"I Actually Like Kaz's Hat And Think It's Cunty," I Say Into The Mic.

One side effect of my research for this novel being steeped heavily in textile history is my swelling disgust with modern fabrics.

Firstly they're so thin? Like most things you see in Old Navy or even department stores might as well be tissue paper?? Even some branded sports t-shirts I've bought in recent years (that are supposed to be 'official apparel' and allegedly decent quality) are definitely not going to hold up more than a year or two without getting little holes from wear.

This side of even two hundred years ago fabrics were made to be used for YEARS, and that's with wearing them way more often because you only owned like three sets of clothes. They were thick and well made and most importantly made to LAST. And they were gorgeous?? Some of the weaves were so fine and the drape so buttery we still don't entirely know how these people managed to make them BY HAND. Not to mention intricate patterning and details that turned even some simple garments into freaking ART.

I know this is not news, the fast fashion phenomenon is well documented. Reading so much about the amazing fabrics we used to create and how we cherished and valued them, though, is making it hard not to mourn what we lost to mass production and capitalism. Not just the quality of the clothing and fabrics themselves, but the generations of knowledge and techniques that are just gone. It makes me what to cry.

I need to get a sewing machine.

Les sphinx au dictionnaire   -   Francine van Hove

French b.1942-

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 33 - Blood Game

Snippet:

"Thanks for the tip," Vi says, rising to her feet. "I'd do the same for you, if I had any fucks left to give."

"Is that right?" Sevika's eyes glow, a pair of ashed-out cigarettes. "If I were you, sweetie, I'd save my fucks for a fight I can win."

"Funny. I seem to recall kicking your ass at least once before."

"Once. With the element of surprise." The glow hardens. "Not to mention an Uppside bitch playing back-up."

"You saying you'd beat me in a fair fight?"

"In a fair fight, Vi, you'd be a smear on the floor." Sevika's eyes cut her up and down. "I've had bigger and badder than little shit-kickers like you come to heel."

"That a fact?" Vi takes a step closer. She's a good head shorter, but doesn't miss the subtle flexing of Sevika's jaw. "'Cause I've got no problem taking a run at it."

They stand face-to-face. A breath away from collision.

The sun, blood-red, crests over the Aerie.

Vi swears she glimpses her sister's silhouette against the sky.

A crow readying for flight.

Sevika's right fist dry-gulches Vi—a nasty suckerpunch straight to her ribs. The blow would've laid Vi out flat. Except her reflexes have already kicked into gear. She rolls with the punch, torquing her hips at the last minute. Her uppercut, meeting Sevika's momentum, connects her knuckles solidly with the underside of Sevika's jaw.

Sevika's head snaps back. Blood and spittle spray. A split-second later, the shocked glaze fades from her eyes, and she lets loose a war-whoop that could rattle the joists of a steel-walled battleship. Then she's coming at Vi with a haymaker that collides straight into the gut. The blow drops Vi to her knees. Arctic spiders crawl up her sides; her insides are aflame.

Her stare connects with Sevika's. The older woman shrugs, and her mouth curls. A succinct two syllable taunt—

"Square up."

—And she kicks Vi hard enough to send her skidding across the courtyard.

The rest of the recruits, their game suspended, stare in stunned silence. Ran and Dustin, locked in a rowdy clinch, fall apart. Lock, sensing a real match in the offing, sensibly retreats from the fray. Others crowd in a loose circle. The betting begins in a hushed buzz of coins passing from hand to hand.

It's one thing to have the blackguard brass at each other's throats. It's another thing entirely to bear witness to a no-holds-barred showdown between Zaun's two most formidable combatants.

One: the daughter of the Wharfside Devil. The other: the whelp of the Hound of the Underground.

A grudge-match for the ages.

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

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Six of Crows Historical AUs

There are some great Six of Crows fanfic recommendation lists out there, but I haven't seen any specifically on historical AUs (which are my kryptonite), so here are some of my favorites. Each of these have amazing character work and exquisite prose, and are wonderfully grounded in their time period. Enjoy! Hearts Starve by LinearA (Rating E; time period late 1800s): "Kaz and Inej crisscross state lines, organizing workers into unions. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. And one time, on a cold night in Pittsburgh, they lie together in a very small bed, and they talk. And more than talk." save the undone years by Whitherward (Rating M; time period World War One): "Northern France, 1917. In a battlefield hospital, Corporal Kaz Rietveld lies gravely wounded. His nurse is determined that he will not be another thing she loses to this war." Confessions: A Sonata in Five Parts by rainstormdragon (Rating E; time period 1920s): "Wylan is a Catholic Priest in 1920s New York; Jesper is a sharpshooter for a local gang. Jesper comes into Wylan's Lower East Side church to hide from the police in a confession booth…" Devotion by cameliawries (Rating M; time period late 1950s): "Maybe Inej wouldn’t have been so irritated about Kaz asking her to bail him out of jail—again—if not for the rain, and the blister developing along her heel from the too-loose pumps she’d had to borrow from Anika, and the fact that she’s going to have to wash and hang these stockings to dry tonight because she’ll need them for tomorrow." to be lost and found (and lost and found again) by halfahint (Rating M; time period 1970s): "When Kaz tells Jesper that he wants to rob the FBI, his colleague leans in, eyes alight, and says, “Go on.” "

I feel really uncomfortable in media when the Earth is just left behind. Interstellar, Elysium, Starfield, Lost in Space, Wall-E (which is kind of an exception) all just pretend this planet has the potential to lose all meaning for us. This place is full of history and life and culture and plants and animals. But as soon as we have the ability to leave, as soon as our tiny speck of green and blue in the universe coughs a little bit we leave it to become a planet of dust. There's not even an attempt to save anything that makes this place special. The animals and plants, who are our neighbours and roommates? They can all go extinct, who cares, as long as we survive. The buildings, the paintings, the architecture and art? It's all meaningless rubble, as long as we survive. I can't tell if everyone really thinks this planet is nothing to us except a place to infest, or it's just an unfortunate pattern in science fiction. I've never seen the movie but I watched the ending scene of Don't Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio. What a beautiful scene, I watch it a lot. This planet is everything.

ashley rous @ sandy liang ss24 (ph: dillon matthew)

“I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books…”

a sketchy drawing that I'm not finishing so I figured I'd post it here~

"Inej is the main lead of the Six of Crows ensemble cast" I say into the mic. the crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame.

"She's right!" I hear someone say. I look to the crowd. there in the 5th row stands Leigh Bardugo and her marketing team themselves.

Made this for u 💝