Bourbon and Bitters

— Kaui Hart Hemmings

@bourbon-and-bitters

All the hearts!

Oh my yes. This.

Oh good Lord, this will take forever. 😂

watch, tiepin, tie, three piece suit, shoes, socks garters, socks, sleeve garters, shirt, ahem does he has a underswear shirt or just boxer shorts?

I’m voting silk boxer shorts

Will happily spend an hour watching him slowly take off things. 

It’s not so much a dance as a well-practiced, elaborate routine of carefully folding each garment removed with long, elegant hands… and Greg is completely mesmerized.

Unless one of them is at work late, Greg makes himself a cup of tea. Takes a seat on the armchair in their bedroom. They talk – small details of their days. The usual things.

It’s a ritual, and there’s nothing overtly sexual about it.

It’s just that Greg is there, throughout, observing every detail; the slow undoing of the image Mycroft chooses to project.

Their eyes meet often in the mirror, and Mycroft neither slows down, nor hurries.

*happy sighs* yes this^^! Perfectly this.

Leather - Commission for @egmon73 

This one goes with this one of Mycroft. The idea is that both Greg and Myc have pictures of each other that has something about the other they really like. For Greg, it’s Mycroft’s ginger beard. For Myc, it’s bad-boy Greg in leather. 

I want to thank @camillo1978 for her help in suggesting edits. I worked hard on this but it had so many tiny minute things to change that made a big difference. It was a challenge to find what to improve. 

I put a bit more effort into this for Em than I strictly should have, but it was a nice distraction from other things to focus on. I liked pushing the boundaries, at least.  

Art Tags (ask for on/off list):

@egmon73 @lmirandas @redgreyandpurple @bitemebat @littlebeekeeper @bourbon-and-bitters@theredheadinquestion @lavenderandvanilla @lizbetrx @iwritemystrade @savvyblunders@ngaijuuyan @copgirl1964 @cuchabra @theopoiesis @bigblueboxat221b @wastingyourgum@green-violin-bow @freebirdflyingforever @babynovak05 @lilynevin @ravenscore @camillo1978@merilwenart @daynaan-black-dawn @conduitstreetcat @jessieblackwood@whodwantmeasaflatmate @clarice82 @agent-elaine @kalina-ionescu @antheas-blackberry@immaplane @mm-jay @eventhorizon451 @mottlemoth @myteapotthings @burning-bentley @greetings-and-defiance @detafo @syrum @seaweedwrites @ratherbethedragon @hawkeyesboxers

Oh my, wow, Wedge. He's stunning! I especially love the gorgeous texture of his hair and of the leather. Seriously impressve.

Oh good Lord, this will take forever. 😂

watch, tiepin, tie, three piece suit, shoes, socks garters, socks, sleeve garters, shirt, ahem does he has a underswear shirt or just boxer shorts?

I’m voting silk boxer shorts

Will happily spend an hour watching him slowly take off things. 

It's not so much a dance as a well-practiced, elaborate routine of carefully folding each garment removed with long, elegant hands... and Greg is completely mesmerized.

angst with a happy ending is my favourite honestly like yes bitch give me emotional conflict but dont completely ruin my soul you know

@mottlemoth

@forperusal 😘 

me giving you a heartfelt gift: Patch Of Moss

i love moss

Although kitty was understandably confused when her gifts of birds and mice caused her humans distress, she is nothing if not willing to adapt.

imagine a dating app which notifies you if someone’s swiped right on your profile, even if you haven’t already swiped on them

imagine sherlock stealing mycroft’s phone and installing the app on it, uploading a profile for him. he gets the phone out of mycroft’s coat and back in without him noticing. (rosie is a great help in that regard. it’s so much easier to pickpocket mycroft these days.)

imagine greg, on a friday night, being wound up by his colleagues in the pub about his permanently single status; them pushing him to install the app. his new constable’s just got engaged to a lass he met through it. it sounds like a stupid idea to greg – how can you know if you want to go out with them when all you’re looking at is a picture? – but he’s a good enough sport to let them push him into installing it. he can just delete it later anyway

imagine a case that takes sherlock and john out of london, and mycroft’s worried for his brother, so greg finds himself haring off after them. he has no idea mycroft’s there too

even if it’s ridiculous (and the local police aren’t best pleased to have a met detective rocking up on their patch), the hotel greg’s been booked into is gorgeous. he hasn’t slept this well in months. he has a run every morning and starts taking long, relaxing baths.

he finishes a book, for the first time in months.

one night he’s sitting in the bar – john and sherlock have buggered off somewhere (probably to do something horribly dangerous) and greg’s savouring the last of his glass of whisky before bed

it’s idle curiosity. he opens the app. he plays with the settings. he wonders what his colleagues would say if they knew he’d checked the third box (‘anyone’, instead of ‘women’, or ‘men’) after ‘looking for’.

the photos cycle, endlessly, and you just swipe – left or right, no or yes. it’s hypnotic after a while, and the strangeness of it (the basic nastiness of a yes or a no based on looks alone) fades away –

left, left, right, left, hesitate – left, right, right, left, left, left, right –

fuck.

oh, fuck.

that last one was…that was mycroft.

fuck.

cold realisation runs down greg’s spine.

it’s nothing, though, to the bone-deep shock of adrenaline when he looks up – eyes wide, hand tugging at his hair – and sees mycroft holmes, legs crossed in an armchair next to the crackling log fire

and he’s looking

at his phone

Mmmhm. Mmmmmhm. Yes to this.

Yup yup yup. I *need* to read the conversation they’re fixing to have. :)

@green-violin-bow  All the yes! Will you please write more to this?! 

@mysaratonin I will, I promise 💙

Oh my, this is wonderful. Yes please!

“Rag Tale” (2005) source: http://www.galleries.strangevisitor.org/index.php?cat=76

sleeping beauty

Oh my, wow! @luluxa this is so adorable. I love his hair and his glasses and the perfect way you captured his sleepy face.

how lucky do two people have to be in order to fall for each other at exactly the right time in exactly the right way

this is how i used to feel when i spent months building someone up in my mind and developing an overwhelming crush, and my feelings were so huge and it felt like the probability of that person having built me up in the same way was impossible just based on numbers. but it turns out that a relationship is something that people build together, not the random chance that you’ll point your obsessive crush beacon at someone at the exact same time that they point theirs at you.

I’m going to leave you in the hands of my queue for a couple of days, folks. It’s my weekend and that usually means fanfiction time. Instead I’m sitting on Project #1: ‘I don’t dare post the next chapter of this, it’s too angsty’; Project #2: ‘I don’t dare post the first chapter of this, it will eventually get angsty’; and Project #3: ‘I don’t dare write chapter two of this in case it gets angsty’.

I know some people are upset with me and don’t trust me. I know some people think I need a hazard warning. For what it’s worth, I don’t set out to write angst. I write hope against all odds. I write about brave people who keep going. Doesn’t matter how bad things get - happy endings are always possible. 

I’ve been trying to put it aside, but it’s now dragging me to a halt. That’s not fair to the readers who trust me and enjoy my stories. It’s not cool for me, either. I love writing - I don’t want to dread posting something. I don’t want to sit staring at a blank document all day, feeling like I’d better keep it fluffy and breezy this time or else. 

So I’ll be back after the weekend. <3

You write plot. Beautiful plot. Not ‘just’ angst. 💙

This ^^  very much this.

Beautiful plot and stories I enjoy reading again and again for all of the things they make me feel.

Chapters: 4/5 Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Established Relationship, mystrade, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Feet, Comfort, Love Summary:

Often times it is the little things that let you know you are loved.

Chapter 4 is up @bourbon-and-bitters. 

Yay, a new chapter!

This will be a treat this evening after I’ve finished moving boxes.

okay, so everyone has set up the main rivalry in Black Panther as Killmonger vs T’Challa. And obviously that’s the main narrative structure of the story, not arguing with that. But I feel like from a purely character arc standpoint, the actual battle is Killmonger vs Nakia, and she obliterates him.

Erik Stevens is a CIA covert operative; basically, he’s a spy. So is Nakia. And when you look at their various actions through the lens of “who accomplished their mission better?”, it becomes pretty clear that Erik spent 20-some years preparing to destabilize T’Challa’s reign, including having inside knowledge and a birthright on his side…and Nakia spent roughly 36 hours successfully destabilizing his reign, in turn, with nothing but her incredible ability to network disparate resources.

Let’s just review her actions over those 36 hours okay:

- Gets the surviving members of the royal family successfully out of danger within seconds of the coup (aka the only living people with a competing blood claim to the throne aka the greatest threat to his regime)

- Sows enough doubt in the “greatest warrior in the country” about Killmonger’s ability to lead that when the time comes, Okoye and the entire Dora Milaje all defect (eventually saving hundreds of lives)

- Steals a heart-shaped herb from under his nose as he’s identifying it as the most important power resource in the country and trying to prevent it falling into anyone else’s hands, lol too late buddy

- Immediately identifies the person in the country with the best platform to mount a counter-insurgency (M’Baku), identifies what it will take to get him on their side, and casually resolves a centuries-long division in their country while she’s at it

- Correctly predicts Killmonger’s opening move of distributing vibranium to the war dogs, and assists in a comprehensive strategy that shuts it down cold–a strategy they wouldn’t have been able to use if she hadn’t gotten Shuri, Ross, and T’Challa all in one place with the right information at the right time

As soon as T’Challa is back she takes an immediate backseat again (she said it herself, she’s a spy, not the leader of an army), but, seriously, if you have to pinpoint the one person who took down Killmonger, it’s undeniably her. And she did it by clearly demonstrating that her skills as a war dog are miles ahead of his as a CIA agent (due in part, I’m sure, to being trained in a superior country, but also she’s Just That Good).

Yes! Erik’s real misfortune was coming up against a much better and smarter intelligence operative. She also gives the lie to the stereotypical spy narrative (embodied by Erik) that you have to be heartless and violent to achieve your ends. She is the moral center and touchstone of film, so filled with goodness it comes off her like a glow, but she kicks the ruthless Erik’s ass from Wakanda to Kinshasa.

Another thing Nakia was good at was identifying where the necessary resources weren’t, namely in herself. That was why she argued Ramonda out of the idea of taking it herself. It wasn’t self-effacement or modesty, it was a clear-eyed calculation of what it would take to win and the best chance was with M'Baku, not her.

And she did much of this while she thought the man she still loved was dead. She admits as much to Okoye, too. Think of how much sheer fortitude that took, to work through a grief like that to save your country. She is a hero and her heroism is no less amazing for not being flashy or center stage.

It’s also interesting and important to point out that, in moral views, she’s also a counter to Erik Killmonger. They contrast & compliment each other and are very much set up to be mirrors of the same cause. Killmonger believed in Wakanda using its vast & superior resources to liberate oppressed folk around the globe. He hated that a near utopian society existed while so many of their people and ancestors were left to suffer. This is what, in part, made Killmonger such a sympathetic villain. His means were wrong, but his ideas? He had the right ideas….W’kabi thought so too, thus why he took Killmonger’s side. It took Killmonger’s insurrection for T’challa to learn that lesson as well.

But it was a message Nakia had been preaching all along.

Let’s not forget that it was Nakia that first proposed the idea of ending Wakanda’s isolation. She refused to become a queen, she chose to remain a spy, because morally she couldn’t stand by while so many others suffered. In essence, Nakia and Killmonger mirrored each other in moral standing when it came to Wakanda needing to reach out and help their people. However, where Killmonger decided to kill relentlessly and take the throne, then find the solution in arming the oppressed to overthrow nations, Nakia valued life above all. 

And you can say “Killmonger was right bc in the end, T’challa listened to him.” But did he listen to Killmonger, or did he finally listen to Nakia?

Some food for thought.

Millennial Sisyphus keeps entering all the information from his resume into the web form, only for it to delete everything when he tries to move to the next page. He just goes back and types it all up again, over and over again, forever, and he never gets a job.

Millennial Tantalus has been promised that his unpaid internship will become a paid position as soon as the company has space for him. Every week he sees their new job posting. Every week he asks his boss if he can have a real job. The boss shrugs apologetically and says he’ll just have to make do with being paid in experience a little longer. He goes back and keeps working, over and over again, forever, and he never reaches the fruits of his labors.

Millennial Persephone can’t get a job without a degree, but because she had to take out loans to pay for college, she must spend 1/3 of her life working just to pay them off.

Millennial Cassandra’s title is Social Media Coordinator, she was hired to be the expert, but every time she tries to explain the problems in her company’s social media decisionmaking, the managers don’t listen…and end up hiring expensive PR flacks to repair the damage to their reputation when things blow up exactly as she predicted.

Millennial Medusa uses multiple shades of primer and opaque foundation to cover the scars snaking across her face, hiding the bruises, aligning the asymmetry in her broken nose and jaw. Red matte on the lips, green shimmer on the lids. Flawless liner on the first try. She’s had lots and lots of practice. She films her transformation in secret for all to see and learn, and again, men are turned to anonymous stone faces screaming in horror. “Liar!” “Witch!” “Take her swimming on the first date!” These words do not discourage her. These words are a challenge. GlamGorgonXx posts another video.

Millennial Prometheus uploads another PDF to his site. He’s lost track of the printing and edition of this textbook. He knows they just rearranged some of chapters then charge 150 dollars per copy, and the professor wrote the book himself. the ZIP fills uploads successfully, and he starts uploading the next one. He isn’t afraid of the potential lawsuit. knowledge shouldn’t held out of reach like this. 

Millennial Circe screenshots all the lewd messages she gets from men on online dating sites and posts them on her very popular Instagram along with their pictures and usernames. When people accuse her of attempting to destroy their reputations, she insists she’s just revealing them for the pigs they truly are.

Millennial Odysseus is starting to suspect there’s something wrong with his GPS…

Millennial Arachne builds websites better than her baby boomer boss. Now her hours and functions are shrinking…