Every once in a while I think about the fact that @mollymauk-tealeafs (AKA HIGHFAELUCIEN FOR ALL U ACOTAR PEOPLE) and I have been dating for almost a year and a half and are in the gayest relationship ever thanks to SJM of all people and I lose my shit
I loved your cruel prince fic! Your writing is so elegantly descriptive and artful thought out! I hope you write more of Jude and Cardan. Maybe even a follow up to wrong in the dark???
Thank you!! It’s always a possibility that I’ll write more of them, but I’m in the middle of campnano right now with an original wip (HADES AND PERSAPPHONE) so chances are it’ll be after the end of the month. Feel free to send requests though!
Jude doesn’t know how they got here, just that it’s past time anyone should be in the reception hall—even Cardan—that they shouldn’t be alone together, and they most certainly shouldn’t be kissing.
Jude doesn’t know how they got here, just that it’s past time anyone should be in the reception hall—even Cardan—that they shouldn’t be alone together, and they most certainly shouldn’t be kissing.
Cardan tugs her harder into his lap, one hand curved over her ass, the other one buried in her unbound hair. His mouth tastes like wine until she bites him hard enough to break the tender skin at the inside of his lip. She’d always expected his blood to taste like hers, metallic, but it’s something deeper, richer, that makes Jude want to consume him.
“Fucking hell,” he grunts with a scowl, but leans into her like he wants her to do it again.
Jude readjusts her legs straddling his hips, grinding harder into him. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, pressed into the dark corners of Elfhame in a desperate effort to get off. Alone, locked in her room trying to manifest the heat of another body isn’t as satisfying as it used to be. Not when she knows what Cardan’s mouth feels like between her thighs and the guttural noise he makes when he’s inside her for the first time.
The hunger he ignites in her is as frightening as it is compelling. Somehow, the fact that she wants to sink a knife between his shoulder blades only makes her want to tear him out of his clothes that much more. Even his scent gives rise to the desire to shove him up against the closest wall and push his hand between her thighs to alleviate the ache there.
Jude shoves her hands into the open halves of his shirt, one of the stupid ones he wears open half way down his pale stomach. His flesh is hot beneath her palms, muscles shifting when he pushes up to meet the grind of her hips. “You might be mortal,” he murmurs, dragging her mouth to his to nip, just as hard, at her lower lip. “But you’ve got teeth like an imp.”
“Can’t you be quiet for once,” she growls, earning a heated smirk in return.
“No.” And she hates that she knows he’s not lying. “Even if someone does hear us, do you know what they’d think?” He tips her chin back with his thumb before she can answer—even if she shamefully already knows what he’s going to say. His lips trace a hot path down her throat. The hand on her ass pushes her hips down into his, the bulge in his trousers painfully obvious. “That you’re just another one of my toys.”
Anger spikes in her stomach and she wrenches her head free of his grasp, shoving him back against the throne in one movement. “Then what am I? If not that.” She dares him to say she’s not. That she’s more. Less.
His black eyes gleam, thick hair falling over his forehead. He’s still wearing his crown, now askew, and damn him, he still looks regal. “Wet. And wanting.”
Her cheeks flush despite her best efforts and she watches his tongue dab at the place where she bit him. Suddenly, she wants to prove that he might be the one with his ass in the throne, but she’s the one who owns it.
Jude leans in, careful, deliberate. His head tips up in the expectation of a kiss, lips parted, but she presses his chin to the side and closes her mouth over his neck instead. “Then tell me you don’t want me.”
He’s silent, breathless for a fraction of a moment, but then she nips at the skin under his ear, sucks hard enough to bruise, and feels him give ever so slightly into her touch. “Is it not obvious what I want?”
She bites him harder. The softness of his tail flicks against her thigh and she grasps that too, running her fingers slowly up its length. “You’re not answering my question,” she says, then adds when he opens his mouth, “Not properly.”
He bites back down with a smirk, and wraps his tail around her wrist, the tip brushing across the inside of her arm. “You need me to say that I want you.”
A flick of his tail, guiding her hand down.
“That it’s your scent making me hard.”
A nuzzle against the underside of her jaw.
“That it’s your taste that I think about at night.”
His hands push her skirt up, guiding her own hand between her thighs.
“That the only thought that gets me off anymore is imagining the sounds you make when my head is between your legs.”
A kiss pressed to the hollow under her ear.
“Or my fingers.”
His tail brushes her inner thigh.
“My cock.”
Jude swallows and opens her eyes. The spell breaks. “Better be quiet or someone will walk in on the high king getting fucked on his own throne,” she grates out.
Cardan lets out a harsh breath, a laugh, as if he hadn’t just said all that under the guise of a hypothetical.
His laugh, like he’s making fun of her, ignites the burn of endless public humiliations, the ire that’s in constant waiting at any reminder of the power he holds over her. She shakes her head, offering a smile of her own, one she hopes looks sly. “That’s what you think about too, though, isn’t it?”
Surprise flashes in his eyes for the slightest moment. She drags her hips down his, bracing one hand on his shoulder. Holding his gaze, she draws the crown from his brow… and firmly places it on her own head.
It’s too big for her, dips in the back, but it serves her purpose.
“Wicked girl,” he breathes, bearing his teeth in a snarl. But he doesn’t take it back. “You’d be twice as much fun if you let go.”
The admission that she doesn’t satisfy him as much as he thinks she could burns down her throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snaps, harder than she intends, then realizes it doesn’t matter.
He grasps her jaw in one hand, drawing her in to press his mouth across hers. She’s breathless, lets his tongue slide past her teeth before he pulls back just enough to say, “If you’re threatening to fuck me on my own throne, then I suggest you get on with it.”
Jude pauses, and just as the words register, something in her snaps.
She lunges forward, hands going immediately to the fastenings of his breeches, fumbling because she can’t get them open fast enough.
Usually he does this part, is the one so eager to be inside her that she doesn’t even get her underwear off before he’s nudging into her. His eyes close, head falling back, dark lashes fluttering when she draws him out of his breeches.
His submission emboldens her, and she leans in to nip at his lower lip.
“Jude.” Her name feels like a secret they only share in hushed breaths or raging fights.
“I have your crown,” she says, presses his name into his skin. “Call me by the title I deserve.” With her final word, she wraps her hand around him.
His dark eyes snap to hers. “Your Majesty—” he starts, and she sees the hunger in his eyes, but shakes her head.
“No. Another name.” She follows the line of his neck with her lips, tongue tracing tendon, teeth scraping over his pounding pulse.
“My queen.” She doesn’t know whether it frightens her more that he says it with such honesty or that his honesty means something else entirely.
She nods, brushing her lips over his. His mouth parts, wanting her to deepen it, but she draws away, teasing. “You’re going to wait for me,” she murmurs, and lifts up onto her knees to position him.
His tail curls around her thigh, giving away more than he intends. She rubs along him first, giving a few slow pumps before starting to slide down.
He doesn’t deny her, and that makes her bold enough to continue. “You’re going to let me do what I want.”
His pale cheeks flush with color, lips parted. He looks down, to where her skirt is hitched up and he starts to fill her, but she fists his hair in her palm and tugs his gaze back up to hers.
“No, look at me.”
He lets out a breath she thinks is out of pain—and for a moment almost regrets pulling on his hair—until she sees the flush staining his cheeks, the tilt to his brows, and realizes it’s a sound of pleasure.
She blushes in turn and loses her composure at the smirk spreading on his cheeks. “Does it scare you, Jude? That I like that?”
His eyes glaze over when she sinks the rest of the way onto him, holding back a whine at the tight fit of him filling her. Before he can react, she gives another pull on his hair, this one more tentative, trying to gauge his reaction.
He hisses, but doesn’t drop his head.
“Does it feel like I’m scared to you, Cardan?” She starts to move on him, bracing herself on his shoulders. Half so she has something to push against, half so he stays back, so he doesn’t take over.
An open-mouthed kiss lands on the underside of her jaw when he slides his hand in from her thigh. His thumb trips over her clit with each movement against him. She tightens her grip on his hair, and it turns into a game, as nearly everything does between them in some sort of twisted fashion: who can make the other snap first.
The subtle push back he gives, like he’s taunting her to do more, to say more, is what finally breaks her. She grasps his hand between her thighs, holds it in place, and jerks against him. He’s been touching her of his own accord, and the sweep of his tail across her thighs, the way he gropes her ass, almost guiding her motions, is frustrating mostly because she knows he’s letting her take charge.
She doesn’t want him to let her.
She wants to make him.
He presses harder against her clit this time, breaks rhythm, and she lets out a little cry. She wants to tell him what to do, where to put his hands, how to touch her, but what he’s doing feels too good to stop him.
In that moment, she weakens, buries her face in his neck and pushes against his fingers until she’s close enough that she pants.
And just at the last moment, he draws away, her climax fading back instead of surging forward.
She snarls, hips seeking his hand.
“What is it, Jude?” he asks. “Do I not please you?” The question, coming from another’s lips might have been insecure. And yet Cardan made it sound self-satisfied.
Slick sounds, the tapping of body on body resounds through the space.
She growls. “Stop talking.”
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but she should’ve known better than to believe Cardan would just let her take over without maneuvering involved.
Her legs are trembling, and she presses down, trying to find the right angle. His fingers, still slick, catch in the folds of her dress.
“Let me touch you,” he murmurs, voice thick. “Jude.” His voice is a caress against her cheek.
“Shut up—” she snarls, and she’s too desperate to realize that there’s too much venom in her voice, that he should want to pull away instead of cave farther into her. She doesn’t realize he’s goading her on until it’s too late, until she pulls hard enough on his hair that he gasps and finds exactly the right angle to build herself up again.
She lets out a frustrated cry, legs shaking, and shoves him back against his throne.
“Look at me,” she demands. When he doesn’t immediately do what she asks, she digs her nails into his scalp, his shoulder. “Look at me.”
That gets his attention. His eyes are so dark they swallow the little light in the room. Gold remnants shine at the corner of his mouth and she leans down to taste him, greedy, to swallow his moan when she lifts almost completely off him and presses down again in one smooth stroke.
She can barely think around the need to keep going, to push him to breaking point just to prove she can.
His fingers dig into her bared thighs and her fingers tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck come away damp with sweat.
“Is that all you’ve got, Jude?” He grunts when she slams back onto him. “Or are you going to fuck me like you mean it.”
His eyes fall half-lidded when she looks at him, but the heat radiating through them surges right between her thighs. She swallows hard and braces her hands on his chest to get a better angle.
“Always doing what other people tell you,” he goads, but his voice is weaker.
The accusation burns through her even though she knows he’s only saying it to bite her into action. But the fact that he can’t lie makes her growl. His voice gives rise to a mess of frustrated anger and pleasure, and she knows the two aren’t mutually exclusive. “I told you to stop talking.” She means it as a threat, but the words come out sounding like a plea.
Cardan’s hand wraps around the back of her neck and tugs her mouth down to his. “Make me,” he growls out, only to have her tongue sweep through his mouth. He bites her, but she bites back harder, even when he sucks her lower lip between his teeth at the same time his hand finds her breast and tugs down the neckline of her dress.
And finally, without realizing she’s doing it, Jude lets go. She rocks against him hard enough that her clit grinds against him with every motion. She doesn’t care what he wants or thinks, only that it’s Cardan under her and in her and he’s hers.
“Jude,” he groans, and she knows he’s finally gotten what he wanted all along, his head falling against the back of the throne.
She rides him hard—harder than even she knew she’d like—with her jaw clenched tight and breaths coming in short gasps.
Cardan shudders beneath her, but he’s quiet, and she’s not sure whether that’s better or worse. Tension runs in tight coils through her, building towards a release she needs just as much as he does.
He murmurs her name, but she’s too focused on her own pleasure than think about what the sound of her name on his lips does to her. That it’s too reverent, too soft without the airs of the court between them.
“Jude…”
A frustrated cry escapes her throat and she means to snap her hand forward onto his mouth, but her fingers slip down his chin to his throat instead. His pulse pounds beneath her fingers and his eyes snap to hers, lips parted. She doesn’t want to hear her name from him, too aware of what it does to her.
The kohl around his eyes makes them shine, even though it’s smudged across one flushed cheek. And the plea that she sees in them, the way he tips his head back, body giving way to hers, is more erotic than anything that’s ever passed between them.
She clamps her hand slightly harder against his throat, his pulse fluttering under her fingertips. If he wanted to, he could easily pry her off, but he doesn’t, only tips his head back and holds her eyes like she’s the only thing keeping him alive.
Worse, like he trusts her.
His lips breathe a shadow of her name. Her grip tightens and a sudden burst of inexplicable pleasure erupts at the sight of him beneath her. It steals her breath as much as it does his. The submission in his posture, the way it resounds even in his eyes makes her cry out, lurch her hips across him until release pounds into her, stroke after stroke after blessed stroke.
He never breaks her gaze, and she sees the pleasure of his own climax follow. She sees flickers of spite, of anger, flash through them, but mostly—terrifyingly—something that looks like adoration.
Her grip eases away from his neck as her pleasure fades. Her dress sticks to her back and her limbs feel so shaky that she collapses forward against him, face buried in his neck with a groan.
These few moments, the ones where they’re both recovering, are the ones that are most confusing, where his fingers trace lazy patterns on her thighs and he presses lingering kisses into the bend of her shoulder, like he can’t stop touching her, like he doesn’t want to stop.
His crown still rests on her head, but neither of them move to return it to its rightful place. She’s still trying to piece together what just happened, when his arms curl around her back.
Or at least they try to before she shoves him off.
Jude tears the crown from her head, crawls off his lap, nerves clenching in her stomach. Being with Cardan—it’s confusing. She can handle the sex, the sneaking off to bang against a wall somewhere. But afterwards is different. She already feels like she’s drowning when she sees his wanting. Anything after that is too much to handle.
“Jude,” he tries, but she swallows hard, shakes him off.
She needs to clean herself off, but she adjusts her underwear, even though it doesn’t do much for her damp thighs. She’s going to ache in the morning.
“We’re already lucky enough someone didn’t walk in—” she says, refusing to meet his eyes.
She gathers her things, her discarded shoes, socks. There’s not much to do about the hairpins scattered around the throne, or the way her hair looks.
“Jude.” She shoves the crown into his hands when he tries to rise, tucking himself back into his breeches.
“Don’t try to follow me,” she orders, but of course, he does.
“Jude wait.” He clasps her arm, raised voice echoing in the empty room.
She stops, but doesn’t turn to face him.
“I need to know you don’t regret it,” he says, but it comes out like a question.
Jude exhales. Regret? No, that’s not the word for what she feels. She wishes she knew the word for how she feels. “No, Cardan, I don’t regret it.”
“Then what—” he starts, but she’s already slipping out of his grasp and out the door.
I started this project right on the heels of these gold and black tutus, and much of the design is the same. They’re all the same base pattern with an eight layer net skirt and eleven piece b…
New blog post up about the lead Handel costume! I go through the design and sewing process for how to make something like this
Although one of the last finished, these were the first tutus I started for the Tribute to Handel ballet this spring! There are two of them, both identical, for the Pas de Trois role partnered with…
New blog post about the process behind making these tutus. Is there a more dramatic combination than gold silk and black velvet? Probably not
There’s always something raw and untamed about Holly Black’s fair folk books and the fashion is no exception. Black’s fair folk are (eponymously) cruel, maniacal, and oh so entertaining. Her costumes are just as rich as her characters. They embody the variety, the elegance, and the literal timelessness of the fair folk in a way that can only manifest in fashion.
One great way Black gets the overarching variety that creates a richness to fair folk culture is the sweeping chain of declarative statements that often open a large crowded scene. Take for example, this description relatively close to the opening of the book:
“There are dozens of Folk here, crowding around the entrance to the vast throne room, where Court is being held–long-nosed pixies with tattered wings; elegant, green-skinned ladies in long gowns with goblins holding up their trains; tricksy boggans; laughing foxkin; a boy in an owl mask and a golden headdress; an elderly woman with crows crowding her shoulders; a gaggle of girls with wild roses in their hair; a bark-skinned boy with feathers around his neck; a group of knights all in scarab-green armor.”
The noisy, colorful scene describes the range of Folk throughout the room, in the interactions between them (the goblins holding up the ladies’ gowns or the crows crowding the elderly woman’s shoulders), and in the variety of materials: tattered wings, gold, feathers, roses, bark, or scarab green armor. Individually they’re compelling enough but put them all together and you see more than just the objects as individual items.
This visual diversity carries over into the vast array of dresses Jude encounters over the course of the book. Let’s start with Liriope’s dress that Jude borrows from Locke’s home.
As part of my mom’s costume company, I’ve been working what feels like endless hours on the costumes for a production set to Handel’s Water and Fireworks music. We recently finish…
New blog post up! I go through the details of this 18th c men’s ballet jacket, commissioned for a classical ballet Homage to Handel
Welcome to Part II of my acomaf costume analysis. If you haven’t read part I, you can find that here, and if you’re all caught up, let’s get ahead to the good stuff below!
We’ll start off with the piece of costuming that drives me the most batty in the entire series. Feyre’s dresses! They’re not all that different from what she wears at the spring court and they’re also typical of SJM.
HOW TO DESIGN A SJM DRESS:
Choose one of each:
fitted or flowy?
Hair loose and falling around her shoulders so her love interest can swoon or pinned up and crowned?
Chiffon or undetermined fabric that’s not silk?
Showing off just her waist or showing off her “womanly figure” as a whole?
Now choose a color and gem directly related to her love interests tastes or style!
Subjectively the best constructed book in the acotar series, A Court of Mist and Fury follows Feyre as a Newly Minted fae and her bargain with Rhysand, the high lord of the Night Court. There are a lot of similarities costume wise to book one, and you can find my post about the costumes in acotar here. I’ll only be addressing the new elements and characters, but the same root problems are present, just manifesting in different ways, which I’ll continue in a second part.
Feyre’s garb as Tamlin’s fiancee are practically identical to SJM’s ill-conceived attempts at fae fashion from acotar. It’s just a lot of chiffon and spring colors, which really, isn’t that original as far as the fae genre goes. There’s absolutely nothing revolutionary about putting your spring bride in a floaty pink dress.
Then again there’s always the argument that it doesn’t have to be revolutionary. There are plenty of romance books that rely heavily on tropes and are perfectly successful at it for their intended audience. The audience doesn’t come for the worldbuilding, they’re there for the romance. And acomaf ultimately leans towards this genre more than the fandom would like to admit.
So where does SJM go wrong?
My analysis of the acotar series in particular takes a ~new historicist~ perspective simply because it’s a text and not a film; what we read is up to interpretation. How we see the costumes, the appearances, depend largely on our own preconceptions about what everything already means. Even just using phrases like “fine jewelry” rely on what we already perceive as “fine.” And obviously, I don’t expect her to wax poetic about what every character is wearing. But if you’re going to describe that the jewelry is fine, why not just describe what’s “fine” about it? Is it that it’s made out of gold? Silver? Is it encrusted with jewels? This passes onto the costumes too. Feyre wears flowy dresses. Rhys is similarly limited to dark clothes. In avoiding specific details, or even describing details that we might consider familiar, SJM limits her audience to what they already know and picture with the assumption of “fine jewelry.” What’s the point of developing a fantastical world if the clothes look perfectly, well, human?
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