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chalkrevelations · 4 years ago

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WELL. Episode 3 of Word of Honor.

First of all: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the ENTIRE SHOW. A lot of them, actually. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled.

So, this ep feels a little disjointed. I don’t think it actually is, not in the way the back nine are a speedrun where the writing starts to feel like it’s thisclose to coming off the rails, but it feels like it, in that we’re now getting a double handful of threads thrust at us that are only just starting to be woven together into a plot, and it’s the kind of hot mess that any fiberwork looks like before the pattern starts to show itself, particularly when you’re using 15 different color threads from jump. There’s generally a major theme or issue or overriding concept that stands out to me in each ep that, you may have noticed, gets primacy of place in these reactions, but honestly, y’all, I really struggled to figure out what that might be for this episode, because a lot of this, on re-watch, strikes me as groundwork for later developments. Wen Kexing gives us an “as you know, Bob” speech about the Amory and the Glazed Armor, we meet approx. 3.2K new characters, and I feel sort of like I should start keeping a chart of who’s supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor and who actually does have a piece of the Glazed Armor, but it’s already so confusing that it might be too late.*

ANYWAY, on re-watch, I can absolutely see the value of spending Eps 1 & 2 on introducing us to Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing and getting us pulled into their orbit, because then we have scenes we’re already invested in to maintain our interest as the background politics begin to frustratingly play out with a bunch of people we don’t know or have any investment in yet. I mean, y’all. I forgot just what an ill-tempered gremlin ZZS was in these early eps. He is so fk’n put out that these people will not let him drink himself to death in the gutter in peace! Or, you know, in occasional Nightly Nails Torment. And the exasperation from both ZZS and Chengling over WKX’s antics – both of their faces are priceless in the scene when they discover he’s the one who’s bought out all the rooms at the inn. I literally lol’d. Again. Even knowing it was coming. All of this interaction is so delightful. This is actually the ep that provoked my very first WoH keysmash flailing Tumblr post and inaugurated the “wen kexing’s thirst is practically a third character” tag. I guess the biggest throughline for this ep is that we can continue to see how everything changes when we know about their previous relationship – things like WKX’s insistence that they have a “deep bond through fate” take on additional layers of meaning rather than just sounding like some dude who’s trying to pick you up at last call. Interesting that ZZS describes WKX at one point during their push-pull conversational dance as “like a wretched soul that keeps haunting around.” You mean, like a GHOST? Like a Ghost Valley ghost? Like the almost forgotten memory of a past life ghost? ZZS wants to know why WKX keeps following him around, and it would be nice if WKX would just come clean, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

ZZS, re: Chengling: I do my best to ensure what was entrusted to me.

WKX: :makes (already! in ep 3!) yet another in a series of bad decisions not to say anything about the fact that he, himself, was in fact entrusted to ZZS:

Show: Here’s the first of many helpings of heartache to come. EAT IT. EAT IT ALL.

(Me: Well, here’s another AU idea: What would the course of this relationship be like if WKX flat-out asked ZZS what ZZS’s relationship to Four Seasons Manor was, and bare-faced claimed sanctuary as long-lost shidi Zhen Yan at this point? Because I bet there are plenty of ways that could actually go wrong. Not to mention the deliciousness of just watching them navigate a relationship shift that sudden. I feel like, at this point, WKX would have to be actively confrontational about it, would have to throw it in ZZS’s face – it would need to be something he did in the heat of anger, in order to have this pushed out past all of his fears. Like, you say that, but where were you when I needed you? Also, you think so, well what if your responsibility actually turned out to be the TERRIFYING GHOST VALLEY MASTER, what then, huh? And ZZS, still pretty actively suicidal over all of his failures, having to deal with what’s now being presented as YET ANOTHER FAILURE.)

Also, the theme of “knowing” (zhiji, the one I know) is starting to slide in sideways – we’re seeing a lot of back and forth between them asking about seeing the other’s “true face.” WKX says that he’ll tell ZZS what he (WKX) wants from him once he gets to see ZZS’s true face (LIES, it’s going to take a lot longer than that). ZZS asks to see WKX’s figurative true face, and WKX looks kind of sad and contemplative as he warns that it may be unappealing or terrifying. So, you know, we’re starting to poke at all the softest, most tender places and the issues that are going to stab me repeatedly in the heart for the rest of the show. We’re also already seeing the way Xiao Chu just layered in references throughout the script when she wrote it that call back to each other – it’s like almost any line of dialogue references three other lines of dialogue (and that’s without even getting into all of the literary references that I’m missing because I don’t have cultural context). You get things like WKX’s little speech right at the end that it’s hard to tell a ghost from a human, which on its face might be referring to the two “ghosts” that were coming for Chengling that he took care of and act as an admonishment to ZZS not to be so quick to assume they’re actually from Ghost Valley, but it also refers to WKX, himself, and specifically lays the groundwork (“someone wearing a ghost mask is not necessarily a ghost”) for his conversation in a later ep with ZZS when he asks if ZZS thinks he’s a good person, and also calls back (“someone who looks human may not be human”) to the line from earlier in this ep, itself, when WKX tells ZZS that perhaps WKX’s true face is terrifying. And so we get a nicely little wrapped package of the dichotomy of WKX and his issues. (As a somewhat related aside, A-Xiang’s little face when Zhou Zishu says all of the ghosts of Ghost Valley are full of evil (at 6:55). D: This reaction is obviously for herself, but also may be the first time she acts as proxy for Wen Kexing, as well.)

What else, what else?

So, nobody has a good opinion of the jianghu. WKX is going to be constantly all, “You killed my father, jianghu, prepare to die,” but ZZS also goes off about how it’s just about greed, hatred and ignorance, and yeah, I guess he’d have a pretty bad impression of it, when Prince Jin and Tian Chuang seemed like a better option than the pressure he was facing, trying to keep Siji Manor Sect alive back in the day. We talk a lot about WKX’s childhood trauma, because it’s so awful and right in our faces, but I don’t know how much we actually talk about the fact that ZZS was a teenager not much older than Chengling when he inherited a sect and tried desperately to keep it from being torn apart by the rest of the jianghu. I think we see some bitterness come out in the first few episodes – frankly, in this ep, he doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between Ghost Valley and the rest of the jianghu. Also interesting that the metaphor he uses about the jianghu’s and Ghost Valley’s greed for the treasures of the Armory is “reaping without sowing,” given what we find out is actually in there in Ep 36.

We see our metaphor of light get pulled out again – this throughline strikes me as more like beads on a string than a thread, at this point, but maybe I’ll notice it more on this second time through … Anyway, WKX’s comment at 9:11 that it’s almost dawn is notable. Indeed, but is it because your plan is beginning to work and you can see the destruction of Ghost Valley and the jianghu coming down the pike, or is it because you’ve found your shixiong?

I notice WKX has color-coordinated ZZS and Chengling in the robes he bought for them, has already grouped them together, marked them as belonging to each other – he’s already subtly treating them as each other’s family. The show, with a particular lack of subtlety, also will have ZZS there to wake up Chengling from nightmares later in the end of the ep, as Chengling calls out for his dad in his sleep.

OK, Deng Kuan is the guy in charge of the Yueyang sect contingent that arrived in time to see the Mirror Lake chaos in Ep 2 and has taken charge of cleaning up the bodies in this ep. I actually overlooked him, pretty much, the first time around, but here, he’s already got Shen Shen yelling at him (in a completely ridiculous fashion) for not getting there in time to save the Mirror Lake Sect, so he’s just going to be a punching bag through the whole show, apparently. Shen Shen is wu-di, fifth (little) brother, and he refers to Chengling’s dad as si-ge, fourth (older) brother, so Shen Shen appears to be the youngest of the Five Lakes sworn brothers, leading me to believe that some of what makes him so insufferable through a lot of the show is baby brother syndrome. Also, Shen Shen and his group find the Soul Winding Threads of the Hanged Ghost … supposedly. I mean, the Hanged Ghost was the guy who we saw get got in Ep 1, soooooo …. (remember these Soul Winding Threads, btw).

*This got super long so I’m’a put this last bit under a cut, but I did try to start a running tally of who’s holding a piece of the Glazed Armor:

Each of the Five Lakes Alliance sects is supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor, yes? So, as of the end of Ep 3 (hierarchical bro-titles are from didi Shen Shen’s POV):

- Yueyang Sect, led by Gao Chong (da-ge) - presumably still has his

- Tai Hu Sect, led by Zhao Jing (er-ge) – presumably still has his

- Danyang Sect, led by Lu Taichong (san-ge, presumably) – apparently the sect has already been attacked off-screen (by “Ghost Valley?” and WHEN?), as we learn in Ep 3 that Lu-zongzhu has been killed and his remaining two tiny disciples have fled to the protection of Ao Laizi and Tai Shan Sect, one of the lesser sects, and are believed to have taken Danyang’s Glazed Armor with them. We learn this from Tao Hong, Lv Liu and Begger Gang Chief, but I notice that Gao Chong only mentions the Mirror Lake massacre as the precipitating event for the Hero’s Conference and total war on Ghost Valley – he doesn’t even mention Danyang Sect, so does Five Lakes not know about this yet?

- Mirror Lake Sect, led by Zhang Yusen (si-ge) – Zhang-zongzhu killed by “Ghost Valley” in Ep 2, Glazed Armor “missing” and speculated POST EP 2 to have been taken by Ghost Valley (but will turn up in a few eps, thanks to our little Goldbean)

- Dagu Shan Sect, led by Shen Shen (wu-di) – presumably still has his

And then we move to:

- Tai Shan Sect, led by Ao Laizi – in-world speculation is that he now has the Danyang Glazed Armor. We do see him near the end of the ep with the two tiny Danyang shidi, where he makes the intriguing comment that he’s going to follow their shifu’s last wishes and keep their Glazed Armor from falling into the hands of the Five Lakes Alliance, so what exactly was going on between San-ge and his sworn brothers at the time of his death? This group also is apparently being pursued by Shen Shen to get their Glazed Armor, and they make him sound awful. You need better PR, Shen Shen.

- Ghost Valley – POST EP 2, speculated to have taken the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor (FALSE)

NOTABLY, “Ghost Valley Master” set a lot of this chaos in motion in Ep 1 when he claimed that Hanged Ghost (who got got a scene earlier) had stolen HIS piece of the Glazed Armor, although he shouldn’t have a piece (supposedly) until after Ep 2, when he’s believed to have taken Mirror Lake’s. So, what piece would that be, exactly, Terrifying Ghost Valley Master? You wouldn’t be lying in pursuit of chaos would you? (Somewhere, WKX gasps theatrically behind his fan, and he doesn’t even know what motivated it, this time.)

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #gu xiang #zhang chengling #shen shen #deng kuan #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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drivingsideways · 4 years ago

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k-drama rec list

Prior to 2020 I’d maybe watched 2 k-dramas in my entire life, but this year I got sucked in, thanks to some great recs, and y’know, *gestures * everything.

I think I’d held off watching kdramas because my impression of them was limited to romances that I didn’t enjoy at all. But this was the year I discovered the equivalent of “gen fic” kdrama- dramas that had wonderful ensemble casts, strong story lines that weren’t entirely romance focused and also a variety in terms of themes and styles. A big plus was that I found so many of these dramas had women leading the writers’ room, and seeing the effect of that in the story telling. (Notable exceptions: a certain “star” writer who should please stop inflicting her badly written, formulaic crap on the world, yes Kim Eun-Sook, I mean you, and whoever wrote that trashfire Flower of Evil)

So here I am with my own rec list! Caveat- these are mostly not the dramas released in 2020, I’m still playing catch up! :)

Under the cut for length

My Mister/ My Ahjussi (2018, Written by Park Hae-Young, Directed by Kim Won-Seok, starring Lee Sun-kyun and Lee Ji-eun aka IU)

This was definitely my absolute favourite of the shows I watched this year across western/ asian media. It’s a story about the thread that binds us all and the ineffability of human connection. It’s also a story that deconstructs ideas of masculinity and honour and shame in a non-western context, but with an extremely compassionate touch. It’s a story that doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of material and spiritual poverty; and how one can so easily feed into the other. It’s a love story that isn’t a romance, except that it’s a Romance. It’s about finding salvation in one another and in the kindness of strangers. It’s about choosing life, and picking yourself up off the floor to take that one last step and then the next and then the next. The one quibble I have with the series is that it could have been better paced, it does get extremely slow after the half way mark. But god, do they land the ending. Both Lee Sun-kyun and IU turn in absolutely heartbreaking performances, and fair warning, be prepared to go through an entire box of tissues watching this series.

Life (2018, written by Lee Soo-yeon and directed by Hong Jong-chan, starring Lee Dong-wook, Cho Seung-woo, Won Jin-ah, Lee Kyu-hyung, Yoo Jae-myung and Moon So-ri.)

Medical dramas are very much not my thing, and I wouldn’t have taken a chance on it except that @michyeosseo said I should, and she was right! It’s a medical drama in the sense that it’s set in a hospital, but rather than a “case-fic” format, this is actually a sharp commentary on the corporatization of health care, and the business of mixing, well, money and what should be a fundamental human right. Writer Lee Soo-yeon was coming off the global success of Stranger/Secret Forest S1 when this aired, so I understand that expectations were probably sky-high, and people were disappointed when this show didn’t give them the adrenaline rush that they wanted. On the other hand, I thought that this outing was really much more nuanced in terms of the politics and also how the ending doesn’t allow you the luxury of easy-fixes. This show has a great ensemble cast, and while it took me a while to get used to Lee Dong-wook’s woodenness (i ended up calling him mr.cadaver after watching this and was surprised to learn that he’s very popular?), in the end I was quite sold on his version of angry angst-bucket elder-sibling Dr.Ye Jin-woo. His best scenes were with Lee Kyu-hyung who turns in a lovely, achy performance as the paraplegic Dr. Ye Seon-woo who just wants to live a normal life. The love story between the two brothers is actually the emotional backbone of the story, and I think they landed that perfectly.

My one quibble with writer-nim is that she ended up writing in a forgettable and somewhat (for me at least) uncomfortable romance between the characters played by Won Jin-ah and Cho Seung-Woo. I think part of my uncomfortable-feeling was that I got the strong sense that the writer herself didn’t want to write this romance, it was as if she was being made to shoe-horn it in for Studio Reasons, and she basically grit her teeth and did the worst possible job of it. I do wish we could have absolutely had the OT3 of my dreams: Moon So-ri/Cho Seung-woo/Yoo Jae-myung like, c’mon TV gods MAKE IT HAPPEN, just...look at them!!!!

Anyway, that apart, I think this was a very engaging series, and by engaging, I also mean thirst-enabling, see below.

Stranger (aka Secret Forest or Forest of Secrets) S1 & 2 : (2017-, Written by Lee Soo-yeon, directed by

2017′s smash hit aired a much anticipated second season in 2020, and I managed to catch up just in time to watch that live, so that was thrilling :D . Writer Lee Soo-yeon mixes up thriller/office comedy/political commentary in an ambitious series. I think S1 is more “exciting” than S2 in terms of the mystery and pacing, but S2 is far more dense and interesting in terms of political commentary because it takes a long hard look at institutional corruption and in true writer-nim fashion doesn’t prescribe any easy solutions. Anyway, please enjoy public prosecutor Cho Seung-woo and police officer Bae Doona as partners/soulmates kicking ass and taking names in pursuit of Truth, Justice and just a goddamn peaceful meal, along with a stunningly competent ensemble cast. Also yes, Han Yeo Jin is a lesbian, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Search: WWW (2019, Written by Kwon Do-Eun, directed by Jung Ji-hyun & Kwon Young-il, starring Im Soo-jung, Lee Da-hee, Jeon Hye-jin)

GOD. Where do I start? +1000 for writer Kwon Do-Eun saying “fuck the patriarchy” in the most grandiose way possible, i.e. absolutely refusing to acknowledge that it exists. Yes, this is that power fantasy, and it’s also a fun, slice-of-life tale about three women navigating their way through work, romance, national politics and everything in between. It’s true that I wasn’t entirely sold on the amount of time spent on the romance, and I really wish they’d actually had a textual wlw romance, though the subtext through the entire series is PRACTICALLY TEXT. But still, it maintains that veneer of plausible deniability and I think queer fans who are sick of that kind of treatment in media have a very valid grouse against the show. On the other hand, personally I felt that the queer-platonic vibe of the show is very wonderful and true to real life, and it was only reinforced by the ending. This is a show written by a woman for women (like me), and it shows.

Hyena (2020, Written by Kim Roo-Ri, directed by Jang Tae-yoo & Lee Chang Woo, starring Kim Hye-soo and Ju Ji-hoon )

Those of you who’ve been watching hit zombie epic Kingdom are probably familiar with Ju Ji-hoon’s brand of sexiness already. I had not watched Kingdom and got hit in the face by Mr.Sexy McSexyPants’ turn as a brash, privileged-by-birth, up and coming lawyer who gets completely runover by the smoking hot and incredibly dangerous fellow lawyer/competitor from the other side of the tracks in the person of Kim Hye-Soo. When I say they set the room on fire, I mean it, ok. Every single scene between these two is an actual bonfire of sexual attraction and emotional hand grenades, and they’re both absolutely riveting to watch. “Flower of Evil” wishes they had what this show has- an actual grown up romance as opposed to a thirteen year old twilight fan’s idea of an adult romance.

The “lawyer” shenanigans and the “cases” are hit or miss, and I think the occasional comedy fell flat for me. But that’s not why I mainlined like 6 episodes of this series overnight like a coke addict, and that’s not why you’re going to do it either. It’s so RARE, even in these enlightened days to find a female character like Jung Geum-ja: hard as nails, unapologetic about it, and not punished by the narrative for it. The best part for me is that she feels like a woman’s woman, not a man’s idea of what a Strong Female Character should be. Anyways, when I grow up I want to have what Kim Hye-soo has ok?

Other dramas that I watched this year, quickly rated:

The King: Eternal Monarch (3/10 and those 3 points are only for the combined goodness of second leads who deserved better- Jung Eun Chae, Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam. Please head over to my AO3 and read my attempts to fix this garbage fire and rescue their characters from canon)

Flower of Evil (-10/100, dont @ me)

Tale of the Nine Tailed (5/10, I think it succeeds at what it set out to do, which is a light hearted, sweet fantasy-romance-melodrama, plus “second lead” Kim Beom will make you cry as the hot mess of a half human/ half fox spirit ALL TEARS character. I think if you’re into kdrama romances as a genre, this is probably a good bet?)

Signal (7/10, This was the first full kdrama I watched this year and would definitely recommend. It’s a police procedural with time travel shenanigans and has an engaging plot, good pacing, texture and compelling performances. My one disappointment with it was the way they wrote Kim Hye-soo’s character. As literally the only female character to survive in any way, she was given short shrift, and toward the end it really began to grate on me.)

Six Flying Dragons - (7/10, also would recommend if you’re interested in Korean historicals. It definitely already feels a bit dated in terms of styling and production values, and even scripting and acting choices. But it has a good balance of fantasy and history and political commentary. I was not a fan of Yoo In-Ah’s performance in this series, but it’s not anything that would make you want to nope out of the series. It’s GoT , if GoT was thoughtful about politics and characters and not the misogynist, racist trashfire that it became.)

My Country: The New Age - (3.5/10, and that’s 3 points to Jang Hyuk’s fan and 0.5.points to Woo Do Hwan’s heaving bosom. If you like your historical drama/fantasy with very pretty men, very gay subtext -seriously RIP to show makers who thought they could hetero it but didn’t account for Woo Do Hwan’s Tragic Face- lots of blood and tears and very nonsense plot, this is right up your alley. I probably would have enjoyed it more in other circumstances, I think? But this one just annoyed me too much at the time!

I have a couple of more dramas to watch on my list, that’ll probably carry me over into 2021, so see ya on the other side! :D

#k-drama #kdrama rec list #2020: A YEAR #i'm a queue for you

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imtryingthisout · 4 years ago

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I’ll cut away me Bonny hair, let no man ever think me fair

Fandom: Descendants

Ship: Fem!Harry Hook x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3,415

Content: It’s a self insert fic inspired by @descendantofthesparrow check out their series and art if you like this. I’m not sure about any warnings, but there is references to British Imperialism and just The Isle of The Lost in general. Ask me to tag anything if you come across it.

———————————————————————-

It was a calm night.

The push and pull of the tides was a mighty sight, but their temperament was overall sedated. Waves of drowsy titans swaying on their feet. There were ships that lined the shore, vessels of varying shapes and sizes and degrees of being intact. Some had their ribs ripped open by thieving hands, cannibalized by their captains and left to rot tethered to their anchor. All empty husks of rot wood and former glory, that rocked like cradles in the breeze. Dipping lower and lower till their cheeks brushed the ocean, before rising upwards to repeat the cycle once more.

Pirate’s Port was a town that was seldom silent, in fact it had quite the reputation to the contrary, yet as the fog rolled in from the sea, sinking low and to the ground, reaching its long and heavy hands around the bases of driftwood shacks and other buildings, not a whisper could be heard amidst the streets. The few people who lingered in the Night Market took one good look at the creeping white mist and quickly fled into their houses. Curious children who mustered the will to stick their heads outside the window frames or from the corner of doorways were hastily ushered inside by their guardians. One young girl nursed a busted earlobe, that her Mother had yanked so fast and hard to get her to move indoors, that it now sported a dark red bruising.

A single man walked along the streets. Stumbling along the cobblestone path till he came to the end of the seaport. He stood there for a breath, as fog swirled around the old wooden pole beside the street. The remnants of a great mast, now left to crumble by the sidewalk. Old barnacles, moss and other things stuck to the sides of it poked against his back as he rested his weight beside its frame.

The clothes he wore, if they could be called that, were tattered and ragged and hung off his frame in great sheets of cloth. They might have fit a different man, once. Grains of salt stuck to his beard and hair, catching the reflection of the water like stars in a blackened and oily sky. His fingers were wrapped in stained cloth and bound with a myriad of dirty copper and golden rings.

Those fingers were wrapped around an old harmonica, silver, clean, with the likeness of twisting vines and waves etched into the frame. Hours of craftsmanship decorating its borders. His grip around it was so tight, it drew the skin around his knuckles white, as he held the instrument to his cracked lips and let out a mournful tune. His song the only echo in the darkness.

“I dreamed a dream the other night, lowlands, lowlands away, my John. I dreamed a dream the other night, lowlands, lowlands away~”

There was no moonlight on the Isle of the Lost, even now, for on the rare occasion that the moon dared show her fair face, the omnipresent storm clouds that plagued the land marred her, obscuring her smiling figure. There was no moonlight on the Isle of the Lost, nor was there starlight, or streetlamps.

Night time was an abstract shadow here, where reality seemed twisted and fearful. The only thing illuminating the dark streets and alleyways, was the light emitting from the crevices and cracks of house windows, as well as the occasional fire pit, but tonight the windows were shut, the cracks stuffed with cloth, and every barrel of flame doused with water and ash. There was no moonlight on the Isle of the Lost.

But the sea, who so loved the moon and her light, would never deny her glory, so for the lonesome ship who drifted, not by the shore, rather in the heart of the tide, their deck was basked in a pale luster. As well as the two figures who sat beside each other.

You have one hand burrowed deep into the inky black curls of Harry Hook and the other on the handle of a knife. The shine of the blade catches the silver light burning from the moon above the two of you, the silent observer whose gaze watches as you move the blade closer and closer to the flesh of the neck. A flash of heat runs down your spine as you-

“Hurry it up would ye, I’m starting to get a crick in me neck”

-slice upwards through your handful of hair. Watching absentmindedly as some rogue strands flutter down and are carried to the sea by the breeze. “This would be a lot faster if I had proper scissors” you mutter low beneath your breath. Not low enough apparently, because the next thing you hear is Harry replying “It’s not me fault I got hair growin’ thicker than tha soup at Ursula's Slop”

You angle your knife and get to work cleaning up the final few edges. “It wouldn't be so hard if ya didn’t insist on cutting it every time it gets longer than a butter knife’s blade. I swear- would it kill ya to grow it a bit longer? Let ya curls show?”

“And let people compare me more to me Da? Walking around like some great fop, nah, me name is bad enough, don’t wanna be walking around lookin’ like a pale shadow of that bloody English fool”

“Oi watch it” you say, bringing your blade playfully closer to nicking him before correcting it at the very last moment, “Don’t forget my Mother is of English blood”

“Ha! And you’ll ne��er catch a englishman claimin’ her!” Harry exclaimed, kicking a foot out to mark the punctuation” I swe’r the day that Elizabeth Swann is called a sassenach is the day the barrier breaks”

Her movement causes you to accidentally slash a bit too close to her skin, making the hair fall awkwardly. You bite your tongue to keep from scowling, and get to work correcting the cut. “Quit squirming- I still have to clean up this last bit fore’ ya can be back to moving about”

“Ughhhh- whyyy, I’ve been sittin’ he’re for ages” Harry groans, you can practically hear her pouting expression. Even so she stops, reluctantly, sullenly, she keeps her body as still as the statue, not even twiddling her thumbs.

“You know, when someone has a knife to your neck, you could stand to talk to them a bit more politely” Harriet Hook, whose name invokes such wrath that even her own father calls her Harry, turns to look at you. The grin that sails across her face is nothing short of wicked. “Of course, how rude of me to forget me manners. After all, it isn't every day one gets to rub elbows with royalty” She says, drawling out the word royalty with a flourish. You would be lying if you said that something in your heart didnt flutter at her voice, but you would be damned if you let her score an easy victory over you. You roll your eyes to the moon and back. “Oh stop that nonsense Hook'' you say, giving a stray lock of hair a quick tug. “Ain't no royalty on the Isle, no matter how The Fair Folk of Bargains Castle want to pretend otherwise”

“Aye but that's where you’re wrong Miss Swann.” You snip away the final strand. “The way I see it this ship has got not one, but two! Two whole members of royalty gracing us with their presence” Harry slides away from you like water in a strain, spinning around your waist and forcing you to turn around to follow her movement. Her voice is loud. Loud and full of delight, the very definition of boisterous. “First off we have our very own Captain- The Queen of The Sea!” she laughs with her arms extended upwards and to the sky. And something, you cannot say what, in you relaxes. Harry’s love for Uma was a familiar sight. It was a eternal spring that you could feel laced around every word that fell from her lips. Harry stands radiant in her adoration. “Oh but let’s not neglect our Dear Miss Swann, whose Mam ruled over fleets of ships- an armada! And dared to claim the Pirate King’s Crown”

Your fingers furl themselves around the hair in your hands. A part of you wants to braid it, hide it in a locket and keep it close to your heart forever. “How long must I remind you Hook, my name is free to say?”

“At least once more Miss Swann”, she says and takes your hand into hers “For I do so love it when you plead”. She bows, slowly, deeply in a way that would make your Mother’s old governess cringe at the impropriety- and kisses the back of your hand.

(Her lips are warm and rough against your skin, the chapness tickles slightly as she lingers. Looking up at you with eyes paler than riverstones and twinkling with mirth. Second stars to the left and right, stolen from the sky and embedded in her sockets.)

Your knife hits the wood with a clang and a thud, a faint part of you redisters the noise, but the whole of your head is swarming with heat and air. The goosebumps on your arms stand still and tall and you can’t say it's from the cold. Your bones feel hollow, your spirit barely tethered, you are a mind outside of your body outside of yourself and you wonder if this is what pixie dust feels like.

(Harry Hook’s lips are still pressed against your hand. Her eyes fixed onto yours. At first her expression is playful- cocky. All wiggling eyebrows and the crinkles of laughter, but as the silence stretches on it shifts. Confusion blooms with the tilt of the head. A wordless question written in the furrowing of the brow. Then, suddenly, her eyes widen and grow wild with realisation- before hardening into something else. Something more akin to victory.)

“Why Miss Swann-” Harry says moving forward, lacing both of your fingers together and closing the space between you, till you can feel the sting of her grin burn across your cheek. Her laughter rings like toll bells in your ear, sealing your fate. “Do you fancy me?”

You should take your hand back, you know you should take your hand back.

You don’t want to take your hand back.

A retort bubbles in the back of your throat, with that thought, its rough and scratching and feels just like the lock of hair curled around your fingers. You don’t want to let go. There is saltwater roaring behind your back as the sea dips the ship in a lover’s embrace. Harry’s hand grips your hand is gripped to your chest. She’s waiting. You can see it in the corner of your vision, expecting eyes that seem so blue, they shine silver in the night air.

So you answer, in the only way you possibly can. “What’s my name?”

“What?”

You run your free hand through her hair, balling a fist near the center of the scalp and pulling hard- taking her face off of yours and forcing your eyes to meet. “What’s my name Hook, I want to hear you say it” you say, it’s not a question anymore, not a plea, but a command.

And Harry Hook will always heed a command.

“Cassandra Swann” she whispers, the words fall clumsily out of her mouth and into your heart. You smile beneath her chin, using the leverage to pull yourself higher. You growl against her flesh “Again”

“Cassandra Swan”

A shrieking laugh escapes your lips, “Again!” you scream “Again! Again! Again!”

Harry loops her arms around you, killing the space between the two of you. “Cassandra” she says, “Cassandra, Cassandra, Cassanra Swann” With every reprise her words get smoother, and soon “Cassandra! Cassandra!” flies effortlessly from her mouth, as if she had always longed to say it, as if it was always meant to be there. Harry lifts your body into the air and spins the two of you around the deck all the while murmuring into your hair “Daughter of Elizabeth, Prince of Pirates, Daughter of William, Heir of The Flyin’ Dutchman”

The tips of your boots graze the floorboards as Harry’s momentum lessens and lessens, slowing to a stop near the center of the deck. Your head is pressed firmly to her chest. Here, in this place of comfort, you can hear the frantic beating of her heart, the rise and fall of her breath, the rush of blood beneath her flesh. You feel the storm that rages inside of her. And still she holds you close.

You linger there for a breath, hands clinched around the fabric of her shirt, while the two of you sway with the breeze. You’ve danced before, danced atop this very deck even, but nothing can compare to the silent watz the two of you share here and now. Just you and your love and the Moon. Harry’s touch is firm and soft and oh so gentle with you. If this were anyone else you would say it was hesitant, but that thought was absurd- Harry Hook was never hesitant, you weren’t sure she even knew the word. If she saw something she wanted, she took it. If she saw something she hated, she destroyed it. Love, rage, sorrow, desire, she bore them all proudly before the world, without shame or modesty. Harry Hook lived a life without restraint.

There is shifting under your fingernails, you are gripping her so, so tightly, as if you’re afraid she is not but a visiting dream, a girl made of moonlight and shadow, a passing specter doomed to fade away come dawn.

A strikingly strong gust of wind sends your hair flying outward and towards the sky. Waves of sun-kissed and flaxen strands twist and knot in the air, creating an arch of golden color above your head. You, with your father’s skin and days spent working out at sea, and Harry, with hair darker than the space between stars and skin so fair it put the moon to shame, the two of you were quite the contradictory pair.

Then the wind abides and Harry laughs as your hair falls in front of your face.

“Oh ha-ha hook,” you say, blowing a gust of breath up to get the threads up and out of your eyes, which only makes her chuckle louder. You do not pout, you don’t, you scowl like the very fierce pirate you are and you won’t hear any word to the contrary. “I mean really what’s so funny about--”

You are interrupted by Harry shoving a finger on top of your mouth “Sssh” she says, looking out and over her shoulder, “Do ye hear that?”

Hear what? You try to ask, however it comes out sounding something like “Hrrwat?” with Harry’s finger still covering your mouth. You strain your ears to listen, and sure enough you hear something on the wind, but the noise was far too muddled to make out anything further than a melody.

Luckily, a melody was all you needed.

“It’s a song” Harry says, her voice barely a whisper.

“It’s a shanty” you correct, and a very familiar one at that. No matter how time changes, or what variant of the lyrics become popular, you would be dead in the grave before you didn’t recognize a seafarer's lullaby, sailing along waves of wind and water and air.

You slowly raise your hand to Harry’s pale cheek, careful to give her time to see the motion and accept it. Her skin is chilled against your touch, as you pull her face away from the Isle and all its troubles. You both can feel the weight of the full moon at your backs as you begin to sing. “I dreamed a dream the other night, lowlands, lowlands away, my John~”

What it is, you could not say, but something inside of Harry relaxes when she looks at you. The crease between her eyes vanishes and a part of the frantic energy tensed into her shoulders, lessens. The heavy gaze of the moon lessens slightly.

You rarely ever see her like this. This calmer, tender side of her, that she hides away from the world. How wonderful it is to witness, to share vulnerability, how beautiful she looks when she joins the chorus, your two voices becoming one. “I dreamed a dream the other night, lowlands, lowlands away~”

Taking a step to the side, you begin to lead Harry and your bodies in a proper waltz. Well, as proper as a Pirate waltz could be, at least. You are so focused on your dancing that you almost miss Harry’s voice singing. “I dreamed my true love came all dressed in white, lowlands, lowlands, away me John, I dreamed my true love came all dressed in white, lowlands, lowlands away”

“She sat by my bed when I was asleep, lowlands, lowlands away my John, she sat by my bed when I was asleep, lowlands, lowlands away”

“That’s wrong,” Harry tells you, very seriously, you can’t help but giggle “I’ve heard this sung a thousand times, with a thousand different tongues and a thousand different ways. If the rhythm is right then what does it matter?”

Harry nods her head, “Aye, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s wrong”

“Well if that’s the case Miss Hook, then why don’t you show me how it’s really done?”

“Gladly Miss Swann” Harry grins, puffing her chest up proudly as she sings, her voice so deep and genuine it brought tears to your eyes. “She sat by me bed and did nothing but weep, lowlands, lowlands away my John, she sat by me bed and did nothing but weep, lowlands, lowlands away”

“Cold water soaked her skin so fair, lowlands, lowlands, away my John, cold water soaked her skin so fair, lowlands, lowlands away”

A warm hand runs itself through your head, racking fingers wander as Harry counters, “An’ the salt-sea weed it was in ‘er hair, lowlands, lowlands away, me John, an’ the salt-sea weed it was in ‘er hair, lowlands, lowlands away”

The wandering comes to stop on top of your ear. Her tumb is nestled under your eye, cradling the side of your face. You feel the heat of the touch, burn past your skin and set your blood a boiling. “She made no sound- nor word she said, lowlands, lowlands, away my John, she made no sound- nor word she said, lowlands lowlands away”

For a second time stood still as two souls shared the same thought. Harry moves to rest her forehead on yours, and before you could even think to give a command, your body rose up to meet her halfway.

“That’s when I knew my love was dead, lowlands, lowlands, away my John, that’s when I knew my love was dead, lowlands, lowlands away” you harmonize with each other, voices barely a whisper drowned out in each other and the beating of your hearts.

“I dreamed a dream the other day, lowlands, lowlands away, my John. I dreamed a dream the other day, lowlands, lowlands away”

Up beside the horizon, where the water meets the sky, the first blaze of sunrise streaks along the border. There is a brief moment, when the light is just right, that the entire ocean ignites in a pale blue splendor. The exact shade of your love’s eyes.

“Then I awoke to morning’s keen, lowlands, lowlands away my John, then I awoke to morning’s keen, lowlands, lowlands away”

Miles away from the ship where you and Harry Hook stand, frozen in time, the fog retreats back into the sea. Windows are unplugged, fire restarted, the air begins to be polluted with the shouting and the everyday noises of life.

Inside a small wooden shack there is a Mother, carefully applying cream onto her daughter’s ear. She does not apologize, not openly, not when she doesn’t regret causing it, but she does gather her daughter close in her arms and opens her mouth to sing her favorite lullaby. A song about a distant and beautiful land, far away and low by the sea.

And of course, beyond the two lovers and the mother and daughter, there is an old man standing by the sea, and singing. “Now I’ll never see my love again, lowlands, lowlands away, my John, now I’ll never see my love again, my lowlands, lowlands away~”

#disney #writing #fic #descendants #disney descendants #harry hook imagine #Harry Hook #Fem!harry #harry hook x reader #descendantsofthesparrow #oc #Elizabeth Swann #William Turner #Captain Hook

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multisfabulis · 4 years ago

Text

Land’s Trust in Light

Arrival in Thornewind (Chapter 1/6)

Word Count: 4090

Oh, look, a new Corona's Shadow entry that doesn't feature Verreth? That's possible?!

I kid but it honestly feels good to not be writing Verreth for CS for a little bit. CS was never meant to be a Verreth love story, it only ended up like that because I went straight into writing "The Road to Forgiveness Be Damned" after finishing "A Single Ray of Light in a Sea of Darkness" because I simply wanted to write more Ven and I started to regret my decision around the time I wrote the rough version of the third chapter. Obviously, I stuck with that decision to the end but it was throughout that time I had wants to write Verreth and I wrote those as well. However, all the Verreth segments are what I consider to be side stories, which I know may be hard to believe but trust me, because Ven and Ferreth are not the main protagonists of CS. Eric, if anyone remembers him, is. The Verreth segments were only added to the CS series because I didn't want to make a whole new series entirely focused on Verreth and take them out of something they are main characters of.

Does this mean I'm done writing Verreth? For now, yes. Outside of occasional updates to "Only Through Acceptance Will Love Find Us", I wanna focus on both this and other smaller projects, like RLD and fanfics. Just in case anyone's lost hope, the next big project is Verreth-related, with Ferreth taking the protag role a la TRFBD. Let's just say we're finally getting a look at his backstory and a reason as to why he has self-worth issues.

God, it feels great to be writing in Eric's POV again. It's been over 2 years since I finished ASRLSD so I am making the most of this!

Surprisingly enough, there wasn't much change during the transition from rough draft to publication, which actually made this harder to write. I'm so used to there being at least one major change that I got tripped up by this. The only major change here is the addition of descriptors and needed elaboration and those, I feel like, are key to "beautifying" writing so I don't count those.

One last thing is the "flirting" present in here. I honestly don't know if that can be considered flirting because I'm not someone who flirts or is flirted with on a daily basis. I'm pretty much the dense harem anime protagonist so please forgive me for the terrible flirting.

Read on AO3 | Read on DA | Support me on Ko-fi!

Thornewind was gorgeous. Sure, Eric was looking at it from a distance atop Asha, but it made one hell of a good first impression. Thornewind seemed colorful and vibrant and he wanted to explore every last inch of it. He gently kicked Asha’s side and she began walking at a slow, leisurely pace.

Thornewind was a town nestled in the mountains north of Aurora Zenith. The tiny glimpse he saw of it left him awestruck, from its tall, rich buildings packed closely together to its bright windmills scattered across its many open fields. Then there was the sight that awaited him over the ridge, stealing his breath away.

There were tulips that stretched as far as the eye could see. A sea of blue, red, orange, pink, and yellow blossoms swayed in the summery breeze. It was strange how all these tulips were in bloom when Augvesta had just rolled around but he didn’t put much thought into it. Botany was more of Ven’s expertise and she would be positively thrilled upon seeing this.

It was soon after crossing the garden he arrived at the entrance. It surprised him to see how lax security was if they let a complete stranger in without so much as a request for papers. He didn’t mind it, though; it just struck him as odd since no one was allowed entry if they weren’t deemed trustworthy back in his childhood home. He and Asha passed through the threshold and was rendered speechless.

Towering brick buildings loomed over him while a rainbow of others stood further ahead of him. Paths of smooth stone ran in every direction, the opposite of Aurora Zenith’s dirt roads that swept up dust with enough energy behind it. He could hear the tinkling of wind chimes and the fervor of voices all around him. Thornewind certainly had Brinegarde beat in its lively atmosphere.

He hopped off Asha, making sure to keep the reins in a firm grip. Her deep brown eyes met his as he slowly put a hand on her face and stroked. She didn’t flinch, which was a good sign of progress.

“You’re such a good girl, Asha,” he murmured, moving his hand down to stroke her neck. “Let’s find a place for you to rest, hmm?”

It didn’t take long to find a stable. He led her into one of the empty stalls and fed her a couple sugar cubes as a reward for all the hard work she’d done over the past two weeks. The last thing he did was tell the stableman how to care for her during her stay and that he’d be checking up on her daily. Waving goodbye to Asha, it was time to explore Thornewind.

With it being mid-afternoon, it was pleasantly warm as people crowded the streets on their day-to-day routine. The sound of the wind chimes grew louder and the scent of delicious meals made his mouth water in anticipation. Thank god his anxiety wasn’t ruining this for him. He could hardly contain the bounce in his step as he excitedly toured around the busy thoroughfares. It was rare for him to see and visit new places so he wanted to make the most of this trip.

There were two things he noticed. First was that most of the people he saw weren’t humans nor were they elves. Their ears were similar to Ven’s and they had what seemed to be like fangs sticking out from their upper lips. What really threw him off, though, were their sizes. Many of them were easily a foot or so taller than him just from a distance and were definitely well-built. Whatever these people were, they’ve caught his eye and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enticed.

Then there were the stares. He initially thought they were wondering what a human was doing here till he realized it was what he wore. It wasn’t like he was wearing an extravagant suit but he still clearly looked like a noble, or so he assumed. He wasn’t trying to show people up. He was just taught to always dress his best for important events and he considered his reason for being here to be one such.

Now came the realization he was lost. He had become so engrossed in his surroundings, an hour flew by without him noticing. He needed to find the lord of this town and talk with them about the relationship between them and Aurora Zenith. Allies were essential in political affairs, after all. The bad part was, he had no idea on where to start looking.

Well, as much as he hated to, he had to ask someone for directions. It couldn’t be that hard, right? All he’d have to do is go up to a random person, ask them on how to get to the lord’s house, and that’d be it. Simple and easy!

He felt a hand touch his shoulder and heard a voice ask, “Hey, are you okay?”

He let out a startled shriek and turned to face the stranger. There was a man in front of him with his hands up in a conciliatory manner towards him. One of the first things he noticed was just how big he was.

He’d never seen anyone taller than Alek before and it honestly unnerved him. The man had the same pointed ears and fangs as everyone else so he must’ve been one of the not-human, not-elf people. He had dark brown skin, messy brown hair with a small braid that reached his shoulders, and bright green eyes. What was really peculiar about him were the bandages starting from the middle of his arms and ending all the way down to his fingertips. He was definitely hiding something underneath those but Eric could care less about what right now.

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down, okay?” the man said in a soothing tone. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I would hope not!” Eric breathed in, placed a hand on his chest, and breathed out. “It’s not every day some random stranger walks up, claps a hand on my shoulder, and asks if I’m okay right in my ear.”

“Well, you seemed troubled so I thought you might’ve needed help,” the man replied, putting his hands down.

Feeling rather embarrassed with himself for that pathetic display, he cleared his throat and asked, “As a matter of fact, I do. Could you please tell me where the lord of this town is, I need to speak with them right away.”

“You wanna talk to Bris?”

“If that’s their name, then yes. I have some important business to discuss with them.”

“He’s not far from here, I can take you to him if you want.”

That would probably be the best course of action. He was never good at memorizing directions and reciting them to himself only confused him more. He had no one to blame but himself for being in this situation to begin with so…

“Sure, that’d be great,” Eric conceded. At least this guy was kind and generous enough to show him the way there.

“All right, let’s make our way over there.” The two men began walking down a street that wasn’t as busy as before. “By the way, my name’s Ferreth.”

“I’m Eric, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, flashing him a friendly smile.

“So what brings someone like you to our fair town of Thornewind?” Ferreth asked. “I thought I’d recognized all our visitors since those don’t come by very often.”

“It’s as I said. I’ve traveled a long way to see Bris in the hopes of discussing important business with him.”

“What kind of business? Are you an important person?”

“I’d say being lord counts as pretty important. I’ve come all the way from Aurora Zenith to see if our two towns could potentially become allies.”

“Oh, wow. I, uh, didn’t think someone as cute as you could be lord.”

He tilted his head in both curiosity and confusion. “I don’t see what my appearance has to do with anything but I can assure you I wasn’t lying.”

“I didn’t think you were. I just wasn’t expecting a man in your position to be so…good-looking.”

“So what were you expecting?”

“You know, somebody the complete opposite. I mean, I’m figuring you’re, like, smart, charismatic, kind, and everything else Bris is like.”

Ah, that’s what was happening here. He had an inkling of it the first time Ferreth mentioned his appearance but now he was sure. Alek had never done it with him and there wasn’t really a need for him to. As flattered as he was by it, his heart was and always will be Alek’s.

Chuckling, he said, “Well, I think my boyfriend would agree with you on some of those things but I’m more modest about them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Ferreth had a defeated smile on his face, gracefully accepting his loss. Eric liked how easygoing he was.

“So what’s your relationship with Bris like?” he asked.

“Oh, me and him are best friends. We’ve known each other since childhood but I’d say we’re more like brothers than friends by this point.”

“Sounds like you get along with him really well.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Bris and I have had our fair share of arguments but what friendship hasn’t? We have each others’ backs and no fight’s ever gonna change that.”

Ferreth had a certain fondness in his voice when he spoke about Bris. It was easy to see the love and devotion he held for Bris and it warmed Eric’s heart. He was admittedly envious of their friendship. He never had any friends as a child aside from Alek and, while Alek’s irreplaceable, he wished he was able to make some back then. At least that seemed to be changing with him befriending Ven during his trip to Brinegarde so maybe he still had a chance to form everlasting relationships.

“Here we are!”

The two stopped before a giant windmill. Dark red brick made up the exterior and the blades turned gently in the breeze, creaking ever so slightly. There were hardly any windows aside from the two in front and there was a wraparound balcony set up just below the wooden roof. Eric didn’t know windmills could be habitable, which made him want to live here if only a little.

“Wow…”

“Let’s go on up, shall we?”

They climbed up the stone steps leading to the front door. It was a tall, dark wooden door stretching up towards the wraparound balcony, with a black, wrought iron ring on the side as its knocker. Before he could think of a script in his head, Ferreth grabbed the ring and hit it against the door a few times.

Almost immediately after, a woman answered. She wasn’t much taller than him, though he figured the top of his head would be just scraping her chin, and the slim blue dress she wore did little to hide her defined muscles. She had porcelain skin, long, wavy rose pink hair flowing down to her waist, and sandy brown eyes, reminding him of the shores of Aurora Zenith’s beaches. She was stunningly beautiful and his throat felt suddenly dry.

“Ah, Ferreth, are you here to see Master Brirsyrun today?” she asked. Her voice sounded soft and airy like a lovely breeze.

“Hey, Aissyl, I’m actually here because my new friend wanted to speak with Bris regarding some important matters, right?” Ferreth put a hand squarely on Eric’s back and pushed him forward slightly.

“Oh, uh, yes!” he spoke quickly. “My name is Eric Travere and I’m the lord of Aurora Zenith. I’m here today because I needed to talk to Brirsyrun about improving the relationship between our two towns.”

“I see. I shall ask Master Brirsyrun if he’ll see you now, please wait a moment.” She closed the door.

That could have gone a little better, he thought as he released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in. He heard Ferreth trying to stifle a laugh from beside him and promptly wanted to die. Guess he wasn’t the only one she had that effect on, if this has happened before.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Ferreth asked, pretending like he didn’t know the answer.

“Yes, well, I can’t deny that she’s quite beautiful,” he replied, clearing his throat. “Have you tried anything with her?”

“When I first met her, yeah, and she swiftly turned me down.” He clicked his tongue, as if remembering the memory wasn’t pleasant. “Let’s just say she’s not interested in men like us. Or any man, really.”

Before he could say any more, the woman known as Aissyl opened the door and invited them inside. The room he entered seemed to be what he’d liken to a waiting room or lounge. What little of the walls he saw that weren’t decorated in exquisite murals were painted a warm honey color. There were a couple of cushioned chairs sitting by the small window and a low table set in front of them. He didn’t have time to check out much more before Aissyl led them through an arched threshold into another room he presumed to be Bris’ office.

It wasn’t terribly big but it worked fine for its purpose. Unlike the lounge, the walls were a cerulean blue, similar to the sky at dawn before the sunrise. There were tall bookcases standing on one side of the room and a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor on the other. A leather chair sat behind a pine desk atop a nondescript forest green rug. He figured the unusual empty space in front of the desk was for additional chairs if they had guests over. They must not get many of them if they hadn’t gotten a chair specifically for this room. A man was sitting at the desk when he looked up and Eric believed him to be Bris.

The first thing he noticed was the cream-colored scarf worn around his neck, which he found odd since it was late summer. He looked to have a lean yet muscled body and, when he stood up, seemed to be just shy of Aissyl’s height. He had sun-kissed skin, cropped blond hair, and cloudy gray eyes. A smile broke out across his face upon seeing Ferreth and he walked around his desk.

“Hey, I was wondering when I’d see you,” said Bris.

“Well, I was planning on coming by here anyway but my new friend here--” Ferreth wrapped an arm around Eric’s shoulders, making him jump slightly-- “needed help finding you so why not save a trip?”

“Right.” Bris walked up and offered a hand. “I’m Brirsyrun, son of Nulzrot and Tallo of the air.”

That was a…unique way of introducing himself, he thought curiously as he put his hand in Bris’ and said, “I’m Eric Travere, lord of Aurora Zenith.”

“Aissyl said you had some important matters to discuss?”

“Yes, well, I wanted to talk with you regarding the relationship between Thornewind and Aurora Zenith.” He took a step forward, shrugging off Ferreth’s arm. “You see, I’m planning on going to the rest of the major cities and asking them for their cooperation. In simpler terms, I’m in want of allies. I already have the town of Brinegarde as one so Thornewind’s my second stop.”

“I see. Well, I’d like to talk more of this tomorrow morning because I have some things that need attending to today. Will that be all right with you?”

“No, that’s good, that’s great! I’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

Wow, a guaranteed meeting? No waiting for someone because they were fooling around instead of doing work in their office? This trip was already leagues better than Brinegarde’s and it was all due to Bris being a responsible adult. That pompous jackass Lianthorne could take some pointers.

“I think, with that being settled, we’re done here.” Bris gestured towards Ferreth. “Ferr, could you show Eric to the Dravitae Inn so he’ll have a place to stay during his time here?”

“Of course, my lord,” Ferreth replied with a joking smile.

“Don’t call me that, even if it’s a joke,” Bris protested, despite his own grin.

Aissyl led the two men outside with Bris following behind. Eric and Ferreth gave a short wave goodbye and they were off. He made sure to remember any and all distinctive markers on the roads as they walked. He didn’t want to be late for the meeting tomorrow because he was lost again.

“So, how was your first impression of Bris?” Ferreth asked, folding his hands behind his head. “Pretty nice guy, right?”

“Yeah, he seems like a really decent person--” he let out a chuckle before sighing wearily-- “which is a lot more than I can say about Brinegarde’s lord.”

“I’m guessing they weren’t as nice.”

“God, you would not believe. They’re probably the most arrogant and pretentious asshole I’ve ever met.”

“At least Bris isn’t like that, thankfully.”

“Yeah, thank god.”

Despite his complaining of it, he didn’t regret his trip to Brinegarde. It was a beautiful town, like many other coastal towns, and the sweets were to die for. Meeting and becoming friends with Ven, however, was easily the best part of that trip. No beauty or tasty treats will come close to the joy having her in his life brought. She was Brinegarde’s saving grace.

“You know, I’m curious…” He put a finger to his chin as if thinking about something before continuing. “What do you do around here, Ferreth? It must be a job that gives you a lot of free time if you’re allowed to cart me around all day.”

“Oh, I guess I’m what you’d call a handyman,” Ferreth replied. “I do general repairs wherever they’re needed and I basically do work people don’t wanna do themselves.”

“So it’s like you’re an errand boy, then?”

“I’d say handyman’s an upgrade from that but yeah. It may not be the most ideal job but it lets me help people and it doesn’t pay so bad, either.”

“No offense and all but…isn’t there something you’d rather be doing than being a handyman? I mean, I guess I don’t really understand it but still… Do you have something to aspire to?”

He swore he saw him tense up and a glimmer of something he couldn’t quite detect before it disappeared as he answered with, “Not really.”

That was most definitely a lie. He couldn’t figure out why Ferreth would lie to him over an innocent question like that but it was none of his business. There might’ve been more going on underneath the surface and they had only just met earlier today. No sane person tells a complete stranger their entire life story hours after meeting them. He was entitled to his secrets, as was he.

It was soon after they arrived at the Dravitae Inn. It was a simple four-story building, with pale green walls, a dark red shingled roof, a pair of large double doors serving as the entrance, and windows on either side that allowed passersby a peek inside the establishment. On the corner was a hanging metal sign that had the name of the inn inscribed on it with a sleeping dragon below. It seemed like a good enough place to stay in during his visit.

“Here we are.” Ferreth turned towards him. “You gonna need help getting to Bris’ tomorrow?”

“No, I should be good. Besides--” he placed a finger to his temple-- “I have a pretty good memory so I think I have the path there memorized.”

“All right, well, good luck tomorrow,” he said, gesturing his hand in a motion reminiscent of a salute. “Enjoy the rest of your stay.”

He began walking back the way they came. Eric watched his figure shrink smaller and smaller before he was out of sight completely. He hoped he’d have a chance to talk with him more throughout his stay here in Thornewind. He had questions he wanted answers to, such as the nature of the people here and what he was like. For now, though, it was time to check in.

A quick chat with the innkeeper later and he had his room. It was slightly smaller than his room back at home but it brought some comfort. A queen-sized bed sat on the right side of the room and an average cupboard opposite it. The armoire was tucked away into the upper left-hand corner while a small table and chairs were in the upper right-hand corner. A single window was set at the back, which gave him a decent view of Thornewind in the late afternoon.

He set his bag and key down on the table before flopping onto the bed. God, he wanted nothing more than to lay there for a minute or hour. He still wasn’t used to walking and talking by himself so he was thankful for the short rest. Hey, maybe by the time he goes to Emberranth, he’ll have the skills of a functioning human being and not that of an introverted shut-in.

He sat up, reached into his pocket, and took out his pendant. The crystal inside the bottle glinted slightly upon being held up to the light. He smiled as he brought it close to his chest, hoping his mother was watching over him.

Tomorrow was his meeting with Bris. Other than that, he had a few days to spend time doing whatever he wanted. Sightseeing, buying souvenirs, trying out Thornewind’s cuisine, he may as well treat himself as a tourist more than a visitor. He never got to do these things before now so he wanted to make the most of it.

May he leave Thornewind with an unforgettable experience.

#airi's writing #oc; Eric #oc; Ferreth #oc; Aissyl #oc; Brirsyrun #Corona's Shadow

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perfectirishgifts · 4 years ago

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The 13 Best Korean Dramas Of 2020

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/the-13-best-korean-dramas-of-2020/

The 13 Best Korean Dramas Of 2020

Bae Suzy and Nam Joo-hyuk partner up in ‘Start-Up.’

Although 2020 will make the history books for all the wrong reasons, it was a great year for Korean dramas. With a slew of big budget hits and small quirky stories, k-dramas offered plenty of innovative entertainment to help viewers happily pass pandemic time.

Every drama viewer may have a different list of favorites, but here are a few 2020 dramas that stood out in terms of originality, subject matter and execution.

Park Seo-joon created one of the year’s most memorable k-drama characters in ‘Itaewon Class.’

Itaewon Class

The year started off with the quirky hit Itaewon Class, in which Park Seo-joon’s character overcomes so many odds that he naturally sympathizes with those who society may shun. When opening a cafe he hires employees that others might not and those choices contribute to his success. Park’s generous character is one of the year’s most likable and the drama also features top-notch performances by Kim Da-mi, Kwon Nara, Yoo Jae-Myung and Ahn Bo-hyun.

Why see it? If you’ve never been to Seoul’s international neighborhood of Itaewon, this drama takes you there. The drama provides plenty of feel-good moments and a great soundtrack, including a contribution by BTS member V.

Kim Hee-ae and Park Hae-joon star in ‘The World of The Married.’

World of the Married

Although this drama has not yet made it to all international audiences, it was a huge hit in Korea, enjoying both critical success and nationwide ratings of 28.37%. World of the Married, an adaptation of the BBC series Dr. Foster, stars Kim Hae-ae. Kim plays a doctor who thinks her life is perfect until she learns that her husband, played by Park Hae-joon, has been cheating on her. Even worse, all their friends know.

Why see it? Kim won Best Actress at the Baeksang Awards for playing the drama’s protagonist Ji Sun-woo and the drama was a breakout hit for supporting actress Han Seo-hee. There’s also the guilty pleasure of watching a woman scorned exact revenge on those who betrayed her.

The legal drama ‘Hyena’ starred Kim Hye-soo and Ju Ji-hoon.

Hyena

The drama’s leading characters, played by Kim Hye-soo and Ju Ji-hoon, each have their own approach to practicing law. She’s a scrappy small-time lawyer with questionable ethics and he’s a self-satisfied high-profile lawyer at a top firm. Despite their differences—and getting off to a bad start when she scams him—they turn out to be good for each other.

Why see it? Ju delivers a pitch-perfect performance, with his every twitch and grimace creating an unforgettable character. Ju and Kim have undeniable chemistry that sizzles through episodes of fast-paced high-stakes legal entanglements.

Bae Doona played a zombie-fighting nurse in the second season of ‘Kingom.’

Kingdom 2

The second season of this historical zombie drama was even better than the first. Kingdom 2 also stars Ju Ji-hoon as the prince trying to save his country from a zombie invasion as well as inner court corruption. What makes the second season better than the first is a larger role for actress Bae Doona, whose character takes time out from nursing the sick to battle the undead.

Why see it: It’s a zombie story with a historical and moral twist.

Start Up

Nam Joo-Hyuk and Bae Suzy star in this story of a small tech start-up that gets a chance to compete on a bigger stage. When Bae’s character Seo Dal-mi was young she received encouraging letters from a man named Nam Do-san, but the letters were really written by Kim Seon-ho’s character Han Ji-pyeong. When a grown-up Dal-mi decides to find the real Do-san, played by Nam, Ji-pyeong asks Do-san to pretend he really wrote the letters. Do-san and Dal-mi are perfect for each other but their budding relationship is based on a lie.

Why see it? The story of how the start-up gets started is interesting. Each of the actors—from the leads to the supporting cast— is imperfectly endearing and Kim wins this year’s unofficial prize for being the most appealing second lead.

Lee jun-ki is a potential serial killer married to the detective played by Moon Chae-won in ‘Flower … [] of Evil.’

Flower of Evil

What would you do if you found out you were married to a serial killer? It might be happening to Moon Chae-won’s police detective character in Flower of Evil. Her devoted husband, played by Lee Jun-ki, has a mysterious past that ties him to a serial killer. Did he also commit murders? If he is a serial killer, does his wife love him enough to look past the incriminating clues?

Why see it? Although some of the drama’s plot occasionally veers into the illogical, the relationship between the leads is so charismatic that the drama acquired a loyal and enthusiastic following. The mystery is sufficiently complex and Lee’s tortured performance as the suspected serial killer is mesmerizing.

Park So-dam played Park Bo-gum’s makeup artist in ‘Record of Youth.’

Record of Youth

Record of Youth features ambitious likable protagonists trying to find their place in a highly competitive world. Park Bo-gum plays a model so charming it’s hard to imagine why he’s not already a success at the story’s start. Park So-dam plays a talented make-up artist with dreams. She’s also a devoted fan of his modeling career.

Why see it? Park Bo-gum’s character is as bright as a shiny penny, ever optimistic and upbeat, despite not having much support for his dreams. Watching Park So-dam act is always a pleasure and the real star of the drama might be Han Jin-hee, who plays Park Bo-gum’s supportive grandfather.

Seo Ye-ji aggressively pursues Kim Soo-hyun in ‘It’s Okay Not To Be Okay.’

It’s Okay Not To Be Okay

Easily the most visually appealing drama of 2020, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay stars two of k-drama’s most photogenic actors Seo Ye-ji and Kim Soo-hyun as a twisted children’s book author and the psychiatric nurse she needs to calm her nightmares. Not only are the actors beautiful, but the drama’s graphics, cinematography and costumes are also gorgeous.

Why see it? The drama explores the topics of autism and the mental scars created by early trauma. Oh Jung-se’s performance as Kim’s autistic brother was one of the best of the year.

‘The Good Detective’ is a fast-paced crime thriller starring Son Hyun-joo and Jang Seung-jo.

The Good Detective

The Good Detective delivers a Scandi-noir vibe with its insightful character development plus some over-the-top, superhero police action scenes. The drama stars Son Hyun-joo, who might have the most expressive face of any k-drama actor, and Jang Seung-jo as a detective whose super-power is having a fortune.

Why see it? The Good Detective is an involving police procedural with top-rate performances. Oh Jung-se plays a hard-hearted villain, a dramatically different role than his vulnerable character in It’s Okay Not To Be Okay.

Nana plays a woman who pursues politics for a paycheck despite Park Sung-hoon’s objections.

Into The Ring

The wry comedy stars Nana, formerly a member of k-pop group After School, and Park Sung-hoon, who recently played a convincing but comical killer in Psychopath Diary. Nana plays a plucky unemployed woman who runs for office, motivated largely by the paycheck, but also from a sense of justice. Although Park initially finds her irritating, he eventually helps her fight local corruption.

Why see it? Nana is so charismatic in this role, viewers may want to see everything she’s ever done. She and Park develop a low-key lovable comic rapport that keeps a story about local politics happily enjoyable.

‘My Dangerous Wife’ is a cat-and-mouse mystery within the story of a marriage.

My Dangerous Wife

In this dark comedy Choi Won-young plays a chef who plans to murder his wealthy wife, so he can inherit her money, but when he arrives home with a poisoned bottle of wine he finds she has been kidnapped. The note the kidnappers left behind warns him not to contact the police or they will kill his wife. Should he? It sounds like an opportunity.

Why see it: Interesting plot twists and turns make this drama fascinating to the very last episode. The complex storyline involves a mistress, a mysterious old friend, a detective with a suspicious wife, and a set of curious next door neighbors with secrets of their own.

Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin experience an impossible love in ‘Crash Landing On You.’

Crash Landing On You

Crash Landing On You, which first aired in Dec. 2019, successfully introduced a wider international audience to the joys of k-drama viewing. The mega-hit, starring Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin, follows the story of a South Korean heiress who accidentally lands in North Korea and is helped by a North Korean officer at the risk of his own life.

Why see it? Everything about the drama is top-notch—the cinematography, the romantic storyline and the excellent performances from the lead and supporting actors. The drama also offers some interesting insight into North Korean daily life.

Shin Sung-rok stars in the paranormal thriller ‘Kairos.’

Kairos

Kairos is a tense paranormal thriller about karmic debt. In this drama two people who live in different times stumble on a supernatural way to talk and thus untangle their preventable personal tragedies. Shin Sung-rok plays a callous businessman whose daughter is kidnapped. Lee Se-young plays a woman whose mother disappears. Together they must change fate but they can’t connect in their own time. This plot device was used in the film The Call and the k-drama Signal, but it feels fresh in Kairos, given the carefully crafted moments of suspense and some intriguing performances.

Why see it? Both Shin and supporting actor Ahn Bo Hyun do an excellent job of portraying men who question what they once held sacred.

Which dramas made your list?

From Hollywood & Entertainment in Perfectirishgifts

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deadcfnight · 4 years ago

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Did you see that? I could have sworn that I just spotted [ SUMMER BISHIL ] ducking into the shadows. Oh, it was just [ BRIAR PAUZIÉ ]. They’ve always been kind of odd. You know, I’ve heard rumors that they are actually a [ VAMPYRE ] and work as a [ NIGHTCRAWLER and DOCTOR ]. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but I do know that they are PROVOCATIVE & MAGNETIC, which is nice, but they also are INFLAMMATORY & HEDONISTIC when you piss them off.

BIRTH NAME. Fabrizia da Firenze USED NAME/S. Briar Pauzié, Bri AGE. internally: 625 — visually: 30s GENDER. Female, she/her SPECIES. Vampyre SEXUALITY. Anything’s worth trying once RELIGION. Atheist BIRTHPLACE. Florence, Italy HEIGHT. 5'5" PHYSIQUE. Slender but well toned, endowed with strength and grace LANGUAGE(S). Italian, Latin, English, Russian, French, German. CURRENT OCCUPATION. Doctor (& Clan’s Nightcrawler) MBTI. ESTJ-T / ESTJ-A, “The Executive” ENNEAGRAM. 98% Type 8: “The Challenger” — sees themselves as strong and powerful and seeks to stand up for what they believe in. 95% Type 6: “The Skeptic” — preoccupied with security, seeking safety, and liking to be prepared for problems JUNG. ESTJ VIRTUES. Quick-witted, provocative, proud, ambitious, cunning, magnetic, eloquent VICES. Inflammatory, hedonistic, cocky, pernicious, mercurial, wrathful, begrudging MORAL ALIGNMENT. Chaotic Neutral, day-to-day. Neutral Evil, under pressure TEMPERAMENT. Choleric

QUICK FACTS & HEADCANONS ❦ Dominates the night shift schedule at the hospital, much to everyone’s awe and relief.

❦ After participating in various Renaissance celebrations, throwing herself into international city nightlife, and an extensive 1920s partying stint, she doesn’t find any appeal in introducing foreign upper and downer substances into her system. Drinking is not a comfort habit she ever developed, having died before she was able to develop a fondness or crutch on such things.

❦ Similarly, she doesn’t find much enjoyment in music. Classical, she associates with her horrendous excuse of an uncle. Pop and bass heavy numbers are too stimulating. Atmospheric nature sounds or the hum of overlapping conversations soothes her best. The only genre exception, if one could call it that, would be bard compositions or medieval instrumentals, since she has positive memories of her time in England.

❦ Is indifferent towards the supernatural elements of the world. She tolerates each equally, though is most wary of fire wielding witches and young vampyres. The level of volatility she has encountered with the two manifestations left an unforgettably unfavourable impression upon her memory — she possesses no interest in re-hashing old wounds nor maturely turning the other cheek. In her mind, both are best avoided altogether lest irreversible mistakes be made.

❦ Has a tendency to use very dated phrases or insults that don’t always age well or translate into the zeitgeist’s vernacular.

❦ Irate at all times, simmering beneath the surface, but has grown so adapted to the perpetual persistence of the feeling she appears entirely placid at face value. A few lifetimes of trial and error and discipline has equipped her with the knowledge that it serves no one to betray the tumultuous nature of her inner workings through body language or unnecessarily drawing attention to herself. She’s well-aware nothing about her situation (past and present) can be changed by letting any impulsive immature desires run rampant. Only the sharpness of her tongue provides the occasional preview of her bitter and wrathful edges, to those paying close enough attention, exclusively reserved for the informal company (AKA the presence of any supernatural being).

❦ Whilst entirely professional in her workplace, she has her moments of despair if triggered by a sensitive circumstance. Usually it revolves around encountering children burdened with a terminal illness or catastrophic injury that cannot be helped, despite all modern medicine’s best efforts. When an innocent can’t be saved. Neglectful guardians/foster figures evidently just invested in the money aspect of fostering and not their child’s health are no better. To avoid unpacking her own personal baggage around such issues and the self-reflection required to adequately process her emotions into any other form but frustration, she has falls into an episode of madness. It’s almost as if she reverts to her 14th century deathbed’s self except empowered by mobility, wherein she’s nothing but mercurial, broody, and intolerant until the haze wears off and she resumes her regular routine. Usually she can anticipate the bad news/encounter before the flare begins and she can identity precisely when it is time to carefully isolate and distance herself from others.

❦ Is unaffected by the sight and scent of blood, proudly so. Additionally, she’s quite the purist when it comes to the blood she will consume, preferring to only engage with the healthiest or privileged of sources — usually someone rich, upper class, who can afford to lose a little energy now and then. Outside her practice, when it comes to feeding, alongside an aftercare dose of glamour, she still likes to politely siphon blood with the butterfly needles (a stash kept on her at all times). Doing so leaves minimal trace, rather than causing a puncture with her own teeth — it’s a chosen boundary, believing it separates her from ever stooping to savage animalistic urgency.

FULL BIOGRAPHY

Known by a multitude of names over her 625 years of “life”, once upon a time, Briar was known as Fabrizia. Born in the late 14th century Florence during the Italian renaissance, it was a time eventually celebrated for the many of the scientific, artistic and cultural advancements. However, in its early stages, there were more obstacles than rewards faced by lower class citizens. Both her parents were struggling artists, additionally her father taking on a job as a textile worker after she was born in order to keep their family afloat.

Fabrizia spent most of her childhood years in the shared studio of her parents. She was always naturally curious, growing up to mimicking their artistic gestures on canvas scraps. As stubborn as she was creative, often Fabrizia would stay up late into the night alongside their candlelit figures, awaiting the moment exhaustion finally caused their hands to tremble and officially announce bedtime. She was an adored daughter, inspiring both her mother and father to keep working hard despite the lack of immediate payoff. One day, they hoped to earn enough that slaving away all day would no longer be necessary. In the meantime, idyllic family life was put on hold.

When Fabrizia entered adolescence, she began to show signs of sickness. Modern medicine would have been able to identify it was unnaturally high exposure to the toxic fumes and particles let off by the compounds in her parents’ cheap yet vivid paints - no match against her weak constitution. Soon, her presence became too disruptive in the studio. The volume of her coughs, fidgeting, and whining of feverish discomfort made her a nuisance to paint alongside.

When it was gently yet adamantly advised she spend time outside with the neighbourhood children, Fabrizia threw the first of what would become a chain of tantrums. Her father, more stern and stronger than mother, took matters into his own hands and contacted his brother across the city - Fabrizia’s uncle, Lorenzo - a struggling composer at the time. The task of babysitting her was reluctantly taken on, but due to his craft being less sensitive than the focus of her parents’ skillset (plus the handsome sum put on offer each session despite her family’s poverty) made it an offer hard to refuse.

Lorenzo’s efforts of keeping her hidden inside to avoid local ridicule over her ill state did nothing to assist in the speed at which further symptoms manifested. Her parents knew they couldn’t yet afford to get her the treatment she needed, and neglected to address her increasing list of health problems in the hopes that she would grow out of them. An art sale was just around the corner that promised connections could be made that would be enough to sustain them for many years to come. Assuming she could hold on a little longer, trusting Lorenzo’ abilities as her primary guardian, they turned away from their daughter’s mysterious ailment to focus on their work.

Fabrizia’s teen years only ushered in further health deterioration, until her uncle - highly religious, adhering strictly to the belief that ‘God has a plan for everyone’ - could finally take no more and brought her to a strange decrepit church on the outskirts of town. Deeming her possessed by something unholy, she spent several months under the care of nun-like figures who laced anything that graced her lips with pernicious doses of arsenic; every ounce of water, broth, and handmade medicinal syrups.

Fabrizia returned home sicker, but in too frail a state to do much of anything. Bittersweetly, in the time she was absent, her parents had indeed successfully earned enough money to be able to further address her needs and swiftly admitted her to a hospital. They didn’t know it would be the last time they would see any real life in their daughter’s eyes. Words like “lunacy” and “hysteria” haunted the air around Fabrizia as much as the unfamiliar and identical series of masked faces. It was impossible to keep track of the time that passed there. Experiments which led to pain and numbness saturated her days, which turned to weeks, maybe months…

Fabrizia was returned to her family’s home, in an indefinite catatonic state until the one (un)fateful day her uncle paid a visit, bringing with him a “special” priest. She could only follow the mysterious man with her eyes, barely registering it as peculiar when he dipped out of sight by her neck. Her vitals had been checked countlessly over the years. However, it wasn’t the press of fingers that awaited her this time - but fangs.

Fabrizia died in 1425, re-emerging from the earth in a frenzy of confusion, lithe movement, and ability she had not experienced in years. Only the face of the so-called priest remained nearby, explaining to her what had happened and what was expected of her henceforth. The impulse to hurt him felt suddenly stifled by a confounding sense of loyalty. Instead, she channeled her energy into the unfortunate strangers passing nearby. Once her hunger was curbed, a good time later, she demanded to see her uncle - the cause of this shift. Cloaked by a new moon, she located her uncle at his Florence home. At first sight, he called her reanimation miraculous. She called him dead.

For a long while Fabrizia begged to be destroyed by her maker, tried to step into the sun, tried to break any law she knew of - but every time, an inner subconscious and unbreakable instinct to survive forbade her from proceeding beyond an irreversible point. Fabrizia felt only rage and resentment for her fate, her instinct to consume blood not aligned with her disinterest to continue walking upon earth. She developed the habit of starving herself until forced to feed in a blind frenzy - after each encounter, “waking” to behold the damage she had caused and realising she was no better than the selfish and cruel man who had sentenced her to this fate. In an effort to protect hurting any more innocents and curve her bloodlust, she began working at the Ospedale degli Innocenti where she bided her time taking care of abandoned and orphaned children, developing discipline. It was easier to resist and protect weaker bodies - less appealing in their malnourished state. Only their abusers received harm, if she could track them down in the span of a single evening.

Decades of service later, she finally plucked up the courage to seek out her family, only to learn that too long had past - time no longer meant what it used to - and not only had her lower class parents progressed in the world well enough to become aristocrats, but they had died 30 years earlier. Only distant family members remained, none of them recognising her with anything but fear and distrust.

In honour of the discovery, Fabrizia processed her mourning by changing her name to her mother’s - Beatrisia. Soon after, Beatrisia went on to explore the lively culture of England’s Renaissance. There she learned skills of metal smithing, carpentry, and ceramics. She found satisfaction in tasks which were long but with purpose, helping time not feel like the monotonous imprisonment it had become.

From England, she followed word of the witch hunts causing unrest in Sweden and Finland. What began as a morbid curiosity to witness the stupidity of mob mentality humans soon progressed into a deal of sorts. Beatrisia would locate convicted witches in small untraceable towns and ask if she could feed on and turn them, the following night letting them have revenge on those who wrongly outed them. Beatrisia found the bond created in the process of creating a progeny bewildering and nauseating, but - for better and worse - the newborns’ irresponsibility made them easy targets, insatiable desires for blood foolishly leading them away from the safe cover of their small countryside towns to city limits that quickly captured and killed them for good.

The loss of the vivid connection hurt, at first. But Beatrisia learned to dull the sensation, as she did with most feelings. Through the maker-fledgling connection, Beatrisia had a taste of the agony that occurred and refused to subject herself to the seemingly easy escape route. After enduring the pain of her human life, she would never again suffer in order to die - it would be on her own terms, and it would be done well.

The agreement to turn supposed criminals into vampyres served both Beatrisia’s disdain for witch-hunting and allowed enigmatic human women, wrongly deemed witches, to get revenge. However, upon one significant instance, there was no error in the town’s uproar. An authentic witch named Sigrid was on the verge of having her freedom literally burned at the stake. Sigrid ruled over the fire element; a wild and beautiful woman that clearly needed no saviour. Yet, Beatrisia was still inclined to give her the same offer - immortality and vampiric ability for the sake of revenge. Sigrid was unlike the others, she was powerful, cunning and accomplished. It was as if she’d seen Beatrisia coming. Sigrid introduced a new deal; what if she henceforth travelled with Beatrisia as her self-nominated blood bag, making herself useful. In exchange, she would help Beatrisia find legitimate witches, and truly free them.

Over time, the lines of their arrangement blurred - first through infatuation, then love. Beatrisia eventually refused to feed on Sigrid any longer, desiring a different sort of intimacy. The two swiftly became lovers, intertwined and unstoppable for several years until the bond was abruptly severed after an explosive argument when Sigrid’s freedom plans included mercilessly killing village children descendant from hunters and Beatrisia’s death wish were brought to light. Irreconcilable differences which saw Sigrid erupting into infuriated flames which Beatrisia could not halt, nor desired to prevent. Her first experience with romantic love was one furiously stripped away from her, watched turn from flesh and bone to ash. But Beatrisia learned to dull what being heartbroken felt like, as she did with all other feelings. Loneliness always suited her best.

Seeking distance from any companionship for the forceable future, Beatrisia changed her name to Katya and retreated to less hospitable conditions - Russia. Eventually she met a shy diamond jeweller named Jeremie; an expert at working with jewels, but unfamiliar to noble metals. He hired Katya as one of his subcontractors to metal work, during which time she learned how to work with and identify authentic versus counterfeit jewels. It grew to be a highly esteemed position, with commissions sought out from Russian Imperial court's jeweler. After Jeremie’s death, his old age not dawning on Katya until it was too late, the chief court jeweller’s disdain for having to collaborate roared its ugly head and cast Katya out to find work elsewhere.

Katya changed her name to Briar, letting the old version of her die alongside her cherished mentor. She stayed in St. Petersburg long enough to idly apprentice under a goldsmith within a jewellery store in a basement shop. There, she caught wind of the Russian nobility's Francophilia, associating France with luxury goods.

Always on the brink of an identity crisis, Katya used status elevation as an excuse to visit Paris to get an ear for the dialect amidst earning better wages. This pursuit of knowledge developed into making a hobby of further travelling and studying the languages of neighbouring European countries. She had all the time in the world.

With the rise of 1900s political issues, Briar hid in Swiss mountains for the illusion of peace. Getting involved with humans’ affairs had burned her before, after all. However, whilst keeping a low profile there she encountered a nomadic group of local vampires, hungrily anticipating a bloody aftermath would solve the world tensions. Much to Briar’s charging, it re-ignited her stubborn urge to protect the innocent or injured inhabitants of the world around her. Already believing her tolerance well-formed and stable, to truly test her limits, she signed up to be trained as a nurse. It was a vocation which led to a placement at the frontlines of WW1, no amount of infection or blood causing her to tremble. It gave her purpose, value, and - most importantly - distraction. Thus, after the war’s conclusion, she pursued becoming certified as a doctor.

Briar flew to America in the 1920s, indulgently partying and pleasure seeking like there was no tomorrow wherever she could as she bounced between borders until WW2 occurred and she leant her services once more. Keeping her senses immersed in the cacophony of iron and injury kept her focus off of the magnetic tug of The Yearning, until war passed and yearning was all she had left to listen to. She tried to ignore the feeling, fiercely independent before it occurred to her that the very place she was resisting may hold the pivotal answer she desperately sought - what if she could harness the power that seemingly teemed there and finally find a way to destroy herself, once and for all? Stranger things had happened in her “life”, after all.

Briar made her grand entry upon the territory of Roldche River in the 1980s, remaining untethered and impartially observant for a while before assimilating the the society developed there, earning a job with her medical credentials. The simultaneous task of protecting the region by dark proved useful in keeping aware of the activity that teemed amongst the town - no new face slipped past her. For each new arrival, she secretly wondered if they would be the one to help her sever her so far unshakable tie to earth.

#about.#some ✨bonus facts ✨for the helluvit.

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daggerzine · 5 years ago

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Ray Farrell on music and his time at SST, Blast First, Geffen and many more.

Ray Farrell has had a lifetime surrounded by music. First as a fan as a young kid and then eventually working for a series of record labels. He’s obviously a fan first and foremost as you can tell by reading below. It also seemed like he was there at the beginning of some major music scenes happening.

I had met Ray very briefly at one of the A.C. Elks hardcore shows that Ralph Jones put on in Atlantic City in the Summer of 1985 though Ray doesn’t remember it (honestly, a bunch of us were standing in a circle and chatting so I’m not even sure if any proper introductions were done).

Anyway, knowing some of the record labels that Ray had worked for I wanted to hear the whole story. I contacted him and shot him some questions and he was more than happy to elaborate and let us know where he’s been and where he’s going. Take it away, Ray!

Where did you grow up?

RF-Jersey City and Parsippany, New Jersey in the 60/70’s. I have two younger brothers.

What did you listen to first…classic rock or stuff earlier than that?

RF-Rock wasn’t classic yet. My earliest memories of music are my parents’ modest collection of 45’s and grandparents’ 78’s. My mom had a handful of singles on Chess and Satellite (pre-Stax) that she said fell off a truck. We rented our house from a family connected to the mob. The records probably came from them. My mom and her sisters often sang Tin Pan Alley era songs at family gatherings. Harmony was encouraged!

Some records I heard as a toddler stayed with me forever. Lonnie Donegan’s “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor?” is a skiffle classic. Chuck Berry’s “Guitar Boogie” and “Last Night” by the Mar- Keys are still favorites. I remember being spooked by the overblown production of the “Johnny Cash Sings Hank Williams” e.p. on Sun Records. In the mid 60’s, my mom had top 40 radio on in the house unless my dad was home. When I was in kindergarten, a high school neighbor in our building babysat me for a couple hours after school a few days a week. Her girlfriends came over regularly. They listened to a lot of doo-wop, which I still love today. The babysitter and her friends taught me how to slow dance, even though I wasn’t nearly a full grown boy. J

My best friend in 7th grade was a Beatles fanatic and we immersed ourselves in decoding clues to the “Paul McCartney Is Dead” gimmick. That was a brilliant scam and a fun short term hobby. It was a deep dive into The Beatles music as a junior music detective. By the time I started buying records, The Beatles were on their way out.

I happily lived for many months on only three albums-

CCR’s “Bayou Country”, Iron Butterfly’s “In A Gadda Da Vida” and the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper.” I joined the Columbia Record Club. I got the first twelve albums for one buck. That was a popular scam. Those first twelve records shaped my taste because they were the only records I had. I didn’t know what to order but I chose very well in retrospect. After that, I bought a lot of records. I didn’t smoke, but many of my friends did. A carton of cigs cost the same as an lp- 5 bucks.

I learned in 7th grade that if I knew the songs that girls liked, we would have something to talk about. Girls loved Tommy James and The Shondells and The Rascals. I still do! I had a wider range in music taste than most of my high school friends. Everyone in my extended circle loved the Stones, Neil Young and the Allman Brothers. In a tighter circle we were into David Bowie, Lou Reed, Sparks, Todd Rundgren etc. I loved Mountain, Led Zep, Hendrix, Budgie, The Kinks, Alice Cooper, Sabbath. At first, The Stooges seemed too deep and serious for me. A little scary because I thought if teenagers felt like this all over the world, I’m doomed. I bought the album with “Loose” and played that song for weeks before listening to the rest of it. The girl next door had Iggy’ s “Raw Power” album the week it was released. When glam rock was happening in England, there was a weekly NYC radio show that played the Melody Maker Top 30 singles. I was fascinated by T.Rex, Slade, Hawkwind. I don’t recall if prog rock was a tag yet, I knew that I didn’t like songs that rambled on for more than 7 minutes. There were exceptions of course- some King Crimson, Yes, Mahavishnu. I was impressionable. Radio station WBAI hosted “Free Music Store” concerts with local acts. One show was a keyboard group called Mother Mallard that had banks of synthesizers on stage. They were similar to the music of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, who you would only hear on that same radio station. I talked myself into buying their records, but it took years to comprehend them. I was too young to be listening to such serious stuff. I played soccer and ran track for a couple years. During meets at other schools, I made friends. At parties I heard Issac Hayes, Bohannon and James Brown records. Brown was all over top 40 radio. Rhythm guitar was my jam! Soul and funk records were best for that. I spent many nights listening to AM radio. The signal travels farther at night, so I’d listen to stations far away. It didn’t matter what kind of music it was. Some of my relatives had short wave radios. I was more interested in radio production than short wave content. The production quality has not changed much since then. It often sounds like broadcasts trapped in the ether for the last 30 years.

While I was in high school, it was common for local colleges to host rock and jazz concerts for low prices, sometimes free. The schools had to spend the money sitting in the student union coffers. There was a live music club in my town called Joint In The Woods. The venue began as a banquet hall that doubled as a meeting hall for Boy Scout Jamborees and the like. When it became the Joint, it was a disco. The first night of live music was a show with Iggy & The Stooges. The regular disco patrons were pissed! The guys were mostly goombah’s in Quiana print shirts and bell bottoms. Three or four guys smacked Iggy around after his set. Sure enough, he played Max’s Kansas City the next night as if nothing happened. Because of this club, touring bands were suddenly playing in my town. Badfinger, Roy Wood’s Wizzard, Muddy Waters. The NY Dolls were scheduled but didn’t show up. Springsteen was often an opening act. The N.J. legal drinking age had just lowered to 18. It was a great time. I was still in school, so I wasn’t staying out on weeknights.

I was determined to learn NYC music history by hitting all the Greenwich Village clubs and talking to the owners and bartenders. It didn’t matter what kind of music they specialized in- I was into the vibe. There were occasional scary nights parking near CB’s or jazz spots in that neighborhood. Folk music was on FM radio at the time. A high school friend booked a local coffee house called Tea & Cheese. Mostly locals and ambitious tri-state artists. Martin Mull, Aztec Two Step, Garland Jeffries. Some of Lou Reed’s touring band, The Tots, played there. I went to all kinds of record stores, mainly those that sold rock imports and cutouts. I was fascinated by the street level buzz of a record. In ’74, I heard dub reggae for the first time. The only stores to get that music were in Queens because there was a strong West Indian community there. It may have been the “Harder They Come” soundtrack that got me started. There was a “pay to play” radio station in Newark - WHBI. DJ’s had to buy their airtime. Arnold “Trinidad” Henry had a weekly show playing new calypso and reggae. He was more into calypso than reggae. A lot of calypso was political and comical. Arnold was fascinating! There was often a personal crisis he’d talk about on the air. My favorite incident was when he said that his life had been threatened during the program, so he locked himself in the studio.. Someone called the cops. They convinced him to unlock the door. He just wanted more airtime. Arnold played the first reggae dub track I’d heard- full dub albums were a new concept at the time. Most dub was found on the flipsides of reggae 45’s. One of the shows sponsors was Chin Randy’s Records in Queens. I trekked out there by train to buy my first dub records. That was a trip! Randy Chin’s family went on to start VP Records.

What was the first alternative/independent music you got into? How did it happen (friends? older siblings?)

RF-The term “punk” as a music style hadn’t been coined yet. I vaguely recall equating “punk” with the great “Nuggets” compilation or something Greg Shaw might have writ in Bomp Magzine. I didn’t identify labels as independent. I knew that if the label design was simple and the address was listed, it was probably a small company. There were plenty of record stores carrying obscure stuff. I bought import records from a few NYC stores. I took the bus in until I was old enough to drive. One store Pantasia, was up in The Bronx. I went there one Christmas eve day to get the import of the second Sadistic Mika Band album. The clerk talked me into buying the harder to find first album as well. He said it sounded like Shel Talmy produced it. I knew who that was and it was a revelation to talk to somebody in a record store at that level. That is what a record store should be! I read Phonograph Record magazine, Bomp and Trouser Press regularly. Patti Smith and Television self released their debut singles- those are the first “indie” records I bought, followed by the first two Pere Ubu singles. I remember hearing the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” from the Bezerkley Chartbusters comp on WFMU and thinking that there must be more music like that. It was refreshing.

Seeing Patti Smith and Television perform at CBGB’s changed my life. I connected the dots. I had BÖC albums on which Patti had co-writes. She had a poem insert in Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star” album. She read a Morrison poem on a Ray Manzarek lp. She wrote for rock music mags with distinctive style. I read a brief story about her in the Voice and went to see her do her annual Rock N’ Rimbaud show. Shortly after that she and Television played CBGB’s for six weekends in early ’75. Both bands were really great. Patti didn’t have a drummer yet. Richard Hell was a big inspiration to me. He looked cool. He played bass like he just picked it up the month before. That was a new concept. Television changed bass players in the middle of the residency. Television was the first band I saw with short hair and they dressed like teenage delinquents circa 1962. The CBGB’s jukebox had a good number of 60’s garage records. In my head I conceived Television to be inspired by that music. Made sense to me- Lenny Kaye, who assembled the “Nuggets” comp, is in the PSG. When I went back to see Television headline, The Ramones opened. Seeing The Ramones again, Talking Heads opened. It seemed like the streak of seeing great new bands would not end. They were distinctly NYC sounds. They could not have merged anywhere else. I remember avoiding the band Suicide because I didn’t think the music could be good J. Bands like Tuff Darts, Mumps and The Marbles opened shows but I wasn’t thrilled by them. A CBGB’s band that doesn’t get mentioned much is Mink DeVille. They wore matching outfits like they were playing a low budget Miami dive in 1962J. The club still had the small corner stage. The p.a. was ok and the bands had small amps. The music wasn’t loud in a “rock” way. You could sit at a table right in front of the band. Although we consider the club a birthplace of punk, the club showcased local bands that had been around for a while. I think the club upgraded the p.a. once before building the big stage. I realized at that point that when a band was great or at least interesting live, the records were basic documents of the band’s sound.

What was your first job in the music scene/industry?

RF- Before realizing I wanted to be in the business, I hounded import mail order guys on the phone about non-lp b-sides and albums that weren’t released stateside. I was fascinated by the process. Why were some records not in stores even though they had local airplay? My dad did not listen to much music, but he had an army buddy that made a living in Al Hirt’s band. He came to our house once. He gave my dad a copy of John Fahey’s “After The Ball” album, which he played on. I liked his stories about the session man side of the business. Fahey treated him well. I was generally shy, but when it came to music I would approach anyone I thought I could learn from. I heard horror stories about the music biz in NYC but learned later that those were a mob related labels. At the time, I thought the entire NYC music biz might be that way. I planned to move to California anyway. In high school, I go-fer’d at local Jersey radio stations and talked my way into meeting a few top FM radio dj’s. I thought I wanted to be a professional dj, but my dad wisely talked me out of that. The itinerant radio jock life would not be for me. It was a racket.

In ’76, I took a long low budget cross country trip with my high school sweetheart. Along the way, I stayed in Memphis for three weeks with a cousin who was stationed at the Millington naval base. Got a job at a hip movie theatre that served liquor. I found Alex Chilton in the phone book and spent an afternoon talking with him. I wasn’t yet legal drinking age in Tennessee. It amused him that a fan showed up in his town who was not old enough to drink. En route to Cali, Tulsa, OK was on my route to find Shelter Records and studio , but it shut down and the label moved to L.A. At the time, Dwight Twilley’s “I’m On Fire” was a radio hit. I didn’t think there were still bands like that. Twilley was from Tulsa, but had moved to L.A. by that time.

When I arrived in L.A. I visited small label record company offices. A few offered me jobs or references. I spent two weeks crashing at the Malibu house of a distant family friend. I didn’t want to live in L.A. but I was encouraged by the opportunities. I got a job at the famous record store- Rather Ripped in Berkeley, CA.

Patti Smith told me about Rather Ripped before I left Jersey. In ’75, she and her band went to California for shows in L.A. and Berkeley. The northern Cali shows were set up by the store. She did a poetry reading there. This is well before “Horses” was released. I bought a couple records from the store’s Dedicated Fool mail order service. They had a monthly catalog on newsprint. Thousands of records in tiny font. Every record was described with a few words. This is 1976 and punk rock was just getting started. I worked as a prep cook in a charcuterie associated with Alice Waters’ famous restaurant Chez Panisse. The proprietor knew the record store owners. I wasn’t actively looking to work there, but I talked about music all day every day. They fast tracked me for an interview. Because of a scheduling mistake, Tom Petty interviewed me for the job. His first album just came out and “American Girl” was close to being a hit single. The band came to the store before a local show. Tom overheard the owner apologizing for not being able to do the interview, so he offered to conduct it. It was great. I knew all about his label, Shelter Records. I deliberately avoided talking about The Ramones and Patti Smith because punk was new and against the grain. At the end of the interview Tom told the owners that if he lived in Berkeley, he’d buy all his records from me. The store owner still had to interview me formally the next day, but I knew that I nailed it.

It was owned by two dynamic gents that were connected to Berkeley society and Bay Area journalists. They weren’t typical record store guys. They celebrated the 70’s in the moment. They held court with well known music scribes, musicians, dj’s. They were good friends of The Residents. Perhaps my strangest story is meeting The Residents with the Rather Ripped owners at a S.F. Irish bar that specialized in Irish Coffee’s. I had only recently heard of the group, so I was not cognizant of their marketing myth. At the bar, we were with our girlfriends and wives. One of the Residents tried to convince me and my gf to go back their place for a hot tub session. I laughed out loud and said “geez, what a bunch of hippies”! We didn’t go. In retrospect, I should have gone on the condition that they wore eyeball heads in the tub. At that time, The Residents rarely performed live, but they did in 1975 for the store’s birthday party. The early Bezerkley Records (Jonathan Richman, Greg Kihn) was distributed to stores through Rather Ripped. Their office was a few blocks away. At the store, each employee had unique music taste and expertise. Pop music was changing rapidly with a new energy. Some of us were tapped into it. We all had to know the key new releases in every genre because we were tastemakers. Major labels would beg us to do window displays for new releases. But if they could not find a store employee that liked that artist, it was no go. So, no Pablo Cruise window display. We weren’t against major labels, but we put a lot of energy into selling the ton of music that we loved. Our focus was on imports, indies, promos and cut outs where we could get a good price mark up. We had a rare record search service with customers all over the world. We’d find rare records through trade-ins and by combing record stores all over the state.

There were a few import distributors, but they weren’t hip to many small run U.S. independent releases. That was understandable because bands didn’t often press enough records for a distributor to get excited about. In other words, why spend half your day hunting down records that were only pressed in small quantities. Just as they start selling, you’re out of stock. There gonna sell a hell of a lot more Scorpions’ picture discs! As always, some distributors financed exclusive re-pressings of records that had momentum. The only way to get records like Roky Erikson’s “Two Headed Dog” single or The Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down” 45 was directly through mail order. I wrote to label addresses listed in Trouser Press and fanzines to buy direct in order to sell them in the store with no competition. Major label sales reps didn’t prioritize us because we didn’t shift bulk units of the hits. However, we were so plugged in to the lesser known artists that we were a good place for record companies to try and start a buzz. We could swell 50-100 of a record that all the other stores sold a handful of. Bands showed up at the store while touring. Springsteen bought Dylan bootlegs from us by mail order. Patti Smith’s manager Jane Friedman used the store as a home base when Patti and John Cale came through the area.

Berkeley is in the East Bay of the S.F. bay area. A few months after starting at Rather Ripped, I realized that the city had a rich music scene well before punk /new wave started. There was Fantasy Records, a well known jazz r&b label but best known for CCR; Arhoolie, Solid Smoke, Metalanguage; the contemp classical labels- Lovely Music and 1750 Arch; folk and blues labels like Takoma and Olivia. Of course, bands like Chrome and others started labels to release their own music. Ralph Records was started by The Residents, and they began signing bands. Rather Ripped was also a center for improv, electronic and meditation records.

In ’77 or ’78 I joined the nascent Maximum Rock N Roll radio team. This was well before the magazine. In the early days there were weeks when we didn’t have enough new punk records to fill the two hour weekly show. Tim Yohannon was all about energetic, real rock n roll, so he filled in the program with records by Gene Vincent, The Sonics etc. BTW, Tim applied green masking tape to the three closed sides of every record he had. He gave me a Mekons double single he decided he didn’t like. It was in a gatefold sleeve that he sealed shut with his green tape! Sometimes he re-designed the cover art…never for the better. He made his own pic sleeves for 45’s that didn’t have them. Bands would stare at their own records in bewilderment. Tim was archiving the records of the entire punk and hardcore movement worldwide.

Eventually, Tim brought in Ruth Schwartz, and Jeff Bale as co-hosts- both great people. Jello Biafra was a frequent guest. Tim assembled the “Not So Quiet On The Western Front” lp and later organized syndication for the radio show. I remember hearing the first Disorder ep and thinking -this is the future! J It was exciting. But soon, most hardcore records sounded alike to me. It was like- “Do you want more fries with your fries?” I went to plenty of live shows without knowing a lot about the bands playing them. I was happy when the fashion trended away from jackboots to sneakers…getting a boot kick to the head in a stage dive could be brutal. I didn’t see a lot of skinhead violence at shows, but I know it was changing the scene.

San Francisco and Berkeley were important music centers, activist meccas as well as creative artistic and intellectual hubs. Yohannon had history as an activist. He identified with public protests for causes & social issues. For many teenagers, punk rock was a rite of passage. I think it changed a lot of kids’ lives for the better. The overriding message was to be civically aware of what is going on around you and what affects your life.

Tell me about your time at Arhoolie Records. Where was it located?

Rather Ripped’s owners had a falling out and the remaining owner just wanted to sell records and antiques with his wife. He moved it to a nearby city. Just before the store closed, he told me of an open position at Back Room Distribution, a division of Arhoolie. It was in El Cerrito, a small town north of Berkeley. Chris Strachwitz, the owner of Arhoolie is a legendary record man. He recorded many of his early blues albums with a tape recorder in his car. He owned the legendary Down Home Music store in the same building. Separated by partition behind the store was Back Room. It was an indie label distributor for blues, folk roots music. Rounder Records was still a new label at the time. I gotta admit, when Rounder issued The Shaggs “Philosophy Of The World’ I was in seventh heaven. I worked primarily for the distributor, grooming to be a sales rep but I spent a lot of time in the store. At first, I didn’t yet relate to blues and country music. But there were a lot of touring artists in those styles making a living. It was a strong network of clubs, fans, radio shows and press that fueled it. The store had an incredible selection of obscure 50’s/60’s rockabilly and garage band comps. The Cramps were my favorite band at the time. The rockabilly comps mostly on a the Dutch White Label, were treasure troves of insane songs. My heart was in new music- whatever you wanna call it, punk, new wave, art music. That’s the business I wanted to be in. I used my time to learn more about distribution operations. The people that worked at Arhoolie and in its community were fun music heads. There were a lot of good musicians among them. It was a great time to live in Berkeley.

What was next, Rough Trade and CD Presents? Was that in San Francisco? I went to that Rough Trade store a few times and it was an amazing store.

I knew folks from Rough Trade UK because I bought imports from them to sell @ Rather Ripped. When they wanted to open in the U.S. they contacted me, but at the time the wage was low and there wasn’t enough space to work. I was interested in working in the distribution division, not the store. They speiled something about it being a socialist business. I stayed at Arhoolie for a little while longer. In the meantime, I was offered my own weekly late night radio show on Pacifica’s KPFA in Berkeley- same station as Maximum Rock N’Roll. I took over a show called “Night Sky”, an ambient music program. My interim program title was “No More Mr. Night Sky” until I settled on “Assassinatin’ Rhythm”. The station’s music director was a contemporary classical composer closely associated with avant -garde and 20th century music. A major segment of my show was for industrial, post-punk and undefinable music. I hosted a few live on- air performances with Z’ev, Slovenly and Angst among others. Negativland’s “Over The Edge” program started on KPFA around this time. KPFA was 100,000 watts of power with affiliate stations covering the Central Valley down to Fresno and Bakersfield.

When the time was right, I moved to Rough Trade’s U.S. distribution company in Berkeley. The record store was in San Francisco. We distributed a lot of British records sent by Rough Trade UK, often in small quantities. Rough Trade US was set up to press and distribute select RT and Factory records by Joy Division, ACR, The Fall, Stiff Little Fingers, Crass. It was cheaper and more effective to press in the U.S and Canada. I also distributed some U.S. labels but there was one Brit on the staff that hated most American music. On top of that, it could be a dangerous place to work. One of the staff was importing reggae records and weed from Jamaica to our warehouse. The local connection was shot on his porch shortly after he picked up a shipment! I was lucky to spend a few days travelling with Mark E.Smith of The Fall. He loved obscure rockabilly and garage band records. I was able to return to Memphis for a while to prep the first Panther Burns album for release. Tony Wilson of Factory put up most of the money to keep RTUS going. He was a brilliant character, but I learned from talking with him how not to conduct business. I often got sample records from bands that wanted distribution. Pell Mell’s “Rhyming Guitars” e.p. was the start of my long association with the band. I enjoyed selling records to stores all over the country. I learned about local scenes, records, fanzines, clubs and college radio stations everywhere. Making these sources connect for touring bands and record sales was exciting. Because Rough Trade is British, we had the benefit of connections with club dj’s. We pressed and promoted New Order’s “Blue Monday” single on a shoestring budget. For a long time, it was the best kept secret from the mainstream. I left Rough Trade for Subterranean Records ( Flipper etc) for a spell while working in a record store. The guy that put up the money for the record store ran guns to Cuba through Mexico. Thankfully, not through the actual store. I booked Cali shows for Panther Burns, The Wipers, Sonic Youth, Whitehouse.

Who owned the CD Presents label? I remember that Avengers compilation.

It was owned by a lawyer, David Ferguson. He had a recording studio as well. I didn’t understand why he wanted to run a label. He did not have an ear for music. But we did release a Tales Of Terror lp! He almost released a DOA album that I thought the band would kill him over. Many years later I got into a fist fight with one of David’s employees in a limo ride shared with Ferguson and Lydia Lunch. We fought through the window separating the driver from the passengers. I would love to recreate that for a film. Good times!

My main role there was to set up the first Billy Bragg record in the U.S. Billy’s manager was the legendary Peter Jenner and both were great to work with. They were using CD Presents as a stepping stone to a major label. In the meantime, I knew a few people at SST. Joe Carducci is an old friend. He was pitching me to move to L.A. and work there, but I resisted for a while. I had just met the woman that I knew would be the love of my life. I didn’t want to move to SoCal. Joe gave me an ultimatum. He sent three advance cassettes that convinced me to go- Meat Puppets’ “Up On The Sun”, Minutemen’s “Double Nickels” and Huskers’ “New Day Rising” That’s an excellent recruiting strategy. I later married the love of my life.

On the side I booked shows for bands I loved. Gerard Cosloy asked me to book Sonic Youth first northern Cali shows. I also booked shows for The Wipers and noise band Whitehouse

Was SST Records next? How long did you last there and what was that like?

I was there for three years. “How long did you last there?” sounds like I was biding my time :) I’m often asked about my time with SST.

Carducci hired me to do PR. That meant publicity, college radio, regional press. Video was a valuable promo tool. MTV’s “120 Minutes” program was a great way to promote our records.

In 1987 we put out more records than Warner Brothers. By that time, I hired people to help.

I’ve done a number of interviews about SST. If you have specific questions, shoot. I recall that my social life was almost entirely with my co-workers and bands on the label. I was nearly oblivious to music from other labels. I was a big fan of Dischord and Homestead. Metallica, COC, Voivod and the Birthday Party/Nick Cave were my non-SST staples.

I think around this time I had met you briefly in NJ at one of the Elks Lodge shows that my old friend Ralph Jones put on. Were you living in NJ at that point or just visiting?

You’ve mentioned that before and I don’t recall the specific show. I moved out of NJ permanently in ’76. I came back for annual summer visits to NYC, north Jersey and Philly. Some high school friends went to Upsala College, then the home of WFMU. On my first visit back in ’76 I met Irwin Chusid and R. Stevie Moore. Some high school friends were connected to Feelies before they took that name.

Was Blast First! next? I met Pat Naylor once and hung out with her at a show and she was really sweet.

Yeah around the time I left SST, the folks in Sonic Youth called saying that they had left as well. They wanted me to be involved with Blast First! in the U.S. I knew Paul Smith because he released their albums in the UK. Blast First UK released a number of Touch N Go and SST records. The label was a division of Mute which had a U.S. deal with Enigma. My job was almost entirely “Daydream Nation” promotion. It was so much fun to be able to go deep with one album. We issued Ciccone Youth shortly afterward, which augmented the overall Sonic Youth story. The only other active touring band was Band Of Susans and on a limited level, Lunachicks and Big Stick. It was only one year of work before Enigma cut Mute/Blast First loose. I went on Sonic Youth’s Soviet Union tour and I had a few memorable meetings with Sun Ra. David Bowie called a few times asking about recording studios that Dino Jr and Sonic Youth used. Bowie had a brilliant idea to record Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” with Glenn Branca’s large guitar group. We tried following up on it but Bowie was immersed in Tin Machine and other projects.

Was it on to Geffen then?

Yes, Sonic Youth had good meetings with the label. I had recently met Mark Kates who was championing the signing. He suggested that I come in to meet the entire company. He brought my name up with David who said, “we need someone like that here”.

I had fleeting thoughts that working for a major was “selling out”...punching corporate clock. I wanted to apply what I knew on a larger scale.

What was that like, working for a proper major label? Was David Geffen still involved?

On my second day there, David called me into his office. He is down to earth, street smart. Like many of the best in the biz, he didn’t have an attitude. He had met with the Meat Puppets. He sensed that Dinosaur Jr. was important. I reminded him that I was not hired for a&r.

He said- “I don’t assign job titles. If you find something else you’d like to do here, you can pursue it ‘after 5pm’ ”. I found reissue projects like the Pere Ubu box and Raincoats catalog. I recorded a new Raincoats album. I signed Southern Culture On The Skids, Garrison Starr, Skiploader. I assembled and recorded Rob Zombie’s Halloween Hootenanny comp. With Sonic Youth, I pondered making records with John Fahey and Townes Van Zandt. After ten years, it was time to move on.

Tell us what you do now, didn’t you get involved with digital music at some point?

Geffen Records was folded into Interscope in 1999 and I was bored with the limitations of the business as it was. Digital music was gaining ground solely through illegal file trading on Napster. I knew there would be a major shift in the business moving to digital. I worked for the download site. eMusic.com, signing distribution agreements with labels. This was years before iTunes and YouTube. Major labels would not work with us because mp3 files are open source files that could be traded freely without control. They saw eMusic as a facilitator of illegal file trading. Like marijuana use leading to hard drugs! In the big picture, I knew that digital downloads weren’t “sexy”. But at some point, digital music would develop into something easier to track and use. We skipped the major labels. The bigger independent labels understood that digital music would be the future. It was a great place to be. I knew a lot of music, but I had no idea there were so many labels in every country. One label owner told me that I had the best job in the world. I knew that to explain this new unproven music format it could be an uphill climb. So I took the time to research label websites for song samples. That way I could find common ground with label owners. There’s surf music in Brazil? There’s a young female cellist duo in Prague that make energetic music? There’s archaic royalty rules connected to opera arrangements? Bring it on! It certainly changed how I listen to music.

It was a time when business rules and legal rights had to change in order to deal with digital income disbursement. For example, digital downloads could be sold by the song while royalty payments were based on album sales. eMusic was at the forefront of those changes. When iTunes launched, digital music was “legitimized”. Borne out of eMusic was RoyaltyShare which provides a royalty accounting platform for labels. It is now a division of The Orchard and I divide my time between The Orchard and RoyaltyShare.

Who are some current bands you are into?

A loaded question! I listen to a lot of new music. I spend a lot of time listening to records and cd’s in my collection. Of current artists, I really like Steve Gunn’s music. I listen to the projects involving members of Sonic Youth. Bill Nace, Kim’s partner in Body/Head is a guitar genius. Body/Head’s music is a cathartic experience for me. London is lucky to have Thurston Moore living and working there. I think the music they make separately is far more exciting that what Sonic Youth would’ve made if still together.

Lately I’m digging Melenas from Spain, Hayvenlar Alemi from Turkey. Quin Kirchner is a Chicago based drummer that put out a great jazz record in 2018 called “The Other Side Of Time”. I think he plays on Ryley Walker ‘s records.

Because I’ve spent so much time with the music of Sonic Youth, Branca and Rhys Chatham, I crave the occasional dive into instrumental symphonic guitar army and tonal stuff. Current favorites in that vein are Bosse De Nage, Pelican, Sunn O)))

Given the chance I’ll see any performance by Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Marc Ribot or Mary Lattimore.

It took me years to get it, but I’m now a big fan of Keiji Haino’ music. Dean McPhee is a British guitarist I really like. I just bought a couple of Willie Lane lp’s on Feeding Tube.

I research music history and the development of the industry. There are historical and social components of every type of music by culture, country, time period. I love stories about riots at premieres of new avant garde works. I read a book about famous classical composers in the 18th Century playing home concerts (salons) where people are talking the entire time…but they are paid handsomely for the performance. Streaming music sites and YouTube are vast repositories of music and cultural documentation.

Do you still make it out to many shows?

I go to two/three shows a month when I’m home and more when traveling especially NY/London. I start work early in the morning so I’m not out late often. I understand why people see less live music as they get older. I’m done with music festivals. The Big Ears Festival is the only Stateside event that might inspire me to stand for eight hours.

I always hear music by new artists that I really like. I don’t always go to see the live show. Sometimes I hear a new band that sounds like a band I liked 20 years ago. I wouldn’t deliberately see a band that uses another band’s sound as a template.

What are your top 10 desert island discs?

I cannot do 10. It’s 20 or nothing. If you say sorry Ray, it will be nothing. FineJ If I’m on an island, I’ll listen to the ocean waves and sounds of nature. If I’m relegated to a desert, I’ll listen to the blood coarsing through my veins.

Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue

Television- Marquee Moon

Peter Brotzmann- Machine Gun

Sex Pistols -Never Mind The Bollocks

Rolling Stones- Let It Bleed

Soundtrack – The Harder They Come

Billy Harper – Black Saint

Kleenex/Liliput- First Songs

Patti Smith Group -Easter

Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers- Houserockin’

Led Zeppelin- Houses Of The Holy

Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

Elvis Presley- Sun Sessions

The Cramps- Songs The Lord Taught Us

Pell Mell -Flow

Procol Harum- A Salty Dog

Sibelius- Complete Symphonies

Lou Reed -Coney Island Baby

Meat Puppets- Up On The Sun

The Kinks- Kinks Kronikles

“Hmm....Flow or Star City?”

Any final words? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask.

I’ve been involved off and on with the artist Raymond Pettibon for a music project called Supersession. He has made records under this moniker before. This project began in 1990 and stalled for many years. We revived it a couple years ago. I play bass. Raymond wrote many pages of words and lyrics that he passed to the band, encouraging us to write music behind them. It’s different from Raymond’s other records because it is not improvised. Rick Sepulveda, our guitarist is a great songwriter and he wrote music for Raymond’s words. Rick sings a bunch of the songs because Raymond loves his voice. We did a NYC performance in November that was really fun. So now of course, I’m thinking we should play monthly in L.A. We are nearly finished with the album that we recorded at Casa Hanzo, the San Pedro studio Mike Watt owns with Pete Mazich. Raymond is a brilliant man; fun and inspiring to work with. When I practice with Rick, he’ll often break into a cover song deep in the recess of memory. Like John Cale’s “Hanky Panky Nohow” ,Kevin Ayers’ “Oh Wot A Dream” or the Doors “Wishful Sinful”. We may cover a Harry Toledo song. It’s a blast. I hope to have the album finished in July.

Tav, Bobby, Pell Mell and Ray

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stainandscribble · 6 years ago

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Café au Lait

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader feat. EXO

Genre: Coffee Shop AU, fluff, one shot,

Summary: A tea room in a quiet alley and a coffee shop that changed that.

Baekhyun was one of the baristas in the coffee shop that had opened up right beside your quiet tea room, and he always seemed to get himself in trouble. Whether it was messing up too many orders, or simply having to calm down after a few coffees too many (he always reassured you there was no such thing), he seemed to always find a way to visit you while you worked. The only problem that came with the mischievous man: the swarm of girls that always followed.

A/N: This is the first part of a series of coffee shop AUs I’m currently working on.

Word Count: 4150

A new coffee shop had opened right next to your tea room. It was one of those cosy, beige and brown aesthetic ones. The kind that catered mainly to hipsters, coffee connoisseurs and melodramatic undiscovered writers. And much to your chagrin, the previously peaceful alley that seemed to have never left the times of cobbled streets and gaslight lamps, had suddenly become an Instagram attraction, bring boisterous ruckus with it, slowly killing the vibe of the place, and your sanity. The place would probably not have lasted very long, being placed in such a niche location that it was hard to find, but it did. There were multiple reasons for its survival and success. One of them being the wonderful coffee the place was serving, and the other being the cute baristas that owned the place.

They were nine gorgeous men, serving the best coffee in your little student town. And with the nine handsome men, swarms of girls happened to always be present. You swore that it was like none of them attended lectures at all. Some girls came by every single day, just to stare at whichever barista was working the shift. The swarms of people that came here day in and day out had also greatly benefitted your tea room. When there was no space in the coffee shop, the clients came to you in search of peace and quiet, and something good to drink. It did infuriate you however, that whenever you went in for a coffee (you needed it to function too), girls would sneer and whisper behind your back whenever any of the baristas would greet you directly. It was not your fault that you were next door neighbours, and simply had formed an acquaintanceship. You needed coffee, and they needed to get away from it.

It had just turned one in the afternoon when there was a commotion in your tea room. You looked over to the main sitting area, abandoning the new tea blend you were experimenting with. The girls started waving at the new comer, beckoning him over to their tables. He waved at them, and politely declined, making his way over to the counter you were working at.

You recognised the familiar soft brown eyes, warm and coffee coloured. You also recognised the strong smell of fresh coffee that the man had carried here on his clothes.

“Can I get a sleepy cinnamon blend?” Baekhyun asked, leaning over the counter to look at you in the eyes. A playful smile spread on his full lips, and his eyes were shining with energy.

“Isn’t it a little too early for that Baekhyun?” you asked, looking at his energetic self, feet bounding lightly, even as he did his best to keep still. His slender finders drummed over the wooden countertop.

“I had too much coffee.” Baekhyun smiled, his teeth showing, and his cheeks puffing out. He seemed very happy with the notion. He did love coffee, didn’t he? You laughed with him, earning yourself many glares from the spying girls looking your way.

“I thought you never have too much?” you asked playfully, enjoying the pout he was currently sporting. The boys had told you that one could never have too much coffee. You disagreed. Too much coffee made you fidgety, and it made your hands shake. As a tea maker, you didn’t drink too much of the energising beverage.

“I had eight coffees.” At his casual confession, your eyes widened into saucers. You were sure if you had as much coffee as Baekhyun, you would have gone mad already. He didn’t seem overly affected. In fact, he looked quite pleased with himself.

“The same coffee or different coffees?” You asked. Minseok would sometimes come here to dissipate his caffeine high after experimenting with different coffee roasts, after he had multiple cups of the same roast.

Baekhyun’s hands ceased their incessant drumming on your counter and made their way through his sandy bleached hair.

“I had six espressos and Minseok messed up an affogato and a mocha order.” He scoffed at the mention of his older friend. Minseok was the epitome of a coffee lover. It was unheard of that he would be the one to mess up on his own. He had always treated coffee making like a form of fine art, he was like Da Vinci honing his craft to produce masterpieces.

“Sleepy Cinnamon will not remove the caffeine from your blood.” You retorted, scoffing as he stood pouting like a pleading puppy.

“Please?” he asked, swaying from side to side like a child.

“Just one sleepy cinnamon?” You gave in, smiling lightly at the man, catching his eyes. You felt your heart skip a beat. The little reaction left you shocked, flustered, and you did not know the reason for why his eyes had looked so kind in that moment. For a split second you had seen the deep brown and felt their stare was too heavy.

“Junmyeon wanted to try out this week’s new blend.” He broke you out of your trance, clueless as to the eternity you had just lived out, an eternity that lasted split seconds, but felt like passing eons. You moved to the wooden box labelled rose blend and glanced over your shoulder. Baekhyun was leaning against the counter, nonchalant and beautiful. A small smile played on his lips, and a rosy blush covered his cheeks. You don’t have a doubt that the caffeine caused it, his heart must be pounding right now. Yours would be.

“It’s a rose milk tea I’ve been experimenting with recently.” You threw over your shoulder, and Baekhyun smiled mischievously, teasing your lips to smile with him.

“Is it pink?”

“Do you want it to be?” You asked. The seriousness in your voice contrasted the sparkle in your eyes.

“Really?” He asked playfully, smiling widely at you, and you laughed, shaking your head and pouring the rose syrup into the tea and milk mixture. You made a sleepy cinnamon, breathing in the pleasant smell of vanilla mixing with sweet cinnamon. Baekhyun grabbed the teas from you. His lips began to form words, but they are never voiced.

A crash focused your attention elsewhere, and you turned to the sitting area, only to see one of your tea sets smashed to bits, the tray it rested on flipped upside down on the floor. You would have simply called it an accident, if not for the furious look you were receiving from one of the occupants, nor the smug smiles on her companions faces.

Baekhyun turned to look back at you, only to see the frustration in your eyes, as your hands balled into fists. It was particularly nice tea set, one of the new ones you brought recently, since your business has been doing better. Seeing it smashed to bits on the floor was frustrating. Especially since it was broken out of spite of a few immature girls. They were probably still in high school.

You and Baekhyun walked over to the table, a brush and dustpan in your hands, ready to clean up the mess.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asked the girls, and they nodded, satisfied that your conversation was over, and that his attention in focused on them and not you. “Oh dear.” You muttered, looking at the broken pieces of the tea set. The periwinkle blue china had a pearlescent shine to it and golden finishes. You had just brought it out this week, and two days in it was broken and unusable. Baekhyun crouched down on the floor with you, helping you pick up the larger pieces. He smiled softly when your eyes met. Then the smile was gone, replaced with a grimace, and blood was running down his fingers.

“I’m fine. It’s just a small cut.” He tried to explain himself, attempting to continue picking up the shards. You stopped him.

“Come, I’ll give you a plaster.” He followed you, cradling his injured hand close to his chest. Behind the counter, you pulled out some antiseptic cream and guided his hand to the sink to wash the blood away.

“It’s so cute!” he exclaimed when he saw the plaster you were about to give him. It had a cat pattern on it, since you thought that plain plasters were boring. They simply did not spark joy. And the glee on Baekhyun’s face when you wrapped his fingers with cat plasters, had brought you, and him plenty of it.

“Be careful now.” You told him in mock seriousness, before breaking out with a smile. The teas he had ordered had turned cold, and so you made them again, this time with Baekhyun looking over your shoulder, occasionally glancing at the table of girls, now madder than before.

“Bye Y/N.” He said once you handed him his order. You waved him goodbye, watching as the door closed behind his lean frame. Without missing a beat, the girls had left too. Closing your eyes, you slumped against the counter, and gave yourself a moment of necessary peace.

Later that day, barely able to stand on your feet, you made your way next door in desperate need of caffeine. Today had been a busy day for you. A book club made up of about twelve old ladies had come in around noon and had been sitting in the tea room for about three hours now, discussing some memoir, and repurchasing the same blends of ear grey and English breakfast, and on top of it all, they had eaten today’s batch of scones and were half way through the Victoria sponge. Baekhyun was standing behind the counter, filling the coffee press with more beans, his back turned to you. He had changed into a pristine white button up with a black apron tied around his waist.

“Baekhyun!” You called out happily, watching with satisfaction as he returned your smile.

“Oh, Y/N!” He matched your enthusiasm, leaning playfully over the counter.

“What can I get for you today ma’am?”

“Hm… A café au lait would be great right about now.” You told him, feeling the weariness in your bones. Your legs were stiff, and you wished for nothing more than to sit down and drink some hot coffee.

“One café au lait coming right up.” He told you before returning to work, a playful smile still plastered over his face, bring enough to light up the room. You glanced around the coffee shop, noting in disappointment that all the tables were taken. You would have to go and sit in your tea room. Maybe you could get away from the customers if you sat in the kitchen behind the open area. You turned back around, jumping a bit when you realised another barista was peering at you with curiosity.

“Hey Junmyeon!” You exclaimed, trying to calm your wild heartbeat. He laughed, brown eyes crinkling at corners and turning into little crescent moons. Your state of shock had amused him greatly.

“The new tea blend is great.” The older barista complimented, still smiling. “What’s in it?”

“Earl grey and rose syrup.” You answered. Your eyes darted to look over his shoulder, peering at Baekhyun, who was staring at your interaction with a mixture of amusement and something unidentifiable. Whatever it was, you had never seen him express this emotion before. Despite his smile, his brows furrowed lightly in a soft frown, and you watched him pout before turning back to your coffee.

“It’s really sweet.” Junmyeon’s comment ripped you from your trance, and it took you a second to register that he was still speaking about your new blend.

“I’ll try toning it down a bit.” You commented. When tea was too sweet you could not distinguish the different herbs that went into the blend, which was the whole point of making the blends.

“Maybe try boiling rose buds with the ear grey blend, and adding less syrup in?” Junmyeon was always so helpful. Since him and Minseok were the official co-owners of this coffee shop, he had to be the level headed and responsible one out of the nine friends. He reminded you a lot of a mum friend, with his advice and overall gentle but strict attitude.

“I’ll try that.” You peered over to once again look at Baekhyun. This time, he was holding a steaming cup of coffee in his hand and looking slightly irritated when Junmyeon did not completely move out of his way as he handed you your order. “Here.” He said, bringing your attention to him, before giving you a cheeky smile. “Thanks.” You took the cup from him, careful not to spill anything out and over yourself. As you were walking out, you caught a glimpse of Baekhyun playfully hitting his friend as Junmyeon burst into a fit of laughter, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. A smile broke through on your face, and you had to stop yourself from giggling when hot coffee spilled over your fingers.

“You needed a new tea set.” Baekhyun proceeded to explain himself as you crossed your arms over your chest. A brand-new tea set sat on the table between you. It was made of white porcelain and the rims and handles were decorated with an elegant pattern of golden and purple lavender flowers.

“I could buy it myself.” You told him crossly. You had enough money to get another tea set. You looked once more over the new porcelain and sighed.

“I know.” Baekhyun told you, sincerity lacing his voice, as his soft eyes shining when looking into your own. Your heart was beating rapidly inside your ribcage, and you were sure it had rattled against your ribs a couple of times already. “Baekhyun.” You whispered, not trusting your voice to stay stable if you were to start arguing with him.

“Just accept it. It’s a gift.” He smiled and patted your hand with his own. Warmth radiated off of him in waves, and you were sure that if you were to endure much longer you would burn. The small act of affection didn’t last long. Before you knew it, he was bidding you farewell and stepping out of the quiet tea room, returning to the warmth and chatter of his coffee shop.

When the door closed, and you could no longer see his silhouette, a shudder went through you, and you realised, both with joy and terror, that maybe Baekhyun was not just a neighbour to you. Why were you so cold now that he walked out? Why was your heart banging against your ribs like a prison beating at the bars of the cell that separates them from freedom? And why for Baekhyun, of all people it could beat for?

“Excuse me.” The person behind you said, making you break away from the fresh pot of camomile tea you were brewing. The group of older ladies occupying the couches turned oddly quiet.

“Hey Baekhyun!” you greeted, turning to face him completely. He was swaying on the balls of his feet, his hands behind his back. A small smile played on his lips.

Behind him, the old ladies were looking at the two of you expectantly.Once more your foolish heart tried breaking free from its bone prison, attempting to run to the very man standing in front of you.

“How do you like my gift.” He looked over your shoulder at the tea set on the work counter, a cheeky smile brightened his face, making his cheeks puffy. You wondered whether he was real, and not just a conjuring of your imagination.

“It’s beautiful.” You told him honestly, smiling lightly.

“Don’t I buy the prettiest tea sets?” He teased you, making you laugh out loud as you agreed with him.

“I have another gift for you.” Your eyes widened in surprise, and you leapt forward, ready to refuse whatever object he was about to give you. One tea set was enough. What other gifts could Baekhyun possibly give?

“No more,” you pleaded. The playful look faded from his face. In its place was a seriousness that Baekhyun did not display in public often. His eyes remained gentle, but the gentleness played second lead to the conviction that swam in his eyes. From behind his back, Baekhyun took out a bouquet of white roses, wrapped together with golden ribbons.

“Thank you.” Was all you managed to say, stunned by the gesture.

“You’re welcome.” The seriousness remained on his face, and just as suddenly as he had come in, he was gone, leaving you holding the flowers, looking down at them in confusion.

You left the flowers on the counter, and made your way to the waiting ladies, only to find them still looking at you expectantly.

“Who was that?” one of them asked, her eyes resting on the roses.

“A friend.” You answered too quickly. The looks you received made you turn bright red. None of the ladies seemed convinced.

“Friends don’t give each other flowers.” Another one commented, her kind, washed out eyes resting on you.

“Then what is he?” your heart did not have an answer to this question, but the ladies sure did.

“I think he might like you.” One of them commented, smiling gleefully, eyes shining with what you assumed happy memories.

“That’s ridiculous.” You managed to blurt out when your heart made another summersault in your chest, banging against the confines of your ribs. It yearned for that to be the truth. But it simply could not be the case. Could it?

“Why.” The lady demanded, ready to start one of those talks about age and wisdom.

“There are so many pretty girls that come by their coffee shop.” You answered, feeling pathetic with coming up with such an excuse. You sounded like a teenager, and you sure as hell felt like one now, sitting with the older ladies, talking about boys giving you flowers. As if it was the first time.

“They may be pretty girls,” One of the ladies patted your hand gently, caressing the smooth skin with her wrinkled hand. The touch was soft and gently, and felt like silk against your skin, “But you are a beautiful woman.” She concluded, letting go of your hand, smiling at you in a grandmotherly way. You shied away from the compliment.

Later that day, you decided to pay Baekhyun back for the tea set and the flowers. The milk tea cake had just finished chilling in the fridge, so you packed it up, and took it over to the coffee shop. They would still be there cleaning, and the door would still be open. You walked in to see Chanyeol cleaning the tables.

“What do you have?” He asked, peering over at the box in your hands, “Is it for me?”

“I made milk tea cake. Share it when you’re done.” You told him, smiling at his curious gaze as he took the box out of your hands. He smiled brightly at you, before putting the cake on one of the clean tables.

“Is Baekhyun here?” You asked, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but Chanyeol shook his head, telling you that he was out at the moment.

“Are you going home?” He asked, trying to lean on the broom he was going to sweep the floor with. It didn’t work as planned, since was so much taller than it. “I still have to close up.” You told him, before turning around and waling over to the exit.

“See you.” Chanyeol called behind you, his deep voice reverberating through the still air.

“Bye!” You called, waving at him through the glass of the shop windows.

Chanyeol was looking over at Baekhyun, shaking his head at his small friend. The boys were sitting in the now clean shop, looking at the now empty plates. Most of the cake was now gone. This happened often when there were nine people to feed. They were surely going to fight for the rest later.

“You really like her, don’t you?” Chanyeol commented, a serious look on his face. Baekhyun wasn’t laughing about it either.

“So what?” He asked, ready to get defensive to protect his tender heart.

“You two are so cute!” He exclaimed, crushing the smaller man in his embrace.

“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun wined, fighting to break free from his hold.

“She bandaged your hand, and then she brought us cake!” Chanyeol pointed out, glancing at the nine empty cake plates littering the tables.

“You gave her flowers and brought her a tea set.” Minseok added, waving his fork around, pointing it accusing at the younger man.

“It was my fault it broke in the first place.”

“It was the girls’ fault. They broke it.” Jongin reasoned, and Baekhyun could not argue with that. He did not physically break your tea set, but his presence did cause the girls to break it, and he had felt guilty. Jongin of course, had none of it, and pointed out that no one made the girls break anything, and that he should not feel responsible for the actions of others.

“She likes you too!” Sehun whined, eating his second slice, annoyed at his friend’s obliviousness.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“That’s why you’re eating cake now? Because she doesn’t like you?” Jongin laughed as Baekhyun stiffed another forkful in his mouth, before washing it down with come coffee.

“It was for everybody.” Baekhyun protested, pointing accusing fingers and Sehun and Junmyeon, who were eating seconds.

“It’s because you gave her flowers.” Chanyeol exclaimed, pointing at Baekhyun, silently accusing him of obliviousness and denial.

“Keep giving her flowers.” Sehun cheered, smiling widely at the prospect of more treats in the future.

“The cake’s good.” Jongin added, stealing some off of Sehun’s plate. Baekhyun could do nothing but pout at their antics, clearly infuriated, but unable to rebuke their arguments. He did like you. You made his heart race, and your little tea room had become an oasis of sorts, a place he could go to get away from the constantly busy coffee shop and the prying, flirtatious gazes of his customers.

He was broken away from his thoughts when the bell rang, signalling someone has entered. The boys turned to say they were closed, but instead of a late customer, they found Y/N, standing at the door with a sheepish smile on her face. Baekhyun stared at you, the echo of Sehun’s comments ringing in his ears, giving birth to a plan that would put the flirtatious gazes and all the whining he had endured from his younger friends to an end.

You had come back to the coffee shop, finally deciding to follow the ladies’ advice and set things straight with Baekhyun. You needed to know why he had bothered to purchase you a new tea set, and most importantly why he had come to give you flowers. The old ladies where right when they told you that friends do not give each other roses, and the serious look on his face, so uncharacteristic to the cheeky glint of his eyes and the happy smiles, had left you confused of his intentions. If there were any, that is.

“Have you closed up already?” Chanyeol asked, his booming cheerful voice resonated through the room, and you turned to smile at him.

“Yeah. How’s the cake.” You asked, still standing at the door, not wanting to intrude on their private conversation.

“Come have some.” Baekhyun told you, an unmistakeable mischievous glint shining in his eyes. You walked over to him, expecting a forkful of cake to be flicked at you. You expected to be the target of another one of their pranks, but you did not expect what would transpire within the upcoming seconds.

To your surprise, and the shock of all the other men, Baekhyun had stood up, towering above you just a little bit, before he swooped down, placing his lips softly on yours. At the contact, you stiffened, unsure of what to do, before relaxing a little. His hands found their way into your hair, tangling his slim fingers into the locks. Your hands in turn found his waist, and you ended up hooking your thumbs into the band of his black apron. The confusion from earlier was gone, and all that remained was your rapidly beating heart, aiming to match Baekhyun's pace.

“So how is it?” he asked, the same mischievous glint in his eyes mixing now with the dusting of pink on his cheeks. You scrunched up your nose, pretending to think about it, before replying to his question, your tone equally mischievous.

“All I can taste is coffee.”

The boys roared into laughter, and the quiet street had suddenly found itself loud as a carnival as the baristas cheered and laughed at the scene before them, Baekhyun still holding you in his arms, laughing with them, high on euphoria as you pressed another kiss to his cheek.

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curationstationdc · 5 years ago

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Woodcuts in suburbia: melancholy, nostalgia, and resistance

I associate woodcuts with a particular aesthetic: they loom from their perch on the bookshelf in the den, next to a collection of Hans Christian Andersen tales, whose worn buckram binding is effusing that sapid antique book aroma which pairs so well with coffee and cake. In the corner of the room, above a worn black leather chair designated for tv-watching and reading, a pathos dangles from its pot, fed by gentle streams of light emanating from the canopy of shade sheltering the backyard garden. On weekends and special occasions, the clinking of cake forks against china is punctuated only by an occasional “delicious!” — direct and accurate. This orchestration produces a distinctly Germanic affect, and one that I associate with the elderly; the particular family room I’m recalling belonged to my next-door neighbors growing up, former members of the Danish anti-Nazi resistance who had emigrated in the early 1960s. While I can’t be sure there was any deeper meaning behind their affinity for the humble woodcut, I do recall the medium’s prominence in their home. For me, something as benign as a flock of geese is represented with a degree of melancholy in these prints' impenetrable black shadows — an inevitability in this generation’s Weltanschauung, that everything beautiful carries with it a degree of pain, a nostalgia for the idea of a more civil world.

These beloved octogenarians were my first choice of role models, and I insisted on seeing them almost every day for the first 8 or 9 years of my life. They were old-school Democrats (or at least, that’s how their values system translated into American) in a largely Republican suburb of a mid-sized Upper Midwestern city. I can still place myself their 1950′s minimal traditional home: running my hands along their walnut furniture with polished nickel handles, greeted by a different antique clock in every room, tick-tocking at various registers, my slippered feet shuffling along a dull, greenish-blue carpet so typical of that era. Nothing in that home was remotely as paired down as today’s sanitized mid-century throwback, and the old neighborhood still retained a smidgen of character unlike contemporary expressions of manifest destiny. Lovingly tended beds of roses, pansies, and bleeding hearts flourished under the shade of maples, walnuts, and red oak.

A young family admires their new home. Between 1950 and 1970, America’s suburban population nearly doubled to 74 million Camerique Archive / Archive Photos / Getty Images

For my neighbors, woodcuts seemed to be a culturally relevant way of displaying eerie alternative landscapes: a flock of geese, a school of fish, a sunset laden with a certain degree of subconsciously expressed Weltschmerz. For me, these woodcuts were inextricably linked to their stories of brazen defiance in the face of terror, which they seldom shared, always with a degree of pain and even embarrassment. Their democratic ideals to which they so proudly clung were the real source of their identity; it was from them that I learned it was OK to be gay, that everyone deserved a home and access to healthcare, that one lives like a society like a neighbor rather than just an individual. But it wasn’t until years after their deaths that I detected any degree of paradox in their suburban American existence, was able to chuckle at their nostalgia for the old country as expressed in their grocery cart (tubs of frozen Coolwhip to be served generously with home-baked apple cake, slices of summer sausage or cucumbers served on squares of cocktail rye, a far cry from the bakeries and delicatessens of northern Europe.)

A woman and a boy visiting a man in hospital. Woodcut by Käthe Kollwitz, 1929. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

While I may associate woodcuts with the interior design choices of an immigrant family in the middle of the last century, its origins predate my concept of history. Woodcutting is thought to be the earliest print technique, originating in 9th-century China, arriving in Europe sometime in the 14th century. Woodcut has been a staple medium for prominent Northern European artists like Dürer since the 16th century. To produce a print, artists carve their image into a block of wood, along the grain, removing the parts that will not carry ink. The surface is then rolled over with a brayer and the image transferred to a sheet of paper through a press. The result in works like Käthe Kollwitz’s Selbstbildness von vorn (1922-1923), pictured above, is nothing short of haunting — well-suited to the violently introspective tone of German Expressionism. If you’re curious about the process, here’s a short demonstration:

youtube

Phil Sanders, Director of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, demonstrates the pressure + ink relief process

Woodcutting became a popular tool of activists in the 1910′s, when thinkers like Ernst Barlach were beginning to use reductionist, anti-naturalist figures to express their dejection at the rise of an alien world. In the case of Barlach, his art was often placed alongside politically charged writing in order to provoke emotional reactions to the realities of uprootedness, inequality, and disaffection in industrialized, urban Europe. It is Barlach’s rather proletariat answer to the questions of modernity, inspired in part by a kind of political realism emerging in Russia, that inspired German artist Käthe Kollwitz to take up the humble woodcut.

Ernst Barlach, from an East German stamp, 1970. Would he have been pleased with his legacy?

I remember receiving a story on the couch in my neighbors’ den — I was about 10 or 11 — regarding the final days of the war: a fellow member of the resistance had suggested replacing the Dannebrog with the flag of the Danish Communist Party, the DKP, an idea that had shaken my neighbor to his core. For him, resistance had been an act of preservation, a defense of the right to be distinctly Danish, and all that it entailed, in an increasingly international world. How the inability to return to a Denmark before the crimes of Nazism must have felt, I can only attempt to imagine. To this day, I am astounded by my neighbors’ apparent lack of burnout in light of what they sacrificed, their resilience in living out their ideals and inherited melancholia with me under an umbrella on the patio. It seemed that, for them, past and present far outweighed considerations for the future.

My copy of Korsbæk Tidende (Korsbæk Official Journal), an educational accompaniment to the popular Danish 1970′s and 1980′s tv-series “Matador” about a fictionalized Danish town between 1929 and 1947. I inherited this collection of real newspaper clips that informed events on the show from my neighbor — I assume he loved the show.

To an extent, I have inherited their idealism, an obsession with a bleak past used to check the present, an index of unwavering values to be accessed at any time. It is only through a sense of history that I’m able to make sense of the communicative power of images today, how calculated distortions of reality made ubiquitous through mass production can make us more empathetic, braver in the face of a not-so-distant future. It's a future that cannot be understood with the tools we have been given, that will almost upend our perceptions and unsettle us, a future that demands our bravery. More than ever my beloved neighbors ever could have fathomed, the possibility that our sacrifices will be bastardized in the name of another cause is unparalleled in the digital age. And even more than they experienced, we have the incredible opportunity, and challenge, to transplant our ideologies across ecosystems, upending heir original contexts.

Simultaneous calls for universalism and individual freedom, the appeals of difference and homogeneity, the cogent argument of moral relativism against the call for a shared global narrative will, no doubt, continue to shake us in an era of unprecedented displacement and global climate change. Among other things, these challenges call for an art that, like the pervasive woodcut, infiltrates our purviews, and is attuned to the affect of contemporary life. It should carry with is a melancholic nostalgia, demand our empathy, blemish our idealized beauty.

If I limit myself to woodcuts, I'm reminded of the works of William Kentridge, Beatriz Milhazes, Leonard Baskin, Alison Saar, Irving Amen, Tony Bevan, Katsutoshi Yuasa, Assadour Bezdikian, Elizabeth Catlett, Lou Barlow, Leon Gilmour — I'm sure I'm missing countless others.

Retrospective Exhibitions on Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992; Käthe Kollwitz: In Celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Artist’s Birth, Galerie St. Etienne, New York City, 1992; Berner Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland, 1946; Retrospective in honor of her 50th birthday at Paul Cassirer galleries, Berlin, 1917

Selected Bibliographies on Käthe Kollwitz

Knesebeck, Alexandra von dem. Käthe Kollwitz: Werkverzeichnis der Graphik. Band I & II. Bern: Kornfeld, 2002.

Prelinger, Elizabeth, ed. Käthe Kollwitz. Exh. cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1992.

Rix, Brenda D., and Jay A. Clarke. Käthe Kollwitz: The Art of Compassion. Exh. cat. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2003.

Selected Bibliographies on Ernst Barlach

Laur, Elisabeth. Ernst Barlach: Sämtliche Werke, Werkverzeichnis I. Die Druckgraphik. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 2001.

Paret, Peter. An Artist Against the Third Reich: Ernst Barlach, 1933–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Selected Bibliographies on Ernst Ludwig Kirnchner

Dube, Annemarie, and Wolf-Dieter Dube. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Das graphische Werk. 2 vols. Munich: Prestel, 1980.

Gercken, Günther, and Magdalena M. Moeller. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Farbige Druckgraphik. Exh. cat. Berlin: Brücke-Museum, 2008.

Krämer, Felix, ed. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Retrospective. Exh. cat. Frankfurt: Städel Museum, 2010.

Lloyd, Jill, and Magdalena M. Moeller, eds. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880–1938. Exh. cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2003.

Wye, Deborah. Kirchner and the Berlin Street. Exh. cat. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008.

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grandthorkiday · 6 years ago

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Mob AU “Playthings” Part 24

[Link to mob!au anon’s “Playthings" fic tag]

[Start at Part 1]*

(*Note: Link is editable for other parts, just change the number. For mobile users, tag is “playthings part1”)

Note from @loxxxlay: MOB ANON HAS REVEALED THEMSELVES!! They are @red-shadow-wolf-19 and they have plans to write more Grandthorki in the future! Go follow them for more of their fics <3

They dragged him out of the bedroom when it was announced on the news the next morning. He knelt in front of the large flat screen, amongst the games controllers that had been his brother’s solice, and watched as the a newscaster said in a sympathetic but efficient manner, “Thor Valhalla was found this morning in critical condition after what appears to be an assault. He was rushed to a hospital but pronounced dead on arrival. He was thirty two.”

“The Brat is dead! Long live the Brat!” Mario crowed, and the crew laughed.

Gast used one finger to lift Loki’s face to his. “You always have your exit strategy, sweetheart. Remember?” He said it almost kindly.

“M-may I go back to the bedroom?”

Back away from the crew and stares, Loki bent over the toilet and threw up in peace. He sobbed into the tile floor, aware that no one this time would come in and stroke his hair or hold him or sing some stupid song from their childhood. It was just him now.

They next day, they dragged him out again. This time because he had to cook breakfast. Life goes on.

Gast began making the rounds on the radio shows, calling in to dramatically cry about the death of one of his lost soulmates. He kept Loki in his lap, hugging him close like a stuffed animal. Occasionally the host would ask after the brunette. Grandmaster’s eyes would flick up to his, and he would politely look away. “In no fit state to talk to anyone, sadly.”

Naturally, that really wasn’t the case. Around three o'clock, Loki found a phone being shoved in his face as he laid on the bed.

“Call the hospital. Tell them you want the body. You can do that, you’re family.” There was an emphasis on ‘family’ that made his skin crawl, but he took the phone and did as he was told. Thor had told him to be good.

[read more cut]

The hospital, unfortunately, was making it difficult. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Valhalla, but Mr. Thor Valhalla’s body was released to your Father already. You will have to speak to him and your sister. I am so sorry for your loss.”

“I-I am his…,” he could barely say the words. He’d wanted to scream them for the last six to seven years, and now he barely had the energy to form a syllable.

“I’m so sorry.”

When he hung up and explained the situation, the slap to the face was almost welcome. “Call your sister! I want his body!”

Thor would have cheekily asked why he hadn’t kept it. He would have couched it as a light-hearted question. Loki simply dialled from memory Hela’s number and said nothing.

“I want Thor’s body,” he said with preamble once she answered the phone.

“Oh, Loki! I-”

“Please, Hela. I want to bury him. We-” he glanced at Gast who looked back at him expectantly, “we want to bury him.”

“After he-”

“He’s my husband, Hela…we got married. Did you know that? I’m legally allowed to have a say over what happens to his…remains.”

“I know, Loki. He told us.”

Loki took a shakey breath, the painful reminder of why Thor wasn’t there twisting in gut like a knife. “Hela, don’t make me fight you in court. Don’t make him fight you. Please, right now…”

“Daddy wants to bury Thor too.” It was said quickly, cutting him off.

“Near Mom?” he couldn’t help the hope that entered his voice.

“N-no. Um…he’s having Thor cremated and buried in another plot.” There was a quick and muffled dialogue on the other end of the phone before she came back. “I suppose we could um…share….him. Split the ashes.”

Loki felt like vomiting again. “Split the ashes?” He glanced at the Grandmaster who shrugged and nodded his assent. “O-okay.”

They arranged when he would come to pick up the ashes. Hela tried to invite him to their private funeral service, but he hung up on her instead. He had to be good. He had to survive. Grandmaster kissed his forehead and tucked him into bed for that.

That’s when he brought 'the trophy’ out. Loki nearly screamed and fled the bedroom, but he forced himself to remain where he was. The older man placed the glass container of strange viscous liquid on the bedside counter. The blue iris of Thor’s eye looked unreal and otherworldly, the veins and disconnected tissue floating out like tentacles or rays of lightning. Loki looked at it in morbid fascination.

“I said, it was his best feature,” Gast said simply, running a finger down the side of the glass.

“Yes.”

“Well one of his best features. But you can’t persevere an ass.”

“That’s why you called him Sparkles. Because of his eyes.”

“It’s not like he shot lightning or something.”

“May I keep his things? At least his drawings?”

“I guess. But keep them somewhere neat. I don’t want them everywhere,” he reached over and laid out three more items: a needle, a small bag of blue crystals, and a lighter. He left, without another word as Loki took them.

~2020~

He honestly couldn’t remember clearly the last few months. He remembered the funeral. Gast had made an emotional fifteen minute eulogy before bringing him to the front of the packed church to speak. He stood at the lectern, stuttering out something unintelligible before breaking down into sobs at the sight of the blown up picture of Thor. He had been gathered into the Grandmaster’s embrace, though they didn’t leave the altar. The cameras and the world needed to see him.

After that, his life was series of color and moments of sobriety. He tried to stay away from harder stuff, keeping mostly to alcohol and weed, but Gast kept giving him the crystals when he got 'too weepy’. He now slept and lived permanently in the master bedroom. He didn’t have to cook much anymore, mostly because no one trusted him around a stove. But he was good. Perfect. So they couldn’t complain.

Sometimes, he could forget everything. Gast would hold him in his lap during one of the numerous meetings, and Loki would simply exist, as though he had been willed into being just to please this man. Then, he would catch sight of the bar, or maybe something would brush across his cheek and it would come all crashing back. He would hug the man closer, for there was no one else he was allowed to touch anymore, and he would be given a glass of alcohol to keep quiet.

“My poor Lo Lo. All alone now.” He forgets when this was said to him exactly, but the ridiculous sweater he remembers Gast wearing made him think of Christmas. “Maybe I should get you a buddy. An itsy bitsy friend?”

He remembers the tablet being pushed into his face so he could stare at a Facebook page. The kid barely looked out of high school, standing in his board shorts and tank top, his brown hair being picked up by a breeze. He had a wide innocent smile as showed off a farmer’s tan. The photo was posted by Peter Parker, with a caption 'this boi thirsty! For lemonade it’s hooooott’ followed by a confusing jumble of emojis.

Loki had felt his stomach twist and an emotion akin to jealousy and guilt with a twinge of nostalgia settle there. But he was good. Perfect. So he had said as brightly as possible, “He’s cute!”

“I knew you would like him!” Grandmaster had cooed, as though he had picked out a puppy. He had kissed Loki so sweetly, again he almost forget everything. Even Thor’s eye still on the bedside counter.

Loki was slightly drunk when the police finally came to arrest the Grandmaster. They had been expected, but late. To the mobster’s delight he had made quite a scene. They had been at a restaurant, watching Peter, Loki still stalling the inevitable when they had came, led by Bruce Banner. He had tried to scratch the cuffs away and nearly punched Bruce’s face. To the man’s credit, he had been very gentle and guided him back to his seat before continuing. Gast naturally was home the next day, already gloating.

This time the DA did not push for a gag order. They seemed rather unconcerned with what the Grandmaster said or did. And he took full advantage of that fact.

“We’re still mourning our Thor and they do this! After his family would not come to the funeral!”

“Awful,” the interviewer said, shaking her head sympathetically. “Loki, do you have anything to add.”

“Why are they doing this to us? Haven’t…haven’t we lost enough?” He broke down with each word. They didn’t cut away as he choked and sobbed. It made for good television, he supposed.

When they DA announced they had a secret witness, there was a large meeeting in the penthouse about who it was. No one suspected Loki; he rarely left the apartment anymore, and if he could get away with it he stayed mostly in the bedroom. Besides, the secret witness was apparently in protective custody. Anyone who was late or didn’t attend the meeting immediately fell under suspicion and fingers were pointed even at those who showed up early. It was utter chaos. Gast loved it. Loki slipped away to the bedroom with a bottle of wine.

The day of the opening of the trial, Loki was woken up and made to put on the clothes he had worn at the funeral. They were a little too big on him now, he had lost some weight since then, but he still looked impressive. His eyes were bloodshot from all the drinking and drugs, so they gave him a pair of sunglasses.

“Can you even walk a straight line,” Gast asked him mockingly. He could, but his hands shook. They gave him a flask for his pocket and a packet of cigarettes. He didn’t have a wallet or cellphone anymore. He hadn’t since Thor died. All the money under his and his husband’s old mattress had been taken and redistributed to the penthouse crew, except for a hundred dollars which Loki had used for his last solo trip in the city to pick up Thor’s ashes.

The courthouse was packed with the press and the public when they arrived. Gast waved good-humoredly at them as they entered. He made a big production of helping Loki to his seat, kissing and fawning over him. He let the sunglasses dip for a moment so people could see his eyes. Naturally, the press would assume it was because of tears not alcohol. Topaz settled in next to him, a more 'comforting’ figure than Mario.

Stark and Romanov entered, ignoring the press as they went to their table. They spoke in low voices and passed a cellphone and a tablet back and forth between them. Loki didn’t pay attention, keeping his eyes forward on Gast and trying to memorize the New York seal on the judge’s bench.

“All rise!” called the bailiff. The courthouse stood as a small heavily whiskered man soon and settled himself in the high bench. “The Honorable Patel preceding.”

“Sit down,” the judge said, fiddling with papers on his desk as the courthouse sat. “I will hear opening statements. Mr. Stark?”

The ADA stood and spoke very succinctly. They had evidence of weapon trafficking as well as drug trafficking. They also had evidence of sexual and physical assault, and conspiracy to attempt murder. Gast, he explained rather dryly, was a danger to the city and society and had manipulated his way out of justice before. “Hopefully, he won’t this time. With your help,” he concluded, thanking the jury.

Gast’s lawyer stood as soon as Stark sat and began to dramatically recount the last year: the DA’s first attempt to sully the Grandmaster by manipulating his lover, Loki which resulted in Loki’s suicide attempt. The brunette shifted uncomfortably in his seat at being part of this, but he made no move to shield himself from view. Then, he spoke about losing Thor to thugs collecting a gambling debt. Bile rose in his throat at that, but he pushed it down. He was good. Perfect.

“And now, DA is dragging this man and his loved ones back into court not four months after burying his beloved as some sick way to get votes. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have the poor to end this! Listen to the weakness of this case, and then find En Dwi Gast not guilty!” A few people in the gallery clapped, causing the judge to bang his gavel a few times.

“Stark, are you ready to proceed with your secret witness?”

“Already? Blowing your load a little early, aren’t you?” Gast quipped. The gallery laughed. The gavel fell.

“This is not an open mic night. Please refrain from comments. Mr. Stark?”

Tony nodded, dialled a number on his phone and said a few words. A side door opened. The room gasped.

Loki didn’t look at first. He was good. Perfect. But finally when Gast gasped as well, he swiveled his head robotically around. He let out a cry.

Thor stood, supporting himself on a cane and Valkyrie’s arm. He had an eye patch his left eye and his hair had gotten a little longer than the Grandmaster ever let it grow. Every step he made to the witness box was slow and pained, but he barely seemed to care. His one eye found the defense side of the room and he glared with venom at the older man.

Loki’s limbs moved on their own. He stood, knocking over Topaz. By the time the woman had recovered, he had walked out of the gallery. Gast was calling to him, using all the sweet nicknames he had. It made not an ounce of difference. The judge was saying something and the bailiff tried to intercept him but Val had waved him off as Stark shouted to be heard.

He was standing in front of Thor, the sun streaming over them from the high windows. Thor’s expression had softened as he had gotten closer. He was crying now, reaching out to him, stroking his face tenderly like he had the last time they had seen one another. Loki took the hand before launching into his arms, nearly knocking him to the ground.

The brothers held one another for several moments, the courtroom holding their breath as they spoke in hushed and hurried voices. Finally, the younger let go, turning to Stark. He spoke in a watery voice slightly hoarse from months of crying, drinking, and disuse.

“Can I be added to the witness list, too?”

#frostmaster #thundermaster #thorki #loki #thor #grandmaster #GrandthorkiB #sfw #fic #cw dubcon #cw noncon implied #cw suicidal ideation #cw mental illness #cw drugs #cw rl drugs #playthings #submission #playthings part24

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fuckshiru · 6 years ago

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345rv5 ten year anniversary. Couldn’t upload this to DA for some reason

You know when you're getting older when people start having 10 year aniversaries. But alas. I still await my aniversary (which wont be for over 3 years).

You're delusional if you think I wont be posting about this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been watching people rant online for a long ass time. I've watched Youtube videos, blogs, and deviantart journals of course. And stamps. It used to be game reviewers (Clement and SomecallmeJohnny), then it was political videos (The Amazing Atheist formerly then Sargon and Hunter Avallone currently). But I've never actually made friends with any of them. Unlike 345rv5.

I've made friends with 345rv5 just a few years back. While he isn't millionaire famous, he has a rather large following on deviantart. And that's because there's a little bit of everything on his page. He started off reviewing anime but then he would he started getting into debates. I think what made him a force to be reckoned with was the fact that he made very long journals and comments. But they wern't long because he wanted to win the debate (just a side note, if you're on a debate online, dont EVER simply write a wall of text or copy n paste from wikipedia. That doesn't work.), he would also deconstruct each of the points of the other side and obliterate them. Lets get into the journal that started it all.

Dragon Fail Live Action Piece of Shit

Dragon fail live action peice of shit

Now, 345rv5 has been around before he made the journal, but in my opinon this was the review that started everything. This was his Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. I've read all of his journals. Anime and video games was his thing earlier on. He didn't start making political videos until around 2012/2013. This day marks the ten year anniversary of him making that journal.

It really set off his channel (or should I say page). I guarentee that if he had a youtube channel, he would be filthy rich, even with youtube's ad-pocalypse and whatnot.

He started off ranting about shows and movies, essentially pointing out all of the flaws. Some notable things he's ranted about were Cartoon Network and Super Mario Live Action movie.

Anime Recaps and Reviews

Weekly Shonen Recap :RECAP !

Anime and Manga was his passion. He almost exclusively watched anime, some of his favourites were Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. Others shows, such as Bleach not so much. There's not much to say on this part, but if you enjoy anime, you'll enjoy his reviews.

Rivalries

As time passed on, he began showing everyone his insane debating skills. This caused many people to hold grudges toward him. He began his series BDTDT/BSTDT (Bigots Do/say the dumbest things) and a subseries FTSTDT (Fantards say the dumbest things) and RFSTDT (Radical Feminists Say The Dumbest Things. He also started shorter series entitled "Concentrated Stupidity", which ended shortly.

Watching him take part in these debates that lasted over months was actually pretty entertaining. He's debated people such as Arrnacar Fighter, DragonoftheEastBlue (which apparently made a youtube video), BrianaBater, Insanity123 (didn't get a journal), Sychtemantis, and Party999999. The debate between him and Party999999 lasted for over a year. It ended in 2016, when Party99999 made a final response, and called it quits.

The topics of these debates covered politics. When it wasn't that, he would literally go in depth on how strong a character is, using math equations and Science to justify his claims.

And no, I'm not insulting any of thse people. Hell for a debate to last that long meant that they put up a good fight and must've good points.

Unfortunately, with so many debates online someone was eventually going to make a page on Encyclopedia Dramatica about him.

https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/345rv5

Before I start, I will say that I'm suprised that I don't have a page on Encylopedia Dramatica. I should've gotten one a few years back when I got into a big fight in the complaints forum, but now that I'm fading away into nothing, I'm probably never gonna get one. That's good I guess. But an Encyclopedia Dramatica page really only shows the worst in people.

Even when he got banned from DA, he still occasionally called people out here on this site from tumblr (such as OddGarfield and Aknaton-II)

The Story, Political Views, and Removal from DA

Earlier on, 345rv5 was a liberal. He was the same kind of liberal as The Amazing Athiest, as in, he wasn't a SJW, they didn't believe in white privilege or any of that garbage. Instead, they only believed in green privilege. (I dont know if TJ still believes that given I haven't watched his videos in months)

He still is a egaliratian, and one of his sickest ownages was his DESTROYING someone who insulted and slut shamed SHE-HULK by calling her a whore.

BSTDT:She Hulk is a Whore!

He was a true EGALITARIAN. Trust me, you will not find a bigger equalist than 345rv5 on the internet. He has stood up for atheists, women, men, people of colour, whites, Religious people, you name it. Every one of those instances I wholeheartedly agreed with.

BSTDT: Brother Dean the Anti Gay, Sexist Pastor

BSTDT: Atheist Pluser Says fuck you to Christans

After time passed, he slowly distanced himself from the left. He is a firm supporter of AllLivesMatter. This however, would cause him to get banned permanently from the site.

RIP 345rv5

I was beyond angry when that happened. But its been over 3 years and it is what is I guess. After being banned from DA, he made a tumblr account. This is where he REALLY shifted away from the left. 1 year later in 2016, He came out as a supporter of Trump weeks away from the election day. At that point I was still sceptical of Trump but I do admit that people have retarded reasons for hating him. I believe he still identifies as a liberal, but honestly, it hard to be considered a liberal or a leftist at this point because the left keeps fucking up for themselves. Paul Joseph Watson said Conservatism is the new counter culture, and I totally agree. Its popular to be left leaning these days.

The arguement The Amazing Athiest had with Hunter Avallone really shows that sides have switched. It used to be a younger liberal vs a older conservative. Now its a younger conservative vs an older liberal.

But furthermore, 345rv5 continued making posts on tumblr. These were very similar to the posts he made here. This went on until Tumblr shot itself and got rid of pornographic content.

After that, he migrated to another website.

What made him great?

I think it was his ability to debate made him great. He would fucking decimate people. But he would only do that if you had horrible opinions. His followers were literally like familiy, everyone digged in to help him stand up to abusive admins. When he got banned, everyone was upset. We all love his journals, which everyone can see, thanks to this link here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150406180849/http://345rv5.deviantart.com/

Yet he was such a nice guy. And that is why he will always be remembered.

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braincoins · 6 years ago

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Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening Summary: Alistair shows up at Vigil's Keep unsure as to whether this is his new home or his new duty post. He has a few surprises in store.

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags: AU, Welcome Home Sex, in which the author indulges herself in fluff smut and politics, well not so much that last one yet, but this is a series so wait for it, Fluff, Smut, Flut, Grey Wardens, Warden Alistair, Dalish Warden, Queen Anora, Both Alistair and the Warden survived the Blight sooooo..., oral sex, vaginal sex, riding

Notes: Welcome to the first story of my Schism AU! Most of the fics will not be Explicit, but Alistair just got home after being away from his sweetie for a while. They need some alone time together (and I felt it sets up what comes after that very nicely). If you want to skip the sex, read until you get to "I've no intention of sending you anywhere yet" (or until you get uncomfortable) and then skip down to the break, where Alistair gets a rather rude awakening.

We're starting a few months after the end of Awakening, though everyone (except Justice) has chosen to stick around instead of scattering to the winds. Summary of this world setup: Anora is Queen, Alistair is still a Warden, he did the Dark Ritual, Female Dalish Warden who romanced Alistair, Loghain's dead (good riddance), ...and I think that's most of the important bits.

Oh, and my headcanon in regards to Elvish is that, during the time of the Dales, the elves "recreated" the language as best they could from what scraps they had (sort of like what's been done with modern Hebrew), and that it is this language that modern Dalish have preserved and learned. I raided the DA Wikia for Elvish words; translations are in the end notes, just in case. I wanted to show that my Dalish Warden's past is still important to her, given what goes on in this fic.

Warning: I have not played Inquisition, and I've only made it through Act 1 of DA 2 (though I know some spoilers for both of those games and some other material). THIS IS AN AU. I am picking and choosing and making everything else up. I know that's not gonna be everyone's cuppa. But if you stick around, I hope you enjoy this!

(5,972 Words - on Ao3)

SFW Teaser below the cut:

All through the meal it was the same: she introduced him to the new Grey Wardens – including Oghren, of all people! – and some of the soldiers who were dining with them. She slipped Sekh treats under the table and laughed at the jokes others told. Mostly she ate and smiled and treated him as she might’ve Leliana or Zevran or Wynne or even Sten. He supposed it was better than being nothing but another warden to her in public. She was a fine commander, a good warden, and while he didn’t doubt her feelings for him, he couldn’t help wishing things could be different for the two of them. He didn’t want to have to hide how he felt in front of others. As annoying as their traveling companions could be (and as embarrassing as it was to occasionally be overheard together), at least they had accepted that he loved her and she loved him. There was no pretense of being “just friends” or “just fellow Grey Wardens”.

After supper, she rose, nodded to the assembled, and apologized about work taking her away. She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him before Garevel led her off. Alistair was left there, wondering what to do, when a servant appeared and asked if he’d like a bath before bed. Truth be told, sleep was just about all he wanted in the world right now, but he shrugged. “I suppose I should wash the dust of the road off before bed, shouldn’t I?” The servant nodded and said she’d return when the bath was ready for him.

Everyone else seemed ready for bed themselves and abandoned the table for their rooms. Oghren stuck around longer than anyone else, to drink more and catch up. The drunken dwarven pervert wasn’t exactly who Alistair would’ve wanted to spend time with just at the moment, but it was still nice to be around someone familiar. In typical Oghren fashion, he made some lewd comments about Alistair and the Commander “gettin’ back into the swing of things” but Alistair just pretended he didn’t understand and changed the subject. Tonight was going to be for sleeping, he assumed, and for sleeping alone. He hadn’t really expected much else to happen, but it would’ve been nice to have her next to him again. There was little point in whining about it though, and even less point in bringing that up with Oghren. When the servant came to lead him to his room and the promised bath, it was all he could do not to bolt from the dining hall.

The servant led him upstairs and to the end of a hall, where a large, well-appointed room was awaiting him. “Well, it’s… it’s better than the stables, isn’t it?” The servant didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. Honestly, Alistair was a little surprised to be given such luxury, even if the furnishings were sparse and simple. Vigil’s Keep had been well-upgraded and defended prior to the darkspawn battle, but it had still suffered a great deal and was still years out from being fully back on its feet, as it were. That he had a room this large and this nice was surely the result of a Certain Someone pulling strings for him, but he felt a little guilty, wondering what the others had to make do with.

The servant closed the doors behind her as she left him to his bath. He took the opportunity to look around as he got undressed. A large double bed, a stately armoire, worn but still warm rugs on the floor. The bath was surrounded by thick tapestries hanging from the ceiling, to help keep down the chill along with the fire in the hearth that crackled merrily. There was a desk and chair over by the window, books and papers stacked upon it near half-melted candles. His empty bags and packs had been left near the armoire; no doubt the servants had already put his things away for him. He slid into the warm water with a contented sigh. Sleep was going to be glorious, but right now, this bath was a blessing straight from the Maker Himself.

The provided soap smelled a bit musky, and he realized, holding it to his nose, that she’d smelled much the same in that brief moment he’d had her in his arms. Must be the same soap throughout the whole place. He wasn’t sure if this was a reflection on Vigil’s Keep’s rather shattered status at the moment or if it was merely her pragmatism. She was nothing if not practical, after all. But he accepted it as the closest he was likely to get to her for the moment (and also as the only soap to hand) and set to washing up so that he didn’t fall asleep in the tub.

He rinsed himself off and got out. As he toweled off, he padded around blowing out candles in preparation for sleep. He was just finishing up – drying in front of the hearth – when the door opened. His head shot up as he made sure he had the towel in front of him to protect his modesty; he assumed a servant was bringing… something? He couldn’t imagine what it would be.

But it wasn’t a servant. “Oh, good; I was hoping you’d take a bath first.” It was hard to see her in the dim light, but she sounded amused. “No offense, love, but after all that time on the road, you weren’t exactly at your freshest.” He heard the door shut.

#DA:O #DA:O-A #Dragon Age: Schism #Socks writes DA fic #LOOK IT'S NOT VOLTRON #There will be more VLD fic #You'll pry Shallura from my cold dead hands #but in the meantime here's another badass power couple

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elegantshapeshifter · 7 years ago

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Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend

The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies, Issue 18, Feb. 2002.

by Sabina Magliocco California State University, Northridge

The author wishes to thank Ronald Hutton and Chas S. Clifton for their helpful critiques of an earlier draft of this work.

Aradia is familiar to most contemporary Pagans and Witches as the principal figure in Charles G. Leland’s Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, first published in 1899. Leland presents her as the daughter of Diana, the goddess of the moon, by her brother Lucifer, “the god of the Sun and of the Moon, the god of Light” (Leland, 1899, 1998:1), who is sent to earth to teach the poor to resist the oppression of the wealthy classes through magic and witchcraft. Through Leland’s work, Aradia’s name and legend became central to the Witchcraft revival. Between 1950 and 1960, “Aradia” was probably the secret name of the Goddess in Gardnerian Craft (it has since been changed), and she has also given her name to numerous contemporary Witchcraft traditions (Clifton, 1998:73).

Leland’s Aradia also inspired a number of 20th century works of Pagan literature. In a privately published electronic document entitled The Gospel of Diana [which according to Silvio Baldassare originated as a spoof of the Gnostic Gospels (Baldassare, 1997:15)], Aidan Kelly expands on Leland’s idea of Aradia as a religious leader and heroine of an Italian peasant resistance. Kelly’s Aradia, however, is a notably erotic character; according to her teachings, the sexual act becomes not only an expression of the divine life force, but an act of resistance against all forms of oppression and the primary focus of ritual. Kelly’s document has not achieved broad diffusion in contemporary Pagan circles, however. Much more influential in the perpetuation of Aradia’s legend is the work of Raven Grimassi. Grimassi, the author of a series of popular books on Stregheria, or Italian-American Witchcraft, presents Aradia as a wise woman who lived in Italy during the 14th century, and who brought about a revival of the Old Religion. He claims to practice a tradition founded by Aradia’s followers (Grimassi, 1995:xviii). In Hereditary Witchcraft, Grimassi expands on Leland’s version and the material he presented in Ways of the Strega by adding a chapter on Aradia’s teachings (Grimassi, 1999:191-201), which include a series of predictions about the future of humankind and the return of the Old Religion (1999:207-208). After Aradia’s mysterious disappearance, her twelve disciples spread her gospel, explaining the diffusion of the Old Religion throughout Italy and Europe (1999:203-210).

But who was Aradia? Was she the legendary figure of Leland’s Gospel, or a 14th century teacher of the Craft, as Grimassi proposes? Or is her story more complicated? In this paper, I explore the roots of the legend of Aradia, and in the process attempt to shed light on the formation of some of the most important motifs in the legendcomplex surrounding witchcraft, both traditional and contemporary. While my conclusions differ from those of Leland, Kelly and Grimassi, they may reveal a surprising possibility underlying the legend that has not been considered before. My approach is grounded in the academic discipline of folklore, which regards stories about historical or alleged historical figures as legends. A legend is a story set in the real world about an extraordinary or numinous event. Legends are typically told as true, with many features that root them in a specific time and place and lend them authenticity; but they are not necessarily believed by all who tell them. In fact, according to legend scholars Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, it is the tension between belief and disbelief that keeps legends alive and circulating, as each new listener must decide “Is this true? Could this have happened?” (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1976). Within any given community, there are legend believers and disbelievers; our community is, of course, no exception when it comes to this particular legend. The truth content of legends—that is, how closely they correspond to actual historical events— can vary widely; although some contain a kernel of reality, many legends are “true” only in the most metaphorical sense, in that they are an accurate reflection of popular attitudes, values and morality at a given time and place.

Legends can take many forms. Most typically, they occur as narratives, either in the first person (“This actually happened to me”) or third person (“This actually happened to a friend of a friend/ long ago, etc.”). Logically, many legends start out as first person accounts and become third person accounts; but just as often, a narrator may retell a third person account as though it had actually happened to him/her, making the story more vivid for the audience. Legends can also exist as simple statements (“The house on the hill is haunted”), and occasionally become dramatic enactments known as “ostension” (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1986), which I will describe later at some length. Legends appear in multiple variants; no one variant is any more correct than any other. At times, legends may cluster together to form what folklorists call a legend complex: a group of interrelated legends and beliefs centered around a particular theme. The multiple legend complexes centering around witchcraft are among the most enduring in Western history. Legends are extraordinarily responsive to social change; in fact, they are one of the most sensitive indices of transformations in cultural values and worldview (Dundes, 1971; Magliocco, 1993). For that reason, it is imperative to understand them in the cultural, political and social context in which they appear. In considering the development of the legend of Aradia, I will be applying all of the above principles, but especially the latter. My goal is to show how each successive historical era added and subtracted elements to this tale in keeping with the cultural preoccupations of the time, giving us not only today’s concept of Aradia, but also a much broader legend complex surrounding the nature of witchcraft itself.

ORIGINS: HERODIAS AND DIANA

The origin of the name “Aradia” is veiled in mystery. I have not been able to find it in written form before the publication of Leland’s Gospel in 1899. However, Leland himself equates Aradia with the legendary figure Herodias, a central character in the development of the witchcraft legend complex in Europe (Leland, 1899/1998:1). According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, Herodias was the sister-in-law of King Herod, the wife of his brother Philip (Matthew 14:3-12). Apparently she hated John the Baptist, and asked Herod to arrest John when the holy man was found in his dominion. But Herodias wanted John dead, so she concocted a plan in which she urged her daughter Salome to dance for King Herod. In exchange, the girl was to demand the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The plan worked: Salome danced, Herod delivered, and here the gospel stops. But according to an early Christian legend derived from the gospel, when Salome saw the head brought before her, she had a fit of remorse, and began to weep and bemoan her sin. A terrible wind began to blow from the saint’s mouth, so strong that it blew the famous dancer into the air, where she is condemned to wander forever (Cattabiani, 1994:208). Since in Roman usage, the wives and daughters of a house were commonly known by the name of the male head of the household, it is easy to see how Salome became confused with her mother Herodias. In medieval Italian, Herodias is rendered as “Erodiade,” only a short linguistic step away from Aradia.

One of the earliest mentions of Herodias is in the work of Raterius of Liegi, Bishop of Verona (890-974 CE). He laments that many believe that Herodias, wife of Herod, is a queen or a goddess, and say that one third of the earth is under her charge (Bonomo, 1959:19). Herodias gets linked with Diana in the Canon Episcopi, a document attributed to the Council of Ancyra in 314 CE, but probably a much later forgery, since the earliest written record of it appears around 872 CE (Caro Baroja, 1961:62). Regino, Abbot of Pr¸m, writing in 899 CE, cites the Canon, telling bishops to warn their flocks against the false beliefs of women who think they follow “Diana the pagan goddess, or Herodias” on their night-time travels. These women believed they rode out on the backs of animals over long distances, following the orders of their mistress who called them to service on certain appointed nights. Three centuries later, Ugo da San Vittore, a 12th century Italian abbot, refers to women who believe they go out at night riding on the backs of animals with “Erodiade,” whom he conflates with Diana and Minerva (Bonomo, 1959:18-19).

In each of these cases, legends about women who travel in spirit at night following Herodias or Diana are being recorded by clerics whose agenda is to eradicate what they see as false beliefs. It is difficult to gauge whether these reports represent a wide diffusion of the legends in north-central Italy and southern Germany between the 9th and 12th centuries, or whether the authors of early medieval decrees and encyclicals simply quoted each other, reproducing the same material. However, the work of German historian Wolfgang Behringer demonstrates that legends of night-flying societies, including followers of Diana, were in oral circulation in the western Alps (a region that now includes parts of Germany, Switzerland and Italy) in the 16th century, and probably well before it as well (Behringer, 1998:52-59). Herodias appears in these legends, as in the New Testament, as a symbol of wantonness (so she remained; as late as the 19th century, prostitutes in Paris were euphemistically referred to by Eliphas Levy as les filles d’Herodiade, “the daughters of Herodias”)—but also as a tragic figure, condemned to wander through the air forever as punishment for her sins. Regino equates her with Diana, and Ugo adds Minerva; we cannot know, based on the evidence, if this was their own interpretation, formed as a result of their educated knowledge of Roman mythology, or whether tellers themselves were merging Herodias with other Roman goddesses in their narratives. It is telling, in any case, that pagan goddesses are being syncretized with one of the most wicked characters in the New Testament.

Whether the association was of scholarly origin or arose from oral tradition, Herodias and Diana are linked in folk legend from the 9th century CE onward; and it is through Diana that the connection to witchcraft is formed. The goddess Diana is associated with witchcraft from early Classical Roman literature. She was often conflated with Selene (a deity from Asia Minor) and Hecate, all three of whom were associated with the moon. Hecate was also the queen of the spirits of the dead, present at tombs and at the hearth, where pre-Roman peoples buried their ancestors. At night she would appear at crossroads, followed by her train of spirits flying through the air and her terrifying, howling dogs (Caro Baroja, 1961:26). Folklore about Diana’s night rides may be a permutation of earlier tales about Hecate and the rade of the unquiet dead, which survived in Europe well into the middle ages and, in northern Europe, fused with the legend of the wild hunt. All three goddesses were known for helping witches: Horace, writing about the witch Canidia, has her invoke “night and Diana, ye faithful witnesses of all my enterprises” to assist her in thwarting her enemies (Horace, Epode 5, vv.49-54; cited in Caro Baroja, 1961:26). In Roman times, women of all social classes worshipped Diana on the kalends of August at her sanctuary near Lake Nemi. Her rituals were conducted at night; the lake was ringed by torches. Archeologists have found votive offerings of tablets seeking Diana’s aid as well as clay statuettes of mother and child (Diana protected women in childbirth) and of uteri, as well as horned stags representing Actaeon, the youth whose desire the goddess punished by transforming him into a stag. Since the rites were women’s mysteries, little information remains to us about their nature (Bernstein, 2000:154). However, we do know that men were often suspicious of women’s mystery rites, and may have circulated legends about them like those cited by Juvenal about the rites of the Bona Dea, another goddess worshipped in secret exclusively by Roman women. According to this 1st century BCE Roman author, men imagined the rites to be of a sexual nature, with feasting, dancing and wild orgies (Juvenal 6.314, cited in Bernstein, 2000:220). It is important to remember that this is a male fantasy of secret women’s rites, rather than a description of their actual content, and that Juvenal was writing about the rites of the Bona Dea and not those of Diana. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that similar kinds of stories circulated about many women’s mysteries, including the rites of Diana. The motif of rites of sexual pleasure may thus have become associated with the legend of Diana and her followers. This motif surfaces again centuries later in association with the witches" sabbat.

Christian legends of Herodias, the flying dancer, may have begun to merge with those of the pagan goddess Diana because of their shared theme of night flight. With the merging of the two traditions, additional motifs become part of the legend complex: a connection with the moon; the practice of witchcraft; the presence of additional spirits, i.e. the spirits of the unquiet dead from Hecate’s rade; and gatherings of women that included feasting, dancing, and sexual license. By the 10th century CE, legends of Diana and Herodias were in wide circulation in Europe, and this continued well into the 12th century. At this point, the legends began to incorporate material from yet another legend complex.

THE FAIRIES

During the 12th century, authors begin to report folk legends about spiritual beings, variously called bonae res (“good things”), dominae nocturnae (“night women”) or fatae (“fairies”), that would visit homes at night to feast. If food was plentiful and the house was in good order, these visits were thought to bring good luck, since the bonae res would restore everything they consumed before the night was out. The bonae res could also punish householders whose homes were not orderly, or who did not have plenty to eat and drink, by withdrawing their blessing. The spirits were sometimes said to be led by a queen who had different names, depending on the source of the legend: Bensoria, Diana or Herodiana (combining Herodias and Diana) in Italy; Satia and Dame Abonde in France; Holde or Berchta in what is now Germany (Bonomo, 1959:22) These female figures were the protectors of spinners and of orderly homes, distributors of fertility and plenty who rewarded the good and punished the lazy. Diana and Herodias became identified, in parts of Europe, as leaders of these spiritual assemblies (Bonomo, 1959:29).

In 1249, William of Alverina, Bishop of Paris, discussed beliefs in night rides by the followers of “Domina Abundia,” who brings abundance and good luck to the homes she visits if there is plenty to eat, but whose followers abandon and scorn houses where they receive no hospitality (Bonomo, 1959:22). Vincent of Beauvais (1190-1264) reports an instance of ostension involving this legend: a group of young men forced their way into the home of a rich farmer, helping themselves to whatever was lying around while dancing and singing “unem premes, cent en rendes” (“we take one, return a hundredfold”). The thieves ransacked the place while the credulous farmer told his wife to keep quiet, for the visitors were bonae res and would increase their riches a hundredfold (Bonomo, 1959:25-26).

A similar story appears in Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-54) as the “Queen’s Tale” (#9). Two common laborers, Bruno and Buffalmacco, explain to a learned doctor that despite their poverty, they are able to live happily, because they go in corso (“on course,” “on a journey”). “From this we draw anything we want or need, without any harm to others, and from this comes our happy lifestyle which you see,” explains Bruno. The doctor wants to know what this is all about, but Bruno tells him it is a great secret, and that he could never reveal it. The doctor swears he won"t tell a soul, so at last Bruno confides the details to him. He and Buffalmacco are part of a brigade of 25 men with a captain and two council members elected every six months, guided by two disciples of a great necromancer. Twice a month, the brigade assembles; each person states their wishes and all are provided for. The assembly then feasts on delicious food and fine wine, while sweet music plays and beautiful women are available for erotic fun. The doctor can"t wait to go “in corso” himself, and begins to ply the laborers with gifts and money, hoping they will take him. Finally they agree. They tell him that on an appointed night, a dark, hairy beast will appear and carry him to a secret location, but he must not mention God or the saints. On the designated night, Buffalmacco and Bruno appear dressed in a bear-skin and carry the gullible doctor on their backs, leaping and yelping, until they dump him into a sewage ditch while they escape, laughing at his foolishness.

Legends about fairies who reward neatness and plenty and punish want and slovenliness seem to address issues of class conflict and social inequality in pre-modern Europe. One family’s good fortune could be explained as the result of supernatural intervention. At the same time, such legends also gave hope to the lower classes that if they keep a neat enough house, they too might be blessed by the bonae res. In this sense, the stories acted as a form of social control, reinforcing values of orderliness and hospitality while threatening sanction against householders who violated them. The stories also contained compensatory fantasies for the lower classes, a theme that will appear again a few centuries later. For people whose very survival depended on subsistence farming, and who often suffered from hunger and privation, the idea of breaking into the homes of the wealthy and enjoying some of their benefits, even in spirit, must have been a compelling one indeed, especially as the food magically restored itself by morning. It is not surprising that instances of ostension like the one described by Vincent of Beauvais occurred.

These versions also demonstrate that legends about night-time travels in the company of spirits had both believers and skeptics. Moreover, there may have been class differences between the two: lower classes were more likely to know about them and believe in them than the educated classes, for reasons I explained above. In Boccaccio’s tale, the learned doctor, who has never heard of the legend, is taken advantage of by shrewd laborers, who themselves are non-believers, although they are familiar with the legend. They successfully fool and humiliate the learned doctor, reversing the usual power relationships between social classes. However, nowhere in Boccaccio’s version is there mention of a company of women, or of a female leader of the spiritual assembly; instead the company is led by a great necromancer, and the doctor is told he will be borne to the assembly by a hairy beast, perhaps a reference to the diabolization of these legends that was taking place during Boccaccio’s lifetime.

In all accounts discussed so far, the point of view of the Canon Episcopi prevails: the night travels are spiritual journeys; they do not take place in the flesh. The stupidity of the gullible is exactly that they mistake a spiritual tradition for an actual practice. Moreover, while the clerics decried belief in these legends because they diverted parishioners" attention away from God, they were not taken as evidence of the practice of witchcraft, nor did they have any diabolical content. But as the 12th century advanced, a new view began to emerge and compete with that of the Canon. According to this emergent worldview, the women’s nightly journeys were not spiritual, but real. At the same time, older legends about the Society of Diana and Herodias, the bonae res and Dame Abonde begin to merge with tales about maleficent witches. These legends took on a menacing tone. Combined with new attitudes about the nature of the night journeys, they became the building blocks of the witches" sabbat in the subversion myth of diabolical witchcraft.

FAIRIES, HEALING AND SECRET SOCIETIES

Until the 11th century, legends of the society of Diana or Herodias existed side by side with legends about a very different kind of character: women who entered homes at night in sprit form to harm the inhabitants by sucking blood, eating bodies and cooking them before restoring to them the appearance of life. Their victims eventually became ill and died. These are related to the Classical Roman legends of striae, women who could transform into birds of prey to fly out at night and eat their victims, often infants, in their beds (Bonomo, 1959:33). Their victims often appeared perfectly healthy, but over a period of time sickened and died: their souls were thought to have been eaten and, in some cases, cooked by the maleficent beings.

In some parts of Sicily, Sardinia, and Friuli, these two strains still existed separately as recently as the 19th century. In Sardinian folklore, cogas (lit. “cooks;” vampire-like witches) and janas (fairies; from dianas, “followers of Diana;” cf. Neapolitan ianare) are very different types of creatures: while cogas are uniformly malevolent, janas live in caves or Neolithic shaft tombs in the mountains, are expert weavers and singers, and can interact with and even marry humans (Liori, 1992:107- 111). The 19th century country doctor and folklore collector Giuseppe Pitré reported that Sicilian peasants distinguished between the vampiric, maleficent witch (stria, nserra) and the donna di fuori. Sicilian donne di fuori (“women from the outside”) or belle signore (“beautiful ladies”) documented by Pitré are creatures somewhere between fairies and witches. They appear as beautiful women who can enter homes at night through the keyhole. If all is in order, they reward the householders, but they punish dirt and disorder. They love babies, but too much attention from the donne di fuori can also harm children (Pitré, 1889: iv:153). Gustav Henningsen, in his careful review of Spanish Inquisition documents from Sicily, reveals that during the 16th century, the term “donne di fuori” referred to both fairies and people of both genders who were believed to ride out with them at night (Henningsen 1993:195). These individuals were usually folk healers who could cure illnesses caused by the fairies, often as a result of some unwitting offense against them (Henningsen, 1993:195). The usual cure involved a ritual supper offered to the fairies by the victim. The fairies, accompanied by the healers in spirit form, would come to the victim’s home on an appointed night where they would dance, celebrate and spiritually consume the food, thus curing the afflicted person (Henningsen, 1993:200-01).

These medieval Sicilian beliefs have interesting parallels throughout the modern Mediterranean. In rural Greece, as recently as the 1960’s, certain folk healers specialized in curing ills brought about by the fairies, known as exotica (“those from outside;” cf. donne di fuori) (Henningsen, 1993:210). Anthropologist Vincent Crapanzano, working in Morocco in the 1960’s, documented a belief system centered around the jinn (fairies) and their human followers, folk healers belonging to religious brotherhoods who could cure illness by performing a trance-dance to special music. The queen of the jinn, known as ëA"isha Qandisha, could appear either as a beautiful woman or a hideous hag, but always had a non-human feature, such as camel toes. Healers consulted ëA"isha Qandisha in their dreams, where she explained the cause of the illness and its cure (Crapanzano, 1975:147). In the 1970’s, folklorist Gail Kligman documented Romanian brotherhoods of trance dancers who specialized in curing ailments thought to be caused by iele (fairies), whose patron saint was Diana or Irodeasa [cf. Erodiade] (Kligman, 1981). And in Sardinia in the 1980’s, folklorist Clara Gallini studied argismo, a belief system based on the idea that the (often metaphorical) bite of certain insects could be cured only through ecstatic dancing, done to music played by groups of specialized musician-healers (Gallini, 1988). There may also be parallels to tarantismo, the folk belief system documented in southern Italy, especially Calabria, by folklorist Ernesto De Martino (1961); but this is a topic beyond the scope of this paper.

The broad diffusion of similar motifs in the circum-Mediterranean suggests that we are dealing with a belief-system of significant antiquity which may once have existed in many parts of Europe. It involved beliefs about illnesses caused by fairies or spirits, folk healers who specialized in communicating with these spirits through dreams and trances, and the enactment of ritual cures, which may have included special meals, music and trance-dancing. In many cases, healers themselves belonged to a society which may have met either in spirit or in actual ritual enactments of the cures.

THE DIABOLIZATION OF A LEGEND COMPLEX

But in most of Europe, belief systems involving night-time spiritual journeys, folk healers and fairies began to change during the 12th century, merging with motifs about maleficent witches and with the growing diabolical interpretation of witchcraft generated by the Church. John of Salisbury (1110-1180) combines the two by attributing to Herodias the leadership of night-time cannibalistic banquets, where babies were offered to the lamiae, female-headed serpents of Classical provenance. By the 14th century in Italy, Jacopo Passavanti first mentions the tregenda (sabbat) in conjunction with his merging of the two legendary strains. In his description, demons take the place of humans at these gatherings, leaving humans asleep in their beds. The intent of the demons is diabolical: to lead people astray. He mentions that certain women believe they travel with this company, and that its leaders are Herodias and Diana (Bonomo, 1959:64).

An examination of some Italian trial records shows the gradual transformation of legends about the society of Herodias/ Diana into diabolical sabbats, where feasting, drinking and dancing are accompanied by sex acts and cannibalism. Two early trials which have captured a great deal of scholarly attention are those of Sibillia and Pierina of Milan (Bonomo, 1959; Caro Baroja, 1961; Muraro Vaiani, 1976; Ginzburg, 1989). Both trials took place in the late 14th century; both women were probably first identified and persecuted because they practiced divination or folk healing (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:153). Sibillia’s first trial took place in 1384. Accused of heresy, Sibillia confessed to having believed in and told legends about the games of Signora Oriente (“milady of the East”), not thinking it was a sin. Signora Oriente or La Signora del Giuoco (“the lady of the game”) presided over these gatherings, where there was feasting on all manner of delicacies, music and dancing; she could predict the future, reveal secrets and resurrect the animals that had been eaten by the assembly, so that in the morning, all appeared exactly as before.

In 1390, Pierina de Bugatis, also of Milan, confessed under questioning to participating in the “game of Erodiade.” The gatherings would slaughter and feast on livestock, whose bones Signora Oriente would put back into their skins before resurrecting them with her magic wand. The party would visit the homes of the wealthy, where they would eat and drink; they would bless homes that were neat and clean. Signora Oriente instructed her followers about the properties of various herbs and answered their questions about illness and thefts. But the followers were sworn to secrecy. To attend the assembly, Pierina would call upon a spirit named “Lucifelus,” who appeared in the form of a man to take her there.

The tales told by Sibillia and Pierina illustrate the merging of a number of motifs from different traditions into a single legend complex: the night journeys, the company of women led by a female leader, who seems to control both abundance and rebirth, as well as revealing the future and dispensing advice on healing; the magical feasting in which appetites are satisfied; the resurrection of dead animals after the banquet; the fairy visits to the homes of the rich, where hospitality is rewarded and all returns as before at the evening’s conclusion. In Pierina’s version, we have the first appearance of “Lucifelus,” a variant of Lucifero, or Lucifer, as the agent of transport to the games—a minor figure, at this point, who is diabolical in name only.

Italian historian Luisa Muraro Vaiani believes the judges hearing these depositions had a hard time understanding their nature. The women at times spoke as though they were reporting folklore, while at other times they spoke as though they themselves had experienced these night journeys—a characteristic of legend performance I have already remarked upon, and one which makes sense if we accept the hypothesis that both women were folk healers who continued an ancient tradition of consulting with spiritual beings for healing advice. Their tales were dreamlike, mixing familiar elements with supernatural ones. To us, they may even suggest events that took place in an altered state of consciousness, and like many such experiences, they alternate in perspective between the self and a kind of detachment from the self. But the judges, working with a binary system of opposites in which illusion and reality were mutually exclusive concepts, didn"t know what to make of these dream-like visions that seemed so real to the accused. They ended up assuming they were real. Sibillia was sentenced to prison at her first trial for having believed in and told people about the society of Diana, acts that were considered apostasy, not witchcraft. But at her second trial in 1390, she was sentenced to death for recidivism and for having actually participated in the games. Thus, the transition between attitudes of the Canon and later ones hinged on the understanding of legendary material as fact (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:137-142)—a critical transition which had ominous consequences in the development of the witchcraft persecutions.

One of the best-known of the Italian witch trials took place two centuries after Sibillia and Pierina were tried and executed. In 1540, Bellezza Orsini of Colle Vecchio (Perugia), a widely respected folk healer who cured using herb-infused oils, was accused of poisoning. At first she swore her innocence, but under torture, she confessed to being part of a secret society of witches. The secret society she described was a hierar- chical one in which the initiate-to-be apprenticed with a master strega. Initiation involved a formal renunciation of Church teachings, a renegation of baptism, and the invocation of the devil, who was called Mauometto (“Mohammed”), and appeared as a handsome man dressed in black. At the time of Bellezza’s trial, the Islamic Ottoman empire was expanding its reach towards Europe. The use of the name “Mohammed” for the devil reflects widespread popular fear and prejudice towards Muslims in16th century Europe. Sexual intercourse with the devil was part of the initiation. Afterwards, the assembled company would fly off, with the help of flying ointment, to the magic walnut tree of Benevento where they would dance with other devils. Initiates chose new, non-Christian names so they could be used when members got together again. Orsini described witches as organized into teams according to their place of origin. Each team was led by a captain with 20-30 students under her. A “witch queen,” called Befania, ruled over all the teams. Each November 1, there was a “reconciliation,” or gathering of witches, during which a new witch queen would be elected. According to Orsini, the members of the witch society were sworn to help one another, and to help less fortunate teams by sharing baby-meatballs and other ingredients. By then, witch gatherings included cannibalistic feasting, and the dead were no longer brought back to life.

It is evident that drastic changes had taken place in the Diana/Herodias legend complex between 1390 and 1540. Gone are the earlier legends of all-female societies of revelers whose presence brought good luck to the homes they visited, and where all that was consumed was magically restored—a kind of compensatory fantasy for the poor not unlike other contemporary portrayals of utopias of plenty, such as Cuccagna and Bengodi (Del Giudice, 2001). By 1540, Herodias and Diana are no longer players in the dangerous “game.” Instead, it has acquired menacing, diabolical elements introduced by ecclesiastical revisions which interpreted all deviations from Christian doctrine as evidence of a world-wide diabolical conspiracy whose agents were witches. The witch gathering is now presided over by the devil, whose name is identical to that of the Islamic prophet Mohammed—evidence of the demonization of Islam in the popular imagination by the 16th century. Besides the devils" followers, the women present include the witch-queen Befania, a corruption of the word epifania (“epiphany”), and witches who initiate their charges into the diabolical society. According to Cattabiani, there may well be a connection between Befana, the Italian Christmas witch, and earlier legends of Herodias. This link is preserved in the names for the Befana in the region of the Italian Alps near Belluno, where to this day she is known as “Redodesa,” “Redosa,” or “Redosola"—possible corruptions of "Erodiade” (cf. Romanian “Irodeasa”) (Cattabiani, 1994:13). The witches gather at Benevento and fly around the magical walnut tree with the help of flying ointment; cannibalism and sexual intercourse with the devil are integral features of their assemblies. The witch society is a secret society; initiates are brought in by a teacher, and secret names are used to conceal everyday identity. November 1 is now a recognized time for witches" gatherings. Bellezza Orsini’s confession reveals the growing diabolization of the legend of the night journeys, as well as the crystallization of certain folk motifs which continue to be central in contemporary revival Witchcraft: secrecy, the use of ritual names, initiation through a teacher, and the importance of October 31/ November 1 in the year cycle. The transition in the content of the legends was accompanied by a change in the attitudes of the clerics and the elite: material previously understood as legendary was now being understood as fact. The tension between belief and disbelief that had kept the legends circulating was beginning to solidify into an acceptance of the witches" sabbat as an actual event. By 1525, the Canon Episcopi was being called into question: Paolo Grillando writes in De sortilegiis eorumque poenas that the Canon was mistaken about the illusory nature of the witches" sabbats, and that they were in fact real (Bonomo, 1959:110).

BETWEEN DREAM AND REALITY

But what if the judges were right? If the games of Diana/ Herodias were in fact experiences of the imagination, whether dreams or other alternate states of consciousness, why did many women confess to having attended them? Is it possible that the Society of Diana/ Herodias was a real secret society of women, and that Sibillia, Pierina and Bellezza were members? Could Herodias/ Erodiade/ Aradia have been the secret name of an actual leader of such a society, who then became legendary? If this were true, it would give us an intriguing source for Leland’s legend of Aradia, as well as revolutionizing our understanding of the history of the witch trials and our sense of gender relations in Europe during the middle ages. Let us carefully examine the evidence both for and against this hypothesis. First, it is important to remember that not all women confessed to the reality of their experiences; many maintained their dream-like nature to the bitter end. Other confessions, like Bellezza’s, were produced under torture, and are thus unreliable as historical evidence. Victims would often confess to outrageous acts under torture because the narration of fantastic episodes brought respite from agony and bought the accused time. A strange compact often developed between judges and their victims which may have led some women to manufacture diabolical details they thought would satisfy their accusers, leading to the creation of fantastic trivia such as the baby meatballs in Bellezza’s confession. Other details might have been drawn from the victim’s knowledge of everyday reality; for example, the complex organization of the witch society described by Bellezza parallels the organization of other medieval social institutions such as trade guilds and religious fraternities and sororities, which were led by elected officials chosen at yearly assemblies. These guilds and fraternities functioned as mutual aid societies, much as Bellezza describes for the secret society of witches. Thus we need to be selective in interpreting the nature of these narratives. Some details suggest that certain aspects of the Society of Diana/ Herodias may have been real. The women who reported on it constituted only a small minority of all those accused of witchcraft. Moreover, the narrators had an important element in common: they were folk healers and diviners. A key function of the night-time journeys was the obtaining of answers to divinatory questions and information on cures. This structure parallels that of similar belief-complexes about spirits, healers and night journeys from the circum- Mediterranean. In several of these examples, we know that folk healers indeed were members of a society that convened in the flesh to play music, dance ecstatically and conduct healing rites. In other cases, the societies reported by healers existed only in spirit, and included spiritual members, whether fairies, jinn, exotica or iele. These details, shared with other circum- Mediterranean healing traditions, suggest that the accused may indeed have been part of a secret society of folk healers—either actual, spiritual, or both.

At the same time, other legend elements have content that is clearly dream-like and fantastic: all wishes are granted; food magically regenerates; humans fly. These motifs point to the spiritual nature of at least some of the experiences. Additional elements suggest the creation of a legendary peasant utopia: there is food and drink aplenty for all assembled; humans and nature exist in harmony; death is followed by resurrection or rebirth; relationships, though hierarchical, are based on mutual trust and dignity; knowledge is available to all members; gratification is ubiquitous, and the Christian notion of earthly pleasures as sinful is completely absent. These descriptions suggest a kind of utopia, an “imagined state” whose conditions inversely reflect those of its source (Del Giudice and Porter, 2001:4-5). Muraro Vaiani suggests that Diana/ Herodias was to her followers as Christ was to his, albeit in a parallel universe: the Lady did not judge or deny the Christian universe, but offered an alternative (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:153). Legends of the secret society may have constituted a kind of compensatory fantasy for women— one in which women had power and the ultimate authority rested with a benevolent supernatural female leader. Through legends and perhaps even dreams, they may have offered solace and compensation to women whose real-life experiences reflected the hardships of gender and class oppression in medieval Europe, much as narratives of earthly paradises such as Cuccagna and Bengodi, where rivers flowed with wine and mountains were made of cheese, were created by Italian peasants whose everyday lives were filled with hunger and privation (Del Giudice, 2001:12).

How can we better understand the nature of these narratives, which even after six centuries seem to take place in a world between dream and reality? I would suggest that it is not unreasonable to assume the existence in medieval Italy of legend complexes similar to those in other parts of the circum-Mediterranean, concerning fairies, spiritual journeys and healing. As we have already seen, aspects of these belief systems existed in parts of Europe and North Africa until the end of the 20th century. Henningsen’s work confirms the existence of similar beliefs in Sicily during the 16th century, and Behringer documents their presence in the western Alps. If Sibillia, Pierina and Bellezza were indeed members of such a society, their stories begin to make a certain amount of sense. This is especially true if we consider two additional tentative assumptions: the idea of ostension and that of the autonomous imagination. Ostension is Degh and Vazonyi’s term for the enactment of legends. For example, a Halloween haunted house may portray legends about ghosts, vampires and werewolves, or a Pagan ritual may dramatize the legend of Robin Hood. Ostension always derives from a pre-existing legend: the legend precedes the existence of its enactment. Thus, for instance, legends of contaminated Halloween candy predated the finding of actual contaminants in treats by at least ten years (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1986/1995). Individuals who placed needles, razor blades and other dangerous objects in treats as pranks engaged in a form of ostension. The theory of ostension explains how easily certain elements can pass from legend to ritualized action. Hypothetically, legends about spiritual journeys to dance with the fairies and receive healing can easily be transformed by creative individuals into healing rituals with food offerings to the fairies and ecstatic dancing to special music. What if some women, inspired by utopian legends of the Society of Diana/ Herodias, decided to try to replicate such a society in medieval Europe? Though we have no proof such a society ever existed, it is not inconceivable that a few inspired individuals might have decided to dramatize, once or repeatedly, the gatherings described in legends. The use of the term giuoco (“game”) by Sibillia and Pierina suggests the playful, prankish character of ostension. A “game” based on legends of Diana/ Herodias and the fairies would probably have been secret and limited to the friends and associates of the creative instigators, who might well have been folk healers. One or more women might even have played the role of Diana or Herodias, presiding over the gathering and giving advice. Feasting, drinking and dancing might have taken place, and the women may have exchanged advice on matters of healing and divination. The “game” might even have had a healing intent, as was the case for many comparable circum- Mediterranean rituals, and may have involved trance-dancing. This is one possible explanation for the remarkably consistent reports of Sibillia and Pierina, tried within a few years of each other. The existence of ostension in connection to these legends could also mean that Grimassi’s claim that Aradia was a real person may, in fact, not be entirely out of the question; a healer who was part of the society might have chosen to play the part of, or even take on the name of, Erodiade.

However, it is important to remember that even if a group decided to enact aspects of the legend of Diana/ Herodias, it would not have been a revival of pre-Christian paganism, but an attempt to act out certain ritual aspects described in the legends. Moreover, the more magical aspects from the trial reports—night flights on the backs of animals, ever-replenishing banquets, resurrection of dead livestock—could not have been achieved through ostension. We need to consider these as fantastical legend motifs, reports of experiences from trances or dreams, or both.

One way to explain these motifs is to consider the role of the autonomous imagination in blending cultural and personal material. This term, coined by anthropologist Michele Stephen, refers to a part of the human imagination that operates without our conscious control (Stephen, 1989:55- 61). It emerges in dreams and in alternate states of consciousness such as vision trances and religious ecstasy. The visions it produces are vivid and detailed, appearing “more real than reality” to experiencers. They seem to arise independently of any conscious volition on the part of the subject. The autonomous imagination is more creative and synthetic than ordinary thought processes, easily combining elements from the subject’s personal life with cultural and religious material. Thus dreams and visions seem to speak directly to our most intimate concerns, but also bring religious and cultural symbols to bear upon them. Furthermore, the autonomous imagination processes time and memory differently from ordinary conscious thought. Past, present and future events may blend together; personal memories may combine with cultural material in unusual ways.

It is possible that some of the experiences of the Society of Diana/ Herodias described by the accused are attributable to the autonomous imagination of the experiencers. Please note that I am not claiming that the accusers invented the experiences; in fact, I am saying quite the opposite. To women such as Pierina and Sibillia, the experience of flying out to the games of Herodias may have seemed more real than ordinary, everyday reality if it took place in trance visions. While it is possible that vision trances may have played a part in a hypothetical, ostensive Society of Diana/ Herodias, it is also conceivable that women who were active narrators of these legends as well as folk healers might have experienced altered states of consciousness, either through the use of herbs or by using meditative techniques. This is consistent with the discoveries of Behringer, who studied the trial transcripts of Conrad Stoeckhlin, a 16th century horse herder from Oberstdorf, in the western Alps, who was executed for practicing witchcraft. Stoeckhlin, a folk healer, reported that an angel led him on a series of trance journeys and gave him advice on healing and divination (Behringer, 1998:17-21; 138). We also know that some contemporary Italian folk healers used such techniques well into the 20th century, and that they reported contacting spirits who helped them with their healing (Henningsen, 1993; De Martino, 1961, 1966; Selis, 1978; DiNola, 1993:41).

Of course, spiritual experiences (and their interpretations) vary widely according to culture and historical period. It is not unlikely that contemporary legend material about Diana, Herodias and the fairies may have made its way into the trance visions of medieval Italian folk healers through the mechanism of the autonomous imagination, giving rise to their reports of actually participating in the game of Herodias. The healers were telling the truth; their experiences were real. Both Behringer, in his research on the visionary horse herder Stoeckhlin, and Stuart Clark, in his monumental study of early European demonology, propose early modern European folk culture did not always distinguish sharply between experiences that took place in dreams, ecstatic visions or trances and reality (Behringer, 1998:158-59; Clark, 1997:193-96). The dualistic conception in which “dreamtime” was opposed to “reality” was a product of medieval Church reforms that culminated in the formation of the myth of diabolical witchcraft. Here we must return to Muraro Vaiani’s hypothesis that it was the judges who did not know how to understand the ecstatic experiences of the accused because they fell outside of their dualistic conception of the nature of reality. Therefore, they interpreted them as sorcery—the only mechanism they understood through which illusion could be made to seem real.

CONCLUSIONS

What can we conclude from this evidence about the legend of Aradia? The evidence I have examined and presented here suggests that the legend of Aradia has roots in archaic, pre-Christian materials concerning societies of healers who trafficked with spirits in order to cure. Healing may have involved trance-journeys as well as ecstatic dancing. These ancient materials combined with Classical legends of Diana and Hecate, and during the middle ages became attached to the New Testament story of Herodias, the eternal dancer. By the 11th century, these elements had become part of a widespread legend complex in Europe that may have involved episodes of ostension, or the enactment of certain legend motifs, probably for the purposes of healing. As clerical and popular attitudes towards the nature of nighttime spiritual journeys changed, these legends merged with parallel folk materials about maleficent witches, and became the building blocks of the subversion myth of the diabolical sabbat, responsible for the death of tens of thousands of innocent women and men between 1300 and 1750.

What Leland collected from Maddalena may represent a 19th century version of this legend that incorporated later materials influenced by medieval diabolism: the presence of “Lucifero,” the Christian devil; the practice of sorcery; the naked dances under the full moon. While there may have been instances of ostension regarding this legend, the evidence does not support the idea that Aradia was an early teacher of the Craft, although some women may have called themselves Erodiade during ostensive episodes. There is no evidence of a widespread revival of pre-Christian religion as a result of the proliferation of this legend. In fact, it is ironic that a compensatory legend that envisioned a society led by women, featuring relationships based on equality, access to knowledge for all, and the fulfillment of all earthly desires became twisted into the subversion myth of the diabolical sabbat, which was responsible for the murder of so many innocent women during the witch craze.

Legends and beliefs about healing, fairies and nighttime spiritual journeys may have continued to exist in pockets throughout Italy until the late 20th century. Because legends always change to reflect their social environment, they became Christianized, and incorporated references to saints. In some cases, saints may have replaced the earlier fairies. Some version of this legend complex may be at the core of both Leland’s discovery of a “witch cult” in Tuscany in the late 1800’s, and Grimassi’s claims that his family practiced a form of folk healing that involved spirits, dancing, and the goddess Diana (Grimassi, pers. communication 8/25/00). These were not, as Leland suggested, survivals of Etruscan religion, but elements of great antiquity reworked into systems that made sense for Italian peasants of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Some parts of these belief systems may even have survived the journey to America, forming the basis of Stregheria, or Italian American revival Witchcraft.

Folklore, of course, seldom dies; it transforms itself according to new paradigms and cultural discourses. So it is not surprising to read new versions of this legend emerging today. Grimassi’s expansion of Leland’s materials must be understood in exactly such a context—as the continuation of the legend begun so long ago. It is intriguing to note that while both Leland’s and Grimassi’s versions may appear to be strictly Neo- Pagan in content, both also contain very strong Christian influences. In the Gospel of the Witches, Diana sends her only daughter Aradia to earth to teach people to resist their oppressors just as in the New Testament, God sends his son Jesus to earth for much the same purpose. In Hereditary Witchcraft, Grimassi describes Aradia as having twelve disciples—six male-female couples—who help spread her teachings after her mysterious disappearance. Do these elements invalidate the legends? Quite the contrary, I would argue. They simply demonstrate how easily legend material absorbs motifs from the surrounding culture. These elaborated new versions show that the legend of Aradia is a living tradition that continues to evolve today, changing to adapt to the individual needs of the narrator as well as the larger changes in society.

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Sabina Magliocco is Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University - Northridge. She has done fieldwork in Sardinia (Italy) as well as among contemporary Pagans in the San Francisco Bay area, and is the author of a forthcoming book Neopagan Sacred Art and Altars: Making Things Whole (University Press of Mississippi) and a number of articles. She is a Gardnerian initiate.

www.AradiaGoddess.com

144 notes · View notes