you his seed, might as well incorporate some romantic themes into the sloppy, rough fuck he was delivering.

Keeping his hands on your cheeks, he watched as your eyes fluttered and fought to stay open as his hips regained their low and delirious pumping that made your head spin. The little starry and distant look he observed swelled his ego. You were sure that weeks and months after this fuck, you'd be feeling his cock stirring in your heat. Even right then, the notion of being fucked was so good by a god had a waterfall running from your legs and Manwë loved every second of it. The squelching with every slap of his thighs to your hips bruised your pelvis and left a delicious burn, “Just like that, eyes on me...good girl.”

Manwë's head had dipped to bury in your neck, quick to devour your scent and his. All that mattered to him was that you smelt like him during and after his heat. Nudging his nose and swiping his tongue to collect your taste, he growled in delight at the satisfaction of the sweetness he savoured. Your honeysuckle skin that smelt like spring's freshest cherry blossoms made his feral desires grow. The action of his heated tongue on your skin forced you to release harmonic pants and increase the flow of your arousal which led to the loud squelching of his cock pumping into you, “Manwë, ngh, please don't stop—right there...”

Your moans were increasing as his tempo grew and your fingers laced themselves into his hair, nails pressing into his scalp. At the action, Manwë’s head tossed back, leaving his neck open for assaulting and you took to opportunity to lean upwards to plant your lips upon his silky skin. Your tongue lapped at the water droplets, tasting the richness of the caramel his skin provided. You were hungry for the divine richness your godly lover provided, any inch of skin revealed to you, your mouth ran over leaving your own markings on him.

“Mmmh, sweetness, your mouth feels divine, but I would rather have it screaming my name, no?” within an instant, Manwë gathered you in his arms as waded through the water to the sides of the pool and placed you on the cold tile. For every powerful step he took, your walls trembled around his cock, clenching at the tip rubbing against your soft spot. You were resisting the dire urge to roll your eyes and become brain dead when he wasn't even fucking you at the moment.

You couldn’t help but shriek as the coldness seeped into your bones and moan right after as your King dragged your body down onto his cock. Manwë’s body towered over yours, arms and legs caging either side of your frame and enormous hands gripping the back of your thighs, spreading and pushing them to meet your head. His thick fingers pressed into the fatness of your thigh, squeezing at the plump flesh.

You couldn’t believe the position you were contorted into—like some wild common whore—but you weren’t complaining when you could feel the thick veins on his cock dragging along your spongy walls smoothly. The imprint of his cock was more visible in the noon daylight, shifting and tugging, doing everything it could to accommodate and mould you to take his cock and cum. Even the pressing weight of his massive body was doing its part in ensuring you stayed under him, where you belonged.

“So. Fucking. Perfect. And all for me,” folding you into a deeper mating press, his thighs slapped vigorously against your softer ones, leaving a series of red prints. Every thrust sent your eyes into your head, and it earned you growls to keep it open and on him. “Keep those eyes, open sweetness. Gonna take my cum and look so pretty. All round for me?” a hard thrust and you nearly slipped out of his grip, “running from me still? Uh, uh, darling. Can’t do that—gonna fuck you till you're full of my cum and cock.”

All your responses were endless babbling and nonsensical mumbling. Hands scraping for a grip as you slid across the tiles, struggling to beg for release and relief, your legs were cramping on you as your high was near. You could feel the second wave of pressure tightening in your core, but your hands were busy pushing against his abdomen to slow his sinful thrusts. All Manwë did was ignore and pressed on harder. If you could walk after, it would be Eru feeling sympathetic towards the mess you would become.

Your fucked out face and brain couldn’t comprehend a thing other than the rough pounding your godly lover was gifting. It was beyond a gift and dream to be trapped under the stature of a deity like the Elder King. To this moment, you still couldn’t wrap your head around the notion of following along with his wishes. You were supposed to leave him in solidarity, not join him in fucking you senseless. Either way, the latter was proving to be the greatest life-changing moment.

“I can feel you...you’re close. Look at how she squeezes me, she wants my cum. She wants me to fill her up. Your cunt knows that she desires my seed,” the heavenly ghosting of his lips against the shell of your ears melted every last restraint and fibre of being you were made up of. The suction your lips had on his cock, refusing to let him go and tugging him back to coat more cream over his cock was heart-warming.

“P-Please My King don’t stop. Please f-fill me up,” you cried out to him at the last minute before you felt your walls seizing up and breaking down. The waterfall that burst through bested the one he had in his pool as you sprayed your release all over his abdomen, initiating a sinister growl from his chest. The look of awe and lust as he looked on at your mess prompted him to pick you up and sit you on his lap, bouncing you on his cock and fucking you through your orgasm. He had no remorse for stopping and giving you time to recuperate; he’d fuck you into another orgasm until your brain could take no more. 

“I’m not stopping until you cum again for me darling, let me have a taste of you all over my cock. Go ahead and make a mess...I'll fuck you until I'm ready to stop, and I'm far from finished...”

His words made your heart leap for joy but also prompted every noise that slipped past your lips to become whiney. Being fucked senseless by a Godly being was a dream and wish come through. There was nothing that could wake you from this experience or that you would allow to interrupt your 'being fucked to perfection' session. Whimpering like you were also in heat, your King's name tumbled from your lips along with the most delirious statements that would never escape were you anywhere sober. But to Manwë, he wanted you to let loose and become one with him, he didn't care about how whiney or pathetically broken your cries and pleas was. All that mattered was that his mate was enjoying the pleasure he gave.

Riding your tiny figure on his cock, arms gripping your thighs and moving you up and down, you could feel the change in his girth the faster he guided you. The base of his cock was swelling with his seed, and it urged him you fuck you faster. Listening as you babbled for his cum, begging for him to stuff you full, placed a smile on his face. The more you cried, the further he sunk you down his cock, forcing the knot at the base of his cock to slip in. You weren’t aware of what was happening as the knot slipped in until the expansion began. A quick scramble as pain shot through you as your entrance widened around his cock but Manwë was too busy seductively tossing his head back to moan, feeling his release nearing.

“M-Manwë...” tossing your own head back as you squirmed at the growing knot, he was still bouncing you it and attempting to fuck you into another orgasm as promised. He was closer than you, the grips on your waist and sporadic thrusts screamed his release was near.

Your eyes widened before they rolled inwards at the volume of cum he pumped into you. A whorish like moan fell from your lips as you caved into his embrace. It was hot as it filled your insides like some dessert. He was stuffing you over the edge and leaving you satisfied. The growing bulge in your lower abdomen, a mixture of cock and cum, was round and swollen and still rising. Any second again and you could have sworn that you would pop.

A throaty moan was sung through the air as his cum offloaded into your womb. His right hand slipped off your waist to press against. Your eyes rolled back inside your head at the extra growing sensation prompting your body to convulse and tremble profusely. The plug-like knot at the base grew until it felt stuck to ensure that not one ounce of his cum escaped. However, it was the expansion of your muscles around the knot that urged you to cry out, catching Manwë's attention.

The air between then and now shifted to the aftermath of the storm as Manwë eyes softened at your discomfort and were quick to tug you into his arms, rubbing your back. “Shush, shush, I know, I know little dove. It hurts and I’m sorry for causing you pain. It was not my intention,” he cooed into your wet hair, cheeks pressed against it and inhaling his scent that now mingled among yours.

His wings couldn’t help but appear at that moment, puffed and white, encasing you both as he held you close to him, shutting out the rest of the world. For years he’s been wanting to claim you as his. Watching and yearning for you during his heats, lying like his herald and claiming to go on trips to the mountains during spring all because he was fearful of scaring you into a level of commitment that required time and effort.

“It h-hurts,” you still cried into his chest feeling like a child clinging to his massive form. Your voice snapped him out of his paradise and caused small tears to build in the corner of his eyes. Soft coos and pats to your back and head were delivered as Manwë attempted to soothe the burning stretch of his knot. He tried to shift his hips slowly, grinding your lips around his knot to flex the muscles so accommodation could be more comfortable. Manwë knew that it was a relief to have you here, but it was also a mistake, his heat was still four more days to go. You being here meant never leaving until he was finished, and even then, the urge to build a nest and keep you safe and secure was important. You were trapped with your bird lover for weeks.

“I’m sorry you had to experience this for your first time little dove, I don’t know what came over me. You were just so...” instead of finishing off his statement, not wanting to seem so easily swooned, Manwë opted to let his words fall and continue to comfort you.

“Manwë...what's happening?” your small voice rang out to him while you resisted the urge to cry out. His body had stopped pumping cum into you and now it was simply his mixture relaxing in your womb.

“…Uh, how do I put this. You know, I have wings and avian tendencies...and like birds, I experience most of their habits like this one,” he was biting his nails and clawing at his brain explaining this to you. It felt like explaining how babies are created to a child.

“This? What do you mean by this Manwë? I’m not following,” lifting your head off his chest, you peered at him with doe eyes, glossy and innocent as if he didn’t rearrange your insides minutes ago.

Huffing and puffing, his wings couldn’t help but curl in closer to keep you from escaping should the response frighten you, “What we just did little dove was...mate. I mated with you the way birds do during spring. I bonded with you...for life.” His fell and silence took over the room. The only sounds were the merry chirping of the birds, singing about the union and rustling waters in the pool. Your breathing was quiet as was his as you remained seated in his lap. His feathers were tense and shut as he awaited some negative outburst knowing that you were a person who preferred to be told things beforehand.

“Oh,” you grinned at him before dipping your head to look at where you two were connected and blushed. The way he was perfectly nestled and lodged had you questioning your abilities. Since when you could take a cock that big?

“I love you; you know that. I love you with all that I am,” his large hands rose to cup your face and lifted it to meet his lips. Small pecks across your face he littered while letting out small coos of joy and contentment. Your laughter and squeals could be heard through the affectionate gesture.

“I believe we should clean up first though,” you stated while interrupting his affections.

“Clean up? Why should we clean up?” there was a distinctive shift in his voice as it changed from Manwё to his predatory side.

“Because we’re sweaty and I’m...you know, filled with your cum,” your voice dipped and lowered at the last part, afraid of any birds picking up on the conversation.

Leaning forward with a lustful smirk playing on his lips, Manwë easily removed himself off the floor with you still in his arms and walked over to the bed on the opposite side of the room. Ever so gently, he climbed onto the bed and laid himself on his back while you straddled his hips. Hands sprawled out on his chest while his knees crooked upwards, Manwë stared at you with hunger in his eyes before spreading, “If you’re so worried about being stuffed with my cum, I’ll just fill you with more because we aren’t leaving this room anytime soon.”

Masterlist

Taglist: @spidergirla5 @lilmelily @eunoiaastralwings @noldorinpainter @ranhanabi777 @someoneinthestars @mysticmoomin @aconstructofamind @rain-on-my-umbrella @the-phantom-of-arda @starborne066 @singleteapot @cilil @edensrose

[sprog-does-art]

Drew this like 3 months ago lmaooo Their name is Dr Lark Spur and they're a wannabe Pokemon professor

[cedar-glade]

It's still the species rich dry hillside that I know and love; though, only half of the hyacinth was in bloom at the time.

Alluvial mesic riparian flat woods meets mixed conglomerant and partially concreted dry hillside of the Great Miami miander.

Here is one of Hamilton co. Ohio's greatest displays of unique flora. The hill isnt an ecotone and the change isnt abrupt though the niche of a few species is noticable and subtle. In bloom was blue eyed mary, catch bedstraw, both starry and TN chick weed, spreading chervil, sweet anise root, black snake root, and dwarf lark spur. The forrest it's self is home to much more blooming at the same time. For this specific spot though, the hyacinth is in the spot light.

[isabelopaque]

i love talking to non dndads fans about the fucking stupid papa johns arc. yeah the twins are slowly losing everything they remember or love or care about in their minds, yeah sparrow didnt recognize her son, yeah lark pretended to be sparrow spurring incredibly thought provoking ideas about how the twins act around their family. yes this all happened at a papa johns with living calzones while they were wearing the stupid red hats. hope this helps

[thesinglesjukebox]

BEYONCÉ - "TEXAS HOLD 'EM"

Maybe the colossal discography of Beyoncé -- which now includes country music -- might lend a clue?

[6.00]

Dorian Sinclair: Rhiannon Giddens’ banjo is the first thing you hear on “Texas Hold ‘Em,” and it’s both a lovely introduction in its own right and a suggestion that Beyoncé is undertaking this genre shift in a smart, informed way. The banjo work isn’t the only standout on the track, either. Beyoncé, as always, knows how to wrap her voice around a melody line, and the backing harmonies are frequently gorgeous. I just wish the song that this is all in service to felt a little less slight. “Texas Hold ‘Em” is undeniably a real country song — but a middling one. [6]

Rachel Saywitz: Beyoncé’s long-awaited country turn is a bit lackluster, if only due to the nonsensicality of it—I find it hard to believe that the rumored Vegas Sphere headliner has been to a grimy Southern dive bar, drinking bad whiskey out of Solo cups, even once during the past few decades of her career. “Texas Hold ‘Em” sounds like what a pop star thinks country sounds like: stomp claps, echoing vocals, the word “hoedown.” Even with Rhiannon Giddens playing a banjo riff ready-made for the barnyard dance hall, the song is a bit too commercial to be fully believable. Yet as on even the most lackluster Beyoncé songs, her vocals and intonation save the track from diving into pure pop country slop. Her growls in the chorus fit the song’s overstated twang, and while the second verse’s depiction of a heatwave seems totally devoid of Beyoncé’s material reality, she rises to meet the drama with a tenor that sounds almost believable.  [7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Beyond the camp appeal of listing country apparel (“boots! spurs!”), this is shockingly half-assed stuff from Beyoncé. Lyrically and sonically, it’s the type of inoffensive pablum engineered to soundtrack a commercial for the new Lexus TX, with nothing spiky to distract from how its three-row luxury treats every seat like the best seat. [3]

Aaron Bergstrom: I understand that country songs are not required to be true-to-life first-person narratives, but I would believe that Johnny Cash actually shot a man in Reno before I would believe that Beyoncé has ever set foot in a dive bar. [5]

Brad Shoup: She's jumped right into the vibe of a country singer on the gentle downslope: the easygoing, modest gem that tips its hat at contemporary songwriting but is mostly an excuse for a nice hang. It's here for a good time, not a long time. The banjo's loping; the acoustic has a nice percussive affect. We're here to do a little stepping, not watch the band cut loose. The text itself is about a rich couple dabbling in the honky-tonk lifestyle—the image of perhaps the most in-control pop star of the century popping into a dive bar on a lark is pretty funny. The sampled piano and whistling at the end suggest another kind of dive; suddenly, it's the aughts and she's checking out Grizzly Bear with her sister. [7]

Jackie Powell: Beyoncé's decision to release the instrumental to "Texas Hold 'Em" and its a cappella versions accentuates her desire to remind those who love her, and those who might not, of the innate musicality that she has always possessed. She’s not just great because she’s Beyoncé. Her knowledge of music history—which has been a motif in her solo work since 2016—and also her vocal tone and ability to emote through her four-octave range are essential to her greatness. Between her intonation of each hook of “Texas Hold 'Em,” which captures how bouncy a hoedown feels in person, to the stunning two-part and sometimes three-part harmonies in the verses, Knowles gives such a memorable and fun vocal performance. Those overdubbed harmonies are so bright. They give off a warmth that feels like a much more enjoyable morning alarm. The banjo, which is heard throughout, is played by Rhiannon Giddens -- yet another example of Beyoncé’s methodology when it comes to using her platform. Her modus operandi as of late has been to use the attention she attracts to bring the mainstream public to those who have been doing the work and under-recognized in the genres she’s making music in. This willingness to uplift artists continues to be noble, but I question how self-aware Beyoncé is when she mentions parking a Lexus in the hook. While this is a reference to her partnership with the luxury car brand over the summer that provided half of a million dollars to small minority-owned businesses, it still comes off as a bit out of touch with the communities she’s paying homage to.  [8]

Jeffrey Brister: I’m astounded that Beyoncé released a song that sounds so dilettantish. The beginning really gets me—I’m getting ready for something incredible. And then it just…keeps going and going. It sounds marginally more country than “You Should Be Sad." [4]

Nortey Dowuona: The difficulty in writing music, especially popular music, is that when composing songs, the most catchy, acceptable, understandable sounds become so overused that anyone who's spent a lifetime paying attention to popular music in all its forms could start noticing the similarities. Megan Bulow, a German singer who lived in Texas at 14, is credited as a songwriter on this song, as well as Lowell, a Canadian singer who briefly tried to share the good news of her involvement and later took down the video. They both have written lyrics such as "I'm going all white at your funeral/if you think I'm gonna cry, you're delusional" from bulow's "Boys Will Be Boys" and "but not me, I'm free/by the wings on my back on my shoulder blades" from Lowell's "Runaways" -- two songs I picked from their discography at random that have lyrics evocative enough to jump off the page but empty enough for a stronger, more defined voice to take ownership. This is hopefully a reason they were chosen to work with Beyoncé. Raphael Saadiq, Killa B, and Nathan Ferraro are listed as producers alongside Beyoncé; Rhiannon Giddens is playing the banjo and viola, Khirye Tyler is playing the piano alongside Saadiq, Ferraro and Lowell as well as the bass, Saadiq is credited for piano, organ, and bass alongside Tyler and Ferraro and drums alongside Killa B. Hit-Boy is playing the synthesizer and contributing to additional production work as well as Mariel Gomerez and Stuart White. I'm just saying -- if any of these people watched Franklin when they were young and interpolated it, it was definitely an accident. The deeper one goes into making one little song, the spiderwebs of avoiding even partial similarities to existing songs is becoming less charming and more sinister. It is so difficult that I can list all of these veterans of the industry allied and united in creating this great, if only slightly vague song, but a random person can notice a similarity to a kids' TV show's theme song, and it can gain enough steam for the composer to gently and firmly deny it. Don't be a bitch, just take it to the floor now. [8]

Hannah Jocelyn: Props for rendering Noah Kahan redundant, but bettering one of Mumford’s sons isn’t saying much. The song is cute -- I won’t mind hearing it in every sandwich shop for the next year or so -- but of the two songs Bey released, this is by far the less engaging one. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: The difference between this song and "16 Carriages," and "Daddy Lessons" as well, is that it doesn't feel like either of those two songs expects me to be impressed by the mere fact of its existence. "Don't be a bitch," as the eternal anti-critic refrain goes -- what, were you expecting a reverent, sepia-toned tribute to Bob Wills or something? Just accept the thing for what it is, turn off your brain, and have some down-home country fun, dammit! And as a born-and-bred Texan who's unduly excited for the upcoming Twisters film, I so wish I could. But those mechanical stomps, those painfully forced "woo"s, the "dive bar we always thought was nice," and the chirping cricket sound effect that someone probably put in as a joke and then forget to remove: all of this is laziness dressed up as genre-busting. Rhiannon Giddens is called up to add more subtextual fodder about the Black roots of country, but with the anonymized production she's given, it comes across as just more stats-padding for next year's Grammys. Only in the outro does Beyoncé suddenly remember that she can do Beyoncé things with her voice, sprinkling some belated shards of personality onto a stiff composition that wouldn't be out of place on a filler episode of Phineas & Ferb. If Bey still has Diplo in her contacts, it may have been worth giving him a ring for this -- feels icky to say it, but he can at least make the appropriation go down smooth when he tries. [3]

Katherine St. Asaph: Has anyone done a tally of the number of country songs that mention the word "hoedown," versus the number of pop songs? Would the hypothetical person who'd do so not be among the most tiresome people in the world? "Texas Hold 'Em" (and companion single "16 Carriages," to a lesser degree) is an argument as much as it is a song. As on Renaissance, Beyoncé and her team have done careful, purposeful curation to showcase Black women in country -- and it's earned those women actual streaming boosts (if maybe not literal streaming dividends), which is pretty cool. But the thoroughness and fervor with which she proves this song's authenticity has inevitably -- and deliberately, I should add -- invited Discourse. And as usual, that Discourse keeps missing the most obvious points. There's no use arguing how properly rootsy this sounds or how storied its session musicians are. The country purists object because of the usual respectability politics -- i.e., Beyoncé says "bitch" and has her boobs out in the video -- and those politics form an auricular plug in them that is so strong that this could sound like literally anything and still be dismissed as pop. There's not much more use digging into the whys and why-nots of its country radio airplay. Country radio is playing this because country radio is dominated by iHeartMedia aka Clear Channel, who have the playlisting power that comes with monopoly and the inclination to support fellow megabrands. (Aside: According to Hits Daily Double, after the iHeart execs made their airplay decree, "[they then excused themselves as they were due to have their Stetsons blocked.") While the historical context and broken barriers are undeniably worth taking seriously, they've also kind of led people to make more of the song than what it is. "Texas Hold 'Em" is mostly frivolous, and that's fine! The melody is a grin put to sheet music. It's also a pop song, and that is also fine! If it's a country song about nothing more than the fact that it's a country song, then so are enough country-radio hits that not even I can write a sentence long enough to do the one-YouTube-link-per-word gag for them all. (And "Texas Hold 'Em" would probably be delivered as much more of a gimmick if it was instead given to Lennon Stella or Hailee Steinfeld or Madison Beer, or any of the other B-minus-listers that co-writer Lowell has sold songs to.) Any holdout doubters are advised to listen to the end, where the genres stop competing for views space and start to truly simmer together, with all the heat that implies. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Fulfills the promise of Beyoncé-fied country only in its last 45 seconds – the house pianos interwoven with finger-picked guitars are almost psychedelic in effect, emerging out of the stomp of the rest of the song in a dazzling clarity. There, she's fragmented and lucid all at once, singing individual words and phrases each laden with strange wells of meaning. Everything else is just slightly too chipper, the joy of those whoops and whistles and nonsensical lines about various bars coming off like strange procedural imitations of authentic human experience. [6]

Isabel Cole: The song reveals itself as more of a fluffy little nothing with each listen, and while it’s carefully assembled it feels perhaps too careful—this is very well-mannered for a song about greeting life’s disasters with reckless abandon. Still, I love the way the melody twists on the pre-chorus, and I’ve always tended to favor the Beyoncé songs where she relies more on her unbeatable vocal charisma than the ones on which she flexes her sheer power. The way you can almost see her drawl Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now keeps me coming back. [7]

Alfred Soto: I don't care whether it "sounds country." It sounds like Beyoncé, just like Madonna made Madonna music and Bowie made Bowie music: they absorbed genres, reconstituted their DNA, and discarded the ephemera. "Texas Hold 'Em" treats contractions and banjos like Madonna did acoustic guitars on the chopped salad mix of "Don't Tell Me": an excuse to express whatever she damn pleases.  A fab radio track that reduces The Weeknd's latest to a puddle, "Texas Hold 'Em" is a challenge, a provocation, no more and no less. [6]

Mark Sinker: Reacting against the discourse™? froth up just as you’d expect round this light, slight, likeably McCartney-ish near-fragment of a song, it’s time to turn to sometime TSJ-er Frank Kogan in his essay ‘Roger Williams in America,’ the first superwords essay, as collected here, on the decades-old problem of authenticity, or actually the problem of the problem: “The discussion never seems to go anywhere, since the tendency is for people to debunk ‘authenticity’ without first trying to understand it (…) Rather than debunking it, I would want to explore the power of the real, why the search for the real has such a hold on rock. It’s not a problem to be stopped. I think this is one of the good things about rock (…) Even when the manifestations are stupid, rock’s uneasiness is profound. Great rock thrives on insecurity (…)". Even back in 2006, the word "country" couldn't always just be switched in anywhere to replace "rock" as an obvious identity — though the reason there’s a kerfuffle going on right now (or part of the reason, as ppl enthuse or recoil) is that the search for the real does also have a powerful hold on country. So you can swap words in and sometimes still get sense. Switch more words in and out of these sentences and (by the transitive properties of equality!) we will reach this: “Beyoncé’s uneasiness is profound.” And suddenly this seems much less of a slam-dunk. It surely isn’t the case in this song; to me it’s not much the case elsewhere either. Quite the opposite, in fact. She does not usually come across as (to quote Frank again, it’s a very quotable essay) “born in flight, chased by fear”. And you could — or I could — happily argue that this superb confidence is one of the great things about her. Take it all back out of algebra, though, and the upshot here is yes, of course, Beyoncé can be country, if and only if (of as logicians write it, “iff”) country both is and isn’t rock; when it’s bothered about the real yet at the same time not at all uneasy. I like this as a conclusion, because it has also to mean a whole bunch of stuff is going to be gently churned up — less by the song itself, to be sure, than by all the panics and chatter around the song. It’s an unstable solution, and even if you turn to the extremely solid undergirding supplied in this nice long interview with banjo-scholar and picker Rhiannon Giddens, complete with all kinds of detail you’d need to firm up several arguments (details that include Yo Yo Ma), you’re acknowledging that authority and justification are going at some point and in some places to need ruggedly repositioning or reclaiming, immediate catchy unruffled serenity notwithstanding.  [8]

Ian Mathers: I think it's both good and interesting to discuss the broader genre considerations (sonic, political, aesthetic, emotional, etc etc etc) of this, but I am neither qualified to do that myself nor interested in doing it. So let me just say that, while I have not looked up how it's actually doing, "Texas Hold 'Em" feels like it ought to be a hit, not in some overdetermined four-quadrant you'll-take-it-whether-or-not-you-like-it sense, but just because... it's so much fun! It feels like the kind of song all sorts of people will find entertaining and might catch themselves singing along to. Beyoncé is clearly prominent enough it's got a shot, and god knows all sorts of cultural factors might boost it or hold it back, but a world where this is blasting out of everyone's radios just feels nice and somehow correct. [9]

Dave Moore: I don't like admitting to myself that I find Beyoncé more exhausting than Taylor Swift (in part because everything Beyoncé does actually works). It's some real coolest kid in school is class president and valedictorian and the lead in the school play shit. Once again, the song's credits are impeccable, and the song itself is fine.  [5]

Will Adams: Much like the Verizon Super Bowl ad that kicked off her new promo cycle, this on-the-nose genre dress-up feels beneath Beyoncé. Renaissance proved she was willing to put in the research. Synthesizing that into something exciting requires more work than this. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I want Beyoncé to break barriers making country music as much as the next queer, but please god, I hope the album is more interesting than this Lumineers-sounding fluff.  [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Warrior Cats Prefixes- L

I had a WC Name Generator on Perchance that I made but I don't seem to have access anymore, so I'm remaking it here as just a simple list. The definitions used are the ones that Clan cats have for those things, and thus are the origins of the names. Definitions used are whatever I found when I googled it.

Laburnum-: "[noun] a small European tree that has hanging clusters of yellow flowers succeeded by slender pods containing poisonous seeds"

Lagoon-: "[noun] a small freshwater lake near a larger lake or river"

Lake-: "[noun] a large body of water surrounded by land"

Lamb-: "[noun] a young sheep"

Lamprey-: "[noun] an eel-like aquatic jawless vertebrate that has a sucker mouth with horny teeth and a rasping tongue"

Lapis-: "[noun] a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone"

Larch-: "[noun] a deciduous conifer tree native to the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, where they are found in lowland forests in the high latitudes, and high in mountains further south"

Lark-: "[noun] a small ground-dwelling songbird, typically with brown streaky plumage, a crest, and elongated hind claws, and with a song that is delivered in flight"

Larkspur-: "[noun] an annual Mediterranean plant of the buttercup family, which bears spikes of spurred flowers"

Laurel-: "[noun] any of a number of shrubs and other plants with dark green glossy leaves; [noun] an aromatic evergreen shrub related to the bay tree, several kinds of which form forests in tropical and warm countries"

Lavender-: "[noun] a member of the genus of 47 known species of perennial flowering plants in the mints family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World, primarily found across the drier, warmer regions of mainland Eurasia"

Leaf-: "[noun] a flattened structure of a higher plant, typically green and blade-like, that is attached to a stem directly or via a stalk"

Leech-: "[noun] an aquatic or terrestrial annelid worm with suckers at both ends"

Leopard-: "[noun] a large, solitary cat that has a yellowish-brown or brown coat with black spots and usually hunts at night"

Lichen-: "[noun] a plantlike organism that typically forms a low crusty, leaflike, or branching growth on rocks, walls, and trees"

Light-: "[noun] the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible; [adj] (of a color) pale"

Lightning-: "[noun] the occurrence of a natural electrical discharge of very short duration and high voltage between a cloud and the ground or within a cloud, accompanied by a bright flash and typically also thunder"

Lilac-: "[noun] a Eurasian shrub or small tree of the olive family, that has fragrant violet, pink, or white blossoms; [noun] a pale pinkish-violet color; [adjective] of a pale pinkish-violet color"

Lily-: "[noun] a bulbous plant with large trumpet-shaped, typically fragrant, flowers on a tall, slender stem"

Linden-: "[noun] a deciduous tree with heart-shaped leaves and fragrant yellowish blossoms, native to north temperate regions"

Linnet-: "[noun] a mainly brown and gray finch with a reddish breast and forehead"

Lion-: "[noun] a large tawny-colored cat that lives in prides, found in Africa and northwestern India. The male has a flowing shaggy mane and takes little part in hunting, which is done cooperatively by the females"

Little-: "[adj] small in size, amount, or degree"

Lizard-: "[noun] a reptile that typically has a long body and tail, four legs, movable eyelids, and a rough, scaly, or spiny skin"

Loach-: "[noun] a small elongated bottom-dwelling freshwater fish with several barbels near the mouth"

Loam-: "[noun] a fertile soil of clay and sand containing humus"

Lobelia-: "[noun] a chiefly tropical or subtropical plant of the bellflower family"

Lobster-: "[noun] a large marine crustacean with a cylindrical body, stalked eyes, and the first of its five pairs of limbs modified as pincers"

Locust-: "[noun] a large and mainly tropical grasshopper with strong powers of flight. It is usually solitary, but from time to time there is a population explosion, and it migrates in vast swarms that cause extensive damage to crops"

Log-: "[noun] a part of the trunk or a large branch of a tree that has fallen or been cut off"

Long-: "[adj] measuring a great distance from end to end"

Loon-: "[noun] any of several large birds (genus Gavia of the family Gaviidae) of Holarctic regions that feed on fish by diving and have their legs placed far back under the body for optimal locomotion underwater"

Lost-: "[adj] unable to find one's way, not knowing one's whereabouts"

Lotus-: "[noun] any of a number of large water lilies"

Loud-: "[adj] producing or capable of producing much noise, easily audible"

Luck-: "[noun] success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions; [noun] chance considered as a force that causes good or bad things to happen; [noun] something regarded as bringing about or portending good or bad things"

Lucky-: "[adj] having, bringing, or resulting from good luck"

Lupine-: "[noun] a plant of the pea family with deeply divided leaves and tall colorful tapering spikes of flowers"

Lynx-: "[noun] a wild cat with yellowish-brown fur (sometimes spotted), a short tail, and tufted ears, found chiefly in the northern latitudes of North America and Eurasia"

[pancakehouse]

7 Up

tagged by @maybebabyplease @pinklume and @aqua-myosotis at varying times in the last month hehe merciiii darlings kisses to you !!!

The carriage pulls to a stop at a road that is less of a clear pathway than it is an obstacle course of fallen tree branches, frozen icicles jutting from the ground like spiked crops, and walls of untouched snow in every visible direction.

Follow the cliff’s edge to the crossroads, Lily had said, although Sirius is beginning to think she’s sent him out here as a lark, perhaps to be the midnight snack for whatever predators are surely lurking inside that forest.

“Er, maybe we should just—” he starts warily, but the driver doesn’t wait for him: the deer are spurred into motion and Sirius is booted right out of his seat, launched face-first into a muddy-brown puddle as the carriage races away, speeding up the hill and around the corner, right back the way they came.

“Right, then,” Sirius sighs. Faced with only one option, he brushes himself off and starts up the path, careful to keep a wide berth from the drop-off that seems to end — according to a quick glance — somewhere in the core of Dante’s ninth circle.

But he makes it no more than five steps before freezing in place, heart racing inside his chest. At the top of the cliff, staring down at him with wide curious eyes, tawny fur bathed in moonlight, is a wolf.

tagging @colgatebluemintygel @blackberry-sunset @thebloatedfrog @mblematic @tahtahfornow @serethereal no pressure ofc !!!

[bloomynmoon]

Getting some drinks

[watchingyoufromthestars]

Going crazy about the new dndads episode. Expect a kiddads chess theory soon??? This was spurred by the Betrayal finally getting shown.

There is a lot more connections than I thought when I first said Terry is the Queen and Lark is the King. There’s so much more.

[hauntedjpegcollection]

black sun

wc: 4459 au: cowboy au ch: xavier, lark, bunny, benji, nick

“Well. I’ll be,” Xavier mumbles, switching a toothpick side to side in his mouth, tongue pausing to swipe over a cracked canine.

Damn. He did owe Lark a silver; Bunny was who they were looking for. That was a name for someone half revered and mostly feared. Xavier thumbs his coin purse open, looking down at the meager funds and thinks, ah, he won’t even ask ‘bout it.

Sunlight glares through a musty window, an old, stained curtain just barely parted enough for him to look through. Xavier’s fingers flex on the grip of his ivory pistol, moss colored eyes on the scene just outside the house he’s perched inside. Heat bakes the house, makes sweat collect along his skin, beading on his upper lip, dripping down the nape of his neck. A heavy sigh rattles his ribs.

Xavier displaces his black hat for a moment, right on his knee, just to rub a hand through messy hair and take stock.

Everything’s dusty, himself included. His lips dry, the corners of his eyes gritty with the western road. They’ve been running so long, no pauses, that even just sitting there feels too much of a luxury. Gives him a moment to catalog how truly nasty he feels. He knows Lark’s similar; but he’s better with this sort of thing. Not just because he was so quick—had Bunny right caught immediately, an arm slung over her throat and that wicked bowie knife to her sternum—but he was usually better with people. Not that threatening them ever made friends, but Xavier knew he was an unwanted vision to most.

He was not ugly, like most bandits could be. But Xavier was the sort of tall that had people fidgeting and Lark’s face was not nearly as defined in the WANTED posters plastered everywhere. Xavier was an instantly recognizable, freckled fucking outlaw and he usually meant trouble. He of lithe height, oxblood hair and a wicked smile was the sort that you didn’t send for negotiations. A knife to the chest was rather mild for Lark. Xavier was known to be a bit worse.

Still. It preys on his nerves to be look out. He could break the window and shoot that hefty looking bodyguard real quick if he needed to. But the shotgun looked sawed off and mean, stunted for brutality, nothing elegant about it. Xavier unconsciously twirls the pistol in his hand, humming under his breath as he squints for a better view. His spurs rattle as he nervously adjusts.

‘Course there’s the guilt about being older. Lark’s two years his junior and Xavier feels a rather natural inclination to step in front of the oncoming trains they used to derail. All honor in Xavier might have died eight years ago, but the brother inside him never did. Sometimes, looking at Lark, he sees Jessica—and so he imagines that shotgun on his sisters head and heat prickles across his skin.

Benny was worse when it came to these things. He was always the one looking out.

And, well, Benny was the reason they were trying to wrangle this criminal. Xavier does well to remind himself that when he sways from the chair and leans against the wall, squints that much harder.

He can’t hear them, but he can see mouths moving. Lark has them good and angled so that if he needs to make a sort of signal to Xavier, he’ll still be able to see it. Bunny’s bodyguard hasn’t stepped any closer. He’s all too relaxed; meaning he’s probably good at what he does and is more prepared than he looks. Xavier tongues his tooth once more, brushing sweat off his long nose with a flick of his finger, cocking his head to continue staring.

Being inside as he is, Xavier doesn’t hear the hoof beats at the same time as them. All he sees is heads move into the same direction.

Then he’s scrambling for the door.

—

The Black Suns were responsible for more train robberies than any other gang moving through the lawless West. If the post could be believed, anyway, and they didn’t always move fast enough to out pace rumors. Or catch up with truths.

Xavier reckoned it was more about image than it was about robbing, though they did that plenty—and more, of course. There wasn’t much The Black Suns didn’t get involved in, from drugs to theft to murder. He’d started as a pathetic tag along, someone who brought up the rear, most targeted by the expressmen that would defend cargo or riders. Easy pickin’s. When he didn’t die immediately, he was able to integrate himself into the gang and become someone important. Still easy pickin’s, he realized, years later.

But they’d been something of a very fucked up home for him for a long, long while. He can tell Black Sun outfits from a mile away—and these men are closer than a mile.

“Son of a—!”

Xavier’s aim is perfect to catch one of the bandits right in the chest. He slumps in his saddle immediately, poor beast underneath him screaming wildly as it darts off into the high noon wavy heat.

“Xavier!”

But he doesn’t pay attention to Lark’s yelling, because there’s not just one Black Sun. ‘Course not. Well, that would be just too fuckin’ easy wouldn’t it?

He has to trust that Lark has himself mostly covered—as well as his captured kingpin—as he sets sights on another bandit. This one has his own shotgun, aimed true at Xavier. He apologizes to his sisters in his heart and shoots the horse in the head. Kills it instantly with a thick spurt of blood wetting the dirt and sends the rider straight to follow onto the ground—where Bunny’s guard quickly steps in. He’d looked competent enough, but closer, he looks a little more than competent. He wrangles the shotgun from the bandit with strong hands, slamming a hard kick to the mans masked face. Once and then twice till the Black Sun goes limp. One more from his own pistol keeps the man from possibly getting back up.

Xavier, perhaps stupidly, gives the bodyguard a wide and wolfish smile. Then blinks at the end of the sawed off shotgun.

“That is not very polite,” he says, raising hands, his pistol dangling on a finger.

Lark’s voice is higher in anxiety as he turns with Bunny, but it’s that desperate pitch—and those damn two years of age separating them, Xavier thinks—that makes it easier for her to slip his grasp. Her cotton white shirt is now a little more than damp with sweat and a tint of red and she’s a just a hair too tall for Lark to get a better grip on.

Xavier, for what it’s worth, tries to pay attention to that, even with the shotgun in his face. But his eyes slide toward the owner, narrowing against the sun his hat isn’t doing a good enough job of hiding him from. No name had accompanied Bunny’s, not that the people they pried for information even really wanted to give that. So this is a stranger, an unknown variable that he’d counted but still somehow wasn’t expecting. Shorter, because just about everyone is shorter, but his lifestyle of being muscle is very apparent in the corded strength of his arms. The stretch of shoulders that pull his shirt taut.

A few buttons on that shirt are loose enough that his sweat slick throat is exposed. Jesus. If he was going to be killed, well, at least it was by someone pretty. Maybe Benny would forgive him for it later in Hell.

He thinks about saying that—a compliment has never gotten him into too much trouble—but instead, crooks a finger and slides it over the brim of his hat. Dark and tired eyes follow the movement. Xavier gently lowers his hat by an inch to shade his eyes, pupils blooming and eating away green, as he stares at the bodyguard.

“Howdy,” he says.

“Benji, kill that idiot—”

“If you pull that trigger, I’ll gut her—I’ll—”

“My brother and your boss are bein’ loud,” Xavier comments, his pistol still hung against the back of his hand, both of them raised to his ears in mostly surrender. There’s a shivering sensation running up and down his spine, like a cool lovers kiss even underneath the terrible, punishing sun above them.

“Brother?” the bodyguard—Benji—comments, lip curling in a mean sneer that doesn’t make him any less good looking. A bead of sweat disappears from his temple into his facial hair.

“Different mothers, I’m afraid.”

“Xavier!”

Lark’s gasp is specific enough in cadence, that he glances over Benji’s shoulder and to the crumbling ghost town stable to their left. A rifle glints in the sun, the curve of man’s shoulder around the bend of a dusty wall. The Black Suns had always played it like that—filthy rats. Xavier had learned from the best like that, hiding in the house while Lark handled the dirty work—Christ, that was karma, wasn’t it?

That’s why he snaps a hand on the shot gun, twisting it up in the sky and using it as leverage to swing the bodyguard to the side—heavier than he looks, a hilarious last thought for Xavier before...The rifle cracks, and something white and hot and furious explodes across his side. It drops him to one knee immediately, his pistol clattering behind him as his hand goes for the his side.

The blood is instant, which is only slightly worrying, but another crack of the rifle feels more pressing. Xavier nearly struggles to a stand before a hand on his shoulder keeps him down and then the shotgun’s loud. It scatters dirt and blood—and whatever Benji had started, or meant to start, Lark finishes with a gleaming knife embedded in the Black Suns throat.

He goes down gargling, clawing at it, dying, a leg shattered by the shotgun blast.

Xavier’s hand returns to his side. When he withdraws it, there’s more blood than he expects—and it’s shaking.

“Hm,” he grunts.

“Well, fuckin’ alright then,” Bunny says, standing beside her bodyguard, managing to look both ruffled and put together in a great clashing blend. “Those two next.”

“He just saved your mans life when he ain’t need to,” Lark snaps. Xavier had not noticed he’d scooped up the pistol and has it aimed for the very man he’d just stopped from getting shot. That feels ironic, but Xavier is having a hard time feeling much of anything beside dizzy. He also finds it a little harder to get up from his knee than he’s expecting, his hand firmly closing back over the shot to his side. It pulses like a heartbeat, but one thats like a wild animal in a trap. Xavier closes his eyes briefly as blood pools down his side, under his trousers, into the tops of his boots.

“Didn’t even kill no one,” Xavier mumbles. He tries to stand again, and Lark catches him under the arm, yanking it over his lean shoulders. It makes for difficult work holding up the pistol, so Xavier cleanly takes it and holsters it, even despite the shaking that’s overtaken him and Lark’s protesting. His teeth chatter. Xavier has a mind to be thankful, since the heat is usually so overbearing.

“Did you say something?” Bunny asks neatly, inspecting the shirt that Lark had slit with the end of his nasty knife.

“You told him, those two next,” Xavier says, smiling, a vein along his jaw twitching. “Like he’d killed any of ‘em. But he didn’t now, did he? That was me n’Lark. If that was a job application, how d’you think we did?”

“God damn abysmal go of it. Benji?”

“Not great,” Benji replies, his eyes pinned to the widening bloom of blood on Xavier’s side. Shame. He did rather like this shirt—it was the only one he currently had. Benji’s sleepy eyes slide toward his boss, flickering up and down her. A silent conversation seems to happen in their body language alone. Xavier doesn’t pay attention. Instead, he grips onto Lark harder, pressing a nose into his raven colored hair, trying to stay grounded despite the nauseas.

“If you were gon’ kill us, y’d’ave already,” Xavier finally says in a lethargic slur, rustling Lark’s hair with his labored breath. “Could we kindly ask about that information now?”

“I’d say that time has kindly just about passed, shit for brains,” Bunny says evenly. She adjusts the sleeves of her shirt, pats the cut and small dot of blood at her sternum with a disdainful look.

“Help me take him into town,” Lark interrupts, in half a demand. “I know you’ve a doctor there. Heard about—”

“No—”

“As I said.” Xavier adjusts himself on Lark’s side, patting his friend fondly on the head as he tries to stand straighter. It’s a mistake that costs a sharp inhale and a swear bitten off on his tongue. “You’d have already killed us. And I think—You know? I reckon no one gets to where you are, all high up there like, if they don’t have a healthy—what’s that? Curiosity. A healthy curiosity. So—”

The shotgun Benji is holding cracks in half, the remaining shell popping into the air. He catches it easily and then pockets it just as swiftly. Xavier watches, wetting his lips with his tongue. He isn’t smiling anymore, mostly because his face feels a little numb. Not the first time he’s been shot, but the last time was in the leg and this feels very different from the leg.

“Not winnin’ any favors with ‘er,” the bodyguard says. His accent’s interesting. His voice deep, rough and scratchy. It comes from his chest, someplace hidden that could be explored.

“What about you?” Xavier asks, eyes hooded, sagging more against Lark, who holds him like a lifeline. “You curious, Benji?”

A rare wind rustles all three of them still alive and the three dead men on the ground as well. It parts around abandoned buildings, moves hair and clothing and puffs dust into the air along with it. Xavier’s legs go boneless, his stomach roiling. He holds Lark harder—and still stares ahead, his sea green eyes that haven’t seen the sea in eight long years boring into Benji’s mahogany gaze.

“You’re dealing with the French by yourself,” Bunny’s voice cuts through that tension as clean as one of Lark’s blades, making Xavier blink rapidly in her direction. But she’s looking to her bodyguard, with a face as disapproving as a parent nearly, which is enough to make Xavier laugh up the taste of blood. Then his laugh turns to a cough, and that cough turns to a wheeze and his spine bends and he’s falling once more.

“Ben’s gonna be so mad at us,” Lark whimpers, reminding Xavier once more of those stark two years before his vision blacks out at the edges.

—

“I can see,” Xavier pants. “Why your boss didn’t wanna deal with the French.”

It had taken Benji’s help to get Xavier up onto the doctors dining room table, which was long and sturdy and made of rich looking wood. The interior of his house was equally as lavish and because Xavier was a thief, he was looking around at the valuables. Even though his eyes didn’t feel entirely his own. They kept sliding to the side, as though casing Benji for things to steal instead.

He’d lifted Xavier’s upper half while Lark got his gangly legs up. No help from Nick, the doctor, whose name was so informal compared to the surgeons and physicians that Xavier’s robbed in the past, on those lonely midnight trains. The doctor had only stared, with dull grey eyes, snapping on gloves as the hard work was done for him.

“Mm,” the doctor hums as he makes easy work of Xavier’s shirt with a pair of scissors that glint underneath the chandelier above them. His vision darkens once more, his head falling back onto the table with a loud thump. Lark hovers, hands raised as if he might dart in to help. As if his parents weren’t textile workers and he did not know a single thing about medicine that wasn’t taught by a scrappy girl who sterilized knives over a campfire.

Still, his black eyes are nervous. Xavier reaches out and squeezes his forearm. It doesn’t help, because his grip is not where it’s usually at.

“Where’s my hat?” He asks tiredly.

“It has not punched through,” the doctor says with his lilting accent, choosing to ignore the question. Fingers press around the hole in Xavier’s side. Stars push up in front of his vision, reminding him of striking flint to make fire. Tess had taught him how to do that. She’d loved all things that gave her independence; and she’d taught them as well, as if knowing he’d need them too. Xavier’s heart squeezes. Oh, she’d be mad at him. He wants to weep, thinking of how mad she’d be. Xavier grinds his teeth and tries to keep present, even if that’s a worse place to be.

“I will pry it out.”

“Well, that sounds like a fun time,” Xavier comments breathily, sweat slicked chest rising and falling rapidly, his torso dancing.

“For me,” Nick replies, his weathered face splitting into an eerily soft smile. His glasses run to the end of his nose and he uses the back of his hand to slowly slide them up. He takes a rag to clean pale and freckled skin, even as the gunshot eeks more blood. Xavier’s shaking hand reaches to the crucifix necklace on his chest, tucking it closer to the hollow of his throat.

“Catholic?”

“Naw.” Not anymore.

“Shame. Praying helps.” Nick clatters about with tools behind him and Xavier closes his eyes. Tess’s smiles at him from across a burning campfire. She says, look at you, I’m proud. “Hold his legs for me.” This is directed at Lark, who pauses only for a moment before walking to the end of the table. His hands lock around Xavier’s calves. He tries to relax, but knowing the pain is close makes his entire body flinch and twitch.

The doctor tuts a few times, observing beyond Xavier’s view. His eyes flutter open to glance backward, but the angle isn’t easy.

“Benji,” Nick murmurs, reproachful. “You are not usually so cruel. Give the man your belt, or he will break his pretty teeth.”

Rustling and the clink of a belt buckle behind Xavier makes his skin alight on fire once more, the pain a strange symphonic pulse to it. His breathing comes hard and fast through his nose. He can’t see Benji behind his head, but the leather belt, looped for thickness is presented slowly in front of him. Swallowing a narrowing sensation in his throat, he splits his lips and then his teeth, sucking in a hard inhale before the leather is fit snugly into his mouth.

“Now,” Nick says, settling into a pulled up chair. “Hold his shoulders. He will squirm.”

Despite pride, Xavier does. When the doctor’s finger prods into his open wound, his entire body convulses. He moans wetly, eyes screwing shut as an instrument, cold and metallic replaces fingers. He wants to apologize for the severe twist of his legs, but he can’t—not through the leather in his mouth, or the pain that lights up inside his brain like a summer thunderstorm. Lark manages. Benji’s hands ground his shoulders firmly. His fingers, oddly gentle, despite how much weight he puts down.

“Désolé,” the doctor says softly, even as he is widening the wound to get to the bullet. “A high pain tolerance is not a blessing. You would have passed out by now, pauvre chose.”

He wants it to be distant, to fade into some bleak and other head space, but the pain is so sharp. He feels it up his chest, lodging in his throat. Xavier blinks tears and sweat from his eyes, leaning his head back so he doesn’t have to see what the doctor does to him.

Benji stares down at him.

Xavier stares back.

His jaw slackens on the leather belt between his teeth, then clamps down harder as he groans at the pain blossoming out from his side. His eyelashes blink a few more tears that roll down the sides of his face. He breathes like a over worked horse, harsh puffs from his nose. Benji inches forward just slightly, his hands still firmly holding Xavier down. He almost looks close to saying something, lips parting. Xavier’s eyes fall to them. At once, he imagines the softness, the gentle curve of his lower lip. Imagines his finger tracing over them. The tickle of his facial hair.

It’s an outlandish thought, even if Xavier’s very prone to kissing plenty of strangers and is none too shy about imagining more. But it feels different from those imagined before. His eyes dart back up to meet Benji’s, his chest heaving hard staccato breathes. There is one one painful horrific yank from the doctor, and Xavier makes a crying sort of sound around the belt. His hand snaps up to wrap around Benji’s wrist without thought through his lawless bandit mind. He squeezes harshly and his eyes clamp shut again.

“Ah,” Nick says happily. “Fully intact.”

“Lucky,” Benji whispers, the feel of his breath almost cool against Xavier’s feverish skin and it’s the last word he hears before he blessedly falls unconscious.

—

Benji is well accustomed to Nick’s post surgery ritual—if what he’d done to the boy could be considered surgery at all, as impromptu and lackluster work as it had been. Nick could not spare drugs for a stranger; especially not a giant red head, God knows what he might already have in that criminal system of his. Plus, they didn’t seem the type that would be paying in the morning, so he’d done the shoddy sort of job that a few pennies could afford (and this likely, on Benji’s tab now). Even the saline drip had been a last minute decision, because the outlaw was pale in a way that wasn’t so pretty when he was done.

Bunny’s morose son stands beside the sink, staring down at his belt, as blood swirls the drain. Nick lathers himself up to the elbows, dutifully. He hums as he cleans, scrubbing studiously underneath his nails, enjoying the routine. The burns on his palms are tight, muscles cramping from the delicate work he’d been doing in finding that bullet. Nick resolves to soak them before bed, while the criminals sleep downstairs in his living room.

“C’est dommage.”

“Yeah?” Benji isn’t really listening. His eyes are pinned to the belt, where the red heads teeth had nearly punched through the leather. There are indents in the shape of him and the belt’s gone a darker brown from the spit. Some saliva still remains in wet patches and Nick watches, fascinated, as Benji slowly slides his thumb through it, rubbing spit into the leather.

Benji is often someone lost in thought; is often someone caught staring into nothing, eyes hooded and a fist tucked under his chin. It was a bad habit in Nick’s opinion, had always worried at the melancholy nature, especially when he’d been young. Children need enrichment, he’d once tried to tell Bunny, who had threatened his life none too discretely and then he’d stopped giving advice at all.

His daughter was dead and Bunny’s ward wasn’t, so he supposed she had a point.

Nick stays silent as he dries his hands. In the other room, they both can hear the soft voice of the uninjured bandit. He’s bent over the bloody, lanky one, speaking directly into an ear, as if he can hear. This is unsurprising to the doctor. Families of patients often thought it helped, thought they could hear. Nick sometimes toys with the thought of telling them it’s idiotic and embarrassing. Nick gently shuts the door to his living room and cuts them off.

“You know,” he begins, examining his nails to ensure they’re truly clean. He nudges his glasses back up with his knuckles. “Bunny is going to turn them in.” Benji says nothing to this. In tandem with his sulky nature, he is also a talker. He’s funny—Nick likes that about him. Laughs at his own bad jokes, never finds the proper time to shut up, especially in moments when shutting up was probably a good idea.

Nick likes Benji, as far as he can like someone.

“Either to the law,” he continues, raising one scarred hand as if prepared to balance a scale. Benji has not looked away from the belt, but that’s fine. “Or to the Suns.” Nick raises the other hand. Then he transforms it into one raised finger. Benji finally deigns to look away from the teeth marks and the spit and up to him. “The law will take them dead. But, the Suns will want them alive. Perhaps just to kill them, oui. But for Bunny, it will be more lucrative if he lives.”

“Spit it out.”

“I can take care of the boy until he is well once more, you see. But, ah—comment dire—Bunny does not like to hear from me. I think,” Nick pauses to neatly fold the towel and set it aside to be washed. “Someone Bunny will listen to could tell her how much more valuable they might be, if the one lived for a bit longer. You see?”

Benji must. He’s a clever boy. His eyes are on the door, where the young man is set up to sleep until morning, where his bandage will be changed and his stitches checked on as if he is a real patient. Perhaps, Nick will even cook them a breakfast. It’s been long since Mouse left him, and he doesn’t mind cooking for people. He smiles, trying to appear more human to Benji. By the narrowing of his dark, intelligent eyes, it likely doesn’t land.

“You’re up to somethin’,” Benji says, as he slowly threads his belt back on.

“Moi?” Nick puts an offended hand to his chest as he slowly walks them toward the front door of his overly large and mostly empty home. Benji follows, his brows furrowed, his hands opening and closing rhythmically and falling to his side. He glances sideways at Nick, disbelief written across his handsome, lonesome features.

“I will be waking him in the morning,” Nick says as he pulls open his door, to let Benji go free.

“Not my business,” Benji grumbles, passing over the threshold.

[thesquireinvictus]

The very unusual bone spur on my spine (I previously believed it was on my hip) just keeps growing and spreading and getting more painful. It hurts constantly now, and it's starting to interfere with my ability to walk. Imagine if it is cancer. Larks.

[neviayue]

larkspur | By Nevi Ayu E.

Lark's spur, larkspur, the birth flower of the month July. Happy birthday July babies! Have a good one!

[ducky-died-inside]

This was my English assignment that i way overdid. Enjoy :D @starry-night-rose @s-mpeterparker @nocturne-the-raven @iisaabelaa @nort-the-simp @justiceiv @minion-tampons @lovelivelaughing @decommercializedfebreeze @kerstynn @willowbeepz @alex--turner @duckysdammspam @ask-qiqi @jessepinkmanfanboy15 @crazedfangirl14 @faeriegutz @k1ttysart

Btw, the names are stolen from the seven murders ocs, but they aren't necessarily the same people :D

Be Careful What You Wish For (Because You Might Lose It All)

Tw: death and blood :D

I knew that splitting up would never end well. I’d seen enough movies and read enough books to know that for a fact. So, since I know this so obviously, can anyone tell me why I am running alone like a bat out of hell? Where has everyone else gone? Did they all get lost in this maze of books and candles, or am I the only one apart from them? These questions raced through my head as I raced through the halls, coming to a split. 

“Hello?” I called down either hallway. “Please, Derek, Victoria, anyone! Where are you?!”

I heard a familiar voice call back at me from the right hallway. “Larke? Is that you?”

Relief flooded through my body as I recognized the voice as Derek’s. I’d been wanting to find him the most and it would’ve destroyed me if he had been caught. This was true of all my friends, but Derek was different. He had been with me for years and we knew everything about each other. It would be like losing my other half, losing my heart.

I was quickly going down the right hallway when I heard him yell, pained and anguished. It spurred me on, making me run faster than I thought was possible. I heard him again. It was close, and as the hallway turned, I saw him.

“Help-”

His voice was meek, cut off by the butt of a knife handle getting slammed onto his head, making him fall over, unconscious. A dark stood over him, holding said knife and breathing heavily.

“Let. Him. Go.” I tried to keep my tone even, but underneath, I was panicking.

“Why would I do a thing like that, bug?” The figures voice was gravelly and low as it turned towards me, eerily familiar. “You helped take everything from me, so now I’ll take everything from you. You clearly care for him, and right now he makes fantastic leverage.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. I did recognize the voice. I knew the figure standing over Derek. In fact, I had lived with him for half of my life.

“Dad?” As he stepped forward, I stepped back and my face contorted into a mask of shock and surprise.

“Now, now, little bug. Don’t look so surprised! You knew this would come eventually, didn’t you?”

I recoiled at the nickname, staring into the eyes that I see everyday when I look in the mirror. “Dad, please. It’s me you want. Just let me wake him up, and I’ll go with you. Please, we could be happy again.” I had wanted him back for so long, but now I wish he had just stayed away. I wish he had stayed gone.

He scoffed, tightening his grip on the knife so much, his knuckles turned white. “Happy? Do you really think we could be happy together after what you did to your mother? After what you did to me?”

I felt my gaze turn stoney as I seethed at him. “Don’t you dare bring my mother into this. Her death was not my fault and I’m not going to let you deface her memory like this! This isn’t what she would’ve wanted!”

I don’t know what I expected my dad to do after that. Maybe give me a hug; an apology for this entire mess; let me get Derek awake and moving, and let us get the hell out of this trap. Instead, my dad’s eyes narrowed and he let out a chuckle, low and deep. “What she would have wanted doesn’t matter anymore. She’s gone now, and I intend to fix it!”

I felt anger bubble in my chest. “Killing me or my best friend is going to fix it? How does that even work?! Why have you waited so long for this? You could have fixed it years ago instead of leaving me! You left me parent-less, blaming a scared 10 year old girl for her own mother’s death! It has been over a decade since I last saw you and now you come back with this revenge bullshit?! How the fuck does that make any sense?!”

“I am fixing everything! You wouldn’t understand how much it has taken for me to get to this point!” The hand holding the knife gestured wildly around the room.

“I understand that you’re insane! I understand that you’ve let everything brew up inside you since the accident! I understand everything!” I breathed heavily, my throat scratchy from yelling. I hadn’t even noticed until this point, but hot tears were streaming down my face. “I went though everything you have gone through. I felt all the pain. I’ve felt since since I was 10 and I realized you were never coming back. I felt it when I was waiting in the hospital, alone and covered with blood, to see if my mother had survived. I felt it ever since that car went off the road with me in the back seat. I felt every single moment of it.”

 I saw my fathers eyes flicker, but his gaze seemed to burn brighter with red hot anger once he was over his moment of empathy. “You know nothing of the pain I endured! I-”

“I spent years praying that you would come back, wishing, wanting someone to tell me it was going to be okay. I went to her grave on her birthday every year since, alone. I got my first job, alone. I graduated high school with no one in audience for me. I made friends,” I looked at Derek, still unconscious on the floor. “But I needed that parental light. I needed you.” I glared back at the man who had deserted me for most of my life. “You want to talk about pain? Let’s talk about pain.”

I could tell anger was rising in both of us, and I knew that this wasn’t going to end well. My suspicions were proved correct when he turned away from me and kicked Derek in the chest. My friend gasped out in pain, immediately waking up. He sat straight up and the man behind him grabbed him by the arm, forcefully pulling him to his feet. He swung Derek into a position where he had one hand on Derek’s shoulder, and one holding the knife dangerously close to Derek’s neck. “Alright, bug. Let’s talk.”

Any fury in me was immediately doused. He couldn’t bring Derek back into this. “No. Leave him alone. This is between you and me, not him.”

“No, you wanted to talk, let’s talk. I think that we should start with how it feels to lose someone closer than your mother. Someone you would do practically anything for.”

Derek looked at me with wide eyes, pleading for me to do something. “Dad, please.” my voice was shakier than I would ever like to admit. “Just let him go. We can talk about this like civilized people, ok? Can’t we?”

My dad started laughing again, drawing the knife closer. "That's the thing about friends isn't it."

I shook my head, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"The more you love them, the more it hurts when you let them go." He grinned maniacally. "Allow me to demonstrate."

Even with everything that’s happened in my sad, sorry life, I’ve never felt more scared then in this moment. Derek shied away from the knife, but that ended up doing more harm than good. The more he squirmed, the more marks the knife nicked into his skin, leaving long, thin trails of red on his neck and blood trickling down it. He grimaced at the pain, his eyes welling up with tears.

“PLEASE!” I screamed. “JUST STOP, YOU’RE HURTING HIM!”

My dad let out another laugh, this one more maniacal. “That’s kind of the point, bug! I mean, how can I prove what this pain feels like without showing you a taste of it?!”

I saw Derek’s movements starting to get sluggish, energy draining out of him like a battery as the knife nicked him a couple more times when he thrashed to close to it. I was about to scream again when Victoria burst into the room. I watched her take everything in, and I saw the exact moment when she laid her eyes on Derek. I saw the realization wash over her when she too noticed that he was barely moving, despite being in a situation where he would normally be fighting his hardest to get out.

Distracted by the entrance of Victoria, my father let Derek’s body slump to the floor. I could see my friend shaking with barely visible breaths, but they were there nonetheless. 

Police sirens cut through the air, and my dad panicked. He dropped the knife and ran out of the room, and back into the twisting maze of corridors and hallways. I looked over to Victoria, because I know for a fact I didn’t call them. 

“I called them when I heard Derek scream.”

“You heard that too?”

“Yeah. I guess I must’ve just been further away. The only reason I was able to find was because you were fighting with your dad.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to Derek. His face was pale and his breathing was shallow. He smiled somewhat deliriously up at me. “Hey Larkie. Are you good?”

I felt a new spring of tears burst out of me. “Am I good? Derek, you’re the one who’s not good. I don’t… I don’t know how to help y-”

He shushed me quietly, bringing a wobbly finger to my lips. “It’s ok. You don’t need to help me anymore. I don’t feel a thing. It’s all numb. I’m ok.”

A deep panic settled into me. “No, Derek! You’re going to be ok! I just need you to stay awake for me until we can get help for you, ok? Can you keep talking so that I know you’re still alright?”

He nodded, but his eyes started slipping shut almost immediately. I smacked his cheek lightly, trying to get to open his eyes again. Over my panic, I could hear Victoria, trying to attract whoever was out there. Derek’s eyes flitted open, just barely. He seemed to be looking at something just above my head. “Derek, can you please talk to me? I need to know you’re still there.”

After a second, Derek spoke. “She looks just like you.”

I looked behind me, but the only other person there was Victoria, and we look nothing alike. “Derek, who are you talking abut? It’s just me and Vic, alright? Just me and Vic.” I needed to keep him talking. “What’s your favorite color?”

He snorted. “Larkie, I thought you knew this already.”

“Yeah, I know, but how about you tell me one more time, ok? Please?”

“…It’s green.”

His words had started to drift, but I was determined to keep him awake. “Ok, now what do you do in your free time?”

“Video games, books.”

“What do you like about books?”

“…”

“Derek, can you answer me?”

I looked to his face and I saw it was completely slack. There was no emotion frozen there, just a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were dull, the light that made him so fun to be around completely gone, faded from the world. His ever-fidgety hands were still and somewhat warm, though his body heat was dying out quickly. “No. Nonononono. Derek!” I screamed, shaking him by the shoulders. “Derek, please, you have to wake up. You have to wake up!”

I felt someone grab my shoulders and start to pull me away from Derek’s body. I tried fighting it, hitting their hands and kicking my legs, but it didn’t work. I looked back into the eyes of my assailant and I saw Victoria, her eyes rimmed with tears. She pulled me into a tight hug, rubbing my back as I sobbed into her shirt. Her body shook with her own cries into the night.

I lost everything I had ever wished for.

I lost something very important that night. I didn’t lose another mom, not having another one to lose. I didn’t lose my dad, for I had lost him a long time ago. I didn't lose in the girl who let me sob in her arms and had never seen me cry even though I had met her two years ago.

No, instead I lost my best friend, one who had stayed by me for years and had shown me so much support.