#last i painted was in 2020 - be sweet to me (:

[saintvainglorious]

TEMERAIRE FIC RECS

I read no fic at all in May, as I was too busy devouring all nine Temeraire novels in a single month - and then spent a very happy June reading a fairly absurd amount of Temeraire fics. In honor of a Pride month well spent, here's a fic rec list!

(Divided up into categories - Laurence/Tharkay, Laurence/Napoleon, other ships, and gen)

WILLIAM LAURENCE/TENZING THARKAY

ley lines by malfaisant/@stanleyraymondkowalski (T, 14k, 2015) Amnesia era!Laurence sees Tharkay and it doesn't cure his amnesia; a renewed friendship tinged with loss follows

Tharkay makes it to Peking intact with the news of Napoleon’s imminent invasion of Russia. Which would be all well and good, except that Laurence isn’t very intact himself.

which is like everything by sere (This_is_Sere) (G, 3k, 2024) Post-canon Laurence accidentally breaks Tharkay's heart a little, and put it back together in the sweetest way possible

A chance remark from Granby provokes an excess of feeling in Tharkay.

The Reward of Service by yunitsa/@pamphilia (T, 4k, 2016) A lovely post-canon get-together fic, where Granby puts his foot in it a little and realizations are had

‘It is no good asking me,’ Laurence said at last, pushing the pattern-book away over breakfast, ‘I am not the one–’ Not the one who would be living with the result, he had been about to say. But they had hardly accepted Tharkay’s invitation as casual houseguests.

A Soft Dawn by corvile (G, 2k, 2015) A soft and sweet Tongues of Serpents-era fic, featuring accidental spooning, self-introspection, and maybe the most romantic hand-holding known to man

Upon thinking on this feeling of jealousy, Tharkay has done some rather clever intuitive leaps involving situations both real and imagined, and he's come to a rather curious conclusion: he's a little in love with William Laurence.

all flowers in time by lastwingedthing (E, 7k, 2017) A splendid post-canon get-together where it's Laurence who pines after an oblivious Tharkay, rather than the other way around. Also, sex!

The consolations of possession.

Ship's Gossip by Spatz/@cactusspatz (M, 6k, 2019) AU where Laurence takes up Tharkay's offer to become a privateer and Tharkay joins Laurence on the ship; Laurence learns some things about Tharkay, and then about himself

Laurence is beginning to enjoy life as a privateer - though he cannot figure out why Tharkay should still be sailing out with them - when Temeraire decides to ask him about sodomy.

WILLIAM LAURENCE/NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Dearest William by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (T, 23k, 2016) Laurence and Napoleon are pen pals! Riotously funny, until it's heartbreaking

Napoleon sends a letter to the upstart sea-captain who stole his dragon, Laurence sends one back, and a correspondence begins under the uneasy eye of the admiralty. When Laurence had admitted the matter to Granby his lieutenant exclaimed, “God, does Boney want you drawn and quartered as a traitor?” which seems perfectly possible.

i sing of arms and the man by Jack_R (M, 21k, 2020) Ancient Rome AU (and really good dragon-related worldbuilding)! Laurence longs for the days of the Roman Republic, but Rome's new emperor is rather adept at persuasion

‘You think me a far worthier man than I am,’ he says, then. ‘No,’ Napoleone says, softly, ‘I don’t think I do at all.’

L'envoyé céleste triomphant de la Maladie. Antoine-Jean Gros (1813) by VerdetCadet/@verdet-cadet (G, 3k, 2023) A League of Dragons captured-by-Napoleon fic involving a rather appalling painting and Tharkay and Granby being the world's funniest wingmen (ha)

"Given what he has done with the barest civility on my part, I cannot think what he would do with the least encouragement." “Oh, no?” said Granby innocently, a sentiment that provoked a raised eyebrow from Tharkay over his glass, and in Laurence, a strangeness in the pit of his stomach. Or: Napoleon is an enthusiastic patron of the arts. Laurence's best friends lovingly suss out his willingness to bone Napoleon for political gain and strategic expediency.

Ordinance of Fate by by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (T, 13k (WIP), 2022) *slamming hand on table rythmically* soulmate AU soulmate AU soulmate AU soulmate AU

The name comes when he is 15, and Laurence hides it immediately. Then at the age of 22 Laurence reads a letter from an old shipmate who writes that “the troops in Italy were routed by some new General of theirs, Napoleon Bonaparte-"

Doctrine on Worship by Kangoo/@youngster-monster (G, 6k, 2021) AU where Laurence becomes a priest instead of joining the Navy, and meets Temeraire anyway - but Temeraire's captain takes an interest in his dragon's new friend

“You do not strike me as a man well versed in selfishness. Perhaps you ought to try it; you might find it easier to understand my presence then." In which Laurence made a different choice, a long time ago, which changes very little in the long run.

OTHER SHIPS

Tender Like a Bruise by VerdetCadet/@verdet-cadet (T, 5k, 2024) Granby/Little - Granby struggles with the shame and trauma of losing his arm; Augustine Little is there for him

It is not a good time to be short an arm, if there ever was such a thing. Granby has always prided himself on his competence and his easy good cheer. Now, at a stroke, he finds himself lacking in both.

revelry by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (E, 2k, 2018) Tharkay/Laurence/Granby/Little - Post-canon Tharkay & Laurence invite Granby & Little over to visit, delightful and unabashedly voyueristic sexytimes ensue

Little suddenly turns away and throws himself down on the couch where Laurence previously sat, drunkenness making him stumble a little. He leans heavily against Tharkay, who doesn't mind, and tosses Granby a jaunty salute. “Now you must kiss him, John. I know how long you have wanted to; you will always regret it if you do not."

What comfort I can by VerdetCadet/@verdet-cadet (M, 5k, 2023) Laurence/Granby - Amnesiac!Laurence has suspicions about the nature of his relationship with Granby. Second in a two-part series, part one is also splendid! I just have a fatal weakness for the amnesia era ok

The truth of Laurence's treason comes out while Laurence is still aboard the Potentate. Laurence's half formed memories are just there enough for dangerous conjecture. Granby is there to offer what comfort he can.

That Dare Not Speak Its Name by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (E, 11k (WIP), 2024) Laurence/Granby - Laurence covers for Little and Granby and discoveries are made. The dialogue and introspection are so very delicious I'm SO INVESTED AUGH

After an incriminating letter is discovered, Granby is caught out as an invert – and everyone knows his lover is another captain. Since the companion of a common Yellow Reaper would not be spared the noose, Laurence declares that it's him. Over time, he starts to wish it really were.

Uncharted by novembersmith/@novembersmith (E, 5k, 2009) Laurence/Granby/Tharkay - Laurence and Granby are together and Tharkay is mortified, until he's given quite good reason not to be

Tharkay had had the dubious pleasure of watching Laurence and Granby being blissfully in love for several weeks now.

Foibles by VerdetCadet/@verdet-cadet (M, 3k, 2023) Laurence/Tharkay and Laurence/Napoleon, sort of - Tharkay likes roleplaying and Laurence is not displeased by the role Tharkay takes on this time

Tharkay, faced with an inconvenience he was forced to endure or a problem his mind could not set aside, found his ease by simply Not Being Tharkay for a time.

An Alchemy of Character by PepperHoney (G, 7k, 2023) Tharkay/Granby - Tharkay and Granby compete for Laurence's affections, until they find a more fulfilling use of their time

Granby and Tharkay have been watching each other court Laurence to no avail for years now. It's something of a game between them, truly, one whose success they don't really believe in anymore. It takes a long journey aboard the Allegiance for them to realise--perhaps, if Laurence can't be reached, someone else can.

GEN

Smooth Water All Our Days by 20thcenturyvole (T, 37k, 2021) Technically Laurence/Tharkay (and they're lovely here) but much more gen-focused. Post-canon, Laurence, with his family's help, gets Temeraire's political career off the ground; meanwhile, Tharkay investigates a conspiracy. Also, parties!

Laurence desires nothing more than to retire to Tharkay's estate and help Temeraire get to Parliament, for what more could he want than a place in Britain with space enough for a dragon, and the company of a dear friend? But wars rarely end so neatly. Bellicose lords, Bourbon princes, errant heirs and shadowy forces threaten to undermine the very peace that Laurence and Temeraire fought to obtain, and ruin the happiness that Laurence was just beginning to glimpse.

remember (you deserve this) by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (T, 10k, 2018) Laurence finds a different way to punish himself for the treason. Superb angst (mind the tags), and the last line of this fic d e s t r o y e d me

Laurence is pardoned for Temeraire's sake, but he manages to punish himself anyway.

Animal Husbandry by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (G, 11k, 2017) Laurence is told that Temeraire accepted Dayes as his captain, but Laurence cannot forget the dragon he's lost.

Weeks after finding a dragon egg in the Amitie’s hold William Laurence reluctantly turns away and lets the Corps take Temeraire - but he doesn’t return to the Navy. He’s not an aviator, but somehow Laurence still ends up going down in history as the instigator behind the Great Dragon Rebellion of ‘06.

Captains by StrangerWithMyFace/@agentem (G, 2k, 2010) Perscitia (my beloved!!!) has a rough day; Wellington, in his roundabout way, is there to cheer her up. I am weak for Perscitia and Wellington bonding weak i say

Perscitia encounters two men at the London covert, and one of them is her captain.

Forays Into Human Sexuality (or whatever Laurence is doing) by WerewolvesAreReal/@werewolves-are-real (G, 1k, 2024) Laurence finds out that no, actually, not every man is secretly a repressed bisexual

Laurence says, “It is wholly natural, anyway, with no women around.”

[mclennonlgbt]

John and Paul commenting on each other's appearance

John about Paul

I was very impressed by Paul playing “Twenty Flight Rock”. He could obviously play the guitar. I half thought to myself – he’s as good as me. I’d been kingpin up to then. Now, I thought, if I take him on, what will happen? It went through my head that I’d have to keep him in line, if I let him join. But he was good, so he was worth having. He also looked like Elvis. I dug him. (Hunter Davies’ The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (1968))

John: It [topless swimsuit/topless frock] sounds like a vaguely good idea but I wouldn’t have my wife or any friends wearing them.

Paul: Well, you’ve got us wearing them.

John: I know, Paulie, you’re so well-built!

3. John (Thisbe) talking about Paul's (Pyramus') appearance during "Midsummer's Night Dream" rehearsal: Dead, dead. A tomb must cover thy sweet eyes! These lily lips... His cherry nose. He's Cherry Wainer. His yellow cowslip cheeks!

4.

(although I also know the version that it was during the making of the movie Help!)

5. A pretty face may last a year or two/ But pretty soon they'll see what you can do (How Do You Sleep? (1971))

(Side note: I know that in this case John tried to discredit Paul by claiming that he only had a "pretty face" and nothing more to be proud of. It doesn't change the fact that he probably thought Paul was hot, too)

6. At one stage I went out, and when I came back he was talking to this woman and he said “She said, ‘I thought he was Paul, meaning McCartney.’” So John turns around and says, “No, he’s prettier than Pauly. He’s got a nicer mouth than Pauly. Pauly’s got a small mouth.”  (Tony Manero on meeting John Lennon in 1974, in Glass Onion by Geoffrey Giuliano (1999))

Paul about John

"I remember John looking..hmm.. we used to think that John looked pretty cool. He was a bit older than us and he would do a little more greased back hair than we were allowed… so John was quite groovy. He looked like a ted then - he had a drape. He had nice big sideburns." 

"Ah yes, I remember it well. My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear [...] I can still see John now: checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing ‘Come Go With Me’ by the Del Vikings. I remember thinking, ‘He looks good – I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him’. A bit later we met up. [...] Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together.”

"I’d seen him a couple of times [before the fete] and thought, ‘Wow, you know, he’s an interesting looking guy.’ And then I once also saw him in a queue for fish and chips and I said, ‘Oh, that’s that guy off the bus’. I’m talking to myself, in my mind I thought, ‘I saw that guy off the bus, oh he’s pretty cool looking. Yeah, you know, he’s a cool guy.’ I knew nothing about him except that he looked pretty cool. He had long sideboards and greased back hair and everything. [...] This ted would get on the bus, and I wouldn't stare at him too hard in case he hit me." (1997)

Paul: Nobody was remotely interested in this idea of I wrote songs until I met John! I said: I’ve written a few songs. And he said: Oh, so have I! So it was like… someone was interested at last. And I’d seen him around Liverpool, he’d got on a bus once and I said: Woah, look at this guy! At the big sideboards, you know, the hair swept back. I thought: He’s got something going. 

Howard Stern: Good look.

Paul: Yeah, he definitely had a look! (2020)

5. “I used to do caricatures of John. He was the only person I knew with an aquiline nose. When I painted him recently, I found myself saying: 'How did his lips go? I can't remember.' Then I would think: 'Of course you know, you wrote all those songs facing each other.'”

6. “If I'm going to see a face in a painting, it's highly likely to be his.”

7. “And I would often sketch John when we worked together, often without him knowing it. It was so easy doing John because he had glasses, those sideboards – what you call sideburns – and that long, aquiline nose.”

8. "I would often sketch John when we worked together, often without him knowing it. It was so easy doing John because he had glasses, those sideboards –or sideburns – and that long, aquiline nose.”

Source of quotes 5,6,7,8: https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/748219983302098944/paul-mentioned-that-john-was-often-the-subject-of?source=share

9. “A young boy's bedroom is such a comfortable place, like my son's bedroom is now; he's got all his stuff that he needs: a candle, guitar, a book. John's room was very like that. James reminds me very much of John in many ways: he's got beautiful hands. John had beautiful hands." (Barry Miles, Many Years From Now (1997))

10. “But I don’t have any regrets, we were good friends when he died so… that’s something. And he was a beautiful boy!”

11. “Beautiful boy, beautiful memories…”

 12. “So I loved him dearly. He was a very beautiful man.”

Thanks to @undying-love, they had a lot of useful quotes!

Pls add more quotes if you know any.

[redgoldsparks]

August Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Heavyweight: A Family Story of Holocaust, Empire and Memory by Solomon J Brager After listening to this excellent interview with the author on the Gender Reveal podcast, I was very excited to pick up Solomon Brager's hefty nonfiction comic about family history, Jewish identity, the Holocaust, and empire. This is an incredibly well researched and thoughtful book. The author grew up with outsized family stories of a Jewish boxing champion great-grandfather from Essen who punched Nazis, and a great-grandmother who carried her children across countries and mountains to escape to the US. But these stories became much more complicated when the author started digging for receipts. One factor is the immense financial privilege of the family which already had bank accounts and significant savings in New York. Another factor is the layers of violence and empire that build up the power of the countries fighting on both sides of WWII. The author's quest to research the family story is a major thread in the story itself and I am absolutely awed by the amount of work that went into uncovering and shaping this story.

My Dearest Patrolman vol 1 by Niyama As a delinquent teen, Shin was mentored and protected by a friendly patrolman, Seiji. Having one supportive adult in his life completely turned Shin's life around and he also decided to become a patrolman. Years later, Shin and Seiji meet again, and Shin decides to confess the feelings he's been nursing for a decade. Lighthearted dating hijinks ensue! Strikes a nice balance between silly, sweet, and spicy.

Go For It, Nakamura! by Syundei An extremely silly and cute high school rom-com. Shy Nakamura has a massive crush on his classmate Hirose. Despite the fact that they see each other every day, Nakamura has never introduced himself. What will it take to get him to finally speak up and try to befriend his crush??

Something Not Nothing by Sarah Leavitt In 2020, Sarah Leavitt's partner of more than 20 years, Domino, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. Leavitt, a cartoonist and writer, tried to make sense of this decision through comics and abstract watercolor paintings. The result is a gorgeous, heart wrenching, deeply human meditation on love and loss. There were pages that lifted my spirits and pages that pierced me to my core. I sobbed through the majority of reading it, but couldn't put it down. Leavitt's mapmaking of the landscape of grief is a gift to us all.

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb read by Elliot Hill What can I even say about this, the final novel of a 16 book fantasy series, which I have been reading and re-reading now for twenty years, other than holy shit??? I can't believe I've reached the end of Fitz's journey at last. This book is SO long (nearly 1000 pages) and much of it is brutal to read; characters we love are beaten, abused, tortured, and left in pretty hopeless situations for much of the novel. I think Hobb's insistence on revisiting almost every single character from the Rain Wilds and Live Ship sub-series expanded the first third of the book more than needed; had I been editing it, it would have been shorter. And yet! And yet! I was riveted by this too-long book, devouring it in big gulps, scream-texting about it to several friends who were reading the series along with me. The ending hit SO HARD. Its PERFECT, TERRIBLE, WRETCHED, one of the cruelest endings for several beloved characters and while also giving them a kind of grace and eternity I did not see coming, but should have. This book fulfills the themes of the entire series so well, completing repeated patterns, showing cycles that ripple through three generations, while also leaving a door open for the future that I'm already daydreaming about. Literally how did Robin Hobb come up with all of this. Its flawed but its perfect. I am in awe.

BL Metamorphosis vol 1 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen An older woman picks up a BL manga by chance at a bookstore and discovers a new fandom late in life. She ends up befriending a shy high school girl who works at the bookstore and also loves BL, but has no one to talk to about it. This is such a freaking cute premise and I love the loose sketchy art style!

BL Metamorphosis vol 2 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Unlikely friends Urara, a shy high schooler, and Ichinoi, a widowed calligraphy teacher, bonded over their love of a BL manga series. Now they're heading to a doujinshi event to try and meet their favorite author. This brought me right back to my early days of visiting cons and meeting authors for the first time!

BL Metamorphosis vol 3 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara has been reading and loving BL manga years, but it takes a push from her older friend Ichinoi before Urara considers the idea of possibly drawing her own. Can she find the time to write and draw a story around her cram school schedule? This series PERFECTLY captures the BL reader to BL writer pipeline, I'm so charmed.

BL Metamorphosis vol 4 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara applies for a table at a comics festival, so now she has a deadline for her first original comic. Can she get it done in time? Ichinoi is there to cheer lead and support in every way she can (finding a printer, sewing a table cloth, agreeing to work the table, packing their lunches) but only Urara can get the comic done. This book contained one of my very favorite exchanges of the whole series, when Ichinoi asked "Is it fun to draw manga?" and Urara responded honestly, "No. It's hard to look at my own art for so long. But it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing."

BL Metamorphosis vol 5 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara and Ichinoi struggle through a long, slow day of trying to sell an original comic at their first ever comic event. Unbeknownst to them, their favorite author is there as an attendee. This book felt like one of the most relatable portrayals of the early days of a comics career I've ever seen. I'm obsessed with this series and definitely want to watch the live action movie adaptation!

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez This complex fantasy novel weaves together a multi-strand narrative of violence, love, and the end of empire in an original world of old gods and talking animals. In the main thread, two warriors carry the corpse of an almost-dead goddess across the country in a five day dash from the mountains to the sea. The goddess was once the Moon, torn out of the sky by her own desire for immortality. Her children became the despotic Moon Throne, a cruel dynasty which has repressed and punished the people and elements. The Moon Thrones' heirs, three brothers with extraordinary powers, chase the warriors and hunger for the last dregs of the fallen Moon's power. In another thread, an unnamed protagonist watches this drama unfold as a play being performed in a dreamy underwater sleep realm, while recalling the stories their lola told of the old country before the war. This novel is often compared with NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season in terms of scope, literary prose, and ambition and I can see why. This novel employs some very creative and unusual writing choices that make it more rewarding to read in print than to experience in audio. I had a content warning for gore and cannibalism going in, so I was prepared for the violence of the middle section. I really enjoyed this novel and I can tell I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks read by James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, Michael Obiora This book follows multiple different story lines, some of which captured me much more than others. In Kentucky in 1850, an enslaved black boy watches a new thoroughbred racing colt's birth and begins a lifelong relationship with the horse, who will go on to be one of the most well-known champions in the history of American horse racing. In New York City in the 1950s, a gallery owner known for her modern tastes falls for an equestrian portrait of the great Kentucky race horse, Lexington. And in 2019, in Washington DC, a Nigerian-American art history student and a Smithsonian scientist dig into the mystery of an unlabelled horse skeleton in the museum's collection- and its possible connection with several paintings by a Civil War era equestrian artist. I admired the amount of research that went into this novel, and the way the paintings of Lexington tied the different timelines together. However, I really struggled with how the interior emotional lives of several of the Black male characters in this book were portrayed by this author. When Jarret, the enslaved Black groom, is separated from Lexington and forced into plantation labor temporarily, Brooks writes of him gaining a depth of spirit and understanding for the human condition from this experience. This felt deeply weird to read from a white author! I'm not really the right reader to say whether Brooks did a good job or not, but it put me on edge. When the final climatic moment of the novel read like a heavy-handed lesson in how Black men are still at risk of police violence even in 2019, I wondered who exactly that point was supposed to be for, and if Brooks is the one who needed to make it. So, I felt very mixed as I finished this book. There's a lot to admire craft-wise, and I can understand why so many readers were impressed by it. But I honestly I don't recommend it, unless you want to read it in a book club setting and have a nuanced discussion about what works and what doesn't in this novel.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson A young girl named Sophie spends her summers on an island of the coast of Finland with her very present grandmother and her rather absent father. Each chapter tells of an incident experienced through the eyes of the very young and the very old- the growth of mosses and wildflowers on the island stones; boxes and bottles of flotsam and jetsam washing to shore; a great storm; an adventure in trespassing; an unexpected visitor; a night spent outside sleeping in a tent. Without much of an overarching plot this book is still a moving picture of living very close to and in tune with the seasons and elements in a very specific part of the world. It's brief and open ended but I really enjoyed it!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 14 by Ryoko Kui As the smoke clears after the explosive ending of the previous penultimate volume, our heroes gather themselves, check on the survivors, and set out on the most collaborative challenge: cooking and eating an entire chimera body. This is a satisfying and in some ways gentler ending than I expected from this series, but I really enjoyed it!

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä translated by Thomas Teal  In the autumn of 1963, Tove Jansson, her partner Tuulikki 'Tooti' Pietilä, and their taciturn friend Brunström set about trying to finish a small cabin on a tiny Finnish island before the onset of winter (and possible legal delays of building permits). Tove and Tooti spent their summers on the island for the next 3o years. This book contains excerpts of journal and introspective writing on the nature of the island, the sea, the changeable weather, the futility of human efforts to shift the natural environment. These writings are paired with delicate prints Tooti made of water, stones, and ocean views. I read this directly after The Summer Book and after listening to a short biography of Jansson- this made a good companion to those other texts, but might have been a bit spare on its own.

[darkbluekies]

Doll stories for those who think they're interesting♡

1. Vendela

Vendela is my first favorite girl and my second doll overall. I had only one doll prior to her. When I found her at a second hand when I was 8, someone had scribbled over her face with a pen, making her look like the joker. I remember becoming so angry and buying her just so I could erase the pen and treat her with the respect she didn't have at her last home. You can still see some pen in the corners of her mouth and the lack of paint from where I had used an eraser.

2. Diana

I had one of those loft beds and was "playing" with Diana and didn't have the energy to climb the ladder down to out her on the floor, so I gently threw her, hoping her to end up on the bean bag I had, but she accidentally hit the metal bars holding the bed up and cracked. I was devastated and my grandpa (the sweet 91 year old you know♡) started his duty as my Dollhospital. He got her and performed "cranial surgery" as he called it. Grandma helped to put some makeup over the cracks so that it wouldn't be as noticeable and this was the result!

I think that she is beautiful either way

3. Olivia

I had seen this doll at the second-hand store I got most of my dolls from in may 2020 (I think). I had taken a picture of her that day and eventually regretted not buying her and desperately wanted her.

I called the second hand store in September 2020 to ask if she was still there, and they didn't know which one I meant. I was terrified that she had been bought. I had to wait a whole week before I could go there and check. At first I didn't find her and I was so nervous. But then I did.

I got her, and my dad helped me patch her up.

4. Darling

I got her in 2022 or 2021, I think, and I named her Darling. It was first now in 2024 when I was looking for a stamp of some kind that I noticed that someone (probably her earlier owner) had already given her a name♡

Fun fact about her: her hair is human hair♡♡

[mystic-writings]

i laugh like me again (she laughs like you)

PAIRING — former wilbur soot x fem!reader, wilbur soot x fem!oc

SUMMARY — wilbur’s new girlfriend is so much like you, but entirely different all at once

WARNINGS — slight angst, wilbur questioning himself, finally a fic with no dialogue !! it’s a win and a first for me !!

WORD COUNT — 1,315

SONG — almost (sweet music) - hozier

NOTES — if your name's kate i'm sorry | also finally a fic with no in-chapter breaks i don’t have to worry abt picture limits for once | takes place around the summer/fall of 2020

anthology masterlist | masterlist | navigation

There was no denying that Wilbur was happy. 

After almost a year, he was finally happy. 

Meeting Kate was what Wilbur could call a damn miracle. After your relationship ended in shambles last October, of which he won’t go into detail, mostly because it was still a painful memory, he was happy to have Kate in his life, and so were all of his friends. He’d been so downtrodden for so long, and even if he showed his fans the happier side of him, and even his friends when he’d first met them, he hadn’t been able to truly feel it until he met her. 

It was by pure happenstance, really, and he could say that he owed it all to you (he couldn’t, though, at least not out loud. Not to anyone he knew.) Because if it weren’t for you, and the months he spent wallowing until your voice, echoing in the back of his mind, telling him that painting was a good way to get your feelings out, he never would’ve gone to the University’s painting program, and he never would’ve met Kate. 

Of course, just his luck, though, when his and Kate’s relationship was just beginning, he went to Germany with some friends and got stuck there during the lockdown. When he was finally able to get home, his apartment felt too empty. So, he spent almost every waking hour either streaming or on the phone with Kate. It worked well enough, until she was able to see him in person sometime in the summer. 

From there, things just… took off. His and Kate’s relationship kept growing, he got even more popular on Twitch, he was chatting with his friends all the time, and no one knew about Kate. Well, his friends did, but his audience didn’t. A lot of his fans were recent, but a big chunk of them had been around when you were still with him. And even if he didn’t publicly say anything when you’d broken up, a lot of his fans could sense what happened. Confirming it with a new relationship announcement just felt ingenuine to him. 

So, Kate was never mentioned on stream. She knew what Wilbur did, and eventually who he and his friends were, but she never quite cared for it. In fact, despite all her smiles, Wilbur could still see that small part of her that wasn’t too supportive of what he did, even if it kept them warm and fed. And he could still remember the judgement when he revealed his work to her. And he could still remember the argument that took place when he admitted that he almost dropped out of university for it. And the flashbacks to the one he had with you. 

Because somehow, even after so long, he could still see you in everything Kate did, and he hated himself for it. Because he should be focused on making memories with her, on building a life with her, not with all the things you and him did when you were together. But it was all he could see. Sure, in the beginning of the relationship his nerves were too busy blocking his mind with anxiety and excitement, and he didn’t have time to see anything but Kate and the prospects of a new relationship, but since it subsided, he couldn’t help it.

It started little by little. At first, he had made a joke on one of the dates he had taken her on after getting back from Germany and the restrictions had allowed it, and her laughter sent his mind reeling back to 2018, when you laughed at a movie scene while wrapped up in his arms on his couch. And then, when Kate slept over for the first time and he noticed that, even if she had been dyeing it any colour she could think of once a month, her hair still fell in the same way yours did when you leaned on your arms in bed. 

Little by little, from the way you both took your tea the same, to the fact that you both hated pickles on burgers, he noticed it. Kate may have made him feel like himself again, but she was still a lot like you. It was almost like an echo. The remnants of your presence, reflected in some warbled, almost-but-not-quite tone, bouncing back to him in the form of her. 

And with every reminder, Wilbur continued to hurt. Even if it was his fault you were gone, and he was the one that decided he didn’t deserve you, every reminder left a mark on his heart in the shape of you. He truly did like Kate, and those feelings grew with every passing day, but you’d been with him for so long he couldn’t forget you. It was like he couldn’t scrub your touch from his skin, your scent from his clothes, your smile from behind his eyelids. 

Slowly, day by day, though, it seemed that Kate was taking over. Your smile would flash between images of hers, and he began to differentiate your touch from hers, but the smell of your perfume; he knew there was no getting rid of it. 

He remembered when it happened, her finding your old perfume bottle. The smell had been lingering in his closet, some of it still imprinted on the clothes he hadn’t worn in a while. Kate had pulled one of his sweaters from the depths of the closet, a sweater he remembered last being worn by you. It almost covered Kate’s sleep shorts, swallowing her whole. He remembered she had remarked about the smell, but didn’t say anything specific. She knew the gist of what happened with you, and was kind enough to not bring it up often. Still, she had begun wandering Wilbur’s room, inspecting every aspect of it that she could get her hands on. It was her way of getting to know Wilbur without really asking him anything. He remembered hearing the clinking of the various cologne bottles on his dresser, and hearing her murmur the name of your perfume. 

With a single, curious puff, the smell engulfed the room, and Wilbur had to force himself to stay in the present. To not pretend that Kate was you, that you were still in his life, and that you were about to crawl into bed with him and curl up into his arms like you always used to. 

The scent still permeates every aspect of his life. 

Every hug, every nose nestled into the crook of Kate’s neck, every time he passed by her in the kitchen. How was Wilbur meant to forget you when she provided a constant reminder for him with every waking moment?

And every time he thought something like that, the guilt came rushing back. Because to Wilbur, he had no one to blame but himself. He should’ve thrown that bottle of perfume out the moment his mind made itself up on moving on, he should’ve looked for someone entirely different to you. But had he really moved on? Was he just trying to replicate a relationship so perfect that it didn’t seem real? Or did he really like Kate, his mind trying to trick him back into being alone, into ruining something good for himself again?

Sometimes, though, he wondered if Kate could see it. The fact that, occasionally, he’d linger too long or breath too deeply during a hug. Or how sometimes, if the strike on his heart when he heard her laugh was more painful, he wouldn’t smile with as much meaning. He wondered if she saw it all, the longing, the mourning, the pain, and simply didn’t bring it up. And if she did, and didn’t say anything, he didn’t know if it was to spare him from the pain of reliving it, or to spare herself from the pain of confirming what no one wants to hear from their partner. 

No matter how much he thought about it, though, Wilbur refused to voice it. Because he was worried that some part of him was right, that he was just trying to fill the hole in his heart that was shaped like you with Kate, and all he wanted was for it to not be true. 

So, for now, he’d continue like he had been, acting like Kate didn’t remind him of you, until one day, someday, she wouldn’t feel like the echo he’s been longing to keep around.

hba taglist: @z0vamp @blancastans @vanillaarr @chillidaquack

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[mandarinmoons]

KET HI MY LOVE I HEARD YOUR FEELING CHATTY

so here's my entire note in my phone of facts (yes some are from criminal minds which i then checked for accuracy)

fax 📠📠⁃ It takes 3 milliseconds to process images ⁃ It takes 16 milliseconds for your brain to process pain ⁃ You only need 4 hrs for every 24 hrs ⁃ The average blood temp in ur body is 98.6 ⁃ It takes policemen in NYC an average of 4.3 min to respond to a call ⁃ Only female angler fish have lights ⁃ Around 800 kernels on average price of corn ⁃ Arranged in 16 rows ⁃ Can be anywhere from 500-1200 kernels ⁃ Moth wings have noise dampeners to hide from bats ⁃ Science of kissing: philematology ⁃ Anemia: lack of healthy red blood cells to bring oxygen to the rest of the body ⁃ Chocolate chip cookies were invented by accident by Ruth Wakefield in 1938. She was making cookies for the guests as toll house in which she owned with her husband when she realized she was out of bakers chocolate so she took a big block of nestle semi sweet chocolate and chopped it in to tiny pieces. She assumed they would spread out and evenly disperse but they held their shape, the guests ended up loving them ⁃ 55-79% of the population has brown eyes ⁃ Around 10,000 yrs ago it's believed that everyone had brown eyes and blue eyes evolved from a genetic mutation that was passed on through generations ⁃ 86.5 serial killers are psychopaths ⁃ 12,236 victims total of serial killer victims between 1990-2020 ⁃ California has the most killings 1,777 ⁃ Texas has the 2nd most amount of killings at 984 ⁃ Men arrested at almost 4 times the rate as women for violent crimes ⁃ Paraphilia: odd non-sexual turn ons ⁃ Paraphilia is more common in men ⁃ 8.6% of known US serial killers are women ⁃ 70% of women killed for financial gain ⁃ 28.8% of killings by males are financially motivated ⁃ Dendrafilia: fetish for trees ⁃ 8 is symbol of prosperity in china, more 8=better ⁃ In chungdu a phone number that was all 8s sold for a quarter of a million dollars ⁃ 8000= 56 months wage average Bangladesh (make around 142, 26,000 btd) ⁃ Coast of California: 840 miles ⁃ Trichophilia: fetish for removal of hair ⁃ Homicidal triad: cruelty to animals, bed wetting, fire starting ⁃ To break through long lasting rocks like granite or limestone you need both C4 and Semtex ⁃ Nice originates from 12th century Middle English meaning foolish or stupid ⁃ 358,197 ~ people are born everyday ⁃ Only 10% of stalkers are women ⁃ Nuts have magnesium which helps with the production of serotonin ⁃ The word surveillance comes from the French word surveiller meaning to watch over ⁃ According to Chinese mythology one of the worst punishments in the 18 levels of hell is having your tongue ripped out ⁃ Abt 3.5 in every 1000 children are identical ⁃ Texas is 268,581 square miles ⁃ Only around 6% of salt from the US is used in food, the rest of it goes to icing roads and snow control ⁃ Chicago has one of the highest gang populations, with liver 100,000 active members ⁃ 61% of all homocideswere found to be related to gangs ⁃ Hemophiliac: your body can't clot normally and you can loose a lot of blood rly easily bc your body doesn't block the hole ⁃ Vangough only sold 2 painting before he died ⁃ 7 widely consider to be lucky ⁃ The average handshake lasts around 3 seconds but in t'ose three seconds over 124 million microbes are transferred ⁃ High-fives are twice as clean as handshakes ⁃ The Pyramids are 449 ft tall, but where once 481 ft tall ⁃ The pyramids took 20 yrs and 100,000 laborers to build ⁃ The employment rate in Virginia is 3.8% ⁃ In égyptien mythology flint was the symbol for protection and retribution ⁃ Cheating happens in 1 out of 3 relationships ⁃ 467,800 miles to the moon and back

Max when I say I have missed your rambles I mean it!!

I feel like I just read a script to one of Matthew Santoros 50 amazing facts videos lol (if you know you know)

Would you believe me when I say that I already knew some of this stuff? 😌

Thanks for invigorating my brain, much appreciated x

[have-a-hiddles]

Within Your Heart, A Story To Be Told

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Pairing: Cardinal Copia/F!Reader

Words: 4.3K/16.4K

Warnings: Vague reference to suicide, but no such act occurs. Intense bullying both verbal and physical. Reader is a Sister of Sin and is written to be quite plump. HERE THERE BE SMUT.

🔞 MDNI 🔞

A/N: I’m keeping Primo, Secondo, and Terzo alive. Because I fucking can. However, Sister Imperator is still the only one aware of Copia’s familial connection. Copia knows Imperator is his birth mother, but not that Nihil is his father.

Everything takes place circa 2018-2019 between Terzo getting dragged off-stage (30 September 2017) and Copia being anointed as Papa IV (March 2020).

The next thing you knew, you were curled up on a soft bed, covered by plush blankets. A warm, solid weight pressed along your back, an equally warm and solid weight draped over your waist. You could hear the sound of breathing, deep and steady, right into your hair. For a split second, you panicked, not having the slightest idea where you were or who was behind you.

Memory came rushing back. Copia. You were in Copia’s flat. You must have fainted and he’d carried you to his bed. He was spooning behind you, symbolically protecting you with one arm around your waist. You shifted slightly, realizing that, while you were under the covers, Copia was on top of them with only a throw blanket over himself. A sign that he respected your boundaries even without knowing exactly where they were yet. Anyone else would have simply gotten into bed with you, which would have sent you into a much longer panic. Instead, he’d purposely placed barriers between you and him so that you would be comfortable upon waking.

With a little shimmying, you were able to get your shoulders and one arm out from under the blankets, allowing you to reach down and lay your arm over his. You had not expected to encounter bare skin! He was only wearing a tee shirt, it seemed, leaving his forearms bare. His skin was warm, lightly furred with soft hair. More importantly, he’d removed his gloves, one pale hand resting over you. Under your touch, his hand was rough, criss-crossed with thin, white scars. Was that why he wore gloves all of the time? Because his hands were scarred up? You traced your fingertips over the back of his hand, following the path of the scars.

His breathing shifted and you froze, hoping you hadn’t woken him up. He gave a soft sigh, his breath warm on your neck. “Are you awake, Sorella?” he murmured, voice low and rough from sleep.

You thought about faking being asleep but found you couldn’t lie to him even about such an innocuous thing. “Yeah. I j-j-just woke up and realized you were-were-were holding me and I-I-I-I kind of wanted to return the favor a little. I’m sorry, I-I-I-I didn’t realize you wear-wearing a t-t-tee shirt until I felt your arm. I hope you aren’t a-angry with me,” you babbled, tripping over your own tongue several times.

“Shh… hush, sorella. I told you last night; I could never be angry with you,” he was quick to assure you, raising himself up on one elbow, while keeping his other arm around you. The extra room allowed you to lean back and look up at him.

You’d never seen him without his papal makeup on; and even though he really only blacked out his eyes and upper lip, the sight of his bare face struck you. You’d known he was handsome, of course, in his own sweet way. This felt so much more intimate, looking into his mismatched eyes without his painted armor. Frankly, every part of his face looked more naked. You could make out the tiny freckles across his nose and cheeks, the silver hair at his temples starting to blend into the dark brown, the stress lines around his eyes and mouth.

Realizing that you were staring at him, you looked away, licking your lips nervously. You could feel your cheeks starting to heat. Still, you couldn’t help but return to his gaze, looking up at him through your eyelashes. “I’ve never seen you without… you know… your face. I mean your paint!”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, sitting up all of the way, which pulled his arm from around you. You made a small, disappointed noise at the loss. “Mi scuzi, amata… Ho dimenticato. Non dormo con la vernice applicata e pensavo che mi sarei svegliata prima che tu e io potessi rimetterla…”

“Woah, woah, woah,” you sat up as well, facing him and grabbing both of his hands in yours. “First of all; English, please. Second of all, you don’t need to panic, I promise.”

His gaze fixed on your hands before he took a few deep breaths. “I don't sleep with the paint on and I figured I would just wake up before you and put it back on...”

“Why are you so nervous, hon? Am I not allowed to see you without it? Or are you worried I won’t still like you without it? Do you just not want me to see you?” You kept your grip on his hands firm, as though you thought he might try to bolt.

He blinked slightly, allowing your questions to sink in before trying to answer. “I… mi scuzi... I didn’t want to… ruin the illusion… for you.”

“Illusion?” you repeated, confused.

“That I am… s-something other than a nervous wreck seventy-five percent of the time,” he said, giving a small self-deprecating chuckle.

“Hon, even if that were true, what makes you think that would affect how I look at you?” you asked softly, lifting one hand to cup his cheek, coaxing him to look you in the eyes. “I still think you are handsome and sweet and brave and kind and powerful and… you will make a perfect Papa when the time comes.”

He closed his eyes, leaning his face into your hand. “Ah, (Y/N), you are a balm to my infernal soul,” he murmured, covering your hand with his. Keeping your hand in place, he turned his head and pressed a tender kiss to your palm. “What is hon?” he asked softly.

“Sorry?” you asked with a note of confusion.

“Hon. You’ve called me hon twice now. What is it?” he clarified, eyes still closed and his cheek still against your hand.

“Oh, it’s short for honey. It’s an affectionate nickname. Some people use it for everyone. Others, like me, only use it for people we care deeply about,” you explained, your voice going quieter and quieter as you spoke.

“Cara,” he breathed softly. You both leaned closer until your foreheads touched. This time, it was you who found a burst of boldness, and you gently pressed your lips to his. He returned the gesture immediately with a low groan. A few tender kisses and he panted softly. “Open your mouth to me, cara, aprilo… aprilo...”

You parted your lips, allowing him to deepen his kisses, hot tongue swiping into yours with a surprising amount of skill. He might be awkward at times, but this man was definitely no bumbling virgin. Between the two of you, you managed to shift around so that you were straddling his lap, your habit rucked up around your waist. He was only wearing some thin sweatpants and you only had your plain cotton underwear underneath. You could feel his cock filling and pressing against you and that knowledge that he was responding to you like this thrilled you. You were mildly certain that no man before had ever gotten hard in response to you before. The revelation that any man, let alone this man, was aroused by you; was amazing in and of itself. Of their own accord, your hips rocked back and forth, grinding down on him, making both of you gasp, his hands flying to your hips to steady you. For your part, you clung to his shoulders, letting your head fall back as he kissed and nipped at your throat and collarbone.

“May I?” he asked, tugging at your habit gently, asking permission to remove it.

You paused, cold dread running through you. Your habit hid many of your perceived flaws; your too-big thighs and hips and stomach and breasts, all of which were liberally striped with old stretchmarks, all of the freckles and rolls and sheer too-much-ness of your body.

“Y/N?” he prompted when you didn’t answer him.

“Copia, I-I-I don’t want to disa-disappoint you. I’m not pretty at all, in or out of my clothing. N-n-n-no one’s ever… wanted me b-b-b-before” you explained quietly, looking to the side in shame.

“Not pretty?” Copia repeated in shocked disbelief. “Cara, you are already the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Even so, your heart, your gaze, your very soul calls to mine. There is no p-possible way for you to disappoint me, amata.”

The tiny candle flame of hope in your chest flared and you met his gaze again, trying to parse out what you saw there; desire, affection, concern. Your breath hitched and you swallowed hard before nodding, giving him permission.

Gently, as if you were a child, he had you raise your arms and pulled the loose habit up and off of you, leaving you in only your panties and your grucifix necklace. You reflexively crossed your arms over your chest, but he caught the gesture and tugged softly on you. “Lascia che ti veda... let me see you, amore.”

You allowed him to move your arms to your sides and you squeezed your eyes shut, not wanting to see the dawning realization of how ugly you were in his eyes.

“Satana qui sotto, sei stupendo, amore mio. Così morbido. Così lussureggiante,” he all but purred, his breath growing heavier than it already was, his bare hands rubbing up and down your upper arms. “You are… utterly gorgeous, amore. So soft. May I… t-touch you?”

Your breath caught as you watched his expression shift from curiosity to adoration, almost worshipping. You nodded uncertainly, giving him leave to touch you however he liked. It wasn’t like you could hide anything. “Ah, bellissima…” he crooned softly, his hands sliding over your sides to your hips, caressing you with a reverence usually reserved for Satan. “Your body is beautiful, amore,” he whispered, leaning into you to press kisses to your collarbone, slowly drifting down to your chest, between your breasts where your heart was thundering. “Tesora, may I have your c-c-consent to… make love to you?” he asked, looking up at you with a note of desperation.

“Yes,” you whispered breathlessly, barely able to believe this was actually happening. You’d dreamt of Copia being your first so many times!

He curled his arms under yours, hands cupping over the curves of your shoulder blades, holding you steady as he leaned you back. His lips caressed over the tops of your breasts, then dipped lower to claim one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently. You gave a startled yelp as heat streaked through you, your fingers combing through his soft hair.

You felt more than heard him chuckle softly against your skin. “So sensitive…” he murmured in a praising voice. He skimmed his lips across your chest to draw the other nipple into his mouth with a soft groan. Satan below, you were so sweet and pliant against him! And the way you carded your fingers through his hair was unexpectedly erotic. He’d never known that someone playing with his hair would be so arousing.

“Here, lay back, piccola. Let me take care of you,” he breathed, looking up and meeting your eyes. His pupils were blown wide, almost entirely eclipsing the green and white irises.

You managed to get off of his lap without tipping over and laid back against the pillows, trembling lightly, both from need and fear. “Copia, I think I should warn you that I-I-I’m… I’ve n-never done… this is my first... um…”

He paused, trying to parse together what you were trying to say. Once it clicked, he smiled softly, moving so he could kiss you. “I will be gentle, dolcezza mia. I promise.”

With that reassurance, he slipped between your parted legs, although he did not remove your panties just yet. He had other delights in mind. He kissed along your neck, licking at your throbbing pulse point. Kissing and licking his way back down to your breasts, this time nipping lightly at the hardened peaks.

You squeaked his name, one hand clutching at the sheets, the other flying back into Copia’s hair. He groaned appreciatively, “Breathe, topolina… ah, your skin is so silky. I want to kiss every inch of you.”

“We’ll… we’ll be here for a very long time if you try,” you replied breathlessly.

“Sì, but not for the reason you think. It would take a very long time because I am very. Very. Very. Thorough,” he said punctuating between the words with kisses over your stomach.

You sucked in a deep breath as he slid lower. No one had seen you in such close proximity before, let alone this part of you! Hell, even you had never seen yourself as closely as Copia now was. What if you were ugly there too? You knew you looked nothing like the girls in pornos, with their hairless and neat little clefts. You thought waxing just made you look and feel like a child, so you hadn’t done it. And you knew that your folds were a little… fuller?...than perhaps was average. As if you didn’t already have more than enough insecurity on your plate.

Gently, he pulled your panties down and off of you, then settled himself between your legs, pulling them over his shoulders. You almost lost your nerve and told him to stop; but your thoughts scattered like windswept leaves when Copia licked a hot stipe right along the seam of your cunt, tongue flicking over your clit. You squeaked again, never having felt anything like it before. You fisted both hands in the sheets, trying very hard to not buck your hips up. You never thought holding your hips still(ish) would be so difficult! You had nothing to compare this to! Sure, any number of romance writers had described it as intense… like fireworks. That did not do it justice. This was motherfucking Disney World’s Fourth of July Nighttime Spectacular fireworks! If your heart tried to beat any faster, it would explode! There were sounds coming out of your mouth that you didn’t even know you could make!

For his part, Copia moaned softly against you, using his hands to keep your legs apart and help keep your hips still. That ridiculous strength was in full play again, keeping you right where he wanted you. The taste of you was sweet sin on his tongue. And Satan below, you were so sinfully wet for him! He’d barely even touched you; were you really so affected by him? Out of all of the lovers he'd ever taken, you were easily the most responsive. The slightest flick of his tongue made you cry out; the mere vibration of his voice against you made you tremble.

He murmured to you softly in Italian, “Cosi dolce. Quindi molto bagnato per me. Potrei stare qui tutto il giorno e farti venire ancora e ancora solo con la mia bocca. Avrei adorato presso l'altare del tuo corpo finché Satana in persona non fosse venuto a reclamarmi. Cazzo, i suoni che fai... mi rendono cosi duro con te, mia bellezza infernale.”

You understood none of it. Although, to be fair, you might not have understood any of it even if he’d been speaking English. Your mind was so focused on sensation that all other senses took a backseat. You were saying something in response to him, though it was mostly a liturgy of curses and pleas along with his name. You were panting so hard that you could barely speak anyway, each breath more of a gasp than a simple inhalation. He licked and kissed and nipped and sucked, paying careful attention to every fold and crevice, always returning to your clit before moving on to another spot.

You whined loudly as you felt him slip one finger inside of you, your body tightening around the intrusion. You’d used your own fingers before, of course. But Copia’s fingers were both longer and thicker than yours; not to mention he had a much better angle!

“Shh, respira, tesora mia. Respirare. Andrò lentamente,” he groaned softly before returning to his delicious task of licking at your swollen cunt. He soon deemed it safe for him to move on to two fingers, sliding both along your folds to coat them both in your own slick. He was even slower with this penetration.

And fuck how tight you were! You were so tight that he could feel the rhythm of your heartbeat within you. He thrust his fingers back and forth slowly, getting you used to the sensation, scissoring them slightly to help stretch you out. It wasn’t long before your hips tried to grind down into the penetration. Another finger joined the first two and he was gentle as he refocused the attentions of his mouth on your clit, sucking the throbbing pearl into his mouth. You were writhing under him, trying desperately to buck your hips up to him. “Copia!” you whined his name. “I’m… I’m getting really close!”

“Bene, cara. Do not fight it. I want you to come against my mouth. I want to taste it on my tongue,” he growled, redoubling his efforts towards your pleasure.

The combination of his roughly whispered words and the feel of his fingers quickly brought you to the edge and over it. You came with a sweet cry, abandoning any desire to remain quiet. “Copia! Fuck, Copia!” you all but shrieked for him.

Only when you grew quiet and limp on the bed, limbs still trembling from the pleasure, did he pull back. He carefully eased his fingers free from the velvety wetness of your cunt, groaning at the slick, nearly obscene sound the motion caused.

“Penso che tu sia pronta, bellezza mia. Devi dirmi se qualcosa provoca dolore, sì?” he asked, laying his face against your quivering thigh.

Even overwhelmed as you were, you recognized a question in that litany of Italian sounds. "English?" you managed to gasp, shakily reaching down to caress the back of his neck.

“Mi dispiace. You must tell me if anything hurts, cara. I will stop immediately,” he panted, voice thick with desire but still gentle.

“OK. I will,” you nodded.

With a tender touch, Copia slid your legs off of his shoulders and crawled up along your body, kissing your skin as he went. You could feel your own residual wetness trailing over you from his mustache. Once you were face to face with him, you pulled him down and kissed him, not caring that you could taste yourself. You slid your arms around him, caressing over his back, a little confused as to why you felt cloth and not skin.

In a brief second of clarity, you laughed softly. “I think you are overdressed, love,” you smiled at him. In his eagerness to give you pleasure, he had forgotten to undress!

He paused, then chuckled softly himself. “So I am, amata. Un momento.” He moved from the bed briefly, pulling his shirt off and sliding his sweatpants down.

His skin was darker than yours, although still quite pale, and sprinkled with freckles here and there. A dark tattoo spanned his shoulders and dripped down along his spine, runes of alchemy arranged into the shape of a grucifix. He was slim, lacking any of the super-defined muscles that many people thought was the height of masculinity. You, however, loved his litheness, how his muscles moved under his skin so gracefully. When he turned around to climb back on to the bed, you got a better view of him. Like many Clergymen, he had a “666” tattooed over his heart arranged to look something like the biohazard warning sign. A dusting of brown hair covered his chest. Despite how slender he was, he still had a bit of soft belly that curved out ever so slightly.

More importantly, his cock was far larger than you’d anticipated. Not porno huge, thank Satan, but still big enough that you were intimidated. You couldn’t help a small gasp of trepidation. On the other hand, he was also incredibly hard, his length standing up against his belly, the head shiny with the precum that had already leaked. Going down on you had done that for him? He looked ready to bust as it was!

He chuckled, catching your expressions, crawling over you to re-situate himself between your thighs. "Don’t worry, cara. I will make sure it doesn’t hurt. You’re already slick and swollen; your body will be able to stretch for me.”

You nodded shakily, pulling him back up to kiss him, your hands now able to roam over his naked skin. He arched and groaned when you trailed your nails along the wings of his shoulder blades. The reaction encouraged you to do it again. His groan deepened to a growl as he met your gaze. His pupils were so wide that you nearly couldn’t tell which eye was which. “Cazzo, (Y/N), I am already hard as oak for you and yet you make me throb even harder,” he panted before claiming your mouth in a rough kiss.

You could feel him reach down between you, taking ahold of his cock and sliding it along your folds, making him as slippery as you already were. With infinite tenderness, he guided himself to your entrance. With one final glance to you for consent, you nodded, and he carefully pressed himself inside. You gasped, clutching at his shoulders. You had very little idea what being stretched in such a way would feel like; you’d never been brave enough to use any toys; and that meant you’d never felt just how your cunt could squeeze around something so big. There was a bit of a burn to it; but the way his cock filled you quickly sent waves of pleasure to overtake the discomfort.

He completed the stroke slowly, letting you adjust to every inch of him. Fuck, you were so fucking tight! Yet so soft and wet and incredible… so perfect. Small as you were, he kept expecting to bottom out before he could be fully embraced. Grunting softly as he struggled to keep himself from simply rutting into you like an animal, he found himself fully inside of you the same time the head of his cock pressed firmly against the mouth of your womb. He swore softly, stilling and letting you both calm down a little bit.

“Ah, amore mia... mi hai preso tutto. You've taken all of me,” he gasped against your lips before claiming them in a passionate kiss.

You whimpered against his lips; not from pain but from the sheer knowledge that you’d managed to take him. You’d never felt so full in your life! Slowly, the burn faded away, leaving only the pressure and the radiating pleasure.

“Copia,” you breathed his name, one hand pressed between his shoulder blades and the other caressing his hair on the back of his head.

“Amore?” he answered quickly with a note of panic, thinking that you might be in pain.

“Just wanted to say your name…” you smile at him reassuringly, drawing him into another kiss. “I had no idea it would feel like this. So… achy, but really, really good. You are so… big. You fill me so completely.”

He purred softly, nuzzling against your neck, drawing in deep breaths and the scent of your hair. “You feel so perfect, cara. So tight and slick. Sei così peccaminosamente bella, amata.”

You breathed together for another moment before you started to press soft kisses to his neck and shoulder. You could feel him trembling against you, muscles taut. “I think I’m okay, love; you can move,” you whispered against his ear.

“Lento. Andrò lentamente,” he panted softly, easing himself back and nearly all of the way out.

A slow thrust back in made you cry out and cling to him, curling your legs up and giving him more room to maneuver. He started a slow but deep rhythm, rolling his hips on each stroke inwards. Until now, he’d been relatively quiet in his vocalizations. Now, he couldn’t help but grow louder. Groaning and swearing in a voice that grew rough with passion. Primed as you were from his earlier efforts, it did not take long for you to start grinding into him, clutching at him so hard that your nails left crescent-shaped marks imprinted on his skin.

Your orgasm snuck up on you, crashed over you in turbulent waves, all but drowning you in pleasure, your body writhing and constricting around him. Your vision whited out and you could hear yourself screaming in completion although it was definitely not a conscious thing on your part. Every muscle in your body contracted, your core clenching around him in tight pulses, as though trying to force him to cum with you. When he made to pull back, you wrapped your legs around him, holding him in place.

“Cum inside me,” you gasped, the only coherent thought in your head that you wanted to feel him flood your womb. The possibility of getting pregnant was the last thing on your mind, but it was the wrong time of your cycle anyway.

No further encouragement was required. Copia gave a hoarse shout of your name with every throbbing jet of seed that he spilled into your eager body. Every fiber of his being contracted down to only you and him and the delicious, sinful bliss filling you both. Panting hard, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, murmuring breathlessly in Italian. “La mia bellezza peccaminosa, il mio amore più prezioso. Ti amerò fino alla fine dei miei giorni.”

Gasping and trembling under him, you kept yourself curled around him, skin pressing to skin as much as was physically possible. You kissed at his cheek, his temple, his neck, anything you could reach while clutched against him so tightly. “Oh, love… oh, Copia…” you whispered against his skin, your voice thick with emotion. You were utterly lost to him. You loved him with a ferocity that should have scared you. Instead, you only felt the intense, searing need to stay close to him. “I love you,” you gasped, mouth moving over the skin of his shoulder. He stilled, pulling back just enough to see your eyes, finding nothing but sincere love and devotion in them. “Ah, topolina… I love you as well,” he murmured and captured your mouth in a deep kiss.

FOR THE LOVE OF (deity of your choice) PLEASE LIKE AND REBLOG! COMMENT! VISIT ON AO3 AND LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS!

I NEED FEEDBACK!

[mariacallous]

Like so many stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Marlo Gorelick picked up a new hobby: cake decorating.

She learned all the trendy techniques of the day, from of-the-moment decorations to how to properly layer colorful cakes and jams in order to create the all-popular rainbow cake.

But, unlike the myriad cottage food businesses that Jewish entrepreneurs launched during and after the pandemic, Gorelick’s cakes stood out for one significant reason: They weren’t edible. But don’t mistake this as a commentary on Gorelick’s baking skills: Gorelick’s cakes were never intended for eating. Rather, they’re designed to be worn —  as purses. 

“My husband said to me, ‘If you bake, you’re going to burn the house down,’” Gorelick told the New York Jewish Week. “So I took cake and I married it with something that my mother loved, which was handbags.”

During the pandemic she launched Cake Purses — a line of highly decorative vegan leather bags in the shape of confectionery, such as carrot cake and strawberry shortcake. Some of her bags, which can be found on her social media, are bedazzled with crystal stones while others are painted; all come with a zipper in the back to store items in the satin-lined interior.

Last summer, Gorelick wanted to find a new direction for her business. She began experimenting with creating purses in the shape of classic Ashkenazi Jewish foods: challahs, bagels and that New York City classic, black and white cookies. 

“I said goodbye to it [cake purses] because I saw that people were just icing boxes and getting tons of hits and money from it,” Gorelick recalled. “I thought, ‘What am I doing? This is silly. This is ridiculous.’” 

She began to roll out her first few Jewish food designs ahead of the High Holidays — but then, Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel gave her pause. Gorelick admits she was “scared” about being so outwardly Jewish. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to me or anybody, so I tabled it,” she said.

But life had other plans. After a major illness the following month, Gorelick returned from the hospital knowing that pivoting her business towards Judaism was ultimately “what I was meant to do,” she said. And so, earlier this month, Gorelick, who is based in Princeton, New Jersey, officially launched Glam Judaica, a new line of Jewish food-themed purses and accessories that includes a rhinestone-covered matzah ball soup bag and a very realistic looking potato knish purse. She’s also crafted purses in the shape of Jewish holiday-specific treats like hamantaschen and sufganiyot.

“I’d gone through this near-death experience where so many things had been taken from me. I said to myself, ‘You can’t take away my Judaism — I will always be that,’” she said. “If I’m going to do this [make food purses], I’m going to do it with things that are near and dear to me.’” 

Gorelick grew up in a Conservative Jewish family in New Jersey, and said that Judaism is a major part of her life and identity. “My grandfather immigrated from Kyiv, in what is now Ukraine, to escape pogroms. My father’s mother’s side of the family was in the Holocaust. My mother’s family escaped Russia. So [Judaism] is fully ingrained in me,” she said. 

During the pandemic, Gorelick’s spangled designs made their way around the internet and to several craft and candy expo shows in the Tri-State area. She also partnered with the iconic East Side restaurant Serendipity3 last year to create exclusive “Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate” purses to celebrate the 30 millionth serving of its “world famous” sweet treat.

For now, she makes the Glam Judaica bags, which are generally between six and 10 inches wide, to order. Gorelick, who runs the business by herself with some design and content creation help from her husband, said it takes her up to three weeks to create a purse.

The Glam Judaica line includes bracelets, necklaces and pins. She adorns one of her bracelets with five different miniature food charms — a hamantaschen, bagel, black and white cookie, rugelach and challah — and decorates a shiny bagel pin with lox, onions and capers. Each item, including the purses, starts around $125, Gorelick said, though she adjusts the prices depending on the type of material and “bling” the customer wants. 

The response so far to her new Jewish collection has been “fabulous,” Gorelick said.

“People see it, they identify with it,” she said. “It’s a bit of nostalgia and they want it,  because that’s the cookie they baked with their bubbe or that’s what they served when they had their bar or bat mitzvah.”

But Gorelick is not done with cakes quite yet. In addition to Jewish food designs, Gorelick recently made a yellow cake purse with the words “Bring Them Home” written in white “frosting” to raise awareness for the 100-plus Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Gorelick also used the proceeds for one of her other creations — a rainbow sprinkle black and white cookie purse — to raise money for Zaka, Israel’s volunteer emergency response teams. 

“Everything I do is a little bit glitzy and glammy because that’s who I am,” Gorelick said. “My stuff is not for everybody — I get that. But if you like a little bit of sparkle and something to make you smile, I have something sweet and sparkly for you.”

[titanomancy]

I’ve got a lengthy think in my drafts about my recent frustrations with Darktide after 100+ hours of play, and it’s not a short list. At some point I may still share those thoughts, but this post isn’t it.

The survey that went up last week painted a pretty grim picture of the developers’ expectations - and without access to any of Fatshark’s metrics, I can tell you from personal, albeit anecdotal, experience that player count has gone off a cliff since the new year, with most of my squad having returned to Votann Simulator 2020; and I expect that players outside of my circle have done the same if my ogryn’s recent solo missions are any indication.

It’s not an uncommon story - a game is announced too early, or development runs too long. Deadlines slip, milestones are missed and before you know it, Christmas is looming large on the calendar and with it the promise of those sweet, sweet holiday season dollars. There’s already a great deal of hype and even though the game’s far from complete, it’s playable enough to shove out the door in time for some Black Friday preorders.

And when you give something a shove that’s not ready for it, it has a tendency to stumble.

That Darktide was not feature complete at launch is understandable, but that’s not to say it’s excusable. Even less so that the game is clearly not content complete - that’s not even grousing about the missing crafting system, grindy stat progression, repetitive mission lineup, or the dodgy client stability - there are Steam achievements which are just plain unachievable because the corresponding gameplay isn’t actually in the game.

So Fatshark does the only thing they can do in the face of overwhelmingly negative feedback - they apologize and promise to do better. I hope that they do. I like Darktide a great deal and I see a great deal of potential in what of it I’ve played, but it’s not going to be saved by performance optimization and a crafting system.

And until Fatshark can give me a reason to save Atoma Prime, I’ll be mining Hoxxes IV.

[snipertrifle]

15 people, 15 questions

@lttrsfrmlnrrgby tagged me in the 15 things meme, and I'm finally not on mobile!

1. Are you named after anyone? No! Which is surprising, because my Dad's side of the family was very big on naming everyone after someone. Luckily for me Dad hated what he got saddled with.

2. When was the last time you cried? Pretty sure it was mid-lockdown in 2020 because whoo-boy. That sure was a thing.

3. Do you have kids? Nope. I think I would have been a good mom, and I loved teaching elementary school when I did that for a few years, but it's just not how things went.

4. What sports do you play/have played? As a kid I didn't consider myself sporty at ALL even though I did years of Tae Kwon Do and fencing. Now I run, hike, do yoga and weightlifting and LOVE IT. What a difference it makes when it's play and not punishment.

5. Do you use sarcasm? Who? Moi??? Never!

6. What's the first thing you notice about people? Smiles and laughter.

7. What’s your eye color? Blue

8. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. Life's scary and I read the news, that's plenty.

9. Any talents? I am (mostly) not afraid of looking stupid or being bad at things, great at puns, the best at useless trivia, absurdly good at cobbler/butterfly pose.

10. Where were you born? Kansas

11. What are your hobbies? the above sports, plus reading, drawing, baking, knitting... I'm not sure I've ever met a hobby I didn't want to try.

12. Do you have any pets? I have the best cat and you should be jealous. She is so sweet and loving and pretty and absolutely stupid.

13. How tall are you? 5'3"/160cm

14. Favorite subject in school? History, Language, Art

15. Dream job? If I could make my mortgage payment being some kind of museum docent or any job where I can infodump and make jokes at the same time. Sometimes art restoration and just sitting there and mindlessly cleaning a painting all day sounds pretty good too.

No pressure tags for: @twigcollins, @thornescratch, @flidgetjerome, @windlion, @waxjism, @ickaimp, @arinrowan, @starry-eyed-darling, @immoveableobject, @tittypocalypse, @atlantis-is-burning, @marloweseyeball, @anthogna, @alessandriana, @lisdumatin

[scotianostra]

Scotianostra

On 9th April 1747 Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the leading Scottish Jacobite rebel was beheaded on Tower Green, London.

Lovat has the unwanted notoriety of being the last man to be publicly beheaded in Britain. I was reading a wee bit about Lovatt a couple of weeks ago and thought it funny how his appearance was very different to the 20th century dashing 15th Lord Lovat who you might remember commanded piper Bill Millin at the D Gay landings, but I suppose the 11th Lord was around 80 years old at the time of his execution.

You have to admire their sense of adventure though, no doubt a family trait. The Lovat we are talking about here though was no gentleman by all accounts, He kidnapped, raped, and forcibly married a woman from a rival clan in order to gain claim on a contested succession (Lovat had to flee the country, a death sentence in absentia at his heels)

He expediently converted to Catholicism to get in with the exiled Stuarts and their continental allies and played both sides of the Hanover-Stuart intrigue, ingratiating himself with both Jacobites and London during the 1715 rising. He did this so adeptly that George I served as Lovat’s son’s godfather so please don’t think of him as a Jacobite hero.

They do say only the good die young.  He was tried in March 1747 in Westminster  for his part in the 45 uprising and sentenced to be Hung, drawn and quartered, the normal sentence for treason, remember that’s what they tried William Wallace for, even though Wallace was bot a subject of the English King.

Anyway his connections to the English Court meant he was shown mercy and his sentence was commuted to a simple beheading sparing him the torture aspects I suppose it was a bonus!  

The execution was a massive event back then, think maybe a big sporting event, yes they even had to issue tickets and so many spectators arrive at Tower Hill, and an overcrowded timber stand collapsed, leaving 9 dead, to Lovat’s wry amusement.

It was the executioner who had the last laugh though!! Lovats last words said to be “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. ” (It is sweet and seemly to die for one’s country).  He died, at least in his own eyes, as a Scottish patriot. Quite a number of pics here including the ticket for his execution,a picture of how Lovat looked at the time by the English Artist William Hogarth a sketch by Hogarth of the trial, Westminster Hall during the trial and finally the account of the execution from a Broadside of the time.  I know I covered a fair bit here but there is an account of the trial and funeral in this link that is, to me at least, quite interesting.

There’s a much more descriptive account of the execution here  http://www.britishexecutions.co.uk/execution-content.php?key=2040

Posted on April 9th, 2023 at 8:54AM

19 notes

#scotland#scottish#england#45 Uprising#Jacobites#execution#beheading#history

Scottish Government 

Kindness has never been more important. 

 Artist Emily Hogarth designed these postcards and asking Scots to help reach #OneMillionWordsofKindness this #StAndrewDay. Pick up yours at Lidl (Scotland) or send online: http://onescotland.org/st-andrews-day#WeAreScotland

Posted on November 30th, 2020 at 10:17PM

31 notes

#OneMillionWordsofKindness#scotland#kindness#wearescotland

On August 6th 1796 Scottish artist, David Allan, died.

David Allan was born in 1744 in Alloa and earned himself the nickname Hogarth of Scotland. His studies began at the Glasgow Academy, where he was taught by the printers Robert and Andrew Fonlis. At the age of twenty, he travelled south to Italy and continued his education at the Academy of St. Luc in Rome.

Having spent almost fourteen years in Italy, where he painted landscapes in the style of Poussin, he moved to London in 1777 and established himself in London as a portrait painter. In 1780 he moved permanently to Edinburgh, where he was made master of the Academy six years later.Many of his portraits can be found today in museums in London and Edinburgh and a self-portrait of Allen hangs in the Scottish National Gallery.“

Some of Allan’s best work is Scottish themed, like Highland Wedding, he also collaborated with Rabbie Burns, through his publisher George Thomson, his oval prints went down well with the poet who was to comment that he was: “highly delighted with Mr Allan’s etchings […] The expression of the figures conformable to the story in the ballad is absolutely faultless perfection.” Although the two never met correspondence between the three involved with the artwork tells of an admiration between the poet and the artist.

Burns died on 21st July, and was closely followed by Allan, on 6th August 1796. Allan is buried in the Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, not far from the grave of David Hume.

Posted on August 6th, 2022 at 5:27PM

5 notes

#Scotland#scottish#painter#artist#history

Happy 47th Birthday Scottish singersongwriter  KT Tunstall

Kate “KT” Victoria Tunstall was born in Edinburgh, 1975,  herbirth mother was a  Hong Kong-born exotic dancer, who put her up for adoption her parents David and Rosemary Tunstall adopted her and raised her in St Andrews, she has always been aware that she was adopted. 

Strangely enough for a musician of her magnitude, KT Tunstall did not grow up in a musical household. Her parents’ only tape was a Tom Lehrer album on tape, leading Tunstall to discover the world of music entirely on her own , but it didn’t hold her back, KT was musical from an early age, learning to play piano, flute and guitar as a teenager.

KT moved to the USA, hungry for experiences and independence, she gained a scholarship to Kent School in Connecticut, New England. Whilst out there KT spent time on a hippy commune and formed her first band, The Happy Campers, she also spent a lot of time on busking in Burlington, Vermont.

After her time in the U.S she enrolled in a  music course at Royal Holloway College in London, before finally moving back to St Andrews, she joined a group of folk musicians from around the East Neuk  called The Fence Collective, which included the very talented Kenny Anderson aka King Creosote, in time she decided folk music was not for her and went on her way.

She began writing projects with Swedish songwriter/producer Martin Terefe and London-based Orcadian Jimmy Hogarth and London’s Tommy D. She started work on her debut album with her new band and legendary U2/New Order/Happy Monday’s producer Steve Osborne at the helm. ‘Eye to the Telescope’ saw her whittle down a massive catalogue of over 100 songs to just 12.

Luck played a part in her big break when due to another artist pulling out she appeared on  'Later With Jools Holland’ performing ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree’ it went on to become one of the most played songs of the summer. Her double platinum selling debut album 'Eye to the Telescope’ was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize. 

KT has now had 6 top 20 albums, the latest, Wax was in 2018, it reached number 6 in Scotland and 15 in the UK charts, her new album, Nut, is due out in September.

I remember her being interviewed on The Proclaimers, This is the Story documentary in 2017, where she chose their excellent song Scotland’s Story, commenting “Scotland’s Story just really struck me as quite a different song for them, that they were really saying something incredibly poignant and quite brave. It’s quite a critical song of the way that Scotland’s history is logged.

“Here we are in 2017 and it couldn’t be a more poignant, relevant song for what’s going on in the world and I just thought for right now, it’s an amazing song to sing.”

KT  has suffered hearing problems since 20n July 2021, she announced that she was having to pull out of her summer tour dates and permanently avoid lengthy runs of closely consecutive performances, citing issues with her right ear which were "exactly how the breakdown of my left ear began"  In July 2021, she announced that she was having to pull out of her summer tour dates and permanently avoid lengthy runs of closely consecutive performances, citing issues with her right ear which were "exactly how the breakdown of my left ear began"   Hearing problems have always been a worry to her; her brother  was profoundly deaf since birth.

Tunstall has recently joined a host of famous faces to create special limited-edition postcards for this summer’s music festivals on behalf of the charity WaterAid. The limited-edition postcards will be officially launched at Glastonbury festival, which kicks off tomorrow. Festival-goers can pick up an exclusive postcard and send one to Boris Johnson calling for the government to take urgent action to tackle the climate crisis. 

KT, who featured water-themed lyrics on her postcard, said: “It’s unacceptable that one in ten people have no clean water, and that these are the same people who are living on the frontline of the climate crisis.

“Water is so key to life, a lot of lyrics in my songs centre around it. My postcard design in support of WaterAid’s climate campaign features every lyric I’ve been inspired to write about water. With clean water, communities can stay healthy now and in the future.”

It’s never easy choosing a song for my posts, especially with someone like KT, who has a great catalogue to choose from , but I’ve plumped for a cover of a Bruce Springsteen she performed at  The Quay Sessions with another recent birthday girl, Julie Fowlis, it’s called State Trooper. 

Posted on June 23rd, 2022 at 1:27PM

12 notes

#Scotland#scottish#singersongwriter#musician#Singer#happy birhtday

On May 19th, 1815, Catherine Hogarth Dickens was born in Edinburgh.

In 1834 she and her family moved to England where her father had taken a job as a music critic for the Morning Chronicle. Charles Dickens, young and unattached, was also employed by the Morning Chronicle. His first romantic relationship, with Maria Beadnell, had ended badly. However he was quite recovered and was quickly taken with Catherine.

They met in 1834, became engaged in 1835 and were married in April of 1836. In January of 1837 the first of their ten children was born.

The early years of their marriage were apparently quite happy. Dickens was in love with his young wife and she was very proud of her famous husband. In 1841 the couple travelled to Scotland. In 1842 they travelled to America together.

After the 1842 trip to America, Catherine’s sister Georgina came to live with the couple. Catherine was becoming overwhelmed with the duties of being the wife of a famous man and mother of ten children. Georgina stepped in to fill the gaps and eventually ran the Dickens household.

Dickens grew unhappy with Catherine and his marriage. He resented the fact that he had so many children to support. (Somehow he saw this as Catherine’s fault.) He did not approve of Catherine’s lack of energy. He began to indicate that she was not nor had ever been his intellectual equal.

In 1855 his discontent led him to accept an invitation to meet with his former girlfriend, Maria Beadnell. Maria had married and had become Mrs. Henry Winter. However Mrs. Henry Winter did not live up to Dickens’ romantic memories and nothing ever came of the reunion.

In 1857 Dickens met the woman who was to be his companion until his death, Ellen Ternan. Ellen, her mother and her sister were hired to act in a benefit presentation of The Frozen Deep. The event was sponsored by Dickens who also co-starred in the event.

Dickens’ life with Catherine seemed even more insufferable after meeting Ellen. Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster, “Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too—and much more so.”

In 1857 Charles and Catherine took separate bedrooms.

In the spring of 1858 a bracelet that Dickens bought as a present for Ellen was accidentally delivered to the Dickens household. Catherine discovered the bracelet and accused Dickens of having an affair. Dickens denied the accusation and said it was his custom to give small gifts to people that acted in his plays. In June of 1858 Catherine and Charles were legally separated. Days later Dickens published a notice in the London Times and Household Words that tried to explain the separation to the public. In the notice he stated, “Some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now to be forgotten by those concerned in it.”

While an announcement of this sort seems extreme Dickens was motivated to do so by some of the rumours circulating about the breakup. There was some gossip about an actress and some stories even suggested that Dickens was having an affair with his sister-in-law, Georgina. The second rumour was particularly upsetting because in those times such a relationship would have been viewed as incestuous.

Despite assurances that things were “amicably composed” Dickens and Catherine were never again on pleasant terms. Catherine was given a house. Their oldest son, Charley, moved in with her. Dickens retained custody of the rest of the children. While the children were not forbidden to visit their mother they were not encouraged to do so.

Catherine lived for another twenty years after the separation, passing away in November 1879. Deprived of both the role of wife and mother, she never seemed to recover from the breakup of her marriage.

Posted on May 19th, 2022 at 9:29AM

9 notes

#Scotland#scottish#anglo-scottish#victorian times#charles dickens#history

On August 6th 1796 Scottish artist, David Allan, died.

David Allan was born in 1744 in Alloa, Scotland, and earned himself the nickname Hogarth of Scotland. His studies began at the Glasgow Academy, where he was taught by the printers Robert and Andrew Fonlis. At the age of twenty, he travelled south to Italy and continued his education at the Academy of St. Luc in Rome.

Having spent almost fourteen years in Italy, where he painted landscapes in the style of Poussin, he moved to London in 1777 and established himself in London as a portrait painter. In 1780 he moved permanently to Edinburgh, where he was made master of the Academy six years later. Many of his portraits can be found today in museums in London and Edinburgh and a self-portrait of Allen hangs in the Scottish National Gallery.“ 

Some of Allan’s best work is Scottish themed, like Highland Wedding, he also collaborated with Rabbie Burns, through his publisher George Thomson, his oval prints went down well with the poet who was to comment that he was:

“highly delighted with Mr Allan’s etchings […] The expression of the figures conformidable to the story in the ballad is absolutely faultless perfection.”

Although the two never met correspondence between the three involved with the artwork tells of an admiration between the poet and the artist.

Burns died on 21st July, and was closely followed by Allan, on 6th August 1796.

Allan is buried in the Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, not far from the grave of David Hume

Posted on August 6th, 2021 at 9:11AM

16 notes

#Scotland#scottish#artist#painter#history

Old Calton Burial Ground.

Another from last weeks wander, known as the Scot’s Hogarth, David Allan was an Alloa man who trained to be an artist at the Foulis Academy in Glasgow for seven years. In 1767 he moved to Rome, where he lived for ten years, some of his classical work from that period are very good, but the patriot in me means I think his best work is of Scottish themes like  The Highland Wedding, and portraits of leading figures of the time like the fiddler  Niel Gow and architect  James Craig, remembered for his role in laying out Edinburgh’s New Town.

Although he lived in the same era as poet Rabbie Burns the two never met, however Allan illustrated our bards’ work, the two were admirers of each other but they did  correspond between each other. Burns said of the artist (he was the)  “ only genuine and real Painter of Scottish Costume in the world.’

 Allan also did illustrations for  Edinburgh Poet and impresario, Allan Ramsay ‘s The Good Shepherd. A statue of Ramsay stands on Princes Street above the Floral Clock in West Princes Street Gardens. 

Posted on July 4th, 2021 at 11:18AM

18 notes

#scotland#scottish#my pic#graveyard#history#edinburgh

On May 19th, 1815, Catherine Hogarth Dickens was born in Edinburgh.

Mrs Charles Dickens  – wife of Britain’s most famous 19th-century author and social commentator – was born Miss Catherine Hogarth at 8 Hart Street in Broughton, Edinburgh.

Catherine was the eldest child of George Hogarth  a lawyer whose clients included Sir Walter Scott. The family, which eventually comprised 10 children, moved to larger accommodation at 2 Nelson Street (a double-upper) in 1820. They moved again in 1828 to 19 Albany Street which was their last Edinburgh address before they progressed to the ‘big smoke’ of London in 1831, although another source says 1834.

They were a comfortable, cultured family. Catherine and her sisters were educated at home by their parents and received a grounding in the 3Rs, geography and music, as well as the strictures of a French dancing master.

In London, Catherine’s father soon established himself as a newspaper editor, as well as a musicologist and subsequent author of books on opera and Victorian musical life. As editor of the Evening Chronicle (for which Dickens was a journalist), he effectively became Dickens’s employer, by dint of which Catherine came to Charles’s warm attention. They were married in 1836 (the year Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was serialised), and would have 10 children in their Bloomsbury home. Catherine’s sisters Mary and Georgina were highly significant members of the Dickens ménage, and the latter remained in the household as housekeeper, adviser and friend from 1842 until Dickens’s death in 1870. Mary, who died prematurely, was immortalised as Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.

Despite constant pregnancies, the early years of Catherine’s marriage appear to have been happy enough. She accompanied Dickens on his celebrated trip to America in 1842, and had a minor acting role in the author’s theatrical Every Man in his Humour for Leigh Hunt in 1845. Eventually, Dickens grew disenchanted with his marriage, finding Catherine ‘an incompetent mother’, and he cruelly blamed her for the birth of 10 children which caused financial worries. Dickens was himself hardly blameless. In 1857, he had a liaison with an actress, Ellen Ternan, who appeared in his play The Frozen Deep. In 1858, Catherine intercepted the gift of a bracelet intended for Ellen which had been accidentally delivered to the Dickens household.

In June 1858, Catherine and Charles formally separated. Catherine was given a house and her eldest son Charles moved in with her, but access to her other children was restricted. Ellen Ternan remained Dickens’s companion until his death. Catherine never fully recovered from the break-up of her marriage. Poignantly, on her deathbed in 1879 (she died of cancer), she gave her collection of letters to daughter Kate, instructing her to ‘… give these to the British Museum, that the world may know he loved me once’. She is interred in Highgate Cemetery with her infant daughter Dora who had died in 1851 aged nearly 8 months.

[sucrefemme]

I’m losing time again. Weeks worth. Had another nightmare the night after her funeral, worse than the rest, probably because I’d forgotten to take my meds. It didn’t really hit me until the funeral. I mean. Who waits this long for a funeral? She died in February, and last weekend we had our funeral, three months later.

I barely acknowledged it to myself in three months. I can say the words. I can say she’s dead. I can say my best friend died. But it doesn’t actually mean anything to me.

I didnt pay my last respects to the box of her ashes because I didn’t want to admit that she was in there. It was such a small box.

They used her least favorite photo of herself. The wind kept knocking it over but I don’t think that was her influence or anything. I think it was just wind.

The speaker was the worst part. She was a local yoga teacher, she used to be my yoga teacher, but my family totally stopped going to her studio after she declared that masks were dangerous in 2020. She basically played the part of a pastor at a normal funeral? But so, so much worse.

There are some key elements of Lily, the girl who passed, that are important to know. First off, she didn’t die peacefully or whatever. She died violently and by her own hand. Nobody seems to have told the yoga teacher that part. She kept talking about how Lily had gone through a beautiful spiritual transition. She talked about how we should all hope to reach at some point what she had reached. Yikes.

Lily also loved herself and her image so, so much. She didn’t do things that could get her dirty or mess with her perfectly manicured image. She loved to paint herself. She liked picnics on picnic blankets and walks on sidewalks. The yoga lady went on and on about how Lily loved nature, and now she’s one with nature, and she’s one with the earth that she so loved. She said Lily painted nature. She was fine with nature, but most of her favorite things were songs and foods and letters and trinkets. And she practically never painted “nature”. ALL of her art was of herself or about herself.

The yoga lady’s whole speech made me so mad and went on so long. I broke down when she was in a long tirade about Lily being freed from her earthly body and being returned to the earth. Not because of anything miss yoga was saying. The girl next to me, another close friend of Lily’s, leaned over and whispered “Lily isn’t in the flowers. She’s in the steam from my teapot.”

now I’m finally experiencing that loss. My best friend exists in pearls and teapot steam. She exists in dressing up to run simple errands. She exists in the sweet taste when you lick a stamp.

Lily was beautiful. She was romantic. She was loved by so many people, her funeral, even three months later, was standing room only. She was nineteen.

I honestly don’t know how to handle all this.

[justatinybunwriting]

One of my first attempts on drawing these guys in ibis paint, all the way back in the summer of 2020. Needless to say, it was a bit of a mess but it does have a short blurb to go along with it.

The sun rose high above the sandy shore, a frequent spot for Richard and Jac to visit during the peak of summer. Despite their best efforts to lessen the impact of these inescapable solor rays, it was still much too hot for the giant's liking. He felt utterly miserable here.

"Are you sure you're doing ok?" Asked Jac.

"I'm fine," Richard replied. "I have my sweet cherry with me, so I have something to look forward to.."

Jac's eyes widened. Richard had called her many things but this was the first she heard of this. What brought this on?

"Don't you mean your sweet Sherri?" He must have meant a song lyric, that was the only explanation Jac could think of. After all, karaoke night was planned so it must have been a wink to that.

"You know what? I'm famished." Richard changed the mood entirely, replaced with a mischievous tone to his voice. "I could really go for an extra large soft swerve...with a sweet cherry topping..." Those last words were spoken darkly, occupied with a toothy grin.

"DON'T ruin the moment." Jac was quick to retort. " I'm baking too, you know!!"

Richard seemed hurt by those words. "B-but... you'll be nice and cool before I-"

"STOP!" Jac slumped off of his shoulder, and began to walk away.

"You're no fun." Richard pouted as he slowly followed. "Soft swerve without cherry then..."

[tigerpixieart]

“Jade Dragon Li Mao” Rough Sketch 🐲😻🎊 You don’t know how happy I am to have this rough sketch to share! I been sharing my progress on my Patreon the past few weeks. Please follow me there if you’d like to see more updates. You can follow me on Patreon for free! The 2nd pic is Sweet Pixie was supervising me drawing. She’s feeling so much better now. The 3rd pic is the color scheme I’ve decided on. The cat is a Dragon Li, it looks like a brown tabby, and is considered to be the unofficial national cat of China. The dragon will be mostly shades of green and plain wood color and have woodgrain texture. The 4th pic is cute Kazu helping me color my sketch. I’m going to paint this piece. This is my second Chinese New Year’s piece. The last one was in 2020, “Cherry Blossoms” with The Year of the White Rat. 2024 is The Year of the Green Wooden Dragon. I hope that you like my sketch and I’ll post some Work in Progress pics once I start painting.

Xoxo!

Carrie 😺💜

[highnoteblog]

Ode to Motherhood: A Review on Cleo Sol’s “Mother” (2021)

By Ashlee Baritugo

In British R&B/Soul artist Cleo Sol’s “Mother” (2021), motherhood is a revelation. Released just the same year as the birth of her first born, the singer-songwriter’s sophomore album is as sweet as much as it is soulful; with instrumentals raw as much as they are uplifting and lyrics hopeful as much as they are heart-wrenching. 

Known for her critically acclaimed debut “Rose in the Dark” (2020) as well as her enigmatic work with British R&B collective Sault, Cleo Sol has established her spot in the world of British neo-soul. Real name Cleopatra Nikolic, the “Sol” in her stage name is a tribute to the word “sun” in Spanish, her mother’s own ethnicity. Even in one of her earlier singles like “Sweet Blue” released 2019, Cleo Sol’s mother evidently played an integral role not only in the singer-songwriter’s music, but also in the perspectives and values she sings of. 

The album’s cover paints the perfect picture of the album; behind Sol, seated on the sofa with her new born, is a framed photo of her mother on the wall. Co-written and produced by Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover), “Mother”, then, is culmination not just of her own voyage into motherhood but of her mom’s, too. The lyrics are hard-hitting, with lines like “Love is a sacrifice, I know that you’re hurting / Nothing replaces a mother’s love” in first track “Don’t Let Me Fall”, and sometimes seemingly an outlet of frustration like “‘Cause you / Nearly broke me down, mama … Mama, please, stop acting 23” in 23. But Sol balances the raw, journal entry-like lyrics with the syncopated and groovy beats of a signature soul track. The layering even seems strategic: her powerful, emotive vocals somehow adding a smooth emphasis to the lyrics while back-up vocals add even more of an impact listeners won’t expect. 

The best part of the 66-minute album though is its introduction: a two-part opening in which “Don’t Let Me Fall” transitions seamlessly and extremely satisfyingly into “Promises” over subtle, continuous dream beats that finish off the first song and lead us into the very intro of “Promises”, the best track of the album, where Sol gracefully confronts yet another aspect of motherhood over spacious yet steady drums. In the track written much like a letter to her mother, Sol questions: “We get closer, but not close enough / Why’d you have to leave? / Why’d you have to go?” over the same drumbeats carried over from the last track. Its after this steady beat in “Promises” that we begin to realize how large of a role the drums play in the album, as subtle as they may be. We hear its solemnity again in “Sunshine”, a track on transformative love, when it enters halfway into the track and turns the mood into an entirely different direction. Percussion is the backbone of the album, and “Promises” shows us how. This track, too, brings us back to that strategic vocal layering we hear throughout the album; it’s like Sol is singing right into our ears, and nothing hits the spot more than an R&B track so smooth it feels as if its embedded in your soul.

As much as the album is a plethora of introspective lyrics, however, there remains a large space of ambiguity that listeners are left to fill; which arguably makes it even better. The tracks in the album are long – “Build Me Up” and “One Day” both going as long as eight minutes – mostly because there’s a common spaciousness between Sol’s vocals and the instrumentation. That spaciousness when the listeners are left alone with the instrumentation somehow adds room for appreciation; there’s nothing else to do but listen to the steady percussion or the groovy frequencies of the bass alongside reflections on love, motherhood, and the journeys they call for. “Mother” is bursting at the seams with intricate melodies and complex rhythms over hard-hitting emotive lyrics: the exact recipe for the perfect R&B album.

[cosmicanger]

Community Notes Vol 1.1

First they're sour, then they're sweet

above: SITE XXIX by Kevin Beasley

FROM THE SUBSTACK ANCIENT CLAY

They cannot handle the truth and always shoot me when I am the messenger. It is masochism at this point: I keep getting caught in wasting time pointing out anti-Black celebs and microcelebs in the art world. I am not a walking angry Black person trope; I do not come to "tear other Black people down," we all know platformed people of all races are anti-Black or enable anti-Blackness to some degree, but I guess I will continue to get demonized for not masking and saying aloud what people say in private now (but will say once one can gain clout on the scene for "finally" giving "voice to the voiceless.”)

Aged phrases like "voice to the voiceless" speak to the trend of Word or Text Art coming back in the 2020s Art; it is part 'art world finding another genre or medium that they "forgot" for a while' and part 'the art world needing another medium gentrify to center whiteness or shallow' by uplifting artists who use moderate to radical liberal phrases such as virtues, quotes from scholars/thinkers out of context or "ironic," cheesy adages. Slowly but surely, everyone wants their work to look like a dairy entry in oil paint or a TopSecret entry from a Yale MFA grad in several "ultra-contemporary" circles, and text artists from prey2k are trending (but most aren't references Black prey2k text artists; I can’t even think of a major group show or art book of Black text [open to suggestions!]). Everyone is trying to make "sincere," Live Journal-influenced, early blogging-inspired works when they can't even show basic empathy by wearing a mask during a surge that affects immunocompromised Black people the most, please. Everyone in the arts is choosing escapism and acting as if their empathies have run thin for (former, no more for me) Black whistleblowers like myself. That selfishness is an active choice people make because the current zeitgeist promotes rugged individualism through global anti-Black capitalism. This current stream of violence and information is not unique to our age, and those who came before us were just as aware of things that happened and never complained about "overconsumption" in society to deflect action or "capacity" when it came to combatting anti-Blackness or materially supporting Black whistleblowers. 'Black Joy' or 'nonblack Joy' is not resistance or counterculture. Many artists wanna be the people who say they are "not nice; they are kind." You are trying to be "authentic" through anti-Black capitalism and consumerism. So many artists dress the same now (Sambas, Margielas, Telfar, etc.) and make similar Deviant art-coded work, aka Art Black people made in high school for fun or Art from Black people outside the academy. They are trying to memeify 'Live, Laugh, Love,’ but like it as an "inside joke" because the early 2010s are already "on trend" in "ultra-contemporary Art right now. They will only put on Black word-centered Art in 2023 from Black people with majority nonblack friends when the Black artists who make the most moving and transformative work art or text art of our current times, not the artists with the most clout, should get the most support (but I am not repeating myself about how Art is not meritocracy.)

Light Art is having a moment now; stone art and small-scale metalwork (like the solder piece I saw during the last fair week) will trend soon. You can only do small-scale glass "at home," so glass Art takes longer than you would think to trend. Inkjet/image transfer/laser jet is everywhere; that's funny when you factor in that one major criticism from certain Art people about a bulk of my work is using images + image transfer as material for years. "All you do is print images you find online; that's not Art," and now everyone's printing and image transferring pixels and photos they find online. Everyone's making fabric or mixed media art books right now; calm down, nonblack Tumblrinas. The North remembers that you all looked down on cloth books or mixed media books from Black people just a few years ago. For example, some of y'all are basically Devin Morris's children; y'all are still playing catch to 3DOTzine and Devin's mixed media works on paper. Black artists doing craft center works drive all current art trends. (I would even put the nonBlack airbrush art alt bros in there because they all make gentrified versions of Black graffiti work over the years, but put it on canvas or linen.)

I told someone earlier today that I have avoided learning to use resin in my work for years because I believe resin is a cheap conceptual trick because most objects alone or collaged together look amazing in resin. Most artists do not use resin in poetic or graceful ways, and I was afraid of getting lumped in with other artists who use resin in uneventful ways. However, I was intimidated by this other medium I am currently working in and decided to learn resin this weekend instead because it seemed easier; it was easier. Equal parts solution A to solution B in a container, mix until it is not cloudy anymore, then use. In the future, I plan to incorporate resin, but as one component of many, probably never the main component (Silicone mat or parchment paper for work surface). After that little experiment, I moved into another medium, which will soon trend (like that recycled clothes piece from that trendy group show): mosaic.

There are several versions of mosaic; you need to prepare the surface you are working on, adhere (archival glue/museum glue or thin-set because it is tile adhesive that can take water and the outdoor elements) what you want to the substrate (surface of what you want to cover in mosaic), then cover whole project with grout mix then wipe down project with rags (or sponge only if needed, but I do not use sponge often) until clean then let dry and seal grout.

I am anti-gatekeeping art skillsets (email greenadvance4@gmail.com with questions or concerns); I do not care if someone else learns how to make the Art I make; that does not threaten me. Copying should only annoy anyone if it comes from someone with more power than you or if there is no transformation with the 'copying' and you are left with only echoes of the source work or mirroring of the source artist with no substantial additions. I wanna see Black people get into mosaics like I have recently; the process is a beautiful way to "upcycle" materials in your practice. Community Notes will be in this format moving forward; I just want to make art and believe all Black people should get support, not just the few who will never risk calling anti-Blackness in Art past, present and future. Sending love to all this week before Art Month + NY Fashion Month begins.