#the second one i got on Pinterest it doesn't have the best quality but it gets the job done

[heathermason6060]

Daryl Dixon x f!Reader Smut: Missing Matchmaker Merle

Warnings: Smut, degradation, minor alcohol consumption, unprotected p in v, NO use of (Y/N)

Summary: You and Daryl distract each other from missing Merle.

Notes: Wanted to try the idea of Daryl thinking he wants super rough sex, but he finds out he doesn't really like it that much when you indulge in it. GIF found from Pinterest from user vallie

Taking a hot shower was something you used to take for granted. But after arriving at the CDC and having the chance to not only clean, but sanitize yourself, you made every second count. You even fucking shaved. 

When you heard Jenner would also be serving dinner, you could've thrown up in excitement.

“C'mon, quit actin’ like a pussy and drink.” 

You rolled your eyes at the redneck's words, but shrugged and waved him forward anyway. He grinned in success and filled a cup with red wine, nearly spilling it on your chest with the way he shoved it towards you.

The shift in the atmosphere the last few hours had been remarkable. Not too long ago you were in the first stages of accepting your possible demise, standing behind Shane and Daryl as they fought to get Rick away from the doors. Now here you sat between Carol and Daryl, drinking some of the best wine you'd ever tasted, enough food on your plate to fill your stomach the way it was meant to be. 

You barely heard Daryl whisper beside you over the happy chatter of your group. “Watch, he's gonna turn all red, Koreans all got an allergy to alcohol.” 

You couldn't help but break into a grin at that, shaking your head in amusement. He looked too excited for you to correct him so you just chuckled, and tried not to fall from your chair when he playfully elbowed you in your side. 

The sight of Lori and Shane in the little library foiled your plans to read before bed. You only watched for a second, it looked like they were arguing, trying to keep their voices down despite their frustration. 

You rolled your eyes and turned on your heels, annoyed you'd have to settle on something in the rec room. 

As soon as you turned the corner to walk down the hall, you bumped into a chest so hard you lost your balance. Their hand shot out and grabbed your wrist, and when you heard that teasing southern accent you immediately felt your mood lifting. 

“That wine make you blind? You Korean too?” He snickered as he helped you right yourself. 

It was incredibly refreshing to see Daryl in that light. He was in a great mood, not drunk but buzzed enough to keep a grin on his face. 

“Fucking Shane and Lori's in there.” You grumbled playfully, crossing your arms in exaggerated annoyance. 

“Huh, what're they doin’?” His voice lowered to a nosey whisper and he nudged you back to peek around the corner. He immediately pulled back, bumping into you again, a look of disgust on his face. “Fuckin’ white trash. Actin’ like Rick ain't right down the hall.” 

That had you turning into a nosey busybody and you went to see what he was talking about, but he had already nudged your shoulder in the other direction to the bedroom halls. 

“C'mon, let's go do somethin’.” He didn't wait for an answer as he continued using his body to guide you down the hallway, reminding you of a sheepdog, which amused you to no end. 

“Like what?” You smirked as he shouldered you into one of the rec rooms. There were a few loveseats, bean bag chairs, a long couch and endless shelves of things. Board games, card games, sketch books and those really expensive high quality colored pencils, markers, you name it. You could spend the rest of your life in this room and die happy. 

“Hell, I don't know.” He shrugged and went to look through the shelves. You watched him in the doorway, your lip tightening at the side when you realized he was desperate to take his mind off Merle. Shit, you were too. You missed the fuck out of Merle Dixon. You'd grown extremely close to him, he wordlessly accepted your vulnerability of being the black sheep and Daryl related to it. They treated you like some weird adopted family member that one playfully flirted with and the other jerked off to. 

“Wanna play uno? I'm suspiciously good at it.” You finally shut the door and walked over to him with crossed arms, aware of the way he tensed when you got closer. 

“Uno? The fuck? Hell no.” He scoffed and aggressively flipped through the games on the shelf. “This is like some fucked up retirement center.”

“What'd you expect? An Xbox full of two player games?” You watched as he pretended to read the back of a card game box. 

“Psh. I don't know. Let's go fuck with Glenn -”

You grabbed his wrist before he could rush past you and laughed. “Leave the poor kid alone. He's gonna be so fucking sick tomorrow.” 

“Yeah, I guess. Threw up on my couch.” He muttered, remembering the way he'd had to drag Glenn to the couch in his temporary bedroom. 

“Course he did. You kept pouring wine down the kids' throat.”

You had a few minutes of friendly banter, suggested uno again, he suggested strip poker, you suggested skipping the poker, and soon you were grinding against his knee behind some of the book shelves.

“I want it dirty. Want it raw.” He huffed as he feverishly unbuckled his belt. “F-fuck, you're so hot.”

You grinned and leaned in to bite his bottom lip, earning a delicious whimper from him. You dug your teeth down harder and pulled back, feeling his dick twitch obscenely against your hip. 

“Want it dirty, yeah?” You drawled and kissed down his neck, switching between biting and biting hard. 

“Yeah.” He breathed and fucked his hand, clutching onto your hair with his other. “You think,” he faltered as you bit down on his nipple, his words spilling into various curses and slang you couldn't understand. “Shhh-fuck” His voice cracked in a way that was absolutely fucking adorable to you. “Y’think, you could, on top-”

“Yeah, I can do that.” You made your way back up to his neck, reaching to unbutton the rest of his shirt, but he stopped you. You didn't question it, you just sat him down on one of the loveseats and climbed in his lap. 

You looked over your shoulder at the door, even though it was shut anyone could just walk in, but Daryl grabbed your chin and forced you back against his mouth. 

You fucking loved the way he kissed. It was so hot and sloppy, his tongue diving everywhere in your mouth, licking every spot he could reach. When you pulled back to breathe, the skin around your lips felt wet, just another thing to make your pussy wetter. Daryl Dixon being so messy and dirty drove you insane. 

“I like the way you kiss me,” you slurred, your hands sliding up your pajama shirt to grope your own breasts. “Who would've thought you were such a needy whore.”

“Can you blame me, woman? Shit.” He thrusted up against you as he admired your form over him, your lips parted and your hair in your face, you looked hotter than every single pornstar he'd ever seen. He came harder to you than Sasha Grey. 

You maneuvered out of your pajama pants and slipped back in his lap, sliding your pussy against his throbbing cock. 

“Fuckin’ goddamnit.” He sputtered and grabbed hold of your hips for dear life. He rolled up in sync with you, nearly cumming when he saw the way his head would push through your folds each time your hips slid back. 

It was easier to get him inside you with you on top, you didn't need to worry about him slamming into you like last time. You took your time, enjoying the way he curled his upper lip in frustration, his eyes locked on the way his dick disappeared up inside you. 

“Fuck.” You drew your word out as you finally sat down on him, his dick sticking you like a skewer. 

You opened your eyes when you felt him grabbing your right wrist. He brought it up to his throat with no hesitation, a new boldness filling him that you didn't expect. 

You scoffed and laughed, the sound making his hips jerk roughly up into you. You obliged though, grabbing hold of his thick throat and squeezing. 

The situation you found yourself in was something you could easily get used to. You leaned back, keeping yourself upright with your grip on his neck. You rolled your hips in a way that served you, using Daryl's dick to get off. The way you fucked him was completely foreign to him, he'd never seen anything like this in the tapes he'd steal from Merle. 

You moaned when he bucked into you, and you had to take a moment to steady yourself. You released his neck and grabbed his chin, your thumb slipping between his teeth, holding him like a hooked fish. He looked up at you through his lashes and bit down gently, his hips rolling slower now. 

“You're a fucking mess.” You hissed with a smirk, looking down at your work proudly. Now he was the one who needed to be in a filthy magazine. His cheeks and lips red, his eyes half lidded and dark, his teeth bared and biting on your thumb. He was sweating like crazy and you were impressed he hadn't come yet, must've been the wine. “God I missed your dick.”

You weren't sure how it happened but soon you were pressed against the wall, your thighs wrapped around his back and his dick rearranging your insides. You couldn't moan even if you wanted, he was so rough and fast that all you could do was gasp in each breath, your eyes rolled back and your mouth hanging open. 

His thrusts slowed and he pulled back from biting your neck to nip the side of your jaw, making your eyes roll back to focus. 

“Slap me.”

Your words didn't register to him for a second. He lifted his head and furrowed his brows in confusion, although his rough thrusts didn't even budge. 

“C'mon, you wanted it dirty, didn't you?” You sneered, and a book fell from the shelf next to you when your head thudded back against the wall after a deep thrust.

He went to speak, but he only let out a long breath, and that's when his thrusts started to slow. “The hell you want that for?” 

You were caught off guard by the look on his face. He looked equally confused and almost… insulted? Hurt? 

“Cause it feels really fucking good. Hey, you don't have to, alright?” Your breathing came back under your control when his thrusts stopped altogether. 

You could tell you upset him. You slid your legs from his waist until your toes touched the floor, and his dick slipped out of you. 

“Hey, it's okay, alright?” You reached to touch his chin but he tilted his head away, no longer looking confused, moreso disappointed. 

You bit your bottom lip and thought. He was in no state to make any further moves so you made it for him. You pulled your clothes back on and took him to his bedroom, making sure to close and lock the door. You turned the lights off and laid him down on the bed before climbing on top of him. 

“I just wanna make you feel good, can I do that?” You murmured softly, sitting on his lap and stroking his cheek. 

That seemed to get to him and he gave in, nodding once without meeting your gaze.

“Just tell me to stop and I will.” You promised and kissed down his cheek, deciding against being rough with him the way you were before. 

“Never gonna hear me say that.” He snorted and intertwined his fingers in your hair, gentle, something you hadn't experienced with him. It was like a switch was flipped and he was a completely different man. 

Daryl melted under you as you worked him over with soft touches and kisses. You took your bottoms back off and took his dick back out, giving him a few strokes to get him hard again. You wasted no time in slipping him inside you, thankful there was little resistance with how wet you had become. 

You settled down on him, placing your hands on his chest to balance yourself, your fingers pinching the buttons on his shirt as a way to ground yourself. His dick sent you to other places. 

You fucked him slow, taking the time to feel and appreciate each time his tip rubbed against your sweet spot. He breathed noisily under you, giving the occasional grunt or quiet whine, his hands resting on your hips. 

Flipping your hair to one side over your shoulder, you leaned down and kissed him. You led this time, just moving your lips against his, slow and deep and without the use of your teeth, no matter how badly you wished to hear him whimper. 

He sat up and wrapped his arms around your back to turn you over, somehow managing to keep his lips on yours the entire time. 

You felt your muscles sigh in relief when he laid you on your back in the soft bed. You let out a soft happy breath when he slid his hands up your sides, content in just stroking your skin. He wasn't fucking you then, it was something different. If you were stupid you'd call it making love. He thrusted deep and slow, his hips moving on their own accord. Each time he plunged back in he'd exhale deeply through his nose, tickling the skin of your upper lip. 

Daryl was the one to break the kiss, he leaned back on his heels to look down at you.

“So damn pretty.” He mumbled, his eyelids struggling to stay open. If he wasn't drunk on the wine he was drunk on you and this new way of having you, a way he never even considered. This was it, he thought, this is how he wanted to have sex for the rest of his life. Swallowing each other whole, touching and caressing every inch of skin. 

His eyelids didn't feel so heavy when he saw you suck in a deep breath. Your eyes closed and you grabbed at your hair and breast, your head lolling to the side, your mouth hanging open, your face all twisted up-

You came hard around him, shuddering and gasping and whimpering as you enjoyed your sweet orgasm. It was so different, so drastically different from the last one he gave you. You didn't feel like you were on fire, clawing at your skin with your throat raw, you felt like you were being slipped into the warm black lake that was Daryl Dixon. 

“Daryl, oh my god Daryl.” Your words slurred in your mouth and he leaned down to kiss you. He wanted to swallow every little noise you made. Wanted to swallow your breaths, wanted to swallow you. 

“Ss-shh-fuck.” He bubbled against your lips as he came, forgetting to pull out again. He didn't give a shit anymore. He moaned then, such a beautiful noise that it nearly shattered your heart. So shameless, he didn't hold back at all, letting you hear all of it, all that you earned from him. 

He ground his hips into you well after you both finished, making sure every last drop of his cum filled you up. He buried his face in your neck and rolled his hips, his rough pubes grinding against your throbbing clit. You'd never come that way before, not without at least a little outside stimulation, the fact he made you cum from penetration alone changed your life for good. 

It was hard to bite back any further words. You moaned softly at the feeling of his dick still dragging against your walls, nudging against you each time in a way that was nearly too much to bear. 

You looked at him with admiration. He looked beautiful. You reached up and ran your hand over his short hair, wiping the sweat from his brows. He looked at you, something he needed great courage to do, and sighed. 

He couldn't think of anything to say. He felt ashamed, embarrassed, he'd been so deeply vulnerable that it physically hurt him. He swore he'd blow his goddamn brains out if you laughed or made fun of him. 

But you didn't, you just smiled up at him with that dangerous look on your face that had his heart racing. It should've relaxed him, but it didn't, it made the muscles in his shoulders tense. 

“Do you want me to leave?” You whispered as you stroked his cheek, fully prepared for him to go back to the same old Daryl Dixon you knew and tolerated. 

“Do whatcha want.” He breathed, finally pulling his soft dick from you. 

“Good. Then I'll stay.” You leaned up on your elbows and kissed his jaw before slipping into the bathroom. 

When you climbed back in bed he was pretending to be asleep. You scoffed quietly in amusement and pulled a thin sheet over the two of you, curling up behind him. You decided that wouldn't suit you so you turned over and wrapped your arm around his waist, nuzzling your face in the back of his neck. 

You kissed the skin there once before pressing your forehead against the same spot, closing your eyes when you felt comfortable. 

Daryl stared at the wall in front of him as he felt your fingers softly fidget with the buttons of his shirt. They soon stilled and your breathing slowed to a point where he could barely hear it anymore. Only then did he close his eyes, and secretly enjoy the way you held him. 

The next morning was awkward when you woke up and saw Glenn still passed out on the couch.

@ophelialaufey @carlgrimesgfofficial @theskinniestjackson-denny @dilfish-daydreams

[mitchiegonewild]

aot youtuber headcanons part 1

Eren: "jaegerbamb"

Eren games. ik this sounds like such a cop out answer but cmon...that dude would have streamy-worthy rage-quits, the best lives, and the most entertaining streams

he would repost all the edits people make of him

he moves to twitch after a while on youtube

all of his fans swear hes fine but everyone who's not is like "yeah hes like a 6"

he rarely collabs with anyone but when he does its always with either mikasa or armin who beat his ass, or connie just bc he loves connie

he HATES horror games and his subs know it so they always request those games and 9 times out of 10 he ends up crying

Mikasa: "wiccanest"

she does manifestation and spirituality stuff

she helps all her baby witches and is EXTREMELY avid about doing things the right way so her subs dont get hurt

she looks scary in her thumbnails but shes actually the softest person to ever exist in her vids

her cats are almost always featured in her videos. their names are keyboard and snufkin

shes also pinterest famous and uploads the most random yet aesthetic stuff

she did a gym vlog video with annie once and everyone went crazy bonkers bananas

Armin: "MinnieASMR"

an asmrist and i will die on this hill

he gives out studying tips on there too and does "study with me :)" videos

he did a mukbang once and never again because connie was in his comments like "ZAMN DADDY LOOKS GOOD WHILE HE MONCHIN??😍😍😍" & "THAT CRUNCH AT 8:29 IM ABT TO BUST A NUT😩"

does tiktok lives but falls asleep on them

choked on his water one time while the mic was at full vol still and woke up a good 2/3rds of his streamers

does the best energy plucks

Connie: "conman reacts"

a react channel

hes like coryxkenshin, but he only plays games with eren

hes actually really funny though, and he does a lot of streams so he can interact with people, and he also has a podcast that he hosts with sasha and jean

actually threw up on camera when someone asked if he and sasha were dating (that was the day they both came out LMFAO)

he is strong asf in every single try not to laugh challenge but the SECOND he hears "wenomechainsama" or any low quality meme and he loses it

he and mr beast did a video together once and connie blew a coke up in his face. he was not invited back

Annie: "Annie's How To's"

self defense videos and life inspiration

posts maybe once every four months because she forgets that she has a channel

got acrylics PURELY to show people with long nails how to knock a motherfucker out

actually ended up liking them and gets them when shes not filming

sometimes appears in mikasas videos to do yoga with her

has little 8-minute mindfulness videos

Sasha: "sasha.b"

sasha doesn't do food videos bc im tired of always seeing her with food shit, so i say she does a brittany broski type thing where she literally just does the most unhinged and wild shit whenever and its funny as hell

connie is her sarah schauer and jean is her bestie taylor

shes gone on literally so many podcast episodes and just gets drunk while telling literally the most outrageous stories from her childhood

was a born and raised tennessee girlie that moved to chicago

is mikasas roommate and photobombs her videos almost constantly, but just with a little wave

obsesses over medias and just will not stop talking about it for weeks on end and then moves on in a blink

Jean & Marco: "Jean & Marco V.S. The Paranormal"

they are literally buzzfeed unsolved

jean does not believe in ghosts. marco very much does and says his Catholic Prayers at least thrice in each video

jean twerked for annabelle and she threatened to brutally kill both of them

marcos super respectful and is always like "the dress you have in this picture is just lovely" and jeans like "first of all...youuurrreee nothing but a trashy hoe." and then gets surprised when the ghost targets him

marco fell through a haunted bar's roof and started singing "the lord is my shepherd" and jean stopped himself mid rescue to laugh

a rumor got started that marco was actually dead and a ghost and there is now a national funeral day for marco in the "Jean & Marco V.S. The Paranormal" fandom

Hange: "Science Rulez"

an account purely for middle school science teachers

theyre an actual scientist not just a youtuber but on their off days because they love their job so much they'll do tiny little videos

they are VERY passionate about teaching biology in schools

they have pet turtles and ferrets that they heavily feature and call them their "assistants" (moblit has a "hey, im right here!" voice bite that they usually play)

moblit is their begrudging camera and light man because he just wants to be able to go on vacation with them on their time off

hange covers EVERYTHING from astronomy to fucking quantum physics and always gets comments about how they changed students whole grades and they ALWAYS respond and/or like

[evehere]

Nanping-fu in Yearning willow

So, when I was writing about CWN kneeling in the shrine, I realised I had some misconceptions about where everything was in a siheyuan (*/▽＼*) thus, I went to do some research!

Pictures were either taken from an old edition of The Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦 (these pictures are everywhere, but I couldn't find the exact source) or from google. If any of you know them, please tell me!

First of all, here's a picture of Nanping-fu (I hope the quality gets better if you click on it):

This is a drawing mixing the structure of Jia-fu in The Dream of the Red Chamber with the blueprint of a late Qing princess' residence.

(More information and pictures below the cut!)

Nanping-fu was a four-tier siheyuan. From the main door to the backyard, there were four courtyards surrounded by buildings, all interconnected with roofed pathways. The four courtyards had each a main building, which were, from south to north, the festoon gate, the shrine, the hall and the main house. All of them had the same dark grey pitched roofs and crimson pillars, and the floor was paved with the same cool grey stones.

Each courtyard was shaped as an elegant square garden. On his way from the backyard, Liuyan House—where Rong Jiu shared residence with the other concubines—to his office, Mo Ran passed next to the main house, Yihong Hall—his own residence.

On the eastern side of Yihong Hall was Honglian House, Chu Wanning’s home.

To summarize, we have from outside to inside:

The shrine: Danxin Hall (丹心殿)

The main hall: Shuijian Hall (水鉴殿)

The main house, where Mo Ran lives: Yihong Hall (怡红殿)

The eastern house, where Chu Wanning lives: Honglian House (红莲居)

The western house: Cunju House (存菊堂)

The backyard: Liuyan House (柳烟阁)

And some more I’ll add once the plot moves forward.

The "tiers" make reference to how many doors there are. From the front door to the festoon door, there's a small courtyard where servants used to live, so that counts as one courtyard (一进院). From the festoon door to the shrine there's a second courtyard, from the shrine to the hall there's a third and from the hall to Mo Ran's Yihong Hall there's a fourth.

Strictly speaking, the backyard counts as a courtyard as well, but five-tier courtyard were usually for higher ranking nobles. Of course, later in history there were also six-tier and seven-tier courtyards, and there was always the possibility to extend the gardens or the houses to the left or to the right.

This picture is from Pinterest (again, found no source), but I added some changes to it.

Generally speaking, siheyuan were organised as this picture shows (bear in mind that that's a two-tier), I'll just add that usually all the women lived in the back courtyard (concubines, daughters), at the innermost structure, keeping them secluded. Side halls were for sons only.

Some other notions regarding Nanping-fu:

The most honourable position is right in the center. That's why the shrine, the main hall and the owner's hall (Mo Ran, in this case) are all aligned in the center line. The garden was a later add-on.

The main hall is used to receive guests and to hold important events. Along with the shrine, these are the most important places in a siheyuan, and the most grand and solemn places.

Besides, the best position is “sitting in the north, facing the south”. Houses facing the south are the best because they get more light during the day. Servants, however, live in the quarters at the southern wall, facing the north, which is much darker.

Right after the center is the eastern side (which, from their perspective, would be the left). The legal spouse, or zhengshi, usually has their rooms at the eastern side of the owner's hall. In Nanping-fu, that would be Honglian House, Shi Mei's and, later, Chu Wanning's home. The western one is usually for the children, but since Mo Ran doesn't have children, a high-position concubine occupies it.

The rest of the concubines live in the backyard.

Now, about the rooms, I'm using as references pictures from The Dream of the Red Chamber (beware I'm not using the spaces as they were intended in the Dream of the Red Chamber).

This would Mo Ran's room at Yihong Hall. Mo Ran would usually sleep in the bigger bed as the western/left side, and if he got tired of whoever was keeping company that night, he could send them to sleep in the bed at the eastern side.

This would be Chu Wanning's room in Honglian House. The rest of the concubines room would be like this one, but without the library at the right side (with only two spaces: a entrance hall and the bedroom).

Now some pictures from google to illustrate the colours and how the courtyards were arranged!

But I tend to imagine the interiors as they were pictured in Story of Minglan.

I like this last one a lot. Because there would be no electricity and everything was lit with candles, the room would get rather dark in the nights. Yet it looks very rich and rather sensuous, with the darkness clouding your sight of the bed.

Most information about siheyuans was found here!

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

Switching Lanes With St. Vincent

By Molly Young

January 22, 2019

Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier

On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”

She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.

If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.

If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.

Dress, by Balmain

The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.

Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.

This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.

Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford

The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”

Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.

The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.

“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”

This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?

“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”

Coat, by Boss

Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier

Like a child?

“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”

There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.

When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?

“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.

Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith

Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.

The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”

Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.

A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”

Earrings, by Erickson Beamon

“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.

“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”

As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.

“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”

Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”

They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.

“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”

“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”

Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios

They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.

Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.

A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."