#comtessedebussy

[thewollfgang]

Glad you're enjoying the SoCal sunshine, and hope you have the chance to do some thrifting! (fyi, It's a Wrap! didn't have any lucifer stuff, but they do have some crazy amazing deals). For the writing prompt (and I hope I'm doing this right), I'd love if you did #1 for Deckerstar.

We ended up having more fog than sunshine, but it was a fun trip either way! I’ve sort of commandeered this prompt to be a part of my eventual Chloe is an Angel Au, so, sorry about that ^^;

#1 - “Come back!”

They’ve reached the top of the mountain, early enough that they’re the only ones there, but it won’t be that way for long. Soon, hikers will be chasing the sunrise, waiting for it to peek over the ridge of rock. According to Lucifer, the two of them will be too far in the distance by then to grant much notice. If they ever get off the ground, that is.

Chloe can admit to some trepidation. The wind is cold at the top of Mt. Baldy, even if most of the snow has melted by now. But it doesn’t seem to bite as fiercely as it should, Chloe feels remarkably unaffected by the difference in temperature. Just one more change to add to the list, alongside not feeling lightheaded at the increase in elevation or short of breath. 

Lucifer unfurls his wings. Sometimes she forgets just how massive they are until he shakes them out, stretching them to their full length for a brief moment before folding them against his back. They draw her eye more than they should, something about the breadth and the power of them sucking her in, making her gaze linger. 

She shakes herself free and pulls her own wings into the physical, instantly feels the way the wind catches at the feathers, pushes her forward. Instinctively, she angles them so that the wind cuts through, keeping her footing steady. Anticipation trickles down her spine, makes her bob on her toes. 

Her first true flight.

Lucifer peers over the edge, out into the valley.

“Ready?” she asks. 

He looks back at her, his face impassive, dark eyes unreadable - but his feathers flick nervously. 

“Are you scared?” she asks, the impossibility of the idea making the words stumble from her mouth gracelessly. 

He bristles. “I haven’t flown in ages. It’s practically impossible in Hell and I cut these damned things off as soon as I could once I was on Earth for good. The last time I had this much altitude between me and the ground I was being hurled from the Silver City.”

Feeling chastised, Chloe ducks her head. “Right, sorry.” Her wings automatically close in around her. 

Lucifer sighs, but one great wing extends and gently scoots her closer, like a hen gathering a chick. Part of Chloe wants to be affronted, but the rest of her instantly relaxes at the protective wall of feathers curled around her, pleased at the attention. The brush of his pinions on her own tingles pleasantly. Then his touch pulls away and he clears his throat, not looking at her. She watches as his wings mantle in preparation of flight. 

She copies, the motion feeling smooth and right. Then he gives a mighty flap and pushes off with his feet, launching himself in the air. For a heart stopping moment, it looks like he might freeze up, nose-dive and never pull up. Fear grips Chloe and she readies herself to go after him, but he flaps, feathers shifting in the breeze, and rises. 

Excitement bursting in her chest, Chloe does the same, fearlessly throwing herself into the air. Golden feathers flash with each beat of her wings and she takes to the sky like she was born to it. 

Gone is any residual fear of falling. Her wings aren’t just some add-on stuck to her back, unasked for and unwanted. They’re as much a part of her as her arms and legs, working seamlessly in conjunction with everything else. The new sections of her brain calculate wind speed and angle as easy as breathing.

She catches Lucifer’s expression as they pass in ever widening circles, shock first, then exultation as they gain altitude and distance from the ridge. Laughter bubbles up her throat, her new musculature shifting smoothly as she follows in the slipstream he creates in his wake. 

Gradually, they wander from their lazy looping, choosing to play with the wind, wheeling around to chase currents or float on of heated pockets of air. 

Lucifer drifts near and Chloe grins at him. His cheeks are pink, whether from the sun or wind burn or just flushed with happiness, Chloe doesn’t know. Perhaps all three. He reaches out, swiping his hand across her secondary feathers. “You’re it!” Then he spreads his larger wings, absolutely glorious in the sunshine, and beats them hard, lifting away from her.

“Hey!” she objects, the turbulence of his back-draft buffeting at her. “No fair. Come back!” 

She can hear him laugh, loud and unapologetic. She’s not sure she’s ever heard him so joyous. Well, game on. She angles to catch a thermal, letting the hotter air do the hard work, her lighter frame an advantage. She soars, wing tips angled to catch just right and send her close enough to his foot to snag it. 

“Ha!” she crows triumphantly, then she back-flaps in a hurry, avoiding his deft turn around. He pursues, so she tucks her wings in and drops like a stone. Lucifer’s greater weight will soon have him gaining on her. 

She snaps her wings out, timing it just right to surprise Lucifer as he goes plummeting past. His eyes are huge and startled. She’s laughing so hard she’s not prepared when he tackles her, both of their wings flailing as they tumble though the air. They’re an ungainly mess of limbs, Chloe gets a mouthful of feathers before somehow twisting and smashing her face against Lucifer’s chest. She can hear the breathlessness of his laughter under her ear before they separate. 

He rolls away, gliding in place with almost insolent ease, but his grin nearly splits his face. Chloe’s breath catches, struck abruptly at his beauty, his smile as bright as his wings, his movements graceful and strong. 

His smile starts to slide off his face, drifting into concern. “Chloe?”

She pushes through the air and kisses him. 

[inthenighthours]

Jasmine Tea, Vanilla Latte, Rose Hip Tea - lmao all of those sound like literally the last thing you'd drink so here's a more "you" drink: Hot Chocolate (spiked with fireball, of course).

Jasmine Tea : If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Well, Paris seems quite interesting because of all the art museums there I could spend days in. I’d also love to go hiking in like the Adirondacks. I mean I’d be quite happy with a vacation to anywhere right about now.   

Vanilla Latte : Board games or drinking games?

Clearly the answer is drunk board games. 

Rose Hip Tea : Describe your first kiss

High school, was with a group of friends and I don’t even remember how it started but this one guy that I found annoying was like “lol there’s no way you’d kiss (friend that was sitting beside me)”, and I think we both wanted to piss him off so I totally went for it. Yeah. 

Hot Chocolate : Are you an affectionate person?

I mean it’s complicated? I can be. I will say that I’m not an unaffectionate person. 

[khazadspoon]

Pining

I saw this post by @comtessedebussey and was inspired. There is Angst and Feelings ahead so be warned this is not really a Happy fic.

--

“Perhaps my lack of education is showing.”

It was those words, that look on the lieutenant’s face that were his downfall. From that very moment Thomas knew he would never be quite the same. Never mind that it had been the first time he’d seen the man; that was it. 

When he returned home that afternoon and Miranda had asked how it had gone, he walked into their rooms like he was in a dream. He knew she was worried, asking questions, but what could he say? ‘Yes Miranda I’m fine, but I think I’m half in love with a man I’ve only just met and frankly that terrifies me.’

Yes! That would go well with the venison at dinner. 

Instead he simply said he was fine, the meeting had gone well and no doubt she would meet the man herself soon. Miranda kissed him, soft and lingering as she always did, and left him to change his clothes in peace. 

After meeting him at the dockyard Miranda had commented that Lieutenant McGraw was a man with ‘strong bearing and a romantic heart’. 

“And how do you know that?” He asked with a smile, thinking on the liason’s penchant for cynical reasoning and pessimistic argument. 

“I looked into his eyes.”

Thomas looked into James’ eyes the next time they met and found his heart pounding. James held himself stubbornly straight when standing, but when sitting he relaxed. His knees spread out a bit and he curved his body. Thomas thought he looked like a tragic hero from some long ago fable; his eyes staring off into the middle distance, chin resting on one hand and body listing to the side...

He imagined the strong muscles beneath those clothes, the toughened and sea-hardened body of a sailor, a man who rose to his position instead of simply buying it. His blood heated and he had to look away lest James see his desire plainly on his face. 

Love in Thomas’ world was more dangerous than war, at times. A man of his particular perversions was apt to be killed, hanged for his preferences regardless of his standing or contribution to society. So when James was in his shirtsleeves and his cheeks were red with wine and laughter, Thomas kept to his side of the desk and dug his nails into his thigh. 

Then Miranda and James became lovers. A finer pair was impossible to imagine but Thomas couldn’t help the pangs of bitter and painful jealousy that struck at his heart. 

He listened to their quiet conversations in the hallway, and heard the muffled sounds of their lovemaking from his bed some nights. And he ached. Oh how he ached... His cock ached with his need to see, to touch, to feel and to taste. His heart, however, ached only to share breath with James. He wanted more than anything just to hear his name come from those beautiful lips, whether as a whisper or a moan he did not care. 

Miranda noticed. She knew, he saw the concern in her eyes as it developed and felt a flash of anger when she asked if he wanted her to stop. 

“And what would that do except make you miserable? Your husband, a man who can’t even please you as he should, has fallen in love with your lover! Oh what a tale, what a- a fucking tragedy it all is!” He slumped in his chair and couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “I can’t bear the thought of hurting you, but I- I can’t... I can’t say I’m not jealous. But if you love him, love him. Just because I can’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

His voice had become a whisper. A husk of pain and half held back tears. 

Miranda came to his side and lay a hand on his shoulder. She curved an arm around his neck and kissed his hair as the sobs rose in his throat and spilled like saltwater from his mouth. 

She held him as he wept, and he loved her even more in that moment for her acceptance of him. 

[vorsipellis]

perversity and its societal implications: yet more flint/hamilton meta

In this post, I talked about the existence (or lack thereof, as I suggested) of what is generally termed an active/passive dynamic in early modern homosexuality, and how this may or may not affect Flint and Hamilton’s relationship in Black Sails. The point was recently made in response by @comtessedebussy that whether or not Flint and Hamilton adhered to such a dynamic--or even had penetrative sex at all--may not matter so much as the perception that they did. 

This is a really insightful response to this post, and I’d like to discuss it further. 

Leaving aside a discussion of definitions and early modern romantic friendships for now–a post of its own, one I will hopefully have the time to make–I’d like to draw attention to their second point, which is not only valid but speaks to an oversight on my part that they’re absolutely correct in bringing up.

It is my firm belief that Flint and Hamilton did not adhere to any societally-imposed sexual dynamic in their relationship: but this does not mean that the values society sought to impose had no influence upon them. One of the things Black Sails is concerned with above all is, of course, civilization and what exists beyond that civilization (is it monstrosity, as the historical narrative suggests, or is it possibility, as Flint implores us to believe? But I digress).

I have lately been (re)reading through C.A. Williams’ Roman Homosexuality. In the work, as part of a discussion of the well-established Roman concern with the active/passive dynamic and where it intersected with class, Williams has this to say about the patrician male who engaged in homosexual conduct:

If a certain man actually played the receptive role in the majority of his sexual encounters, yet managed to keep that fact a secret known only to himself and his partners and otherwise maintained the appearance of a fully masculine man, then he was a fully masculine man in the all-important arena of public discourse, despite the fact that he actually was breaking the rules behind closed doors. By contrast, if there were persistent rumours to the effect that a man liked to play the receptive role in intercourse, even if the man himself had never actually been penetrated, he was ipso facto a marked man, metaphorically ‘fucked’ even if not literally so.

Now, this deals with antiquity, but its lessons can apply nonetheless. Let us suppose, using the historical precedent available to us, that Flint and Hamilton are not buggering each other. But Flint is a Navy man of undistinguished birth; certainly he is a man of the middling classes. He very likely has little material wealth to speak of: he is a lieutenant, and may have passed for commander, but when we first (chronologically) see him he is ashore without a ship, meaning he is on half-pay and has likely been passed over on the list for one reason or another (it’s not a lack of connections, as Hennessey’s presence makes clear…dare I suggest it was for fighting?) He is, in short, a Navy fellow of no consequence.

As you rightly note, the Navy was known then as now for its devotion to three things: rum, sodomy, and the lash (insert Pogues reference here). So you have this uncouth, low-born officer who is probably known around Portsmouth and surrounds primarily for starting fights. If Hamilton has the means for a quick reconnaissance on the man the Admiralty has sent him, you bet his enemies do as well. It’s not a stretch to think that such a man, who has very quickly endeared himself to Hamilton, may have done so through the use of his body.

So either Hamilton is fucking a man who is subservient to him, which would be an abuse of his power, or Flint has seduced him so completely that Hamilton is letting Flint fuck him, which is barbarity on an entirely different scale. I think such rumours were likely spreading among court-adjacent circles for quite some time before Alfred saw fit to act on them (I also think he would have let it well alone, an irritating but accepted eccentricity of his radical son, had it not begun to affect him politically; Flint’s rashness was simply the final nail in a coffin already crafted).

I still hew to my belief that Flint and Hamilton were not actually having penetrative sex. But, as you note, does this matter? The existence of a rule implies its violation. This is accepted. It also creates a dichotomy that Black Sails is very interested in: civilization cannot exist, the show implies, without something existing beyond it; a society is defined by its borders. What was actually happening is almost besides the point: what matters is what other people make of you. We cannot be concerned with what Flint actually did. The show tells us this repeatedly: about his queerness, about his monstrosity, about his piracy. We must instead be concerned with what Flint was supposed to be doing; what he was believed to be doing. 

And what he was believed to be doing could not be borne by the civilization that birthed him.

[rominatrix]

comtessedebussy replied to your post: Guys, if you’ve got experience on British Airways...

Last I heard, they got rid of meals on transatlantic service and charge for hot water.

really? that sounds... extreme

[enemyofperfect]

@beenworkingonacocktail replied to your post “So I'm about to watch the last ep of S1 of Black Sails. I'm not 100%...”

Can confirm; I kind of enjoyed S1, but in a cringy, meh-one-ep-with-dinner-bc-of-the-costumes-and-ships, whatever sort of way. and then the last ep of S1 and then S2 happened AND I MAINLINED IT

Thank you for the additional data point!  Poor @comtessedebussy’s been campaigning tirelessly for me to give it a proper try, and it’s not that I didn’t believe that there were good things about the show, but the first three episodes were just... so much of what I don’t like, and so little of what I do.

But okay, if multiple people experienced a dramatic increase in enjoyment between the first season and the second, maybe I really can do this!

[jadedbirch]

comtessedebussy replied to your photoset

jfc why is he always naked

Because the Gods have blessed us <33333

[merionees]

To all my dear friends, POI and Rinch fans!