SAY THAT AGAIN.

why he kinda...

only kinda?? Cmon now girl…

never wanted 2 be a cat more MRRRROWWW

TOOLbelt (2022) by Martha Summers

Head empty just Liv Hewson

This specific clip of them stays in my mind💥

Palestinian ButchFemme wedding, 2022, @/leilanations

Just watched the Thunderbolts... and in Jesus's name I rebuk it.

Several red flags: ( spoiler below or whatever)

During her hearing, Valentina said that the situation with the Red Hulk was a proof that there was "No reliable heroes anymore "

When Bob asked about his hair being dyed blond she said "it's more traditional, speaks to all Americans "

The two previous points merge in what I can only describe as THE BIGGEST MICROAGGRESSION I've ever seen. Because they just called him unfit for the mental of Captain America, and something about how being white and having blond hair is what America needs.

The way they handled the subject of mental healness was not it. Just very surface level and VERY WHITE CENTRIC.

Lastly, Bucky Barnes and his uneven bob that became a sad blowout is not welcomed on my blog until Doomsday clarifies the situation because as of now your case looks bad. Really bad. Whatever Sam said you deserved it because not seeing how having a all white Avager team (Ava is very passing to me) that is SUPPORTED BY THE GOVERNMENT is armful to him. And literally ties to what Sam said at the end of BNW and to constantly having to prove that they (POC) are fit to do the job.

I've never rumbled so much on any platform before, but here we are.

TRAVIS MENTION?!?!

mlm Patrick and wlw Reader fake dating to make Art & Tashi jealous

🧁🍭🍫🍩🍰 *bribes you*

do we like?? do we want a part 2??😅😅😅

#And he's dead serious (and right)

TIMECAST - Roaring Twenties

The Pink Pony Club

pianist!art donaldson x burlesque dancer!reader

c.ai bot | moodboard and introduction

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The music was never written down.

Art played it like a secret, fingers moving from muscle memory, heart memory. No sheet. No name. Just a tune he’d stumbled into one night after watching her dance and never managed to shake loose.

It didn’t match the other numbers. Too slow. Too sad. It had no business lingering beneath rhinestones and tassels. But it fit her. The real her. The one he only caught glimpses of between routines—when the lights dimmed and the sweat on her shoulders hadn’t yet cooled.

Carmen—though that wasn’t her name, he was sure—had a laugh like a brass bell and walked like she’d never been taught to apologize. On stage, she glowed. A constellation of sequins and hips, dazzling and deliberate. Offstage, she smoked French cigarettes and swore like a man on leave.

Art kept his eyes down when he played. Most nights.

Except for hers.

She was halfway through her number, some wild, thumping thing with feathers and a chair, when she caught him.

Not just looking. Watching.

Her mouth curved mid-spin, slow and dangerous. She pivoted, winked, and blew him a kiss so theatrical the crowd howled.

He fumbled the next chord.

The number ended. Applause. Laughter. A crash of cymbals. Carmen disappeared behind the velvet curtain, and Art was left blinking at ivory keys like they’d betrayed him.

It wasn’t until an hour later, after the last call had been whispered through shadowed booths and the club was quieter than a prayer, that she approached.

He was still at the piano. Always was. Tinkering with chords like they might one day answer a question he didn’t know how to ask.

She perched on the edge of the piano bench without asking. One long leg crossed over the other. Glitter smudged along her collarbone like stardust.

“That song,” she said. “The slow one. The one you always play when I dance. Is that for me?”

Art didn’t look at her. He couldn’t.

“I just…” He cleared his throat. “Play what fits.”

A beat of silence.

Then Carmen laughed, soft and sharp. “You’re lucky I like flattery, sweetheart.”

She slid off the bench and disappeared into the dressing room corridor, scent trailing behind her like rose perfume and danger.

Art stared at the keys a long time before touching them again.

—

The Pink Pony Club was never silent, not really.

Even after the doors locked and the girls peeled rhinestones from their skin, there was always a hum. A low, ambient hush like the place had its own pulse. The walls held secrets in their velvet folds. Lipstick prints on half-drunk glasses. Ghosts of applause in the rafters.

Carmen lit a cigarette with one hand, the other holding her silk robe shut at the chest. She was perched on the piano bench again, bare legs crossed, one heel dangling from her toe. The smoke curled around her like mood lighting.

Art played.

He didn’t ask what she wanted. He just let his fingers move—minor chords, soft harmonies, a lazy rhythm like the stretch after a long, slow kiss.

She hummed along under her breath.

“Do you ever sleep?” she asked, eyes closed.

“Sometimes,” he said.

Carmen cracked one eye open. “That a joke?”

He shrugged.

She took another drag. “You always play like you’re dreaming.”

“That’s when it sounds right.”

Silence again, except for the music.

Carmen reached into her robe pocket and pulled something folded and worn. She slid it across the top of the piano toward him. Art stopped playing.

It was a flyer. Faded. Creased from being carried too long. A girl in feathers smiled from the page, kicking her legs in silhouette. The headline read “Amateur Night—$20 Prize” in a cheap, jagged font.

“That’s me,” she said.

He looked up.

“I was seventeen,” Carmen said. “Didn’t even know how to sew a snap into a bodice yet. I borrowed shoes from a girl I met in the train station bathroom.”

Art didn’t ask how she got there. He just waited.

She tapped ash into a teacup. “I didn’t win. But Miss Kitty saw me. Told me I had legs like a chorus line and the face of a woman who’d never lose a fight.”

Art stared at her for a moment.

Then, carefully, he reached into his satchel and pulled out a thin, leather-bound book. He laid it between them. Inside, faded pencil notations danced across yellowed pages. Sheet music. Some finished. Some not.

Carmen raised a brow. “This your diary?”

He gave a small, helpless smile. “I don’t… write things down. Not really. But this is how I keep them.”

She touched the edge of a page, delicately, like it might flake apart.

“Play me one of these,” she said. “Something no one’s heard before.”

Art hesitated.

Then he turned the book, laid it flat, and began to play.

The song was slow. Not sad, but wistful—like a window left open on purpose. A melody that didn’t ask anything of you, just stayed awhile and listened.

When it ended, Carmen blinked and cleared her throat like she hadn’t meant to.

“You got a name for that one?”

He shook his head.

She leaned back. “Call it Glitter.”

Art looked at her.

She smiled, a real one this time. Smaller. Softer. “That’s what it sounded like. Glitter in a drain.”

—

They called her Sugar Lace.

She arrived on a Tuesday with a battered suitcase and a voice that tried too hard to purr. Said she came from St. Louis, used to work the Rivoli, knew how to handle men and high kicks in equal measure.

Her curls were firetruck red. Her heels were too tall for the way she walked. Her perfume came in waves, like someone had spilled it on her train ticket.

Carmen clocked her before she even finished her introduction.

Too gay. Too eager. Too much brass, not enough brass band.

But Miss Kitty took her in anyway. Because Kitty always did.

Kitty didn’t turn girls away. She took the raw ones, the bent ones, the ones with lipstick too dark and shoes too big. She’d press a compact into their hands, teach them how to glide instead of walk, and make them family before anyone else could ruin them first.

“You don’t have to be the best,” Kitty said once, holding a girl while she cried in a beaded bra. “You just have to be yours. Everything else is rehearsal.”

Still, Carmen had earned the late night slot with blood, bruises, and boa fluff. So when Sugar Lace strutted onstage in Carmen’s eleven o’clock spot four days later, something behind her ribs twisted sharp.

From his bench, Art noticed too.

He always did.

⸻

Carmen was in the wings, arms crossed, one brow arched like a challenge. Her corset still clung to her ribs from the earlier number. She hadn’t even taken her lashes off yet. That’s how fast the schedule had flipped.

Miss Kitty stood behind her, cigarette smoke curling around her like a halo. “She’s a novelty act. Just passing through. Don’t bristle.”

“She’s flailing.”

“She’s trying.”

“She stole my slot.”

Kitty smirked. “No one steals from you, baby. Not without consequences.”

Carmen’s eyes flicked to the stage.

Sugar Lace was mid-routine, something involving a velvet swing and a poorly timed glove toss. The crowd liked it well enough—men laughed too loud and slapped tables—but there was no rhythm. No tease. Just noise and skin.

And the piano?

It didn’t sing.

Carmen’s head snapped toward the bench.

Art’s fingers were still moving, but the tempo was wrong. The chords a little off. The cue for the bridge came too early, then too late. It wasn’t much. But it was enough.

Sugar tripped her exit spin, laughed like it was part of the act, and jogged backstage to scattered applause.

Kitty didn’t say a word.

Carmen did.

She waited until the next act had started—one of the twins with champagne bottles and a comedy bit—then found Art exactly where he always was after a misstep: by the side piano, fussing with a page of fake sheet music like it might confess for him.

“You messed up,” she said, arms folded across her chest.

He didn’t look at her. “Sorry.”

“You don’t mess up.”

“I just wasn’t… focused.”

“Try again.”

Art glanced up, eyes meeting hers, cheeks already flushing.

“She took your number,” he said softly. “I didn’t like it.” He shrugged.

Silence.

Then she leaned down, placed a hand on the bench beside his, and kissed his cheek. A quiet press of mouth to skin. Nothing flashy. Just real.

“Don’t go starting a fire on my account, piano man,” she whispered. “Unless you want me to dance in the flames.”

⸻

Later that night, the girls were curled up in the dressing room like cats after a long hunt. Robes slipped from shoulders. Stockings dangled from the edge of the vanity. Glitter stuck to everything—skin, mirrors, even the doorknob.

Goldie passed around a tin of balm for bruised feet. Jo flipped through a gossip rag, reading the horoscopes out loud in her fake radio voice.

Lorna was painting her nails with bootleg polish, one leg kicked up on the makeup table. “Carmen, you hear your replacement?”

“She’s not my replacement,” Carmen said, biting into an apple like it had personally offended her.

“She cracked her knuckle on the swing,” Jo offered. “Heard it from Theo.”

“She’s got nerves,” Kitty said, appearing from the hall with a fresh martini in hand. “She’ll learn.”

“She doesn’t listen,” Carmen muttered.

“She’s scared,” Kitty replied. “You remember what that felt like?”

Carmen didn’t answer. Only clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Goldie grinned. “Art sure listened.”

Jo whooped. “You see that chord sabotage?”

Lorna raised her glass. “To shy boys with good ears.”

They clinked imaginary glasses and howled with laughter. Carmen rolled her eyes, but her smile betrayed her.

Across the room, tucked half out of view, Art sat alone with a paper napkin full of notes, scrawled staves, and tiny sketches of stars in the margins.

He wasn’t laughing. But he looked like he wanted to.

And Carmen? She looked at him and felt it.

The spark.

—

It started with a kiss behind the prop curtain.

It was after a long set. Carmen still glittered at the collarbones, sweat like pearls at her hairline, her robe clutched loosely over her costume. Art had just finished packing up the second piano—his fingers still tingling from playing her exit number like it was a love letter he wasn’t allowed to send.

She passed him in the hallway, didn’t even pause, just grabbed his tie and pulled him into the dark behind the curtain.

The kiss was fast. Heat and lipstick. A bite on the bottom lip.

She didn’t say anything after. Just slipped away like nothing had happened.

But it did.

God, it did.

⸻

The next time was in the back storage closet between sets. She cornered him while he was reaching for a fresh music stand. Kissed him again—slower this time, mouths fitting like they’d rehearsed it. Her thigh pressed between his. His hands, awkward and reverent, found her waist like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold her even now.

She broke the kiss and whispered, “This doesn’t have to mean anything.”

He nodded.

It already meant everything.

⸻

It kept happening.

A dressing room when no one was looking. An empty stairwell at midnight. Once, breathless, against the hallway wall while the show thundered through the floorboards above them.

She touched him like she needed something from him—release, relief, quiet. He let her take it. Gave himself up in pieces.

But he never touched her like that.

He touched her like a hymn.

⸻

Art didn’t know how to be casual.

He tried. He told himself he could. But every time Carmen kissed him, he melted into it like sugar in heat. Every sigh was a song he wanted to write. Every time she undid her robe for him, he wanted to kneel.

She’d press him against the cool tile of the back room, kiss his throat, pull open his shirt with impatient hands. He’d slide his palms up her thighs, feel silk and strength and softness. He’d breathe her in like she was the only real thing in the city.

She’d laugh—low, wicked—and tell him not to get sentimental.

And he never said it out loud, but—

Too late.

⸻

One night, after, they lay tangled in the dressing room chaise, her head on his chest, their clothes half-askew.

He traced the edge of her arm with two fingers. Light, like a breeze. Her skin raised under it.

“You always touch me like I’m breakable,” she murmured.

“You’re not,” he whispered back.

“But you think I am.”

He didn’t answer. Just kissed the back of her hand.

It wasn’t love. Not exactly.

But it was something blooming wild and impossible in the dark—like orchids in a whiskey glass.

—

“Okay,” Jo said, leaning across the vanity with a cherry popsicle between her teeth, “so when are you gonna admit you’re absolutely, catastrophically, full-body stupid over the piano man?”

Carmen blinked. “Jesus, can I breathe?”

“Nope,” said Goldie, kicking her heels up on the chaise. “You’ve been walking around with that just-fucked shimmer for weeks.”

“You’re glowing like a cabaret Virgin Mary,” Lorna added, rifling through someone else’s lipstick bag. “Spill it.”

Carmen didn’t mean to.

But it was late, and her robe was falling off one shoulder, and she still smelled like his cologne from when he pulled her into the stairwell between sets. And her thighs? Still trembling a little.

So she smirked, twisted open her perfume bottle, and said, “Fine.”

Jo straightened.

“I’m fucking him,” Carmen said.

Screaming. Absolute chaos.

Goldie fell off the couch.

Lorna choked on her gum.

Jo slapped the mirror. “Oh my god. You’re fucking Art?”

Carmen lounged. “I’ve fucked him in the linen closet. Twice in the prop cage. Almost on the piano bench, but he got shy.”

“You corrupted a musician,” Goldie gasped from the floor.

“He said ‘oh fuck’ like it was a prayer,” Carmen said, grinning. “He says my name like it’s gonna kill him.”

Jo threw her popsicle. “You bitch.”

“He holds me like I’m gonna break,” Carmen continued, dreamy now, voice going all warm. “But he eats me out like he’s trying to ruin my afterlife.”

Lorna screamed. “I need him to teach a masterclass.”

“I’m gonna die right here,” Jo said, wheezing. “Art ‘I-blush-when-you-say-bra’ Donaldson? With the tongue of God?”

“And the hands,” Carmen added, dazed.

Goldie climbed back onto the couch like a ghost. “Tell me he calls you ‘ma’am.’ Tell me he whimpers.”

“Oh, he whimpers. He asks. He begs.”

The room exploded.

Jo was crying. Lorna rolled off the table. Goldie was chanting, “I knew it, I fucking knew it,” like a victory song.

Carmen tucked her chin into her palm, smug and soft at once. “And now,” she added, “he looks at me like he’s halfway in love and doesn’t know what the fuck to do with it.”

Silence.

Then a long, collective awwwwwwfuckkkk.

Jo wiped her face. “I’m gonna be sick. That’s adorable.”

“He’s gonna write you a fucking symphony,” Lorna said, starry-eyed.

“He did,” Carmen admitted, quiet now. “He played it for me after I let him take my stockings off with his teeth.”

Even Kitty—passing by the door—stuck her head in, arched a brow, and said, “Just make sure you’re not leaving a mess on the floorboards.”

Carmen winked. “No promises.”

—

It was half past three and the club was asleep.

The glitter had settled. The air was thick with old perfume and spilled gin. Somewhere, the record player was warbling a tune no one had flipped in hours.

Theo was behind the bar, wiping glasses and humming to himself, when Art slid onto the stool in front of him—shirt rumpled, tie loose, face a little too flushed for someone who definitely hadn’t been drinking.

Theo looked up. “Jesus. What the hell happened to you?”

Art stared straight ahead. “I think I’m in love with Carmen.”

Theo blinked. “…Okay?”

Art buried his face in his hands. “She climbed on top of me and told me not to come unless she said so and then kissed my neck and I think I blacked out for ten minutes and also she stole my glasses after.”

Theo set the glass down carefully.

Art kept going. “She bit me. Like actually bit me. And I liked it. Like, a lot. And then she made this sound—like a gasp but also a laugh—and I swear to God my soul left my body.”

“Okay.” Theo leaned on the bar. “What exactly do you need from me here?”

Art looked up, wide-eyed. “I don’t know. Advice? Perspective? A cigarette? A shovel to dig my grave?”

Theo sighed. “I pour drinks for a living. I once got broken up with because I didn’t know what ‘astrological incompatibility’ meant.”

“I’m so fucked,” Art said, voice rising. “She’s cool. She’s hot and charming and terrifying. She could eat me alive and I’d thank her. She laughs when I beg. And then she cuddles me like I’m breakable.”

“Sounds like you’re having a great time,” Theo said dryly.

Art slammed his head onto the bar. “She calls me baby. Like she means it. Like I’m hers.”

Theo slid a whiskey across to him. “Here. On the house. For your suffering.”

Art didn’t drink it. Just stared at it like it might hold answers.

Theo, against his better judgment, softened. “Look, man. She keeps coming back to you, right?”

Art nodded miserably.

“She kisses you after? Not just the… you know. Stuff?”

Art blushed. “Yeah.”

Theo shrugged. “Then maybe stop spiraling and let it be good. Not everything has to make sense. Especially not in this dump.”

Art looked up slowly. “She moaned my name.”

Theo put a hand up. “Nope. And we’re done here.”

Art smiled.

It was soft. Nervous. Stupidly, blissfully content.

“Thanks, Theo.”

“I did nothing.”

“You were here.”

“Tragically,” Theo muttered, walking away. “Fucking musicians.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

She didn’t knock.

She never did. She just slipped in past the curtain like a secret, still in her robe, cheeks pink from the dressing room heat. Her heels were off. She walked barefoot across the sticky floor like she owned it.

Art was alone onstage, the club empty now except for the two of them. The lights were half-down, just enough for shadows to lean into everything. He was playing something soft. Something new.

She didn’t speak. Just slid onto the piano bench beside him like gravity had dragged her there.

He didn’t stop playing.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. Pressed her lips to his neck. Light. Thoughtless. Familiar.

He breathed out hard.

“You left a button undone,” she murmured. “I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“I didn’t—”

She unbuttoned the next one. Slow.

“You’ve got the softest fucking skin,” she said, and he swore his soul left his body.

“I, uh—”

She kissed his throat. Lower. Dragged her nails lightly down the back of his hand where it rested on the keys.

“I came here to say thank you,” she said, voice like warm smoke. “For letting me be a greedy, filthy, terrifying thing around you.”

He swallowed. “You’re not—”

She looked up at him. “I am. And you like it.”

He did.

He liked it more than he’d ever liked anything in his life.

“I can’t breathe when you look at me,” he admitted.

She straddled his lap.

“Good,” she said.

He kissed her like he was scared of being good at it. She bit his lip until he stopped being scared.

⸻

They didn’t have sex on the piano bench.

They almost did.

But then Carmen looked at him, fingers curled in his curls, and saw something tender in his eyes—something not just hard or needy, but open.

So she leaned in close, cheek pressed to his, and whispered:

“I want to hear the song you wrote me. The one you don’t want me to know about yet.”

Art froze.

Then—without a word—he adjusted the bench, flexed his fingers, and began to play.

Carmen sat in his lap, wrapped in robe and affection, listening to her heart get played in harmony.

The melody was all her edges.

And all his softness.

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