He's Got A Bus, He's Got A Bike 🎵

I’m paying to force seven thousand strangers to see a photo of my late husband having fun with his dog. Tumblr Blaze is totally worth it. XD

Whenever a new fantasy/historical drama comes out I eagerly look forward to the rants from the handful of people I follow on here who are deeply into historical fashion and costuming. It's like

no offense, but what was the point of that cool older lady character in Spirited Away

except, you know, to make me question my sexuality at 12 during midnight rewatches as I looked at her weirdly pretty mouth and had Questions

You ever have a compliment that just sticks with you for literal years and years? Maybe forever?

For me, it’s when I was working as a figure model for art classes at my university (because it paid well due to being an early-morning thing and was easy to get because nobody else wanted to apply due to the near-nakedness and pervasive body image issues in our culture). There was this one professor who was always so happy when I showed up as the female model for that day because he said that I had a “good sense of motion”, and it was fun to draw. (Which, in itself, was a great compliment because I am a clumsy, self conscious person.)

But what really got me was one day we were doing 15-minute poses, which are harder to do because you need to come up with something interesting and dynamic, but you have to be able to hold it for a quarter of an hour without moving even a little bit. They didn’t have any specific guidance for us, so I just… did something. Idk. But about five minutes into wandering around helping the students and talking to them, he paused and told me that I was doing a good job, and, “What a fun pose. You’re reminding me of Rodin’s ‘Eve,’ there. You always have a very Rodin sort of energy about you. Thanks for waking up early for us.” And then just went back to discussing the use of ink with one of the students like he hadn’t almost reduced me to tears.

Then I went home and looked up Rodin’s ‘Eve’ and was blown away because she actually did look like me? I had ended up in that pose almost exactly just by chance, but she also had a soft, squidgy tummy and the hip dips and weird butt and big feet and thunder thighs and strong calves, just like me.

And I don’t have a great relationship with my body. Very much the opposite. I frequently hate the way I look and fit into it, but then occasionally from the depths of the past comes the voice of an art nerd telling me I’m like a Rodin sculpture, and I feel like, “Yeah, I have Rodin Energy so suck it, brain!” And it helps me reframe the way I’m thinking about myself because I can get outside of my head for a minute and see that while I’m frustrated with my body, it has an art to it just by existing. Soft tummy? Fun to draw, nice curves! Big thighs? Strong lines! Dimples and wrinkles and slopes become a place for light to sit. Bodies are so cool, and that includes mine! Even if it’s not quite what I want it to be, it’s still a work of art that nature sculpted just for me.

And for him it just seemed like such an off-handed, normal, natural thing to say. He thought “Hey, that looks like Rodin,” and so he said it.

Just… Idk. Compliment people. Say what’s on your mind. You have no idea whether it’s going to totally change a person’s life. It’s just words to you but it could be really, deeply important to them.

“蔵焼けて 障るものなき 月見哉 (Since my house burned down I now own a better view of the rising moon)”

—

Mizuta Masahide, 17th Century Japanese Poet & Samurai (via

missjodi)

the dubious philosophy of salmon

i am both shocked you made it to adulthood and unsurprised that god failed to smite you prior to it

Well I won't say he didn't TRY, but I'm more durable than I look and I've really mastered the serpentine

literally if you’re new to tumblr: reblog shit

“it wont fit my aesthetic” make a sideblog. reblog to it.

“i hate tagging” don’t tag then. reblog it anyway.

“but my likes are public” ppl here dont fucking look at your likes. they dont do anything anyway. reblog it.

“you just want attention” jokes on you, I dont make shit anymore. I’m talking about other artists.

“it’s embarrassing” tumblr is an anonymous platform. make a sideblog if you’re too cowardly

“but on twitter its fine to have lurk accounts” well they suck ass here and are assumed to be bots. reblog.

i can't remember what was going through my head when i made this but i'm sure it was very deep

what’s in a kiss?

Scar loses his first life to Grian with a kiss to the knuckles.

He gets played at his own game – he’d be the first to admit it. Grian asks for a life, to test out the transfer system he says, with a smile and a wrinkle of his nose and the edge of a flirt to his voice, and holds out a hand. And, well, Scar’s a showman at heart. Always has been. Always will be.

And Grian’s always been able to play him like a fiddle, when he puts the effort in.

Scar takes the proffered hand like a gentleman, bows low over it with a smirk and a bit of theatre. He kisses a life into Grian’s scarred knuckles with panache, with a flourish, like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. Like a promise.

When Grian runs off with it, laughing and teasing and gleeful with fledgeling chaos, Scar mourns half for the loss of the life and half for a kiss unreturned. He ignores the kernel of ice that sets itself to seed at the centre of his heart.

–

He gives his second to Bdubs, from half a server away – a kiss blown into the open air, imbued with a mission as it leaves his palm. He feels it, as it catches the currents of the wind and is dragged away, a homing missile with a purpose. Etho watches him, eyes narrow, and Scar smiles and promises him it’s been done.

He feels it, too, when it reaches its mark. A phantom of stubble brushes against his lips, the ghost of a warm cheek pressed to his mouth. His chest feels a little colder than it did before.

–

The third goes to Cleo, a thumb brushing her hair back from her temple, his lips touched to the papery skin there. She tenses beneath the touch, lips peeled back, teeth bared– and then shudders, relaxes, as the kiss presses a life back into her. When she blinks, her eyes open the pale yellow of buttercups and dandelions, and the lines of tension are gone from the corners of her mouth.

Her skin is cold beneath his lips as he pulls away, the transfer complete. The space between his third and fourth ribs is only a few degrees warmer.

–

Joel gets the fourth, both of Scar’s hands curled over the solidity of his shoulders and lips pressed firmly to his forehead. Scar gets a mouthful of hair, half of it hastily dyed over red with bleach and box dye. He can smell the ammonia of it, and leans back before it can make his eyes water. The warmth trickles out of him in slow degrees.

–

And then it’s Grian again. 

Grian, stood in front of him with eyes like rubies, and a mouth twisted into something hard, something half-cruel. There’s a crossbow in one of his hands, a bloody-edged axe in the other. His gaze keeps sliding sideways, to that monstrosity of an obsidian cage, like he can’t quite bring himself to meet Scar’s stare.

Scar reaches out with both hands, and then hesitates. Lets one fall back to his side. He catches Grian’s chin with one knuckle, and tilts it upwards, careful, so careful. Until Grian’s eyes – tired, defiant, calculating – are forced back to his face once more.

“Last one I’ve got to give,” Scar says, with a lopsided smile, and leans in.

Grian’s lips are warm beneath his, dry and bitten-chapped, and there’s people watching, and Scar doesn’t care. The rubies turn to liquid gold between one slow flutter of lashes and the next, and red blooms across Grian’s cheeks instead. It’s chaste enough as kisses go, but Scar holds it just a second too long to play it off as a joke, and he can’t find it in his cold and aching heart to regret that. 

He pulls away and Grian blinks, dazed, flushed pink beneath his freckles. “Take better care of it this time, you hear me?” murmurs Scar, into the space between them, like a secret.

Like a plea.

He doesn’t wait to see if Grian nods before he steps back, turns on his heel, and turns his back on the last life he has to spare. His ribs ache, cold metal against teeth. His heart stutters beneath the ice, as best it can.

–

The sixth life burns out of him, too hot and too fast for him to scream. When he wakes up in his own bed, he doesn’t feel cold any more.

He doesn’t feel much of anything at all.