#so yeah let's gave them the whole queer experience from the moment they arrive back in the XXI

[pollyna]

I love how every time I rewatch Travelers Philip and Trevor come out as more asexual than the previous rewatch. And how much i want to just give everyone in the squad the most queer experienced of their life once they arrive in the XXI century.

[descendantofthesparrow]

Multipart commission - Harry Hook x reader - A Prince Behind the Pirate - part 7 - its going down

@musicarose​

=

In the night and most of the day you had been locked in the brig, you were surprisingly….not treated like dirt? You honestly had expected mals little stories of Uma to be true, treating her prisoners as if the weren’t even worth the bottom of her shoe, letting her crew torture them.

But the entire time you had been there, nothing really happened, they gave you back your bag and all its stuff inside (with one or two granola bars missing, courtesy of Gil) and had tossed you a pillow and blanket.

All in all, it wasn’t a horrible experience that Mal had foretold, actually, Uma was being….accommodating? and you had to say, Gil was a very entertaining guard.

You laid on your back as you watch Gil deal the Uno cards, his tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly. “okay there, now, 7 each right?”

You nodded and watched as he tossed cards through the bars to you. “what are yeh gilly weeds doin’?” a confused Harry said from the top of the brig stairs, he….looked like a normal teen, his large red jacket was missing from his shoulders, he was now wearing a plain white t-shirt and black-grey sweatpants with some old repaired converse.

“uno! It’s a card game from Auradon, wanna play?” Harry sighed and looked to the ceiling, before shrugging. “sure im bored and can’t sleep”

He slid down on the wall next to Gil, holding out his hands for cards. Gil dealt him out the 7 and then turned to you. “what were the rules again?”

“match the color or number, 7s you can switch cards with whoever you want and 0’s are everyone switches hands, you can stack plus twos and fours, and you can jump in if you have the exact same card”

You flipped the first card down, Gil going next and Harry following.

It was a while before the chaos started.

But booooy Harry was funny when he was mad.

“HOW FEKIN DARE YEH GIL!! I ONLY HAD ONE CARD LEFT AND YEH BETRAY MEH LIKE THA’?” you were laughing your ass off as gil just smiled smugly as Harry screamed at him.

“it's just part of the game Harry!” Gil laughed, leaning back and grinning like the Cheshire cat. Harry pouted and crossed his arms, glaring at him, eyes drifting to you, who was still giggling.

“i-I cant breathheheh!” you cackled, feeling tears run down your cheeks, you cracked open your eyes, seeing Gil beaming down at you while Harry had his….look on his face “s-sorry” you breathed deep, trying to calm down before bursting into another fit of giggles.

“you-you good lass?” Harry had opened the door to your cell awhile ago, so he leaned over and rubbed your shoulder, you nodded and stopped laughing for a moment, staring into Harry's blue eyes….before bursting into ANOTHER fit of laughter. “yer very giggly aren’t yeh” he chuckled

“i-im so-sorry” you cried, your stomach was starting to hurt “Its-its always hard for me to stop laughing” Gil let his own set of laughter lose, sitting up from his spot on the floor and helping you sit up.

“I've learned laying down doesn’t help stop the laughter” he offered, holding you in place as you finally gained control of your breathing.

“t-thanks” you sighed, waving your hands in your face to cool yourself down.

“you’re welcome” Gil chirped, picking his cards back up and nodding to you “your turn right?”

“y-yeah” you picked your cards up and tossed down a +4, jumping in on your own card. “plus-four Gil” Harry cackled

“haha! Revenge yeh gakit!” Gil rolled his eyes and took his cards. Harry smirked at you, slamming down a + 4 and cackling. You just mock laughed and smacked down your OWN +4.

“hahahaha ha~” Gil laughed, putting down ANOTHER + 4 “take 12 Harry!” Harry just stared down at the card, he dropped his cards and stood, giving you and Gil the middle finger and stomping back upstairs and to his cabin.

You and Gil glanced at each other and burst out into laughter.

=

Uma and you just kinda….stared at each other as noon rolled around “what the hell happened last night?” uma cocked her hip and raised her brow.

“We played Uno and Gil plus twelved harry” you shrugged, Uma just looked more confused.

“uh…okay whatever” Uma muttered, scratching her neck “Let's hope your little friends come for you huh?” you nodded, pursing your lips and looking around.

“so what do really want with the wand?” Uma sighed, deciding to just lay it all out.

“be free? That’s it mostly, it sucks here, rotten food, I have to sew all my clothes an-“

“hold the fu*k up” you stopped her, staring at her with wide eyes “ROTTEN FOOD!??!?!”

Uma just stared at you confused “uh yeah? The barge just sends all your leftovers? You didn’t-“

“NO I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT HOLY FUCK IM GONNA KILL ADAM MYSELF!” you screamed, “HE LIED TO US, HE TOLD US YOU GUYS WERE GETTING FRESH FOOD AFTER THAT SCANDAL 15 YEARS AGO HOLY FU*K!!”

“w-what scandal?” Uma muttered. You blew your hair out of your face more dramatically than you usually would have.

“a lot of people found out that the isle wasn’t getting ANY good food so they got mad and made him start sending fresh food and assuming you're not lying, he just dropped it as soon as everyone stopped paying attention!!!”

Uma groaned and face planted “I think I remember the small time of fresh food….i think it was like half a year and that was it.” Uma was genuinely surprised at your anger “so you really didn’t know about the whole rotten food thing?”

“i-I don’t think even Ben knows! King asshole is still in charge of the isle…stuff so hes been hiding it from Ben! Im sure if Ben knew, you all would have been eating actual food as soon as he became king”

Uma sighed and rubbed her forehead “This is just one big ol’ mess” she looked over your shoulder and yelled out to Harry “get her to the plank, im sure they’re almost here” she looked back at you for a moment.

“….you won't be going over don’t worry about it” she muttered, sighing loudly as she walked to the gangplank.

Harry walked over and untied you, looking from Uma to you “what did yeh tell ‘er?”

You didn’t answer, looking down at Harry's arms, realizing that he was much…smaller that you thought he would be.

As if he never got enough to eat, you knew if you grabbed his wrist your fingers would touch. Harry frowned as you looked at his arms, forcing you to turn around and push you towards the plank.

“jus’ walk lass” you obeyed and simply walked to the plank.

As the vks arrived, including Ben and Lonnie, Uma got excited, bouncing around and jeering at Mal.

“Finally~! Let's get this started shall we?”

A few minutes of negotiations went by, most of which you stood on the plank, Harry's hand gripping your shoulder to keep you from losing your balance.

“now why would you give me a phony wand?” huh? How did Uma-

Mals jaw dropped and she looked over to you with betrayal in her eyes “you-you told her!?!” Uma let out a cackled, grinning like the cat who caught the canary.

“nope~ you just did~” she nodded her head at Harry, who stared to guide you backward and back to the brig.

“hey- what!?”

“you didn’t go through with your half Malsy, why would I go through with mine?” Uma laughed, gesturing for her crew to advance on Mals, driving them back to the garage.

“we’ll be sending our demands later beasty boy~” Uma cooed, giving him a sharp grin as he looked to you desperately, you sighed and started to head back to your cell. Harry was just behind you, making it seem like he was forcing you back down to the brig.

Something bugged at the back of your mind….maybe you being stuck here would shed light on the isle and in the end, Uma would get what she wanted in a way without the wand or destroying Auradon in the process.

--end of part 7--

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@sephiralorange​

@lunanight2012​

@daughter-of-the-stars11​

@random-thoughts-003​

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[365days365movies]

February 14, 2021: Brokeback Mountain (2005) (Part 1)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Or Palentine’s, Galentine’s, Single Persons Appreciation Day, what have you!

Anyway, on this day where we (and the greeting card companies) celebrate love in all of its forms, I think it’s about time to diversify my movie choices a little bit. SO, for the next few days at least, we’re going to change it up, starting with a film that shook the 2005 public’s perceptions of love: Brokeback Mountain.

And who brings this movie to us? Same guy who gave us this:

And this:

And would give us this:

Ang Lee wasn’t originally meant to be the director of the film, as Gus van Sant was signed on to do it. You know, Good Will Hunting, Drugstore Cowboy, that one movie where Una Thurman plays the greatest hitchhiker in the world with giant thumbs, and eventually finds herself meeting multiple people, including Keanu Reeves, Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid), and a group of radicalesbians who like in the Great Plains, coexisting with a group of critically endangered whooping cranes to whom they;’ve fed peyote, while also opposing the intentions of an evil feminine hygiene product company that seeks to take over the land for their factories? YOU KNOW, THAT MOVIE?

It’s called Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and I wasn’t even slightly exaggerating with that summary, I SWEAR.

Anyway, he couldn’t do it, and Joel Schumacher also passed on it eventually, so they asked Ang Lee if he’d do it. After CTHD and Hulk, dude was on his way to retire, but after he cried at the end of the script, he accepted the job. AND HISTORY WAS MADE

Before I get into it, I should probably frank about something. I’m a cissexual, heterosexual man in a straight relationship with my girlfriend. She says hi, by the way. Here she is, a massive Jake Gyllenhaal fan, getting ready to watch this movie for the first time with me:

Isn’t she lovely? Anyway, just thought I’d be totally transparent about that. Incidentally, I remember when this film came out, as well as the fervor around it. This was JUST as the gay marriage debate was EXPLODING into the public scene, so this was obviously quite the talking point at the time.

 Anyway, shall we find out who’s not going to quit whom? SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Cowboys Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are waiting outside of a trailer, with Ennis having just arrived  on a truck that reminded me of Optimus Prime, and I’m sorry. They’ve been hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to look after a group of sheep and guide them over Brokeback Mountain, a fictional mountain in Wyoming.

The two finally introduce each other, with Ennis seeming considerably closed off as compared to the open Jack Twist. They head to a bar, where the two get to know each other a but better Jack’s an occasional shepherd, but highly involved in rodeos throughout the year. Ennis, meanwhile, is a regular ranchhand at his family’s farm.

Time for sheep-herding, as the two guide their flock of sheep on horseback, with soft country guitars playing in the background over all of it. And I gotta say, the music combined with the visuals is giving me this real sleepy ambience vibe that I 100% would watch specifically to fall asleep to. Which is not an insult by any means, by the way; it’s just super relaxing.

The two make camp with the sheep in a mountain valley, and now I want to go camping. I realize that it’s February, and I live in a place VERY non-conducive to camping, but GODDAMN this movie makes me want to go camping. In the wilderness, surrounded by bird calls and crisp mountain air, LET’S GO.

We find out that Ennis is engaged to be wed to a woman named Alma, while Jack is yearning to break free of needing to take jobs like this. And all the while, they’re eating beans, scaring away coyotes, and fending of REALLY REALLY FAT American black bears, who you could really easily scare away without too much difficulty. You ever stared at a bear while both of you were in the woods? I HAVE. And we BOTH took off from each other in opposite directions. They’re not the bravest of animals, black bears. Grizzlies, however, you don’t wanna fuck with.

Anyway, after they face off against that bear and lose their newly bought supplies, they go hunting the next day and take down an elk. Which is a LOT of venison, I tell you what! Oh, and I’m not a hunter, just to be clear, but elk are fuggin’ HUGE. Seriously, XL deer they are.

Anyway, time goes on after that, and they continue to make their way through the mountains. And they get to know each other more, sharing their rodeo experiences and family backgrounds. Ennis also opens up pretty considerably, a fact not missed by Jack. The two become friends.

My girlfriend asks an interesting question: if I had never heard of this movie in any capacity...would I have known the extent of the relationship of Ennis and Jack? And honestly...I’m legitimately not sure at this point. I think I would’ve just assumed that they’d stay close friends, but no further than that. Call that being raised in a society with heterosexual bias towards relationships, or call that me not being a natural shipper. Both are probably accurate, to be honest.

Anyway, it’s getting cold out, and Jack’s sleeping in the tent one night while Ennis is freezing his balls off outside. With Jack’s insistence, he goes inside the tent to sleep next to Jack. And then...

Oh. Well, OK. Again, though, still not sure that at this point I’d...oh wait...OH...OH.

OK. Think I’d be able to tell at this point what the movie’s about.

So, yeah, they have sex. It’s spontaneous, it’s wild, it’s heat of the moment passion...and it’s REAL awkward the next day, I tell you what. That next evening, Ennis and Jack both insist that they “ain’t queer,” and that this is “a one-shot thing they got goin’.”

Uh, boys? There’s some important evidence to the contrary that we should consider here. But, OK, it’s a different culture, this is super new to you both, I get it. I’m not one to talk on the coming out or discovery experience (again, straight cis dude over here), but I understand that there’s some inherent denial. But still, they continue their relationship as is, for the time being.

Which is not as private as they thought, as Joe Aguirre observes them chasing each other naked on the mountain from afar. Whoops. Well, it doesn’t matter as much, as they still have a job to do until summer ends. And that job continues. They encounter another herd of sheep that gets tangled up with theirs, snow falls on the mountain and they have to deal with that, etc.

Then one day, the two need to head out. Jack goes to fetch Ennis, who’s moping on a hillside about something. He does this play lasso thing, which seems cute...

...until it turns into a full on brawl right there on the hillside. OK. Well. Some heavy denial going on here, I think, especially on Ennis’ part. Which is somewhat understandable, given the culture, and the fact that Ennis is engaged. Oh, by the way, hello infidelity. GodDAMN IT. Escaped you for TWO MOVIES IN A ROW, and you’re back rearing your ugly head.

Anyway, the job is done soon, and Aguirre’s not exactly happy with them, as they’ve apparently lost some sheep and picked up some from the other herd’s flock accidentally. With a light rebuke from Aguirre, the two part ways with not much else said. Jack asks if Ennis will come back the next summer, and Ennis reminds him that he’s getting married that fall. But as Ennis leaves...

Huh. Interesting reaction, that. Well, in the next scene, Ennis gets married to Alma Beers (Michelle Williams), and they seem to have a very happy relationship. They have two daughters together in a pretty small amount of time. The next summer, Jack tries to get a job with Joe Aguirre once again, but is refused on account of his relationship with Ennis on the mountain...kind of.

See, here’s the thing. Joe rebukes Jack for having their relationship on the mountain, leaving the dogs to babysit the sheep, rather than do the job they were hired for. And, uh...he’s not wrong, honestly. Yeah, OK, there’s definitely some homophobia laced in there, obviously, but they were hired to watch the sheep, and we only really saw them do that once or twice. So, yeah, sorry to say, but Joe’s not entirely unjustified in not rehiring Jack.

At a Fourth of July festival, Ennis brings his wife and daughters to see the fireworks, when a couple of bikers antagonize the crowd as a whole. This results in Ennis telling them to stop, and a fight takes place, with Ennis IMMEDIATELY taking out the two bikers, with little effort. Anger issues there, Ennis? 

Jack returns to the rodeo, with new other options for money. He’s clearly also coming to terms with his own sexuality, as seen when he not so subtly hits on a cowboy at the bar. However, he also meets a young woman, a barrel racer named Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway), whom he seems to get along with fairly quickly at a rodeo. They dance together at the bar that night, and, uh...park.

And that, of course, leads to their eventual marriage and parentage as well. Looks like Lureen’s parents arent the biggest fans of Jack, though. Sure that’s going to lead to a healthy relationship down the road.

Been about 4 years since Brokeback Mountain, and this is punctuated by Jack paying a visit to Ennis’ place, which Ennis is told about by Alma. He seems...very anious, waiting nervously for a day to see him. But he finally arrives, and the two embrace happily. And then...

Oh, and Alma sees? Sure, sure, oh, and they go to a motel IMMEDIATELY? Oh, OK, OK, infidelity? Yuuuuuuupyupyupyupyupyup, halfway point? Yeah, sure, see you in Part 2. Geez.

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

Cont. Travels of Cophine, Part 2.3

Tunisia.

Link for the entire work here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13525500

They arrived in Sousse in the afternoon, their last stop in Tunisia and the end of their Francophone African experience. If everything went well here, they would be in Libya in a few days, and Egypt after that. Cosima's energy level was partially recovered and the sinus headaches were gone, but she still had frequent coughing fits, and her voice cracked every couple of words. She now spent her time propping up Delphine, who insisted that she wasn't really all that sick.

“Delphine, I love you,” Cosima said, “but your eyes haven't opened completely for, like, two days. Your voice is an octave lower, and your sneezes have woken the dead. You are fucking sick.”

Delphine fell back on her bed beside Cosima. In Tunis they'd gotten a queen sized bed in their room, which was great at first, but a lot less appealing when both of them tossed and turned the whole night. Here in Sousse, they were back to separate twins, and neither of them had the energy to even comment on it.

“Okay,” Delphine said, “I'm sick. Are you happy now?”

“No. I just want you to stop pretending that you're fine. I want you to take care of yourself. I mean, I'm happy taking care of you, but you're not letting me do that, and you're pushing yourself too hard.”

As if to prove Cosima's point, Delphine rolled over to check the little beep her phone just made. “Dr. N'Jikam wants to postpone our meeting until Wednesday.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“And you don't have to be at the clinic until Wednesday morning, either, so tomorrow we can focus on getting rest, yeah? Maybe check out that sauna they're supposed to have.” With the chilly weather outside and the lack of heat in the hotel room, spending the day at a nice 180 degrees fahrenheit had a certain appeal.

“Mmm... maybe. We still have a lot of arrangements to make.”

Cosima rubbed her back through her sweater. “We do. But we're not going to help anybody if you're not healthy. So you need to rest. That's what you told me the other day!”

“I can't sleep, I've told you.”

The night before, Delphine had apparently been awake for five hours while Cosima slept like a log. She'd drifted off for an hour or so on the ride into Sousse, but good sleep still aluded her. “Take some more NyQuil,” Cosima said. “Or I'll get the bar downstairs to make you a nice hot toddy.”

She shook her head. “Then I'll be hung over all morning. Is there any tea?”

Cosima checked the little complimentary beverage station near the ironing board. “Um... yes, but it all looks caffeinated.”

“Then no.”

Another coughing fit hit Cosima then, doubling her over as she pounded on her chest. The pounding never helped, but it was better than doing nothing. Once it subsided, she straightened back up and fumbled around for some more water. Delphine stayed on her bed, watching her.

“Have you tried the throat spray again?”

“Um, no.”

“Maybe you should. It would numb your throat and...”

“It would make me vomit again. No thanks.”

“You might've done it wrong.”

Naturally, Delphine was able to use the throat spray with no problems at all. Cosima added it to the list of things Delphine did effortlessly.

Cosima picked up her purse and wrapped her scarf around her neck again. “If I did, I'm not willing to risk doing it wrong again. But I will get some more cough syrup. And some more tea.”

Delphine propped herself up on her elbows to return Cosima's kiss. “Can you get some soup, too?”

“Yup. Soup, syrup, and tea. I'll be back soon, love.”

Delphine nodded and sank back down.

* * *

They tried the sauna the next day, but found it packed with Scandinavian women who all knew each other and laughed too loudly at everything each of them said. Cosima got some tea loaded with valerian root and lemon balm, and Delphine drank mug after mug of it while Cosima did their laundry in the hotel's facilities and brought containers of brik and fricassé from the vendors across the street. In the evening, they drank more tea and watched the Arabic dubbing of Downton Abbey on the hotel television.

On Wednesday it rained, the first time since they'd arrived in North Africa. Cosima sat at the bar in the hotel's restaurant and watched it fall in sheets over the cars and cyclists and old men in traditional burnouses hustling around with newspapers over their heads. It was just after noon, almost time for midday prayers, when the locals on the street would clear off for a moment but the tourists in the restaurant would stay. She knew these things now. She was also starting to forget that she hadn't always dropped the “h” sound in “hotel.”

The restaurant was packed. Most of these tourists were here for the promise of a sunny beach-side vacation in a relatively progressive Arab country, the lone gunman attack of a few years ago now a distant memory. The rain, however, put the beach off limits. The business men were here too, but in fewer numbers than in Tunis or Algiers. Cosima wondered how many tourists would be in Tripoli.

Delphine was supposed to be back by now. The clone here in Sousse had been easy to find, unlike the one in Tunis who'd gotten married and changed her name since the Leda List was compiled. Cosima double checked the time and confirmed that this clone's appointment had been for 10:30, and then she texted Delphine.

Everything okay?

While she waited for a reply, she scrolled through her Facebook feed, finding very little that was new since that morning. Alison posted pictures of a black forest cheesecake from all angles; Cosima's mother posted memes that she thought were hilarious and Cosima had seen ten years ago; Scott cracked science jokes; her father ranted about Republicans. Same old, same old. She thought about reading the news, but she'd done that earlier and had no desire to repeat the experience. She was nervous enough about going to Libya without reading that the country was “mired in chaos” and ruled by “men with guns.” She wanted to keep her worries confined to the language barrier.

“Anything else?” The bartender gestured to her empty tea cup.

“Yeah. Another one. Thank you. Merci. Shukraan (شكرا.)”

He gave her an indulgent smile and got her more hot water and some fresh tea.

Instagram yielded no new results, either. Five of the Ledas were hyper active there, posting so many photos of their personal lives that Cosima felt closer to them than to most of her own cousins at this point, and was becoming personally invested in the little drama that was brewing in the love life of one of the Austrian sisters. All total, Cosima tracked 33 Ledas through Instagram and 34 on Twitter, 11 of which were on both. None so far had symptoms of clone disease that they were sharing on social media, though the Leda in Cape Town, South Africa, did seem to have a worrying rash on her torso that had nothing to do with being a clone, but probably with a swimming in the ocean.

Her phone buzzed. Difficult patient. Delphine said.

Cosima arched an eyebrow. That could mean many things. And?

A reply wasn't immediately forthcoming, and Cosima rubbed her face to keep from swearing. The restaurant was loud enough that she might've gotten away with it, but it was better not to risk it, even surrounded by foreigners. She tried to look out the window but a man pushed up to the bar and blocked the view. He was tall and broad, wearing what Cosima called the “I yell at my family in public” uniform.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Can we get a table, please? We've been waiting fifteen minutes!”

Cosima rolled her eyes and went back to her phone. No reply from Delphine, but another cake picture from Alison on Facebook – red velvet this time.

She pulled up Twitter and perked up again. A clone from southern California they hadn't made contact with yet finally posted something. She was in Cambodia, it turned out, and she had a long thread about politics and southeast Asian history that was actually quite fascinating. And then Delphine replied to her text.

Still trying.

“Still trying? That doesn't help, Delphine.” She tapped out her response. Do you need anything? Can I help?

She'd been at the bar for over an hour. She could have been up in their room, working on her thesis, or napping, or masturbating, or catching up on her reading. But Delphine had asked her to be here, to meet her after her 10:30 appointment at the clinic, because she was bringing one of her contacts from MSF, and this was an Important Contact. Cosima was wearing her nice shirt, for fuck's sake, and she'd ironed her pants. They were going to eat lunch together, their treat for this Important Contact, so Cosima had not eaten since 8:30 that morning.

She typed some more. Do you have an ETA?

Three minutes later, as she watched the loud man yell at his son for touching the floral arrangement on the table they'd finally gotten, her phone buzzed. Her excitement faded when she saw it was just an email from her mother.

Cosima,

Here's that dress company I told you about, based out of the City, very social-justice and queer oriented and I think right up your alley. It's pricey but we'd be happy to help you out if....

She closed the message without finishing it. “I am not dress shopping online, goddamn it,” she muttered. “How many times do I have to f.... ugh. Mother.” She rubbed her face again and checked the time.

12:40 pm. Five minutes since her last message to Delphine, and more than two hours since the appointment at the clinic started.

A bearded man in a West Virginia University sweatshirt sat down beside her, apologized when he brushed against her knee, and placed his order with the bar tender in Arabic. Once the bartender left, he laced his fingers together and turned to Cosima. “Heckuva weather we're having, yeah?”

“Yup. Sure is.”

“You know, I been coming here for ten years, and I swear this is the first time I've seen it rain.”

“Hm.”

He tapped the bar top. “Are those dreads you've got?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so! They look good!” He turned a little on his stool to face her more. “Usually white girls can't pull those off, but yours look really good!”

“Thank you.” She checked her phone again. 12:45, and no new messages.

“Can I ask, if you don't mind, what you did to make 'em stay so well? Like, my cousin tried dreads, and she's as white as me, and her hair stank!” He laughed and bumped into her knee again. “Like, it was just straight up matted and shit. What's your secret?”

She drained her tea and looked him in the eye. “I've been genetically engineered.”

He chortled. “Okay. Fair enough. I shouldn't have asked; I'm sorry.”

Cosima raised her eyebrows and did not respond. The bartender came with his order then – a steaming bowl of stew with a side of bread and a bottle of beer. The stew smelled amazing, and she still hadn't gotten any messages from Delphine, so she called the bartender back over and ordered a bowl for herself. While she waited, the cups of tea crept up on her and she slid off to the ladies' room, leaving her coat on the stool, pockets empty.

While she peed, she texted Delphine again. Is everything okay over there?

The clinic was on the same block as their hotel, and Cosima would have gone there herself an hour ago if they weren't terrified of accidental clone meet ups.

She also finished her mother's email about that dress shop in San Fransisco, which, Sally was keen to point out, also did tailoring for suits. Great.

Back at the bar, Cosima's coat was still there, along with her food and a fresh cup of tea. The WVU man was wrapped up in conversation with a guy to his left, thankfully, and now there was a different customer to Cosima's right – a woman with short wavy black hair, wearing a collared white shirt. As she walked towards her own seat, Cosima glanced down at the woman's shoes. Sure enough, Keens, or Keens equivalents. Cosima's phone buzzed.

Yes was all Delphine had to say. No ETA, no other information. Cosima put her phone back in her purse.

“Excuse me,” she said as she squeezed in between the two other customers to sit down.

“Sure, no problem,” the woman said, smiling at her. The WVU man did not seem to notice her return. “I hope no one was sitting here?”

“Oh, no,” Cosima assured her. “You're fine.”

The soup was delicious, but spicier than she'd anticipated, so she got a glass of water and another serving of bread to help it go down. In minutes her sinuses opened up and she needed extra napkins, as well. The woman beside her got a salad and a glass of wine, and smiled at Cosima when she drained her water glass.

“A bit spicy, is it?” She was British, or Irish, judging by her accent.

Cosima nodded. The water helped, but her eyes watered and her nose ran, and it was a damn good thing she wasn't trying to look good right now. She thought of Delphine's MSF contact and checked her phone again. It was 1:10. No new messages. “Whatever.” She dropped it back in her purse and gave the rest of her soup her full attention. When she'd finished, she wiped the bowl with some more bread and finished her third glass of water. Beside her, the dark haired British woman watched her, sideways.

“I guess it was good,” the woman said.

“Yeah. Delicious.” She pointed to the half-full salad plate in front of her bar neighbor. “Yours wasn't?”

The other woman shrugged. “I keep forgetting that I don't like tomatoes. I order them every so often, thinking that some dish looks rather good, and then I eat one, and remember.”

Cosima smiled. “I'm like that with oysters and clams. Someone will rave about how good they are, and swear they've got a good recipe, but it's always like eating a snot ball out of a shell.”

The other woman laughed at that, throwing her head back and showing off her neck in the process. “That is such an apt way to put it! They really are nature's little snot balls, aren't they? Tell me, have you read Tipping the Velvet?”

If she hadn't suspected this woman was queer before, she sure did now. More than suspected. Cosima blushed a little and grinned. “I read it when I was, like, twenty. So yeah, but it's been a while.”

“Well, I've read it several times, and every single time, when she's going on and on about oysters and how she prepares them and all that, I just have to shake my head, because I find oysters absolutely disgusting, just as you do.”

“Are they better or worse than tomatoes?”

“Worse. A thousand times worse.” She picked around the tomatoes on her plate, eating pieces of cheese and lettuce speared on her fork. “If I may ask, what brings you to Tunisia?”

“Oh, it's a, uh, a medical trip, of sorts.”

“Hm, I see. Like, medical tourism sort of thing? I've heard of that, and you're American, I take it?”

“I am, yeah. No, it's not for me. I mean, I'm not getting treated for anything.” She twisted her napkin between her fingers, trying hard to look nonchalant.

“You're doing the treating, then, perhaps?”

“Something like that.”

“Cosima?”

She spun around to find Delphine three feet behind her, frowning. “Oh, hey! When did you get here?”

“I got here a few minutes ago, as I said in my message. Did you get my message?”

Cosima dug in her purse for her phone. “The last message I got just said...” She looked at her phone. Sure enough, two new messages from Delphine, at 1:12 and 1:20. It was now 1:27. “Shit.”

“You haven't reserved a table, then, I take it.”

“They wouldn't let me unless I could give a more specific time!”

“Well, if you'd checked your messages, you would have had one. But now we have to wait.” She gestured over to the hostess stand, where a West African man in a linen suit waved and headed in their direction through the other diners. “He has a busy schedule, you know. He is a doing us a favor.”

Cosima gathered her coat and purse. The bartender had their room number to charge for the meal, thankfully. Fussing over credit card payments wouldn't improve either of their moods. “I do know that, and actually, Delphine, I've been checking my messages all day, and you weren't sending any, so maybe you should lay off a little bit?”

It was not the right thing to say, and it was not the right time to say it, but it came out of Cosima's mouth anyway. Delphine's eyebrows went up. She glanced over at the woman to Cosima's right, who was smart enough to pretend she wasn't listening. “Well,” Delphine said, “at least you made a new friend.”

The man in the linen suit reached them and gave Cosima a broad smile.

“Dr. N'Jikam,” Delphine said, “this is Cosima Niehaus, my research partner.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Niehaus. Dr. Simplice N'Jikam, from Médecins Sans Frontières. Dr. Cormier and I used to work together. Perhaps she's mentioned me.”

She put her best smile on for him and shook his hand. “Yes, she has. It's a pleasure to meet you, too.”

As dramatic as Delphine was about waiting for a table, they only had to wait five minutes to get one. Cosima sat across from Delphine, with Dr. N'Jikam to her left. Predictably, Cosima wasn't very hungry any more, but she ordered a carrot salad with hard boiled eggs and another cup of tea. Delphine ordered a lamb platter with couscous and vegetables. She must not have eaten since that morning, either. At least she seemed healthier than she had the day before.

Dr. N'Jikam started off the conversation as soon as they'd ordered. “So, you are going to Yemen.”

Delphine nodded. “That's correct.”

“When do you plan to be there, and for how long?”

“We're not sure exactly,” Cosima said. “It depends on how successful we are there. Right now, we have five days scheduled in early March, but that could change.”

The waiter brought their drinks – water for Delphine, coffee for Dr. N'Jikam, and mint tea for Cosima.

“And what exactly,” Dr. N'Jikam asked Delphine, “is your measure of success for this trip? What is your objective?”

“We've identified three women with a specific phenotype that puts them at risk for a terminal condition, and we plan to inoculate them against it, or cure them if they've already developed symptoms.”

His eyebrows rose. “What condition is that?”

“It's only recently been discovered, so there's not an agreed-upon name for it yet.”

“I see. And you've already identified patients already? How?”

“It's a long story. Some of our connections back in Canada gave us the information.”

The answer satisfied him, and he sipped on his coffee. For Cosima, though, the effects of her earlier bowl of soup and all the accompanying water became pressing, so she excused herself, meeting Delphine's “wtf” look with a wide eyes. Whatever. It would be worse to sit there bouncing and in pain, unable to focus. Waiting in line for the ladies room for the second time, she rummaged in her purse for her bottle of TUMS, and took two.

Back at the table, the food had once again arrived in her absence. Squeezed onto the table between the plates, glasses, silverware, decorative flower arrangement, and complimentary flatbread, Dr. N'Jikam had his tablet and a pad of line-free paper, which he and Delphine crouched over between bites. Delphine glanced at her when she sat down, and continued her conversation with Dr. N'Jikam in French.

Cosima ate her salad and listened, picking out about half of what Delphine said and less than a quarter of what Dr. N'Jikam said. She'd read that Cameroonian French was a little different than Canadian or Parisian French, but she hadn't expected such a great difference. But then, Delphine wasn't having any such difficulties. From what Cosima understood, they talked about the Yemeni refugee crisis, camps, transportation options, and money, and then Dr. N'Jikam said something that made Delphine laugh. Cosima raised her eyebrows at her, hoping for a translation, but none came.

At the end of the meal, Delphine excused herself to use the restroom, letting Cosima handle paying for the meal.

“How was it?” she asked Dr. N'Jikam.

“Pardon? Oh, it was excellent,” he said. He dabbed at his lips with the napkin and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“You're very welcome,” Cosima said. The food and the rain made her sleepy, but she needed to keep up appearances. “So, uh, how long have you been with MSF?”

“A long time. Twenty years, almost. And I've been, oh, I've been everywhere.” He laughed at that, so she smiled along. “But we've been talking the whole time, and you've said very little. Tell me, Miss Nyehouse, is it Nyehouse or Neuhaus? I can't remember.”

“Uh, Niehaus, actually, but that's not important.”

“It's important to me.” Another grin. “So tell me, Miss Niehaus, how long are you working for Dr. Cormier?”

“Well, I've been working with her for about three years now.”

“Three years, okay. I've known her for almost five years, since right after her doctorate. I wasn't aware before that she had any students.”

“She doesn't.”

He paused, hand midair on its way to adjust his glasses. “No? I thought that...”

“Wait, did she tell you that I'm her student?”

Dr. N'Jikam did not miss the way Cosima leaned over the table as she spoke, and he leaned back to compensate. “Oh,” he laughed, “I don't remember! You know, as we age, ours minds are not so good.”

“Right. Okay.”

He left as soon as Delphine got back, shaking their hands again and repeating his best wishes and his pleasure at having met them both. Delphine promised to keep in touch throughout their travels.

At the elevators, Cosima told Delphine, “You know, if you didn't need me to be there, you could have just said so.”

Delphine rolled her head around on her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“You know I understood like, less than half of that entire conversation. You made it pretty obvious you didn't need my contribution.”

Delphine sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. An elevator at the end of the row dinged, and they hustled to get on it along with a gaggle of rain soaked tourists. They flattened themselves against the back wall. “He prefers speaking in French,” Delphine said.

“Does he really. English didn't seem to be much an issue for him when we first sat down, or after you'd gone to the bathroom.”

The elevator stopped to let some people off at the third floor, and replace them with a Japanese couple in bath robes, fresh from the third floor sauna. Cosima could have been at the sauna during that entire lunch, and it wouldn't have mattered. Whatever.

“How about our patient?” she asked. “You said she was difficult.”

“She refused the vaccination. Nothing I said, nothing her doctor said, convinced her, and she left without it. After talking my ears off about every medical problem she's ever had, and how doctors are responsible for every single one of them.”

“Oh sh... shoot, really?” That had never happened before. Usually, once the doctor explained it, the patient accepted the vaccine. The trick was often just getting them into the doctor's office to begin with.

“Really. She claims that vaccines made her infertile.”

The elevator stopped at the eighth floor and let out everyone else, then moved on up to the tenth, where Cosima and Delphine got off.

“The doctor is trying to bring her back the day after tomorrow,” Delphine said. “If she still refuses, though...”

“She won't. We'll think of something.” Cosima reached for her arm, but Delphine moved away to unlocked the door and push it open.

Inside the room, Delphine set up her papers on her bed, and sat in the armchair next to it with her laptop. “Dr. N'Jikam sent us both a list of other contacts we should talk to. Some are in Libya, which he doesn't know as much about, but cautions us against visiting.”

Cosima opened her laptop on the desk. She had had other ideas for the afternoon, especially since it seemed they'd be staying in Sousse longer than originally planned. Delphine was buried in her work, though, chewing on a thumbnail, so Cosima might as well follow suit.

“Great. Sounds like a perfect afternoon.”

* * *

That night, after pouring over Dr. N'Jikam's information, calling and emailing his contacts in Yemen, Libya, and a Jordanian refugee camp, and a last minute phone call with one of Art's Arabic translators, the walls of their little hotel room were pressing in against both of them. Cosima's eyes hurt from differentiating tiny Arabic words from other tiny Arabic words and staring at screens, but there was one more email to write.

Dear Dr. Lacrabére,

I was directed to you by Dr. Simplice N'Jikam of Médecins Sans Frontières because

“It goes the other way.”

“Huh?”

Delphine stood behind her, one hand in her damp hair. “It's Dr. Lacrabère, not Lacrabére. You need the accent grave, not aigu.”

“Oh. Shit. Thank you.”

Delphine walked on towards their suitcase and said, “It's not Spanish.”

“Yeah, I'm aware of that, thanks.” She finished the email, watching Delphine's eyebrows do that sarcastic little wiggle in her peripheral vision. “By the way, did you tell Dr. N'Jikam that I'm your student?”

“What?”

“He thought I was your student. Like, your graduate student or something.”

Delphine dug around her suitcase for a bottle of lotion. “I don't know why. I introduced you as my research partner. You were there when I introduced you, yes?”

“Well, yeah, but...”

“But what?”

“I dunno. It was just weird, that's all.”

“Okay.” She sat on the edge of her bed and rubbed lotion into feet. “You should take your shower now, so you're not up too late. I'm going to talk to the doctor at the clinic again tomorrow.”

Cosima refrained from replying with “yes, Dr. Cormier,” but she got up and gathered her shower things. At the bathroom door she turned back and saw Delphine massaging lotion into her left calf, her eyes closed.

The hotel bathroom was nice, with a bathtub and strong water pressure from the shower head. She let the water beat against her back, her head bowed. When she got out of the shower later, Delphine would probably be in bed. A different bed, because of course no one could know they were lovers, so they had separate twin beds. Again. Delphine's eyes would be covered, and she'd be turned away from Cosima because the light was on Cosima's side of the room. She would not want to talk, either about important topics or trivial ones. And then she would get up early in the morning to try convincing their sister here in Sousse that she needed a vaccine. And Cosima would.... what?

Maybe she'd stay in tomorrow. The forecast called for more rain, after all. She could work on her dissertation, enter more data and run some preliminary stats on them. She could go back to the restaurant and drink a couple more gallons of mint tea. She could stay in bed all day, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

She turned off the shower and leaned against the tile wall. How long would it take for Delphine to wonder what she was doing in here, or what was taking her so long? Or was Delphine still so annoyed with her that she was happy to have Cosima out of the bedroom for a while?

The steam from the shower swirling around her, she slid down in the bathtub, her face in her hands. Tears pushed out of her eyes before she could stop them, and then she was sobbing.

A minute or so later, the door opened, and Cosima took some deep breaths to try to gain some control, hands still over her face.

“Cosima? Hey, hey, hey....” And then Delphine's hands were on her neck, and her arm was around her shoulders. “Shh... come here.”

She leaned onto Delphine's shoulder and cried some more, soaking her T-shirt and clinging to her arms with wet fingers. “I'm sorry,” she managed. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not seeing your messages, for not knowing French better, for not helping you cure the Ledas, for everything.”

Delphine stroked her arms and her back and kissed her head. “Chérie, it's okay. I don't expect you to know French very well, and you cannot help me with the Ledas any more than you already are. You know that. You already do so much for them, anyway. And the thing with the messages was just a mistake, a misunderstanding. It's okay.”

“It didn't seem that okay earlier.”

Delphine's chest rose and fell as she sighed. “I was just... irritated earlier. That's all. I'm sorry I took it out on you.”

Cosima held on to her, nose in the crook of her neck. Delphine had some new jasmine-scented body wash that smelled okay, but didn't smell like Delphine. Cosima wanted her to smell liked Delphine again, goddammit. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I know. Je t'aime aussi.” She kissed her eyes, her lips, and the tip of her nose. “We should get you out of this tub, though.”

“Yeah, this isn't very comfortable.” She let Delphine help her out of the tub and into a towel. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” Delphine said. “I was, but I'm not anymore.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I was a little bit pissed at you, too.”

“Are you still?”

She shook her head and finished drying herself off. “No, not anymore. I... I can see why you were upset. I should've just kept my phone out the whole time so I'd see your messages, and...”

Delphine folded the towel in half and hung it up on the rod next to hers. “Maybe. I don't think I would've been quite so upset with you if you hadn't been talking to that girl, though, if we're being completely honest.”

“That girl?” Cosima smiled now as she pulled on her shorts. “She's, like, our age or older.”

“Oh? Is she?”

There was an edge in Delphine's voice, so Cosima put her hands on Delphine's waist. “I didn't ask, and she didn't tell me. There is nothing for you to worry about. I'm engaged to you, and nobody else.” She kissed her, but pulled back after a moment. “I mean, we are still engaged, aren't we?”

Delphine's laugh turned into a cough. “Yes, we are still engaged! Just because we can't tell everyone doesn't change that fact. Now come on, let's go to bed.”

Cosima tucked herself into bed and watched Delphine tweeze her eyebrows with the help of a pocket mirror. Delphine did that most nights, and some mornings, sometimes also yanking hairs from her nostrils in ways that made Cosima's eyes water just watching her do it. “What would your eyebrows look like if you didn't do that?” she asked.

“Euhh... let's not find out, okay?” She got one more hair from her left eyebrow and closed the mirror, then turned off the overhead light and sat on the edge of Cosima's bed, looking down at her. “I want to stay attractive for you as long as possible.”

“Yeah, same here. I mean, for myself. For you.” She wasn't terribly attractive at the moment, of course, but she wasn't going to bring that up.

Delphine rubbed Cosima's abdomen through the blankets. “I'm sorry the beds are so small.”

“It's not your fault. And it's not forever. Here.” She scooted all the way to one side and pulled the blanket back. “You can climb in for a minute if you want.”

“A minute.” Delphine stretched herself out under the heavy blankets and faced Cosima. “I think we're both very tired.”

“Yeah, and you're still sick, even if you're moving around better.” She linked her fingers with Delphine's. “I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate everything you do. For us, I mean. For all of us.”

Delphine kissed her eyes, damp again with tears. “I don't think that. I know that you do.”

“Good.”

“And I don't do any of it by myself. I couldn't do any of it by myself, and I would never want to.”

Cosima thought of Delphine earlier that day, spending hours trying to convince a clone that she had a condition that would kill her one day. “Do you want me to go to the clinic with you? To try convincing our skeptical Tunisian sister?”

Delphine gave an amused little huff. “I would like that very much, but I'm not sure it's a good idea.”

“Right. Probably not.” She tucked herself as close to Delphine as possible, angling her face so that Delphine wasn't breathing directly into her eyes. Delphine wiggled her arm so she could hold Cosima's hand between their faces.

“Of course she's allowed to refuse, but I have some ideas that might convince her.”

“Ideas that don't involve clone disclosure.”

“Of course.”

“Are we still doing our five day rule if she keeps refusing?”

Delphine groaned. “No. I think, if she refuses a second time, we let her refuse, and we move on. She'll have our information, we'll have hers, and we can always come back. I am not arguing with her for five days.”

“Fair enough. That sounds like a plan, then. We really do need to come up with a decent name for this disease, though. Maybe not tonight, but some time before we've cured everybody.”

“I've been thinking of one, actually. I thought of it today, when Inès was questioning everything I said.”

“Yeah?” Cosima propped herself up a few inches. “Can I hear it?”

“I was thinking we could call it Fitzsimmon's Carcinoma.”

Cosima remembered the chipper swim coach whose body had taught them so much about what their disease was and the ways that it couldn't be treated, and she smiled. “I like it.”

“I hoped you would.” She pulled Cosima closer and snuggled against her body. “I didn't want to name it without your permission.”

“Well, you have my enthusiastic permission to use it. I'll tell the sestras tomorrow.” She yawned into Delphine's chest and kissed her her collarbone. “Je t'aime,” she whispered.

Delphine giggled. “I love you, too. Very much.”

And with one hand tucked into Delphine's, and the fingers on her other hand hooked on the waist of Delphine's shorts, Cosima drifted off to sleep.

[regal-captain]

a few thoughts from a former C$waner and the road to Swen

why did I change my mind ? 

I was desperate for some true love story, and ouat was offering that or so I thought ...

we can all agree that Snowing is True love and same with rumbelle, but what what I really wanted was a true love story for the savior, Emma deserved it, especially after what she’s been through with Neal and Graham ... hook was the perfect candidate wasn’t he ? 

The guy is hot as hell, i’ve always loved blue eyes contoured with eye liner ;), he was cocky but most importantly ; a villain ! who doesn’t love villains ? Loki, moriarty, Rumpelstiltskin... hook was unapologetically selfish and just .. bad, but he starts developing feelings for emma, and starts the road to ‘redemption’, now comes my personal view on this, i’ve always had bad experiences with men, my father being the first ( the guy is a cheater and selfish af ), I was desperate for a good story showing that a man can change but mostly that men can be good, I mean we all want to see that, so I start investing myself in hook and let’s say the truth here, season two and three hook WAS GOOD, he was on the right path to redeeming himself ( with a few mistakes here and there, at the time I thought it was alright, you can’t change overnight ), with Captain swan hints being dropped along the way, I was okay with, more than okay with even, Emma was getting a love story with a man who willing to change for her, we have enough of these stories already but fairytale stories have more meaning right ? so this one was special,,, and things start going downhill from there ( I will never say it out loud, but C$ was disappointing me from there i’ll never admit it out loud but i can say it on here) hook was treating Emma worse and worse, but they always found a way to make him ‘apologize’ for it and just like Emma I bought his crap (because whether i want it or not society has taught me to just do that) even tho’ a part of me still thought that was wrong, I still gave him the 5th 6th 7th 8th ... chance! and another part of me also didn’t want to be disappointed in the show that changed my life, I watched the episodes days or weeks later on (never happened in s3 and before ) but I still cling to the hope of happiness for Emma and trusted the writers to make it better, but C$ wasn’t that ooh so worshiped OTP of mine, it wasn’t the true love story I dreamed of, I Got so confused at times ( when Emma lied to hook about him being the dark one for example, OR WHEN SHE KILLED HIM SO HE COULD DIE A HERO?!? I kept telling myself what kind of love is that ? and I’m passing so many more) but because they made sense on paper I didn’t give too much of a thought, I convinced myself that its writers giving us shit drama like always

 and then arrives season 6,the season of realization : while in the previous season hook  was making mistakes, and I forgived him, my brain just couldn’t take it anymore, hook is a living mistake in this season, I even started to question his character, and what was his general goal was ? but then again, I love Emma so much, I wasn’t now just acting like her but like most of the characters at this point ? they all want her happiness and just let her be with that toxic man ? I feel like her parents and everyone else feels the same at this point, in took David 4 seasons to finally ‘accept’ the guy ( and by his look he wasn’t sure of his decision), I just wanted Emma to have her happy ending.

when did I realize that they weren’t meant for each other you say ? 

WHEN HE LIED TO HER ABOUT KILLING HER GRANDFATHER. the guy lowkey wanted to burn the memory of it, he was thinking for an entire episode whether to tell her the truth or not ? and when he finally decides to do so the worst proposal of all times happens and then he just what?  burns the memory of his act. he could’ve interrupted her that night and tell her the truth BUT HE DIDN’T. he was willing to start their married life together with a lie, and not just oh I swear I didn’t at that woman’s chest lie, HE KILLED HER GRANDFATHER, thats a divorce cause material. thats when I realized Emma’s true love wasn’t hook ( plus all the previous moments in the previous seasons) 

let’s talk about Swan queen for a minute:

I was the biggest ‘swan queen friendship’ shipper, in my early oncer days I was against them being romantic, probably because of my personal experience as well, I was having some troubles with my own sexuality at the time, I refused to acknowledge it, even if it’s just watching a queer couple on TV, it made me uncomfortable and I feared that if I gave in in that aspect of my life it’d become too real ( and held into C$ ) Only just last year that I came out to friends as Bi, so yeah Swan queen was no option for me, BUT IT WASN’T for them, I still saw their actions, I still saw their looks their mutual love for each, their deep affection to one another, the fact that they lean on each other, help one another and never ever stopped believing in one another, but still my dumb closeted self refused to believe it.

how does my personal life influence my vision of this ship tho’:

I believe, like ouat has told in ep’ 6x14 the most important thing in life is accepting and loving yourself, after one special event in my life I finally saw the light about myself and admitted what I was denying my whole life and now I love me ( just like regina does now ) and started seeing ouat with new eyes, eyes that could finally see and a heart that could finally admit that swan queen is the real deal, my eyes and heart finally see that the true love I wanted for Emma has always been there the character development I wanted to see was in Regina, her happy ending was there that whole time. 

now thats just my personal take on it, you don’t have to be lgbt to see it, hook isn’t the right one for Emma, Regina is, and I will repeat this as much as i have to ... if it is the last thing I do ;)

ps: thanks to that ONE tumblr post who made me go back and re-watch all the swan queen videos haha

[how2to18]

TRAVIS JEPPESEN HAS been publishing inventive fiction since his early 20s, and writes about art all over the globe for Artforum, Art in America, and a slew of other magazines. His new nonfiction book, See You Again in Pyongyang, chronicles both his personal experiences as a tourist in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and his ambivalent relationship with it as a writer and analyst of culture. After accepting an invitation to accompany his friend, travel writer Tom Masters, to the country several years ago, he has since traveled there four additional times and written extensively about its art and architecture. In 2016, Jeppesen became the first American to ever complete a university program in North Korea, having participated in a month-long intensive Korean language course. That experience, which gave him unprecedented access for an American to the culture and daily life of Pyongyang residents, as well as to other parts of the country on supervised excursions, make up the bulk of the new book.

See You Again in Pyongyang dramatizes a meeting point between an intellect with a passion for getting lost in other cities and landscapes, and an environment that by its very design forbids such a sensibility from ever gaining foothold. What ensues is not a polemic, but rather a romance of antitheses. Jeppesen ultimately accepts this lack of resolution, processing his relationship with the country through a combination of memoir, historical background, and the bringing to light of others’ stories that our own ideologically biased media seldom care to find for themselves.

¤

BEN SHIELDS: Your first novel, Victims, is largely about an apocalyptic cult. In See You Again in Pyongyang, you look past a lot of the clichés that we have about North Korea and their society, but there’s no escaping its cult-like quality. Have cults and cults of personality been lifelong intellectual fascinations for you?

TRAVIS JEPPESEN: It’s safe to say that. And extreme forms of belief and ideology in general. I kind of despise all forms of ideology, but I’m fascinated by the way that people either fall into it, or it can be imposed on them from without. It usually is some toxic combination of the two. I think it threads its way through all of my writing.

I was really interested in the differences you outline between Soviet, Chinese, and Korean communism, especially with regard to Confucianism’s lingering influence. In the Soviet Union, the cult of personality got out of hand, to the point where Stalin at times tried to rein it back. In your view, which is more essential in the Korean system: the propaganda for the party, socialism, and the ideal society, or the deification of the marshal?

I think Kim Jong-il’s contribution to the development of the system was making the party one and the same with the leader. The party is the mother, and the leader the father. You need both to nurture you. The development toward the deification of the leadership came about as a result of Stalin being a big role model for Kim Il-sung. But also because there were these different factions of communists who arrived to establish the early North Korean state. There was a lot of competition between the factions, so it was a way for Kim Il-sung to put an end to that. That kind of extreme despotism — deification — really is an imposition of fear on the populace, because he eliminated all of his enemies one by one. That’s very much how the system evolved and how it became what it is today.

Obviously I have to ask this: what do you make of the North and South Korean peace talks, the looming Trump-Kim summit, and the call in some quarters for Trump to win the Nobel?

I hate to say it, but I think Kim Jong-un is the one who has kind of engineered all this, whether or not you agree with his methods. He did it by terrorizing the world for much of the last year. But look, I think what’s happening is really a great thing. It looks like they’re going to announce an official end to the Korean War, which is amazing for people on both sides of the divide. Let us not forget that the North Koreans have also been living under the threat of nuclear annihilation for decades now. We love to say in the Western media how flippant and manipulative they are and how they never stick to any of the agreements that they sign. But it was actually the United States who first violated the armistice agreement they signed by installing nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula in 1958. Nobody talks about that in the Western media.

I had no idea before reading your book that that was the case.

Yeah, very few people are aware of this. This is not to defend the regime, because of course I think it’s terrible. But fact is fact. They have been putting up for years with these military exercises on their border conducted by the United States and South Korea. The United States would never put up with that, an enemy nation conducting military exercises on their borders. But the North Koreans have had to sit and watch that with their binoculars year after year after year. They’re a really small, weak, kind of powerless nation. They did what they had to do by developing these nuclear weapons.

You blame a lot of what’s happened in North Korea recently on President Bush’s aggression toward them, which makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, Trump has been more aggressive, at least in his rhetoric, than any president ever toward the DPRK. Why, then, do you think that peace talks and at least the promise to denuclearize are happening now?

A lot of it has to do with the increase of sanctions. Kim Jong-un’s policy for the last few years has been known as the byungjin policy, which is the simultaneous development of both the military and the economy. There’s this whole class of rich people that didn’t really exist before. [Jong-un] is protecting them, and they’re protecting him. It’s kind of a two-way street. Were a horrible financial crisis to happen again in North Korea, it could be potentially disastrous internally for his regime. And some experts say that, yeah, the North Koreans are kind of scared shitless of Trump because his rhetoric has been so wild. It’s weird because I obviously am not a big Trump supporter. I think he’s a sociopath more than anything. But having said that, if he does manage to normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea, he’ll have done something really amazing that no US president has done. The South Koreans are being very coy. [President] Moon Jae-in is being all like, “Oh, it’s all because of Trump.” He knows how susceptible to flattery Trump is. The United States and South Korean economies are so intertwined that if Trump flippantly tries to turn against the South Koreans, it could completely bungle the whole process. Just as Moon Jae-in is using flattery as a means, I think we can probably expect the North Koreans to do something quite similar. And it could lead to very good things. 

You include in the book a powerful story of a North Korean defector in the South, whom you call Un Ju, who left her home city of Wonsan at the age of 18 to follow her mother to the South. How were you able to connect with as many defectors as you did?

When I was in Seoul, I volunteered with an organization called Teach North Korean Refugees. But they’re rather strict. They say at the outset, if you volunteer with us you can’t use this to do outside research. I had other ways. Un Ju was a friend of a friend, the filmmaker Kim Kyung-Mook, a South Korean queer filmmaker. Two of his roommates had been North Korean defectors, which is highly unusual. Mook is certainly very different. He’s a great artist and is a person of great powers of empathy. He introduced me to Un Ju. It was great talking to her because I felt like a lot of the North Korean defectors one encounters, especially in the media, go through almost this reverse brainwashing process where they can only say bad things about North Korea. She actually had a lot of good things to say about North Korea and a lot of bad things to say about her experiences in the South. I wanted to show that this isn’t such a black-and-white issue the way that mainstream media makes it out to be.

Near the end of the book there’s this rather awkward exchange between Comrade Kim, your friend from the Korean State Travel Company, and one of the other guys on the program, Alexandre. Kim, with some suspicion, essentially asks, “Why are you so interested in our country? What is all of this to you?” Yet you are sitting right there, not being asked the same question. Why do you think you didn’t get that feedback from him?

Alexandre is kind of freaking out because he feels like he hasn’t been able to pierce below the surface. He wants to come back on a student visa, not on a tourist, because then he’ll be able to do things, then he’ll be able to go somewhere without a guide. Maybe then he can find the answer. But the whole point that I kind of reach is, no, this is what it is. You’re not going to see anything that we haven’t seen, basically. It’s this kind of Zen moment that I reach that allows me to sit back detachedly and observe what’s going on there in that scene. Alexandre comes from this classic liberal arts tradition. “Oh, I’m interested in North Korea because I want to expand the limits of myself and learn a new language. I’m in the midst of my education, so I’m discovering myself!” This concept is completely foreign to them. They don’t have the language to understand it. So that scene was a showdown between two universes of perception, really. 

Also toward the end, you talk about that feeling of not belonging to a society just as you’re about to leave it. In my experience that often happens after extended stays, where it feels like you’ve gotten lost, but the last three or four days you realize it’s at least partly a fantasy. That can be a painful feeling if you’ve fallen in love with another society or culture. But North Korea is not a conventional place to develop an attachment. What specific emotions accompany the realization of not belonging in the DPRK?

One of the underlying themes of this book is, what are the limits of empathy? To what extent can we identify or have an empathetic identification with the Other? For one thing, their ideology is so race-based, which means I could never belong there. But I developed a certain affection for the people that deepened as my understanding of the society and how things function deepened. The book ends with these open-ended questions like, what is love? What is empathy? This sort of identification with someone who believes in something so highly bizarre and so specific — is it possible? To what extent do any of them really believe in this ideology and to what extent is it forced on them? I think art should ask these kinds of questions rather than just providing a list of hypothetical answers.

In one of the early scenes, you’re at the window of your hotel room in Pyongyang, contemplating your affection for the city, which has grown and accumulated at that point over four visits. Intellectual interest in a society cannot fully explain one’s attachment to it. Have you thought about why North Korea has become so personally significant to you, beyond merely a subject of study?

It’s my spiritual homeland — my soul is the gulag! Just kidding. I don’t know. I think this is why I kept going back and why I wrote the book. It’s an attempt to answer that question. I like to be free and be able to wander the streets of a strange city and have the classic romantic experience. But when I go there it’s kind of like putting yourself into prison and trying to recreate that experience in the outside world. I think what’s drawn me to it is its ineffability and the fact that it’s a mystery, an enigma, something I can never quite unravel. It’s the same reason I’ve fallen in love with people over the years whom I can’t figure out and who are very mysterious to me. There’s this lingering mystery that keeps me drawn to them. It’s an affliction when it happens.

Yes, it’s like a disease.

I’m a diseased mind. I fully embrace that.

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Ben Shields is a Brooklyn-based writer who has written for the Paris Review, Bookforum, and other magazines.

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Author image by Jason Harrell.

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