I caught a tender moment between Henri and one of his progeny as they frolicked among Sharp Child's vines. @ssunspotted

merry valentines day!

On the topic of recent fan art! Here's a holdable Henri I made my beloved @ssunspotted for Valentine's Dayyy

He has wire armature in the petals and vinelegs to help position him and magnets to keep the mouth petals closed when he's not chomping. There's also a magnet in the very bottom of his mouth which soooo conveniently hangs onto the magnet in the itty bitty Henrette (or other things such as scrap metal, needles, cursed objects if they're magnetic, etc)

I'm really proud of how this guy turned out, especially considering how long it's been since I picked up a crochet hook

Bonus, I also got these LPS versions of Henri and Iskim from @viskozen and they give me such visceral cute aggression every time I see them that if they were physical I would shred them in my teeth like a dog toy

I do have kind things to say about myself, somewhere in here... It's going to take a while to find them, but they are here!

It smells of decay, in here. She thinks about it every day, the scent of it curling in through her airway and down into her stomach to sit like a stone. This is a dead thing that she's wiping clean. This is a dead thing whose hair she's brushing. This is a dead thing that she holds still through a seizure so that she can force meds down the dead thing's throat, massaging the dead thing's neck so that the dead thing doesn't choke. Because the dead thing can't die. Not if they wanted to (and they don't. Because if they wanted to die, they'd just be dead, and this wouldn't be happening to them so long after the fact.)

Juliette is a dead thing too, she thinks, staring at her almost-sibling-in-law's corpse as they finally settle into the almost-babbling they've been doing. A limb cut off from the whole, left to rot. They'd find that beautiful, she's sure - her, not so much.

Belle and Tolya - the other Tolya, the non-dead-limb Tolya - are in denial about this, and it's pissing her off. The way they've been left here for so long is inhumane, and she knows rationally that they have reasons for it, that they're afraid of what will happen when they kill the body, but she's not a fucking idiot. They have to know, on some level, who this is. Tolya makes a sound that grates on her, nails on a chalkboard because it's wrong for an animal to be in pain that way and not to be put out of its misery. Most of the time they're silent, staring. Seizing, shaking, staring and staring, looking around because fuck, it's the only thing they can do, isn't it? They don't have their mobility aids. A limb cut off from the body, the skeletal prosthetics they replaced themself with, the body that got up and walked away.

She flexes her fingers, cracks the knuckles, takes stock of the metal under the skin, the silent whir of machinery, the precision gaps that allow it to move just like a normal arm. Just like it. There isn't even a break in the skin, no scars to show for it, no visible evidence. Almost a year, she thinks. There's an irony in it. An irony in Tolya filling that space, becoming the scaffolding for her to move and work again. An irony in them abandoning this corpse. An irony in them both asking her to take care of the dead, dependent thing, as if she's not a dead, dependent thing herself.

"I get it," she says to them, pulling out a cigarette and considering it, then putting it back. Impolite to hot box a corpse, and she's had awful nausea lately anyway. Anna's physicians have been bugging her to see them about it, but she's not in the mood to be poked and prodded at. They don't respond with words, but they do stare at her. Look at the cigarette, back to her.

Her eyebrows pop up and she grins. Maybe not so impolite after all.

"Okay, rebel. We'll see if it works." She drags her chair closer to that stench of decay without flinching, takes the time to reposition them into sitting up against the headboard. If this makes them throw up bile, she'd rather not have to keep them from choking on it, but she hates to move them too much. It hurts, she knows it does, even when they don't even seem coherent enough to notice.

Once they're upright and stable, propped with pillows and staring at her expectantly, she pulls the cigarette from her front shirt pocket with a flourish and a flick of the wrist, humming an old song from the opera days while she places it against their lips and gives them a wink. "Don't tell on me," she says, lighting the end of it. Julie half expects them to not be able to take a drag, but after a second they manage it and she gives them a whispering 'crowd goes wild' celebration so they don't alert the fun police.

"Fuck yeah. I knew you had it in you- Oh, shit."

They start coughing on the exhale and she pulls back, stamping the cigarette out with the bare fingers of her left hand and leaning them forward to pat their back. Stupid to have done that, she's supposed to be the responsible one. Between wheezes they make a sound that's almost a laugh. Almost joy, and it makes her laugh right along with them. When she's sure they're done with the coughing fit, she helps them lay back down, half propped in case their empty body tries to expel the scant bit of nicotine they were allowed.

They try to say something in that halting, rattling voice of the dead thing and she leans in to listen.

Tthannk yyou youu...Bbelle

Her heart shatters, tears pooling in her eyes. Julie nods jerkily, pulling back to look at them, looking at her. Seeing her, the body and not the other dead thing in front of them.

I did know this! From what we 'd spoken. It seems quite important to you.Some thing to be appreciated

well, it's nice to have someone interested in my abilities. lately i've had people tell me they're scared? and like, i know i can be scary, but it feels weird when someone who is incredibly powerful in their own right says that.