I Have A Few More Unconstructive Things To Add To The Conversation And Then I'll Leave

octave denis victor guillonnet / gordon mortensen / santiago rusiñol / raoul dufy / albert marquet / henry moret

I'm gunna need 5-7 business days to emotionally recover from Away Childish Things by @letteredlettered

they better accept each other's invitation, right? | also on ao3.

a little offering after being inactive for some time. happy new year, everyone!

one thing you won't know until you experience it for yourself when you create art out of love is how it feels when people receive it with love. when you post a doodle and someone keeps it as their lockscreen, or when you write a story and someone tells you they were thinking about it all day, or when you post a poem and someone shares it with a touching caption. doesn't matter if it was objectively good or not. matters that someone spent time with it, that someone really, really liked it, and you made it. this kind of interaction, i think, it can really sustain you for weeks. it can sustain you through a lot of terrible things. its confirmation that you exist, and that (however briefly) your existence was appreciated by someone else through your art.

Who we are in the shadows by @quicksilvermaid

It’s an understatement to say I love this story. I’m on my knees. My heart on my throat. So I just spilled everything through art.

Note: There’s a bit of blood and wound on the second artwork, so please click/view upon your own discretion.

HI. The_Sinking_Ship here (sneaking in on anon because my tumblr is a side-blog)! I wanted to ask for permission to put a link for your art into the author's notes for Never Mind the Bollocks??? Circle YES or NO.

(also no pressure! i just want everyone to SEE and ENJOY and SHARE it).

Thank you! <3

*circles YES with thousands of hearts*

Freely Given by innerlilith, @kk1smet (18k, E)

Tags: swim lessons, swimmer draco malfoy, curse breaker harry potter, life debt, mild D/s vibes, praise kink, fic with art

When he complains at the end that the back of his neck is cramping, Malfoy says it’s because he’s lifting his whole head straight up out of the water to breathe, like an idiot. Apparently, he should keep half his face submerged, possibly including half his open mouth as well, for efficiency’s sake. You’ll get used to it, he says. And of course, he’s got a drill for that. Facedown, Harry holds the wall and kicks. Muscles taut and thrumming, bubbles running out of his mouth, Malfoy’s fingers gentle at the back of his skull. When his warbled voice filters through the water: breathe, Harry dutifully turns his face to the side, heaves a great open-mouthed gasp like a fish, then plunges back into the cool, muffled cocoon, awaiting permission to surface on the other side. If he lifts his head instead of turning, Malfoy’s hand is right there, giving no quarter. When Malfoy’s touch recedes, Harry is spitting out chlorine, heart pounding and dizzy with shortness of breath. In the shower, lathering up the shampoo and rubbing it over his head, he can feel the ghost of Malfoy’s fingers there, the gentle pressure. Breathe. Malfoy’s hand, pressing on his skull. Malfoy’s voice, telling him just what to do. Breathe. Harry puts his head under the spray. He wraps a hand around his cock. When he emerges, Malfoy is already gone.

(rec by @mallstars)

an incredible collab with brilliant dynamics and gorgeous art!

Who we are on the shadows by @quicksilvermaid

It’s an understatement to say I love this story. I’m on my knees. My heart on my throat. So I just spilled everything through art.

Note: There’s a bit of blood and wound on the second artwork, so please click/view upon your own discretion.

WIP Snip

Nearly finished this fic, final extended scene is a go atm. In this snippet, Harry has just arrived unexpectedly at the Manor where Draco is undercover pretending to be a Death Eater. CW for wandpoint confessions and mild angst.

Draco’s eyes narrowed but he put his hand inside his robe and then, quicker than Harry could have hoped to notice, Draco had his wand out and was holding it to Harry's throat, pressing hard so the wood bit into the tender skin under his jawline. "You are Harry, I suppose? You seem right, of course, but there’s always a chance that someone enterprising might come along with a stash of Polyjuice and a gift for impersonation.” “Oh, fuck off,” Harry managed, and the point of Draco’s wand wormed slowly deeper into flesh. “You knew it was me the second you saw me.” “Mmm, I suppose that’s true,” Draco murmured agreeably, something suggestive about how the sound travelled through the small space between them. His free hand strayed to Harry’s forehead and he brushed his fingers lightly over the dried blood that Harry could feel tightening on the skin there. “But indulge me. Tell me something only you would know.” Harry scoffed, though he was thinking with his throat tight of Arthur knocking at the door of the Burrow in the middle of the night long ago, and Molly blushing, and how they had exposed the long intimacy of their marriage for safety's sake. “There’s a lot I could tell you,” he said tightly. “If you’re really sure you want to hear it.” “By all means,” Draco said, eyes on Harry, searching for something in his face. “You fucked me in that bed and afterwards you asked me not to leave because you wanted to wake up with me? Remember?” Draco wanted to look towards the bed, Harry could tell by the way his eyes flickered, but he resisted, and so Harry went on. “You told me you wanted us to win this war just so you could take me back to London and feed me my favourite ice-cream off your spoon. You told me the only thing you miss about France is how you and your mum really got to know each other properly, and that when she gets back you want to take her for dinner to that little French bistro we went to that time in Edinburgh. I know you remember that, you said the wine was better than anything in the cellar here.” Draco nodded shortly, and almost regretfully pulled his wand away from Harry’s neck. He didn’t move away. “Yes, fair enough, I believe you.” But Harry couldn’t stop, didn’t know how to shut up now he had started. “The last time we were together, you told me that I’m generous with my love. Do you remember that? And I wondered then… because I’d never said it, had I? Not out loud, anyway. Neither of us had. But I thought, maybe— Maybe it meant that you knew.” Draco was staring, his eyes wide and shocked, a blush crawling up his neck, blotchy with heat. Neither of them moved, the silence between them growing until Harry could practically feel it. Draco almost raised his hand to Harry then; Harry sensed the arrested movement, the enforced stillness. He didn’t know what he’d do if Draco touched him. But he didn’t have to find out, because that’s when the knock at the door sounded.

Does anyone have a snippet they'd like to share? Consider yourself tagged and pls tag me so i can see as i've been off tumblr and i miss every single thing on here. And I'll no-pressure-tag @boxboxlewis @citrusses @fluxweeed @maesterchill @moonflower-rose @skeptiquex @sweet-s0rr0w @the-starryknight plus the FrotCotLot.

Harry is an orphan, so nothing has to be more important to him than his own sense of what is right. And having always had to rely on himself to get through life, he is self possessed and self directed enough to have a very strong sense of right and wrong. And he holds himself to that scrupulously. He always does what he sees as the right thing; he will not be talked out of it. There isn’t anybody he wants to make happy more than he wants to do the right thing.

For Draco, his obligations to others, his family specifically, is the sum total of his idea of the right thing to do. From his perspective, his social and even moral obligations are limited to safeguarding the wellbeing (and when possible the prestige) of his family.

People think of Draco as a bad boy, but he’s actually very conventional. He’s a dick, but his views are not at all controversial in his social circle. When Draco realizes that toeing the party line has brought him to a place where he has to face MUCH more violence than he is capable of tolerating, he has to start thinking for himself and. Well he gets his shit absolutely rocked.

He’s working his ass off trying to protect and uplift his family, but they didn’t show him the same courtesy, not in the ways that matter. Like he got seven top of the line broomsticks when he was twelve, but also. His parents brought home a mass murderer to live in their house and taught him that this was a consummation devoutly to be wished.

And once he meets Voldemort and gets put to work for him, it’s clear that Voldemort is volatile and capricious and his goodwill cannot be counted on as reliably as his explosive anger and vengefulness. And if Draco can see it now, he must think that his parents had to have seen it before.

He has to confront the fact that his parents will cheerfully witness and participate in a level of violence and destruction that he cannot countenance. He can’t be directed by them anymore. He can’t be like them anymore. So what’s his guiding star? Who can he be? What is he supposed to do with his life if not what they’ve asked of him?

There is such an interesting contrast between the two of them! Their characters are at odds in such a fun and fascinating way! After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry has discharged his most significant and pressing obligation, and it’s time for him to heal and regroup and figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. And Draco is in the same place but arguably with an even more significant blow to his sense of self. Neither of them can go back to the way things were, but for Harry that’s a huge relief, and for Draco, it’s terrifying.

Harry is an extremely empathetic and generous person, and I think he would see himself in Draco’s rudderlessness and feel impelled to commiserate. And I think Draco would no longer have much reason to pretend that he hasn’t always found Harry incredibly magnetic, before he even knew who he was.