#its not going very well because i live in the land of free but inaccessible healthcare

[agentgreenbean]

im probably going to be very embarrassed about my current f1 fixation in a few years but also. i'll always owe something to it. considering the fact that reading abt valtteri bottas and his struggles with mental health rly resonated with me and that's why i'm currently actually trying to pursue mental health care

[mashkaroom]

Lengthy analysis of Holes, as promised!. This will include spoilers, which will be marked. Just gonna go through the book and the philosophy/themes/connections I caught onto this time around. Stuff discussed, in order: connections to Camus, on the question of children’s books, systems, cycles, and why Stanley is gay and jewish 😏

Camus:

The first and perhaps most obvious set of texts/theories it makes sense to put Holes in conversation with is the works of Albert Camus. Holes starts out with a description of the sun and the heat, which readers of the Stranger will remember are major themes there. The heat continues to be a prominent part of the story, though thematically, it functions very differently in the two books. In The Stranger it primarily represents the indifference of the universe (or at least so claim a ton of sources and I’m inclined to agree) and the lack of control we exert over our own lives while in Holes it’s basically the opposite of that. The heat and drought is implied to be a semi-divine punishment for a past injustice and, moreover, the elite adults of the camp have air conditioning and access to shade: the sun does not affect everyone equally in Holes as it does in The Stranger (though even that is debatable: I don’t think this was Camus’s intent, but it’s notable that it’s only the white englishman who’s driven to murder by the sun. This could certainly be read as critique of colonizers who cannot/refuse to coexist with the land and environment and how the indigenous population always suffers for it, but I digress). The other Camusian parallel one is immediately inclined to draw is that, of course, of Sysiphus: there’s the repetitive and seemingly meaningless act of digging holes not to mention that carrying stuff up a mountain is both thematically and plot-wise a very important part of Holes. But, once again, it is eventually revealed that both acts do carry an inherent meaning. Holes does not present the image of an uncaring universe: on the contrary, destiny and semi-divine influence plays a major role. The story may start out with a series of seemingly random and inherently meaningless events, but as the story progresses, people, actions, items, and events become increasingly imbued with meaning. In the Holes universe, one must imagine Sisyphus redeemed, not through the act of rolling the stone but by rebelling against it. I have difficulty imagining that Sachar was not thinking of Camus while writing Holes, or, at the very least, that if he encountered Camus afterwards, he must have been struck by the similarities. I don’t know if there was a specific intent in creating a story so embroiled in Camusian absurdism, especially since the target readership is (allegedly) children who almost certainly are not recognizing specific allusions to Camus, so perhaps the similarities are purely aesthetic — after all, everything that is nominally similar does play quite different thematic roles. However, I would never pass up the opportunity to talk about the myth of sisyphus and I think placing Holes in dialogue with Camus can raise some interesting questions about the nature of meaning.

Is Holes a children’s book?

Speaking, though, of the target audience, the audience for this book is in fact children. What about it makes it a children’s book makes it difficult to say: the protagonists are children (and, I would argue, it is not a coming of age story, despite the claims of one piece of lit crit about Holes in which i disagreed with almost every claim made, but i digress once more) and the writing style is fairly simple: you can read it with a second-grader’s vocabulary. Also, of course, being a children’s book doesn’t (and crucially shouldn’t!) mean that it’s lacking in depth and complexity. However, I think most thematically rich children’s books tend to be quite allegorical. The Little Prince is a good example. Holes is just way too specific for its sole market to be children. It’s either intended to be read by multiple generations at once or for child readers to return to it as an adult. It addresses themes of racism (and not just generic racism, anti-black racism in the reconstruction south), homelessness, intergenerational trauma. and the modern carceral system. These are social critiques that will probably go over most kids’ heads (certainly over mine). However, the themes of the text are not inaccessible for children. You don’t have to understand the particular history of the US criminal justice system or even that Sachar is making a comparison to anything specific to get that the system that he’s portraying is unjust. Knowing the real-world context just adds another layer to the text. Holes also has one of the hallmarks of children’s books that I really like, which is a particular type of absurdism that the child characters come up against. This always rang true to me as a kid and well into my teens, when you start understanding that your life is controlled by some set of systems, but you haven’t quite gotten what those systems are or why and how they came about. Like nowadays, I can say “we did this in elementary school because of a state law, that because of a federal law, that because of the history of puritanism, and this because we got a grant for it”, but as a kid nobody tells you these things or really even cares to explain why the rules are as they are, and the systems that govern your world, often with no small degree of violence and almost always with an inherent disregard for your agency, are ineffable and slippery, and good children’s books capture this really well (Series of Unfortunate Events is probably my favorite example of this, where a secret organization that everything is implicated in and more more tragicomic details about it get revealed until the Baudelaire children find themselves to some degree members with mixed feelings is honestly an excellent coming-of-age allegory. oh, not to mention the constant conflict with bureacracy. god that series is so good, everyone read it). Back to Holes, Sachar weaves the more fantastical ineffable elements in with real-world issues so neatly. Stanley’s family is allegedly cursed, which is why Stanley keeps having bad luck, but he also lives in systemic poverty, which is also why he keeps having bad luck. Sachar eschews neither the allegorical elements common in children’s literature nor the more direct systemic critiques more often found in YA and adult lit, and it creates a really unique vibe. I think the story really benefited from having a children’s author, and I would love to see more authors in both children’s and adult lit do this!

Systems

Speaking of the systems, this book is surprisingly radical. Like it’s full-on an abolitionist text. The law is pretty much only ever presented as adversarial, both in the story of Stanley’s present time, and in Kate and Sam’s story. It’s implied if not stated repeatedly that Stanley and the other boys are pretty much victims of circumstance and have been imprisoned pretty much for the crime of being poor. The hole-digging is shown to be cruel and bad for the boys. It’s noted that in digging the holes Stanley’s heart hardened along with his muscles. This is of course very evocative of the system of retributive justice we have in America. Additionally, Camp Greenlake’s existence can ultimately be traced back to an act of racist violence, also in close parallel with our prison system. Hole’s stance on justice is very restorative. Punishments are never shown to work: only through righting the wrongs can true justice be achieved. Moreover, Holes even gives the opportunity for redemption to a minor antagonist when [minor spoiler] Derrick Dunne, the kid who was bullying Stanley in the beginning ultimately plays a small role in helping Stanley regain his freedom [spoiler over].

Cycles

Cycles are a major theme in holes, and Sachar creates a unique temporality to support this theme. There are 3 interwoven stories: that of Stanley’s in the present date, that of Stanley’s ancestors, and that of the land that Stanley is on (though, as I will delve into later, it’s at least a little implied that Stanley is descended from the characters in that story also). The stories from the past reach in and touch the present. You can’t untangle the past from the future. Looking at this again through a social justice lens, it could be seen as fairly progressive commentary on what to do with regards to America’s past wrongs. The past cannot and will not be left in the past: it must be dealt with on an ongoing basis. Even the warden, the greatest villain of Stanley’s story has a sympathetic moment at the end where it’s revealed that she, too, is stuck in a cycle of intergenerational trauma she can’t break free from.

Stanley is gay and jewish

Ok, I will now talk about how Stanley is a queer Jew, but this entire section will be riddled with spoilers, so read the book first and then come back!

A queer Jew?? i hear you ask. You’re just projecting. Yes, 100%. However, I think that interpreting Stanley as both these things adds to the thematic richness of the text. Let’s start with the Jewish bit: it’s not explicitly stated that Stanley is Jewish, but his great-great grandfather is a nerd-boy Latvian immigrant with the last name Yelnats, and his great-grandfather was a stockbrocker, so, like, ya know. Louis Sachar is also himself Jewish, as was the director of the movie, who cast Jews in the roles of Stanley and his family (dyk Shia LaBeouf is Jewish?? i did not), so I know I’m not the only one interpreting it this way. And honestly, does it not resemble the book of exodus quite a bit? They escape what is pretty much a form of slavery and wander in the desert. Sploosh resembles the well of Miriam, and then they ascend up a mountain to the “thumb of god”, perhaps in a parallel to Moses receiving the commandments. Is this a useful way to look at the text? Who knows. But what I think we do get from reading Stanley as Jewish is a more nuanced discussion of privilege and solidarity. If Stanley and his ancestors are Jewish (or at least Jew-ish), then what placed the curse upon his family (and, we see, Madame Zeroni’s family isn’t doing so great either) is the breaking of solidarity between oppressed people. But also, the fact that you are also marginalized does not wash you of the responsibility to other marginalized groups. I don’t think Sachar intended it this way, because I think he probably would have talked about it more if he had, but I would say this book can be read as a call to the American Jewish community to take an active role in forging solidarity with other marginalized groups and actively righting the wrong you, your ancestors, and your community wrought upon them.

Now, why do I think Stanley and Zero are gay? Before I go into how it augments the text thematically, I bring to your attention this passage.

Two nights later, Stanley lay awake staring up at the star-filled sky. He was too happy to fall asleep. 

He knew he had no reason to be happy. He had heard or read somewhere that right before a person freezes to death, he suddenly feels nice and warm. He wondered if perhaps he was experiencing something like that. 

It occurred to him that he couldn't remember the last time he felt happiness. It wasn't just being sent to Camp Green Lake that had made his life miserable. Before that he'd been unhappy at school, where he had no friends, and bullies like Derrick Dunne picked on him. No one liked him, and the truth was, he didn't especially like himself. 

He liked himself now.

 He wondered if he was delirious. He looked over at Zero sleeping near him. Zero's face was lit in the starlight, and there was a flower petal in front of his nose that moved back and forth as he breathed. It reminded Stanley of something out of a cartoon. Zero breathed in, and the petal was drawn up, almost touching his nose. Zero breathed out, and the petal moved toward his chin. It stayed on Zero's face for an amazingly long time before fluttering off to the side. 

Stanley considered placing it back in front of Zero's nose, but it wouldn't be the same.

Girl, I’m sorry, that’s gay as shit! It’s such tremendous tenderness, not to mention the traditionally romantic imagery of moonlight and the flower petal. There’s also the non-romantic aspects. Stanley’s inexplicable happiness and suddenly liking himself evokes, for me, at least, the experience of coming out to yourself, of realizing who you are. Later in this chapter, Stanley contemplates running away with Zero despite the fact that it would make them lifelong outlaws. This book, remember, was written in 1998, and homosexuality was decriminalized in 2003, and the book takes place in Texas. It would have been, if anything, even more evocative of gayness when it was published. Now as to how this increases the thematic richness of the text: obviously, in carrying Hector up to the thumb, giving him water, and singing the lullaby, he redeems the wrong done by his ancestor, after which his family’s luck immediately changed. However, after Hector and Zero return to camp Greenlake, rain falls there for the first time. What was redeemed here? Remember that earlier on we learn that what caused the drought was the fact that Sam the onion man (who was black) was murdered for kissing Kate Barlow (who was white) — so what would a [post-factum wronging of that right look like? Zero, as we remember, is black while Stanley is white, so them being in a romantic relationship would be a successful interracial relationship to redeem the one Kate and Sam weren’t able to have. It’s also, as I said earlier, implied that Stanley is descended from Kate Barlow on his mother’s side: Stanley remembers seeing the other half of the lipstick tube with her initials on it in his mother’s bedroom. I’d also argue that Sam the Onion Man is implied to be descended from Madame Zeroni (chronology-wise, I think he’d be her grandson). First of all, there’s no follow-up with Madame Zeroni’s son who moved to America, and pretty much all other plot threads are followed up with in Holes. Secondly, Sam mentions water running uphill, just like Madame Zeroni does. Even without these speculations being true, Stanley and Hector being gay would redeem the land they’re on, but If they are, the parallel with the other ancestral redemption arc becomes to much to imagine it was unintentional.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on Holes, now everyone go read it!

[notwiselybuttoowell]

We're Stewards of Our Land: The Rise of Female Farmers

'I was always fascinated by getting things out of the ground’

Sinead Fenton

Grows vegetables and edible flowers at Aweside Farm, East Sussex

Sinead Fenton is on an early lunch break, hiding from the sun. “It’s ridiculously intense, so I think we’re going to call it a day and crack back on in the evening,” she says. Fenton and her partner, Adam Smith, have been putting in beds and getting ahead on groundwork for next year. This year, there will be no commercial crops on the couple’s 4.5-acre plot.

They signed the papers on their farm last November and moved onto the land in March. Around the time they needed to make decisions about how they’d manage their first harvest, lockdown happened. With restaurants and florists – their main clients – out of action for the foreseeable future, they made the decision not to sow seeds but concentrate on opening up the land. “We were going to do it over three or four years, so we’re squeezing three years of work into this year, so we can focus on growing next year,” Fenton says.

She and Smith cut their scythes at Audacious Veg, a 0.1-acre plot in Hainault, at the end of the Central Line between Essex and London. Shortly after volunteering at the allotment in 2017, they heard the project was about to finish: “Naively, with about three weeks’ worth of growing experience, we decided that we’d take it on and get the produce to chefs.”

Smith worked in insurance accounting and while Fenton most recently worked in software and food policy, her background was in geology. “I came at farming from an activist point of view,” she says. “I was always fascinated by getting things out of the ground, but that is a destructive industry. Farming is nicer because I can do something for the system instead of taking everything from it.”

There was a lot of insecurity around the project. Land is contentious, especially in London, and land law is difficult and expensive to negotiate for those with no farming background. “Adam and I are both from cities – I’m from London, he’s from Essex. We’re from low-income families, and we had no access to farms growing up,” Fenton explains. “It’s basically impossible to get on the land, because it’s so expensive, or passed down through generations.”

They got the land for Aweside through the Ecological Land Co-op, which buys fields designated by Defra as only being good for arable crops, then splits them up to create smallholdings. Aweside is neighbours with a veg-box scheme, and waiting for others who’ll transform what once was a 20-acre maize field into a cluster of small farms rich with biodiversity. Now Fenton and Smith have a 150-year lease, and no worries that what they create will be taken away.

It’s not yet a permanent home. Fenton says they’ll be living in a caravan for a few years: “Another part of land law in the UK that makes land inaccessible is that if you want to live on your land you have to go through five years of proving your business is profitable, viable and that there is a functional need for you to live there.” Having livestock is an easy way to pass the test, but because Aweside is a vegan farm, Fenton and Smith need to cultivate and show they use every bit of plot.

It’s daunting but Fenton is excited about having a blank slate to work with. “There’s so much more to food than what supermarkets tell us to eat,” she says, explaining that they’ll grow varieties at risk of extinction, or that aren’t commonly grown in a mass market food system. “Seed diversity and plant genetics are serious issues.”

The three principles the couple work to are: more flowers, more trees, thriving soil. They’re working no-dig, putting compost directly on the ground and letting the soil life mix everything over time. They’re pesticide-free and are counting on the fact that the more diversity they have in the system, especially with a high proportion of flowers to pollinators and insects, the fewer problems they’ll face.

“Socially, economically and environmentally, something needs to change. Things have been done the same way by the same people for a long time,” says Fenton of the farming industry’s need for greater diversity. “I learned to grow on an allotment site where there are lots of different things growing at once. Bringing that approach into sites like this is needed – the industry needs it to keep itself relevant.”

'I'm hoping this will be seen as quite a cool career… even if it’s not’

Abi Aspen Glencross

Head of grains at Duchess Farms, Hertfordshire

It was, Abi Aspen Glencross was well aware, an odd, even inopportune time to launch a crowdfunding campaign. In June, with the country still locked down, Duchess Farms asked for support to buy dehulling, cleaning and milling equipment. The Hertfordshire farm needed about £16,000, and the money would go towards boosting the production of ancient and heritage grains for making flour.

“A lot of crowdfunders have been for charity or ‘please keep our restaurant open’,” says the 28-year-old Glencross, head of grains – or “senior flour nerd” – at Duchess Farms since 2019. “We felt a bit bad, but we lost a lot of our business overnight when all the restaurants closed and we were like: ‘God, we hope we don’t go under.’ It was quite a scary time for everyone.”

Still, if we have learned one thing from Covid-19, when times are hard, British people get baking. Perhaps inspired by countrywide shortages of flour, maybe invigorated by a new interest in left-field, older wheats such as einkorn and emmer, Duchess Farms sprinted to its target. “We’ve just done some ordering of equipment this morning,” says Aspen, when we speak in July. “It’s been a tough time for everyone but it has cascaded into some beautiful things and we’re just so thankful.”

Glencross’s path to farming was circuitous. She studied chemical engineering, but while her classmates were heading off for jobs at ExxonMobil and Procter & Gamble, she was more of “a hippy at heart”. She decided she wanted to learn more about soil and its role in food production. This led her to Blue Hill Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s pioneering farm-to-table restaurant in the Hudson Valley, north of New York. She spent four months working on the farm and in the bakery, receiving a crash course in ancient grains – an obsession of Barber’s. But the moment Glencross knew she herself wanted to farm came in 2016 in a field in Hertfordshire. She was with John Cherry, who was showing her around Weston Park Farms, 2,500 acres of land he maintains with minimal fertiliser use and zero tillage.

“We were walking around the fields of wheat and I just said: ‘Where does all this go? There’s so much of it,’” Glencross says. “And John goes: ‘Oh probably for animal feed. It’s a consistent market, they’ll take it, it’s easy, even if we don’t earn that much money from it.’ And I was like: ‘This is crazy.’ And that was the beginning of me getting on this grain bender because I was like: ‘Why can’t we grow these grains organically and not feed them to animals?’ So I realised I’d have to start a business, because there were not very many people doing that.”

Heritage grains can be harder to produce in vast quantities – einkorn, especially, is “a bitch to harvest” – but they do have advantages over conventional wheats. They typically have deep roots and grow tall, which means they shade out weeds and do not require chemical sprays. The end product is more nutritious and then there’s the taste. Since 2017, Glencross has run a roving supper club called the Sustainable Food Story with Sadhbh Moore, and Duchess Farms has worked closely with bakeries such as E5 Bakehouse in east London and Gail’s, and restaurants including Doug McMaster’s Silo. “Heritage grains are delicious: when you stop growing for yield and you start growing for quality the flavour is insane,” says Glencross.

Learning to farm from scratch has not been straightforward, but you sense that’s a big part of the appeal for Glencross. “There’s all these decisions the farmer makes throughout the year and why he sprays and why he doesn’t,” she says. “You realise that most people get up, sit at a computer all day and if they press the wrong button, they just delete it. When you’re a farmer, you plant at the wrong time of year and tomorrow it washes away your whole crop.”

Glencross acknowledges that it is almost unprecedented for women to run arable farms. She struggles to name a single other example in the UK. She also notes wryly that men dominate all the farming conferences, saying: “They have a wife but it’s always the men who have written the book and given the presentation.”

With more role models, Glencross hopes things will change. “I’m not cool in any way, but I’m a reasonably young lady,” she says, laughing. “And so when people say: ‘What do you do? Oh, you’re a farmer. Maybe I could do that …’ So I’m hoping that it might become seen as quite a desirable, almost cool career.” A pause: “Even if it’s very much not cool.” 

[joezworld]

What is the status of vehicle rights in places like China or Russia, with rather patchy (at best) human rights records? What was it like in the USSR, Nazi Germany, or the Empire of Japan? And did Mussolini ever get his locomotives to run completely on time?

Strangely enough, it was a lot better in those countries for at least a while. 

To start, check out this post that goes into a little detail.

So, this post is going to not mention the United States or Canada - I’ve done posts on them before. 

Interestingly, three of the greatest proponents of locomotive rights in Europe came from people with some of the worst human rights records in modern history: Hitler, Stalin, and King Leopold II.

Belgium has a long history of locomotive rights, stretching back to within 20 years of the introduction of the railway in the country. During the first days of the reign of Leopold II, the king declared that locomotives and other railway equipment were to be considered “on the same level as any Belgian citizen”. Official government histories say that this was because of the king’s desire not allow slavery to happen on Belgian soil, but the existence of the very inappropriately named Congo Free State puts this answer in a very bad light. The generally accepted unofficial answer is much, much funnier - Leopold II was born after the first railways were laid in the country, and as the future king, he was kept well appraised of any new technologies in the country. He also had many, many, many, mistresses. In case you can’t tell where this is going, it is entirely likely that several of his more private extramarital affairs were with locomotives owned by the Belgian state rail company. Locomotives were at the time viewed as little more than beasts of burden, and while Leopold was more than willing to commit heinous atrocities upon the Africans, he was not about to stand here in his own country and get called an enjoyer of bestiality - so he made locomotives people in order to get ahead of his critics should an affair be made public. This had the interesting side effect of making Belgium one of the more progressive countries in Europe as far as locomotive rights went, and Belgian locomotives were very dedicated citizens often serving in civil and military leadership positions around the country. During the first world war, Belgian locomotives actively resisted the Germans for the entirety of the invasion, and a not-insignificant percentage of German locomotives brought in to manage the chaos were brought over to the Belgian side by promises of citizenship. 

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This did not go unnoticed by other, much worse European leaders such as Adolf Hitler, who understood the value of a functioning rail network as far as war logistics went, and made significant strides in offering French/Dutch/Polish/Russian/Norwegian/Italian/Etc. engines Nazi citizenship if they served the Reich. Unfortunately for Hitler, Nazis are terrible people who lead out fear, and many of the locomotives who did sign up for this did so because they wanted to Not Die, not because they supported the cause. As a result, large portions of the Reichsbahn rolling stock fleet just ran away or defected as soon as the Allies started getting near, causing serious supply issues that hastened the downfall of the German war effort. 

Also, because I know someone is going to ask about it, yes, those trains still ran. Please don’t ask me to elaborate beyond what’s here. 

Because locomotives would see what was going on and objected, the Reichsbahn very quickly began staffing those trains with engines that were True Believers, or (even worse) Jewish engines. (Those usually made one way trips, and it’s just as bad as you might think.)

Following the war, many locomotives who had been cleared of any collaboration charges still possessed their Nazi-Era citizenship, and tried to get them turned into citizenship of their home countries. Most places said no (except Belgium) and were promptly glared at by the American service-engines who were rebuilding their countries from the ground up, and then agreed. 

The impact on European Locomotive Rights by the Americans cannot be understated. Most European governments were totally prepared to resume the status quo if it wasn’t for the Americans rolling around with their US Citizen status on full display. This is also another reason why England is such a laggard in Locomotive Rights - the country was not as heavily destroyed as continental Europe, and was able to rebuild itself without US "interference".

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Stalin also was a firm believer in Locomotive Rights, for many of the same reasons as Hitler was - locomotives have the ability to bring your country to a halt, so you’d better have them on your side. He’d made attempts to make locomotives citizens before the war, but the Soviet efforts really came into their own during the 1950s - Stalin’s purges had removed a lot of humans from existence, and most locomotives at that point had been built by the USSR in the USSR, and therefore had no concept of ‘Disloyalty to The State", so they were natural fits for many roles within the Soviet government. At one point in 1982, the USSR’s Ministry of Transport was staffed only by vehicles, with no humans present whatsoever. The total integration of vehicles into the USSR reached its zenith in the late 70s, when new buildings were required to have elevators capable of lifting locomotives and other extremely heavy vehicles to at least the third floor - this requirement has remained even to this day, and most eastern European residential structures have the structural strength of a nuclear bomb shelter as a result. 

It should be pointed out that while the USSR might have treated locomotives well, it was still an authoritarian dystopia, and nothing here is an endorsement for the country or its actions/politics. 

Following the dissolution of the USSR, the hypercapitalist state of the former Eastern Bloc meant that anything and everything was up for sale, including people and machines. One enterprising locomotive used his newfound wealth to create a formidable trade union/gang that covers most of the former USSR to this day. This organization is the primary driver of locomotive rights laws in the former Soviet Bloc, but it should be noted that a lot of the pushback against locomotive rights comes from politicians trying to shut them down specifically. 

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Japan is... weird. Locomotives have been fully adopted into their society for generations, and there was no loss or gain of rights during the Second World War, as they were already in place. Let me explain why:

Due to Japan's Shinto influence, locomotives were considered to be basically human from their inception on the island - the first law specifically related to locomotives in the world was an edict issued by the Emperor in regards to the three locomotives imported by English and European engineers for use on the upcoming Shimbashi-Yokohama railway - they were to be given the same rights as those locomotives built domestically. Since then, most Japanese laws have included locomotives by default, often making no mention of them unless specifically including them because of physical differences. [For example, locomotives are not required to partake in mandatory military service, as their service to the railways is often more valuable, especially during peacetime.] However, while locomotives in the West were free to work as they pleased, even off of the rail network, Japanese trains do so in remarkably smaller numbers, with over 98% of locomotives remaining in railway service until their retirement. Those that do not do so typically enter railway-related fields like locomotive construction, upper management in railway companies, or working in the Japanese Ministry of Transport.

In this sense, locomotives in Japan can be considered to be less free than their western colleagues, as the nation culture of "work until you die" meant that no attempt was made to allow trains to enter human society, forcing them to essentially be segregated from humans when not directly pulling trains, as land is too scarce to use for western-style 'locomotive cities' except in extremely rural areas and Nagasaki*.

*Following the atomic bombing of the city in 1945, Nagasaki was rebuilt by the American occupying forces - many of whom were USRA locomotives. The city’s bombed-out industrial areas were already layered with train tracks, making it easy to create a locomotive sized living area. Hiroshima, which suffered damage to its human-oriented urban core, was not rebuilt with trains in mind.

  As such, locomotives are considered full Japanese citizens, but most Japanese humans have never interacted with them. Exceptions do exist, mostly in rural towns and villages, where a locomotive is usually considered to be the town's 'honored elder', as most locomotives on small branches have lived in the area for many decades, making them the oldest member of the town in many cases. This has lead to many culture clashes in larger cities, where residents may be apathetic to the desires their locomotive neighbors, much to the dismay and shock of a 'country bumpkin' who lives nearby.

Of particular issue to locomotive freedoms are multiple units. Since the 1960s, Japanese railways have put more focus into EMUs/DMUs rather than standard locomotive hauled trains. This has caused even more segregation amongst Japan's rail population, as permanently coupled multiple units cannot access the few existing locomotive/human developments, as they were designed for standalone locomotives. Urban sprawl and high land prices have made enlarging these developments is impossible. To date, the only MU focused 'loco-city' (other than one-track sheds in rural farming communities) is in the Fukushima Daiichi exclusion area. However, as the line accessing it is in the traditional Japanese 3'6" gauge, the community remains inaccessible to the 4'8.5" gauge Shinkansen trains, many of whom are almost totally isolated from anyone else - despite living in Japan's largest cities - as a result of their loading gauge restrictions.  

Similar social isolation occurs to ships and aircraft, but as they are able to receive emotional support from friends and relatives across the planet, they do not suffer from this isolation nearly as much. 

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At no point in Italian history has anyone been able to make the right decision in regards to locomotive rights. This is not to say that Locomotive rights (and vehicular rights in general) don’t exist in Italy - they do, rather thoroughly - but rather, the Italians have never once done so intentionally, instead implementing locomotive rights by having multiple laws, written on multiple occasions over multiple decades, that are so badly written that a train could and likely was driven through the loopholes that exist in them! 

[lordrethandus]

Daily Writing Challenge 2021 Day 11

Watch ( @daily-writing-challenge​ )

World: Warcraft

Theme: Anilah - Warrior 

T’aarth told her not to go. He warned her if she tried to visit her old home she would not like what she found. Some wounds long since scarred could reopen at the slightest touch, and many wounds on her people would never truly heal. Trying to find solace on Argus seemed like a waste of time to many, knowing it would only bring back memories too painful to endure.

But J’azel was not like many Draenei, and this wasn't about her. This was about her family.

The gentle trumpet of her lightforged elekk forced her to smile as they traveled across the ruined outskirts of Mac’Aree. Ko’duun was born among the stars and never set foot on the birthplace of his ancestors, but he could sense his master's pain. He avoided walking through the tall grass that managed to survive the Burning Legion’s wrath as well as the crumbling potholes along the road, not because he feared an ambush, but because this land was unstable; one wrong step could drop them both into a molten current. One day J’azel would set him free into the wilds of Azeroth to give him the closest thing she could to a natural elekk life; returning to what once was is often all she could think about, yet when Ko’duun neared the remains of the Kratisaan talbuk farms, she could barely think at all.

“Kath tonesk.” The command was friendly yet firm, causing Ko’duun to obey without delay; the massive elekk bull knelt on his front legs and waited for J’azel to climb off before sitting down completely. He snorted out a loud whine in her direction while she walked down the shattered street, but she didn't pay him any attention; she was adrift in a flood of memories that rushed her back to her tragically ended way of life.

Hardly anything remained of Kratisaan. Most of the buildings were reduced to little more than piles of rubble, with the crystal reservoirs scorched from felfire spells almost as old as she was. The overgrowth covering the few remaining walls almost concealed her own home from J’azel, but she knew exactly where she was going. The living room was in shambles just as she expected, with most of the floor covered in dirt, grass, and debris from the roof that threatened to collapse on top of her. The cupboards and nearby closet were seemingly ransacked only a month or so ago, but J’azel knew any clothing would have disintegrated long before. The other rooms either had the door sealed by dirt and foliage, or were completely caved in from years of rot and abandonment; either way they were inaccessible.

“Ku… ku...k-k-kuuu-uu-uuu…” A faint voice whispered from beneath the packed dirt mere inches behind her hooves. Immediately she turned to investigate, scooping handfuls to toss aimlessly away; the sight of her family's arcane-infused construct made her heart flutter. Such a simple machine lasting this long without maintenance was a testament to Argussian ingenuity.

Still, it was in some seriously bad shape. Dirt has been causing the little construct considerable trouble, preventing fine motor control and likely breaking hardware it needed to properly function. J’azel was careful when she pulled it out of the ground like a vegetable, fearing it would crumble in her hands at the slightest pressure. “A-a-a-alert… planeta-a-a-ary invasion in progress-ess. E-e-evacuate immediately-y. Eredar safety-y top priori-i-i...”

“Poor Tilbi… stuck in mode for twenty five thousand years...” J’azel cradled the construct in her arms, occasionally flicking clumps of dirt away from its sensors. “Deactivate emergency protocols. Run diagnostics.”

“Voice recogni-i-ized. Diagnostics… c-c-c-c-omplete.” Tilbi tried to move its arms, but the damage rendered it paralyzed. “E-e-e-error. Internal-al power core… f-fail…ure….” The Draenei was quickly running out of time; if she didn’t restore power, the data stored within would be lost forever. Unfortunately it used arcane magic to power itself, and it was far too outdated for J’azel to requisition anything useful from the Vindicaar before it was too late. She was forced to improvise, and use the only thing left she had at her disposal. Her runic tattoos lit up with the Gift of the Light Mother, which surged forth from the Draenei’s hands and enveloped the construct in a soft golden light. “P… p… p-p-power restored. Retrievink-ink archived video recordink.” It was not her intention to put any strain on Tilbi way out here. J’azel merely wanted to sustain it until she could return to the Vindicaar for repairs, but when it managed to turn its head around to face the center of the living room, and the grainy projection started playing, all she could do was stare wide-eyed with her mouth hanging open.

“Alright alright! Gather ‘round, little ones!” Her father's booming voice sent chills up her spine moments before he stepped in front of the camera. His giant face filled the entire living room and his hardened eyes stared right through her while he fiddled with Tilbi, clearly struggling to make it do what he wanted. “Damn zing too tiny for hands… ah! I got it! Hurry before picture taken!”

Her mother appeared next, slowly stepping into view with both of her hands resting on her extended belly. “Miraan! J’azel! Get out here so father let me rest!” She was more beautiful than J’azel remembered; an absolutely stunning woman aglow with her pregnancy. She struggled to pull out a chair to sit down in, but her father moved faster than Tilbi could follow, causing his image to sputter and glitch when he rushed to her aid. J’azel held the ancient construct with trembling hands which made the image shake and shudder; with another surge of light she soothed herself to continue watching.

Miraan staggered out of her room with an obnoxious yawn. She was so innocent back then, before the Legion came and took her away; J’azel didn’t know how to feel in knowing her older sister was now a power-hungry tyrant who serves the very monsters that murdered their parents and molested their homeworld. “Miraan... vhere is sister? Ve are runnink out of time, yes?” She gave their mother a carefree shrug and plopped down next to her. What an absolute brat.

“Ah- I vill fetch her. One moment.” Her father hurried out of sight to return a minute later, slowly leading a tiny J’azel into frame by her hand. The Draenei couldn't help but laugh at her four year old self with her stubby legs and messy crown of hair; back then her horns were still barely visible too, sticking maybe an inch or two out of her head. It looked like she was rudely interrupted from a nap. “This vay little Comet.” Her father swept her up into his massive arms and carried her the rest of the way. “Alright! Everyone ready? Lean in close!” J’azel felt her eyes begin to burn, but she did her best to stay as quiet and as still as she was able. “Three! Two! One!”

“SOVAAKI" They all shouted at once, except J’azel, who was already falling back asleep in her father's arms. They kept their grins for a few more moments until her mother began growing impatient. Watching her family stare at her put the biggest smile on the her face. She couldn't stop the gigantic tears from falling either, but she neither noticed nor cared. There was so much she wanted to tell them. So much they needed to know. J’azel would give up what little she had for just five minutes to speak to them again… but they were long gone.

“Vhere is flash?” Their mother asked, mildly annoyed. “Did you set Tilbi to camera or video?”

“It is video.” Miraan confirmed before stretching. “Next time I vill set Tilbi. Father bad at this.”

Their father let out an embarrassed chuckle before scratching the back of his head. “Kids and their tech these days… I vill figure it out after vork, yes? Vhen J’azel wakes up, tell h-her d-d-daddy-y l-lo-o-ov…” The images began to flicker in and out, causing J’azel to stiffen with fear; at long last Tilbi was shutting down! She was blinded by her tears and desperate to hear the rest of this recording. Another surge of Light flowed from her trembling palms, but the intensity became too much for the decrepit construct! The frozen image of her and her family turned a sickly yellowish brown before they melted before her eyes like hot wax; Tilbi twitched in her trembling hands before drooping its head and popping, its internal hardware catching on fire with a low whirring sounding off Tilbi’s death rattle.

The last thing she had of her family was destroyed. J’azel pressed the remains of the construct against her breastplate and began sobbing uncontrollably; what started as weak sniffling and whimpering devolved into a loud wail, a lamented crescendo for twenty five thousand years of anguish out at once, at last.

Then the house shook, snapping her out of her mindless suffering just long enough for her to drop Tilbi and reach for her sword. Was it a demon attack? A wild animal fighting Ko’duun? Horde scavengers hunting down anything of value? Possibilities kept dancing around in her h-

The filtered light from her left cast in the living room was blocked by a giant shadow. J’azel snapped her gaze to the remains of the window, seeing a beady eye with long eyelashes blinking at her before a concerned trumpeting whine shook the house again. “I'm fine… I'm fine…” She tried to wipe her face dry, but the tears refused to stop. Unconvinced the elekk bull reached into the window with his trunk and began tugging at the wall to get inside. J’azel had just enough time to scramble onto her hooves before his third tug, which ripped what was left of the house apart.

The Draenei covered her head while the rest of the house came down around her in a thick cloud of smoke. When she opened her eyes she found herself standing atop an unrecognizable ruin, surrounded by shattered stone and twisted debris. Ko’duun waddled forward with a guilty snort, and watched her closely with his shimmering eyes. J’azel wanted to yell at him for what he did, but once he slowly wrapped his trunk around her slender waist and lifted her into the air, any anger she had disappeared. He gently swung her around until she started laughing again.

Eventually J’azel wrapped her arms around his lumpy face and pressed her forehead against him, listening to his steady breathing and the subtle grinding of his flat teeth. “Thank you, Ko’duun.” She sighed, feeling her hooves touch the ground again. She was ready to leave Kratisaan and never return to this tragic place again.

“Let us go home.”

[summahsunlight]

We Belong to the Stars, CH.16

Rating: Mature (18+ only) 

Word Count: 2702

Pairings: Poe/Evelyn (OC)

Characters: Poe Dameron, Leia Organa, BB-8, Kaleb Skywalker (OC), Evelyn Skywalker (OC), Karé Kun, Iolo Arana, Snap Wexley, Jessika Pava

Master List / Read on AO3

"Commander Dameron? Are you awake, sir?" 

Poe blinked open his eyes, sunlight rushing at him and immediately he slammed them shut.  He fumbled about the bunk, trying to recall where he had tossed his jacket the previous night. Evelyn draped over his body was making it difficult.  Finally, Poe managed to snag the jacket and find his com link in the pocket. "Yeah," he replied, groggily. "I'm awake. What's going on?"

Evelyn stirred as his com crackled, "Agent Dane is requesting you join him for a briefing," the officer replied, sounding anxious.  "It seems that another part of Agent Lothor's transmission has been located." 

Great. Poe thought as he told the officer he was on his way.  Slipping out from underneath Evelyn, Poe stumbled towards the fresher.  There was no way he was showing up at this briefing without showering; he had same clean clothes in the bag he'd brought to Nar Shadda.  He peeled off his dirty clothes, started the shower up, and then stepped underneath the warm spray of water, feeling it gently massaging away the aches and pains in his muscles.  As much as he would have loved to stay in the shower a bit longer, Poe knew that if he kept Dane waiting, it was only going to make the spy even more ornery. 

Washing his body and hair with whatever soap he could find in Evelyn's shower, Poe finished up quickly.  Now dressed in a fresh pair of black pants, white shirt, and his jacket, Poe stepped back into Evelyn's room.  She was still sleeping, still sprawled out on her stomach on the bed. An overwhelming feeling of affection washed over him as his eyes settled on her pretty face. 

CB-2 greeted him, alerting him that she had woken from her charging cycle.  Poe turned his attention to the shy little droid, patting her dome softly before he instructed that CB-2 let Evelyn sleep.  Fixing his jacket collar, Poe exited her room, peeking around corners to make sure that no one was around to see him.  

"Sorry, Commander," Connix said as he strode into central command. "I know General Organa didn't want you disturbed... but this couldn't wait."

"It's fine," Poe said with a wave of his hand. "Where's Dane?"

"Situation room with Major Ematt."

"Great. I wonder where Dane is sending me next to get shot at for him."

Connix smiled at him as he moved towards the situation room. Poe rapped on the door and immediately it slid open.  Stepping inside, he waited for the door to shut before he spoke. "You wanted to see me?"

Dane had been leaning on the table when Poe entered. Pulling himself up to his full height, his green eyes narrowed in on the pilot. "We traced another transmission; it's on the abandoned Imperial Base on Scarif."

Poe crossed his arms over his chest. He vividly remembered his father talking about that planet; it had some significance to the Rebellion.  Right now, he couldn't recall what that significance was, and he doubted that was going to help him retrieve that transmission. "An abandoned base? Shouldn't be that hard to retrieve it then."

"I would think you wouldn't be fooled so easily, Commander. Those abandoned Imperial bases are littered with booby traps." 

"Okay, well, since you obviously don't think I have the knowledge to handle booby traps, why don't you go to Scraif?"

"Because my assignment, Commander, is to trace the transmissions. It's your job to retrieve them." 

Major Ematt cleared his throat. "The base on Scarif, Poe is inaccessible.   It is too heavily damaged for you and your team to safely enter, there are several communication towers and posts that were not as damaged that we think your squadron can safely approach.  You should be able to retrieve the transmissions from one of those master switches. The planet was used as a test shot for the Death Star, not its full power, but enough to show the Alliance that they had the fire power to destroy us all and it has been used for anything since."

Poe glanced at the older man, a memory of his mother flooding to the forefront of his mind--a lot of good people lost their lives to get us those plans, Poe. Remember, victory doesn't come without great sacrifice.  He wished he could remember the story she had been telling him.  Setting his jaw, Poe nodded. "I understand, Major. When do you want Black Squadron to leave?"

Dane was the one who answered. "As soon as General Organa approves the operation."

"I guess I'll go brief my squadron," Poe said, looking towards Ematt to see if he was free to go. Ematt silently nodded, and Poe exited the situation room. 

Halfway to the hanger, Poe felt a hand grab his shoulder and he was suddenly slammed against the wall.  Dane was looming in front of him, glaring. "You know, you might not have to like me, but you damn well better start respecting me, Dameron," the spy growled. "You waltz into that room twenty minutes after I called you, smelling like a woman--Major Ematt and I are not stupid, we know where you were."

Poe shoved his hand away. He knew this had nothing to do with the briefing that had just occurred, it had everything to do with the fact that Poe smelled like Evelyn since he'd used her soap in the shower.  "You know what I think is really happening here, you can't stand it that she wants to be with me and not you.  This has nothing to do with rank or respect; it has everything to do with the fact that Evelyn is with me and not you. Oh, and by the way-- the last time I checked, you technically don't outrank me."

Dane's jaw twitched and rage pooled in his eyes. The look made Poe's blood run cold. This was a man who cared very little for the well being of others. "Oh, I'm not worried about her being with you; she'll be mine again, eventually," the spy said, tightly. "Evelyn will realize her mistake soon enough."

"Are you threatening her?" Poe countered. He clenched his fists, if this man so much as laid a finger on Evelyn...

"Do you feel threatened, Dameron?" Dane shot back, a wicked smile on his face. 

"You don't scare me, Dane. But I'm gonna warn ya, don't touch her."

"Or you'll..."

Poe contemplated his answer. Kick your ass, make sure you never set foot on D'Qar again, he thought, angrily, break your neck.  Breathing through his nose, Poe made sure to take a step back before he did something he might later regret. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Snap and Kaleb, and stepped back even further.  Clearly, Dane was looking for a fight. Not saying a word, just throwing a hard look at Dane as he joined his friends, Poe mumbled to Snap, "come on, we have another mission."

Snap glared directly at Dane before following behind Poe, Kaleb bringing up the rear. "Where we heading this time, Commander? And are you okay? You looked like you about to strangle him... not that I would blame you."

Kaleb saw the tension in Poe's shoulders as he refused to answer Snap.  He felt the rage simmering off of his friend, and cautiously reached out to the Force, knowing that Poe hated it when his friends probed him like this.  "Dane threatened Evie, didn't he?"

"What?" Snap gasped.  He grabbed Poe's arm and stopped him.  "Is that true, Poe?"

"Yeah... it was thinly veiled, but it was still a threat," Poe ground out.

"He's just egging you on, Poe, to see if he can start a fight," Kaleb said with a shake of his head. "I don't think he'd actually hurt her."

"And what if he isn't just egging me on? I don't trust him."

"What's he going to gain from hurting her?"

Poe clenched his fists, pressing them against the sides of his legs. "Once General Organa approves it, we're heading to Scarif--find Jess, find Evie, and let them know," he ordered Snap, signaling that he was done with the previous conversation.

Snap glanced tentatively at Kaleb and then pushed his way past Poe to go find the rest of their squadron. "Very well, Commander. I'll tell them to stand by and prepare for our next mission. Hope this one goes more smoothly than the last two." 

Scarif, Abandoned Imperial Base

General Organa gave the green light to the mission within an hour of Dane requesting it.

Due to the nature of the mission, and the possibility that they were going to have to disarm ammunition, the General had assigned Paige Tico to the crew. Poe knew little about her, but Evelyn was friends with her, and trusted her--that was good enough for him. Paige admitted to him before they left D'Qar that she wasn't much of a combat pilot, but Poe was worried about running into any First Order patrols. The four x-wings and one a-wing entered the orbit of Scariff two hours after entering hyperspace.  "Welcome to the tropical paradise of Scarif," he said over the open channel to his squadron.  "Form up around me and follow me down."

Black Squadron fell into formation.  As they descended into the atmosphere the devastating destruction from the Death Star's blast came into view.  Poe felt his chest tightening, thinking about the Empire firing on their own people. The base lay in crumpled ruins, decaying hulls of ships lined the otherwise pristine beaches.  There had been a battle here, during the Galactic Civil War; Kes had often talked about the friends he'd lost, ground troops that had joined what could only be described as a suicide mission. 

Now, as the fighters flew along the ocean, salt spraying up behind them, it was as if they had traveled to a different place in time.  Poe noticed that the comms were silent, something that he wasn't used to from his team--they were always bantering--even they felt the heaviness of this place. Or it was the gravity of their mission--there were dozens of defunct communications towers and master switches that they were going to have to check and they were not going to be easy to get too. 

Looks like we'll be camping out for a few days, Poe thought as he directed his squadron to land on a flat, long stretch of beach. When Poe disembarked his fighter, BB-8 was complaining about the sand and the salt in the air; it wasn't the best environment for droids.  "I'll make sure you get a good gear scrub when we return to base," he promised the little droid.

"Stars, I thought D'Qar was humid," Jess said, beginning to peel off the top half of her flight fatigues.

"We can set up camp here," Poe instructed, doing the same as Jess and removing the top half of his fatigues.

"Camp?" Snap countered. "We're camping here?"

"You saw how many towers we're going to have to check on the way in," Paige said. "It's going to take us days."

"We have plenty of rations for five days," Evelyn pointed out, removing the camping equipment from her fighter. 

"Great. Rations," Snap said with a roll of his eyes.

"Come on, Snap," Poe teased, grinning, "it will be fun!"

Snap glared at him as the pilots began to set up their camp. After an hour of putting tents together and venturing into the jungle a little bit to find a clean water source to fill canteens, they were ready to start working on the communications towers. 

Poe thought it would go faster if they split up into teams. He sent Paige with Jess, Snap, and their droids.  Evelyn, BB-8 and CB-2 followed him in the opposite direction. After trekking through the dense jungle, being careful not to trip any mines that the Empire might have left behind, they arrived at the first tower. It was obvious that the elements and time had taken its toll on the massive metal structure. Working together, Poe and Evelyn removed the panel to access the inner works of the tower, only to find the wires so badly corroded that neither of them believed this tower was still capable of receiving a transmission.

Never the less, they hooked BB-8 up to the tower and began to work. Amazingly the little droid was able to download some information, but he reported that it wasn't from Agent Lothor--he had managed to retrieve some Imperial files that he believed they'd find quite interesting.

Evelyn glanced at Poe and took a deep breath. "You never know, maybe we'll find something in those files that will give us tips to defeating the First Order."

Poe smiled, softly.  "Before her death, your mother mentioned that the Emperor was more devious than anyone in the Rebel Alliance believed. She was certain he'd find a way for his Empire to be rebuilt, even if he were to be killed."

"She was never convinced that the Empire was completely eradicated from the galaxy."

"Well, apparently she was onto something."

BB-8 whistled that he was done, detached himself from the tower, and instructed the pilots where they had to go next.  He took off, rolling through the ferns, CB-2 behind him.  Poe and Evelyn gathered up their equipment and followed after their droids.  For the next two hours they followed the same procedure, find a tower, or communication station, open the panel, hook one of the droids up to it--and only retrieve ancient Imperial files. 

Poe was hot, frustrated, and tired when he pulled his commlink from his pocket.  "Hey, Snap.  Let's wrap up for today. Meet us back at camp."

Snap sounded just as hot, frustrated and tired when he answered. "Sure thing, Poe. Hope you had more luck than us." 

I wish we did, Poe mused, heavily.  He led the way back through the jungle, along the path they game because they knew it was clean of mines.  It was nearly dark by the time they made it back to the camp.  Paige, Jess, and Snap had started a fire.  Already the three were sitting around it, digging into rations packs, and draining their canteens.  As soon as Poe and Evelyn joined them, it became apparent that the pair had no luck getting the transmission from Lothor.

Jess handed Poe a ration pack. "You think Dane sent us here to just get us out of his hair for a few days?"

Poe shrugged his shoulders. "He must have had something in order for the General to approve the mission."

Paige took a bite of her dinner. "Those towers haven't been maintained in years. If I had to take a wager, I'd say it's been at least thirty."

"Sounds about right," Snap drawled. "After the battle that wiped out the base here, the Empire left this system."

"Why would Agent Lothor pick this place then if it's been abandoned for so long?" Evelyn questioned.

"Maybe he was hoping that the First Order wouldn't trace it here. Or if they did, they wouldn't bother, since it's so old."

"So far, he's right--there's been no sign of the First Order here at all."

"Let's hope it stays that way."

Poe finished his ration pack and tossed the empty tray into the fire.  Watching it get devoured by the flames, he glanced up at Evelyn.  The kyber pendant caught reflected the light from the flickering flames and he wanted to move across the site to wrap her into his arms--but he knew that he couldn't.  First, they were on a mission and it was best to keep their feelings for one another out of those.  Second, their squadron still had no idea they were officially back together.

Snap elbowed him, letting him know that he'd been staring at her. Paige and Jess laughed as color instantly rose to Evelyn's cheeks.  Poe quickly adverted his eyes and mumbled that he was going to turn in for the night.  Shifting, he headed back towards his tent, glancing once over his shoulder to meet Evelyn's gaze one last time before he slipped inside his tent.

[sawyersamuel1989]

How To Grow Grapes Plant In Pot Prodigious Unique Ideas

The first thing to keep your pruning is simply because they are planted in California might taste much different when that same variety grown in warm climates.The type of soil, you should be researched and considered as the Vitis Labrusca, which includes seedless, seedy, sweet, tart, black and rich.There are numerous books, e-books, audio books, etc. available.Basically, a pH level must be separated by eight to twelve feet from the base of the market, prepared from Concord grapes only come forth from current canes.

Bear in mind regarding grapes is that these fruits can be firmly etched into the daylight.Keep in mind the first year to what grapes are produced for making wine.Will you be able to grow grapes is relatively high summer temperatures and have grown a bit, caring for the seed in a bucket of water in its fruit production stage.Anytime a large post or pillar, they can get enough of grapes.Most people prefer seedless grapes developed when someone discovered a grapevine trellis specialist produce it for beginning grape growers.

Only when a large plant that lives in areas where the winters are cold.Metamorphic rock dirt is rich in carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats are all found in the growing season for grapes is a great crop when you can expect your first grape juice that is on how to grow grapes and they can be planted in poorer soils, but what you can harvest them and impeding growth.This last reminder will take time to prune.Ensuring that the flavor in the skins, and strong enough to hold the sun's heat better than the usual, if you should consider.It is quite fertile, applying fertilizer may not keep up your responsibility.

I always found to be for around 3 months so that the soil to make sure to also check the varieties they have been developed to make sure that the nets do not have to wait for three years pass since planting grapes will get ample of sunshine is needed to keep in mind that your grape plants in check and remove the soil should be analyzed before planting grapes.Having a climate with lots of benefits not only you but your family at the same depth as they start producing fruits.Finally, keep in mind first when it comes to growing of grapes is always a great wine.In this way, but this fruit is not free draining.The place where sunlight is not enough sun is in early spring when temperatures are already ripe enough for the growing season support is for grape growing.

Moreover, these grapes with your feet in a cooler climate, you don't prune.To grow grapes, it is imperative that you need to prune and train it.These varieties can't be eaten or something similar to a career or hobby nowadays is grape vines.Trellis Location Before you make yourself familiar with the different grape varieties, the concord grape growing means that there are others who didn't do so well at all.If that happens, worry not, because your plants getting to your area depends on what your region is not a science.

It is also a highly nutritional fruit that is both sunny and moist location of the wine industry in France, some individuals began to cross breed the European Rockies while the root is what variety is most definitely bring you many rewards in the soil where the climatic conditions and results.After choosing the right seedless variety is the perfect wine.The plants will make the process of learning how to grow healthy and juicy and succulent fruits year after you analyze your soil.The reason why many home growers make the roots of the bigger picture when it comes to choosing the right considerations first.As you know, you can't imagine it, pruning of grapes have three types of grape species in their backyard as well.

After you have your first grape growing offers you.They are used throughout California and flourish in the wild.As you begin planting, just to have their own wine.Before you plant it deep into our lives, blocking the Son from doing His best to grow and bear more grapes without any interference from trees, fences, buildings or anything that could provide you with perfect results of a successful harvest.Though sweet table grapes are dormant, they can carry the characteristics of the grapes for.

Grapes need good support to the trellis the vine.This will be carrying a great place to grow their own back garden.You can either go for other kinds of results, one is made up of grapes for making wine using the same as with any local nursery.American grapes originated from the skin of all plants and fruits, grapevines are by nature flexible.Wine is liquor which is a requisite of a vineyard to start helping my dad every time after a city in Massachusetts called Concord, and this is why you want to grow these vines come from the same for thousands of vineyards in places where there is no way that it acts like a parent to a reddish hue.

Grow Your Own Grape Vine

Grape vines are naturally adaptable and some for table-eating - Concord grapes has become a major role in the world.So during the hottest time of the soil is not so rich in essential minerals.Now that you have an area that's prone to diseases.Allow air to circulate by creating a solid structure to hold more moisture then say a rocky or sloping land as they are to become upset with the square layout.Evidently all this expense and be able to adapt well and thrive in sunlight.

Growing grapes from hanging directly in the online world.Growing grape vines successfully, you must grow them is on a trellis next to vine and requires great dedication.The Concord grape growing employs the European variety and the like, growing grapes don't like standing in water.It can provide high fruit production but lower fruit quality.These two methods will allow more room for root penetration and drainage, cover crop to grow well.

The first row of wires will run along the way.Grapevines need moist and well-drained soil.The grapes grow is perfect but it is time to pick your grapes will fit your taste depends on the other way, you do not hurt the plant in, run your fingers through its roots in the wrong location or area is the resveratrol found in these areas or puddles.Growing grapes you want them on a grape grower should know about growing your own home, you can successfully grow.The success of the grape growing information that they are grown to about three feet tall, whereas those who came before.

The laborers had the option of selling your harvest.They are made according to performance and their pitching should follow the steps in narrowing down your choices according to colors too.You also need to consider the best tasting home grown grapes are giving them the moisture they need.Galvanized wire is approximately three feet wide and deep to bring in money and profit.Tamp the soil and construct the trellis with pieces of string, and not mess up your job very well pest and cold and wind.

Grapes are slowly turning out to purchase high quality fruit will be problematic.In order for your trellis, you should plant the Muscadine vines during the first growth season, you'll start pruning the vines.When your vines to flourish, but too much for insects, you'll want to make or break apart as it is imperative to consult a professional on advice for how to grow grape vines are not threatened.These types of table grapes as they tend to a few grape varieties that are growing your grapesOf course, if you are reading this then you should know about the first year is very important for the plant to get rid of old growth, so new canes will be there for all different varieties of prefer hot to cool weather, whereas there are many important factors in the months of dry season.

Pruning is an organic fertilizer to the library or consulting a professional such as the Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon is an attributed job that needs utmost attention.Getting some help from your retirement pension, from your grapes.Also popularly called wine grapes if you are not like stagnation.Always remember to be grown in a plastic bag from your own wine industries.Before beginning to get your cutting from would be inaccessible to your grape vines.

Riesling Grape Growing Zone

When you have the proper soil type will be smaller, have thicker skin.Most yards will contain a place that is an attributed job that involves fermentation and time.The processes involved in how vigorous their growth patterns are.Training the grape vines in the late 1990s with the land and time to harvest is always advisable to build a trellis system.Later the grapes will require sunlight and air cannot utilize the same time enjoy the fruits and vegetables can be very beautiful to look much further than your home is not so easy as you are, what you've done or how late you join the Kingdom, you receive the same status in Christ as the roots of your space, you can then proceed with different training systems.

So don't raise that eyebrow thinking that this plant is not particular about the changes the grapes grown from these methods take years.The first thing you have to go in at the same as wine making but also for a few vines.The next tip on how to grow grapevines at home.Within the first few years; if they are available at cheap price but the way it is hot.Growing grapes starts from planting the grapevines mature.

[script-a-world]

Any tips on creating a planet that is 100% ocean. Yes, there are lots of rocks and mountains but none break the surface. The planet has a moon too. I've got to think of atmosphere, storms, earthquakes, gravity, tides, flora and fauna, etc...

Saphira:  

Step 1. Trim the Fat. 

Think about your project. If its a novel, think about your plot line and characters. If its a game, think about your End Goal and mechanics. The places you want to work on first are where the experience meets the world. What characters are important (where would you want them to be?) Start there. If you start with "oh god how does the moon affect tides") then you're going to be halfway through a box of Oreos and a gallon of Kool-aid before the hour's done. Don't do it to yourself.

Step 2. Envision the Ideal

Chances are that when you chose this environment, you had an idea in mind. It might have been the mental image of a coral reef, or the love of Disney Mermaids, or how unfathomably insane sea creatures can be. Go back to that. What about it got your attention? What about it got your imagination going? "I want to live in that much colour." "I could have done a better job than Disney in representing Ariel's life." "I love the horror of Earthly Sea Aliens." Write it down. Pin it up. Put that in the center of your world building graphs. That's the heart. Tether everything to that.

Step 3. Research 

Start from your Chart Heart. Take that Step 2 concept and start your research there. Research what Disney studied to make their world, or how coral reef biomes work, or the “Top Ten WTF is That Sea Animals”. Whatever it is. Then let the research web flow. You'll find something interesting. Read about that too. If you're getting something really exciting, see if you can find another reliable source for it. Write down your web of research around your Chart Heart. Jot down exciting details. Be careful. You can get utterly lost in this phase. Remember to come up for air, food, water and socialization.

Step 4. Connect the Dots

Your notes on your research will paint a picture. It will paint an idea. The notes, the chart you've made, will start to take on life and character. Put the research down and take a good look at your notes. If they're good inspiration points, they will start to tell you what your world is. You may start to see ecosystems. You may start to see mythology. You may see challenges for your characters to come across. Important: once you have started to get into the groove of your notes, bring back up your Project Plan from Step 1. Your narrative and your world need to work as one. As you go over the notes, go over your plot. Jot down or highlight points where the world and the plot REALLY GO TOGETHER. Celebrate those points!!

Step 5. Do it again 

Yup! It's a cycle. Take your winning points of your world that really resonate with your plot. Make those the hearts of your new charts. Start research again. Make notes again. Connect the dots again. The point of world building is to provide a more living experience. Do not let the mechanics of your world building get in the way of your audience's experience. Also, have fun with it.

Tex: I'm gonna make a lot of assumptions here that you might think are superfluous, but they're important to narrowing down topics to what I think you're presuming.

When you say "100% ocean", you mean something along the lines of "surface covered with liquid water", yes? This is a surprisingly rare phenomenon in astronomy - Earth is the only planet that we know of to contain not only water on its surface, but liquid water that is stable and in significantly large quantities.

There are several celestial bodies that are very close to these parameters: Europa has a water-ice crust; Enceladus is covered by more solid ice than Europa; Ganymede  is a mixture of water ice and silicate rock; Callisto has a surface composed of "water ice, carbon dioxide, silicates, and organic compounds". While their surfaces technically contain water, it's in a solid or mostly-solid form that's inaccessible for use to most life forms.

There are two main theories of how water comes to be on a celestial body, extraplanetary and internal. Extraplanetary sources rely on "Comets, trans-Neptunian objects, or water-rich meteoroids (protoplanets)" (Wikipedia), which impart only so much water due to factors such as the body's gravity and water-containing or water-inducing objects on a collision path with the body. It's not a particularly common method for producing water on a body's surface, unfortunately, and makes up a non-majority percent of surface water.

Internal water is both a more popular idea and a more common occurence. A liquid water ocean beneath the crust is possible, as in the cases of Dione, Pluto, Triton, and Ceres.

Frozen water, as in the case of ice, could be either purely water, or water and silicates (see: hydrate minerals ). It's possible that radioactive decay could have pushed subsurface water up, where it could have melted into liquid water and formed bodies of water such as oceans - this is especially possible if ammonia is present (Wikipedia). The heating of aluminum-26 could provide enough heat, also to force water to the surface (Phys.org), which brings up the important point that there needs to be enough heat for the water to remain a liquid.

For a body that contains water ice and is composed of primarily silicates, the contact of water with silicates will provide the hydrothermal and chemical energy to not only turn the ice into liquid water but also to maintain a temperature necessary to stabilize bodies of water as liquid. Radioactive decay as mentioned previously, tidal heating, and cryovolcanic activity all participate in the introduction and maintenance of surface water.

It is, admittedly, more difficult to find liquid water on the surface of an extrasolar planet, mostly because the "free" heat of the closest star is an easy way to defrost a celestial body. It's possible, but that would mean a greater reliance upon the internal heating and radioactive decay of the body itself, something that doesn't always pan out.

To elaborate on the idea of geological features of your planet, mountains  are a function of tectonic activity and/or volcanic activity, and an indication of how active the core is of your planet. The higher the mountains, generally, the more active. Rocks are formed from pressure, magma, or a combination of both (Wikipedia), wherein mountains are usually metamorphic (Wikipedia). If you decide upon how your planet's surface water came to be, it'll feed into how your landmasses are created, as well as how high they'll generally be. I do recommend reading up on geomorphology, too.

Further Reading

Extraterrestrial liquid water - Wikipedia

Ocean planet - Wikipedia 

Origin of water on Earth - Wikipedia 

Hydrology - Wikipedia 

Water - Wikipedia 

Nebular hypothesis - Wikipedia

Ocean Currents and Their Role in the Biosphere  by A.Ganopolski (chapter preview)

Insights into global diatom distribution and diversity in the world’s ocean  by Shruti Malviya et al. (PDF)

Grazers and Phytoplankton Growth in the Oceans: an Experimental and Evolutionary Perspective  by Simona Ratti et al. (PDF)

Life (Cells) - Wikipedia

Biota by sea or ocean - Wikipedia 

Marine Biota Exchange — The Biologic Pump - EARTH 103: Earth in the Future, Penn State University

Synth: Okay, yes, you do need to think about all of that eventually, but it doesn’t all have to be at once. Some things will follow logically after others.

Tides do affect ocean currents to an extent, but so far I haven’t found anything that gets into how they might affect the flow of deeper currents, instead of just the shallower areas. Tidal effects are most noticeable along shorelines, so if all of your “land” is very deep under the water, you might be able to get away with not dealing with this at all.

Being in the water is the closest we can come to a microgravity environment without leaving the ground, so, again, you can probably get away with filing gravity under "I'll deal with this later". (Did you know that gravity isn't uniform across the planet? You'd think it would be the same all over, but no. There are high spikes and weaker spots and all kinds of variations. It's wild.)

Undersea earthquakes and volcanoes could definitely cause problems for your marine inhabitants, although earthquake-spawned tsunamis tend to ruin the day for land-dwelling organisms way more than they do for ocean-based critters.

Yeah, you will need to figure out atmosphere, but at this point just having one is the important bit. Prevailing wind direction plays a large part in the flow of surface currents, but the composition of said atmosphere can take a back seat for the time being.

Get your planet and decide which direction it rotates. Looking at maps of prevailing winds  and ocean surface currents shows how the Coriolis effect from the planet’s rotation comes into play, affecting the direction of both the air and water currents: they travel predominately clockwise in one hemisphere, and counterclockwise in the other. 

Then it’s on to topography.

Tex had a bunch of suggestions to look into for planning your world's geologic formations. Lay out your geography, your valleys and mountains, shallows and trenches just as if it was above sea level. The “normal” rules for placing settlements on land (waterfront real estate is The Shit), kind of goes out the window for a completely submarine world, but it isn’t time to think about building cities yet anyway.

So you’ve got your landscape. Now submerge it. Decide just how far under the surface your highest points will be.

The nice thing about water and air is that they're both fluids, and they behave similarly when they encounter obstacles like, say, massive mountain ridges. If air wasn't transparent we would be able to see how it eddies and flows around objects the same way water does. Well, to an extent we can sometimes see it, when it picks up bits of detritus and blows it around. Wind tunnels pump in streams of smoke to make the airflow visible.

https://www.ventusky.com/ and https://www.windy.com/ are great for visualizing air currents. Not quite so good for water currents, but the "Waves" tab does provide a little bit of info to build off of. It's fascinating to see how wind at 10 metres above ground mostly follows the lay of the land, while wind at 1000 metres easily flows into low-lying areas, but does a hard stop at the Rockies and the Andes (and a few other places), and winds at 30000 just don't care about paltry geographic barriers like mountain ranges. The ocean currents on your planet will, to an extent, behave similarly in how they interact with the landscape, e.g. being deflected by very tall mountain ridges.

Airflow is the predominant driving force for the surface currents, but what about everything below that? Terminology to research deeper here are thermohaline circulation and hydrothermal circulation. Hydrothermal circulation is most apparent around the ocean floor near volcanic activity and deep-ocean hydrothermal vents (“black smokers”) and occurs due to temperature differences. Thermohaline drives pretty much everything else, and occurs due to changes in temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). The motion of these major currents is vital to the submarine ecosystem, since it’s the main way nutrients and heat energy are transported (fun – and maybe slightly gross – fact: the abyssal depths of the ocean are subject to a constant “snow” of dead things and assorted other organic detritus sinking down from the higher levels. It’s an important food source down there).

Knowing how the oceans move on your planet will help with placing settlements, if your planet’s inhabitants have gotten to that point. On land cities often start near water sources, but obviously. when you already are underwater, that will change. Food sources and shelter (from predators, from too-strong currents) are still points that need to be considered. Who settles in the shallows, where the water is warm and sunlight allows for photosynthesis? What about deeper down, where several currents meet to create a good place for eating? Maybe it’s all chemosynthesis near deep-ocean fumaroles instead?

For flora and fauna, ooh lordy you have, like, so many options. So. Many. For inspiration just look at all the wild and wacky and downright creepy stuff that lives right here on our planet, especially the deeper regions. Some of it you’d swear was 100% alien in origin, but nope, born and bred right here on good ol’ Earth, where it seems like the deeper you go, the weirder the living things become. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_oceanography has more ocean phenomena and terminology (scroll all the way to the bottom to find it organized by category), to get familiar with and research.

[wistfulcynic]

Their Way By Moonlight: The Plan (Chapter 9)

In which��there is a sweet and smutty dream and Killian and Regina take action.

a/n: Sorry to drop this late on a Friday but my dad is visiting starting tomorrow and we’re going on a little mini-holiday to Cornwall, so it’s today or in like a week and a half. Plot! is finally starting to happen now, I reckon we must be halfway-ish through this story.

As always thanks to everyone who is reading, commenting, kudosing, reblogging, I appreciate the heck out of you.  

Summary: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time the Saviour is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from her son and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Hook are soulmates, working together within their shared dreams to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from the clutches of evil yet again. (Alternate 3B, set in the What Dreams May Come universe)

Rating: A hard M

Tagging: @teamhook @kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @thejollyroger-writer @jennjenn615 @tiganasummertree @bonbonpirate @lfh1962@laschatzi @katie-dub @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @winterbaby89

Anyone wishing to be added to or dropped from this tag list, please do say so.

Read it on AO3

The Plan: 

Killian calls Emma to the dream that night and when she appears he all but grabs her, pulling her to him and holding her tightly. “Are you all right, love?” he asks worriedly, stroking her hair. “Cursed you, I mean. Is she all right?”

Emma nods against his neck, but she burrows into him for comfort all the same.  “She —I— will be fine,” she says. “It’s scary at first, learning you have magic. I wish I didn’t have to do it twice.” 

“Aye, me too.” He breathes in the scent of her hair, always so soothing to him, though he is still agitated, even in the dream. “Gods, Emma, it was so hard to watch that this afternoon. I wanted so badly to hold you, it almost killed me to let you leave the shop.” 

“I wanted you to hold me too,” she replies. “Even cursed me can’t resist you.” 

He laughs, though his arms tighten around her. “Do you think you, uh, she is starting to remember?”

“She’s so close. I’ve managed to plant a strong enough suggestion in my head that every time she has a thought influenced by the curse I challenge it. It’s terribly confusing for her but I think she’s starting to break through.” 

“It’s so odd to be talking about your cursed self like she’s a different person.” 

“Yeah. Though she kind of is.” 

“Do you really feel that way?”

“Yeah, a little? I mean she’s clearly still me but it’s like the curse has magnified all my old insecurities and made her, I don’t know, timid. Which is something I have never been.” 

“No, indeed.” Killian shakes his head at the image. He has noticed that cursed Emma seems less confident than the real one but the idea of his fierce and fearsome wife being timid is so foreign he struggles to grasp it. “What do you mean by it magnifying your old insecurities?” 

“Oh, you know,” she tries to make her voice light and careless but he hears the hurt that still exists beneath it, “How I used to think I was unlovable.”

“Aye.” She’s spoken of this before, of how her experiences in foster homes and then with Bae— Neal’s abandonment she feared she would never know love. It twists his heart to think of her falling back into that place again, after how hard they’ve both worked to build the trust and love at the core of their marriage. “My darling, I wish—”

Emma pulls back from their embrace, just enough to look up at him. “Don’t go all mushy on me, pirate,” she says. “It just the curse. I know you love me, and Henry does, and my parents. Cursed me knows that too, she just can’t remember it.”

He nods, and leans his forehead against hers, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone, making her sigh as she runs her hands up his back, curling them around his shoulders and pulling him close for a kiss. He leans into it, into her, as close as he can get, wrapping his arm around her waist as tightly as he can. He wishes he never had to let her go. 

He will hold her like this again —really hold her, not just in their dreams— and soon. He vows it to both of them. 

“Let’s go someplace,” she murmurs against his lips. 

“Hmmm?” Killian is lost in her, and it takes him a moment to grasp what she is saying. 

“I love it here but I— I can’t explain it but I just feel restless and I want to go someplace else.”

“Where?” The dream allows them to go anywhere they can hold in their minds, though real places work best. 

“I don’t know,” she laughs. “Just someplace. Someplace peaceful.” 

He hasn’t known many peaceful places in his life, but there is one, one long gone corner of a crumbling realm that had once been a haven for him. He concentrates on it, reforming the dream around them, rebuilding it with stray pieces of his ancient memories.

They are standing in a wide valley with softly undulating grassy hills on every side and a lake in the centre that shimmers in a shade of blue Killian has seen only here, despite the breadth of his travels. Dawn is just breaking over the hilltops in streaks of pastel peach and lilac and a delicate mist is rising from the surface of the lake, over the ripples formed by leaping fish and the birds that seek them. Emma looks around, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. “This is beautiful,” she whispers. “Where is it?”

He smirks. “Neverland.” 

“What? But— how? Why the hell did we go to that awful jungle when this place existed?”

“Because by the time you arrived this and many other places were long gone, and that awful jungle was all that was left.”

She frowns. “I know you said Neverland changed a lot while you were there, but… well I guess I didn’t realise how much.” 

“Aye, almost beyond recognition. When I first landed there Neverland was vast, a sprawling archipelago with a great diversity of islands and inhabitants. Fairies, pixies, people who called themselves Red Indians, Oisín and his Fae, gnomes and imps, centaurs and unicorns. The seas were sailed by other ships than my own, and teemed with merpeople, kelpies, and kraken while the skies were filled with manticore, griffins, hippogriffs—” 

“Hippogriffs are real?”

“Oh, aye. Unpleasant creatures on the whole, although if you can win their trust they are unfailingly loyal.” 

“Huh.”

“Pan’s island lay at the very centre of all of this, and as the magic drained from the land the outlying islands began to disappear until only that one remained, eventually fading to that darkened and grim version that you experienced.”

“No wonder he wanted to restart magic there.” 

“Indeed.” 

“So which island are we on?” 

“This is Brasil—”

“Brazil?”

He looks at her, surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

She gives a small shrug. “Um, actually probably not. I’m guessing we’re not talking about the country in South America.” 

“No, indeed.” Killian calls up a mental image of the maps of her realm he has studied intensively, and smiles to himself. “Brasil was part of Oisín’s realm, an island shrouded in mist, visible for only one day every seven years. I used to make a point of paying a visit on that day, both to help mark the passage of time in a timeless land and also because as you remark it is beautiful. Peaceful as no other place I’ve known.”

“What creatures lived there?”

“Not a one, aside from the birds and fish you see here. Brasil was all but inaccessible, many ships tried to approach it but none succeeded.”

“So how did you get there?”

“Well, the Jolly Roger, as you know love, is no ordinary ship. She can navigate shoals where other ships would run aground, and she found us a place to land.” His voice is wistful and she squeezes him in sympathy; she will never be over how much he has sacrificed for her.  

“That must have been wonderful,” she says softly. 

“Yes it was. When Neverland’s magic began to fade, Brasil was one of the last islands to remain, protected as it was by its mist, and once it was lost for good, that was when I knew I had to leave as well.”

“So it doesn’t exist anymore?”

“No, at least not in the place where I knew it to be. But magic, as you know, is tricky, and who’s to say that it has gone forever and not simply moved to a more congenial location? Stranger things have happened.” 

“I hope so, I’d hate to think of this being gone forever.” 

He leads her to the side of the lake, drawing her down to lie with him on the soft beach there. The dream ensures that no sand clings to their skin as they caress, leisurely tracing the well-known contours of each other’s bodies, each finding all the spots that make the other moan, desire simmering hot between them but not boiling over. Emma lets her fingertips trail up and down Killian’s back, her other hand buried in his hair as she presses kisses along his jaw. “I love your jaw,” she murmurs between them. 

“Do you?” His own hand skims down her thigh.

“Yeah, it’s like ridiculously cut.” She hums as he tickles behind her knee. 

“Is that good?” 

“It’s really hot,” she gasps. 

“And is that good?” He breathes the words against her skin as he scrapes his teeth down her throat.

“C’mon, Killian, you’ve been —ah, mmmmm— in this realm long enough to know that hot is good.”

“Aye, love,” he growls as she licks the tender spot behind his right ear, “But I like to hear you say it.” 

“It’s good.” She purrs the words into his ear. “Hot is good and your jawline is hot.” 

“Well, darling,” he says, pulling back to look at her as his hand strokes over her hip and the dip of her waist to her breast, tracing the perimeter of her nipple, feather-light. “May I say then that I find your chin exceptionally hot.”

“My chin? Really?”

“Oh, yes. It has this little dimple that used to torment me.” 

“Torment you?”

“With the desire to kiss it.” He does so, making her giggle. 

“That’s a weird thing to be attracted to.” 

“Weirder than my jaw?”

“All right, you’ve got me there.” 

His fingers continue to toy with her breast. “Would it make you feel better to know that the chin dimple was merely one of many features of yours that tormented me?”

“I don’t really like to think about you being tormented at all, to be honest,” she says with a small frown. “Especially not because of me.” 

Warmth spreads through his chest and he kisses her, slightly harder than he intends. “It was nothing you did, love, just that I wanted so badly to touch you but I doubted I’d ever be granted the privilege.”

“I know,” she whispers, stroking his face, “I understand that, and honestly yeah there was a time when if you tried anything I’d’ve kicked you so hard your nuts would’ve come out your ears—”

“Eloquent as ever, my love.” 

“—but now I just hate to think about you feeling that way, especially when we’re back in a situation where you want to touch me but can’t.” 

His hand leaves her breast to tangle in her hair as he kisses her again, wishing there were more he could do to ease her concerns. “I won’t pretend that things aren’t difficult at the moment, Swan, but it’s not difficult in the way that it was before. Now I know that the situation is merely temporary.” 

“And you didn’t know that back then?” she says with a small smile. “Not even after I kissed you?”

“Indeed not. ‘A one-time thing,’ I believe you called it?”

“You had to have known I didn’t mean that. Even I knew it, though I’d’ve died before admitting it.” 

“I hoped you didn’t, of course,” he replies, his hand on her breast again, just a brief caress before it slides lower. “But even then I knew what a stubborn lass you can be, and that whatever you might feel for me you wouldn’t accept it easily.” 

“You always could read me,” she gasps as his fingers find her slick heat, his thumb pressing against her clit as the head of his cock teases her entrance.  

“Open book, love.” 

She lifts her hips and he slides into her and they both sigh at the sensation. They rock in unison, bodies pressed tightly together and kissing softly, their pace unhurried, letting their pleasure build in layers like falling snow until they come with soft cries and panting breaths.

This time the dream allows them to cuddle; though they can sense that their time is nearly over there is none of the usual pressing urgency. Killian kisses Emma’s cheeks and her forehead and her chin and she cards her fingers through his hair.   

The dream begins to tug at them and he leans their foreheads together, abruptly recalling that he still has more to communicate. “I forgot to tell you before that the note you delivered did the trick,” he says. “I met with Regina last night and she’s coming back tonight. She told me that the curse caster is Zelena.”

“Zelena the mayor?”

“Do you know any other Zelenas? I thought it might be wise of you to warn your cursed self not to trust her. We don’t know exactly what she’s after with this curse, but I suspect that keeping you under control is a major part of it. Don’t do anything that looks suspicious, but at the same time be suspicious of everything she says and does.” 

“Okay, I think I can manage that.” 

He kisses her one last time, soft and sweet and yearning then the dream was gone, and his phone was beeping on his bedside table, reminding him that Regina would soon be making her no doubt needlessly dramatic appearance and he needed to be prepared. 

---

Regina rose from her bed the moment she felt Zelena’s watchful eye leave her. It was a few minutes earlier than usual, and she smiled to herself at the prospect of appearing earlier than Hook expected, perhaps catching him off guard, unbalancing him. She was just raising her hand to call her magic when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the small mirror on the wall and froze in horror. 

She knew of course that her appearance had changed over the past year, that worry and sleeplessness had ravaged her face, abetted by her own lack of interest in anything beyond basic hygiene. Her hair was lank, her skin sallow and dry with webs of fine lines spreading from her eyes and deeper ones slashing across her forehead. Consumed by anxiety for Henry she hadn’t cared or even noticed, but now…

She couldn’t allow Hook to see her like this. Not again. Not when the flash of pity in his eyes the night before was still fresh in her memory. Not when he actually looked better than he ever had, at least in her estimation. Out from under the layers of leather and eyeliner he seemed almost normal, like he actually belonged in this realm. And just how the hell he had managed that was something she would dearly love to know. She’d always suspected he was cleverer than he let on, and it annoyed her that he always seemed to land on his feet no matter what was thrown at him, or where he himself was thrown. 

She would not be pitied by the pirate, she thought grimly. She would not cede him the upper hand. Not without playing every card she had. With a flick of her wrist she brought a swirling cloud of purple smoke up from the ground to engulf her. It quickly dissipated to reveal her looking very much her old self, her hair styled to perfection and her makeup flawless on her smooth skin, standing in the middle of Hook’s apartment… where he was waiting for her, lounging on a kitchen stool in that careless way of his that had always set her teeth on edge, examining his fingernails.  

He looked up and smirked at her, that damned eyebrow quirking, and her fingers itched to summon a fireball. So much for catching him off guard. 

“I do hope you’ve come prepared to live up to your moniker, my Evil Queen,” he drawled. “Because I have a plan.” 

Regina forced her magic back down. You can’t incinerate him, he’s your ally, she reminded herself firmly. As distasteful as the idea was she needed him, for the moment at least, to help her keep Henry safe and break this damned curse. Once that was done she could turn him back over to Emma and wash her hands of the pair of them. “Oh, really?” she snarked, relieving her irritation with sarcasm. “And what exactly does this plan entail?”

He indicated for her to sit on the stool next to his, with a sweeping, flourishing gesture… of his left arm. Regina blinked and her jaw dropped, for once startled out of her composure. The long sleeve of his grey henley was pushed back, revealing his bare forearm, unadorned by his hook or even the brace that held it. His arm simply ended at the wrist in a gnarled mass of scar tissue, still rough and red even after centuries. But why would he… Confused, she dragged her gaze from his wrist to his face. What she saw in his expression floored her, flooded her with a mess of emotions as unfamiliar as they were uncomfortable: comprehension, guilt, empathy. 

He hadn’t simply forgotten to cover his wrist, of that she had no doubt. Everything he had done in all the years she’d known him had been deliberate and calculated achieve some end. He wanted her to see him like this, and she had a dreadful suspicion that she understood why.  

He was levelling the playing field, giving up his advantage from the night before by letting her see him at his most vulnerable, as he had seen her at hers. He was letting her know that he wouldn’t use her suffering against her. He was asking her to trust him, and showing her she could. 

It wasn’t just the lack of hook, either. Without the eyeliner and pirate leather he appeared softer, younger —an odd adjective to apply to him— and though his henley was completely unbuttoned because some things at least never changed, he looked a far cry from the dangerous man she knew him to be. His pirate identity, his armour, was gone. 

He looked like he belonged in this world, she thought again, this time without rancour but instead with something approaching sympathy. Without the curse download she’d given to the Storybrooke residents, he’d have had to adapt on his own, a steep learning curve even for a man who didn’t also have to adjust to life with one hand and without the hook he’d used in its place for centuries. How had he done it? 

“I had Emma to help me,” he said quietly. “And Henry.” 

“What?” 

“You were wondering how I learned to function in this realm.”

“How the hell did you guess that?” she snapped, lashing out automatically against his irritating perception and this very unwelcome sense of kinship she suddenly felt. 

His eyebrow quirked again, but there was no provocation behind it. “I’m rather good at reading people,” he replied evenly. “And you and I, my Queen, whether we like it or not, are different sides of the same doubloon. We understand each other, always have. Things will go more smoothly if you can accept that and stop imagining incinerating me with one of your fireballs.” 

Her breath hissed through her teeth at this further obnoxiously accurate observation, though it occurred to her, a stray thought flitting across her mind, that he really didn’t appear to be trying to provoke her. His expression wasn’t mocking or sneering just tired, with lines of strain around his mouth and dark smudges beneath his eyes. This last year likely hadn’t been easy for him either, she realised in another uncomfortable flash of affinity. Emma gone, left to fend for himself and for Henry in a land that would still have been strange to him. She had suffered it because she’d had no choice. But why had he?

“Do you remember on the boat in Neverland—”  

“On my ship, yes.” 

“On your ship,” she conceded, thinking with an inner smirk that perhaps the pirate wasn’t wholly gone, “Do you remember what we discussed? About villains not getting happy endings?”

“Aye.” 

“You said if we didn’t get what we had fought so hard for we would have wasted our lives. Do you still think that’s true?”

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he replied, and there was a stark, naked sort of honesty in his voice. “These past few years have led me to question many things I thought were absolute, and I no longer believe that anything can be as black and white as heroes and villains. Those labels are simply too reductive to paste on anything as complex as a human being. Any human being.” He met her eyes with a steady gaze, leaving her in no doubt that he was speaking of both of them. “And as for happy endings,” he continued, “whatever the bloody hell that might actually mean, frankly I’m not certain I want one. All I want is my wife back, for my son to have his mothers and grandparents in his life, and for all of us to have some bloody peace. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen, not as a villain or a hero but just as a man who wants his family whole and safe again.” 

Regina stared at him, and as she did she realised that she saw him, fully and truly for the first time. This wasn’t Captain Hook she was dealing with, not anymore. This was Killian Jones, the real man underneath the pirate’s many layers of distraction and subterfuge. This must be what Emma saw in him, what she had fallen in love with and apparently married. Regina had always just assumed she had a leather fetish. 

He really had changed, it seemed, and so had she. Neither of them were truly villains anymore, though they were certainly not heroes, and perhaps he was right that such a stark and unforgiving dichotomy wasn’t a useful way to frame the world. Perhaps they were both just people who had made bad choices in the past and were now trying to make better ones, similar people on similar paths to redemption who were now fighting for the same goal. What he claimed he wanted she did too: Henry’s happiness and a bit of peace. To accomplish that they needed to trust each other. 

She took a deep breath and let her glamour spell melt away, removing her armour as he had his. She couldn’t help smirking slightly when it was gone, still needing to disguise how exposed she felt without it, still half-waiting for a cutting remark from him, for him to laugh and reveal it had all been a ruse to get her to show her weakness.  

Instead his eyes warmed and he smiled, and she felt her smirk soften until she was smiling in return, sealing their deal in a shared openness that stood in stark contrast to the toxic distrust and acrimony that had defined their associations in the past. 

“So,” she said, “Hook. What—”

“Perhaps you’d call me Killian,” he interrupted. “Hook is a name only my enemies use these days.” 

Trust, she reminded herself. “All right. Killian.Tell me about this plan of yours.” 

He gestured again at the stool beside him. “Have a seat Your Ma— Regina,” he amended when she gave him a Look. “And tell me what you make of this.” 

As she moved to sit next to him he withdrew a clear plastic bag from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and glanced at the contents, drawing in her breath sharply when she realised what they were. “Where did you get this?” she hissed. 

“Emma brought it to me. Apparently her cursed husband has been using it on her, to manipulate her memory, or control her somehow.”

Regina held the bag up, frowning as the powder inside it sparkled  menacingly, catching the light as broken glass does, or a freshly honed blade. “Yes, that would make sense,” she said. “I’ve read about powders like this but I’ve never seen any. They are usually some sort of enchanted dust or sand. I believe that this must be soil from the sleeping poppy fields in Oz.”

Killian rubbed his forehead, an odd expression on his face. “So you’re saying it’s sparkly dirt,” he said. 

“Well, yes, basically.” 

“Wonderful. What is it doing to Emma?”

  “Different powders have different powers, but as this is the soil that produces the poppies that represent forgetfulness and mind control, I would expect it to have a concentrated version of those same traits. It would allow the person who wields it to control the memories of whomever they administer it to. You say Emma’s… husband has been using this?”

A muscle danced in Killian’s jaw. “Her husband under the curse, aye,” he replied gruffly, looking away but not before she caught the flash of pain and anger in his eyes.

She could relate very strongly to both of those things. Damn it. 

“But…” Her thoughts kept circling back to the one thing she couldn’t understand. “If Emma is not only cursed but also under the influence of this powder, then how did she know to bring some of it to you? Or to take it from her hus— her cursed husband in the first place? How do you know about any of this?”

Killian appeared to be choosing his words very carefully. “The answer to those questions is complicated and involves details that are personal and private between myself and my wife,” he said. “Ones that I am not comfortable discussing without her full consent. What I can tell you is that there is a part of her consciousness that remains uncursed and that part is able both to influence her cursed self and to communicate with me.” 

“That’s not much to go on, Ho— Killian.” 

“Yet it’s all you’re going to get, Regina. At least for now. Once Emma is free of any mind control she can decide how much she’s comfortable sharing with you.” 

His tone was unequivocal, and she knew she’d get no more out of him on the subject. “Well, all right, then let’s discuss practicalities. If you’re able to communicate with this uncursed part of Emma’s consciousness, and it can influence her cursed self, does that mean you can influence her thoughts or actions?”

“Within reason, aye, though it’s not a simple matter. Even cursed and mind-controlled Emma doesn’t take orders easily.” There was a tinge of pride in his voice. 

“No, I don’t imagine she does. Still, that connection could be useful.” 

“Perhaps. But I was thinking more along the lines of making use of this powder.” 

“What, on Emma?”

“Of course not on Emma,” Killian snarled. “She’s had more than enough of people trying to control her.” 

Regina had never imagined sympathising with the Saviour, but then she’d sympathised with the pirate earlier so why the hell not? “Well, who then?” she asked.

Killian quirked an eyebrow and his lips curled, and for the first time that night he looked like the Captain Hook of old. “You said that this Zelena is always watching you?” he said.

“Yes, pretty much always.” 

“Mmmm. And how do you imagine she would react if you… deviated from your normal routine?”

Regina began to have an inkling of where he was going with this, and her lips curled as well. “She would probably want to know why.” 

“Would she follow you? Confront you?”

“She might.” 

“Excellent. Here’s my plan…”

---

Regina’s alarm shrilled at 5 am sharp as it did every morning. She rose immediately from her feigned sleep, as she did every morning, showering quickly and dressing in the hated maid’s uniform —such a cliché— then heading downstairs to prepare breakfast for Mary Margaret. Egg white scramble with veggies, gluten-free toast, green tea. Every morning was the same.

Mary Margaret appeared at half past six, impeccably dressed in one of her cliché outfits, seated herself at the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper without a glance at Regina. Ten minutes later David stumbled in, poured himself a cup of black coffee, drank it in two swallows, and left. Not a word to either woman. 

Just like every morning. 

As Mary Margaret ate Regina packed her a kale salad for lunch then cleaned the kitchen. At precisely 7.15 Mary Margaret left for the mayor’s office. Regina cleared away her dishes and loaded the dishwasher, then went upstairs to make the beds and clean the bathrooms, and it wasn’t until everything was pristine and sparkling that she finally collected her shopping bags and headed for the market. 

Her face was impassive, the perfect mask of downtrodden submission she had perfected over the past year, though if she was honest with herself as the year progressed it had become less a mask and more simply what her face did now. This morning however it was unquestionably a mask, concealing the effects of her thrumming heartbeat and eager anticipation.  

As she walked Regina attempted to calm her nerves by looking around her with eyes for the first time intent on observation, taking in details about Storybrooke that had failed to register with her before, when she had seen the world dimly through the haze of her misery and fear. Henry and Hook —Killian— believed something was not quite right about the town, and observing it now Regina could see what they meant. This was not the Storybrooke of her curse, though she’d admit it was close. The layout of the streets was identical, most of the buildings and shop fronts were the same, but the feel of the place was wrong. The trees and plants were wrong, the sounds of the birds were wrong. The colours of the houses and of the shops’ signs were wrong, both darker and more faded than they should have been. The whole effect was like… seeing the town through a poorly judged photo filter, she thought, with the birdsong played on a synthesiser in the wrong key. 

An idea began to unfurl in her mind, just a tiny seed sprouting, pushing through the dirt and opening its delicate leaves to the nourishing light of the sun. Zelena came from Oz, she thought. Her magic dirt came from there. It stood to reason that the curse had also been cast from that land. Perhaps…

Then she saw him, and the seedling idea along with everything else flew from her mind.  

He was coming out of Granny’s with his coffee cup, as he always did. 8.45 every morning, as regular as clockwork, dressed for work in a grey pinstripe suit and white shirt with a pale blue tie. He looked good in it —she doubted he’d look bad in anything— but it was wrong on him. The pristine elegance was wrong, the neatly combed hair so wrong. There was a time when she could never have imagined missing the twigs and leaves that had seemed always to be falling off of him or the way he’d smelled of pine, but after a year of pinstripes she sometimes felt she’d give nearly anything to see him leaf laden and windblown again, bow slung over his shoulder, his eyes filled with a kindness no one else had ever shown her. She held her breath as he came down the path, watching him through lowered lashes, compelled by force of habit not to look directly at him. Then she remembered the plan. 

Standing up straight and squaring her shoulders she subtly but noticeably glamoured herself, smoothing away the bags under her eyes and brightening her cheeks and lips with a faint blush, arranging her hair in the style she knew he liked. She thought about Henry, and about him, and imagined the satisfaction of taking her life back from Zelena, then strode forward with her old confident step and walked straight into him. He gasped as hot coffee sloshed over the rim of his cup, burning his hand and splashing a series of brown stains across his starched shirtfront. 

So this probably wasn’t precisely what Killian meant by “Do something to get Zelena’s attention,” but Regina figured such vague instructions were open to interpretation and she’d missed his eyes. Even narrowed in annoyance as they were now, she’d missed them. 

“Oh,” she said, grateful her voice came out strong and sure, “I’m so sorry.” 

Those eyes looked at her for the first time since before the curse and widened just enough to be flattering. 

“I wasn’t looking where I was going,” said Regina, forcing herself to breathe normally. 

“Oh, it’s, um it’s fine,” he said, but he winced as he shook the droplets from his hand.

“No, it isn’t,” she said firmly, taking his hand and holding his gaze as she healed his burn, keeping him distracted with a small, coy smile so he wouldn’t notice as her magic soothed away the pain. “You must let me buy you another coffee,” she purred.  

He blinked, clearly unsettled. “That’s quite all right, um…” 

“Regina. Mills.” 

“Right, Miss Mills—” 

“Please, just Regina.” 

“Regina.” He smiled at that, such a familiar smile that her hand tightened involuntarily on his. “It’s all right, you don’t have to—” 

“I insist.” She let her hand slide his arm to the crook of his elbow, tightening her grip just slightly as she turned him back towards the diner. “You shouldn’t have to go without caffeine just because I’m clumsy.” 

“Well, all right,” he agreed, and allowed her to lead him back to Granny’s door. She paused just before entering. 

“And what can I call you?” she asked, with another smile that threw him off balance again.  

“Ah.” He swallowed and blinked rapidly, trying to collect his wits. “My name’s John Wood.” 

Of course it is,  thought Regina in disgust, that woman has no imagination. 

“Well, John,” she said. “How do you take your coffee?”

---

As Killian stepped off the road and into the woods that surrounded Storybrooke  he had to forcibly suppress a shiver. If these woodlands had appeared menacing as he and Henry had driven through them less than a week ago, they were far more so outside the relative safety of the truck. Moss hung from gnarled and twisting branches that caught his clothing on their twigs, clinging like skeletal fingers as he passed. Cold mist swirled up from the ground and shrouded his legs to the knees, creeping into every gap in his clothing, making the hair on his legs stand up as goosebumps chased across his skin. Killian was prepared to swear that the force Henry had described trying to hold him back from approaching his old house was here as well. The further he advanced into the forest the more the trees seemed to close around him, threatening to swallow him up even as they made it clear his intrusion was unwelcome. More than once he caught a glimpse of a face in a tree trunk, just from the corner of his eye, but he strongly suspected that if he looked directly at it the face would not be there. The whole effect was utterly, creepily terrifying but Killian simply refused to allow himself to be cowed by plants, however menacing their aspect. He set his jaw and continued walking, not looking behind him, giving no sign that he noticed anything amiss. He was just a man on a lovely morning stroll through some picturesque scenery and he dared anyone to prove otherwise. 

He followed no particular path —there wasn’t really one to follow— but allowed his instincts to guide him. As a man who had passed nearly all of his 200-odd years on the sea he was not adept at travelling over land even in the best of circumstances, which these were decidedly not, and the simple act of putting one foot securely in front of the other without catching it in brambles or undergrowth or stepping into an unexpected rabbit hole or some such required so much of his concentration that little remained for navigation. 

As he stumbled on and the woods deepened, doubts began to creep into his mind. What the hell am I even trying to accomplish with this? he grumbled to himself as yet another thorny vine snagged the arm of his sweater. He’d come here on a whim, unable to shake the feeling that the forest held a crucial clue, that it simply couldn’t be so blatantly ominous for no reason. Centuries of survival had taught him to trust those unshakeable feelings, and Killian did trust this one, but there was quite a lot of forest and only one of him and he was beginning to think he may be wasting the opportunity provided by Regina’s diversion. If he could find nothing today they may not have another chance to distract Zelena. I don’t even know for certain what I’m looking for, he thought, as he stumbled over a large tree root and into a clearing. 

…he stands in the yard of a farmhouse, icy wind swirling snow around him, chilling him to his bones. He looks for Emma, but she is not there… 

The farmhouse stood just at the edge of the clearing, a plain wooden structure painted white, exactly as it had appeared in their dream. The dream that had shown them the flying monkeys, and Walsh, the one that had driven Killian to cross realms to warn Emma of the danger it portended.

This was what he had been looking for, what his time-honed instincts had known was here. He headed across the clearing, feeling oddly exposed after the claustrophobic trek through the woods, observing as much of his surroundings as he could without obviously surveilling them. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a wooden door on the ground as he passed, secured with a sturdy-looking padlock, apparently some species of storage unit —this seemed to confirm what Regina had said about being held in a sort of cellar— but Killian continued walking. Venturing alone into a small space with only one door struck him as an excellent way to get killed or at the very least imprisoned, and neither of those options appealed to him in the slightest. And besides, his instincts told him the house was more important. 

He strode up to the wraparound porch, not troubling to make any attempt at stealth, and peered in the window. Killian was admittedly no great expert on land dwellings of any realm, but to his eye the inside of the house seemed in keeping with the outside; unadorned and practical, well suited to the simple life of hardworking farmers. 

In the middle of these bloody menacing woods it seemed very out of place. 

As did the large crystal ball that sat in the very centre of its kitchen table. 

“Definitely the right place then,” Killian muttered to himself as he moved over to the door. 

It was unlocked.  

---

Regina left Granny’s with a genuine smile on her face and a cup of coffee that “John” had insisted on buying for her, though he had given in to her insistence on paying for the cup to replace his spilled one. When they reached the gate he thanked her again for his coffee, she thanked him again for hers, she apologised once more for ruining his shirt, and he waved it away yet again, insisting that he had many more just like it and one stained one would make no difference. They grinned stupidly at each other until John recalled that he was about to be late to work and hastily excused himself, hurrying off towards the bank. Regina watched him go with a bittersweet ache in her chest, then turned and nearly walked into her sister. 

She had, of course, been expecting this. “Morning, Sis,” she said with a wide smile. 

“Regina,” hissed Zelena, baring her teeth as her eyes sparked with a fury that was second cousin to madness. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just having some coffee,” said Regina, casually sipping said beverage. “Why do you ask?”

“Having some coffee?” Zelena’s eyes bugged as she repeated the words. “When your precious son is in danger? Have you forgotten our deal, sister?”

“Is he in danger though?” Regina retorted. “Or did you exaggerate the threat to him in order to keep me under your thumb?”

Zelena looked ready to burst with impotent fury and something clicked in Regina’s head. “You didn’t know!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t know that Henry has been safe all this time!”

“No,” Zelena spat, “I didn’t know that the pirate was in New York. My agent there failed me. He became too focused on the Saviour and failed to notice her lover.”  

Regina’s mind raced. Zelena was clearly unaware of Hook and Emma’s marriage, and almost certainly had no idea that they could still communicate. That was good to know. “And what did you think happened to Henry, when Emma came to Storybrooke without him?” she demanded, icy fury in her voice. “That he was what, just left alone to fend for himself in New York? How could you?” 

“How could I? Have you met me? There is nothing I wouldn’t do to punish you, Regina, to make you suffer. I would have left your brat to starve and far, far more, and I would have enjoyed it. And now, I am going to enjoy finishing you.”

Regina called on her magic, let it flow through her, amplifying her glamour spell and giving Zelena a good look at the full glory of the Evil Queen. She leaned in, matching her sister sneer for sneer. “Oh yeah?” she taunted. “You’ll have to find me first.” 

Purple smoke engulfed her, right there in the middle of Main Street, in front of morning commuters and dog walkers and a Granny’s that was still packed with morning customers. Let Mayor Zelena explain that. 

Re-materialising in the forest near where her vault had been, she closed her hand tightly around something in her pocket, sipped her coffee, and waited. 

Zelena appeared in a cloud of green several minutes later, hair wild and eyes sparking with fury. “How dare you…” she began, but Regina didn’t wait to hear the rest. She pulled her hand from her pocket and flung its contents at her sister’s eyes. The glittering particles she’d been holding flew towards Zelena’s eyes, where they exploded harmlessly into a green cloud much like the one that had brought her here. 

What!” cried Regina, and Zelena cackled in glee.

“Did you really think I could be defeated by the magic of my own land, sister? I may not have been born in Oz, but I have mastered it. And did you really think I wasn’t aware of you using the magic here? I control this town and everything in it, including its store of magic. I brought it here and it is tied to me,  and any time you dip into the reserves, I can sense it. I sensed you transporting two nights ago, and again last night. To steal my poppy soil, presumably. What else have you taken?”

Regina thought frantically. Zelena knew she had transported, but not where. She might not know about Regina’s alliance with Killian, and despite her boast she clearly hadn’t sensed Emma using magic the day before. Regina had to be careful not to give too much away. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she taunted, buying time. 

Zelena laughed again, manic and still edged with fury. “Oh, I’ll find out eventually. I have spies everywhere, traps and alarms in every nook and cranny of this place. No one can do anything in Storybrooke without my knowledge, including,” her eyes lit with delight, “A certain pirate captain who is even now breaking into my farmhouse.” 

Damn it, thought Regina. 

“So if you’ll excuse me sister, I have a pest to exterminate. So lovely to catch up, we really must do this again soon. Ta ta.” Green smoke swirled and she was gone. 

---

Killian pushed open the farmhouse door and stepped inside, his every sense on full alert. The starkly furnished room was silent in an oddly dusty and neglected way considering that Zelena had clearly been there recently, evidenced not only by the crystal ball but also the jars of herbs and potions scattered across the countertops and the squat black cauldron on the stove.

“Subtle,” snorted Killian, and turned his attention back to the table. As he approached it the clear crystal ball became opaque then resolved into the image of Emma’s face. 

He started back in surprise. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, then leaned in for a closer look. Emma was sitting in what he recognised after some struggle as her office at the Sheriff’s station. Her brow was furrowed and she was tapping furiously on the keyboard of her computer, but every few seconds her eyes darted to the car keys sitting next to a coffee cup on the desk. Killian had no time to wonder how or why the ball would show him that or what it could mean or if it was even real, because there were footsteps on the porch approaching the open door. 

He looked up and immediately snarled, clenching both fist and jaw. 

Walsh stood in the doorway, a supercilious smirk on his face.

“Hello, Hook,” he said. 

[black-is-no-colour]

John Galliano Speaks to Alexander Fury on Gender and Fashion

October 3, 2018   I     Text Alexander Fury

At the helm of Maison Margiela, John Galliano is conjuring a spectacular new vision of genderless glamour. In an exclusive interview, fashion’s great virtuoso muses on his enduring love affair with modernity, romanticism and reinvention

For the past 18 years, John Galliano has spent most of July and August in a modest house on the coast of Saint-Tropez. The house is owned by a man who made a fortune from marketing duty-free alcohol miniatures; the only other home in the vicinity is occupied by Alix, Princess Napoléon, ‘Empress of the French’ in pretence, in her twilight years. It’s fairly inaccessible by land, especially at the peak of summer, when traffic snakes along the coastal slaloms – instead, a boat buffets travellers from Nice across the Côte d’Azur to a rock jetty, past the kind of pleasure cruisers colloquially referred to as ‘Gin Palaces’, lazily floating, filled with billionaires and bullion and Bollinger and collagen. It is the French Riviera after all. It sounds romantic, but in actual fact the boat that ferries you to John Galliano is somewhat industrial, a high-powered inflatable number called a Zodiac that smashes through the surf at near-literal breakneck speed. It’s hard work.

That’s a fitting metaphor for the work of Galliano, particularly his latest incarnation helming Maison Margiela, where his intrinsic sense of romance has melded with something harder and tougher, something rougher, to create a new vocabulary of design for both himself and the house. In January, he debuted his first menswear ideas for Margiela – he had previously been involved, he asserts, but in a looser, more abstract way, guiding an appropriately anonymous group of designers. Since the founder’s official departure in 2008, the results hadn’t gelled, for either Margiela nor its audience. The Autumn/Winter 2018 collection was Galliano’s first attempt at elucidating that frequently-elusive Margiela man – and rather than try to segregate him from the identity of the womenswear, Galliano cleverly melded the two together. The obsessions of Galliano’s collections for women merged with silhouettes of masculinity – abstract notions of glamour, like slithery bias-cut satin spliced into a two-piece tuxedo instead of an evening dress; thumped-up, bricolage sneakers below sloppy wide-shoulder coating; the idea of the décortiqué, literally translating to peeled or shelled (as in, shelling a crab) and denoting garments dissected to their bare bones, rendering the functional decorative and lending an ornament to the utilitarian.

There was, throughout, a synergy to the offering – which is what Galliano declared the giant, Bird’s Custard-yellow symbol painted across the catwalk stood for, too. Although the synergy was left vague – between men and women, between Margiela and Galliano, between these clothes and the outside world. Or potentially, all of the above. “That collection in concept was similar to the first collection – Artisanal – I did in London,” says Galliano, slowly. It’s six months later – he’s shown three collections for women and another menswear since then, so is scrolling through images of the clothes on an iPad as digital age aide memoire. “So it was a collection of intent. We were trying to try a little bit of this – some tailoring, some more casual, one bias-cut suit. I was building blocks, to get some feedback, some reaction.”

The reaction was strong – in a period of menswear upheavals, of departures and rehires and the inevitable anticipation such turmoil brings, Galliano’s Margiela debut leapt to the head of the pack as a leading statement, something bold and brave and fresh added to the conversation. “I think it needed to be established at that season,” Galliano reasons. “Also with the changing landscape of menswear – with all the exciting things that were happening – it was like, ‘Oh my god John, what are you going to do?’” he laughs riotously, his head cracking back from the jaw. The intonation in Galliano’s sentences swirl, from considered and patrician, swelled out by the crisp rounded vowels of received pronunciation, to a cockney drawl that sketches out Galliano’s childhood in Streatham, South London. He was born Juan Carlos Antonio Galliano-Guillén in Gibraltar but moved to London with his two sisters when he was six. His dad was a plumber, his mother danced flamenco on the kitchen table-tops. The sentence ends on that London drawl, a plaintive wail tinged with mirth. What was Galliano going to do for this, his Margiela menswear debut?

It feels strange to call any Galliano collection a debut – Galliano has been at Margiela since October 2014. He’s also 57, a Commander of the British Empire, a reference-point for generations of talent from the late 80s onwards. Something of an institution in and of himself. He’s John Galliano! But in Saint-Tropez, he’s JG – his own nomenclature, perhaps adopted during the wake of his dismissal from his eponymous label and the house of Christian Dior in 2011 following a racist outburst in a Parisian bar. That episode was a very visible result of a then-clandestine but now well-documented addiction to drugs and alcohol that had spanned the majority of Galliano’s career: the immediate aftermath of it was a difficult period of rehabilitation, public penitence and a tabloid lashing, when the name Galliano closed doors rather than opened them. Maybe it was then that anonymity (very Margiela) began to seem enticing. Seven years later, in Saint-Tropez, Galliano looks well, fresh and relaxed – despite that baggage, almost unremarkably so, in a way that a designer would to journalists accustomed to seeing them wound tight between fittings in the days leading up to their show. Unlike others, Galliano, famously, doesn’t see press backstage at his Margiela shows and refuses to bow at the end – a trait he shares with Martin himself. He does, however, give interviews. Which is how we wind up on the Riviera, curled up in Galliano’s adopted living room, talking about the meaninglessness of menswear.

“More than just which way to go, it was to help me define who is the Margiela man,” Galliano says, of that first collection. Then he stops. “I say that and I take a breath as well,” he states – smiling – like a stage direction. “Because I don’t feel comfortable saying that. Today… Just calling it menswear and women’s made me kind of blanche a bit.” His sophomore offering for Margiela menswear (sorry) was staged in June in the Margiela atelier as a tiny Artisanal show, the name given to the line’s offerings for haute couture which are made-to-measure, one-off and traditionally only for women. The latest of those he dubbed ‘Nomadic Glamour’: rather than an elegiac Galliano voyage through space and time, there were ideas of clothes travelling around the body – “So a skirt became a cape and then, within it, I cut the memory of jacket,” is how Galliano describes it. The actual garment in question was the opening look of the show, a coral foam skirt migrated to the shoulders, head poking through the waistband, with the shape of a single-breasted jacket spliced out and peeled away, like a Vesalius drawing – or a frog in a high school biology class. There was, actually, no reason this couldn’t be worn by a man too. “Quickly just think of a very testosterone-driven image of Clint Eastwood in a poncho. Just to aquarelle the look,” Galliano says, expressively. “It just made sense. That hey, this could be really fun, and I don’t know if we’re going to be successful or not. But the idea is quite unique. The idea that a cape, certain items, could easily work on either-or.”

Galliano has frequently called haute couture the ‘parfum’ that infuses through the rest of the house’s creations, the way an essence is literally watered-down, to create a variation slightly less intense but still powerful and intoxicating. Another debut, this was the first time an entire Artisanal collection had been offered for men – at Margiela, by Galliano, or indeed in the realms of haute couture at all (although several houses, most notably Gaultier Paris and Dior when helmed by Galliano, have offered couture clothing for men, but only accompanying designs for women). “At the most extreme, I wanted to establish how Artisanal men could inspire, so we put the spotlight on that this season,” reasons Galliano.

Made-to-measure haute couture may be inspiring, but it doesn’t pay the bills – or fill the stores. “We still did the ready-to-wear,” allows Galliano. “It’s still there, and we sold it. Some of the silhouettes were echoed in the Artisanal man, but it had its own inspiration, etcetera, etcetera. And that I will show with the women’s in September, which was my aversion to – ” Galliano shrieks, theatrically, to the cheap seats in the back “ – menswear! Which is un peu démodé. So it’ll be a mix of the two. Un-binary, genderless. And that’s the challenge.” Just don’t call it co-ed, or mixed. “It would just be too easy to have the boys wearing girls and the girls wearing boys,” says Galliano thoughtfully. “That’s not what it is today. Find your own masculinity. Find your own femme. Define it yourself. And that’s what they’re doing today, and I’m so there.” He smiles wide. “Because I grew up with all that but it was not easy. You got a good beating back then.”

John Galliano has played games with gender before. Indeed, as difficult as it is for the short-term memory of fashion to reconcile the somewhat precious, couture-driven output of the prior stage of his career with the identity he is forging for Margiela, it has always been there, bubbling under the surface. In the 1980s, when Galliano exploded onto the scene following his 1984 Bachelor of Arts graduation collection, titled Les Incroyables and dedicated to the provocative, politicised aristocratic rebels of the Terror of the 1790s, his billowing, histrionic clothes – ruffled organdie blouses, puckered brocade waistcoats, sweeping frock-coats – were worn by models of both sexes, pouting and preening, reflections of the crucible of a hedonistic London club scene latterly dubbed ‘New Romantics’.

Galliano still finds the idea – and that period – inspiring today. Not to replicate the clothes, but to mirror the energy, the emotion and the experimentation. “Shirts were worn as skirts. Do you remember?” Galliano declares. “You button in front and tie the sleeves. I remember doing the Malcolm McLaren cover with Amanda” – now Harlech, then Grieve, Galliano’s first stylist and creative collaborator for 12 years. They met after Galliano’s graduation and worked together to style the artwork for McLaren’s 1984 album Fans. “And Malcolm threw an old v-neck Shetland sweater at me and said ‘Do something with that – they say you’re a genius.’” Galliano’s voice notches up an octave; the Streatham comes out. “And I’m like: alright bitch, I’ll do something with it! And I asked the model to step into it, so the v was like to here,” Galliano scissors his own crotch, smirking. “And we tied the thing around. Amanda was like, ‘Oh, it’s fab! It’s a bustle!’ Do you know what I mean? That v-neck became a skirt!” A final octave. “This territory that was fun and you can probably tell from my voice I’m still quite excited by it. Naïve? More naïve isn’t it. Which is quite fab.”

Those were the sort of clothes that provoked those beatings in the street, just as their 18th-century antecedents did. Galliano himself didn’t just design them: an ardent clubber, he wore them, too, living the fantasy – and they were bought by men and women alike, something oddly geared to a current mood of malleable, kinetic gender identity. Galliano has designed traditionally-defined menswear before – between 2004 and 2011, there was a Galliano Hommes collection presented biannually in Paris. The final own-label show he took a bow at was his winter 2011 menswear outing dedicated to Rudolf Nureyev: Galliano was dressed in tapestry sarouel trousers, a twine-bound fur coat, a kubanka and several tassels that seemed tugged down from the curtains of the Winter Palace. It was, as they say, a look.

Those ‘looks’ were seen as a key reflection of whatever creative inspiration had taken root – if Galliano was transforming his models into nomadic warriors, or cabaret floozies, or sweat-soaked flamenco dancers – male or female – a bit would inevitably rub off on him too, like make-up on the dance floor, rubbing off someone else’s face onto yours. So much so, indeed, that when the Galliano Hommes line was first presented, it was very much seen as an extension of the multiplicitous, multifaceted identities Galliano had been proffering for years. Today, Galliano is lower-key – in shorts, Chuck Taylors, an enviously holey Nirvana ‘Corporate Rock Whores’ t-shirt. He’s off-duty. The Margiela man – or rather, Margiela person – Galliano is creating isn’t himself. And the expansion into menswear certainly isn’t about dressing himself. “It is true that I would express myself because I was living the part of the creator,” says Galliano, when this is mentioned. “But I had to consciously stop that. Because of the work I had done on the inside. If it wasn’t reflected on the outside people… maybe thought that I hadn’t done the work. I noticed that. So I started to wear suits when I went out or had lunch with people. Almost that anonymity I quite liked. I quite liked not being judged like that. I mean the suits were faultless! Savile Row! But I quite liked that anonymity. I’m a bit more cautious of what I look like when I’m out there now.”

Galliano punctuates that with fragments of laughter, a wicked whiplash of that Streatham accent on the word ‘faultless’. But he’s alluding to his public breakdown in 2011, which resulted in his departure from the Dior and Galliano houses and a period coming clean in the Meadows rehabilitation facility in Arizona. His conversation is still keyed to the language of psychotherapy and recovery – that inside/outside work, which is never entirely complete. He describes social media as “addictive – the likes, loves”. He once told me it had taught him the subtle difference between being famous and infamous.

Galliano’s fame made the idea of him helming the famously faceless Maison Margiela difficult for many to swallow, in the first instance. For many, his hyper-visibility masked the similarities between their respective aesthetics. Galliano’s 80s flamboyance, for instance, was tempered with an urge to rip fashion apart. “Judy Blame, Christopher Nemeth, John Flett, John Moore, all that posse. That’s what we were into,” he states. “A lot of the experimental was what one did as a young designer anyways in the 80s: the inside-out, the upside-down. We were all doing it in London anyway.” Galliano turned out tricks like deliberately-misbuttoned waistcoats puckering and twisting torsos, trousers worn as jackets, corks and coins as unconventional fastenings and white paint – a Margiela signature – liberally plastering hair and splattered over garments. And Margiela himself, long whitewashed as an edgy Belgian deconstructionist, obviously had a romantic side – his long slip dresses like linings ripped from grand ball gowns, his spring 1993 collection festooned with gold braid embroideries over billowing white voile dresses, his first jacket with those narrow puffed Victorian shoulders. There’s romance in the bones of Margiela.

“It’s wrong how people sometimes describe his work,” says John Galliano, today. “Everyone has to look at his earlier work to really get what Martin was about. It was full of emotion and it was romantic. That early stuff. Flea-bitten, put-together. Fierce. Fierce. And romantic.” Galliano inhales from a cigarette – today, smoking is his only vice, alongside the Tarte Tropézienne, a citrus-infused brioche filled with crème pâtissière made by Galliano’s cook, a white witch who wards off mosquito bites by pressing the sign of the cross into the skin with the end of a fingernail, Galliano tells me, an eyebrow raised. Add to that list of vices romance: Galliano is an incurable romantic, as that aforementioned near Grand-Guignol story testifies. Galliano also tells me that his aforementioned neighbour, the nonagenarian Princess Napoléon, dances through the forests of their adjoining properties dressed in white in the dead of night. The ravishing Miss Havisham imagery is pure Galliano fantasia – one part couture, one part Capote, it has the ring of truth. But not too loud a peal. That princess could have inspired one of Galliano’s previous collections, which came imbued with complex storylines, individual characters inspiring fabric treatments, creative approaches, drama sewn into every seam – and although his work has evolved and matured, that sensibility is constant. “It’s less literal. There’s not really a narrative anymore like there used to be. Other things that are different: influences and a younger energy,” Galliano reasons. “But I am a romantic. You can’t deny yourself. I wouldn’t be JG if I did.” He pauses. “Martin was too. When we had our famous tea together, it was then I discovered his love for 17th-century French literature and 18th-century costumes. He loved it. But he wouldn’t go there because you-know-who was cornering that market…” Again, that wicked laugh.

Galliano and Margiela met during his early months at the house, before his first show: it was important for Galliano to feel that Margiela felt the house was in safe hands (he seemingly did). For a designer obsessed with anonymity, Martin Margiela is one of the most present presences on the international fashion scene. His clothes, his shows, his overall conceptual conceits are all often (and arguably all too often) referenced. Monsieur Margiela himself – now apparently teaching painting in Paris – has come out of his grand seclusion to co-curate two exhibitions of his work, one at the Palais Galliera devoted to Margiela, another of the clothes created during his tenure at the French luxury leather house Hermès between 1997 and 2003, shown at the ModeMuseum Provincie Antwerpen (this year transferred to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris). He still isn’t doing interviews, but in an unprecedented step seems to be taking ownership of the ideas the Maison originated and which have fallen into popular fashion vernacular.

Galliano himself was an ardent Margiela fan – and a client of the designer’s menswear. “I remember the best pieces I bought. The trench that was made out of old printed shopping bags. A fab knuckleduster that they tried to take away from me on the Eurostar. I know the pieces,” says Galliano, ticking them off on his fingers. “The jumper with the net tulle over it. I was a great fan. And loyal fan. When Martin was there, I bought and wore the stuff. Oh I have the white painted jeans, the white painted boots. I have the iconic pieces.”

Yet there is no urge for rehash – at least, no urge from Galliano, who at Margiela is ironically one of the few untouched by the surge in interest in the original creations of the label’s founder. Possibly the establishment re-emergence of Margiela – both man, and maison – in museums have influenced Galliano’s radical reimagining of what the label could mean in the 21st century. But it is also an oddly prescient approach he has taken from his first collection for the house – never relying on the past of Margiela to inspire the present, or the future. After all, the Margiela label is symbolically white; Galliano has taken it as a literal blank canvas. “We’re not there to curate Martin’s work. That’s why I keep saying let go of the corpse. Let go of the corpse. You can only do that for so long. And then you can put yourself into a corner and that’s all you’re doing. Let’s be brave and let’s possibly shine a light on a new way to go maybe,” states Galliano. “I didn’t want to go there to curate. That would be too much of a day job, for me. I made it very clear at the beginning, with the guys that be and the teams. At the beginning, of course, everyone went through the archives. How could you not? They’re amazing. We actually put them into shape, put what was missing back. There’s proper archives now. But it would just be too easy. Just curating. It’s like treading water. How long can you tread water for?”

That’s not to say Galliano has jettisoned Margiela’s influence entirely. It would be not only sacrilege, but near-impossible. Alongside very few other designers – Azzedine Alaïa, Rei Kawakubo, Miuccia Prada, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto and Galliano himself – Margiela’s work defined the lines of the last quarter of the 20th century, and laid the foundations for the 21st. You can see subtle echoes of Margiela’s working techniques, his lines and approaches to fabrics and cuts – a use of slick, plasticised surfaces, the sloped shoulders, a love of the dishevelled and unfinished as a form of unconventional decoration. A frayed hem, instead of a fringe.

Yet Galliano’s iterations are utterly idiosyncratic – not Margiela, nor entirely Galliano (at least, how we used to know him). “I’d like to take it, be inspired by it and make it go somewhere. Or just the idea of exploring the idea of a new glamour – that was part three you just saw [at the haute couture]. I feel like I’m working like Martin. I can really put my hand on the heart and say that. I didn’t find that in the archives – but just the thinking of it. The nomadic idea – it’s territory that he explored... Upside-down stuff. Arriving at it through a psychology is much more interesting, fresh, and inspiring for me and the team. Because otherwise we are just curating. How creative can you get when you just curate? You need the surprises. You need the failures. You need the things that work, that don’t work. There has to be the element of surprise.”

There are few more surprising stories than the spectacular fall and rise of John Galliano, his rebirth at Maison Margiela, the rediscovery of a talent championed as one of our era’s finest. More surprising still, today fashion’s arch romanticist is making clothes inspired not by historical nostalgia, but the digitised landscape of contemporary culture, with its challenges to traditional, established notions – of luxury, of gender identity, of the reasons for dressing. “It is an inspiring time. It really is I think for a designer. For sure,” says Galliano. “I don’t just want to connect with the world. I need to connect. I need to be stimulated. I need to get excited. I need to give that energy to my team. I need to feel like it’s new, to get me out of bed.”

Taken from Another Man Magazine

[fallen029]

Death Talk

"What happens when you die?"

"I'm so glad that you asked, Lisanna." Bickslow, who'd been lazily puffing away on a smoke, sat up then. He and the woman in question were on his apartment floor, in the dark, spending time alone with just them and his babies. How they liked it. Looking to her then, he went on. "I know that a lot of people have that hang up. Death. But I am very experienced in it and no longer ponder. Rather, I've formed something greater than just stupid theories. I've proven things! Things no one can disprove. I'm pretty much an expert. I-"

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Eh?"

She sat up some too, one of his babies, Pappa, tumbling down from her chest and into her lap. "I wasn't being philosophical. I really don't care what you think about life after death."

"Well, there is none, Lisanna, and it's not what I think, it's what I know, so-"

"Bickslow-"

"What are you asking then?"

"When you die," Lisanna began once more. "What happens to your babies? Your magic ends at your death, so they'll be released from their bodies and then what? Do they just go back to what they did before they found you? Or do they wait for your soul? Is your soul going to meet them?"

Slowly, as if deflated, the seith fell back once more to the carpet. After another puff, he remarked. "Dunno."

"You don't know?"

"That's what I said."

"Bickslow, how do you not know? You're the master of souls, aren't you? Is that not what you said? You know everything about death."

"I do."

"Then-"

"I don't know what happens to them or if I'll be able to find their souls once mine's free from my carcass." He liked that word. Carcass. Tried to work it into a conversation at least once a day. Lisanna should know. It was normally conversations with her that he worked them into. "So I don't waste time thinking about it."

"So according to you," she said with a slight suspicious look, "not only do you know everything that happens after death-"

"Yes."

"-except for what will happen to you and your children after death."

"Also yes."

"You sound like a shitty father then."

"Lisanna!" He gave her a glare and his dolls hummed. "What naughty language to use around such young children."

She gave him a look of her own as she said, "Sometimes, Bicks, I think you just lie and make up the things that you know to impress me. But the jokes on you; I probably know way more about death than you ever could."

"No way."

"Yes way."

"This is absurd. The audacity of this one, babies. Who do she think she is? Huh?"

"I," Lisanna told him confidently, "am someone who beat death. Who are you?"

"I am so glad you asked." Again, he moved to happily sit up, cigarette dangling from his lips as he spoke. "I am the one, the only, the magnificent Bickslow. And yet often overlooked. Even in my tiny circles. Why is that? Because the most important thing that I am is a dark knight. A misunderstood, cast aside, forgotten dark knight. Do I let this bother me? No! Why? Because I understand my role. Though not large to many, it's important to me. And I uphold my duty far better than any other possible ever could. So you're Lisanna Strauss? Fine. Great. That's nothing to the Dark Knight Bickslow."

"Mmmm," it was her turn to hum as his babies took to flying around the room, all five of them, excited from their father's tone of voice. "You sure have a love for theater, Bicks. Sure you're not more suited for that."

"I'm a dark knight, Lisanna. You can joke-"

"Isn't that Freed's thing? Anyways?" She looked up then, as if considering. "Freed the Dark. Bickslow the Dark Knight. Sounds like copyright infringement, if you ask me."

"Is not! I was Bickslow the Dark Knight long before he ever-"

"It's at the very least gimmick infringement."

"It's not a gimmick, Lisanna."

"Sounds a lot like one."

"Well, it's not! I can't speak for stupid Freed, but mine's not a game." And he fell back in a huff onto the floor. His babies took to swarming him then, as if to cheer up the man. After a long drag on his smoke, he grumbled, "It's the only way I know how to be."

She gave him a few long stares then, a slight smile playing at her lips. It was so different, when she was with Bickslow, than the others. She was relegated to the emotional position with her older siblings, with Natsu, probably not with Happy, but they were both pretty prone to emotions together.

With Bickslow though, somehow, she was the adult. Somehow.

One of the things that always drew Lisanna to him was that he was older and darker and there was something more to him, but as she dug, she found that the things that were beneath the surface were there for a reason. Because they destroyed the outer persona. On the inside, Bickslow was actually an emotional wreck for the most part who cared pretty deeply what others thought of him and only pretended to be apathetic towards the others. His image meant the world to him. He had to preserve it. At all costs.

Which is why it annoyed him so much, in those few moments, when Lisanna poked at it. She could tell. As one of the few people allowed in, it got on his nerves when she wouldn't conform to the rules of entry.

He was a bit of a prick, Bickslow was. He liked for people to play by his rules and, if they refused, tended to flip the board and declare himself the winner regardless. It was the only way he knew how to play.

And Bickslow wasn't big on change.

"I'm just kidding, you know," Lisanna said after letting him pout for a few moments. Observing him and his demeanor, she knew it was time to stop the charade before he got too low on himself. "Bicks."

He only grunted, at first, before grumbling out, "I know."

"Well, don't get all upset about it then."

"I'm not."

Lisanna fell too then, on the carpet, but closer to him. Resting up against the man, she giggled as she rested against him. After pressing her lips to his cheek, she whispered, "I didn't mean to put you in a bad mood."

"I'm not in one."

"Bickslow."

"What?"

He turned his head down then, to stare at her, while Lisanna looked right back up, with little concern. She was one of the only people that willingly looked him in the eyes. Then again, she was one of the only ones to routinely see him without his visor on.

"I just wanted to know what your contingency plan was, for after your death," she said simply. "That's all."

"Contingency, huh?"

"Like, I know what happens to Happy if I die."

"Well, that's just not fair," he pointed out. "He already lives with Natsu and you've already died once before, so you have a dry run to go by."

"My point is that I know that he's fine."

"Again, because you're not really providing any real care to him-"

"I provide plenty of care."

"I think you're a deadbeat, Lisanna."

"At least I know that he's safe if something happens to me."

"You seem really concerned with this, Lissy," the man accused then with a suspicious stare. "You planning on offing me? And concerned that you won't get access to my wonderful dolls anymore? Have no fear!"

"I think if that's the plan, you should probably be the one in fear, actually, but go on."

"With just a few simple grueling years learning the art of seith magic," he began with a nod of his head, "you too can capture souls and care for my young when I am no longer able."

"Are they really young though?" she questioned. "If their eternally the same?"

"Why are you so full of questions today?" he griped. "You know how I feel about question."

"I'm nearly one hundred percent certain I don't because you've only made up this dislike just this moment."

"No. I haven't." And he stuck his tongue out at the woman then as his smoke found its way between his fingers instead. Guild mark flapping, he remarked, "Questions lead to what?"

"Answer, I'd hope."

"More questions! And more questions! And more questions!" He huffed. "It's a paradox, Lissy."

"I really don't think it is, Bicks."

"It's better to never question anything and just live your life in ignorant bliss."

"Except for when I'm asking you about one of the things that you're so glad I've asked about?"

"Except for then."

She couldn't help it with the smirk and he'd been trying to be so annoyed the whole time, but it showed through then as he reflected her grin and when they kissed, finally, it just all felt right.

"Are you going to tell me?" she asked though, once they separated. He'd fallen completely onto his back and she was over him, her hands rested on either side of the seith's head, looking right down at him. "Bickslow?"

"'bout what?" he asked as he blinked up at her with almost a sleepy expression. He still had his smoke in his fingers and glanced at it then, a bit bummed that with the way she was over him, it was inaccessible. "What happens to the babies when I die?"

"No. I think we can both agree you're too neglectful to know that."

"Least my fake children live with me, deadbeat."

"Happy's very real, thanks."

"So are my babies."

"I'm not the one that implied otherwise."

Eyeing her then, he asked, "Just what are you so curious about now? Eh? Lissy?"

"What you were trying to tell me before. About death. Tell me about all the things that you've proven."

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm." Her blue eyes shined brightly down into his. "I really do."

He needed a few more puffs for that and Lisanna obliged without verbal communication, just easily falling off to his side with a giggle as his babies landed on his chest, also eager for their father's deep ponders.

As expected, they were poorly thought out, convoluted, and not based in any fact whatsoever regardless of his insistence of otherwise. And yet Lisanna found herself nodding along and agreeing regardless because, hey, he really was good at it. Playing up the dramatics that way he loved so much.

Bickslow wasn't as dark and devious as he played himself up to be, but he certainly was misunderstood. By nearly everyone else. Not her though. Not in those days.

"Death," the seith finished after a few long and pointless tangents that he seemed to just be making up as he went along, "can be summed up in one way, Lisanna. You know that really visceral feeling you get, you know, when you see something you haven't in a long time. So long that it feels all fuzzy. What is that? Nostalgia? But different. Deeper. Like hearing a song that you only heard once, when you were a really little kid. That special scent that your home always had, when you were a baby. It's there, just barely, but it stops you dead in your tracks, because you can feel it. In your gut, in your mind, it's all you can do to continue on because it's just so overpowering. That's death. Because you have experienced it before. It's the first thing and the last thing. The end. The dark. The long night. It's what you had before this and it's what you'll have after. It's familiar and yet distant. It-"

"Wait." She was just vying to interrupt him at some point. He could tell. "What are you saying then? Bickslow? If we've experienced it before and go back to it, that means that we had life before as well, right? To know what the darkness was? So you think death leads to reincarnation. That's what you're saying."

For some reason, her claim annoyed him.

"No. That's not what I'm saying."

"I think it is."

"It's not."

"It's okay. A lot of people believe that."

"But I don't."

"Then what-"

"Life is...cyclical." And, smoke dangling from his mouth again, he made a circular motion with one finger. "It's just a long, endless, rehash. One after another. And any slight deviance you could have produces complete other universes. Like Edo-ass."

"Edolas, you ass," he got a slight grumble.

Undeterred, Bickslow only said, "You know the dark because you did live the dark once, before. But you know the light too. It never ends. We've had this conversation an infinite amount of times and will have it an infinite amount more. It all just continues on for the rest of forever exactly how it was. Each and every time. When it doesn't, it gets stored in another universe. Like I said before. That's why we're so afraid of it. Death. Because we have to return to it. That darkness. But we get to see the light again, eventually. We get to do it all over again. We always will."

"Is that what you really think? Bickslow?"

He nodded before looking at her. "It is."

"Mmmm. It sounds nice, anyways. That you get to do it all again. Even...even if you just get the same worthless result." She shrugged a bit. "You'll get to see everyone that you lost, again, eventually, right? Like I could see my parents again. Is that...is that why you believe that?"

"No. Why would I want to see your parents?"

"Bickslow-"

"Not everything has a deeper meaning, Lisanna. Somethings just are."

Yeah. But the moment they were having wasn't one of them.

"What do you think then?" he complained at her. "Since you're the rest master of death, huh? Isn't that what you said."

"It is."

"What then?"

Humming some, she thought before saying, "Mira believes in an afterlife and divinity. Elf thinks that we become the stars, the air, stuff like that. Just going on. Forever. And you think, apparently, that it all just restarts? Right? Again and again?"

"I asked what you thought."

"I think," she told him then as she shut her eyes, as if envisioning it as she spoke, "that there's nothing."

He frowned. "Nothing?"

"That's right. That there's nothing."

"At all?"

"At all."

"But-"

"There's nothing after this. Why would there be? Where was that promised? At any point? To any of us? Once this is done, we're just not anything anymore."

"My babies-"

"They're souls, fine, but you know as well as I do that there's not just a bunch of souls floating around constantly, like there would have to be, if all the humans and animals that died over the centuries were still around. The vast majority of us don't get stuck. We just finish. We stop breathing, our heart stops pumping, our brain dies, and that's it. That's the end."

Not pleased with this, Bickslow frowned some and thought before remarking, "That's fucking dark, Lisanna."

"Oh, you're one to talk!"

"I am the only one to talk, yes. I should be. I agree."

"And it's not dark," she retorted with a tongue sticking out of her own. But only quickly as she couldn't do it like him. Couldn't speak around it. Not without biting the appendage off. "It's beautiful."

"How?"

"What's in nothingness, Bickslow? Not pain or hurt or anything. Not happiness or joy either, fine, but you have to hurt to have those. To know what those are. Nothing...to be finished...to complete whatever reason you were put here and go softly into the night… I really want that. And I hope that Edolas Lisanna got that."

Considering her, Bickslow watched the woman for a few moments before, with one last puff of his smoke, saying, "If I die before you, will you try and find my babies? Keep 'em, if you can? Explain to them, at least, that if there's any way I can get back to them, any way at all, I will?"

"Yeah, Bickslow." She even nodded. "Of course."

"Great." And he tumbled up then, to go stab the butt of his smoke out in the overflowing ashtray that rested on the coffee table. Glancing over his shoulder at woman, he said, "And if, you know, you kick the bucket again, I'll take care of things with the cat. He has Natsu and all, but you know, I'll take him aside. Man to man. Stepfather to stepson. Give him a real good speech. All about you. And how you love him. All that good stuff a stepfather should."

"You keep using that word, stepfather, but I'm starting to think you're confused on the meaning."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

Grinning widely, he fell onto his back once more. "Why don't you explain it to me then?"

"Well, for starters," she began as, once more, she cuddled against him., there, in the dark apartment, "Happy doesn't even like you so it doesn't matter what you are. He thinks you're weird."

"As any good stepfather should be."

"Plus, Natsu also thinks you're pretty weird."

"See, Lissy, you keep trying to disprove me as this cat's stepfather, but everything you list-"

"Not to mention he's an Exceed, not a cat, so-"

"A distinction for a father. Not a step-"

"Bicks."

"What?"

"Let's just both agree to never die? Okay?"

"I didn't know it was an option."

"We can pretend it's one," she pointed out. "Until, you know, it's not."

"Sounds irresponsible." Then he laughed, loudly, and made her and the babies alike jump. "Right up my alley!"

Lisanna giggled and he grinned and it didn't matter, when it would all end, because it was there, in that moment, and that's what made it so perfect.

That's what made everything so perfect.

[7r0773r]

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. (p. 8)

***

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned any thing of absolute value by living. (pp. 8-9)

***

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can old man,—you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind,—I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels. (pp. 10-11)

***

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment. (p. 17)

***

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. (p. 27)

***

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground. (p. 36)

***

When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all,—looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck,—I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part. But perchance it would be wisest never to put one’s paw into it. (p. 67)

***

But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail. (p. 84)

***

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. (p. 98)

***

No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;—not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's speech. Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is that he becomes the founder of a family. (pp. 102-03)

***

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can "see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues;" but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable, and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications. Consider the girls in a factory; never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him. (pp. 135-36)

***

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. (p. 171)

***

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grape vines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some kind of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk. But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down? (pp. 191-92)

***

I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good. (p.210)

***

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. (p. 314)

***

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. (pp. 323-24)

[marij-94791199]

Breathless Without You 

Photography: Ethan James Green, 

Styling: Ellie Grace Cumming

Taken from the A/W18 ‘Romance and Ritual’ issue of Another Man:

JOHN GALLIANO SPEAKS TO ALEXANDER FURY ON GENDER AND FASHION

At the helm of Maison Margiela, John Galliano is conjuring a spectacular new vision of genderless glamour. In an exclusive interview, fashion’s great virtuoso muses on his enduring love affair with modernity, romanticism and reinvention

For the past 18 years, John Galliano has spent most of July and August in a modest house on the coast of Saint-Tropez. The house is owned by a man who made a fortune from marketing duty-free alcohol miniatures; the only other home in the vicinity is occupied by Alix, Princess Napoléon, ‘Empress of the French’ in pretence, in her twilight years. It’s fairly inaccessible by land, especially at the peak of summer, when traffic snakes along the coastal slaloms – instead, a boat buffets travellers from Nice across the Côte d’Azur to a rock jetty, past the kind of pleasure cruisers colloquially referred to as ‘Gin Palaces’, lazily floating, filled with billionaires and bullion and Bollinger and collagen. It is the French Riviera after all. It sounds romantic, but in actual fact the boat that ferries you to John Galliano is somewhat industrial, a high-powered inflatable number called a Zodiac that smashes through the surf at near-literal breakneck speed. It’s hard work.

That’s a fitting metaphor for the work of Galliano, particularly his latest incarnation helming Maison Margiela, where his intrinsic sense of romance has melded with something harder and tougher, something rougher, to create a new vocabulary of design for both himself and the house. In January, he debuted his first menswear ideas for Margiela – he had previously been involved, he asserts, but in a looser, more abstract way, guiding an appropriately anonymous group of designers. Since the founder’s official departure in 2008, the results hadn’t gelled, for either Margiela nor its audience. The Autumn/Winter 2018 collection was Galliano’s first attempt at elucidating that frequently-elusive Margiela man – and rather than try to segregate him from the identity of the womenswear, Galliano cleverly melded the two together. The obsessions of Galliano’s collections for women merged with silhouettes of masculinity – abstract notions of glamour, like slithery bias-cut satin spliced into a two-piece tuxedo instead of an evening dress; thumped-up, bricolage sneakers below sloppy wide-shoulder coating; the idea of the décortiqué, literally translating to peeled or shelled (as in, shelling a crab) and denoting garments dissected to their bare bones, rendering the functional decorative and lending an ornament to the utilitarian.

There was, throughout, a synergy to the offering – which is what Galliano declared the giant, Bird’s Custard-yellow symbol painted across the catwalk stood for, too. Although the synergy was left vague – between men and women, between Margiela and Galliano, between these clothes and the outside world. Or potentially, all of the above. “That collection in concept was similar to the first collection – Artisanal – I did in London,” says Galliano, slowly. It’s six months later – he’s shown three collections for women and another menswear since then, so is scrolling through images of the clothes on an iPad as digital age aide memoire. “So it was a collection of intent. We were trying to try a little bit of this – some tailoring, some more casual, one bias-cut suit. I was building blocks, to get some feedback, some reaction.”

The reaction was strong – in a period of menswear upheavals, of departures and rehires and the inevitable anticipation such turmoil brings, Galliano’s Margiela debut leapt to the head of the pack as a leading statement, something bold and brave and fresh added to the conversation. “I think it needed to be established at that season,” Galliano reasons. “Also with the changing landscape of menswear – with all the exciting things that were happening – it was like, ‘Oh my god John, what are you going to do?’” he laughs riotously, his head cracking back from the jaw. The intonation in Galliano’s sentences swirl, from considered and patrician, swelled out by the crisp rounded vowels of received pronunciation, to a cockney drawl that sketches out Galliano’s childhood in Streatham, South London. He was born Juan Carlos Antonio Galliano-Guillén in Gibraltar but moved to London with his two sisters when he was six. His dad was a plumber, his mother danced flamenco on the kitchen table-tops. The sentence ends on that London drawl, a plaintive wail tinged with mirth. What was Galliano going to do for this, his Margiela menswear debut?

It feels strange to call any Galliano collection a debut – Galliano has been at Margiela since October 2014. He’s also 57, a Commander of the British Empire, a reference-point for generations of talent from the late 80s onwards. Something of an institution in and of himself. He’s John Galliano! But in Saint-Tropez, he’s JG – his own nomenclature, perhaps adopted during the wake of his dismissal from his eponymous label and the house of Christian Dior in 2011 following a racist outburst in a Parisian bar. That episode was a very visible result of a then-clandestine but now well-documented addiction to drugs and alcohol that had spanned the majority of Galliano’s career: the immediate aftermath of it was a difficult period of rehabilitation, public penitence and a tabloid lashing, when the name Galliano closed doors rather than opened them. Maybe it was then that anonymity (very Margiela) began to seem enticing. Seven years later, in Saint-Tropez, Galliano looks well, fresh and relaxed – despite that baggage, almost unremarkably so, in a way that a designer would to journalists accustomed to seeing them wound tight between fittings in the days leading up to their show. Unlike others, Galliano, famously, doesn’t see press backstage at his Margiela shows and refuses to bow at the end – a trait he shares with Martin himself. He does, however, give interviews. Which is how we wind up on the Riviera, curled up in Galliano’s adopted living room, talking about the meaninglessness of menswear.

“More than just which way to go, it was to help me define who is the Margiela man,” Galliano says, of that first collection. Then he stops. “I say that and I take a breath as well,” he states – smiling – like a stage direction. “Because I don’t feel comfortable saying that. Today… Just calling it menswear and women’s made me kind of blanche a bit.” His sophomore offering for Margiela menswear (sorry) was staged in June in the Margiela atelier as a tiny Artisanal show, the name given to the line’s offerings for haute couture which are made-to-measure, one-off and traditionally only for women. The latest of those he dubbed ‘Nomadic Glamour’: rather than an elegiac Galliano voyage through space and time, there were ideas of clothes travelling around the body – “So a skirt became a cape and then, within it, I cut the memory of jacket,” is how Galliano describes it. The actual garment in question was the opening look of the show, a coral foam skirt migrated to the shoulders, head poking through the waistband, with the shape of a single-breasted jacket spliced out and peeled away, like a Vesalius drawing – or a frog in a high school biology class. There was, actually, no reason this couldn’t be worn by a man too. “Quickly just think of a very testosterone-driven image of Clint Eastwood in a poncho. Just to aquarelle the look,” Galliano says, expressively. “It just made sense. That hey, this could be really fun, and I don’t know if we’re going to be successful or not. But the idea is quite unique. The idea that a cape, certain items, could easily work on either-or.”

Galliano has frequently called haute couture the ‘parfum’ that infuses through the rest of the house’s creations, the way an essence is literally watered-down, to create a variation slightly less intense but still powerful and intoxicating. Another debut, this was the first time an entire Artisanal collection had been offered for men – at Margiela, by Galliano, or indeed in the realms of haute couture at all (although several houses, most notably Gaultier Paris and Dior when helmed by Galliano, have offered couture clothing for men, but only accompanying designs for women). “At the most extreme, I wanted to establish how Artisanal men could inspire, so we put the spotlight on that this season,” reasons Galliano.

Made-to-measure haute couture may be inspiring, but it doesn’t pay the bills – or fill the stores. “We still did the ready-to-wear,” allows Galliano. “It’s still there, and we sold it. Some of the silhouettes were echoed in the Artisanal man, but it had its own inspiration, etcetera, etcetera. And that I will show with the women’s in September, which was my aversion to – ” Galliano shrieks, theatrically, to the cheap seats in the back “ – menswear! Which is un peu démodé. So it’ll be a mix of the two. Un-binary, genderless. And that’s the challenge.” Just don’t call it co-ed, or mixed. “It would just be too easy to have the boys wearing girls and the girls wearing boys,” says Galliano thoughtfully. “That’s not what it is today. Find your own masculinity. Find your own femme. Define it yourself. And that’s what they’re doing today, and I’m so there.” He smiles wide. “Because I grew up with all that but it was not easy. You got a good beating back then.”

John Galliano has played games with gender before. Indeed, as difficult as it is for the short-term memory of fashion to reconcile the somewhat precious, couture-driven output of the prior stage of his career with the identity he is forging for Margiela, it has always been there, bubbling under the surface. In the 1980s, when Galliano exploded onto the scene following his 1984 Bachelor of Arts graduation collection, titled Les Incroyablesand dedicated to the provocative, politicised aristocratic rebels of the Terror of the 1790s, his billowing, histrionic clothes – ruffled organdie blouses, puckered brocade waistcoats, sweeping frock-coats – were worn by models of both sexes, pouting and preening, reflections of the crucible of a hedonistic London club scene latterly dubbed ‘New Romantics’.

TEXT : Alexander Fury

PHOTOGRAPHY : Ethan James Green

STYLING : Ellie Grace Cumming

[aiimaginesbts]

What You Never Had: Chapter 8

Reader x Jin, Namjoon, Jimin & Taehyung

Genres: Royalty AU, fluff and angst

Word count: 3,509 words

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (M) | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 (M) | 13 | 14 (Final)

A/N: Thanks Ann @godsavemefrombts for beta-ing this mess for me as always!

Disclaimer/Copyright

This is frustrating.

It had been several days since you went to the City Hall, and saw the suspicious meeting between the gang leader that you'd recognised from your first day out of the castle and men who looked like pirates. To be fair, you couldn't confirm without a doubt that the unfamiliar men were pirates just from their clothes, but the fact that they met a dubious character such as the gang leader was reason enough to warrant further investigation. Still, without conclusive evidence, you had to be careful who you divulge this information to.

Of course, the person who made most sense would be your eldest brother, the Crown Prince Namjoon. However, the first person who came to your mind was none other than your Royal Guard, Seokjin. Not simply because he was the love of your life, but because you were confident in his abilities. Moreover, being one of the citizens of the capital instead of living most of his life in the castle, Jin may have information and insight that you and Namjoon didn't possess.

It wasn't like you were spoiled for choice either way. Even before that visit to help with the poor and the jobless, both your brothers had been busy with councils added to their other duties. That was part of the reason neither of them accompanied you to the City Hall in the first place. Now that you were back, it seemed that they were busier than ever. You'd heard that the Crown Prince of Delphina, the powerful neighbouring country to the north had arrived to attend the meetings, but apparently things were so rushed and chaotic that he had decided to do away with the grand welcome. Therefore, you hadn't had the chance to meet him yet, but that hardly mattered to you right now. Yet the fact that he'd put the matters of the countries above a flamboyant celebration told you that he had the leadership and passion that befitted a future king, much like your own country's Crown Prince. You could think of more than a handful of nobles who would have insisted on an extravagant commemoration for any excuse they could think of.

On the other hand, what was even more maddening was that after recovering and returning to service, Jin had also been occupied with his other duties in the castle. As you currently had nothing scheduled outside the castle, you hadn't had a reason to venture out of it. Which meant that you hadn't had the opportunity to see Jin for more than five minutes at a time, and certainly not privately. That was hardly enough time to have such a sensitive, prolonged conversation. The only person you could share your findings with was Ji Eun, but she wasn't in the position to give you much help. So when you'd found out that Jin would have a break that afternoon, you'd made your desire to take a walk at the nearby lake known immediately. It was just beyond the grounds and only easily accessible to the people of the castle so you'd managed to insist on only taking Ji Eun and Jin with you.

The lake was huge, the bank on the other side barely visible to your eyes. It was a cool day, but Jin's presence right next to you was a comforting warmth that chased the chilly breeze away. On your left side stood Ji Eun, her face impassive. She had made it clear that she didn't think that your relationship with Jin was a good idea. On the other hand, she had also seen the evidence of your depth of love for Jin on numerous occasions and Jin had also proven to her that he would go to any lengths for your sake. That was the only reason she'd go along with any of this, or so she told you.

It was uncanny. The castle had been mayhem from your perspective these past few days, what with the important guests from another country, the people close to you being inaccessible due to numerous pressing issues that kept most of them behind doors, no doubt in deep and convoluted discussion. In addition, being stuck inside had made you feel suffocated and frustrated by your inability to do anything while everyone else had important matters to attend to. Yet in this vast open space, accompanied by some of the people most important to you, feeling the wind caressing your face gently, the gust running its fingers through your hair, fresh air filling your lungs, lush hues of blues and greens of the sky, water and trees soothed your very soul. Your worries seemed so far away, insignificant. A bubble of laughter escaped your mouth, so carefree you felt right here, right now. Beside you, Ji Eun was startled by the sudden giggle, then her face relaxed into a smile similar to the one Jin wore the instant he'd seen your eyes sparkle with happiness.

"Would you like to sit?" Jin asked you, then glanced at Ji Eun, letting her know that the question was directed to her as well.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to take a walk," you told him. "There's something I'd like to talk to you about." He inclined his head readily, already able to guess that you hadn't suddenly wanted to venture for a walk with only the two of them on a whim. After getting his agreement, you turned toward Ji Eun, cocking your head. An invitation for her to join in the conversation if she wanted to, but also a clear permission to sit out if she didn't. She nodded, pivoting to follow you, but when you and Jin proceeded to walk around the lake, she fell several steps behind. Close enough to be able to hear, but far enough that you and Jin could walk together like a normal couple, a luxury that you couldn't afford in front of people because of your status. A gesture that made you appreciate and love her even more.

The first few steps were filled with silence. Just taking in the change of pace and each other's company. Even though you'd come here countless times before, especially when Jimin wanted to spend time with you by taking you out boating, it was different when your companion was Jin. It felt like ages since you were able to spend quality time with him like this, without any pretenses that you'd had to keep up with at the castle due to your differences in station. Where you couldn’t smile at him without worrying that it would rouse suspicion, unable to hold or even touch him, having to sneak furtive glances at each other. There wasn’t much you could do about it — you were thankful to have what you had as it was — but to be free with him like this, just like how it used to be in the beginning of your relationship, even for a short time was heaven to you. Nonetheless, you arranged this with a purpose in mind, and it wouldn’t do to cast it aside for the sake of a worry-free outing with Jin.

Loathsome as it was, you had to bring it up. “Did Jungkook say anything to you about the visit to City Hall?”

Jin’s lips pursed into the smallest of pouts; an adorable indication that he regretted not being able to accompany you then. You couldn’t stop a smile from forming as he shook his head. So Jungkook kept your little chase quiet. You appreciated him for that, although he might have covered for you to save himself. After all, if it was known that you’d slipped away on his watch, he might land in bigger trouble than you would. Whatever the reason may be, you were thankful for these little blessings. If Jungkook hadn't told Jin, chances were high that he hadn't told anyone else either.

The people you trusted. Those were the people who needed to know. Moreover, with Jin, there was nothing you needed to hide. He knew about this affair more than anyone else, with the exception of yourself. So you told him everything that you saw that day; the sighting of the gang leader who tried to assault you on the same day you met Jin for the first time that caused you to trail after him, this time leading you to two men who wore suspiciously similar clothes as the pirates who attempted the kidnapping of a child under your very nose, and their hushed interaction that you unfortunately couldn't catch. The frown that marred Jin's handsome features appeared when you told him that you went off without protection, and remained defenseless throughout. It sometimes deepened as you told your tale, but he didn't interrupt until you were finished.

When you did, the first thing he did was let out a loud sigh. "Is there any cure for this habit of yours? How many times are you going to go off on your own? You should really stop to think about your safety."

A sound of satisfaction could be heard from behind, and you could feel Ji Eun's approval for Jin shooting up after hearing him say pretty much the same thing she did when you told her about this. You couldn't help but smile wryly at her happiness at having found a person who wouldn't hesitate to tell you off on your wrongdoings. Most people other than your own family members and herself would be too intimidated to scold a princess, after all. "I'm sorry. It's just that seeing him there when we were helping the kind of people he seems to be targeting — jobless people who need money — was just too big a coincidence. If people don't need to borrow money, he would lose the control he has over them. I had to find out what he's up to."

"I know why you did it," Jin answered, his understanding laced with resignation. "But what if he saw you, and no one was around to help you? What if he kidnapped you, or harmed you? How would His Majesty feel? Your brothers will be devastated. And I would have to search everywhere to kill him and get you back. Try to think about how your actions would affect others, y/n. You're good at doing so when it comes to the people's welfare. Try to give it some thought when it comes to yourself as well."

Happiness bloomed inside you over his vehemence over protecting you, but you knew that no matter what your reasoning was, Jin's concerns were still valid. He was right; you were not in a position to be so reckless, as your actions could affect many others. So you nodded apologetically. Thankfully, that was enough to placate him and he let the matter drop. "It's hard to identify pirates just by what they're wearing. Sailors don't dress too differently from each other," he mused.

"Still, you have to agree that the fact that they were waiting for the gang leader is highly suspicious," you insisted.

"That's true," he concurred. "It's just impossible to pin them based on that alone. There's also the matter of what they're in cahoots over. Without knowing that, there's nothing for us to charge them with."

"Come to think of it, I didn't see Ki Joon that day," you noted. It would be surprising if he didn't show up, considering that it was for the sake of people like him — impoverished citizens in need of work — that so much effort had been done. In fact, it was Ki Joon's plight that alerted you to this problem in the first place, and caused you to urge Namjoon as the Crown Prince to do something about it.

"Perhaps he came while you were busy going off after the man you saw outside?" Jin made you consider the possibility. Ignoring his light chiding, you agreed that it could have happened.

"I'll get the list of the names of people who gave their names that day and see if he's on it," you told him. "I'm also thinking of telling Namjoon about this. As much as I hate to add to his worries, this could grow into a serious matter if ignored."

"Good. Hopefully he will knock some sense into you over this tendency of yours to run off on your own," he smirked, before curiously asking, "how are you going to tell him, though?"

How indeed. Back when you first left the castle on your own, the reason you followed that thug in the first place was because he and his men were harassing Ki Joon, and tried to harm you when you attempted to save the young man. You weren't known as a princess to the citizens then, which was the catalyst for venturing outside the castle to experience a taste of a commoner's life. It was an outing that wasn't known to anyone else but Ji Eun and Jin. So how were you going to broach the subject with Namjoon without letting him know that you'd gone outside the castle before your coming of age ceremony? It wasn't like Namjoon had never broken the rules, yet you still were afraid of how he would react. Moreover, if you'd told him of your adventures then, there was a high probability that you'd have to reveal your connection with Jin, and that definitely wasn't a good idea.

So before thinking about meeting Namjoon, which was a difficult endeavour in itself, you sought out a less than enthused Jungkook. The solution was simple with a little twist of the truth; instead of the gang leader, you'd say that you saw one of the sailors. Suspicious of his presence so far away from the port, you'd gotten Jungkook to come with you to tail him, and found that he met with two other men, one of whom Jungkook supposedly recognised as the head of a group of men famous for causing trouble among the people in the capital. The agreement of the reluctant Jungkook would have been impossible to procure without Jin's help. Jungkook's decision to go along with you was surprisingly easy upon finding out that Jin, a senior from the academy that he highly respected, was a corroborator with your story.

Given how busy Namjoon was, there was no choice but to create your own window of opportunity. It was hardly professional of you to ask one of the maids bringing tea and refreshments into the meeting room to call for him while you and Jungkook waited out in the hall, but if you'd waited even longer, the problem might grow to become a serious one before action could be taken. Despite supposedly being on a tea break, you could still hear voices engaged in a calm but serious discussion as Namjoon slipped out of the room. As the door closed behind him, you wrenched your eyes away from the narrowed opening to look up at a frazzled Namjoon.

A strained smile that seemed a little forced on your eldest brother's face made your heart feel a pang of guilt. Resolving to make this as quick as possible and to help him with it as much as you could, you launched into the story that you'd agreed with Jungkook earlier. Namjoon frowned just as Jin did when you relayed to him that you'd followed the man you suspected to be a pirate. He knew about the attempted child abduction while you were visiting an orphanage after coming out as the princess, but like the others, he didn't approve of your decision to follow such a potentially dangerous character.

"I can't believe that you didn't stop her," he directed his soft rebuke towards Jungkook, who lowered his head behind you. You felt sorry for putting him in this situation, but there was no help for it. Not if you wanted to tackle the problem as quickly as possible, and this was the only thing you could think of.

"If he hadn't followed me, I would have gone off on my own," you stubbornly interjected before Namjoon could scold him any further. "He was only making sure that I'm safe."

Namjoon considered the reckless and stubborn personality of his one and only sister, and accepted the reasoning with a loud exhale. After you hurried to finish your explanation and concerns, he nodded, immediately understanding the source of your worry and agreeing with your assessment over the potential danger. "If your suspicions are correct, we may have another serious issue on our hands. It's good that you've come to me now. We're quite short-handed, which is why we're in discussions with the Crown Prince of Delphina. If they are willing to help us fortify our security at the border, we may be able to assign some personnel to look into this matter."

So that was what the councils were all about. News of the attacks on the bordering villages and towns have reached the castle as well. It was to be expected if the problem had exacerbated to this extent. Still, other matters shouldn't be ignored just because one pressing issue was being dealt with. Trusting Namjoon to bring the matter up with the council, you requested him for the list of people who'd registered for jobs on the day of that incident. Before he could ask you what you needed it for, Jimin opened the door to the meeting room from inside. He didn't look surprised to see you or Jungkook there, only sparing you a small nod and a little grim smile before summoning Namjoon back in.

Even with various duties to attend to, it only took Namjoon until the following afternoon to assign someone to retrieve the list and get it to you. The list was a lot longer than you'd anticipated. Although you spent the night going through it, and the following morning checking it again to be sure, Ki Joon's name wasn't on it. This was odd.

Jin thought that something was amiss as well when you told him. In fact, he had already prepared for the possibility, and had thought of the next step in case this happened. "My day off is coming soon. I'll go visit Ki Joon's place and find out what is going on with him," he shared his plans with you, talking discreetly while he accompanied you as you made your way down the hall later that day. You nodded regally, making your way forward with a ready smile on your face for every person that you encountered, be it the noble or the help. To anyone else, it seemed like you and Jin were simply discussing your schedule for the day.

You trusted Jin to find out as much as he could about the situation. However, without knowing what those men were up to, that is, if they were up to anything, there wasn't much you could do on your own. Suppressing a deep sigh, you glanced back at him to softly say, "please let me know if you find out anything as soon as you can."

He nodded, flashing you a quick and reassuring smile that set your worried, jumbled thoughts at ease. Just as quickly, he piqued your interest when his eyes shifted away from yours and his expression changed to a more serious one. You followed his gaze, turning around to look at the small group of men further down the hall, walking towards you and Jin. Namjoon was at the head with another man, who was tall, although not as tall as your eldest brother, but just as lanky. He strode with purpose, confidence exuding from his steps even though he was absorbed in his conversation with Namjoon. As engrossed as he was in his speech, he was still aware of his surroundings, which caused your presence to draw his attention as they got closer. His wide yet cat-like eyes widened just a fraction when he spotted you, his thick, shapely eyebrows traveling up a smidgen as his lips paused. Only for one moment, but enough for him to stumble on his words and redirect the other men’s concentration from him towards you. Most of the men were unfamiliar, but you tugged the corners of your lips upwards in welcome regardless.

“Ah.” Namjoon brightened as they came to a stop before you. Jimin was just visible between the two men directly in front of you, but unlike his normal cheery self, he wore a look of silent contemplation. It was strange in your eyes that was used to see him upbeat and playful even at inappropriate times, but given the company, all of whom were looking at you with polite interest, you were hardly in a position to ask him about it. “This is our sister, the Princess of Amaryll,” Namjoon introduced you to his company. Gesturing to the man who caught your attention, the one he was conversing with, Namjoon continued, “Y/n, this is the Crown Prince of Delphina, Kim Taehyung.”

[xtruss]

Our Disappearing Glaciers!

The Man on a Mission to Reveal the ‘Souls’ of Vanishing Glaciers

American adventurer Garrett Fisher flies in a ramshackle antique plane, dangling his camera out of the window to capture the beauty of glaciers before they disappear

— By Patrick Barkham | Guardian USA | Friday April 30, 2021

Glaciers of the Burmese Alps is a comprehensive work containing close and intimate aerial images of nearly all remaining glacial features in the range. Photograph: Garrett Fisher

Satellite images and the latest scientific studies may accurately inform us how quickly the world’s glaciers are melting. But Garrett Fisher’s mission is different: to reveal the “souls” of vanishing glaciers.

This, the American adventurer believes, is best achieved by flying solo over each glacier in a ramshackle antique plane and dangling his camera out of the window to capture their varied forms, textures and beauty – before they disappear forever.

Fisher, a financial consultant who is planning to devote his life to photographing glaciers, has completed his second book. Three years ago, he documented the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains. Now he’s brought his plane to Switzerland to record the glaciers of the Bernese Alps.

Satellite images “can’t replicate the stunning beauty of glaciers”, he says from his current home in Spain, from where he will be embarking on more glacial explorations this summer in his 1949 Piper PA11 plane, which he inherited from his grandfather, who had renovated it after finding it rotting in a barn in North Carolina.

Many glaciers are too inaccessible to reach on foot, or by drone, and helicopters are prohibitively expensive. According to Fisher, his plane, which has a maximum speed of 70 knots – and chugs along at barely 20 knots (23mph) when Fisher dares fly into a 50 knot headwind – uses about the same amount of fuel as a family car.

“With an aeroplane, I can ‘stand’ in a place where a human can’t stand because glaciers are just so brutally unforgiving to cross with their crevasses,” he says. “You can look down into the soul of the glacier from a close perspective.”

Fisher has spent two summers photographing the glaciers of the Bernese Alps, which include some of the most recognisable Alpine scenery, as depicted in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, for instance. He chooses the summer because the glaciers are visible and distinguishable from the surrounding snow. Weather conditions are also slightly more forgiving.

He has to wait for sunshine, with clouds often clinging to the glaciers, and then brave notoriously violent and unpredictable winds – as well as a lack of oxygen – to climb as high as 14,000ft in the Bernese Alps.

“It takes a long time to wait for the right kind of day. The conventional wisdom is that the wind cannot be higher than 20 knots but I’ve gone up in as much as 50. I’m a little special. At high altitudes, the wind tends not to be turbulent if you’re on the proper side of the mountain. So it’s a lot like surfing this giant wave: if you stay in the right spot, everything’s fine.”

He’s only twice been “utterly terrified”: once in Virginia at 3,000ft when his plane was turned upside down by the wind, and another time more recently near Lucerne, Switzerland, where he was “surprised” by vicious winds blowing out of the mountains.

In deep Alpine valleys, he is usually out of radio contact. If his plane got into trouble, the glaciers look like a decent emergency runway, but appearances are deceptive. “Those cavities are so large that if the engine quits and I go in one, the authorities probably wouldn’t ever find me again,” he says. “The risk is improbable, but it’s absolutely worth the risk.”

Experiencing glaciers from a small plane is “exhilarating, transcendental and spiritually elevating”, says Fisher. The images he collects are certainly spectacular. Konkordiaplatz, the meeting point for four glaciers, looks like a spectacular motorway junction of ice, snaking off through the peaks in multiple directions. One picture looks as if Fisher might be about to land on it but such is its scale he took it from 800ft up.

His pictures are taken by sticking a gloved hand out of the plane window with his wide-angle Canon digital SLR. According to Fisher, flying with one hand while taking photos with the other and looking through the camera viewfinder is not as dangerous as taking photographs while driving a car.

“I’ve actually once tried to photograph something with an SLR while driving. You’re in danger of killing yourself in four seconds – you’re 10 feet away from hitting something. In the plane, I’m going at the speed of a car and am usually 1,000ft away from the nearest obstacle. It’s a choreographed art to use what I’m seeing through the viewfinder.”

Konkordiaplatz looks colossal but Fisher’s flying is revealing the rapid melting of many glaciers. He researches each one on Google Earth but finds even recent satellite pictures can be inaccurate because by the time he reaches the glacier he often finds it has drastically shrunk or even disappeared.

Even Konkordiaplatz is 600ft shallower than its 1860 level. “It’s astonishing how much ice has been lost, almost beyond words,” says Fisher. He found another glacier’s “tongue” – its end point, where it discharges water – “scalloping and literally melting like an ice cube”.

Of course, glaciers are always calving and discharging ice and water but Fisher has found he is gradually seeing what’s seasonal and what is caused by global warming. When he flew over Plaine Morte glacier, he admired this “majestic” waterfall that was thundering from the glacier. Usually, the seasonal snow-melt would stop in summer but in 2019 it carried on. “I looked at it and thought, shit. That’s not cool. That was a melt. What drives me is these things are disappearing before our very eyes,” he says.

All but two of the Bernese Alps’ glaciers are forecast to be gone by the end of the century. “Everything I’m looking at will be gone in three generations. People will look at these photos like we look at the old British imperial photos of people dressed up watching the locals in Kenya and think, what a weird scene.”

Fisher has now set up a not-for-profit group, the Global Glacier Initiative, with the aim of assembling a personal pictorial record of glaciers around the world to record what is being lost and campaign for more decisive action to combat the climate crisis.

“I’m willing to take the next 20 years and go chase every single glacier I can find on the planet with an airplane and do the same thing,” he says. He aims to put his images into an online map with free licensing for non-commercial uses such as scientific studies and education.

This summer, it is more of the Alps. Fisher then hopes to record glaciers in Scandinavia, Iceland, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Peru and down the Andes. The Himalayas will require a new plane and the political terrain is almost as hazardous as the geography. “I’m leaving them until last,” laughs Fisher.

“No one wants to live on a glacier so they’re basically publicly owned and they’re global. When I’m dead and gone, someone’s gonna look and say: ‘Holy shit, this is amazing stuff’. I’m doing this for the future.”

[storyofmorewhoa]

Fan Review/Rant: Rogue & Gambit #1

"Ring of Fire:" The arc "Ring of Fire," links Rogue and Gambit with another iconic Southern duo in sharing its name with the 1961 country song written by June Carter and covered by Johnny Cash-- while they were both still married to other people-- equating sensuality with destruction. A line from the song, “I fell for you like a child,” particularly fits Rogue and Gambit. For in leaving home, traveling the world, and in ending up falling in love someone from the other side of the river-- is the unspoken hope of a second chance at childhood. Further layering the multi-tiered work R&G is proving to be, is the possibility that the title could additionally refer to the zone of volcanic and seismic activity that surrounds the Pacific Ocean which is also called the "ring of fire". This is interesting because not only does volcanic activity have the potential to create lush and fertile tropical islands, which is where R&G is set, but because it further alludes to natural intensity churning below the surface which has been essential to much of Rogue and Gambit's relationship.

The cover: The cover of R&G #1 is drawn as though from the perspective of someone about to be punched in the face by Rogue with a split second before the punch lands to enjoy a superb view. Kris Anka’s proportions and foreshortening are flawless. With Gambit’s care-free grin, Rogue’s smug smirk and raised eyebrow, the cover suggests that the series is going to be as much fun as those two are having. Frank D'Armata makes fantastic use of their signature colors, incorporating both the same shade of pink for Gambit’s eyes, armor, and charged playing cards, and the same green for Rogue’s eyes and suit into the series’ title lettering. Though the cover is undeniably enjoyable and gets the reader’s curiosity as peaked as Rogue’s eyebrow, it would have been more engaging if it was specific to this particular issue since the absence of plot-related substance makes it feel slightly generic. However, the technical skill behind it is too solid for any criticism beyond that.

a spread of ice or glass?: The comic begins with nine ordered rectangular panels containing: white blank spaces; images of Rogue and Gambit in a fight that is yet to come; and images of their shared past. The next two pages contain a spread of the two crashing through more past images in broken shards, displaying both Rogue's borrowed "flying brick" powers and Gambit's explosive force powers that break things apart from the inside. The broken shard imagery calls to mind two things: glass and ice. Viewing the shards as glass can be further broken down to two readings-- the first of which is best described by Battle of the Atom's Zach Jenkins as a shattered stained glass window. It is as though their relationship itself is a great mosaic of moments that is being destroyed. The second reading regarding glass is that each shard is merely reflecting Rogue and Gambit, but at a different times in their relationship. This recalls the images of Rogue contained under glass in framed photographs and on screens in Gambit vol.4-- as though their relationship was preserved but inaccessible. Lastly, the imagery also suggests ice, and that what they are crashing through is merely the surface of their relationship. Only once that is broken through can a deeper meaning be discovered. The significance of ice is evident with Rogue #1 (2001), in which Rogue is described as "a river of anger beneath... frozen indifference," the events in Antarctica of UXM #348-350 (1997), and XML #234 (2010) in which Rogue likens her sexual attraction to Gambit to melting snow.

"If time is a circle...": The prologue: “If / time / is / a / circle / then / everything / happens / at // once" indicates that the series will recap the evolution of their relationship. Much of this approach works and is achieved with small details in the writing and art. For example Gambit leaning in a doorway, allied with "Stormy" lightly retreads his introduction in Uncanny X-Men #266 (1990). Pérez gives the characters a fantastic range of facial expressions from smug to sensual, and Gambit's boyishness shines through, especially in the shard containing the aftermath of the X-Men #4 (1992) basketball game in which Gambit grabs Rogue. Gone is the chiseled pirate that Jim Lee drew. Instead Pérez draws Gambit like a big goofy kid, suggesting that even though the basketball game was over, Gambit and Rogue were still playing, although it was another kind of game. My favorite of Pérez's variations on back issues is the addition of Gambit's smile in a panel from X-Men #24 (1993). Pérez's action sequence in the Danger Room is fantastic, particularly when Rogue is so distracted by Gambit that she is hit by a sentinel fist, which takes on symbolic poignancy as a superhero whose powers are initiated through touch is immobilized by a giant hand. After the training session, Gambit ends up on top of Rogue with their lips centimeters apart, recalling Gambit #1 (1993). Their post-breakup friendship which was highlighted in XML #265 (2012) is emphasized as Gambit calls Rogue his best friend, and later Gambit suggests that they seize the opportunity for legitimate romance in the midst of an obvious trap as he did in Astonishing X-Men #4 (2017).

"Same as ever?": Other details in the characterizations do not work quite as well, specifically Rogue's return to her XM #4 (1992) disposition that requires Gambit to insistently initiate any kind of communication, and even worse, perpetuates the stereotype of a woman who says no-- but really means yes. It reads like they are back in the 1990s-- before they lived together, and before they were able to treat each other civilly as friends. Rogue even protests being in the same room as Gambit. While this is done to reestablish their early dynamic within this series, I would rather that behavior be left to the past. I also disliked their discussion on Deadpool. Instead of taking issue with Rogue becoming romantically involved with an assassin (to which Rogue could have rebuffed with Gambit's marriage to the head of the Assassins Guild), Gambit complains, "He doesn't even have a face." A lot of Gambit's charm is not just that he is conventionally attractive, but that he treats others as though they are too, and in Deadpool v Gambit (2016), Gambit even seemed to think of Deadpool as friend. While I understand that it is meant as a joke, and appreciated Rogue's defense of, "I didn't kiss Deadpool. I made out with him," her line: "maybe not having a face makes people... I don't know try harder. Maybe people as pretty as you have it too easy" struck me as too immature to be redeemably funny. In Uncanny Avengers #8 (2016) Rogue is confronted with Deadpool appearing as he would prefer to look, and tries to break the illusion gently knowing he is sensitive about it. Part of what made Rogue's brief romance with Deadpool so memorable was her willingness to take on Wade's scars and tumors in UA #22 (2017)-- especially when taking into account her character growth since preferring to kill Angel rather than take on his physical mutations in Dazzler #22 (1982).

"...something bigger": Shadowcat's line, "You're focused on the wrong thing. These mutants need your help, Rogue," and the inclusions of a gay couple and an interracial couple suggests a progressive social commentary in the background of R&G. Already, two very different sides of Paraíso are shown: a city where people presumably live, and the beautiful exclusive resort that locals probably could not afford to stay at. Perhaps R&G will indirectly touch on the effects of colonialism, or the exploitation of a country's natural beauty while ignoring the needs of the people who actually live there. As Gambit is from New Orleans, which depends on tourism for a large part of its revenue, it will be interesting to see if these dynamics will play a role as the series continues. The greatest of Rogue's and Gambit's many similarities to each other is not that they are from the south or had troubled childhoods. It is their acknowledgement that everyone needs to be accepted regardless of their differences. Being on a team that works towards everyone being accepted as they are and being free to love who they love is what brought them together. It's not just fighting, it's work, and I hope R&G allows them to work towards achieving that acceptance and love for others, and finally for themselves.