#being permanently at the periphery in particular ways

[communistkenobi]

having gone through (and still in the process of going through) the thousand different processes for changing my legal name and gender marker in every conceivable place those things could come up, one thing I’ve noticed is that being trans wreaks administrative havoc. the particular process of changing your name because you’re transgender isn’t strictly unique, because people change their legal name(s) for lots of different reasons, but there is a systemic unpreparedness for dealing with the scenario of a user or client or patient whose name and gender has changed simultaneously. the most common response I get when I ask somebody at a front desk if I can change my name and/or gender in their system is “huh, this has never happened before!” and then they go talk to their manager. and so to get anything done you have to continually assert that it’s possible, you have to explain that you’ve changed it elsewhere, you have to carry around legal documentation to prove that it’s happened, and you effectively become a perpetual edge case for any given administrative system you exist in. I know, intimately, how my university’s IT systems work in terms of field input because it’s so decentralised that changing information one place doesn’t change it in a lot of other places, and the act of having to be registered at a university with two conflicting legal names means I have to have an ongoing relationship with their IT help desk. People talk a lot about how we have to become medical experts in order to assert our own identity, but you also have to become a fucking IT expert too

[its-actually-minicika]

The Harshest Winters (18+!)

Part 3;

Pairing(s): Jacaerys x Reader x bookcanon Aemond;

Warnings: all of them tbh, it's Harshest Winters we're talking about;

Word Count: 10k+

Author's Note: IT'S FINALLY HERE!! I'm honestly overwhelmed by the love this fic got in the span of so little time 😭 I hope you guys enjoy this part as well! Thank you so much for being so patient with me <3

Also, this chapter is FILTHY. I'm talking actual smut for the first time in my life, which makes me both nervous and embarrassed to be posting this lol

I know that the people who read this particular series are already used to the graphic content ahead, but consider this your fair warning :"))

PART 4 IS OUT NOW <3

As night swallows the world of Westeros, four beating hearts must get through the challenges that arise in the absence of sunlight.

Desire is the death of duty - fear pushes against the voice of reason.

Dreams really are the window to the soul sometimes.

One… Two… Three… Four.

Aemond’s breathing came and went in slow and labored pants. Whatever the man was dreaming about must have had quite the effect on him, and the lady scoffed to herself, while pushing down a disdainful huff.

Slowly, yet surely, her head rolled to the side. She could still see him in her periphery - the deep creases that adorned his forehead, a permanent reminder of his relentless character; the way his chest heaved each exhale, as if constantly pained by an unknown affliction.

Good, she thought to herself, At least his dreams should torment him, if his psyche won't allow it.

In… And out. In… Out.

Three weeks had passed since her brazen attempt to escape with Cain. Three weeks, since she left the wounded knight in the cave: to rot or to crawl back by himself.

Back.

Back to where?

Back home? That much was impossible.

Back to the Saltpans? And from there on… what?

Three weeks. Three weeks had passed to account for her life back in Harrenhal. Three weeks of sleeping in the same bed as him, three weeks in which her only waking thought was to grab a pillow and smother him with it as he slept soundly by her side.

Goosebumps crawled over her skin, leaving the lady restless and aggravated. She’d twist and turn more times than she could count - she’d curse herself and her current situation: her weakness, her inability to kill Aemond then and there.

She had to live. She had promised Jace that much, and she would honor her word.

There would be a time for Aemond to meet his end. And it would be by her hand.

Jace.

If he were here, he’d know what to do.

Her thoughts turned sporadic. For a few moments, the girl clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white - squeezing harder as her anger built up. Each of her fingernails bit into the softness of her palm, and she could feel herself draw harsher breaths, in and out: all in a desperate attempt to calm herself down.

Her heart beat loudly, and her body trembled in unquenched rage.

She could still kill him now; Gods, how she wished nothing more adherently than that. And why not kill him - for his death would avenge Jacaerys, Luke… Cain.

Indeed, here she was, laying down next to the Kinslayer, one step away from wrapping her small fingers against his throat and pushing down with an unrivaled force and fury.

Before she could fully process her own actions, (Y/N) slowly rose from her resting place. The wide bed made a deep creaking sound, which echoed throughout the room for a couple of moments.

One, two, three seconds she allowed herself to wait.

The girl remained unmoving, as she took in a sharp breath, and held it in the back of her throat.

Her weary eyes skimmed over Aemond’s sleeping form, and her whole body stiffened in anticipation. When she noticed his lack of a reaction, a soft sigh parted from her rosy lips, and a deep scowl settled over her fair features.

Reason fought with ire and, eventually, the former succeeded in its quiet assertion.

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes, and the lady of Riverrun shut them tightly; it was Jacaerys’ voice that then rang in her ears.

‘You know what your only fault is?’ He let out a roaring laugh while engulfing her back with his stronger arms. She turned around to face him, abruptly so, and her hands came to rest over his broad and shaking chest. 'I remember a boy who once said I had no faults.' The lady laughed with him, whilst rubbing small circles in the cuff of his sparring vest.

He kissed the top of her head with a wistful smile, and glanced at her with a boyish glimmer in his hawk-like eyes. 'Please accept my humblest apologies, my darling love. I merely meant: do you know what the only thing that’s too good about you is?’

(Y/N) let out a soft giggle, mirroring Jace’s look of full, unadulterated love. She furrowed her brows comically, before tracing his jaw with her free hand. ‘Enlighten me, then, My Prince…’

Upon hearing his title cascade from her plump lips, the Prince of Dragonstone dived in to press his forehead onto hers. He took in a shaky breath, and gently cupped her cheek to kiss her. ‘You are far too loyal for your own good. You care too much for the people you let in. It makes you angry and brash - it makes you take too many risks.’

The threat of a sob was forming on her wobbly lip. (Y/N) bit it harshly, and sucked in another breath. Her tight hold replaced the tender meat of her inner palm, with the silky sheets of their shared bedding. A lone tear parted from her shut eye, rolling over her face, and staining her cotton nightdress.

‘It makes me quite jealous - your fearlessness and devotion.’ Jacaerys muttered against her ear, whilst pampering her with chaste, soft kisses. ‘When I make you my Queen, I might just make it so that you can only see and take care of me.’ He jested lightly, eliciting a chuckle from the laying girl.

Her hand reached for his soft, curly locks, and she twirled each strand against her slim fingers. ‘Should you make me your wife, Jace, I don’t think I’d ever part from you again.’

His eyes held a fire in them; the Velaryon prince reached for her tangled hand, and took it in his own, pressing it against his waiting mouth. ‘You will be my wife. My Princess.’ His voice was laced with naught but determination and love. ‘One day, we’ll both be crowned before the masses: and you will be the most beloved Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.’

‘When we marry, you will be mine, as I already am yours.’ He pledged with a final, delicate caress.

With each palpable reminder of him, her jaw clenched tighter and tighter. The suffering that erupted from deep within her chest both fueled and exhausted the lady and, soon enough, the girl found herself laying down again, wetting her pillow with endless rivers of tears.

The chastising fires of sleep licked at her conscious mind, and, although strained by her lover’s swift reminder, the woman fell into a deep sleep.

Oh, and how beautiful the dream was.

Although it wasn’t an exact replica of the way they first met, it more than made up for it with its stilling beauty.

***

He held his hand out to her, a polite smile plastered across his face. Her older brothers gave her a knowing look - there would be no higher honor for a Tully than to be singled out during the banquet of the Crown Prince's sixteenth name day.

Together, they danced not one, not two, not three… but seven dances during that blessed evening.

Her feet were aching and, with the redness of his cheeks and the lightness on his handsome face, the girl guessed she had at least had the same effect on the Prince, as he had on her.

They talked all throughout the night, sharing fond stares and quiet giggles that echoed and bounced off the hard stone walls.

“Why haven’t we met before, My Lady?” Jacaerys questioned with an upward quirk of his brow and a charming smile upon his lips.

“I’m afraid such questions will have to be taken up with my Grandfather, Your Grace.” As she mirrored his contagious grin, the young girl carried on, “I’ve… been at court while I was younger, and remained in the Red Keep for a couple of years, but the quiet of the Riverlands always suited me better.”

“We’re very similar, you and I, Lady Tully.” Jace let out in a long huff, straightening his back against the cold patio of the Royal Gardens. “I… I know that it is my duty, to confer with the other Lords and Ladies and make idle talk, but… I must admit that it can be quite…”

“Straining?” (Y/N) suggested with a quizzical quirk of her brow.

Jacaerys’ face broke into a beaming smile, and the Heir to the Iron Throne nodded affirmatively. “Exactly that, My Lady. I’m afraid, sometimes, that it shows on my face.” He joked half heartedly as he scrunched up his nose - though his posture remained upright and fair.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and the girl shook her head definitively. “I assure you, Your Grace, it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Jace.”

“... I beg your pardon?”

“Friends and family just call me Jace.”

A knowing look was shared between them, and (Y/N) allowed her eyes to trail downwards, resting on the velvet flowers that adorned the well-kept garden. Her cheeks felt as though they caught on fire, and the lady was sure that her face held a comical rouge to it, thanks to Jacaerys’ insistent staring.

She knew well what came after that - she remembered how she hurried to allow Jace the same courtesy, of calling her by her given name, and how they both laughed at the other’s awkwardness.

And yet…

The Velaryon’s laughter turned into a painful cry. As if possessed, he started shaking his head. Then his limbs. Then his body.

“But dead men do not need names, do they, (Y/N)?”

Her head shot up - blood began pumping in her ears, and her heartbeat hammered against her chest.

“W-What?”

“I am dead, I am dead, I am dead,” He wailed continuously, “Can’t you see it, my love? Can you not see?”

Strong arms came to hold her from behind - wrapped up in algae, with flesh half eaten by the haunting sea.

The air in her lungs filled with a putrid smell.

“Do you see me? Do you? Do you see me, (Y/N)? My face, my eyes, how do they look? Oh, (Y/N), I cannot see down here! It’s so dark!”

Wet and cold rivers of liquid ran down her spine, coming from his parted mouth - water or blood, she couldn’t distinguish. And she was far too scared to turn her head to look.

“I cannot breathe - help me! Why did you let me die?”

A violent shriek escaped her lips. The girl tried to spin and turn - escape his hold, and take him in her arms all the same.

Jacaerys was faster in his attempts; he took her face with his pruney fingers, and twisted her head around.

But instead of brown eyes, she was met with greying hues.

“Why did you let me die?” Cain’s voice echoed Jace’s sentence. “Why did you let me die, My Lady? How could you let me die?”

Blood was raining down on them: it filled her lungs, and painted her blue dress in a sickly purple. It stuck on her eyes and closed shut. It made her limbs impossible to move.

"No… no, no… this is not how it's supposed to go…!"

“(Y/N)! It's all your fault, all your fault…!”

***

A blood-curdling scream regurgitated from her dry throat.

Neither her drenched nightgown, nor the clogged air of the wide chambers managed to calm her down. While still in the limbo between dream and reality, (Y/N) brought a hand to her souring throat, and clawed at her collar for more stability.

Almost immediately after her first shaky sob, Aemond’s body bolted upright, and the One-Eyed Prince brushed off any remaining fragments of his torturous sleep.

With his right arm, he reached for her in an outstretched caress, eyes wide with wonder over her violent reaction - whilst his left instantly grabbed the dagger on the drawer closest to him.

One look about the room confirmed his pending suspicion: she had gone through a nightmare, and a very unpleasant one at that.

Not all our dreams get to turn into nightmares - The dead of night can provide solace for some, as well as great agony for others.

Scattered desires, idle wants, and needs: all met under the velvety silence and gratifying darkness that eats one whole, and mends his subconscious to the most profane of fantasies.

In his dream, Aemond was engaging in a much kinder resolve than the lady next to him.

***

The echo of swift, hurried footsteps allowed a comforting sigh to wash over his parted lips.

The tedious company of his brother and father was long forgotten, the moment her familiar silhouette caught his eye, urging him to turn his head around.

There she stood, ever the vile temptress, wearing an emerald green dress that draped lowly over her shoulders, trailing over her tender bosom, and barely covering the perky mounds of flesh.

She was smiling at him, despite being attached to Jace's arm, and a soft bite over her lower lip was all it took for the young Prince to feel that familiar tightness form in his leather braies.

He couldn't tell who strutted towards who, or how they got to that point. But a tentative hand rose to his face, taking off his eye patch.

A hitch of pleasure escaped from her crimson lips. She took both his hands in hers and, before the masses, placed them right above her clothed, throbbing clit.

"Please…" She pleaded with him, writhing into his reluctant touch, "Kostilus. Kostilus, Aemond."

His hesitation and lack of movement caused a loud whimper to contort from deep within her throat. She gave him a sly smirk, and brought her own hands under her skirts, to lift them and show him her glistening cunt. The evidence of his arousal was obvious, what with his cock brushing against her thigh as they kissed. He took her by the neck with one hand, while resting the other on her cheek.

He let out a low groan, and pushed her hand away to cup her dripping sex. His calloused thumb flicked over her reddened pearl, and a long, slim finger went inside her tight hole.

Aemond clenched his jaw - almost painfully so - and his hips rutted into the air so desperately, that the man was sure her wanton gasps held some amused glimmer in them.

His lilac orb watched her face contort in pleasure. They were all alone now, hidden in the shadows of the Great Hall, belonging to the Red Keep.

… And there he was, seated on the Iron Throne, moving his hips lazily as his intended was bouncing up and down his clothed shaft, rubbing their bodies together with a renowned fever.

His name fell from her lips in a sickeningly sweet way - Aemond could feel his hardness twitch into the hot material, and the Targaryen Prince bit back a guttural moan.

"Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck, that's it. Bona iksos issa sȳz riñītsos." He hissed through gritted teeth.

She was finally his.

His to love, his to cherish, his to fuck and to make love to.

The thought of possessing her fully, unapologetically, wildly, sent a deep shiver down to his unyielding loins.

Aemond was close. Oh so close to reaching his high. But he wanted to make her feel good.

Wordlessly, the One-Eyed Prince stopped her desperate bucking with one hand over her hip and the other, holding down onto the nape of her neck.

The girl was sobbing and shaking. Her voice came out as a meek whisper, and her glassy eyes met with his dilated pupil.

"No, no… please… kostilus, Aemond, don't stop…" She writhed inside his arms, bringing her hand out to caress his scarred cheek.

A knowing smile tugged at the corners of his bemused lips. Aemond hummed at her admission, and tenderly licked her lips.

"Shh," He soothed her gently, "Be still, byka hontes. Issa dōna, byka jorrāelagon."

While speaking, the Targaryen Prince pushed her dress to the side, sliding off her small clothes with an able hand and placing her flush onto the Iron Throne.

He bit the inside of her thigh, and rubbed small circles on the back of her hands.

Like the perfect lover, he entwined her palms with his, entangling their fingers together as he hushed her sweetly.

"Spread your legs for me, issa jorrāelagon. Let me see how wet you are."

The echo of a "Please" got caught in his throat. It was taking everything inside of him not to kneel before his lady and beg her to let him touch her.

Her wild blush and plush, swollen lips made Aemond let out a low curse. He gripped her fingers tighter, and took them in his mouth, to coat them with adorning kisses, one by one.

"You can do it for me, my sweet, pretty girl." He encouraged her through a shallow pant. "Don't you want me to make you feel good?"

A shy 'yes' bounced off the cold walls of the secluded Keep. Aemond hummed in approval, and lowered his head over her sensitive mound, sucking lightly.

With each new whimper, his strokes became more and more sporadic. The Prince aligned his nose over her throbbing clit, and eased his tongue into her sacred depths.

His eye shut tightly at the feeling of her sweet nectar - one of his hands came free from her tight grasp, and he parted her thighs even further apart.

"Good girl, good girl, good girl…" He chanted while latched onto her scorching heat, and, with one final push of his tongue inside her, he took the girl over the edge.

Her cries of bliss shook the very building to the core. Her wild pants brought Aemond close to orgasm, and the male had to bring down a hand to his aching bulge, and clench it tightly, in order to stop himself from spilling in his pants.

It wouldn't take long for his love to wiggle her hips again.

His mouth and chin gleamed with the evidence of her spilled arousal. Aemond let out a rumbled laugh and licked himself clean with the help of two nimble fingers.

"I won't waste a single drop. Not one, single drop of you."

His words made her eyes roll back, and her throat inch with a loud moan. His Lady kneeled before him, and rubbed her cheek over his clothed cock, kissing at its outlines faintly.

Insatiable little mynx.

His eye fluttered shut, groaning in agony at her sensual touch. Aemond swallowed thickly, and he let out a hurting whimper, as the kneeling woman dipped her hand in the tightness of his pants.

Slowly, teasingly, she tested the waters.

The woman brought her hand up to her lover, and parted his swollen lips with the slow stroke of her thumb. Silently, she urged him to coat her skin with the wet of his saliva. Aemond smirked, and licked one long stripe over her spreading palm.

Humming in approval, and never once breaking eye contact, she eased her way down his leather trousers, and freed his cock from the tightness of its cage.

Several beads of sweat streamed down his pleasured face. Droplets of precum rolled down his reddened tip, and Aemond hissed at the contact they made with the base of his shaft.

His lady looked at him with soft, doe-like eyes;

"Syz taoba." She praised him with a mischievous smile. Before he could register the whole of her movements, the woman's tongue darted out, and she licked a slow strip over his twitching manhood.

She laughed at his dazed expression, and began touching him with her silky palm.

"Yes…" He moaned into her hold, bucking his hips to meet her hand halfway. "Tighter. Grip it tighter…" He instructed her through labored breaths, and a harsh groan etched its way from his bitten lips. "Ah, ābrazyrys!"

With each palpable thrust, Aemond moaned louder and louder, until the licks of relief washed over him in a sudden wave of pleasure.

At once, his hips stilled their violent bucking, and he felt the first streaks of cum shoot over his heaving abdomen.

Aemond gasped at her unwavering touch, and a single tear of pure delight rolled down his pale cheek.

She smiled at him. A pure, innocent smile, as if what she'd just done did naught to shake her untouched innocence.

(Y/N) moaned at the sight of him, so ravished and spent by her hand - she licked her lips tentatively, and trailed her fingers over his lower stomach, coating each digit with his warm release.

The cum pooled on the base of her tongue, and she showed him the fullness in her mouth, before swallowing him whole.

Thinking him fully drained, the girl made haste to get up on her feet and press her forehead against his. She giggled excitedly, and kissed over his jaw and neck.

A primal glint swirled deep within him, and Aemond's eye darkened.

He wasn't done with her just yet.

His arms flipped her over, and the pair found themselves in the peace and quiet of his old Quarters. Her body was pushed against the silk bedding, laid in below Aemond's insistent licks and kisses.

"I'm going to fuck you so hard, until the only thing you can think of is me."

His voice was shaking with lust and need, and the curve of her waist and breasts did nothing to help his aggravated heart.

His love let out a stimulated groan. Her lips churned into a small pout, and she brought his hand out to her scorching heat, pressing down on it insistently.

His mouth lulled open - he could feel the heat emanating from her maidenhood, and the very scent that made his head swirl with need.

He gritted his teeth and lowered his body to press against hers. He could feel himself grow harder and harder by the second, twitching against her exposed thigh.

The girl let out a burst of snorting laughter, and her legs came to grip him over the bulk of his waist.

Effortlessly, she pushed him into the wide goose pillows, towering over him as she snapped her hips into his.

"I always wanted to mount a dragon. Tonight, I'm going to ride you as you ride Vhagar."

***

The intensity of her scream made the man bolt up in an instant. His thoughts surged with a singular instinct: to protect her.

A hand reached for his dagger. The other, for her shaking form.

"What happened?" His throaty groan echoed through the silent room.

At the sound of his smothering voice, the girl let out a startled scream. She would have fallen from the unmade bed, were it not for Aemond's hands, which caught her beforehand. … His face contorted in pain at her recoiling, at her lack of trust in him. His very presence was unnerving her.

Her numerous shrieks alerted the new guards, who, warned in advance of their master's disposition to anger, hastily opened the door to his chambers - swords unsheathed and shoulders tense.

But, upon glancing at the erratic woman, and the way her hands were pushing Aemond's chest away from her flush form, they assumed this was just another way of coupling, and the oldest of the two bowed his head in embarrassment, before grabbing his brethren by the cape and exiting the room.

Fucking assholes…! The Lady thought to herself. Upkeeping the realm and instigating order only when they see fit.

The pang of embarrassment took a hold of her jaded face. It didn't matter what they thought. But all the same, Cain's words echoed into her ears, slithering into her heart.

' - the walls talk in Harrenhal, my Lady. And they... well, forgive me for being so blunt - speak stories about how the Kinslayer loses sleep by visiting you in your chambers at night.'

Disgust painted its way over her distressed expression. A deep frown creased her forehead, and she clicked her tongue in irritation at Aemond's attempt to soothe her.

"N-Nothing happened." She strained herself to answer. "It doesn't matter. Now let me go."

But his hold didn't falter. His iron grip reigned over her, and (Y/N) could feel how her wrist started to ache from numbness.

Her eyes shot up in pure horror.

"Please, Prince Aemond." She tried once more, though this time sweeter. Her eyes trailed from his face to his clenched fists, and she tried to relax in his hold - at least slightly. Dread settled into the pits of her stomach, as she awaited his answer.

The One-Eyed Prince felt his heart hammer against his chest. A stinging pain ruled over any other voice of reason, and he felt lethal, succumbed to the endless lust and frenzy that he felt for the shaking girl.

And, although he didn’t let go of her bruising arm, he sat down the dagger in his left hand, in favor of touching her lax cheek with his rough fingertips.

Gods, he was still so painfully hard.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, as his grip over her body relaxed with each passing minute. The taste of abhorance was getting harder and harder to ignore - as did his raging hard-on, so adamantly pressed against her covered leg.

The woman darted her tongue out to wet her chapped lips; an action that wasn’t easily ignored by Aemond. His brows furrowed in lust and anger, and the coil in his lower stomach grew tighter by the second.

His hand ghosted over her twisted features, and he held his hand against her, with a fear akin to getting burnt. She scrunched her nose up as he scooted closer: her eye trailed downwards to his huge erection. Fear mixed with the knowledge of her situation, and her free hand came to grip the edge of the mirkwood bed.

“Hey,” She began to say, but took a pause to clench and unclench her jaw. “I think we should go back to sleep.”

Her eyes closed, if only for a second. Aemond’s deep breaths echoed through the quiet room, over her face, and the girl chastised herself for being so idiotic.

Some reply she gave him.

… But there is still a way to get a hold of that damned dagger.

Thoughts laced with uncertainty whirled inside her head. This wasn’t the first time Aemond had stared with hunger at her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. It was simply the way their 'relationship' worked. Simply the way he did.

Before she could muster up to add anything else, the Kinslayer broke the silence. His voice was soft and hitched; His broad arms snaked around her again, and his single eye loomed over her, adorning an emotion that menged perfectly with caution and lust.

“Why do you have this effect on me?” He questioned no one but himself. “You have ruined me.” He uttered, as if her presence and innocence were the strongest of poisons.

“Nyke istan nykeā vala hen gaomilaksir se rigo gō nyke mazilībagon laesi va ao. Se ao… ao… ao mazverdagon issa aylik hae lo nyke daor…”

The last of his words came out strained and angry, the desire to possess her coming out in the roughness of his sentence in High Valyrian.

(Y/N) squinted at him, unsure of what to do and say, except to stay awfully quiet. His cock twitched in his pants at her confused expression, and the woman sat her eyes on the dagger before her.

May his Gods so help him if he tries to do anything to me, she dryly thought to herself.

“I never tried to hurt you in any way.” She spoke decidedly, trying her best to keep a level of strength in her hoarse voice. Her body tensed under his aggravating touch, and the Lady quietly cursed herself for her inability to move further away from him.

Aemond’s face broke into a tight smile, and the Targaryen Prince huffed out in a low breath.

“Quit playing your game with me. You know exactly what you did. Women like you have quite the breeding for it.”

At that moment, anger blinded her. Swift as an arrow, she rose her head up high, and attempted to slap him - hard. But the older man caught her hand within his skilled fingers, and lowered it to his aching heart, keeping it there.

“Ao taenor issa. Aōha elēni, aōha laesi, aōha relgos, aōha maelki - aōha olvie perhas iksos surokvis issa. Issi ao biare? Hmm? Issi ao biare rūsīr skoros ao gōntan naejot issa?”

He could see the tears in her eyes. He could feel the flesh of her skin burn with the roughness of his touch. He could feel her anger and building disdain, and all of it pushed him over the edge all the same.

Aemond grabbed her face with his free hand, and clasped her jaw tightly. He breathed in her warmth, and he cursed himself for it - for the weakness that she caused him, for how easy it was for her to calm him down. “Ao issi nykeā quptenka ābra qilōni insalvak nykeā dārys hen ānogar.” He hissed desperately, lowering himself closer and closer to her face. “I treat you with kindness, and this is how you think to repay me? Vile, spoiled cunt. Gevie līve, ny dōna byka rene.”

To his mind, he was but an animal, caught helplessly in a siren’s grasp - she had lured him in with her beauty, her heart, and he was drowning in her, in her essence, in her being.

All of the things he felt towards her welled up inside of him: the love, the longing, the obsession, the lust, the need, the want. It was all too much.

He breathed heavily into her ear, while stroking at her bottom lip, “Gaomagon ao ūndegon sepār skorkydoso kraj ao issi, issa jorrāelagon? Aemond Mēre-Laes, se kipagīros hen Vhagar sen se Dārys mīsio hen Westeros… aōhon. Isse prūmia, haevisis, se maelki."

His raining assault in High Valyrian aggravated her to no end. Although Jacaerys' knowledge on the language wasn't perfect, either, he had taught the girl enough to get by.

And enough it was, at the very least, to make out the hissed out "beautiful"s, "love"s, and "heart"s that Aemond spewed at her.

The Tully girl spat in his face, biting on the index finger, that was trying to pry open her mouth. “You promised me,” She asserted as she pried herself free of his sickly embrace, “You promised me you wouldn’t touch me until I expressively asked you to.”

Her (y/e/c) eyes clashed with his lone, lilac orb. The woman swallowed thickly, and a droplet of sweat fell over her pounding temple. “So back. Off.”

Half a second goes by - half a heartbeat and half a breath -, until Aemond finally lets go of her, and settles back down onto the cold side of his bed.

For a while, (Y/N) is stuck. She sees how the man she loathes turns his back around, how his shoulders fall back as he’s trying to relax. She focuses on his breathing, and how his erratic breaths quiet down.

“Go to sleep.” He commands her bitterly, “Before I give you a reason to be tired out.”

The ferocity of a thousand curses almost falls from her tightened lips. The woman takes in a deep breath, and lowers herself back onto the drenched sheets.

He had donned the dagger to his fucking waist.

For almost two weeks, Cain had been falling in and out of consciousness.

His clash with Aemond left him weak and crippled - most of all, it left him ashamed.

Ashamed of his lack of diligence. Ashamed for having been unable to protect his Lady.

Finally, ashamed of his weakness and lack of thought, of reason.

If he were awake right now, he'd curse the Old Gods and the New for making him so - for giving him the wound that would incapacitate him forever. He'd have to fight the shivers that came with the rotting of his flesh, he'd have to clench his remaining fist in agony at the notion of the pools of blood he lost: the notion of his wound still going through the process healing, and all that came with it.

His once handsome face was still stained with his blood - dirt and sweat clung to it, like flies on dead meat.

His golden locks looked almost black, covered by the mold and mud that he'd crawled through once he reached outside the cave.

***

"You need to be swifter on your foot, lass!" Ser Allyn Swann instructed him, hitting the boy over the legs once, in taciturn aggression. "You're to be our Lady's sworn protector, are you not? You'll need to do better than that."

"I already am her sworn protector!" Cain yelled after the knight, rubbing a hand over his sweaty forehead. He took in a sharp breath, exhaustion seeping in his bones. Without waiting for an answer, he retook his wide stance and bowed down to his professor. "Again." He urged Ser Swann with a determined look.

The rains of spring had softened the ground, and both the knight and aspiring shield had to be mindful of their footsteps, so as to not land on their tired backs.

Allyn smiled, and shook his head. "Are you now, boy?" He obliged with a reply, "I think you're a seventeen-year-old blighter, who's bitten off more than he can chew."

His able taunting seemed to have worked.

No longer was Cain swinging his sword in circles, measuring his adversary with an aware look. Exactly like a dire wolf would after getting a whiff of fresh prey, the Waters bastard jumped into the leveling field, slashing his wooden blade directly at his opponent's head.

Allyn hummed in disapproval, and back-tracked to the right, faking a swing to his left side, before wiping Cain's feet off the ground with a wonky, but effective swipe.

"Again, Waters?" The knight asked with a click of his tongue. "This is the fifth time you fell for this exact same move. You may be as simple-minded as the Gods allow - but even a fool would learn from his mistakes once he swallowed mud once or twice."

As the boy lowered his gaze in undoubted guilt, his teacher offered him his hand, hoisting him off the field with a low grunt.

"Your mind is elsewhere, Cain. What is it that's bothering you?"

Eyes of the colour of steel clashed with Allyn's brilliant blues. A hoarse sigh left his parted lips, and Cain looked to the sky above them.

"I… I'm not ready." He admitted through gritted teeth. "Lady (Y/N) believes in me, but I'm not ready."

His simple sentence, his raw honesty, moved the greying knight.

He smiled tightly at the boy, resting a hand atop his heaving shoulder, and squeezed strongly.

"You are ready. You haven't the slightest idea of what you can do, should the situation call for it."

"Aye, I can fall straight on my ass. Maybe that'll distract my real opponents!"

"Cain." His professor interrupted him, "Long has it been since I last faced that eight-year-old boy who wanted nothing more than to prove himself."

Ser Swann's words brought a twisted smile to his lips, and (Y/N)'s protector mirrored his tired expression, as he huffed out a breath in disdain.

"I'm afraid I'll fail her." He muttered under his breath, looking in the general direction of his Lady's Quarters. "She believes in me, yes. But what if she's wrong?" A deep frown splits his forehead in three, wide creases. "Sometimes it feels like she must be."

"Only a real knight would ever admit to his weaknesses and less than stellar moments." Allyn encouraged him shortly. His eyes never once left Cain's, and the old Lord nodded his head briskly. "Lady Tully is not the only one who believes in you. Before her, Lord Hunter Redwyne believed in you."

A small chuckle broke Cain's reserved silence.

"If I remember correctly, he made you his steward exactly because he believed in you. After him, of course, went his sons and daughters. When the siege over Arbourtown took place, who was it that fought 100 men all by himself?"

"Hardly 100. It was 66 at best."

"Honesty. Another rare quality to find in a knight."

Cain's frustration welled in his eyes. "It's not honesty - it's a well-known truth!"

"Let me tell you something, Cain. It could have been a hundred men. Or it could have been thirty, or it could have been just one. The unrivaled truth remains: when everyone abandoned their post, you were the only one left standing in the West Wing of that castle."

A hefty silence settled off between the two.

"Plenty of people believed in you: plenty still do. And all of them were right to do so."

Cain's aching fists turned lax once Ser Allyn put an end to his trail of thought. "I…" He bit his cheek in an attempt to talk.

'Thank you.'

"I still have a lot to learn."

"That you do, boy. That you do." Allyn confirmed with a convinced jerk of his head. His eyes glimmered with pride, however, and, as he picked his sword back up, the man smiled at his driven apprentice.

"But I believe in you, and in the fact that you will make her proud."

"... It's nice to talk again like this."

Allyn's expression saddened for a moment, before it regained its familiar vigor.

"As I told you, lass. No matter how far you are, I'll always be somewhere with you. I'll be right here, at the tip of your sword, in your armor."

Ser Cain felt a tear run down his cheek, and the knight rose a hand to wipe it away from his face.

"I don't think I'll ever hold a sword again." He hummed painfully, but the older knight only shook his head.

"You haven't the slightest idea of what you can do, should the situation call for it." He repeated his words again. "Trust me, son. You will hold Faithkeeper again. … But now it's time for you to wake up."

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

***

"-- Are you waking up?!" The worried voice of a woman rang through the open field.

Cain felt his head jolting with pain - his limbs of a calming numbness, and his lips dried up.

He swallowed thickly, before opening his mouth to say, "Water… I need… water."

"Right on it, soldier." She amusedly said, bringing down her own flask to his waiting mouth.

He drank to his heart’s content, and only when the last droplets of the blessed liquid touched his throat, did Cain Waters stop to breathe.

“I’m sorry.” Was the first thing he said, as the unknown woman checked her poach for any remains of the water. “I didn’t think about the practicality of leaving some for later. … Or about you needing a sip.”

The last of his words greatly perplexed the brown-haired woman - she let out a mirthled laugh, and gently shook her head to the side. “At ease, Commander. We have more where that came from. Drink as much as you need to.”

Her amber eyes trailed over his bandaged hand, and, as he followed her stare with his own, Cain sighed in wallowing dread. His gaze turned curious, however, as he glanced at his shoulder, and wasn’t immediately greeted with the ghastly sight of a chopped-off arm.

A shocked look adorned his features, and the knight brought his left hand to feel the borders of his forming scar.

A painful sting stopped him in his tracks.

“I’d be careful with touching that arm so soon,” She tutted over his brash enthusiasm, “Your stitches are far from being healed. … And it’s not all that good and grand.”

Her sharp eyes softened slightly, and she let out a hardened breath.

“I’m very sorry. But we still had to cut off some of the infected fingers. With time, though, I’m sure you’ll hold your sword again.”

‘You will hold Faithkeeper again.’

Cain hummed in a lowly tone, as his eyes traveled back to the strange woman before him. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly, until he finally settled on the least invasive sentence.

“I’m very grateful for your help,” He began carefully, while nibbling at his lower lip. “But who are you? And why would you save me?”

The girl’s eyebrows raised in beguilement, and she jokingly brought her hand to her chest, bowing deeply.

“My name is Mira Florent, of Brightwater Keep. I was a ward not long ago, under the esteemed tutelage of Lady Caswell. For eleven years, I served in Bitterbridge.” Taking in his every reaction with a curious look, Mira quirked her head to the side, and offered the knight a half-earnest smile. “And who might you be?”

“You didn’t answer my other question.” Cain tensed visibly, and the woman raised her hands out in false surrender.

“Indeed, I have not. I’d like to know who it is I’m talking to, as well, before I should waste all my breath away.”

The knight’s deep gaze settled on her downturned nose and inviting smile. He took in a deep breath, and propped his body on his healthy elbow. “I asked my questions first, my Lady.”

“And I demanded for answers, second.” Her voice rang out with a beaming laugh, and the older woman showed him her portrait-perfect grin. “No one here is in any position to make demands. … But please. I am not a Lady. There’s no need for you to address me as such”

Her easy-going attitude and fun behavior were almost enough reason for Cain to return her gracious smiles - still, the royal knight remained impassive, while nodding his head in quiet agreement.

“My name is Cain Waters, m’lady.” A short pause ensued, during which both healer and patient exchanged a diverted look, “Until recently, I served in Riverrun; I answer to the Tullies, the lords of the Riverlands.”

“I knew it!” Mira’s gleeful exclamation set Ser Cain back on his back. “It was fairly obvious by the crest in your armor. The trout lost its head, but the house colors are still as clear as day.”

“Is that why you decided to save me?” The man asked her tentatively.

“Well, that’s why we kept carrying you with us after patching you up, I suppose. But we would have tried to heal you either way.”

“We?” The Waters bastard questioned once again. “There’s more than just you around?”

“You don’t think I carried you all the way here by myself, right?” Her sarcastic question jabbed at his intellect, but her placid smile told the knight to relax, and put an end to his sporadic trail of thought. “It’s just me and my travel partner - he’s the one that wanted us to leave you at a crossroads end, by the way.”

A bemused smirk tugged at the corners of Cain’s chapped lips. “Then you have my full gratitude, m’lady - I have to say, I appreciate you not letting me die. Pray tell, does your companion have a name?”

An arch of her bushy eyebrows was the only telltale sign of Mira’s pending curiosity over Cain's meddlesome nature. She jerked her head to point at a silhouette near the fireplace, and she leaned over on a tree’s bark end.

“He does.” The woman said simply, and her expression turned somber for just a moment. “You take your profiling seriously, Cain Waters - his name is Albar. Albar of nothing, who serves under no one. Albar Stone.”

Cain’s face brightened slowly, as if he’d just been reminded of an old joke.

‘Us bastards always find a way to help one another.’

A rumbling laughter shook him in his laying spot, and the man gingerly shook his head after a passing while. “Another brother. I’ve a feeling we’ll get along just fine.”

Mira’s only reply was to shrug her shoulders, keeping quiet for the first time since they’d met. Her auburn eyes went over Cain’s shoulder, and she took in a deep breath. “You fought the Kinslayer, haven’t you?” She asked whilst playing with a silver pendant.

“You’re wearing the Tully crest - a house that openly pledged for the Blacks. Despite your heavy armor, your wound was of a clean cut. Too clean for a normal blade.” The Florent Lady awaited no confirmation from the laying man, as she went on, “I’ve been well acquainted with the deadly swords forged from Valyrian Steel. And there are only two people who wield such feats of war. Of course, only one of them who terrorizes our home.”

“Aye, that is true.” Cain let out after a low curse. “I regret not being swifter on my foot that day. It would’ve saved us a lot of trouble to slay him then and there.”

“Opportunities arise. And I’ve a feeling there will be another time for you to face him again.”

Cain’s forehead puckered at the last of her words, and his able hand pointed at the empty flask that now rested on her lower hip. “Oh, I would drink to that.” He bitterly laughed in earnest.

Mira’s posture ambled away, and she edged closer to the man’s plodded body. Silently, she got a hold of the bridles of the nearest horse, and offered Cain a lackluster smile. “I’ll hoist you up this saddle and we’ll keep walking towards the Vale.”

The muscles in Cain’s face tightened. His immediate thought went to (Y/N), his Lady, no doubt still stuck with Aemond in Harrenhal - that Gods' forsaken place.

His fist brandished in a tight hold, his head aligned to Mira’s working hands, and the knight tried to stop her musings with a firm palm over her waist.

“Wait -” He tried to reason, “I cannot go there. My Lady is still waiting for me, I cannot just abandon her.”

"Abandon your Lady?" Mira's eyes widened once more. She jumped up from the ground, and straightened her back in disbelief. "You're Lady Tully's personal knight? Is that why you fought the Kinslayer? You're telling me she's still alive?!"

Through an exhale, the male nodded. He cleared his throat with a loud cough, and scrunched his nose up in frustration.

"Indeed, m'lady. So you must understand me - I cannot forsake her. Not when she's still in the jaws of that one-eyed fucker."

Mira wiped the dust off her cotton pants, and grunted in agreement. She let out a tired breath, and clicked her tongue at his persistence.

"Well… you could have returned to Harrenhall, limping on your feet and all, if only you awoken a week ago. But we're less than an hour away from the Eyrie, Ser Cain." His crushed expression and gritted teeth softened the lady's resolve. "I warmly recommend you stick with us. Our road leads to the Arryns: we can drop you off to your Lord and you can take a while to recover."

"You slept for a very long time, Ser Cain. Everything you knew has changed in these last couple of weeks. Getting acquainted to your new situation will do you well."

Alys never dreamt. At least, she never once recalled what her dreams were about.

Such was the way of things for her, and she didn’t mind it - that was, until tonight.

Stilling images of her in his arms, of his soft lips upon the Tully's face made her shake with anger and betrayal well into the first callings of dawn.

Morning came and went, and the afternoon spent itself with her clasping her hands together, in the comfort of her room, thinking on what to do.

Her rattling worry wasn’t as much about her love for him, as it was for the frightening thought that if the Crown Prince didn’t want her anymore, she'd find her death by the sharp end of his sword.

The Rivers witch gulped thickly, and brought her hands over her neck and bump.

Aemond was capable of many things. But he wouldn't risk killing his child. Right?

The Tully girl had to go. The conclusion was a natural reach, and an expected one, at that: it was the only solution to her ticking problem.

A slight arch of her brow sent her thoughts adrift. How would she take care of it all? She gave the haughty Lady the chance to escape, and she failed - miserably. Now, she had no more allies left in Harrenhal, and no access to any amount of privacy.

The memory of Aemond's rage sent a cold shiver down her spine. Not once during her long life, did she witness a sight more fearful to behold, than the one of the One-Eyed Prince when angered. Hundreds died the day of her escape, and thousands more would keep on suffering, if ever she should break free again.

The Tully girl had to go. And then Aemond would be hers again.

Her prayers were answered when, sometime along the laid-in dusk, his footsteps echoed through the long hallway of her keep.

She waited for him in her small framed bed, eagerly aligning her hips to the side, to strike a more seductive pose.

… But when Aemond reached her doorstep, his eye carried a solemn, and resigned expression.

"The maids tell me she won't eat." He told her worriedly, opting for that instead of his usual greeting. He reached her bedside with two wide steps, and wordlessly took a seat while rubbing his temples. "She's punishing me."

Alys staggered a frustrated breath, and tried to calm herself back down. Her left leg moved to tease Aemond's crotch, and she chuckled appealingly.

"Must we worry about her all the time…? She'll eat when she gets really hungry." Alys dismissed his inquiry with a small caress, "In the meantime, I'm sure I could take your mind off things…"

Within a second, Aemond's hand was wrapped softly on her neck. "Stop that." He chastised her cruelly, "I'm not in the mood."

"You never are, as of late." She muttered dryly, but regretted her words instantly, when she felt his long fingers squeeze over her larynx tentatively. "I-I only meant to say that I missed you." She quickly intervened, while entangling her hand with his in a forlorn attempt to redeem herself.

Aemond hummed tiredly, and, as if he finally registered what he was doing, the man let go of her dainty neck.

Quietness washed over them, and Alys' eyes welled with the threat of tears, until Aemond spoke up.

"I want you to keep an eye on her. Become her friend, if you must."

The detachment with which he spoke wounded Alys' pride, but, as she massaged her neck, the woman only sighed. "Befriend her, Aemond?"

"Do whatever you think is right." He uttered once again. "Starting tomorrow, you'll be her maid - you'll make sure she eats when I'm not here; you'll make sure she doesn't think of a way to escape."

Her ears reddened from the deep wound laid upon her enlarged ego. Alys huffed in disbelief, and promptly shook her head. "What…?" She asked her lover. "So you want me to feed her and empty her chamber pot?"

"Don't act as if this work would be beneath you, love." Aemond tutted as he raised up from his taken seat. "I've already made up my mind: you will take care of her while I'm not around. And you will make her like it here."

The urgency in his words muffled out any other attempted protest. Alys' fists were clenched at her sides, and the older woman was biting down on her lower lip. "As you wish, Your Grace." She hissed past her tightened lips, while looking at him desperately.

As she noticed him turn around to leave, the Rivers witch shot up straight. "You won't stay?" She asked Aemond in a strangled tone.

"I have some business to attend to."

Aemond prayed before his dinners. As if that would make them any better.

As if that would help him swallow his guilt, or scatter it over the ghosts that he himself created.

As if that would deter the Gods to forgive him for his sins.

The pair stood quietly at the polished oak table, surrounded by naught but fermented wine and copious amounts of meat. For a while, all seemed well.

The cutlery broke a sound every once in a while, and Aemond's deep breaths turned the room's atmosphere heavy.

Eventually, it all built up to be too much.

"Is the food not to your liking?" His velvety smooth voice asked the girl before his eye.

With her hands still in her lap, now gripping her fingers painfully, Lady Tully replied, "... It's nothing of the sort. I'm just not hungry right now."

Aemond stared blankly into her eyes, until his scorching orb settled on her lips instead. Lustful thoughts of what he dreamt the night before plagued his mind, but the Prince merely shook his head, whilst taking a sip of the wine.

"You haven't eaten anything today." He muttered through a raised eyebrow, and a ghost of a forced smile. "Surely you must be famished."

The muscles on (Y/N)'s face twitched in annoyance. She jerked her foot from under the table, and turned her eyes back to her untouched plate.

"... As I said, I'm not feeling very hungry." She leaned further away, and the firelight of the wide, lit room, danced across her face with glorious shades of red and amber.

"Very well." Aemond asserted quietly, after letting out a hoarse curse in High Valyrian. Soon, the Prince turned his attention back to the illuminated room, without sparing the girl another glance.

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and coughed in the back of his hand a couple of times.

Each time she heard his attempts to clear his throat, the girl clenched her jaw tighter and tighter.

Neither spoke anymore, until Aemond sighed deeply.

"Does…" He began, but closed his mouth once again. His face turned into a sour scowl, his pale cheeks reddened, and the man forced himself to keep going, despite the hardness with which such a question came to him. "Does your wrist hurt you at all?"

A quick reminder to the other night.

The lady's eyes snapped forward, unsure of whether or not she'd heard him correctly. Were she not in this unpleasant situation herself, the woman would have laughed at the Prince's awkwardness; no less his stupid question.

Instead of laughing, she took in a shaky breath, which she exhaled almost immediately, before replying curtly. "It doesn't hurt." Her eyes closed and her brows furrowed in concentration.

Distaste for him, for what she was about to say, filled her weary heart and mouth.

"... Thank you for the inquiry, My Prince, that was very kind of you."

She wanted to scream and shout the moment his daft fingers gripped her own, and the Kinslayer tried to caress her, despite his hand's deep callouses. Still, she remained poised.

She was all alone now, and she had to play it smart.

(Y/N)'s breath caught in her throat, and her shoulders tensed visibly from under her green dress. Slowly, yet surely, she wiggled her hand free from under his palm, and placed it above her thigh once more.

If her movement displeased Aemond, then the Prince didn’t show it. His hand twitched atop the table, and he clenched it momentarily. But just as soon as his action was executed, it was covered by the Targaryen's mellow voice.

"Try to eat something tonight. And whatever it is that you'd like on the morrow, you can tell your maid to bring you."

Maid…?

Confusion made its way across her face. And, not even waiting for her to ask that eager question, Aemond dipped his head lowly and replied.

"The days are hard and long - prisoner or not, My Lady. While in Harrenhal, you are still a royal, and will be treated as such."

(Y/N) felt as if she could do nothing else but laugh. She envisioned her life in Harrenhal drift in a lot of different ways - though no thought of hers deterred her to believe she'd be taken care of by Aemond's older lover.

Of course, she jested lightly to herself. In the end, I am but a prisoner. And Aemond only has one eye.

Her hands were tied. And so were Alys Rivers', who looked none the happier to be rooted at her bedside table, judging by her tight expression.

"We don't have to play his game, you know." The girl hushed in her direction, as she kneeled down to help her change the ruined bed sheets.

Green eyes washed over her smaller form, holding an icy glimmer in them. But, despite her obvious discontent at her words, Alys remained quiet.

"You've known Aemond for longer than I," She kept going in the afternoon. "But we can both agree he has a dangerous character." Her lack of cooperation irked the lady to no end.

She dreaded the silence she was greeted with.

Hopelessly, she watched Alys wipe the last corner of the room - the girl observed how she turned on her heel, bowing at her without sparing her a second glance, and made her way toward the doors of her chambers.

"What do you think will happen once I tell Aemond that you helped Cain plan my escape?" She asked in a neutral tone.

For the first time that day, the Rivers bastard whipped her head around, and kneeled to the floor to gather up the dropped cloth. Despite her neutral smile, her voice was shaking. "You're trying to blackmail me?"

"I'm trying to help myself. ... And help you."

The woman let out a roaring laugh. "I am carrying the child of the dragon, girl. He wouldn't dare hurt me."

"Are you that sure?" The hardened look on (Y/N)'s face let no emotion stand out. Still, her eyes remained honest, truthful in her questions, and the wood witch let out an ample sigh.

"I know you don't want me here." The Lady raised her head in bold admission, "Believe me, I am the last person to be happy with this arrangement. This is your home. This is supposed to be your room and your rightful bed. On that, you'll hear no argument from me."

As her speech came to an abrupt end, Alys furrowed her brows in unexpected shock. She was quick to collect herself, and shield her shaking body by crossing her arms.

"We're more similar than we'd allow ourselves to think, Alys. We both want me gone and far, far away from here."

With a tentative look in her eyes, the Lady of Riverrun approached Alys' heaving body. She took her hands in hers and squeezed them reassuringly.

A strained chuckle parted from the elder's lips. She jerked her hands away and shot her an unfeeling look. "What would you have me do?" She interfered with a cutting voice. "You forget yourself - and I. I'm just a woman in this Keep, the same as you. If you think I hold any power over anyone here, you'd be sorely mistaken."

(Y/N) shook her head, and allowed a crooked smile to grace her tired features. She quirked her eyebrow at the woman's words, and only hummed disprovingly.

"I may not know you, Alys Rivers. But I know you are a smart and conniving woman. You lived all your life in Harrenhal, or so I heard."

Her harsh tone cut through the deadly silence of the room.

"I'm sure you kept at least a secret passage to yourself, and away from Aemond. It's not like us to keep all our eggs in the same basket... So, I want you to teach me all you know about this castle.”

A jocund expression seeped into Alys' pores. She clicked her tongue at (Y/N)'s words, and huffed out a wired breath. “Foolish girl. If anything should go wrong, Aemond will kill us both.”

A small pause, followed by a muttered curse ensued after Alys’ warning. Once her eyes locked on the Lady again, she frowned as she nodded her head.

"You have yourself a deal."

Taglist:

@bellameshipper @ohitsthemaster @kravitzwhore @virginslut08 @hiatuswhore @somemydayy

Translations:

"Bona iksos issa sȳz riñītsos" = That's my good little girl;

"Byka hontes" = Little dove;

"Issa jorrāelagon" = My love;

“Issa dōna, byka jorrāelagon” = My sweet, little love;

"Ābrazyrys" = Wife;

“Nyke istan nykeā vala hen gaomilaksir se rigo gō nyke mazilībagon laesi va ao. Se ao… ao… ao mazverdagon issa aylik hae lo nyke daor…” = I was a man of duty and honor before I set eyes on you. And you… You… You make me feel as if I am no longer…;

“Ao issi nykeā quptenka ābra qilōni insalvak nykeā dārys hen ānogar.” = You are a common woman who enslaved a prince of the blood;

“Ao taenor issa. Aōha elēni, aōha laesi, aōha relgos, aōha maelki - aōha olvie perhas iksos surokvis issa. Issi ao biare? Issi ao biare rūsīr skoros ao gōntan naejot issa?” = You tempted me. Your voice, your eyes, your lips, your soul - your very presence is seducing me. Are you happy? Are you happy with what you did to me?

"Gaomagon ao ūndegon sepār skorkydoso kraj ao issi, issa jorrāelagon? Aemond Mēre-Laes, se kipagīros hen Vhagar sen se Dārys mīsio hen Westeros… aōhon. Isse prūmia, haevisis, se maelki." = Do you see just how powerful you are, my love? Aemond One-Eye, the Rider of Vhagar and the Prince Protector of the Realm… yours. In heart, body, and soul.

"Gevie līve, ny dōna byka rene" = Beautiful witchling, my sweet little slut;

[yoontopia]

𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 | 𝗷𝗷𝗸

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: detective au; fluff, a smidgen of angst, childhood friends to lovers

rating: 18+ (mentions of assault, domestic abuse and suicide; minor character death, serial killers are mentioned, minor mention of alcohol and weapons, most likely an inaccurate portrayal of policework)

word count: 7.7k

summary: when a case forces you to re-visit your hometown, you’re also forced to re-visit your past and one particular jeon jungkook, your childhood friend, and the man you’d fallen in love with -- while he’d been been engaged to someone else.

author’s note: whew this is me coming back to writing for the first time in a WHILE.  happy (belated) birthday jungkook! I’m sorry for being 8 days late T_T

The first thing you do when you get into work is make coffee. The lieutenant has recently invested in a rather pricey looking coffee machine after giving the entire team a loud and exasperated lecture about “leaving the precinct to take too many coffee breaks”. You can’t say that you complain about this new arrangement.

The second thing you do when you get into work is check the files on your desk. It is when you’re rifling through these, a mug of steaming black liquid next to you, that your partner slaps another folder on your desk.

“What is this?” you ask, looking up at his tired demeanour. Min Yoongi is an excellent detective, but talent and success come at a price. You don’t think the man has ever gotten a good night’s rest.

“A 16-year old girl found murdered by the piers in Busan,” Yoongi says, pulling the chair from the empty desk next to you and subsequently collapsing in it. “The fishermen found her early this morning.”

“Busan?” you ask, the name of your hometown heavy on your tongue. “What business does that have with the Seoul Major Crimes Unit?”

“It becomes our business when you see how she was killed.” Yoongi states, leaning forward and flipping open the file for you. You look down at the medical examiner’s report, light finally shedding on your situation.

“Legs and hands tied with plastic cable ties, throat slashed, face carved into a permanent mangled grin – its Him. The age and description of the girl match with his previous victims and Busan PD asked us to come down since we’re handling The Joker’s case.”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “What did I tell you about enabling him?” Yoongi shrugs, leaning back in his chair.

You stare back down at the photos of the crime scene, your brain trying to piece together the information. This particular serial killer – nicknamed The Joker by the general public for the way he dismembered his victims’ faces – had been at large for a couple years now and had murdered five young girls. Well, you muse, the count is up to six now.

“He’s never struck outside Seoul before,” you murmur. In your periphery, Yoongi nods, taking a sip out of his own coffee. “This is so out of his way. Are we sure its not a copycat?”

“I considered that,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “The lead detectives in charge of this case want us to check it out and see if we can figure out of it’s the real deal. If it is The Joker, the case is ours anyway.”

“I know some cops in Busan,” you say, closing the file. You had grown up there and worked there before transferring. “Who’s in charge?” Yoongi stares at you before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a slip of paper with names scribbled on it.

“Let’s see—the man who called this morning – a Kim Taehyung – do you know him?” You blink.

“Yeah, we-we went to college together,” you say, your voice suddenly hushed.

“Aw that’s cute, a little reunion,” Yoongi grins but then studies your expression. “Is it not a happy occasion?”

“No no,” you laugh weakly. “Taehyung is fine – great actually! He’s good at what he does too. I’m grateful he’s in charge of this one.”

“Great, we leave tomorrow first thing,” Yoongi says, electing to ignore your high voice and nervousness. “I got us KTX tickets for the first train out.”

You nod, swallowing. Kim Taehyung isn’t the problem, it’s who he’s partners with that has your stomach in knots.

Your train pulls into Busan at a very early hour that even coffee can’t fix. You heave your duffel bag over your shoulder and wait for Yoongi to grab his before stepping off onto the platform. Yawning, you look around.

The dawn has left behind a slight fog around the city and the morning October air has a slight chill in it. You haven’t been back in Busan since the day you left, some two years ago. Your parents had moved to Seoul recently, taking with them the only reason you’d ever have to visit this seaside city.

Yoongi hops off the train next to you and looks around. He’s a Daegu native, but knows this city like the back of his hand.

“I booked us a hotel near the crime scene,” is the first thing he says.

“That’s not morbid at all,” you chuckle, and he rolls his eyes. “But first I’m guessing we head straight to the precinct?” Yoongi nods and the two of you opt to share a cab instead of taking the public transport.

Before you know it, you’re getting off at the police department. Two officers at the entrance have been alerted of your arrival and show you the way. Yoongi shoots you a surprised look, but you grin back. Busan has always been known for its friendly and amicable citizens.

When you enter what is obviously the homicide department, Taehyung is the first person you see. He shouts your name from across the room, turning several heads, and bounces towards you like a golden retriever reunited with its long-lost owner.

“That is Kim Taehyung?” Yoongi asks and you’re not sure if he’s impressed or disappointed.

“Its so good to see you!” he says, a boxy grin painting his face. You take him in. Taehyung hasn’t changed much since college, but the dyed blonde hair he used to sport when he was younger has now been swapped for his natural black curls, which bounce every time he walks. “And you must be Detective Min, we spoke on the phone”

“Ah—yes,” Yoongi utters, thoroughly thrown off. You hide a smile.

“Come in, come in! Ah you can leave your bags by my desk for now.” The two of you do as you’re told, and Taehyung then leads you to a small conference room which holds a projector screen, a small round table, and a few chairs.

“I assume you’ve read the case file?” he asks and when you nod, he continues. “We haven’t had anything quite like this before – at least not during my career. I realize the two of you are the leads on The Joker right now, so any help you’re willing to provide is appreciated really.”

“Any new developments?” you ask, pulling out the file from your backpack. Taehyung hums before sitting down across from you.

“The toxicology report came back right as you arrived, I got a text from my partner,” Taehyung says, and you try to keep a straight face. “He’s over there right now he should be here soon, by the way,” You’re thankful that he doesn’t dwell on the topic for too long, most likely out of respect for you. “They found morphine in her system, so we’re inclined to believe that she was drugged before being tied up and killed. Your raise your eyebrows at this piece of information.

“The Joker doesn’t drug his victims.” You state. “They’re all very much awake when he ties them up and slashes their throats. The carved smile is always scratched in post-mortem.”

“Well there are inconsistencies then,” Taehyung says, running a hand through his hair. “All the wounds here were caused after he actually killed her – and that includes… whatever he did to her face.”

“So, we’re looking at a copycat.” You state.

“Or he’s changed his MO.” Yoongi adds.

“He hasn’t changed it for his first five victims what was special about this one that he had to drug her to knock her out first? No, this sounds like someone plotting murder and covering it up. Either way let’s explore all avenues.” You say.

“I agree,” comes a voice from behind you and you almost jump out of your seat. You turn to see the very person you’d been dreading running into since stepping foot on the platform this morning. Jeon Jungkook walks in, two cups in his hands, setting one down in front of Taehyung. He leans over to shake hands with Yoongi, giving you a mere side-glance. He sits down across from the two of you and takes a sip of his drink. Distractedly, you wonder if its coffee – as far as you know he was never a big fan.

The again, you muse, you’re not sure you really know him anymore.

There’s an awkward sort of silence and Yoongi’s body language tells you he’s noticed something’s off. Taehyung clears his throat.

“I’m assuming the two of you will want to check the crime scene out?”

“And the body.” You add. Taehyung nods and stands up.

“Do you want to split up or do both together?” You look at Yoongi.

“Together,” the two of you say at the same time. Yoongi’s smiling. You smile back.

Getting into the back of Taehyung’s sleek black SUV, you watch Yoongi jump in from the other side, dark hair slightly tousled from trying to get some sleep on the train. He’d been your partner for the entirety of your career with the Seoul PD. The two of you had started as rookie cops and had spent the first few months catching small-time criminals. Yoongi was easy to work with, and you’d found a fast friend in him, being alone in a big, unfamiliar city. You closed cases like no one else and before you knew it, the two of you were promoted to Major Crimes as detectives. The Joker was one of your first cases and it was a real thorn in your side that you hadn’t managed to catch the bastard yet.

Jungkook gets in the passenger seat next to Taehyung. He hasn’t so much as addressed you yet, except for agreeing with your previous statement. You had expected as much. He’s still sipping on his drink. Taehyung is talking to one of the officers by the main gate and you take this time to really take in Jungkook’s appearance.

He hasn’t changed – gotten broader maybe. His hair is slightly longer, falling into his eyes. His ears are still pierced in multiple places, although right now he’s only wearing simple rings in both ears. He’s wearing a dark sweatshirt, which you recognize is from the Busan Police Academy as you own the same one. His right hand is littered with tattoos you can’t make out, and they disappear into his arm. That is new and you wonder when he got them done. Unable to help yourself, your eyes travel to his left hand, his ring finger. You’re surprised to find it empty. The last time you saw him, there was definitely a ring there. It was the last time you were in Busan. You haven’t returned since.

“Did Namjoon text you?” Yoongi’s voice breaks you out of your reverie. You look at your partner distractedly. “He said he was going to.”

“Oh, I haven’t checked.” You mutter, before pulling out your phone from the back pocket of your jeans. There is an unread message, surely enough from your co-worker.

“Yeah he says Holly’s fine,” You tell Yoongi, scrolling through the message. “He was a little shy last night but seems to have taken a liking to Joon.” Yoongi heaves a sigh of relief. Yoongi was also your roommate back home, and his dog meant more to him more than anything else. You secretly were also extremely fond of the little brown poodle. “He says he’ll send pictures later.” Yoongi scoffs at that.

“He better, I do not trust that man with our dog.” Yoongi says and you smile at his wording. Holly was definitely Yoongi’s dog, you had just moved into his apartment when he was in need of a roommate to help cover the rent. It was so easy to be platonically domestic with Min Yoongi.

“Why didn’t you just leave him with your brother?” you ask, putting your phone away, looking out through the window to see if Taehyung is done.

“Geumjae’s in Daegu for my Mom’s birthday.” you turn to Yoongi in surprise.

“It’s your Mom’s birthday and you’re here?” you ask in surprise. Yoongi shrugs. “Maybe we should stop in Daegu on the way back.”

“I considered it,” he says. “If we have time.”

“I’d like to meet her.” You say warmly.

Jungkook clears his throat and you look at him, having forgotten he’s in the car too. He’s about to say something when Taehyung opens the door and gets in on the driver’s side.

“Sorry,” he says. “We have another ongoing case.”

“It’s not a problem,” Yoongi says. “You could’ve just left us to go do all this by ourselves.”

“No this case takes precedent for us too,” Taehyung says, starting up the car. “Plus, we’re here to help you if you ever need anything.”

The rest of the drive is silent, but its an almost-comfortable type of silence. You look out the window, taking in the familiar streets from your younger years. Nothing really has changed but then again, two years isn’t a long time at all. Or maybe it is. You’re not sure anymore.

“You say she was found near Haeundae?”

“Near the Haeundae market, yes.” Jungkook answers, surprising you. “She hadn’t been in the water and no water was found in her lungs, so she wasn’t drowned. No blood or signs of struggle in the surrounding area meaning she was killed elsewhere and brought to the market. We aren’t sure why this particular location was chosen--”

“The killer wanted her to be found,” you say, your voice soft, cutting him off. “The markets open before anything else. Everyone who lives here knows that.” Jungkook turns to look at you, really look at you, for the first time since he’d walked into the conference room.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I think so too.”

“ID?” Yoongi asks, and either he’s pretending not to feel the tension in the car, or he doesn’t notice it. Knowing Yoongi, it’s probably the former.

“16-year-old Park Sohee,” Jungkook says, turning back to look at the little black notebook he has open. “Attended high school in Haeundae, grew up in the area too.”

“Have you spoken to the parents?” You ask.

“Yesterday,” he replies. “She was on the swim and dive team at school. Had excellent grades and many friends. A popular kid. Parents say she had no enemies, and no boyfriend, and wasn’t involved in anything ‘bad’.”

“Yeah well a parent is always going to say that,” you muse. “Have you spoken with her school? Friends? Swim coach?”

“Not yet. We waited for you.” You nod at that.

“I’d like to see the body after this if that’s okay. Yoongi can go talk to the school.” Yoongi nods beside you.

“Sure, one of us can go with you and the other can go with Detective Min.” Taehyung says, pulling up near the fish markets. You step out of the car, the smell of fish immediately overpowering you. You wrinkle your nose and look around. The market is exactly the same as you remember it. The familiar stalls selling everything from fresh produce to seafood to small trinkets and jewelry. It isn’t too busy right now considering it’s a weekday, which means you can look around easily.

“Nostalgic?” Jungkook asks stepping in beside you. You smile slightly.

“Only a little,” you answer him. “We used to come here a lot.”

“I still do to be honest,” he jokes. “The naengmyeon here is unrivalled.”

“Still?” you ask surprised, and he nods.

“Have some while you’re here,” he says, tossing his now empty cup in the nearby trashcan. “I know you like it.” He’s looking at you once again looking like he wants to say something. You understand, there are so many words left unsaid between you after all. You’re not sure you want to open that door though. Jungkook has always worn his heart on his sleeve.

“Over here,” Taehyung motions from some distance away and the two of you make your way to him. Yoongi is already standing there and he hands you a pair of gloves. Pulling them on, you lift the yellow police tape to make your way to the scene.

“They found her in front of this stall, on her back.”

“On display,” you say, kneeling near the chalk outline of the body. “Killer wanted us to see her face and neck.” You looked up at Jungkook and Taehyung, who were looking at you in confusion.

“It’s another inconsistency,” you say, standing up. “The Joker’s victims are all found face down. This guy totally didn’t do his research considering he was trying to be a copycat.”

“He wanted us to see the slashed throat,” Yoongi says. “He’s an amateur at this.” You nod.

“The cause of death was the morphine, I’m guessing. The wounds were all inflicted post-mortem”

“She had no other inflictions,” Jungkook says. “You can look at the tox screen when we go see the body and talk to the M.E. too.”

“Who found her?”

“A couple fishermen,” Taehyung reads off his notes. “Time of death is approximately 3-4 AM and both their alibis check out, they were out on the docks ready to head out.”

“I say we tell the press we’re convinced it’s the Joker,” you say, taking off your gloves and pocketing them.

“I agree,” pipes up Jungkook.

“Detective Min, if you can come with me to go talk to the family,” Taehyung says to Yoongi and then turns to you. “Go with Jungkook to see the body,” he says. You nod hesitantly, half-hoping it would’ve been the other way around. “We’ll drop you off on our way.”

Before you know it, you’re standing next to Jungkook outside the medical examiner’s office. Jungkook pushes the door open, letting you go through first.

“Hey Jin, I’m back,” he says and you hear a crash and a man appears from behind some shelves. He’s wearing a lab coat, dark hair disheveled. He looks at you.

“Oh, the detective from Seoul I’m guessing!” he says, his voice oddly melodious. “Kim Seokjin, MD.” You shake his hand, grinning and introducing yourself. You already like him.

“She wants to take a look at the body.”

“Of course, of course,” Seokjin says rushing around to the many shelves in the wall, popping one open and pulling out the body of Park Sohee.

You and Jungkook make your way towards it. You peer down at the young girl.

“The morphine is likely what killed her,” Seokjin says, watching you.

“She has bruises,” you say softly, staring at her abdomen. “Post-mortem?”

“No.” Seokjin replies. “She got those when she was alive. The coloring indicates they’re old.”

“Swimming and diving aren’t high contact sports,” you say. “Where did she get these bruises on her arms and chest?”

“You thinking domestic abuse?” Jungkook asks from behind you

“The parents said she didn’t have a partner. How did the parents seem?”

“Upset,” Jungkook starts, then stops. “You think the parents did this?”

“Just considering all options. Her team coach is also a possibility. I won’t know until we’ve checked all of them.” You look down at her again. “A pretty girl.” You say. “Can I have copies of the tox screen?”

“Sure,” Seokjin replies, walking over to his desk to print out a copy. “There isn’t much other than the morphine. An overwhelming amount.”

“Where would they get access to so much morphine?”

“No idea,” he says walking over and handing you the toxicology report, which you subsequently put in your bag. “But it was way over the lethal amount. The killer isn’t an expert on dosage. My guess? Someone who has no idea how killing works.”

You and Jungkook walk out of the building. The afternoon sun is peaking out, making you shed your jacket.

“You hungry?” he asks, and you realize you are. All you’ve had since arriving in Busan is coffee. “There’s a galbi place around here.”

He leads you around the corner into a small restaurant and you enter behind him.

“Jungkookie!” comes an excited voice and you see an elderly woman wearing a flowery apron making her way towards you. “It’s been a while!”

Jungkook grins at the woman and greets her politely and she ushers you over to a small table by the window facing the busy street. Handing you a menu, she smiles kindly at you.

“You’re a regular?” you ask.

“I used to be. It’s been a while honestly.”

You scan the menu, your mouth immediately watering.

“The dak-galbi here is unreal,” he tells you and you pretend to throw the menu away.

“Well how dare I eat anything else then!” Jungkook laughs, high and melodic. Its been a while since you’ve heard that laugh. “Let us split the dak-galbi. I also want rice.”

Jungkook gets up and walks over to the counter himself to give your order. You watch him, a small smile on your face. He collapses back in his seat, bringing over two glasses of water.

“So,” he says.

“What’s with the tattoos.” You blurt out, eyeing his hand. He stares down at it too.

“Wanted a change, I guess,” he says slowly. “Life was getting pretty dull around here.”

“So, you got inked,” you say grinning. He grins back.

“I’m happy this isn’t awkward,” he says after a while and you freeze. “I’m glad we can sit and talk like this still.”

“I know,” you whisper. “Me too.”

“About back then—” he starts, and you sigh. You want desperately to avoid this conversation but Jungkook, ever the straight arrow, has never liked underlying tension, and prefers everything laid out on the table in front of him. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Don’t apologize for your feelings,” you tell him, but he shakes his head vigorously.

“No, I am sorry,” his tone is firm. “I ruined our friendship, made everything weird and drove you away. I know I’m the reason you’ve avoided this place until now and even now you’re only here because you have to be—”

“Jungkook,” you interrupt gently, and he halts mid-rant, his doe-like eyes wide. “Stop talking. I’m the one who’s sorry. I acted immature and it was me who ruined everything, not you. I didn’t come back because-because it hurt at first and then I didn’t come back because I thought you’d be happier without having to deal with me.”

“How could you think that?” He’s gripping the table, knuckles white. It makes the ink on his hand stand out even more. You see a sketch of a small rose, about an inch tall, right below his index finger, and bite your lip. “You were my best friend.”

“It’s different now,” you assure him, still staring at the rose. It’s staring back at you, a silent taunt. It brings up repressed memories you rather not face. “Things are different. I’m happy—in Seoul. Please don’t blame yourself for everything that happened. I wasn’t angry to see you, I was just worried you wouldn’t want to see me. I’m happy now and I’ve moved on from all that.”

“With Yoongi.” Jungkook says, and you’re not sure why he sounds so bitter.

“With Yoongi, yes,” you say. Yoongi’s your work partner and a steady shoulder when you need one. He’s your roommate and best friend. Seoul is lonely and even after two years of living there, he’s one of your only friends. But as soon as you say it, something in Jungkook’s expression shifts, like a door slamming shut. He sits back. “He’s the best partner anyone can ask for, and a damn good detective.”

Jungkook nods once, jaw clenched. Before you can ask him what’s wrong, your food arrives and you’re too hungry to think of much else.

After that, the two of you only make polite small talk. There’s no tension but you can’t help but feel like the wall that was crumbling has somehow repaired itself. Jungkook’s phone rings as he’s finishing his rice.

“Tae, hey,” he says, phone in his left hand as he eats with his right. You distractedly wonder why he doesn’t wear his ring anymore. “Okay sounds good. No, we can just walk to the station its only a couple blocks. Yeah man see you there.”

“They done talking to the school?”

“Yeah they’ll fill us in when we get there.”

“So, what’s the deal?” Yoongi asks, his lithe body curled up on the hotel armchair in your room. His room is next door, but the two of you had ordered room service for dinner. Empty bowls of jajangmyeon lie littered on the small side table next to him.

“The deal with what?”

“Detective Jeon,” You turn to Yoongi and fix him with a stare. Yoongi raises an eyebrow. “He doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Nonsense,” you reply.

“You two have a history? It got seriously weird at times today.”

“No history—it’s the same as Taehyung, we attended the police academy together. Taehyung was a couple years ahead of us though.”

“And?”

“And I’ve also attended middle school and high school with Jungkook. He was my neighbour growing up.”

“Ah childhood friends,” Yoongi hums. “But what went wrong?”

“What makes you think something went wrong?”

“Because you left behind a perfectly good life here when you moved to Seoul? Because you never talk about these people? Before today I didn’t even know of them. And also, because you were absolutely dreading coming here.” You sigh, hating Yoongi’s astute personality.

“Jungkook found out how I felt,” You say quietly. “About him.”

“Oh.”

“While he had a girlfriend.”

“…Oh.”

“Who he was engaged to.”

“What the fuck,” Yoongi’s tone makes you giggle, relieving the pain a little.

“Obviously, he never felt the same way, but then things got so weird. It was like we could never go back to what was. Jungkook skirted around me, his girlfriend hated my guts, I had to avoid our whole friend-group because all of his friends were my friends. It felt claustrophobic.”

“So, you left.”

“Not exactly,” you say. “I wasn’t actively looking to run away, but when the option to move was presented to me, I hesitated way less than I originally would have.”

“And are you still in love with him?” Yoongi asks, voice casual.

“I don’t know,” you reply, thinking of the small rose tattooed on Jungkook’s hand. It’s easier to deny. “It’s been two years and as far as I know he could be married by now.”

“I didn’t see a ring,” Yoongi answers, like the detective he is. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Doesn’t matter,” you say. “He was head over heels for Jangmi.”

“What a delicate name,” Yoongi muses.

“She was the delicate kind,” you agree. “Kind, pretty, gentle – just like her name—like a rose.”

“Every rose has its thorns though,” Yoongi says wisely. “He cares about you, you know.”

“Who?”

“Detective Jeon. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You’re such a romantic at heart Min,” You tease. Yoongi only smiles softly in return. “It doesn’t matter. Jungkook’s life is here and mine is in Seoul. After we wrap this case up, I probably won’t see him again. I’m happy with my life right now.”

“Maybe if you tell yourself that enough times, it’ll one day become the truth.”

“Anyway, go over what you saw with the victim’s school again.” You sit on your bed cross-legged, your go-to posture when you’re trying to focus.

“Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. Her swim coach is a well-respected man. Usually men in power take advantage of multiple people under them but none of the other girls in the team seemed out of sorts to me. Her teachers all spoke highly of her—she really did have excellent grades. It seemed she was friendly with everyone in her class and on her team. I’ve hit a block.”

“That’s frustrating.”

“The bruises you mentioned are bothering me,” Yoongi adds. “They don’t seem to have an explanation and the parents seemed surprised when we asked them about it.”

“Alibis for the parents?”

“Asleep at home,” he hums. “No way for us to check that. Sohee was on her way back from swim practice and when she didn’t show up at home at the regular time by 10pm her mother started worrying. They claimed they would call the police the next day, but of course it was too late.”

“They didn’t think their daughter not showing up at home was a cause for panic?” You ask. “It’s weird to me. She wasn’t the rebellious type, so this must not have been normal behaviour.”

“You’re set on the parents, aren’t you?” Yoongi grins, stretching his legs out.

“It’s just this feeling, I don’t even have an explanation for it.”

“A hunch.”

“Yes but no proof,” You grit your teeth in frustration.

It rains on your second day in Busan. You roll out of bed to the sound of the tell-tale pitter patter and groan. Getting ready and putting on the jeans from yesterday along with a black dress shirt, you hop around trying to tuck it into the waistband. There’s a knock on your door and you open it to greet Jungkook.

“Oh—hey,” he is not who you expected to be at your door so early in the morning.

“Your partner left your hotel info with Tae.” He says, curious eyes peering around your hotel room. You quirk a small smile and let him in. He sits down on the chair Yoongi was occupying last night.

“So, what’s up?”

“We found a suspiciously large amount of money in a savings account under Park Sohee’s name,” Jungkook is still looking around your room curiously and you don’t know why.

“Suspicious?”

“She was sixteen,” he says. “What’s a 16 year old doing with fifty million won?” Your eyes widen at the amount.

“Do her parents know?”

“We’re going down to see them now that’s why I’m here.” Jungkook stands up. “Where’s Min?”

“In his room probably. He’s not a morning person.” Jungkook blinks down at you.

“You two aren’t sharing a room?”

“Huh?” You pause mid-way of packing your backpack for the day. “Why would we?”

“Because… you’re together—wait what,” Jungkook looks so confused you almost find it adorable.

“What the fuck Jeon, we’re not together – not like that.” You say.

“B-but yesterday you said you’d moved on with him—”

“Yes, as partners – you know? The thing we do for work.” You’re trying not to laugh.

“B-but you own a dog together and live together.”

“We’re cops, Jeon, not billionaires. Rent in Seoul is atrocious, he’s my roommate. Also, Holly is Yoongi’s dog, not mine.”

“Oh my god,” Jungkook hides his face behind his hands and sits back down. You’re laughing. “I’m sorry for assuming.”

“You know—you should ask Yoongi how Jung Hoseok is doing.” You say, grinning.

“Who?” Jungkook looks up.

“His boyfriend,” you’re trying hard not to burst back into giggles. “Lives in Gwangju on a temporary assignment. The guy whose room I’m technically renting out. They were roommates before getting together. When he had to move out for work, Yoongi needed someone to help cover the rent.”

“Oh my god,” Jungkook moans, hiding behind his hands again. “I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” you say laughing. “Easy mistake to make… I think?” Jungkook is looking at you from in-between his fingers.

“So then, are you seeing anyone?” His direct tone throws you off. You turn to fully look at him, but a knock on the door interrupts you both.

It’s Yoongi, and he doesn’t look surprised to see Jungkook in your room.

“Taehyung texted me,” he says. “Detective Jeon,” he adds in greeting.

“Please,” Jungkook smiles, “call me Jungkook.” Yoongi raises both his eyebrows and looks at you in question and you’re trying to fight laughter once again.

The ride to the victim’s parents’ house is quiet. Taehyung drives and you spend the time pondering over Jungkook’s words from earlier. He’d been angry yesterday because he’d assumed you and Yoongi were together. You frown to yourself because nothing makes sense. Had he fallen out with Jangmi? But it’s not like Jungkook had ever thought about you as anything other than a friend. You remember his words from back then, loud and clear, and they come back to you now.

“I’m sorry.”

You remember his apologetic eyes, the glint of his wedding band; he had looked like a child who’d been told off. You hate that look, the pity staring down at you. But most of all you hate the fact that you’d been rejected before you’d even had a chance to explain. A mutual friend had let the cat out of the bag at a party, and Jungkook being Jungkook had confronted you right away. None of it had been on your own terms.

You’d brushed it off as a small crush, defence mechanisms kicking in, but things had never been the same afterwards. Jungkook had always been good at seeing right through you and he could tell you’d been lying about the depth of your feelings.

You clench your fist. Moving to Seoul had meant burying all this behind you, pretending none of it had happened, forgetting about Jungkook and how madly in love you’d been with him. You’d always been good at compartmentalizing, it’s what made you a good cop. You’d ignored everything for two years. Until now.

Yoongi calls your name, breaking you out of your reverie. You’re at Park Sohee’s home, but you can see from your seat in the car that the main door is ajar. Jungkook is already tossing you a vest which you hastily put on. He pulls out his gun and exits out the car. The three of you follow suit.

“Stand guard at the back, we’ll clear the house.” Taehyung tells you and you and Yoongi nod. The two of you position yourself near the backdoor. After about 10 minutes you hear Jungkook shout. The backdoor opens, and his head peeks out.

“Father missing, but we found his wife,” at your expression, he continues, “Dead, in the bathtub. Overdosed, it seems, in an apparent suicide. She left a note.” He holds up a piece of paper.

“Her husband, a nasty man, is our guy.”  

“Where is he?”

“Taehyung is putting a trace on his credit cards and cellphone as we speak.”

You’re reading the note, disgust piling up inside you. Sohee’s father had been an abusive man, and she was planning on running away and going to the police. She sold some of her clothes and other belongs to earn money through the years. The mother, an abused woman herself was complicit in the crime but had been unable to handle the guilt.

“This man killed his daughter and is directly responsible for another woman’s death. We better find him.”

At that moment, Taehyung appears at the door.

“Got him, let’s go.”

“When we said he was amateur at this, I didn’t mean this amateur.” You say, staring at the balding man through the one-sided mirror.

“He panicked when his daughter threatened to go to the police and killed her in a fit of rage. Then he tried to cover it up.”

“Only a psychopath tries to copy other psychopaths.” Yoongi says behind you. Jungkook is in the interrogation room, dark jeans and a dark t-shirt on, looking like he’s going to strangle the living daylights out of Park Sohee’s killer. His arms are bare for the first time since you’ve been back, and you can see the black ink swirling all the way up and disappearing into his sleeve. They’re all little designs, instead of a cohesive piece, as though he got them done separately.

“When are you guys heading out?” Taehyung asks. “We should at least grab a drink before you go.”

“We managed to get in on a train this evening,” Yoongi says apologetically. “Duty calls back home.”

“We’re still going to stop in Daegu for the night to wish Yoongi’s mother a happy birthday.” You tell Taehyung. “Early morning tomorrow, we head back to Seoul.”

“That’s too bad,” Taehyung nudges you playfully. “We barely had time to catch up.” You smile slightly, still staring at Jungkook, who’s coaxing a confession out of the man. You can’t deny that you want to leave Busan as soon as possible, but somewhere deep inside your heart breaks.

Park Sohee’s father confesses not too shortly after that and the case is officially closed. Taehyung suggests a late lunch at a nearby restaurant as a final get-together before you and Yoongi have to leave in the evening. Jungkook doesn’t say much throughout the meal, only offering a distracted smile every now and then.

When the four of you are heading out Jungkook grabs your wrist.

“Can we talk?” he asks and you look over at Yoongi who gives you a small smile.

“I’ll meet you at the train station tonight then,” is all he says before pulling Taehyung away towards his car. Jungkook is still looking at you.

“Walk with me,” he says, and you do, falling into step beside him. “I think we need to clear up some misunderstandings.”

“Misunderstandings?”

“I broke up with Jangmi,” he starts and you’re genuinely surprised to hear that. “Actually—she broke up with me. It’s been over a year since.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you say carefully, hating yourself for the selfish happiness that blooms inside you. “What happened?”

“She left me for someone else,” Jungkook says, smiling lightly. He doesn’t look hurt. “Someone who can love her way more than I ever could.”

“That’s so not true,” you argue back. “You loved her.”

“I did,” he agrees, and you try not to wince. It’s harder to hear it than say it. “To an extent. When she left, I didn’t cry. In fact, I was barely upset, and I hated myself even more for that. But then Jangmi pointed something out that made me see things very clearly.”

“What was that?” you whisper. The two of you are standing beside Nakdong river now, cyclists and runners passing by you in the blink of an eye. The air smells fresh and cold, the rain having left behind a chill and bright blue sky.

“She pointed out that I was more upset when you moved away than I was when she told me there was someone else for her.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding.

“Oh.” Is all you say.

“When I apologized yesterday, for ruining everything, I meant that I was sorry that I was so confused. My confusion and indecisiveness ruined everything. When everything became clear to me, you were already gone.”

“Why didn’t you contact me?” you ask, your voice still hushed.

“I tried,” he is being earnest now. “Your parents had already moved to Seoul, and I contacted Kim Jooyoung from school to see if she knew of your contact information, she was your best friend in college after all. All she had was a cellphone and a landline phone number, but it was worth a shot. When I called, your old roommate picked up and said you’d moved in with some guy. When I tried your cellphone, it was dead.”

“Oh I-I changed my number,” you say, your voice shaky. “I don’t even remember why now—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jungkook’s voice is urgent. “Before today I’d made peace with the fact that you were the one that got away. I could look you up using my connections but until today I was under the assumption you’d moved on. But you’re here now, by some miracle, if I can even call it that given the circumstances, but to me its too big of a coincidence to just pass up.”

You watch him quietly. He’s slightly out of breath and the wind ruffles through his dark hair.

“You never got to answer my question from earlier,” he says. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“N-no I’m not but—” You never get to finish your sentence because Jungkook is leaning in and crushing his lips to yours. His hands come up to rest on your shoulders, then your neck and then your cheeks, which he grazes with his thumbs. Once you get over your initial shock, you reach up to tentatively grasp his t-shirt on both sides. He tastes like the hot chocolate he had with his lunch. You feel his tongue tentatively swiping at you and you open yourself up to him. Immediately, he tilts his head to deepen the kiss.

After what feels like both, and eternity and a few short seconds, he pulls away. His lips are glistening and swollen and he’s out of breath.

“Don’t leave,” he whispers, hands still cupping your cheeks. “Stay here.” Slowly, you pull away, resting a hand on his chest to steady yourself.

“You’re asking a lot of me,” you start. “My entire life is in Seoul, Jungkook, I can’t just up and leave—”

“You just up and left Busan,” he says, and you freeze. Studying your sudden shift in expression, he hastily corrects himself, “I didn’t mean it like that. That came out wrong.”

“Jungkook,” you say, hoping you sound more patient than you feel. “Things are different now; I’m almost settled down in Seoul. I love Busan, I do, but I have no intention of moving back here. My family lives in Seoul now too and my lease with Yoongi isn’t even up, and I love my job, I wouldn’t dream to leave it.” Jungkook abruptly pulls away. “And I won’t ask you to leave Busan, I know how much you love it here.”

“Then what now,” he asks, a small smile on his face. “That’s it? You leave tonight and I never hear from you again?”

“I never said that,” you say softly. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“Dramatic is my middle name,” he mumbles, and you giggle.  “Do you at least feel the same way?”

“Of course, I do,” you say. “Otherwise I’d have pushed you into the river by now for your advances. Give me some time to think things through alright?”

“But—”

“We have a case back home that needs us, I really do have to go back today. Yoongi’s visiting his family tonight and I’ve made him a promise to come along and they’re expecting me. I won’t go back on that.”

Jungkook is now silent, staring wordlessly at you.

“Do you trust me?” you ask.

“Yes.” He answers. There’s no hesitation in his voice. You smile.

Six Months Later

“Are you sure?” Yoongi asks. The party is in full swing, loud music almost drowning out his voice. He’s holding a cup of clear liquid in his hands and you doubt it’s water.

“Yeah it’s not a problem, I can watch Holly for the weekend.”

“I’ll drop him off on Friday then,”

“That’s fine! You and Hobi deserve the weekend away.”

“But it’s not a hassle for you? It’s your weekend off too,”

“Yoongi I’m not going to try and convince you to let me take care of your dog in the middle of Hoseok’s welcome-back-bash.”

“What’re you two whispering about?” Hoseok slithers in next to you, tossing an arm around your neck.

“Yoongi’s worried about his dog,” you roll your eyes. “This has never happened before.”

“I’m not worried,” Yoongi seethes, making you and Hoseok laugh. “I just don’t want my dog being neglected because you and Jeon are copulating like rabbits all weekend.” Blood rushes to your ears and you grit your teeth.

“Jungkook’s going to be too busy this weekend for that, I promise you.”

“Oh yeah, has he found an apartment yet?” Hoseok asks conversationally.

“Yeah, he’s signing the lease on Friday, and then moving here over the weekend.”

“And he starts work on Monday?” You nod.

“The Organized Crime boys are gonna love him,” Yoongi grins. “Man will fit right in. Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him since you two arrived.”

“Right here Min,” Jungkook pops out of nowhere, a wide grin plastered on his face. You roll your eyes. “What’s up?”

“Yoongi thinks we aren’t responsible enough to take care of his precious dog.”

“I believe the phrase he used was, ‘copulating like rabbits’” Hoseok chimes in unhelpfully. You elbow him in the stomach. Jungkook eyes you, grin fading a little and you recognize the dangerous spark in his eyes.

“Well he’s not wrong—” he starts, but is met by loud interruptions from you, Yoongi and Hoseok.

“Too much information!” Yoongi yells, downing his drink. “You two are disgusting! Lets go Hobi.”

Jungkook comes up to you, still grinning slyly and you automatically slip your arm around his waist.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” you ask, looking up at him. Jungkook has an arm around your shoulder as he takes a sip of his beer.

“Bit too late to ask me that, don’t you think babe?” You pinch his waist and he yells out loud. “I didn’t move to Seoul for you, I moved here for the job.”

“Ha. Ha,” you roll your eyes, but a part of you knows it’s partially true anyway. Long distance between Busan and Seoul hadn’t treated you too badly and things had been going surprisingly well. You were a good five months into your newfound relationship when there had been a sudden opening in the Organized Crime unit, a real step-up for Jungkook’s career. Jungkook had told you once he’d applied for the job that he’d have applied anyway regardless if you were in the picture or not, and you appreciated his honesty. Both of you had always been the type to put your careers first, but you couldn’t believe your luck that things had just fallen into place like this. You’re happy for him.

“Although having you here is a pretty sweet bonus,” Jungkook adds, making you smile. The two of you stand there in silence, arm-in-arm, enjoying the celebrations from afar.

[rosyfingereddawnn]

That’s The Way (Chapter 2)

Pairing: Jimmy Page x Reader

Word count: 3.3k

Warning(s): mentions of cheating, cursing

Author’s notes: Hey y’all, welcome to Chapter 2! Thank you so much for all your positive feedback and responses. A little heads up: Jimmy is not in this chapter...since this is a slow burn, he’ll be introduced in Chapter 4, but it won’t be long, I promise. Just sit tight! As usual, please enjoy, happy reading, and send us messages if you have theories, comments, music recommendations for the playlist, or if you want to be added to the tag list :)

Chapter 1

---------

Evening of 4 May 1965

Walking into the kitchen, Y/N slid into a seat between her brothers, Tommy and Charlie, just as her mum was placing platters of that night’s dinner on the table. A sinking feeling in her stomach plagued her all day, as she knew that she would be interrogated  intensely by her family about the previous night. More importantly, she knew that if they felt that any of the musicians had viewed her as a possible love interest, she’d be in big, big trouble.

“Dad, can you pass me the vegetables, please?” Y/N asked her father, sitting a few seats down from her. If the girl hadn’t been glancing down at her plate to avoid eye contact, fighting the gut feeling that the inevitable would soon occur, she would have seen him glance at her from over the frames of his glasses.

“Sure, dear,” he replied, briefly looking up from the newspaper he was reading as he gave Y/N the dish. The clanking of utensils on plates was all that could be heard until Charlie broke the seal by asking the dreaded question.

“So Y/N, how was the concert last night?” he asked, raising the glass of water in his hand to his lips.  Y/N couldn’t blame Charlie for asking, because he had no idea what had happened, but she knew that this conversation could go south fast. Tommy’s hums of laughter quietly escaped his lips, and Y/N nudged his arm from under the table, giving him a glaring look that sent daggers from her eyes. It screamed, “Shut up!”, and another bout of giggles was the only response.

Tommy knew the outcome of last night because of what Carolyn had babbled to him on the car ride home, and was doing everything in his power to tease his sister.

“Why are you laughing, Tommy?” Y/N’s mum asked, finally taking a seat between Charlie and Lillian.  Silence settled over the table as all eyes locked on to the oldest daughter, and Tommy evilly smiled at Y/N, who only glared at him again. “No reason. Actually, I think Y/N should tell you instead.”

Y/N huffed as she put the dish of roasted chicken, generously seasoned and herbed, back in the middle of the table. She painted on a smile before answering, “It went pretty well. Brilliant show.”

“That’s it?” her dad asked, folding up the newspaper, knowing his daughter was downplaying it.

“Yeah, Y/N, that’s it?” Tommy added. Y/N knew he was taunting her, but the rest of the table did not pick up on it. From under the table, Y/N’s leg begins to bob up and down, and she bites her lip, debating whether or not to tell the whole story. It’s obvious they’re not going to be happy…

“My God, Tommy,” With an exasperated sigh, Y/N, very annoyed at her brother’s pushing, throws her hands up in unwilling acceptance. “Fine, Carolyn and I were invited backstage, and we met the band.”

The table audibly gasped, the loudest of course being Lillian, who looked disappointed, almost devastated at the revelation. Her lips turn down in a sulk, and she rests her cheek, almost permanently flushed with youth, on a fist. “You promised me you wouldn’t let any boys mess with you, Y/N!”

Y/N reached her hand across the table to hold her sister’s in an attempt to coax her. “They didn’t, Lil. We just talked for a while. I just made some new friends last night, that’s all.”

Lillian’s frown turned upside down, content that her sister was safe, a naïve smile that Y/N felt a little guilty about. She, along with Charlie and their parents, didn’t know that most members of the band had shamelessly flirted with her and invited her back to see them again. Tommy was the only one aware, and Y/N made him promise to keep the whole rendezvous a secret. Carolyn had brought the flirting to Y/N’s attention on the car ride home, because in the moment, she didn’t think much of it.

“If they’re mean to you, I’ll be mean to them, just for you!” Lillian exclaims through a mouthful of mush, and the table burst into laughter, shaking their heads in amusement.

“How did it go?” Y/N’s mum asked, cutting into her chicken with a knife and fork. For the first time over the course of the whole dinner, Y/N broke into an unadulterated smile at the memory. “It was really nice, genuinely. They  were all so sweet to us, and we just bonded over music and stuff.”

Y/N’s mother quirked her brow. “No ‘you know what’?”

“No Mum, nothing explicit. It was good, clean fun. Seriously.”

“Alright, I hope you’re telling the truth… I’m happy you had a great time.”

“She is telling the truth, Mum,” Tommy quipped through bites of roasted potatoes, “I can attest to that.”

Y/N’s mum smiled, but her dad piped up with some two-cents of his own. “Musicians are a tough crowd, Y/N. Very fickle blokes, their attractions change all the time. You can’t get too attached to them, dear,  you’re just a small fish in a very big sea.”

“I know, Dad,” Y/N replied, trying to sound understanding. She couldn’t lie to herself, though. The Yardbirds made her feel very special last night, and disappointment was lurching in her stomach at the comment. As much as her father’s words stung, she harbored a small feeling of hope that they truly enjoyed her company and meant what they said.

After everyone finished dinner, and Charlie and Lillian left the table to go play in another room, Tommy, wallet in hand, walked over to his mum, who was washing the dishes with the help of her husband.

“Hey Mum, I’m gonna take Y/N for ice cream,” he whispered, glancing at Y/N who was sitting in a chair in the living room, almost unconsciously playing with her fingers and staring out the window with a pensive countenance.

“Okay, love. Just bring something home for Charlie and Lillian,” she replied. Tommy walked over to Y/N, tapping her shoulder. The girl looked up at him, confused.

“I’m taking you for ice cream. Let’s go,” he said, already walking towards the door. Y/N grinned, then chased after her brother to the car.

~~~~~~~~

27 June 1965

Y/N and Carolyn weren’t able to attend as many Yardbirds gigs as they would’ve liked in the end of May and beginning of June, as they had exams at school. Now that they were over, Y/N could be fully immersed in the travelling British rock and roll circus for the greater part of the summer.

The girls agreed to make a venue change tonight: instead of going to the Marquee, as they usually did, they decided to go to the Crawdaddy Club. Y/N hoped Jeff, Chris, Paul, Jim, and Keith would remember them by their faces instead of just their clothes, because there was no need to wear school uniforms anymore.

Carolyn decided to drive to this particular gig, probably because she was expecting the two of them to go backstage again, as having her own car would grant them more time with the band then that first night at the Marquee.

The Crawdaddy Club was architecturally and aesthetically different from the Marquee; there were no chairs or booths, so standing was the only option, and the boundary between the stage and the audience was virtually nonexistent. The ceilings were low and beamed, and the stage backdrop had a painting of a measure of music. Y/N thought that particular touch was a bit cheesy.

Carolyn and Y/N walked in together, squeezing past the army of fans already hoarding the front of the stage. They managed to find a spot by Jeff’s side of the stage, his amps towering a few feet from where they stood. Thankfully, they were able to see most of the stage, including Jim’s drum riser in the back. The conversations among all the audience members were deafening, but Y/N heard a loud whisper within her periphery that she could just make out.

“Pssst! Y/N!” a familiar voice whisper-shouted, which was followed by a wave.

It was Jeff, widely smiling with his guitar slung over his shoulder. He was walking out the backstage door, meticulously making sure the door wouldn’t harm his guitar in any way. He then waited near the stage steps to go on, which the girls discerned could be any minute now.

“Oh my God, Jeff!” Y/N replied excitedly as she walked over to the steps. She made her way through the crowd, a lot more ungracefully than she would’ve hoped.

“It’s so cool to see you at some place other than the Marquee,” Jeff said. He looked genuinely happy that she was there. Maybe Y/N’s dad was wrong about these “fickle musicians”.

“We’re happy to be here! I’m so sorry I couldn’t make any more since the last time… exams and school and all.”

“Oh, that’s where you were! I hope you got good marks,” Jeff playfully grinned, “because you ought to mind your studies, Miss Y/N. Sam was starting to think he scared you off and that you didn’t want to come back.”

Y/N scrunched her nose in a confused way, as if to say “who?”, which resulted in a soft chuckle from Jeff.

“‘Sam’ is Paul’s nickname.”

Y/N nodded in understanding with an endearing smile. “Oh, okay. That’s definitely not it, then. I was just stuck with exams and graduation, that's all. Be sure to tell him that.” A wink punctuates the end of her sentence, and, gearing up to respond, Jeff is interrupted by a sharp noise next to him. Mere seconds later, another familiar face entered the scene, walking out of the door. Chris Dreja, also with his guitar slung over his shoulder, warmly smiled at Y/N as he closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Y/N. It’s so lovely to see you again,” he greeted. She noticed that he had a substantially deeper voice than the other four, something she hadn’t the last time they met since he was talking with Carolyn and Keith.

“Hi Chris! Same to you,” Y/N grinned.

“No uniforms this time I see,” he teased, discreetly scanning how stunning he thought she looked.

Y/N laughed. “Yeah, I’m off from school for the summer so there’s no need anymore, thank God. Now I can attend your shows more frequently, and wear a decent outfit too!”

“That’s great to hear. We do love your company.” Y/N beamed at his comment, unconsciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Chris’ eyes track the movement, and he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He thought Y/N was beautiful, but he had a wife and a child on the way. He also felt a little jealous that Paul and Jim had their eyes on her, but there was not much he could do about it. If he was cunning and quick enough to steal Y/N before they had the chance, though, and if his wife never found out…

Quickly regaining his wits, he remembered why he was sent out. “Jeff, Keith needs you backstage again.”

Jeff groaned. “What? I thought we were starting, like right now!”

“I know, I know. We were supposed to, but he wants everyone backstage again for some reason.”

“Ugh, this is why he can’t fucking be in charge,” Jeff replied, clearly annoyed. Then, as Chris was heading backstage once again, Jeff pulled something out of his pocket, a knowing smile on his face.

“Here, love, have this. You’ll be needing it after the show,” he said, placing a card with a lanyard attached to it into Y/N’s hands. Y/N smiled giddily.

“Thank you. Good luck with that meeting, and good luck in the show, even though you don’t really need it,” Y/N replied playfully.

“Oh, I think I need it more than you think I do,” Jeff smirked, disappearing behind the door.

~~~~~~~~

Just minutes later, The Yardbirds came out and played their set, which lasted a couple hours, and didn't fail to stun the crowd. Y/N and Carolyn received a lot more smiles of recognition than the last time at the Marquee, since the boys knew who they were now. The only similarity to last time was the electrified fans who were completely immersed in the music.

Jim McCarty, in particular, looked at Y/N a lot more often throughout the show than he did last time. She caught him a couple times, which was really embarrassing on his part, but not the entire time, much to his pleasure. He didn’t think it was possible, but it seemed that she had grown even more beautiful than last time.

Was it absence that made his heart grow fonder? Possibly. Was he in love? Yet another possibility. Did he know for certain? Perhaps, but he wasn’t exactly sure yet.

Besides focusing on the music, Paul’s mind was elsewhere. He was planning on asking Y/N out on a date with him sometime this coming week. He hoped she’d accept, since she did an awful lot of blushing and giggling around him when they met in May, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. Paul was concocting the perfect formulation of words so that she couldn’t refuse the offer. She looked like the type of girl who would enjoy a nice dinner date, and he would do anything to make that a reality for her.

Chris’s mind was the opposite of Paul’s: he didn’t want to think about Y/N because in the event he did, he knew he would mess up a chord or two on the guitar.

God, he thought, she was perfect. Purely enchanting.

Jeff was just happy, almost giddy, that he’d found a new friend in Y/N. He knew she was special, and he hoped she trusted him, because some people in this business could be very sleazy. She was different from all the girls a lonely musician would find on the road. Y/N was the type of girl that Jeff wanted to see after a thousand and one nights touring, catching up and sharing stories over a pint. Sure, he had a steady girlfriend, but something about Y/N was comforting, friendly, and trustworthy. Just what he needed in a friend.

The set was similar to the one at the Marquee, but with little variations here and there, still holding the audience under a trance. After the performance’s conclusion, Y/N rummaged through her pocket and showed Carolyn the backstage pass given to her by Jeff, to which Carolyn squealed with delight. Y/N took Carolyn’s hand and walked with her to the door, showing the security man her prized relic. At once, they were granted access, and they skipped and trotted and leapt down the hall in excitement.

When the pair got to the correct door, Y/N took a deep breath and knocked a couple times; momentarily, they were greeted by a smiling, but sweaty, Jeff Beck.

Y/N didn’t care. “Brilliant show, my friend,” she gushed, giving Jeff a congratulatory hug.

“Thank you,” he replied gratefully, reciprocating it with a beaming smile, “security didn’t give you trouble I hope?”

“No, we were fine, thankfully.”

“Good to hear, good to hear. Well, come on in!” Jeff exclaimed, getting out of the way of the doorframe, “do you fancy yourselves a drink?”

Y/N and Carolyn walked into the room, starstruck once again by all five of The Yardbirds being in one place. This time, some members of the road crew, management, and lighting company were there as well, chatting and planning among themselves. They all greeted the girls amicably, and grabbed some chairs and arranged them in a similar formation to the Marquee.

“Um, yeah, sure, if you don’t mind,” Y/N accepted as she sat down, throwing a kind “thank you” over her shoulder at the roadie that had brought her chair over, voice a little lost in amazement at the current happening.

“Here, I’ll get it,” Jim said with a smile, “you stay put.”

“Thank you, that’s so sweet,” Y/N grinned appreciatively. She could feel herself warming up to these guys, as she didn’t feel as nervous as the last time. But a little twinge of it was still there, rippling through her stomach.

Jim was turned away from Y/N getting the drinks, so she wasn’t able to see him blush. He found it unbelievable, the effect she had on him.

The whole group was sharing conversation and laughs over drinks for almost three hours, but it was almost as if time did not pass. They talked about music, books they liked, restaurants they recommended, places they’ve travelled to, philosophy, history, the environment, conspiracy theories...you name it.

Y/N and Carolyn stood up from their seats, as a cue to the party that they had to leave soon. Paul, who again was sitting next to Y/N, tapped her shoulder. Turning to face him, Y/N could see the flush on his cheeks, and the way he was almost curled into himself.

“Hey Y/N, can I ask you a question really quick?” he asked, much more nervous than he sounded a few seconds ago.

“Yeah, sure,” she smiled. Y/N, taking his outstretched hand, found herself being whisked away by Paul to a corner of the room, near a row of vanities attached to the wall. She hoped that the others were all too distracted talking, so that no one would notice her and Paul’s absence.

Looking at each other, face to face, the two smiled happily, as though there wasn't a care in the world.

Paul then took a deep breath, his expression turning more anxious. “Okay…” he exhaled, “here goes.”

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Y/N chuckled, “it’s just me.”

Paul’s face softened a little, gazing down at her. “But you see, that’s the whole point. It’s you. I have every reason to be nervous.”

Y/N’s face cascaded into a red flush, her lip quivering in the hopes of concealing a foolish grin. Paul reached down and grabbed Y/N’s hands, holding them in his own as Y/N’s heart started racing at what felt like two thousand miles a minute.

“I just wanted to preface this by saying that I, uh… I have been absolutely bewitched by you, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the night at the Marquee,” he began. Y/N melted with every word, but at the same time, she felt as if she had been electrically shocked. When she looked into the twinkling depths of his eyes, she couldn't help but swoon.

“So,” he continued, “I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime. If you’ll let me, of course.”

Y/N was at a loss for words, composure, and any sort of rationality. She never thought, in her wildest dreams, that a musician in a world-renowned band would fancy her. Just able to restrain an awestruck grin, she finally gave in.

“Yes,” she replied, happily breathless and dazed, “I would love to go out with you.”

Paul, ecstatic with her answer, beams down at her as she launches into his arms in a sweet embrace. He asked for her phone number and address, and, spotting a nearby miniature legal pad, she wrote everything down, signing it with a cartoonish smiling face and a heart.

~~~~~~~~

After Y/N and Carolyn had said their goodbyes and left the Crawdaddy Club, the five musicians were left alone in the backstage area, to relax after such an electric show. Jeff and Keith approached Paul, who was collecting his belongings in the corner of the room.

“Did you do it?” Jeff asked, face a picture of feigned nonchalance as he took a sip of his beer.

“Yes, I did it,” Paul grinned, bending down to grab something of his that had fallen on the floor.

“I guess she accepted by the look on your face,” Keith observed, a sardonic smirk on his handsome features.

“You’d be correct,” Paul replied.

“You wanker,” Jeff shook his head disapprovingly, “why would you bloody do that? You’re gonna break her heart!”

Paul’s expression quickly turned unimpressed. “Because if nobody here tells her, she’ll never know.”

What Paul had failed to tell Y/N was that he had a wife, with whom he shared a home. He felt bored, with all the travelling and the touring and the nonsense, so he wanted a lovely, intelligent young woman like Y/N to “keep him company”.

He knew he wasn’t in love with Y/N. Sure, he fancied her immensely, thought she was ethereal, but his heart truly belonged to his wife.

“Congratulations, Sam,” Keith said sarcastically, “you just potentially ruined a friendship with a very pretty bird.” It was clear that Jeff and Keith cared very deeply about Y/N and her happiness, because she was a great girl.

Paul rolled his eyes, annoyed. “You lot have to do me this solid and don’t say anything to her. It’ll work out fine. Oh, and spread the message to Chris and Jim so they don’t spill the beans either.”

“You fuckin’ owe me, Sam,” Jeff warned, already walking backwards towards Chris and Jim, “you owe me big time.”

---------

Taglist: @blood-on-blood @reincarnated70sbaby

[florbelles]

3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 + lyra 💕

thank you airika!! sorry this is so late xx | xi answered here

iii. did they have a good childhood? what are fond memories they have of it? what’s a bad memory?

she doesn’t feel especially entitled to consider it a bad childhood, since she was enormously privileged in terms of wealth and position ( or, rather, her parents were, which meant she got the best education that could be afforded and materially wanted for nothing, including extensive opportunities for travel ), but she was miserable. she loathed her status, she loathed her father for the way he exploited both it and her, she loathed the company he kept, she loathed being complicit in it; she wanted to loathe her mother for her complete apathy towards her, but she pitied her; she was constantly running away or getting expelled. she was consumed with feelings of powerlessness, and that turned to bitterness, and that turned to fury.

she does have some fond memories; despite her resentment at being shipped off and unwanted, she enjoyed her time abroad, particularly in france; she enjoyed summers on the island, when she would befriend the summer people and spend her time with them, on the periphery of some semblance of normalcy, friends, or family, no matter how temporary her glimpse into domesticity was; her numerous runaway attempts were exhilarating, and she developed a fondness for being on the road that would carry into her adult life, which she spent almost entirely on the road ( or on the run from herself or lingering ties that could connect her to her work ) prior to hope county. she liked the days she spent on the beach by the ocean; she liked the evenings she spent in the forest or stables. she liked the time lawrence took her out for ice cream without ulterior motives or one of his mistresses about ( she’d cancelled, but lyra didn’t care about that at the time ). it wasn’t all bad. never all bad.

ix. do animals like them? do they get on well with animals?

lyra adores animals, and they love her back. they were often her primary companions as a girl, and that fondness and familiarity never left her. they’re innocent. they’re simple. she understands them. if she ever weeps for the old world, it’s for them.

xii.  what is their favourite food?

she loves fresh baked bread, pastries, raspberries, and pomegranetes. her favorite is sushi, though; it’s the one thing she misses about her past life. yes, she has contemplated hope county gas station sushi in desperation. no, she did not ultimately resort to that. that’s how you know she hasn’t hit rock bottom just yet.

xv. are they good at cooking? do they enjoy it? what do others think of their cooking?

she’s a passable chef, but she doesn’t have much need or opportunity to cook for herself with the exception of the occasional evening she spent on her own in her home of the moment ( her loft in san francisco was her longest place of semi-permanent residence, so most of the cooking she did for herself were nights at her loft ). she doesn’t have any interest in letting on that she can cook once she joins the project; given shaggy’s questionable track record, she doesn’t want to get stuck with that responsibility. she wouldn’t have the time, even if the desire was there.

xviii. what’s their favourite genre of books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else?

she primarily reads classical or literary novels; she enjoys romantic elements, secretly being a romantic herself, but she’s mostly interested in expressions of emotion and the human condition, the more visceral the better ( her favorite story as a child was hans christian andersen’s the little mermaid, her favorite as an adult was leo tolstoy’s anna karenina ). musically she favors the 60s or older; her favorite album is fleetwood mac’s rumors, preferably the vinyl, and her second most listened to artist is billie holliday. she loves jazz, classical compositions and opera, but she prefers all of those live; she insists that recordings simply aren’t the same, they’re not raw enough, it doesn’t gut you the same way. yes, she knows it sounds pretentious, yes, she knows she deserves it, no, it does not change her opinion. she has little time for television or films later in life, but her favorites as a girl were always film noir or old hollywood; that’s something she picked up from isabela, though she doesn’t remember that part. she similarly doesn’t have time or much interest in video games, but she’s absolutely abysmal at arcade games. it’s one of the few petty things that enrages her. she doesn’t understand it.

xxi. do they have a temper? are they patient? what are they like when they do lose their temper?

yes. yes, she does. lyra carries almost all of her pain as rage, both emotional and physical; she’s constantly trying to outrun it before it consumes her, finding ways to redirect her energy, to use it. the project helps with that, it gives her an outlet for catharsis. it gives her passion a purpose, a direction. she was spiraling, before. she can usually manage to suppress temper flare-ups, but she dislikes doing it; it will come out another way later on, and it will come out worse. she’s an extremely impatient person, but she’s also fairly specific with what will set her off; she’s unconcerned about most irritants, so while her temper is fast and explosive and dangerous, it’s also not likely to be provoked over petty grievances or upsets.

in other words, it’s always there, but it takes something extreme and severe for her to actually take it out someone. she’s not going to throw a tantrum because someone cut her off or her drink order was wrong.

xxiv. what is their sleeping pattern like? do they snore? what do they like to sleep on? a soft or hard mattress?

pattern-wise, nonexistent; she sleeps when she can, which after the reaping sometimes means in the middle of the day face down on a spare mattress in black horse silo for fifteen minutes. she doesn’t snore unless she’s sick, in which case no one else in the house is sleeping, either; fortunately this is a rare occurrence. she’s actually not particular at all, she can sleep anywhere on anything, even if she does initially tell john she’s moving in because he has the only decent goddamn thread count in the county.

he’s her only sleeping condition, tragically; joseph’s prophecies have her paranoid and she can’t sleep without him. very inconvenient as the holy war approaches. catch her passed out in his lap while he’s trying to do some goddamn paperwork.

xxvii. what makes them sad? do they cry regularly? do they cry openly or hide it? what are they like they are sad?

sadness cripples her; she experiences all emotions in an extremely heightened state, she feels very deeply, and with the exception of anger, which she can externalize and use to fuel her, the affects of negative emotions can literally physically incapacitate her. fortunately — perhaps in part because of this — sadness isn’t something she feels often; when she does, it’s profound and soul-crushing, but she can generally either fix and remove herself from the situation ( running away when she was fifteen when she was crippled by her misery ) or repurpose it and experience it as bitter rage ( which is why she mentally snaps and burns the world down in a fury when she’s grieving ). if there’s no way to redirect it, and it’s something she’s left with, she’s gone. she’s done. she couldn’t function or move for months after the collapse. ( after that she doesn’t cry anymore; the worst has happened, she has no tears left ).

she doesn’t only cry when she’s sad, it also can be when she’s overwhelmed, including by positive emotions; her reaction to being told she was loved was to go cry in the shower for an hour. she generally won’t cry in front of others if she can help it, not because she considers it a sign of weakness so much as she doesn’t want to make it their problem or make them feel obligated towards her.

xxx. do they exercise? regularly? or only when forced? what do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

not exactly for the sake of it prior to to joining the project, when she began training with jacob; she’s always been in good athletic form, she’s had to be with who and what she is — even before the project there was always the chance of needing to make a getaway, needing to defend herself, needing to attack, so she always kept up her physical strength and endurance, but she never had a gym membership or hit a treadmill three times a week. she’s always had an active lifestyle that’s kept her on her toes. she over-exerts, always, and because of the fact that she doesn’t have that disciplined routine, she easily burns herself out; she’s great in the moment, she’s a force of nature for short bursts of time, but she’s going to crash hard.

[beyondconfessor]

The Infernal Contract [15/16]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Lilith/Zelda Spellman

Summary: There was a feral edge in the way she glared. Her eyes were sharp, and teeth bared so that the frame of her face took up the entirety of Zelda’s periphery. “You are mine, Zelda Spellman. Not His.”

N.B.: Also posted on AO3

Zelda sat in the parlour, cradling Judas as Prudence rocked Leticia. They had fed and burped the twins before coaxing them to sleep, leaving only a quiet stillness to hold over the house.

Sabrina was in her room doing research, Ambrose was searching the Spellman library for the last-ditch attempt at salvation, and Hilda was pottering around in the kitchen, baking as a way to alleviate her nerves. The house was quiet in a way that Zelda wasn’t familiar with.

She knew that the consequences of the fulfilled prophecy held over them all like the sword of Damocles, waiting to drop, but wished they could spend these final moments as a family. Not avoiding eye contact, dwelling in their fears. Perhaps she should grab Ambrose and Sabrina, move them all to the kitchen and––

"Thank you," Prudence said, breaking the silence in the room. Zelda looked up from her thoughts towards her step-daughter.

"Pardon?”

“For coming to save us. I'd...lost hope that you anyone would find out what had happened to me."

"I should have come sooner," she seethed, adjusting Judas in her arms. There were few things she regretted in her life, but not coming after Prudence on the first day she went missing sat on a narrow list. "I'm sorry, Prudence. I shouldn't have relied on the oath. I knew better than––"

"You came for me when no one else did," Prudence said. "I...appreciate everything you've done for my siblings and me. You've cared for us as if we were apart of your family."

Zelda paused and watched the softness of Prudence’s face as she averted her gaze to look down at her sister. Did she think she was still an outsider to her? Had Zelda unintentionally mislead her to believe that? She felt a pain squeeze in her chest.

”Prudence,” she said, feeling the words catch in her throat as her step-daughter’s eyes rose to hers. “You are apart of this family. You and your siblings are as much a part of my family as Sabrina or Ambrose," she said, watching Prudence's expression change. "Do you think I stayed with Faustus after everything he tried because I was so deluded to think I could retain some power? No, I stayed to protect you and your siblings. I may not have been adequate at that, and I am sorry for failing you as I did, but there was no way I was going to leave you alone with him. I loved you too much for that.”

“You…” Zelda watched as Prudence looked away, her eyes glistening in the dim light as she looked down to her sister. "I––thank you. Zelda."

A silence fell over them again, but the tension eased in the room as Prudence seemed to settle in her thoughts, and Zelda tried to avoid doing just that with her own.  

Sabrina had left at dusk to blow the horn and had returned dejected barely an hour later. Her feet had been heavy as she climbed the stairs. Perhaps it was time Zelda checked on her.

Setting Judas in his bassinette, Zelda advised Prudence that she needed to check on Sabrina, briefly touching a hand to her step-daughter's shoulder in a sign of familiarity, before she left towards the foyer.

Hilda had cleaned up the mess she’d made earlier, and for that she was grateful. It’d been embarrassing to have lost control of emotions like that, worse to know others had witnessed it.

As she ascended the stairs, it seemed every step was dragging her into the very thoughts she wanted to avoid, circling different punishments that Lucifer may enact. No matter how much she tried to prevent it, her thoughts continued to circle Hell, around Lucifer and Sabrina, and of course, to Lilith. The central pillar in her thoughts.

She knew that a part of the reason she was walking towards her nieces’ door, was because she wanted to know if Sabrina had witnessed Lilith in the woods when she’d blown the horn. And yet, a part of her was terrified of the answer.

It was one thing to know she was okay, but what if she wasn’t?

No, she couldn’t allow herself to circle that particular fear. She was here to provide comfort to Sabrina, not for herself.

Zelda knocked on her niece’s bedroom door, her stomach twisting in knots. She heard the sound of shuffling, before Sabrina pulled the door open, her face hardening as she looked at Zelda. “Lilith left a while ago,” she said sharply.

Zelda’s heart fluttered at the words. “Lilith was here?”

“Isn’t that why you came here? Sensing that your mistress was nearby?”

“No, I came here to see how you were.” She swallowed, her eyes running around to look behind Sabrina into the room as if she could see evidence of Lilith. “Was she…?” Her mouth dried with the question, and she fell back into onto her heels, clearing her throat to ask instead, “Did she seem well?”

“She was fine,” Sabrina said, jutting up her chin as she brought the door closer to herself, making it clear that her aunt was not welcome in her room. “Why are you here, Aunt Zee, if not for Lilith?”

Zelda blinked, noticing the bite in her niece’s tone. She was still upset with her. “I came to see if you were well after everything. Whatever you may think, I do care about you, Sabrina.”

“Is that so? Then tell me the real reason you made that contract with Lilith, and don’t give me the same bullshit that it was just for power. Since your honeymoon, you’ve done nothing except teach at the Academy and serve under His Unholy Eminence. You don’t make a contract for power, you wanted something else, and I want to know what that is.”

Zelda felt her hackles rise at the insinuation, she knew Sabrina was only throwing out observations, but a part of her wanted to dig her heels in on that issue and keep the last remnants of her privacy to herself. “Why on earth does it matter? It’s finished.”

“Because you lied to me. You hid this thing from us, from your family. You hurt Nicholas to keep it a secret, and I don’t think he’s the first person you hurt for it. So I want to know why. What did Lilith give you that was worth all of that?”

Zelda felt the words sting her. It was no different to when the Dark Lord asked her. Why had she taken the contract, whyhad she entered it, why had she believed Lilith’s offer? Everyone wanted to know why, but wasn’t it enough that it Lilith has asked her? Could no one else understand what it was like to be desired by the most formidable, enrapturing woman to exist?

She looked at Sabrina, at the prideful stance and thoughtful expression on her face. Her niece still thought that there was some connection between the contact and herself. “I wanted her, Sabrina. I wanted to be wanted by her. There was no ulterior motive or agenda on my end. I can not speak for her motives, but my own were entirely selfish.”

“That’s it?” Her niece repeated dubiously. “Then why did you hide it from us?”

“Because it was no one’s business but my own. Presuming you were to have the same relationship as Lilith and I with Mr Kinkle or Mr Scratch, would you be more forthcoming with your Aunt Hilda about it, or me for that matter?” She paused, awaiting Sabrina’s response, and when nothing arose, Zelda quirked an eyebrow at her niece. “As I thought.”

Sabrina’s lips parted, her brow furrowing in thought. “But you took Nicholas’ memories away and then you left the house in such a hurry. You weren’t running to tell her?”

“Well, in truth I had gone to accuse her of manipulating you.”

“Which she had.”

“She was manipulated too. Do you really think that she’s spent all these serving the Dark Lord to watch her promised position be passed onto you? No, it became obvious that she and you had both been played, and once that was cleared up, we…moved on to other things.”

“Like what?”

Zelda raised her brow and watched as Sabrina’s face coloured with embarrassment. “But you were all dressed up that day, and then you came back the next day as if you’d stayed at hers all day and night. You honestly weren’t…I don’t know, plotting nefarious things together? Conversing with the Dark Lord or…?”

“Or making a blood sacrifice?” Zelda laughed, feeling a warmth flush her cheeks. “No, we were otherwise occupied.”

“All day and night?”

“Yes, Sabrina, all day and night.”

Sabrina’s nose scrunched up as she muttered under her breath, “seems a bit excessive.”

Zelda mused on the words but didn’t respond. Perhaps it had been excessive, but it was something she had hoped to repeat before the mess had unravelled around them. As it was, the best she could do was hope to see Lilith again before their world was overrun from demons, which Zelda imagined would be happening anywhere between now and tomorrow.

Her thoughts returned to circling in worry about Lilith and Sabrina. If there were an answer as to how she could permanently remove Lucifer, she would take it, no matter the risk. As it was, He was their god. How do you destroy a god except by being another god?

Zelda blinked away the thoughts and then realised that Sabrina was starring at her oddly. Rather than wait for her niece to ask what would likely be another personal question, she enquired her question. “Why was Lilith here, earlier?”

“To prepare for the coronation. She’s…acting as the welcoming party to the demons now, but she’s meant to arrive back before midnight. I should get dressed soon.”

“Wonderful,” Zelda said dryly. Her chest tightened, but the paralysing fear she expected from hearing those words didn’t settle in. It seemed the idea of a demon welcoming party was all too far-fetched for her at this moment, or perhaps she clung onto some hope that Lilith somehow managed to prevent her demon-children from exiting the gates of Hell.

“We’ll stop them, we always do,” Sabrina said to her. “I even have an idea of how.”

As Zelda went to enquire as to Sabrina’s plans, there was a sudden tug of magic before an expansion shuddered through the room, as Nicholas Scratch appeared in the bedroom behind Sabrina.

“Let me help.”

Sabrina turned on her heel, her posture straightening to that of a witch prepared to strike out with battle magic. “You’re not welcome here, Nicholas.”

“Sabrina––“

“No! You lied to me. How do you think I could ever forgive you for that?”

The argument continued back and forth, with Sabrina slinging results and Nicholas pleading forgiveness as if any of it mattered.

Zelda sighed, watching the two squabble. She thought about leaving them to it, and then considered reminding them that they didn’t have time for this. Still, before she could choose either decision, there was a similar tug and release of magic signalling another, more considerable teleportation spell. At first, it seemed to be Sabrina’s mortal friends peeking from behind the door in Sabrina’s room, looking curiously from Sabrina to Zelda to Nicholas, until Lilith stepped into the line of sight.

Zelda felt her breath pull, barely listening to woman’s explanation of a series of events leading to the Gates of Hell remaining sealed for the moment.

It had something to do with the mortal children, which raised a lot of questions Zelda didn’t actually care about, because Lilith turned and looked at her, a surprised smile ghosting on her lips before she looked away.

Lilith. Who was in good health, who appeared fine, she thought as she hurridly ran her eyes from head to heels, looking for any sign of weakness.

“Aunt Zelda?”

Zelda’s blinked, looking across to Sabrina, before noticing that her niece was holding something. Something large and bulbous and purple… Edward’s Acheron? And then she realised what Sabrina had asked. “You’re planning to trap Him in that?” she inquired, raising her brow. “Would that even work?”

“It might,” Nicholas said. “An Acheron is only as powerful as its caster. We would need a lot of power behind it.”

Zelda frowned to herself. It wouldn’t be easy, but when was entrapping the Dark Lord ever easy? Her eyes turned to Lilith, catching her with similar uncertainty.

“We’ll need the glamour to end all glamours. And Lilith will need to mislead the Dark Lord,” Sabrina said, before smiling at them all. Zelda felt a sigh pull at her. She was so sure it would work as if it was a great masterplan unthought of by anyone.

True, none of them had been the Devil’s daughter, and yet Zelda found her trust in her niece wavering. “Sabrina,” she began as gently as she could, “I entrust Edward’s capabilities to capture any demon, but this is the Dark Lord. Are you certain this is the most powerful Acheron?”

“Yes, trust me. This is going to go perfectly. But we all have to get ready.”

“What will happen if you do…get the Dark Lord?” one of Sabrina’s friends who wore glasses asked.

Zelda and Lilith both looked with interest to Sabrina then, watching the girl’s jaw shake awkwardly. “I…haven’t thought that far.”

“I have,” Zelda said. “If this works, then you will abdicate, and Lilith will rightfully be crowned Queen of Hell. As she deserves.” Sabrina’s mouth parted as if she wanted to fight her, but Zelda glared at her niece, providing her with all the warning she needed that this was not up for discussion. “She’s earned it. It should have been hers by right long before now.”

“Fine,” Sabrina bit back. “But we’ll need to act quickly. Theo, Roz, can you get Prudence and Aunt Hilda from downstairs? Nicholas, can you grab Ambrose? He should be in the library. Harvey…” she stopped and seemed to flush as she watched him look back at her with surprise. “How did you stop the gates?”

“Oh…well,” Mr Kinkle began, and Zelda found herself drifting into worry as Mr Scratch and the other mortals passed by her with their tasks.

Zelda wanted to believe her niece, wanted to believe this would work, but as Lilith turned and looked at her, a strange mixture of concern and surprise across her face, she knew that neither of them was satisfied with the plan.

Lilith flicked her eyes down the hallway, and Zelda nodded, making her exit as Harvey stepped towards Sabrina in excitement to tell her what they witnessed in the mines.

Zelda led Lilith to her bedroom, shutting the door behind them both. With it, a silence sat between them.

Lilith stood in the centre of the room, and Zelda remained beside the door. It was as if a massive amount of space filled them when in truth, it was only six steps at most. Six steps. She was only six steps away from reaching out to touch her, confirm that she was more than just an apparition.

“Do you meant what you said?” Lilith asked, breaking the silence.

“About the crown? Of course, I did, so as long as you still want it.”

“Of course I want it,” she said, though there was a flash of doubt on her face as if she was afraid to let her self believe it would occur.

It made Zelda wonder how many time had Lucifer promised it to her, moving the crown away with the request for a little more obedience, more patience. How many time had Lilith tried to snatch it from Him, only for her to be struck back?

“Did He––?” Zelda asked, feeling the question swell in her throat.

“I have my uses yet,” Lilith answered dryly. “But I’m sure if this little coup fails, He’ll find some time to…finalise His judgement.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“Won’t it? A bunch of teenagers, half of whom are mortals, overthrowing the Dark Lord? Do you honestly think we’ll succeed?”

“If we don’t try now, what other chance will we have? Legions of demons will soon flood this realm, no matter what the children have done. For now, He’s alone. It’s our best chance.”

A quiet settled again and Zelda found herself clasping her hands together before her. She wanted to reach out to Lilith and hold her, and yet she knew that Lilith would be unlikely to appreciate the gesture. So she held her hands together, drew in a deep breath and stood up straight in her heels. She wasn’t here to sway Lilith’s mind; she was here to discuss the rather prominent problem with their plan. “Before, you seemed to disagree with Sabrina about the Acheron.”

“I did,” Lilith said with a nod of her head as she stepped closer. “It is finely crafted. Edward Spellman was known even in Hell to be a master demonologist and conjurer.”

“But?” Zelda prompted.

“But,” Lilith acknowledged, “the greatest Acheron to exist has always been the human body. We should consider a back-up if this doesn’t work.”

“And who do you suggest? Because it won’t be Sabrina. I don’t care if she is His blood; she will not become his jailer.” Lilith stepped closer, leaving Zelda to feel like she was being backed up against the closed bedroom door as the woman stared at her with intrigue. There was a heat to her stare, which raised the question if Lilith’s reasons for her following her in her weren’t entirely singular.

“I would never have suggested her. She’s too inexperienced to handle it.”

That was undoubtedly true. However, it was becoming increasingly difficult to pay attention to her words.

“Who do you think?” Lilith asked.

Zelda felt herself stand tall, pressing her back against the wood panelling as Lilith came to a stop a foot before her. The truth was, Zelda wouldn’t allow anyone to house the Dark Lord. Not Sabrina, the mortals or Mr Scratch. Not Ambrose or Hilda. Not even Lilith. It left only one obvious choice.

“Then it should be me,” Zelda answered. “Afterall, I have the experience, the power and the capabilities. And as I am to understand, my soul is forfeit and belongs to you. As his jailer, I will be thrice bound to Hell and to you, which is more than adequate to house the Dark Lord.”

Lilith cocked her head, raising her brow as she leaned closer. “You think I would let you do that?”

Zelda scoffed at the statement. “It’s not your choice to make.”

“Isn’t it?” She asked, letting the answer sit between them. She was so close now that Zelda could see her pupils dilating. “You once promised to do anything I wanted. As I see it, you’ve agreed to obey my command. So as your future Queen, I am ordering you not to become His jailer.”

“f I so choose to become His jailer then neither Heaven nor Hell nor even you, Lilith, can stop––“

Lilith grabbed at her jaw, silencing her. There was a feral edge in the way she glared. Her eyes were sharp, and teeth bared so that the frame of her face took up the entirety of Zelda’s periphery. “You are mine, Zelda Spellman. Not His.”

The possessiveness was fueled by jealousy, and Zelda felt a pleased hum rush through at the words, before she stilled it. Reaching up, she took Lilith’s hand and peeled it away from her jaw. “You must have me mistaken with someone else,” she advised, holding the woman’s wrist away from them both. “I may choose to serve you, but I will always belong to myself first, no matter what contracts bind us.”

“Is that so?” Lilith asked, leaning forward, so her lips almost but didn’t quite touch. Zelda’s eyes fluttered shut, feeling the lips coast above her skin, past her cheek and up to her ear. Lilith wasn’t touching her, but she could feel the heat of the woman as she whispered, “As I understand it, this contract makes you mine.”

“My soul is not yet forfeit. You’ll need to kill me first.”

Lilith’s fingers had pressed to her waist, her lips drawing over Zelda’s throat softly as she asked. “I could if you said pretty-please.” Zelda sighed, feeling the mouth press hotly against her throat. It was a distraction, another tactic to sway her thought away from being the prison to Lucifer, and yet it was easy to allow herself to sink into the woman’s touch.

“This won’t change my mind,” she advised.

“It’s not up for debate,” Lilith said. “My answer is no.”

“Lilith, it’s not your––“ she was caught off as the woman began hungrily kissing down her throat. Like that, all thoughts of conversation ceased, and it was all she could do to ask, “How long do we have?”

“Long enough,” Lilith responded. And then her lips were on Zelda’s. Her hands were tugging at the dress. It was urgent and possessive as if they could both feel the seconds ticking away with each breath.

Last time was meant to be their last, Zelda thought as she pushed away from the wall and began unzipping Lilith’s dress, clawing it down the woman’s body. The time before that, she had decided it was their last time. Perhaps they could have a hundred-thousand more ‘last times’ so as long as they survived tonight.

Their dresses were unzipped and tossed aside. Eagerly grasping at each other, moving towards the bed, they stumbled back, falling against the dresser where Zelda’s back slammed against the mirror as Lilith kissed down her collarbone, down between her breasts before tugging off her bra. She could hear the rear side of the dresser rocking against the wall, likely damaging the plaster before Lililith gripped at the band of her underwear and tugged it down her legs.

And then Lilith’s hands were drawing over her thighs, her fingers running down the sides before hooking underneath to lift and separate them so she could step in between.

Zelda moaned, and before she could so as much as rock forward, Lilith’s mouth was on her neck, a hand curling through her hair to tug her head back.

Zelda fell back against the mirror, and then Lilith’s hands were under her thighs, lifting her legs as she knelt before her, kissing down her body with a searing heat. Zelda blinked her eyes open as her legs were guided over the woman’s shoulders, and then Lilith’s mouth was drawing over her inner thigh, kissing and nipping her teeth closer to her sex.

And then her tongue was stroking over her, and Zelda was melting into each broad movement.

There were so many things they needed to do. They needed to plan, prepare a glamour spell, dress accordingly. Still, it was difficult to focus on an upcoming coup when Lilith was sucking on her clit in such a hellish way that it was all Zelda could do was reach up and grab at the mirror frame to stop herself from collapsing in ecstasy.

Lilith's fingers were drawing teasingly over her thighs, while her tongue curled to slip inside of her, and Zelda could feel her thighs quivering, the growing sensation pulling low in her belly was quickly escalating.

She could feel the glass rattling behind her as she pressed against it, her fingers curling around the wooden frame as she felt her muscles clench and release.

And then she was digging her heels into Lilith’s back as the woman’s nails dug in her thighs in a divine focus that had Zelda closing her eyes as an orgasm rocked through, harder than she expected.

There was a brief respite as Lilith slowly allowed Zelda’s legs to drop away from her shoulders, before she rose before her, looking every inch the Queen of Hell she was as her tongue darted out, swiping over her lips as her thumb cleaned away the glistening effects of Zelda’s orgasm from her chin.

Zelda drew in a deep breath, watching the woman’s heavy eyes set on her as if she planned to do something else.  

But it wasn’t Lilith’s turn to play anymore. It was hers. Zelda pushed off the dresser, shoving Lilith back to her bed as she tore at the last remnants of lingerie Lilith wore. She straddled her hips and drew her hands from Lilith’s ribs to the dip in her waist, feeling the woman’s breath draw in.

Zelda knew the story of Lilith well. She’d memorised the words, had read every book, every play. Lilith was the first woman, she was the first witch, but since their first meeting all those weeks ago in the Academy, Zelda had wondered if she was divine. Truly divine.

Looking at her here, watching her chest lift and fall with each breath, the flush of excitement washing over her, it was easy to see the woman component. The witching side was in the way she touched and felt, even now, she could feel their magic reaching out for one another, crackling against each other, tugging in a low-level magnetism that had Zelda interlacing their hands together as she leant forward to kiss her, so that she might feel the electricity alight over the palms of their hands, as it did against their lips.

But it was as she kissed her that Zelda could taste divinity. There was a feverish danger to her, not unlike an electrical storm in a summer night, that Zelda could feel crackling within her as she sucked on her lower lip.

If Lucifer had been the deity they had thought Him to be, then Lilith would have been a worthy equal.

As it was, when Zelda drew her hand between Lilith’s thighs and felt the woman moan into her mouth, she knew they had found not a queen, but a goddess. A figure worthy of worship from the coven, and one worthy of her affections.

Especially as her blue eyes met hers and a smirk tugged on her lips before it faded with a wave of pleasure into a soft, keening expression that squeezed at Zelda’s heart.

What she would do to lay her devotions morning and night, just so that she could witness that euphoric expression over and over. She hadn’t wanted anyone like this before, it went beyond addiction, beyond needs or desires, it was almost as if she––

Oh, she realised.

“I think I––“ she stopped herself from finishing the sentence out loud. There were words of devotion clawing inside of her, a desperate need to speak the very realisation out loud, but Zelda drew them away, pulling them deep in herself. If tonight was to be their last night together, she didn’t want to spoil it with her selfish feelings.

So she buried her face into the woman’s neck and breathed in the faded perfume, focusing entirely on fucking Lilith.

If Lilith noticed she’d spoken, she didn’t show it. Her expression remained elated as she drew her hands over Zelda’s shoulders, holding her close with each thrust.

“Zelda,” she sighed, eyes fluttering with growing ecstasy. Zelda pressed her lips to hers again, feeling the woman’s unadulterated whimper in every kiss. If she squeezed her eyes tight enough, she could imagine the words spilling silently between them.

One day, someone was going to love Lilith the way she deserved, but it couldn’t be her. She didn’t know how to love well.

So she kept the words to herself and focused on Lilith: of her hands grasping at her back until nails dug in; of the faded perfume on her skin; of how she sounded, how she tasted, how she felt, how she looked with her head tossed back, eyes peering open when Zelda nipped at her throat.

The moments were fast, bleeding into each other, but Zelda felt them like snapshots. And through it all, she felt words piling up on her tongue, a number of things she wanted to say but didn’t, afraid that Lilith would view it only as lip service (and maybe it was).

But she thought them over and over as she kissed and sucked and bit and fucked her Queen as if it was their last night on earth. She felt Lilith come once, then twice more.

It was forever and a short moment, as if they hung in the infinity between seconds. But time was running out, and they would need to get ready for the coronation soon.

They stopped in a mess of tangled limbs, and then it was over. Their infinity had passed.

“Lilith…” she whispered, feeling the words pile up again as they rested briefly, tangled in the sheets. Ask me again. She wanted to say. Ask me to follow you to Hell. But she turned and looked into Lilith’s eyes, and watched as they both acknowledged that their time had run out. “Don’t die tonight.”

“I don’t plan to,” she responded, and Zelda could feel fingers entwining with her hands. “You won’t need to be the Acheron. There’s someone else far more suitable for it.”

“Who?” Zelda asked, feeling her heart constrain as she thought of Sabrina again. Someone else would have to bind Him to her, but she would likely be the best option, she was of His blood and had power far greater than any normal witch.

Or would that make her a worse option?

“I’ll arrange it.” She paused then, her eyes dancing between Zelda’s. “I need you to be brutal tonight. By doing this, you forfeit any ability to run. If He captures you, He will kill you, do you understand that?”

“Lilith––“

“Do you?” she interjected.

“I understand the stakes,” Zelda said, dismissing the concern. “Who do you have in mind?”

Lilith leant forward and kissed Zelda. It was firm and then gentle. As if she was lingering, waiting for another infinity to pass between them before a heavy knock sounded at the bedroom door. There was a muffled noise warning that they would need to be ready to leave soon, and as Zelda turned to answer, she felt Lilith pull away, standing to dress.

Zelda watched her for a moment, the odd domesticity of seeing the first woman, Mother of Demons and to-be Queen of Hell dressing as if they were nothing more than two witches in the middle of a tryst. She wished she hadn’t spent so much of the last few weeks running away from her desire of Lilith.

Standing up, she walked behind her and combed the woman’s hair over her shoulder before zipping the back of her dress up.

Lilith turned on her heel to face Zelda. There was a softness to seeing her hair pulled over one shoulder. A wild looked to the flushed cheeks and the naked expression of vulnerability as she stared back at her, both drinking in the other’s visage.

And then Lilith tilted her head, and Zelda watched her smile. “You once said that this wouldn’t end well for us.”

“I did,” Zelda agreed.

“I hope you were wrong.”

“As do I.”

Maybe, Zelda thought, maybe Lilith might love her too. But she didn’t ask, and Lilith didn’t say it. But for that moment, it was enough to wonder.

[apenitentialprayer]

The Gnostic Gospels: Major Theses

A summation of The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagel, with a chapter-by-chapter explanation of the basic theses. [I started this a while ago, but only did the first three chapter summaries. Gonna leave it as-is, because I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get back to it] Chapter 1: The Controversy Over Christ’s Resurrection According to Pagel, even the books that were accepted in the New Testament open themselves to non-literal readings of the Resurrection event. Nonetheless, the Christianity that would become orthodox absolutely insisted on a literal understanding of the Resurrection event. Gnostics, on the other hand, viewed the Resurrection in spiritual and psychological terms only. While both sides were likely sincere in their faith, the way they articulated the Resurrection event nonetheless express the particular political views of how the Church was to function. The gnostic Christians viewed the Resurrection event as an individualized, recurring event that a disciple must personally experience. By being initiated into the Christian life, the gnostic would subsequently experience a personal encounter with Christ; this personal encounter, along with any further ones, defined the Christian experience, even if such an experience contradicted the traditions handed down by previous gnostic initiates. Under this understanding of the transmission of the Christ-life, there would be no way to create a stable institutional framework through which to establish a normative Christianity. The orthodox Christians viewed the Resurrection event as a historical and physical event, which directly affects who can be considered a legitimate successor to Jesus. Because the Apostles encountered Jesus Christ firsthand, and the people of that generation alone encountered the Resurrected Christ in the flesh, ordained successors of the Apostles are the only ones who can be trusted to have transmitted the true faith to future generations. This new social order for Christianity was threatened by individuals who claimed that their personal experiences overrode the traditions of the Church (a fact that distinguishes gnostic mystics from orthodox mystics). Chapter 2: “One God, One Bishop”: The Politics of Monotheism Noting the absolute ire that Irenaeus had for Valentinian Christians (who were not quite gnostic, but nonetheless are usually identified as such by early primary sources), Pagel connects the polemical writings to the development of the Church hierarchy. Irenaeus felt threatened by the Valentinians, who believed the legitimacy of the Church hierarchy while nonetheless accepting a second source of authority, because they challenged the idea that the bishop was the true representative of God on earth. Drawing on the beliefs of Marcion of Sinope, several gnostic Christians distinguished the Father of Christ from the God who created the world. Valentinians believed that the bishopric was derived from traditions from the Demiurge, which were taught publicly by Christ, while their secret traditions came from a God even higher than this one. Because of this, Valentinians were accepting of the authority of the bishops for normal Christians, but once they were initiated into the secret rites, the bishop could no longer hold authority over them; they were freed from the power of the Demiurge by Christ’s true Father. While the hierarchy of bishops was becoming more and more common, the Valentinian Christians were practicing rites that attempted to circumvent the growing distinction between laity and clergy; ordination was not a permanent position, but the designated priest would change with each meeting. The fact that members of Irenaeus’s diocese were being initiated into these circles made him especially hostile to the Valentinians - especially since they did not view their practices as contrary to the Catholic faith. The fact that they believed that they were still members of the Church, and not of a rival organization, indicates that Tertullian’s story that Valentinus purposely separated himself from the clergy is not true; the split between the orthodox and Valentinian Christians seems to have been initiated by the orthodox themselves. Valentinus, for his part, attributed his tradition to Saint Paul, through a ‘Theudas’ who was purportedly a disciple of his. “Ireneaus ironically agrees with [the Valentinian Christians] that there are two sources of tradition - but, he declares, as God is one, only one of these derives from God [... t]he other comes from Satan - and goes back to the gnostic teacher Simon Magus.” Chapter 3: God the Father/God the Mother Pagel makes it clear that, while many modern theologians in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions speak of God as though He is not gendered, the standard language used to speak of Him is heavily masculine in nature. What distinguishes gnostic Christianity from both traditional Jewish-Christian tradition and the pagan traditions of surrounding cultures is that it incorporates heavily sexualized metaphors while still utilizing language derived from Jewish tradition. Pagel suggests that this difference in conceptualizing God with distinctly masculine and feminine aspects, rather than distinctly masculine and ambiguously gendered aspects, is the cause of the social differences between gnostic and orthodox Christianities. One criticism that appears repeatedly in orthodox attacks on gnostic Christianity is the allowance of female-led worship and ceremony. The orthodox, on the other hand, had an exclusively male priesthood, and at the height of the gnostic controversy even separated churches by gender, as was done in the synagogues. The gospels, even those that would become orthodox, depict Jesus as regularly interacting with women and having prominent female disciples. The letters of Paul, meanwhile, also have progressive verses concerning women and mention women in positions of authority in the early Church. Rather than seeing verses that seem to express limits on the equality between man and woman as such, she takes the position that Pauline letters of questioned authenticity were forgeries created by orthodox Christians to establish Paul to be a specifically orthodox Christian - as the reader may recall, Valentinus claimed to have been initiated through Theudas, himself claimed to be a disciple of Paul. Pagel believes that Paul is best seen as a figure who is both proto-orthodox and proto-gnostic, who the orthodox then co-opted. Pagel is careful to note that these generalized trends are not absolute; even in texts that seem to affirm women among the gnostics, the rhetoric of the feminine is used to negatively describe things. The Dialogue of the Savior, which sings praises of Mary Magdalene, nonetheless requires the readers to “destroy the works of femaleness” - that is, sex. In the Gospel of Thomas, Salome is told that she must become a man in order to enter the kingdom of heaven: that is to say, one must transcend the natural (and thus female) to become divine (male). Clement of Alexandria, meanwhile, was an orthodox figure who viciously attacked gnostics, but nonetheless spoke of God in feminine metaphors, including that of mother. He also praised famous women throughout history, Christian and non-Christian, in his Paedagogus. The reason that the orthodox community took this position is not clear; as one historian said, the only certainty is that it happened. Pagel notes several suggestions that are possible; that the influx of hellenized Jews into the Christian movement is one proposed cause. Another possible cause is that Christianity moved from the lower class, which divided labor between genders more evenly, to higher classes. [One possibility, one not brought up by Pagel, is that the rise of the gnostics themselves are the impetus for the change; Pagel had mentioned that many gnostic groups centered their movements around figures on the periphery of orthodox Christianity, which may have caused early Christians to double-down on stances already moderately held].

[nurseofren]

Keeping Your Promise - Chapter 12

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Read chapter eleven (NSFW)

Title: Conflicted

Words: 3800

Summary: Sometimes getting answers only leads to more confusion.

ST Rambles: Okay FIRST - please go back and read the kiss with Nicki Minaj's "The Night is Still Young" playing. I don't know why, but it just works and it's what fueled this chapter.

Here's what could have been. I hurt myself in not letting it end with this, but I thought it was too much too fast. 

And this was probably very jarring and not what you might have expected after last chapter, but I promise it was necessary. When I read, I love chapters that focus on developing relationships and not necessarily directly relate to the plot. They serve a very important purpose to me.

Tell me what you think, fight for what you believe in, and give yourself some grace. This world is crazy, and we're all taking it a day at a time.

(Masterlist)

The glass was cold against your arm, sending a shiver down your spine while you looked out into space. One of the dwindling perks of being Kylo Ren’s appointed medic was the expanse of glass offering an impossible view of the galaxy, and you didn’t know if you’d ever get to enjoy it again after leaving tomorrow night, so you deemed it obligatory to take it all in while you were still here – career and otherwise.

A star flew past, disappearing in the distance. After you’d showered and disposed of your decimated uniform that night, Talia caught you before you could sneak away in silence. It was unnecessary, but she apologized for filing the report. It was an act of camaraderie – your pact of secrecy – even if it fell to pieces before it ever got a chance to fully form. Remembering the genuine concern in her eyes – red rimmed with tears – before you left the med bay made your heart fall. The only thing that made your temporary dismissal – courtesy of Kylo Ren – endurable was the fact that you hadn’t roped anyone into your downfall. It would’ve killed you to know that your own malpractice had caused anyone else suffering.

The continuous strip of lighting atop the room indicated it was near midnight. Ever since you’d come back to the quarters it had been impossible to sleep, your mind not staying quiet long enough to allow any rest. A second couldn’t pass without an anxious thought passing through, making your heart drop and your head dizzy.

At the forefront of these thoughts was your impending return to Starkiller, or at least what was waiting for you when you got back. It had been nearly two months since you’d left Robbie in that bar – blacked out and alone – and the idea of confronting him upon your return pitted your stomach with black dread. The thought of seeing him again, knowing that he’d groped at you and stolen your sense of comfort and security, trickled icy adrenaline into your veins. The probability of him being there when the Command Shuttle landed was extremely high, and it made you sick imagining stepping off the ship and being greeted by the one person you wished to avoid above all.

Robbie hadn’t physically hurt you, no, but what made your skin crawl when thinking back to that uncomfortable night was how opposite he was from what you’d thought. When you’d met him and when he’d comforted you, he seemed like a good guy, someone you could see making you happy. When he took off that uniform, though, he was a stranger, a blight in your memory. His ability to exist so separately within himself seemed like it should be impossible – like there wasn’t a real person behind that mask before you gave it a name.

At least Kylo Ren had the decency to stay relatively consistent in his identity. As much as you wanted there to be someone behind that mask – someone you once swore was beyond it – his recent act of punishment enlightened you to the truth: Kylo Ren did not care about anyone but himself, and to think differently was to be a fool. It felt like a dream – all those times you thought you’d seen a person within him, someone you felt real – however reluctant – feelings for, but after numerous attempts at trying to convince yourself you’d imagined it all, you accepted the fact that there was too much tangible evidence for you to have conjured it all up.

There was of course the letter with his handwriting etched into the envelope; the deep indented ink was still stowed away in your nightstand, greeting you every night when going to stow your watch away. The existence of that person – fleeting as he may be – was further confirmed with the pair of socks you’d obtained from his uniform; they were currently shoved into the back of your drawer, hidden away in an effort to keep you from accidentally slipping them on when you wanted to remember how you’d come to own them. There was one thing, though, that proved beyond any doubt in your mind that this person was real: the lingering memory of his touch.

No matter what he’d done to you in that assessment room – no matter the way you dizzied at the site of water running red at your feet, no matter the way your face stung just at the memory of his hand cracking across your cheek, no matter the bruises currently settling into your throat – you could not deny how your skin flourished for the feel of his own. Regardless of your last interaction with him, the thought of his nearness still warranted the flush of your cheeks and a glittering of your spine.

But that had to be the end all be all of it; you could only yearn for his touch, needing to completely forget about the elusive person you could prove the existence of, but was permanently and infuriatingly out of reach. It was a losing game to hold out for the transitory lapses in Kylo Ren’s guard, something he’d been fortifying for years before you’d met him. And, although you wanted to be the one person who could break down those inveterate barriers, you could recognize the inevitable waste of time it would be to try.

“You’re conflicted,” Kylo Ren said, his hidden voice eliciting no more than a slight skip in your heart.

Not turning away from the stars, you sighed against the glass, a small mist of fog spreading under your breath. “I can’t imagine why,” there was little care in your voice; you’d grown tired of reacting in any way towards him, only fueling his intentions when you had.

His footsteps, softer without his boots, shuffled closer, stopping before entering your periphery. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, more a request than a command.

What was his game here? An incredulous huff left your nose, fogging the glass again. “You don’t need me to tell you anything, I remember the headache from the last time you went digging through my head.”

A patrolling TIE-fighter came and left the view before you. “Would you prefer that over telling me yourself?” A slight edge rose in his tone, betraying the restraint in his words.

Why was he acting like this? Had he forgotten three days ago? Did he not hear the damage he’d done to your larynx? “Of course I wouldn’t prefer that, but what choice do I have?”

Taking one last look at the star-speckled abyss, catching sight of two concurrent shooting stars, you turned to him. He was in his underclothes, long sleeves and long pants to compensate for the constant winter of the quarters. His hair looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower – which was probable based on his nonsensical schedule. It was a rarity for him to be in the quarters at the same time as you, an even rarer occurrence for him to acknowledge your presence when he was.

His expression offered more life than yours did, his face flecked with the cast of stars in the darkened room. His hands weren’t balled into fists, hanging in a relaxed – if not, cautious – position at his sides. He looked completely… normal. For once. Without the exclusion of a shirt or the inclusion of his usual over-the-top uniform, it was as if he were completely human, neither an angel nor a demon standing in front of you.

“That’s what you’ve failed to understand this entire time,” his unmasked eyes were trained on the stars as he spoke, his voice contemplative. “you do have choices. You just keep making the wrong ones.” With this, his stare came over to yours, meeting your eyes in the barely lit room.

There was one particular choice he was alluding to, and there was no point trying to convince him to see your side. Crossing your arms, your back fell against the window. “I’m not apologizing for saving that man’s life. I did what I had to, and if that costs me my career, then so be it.”

It was still difficult to accept your own words. Half of the reason you kept saying them was to convince yourself they were true, but they haunted you more than you wanted to admit, keeping you from sleep, adding to that pitting dread day by day. Saying them, putting up a brave front, was easier than acknowledging the uncertainty they incited.

“I’m not asking you to apologize,” he absently traced a finger along the piano’s frame beside him. “Just as you said, you were following an oath you made when you entered into the First Order. You were doing what you thought was right.” The light cast over his face rippled as his brow twitched up.

As confused as his present demeanor was making you, the rampant honesty was too much to shy away from. “If you don’t think I did anything wrong, then why –,”

“I didn’t say you didn’t do anything wrong. I said you did what you thought was right. I’m not ignorant to the fact that your actions saved him,” his hand smoothed over the maroon finish, the reflected galaxy gliding over his skin while he did. “I was impressed that you thought so fast on your feet – your passion for healing and helping isn’t lost on me.”

In an effort to find the words to articulate the blatant confusion he was causing you, your mouth formed the start of many words, all falling to cessation before escaping. His casualness only intensified your need for an explanation. “But – if you – why did you dowse me in blood and crack my windpipe in half?”

The blunt summary of the punishment prompted him to face you, his eyes more pointed than before. “The two events are unrelated,” he said, taking a step forward, a crease forming over his brow. “I couldn’t care less that you took the blood, that doesn’t affect me; that blood is replaced as it expires.”

It was a feat ignoring the mounting fire forming within your chest, threatening to dowse your tone in poison. With a steadying breath, you spoke. “How are they – what do you mean they don’t correlate? I stole the blood, I got caught, you found out, you got mad. Is that not what happened?”

“You left out one key part,” his eyes pinned you in place. “The one thing you’ve refused to do. Something that would have prevented the majority of your suffering – you don’t respect me.”

He took another step towards you, leaving just a few feet of distance. Off the piano’s glossy finish, another star glided through space, falling out of view behind his staggering frame. Testing his patience, the truth formed ready at your lips. “I was forced into this. You forced me to follow you across the galaxy like some trained pet, and you want me to respect you just because you tell me? Because you expect it?”

A sharp exhale, one that had been building for some time, left his nose, his fingers ringing each other below his waist – his temper was wearing thin. “I didn’t have to keep Hux from scheduling your execution.” He took one step closer, leaving only inches between you, the heat of his dwindling temper whispering over your frozen skin.

It was like talking to a wall trying to get your point across. “I didn’t ask you to,” you said. “That’s what I’m saying – I never wanted this. I never asked to be here, but you refuse to appoint someone else. Why? What makes me so fascinating, Commander? Why don’t you just fire me? It would be better for everyone.”

These words were much easier to accept – you so obviously didn’t belong with the other appointed care providers, and you knew your skills were barely up to par with them either. Him choosing you out of the blue made no sense; you were good at your job, but the Elite wanted someone who could be perfect, someone they could bend to their will. It was the smart decision to let you go, even if the thought tore through your insides.

The muscle under his eye twitched, his face leaning down to yours, his breath warming over your nose. His eyes burned with that same raw emotion from before, again proving the existence of that unattainable person behind them. “I –,” he started, pausing before he continued. “You -,” he attempted again, words seemingly evading him.

He was so close, the stars reflecting into his wide pupils. When had he ever been at a loss for words? “I what?” Looking between his lips – the dim light of the galaxy contouring them in its abstractness – and his eyes, you yearned for that impossible more you knew to be just out of reach; its presence growing more visible behind his auburn as the seconds passed, taunting you with its closeness. “Why can’t you just say it and get -”

“I trust – you.” His sentence was broken and fragmented, his breath to match as the admission winded him; the three syllables came at all differing volumes, the first booming, his volume faltering as the following two met it. His tone was indicative of an obvious discomfort in his acknowledgment of their veracity, like he had adopted your practice of saying them until he believed them. With his words came his hands, placed at either side of your head, tightened into pale fists.

Unbidden and without thinking, the first thought that came to mind left your mouth in an incredulous breath. “Why?”

The thoughtlessness of the question made you recoil into yourself, leaving you to observe the steady expression Kylo Ren was regarding you with, an unreadable scrutiny fogging his eyes. The seconds he held you there felt like hours, his eyes never leaving yours, his brow narrowing ever so slightly as he looked through you. With a quiet huff of breath, he pushed off the wall and turned away. “Nothing you aren’t already aware of.” He said, sitting to face you on the piano bench.

Out of his proximity, you could breathe, trying hard not to clue him in on the fact you’d lost the ability to begin with. Studying you, he began again. “Like you mentioned before, when I was – how did you put it – digging around in your head,” he stared back out into space, “I saw you that first night you were assigned to me.”

Taking a step forward, you waited intently for him to continue, not wanting to interrupt his admission. His throat bobbed while he gathered his thoughts, his stare still trained on the glass, stars streaking across his black clothing like water droplets. “When you figured out you were late for the Command Shuttle, and while RB-6745 was trying to console you,” his nose twitched at the acknowledgement of the stormtrooper, “you were worried.” He looked over to you, holding you in his stare, searching for something you weren’t aware of.

When you didn’t speak up, keeping his gaze in the dark silence, he continued. “Not about yourself or getting in trouble,” his attention fell back behind you before he went on. “You were only focused on the scenario that you wouldn’t be there in the case that I would… require your assistance.” He swallowed, looking back to you, carrying new weight behind his eyes.

He had no reason to be telling you all of this, but the fact that he was taunted that connection once more, like he was real, like that unattainable person was present for the time being. Another star fell, racing across the piano behind his shoulders.

Suddenly, you understood his earlier loss for words – they were important words. They were true words. And just as you didn’t know how to accept that you were on the precipice of losing your career, he didn’t know how to accept the fact that you cared for him. The night was filled with hard truths that neither of you wanted to acknowledge, knowing that as soon as you did they would lead to an unknown neither of you were prepared to understand.

In an attempt to express your words fully, you reached out to his shoulder, squeezing it in your grip, feeling his muscles flex beneath your hand. His eyes hadn’t left yours on your way over to him, and you kept them in yours, a silent vow of thanks. “That’s my job, Commander.” Chewing your cheek for a minute, considering your next move, you sat next to him on the bench, feeling him stiffen and then relax after a few seconds.

Staring out into the galaxy, his warmth on your skin - it felt right. The connection you felt could only be compared to friendship in this moment, no feelings of romance adulterating the trust that had been vocalized. It was similar to the moment of camaraderie you shared with Talia – but this was deeper, not only a promise of protection, but one of respect.

“Why did you tell me this? Any of it?” Keeping your focus on the galaxy, your periphery watched for any reaction to the question.

Two stars flashed across the glass expanse, lighting the room for half a second before he replied. “You’re worried about your career,” he took a deep breath, “and you’re accepting defeat.” He looked over to you, your eyes still trained on the stars. “You think you aren’t worthy of the position. You are,” he said. “You deserve to be here.”

Wrapped in enveloping darkness, his face was only half lit from the stars when you turned to him, pouring your eyes into his. The last thing you expected from Kylo Ren was a compliment, but for him – the root of your doubt – to confide in you that he believed your position was deserved? It was nearly inconceivable. It gave you the validation you had been starved for, doubting your place since you’d gotten the assignment. Unknowingly, he had gifted you the affirmation you didn’t realize you had needed, one that brought you to accept your purpose in the position, rekindling a flame you’d been neglecting since the beginning.

Peppering over his face – lips, nose, eyes – you frantically searched for any indication of the usual hidden intentions he kept. There was nothing. No narrowed eyes, no malevolence quirking his lips, no tightened jaw quivering with restraint – nothing. It frenzied you, the fact his words were stripped of innuendo, their meaning completely unadulterated and true. In a moment of deep appreciation, you took his face in your hands, stopping momentarily to trace his cheekbones with your thumbs. Having already searched his eyes for fallacy, you didn’t have to keep looking into them, but you did, admiring the stars showering through his pupils. Eventually, pulling him towards you, your lips pressed into his with a newfound fervor, sparks flooding down to your fingers and toes as something new bloomed in the night.

He met you there, his own hands locking you to him, their size dwarfing your skull. His tongue slid onto yours, deepening the kiss, losing yourselves in the connection, seemingly joining the stars beyond. The intensity charging between you rivaled the sun, your mouths colliding into each other, a fusion of two atoms of opposite charges, making the other whole. With his hands gripping into your hair, a small moan – inspired by shock and need – faltered into Kylo’s mouth, its hesitant resonance lost under the harsh breath leaving his nose. At this, his hands fell down to your hips and tugged you closer to him, wanting you nearer, guiding you with their strength.

The overwhelming connection was suffocating, flooding your lungs with hunger and urgency, petrifying your chest with the realization of the power building within you to clutch that person within him, to pull him into permanency. And it scared you, knowing that if you went further – if you were to pursue this rush of intimacy molding your mouth to his – you would not be able to come back from it; if you were to let yourself fall into this more, there was a promise of no return, leaving you to burn for a man who you knew could never feel the same – could never burn the same – as you did for him.

In this storm of revelation, you forced yourself to break away from him, resting your forehead to his, eyes shut and hiding from the intensity residing in his, knowing it would evaporate your resolve. “Can we just – can we just sit here for a minute,” you breathed, your lips buzzing from the broken connection.

For a moment, he only held you there, his thumbs digging into your hips, his breath mingling with yours. Without a word, and with an inhale laced in finality, his touch left you – his warmth following suit – and he stood, peering into the celestial shower beyond the glass.

In the absence of his touch, you were collateral damage; standing apart from you, even just a few feet, Kylo Ren had not only nullified that terrifying promise, but he had proved you right: the person residing behind his burning auburn eyes would only ever be ephemeral in their existence. The night had brought another hard truth upon you, the stars seeming to stop racing altogether as it did.

“The Command Shuttle will depart at twenty-two hundred tomorrow night,” he said, his voice now infuriatingly vacant. “It would be wise to get some rest, officer.”

While he walked ahead towards the stars, his hands balled into fists at his sides, straining with white as he peered out into space. Watching them flex and relax for a minute enlightened you to your statuesque posture, not yet having left the broken moment in time. With a swallow, you pushed off from the bench and started back to your room. As you did, though, you remembered what had earlier brought you to seek solace in the stars, the storm of returning to Starkiller and facing Robbie emptying the air from your lungs.

“The day after we landed,” Kylo said, his voice echoing through the shadowed room, your stride halting as it did, “I instructed Captain Phasma to demote him.”

If his intentions were to soothe the sudden anxiety he’d sensed in you, he’d failed completely – the information only frayed your nerves that much more, allowing one last torturous glimpse at that elusive notion of more you knew was too temporary to trust. As you stood there, once more flayed by Kylo Ren, hot tears threatened to spill over.

“Goodnight, Commander Ren.” The words left your mouth with a falter, your heart ripping from your chest, every hard truth the night revealed weighing it down until it left you completely.

Crawling into bed, limbs limp with emotional exhaustion, your chest bled for what it had earlier ran from – that promise of no return was now a mirage of the past, never to be offered again.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Smashing the Petri Dish: Abbreviated Inquiry Into Abandoning the Concept of Culture

The following are questions I have recently asked myself:

Why abandon culture? There are countless reasons to begin to challenge, seriously realign our relationship with, and perhaps abandon the concept of culture — the historic, contemporary, and projected assemblage of social dynamics and features by which we define ourselves and which collectively frame us as social groupings. Culture contains the all-tofamiliar civilized notions of expectations, projections, customs, taboos, values, morality, and rituals, as well as being anthropocentric in nature, and in general, limited as it defines the human condition of a place, time, and context only in terms of human relationships or how we use other things. The human-animal, unrestrained by such an understanding of reality, and in tune with applicable concerns of connected subsistence and curious play, needs not for culture as something to belong to or to be guided by. Instead, they are what they are, a composition of all they are connected to, yet unique unto themselves. And if relationships are fluid, unbounded by artificial concepts, and based on mutual desire, than what use or need is there for culture, except to define and confine these relationships. It might be proposed then, that our search for liberation may fall outside the parameters of the concept of culture, and in fact, may be in contradiction with its very existence. Culture, whether ethnic, religious, national, tribal, pop, alternative, or counter, acts as a definer rather than minimalizer of the borders within and between ourselves, each other, and the rest of life.

Can we challenge the current basis of our relationships to each other? For many, to abandon culture seems a project too daunting, shocking, and counter to what we may have always believed. But when we talk of undoing the entirety of civilization, are there questions too colossal to ask and material too compact to cut through? To dispute culture itself, and the physicality of its politicized manifestation, society, is to question civilization’s very premise, that we are controlled and manipulated by external forces that have an agenda ultimately incompatible with that of the individual, regardless of their desires (although there may be illusory moments of adaptability). Whether there are direct lines drawn to individuals or groups in power, or the rigid formation of patterns and textures over time, culture controls. It must, or it ceases to exist. Culture can be viewed as the summation of who we are as social beings, or the parameters we live within. Both are unsatisfactory for one attempting an uncivilized and unrestrained existence. If we are to live entirely different, than what seems foundational and what binds all of this (civilization) must be unglued. The imprint must be erased. The structures must be shattered, so as to open up the space for our unimpeded wild selves to roam.

Is there an intrinsic element of cultivation that leads to the formation of rigid socialization? The cultivation of crops and tillage of the earth created a different context in which we dwell then that of the human-animal in a pre-civilized context. With the domination of the land, stratification of society, accumulation of power, creation of economy, and religious mystification of the world, culture takes root as an all-encompassing means of control. To put it simply, when there are things to keep in order, an orderly society is preferable. With this comes the standardization of society, the suggestion of values, the implementation of codes, and the enforcement of regulations, be they physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Overt force is always adjacent (at least the allegation of it), but to convince people they are a part of an abstract grouping, and that it is superior to any other, cultural identity is a much more effective means of control. And, to convince them of their need to view contrary or deviant inclinations of the belief system as an Other, also sets the ground for the defending of culture. The abstraction of unmediated relationships might be where we start to see concepts of culture as necessary. Before (or outside this perspective) what purpose would it serve?

What about the process of domestication is inevitable in culture? Development of humans as individuals and societies in general through education, discipline, and training, seems to require obedience to societal norms, recognized largely as cultural. The goal, as with any other form of domestication, is to obtain a uniform and productive crop or yield in as efficient means as possible. Individuality and fluidity are seen as hazards to be reigned in or plowed under. Possibly, depending on how bumper a crop that season, or how much power the domesticator has accumulated, some unruly weeds are allowed to exist on the periphery, but even they are still largely controlled, if only due to the proximity to the disciplined ones.

Are socialization and control implicit in the perpetuation and acceptance of culture? Culture attempts to express and prescribe meaning to our world. This meaning is typically, and I would argue inevitably, used to obtain and maintain power and control. Culture regularly has both a conservative and progressive character to it. Both securing society and pushing it forward stability and innovation. Traditional cultural values which sustain the contemporary aims of a society’s influence and momentum are often supported while the proposed future for that society is often portrayed as intrinsic trajectories for that culture. The tension between them keeps things moving. At any particular stage of advancement in a civilization, the characteristic features of such a stage are described as its culture. So that what is described as permanent, is never so, and that which is promoted as temporary is often an illusion of change. The bottom line is, the path of a society, and the cultural aspects of it, are quite arbitrary, yet presented as predetermined. To not be acquiescent in this set-up places one, for all practical purposes, outside of cultural reality. But the rejection of culture is certainly not a rejection of social interaction. The isolated human, rarely a healthy, connected, and successfully functioning being (by any standards), is typically the product of extreme alienation and trauma. Anti-social behavior, as a specific description, is relative to the context of the society, but it describes more of a disconnect from the ability to interact then a rejection of that society’s values. One can be positively a social being (and possibly they must be) and still attempt to dismantle that society and its social characteristics, especially if their processes of social interaction are from outside that society. As interaction and relations removed from the alienated and mediated civilized methods tend to be more direct, fluid, and intuitive, without the clunky dominating, and often insincere methods we are instilled with, it seems key to any sort of positive alternative.

Ever notice the “cult” in culture? Socially, there is great pressure, from authoritarianism to tension between “civilians”, to create a mindless following that is pervasive throughout society. There develops an affiliation of accomplices who adopt complete and societal belief systems or faiths. Those who move too close to the margins are regarded and handled as outsiders, which strictly maintains the definitions applied to a culture. In addition, the progressive linearity of cultural enlightenment and refinement through intellectual and aesthetic training occurs at all levels, from fashion to philosophy. Details and motivations of our actions that are obtained, recorded, and remembered through vastly different perceptions and bias perspectives, acquired through a cultural context and individual views, are filtered, averaged, and distilled to create a prevalent, repeated response system.

But what about primitive people and useful traditions? There is probably more from the past that we have carelessly discarded than we have critically shed, especially concerning earth-based peoples from gatherer hunters to horticulturists to pre-technological agriculturists and homesteaders (in my opinion, there is less to appreciate as we move onward in domestication, but from where we are located in history, there is still some value in critically assessing small-scale cultivators for some useful aspects). Examining the dynamics and methods of these various types of groupings for everything from food procurement to social organization (not that they aren’t inevitably linked) will reveal a great diversity between peoples and the strategies and patterns that have developed, and typically, unfortunately, formed into a culture. This investigation can also reveal common threads in how situations, needs, and problems are dealt with, which we can filter through our own unique and communal desires and contexts to apply to our lives, without adopting cultural parameters and definitions. Techniques are valuable, cultural explanations are useless, unless they reveal a relationship between things that can be utilized without socializing.

Life contains some underlying stability of circumstance, yet within it is an infinite and intricate shifting, fracturing, and supporting over time. A never-ending improvisation of reinforcing and interfering, but never repeating. Even the seemingly firmly structured parts are composed of limitless variables. We might be inspired by the way the Kaluli tribe of the Papuan Plateau perceive and interact with the world. For instance, they do not hear singular sounds in the rainforest, but instead an interlocking soundscape they call dulugu ganalan, or “lifting- up-over sounding”; millions of simultaneous sound cycles, starting and ending at different points. People’s voices layer and play off of this reality, as drums, axes, and singing blend together in rhythms and patterns creating an instinctual vocabulary understood by the group.

So what might living outside of culture look like? To start with, it would be free from moral and social frameworks that limit our freedom to explore, experience, and connect. We would still be “bound” by certain biological and geographical limitations, but not those determined by any experts or leaders. Instead we would experience directly these limitations, and along with shared experiences with others, develop our own unique understandings. Collective experience would not fit into any prearranged formation or contain any unified meaning. It would be the infinite intersections of support and divergence that make up the rest of what we call life. Rather than thinking in cultural terms, perhaps we can look at other social animals for inspiration. Flocks, herds, and packs can be contemplated for their manifestations and dynamics of living patterns. Instinctual rather than intellectual in motivation and stable yet flexible in an organic manner, rather than enforced or altered through mechanistic and projected means. Is this not closer to how humans live(d) outside of civilization?

Can we smash the petri dish and abandon the stifling concept of culture for an unobstructed reality? If we are content with the role of microorganisms in a prepared nutrient media or the product of such cultivation, then life as part of a culture is acceptable, even desirable and beneficial. If we are not satisfied as bacteria, segments of tissues, or fungi in a scientist’s test tube or observation dish, then we need to begin to seriously review how we relate to, coordinate, and view ourselves, each other, and the world around us. We can trade the abstraction, symbolic, efficiency, control, and completeness of superimposed culture for the connected, direct, dynamic, openness of unalienated existence.

The choice really is ours.

[visualcommune]

Ari Wil  0:01   So today is October 16, Wednesday and I'm sitting in Dunkin Donuts with Taja Cheek. Yeah, Did I pronounce that right? Taja Cheek  0:10   Okay. Um, yeah. Ari Wil  0:15   If you just want to state your name and your occupation. Okay? Taja Cheek  0:21   I'm Taja Cheek. I'm an assistant curator at MOMA PS 1. Ari Wil  0:25   Ok, so I'm just gonna go into it. I saw.. I read an interview with Interview magazine. Graduations on literally killing every thing. Taja Cheek  0:36   Wow, I forgot that that existed Ari Wil  0:39   You so much stuff online actually, I think in your name was exhausted. Congratulations. Taja Cheek  0:47   I thanks, I forgot. I have a very distinctive name so it's hard to hide. Yeah. Ari Wil  0:53   Yeah, no, I thought it would be but I just typed in Tada. Immediately. Taja Cheek  0:58   Crazy. Yes, really. Ari Wil  1:00   But yeah, in the interview magazine, they're just there's the description of your work that said something along the lines of dedicated to call fitting spaces for queer musicians of color. And experimental creators who are too often cast to the periphery. So I was wondering how does your institution enable or inhibit, like this process? Taja Cheek  1:26   That's a bigggg  question. You know, I can only speak for myself and what I do you really ultimately, you know, I think it starts with intentionality, of kind of dating that as my interest in my purpose. That's what makes it easier to figure out how to make choices about who to include there are millions of artists and I think, You know, knowing that that's kind of my own personal interest for many reasons, particularly black artists. Just like stating that intentionality, I think, is important for me. And so, you know, it's not a part of like the institution's mission or anything like that, per se. But there are other things that are stated in, you know, how we think through each season and how we think through the program as a whole. So we think a lot about place, and how that plays into how artists make work. And so for me, that makes me think about black artists in particular, and how they are placed and rooted here and displayed, and that's sort of like the most urgent thing for me and we also talks a lot about artist making work in other media, about, you know, the specificity of New York City. It's all about kind of like circles around black and brown artists for me, especially black artists, especially as one. I don't know if that answers the question. Ari Wil  3:17   No, no. It actually does. But can I? Taja Cheek  3:23   Yeah. Ari Wil  3:25   So, are you saying that MOMA kind of gives you the opportunity to pick? You know, like to make your own decisions as to how you're going to be inclusive or which ways? Taja Cheek  3:39   You know, curator is also a creative practice. Museums can often knowingly and unknowingly position themselves as usual bodies, but they're made up of people and people have interests and perspectives. And that's what I have so, you know, ultimately, it's, you know, there's a small group of us that are making decisions about shown when and, and try to make arguments for why we think it's important. And so, yeah, that's my own personality. Okay, discuss it as a group and it's not like a solo decision by any team, but I have a co worker that I working together, we think through the program as a whole. And she's going to be here at the PS1 way longer than I have seen beginning of Sunday session. And of course, it goes through like the territorials we met this one too. So in terms of things that have sparked my interest. I feel like you know, the most urgent issues of our time are kind of circling around black and brown bodies, makers. That kind of where my interest lies. Ari Wil  5:00   Have you felt like the community has been receptive to that and like your internal community and the external community? Taja Cheek  5:09   I think in hope so, I think, you know, there's a difference between, you know, performance inherently deals with bodies and people in the space. And so that tends to have a lot of baggage that comes along with that. And I think, because it is dealing with bodies that a lot of times, especially in institutional settings, those bodies end up being blacker or browner or queereer than they are in other galleries spaces. Because they are like, it is, you know, and in permanent art. And so, you know, it can be seen as, you know, they're being left over risk, or it's more fleeting So it's easier to position artists that are working with your performance in that kind of setting. And that's kind of like an age old trope that I want people deal with and think about. But yeah I all that to say I feel like especially in New York that is kind of like - not an expectation but it's like more accepted I think than other art forms like it is more even seen historically about certain types of like, black and brown bodies and what it means to like shuck and jive and all those things, youre expected to be a preformer and preform in a specific way.Whereas other sort of settings its more difficult. We think about you know, when we're not expecting institution, but so it's also different but if you look at like museums, collections and how black and brown people are representatived in that that might that might be different than, you know, the artists that have performed their maybe. Ari Wil  7:08   Um, so, as a black and brown person, I just know that when I go into a space that's led by black and brown people, right, we are just more comfortable. We're able then to like, break down some of those barriers. Yeah, like where you don't have to shuck and jive or whatever. Have you ever noticed though, like where in those spaces, someone might still be excluded? Yeah, like Do you ever see that like that was maybe removed one thing but then something else will come out? I'm kind of talking about like intersectionality here. Taja Cheek  7:45   Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a way I mean, there's so many layers of it, right. It's like can be dealing with another black person. Another brown person or another queer person, but there's so many other layers of interacting with an institution. And so many other people that you interact with, you have different ways of expressing themselves of communicating. And, yeah, that can sometimes be a barrier to entry, or there's an inherent skepticism of the institution as a whole. which is understandable. Yeah, but sometimes people come with that then, you know, you have to accept it for what it is because you understand on one hand and another, you're also like trying to work with them and trying to make them feel at home. And other way there's always like an extra layer of work that kind of comes with working with Ari Wil  9:00   So how do you for yourself to find access and inclusion? Taja Cheek  9:05   I'm still trying to figure that out. There's a lot that I don't know, a lot that I do know, inherently that I haven't necessarily unpacked in like an official way and a lot that I don't know. So, you know, I don't know if you read about the sort of like the AI plan that all the students in New York are going through now. But basically, there was a long period of research that the city is undergoing, just to kind of take stock of who makes up the institution, the art institutions in the city is going to them and like in a lot of detail. And so after that, after a lot of meetings, and sort of going through the primaries in the data, now there's kind of like an imparitive for all those institutions to create their own plans. And it's kind of being left to the institutions to figure out what that looks like to a certain extent. Just because, you know, some people have more money, some people are, like, have very like, you know, neighborhood specific or like cultural, cultural, cultural specificity, that's like tied into their mission or whatever it may be. every issue is different, essentially. But it's being linked to funding a lot of places. Institutions can't get certain kinds of funding if they don't adhere to this imparitvive and try to change the makeup of their institution. Ari Wil  10:42   Wow. Taja Cheek  10:44   So a lot of people are thinking about that in the city right now. Especially in New York City. Ari Wil  10:49   So is this a conversations you're having inside of MOMA? Taja Cheek  10:52   Yeah, there is a DEI commity. I'm not really on it. Right now. for a lot of reasons, but there are a lot of people that are not, you know, thinking about it in a very broad level, like, accessibility in terms of like price points. Ari Wil  11:11   Yeah. Taja Cheek  11:12   I mean museum is free for New Yorkers. So there's, there's that, but we do charge for performance programs. What does that look like? That's something that we think about a lot or warm up or whatever. And, like, world specificity, like who like Who's coming? What is their experience, like when they're here? So, you know, a lot of like, ADA complaincy stuff we're thinking about. MOMA has a really robust access department. Ari Wil  11:41   Yeah. Taja Cheek  11:42   And they have touched tours and all these things. And we don't really have that, really, we don't have an education program. We don't have public programming really, that gets kind of folded into what we do. But we're we're really focusing on performance. So idle conversations are happening now. They've been happening, but now that we have a new director, I imagine that those coversations will happen even more. So yeah, I mean, not a lot of layers to pursue in your public institutions. Ari Wil  12:16   I've always gotten the sense that ps1 was kind of meant for the fringe almost like it's, it's like for the for the marginalized. So I'm just kind of finding it pretty ironic that PS 1 is also the one that has no like education programming or is lacking in resources. So is that a conversation that's had it ps1, like, what's going on with MoMA? they're playing out? Taja Cheek  12:44   Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, we're trying to figure out our relationship. It's always evolving and changing. You know what resources we take from MOMA is a slow process and figuring out how that works. So we often work with loans education department, and we're trying to figure out they just did a presentation months ago about a lot of their, like accessibility initiatives. So a lot of us, myself included, didn't even know what was happening and click right there. Yeah. So now we know and now we know who to contact, all those things. So it's a really slow process. But something that's happening. And there's a lot that will make and probably learned from us in terms of like, how we program things and our timelines, and like, you know, the diversity of our performance program, especially Sunday sessions. But, you know, we pretty much exclusively work with women and gender non conforming artists, not because it's like a token thing and the thats not even some thing that we just barely call out. But it's just who were interested in and who are prioritizing. Yeah. So anyway, all those things are things that most probably go back and forth. Ari Wil  14:03   So, um, what practices of accessibility inclusion can or do you incorporate into your design into your curation? Like what you're thinking when you enter into a project. Taja Cheek  14:17   To be honest, the building isn't super accessible as it is now. I mean, we have ramps to get into the, into the dome. That's one thing we need to do and that is important to us that people can get into the physical building in terms of equity. We try to keep our price points successful. And we also embrace was it was artists about, you know, guest lists. Oftentimes, artists will have their own sort of like personal calls in their publicising the event like if you need, you know, if you're unable to pay, like, let me know and our guest list are humongous, as a way of like circumventing certain impartives that we have as a institution just like you have to charge, right? and ///we obviously want to meet our revenue goals, but we also don't want to be inaccessible to the communities that we're inviting in to preform work./// Again, just sort of like, just in terms of our priorities, we're kind of looking to bring in not only artists, but their entire community. And the communities that we're usually most interested in are women of color, and queer communities. We prioritize those. Those are the main things. I mean, I think we want to be more accessible and more trying to learn how to do that trying to figure out what it cost and the experts are and how to do that takes time. I just had a conversation today about like, how do we get information on our website more easy to access for people who do have specific needs as they need interpreters and stuff like that. And that's something that's on you know, our shared website. We have a we share our website it's more like where to find information where its placed how that happens. But that's a lot of conversations that have to happen just to change something on the website. So to get to the point where there's like a budget for other things, other thing we're working towards but yeah we're not totally there yet. Ari Wil  16:31   You just mentioned something I hadn't thought of before which is guest list. Taja Cheek  16:34   Yeah. Ari Wil  16:36   When I usually think about guest list. I think they're an exclusive thing. Like, you know, you have your special friends on the guests like that. I felt like finding that kind of has perpetuated for me the idea of exclusivity and like, I'm sure the bros on the guest list could probably pay but like, other people aren't. Yeah, how do you guys like mitigate that weirdness with guest list?Because it seems like you're doing like a proactive thing. But yeah, that's it. Still got weird, you know, like for an entourage pulled up? Taja Cheek  17:03   It can. I mean, I feel like for the most part people are mastering that are artists. So they're really kind of like prioritizing people in their community who they want to come. Ari Wil  17:13   Okay. Taja Cheek  17:13   Or, you know, we had a sex workers festival resistance a couple of seasons ago. And we're working with a partner in Scotland called Erica, you know, you were kind of working with them to figure out how to message sex workers that aren't able to pay but want to come like, how can come to the door. And, you know, basically, we just had language that was like, you identify the sex worker then you can come free. Ari Wil  17:39   Very cool. Taja Cheek  17:40   So things like that. I think we're very conscious of like, who we're inviting in and trying to make sure the jars do very centrally as possible. But like, we have to charge just as an institution non profit. Yeah, also. Yeah. So but we're also like, you know, we're creating New Yorkers, even if were doing something in the domes we also will often happenings in the building that are free with museum admissions. So, we try to work around it. Ari Wil  18:12   Okay. And then what are the incentives to being accessible? Taja Cheek  18:19   I mean, I, I feel like it just supports our whole mission. Really my whole mission. Like I feel like I'm sure my co workers felt like I feel like that's the whole point of being a public institution. Like, there is no point anything I'm doing. If its not inclusive but more so than diverse, which, you know, our programming. I hadn't actually thought about it this way, but it might not be like diverse. Diversity is often a code word for like black. And it may not be diverse. It's mostly women and queer people so in that way, it's not necessarily diverse its just like critical and intentional. Yeah I dont know. Ari Wil  19:11   I was gonna ask this later, but maybe. Okay, um, yeah, so you just said that your spaces are primarily like, women queer. Taja Cheek  19:29   Or we try to at least like I'm not gonna, like, make myself seem like we're doing more work than we are. We're trying Yeah, yeah. Ari Wil  19:37   But also another thing that's been kind of coming up in my research is this idea of implicit bias. So we just tend to hire the people that look like us. Yeah, um. Do you feel like maybe that's a part of what's having the space become like kind of intentionally more woman? Ideas surounding implicit bias is basically the question. Go. Taja Cheek  20:01   Yeah, totally. Um, I, I, in my mind, I'm like trying to work against like, the bias of working in a predomientaly white institution, like, people always think of culturally specific institutions as being like, the like, the Studio Museum or like el Barrio. But like, you know, MoMA is a culturally specific institution its a white institution. And so it's like mostly working agianst THAT I feel like is what im trying to do. is what I'm trying to do and I feel like the experiences of black Americans, slave descendants is something that is the most directed. And so, that also happens to be who I am. Yeah, but I also think there's an urgancey there. Mostly like trying to fight against like the implicit bias of the institution, more so than it is me, at least in my imagining, I mean, maybe there's something to me being like, Oh, you look like, but you know, it's more, it's more about that like fighting against the with the bias of the institution and less like you look like me heres the job. Ari Wil  21:21   Um, I do have to say, I'm really glad that you simply just called out the Studio Museum and El Barrio, even though it's gonna be on the recording, my professor keeps forcing, like trying to push me to go to like, those two specific institutions and like, El Taller, yeah, and another one, which is cool, great. I really do want to go study them. She was almost telling me like not to come and do this interview, because I had these resources. But I'm just like, I go to the MOMA. You more than I've ever been to the student museum. Yeah. So I'm curious about how this works. I'm just really glad that you said that Taja Cheek  21:53   It just like operates very differently in those institutions, like there's a lot like I've never worked there but like I feel like most people I've encountered in the art world have gone through one of those. And if there are, you know, black or brown or Latnix. And yeah, there are certain assumptions that don't have to be made. Right. So like you think about diversity very differently. You know? Ari Wil  22:19   Yeah. Taja Cheek  22:19   Like it's maybe scrutinized more when studio has a white curator. You know, it doesn't really happen here. Ari Wil  22:30   Do you see that it's like a, an advantage or disadvantage. Taja Cheek  22:38   Advantage in what sense? I guess like there is.. there's, you know, it's just a very different experience than working around other black people in the world which is not an experience that very often. Probably count on one hand how many times thats happened. It does different things to the stuff you're making. I'll say like, you know? When white institutions exclusion, it try  to cover topics that are sort of outside of their, like cultural specificity, let's say, like there's just like certain things that happens to those projects where they're always looked at differently. It would be interesting to see like, how they're funded, like, when they're funded like,how their talks about like, what sort of context that looks like and ends up being like what that container is. And story Yeah, so it's sometimes it can be difficult even when you're just working with black people but it's still within a White institution. Ari Wil  23:49   Yeah. That makes sense. This one is going to be a little different but are there any specific tools you use to gauge audience needs? Taja Cheek  24:05   Thats a great question. I think a lot of things happen at PS 1 pretty organically. It's like a weird institution because it's attached to this huge thing, MoMA and but it's also definitely still has to spirit of being this scrappy artist space from the 70s it's constantly kind of like yo yoing between those two. Wait I just totally forgot the question. Ari Wil  24:40   Well, how do you gauge audience? Taja Cheek  24:41   Oh, yeah. So I think you know, Sunday sessions when I know of it's usually in a very humble in the beginning and it kept growing and growing and production value has increasingly become more intentional on a lot of things happen though we haven't been able to engage that very much. I think we barely kind of know where audiences we know that they are artists and New York centric, like mostly fairly educated, like we know some small things about that audience but we're for the first time doing a email survey which we've never done before it was really really important for us to figure out like who we're serving and who where it was like it was coming because we don't actually really know like we have some guesses. Ari Wil  25:27   Yeah, yeah. And so no your gusses just from like, being there and experiencing kind of Taja Cheek  25:33   Being there and experiencing. You know, there have been some PS1 surveys I believe. So we kind of know about our audience versus MOMA audience but we don't know specifically about Sunday Sessions. Ari Wil  25:47   Okay, (inaudible.) I think it might have been in the same Interview magazine interview, I'm not sure. But there's a quote where it says you are a "self described curious, outsider ally, facilitators practitioner." Is there anything else you would add to that resume identities thing? Taja Cheek  26:27   Oh, man. I don't know. I feel like ultimately I feel like I'm sort of in the process of trying to take things away. Ari Wil  26:37   Oh! Taja Cheek  26:38   Rather than adding. I feel like a lot of times - Ari Wil  26:41   Why take away? Taja Cheek  26:42   Well, I feel like artists especially are like I can only say this because I also like to work but I feel like a lot of arts administrators probably feel this way but artists are often looked at like a separate class of humans. and like they have special needs and special things and totally they interact with the World in this way. And I think it's true if I didn't  believe in an artist, I wouldn't be doing what I do ultimatley. But I also think that artists are just people. And that we should really be thinking about them as people and that like everybody has like a creative side to the work that they do. And like, I just saw Martha Wilson talk yesterday, who co founded like, who founded Franklin Furnace, and she was talking about being an artist and a curator. And she was thinking through that, and just kind of saying that at some point, you figured out that being an Art Administrator is a form of creative practice. And yeah, I feel like a burden and ultimately unhelpful sometimes to think of artist as being  i separate process only a few people that are like good enough to do a certain thing like ultimately, like we all are just attracted to certain things and there are certain people that we That are given opportunities to perform in certain places or exhibit places but that doesn't mean that like the person who's making music on the street corner as like any less of an artist, I think the more that we can just like making these designations and people being artists or tutor this or that it's like, makes it it just makes it more Heirarchal. Ari Wil  28:25   Do you identify as an artists though? Taja Cheek  28:28   I guess so. Yeah. Ari Wil  28:29   Ok, cool. Yeah. Um, you also one time said that it's becoming increasingly more difficult for artists to sustain themselves, spiritually and financially. What do you mean by spiritually? What would you think? Taja Cheek  28:50   I guess now, I don't exactly know what I was thinking about then. I guess now I would think about time, like time is a resource and leisure is a privilege. And that if you are constantly working and thinking about how you're going to make ends meet, or like having meetings for your work for artists in general, like you don't have a lot of time to just like do nothing. I mean, talking to a lot of other working artists, I kind of sympathize with that. Just like time is a limited resource. Ari Wil  29:28   And I want to look at how we can be accessible to artists, you know, and inclusive to artists. How can curators or just like, yeah, the arts institutions help out these artists that are, are separating these ways and like don't have the time or what support do you need? Taja Cheek  29:52   Yeah, that's a good question. I think we're all kind of thinking about that. I'm thinking about that. A lot. It would be with the musicians because they into like an art spaces. Music kind of occupies this really weird space where it's kind of foreign to the art world, but also like really connected to in a lot of ways. And it's like hard to tell how, you know, and I'm sort of in this position where I'm thinking a lot about music specifically, and I'm trying to think through what musicians need. It's sort of unclear how we can support. Yeah, it really depends. I think we have to figure out who our community of artists is first. Right. I think that's sort of where I am. At least I can't speak for institution, obviously, but like, you know, Long Island City is changing a lot. And it's pretty much the biggest, fastest growing residential market I think maybe in the country. It's a very part of the reason why Amazon has been moving here, like all these things are happening here. And so our you know, Our general community is changing. And so it's like what does that mean for artists? Where are we serving? Is it mostly artists in New York? Is it young artists, older artists, is it everyone? Is it like, what are our priorities? What are we interested in? Kind of working interested in? And so I think I'm at least in the point where I'm still interrogating that and trying to figure out, like, what we're doing and who we are on that level, which is constantly evolving. And so I can't really answer that question. So I figured that out. But like, space and time, I feel like are mostly the things like you have a residency program that my coworker has really been spearheading, where, you know, we have this giant dome, and it's just sitting around all the time. We can give that to people as resources use, yeah, and work on things that they're preparing for, even if they are presenting work at the PS1 they can use it as a place to work on other things. When you think about that idea, though,  Does that seem achievable? Thank you feel like you can approach your institution as often about using the dome in other ways. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's it's happening. It seems like something that they want to do more. Yeah, it's funny for music. I feel like we were thinking about I was just talking today during a meeting about rubber tracks. Ari Wil  32:13   Rubber track? Taja Cheek  32:14   Yeah, it was like this is this converse initiative. It sounds really silly because it's like a corporate entity. But they provided such a crazy, immense resource to musicians when they had a physical building with, I think one or two recording studios, rehersal space. And it was an application based process so you could apply and they're like, they asked you if you want to work on one song or a part of a song or an album, and you send some samples of your work and like when you're available and they happened on like, some sort of cycle. They would select people and they'd match you up with engineers, and incredible equipment, the files, no strings attached and you get to shoes I think. Ari Wil  33:02   Wow. Taja Cheek  33:04   I think, you know, thinking about things like that, like, how do you like literally how do you like facilitate the process of making or making, or giving people like at a space level, I hope that our program gives people, the artists that we invite to make work, an opportunity to make new work, and to either like, try a part of their practice try to expand a part of their practice that they don't usually have a chance to think about or exhibit and or to like go deeper into something that they're already interested in. But always making new work. Ari Wil  33:37   Yeah, but might you say that's part of like the spiritual like work that needs to be upheld for artists of having that space? Taja Cheek  33:43   I think I have space and I'm lucky to have and so I think I felt a little bit of an obligation to share it. Its kinds of really where that came from. I, that happens less now. And I'm trying to figure out like, what my relationship to that is because I also felt very draining me and a lot of ways personally. But yeah, I think I just came out of that. And I just knew a lot of people that were like the guitarist, and they need a place for her during the day to be loud in their apartments, like I live between three or four churches. So I don't really have to worry about noise because there's no one really there and I have stone walls, like no one really cares what's happening. Yeah, I'm very lucky in that sense. Ari Wil  33:43   Yeah, speaking of space I do remember and a lot of your interviews the mention of your basemnet that you use. Can I ask you to talk a little bit about that? Like, what promted you to do that? Taja Cheek  33:43   Yeah. Ari Wil  34:33   So, like, what have you seen, like immediate benefits to like providing that space to people are like, Yeah, what kind of rewards came from that? Taja Cheek  34:44   I don't know, a sense of community. I think more than anything, especially with extreme improvisers, and sort of like people making more experimental music. It really became an important part. Though, I think the landscape in New York for like really niche kinds of music. That's a double edged sword too, because I sort of realized, like, as I was opening my home to other people that, you know, MY sense of like, who I wanted to use the space was necessarily open to this coming necessarily. Like the sort of like build it and they will come mentality is like, not a thing. Like, you have to really be intentional about that. And so I was like, oh, there are a lot of like, white guys using the basement Like, what does that mean? Like, how does that work? You know, so that kind of way slow down too. That was another part of it too. It's also because of like that particular scene, there are not tons of black and brown people but there were times when like, I don't know sometimes we would list things on the internet, which is kind of crazy that we did that. That was kind of like before a lot of, you know, the sort of like the DIY warehouse tragedies happened .. so once that happened, we started like cracking down on how we were publicized. So before that we're kind of just like Loosey Goosey about everything. And so I remember once we have this show, and I met this like, black woman, and they were kind of like, sitting in the basement and I was like "whhhhat are you doing here, like you're here!" and I went to talk to them. They're like, "Oh, yeah, I just saw it on the websites. I just came in. Like, I didn't know that there are like other black people doing things like this". It's like moments like that would happen. And that would make it really worth it to me.  I'm not I'm under no illusion that it was like the most diverse space. And that's why the reason why it kind of slowed down Ari Wil  36:40   Thats a part of creating accessible spaces anyone's gonna come in. Yeah. That's accessible and inclusive. Yes, that is right. Right. Okay. Sick. Thank you so much. Yeah, yes. Okay.

[nebraska-doesnt-exist]

(1/2) hey i have a question that idk if you can answer but maybe one of your followers can? i'm trans (nonbinary specifically) and i'm gonna be going to UNL in the fall, but when i applied i didn't include my preferred name or anything for a couple different reasons. dyou know if theres a way for me to contact someone and get that info to like. advisors/administrators/whoever needs it if i wanna go by dif name/pronouns than on my app? (i think there was but i can't find it anymore woops.)

(2/2) also i'm not out to family and i'm worried about it getting back to them somehow, esp my mom, dyou (or anyone else) know if that's likely, like them bringing it up to her or mailing her anything about it (idek what they would want to mail her but i'm a bit paranoid about being outed lol). ty to u or anyone else that can help & its ok if u cant

------------------

so. as a disclaimer, i don’t know a ton of specifics on this. i would 100% suggest reaching out to the lgbtq+ center. they can help you navigate all of that and answer your questions, especially in regards to how privacy will work and what information will be visible since you aren’t out to your mom. hopefully i’m giving correct info, but please check! they’re really friendly and they really do want to help.

if your myred already (the main unl student site), you can update your name in the profile section. there’s also some way to change your gender, although i’m not sure if that’s on myred or if you need to contact someone about that -- but it’s definitely possible! again, the lgbtq+ center should be able to guide you through that.

as far as accidentally being outed goes... that’s tricky. for one, they’ll send some things to your permanent address, and generally it’ll be addressed with your name as it appears in the system. i don’t know if they’ll pull your full name or preferred name (depending on which you change), but it probably depends on who is sending the mail.

things get a bit more tricky if your mom calls unl offices for anything (like billing, or... well, mostly it’s financial stuff). legally, they can’t give out any private information about your account unless you give permission. however (and i’m speaking as someone who works on campus), it can get a little tricky to figure out what information we can give out and what should be concealed. and names are something people really don’t consider. if your mom calls asking about something, the staff member might accidentally give out your name when they’re trying to clarify who she’s looking for, or just because they’re trying to honor your preferred name.

i do know that i’ve seen some profiles flagged with some sort of special privacy tag? idk. also, that stuff is really more relevant for people whose parents help pay their fees. i don’t know your particular circumstances.

i don’t want this to deter you from changing your name -- again, this is from my experience as a student worker in a periphery department, so i don’t actually see the whole process. please, reach out to the lgbtq+ center. they’ll help you figure out what the best options for you are (just a note? certain privacy restrictions? preferred name or system change?) and help you navigate the process.

[rainworlds]

The Blur

We are beset by static—in the thrall of constant, relentless movement, we lose ourselves to the permanent accumulation of momentum. We have been primed to charge forward, into a direction unknown, and while everything else recedes into periphery, there are other things coursing through the slipstream, catching up with us. All this movement, this ‘progress’—where does it lead?

Contemporary reporting, in all its breathless, pounding rhythm cares little for the context out of which movement emerges, nor how momentum steers us towards the void. The result is a kind of blur that systematically annihilates our sense of history and, with it, our capacity for Déjà vu. Memory is subject to the corrosive effects of capital, so how do we recognize that something has been lost—that we have been here before?

                                                                              * * *

  Wrapped in the briar of enterprise, critics under capital are incentivized to perform discovery—that is, framing their critique as the first, unique approach to any given topic—which remains convention because it places individual contribution at the center of an ongoing conversation. Of course, credit must be given where credit is due: critics perform labor, after all. But as capital pushes the communal components of all labor further into the margins, the erasure of pre-existing work for the sake of building personal legacies seems all-encompassing; we must, as Devyn Springer put it, cleave individualism from our practice, reject the description of ‘creatives’ and think of ourselves as participating in the production of a culture from which to strike at reactionary elements that seek to prevent harmony and productive labor. We must remember that we do not conjure from the void.

It should be noted that this culture does not have to be ‘popular’ in the sense that ‘popular culture’ is; it can remain separate for as long as it is necessary. But, in the same vein, the totality of ‘popular culture’ and its many fragments cannot be conceded to reactionary ideology.

                                                                              * * *

  People are taught to breach the confines of lines and letters—explicit text—to do excavations upon marginal spaces. This, of course, holds financial benefits in an age where the rapid pace of communication complicates how we capture attention and revenue: it should be apparent, then, that to drape the self in discovery is a practice of domination; it is the colonizer’s impulse. Avant-garde, a term with decidedly militaristic connotations that originates in the Metropole, should clue us into its use: artistic expression and thought are delineated as a ‘frontier’ unto which ‘pioneers’ may move to mark territory, but, of course, not all are permitted to do so equitably.

To perform discovery in this way can be read as a desperate attempt by subjects under kyriarchy to rupture the relentless rhythm of enterprise and insert permanence into capitalist structures driven by the demands of mobility and flexibility. But, of course, that is an extraordinarily charitable reading. To practice discovery means to cut deeper into wounded flesh: it romanticizes a heightened individualism under which writers must fend for themselves. Violently obscuring foundations is not a trivial offence, regardless of whether it happens consciously or not; after all, intent is not required to produce negative consequences.  

Attribution of marginal work as a counter-practice has been discarded almost entirely. To bring it to the forefront demands conscious effort. Stitching back together the histories that ‘discovery’ has torn thread from thread to weave a propaganda of the ego requires a delicate sort of restoration; the seams are scars, after all, and the needles must puncture flesh. Of course, it comes at great personal cost: the market demands the performance of discovery: participants are required to frame themselves and their work as products; the profitability of commodities, in contemporary economy, hinges on being distinct and separate from those that came before; the market adores novelty. Historicizing within the constraints of word count limitations can be a difficult proposition, but it must be undertaken whenever possible.

Marginalized ingenuity has been openly sacrificed on the altar of novelty, but as aspiring keepers of the record, we may attempt a resurrection of sorts: the task of reconstructing histories must serve to train an audience that has previously been unwilling or unable to confront the injustice of life at the margins. ‘Critics’ who present themselves as ‘charting’ or ‘taming’ a previously ‘wild’ and ‘uninhabited’ space in contemporary discourse need to be exposed for what they are: their discovery is nothing but the colonization of the vast landscapes of marginalized thought and criticism that have been violently cast aside. But exposure is not enough: radical attribution and the re-thinking of our relationships under capital must follow.

                                                                              * * *

  The rhythm of contemporary journalism (of capital) cultivates the impression of movement to obfuscate not just the pace at which popular culture moves but the direction in which it moves: it is the grand theater of progress, a sleight of hand. To speak of ‘growth’ or ‘dynamism’ is foolish, because we know these acts of accumulation are performed to distract from the elemental truth that there is no ‘automatic progress’ in all this movement. It is a mechanism meant to prevent introspection, the act of ‘taking stock’ that would reveal the tides of history.

It is a conventionally held position that the financial viability of platforms that practice criticism depend in large part on their ability to capitalize on the rapid pace of information that flows from industry; this applies, in particular, to those that cover popular culture. But that information comes with an expiration date; access is compromised. It is the speed with which such information needs to be processed that requires writers to navigate corporate content at breakneck pace. This relentless schedule occupies a disproportionate amount of any worker’s most precious resource: it devours time, all of it.

Observing and describing the status quo in this way are crucial activities, because the minuscule shifts and adaptations performed by capital to capture wholly our discourse horizon are pre-requisites for understanding and envisioning an alternative future. But, we need to see these shifts and adaptations as what they are: minuscule. This requires knowledge that can illuminate the contexts in which these adaptations occur.  

As analytical tools with which we see the world, observation and description thus require constant re-calibration; they cannot remain static. Rather, what needs to be observed and described are trends over time, so that the context of individual events is not lost in the furious rhythm of digital publishing. Otherwise, organized thought perishes in our desperation to capture a permanent moment that, in truth, does not exist.

                                                                              * * *

�� Curation is frequently presented as a natural process built on the observation and subsequent interpretation of publics. As such, the process is often directly linked to the behavior of publics. It should be clear, however, that the practice of curation is not a natural process in which actors possess a supernatural disposition to sense the ‘zeitgeist’ and act accordingly, but a series of decisions made by institutions that determine the boundaries of their actions.

We tend to frame curation as if publications are receptacles for publics, as if the direction of reporting naturally emerges from a realm external. But this has become part of a larger strategy to relocate and externalize the labor of curation unto systems perceived to be ‘organic’, such as social media, to shun and obfuscate a responsibility for elevating the margins that every self-respecting institution of journalism should embrace.

A refusal to see the ways in which our work may produce culture, of course, reiterates on a politics of apathy, and seamlessly transitions into the reproduction of the status quo. To rely on technology is seen as a way of observing the world on its own terms, a lens unto ‘objective’, ‘natural’ reality that arises organically from the will of the public. But even as we accept this dubious claim, the observation of such unreliable, massive amounts of data still requires the observer to make a series of decisions: attention is limited, so it follows that what we may observe is limited, too.

Information and communications technology cannot be permitted to slip into the role of an invisible hand that determines what appears on any platform. It is not autonomous, neutral or objective: algorithms, as experts never tire to tell us, are crafted by people. It is important to recognize the myriad ways in which the technical architecture of popular networks and platforms shape what individuals and publications are able to see online. But the limitations of such architecture do not provide salient justification for publications to capitulate in the face of the enormous task that curation presents.

Rather, publications need the resources to engage in an active process of seeking out material that constitutes real alternatives to the doctrines of industry. Observing social media is part of the repertoire, but, even there, unpaid labor engages in a process of curation that remains invisible, and visible only if it acts in aggregate; attribution is crucial. Popularity determines coverage, when coverage, ideally, should introduce publics to new works, which may or may not become popular; curation is work. We cannot rest on the assumption that what is ‘worth covering’ will somehow ‘trickle up’—defying gravity—to the editorial board, re-asserting the primacy of viral success and/or corporate backing. Publications are active participants, complicit in a process that turns our collective understanding of ‘value’ into something that is not a threat to the status quo.

                                                                              * * *

  Attribution, contextualization and curation are tools with which we can avoid making the same mistake as the institutions currently writing about popular culture; they have become so thoroughly compromised that 'transformation’ is not longer a sufficient prescription. It must be annihilation. The short-term memory evident in the problem-of-the-week dynamic is a problem that is rooted in the rhythm of digital publishing and capital, which seems to ward off any attempts to build momentum for causes that are capable and robust enough to support more radical ideologies. To break this cycle, these institutions need to be fought.

[myliveablecity1]

Essentials of a Great Public Space

Good public spaces represent the variety and empower people to exist together easily while generating the essential circumstances for permanency, which encourages people to be out in public.

 People are drawn to places because of their energy. This vitality is guaranteed by the variety of ways in which people may enjoy metropolitan areas. These great public spaces are obtained by maintaining certain thumb rules.

 1.  Maintaining Diversity

Incorporating a wide range of uses into a neighborhood, such as pubs and restaurants, as well as offices and shops, creates a more welcoming and safe atmosphere. The presence of more people out on the streets reduces crime because of the external activities generated by the variety of purposes.

 However, this variety must extend throughout all hours of the day. They are nonetheless dangerous at night, even when the areas are appealing and crowded during the day. Planned cohabitation and permanence of people in public areas is also a means to invest in security.

 2.  Lighting

Public places may be used more safely at night if they are illuminated efficiently and with a focus on people.  Walking and bicycling are made safer and more enjoyable, which makes it easier for local businesses to reach customers.

 With public lighting provided at the pedestrian and bike level, it is possible to travel more securely even if natural light is not present. In addition to providing people with places to relax and live, well-designed public spaces may also help stimulate the local economy.

 3.  Lively Facades

Creating a connection between the sidewalk and the street, as well as between the ground floor of the buildings, enhances both public safety and the aesthetic appeal of urban planning. People are more likely to utilize streets that are appealing to the eye.

 The way individuals see and utilize public space is largely determined by their interactions with streets and sidewalks, and this relationship has a significant impact on how people see and use the city.

 4.  Urban Touch

Public space, being a gathering place for people, has an impact on the social component of the city. A vibrant city is one with well-maintained public spaces that encourage interaction between its inhabitants and the surrounding environment, make good use of available land, and attract new life to the area.

 In addition to paying attention to densely populated metropolitan areas, the peripheries must also be taken into account in order to ensure that residents who do not live in the city center have access to high-quality public places.

 5.  Social involvement

Social involvement is crucial in urban public spaces and the areas where people live in those places are to remain high-quality for future generations. In each neighborhood and community, public places are used for different purposes and have diverse meanings.

 Participation by local residents ensures that public space is designed to fulfill the specific requirements of the neighborhood. There will be no usage or maintenance of space if it doesn't represent the needs and preferences of the local community.

 6.  Consider the local economy

The little businesses that make up the character of the area should be included in the design of public spaces. While large corporations can have an impact on the economy as a whole, they play a far smaller role in local communities.

 The long-term influence of small enterprises and endeavors, as well as the personality and character of the place, are crucial. In order to create a strong connection between people and location, it is important to consider the societal structures and cultural particularities of a certain region while designing a public space.

 Create Great Public spaces with us In order to create a sense of belonging, it is necessary to fulfill the needs and wants of a wide range of groups. We, at My Liveable City, examine the core principles of any effective and inclusive urban area by thinking holistically about factors such as movement, infrastructure, vegetation, water, and landscape. Contact us for more details on public spaces.

[inaweofdiana]

Happy Valentine’s Day @justm3h​!! You said you wanted Makino and Mihawk so here you go! Shanks doesn’t make an appearance this time bc I was having so much fun with just these two. :3c I hope you like it and I hope you have a lovely day! <3

Mihawk couldn’t believe that this small island was Shanks’ getaway from the world. How could such a tiny island in East Blue captivate one of the most powerful pirates in the world? There had to be some hidden secret to the island. Something that would draw him back here time after time. He was determined to find it. He docked his boat in a discreet inlet. He took great care to draging his small ship up the beach into the treeline, camouflaging it. He debated with himself at some length before deciding to leave his executioner’s blade on his ship, selecting a long, thin rapier to hook to his belt instead. The handle was gilded gold, with a garnet set into the hilt. The gold matched the brocade lining the inside of his greatcoat, and the garnet set off the red silk of his shirt beautifully. He checked himself over carefully before entering the city. His rapier was well concealed under his coat and his clothes were clean, well pressed. He straightened his hat before deciding that it, along with his sword, was far too distinctive. He hung it carefully on the boat and ran a hand through his hair, ensuring it hadn’t tangled. He was ready.

He entered Goa Kingdom through a side entrance, not calling undue attention to himself. He casually passed through the entire city but found nothing to his interest. He exited just as inconspicuously as he’d arrived, and found himself passing through what appeared to be a garbage dump. It was a stark contrast to the cleanliness of the city he’d just left, but no more interesting. He was hoping there would be something of interest in the forest ahead. He was disappointed. The whole island seemed terribly mundane, boring and ordinary. The giant tigers in the forest were somewhat of a novelty for him, but still only so interesting. He debated skinning it for its pelt for a brief moment, but decided against it when he realized there was someone close by. Several someones in fact. He made no move to conceal himself, though he was less than twenty feet from the path. It was a group of several men, dressed similarly in dark jackets with matching patches that identified them as a part of the same gang of bandits. They were laughing and carousing their way down the mountain path, boisterous enough that none of them noticed him. Curious, he let his haki flare brightly in his chest to observe the island intently in its entirety. He was surprised to discover that his map had been wrong and that there was a second village on the island, due south-east from his current position. Interesting. He found that it was a small village, likely why it hadn’t been included on his charts. It housed a good number of people, though nowhere near the size of Goa Kingdom. A general store, a small marketplace, a boat shop, and a tavern made up the center of town. Nothing here seemed terribly interesting either, but Mihawk decided that all of his investigative work today called for a reward. A liquid reward. He slipped into the tavern and up to the bar. It wasn’t very busy, though it was only about three in the afternoon. The first thing that he noticed was the smell. It was rich and savory, probably some kind of stew. It smelled gamey and homey, and invited Mihawk to relax. It was well lit, windows open to let in the natural light stream in. The wood of the floor and bar shone richly, speaking of hours of care. Behind the bar, bottles were lined up neatly, as inviting to the eye as the smell of stew was to his nose. He slipped into a seat at the bar and examined the bottles behind the bar, hoping for something more than he was likely to find. “Hello! I’ll be right with you!” A barmaid emerged from the kitchen holding a full tray of food. He inhaled deeply as she passed, trying to pinpoint the spices. Plenty of garlic and cumin, it smelled like. He was also picking up a number of floral notes, likely from the woman holding the tray. He eyed her as she flitted around the room. She looked to be only a few years younger than Mihawk himself, with dark hair and a bright smile. He watched her circle the room and finally slip behind the bar. She smiled sweetly at him. “Welcome to Foosha village, Mr. Dracule.” He resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. Now this sounded interesting. “Good afternoon.” Doubtless she recognized him from either his wanted posters or his current warlord posters. Either way she knew his face well enough to greet him immediately and wasn’t threatened by him. “You’re from West Blue, right?” She asked casually. Now he did raise an eyebrow. “That’s correct.” He said carefully. She disappeared from view as she crouched and rummaged underneath the bar for a moment, coming back up with a bottle. She dusted it off, though she had no need to. Her cleaning under the bar was as immaculate as the rest of the building, but it seemed to be a practiced motion. “There now! I have a bottle of white Rioja from the West! Does this look suitable?” She proffered the bottle. His other eyebrow rose as he took the bottle carefully. This particular wine wasn’t very well known, as Riojas were typically red, but the winery it was from was very close to Mihawk’s home town. He had grown up drinking this particular wine, and was very fond of it. “This will do wonderfully.” He set the bottle down carefully between them, turning a keen eye on the barmaid. “I’m glad!” She produced a corkscrew from her apron and set about opening it. “You have me at somewhat of a disadvantage, madam.” She glanced up at him, looking surprised herself now. “You seem to know quite a bit about me, but I lack for even your name.” “Oh.” She paused, seeming startled. Her smile returned, brighter than ever. “I’m Makino! I run the place here! It’s very nice to meet you!” She extended a hand to shake. Mihawk took it and resisted the urge to smirk as he brought it to his lips to brush a kiss over her knuckles. “The pleasure is mine.” Makino blushed a very pretty shade of pink and ducked her head. He suspected that had she not been holding a bottle of wine, she would have hidden her face. He knew for a fact that the glow of her blush just made her more beautiful, brought her features to life in a way nothing else could. “Shanks always says you’re a charmer.” She said. Her tone said she was trying for admonishing but it was just coming across as charmed. “Shanks talks about me often, does he?” Mihawk tried for nonchalant, but could tell it was coming across as dry. Makino giggled as she popped the cork. “Only all the time. He loves to brag about his famous rival.” She poured him a generous measure of the Rioja in a thinly stemmed glass and set it in front of him. She poured herself a small measure in a much smaller, much sturdier looking cup. “Drinking on the job?” he asked. His eyebrows felt permanently quirked. “Only with friends!” She winked. He felt his own traitorous cheeks trying to blush and squashed it down immediately. “Friends, you say?” He raised his glass in front of his face, just in case, and swirled his wine, watching Makino through the distortion of the glass. “Shanks has told me so much about you I feel like I know you. It’s so nice to finally meet you in person, instead of just secondhand.” “Shanks doesn’t do me justice, I have no doubt.” Mihawk scoffed, sipping at the wine finally. It was just like he remembered. Makino’s next smile was sly. “Oh he does you lots of justice, Mr. Dracule.” The barest flutter of eyelashes. Mihawk rested his chin on the back of his hand, allowing himself a small smile in return. “Please, call me Mihawk. As friends should.” Makino cradled her drink in front of her face, unconsciously mirroring Mihawk from a moment before. “Alright.” “But here we are and we speak only of another man. Tell me about yourself instead.” Mihawk beseeched. She blushed again. “I’m not terribly interesting.” “I disagree. And so does Shanks.” And here he was talking about Shanks again. Damn the man. She giggled, seeming to pick up on his irritation. “Well thank you.” She was beautiful with that color of pink. He wondered how she’d look in a dress of it. “You know you actually just missed him. He just left yesterday.” That explained why he could faintly sense Shanks’ energy in the periphery of his observation. He sipped his wine instead of answering as he focused on it. After knowing him for this long, honing in on it was easy. He paused and set his glass down to devote his full focus to his observational haki. He raised an eyebrow, looking up at Makino. “What?” She tilted her head. “He’s coming back.” He picked up his glass and sipped at it petulantly. “He must have sensed me.” He was definitely within sight of the island, if not closer. Makino brightened, almost clapping her hands but for the cup she was holding. “Is he? He was just saying how he hasn’t seen you in ages!” Mihawk would have grumbled if that wasn’t beneath him, and instead downed the rest of his wine. He had to meditate to prepare himself for Shanks’ rambunctious energy if he didn’t want to cut his other arm off. “How much?” He asked. “It’s on Shanks’ tab.” She grinned. Mihawk snorted at her cavalier answer. “I will not be debted to him. How much?” He repeated. Makino considered him for a moment, tapping her cup pensively against her chin before she smiled that sly smile again. “It’s on me then. Does that sound okay?” being debted to me? was the unspoken tail on the question. Mihawk smiled again. “I would like nothing better.”

[natkat-140]

I spy with my little eye...

So, it’s a long story that not everyone is interested in, but if you are, here’s what’s going on with my eye.

I’ve had type-1 insulin-dependent diabetes since I was 10 years old. I didn’t take care of myself when I was in my teens and early 20s. For those of you who know what this means, my HgbA1C was 13-15 for years. I felt like shit all the time but it kept me from gaining weight and that was more important to me (look up diabulemia lol). Anyways, I finally started taking care of myself when I went to nursing school but by then I had already done quite a bit of damage.

When your blood sugar is elevated, it can cause high blood pressure in areas where your blood vessels are very small, such as your fingers, toes, eyes, and kidneys. That’s why diabetics have issues in those particular areas. The increased blood pressure means less blood is able to get into those tiny vessels and feed those tissues with oxygen they need to be healthy. 

This was happening in my eyes since my early twenties. My body wasn’t able to get blood/O2 to my eyes properly, so it decided to make new, weak, baby blood vessels in hopes of compensating. It doesn’t work though. Those weak baby vessels are shit and they bleed easily. I was having teeny tiny microbleeds, but it wasn’t serious yet, and I improved my blood sugars to prevent more damage. I was going to the ophthalmologist every 6 months to keep a very close eye on it (ba-dum-psh) and all was good.

However, in December I had an accident at work. I was caring for a patient who was HIV positive and not taking his antiretroviral medications, meaning his HIV was active and transmissible. I was giving him an injection, but because of his HIV he was emaciated and had no muscle or fat on his body. The needle went through his tissue and into my finger. It was possible that I had contracted HIV, so I had to take medications that help prevent the infection. Those medications had GNARLY side effects, mostly nausea’/vomiting/diarrhea/dizziness/headache. BUT one of the more serious side effects was bleeding.

Four days after starting the HIV medication, I started having visual changes, like big black floaters and blind spots in one eye. Turns out I had a hemorrhage (large bleed) into my eyeball. There was no visible blood; it was all contained within my eye. But all those weak baby vessels burst open and blood poured into my eye. 

My vision in my right eye is like looking through a dirty, murky fish tank with yellow/brown tinged water, and someone dropped some black ink into it. It's all blurred and there are floaters that move around in swirly motions. It’s very annoying to see, I often think I see a bug flying by my face. And because my vision in the two eyes is so significantly different, it gives me a massive headache if I see out of both eyes for too long. I can’t focus on anything, but I can move around ok and see large general things. 

That’s why I’ve been wearing an eyepatch. It blocks my bad vision from my right eye, so I only see through my left eye which has good vision. That way I can read, look at screens, watch TV, etc, but it still puts a lot of strain on my good eye and my depth perception is completely fucked. I don’t drive at the moment because I don’t trust my judgement of depth even just driving around my parking lot. I also am not working, because I’m an ICU nurse and we need to be able to see well and safety is a huge issue. I don’t want another needlestick like I already had. Additionally, with my eyepatch, glasses, and mask, my field of vision is super super small and it’s hard to see around me. When I go to the grocery store with my dad I often have to walk beside him, hold onto his shoulder, etc so that I don’t bump into anything/anyone in my periphery.

So, with the bleeding, my doctor said the blood should just reabsorb into my body and we can do treatment to prevent further bleeding. Prevention included injections into my eyeball as well as laser to get rid of those weak baby vessels. We were able to do both of those in my good eye just for prevention. Unfortunately, the blood in my right eye was not reabsorbing and she couldn’t see the back of my eye in order to do the laser. We waited and waited and I saw her every 2 weeks to re-evaluate. 

Today, it was obvious that it’s completely stagnant. The eye exam photos look exactly the same as they did in the beginning of January. At this point, the only solution is actual surgery to remove the blood and clots from my eye and to help relieve pressure on my retina. I’ll be getting two cuts directly into each side of the whites of my eyeballs, about 2cm each. I won’t be put under anesthesia, but I’ll be thoroughly numbed and given “relaxing” medication. She said most people lightly sleep during the surgery. 

I’ll wear a legit surgical eyepatch for a day and then come back for evaluation. Should be 2-3 weeks after surgery that I start being able to see normally again, if all goes well. It’s scary because there is a risk of permanently losing my vision in that eye if there are complications. And, with this surgery, it is likely that I will need another surgery every ten years afterwards as maintenance. 

This whole thing has been really hard, but I’ve been trying to take it one day at a time and not worry too much. When I got the news that I would need surgery, I definitely went to the bathroom and cried. I freaked out, I’ve seen the aftermath of routine surgeries that have complications. I’m an ICU nurse after all. It happens. And that’s so scary to me. I think now, about 12 hours later, I’ve come to terms with it and I know that this is a step in the right direction. There’s nothing else to be done but to go forward with it if I want a chance at normal vision again. But I can’t help but beat myself up for being so careless about my diabetes when I was younger and not believing my doctors. It was 10, 15 years ago, but I’m just now seeing the negative effects of those decisions. 

Being at home alone all the time is difficult. With no work, no purpose. No ability to go anywhere in my car. Relying on others to help transport me and get my errands done. Just waiting to get better. This has happened so many times in the last few years. First I hurt my wrist, out of work for 6 months. Then I hurt my shoulder and was out for over a year. My shoulder never recovered, and both my shoulders now suffer from adhesive capsulitis - another fucking diabetic problem. Then I broke my ankle and was out for 8 months and still feel effects from it. So much time was spent alone in my apartment, unable to leave, unable to  live freely. 

And here I am again. Out of work, unable to leave my home or care for myself properly. I feel like such a burden, on my family, my workplace, society in general. I feel like I’m taking more than I can contribute. I feel lonely all the time. Useless, helpless. I thank the stars that I found an online community to be a part of this time around, and have made legitimate genuine friendships there. I can’t imagine how much more depressed I’d be if I hadn’t. I hope that I can be well again soon so that I can get on with my life. I’m scared of the surgery but I’m going to have it done. And we’ll see what happens.

[greenpapayaartprojects]

Right People, Wrong Timing: People-to-People, Case-to-Case (Email Q&A with Margaret Shiu and Norberto Roldan before Intra Asia Network, Seoul, 2006)

Norberto Roldan (Peewee) couldn't attend the Pilot Project AIR Asia - Mapping Asian Artists' Mobility (2005) organized by 竹圍工作室 Bamboo Curtain Studio (BCS) in Taipei. This event would be better known as the first Intra Asia Network (IAN) meeting as mentioned in Anne Yao's text last week. Prior to the following September 2006 IAN meeting in Korea, Margaret Shiu of BCS was actively engaging people in the network via email. Below are Peewee’s answers to a questionnaire that Margaret emailed some time between the two events:

Dear Margaret,

I sincerely apologize for sending this only now. I should have attended to this document earlier had it not been for some problems I encountered with my travel plans. Actually, it has been my intention to contribute these insights, and participate in the discussions through emails, whether I make it to Korea or not. But now that there is a better chance for me to make it (thanks to you and Hyunjin), I’m excited at the prospect of being able to elaborate on these thoughts during the actual workshop. I hope you can bear with my lengthy discourse.

Best regards, Norberto (Peewee)

BCS: What are your current concerns within this topic as a service provider to your local and regional cultural workers, and how can you help our new initiative in international exchanges?

NR: Since this is going to be my first active participation in an ongoing discussion regarding certain issues, allow me to contribute my initial thoughts based on certain assumptions, like: 1. the term service provider is still subject to debate and is used here liberally to describe members of the network, some of which are actually parallel initiatives (alternative spaces) to existing art and cultural institutions, and therefore are part of the industry infrastructure as well; 2. the question at hand tries to distinguish the members of the network from the “local and cultural workers” although in some/most cases (particularly in ours), these cultural workers/artists are the same people running these parallel initiatives. The contention, therefore, on the term service provider arises from a situation where the one delivering the “service” and the beneficiaries are the same.

So given the duality of the role played by alternative spaces (like in the case of Green Papaya Art Projects where it has evolved into a community of artists and at the same time as an alternative platform serving the needs of its community), the most pressing concern is sustainability. Historically, since alternative spaces are borne out of artists’ initiatives primarily as a response to different types of challenges in their respective socio-cultural environments, these efforts have been propelled mostly by sheer manpower but without much financial muscle. Due to lack of state subsidy, support from the private sector and corporate patronage, we have seen very dynamic and promising alternative art spaces in Manila folding up and burning out artists/cultural workers involved after three or four years of struggling to keep programs afloat. Obviously the problem of sustainability translates into funding requirements. Sourcing for funds, formulating economic activities and generating sustainable resources are the most common stumbling blocks for these alternative spaces in pursuing a more long term goal in terms of not only initiating but establishing new paradigms in contemporary art productions and cultural management.

As to the question how can our spaces help in the new initiative in international exchange, I guess there is much to learn from this collective phenomenon: what drives artists running these spaces to take matters into their own hands? They certainly are not in any position to contribute material resources to residencies and exchanges, but they have enough well grounded perspectives formed over many years of operating in the periphery that may be significant to this whole Intra-Asia dialogue. But the most concrete step I think that we can do to help international exchange prosper is to participate in the formulation of a framework and help in building the needed infrastructure that are most appropriate and relevant to our Asia-Pacific constituency. Saying that, there is no need to stress further the importance of the IAN workshop and for everyone (including those whose mobility is hampered by financial constraints) to be able to participate in it.

BCS: What are the currently available resources that we can tap into for substantive services to members in this network?  There is a lot of information but we need real sharing of past experiences and knowledge so as to be continuously relevant.

NR: Offhand, I can say that there is no organized system yet from where we can source a particular type of support for a particular type of project. I agree that there is a lot of information available but sharing and dissemination have always been done through personal association, affiliation or referral. Perhaps, IAN can build a research and technology-based virtual site where information can constantly flow and members can readily access them. It can be both a library and a discussion portal to support dialogue among artists and cultural managers of alternative/artist-run spaces, institutions, organizations, museums, as well as with its counterpart communities in North America and Europe and elsewhere, making connections outside the mainstream, governmental and institutional links. Dialogues may seek to articulate issues that pertain to local and regional concerns around culture and society and discuss ways through which contemporary art practice can acquire a significant role in the everyday life of ordinary people – enriching their perspective to be fully aware and critical of their social, cultural and political conditions.

From our experience, there has been a lot of people-to-people arrangements, more on a case-to-case basis, where realization of residencies and exchanges have sprung. Our residency and exchange program for example was born in this kind of environment and features more soft resources (facilitation of direct interaction/integration with local artists and communities) than hard resources (availability of studio spaces and accommodations). As part of our soft resource capability, we arrange for accommodation, workshop area, link-up with schools and universities, and immersion in a specific community/sector for foreign artists who wish to take up a residency with us.  As a host we also offer curatorial assistance, project management, and an exhibition or performance venue, all this for free, should the artist need such support.

BCS: Can you from your own perspective honestly review the present Asian networks, taking into consideration their internal structure, range of interaction between members and non-members, functioning, nature of their projects, difficulties, successes and fundraising strategies.  How effective are they in communication, and how may they be of help to our group in the future.

NR: I’ll try to provide a general overview of these issues, varied as they are, from a perspective fed both by empirical data and gathered from first hand knowledge and observations. I will also try to list down from memory formal and informal networks I have come across with in the course of my work both as an artist and cultural manager simply as points of reference.

Formal networks

1. ASEAN COCI Some 30 years preceding the founding of Intra Asia Network in Taipei in 2005, we witnessed the formation of the ASEAN-COCI (Committee on Culture and Information), a formidable network of quasi-government cultural institutions funded by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. COCI’s mandate was to develop a basic framework of cooperation in culture and information where equal opportunities are given to each country for their artists and scholars to make a headway in the development and promotion of arts and culture in the region. Hence, since the early 1980s to mid 1990s, we saw for the first time a traffic of Asian artists crossing regional borders to participate in annual travelling exhibitions, art camps, sculpture symposia; and of Asian scholars participating in exchange programs that cover anthropology, archeology, museology, and cultural policy making workshops. With the programs ably funded by member governments, we experienced the leveling off of the field among rich and poor countries, and for that matter artists coming from the oil-rich state of Brunei and the poverty-stricken state of the Philippines are able to share the same platform. There is no available data as to whether the main objective of COCI was achieved although it is generally perceived that the role it played in initiating artists’ mobility in Asia can not be ignored. In 1992, I represented the Philippines in a traveling exhibition and symposium in Brunei Darussalam. The experience provided the individual artists opportunities to network informally with their counterparts from other countries but not much has come out of it since it lacked the necessary mechanics and support system to sustain and widen such network. I believe that IAN should tap into the vast resources of the ASEAN-COCI, and may propose a joint program to strengthen the infrastructure for AIR.

2. FEDERATION OF ASIAN ARTISTS Organized some 15 years ago, this federation is composed of FAA-Committees from each country in Asia. Its main activity is its annual Asian International Art Exhibition which tour the different member-countries. The touring exhibition provides a venue for artists to meet and dialogue on current developments and issues relevant to Asian art practice. It is a network, however, that maintains exclusivity among committee members. As in the case of the Philippines, membership in the committee is permanent. Although the FAA enjoys both corporate and government support, this privilege does not trickle down to a bigger community where contact and interaction with other Asian artists may be enhanced.

3. ALTERNATIVES: CONTEMPORARY ART SPACES IN ASIA (publication) A unique mechanism for networking, this guidebook was first published at the end of 2001 by the Japan Foundation. The latest edition released in October 2004 contains information on 170 art spaces and organizations in 16 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In its introduction, it states that “this guidebook was compiled to assist people with interest in Asian contemporary art, providing the necessary information to directly experience the art of Asia in its countries of origin, to meet and associate with people in the Asian art world, or to research and study new art forms in this region.” As far as alternative spaces are concerned, it brought unprecedented access to similar endeavors in the region, providing vital information and links to people operating in the field, and offering wide opportunities for interaction, cooperation and exchange. While actual exchanges do happen as a result of this “open source,” it also suggests virtual mobilities for those who are interested in any particular space listed in the book, and may pursue it by visiting the homepage. This mechanism only proves that even with the internet, information contained in hard copies can still be a vital instrument in connecting people. In the long term, I can see the need for IAN to publish a similar undertaking, and or to co-publish with the Japan Foundation an expanded version of the guidebook.

Informal networks

1. ARS NETWORK Artists-Run-Spaces in Manila maintain an informal network. Under such arrangement, we make ourselves aware of each other’s program and calendar of events, and make sure that we support these activities. We also share information, foreign contacts and resources, and on a number of occasions, collaborate on projects. Since there is no available funding to run a more structured network, we rely more on the communal spirit prevalent in third world environments like Manila. By and large, the system works as the field is left wide open for anyone wanting to contribute something. But to a certain extent, the informal setting makes us vulnerable to committing ourselves to undertake under-funded projects.

2. PERSONAL NETWORK A personal network with individuals and organizations is developed over many years of interaction and collaboration in the course of our participation in international exhibitions, workshops and conferences. Also, as a result of our hosting residencies and exchanges, we developed personal working relations with artists and institutions. Although communication and interaction with the people considered within this network is done on a more personal basis, a consolidation of one’s personal network may be passed on to other members of IAN.

4. We need also to clarify the structure of our new network, and rights and responsibilities of the members.

I should reserve my comments and in-puts with regards to the structure of our new network and the responsibilities of the members as I believe this concern will be further discussed during the workshop. As for now, I think I have a plateful to digest and I hope that the rest of the panel will take interest in some of the observations I raised. Thank you.

***** Thanks to Anne Yao for kindly sharing this document, along with additional documents and video documentation that was missing from Papaya’s archives. The above text has been edited for clarity.

Images from IAN Seoul, September 2006: 1. Norberto Roldan (Peewee) in Ssamzie Space, Seoul 2. Peewee with Ssamzie curator, Hyun Jin Shin at the Gwangju Biennale Conference Hall 3. Peewee, 3rd from right, at Ssamzie’s black box space, Seoul

Credits: Sau Bin Yap: 1 Anne Yao: 2, 3

More documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R_Heon_-QM

More info:

Bamboo Curtain Studio website http://bambooculture.com/en

"Intra Asia Network." (last edited on 1 Aug 2018) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intra_Asia_Network

"New Ways of Engaging Asia." (2006) http://arthub.bestbit.it/project/new-ways-of-engaging-asia/

Mio Iwakiri. "Hot Workshop in a Big Typhoon." (1 Sep 2005) https://aaa.org.hk/en/ideas/ideas/research-log-hot-workshop-in-a-big-typhoon

If you can: https://greenpapaya.art/donation

***** Right People, Wrong Timing (RPWT) is a series of texts on defunct or inactive independent Asian arts initiatives that had crossed paths or ran parallel to Papaya's own 20-year history. With new posts every Friday from August to December 2020, RPWT is kindly supported through a local grant by the Japan Foundation Manila.