#which is a freeing thought but i only invited v few family members to begin with. there’s abt to be no one left lmao

[johndonneswife]

someone really should be talking about how difficult it is to plan a wedding - a gay wedding - when both of your families fucking suck

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden Ever After: Chapter 3

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No one would imagine that a single drop could be the start of something so big. However, it would earn itself great meaning after a while passed. Should it continue pouring, it could also summon boundless blessings and curses.

Love was almost like rain.

   The Journey and the Auto-Memories Doll

   That one was a rain of betrayal.

It started with a calm morning, the sky unfolding without any hints of being enshrouded in dark clouds. Regardless, it did not take too long for the capricious rain brought by the heavens to turn into a downpour rarely seen in recent years.

There was no longer any sign of the rain that had started to fall like gentle kisses from paradise on the black hats of gentlemen walking around town, over the backs of cats dozing under the sun or onto the cheeks of children who opened their mouths and burst into laughter. The current season was the end of summer, and it was raining for the first in a long while in Leidenschaftlich, where the skies were constantly clear in summer, but had the god that controlled weather gone crazy? With time, as if a bucket had turned over, the city was hit by a flood.

This story is about an uneventful day, which did nothing but pass, in the lives of people who worked at a certain postal company.

   The rain and wind struck the entire building as if attacking it. The doorbell rang loudly because of this, a man standing in place and staring at it with unease.

Creak-creak, the door moved. Ring-ring, the bell resounded. Since it was ringing despite there being no customers, he had become concerned and found himself coming down from his residence in the top floor.

In the previous year, the building had been shot with rocket artillery, and not only had it earned an enormous hole but a fire had also occurred – however, thanks to the quick skills of workmen, the hole was now closed and the walls had been neatly rebuilt.

The man was a stylish redhead. He was the president of this company, which he had named after himself.

Claudia Hodgins had been left all alone in the empty postal office. Still, it was normal for him to be there, as it was both his home and workplace. However, since he was by himself at a time that would usually still be within business hours, no matter what, he looked like he had been abandoned.

The postal office had been in great turmoil because of the storm. Surely, so had its peers. With the deliveries stagnated, complaints were coming from the clients. Nevertheless, the transportation was not carried out by machines devoid of feelings. It was something done by humans, who had been given birth to by someone and who had families waiting for them when they returned home. In lieu of the unpreceded disaster, as the president, he had notified all employees that business would be closed for today.

To begin with, the customers had stopped coming in the middle of the day. If he had to say so himself, this might be the expected. Deliberately going outside amidst such strong wind and torrential rain was an act of sheer madness.

Curious about what was going on outside, Hodgins had approached the entrance from the side. He felt like attempting to open the large doors just a little. He wanted to see how inundated the ground was. Just when he slow and carefully reached a hand towards it, the door opened with force despite him not doing anything.

“Ow...!”

“Oh, my bad. More importantly, we’re screwed; it’s just impossible, Old Man!”

Hodgins was teary-eyed as his precious nose took a hit. He was lightheaded for an instant due to the pain, but soon regained consciousness. After all, one of his employees had come back dripping-wet. Hodgins pulled him – whole body wrapped in rain gear – by the arm, bringing him inside and closing the door. Although it was only open for a few seconds, the entrance was already drenched.

The visitor took off the hood over his head, allowing his face to be seen. He was a splendidly handsome and fine man of sky-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair.

“Benedict...!”

Benedict Blue. One of the postal company’s postmen, who had been working in it ever since its founding.

“It’s impossible – actually, it’s absurd! Working under this rain is absurd! I look like I’m in the bath already. I wouldn’t have come here if I weren’t soaked... Making the staff pull out was the right choice,” Benedict said as if angry-yelling, shaking his head in the same way that a dog or cat would and splattering water splashes at Hodgins.

This wetted most of Hodgins’s shirt and face, but he was unable to reprimand his employee, who had been doing strenuous effort. He accepted it in resignation, wiping Benedict’s face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Okay, stay put.”

“Uoh, what’s with you? Stop.”

“Welcome home. I was worried. Good thing you’re all right.”

“O-Oh. What, hum... I’m back... You were worried about me?”

“Of course,” Hodgins said, to which Benedict turned away with an obviously embarrassed attitude after a moment of bewilderment.

Outside, vases and planters that may have been at the eaves of people’s houses, as well as shop signs, had been turning into weapons for a while now, dancing around the city along with the wind. Managing to come back unharmed and safely amidst this weather, where one could not know what would come flying their way, was something to be happy about.

“I’m just fine. This job’s easier than running around shooting guns. Anyway, I was left with the letters and packages of a guy who fell from his motorcycle and came back by myself. Was best to do that, right?”

“Aah, so someone got hurt?”

“That newbie, Clark. But he only scrapped his knees. He fell lots of times when he was learning how to ride, but for real, it’s surprisingly depressing when you fall off other than during practice. He was crying, y’see.”

“Aah~.”

Knowing who the person in question was, Hodgins pitied him. He was the youngest postman to join the company as of late. It was difficult to find human resources for postmen as they were quick to quit.

“He’s young, after all...”

“You call him young but... he’s already a grown man. I wonder if he ain’t lying to us about his age... I thought he was a baby or something.”

“You can’t compare him to a city boy fresh from the battlefield like yourself. I’m gonna get you a towel and a change of clothes now, so don’t move from there.”

“Why?”

“You’d wet the floor. Don’t tell me to go around cleaning up where you walked.”

“Clean it up,” he said while laughing, to which Hodgins’s shoulders slumped. He was a reliable companion, but also a young man who knew not how to show respect for his elders.

——Well, guess I’m a so-called doting parent for thinking that’s cute – no, doting boss.

Anyhow, they needed towels, Hodgins thought as he went back to his room. He grabbed a few large towels and held a pair of trousers and shirt that Benedict would apparently fit into under his arm. Then returned to the ground floor. By the time he did so, the number of people had increased.

“Uwah... Amazing, it’s like squeezing a rag.”

There were three more other than Benedict. If they were to be separated by types, one of them had evacuated after receiving a report of work, one had evacuated after finishing work, and one had been ordered to clock out, but all had come back halfway through, as their bodies were about to be blown off by the overwhelming storm.

“Please stop.” There was Violet Evergarden, whose golden hair was in Benedict’s grasp.

“Why? You said your hair was wet.”

“You just want to touch Violet’s hair, Benedict. Isn’t that right?” Lux Sibyl, who had given up on wiping her glasses and was glaring at the empty space.

“That’s not it. Don’t say weird stuff, Lux.”

“You knooow, my hair’s just as long as Violet’s.” And Cattleya Baudelaire, who scowled at Benedict with her arms crossed.

The members who had been there ever since the founding were Violet, Cattleya and Benedict, but Lux, having joined midway, was now a skillful secretary who covered up the schedule of the employees and president and moved them around like chess pieces. As the four people whose ages were close to each other’s came together, the conversation naturally livened up.

“You—You’re that kinda thing. If I touch you in a place like this, it’d be that kinda thing. This is our workplace, so there’s all that kinda thing. Morally speaking, it’s that kinda thing.���

“What do you mean ‘morally speaking’?!”

“I wish you wouldn’t say those things even if you think about them. Right, Violet?”

“‘Public morals’...? Benedict, what am I from your point of view?”

“V, you’re like a little sister to me... Aah, Old Man, gimme another towel.”

It was a terribly joyful thing that the company’s young aces had returned to it safe and sound.

“Everyone, don’t move from that spot no matter what. Hey, Cattleya! Don’t move!”

However, wiping all the water off the bodies of those four turned out to be a bone-breaking work.

   Out of kindness, Hodgins invited the four people who had gathered up at the postal company to his residence in the top floor.

The whole floor was his apartment, thus it was quite large. A family of five could live comfortably in it. The furnishings were arranged in wooden items and serene shades of dark brown and green. It was a relaxed, adult atmosphere, where was nothing particularly funny. It had a faint scent of the perfume that Hodgins always wore.

The invited four let out sighs of relief. The biggest reason for it, although there was also the fact that this was Hodgins’s apartment, was that they were able to escape the horrible situation outdoors. With the exception of Lux, three of them were tough enough to take part in the act of physically crushing other postal companies, but human beings could not win against natural disasters.

“Hey, what do we do? We can’t go home anymore, can we?”

“There’s nothing we can do. We got no choice but stay in Old Man’s place.”

“First time something like this happens, huh. But we’re all together, so... might be imprudent of me to say this, but... it’s a bit fun. Violet, are you worried about your home?”

“Yes, about the flowerbeds.”

“You should say ‘about the people back home’, V.”

“The two went on a trip, so they are away. I promised that I would take care of the flowers in their absence, which is why... I am worried about the flowerbeds. Besides, if that house were to be destroyed by this storm, this place would meet its end much sooner... We have little time left to live.”

“Don’t go from talking about your family to destroying the company, Little Violet. Hey, hey, everyone, you’ll catch a cold so get changed first. Put the towels in the laundry basket. Benedict, don’t throw the towels wherever!”

As told by Hodgins, the employees firstly decided to change their clothes.

Violet and Cattleya had just returned from a work trip of two days and one night, thus they had a change of nightclothes in their bags, but Benedict and Lux did not. Although there was a height difference between them, Hodgins had no issues with lending clothes to Benedict, who was also a man, but there was a need for careful selection when it came to Lux.

“Shirt... shirt, shirt; all I have is shirts.”

“Hum, President, I’m fine with anything.”

“Eeh... that okay?”

As a result, the boy and girl came into the scene wearing baggy clothes. Benedict looked almost the same as when he and Hodgins first met. When he was left to chance completely naked in a desert, he had borrowed a shirt and trousers just as he was doing now. He seemed pleased with it, however...

“Feels kinda naughty...”

...the problem was Lux.

“Benedict’s fine, but maybe it won’t do for Little Lux? Is this okay?” Hodgins asked everyone with a meek face.

They all had at last settled down, each seated in a place of their preference while sipping tea. The employees were relaxing as if they were in their own homes. Contrary to the peaceful state of the situation inside, there was still a sound of rain hitting the windows and a troubled noise of something colliding against the building outside.

“What is ‘okay’ supposed to mean?” Sitting on the sofa, Violet tilted her head. Being comfortably dressed in a dusty-pink nightwear gave her usually disciplined self a slightly soft and gentle air.

“Little Violet.”

“Yes.”

“Your nightgown is cute, huh.”

“The people from the household bought it for me. Well, what is ‘okay’ supposed to mean? Was there any problem?”

“Little Lux’s clothes.”

For whatever reason, they had the person in question standing in the center of the room. With everyone’s eyes on her, she seemed uneasy.

“Hum... why do I have to stand in the middle?”

“Little Lux, stay like that and don’t move.”

“All right.”

“What is wrong with Lux’s look? You mean to say it lacks adornment?”

“Why would that be the case, Little Violet?”

“You are the one who chooses attires for us Dolls and you have particularities regarding the clothing and accessories, so I concluded that you might deem the plain shirt as not enough.”

“No, no.” Hodgins flailed both hands. The things he was saying had a moral value to them, out of fear that her outfit was perhaps vulgar.

Benedict had dealt with it by securing her trousers with a belt, but as Lux had too thin a waist, the outcome was the belt falling off. In short, she was not wearing pants. Inevitably, she was dressed in nothing but a shirt. However, her short stature fortunately made it look like a shirt-dress.

As Hodgins explained his concern, everyone said, “I see.”

Showered with their stares more and more, Lux began to blush.

“It gives off a dangerous feeling when you think she ain’t wearing any, but on second thought, isn’t that the same for skirts? There’s actually an open hole in them, but it’s not visible, so they’re classified as clothes. No big deal, is it?” Benedict had been standing with his back against the wall just a moment ago, yet had suddenly drawn close to her and started examining her fixatedly.

“Don’t say ‘not wearing any’!”

“Well, I mean, you really ain’t wearing any... but that’s okay. No biggie. You’re probably not an option for Old Man, so no worries. Right?”

“That’s rude!”

“I’m saying you don’t need to worry about that kinda thing... Should I take mine off, then? I see; I’m fine with it. I’ll be the same as you. That all right? I’m gonna take it off.”

“Stop, stop, stop!” As Benedict put a hand to his belt while laughing, Lux repeatedly hit his chest with her fists to stop him. Lux was red up to her ears. “I can’t take this anymore! Violet! Take Benedict to over there!”

“Understood.”

“Owowowow, V, ouch, that’s not it; it was the Old Man who said weird stuff first. We’re friends, so I was showing that she doesn’t have to get hung up over something like...”

Caught in Violet’s arms, Benedict obediently sat on the sofa. Perhaps in order not to allow him to escape, she gripped his hands and sat next to him.

Cattleya cut through the silence, “The tea is delicious.” She was scattered over the bed. She must have been tired from returning from the Doll business trip. Her eyes were downcast. She might be sleepy.

“Cattleya, do you not have any comments to make? I want to hear lots of opinions.”

“Eeeh, me?” Cattleya joined the needless debate as if it were a bother. “Hmmm... if someone were making her wear this because it’s their taste, it’d be gross indeed, but there’s no other clothes for her... It’d also be horrible to leave her with just a towel wrap, so I think it’s valid. Speaking of which, President...”

“Hm?”

“You’re saying that even though you pick open-chested clothes for my Doll outfits? And the times you were choosing Doll attires for me, y’knooow, you were never so considerate to say ‘not this, not this either’ when discussing it with the people from the made-to-order store...”

Her manner of speech was somewhat thorny, but Hodgins did not make much out of it. “That’s because they look good on you.” Rather, he said decisively, with an earnest gaze and excessive confidence, “Because they look good on you. Is my judgement wrong?”

“E-Eh?” Being replied to so unapologetically, Cattleya’s reasoning jumbled up, to the point she found herself wondering if she was the one in the wrong.

The Doll outfit that Cattleya usually wore was composed mainly of a crimson dress-coat, so there was no mistaking that one could not wear it unless the person was remarkably stylish. In addition, there was also no doubt that it was lascivious. Whoever looked at her would find their line of sight momentarily going to her chest. Still, whoever looked at her would remember the woman named Cattleya Baudelaire at once.

“No... it’s not like your choices are wrong... but I only forgive you because you’re the boss. I was shocked when you first showed me that outfit! I didn’t use to wear something like that before.”

“Well, but y’see, an hourglass-shaped person looks more slender when the area around their collarbone is exposed, and it’s pretty.”

An evident question mark floated above Violet’s head at the unfamiliar word. Benedict pointed a finger at the tea set arranged on the nearby table. An hourglass used to measure the time it took to steam the tealeaves was lying there. Perhaps finding the similarity between it and a plump chest and dainty hips, Violet nodded as if convinced.

“You’ve got an hourglass-shaped figure with that slim waist, so I gave you a coat-dress that puts this on display. You can adjust it with the ribbon, so it’s not a pain, right? It has a wonderful line in mathematical terms, y’know? Plus, you also have a cheerful character, so it doesn’t look vulgar. That’s important. It means that outfit takes into consideration even the personality of the one wearing it. And the owner of that made-to-order store is famous not just in this country but abroad. The outfits of our Dolls are on a whole different level in comparison to other companies, aren’t they?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“I don’t want to bring this up, but they’re very expensive.”

“Eh, I’m sorry. S-Should I pay you back? Either that or you can dock my salary...”

“No, you’re my Doll, after all. Nobody waters a flower to get money off it, right? It’s fine, Cattleya. Just stay pretty. It’s exactly because I have obsessions over clothes that I don’t want to make a girl look vulgar. And it’s exactly because I like girls that I want to have them shine wonderfully. That’s also why I have a few complaints about Little Lux’s usual plain clothes, though...”

“I don’t know why you decided to run a mail service, President, but I accept that passion of yours. I’ll wear those clothes with care. But, President, I’m doing my best, so I want a new outfit. A cute one.”

Listening to the conversation of the two in silence, perhaps tired of going along with her superior, Lux looked at Violet and Benedict’s direction with a gaze that quietly asked for help. There was a gap on the sofa that seemed enough for one person to sit. Having locked eyes with her, Violet told Benedict to scoot over after a brief moment and patted the open spot. Lux sat next to them, looking happy.

“Violet, what’re you drinking?” Lux peeked at the teacup that Violet was holding.

“I wonder. I took the tealeaves that were in the kitchen. I do not know what type of tea it is.”

“Darjeeling.”

“Benedict, how did you know?”

“‘Cause that guy likes Darjeeling. All the tea cans he has are nothing but that.”

“Guess I’m gonna drink that too; my body got cold from the long time under the rain.”

“Heeey, the three of you who ended the talk before we noticed! Listen to what I have to say.” Hodgins put his hands on his hips, pretending to be angry.

“We were deviating from the main subject. We deemed that it was not a necessary conversation and took action prioritizing Lux’s rest,” Violet expressed with a clear voice tone.

“Besides, this talk’s about bedroom wear, ain’t it?” Benedict added a two-fold retort. The blond, blue-eyed duo that looked like siblings stared at Hodgins with questioning eyes.

“Ugh, I comply with you two no matter what you say when you both look at me at the same time, so cut it out. But I’m not giving up. I think she needs one more article of clothing.”

“Hum... President, I’m okay with this. I’m already thankful that I could borrow your clothes. Besides, when you make such a big fuss about it, things that weren’t lewd in the first place start to seem lewd, so to say,” Lux said, wanting to end this topic as fast as possible.

“The solution has come to me. Wouldn’t it be best if I took the shirt and trousers and had Lux wear this nightgown?”

However, Violet wound up rewinding it.

——Violet!

Lux hit Violet repeatedly in her mind.

“Ah~, that’s right. If that’s the case, I can do it too. But maybe my nightgown is too big? It’s a negligee just like Violet’s. The shoulder length might be the problem for this one...”

“Old Man, you gonna die if you don’t obsess over the stuff we wear? You ain’t. Give up.”

“No way. Days like this one don’t come by. All five of us are trapped in the company and we can’t get out. You’ve got no choice but stay here in my house, right? We’re having the best of parties, a pajama party. I want it to be a good one. But I can’t enjoy it when I’m worrying over Little Lux’s clothes.”

Benedict contemplated a reply to Hodgins’s words for a few seconds, but soon stopped. He was probably tired. He looked Violet’s way and asked, “Hey, you not hungry? I’m gonna take a look at the kitchen.

“Hey, don’t ignore me.” As Benedict stood up, Hodgins chased after him.

“Benedict’s gonna make something? Yay! You guys probably don’t know this, but he’s good at cooking.” Cattleya lined up behind them.

“I didn’t say I was gonna make anything, though... Well, if you’re hungry, I can do it.”

“I shall assist you.” Violet raised her arms, rolling up her sleeves. Her prosthetics made a creaking noise.

“V, you can cook?”

“To some extent. In the military, I used to make preparations for the cooking. Mrs. Evergarden... Lady Tiffany also trained me on it.

“M-Me too... I can peel the potatoes, and stuff.” Lux hastily went after everyone. In a trail, a big move to the kitchen began to take place.

“Lux. You don’t usually cook, do you? I can already tell by just that statement. I’ll teach you.”

“Most things get solved just by peeling the potatoes... Benedict, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“Am not, Potato Demigod.”

“Violet, Benedict insulted me!”

“Benedict.”

“Owowow! V—! Don’t poke my sides! A hit from those crazy-ass prosthetics of yours ain’t no cutesy way to poke anyone! It just hurts like it normally would!”

In the end, Hodgins was able to find a light feather-print sweater in his closet and gave it to Lux. As she put it on, with her short stature, its length became the same as that of a long cardigan, which Hodgins was awfully pleased with for how adorable it was.

   The madder-red sky was not visible at dusk, the outside morphing into evening with no changes in the rainy weather.

Benedict made a soup at random with the vegetables available in Hodgins’s kitchen, which had seasonings in abundance, while Violet and Cattleya supplied it with cookies that they had brought back as souvenirs from their ghostwriting business trip. Lux brought over small candy marbles that she kept stored in her desk at the company, and Benedict, instructed by Hodgins, reluctantly took an expensive bottle hidden on the liquor shelf of the latter’s room.

“Hey, let’s rummage through the desks of everyone in the company. There are probably gonna be other ingredients in them.”

“If it’s Mr. Anthony’s desk, I think there’s definitely something in it. Mr. Anthony always gives me sweets... We’re in a state of emergency so I’m sure he’ll forgive us for it.”

“There were sweets in the reception guys’ desks. Would they get mad if we took them?”

“Definitely seem like they would. But this sweet... is one of the tasty ones... I wanna eat it.”

Lux, who was still growing, and Benedict, who had missed lunch and did not have enough with just the vegetable soup, procured more food. The sweets that the hungry thieves sneaked from the company employees’ desks turned out as what could be considered a big catch, and so, the five people trapped inside during a day of usual rain commenced a night party.

The five of different ages, genders and positions were already at a state where they could be deemed as a single family through the many incidents they had overcome and the time they had spent together. They laughed a lot, talked a lot.

“You remember when Violet brought Lux over? She went to negotiate it directly with Old Man with so much might, like, ‘I have picked up a puppy. Please give me permission to raise it here. Now, hurry’. They were holding hands and she wouldn’t let go of Lux, explaining the situation all at length as if to say she wasn’t gonna move until he gave the permission. The way Old Man acted so suspicious back then was a real blast.”

“I remember~! He was like, ‘Eh, “demigod”? Eh, “abduction and confinement”? Have you told the military police about that?’... President was so troubled, walking in circles around the two. It was the funniest thing of that year.”

“Hum... I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologize, Little Lux. You’re our main player now, so you did what you could to get where you are. You really exerted yourself in this unfamiliar land. Work for us forever, ‘kay? Rather, for me. Little Violet does some unbelievable stuff sometimes, but she generally doesn’t do anything wrong, so back then, her first-time deed shook up even someone like me, with plenty of life experience. Saying no didn’t even cross my mind.”

“I knew that President Hodgins would give you a generous treatment. If I had not concluded so, I would not have done such a thing. Thank you very much for that time, President.”

“Little Violet... Little Violet’s all grown up too, huh; you’ve become a wonderful lady...”

“Well, she’s got you as her example of guardian figure, after all.”

“I was raised by both Benedict and President Hodgins. You are my examples.”

“Eh, so I’m Old Man’s son...? Gimme the whole company.”

“No way! Actually, you’re taking a part of the company in the future, so that much should be fine, right?”

“You were serious about that? If you split the company...”

“Yeah, I’ll be the vice-president. V, call me Vice-President Benedict.”

“Benedict will be... the vice-president?”

“Violet, you haven’t been to the company too often because of work, right? I’ll stay as President Hodgins’s secretary, but some of the employees will go to Benedict’s side. That’s gonna be pretty lonely... Still, the company will be built inside the country, so it’ll be close in terms of distance. But it won’t be the same building anymore.”

“Other people... will also be gone.”

“Did I tell you that my role’s gonna change too?”

“I have not heard about that.”

“I’ll be transferred to training the newcomers. Violet, you’ll stay as you are. Well, between you and me, if we were to debate on which one should be the instructor, it’d have to be me. I’m good at looking after others.”

“Cattleya will be... an instructor...”

“I’ll be here like always. The Doll department that Little Violet and the others are in will stay in the main office and you’re largely in charge of the numbers in our Doll department, so your role won’t change.”

“Sounds like I don’t make money when you put it like that.”

“No, it’s not like that... I’ve been keeping the right people in the right places since long ago, right? I asked you to do this because I thought you could be everyone’s big sis. Besides, wasn’t it you, Cattleya, who immediately replied that you’d to it when I said your pay would increase if you became an instructor?”

“Well, that’s because I don’t know how long I could keep on being a Doll. It’s a job you can do even when you get older, but walking up mountains has been hard lately. Probably because of my high heels.”

They truly laughed a lot and talked a lot.

In their feel-at-home looks, they played card games, discussed memories of their trips and laughed holding their stomachs at silly stories. The night went on and on and the heavy rain outside gradually subsided, but no one said, “Let’s go home, then”. Days like these were a rarity. They all knew this much.

“I’m having lots of fun today. It’d be great if it were always like this.” The words that Cattleya muttered with a big smile spoke for everyone’s feelings.

Whenever a fun feast reached its climax, the loneliness towards the fact that it was going to end would cross the corners of people’s heads. That applied not only to this day that God had granted them but also to matters in the long run.

Perhaps the company named CH Postal Company itself could also be considered a feast to the people gathered in it. “May this dream, this fun time go on forever,” they wished.

The dream had begun with Claudia Hodgins. He then picked up Cattleya Baudelaire, Benedict Blue and Violet Evergarden.

“Make sure to just lick it. So, how’s that?”

They had built the company office building in Leidenschaftlich and started it together. As the postal business was a privatized one and the competitors were many, nobody could predict at first for how long this company would continue to exist.

“This stings.”

A local customer then came, earning them a large-scale contract in the delivery business.

“Eh~, you okay, Violet? You’re better off as someone who can’t drink...”

Their Auto-Memories Doll activities began to stand out.

“But everyone is changing.”

“Doesn’t that have nothing to do with drinking alcohol? I drink ‘cause I like it. If you don’t, then stop.”

“That’s right, Violet.”

“No... Major has a taste for drinking during meals, so I had been thinking of learning to do it one day as well. You are all changing one after another whenever I blink. I have started eating with other people quite often at work as well. I, too, shall adapt...”

Along the way, a girl who would later become a brilliant secretary joined them.

“I see... Then I want to try drinking too. I’m a secretary, after all. I have to eat out with other people. What kind of taste is it, if you had to compare?”

Despite the major changes in the personal life of each, all of them had contributed to the development of the company, to the point that they spent every single day being busy.

“Close to that of a perfume. In that it is hard to swallow.”

There would surely be many, many more changes.

“Hey, I can’t approve that opinion. Big Sis here will introduce you to delicious drinks. Rather than being taught by a man, you should learn from me. Lux, you can’t yet.”

Surely, their fates would twist further.

“Eh~?!”

“Benedict, bring another one. And something to crack it open with.”

For people to gather up, an encounter had to have happened. That was what it meant.

“Aight, aight...” Benedict stood up from the sofa. He had been dragged into Cattleya’s scheme, in which she had planned the conspiracy of attempting to make Violet Evergarden consume alcohol, because he himself had complied with it.

“O-Owah. Old Man. You were here?”

“‘Were here,’ you ask... this is my house.”

As they came across each other in the kitchen, Benedict had let out a brash voice without thinking. The reason might be that he perhaps was seen grinning as he walked in. Despite his nihilistic attitude, he was happy to spend time with his friends.

“I-I know. I was thinking you were taking too long in the toilet...”

“Cigar.”

With the kitchen’s small window open, Hodgins was smoking a cigar. All of the women despised the smell, so he rarely ever let them see him smoking. Just when Benedict was thinking about how he had suddenly stood up and disappeared, there he was, smoking in secret.

——He only smokes when he can’t calm down, though.

There was no better day to relax with their companions, and yet.

“Hey, take a look outside. It’s so quiet after the storm... like the wind. Even though it was so loud before.” Perhaps due to him being a little drunk, Hodgins’s face was red.

“True... Hey, need more booze. Ain’t there anything easier to drink?”

“Eh, why? You can’t give it to Little Lux.”

“Cattleya wants to make V drink some. Well, ain’t it okay? I think it’s about time she learns the ropes. Dunno when we’ll get to drink with her again... and it’s better to have people you get along with teaching you this kinda thing, right?”

“Eeh... it’s still too soon. If you insist, isn’t it enough to drip a drop of rum into her tea?”

“Can you even call that a drink? Make it a degree higher.”

Hodgins gave a strained smile. “Hey, hey, her big brother figure shouldn’t be saying this...”

“I say it because I’m her big brother figure. I mean, we’re getting more rookies. She’s the highlight of our Doll department. Eating with people is part of having a big job. Before she gets involved with someone who wants to make her drink...”

“Does this have anything to do with me telling you to be the branch manager?”

Hearing a slightly icy voice coming from the president, Benedict blinked. “No... sorta.”

“She’s still a child, and I’ll definitely always be with her in those kinds of places, so it’s okay. It’s still early to teach her how to drink. Nope, nope.”

“A ‘child’, you say... well, she’s got a childish side, but she ain’t one anymore.”

“She is – you, Cattleya and Little Lux, too, are all kids to me. Because you’re quick to do this kind of thing if I don’t keep an eye on you... My, my,” Hodgins said, blowing out the tobacco smoke. Mismatched as it was for someone with such a mature appearance, Benedict could get a glimpse of childishness in him.

“You’ll keep trying to do that from now on too? That’s impossible; face the reality,” Benedict bit out incidentally.

Silence.

Benedict’s words were not wrong. The CH Postal Company was growing rapidly as a business. The fact that the postal company led by Salvatore Rinaudo had withdrawn from the postal industry in the previous year had a major influence in this. They now reigned at a pivotal position in Leidenschaftlich’s postal service. The CH Postal Company would soon account for nearly all of the commissions from the people living in Leidenschaftlich. Other than being busy with work affairs, there were even discussions about relocating the head office because of problems with waiting areas and break rooms due to securing new employees.

“Like, you and I are gonna get damn busy. The Auto-Memories Doll department is gonna be the main organ of the head office and my place will be ordinary mail, right? We’ll be teaching people how things go, and I’ll be doing deliveries too. You’re the one with the busiest role. Anything and everything’s gonna be relayed to you. Getting to be close to your employees like until now while doing all that is just...”

It was natural for a company that had become bigger to do a corporative split-off and for one of their employees to manage the branch office. Benedict was still young but had the power to bring people together. The task would not be an impossible one if they put a veteran of the head office in charge of taking over it. They could do this, Hodgins had decided, thus he came up with the proposal.

“The regular meetings and other stuff that I take part in happen in the head office... It’s not like we won’t get to see each other.”

“Everyone will have a different post and position. We won’t get to see each other. Same for you, Old Man.”

“If it’s work, I can adjust it. I’ll do my best to administrate everyone so that the employees can get a time every now and then to relax like this...”

“Old Man, even if you do your best, V’s dating that nasty-ass military officer, so won’t they get married someday? Dunno ‘bout it, but... that’s why it’s impossible to always watch over us in the first place...”

Silence.

“Hey, don’t clam up.”

What was being thrust at Hodgins now was something that he did not want to look straight at, despite thinking about and readying himself for it. That was what he was being told.

“Hodgins – hey, Old Man.”

It was something that Benedict Blue had the right to say, exactly because they had been doing everything together from the start.

“Hey, don’t take it in a weird way. I ain’t saying this to be malicious. You left the Auto-Memories Doll department in the head office ‘cause your wish to watch over V is a big deal, right? I get it. She’s special to you.”

“That’s not it; I—”

“But she won’t be a kid forever. She’s different from back when she started working, with you teaching her everything. She’s someone who’s gonna let go of your hand one day. She ain’t your real daughter or your girlfriend. Then, if you had to say what she is, at the end of the day, she’s your employee. You’ll part ways one day. If you don’t get ready for that now, will you manage to get over it if she marries into that bastard’s family and he makes her leave the company?”

“Will you manage to get over it?” The question ruminated in Hodgins’s heart.

Benedict had shot him where it hurt without mercy. He was a gun expert. His aim was precise and the bleeding made Hodgins want to hold his own chest down.

——Will I recover if I ever have to be separated from Violet Evergarden? Hodgins pondered earnestly over the question. ——I don’t know.

He truly did not know.

Bonds were things that could not easily break off once they had connected, yet reality, time and busyness unpityingly caused the existence of “friends” to grow far apart.

——To the point that I don’t know, I...

Surely, a day like this would not happen five years from now. Their place to return to amidst the rain would be somewhere else.

——It’s not just her, but also you and everyone else.

To begin with, they might not even be working in the company itself anymore until then. More of them would fall for someone, nurture their love and move their places to be in life to their “homes”.

Twenty, thirty years from now, it might be hard for them to even work. Or they would not be alive – there was also that possibility.

The one who was more aware of this than anybody else was Hodgins, the oldest of them all.

——I’m the one who’s farthest apart in age.

That was exactly why he did not know.

“I have no idea.”

He did not want to see it. Did not want to think about it.

“I have too many things that matter to me, so I can’t make a move anymore. Y’know, you... you might aught at this, but... rather than when you’re young, getting hurt becomes scarier when you grow older. You start losing the energy to do your best and heal. It’s tiring. Still...”

Hodgins had thought that the youth in front of him, who referred to him as “Old Man” on a daily basis, was probably going to laugh, yet Benedict was expressionless.

“Still...”

He did nothing but listen. His posture of properly listening at times like these somewhat...

——...looks like Little Violet.

“Still, I know I’m the one who has to get moving the most. I’m getting everyone involved in the things I wanna do. That’s why I do what I have to. I also counted on you, because I trust you. I left it in your care. But... that and my feelings for her and you guys...”

“I get it.”

“...are different things, right? Y’know, you’re... mean. I’m like a foster parent to you, and yet... Even if you understand my loneliness...”

While Hodgins spoke as if bursting out, Benedict put a hand to his mouth as though to stop him. “I get it.”

Time halted completely.

Was he supporting the flustered figure of the one who was like a parent to him?

“My bad.”

Before he had noticed, he was carrying a load of things he must protect. Was he doing this due to realizing that he had left Hodgins to chance, thinking, “That’s because it’s him”?

“My bad. That just now was on me.”

Silence.

“I didn’t have to pick today to say this. Isn’t that right?”

“You think I’m being lame right now, don’t you?”

“Nah, you ain’t all that cool in the first place.”

“That’s a lie; I’m a generally-acknowledged beautiful young man... no, beautiful middle-aged man.”

“You might not be cool, but well, that’s what’s good about you. Right?”

Silence.

“The cool thing about my Claudia Hodgins is his uncool side.”

Since Benedict was speaking as if to comfort a child, Hodgins told him to “shut up”, slightly annoyed, yet burst into laughter nevertheless.

   The rain caused all sorts of things to pour. The way that people were drowned by the drops trickling down from the sky inevitably made them think about something.

As dawn broke, Claudia Hodgins sat up, body heavy from not getting much sleep. When he peeked at his room’s bed, Violet and Cattleya were sleeping wrapped in the same blanket. On the sofa, Benedict was scattered about, snoring in a way that made him want to laugh.

Hodgins looked for where Lux Sibyl might be. He went down from the third to the second floor, and then from the second to the first floor. She was nowhere to be found.

While thinking it could not be possible, Hodgins opened the front door, and sure enough, he could see the figure of a girl walking down the street towards him.

The clothes she had put to dry yesterday were surely half-wet. What was it that she wanted to do outside so badly to the point of going this far? He understood when he saw what she had in her arms.

“Ah, President.”

Lux was holding a paper bag with a lot of bread in it. The amount was enough that the small girl’s face could not be seen.

“Little Lux... could it be you went to buy us breakfast?”

Thinking back, this young woman was the kind of person who was always quick to act when she was trying to do something for someone. That was all it took to be a considerate person, but without kindness in their heart, they would not turn out this way. The reason why Hodgins had nominated her his secretary was not just that she could do any sort of work.

“That’s so nice.”

“Yes, the bakery owner is very nice. I woke up a bit too early, and when I went on a walk to see how things were outside, the bakery was just about to open and they were getting ready... I went to take a look ‘cause it seemed so delicious and they told me to come in.”

“Ah, hm...”

“I was so touched when they said they baked bread for people who were hungry early in the morning, so I told them many thanks for selling them and bought lots of it. It’s the bakery from that street around the corner.”

“As expected of my secretary. Did you properly get the receipt?”

At those words, Lux showed him a smile that resembled a blooming flower. “Huhu, of course.”

For Hodgins, who had spent the night deep in thought about all sorts of things, that smile was a soothing one. It was like the water of a lake for someone who was feeling thirsty.

Hodgins wordlessly took the bag from Lux. “Little Lux, I’m seriously glad you came to us.”

“Only in this kind of situation, right?”

“All the time. Always. Little Lux, you’re still young, will probably keep working with us... and you’re such a good secretary... I’m the happiest CEO in Leidenschaftlich.”

“Are you going to hire me for life?”

“Eh?”

“Is that a no?”

“No, I could. But that’d mean working with me for life, y’know?”

“Is that bad? I have nowhere else to go.”

When asked with such an innocent look, Hodgins faltered.

“I won’t say the stuff Benedict does, like wanting the company for me.”

“Well, I might... end up giving it to you if you say that, so don’t ever. Hahah... Of course, keep working for us forever and always at my place. Huh, this is kinda like a marriage vow... Wanna take this opportunity and marry me in the future? Just kidding...” Upon thinking that the jest that came out incidentally was an unsavory one right after saying it, Hodgins looked at Lux’s reaction, only to find her staring back at him blankly. He had made himself into a caricature of an old man bothering a girl. “No, it was a prank! But hey. Little Lux, you might be the only one who can go along with me, so having this kind of small talk is... I-I’m not looking at you with dirty eyes, really! We’re too far apart in age, after all! We’re c-close enough that we can crack this kind of joke to each other, right?”

Lux pretended to think for just a few seconds. “Huhu, I can tell. That it’s a joke, at least. But not happening. We’re not getting married.”

And then, she flat-out rejected him.

“Ah, yes.” Although Hodgins would have been at loss if she had accepted it, his shoulders dropped somewhat.

“But President, I’m prepared to nurse you if you ever become unable to work.”

“Don’t... suddenly thrust such a cruel reality at me.”

“Eh, is it? From my point of view... this is quite a deep form of love. President, you’re the first decent adult who accepted me. I’ll devote my whole life to you.”

“Little Lux, you sure like me a lot. Gonna marry me after all?”

This time, Lux actually grinned and replied, “I’ll take that one home and consider it.”

“Amazing; that answer’s like the business talk at the company.”

“Because you’re teasing me... even though you’re well-aware that I don’t even know love yet.”

“Don’t know love yet”. The destructive power of those words caused Hodgins to regret his lighthearted proposal a little.

“Then, I’ll ask again in about five years. I should be at a nice middle age by then.”

“You say that, President, but you’re going on a trip with some hottie next week. I know it.”

The duo, who somehow seemed like they would or other be hanging together for a long time, returned to the office with bouncing chatter.

   In order to make breakfast for everyone together, Hodgins and Lux stood in the kitchen by themselves.

Besides the already-baked bread, they would need drinks and vegetables. Those were merely simple preliminary preparations, but Hodgins felt that just this was somehow enjoyable, unlike doing the work on his own.

“President, you have yours with one sugar cube and a slice of lemon, right?”

“And for Little Lux, it’s two sugar cubes with milk, yeah? I know it.”

While arranging the bread on a plate, they also poured water over the tealeaves and left them to steam. Perhaps due to the scenery that could be seen from the kitchen’s small window being a blue sky with not a single cloud in it, it was awfully dazzling.

“Good morning.”

The next person who appeared amidst the morning sunlight was Violet. Her soft golden hair was just a bit disheveled. Hodgins’s hand naturally reached out to it.

“Morning... You’ve got a bedhead, Little Violet.”

“Excuse me...” Violet looked back at Hodgins as he caressed her head, seeming a little embarrassed. Her eyes were just slightly red. She might have not been able to sleep very well.

“Morning, Violet. Are Cattleya and Benedict also up?”

“Benedict was awake until a while ago, but when I got up from the bed, he began sleeping again by Cattleya’s side.”

“Morally speaking, it’s that kinda thing. I’ll go give him a warning.”

Hodgins laughed a little, seeing Lux off as she walked away while rotating her tiny shoulders. He then turned his gaze back to Violet. Her bedhead, which he had supposedly fixed with the caressing, had returned. For some reason, both of them being alone like this in a kitchen bathed in morning sunlight struck him as extremely peculiar.

Just the two of them, having such a tender time. How many more opportunities would they have for that?

They were already at it. He should talk about something. That was what Hodgins thought, but the words did not come out of him. Not because he had no topic to discuss. He could come up with as many things to talk about as he wanted, such wanting flowers to decorate the table or that they would surely have many customers today who were unable to come yesterday.

But he did not want to spoil this morning. He felt that it might crumble if he spoke even one sentence.

Violet was there. She had her blue eyes directed his way, looking at him. It was no longer awkward for the two of them to stay silent. That was their relationship.

Perhaps still sleepy, she was in a haze. He wanted to watch her standing amidst this gentle time for a little longer.

As she would usually always seem wide-awake, Hodgins believed that she was laidback to this extent due to being in the presence of people with whom she could be at ease from the bottom of her heart. That he had played a part in this feeling of security of hers.

——Will you forget one day?

One day, the position that Claudia Hodgins occupied in the life of Violet Evergarden would become smaller.

——She only gets bigger on my end, though.

Going to the hospital numerous times. Pushing her wheelchair. Giving her a notebook and teaching her how to write.

——I for sure can’t forget. These moments, days, everything like this with you.

The fact that he had not stopped her from fighting in the war. That he had thought they could use her.

——I can’t forget.

Delivering to Violet an outfit that could hide her prosthetic arms, yet that would also make her look her most beautiful.

——I’m sure I won’t forget about this morning either.

About that quiet morning, which was much like the one from before everyone was caught in the great storm and barged in.

Hodgins touched Violet’s hair again. Although she had told Benedict not to touch it, with Hodgins, she all but slightly left a strand in his hand’s care and let him take it, almost like how a cat would do.

——Aah, I want to hug you.

He was not in love with her. That would never be the case.

However, if she were his real daughter, on days like these, mornings like these, he would have easily said, “Good morning, precious” and embraced her.

“I had a dream, President Hodgins,” Violet whispered out of the blue with a freshly awake, faintly hoarse voice.

“Dream...?”

The stunning young woman, who was no longer a girl, talked about her dream like a child, “Yes; in the dream... you owned a clothing store.”

“Huhu, that so?”

“I cannot make clothes. You told me that you did not need me, President Hodgins, if I could not make clothes...”

“That’s horrible of me, huh.”

“Even when I said I could polish the shoes, clean up or do anything, you did not listen...”

Unlike the real one, the dream version of Hodgins had apparently chosen to part ways with Violet.

“Little Violet, what did you do about that?”

“I asked countless times. However, you rejected it countless times. I thought about standing in front of the shop until you allowed me in, but it started raining like yesterday.”

“Hm. And then?”

“Major Gilbert came to pick me up and told me to come home with him, but...”

“Hm.”

“I waited for President to come out of the store even as the lights went out.”

“Hm.”

“Despite waiting and waiting, President Hodgins did not come out, and at some point, a passerby told me, ‘This shop has moved’.”

“Even though it was open until just a moment ago?”

“It was a dream, after all... And then – and then, I asked where it was and went after it. Benedict and Cattleya also appeared in-between, but they seemed to have other things to do, saying they would come after me later... As for Lux, she was the only one who had been hired by you from the very beginning, so she also asked you to hire me again, but in the end, you said no could do.”

“Hm...” Suddenly, Hodgins felt so pained about everything that it was hard to breathe. “And then, Little Violet, what did you do...?” His hand reached out to Violet.

“I kept looking at the interior of the store beyond the shop window from outside.”

Not towards her head, but towards her eyes, where her golden lashes fluttered like the wings of a fairy.

“Inside it, many people – people that I know and do not know – came and left... showing how lively the shop was.”

A sea had silently formed in them, which dissolved and disappeared once Hodgins’s index finger touched it.

“Major came to pick me up for the nth time and said you had told him that my standing there was causing him problems. But, for whatever reason, I at the very least knew that if I stepped away from there even for a moment, you would never let me in... therefore, I could not comply. But I did not want to trouble you, President, so I was unable to make a decision... I attempted to ask Major for instructions, but he was also gone before I realized.”

The sea – the teardrop – turned into a pearl and slipped down her cheek.

“I... I... ended up crying.” Violet stared at the sky, the look in her eyes seeming almost as if the scene from her dream was there at this very moment. “To think I would cry like that...”

“Hm.”

“That was why President Hodgins would not hire me, I thought... And also why Major had grown tired and left.”

“Hm.”

“Then, without my notice, you came outside. You looked the same as that post-war day when you went to visit me at the hospital. You were very surprised with my appearance, as I was soaked with mud and rain. And so, you said this: ‘Guess we’ll start with how to hold a needle’. You told me that you had not invited me for the new job because it would surely be difficult with these hands of mine, so I was extremely relieved... Then, then...” Violet’s words cut off at once.

Unable to hold himself back, Hodgins pulled her into an embrace as if shoving her little head into his chest.

While being embraced, Violet said with eyes that looked as though she was still dreaming, “...with some effort, I could still be helpful. I was able to confirm this, after all.”

Hearing her let out a relieved sigh in his arms, Hodgins forgot about both his and Violet’s positions, clasping her to his chest very, very firmly. “You sure are helpful... Was there anything about me that made you feel uncertain?” Upon realizing that his voice sounded tearful, Hodgins allowed the tears to overflow at the truth.

——Aah, I’m such an idiot. Got caught up in it and ended up crying too.

As the girl whom he thought of as his own daughter, despite her being an actual adult, had shed tears, he found himself crying along with her. Almost like a child. Even though he was supposed to conduct himself as an elder in this situation.

“I do not know.”

“But, has anything like that ever happened until now...? You had that dream because you were uneasy.”

“‘Uneasy’... That might have been the case. Yesterday night, I came to know that many things were progressing while I was away, so I have the feeling that I was quite agitated.”

“Sorry; we were doing things on our own accord. Even though we’ve been together since the founding.”

“No, I am often absent, and it is only natural for some things to be decided in the meantime. I am an employee. I feel that your judgement is correct. Employees must correspond to the changes of a company. My surroundings are about to change significantly. I am grateful to you, President, for letting me be here like always. However...”

“‘However’...?”

“However, I do not know if I can cope with it. With the matters regarding Major, the ones regarding the company... with the fact that Benedict will be going to a different office building. When I think about these things...”

“It’s okay.”

“When I think about them, I realize that the number of things I should prioritize has increased too much.”

“Little Violet.”

“The order of priorities...”

“It’s all right.”

“I have to deal with situations of every kind as I live, and yet...”

——Surely, Violet Evergarden wouldn’t be alive if she didn’t do that.

Always, at all times.

She had been living through corresponding to her surroundings despite being at loss regarding its circumstances, putting everything she could do to use while looking for a place to belong and an adult who would take care of her. She was not allowed to waver. For beasts, hesitation was death.

Violet did not know unconditional love. She now had at last earned herself this warm place through her efforts, but it was about to suffer a rapid change with the course of time.

After running, running and running, Violet – previously one such beast – was watching the nest she had finally found crumble down. Even when people knew they had to prepare to start running again, there would come a time when they would be short of breath and unable to move.

Violet had gone from wild animal to person.

Her human parts and animal parts co-existed, occasionally revealing themselves. When she was the animal, she simply did not mind how much a place changed as long as she could live in it. However, it was difficult to live while holding something better, more important.

Now that she had become a person through the increasing of her emotions...

“I shall fight. I can always be of use. President Hodgins, please forget this aspect of me that I just showed you.”

...she had turned into just a girl who was a little bit scared of the future.

“Please... forget about it.”

Who had made her this way? Gilbert was likely the first, but the ones who had done the finishing touches were definitely all the people in this place.

“No way, I’m not forgetting.”

At Hodgins’s words, Violet lowered her eyebrows, looking troubled.

“Don’t make a face like that; I’m not teasing. I meant to say that you don’t need to worry about it. You indeed might’ve gotten weak. But is that a bad thing? You had nothing when you met me for the first time. Not even your brooch, right...? But now you have lots of things. You went on a journey for a long time and got more stuff to shoulder while you were at it, so it’s no wonder that you’d end up in a dilemma.” Albeit knowing that Cattleya, Benedict and Lux were looking at them in shock from the shadows at the doorway, Hodgins went on, “You know... life is a journey. Little Violet, you’ll go on this journey, won’t you?”

He had already forgotten about his anxiety. The feeling of frustration at such things and the overwhelming wish to cling to someone were now gone.

“You started your journey with a little less luggage than other people, so you’re staring at your bag now that it’s gotten a bit heavy, wondering what happened to it. You don’t know what to throw away anymore.”

He was able to think, from the depths of his heart, that he had returned to his usual self. While embracing her, who was indeed still young and confused in the middle of her journey, he was finally able to think so.

“You need clothes and money, of course, and good shoes are vital. Right, and an umbrella too. When you look into your bag and realize that you actually have nothing that you can get rid of, it’s indeed a problem. Even though it’s a hassle because it’s so heavy. What do you think you should do?”

He could still be useful.

“Train... my physical strength... No, calibrate my prosthetics...”

He was still needed.

“You’re such a fool... Either leave it in someone’s care and continue the journey or have someone take half of it.”

Even if it were only for a short while.

“Gilbert will probably take half of the luggage. I can take care of the rest that you can’t carry over here. I’ll be in Leidenschaftlich forever, after all. Little Violet, no matter where you go, I’ll stay here and wait for you to come back, and no matter when you come over, I’ll welcome you. I’ll take care of the contents of your bag with pleasure.”

——Even if you only remember me a few times a year someday...

“Listen up: whenever you’re troubled, remember that I’m here. And then you’ll be able to go on a journey again anytime.”

——...I’ll ready myself to welcome you at any time of the year.

“Am I really supposed to leave my luggage here?”

——I’m the kind of man who can do that, and you need it for sure.

“Hm-hm, that’s not it. Y’see, this is about memories. All you have to do is to know. That I’m here. This is the way to make your luggage lighter. Whenever you’re having problems, bam, remember me. If you do that, the worries you have now will definitely decrease a little. Y’know, at the end of the day... people’s place to come home to aren’t places, they’re ‘somebody’. You should know that much. You’d have gone to any battlefield if Gilbert was there, right? Someday, yes, you might quit being an Auto-Memories Doll. You might not come back to Leidenschaftlich.”

——It’ll be great if this “someday” never comes, though.

“But your current memories are with me. I’ll be a representation of them. So that you, my dear... will be able to open your memories anytime. When this moment right now becomes nostalgic to you, come see me. I’ll always be here. Waiting for you. You’re feeling ‘lonely’ right now. But... Little Violet. You have me. You’re not alone.”

——I want you to remember.

“I do not understand very well... However...”

——I’m always protecting you.

“...you have always guided me.”

——Waiting for your return.

“I never doubt your word.”

——I’ll be waiting here.

“But, President Hodgins, I have only one wish.”

——I want you to show up when your journey ends.

Deciding to deal with the sobbing coming from behind the door later, Hodgins opted for staying like this for just a bit longer. Her lover might get angry if he saw it, but he had the right to do it, at least to some extent. After all, she was Claudia Hodgins’s dear employee.

Hodgins asked with a particularly gentle tone, “What would it be, Little Violet?”

Violet blinked and looked up at Hodgins. The last drop spilled from her eyes.

“If, only if... there comes a time when you will quit the postal company and start doing something else...”

“Hm.”

“...please call me. No matter where you are, I will rush to you.”

“Hm.”

“I will definitely be of help... Even if not, should your luggage become too much, please call me when you need someone to carry it for you. I shall hasten to visit you.”

“For real?”

“Yes. I, too, will carry President’s luggage. You should know it. I am strong.”

“Huhu, yep, definitely. One day, you’ll understand what I mean by ‘luggage’. Hey...”

No one would imagine that a single drop could be the start of something so big. However, it would earn itself great meaning after a while passed. Should it continue pouring, it could also summon boundless blessings and curses.

   “Hiya, I’m Hodgins. What’s your name?”

Silence.

“This kid’s such a taciturn.”

“She... doesn’t have a name yet. She’s an orphan with no education. Can’t talk either.”

“That’s so terrible of you. She’s such a beauty. Just give a name worthy of her.”

   “Little Violet, thanks for meeting me.”

Love was almost like rain.

[wrienne]

My Cheating Amnesic Fiancé

Chapter 3: First Impression

Dead silence.

The only thing reminding you that you were still alive or that time hadn’t somehow ceased was the furious beating of your heart. And of course, the fact that you could feel your face growing rapidly redder.

Life wouldn’t let you get away with such embarrassment. It was too cruel for that.

“Jungkook, isn’t she that family friend of yours?”

The guy who spoke and finally broke the spell keeping everyone paralyzed was about the same height as Jungkook. You couldn’t see his hair or much of his face, but you recognized him due to his low voice, which had enthralled a whole stadium of people just an hour and a half ago with a heart-achingly painful song. “V”, you think he had introduced himself as, sometime during the beginning of the concert.

“She is?”

The second speaker was the tallest among the group. He unhooked one side of his mouth mask from behind his left ear, revealing all of his face. You recognized him, he was the leader of the group: Rap Monster. He scratched his cheek and looked at you like you were a particularly difficult quiz.

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen her face before, in the news.”

The third speaker was the shortest among the group. He had instinctively stepped forward as soon as Jungkook had cursed at you, but now relaxed. You couldn’t tell who it was but judging by his light voice, you had an idea.

Someone snapped his fingers and pulled down his mouth mask so that it bunched up beneath his chin, revealing a pointy nose and high cheekbones. “That’s right, whenever the two of you meet, you always occupy the headline of Star News.” You knew who it was, but you didn’t remember his name. Something about hope, you recalled. “Your name was…”

“(Y/F/N).” A guy almost as tall as Rap Monster chimed in. He was the only one without a mouth mask and you recognized him instantly as Jin - he had blown kisses into Min-Ji’s camera. “I knew I spotted you in the audience. You were almost in the front, right? Together with the girls with the big camera?”

Se-Eun, Min-Ji and Yeon-Woo would be overjoyed when you told them that Jin remembered them. Or well, if you were even able to. You couldn’t wrap your head around the notion that Jungkook was the visibly angry one - he looked ready to murder someone. That was supposed to be your role.

“Damn it,” Jungkook muttered, his eyes still locked onto you. “Why are you here?”

You couldn’t respond. You saw a coat too tiny and frilly to possibly fit him in the nook of his arm and a tiny, light blue designer bag dangling from his shoulder. In one of his hands, he held his phone, in the other, two plastic bottles of water.

He wasn’t wearing the engagement band.

The golden ring almost felt like it scorched the skin on your finger. You were tempted to yank it off and hurl it at his stupid face.

“Why are you cursing her out?” V asked after another moment of silence. He didn’t sound accusatory or hostile, simply deeply perplexed. You realized that he had understood that something was off with the whole situation, although he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it yet.

“Oh, so she’s the heiress of Phoenix Inc.? Honey, I thought she was a coordi-unnie!”

Up until then, Yi-Jae had remained quiet. But the way her voice wandered through her words made you frown. Why did she sound almost too innocent?

Jungkook’s eyes softened a notch when he glanced at her. You had never thought you would say or even think it but the way his gaze melted at the sight of her made you nauseous. How long had they been together? How long had he lied to your parents?

And if he loved someone else, why did he remain engaged to you?

“No,” he replied in a clipped tone. “(Y/N), if we could speak in private for a moment?”

It took you a beat before you realized everyone waited for your answer. “Okay,” you mumbled.

“We’ll wait in the car,” Rap Monster said as he patted Jungkook on the shoulder twice.

Yi-Jae left your side and hurried to Jungkook. He handed her the coat, the bag and the water, and she returned his jacket. Almost intuitively, he bent down to let her peck him on the cheek and briefly hugged her hand before letting go.

Strangely, it ached in your chest.

She put on her coat, which had a hoodie attached to it, and concealed her face and hair furthermore underneath a cap and a mouth mask. Two security guards escorted her down the hall whence you and she had arrived, most likely taking her to the other side of the stadium. Her eyes flitted over to you briefly with a curious look in them as she passed.

She had known. You were sure of it. She had played you, not the other way.

Well, at least you weren’t feeling bad for having tried to exploit her anymore.

A few security guards escorted Rap Monster and the others out of the building, together with what you guessed were the remaining staff. Someone you hadn’t noticed up until then found your gaze. His slim, dark eyes were expressionless above the white mouth mask he wore, but a shiver traveled down your spine when you realized he hadn’t spoken even once. He had simply observed. He was the seventh member of BTS, and though you couldn’t remember his name, you remembered his bone-chilling, second solo performance with a song in a completely different style than the rest of the concert. His words had felt like they physically pierced into you.

There were a few shouts and excited yelling as soon as the door to the outside opened. The guy broke away from your gaze and slipped out just after Rap Monster.

Then there would be only you two.

It took about ten minutes for the guards to shoo away the fans and allow all of the staff to leave. Ten minutes were too slight of a time frame for you to ready yourself in a confrontation against Jungkook. You stared into the worn rubber floor all that time while trying to find the right questions.

Since when? How?

Why?

As soon as the door shut and everyone was out, Jungkook stalked toward you. You glanced up just as he stopped at half an arm’s length away from you. His face was make-up free and the tips of his hair that poked out from underneath his cap were wet. He wore an unreadable expression as he crossed his arms and looked down at you. That’s when you realized he was significantly taller than you.

When had he grown up so fast?

“Why are you here?”

“I was invited by Se-Eun,” you said stiffly.

Jungkook’s eyebrows knitted together. “And it didn’t occur to you to say no?”

“Briefly,” you replied through your teeth. You couldn’t believe him. What did he have for a reason to be so angry with you? He was the wrongdoer! “But since I’ve never been to one of your concerts, I thought: ‘I might as well.' I didn’t exactly expect to run into your girlfriend in the bathroom.”

His lips twitched but he didn’t seem to be able to muster a response. His brown eyes simply held yours, cold and unrelenting.

That was enough of an answer.

“Glad to finally meet her, though,” you said and smiled, even though it pained you. “How long were you expecting to keep us apart? Up until the marriage? Or even after it?”

“Hush,” he whispered, while looking suspiciously about. “I thought we agreed on never to mention it unless we were absolutely certain nobody could hear.”

“I thought we agreed that you and I would have to marry,” you said venomously. “That’s a two-man show in this country, at least the last time I checked. Does she know about us?”

He pressed his lips tightly together as he found your eyes again. You had always secretly admired the length and fluttery softness of his eyelashes, but now even that detail disgusted you. You were almost tempted to demand that he shouldn’t look at you, but you didn’t want to let him get away from replying.

“No,” he finally said. “She-- Everyone thinks we’re merely family friends.”

“Well,” you began, feeling colder than you had all evening. “Starting from today, that won't be a lie any longer.”

Jungkook frowned and for the first time in years, you saw something akin to fear in his brown eyes. “What do you mean?”

You tore off your ring and held it up before his eyes. “I’m breaking off our engagement. I don’t-- won’t get married to a cheater-scumbag like you. You can live happily ever after with someone else, like Park Yi-Jae. Smile, Jungkook - you’ll finally be rid of me.”

“No.”

His tone was hard, his eyes were harder still. You raised an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t think it’s up to you to decide,” you said in the sweetest voice you could muster. “As soon as I tell my mom and dad--”

“Please, you can’t.”

If you hadn’t known him better, you could have sworn a hint of desperation crept into his words just then. Even his face was convincing. But you knew, Jeon Jungkook was never despairing. He was rude, cold and uncaring of you. You could now also add “rotten liar” to the list and perhaps even “false”. He wasn’t the type of person to experience misery at you leaving him.

Right?

“You can’t break the engagement, (Y/N),” he pleaded. “Please.”

For a moment, you simply looked at Jungkook. You had spent years celebrating holidays and events with him and his parents. What would happen if you broke the engagement?

Your dad had a soft heart, and he would most likely still try to keep in touch with Jungkook’s parents. It was your mother that would cause trouble. Big trouble.

But who could blame her? Your parents and his had planned you and Jungkook's marriage practically for decades.

“I think you forced that decision for me when you chose to get romantic with another girl,” you said, surprising even yourself with how hurt you sounded.“I’m calling it off. You and I will never get married.”

You dropped the ring and began turning around when he grabbed your wrist. You glared at him over your shoulder. “Let go.”

“Not until I've had my say,” Jungkook said. “Please, (Y/N), just listen to me for a minute.”

You checked your phone. 23.11. Se-Eun and the others had waited more than half an hour for you. Were they even still outside?

Taking your silence as a cue to speak, Jungkook slowly released your wrist. “It wasn’t my intention to fall in love with her. It just happened. You can't really blame that on me.”

“You must think I'm way stupider than I am,” you hissed. You couldn't deny how much his words pained you. “Did you memorize the script of some romantic drama? Do you even hear yourself?”

He blew out a long breath through his nostrils and took off his cap to rake his fingers through his damp hair. You recognized this behavior: he was getting really frustrated. But why?

“How long have you and I known each other?” you went on when he remained silent. “How long have we known we would have to marry? I mean, I know that neither of us particularly like the other, but I at least thought we would be able to make this work. Wasn't that what you promised my parents and yours? What you and I promised each other?”

“I… I can explain,” he managed, his gaze turning sorrowful. “I just... I need some time.”

“You need time?” you exclaimed incredulously. “You know what,” you began as you backed away from him. “I don't even want to know. Live happily ever after with her or whoever else, I don't care. I'm out.”

“Are you crying?”

“No, I'm not,” you said as you instantly touched the corners of your eyes. To your dismay, your fingers came away wet. “Stay away from me, Jungkook,” you added as he started following you. “I don't really want to see you. In fact, I'm certain I never want to see your face again.”

“That’ll be difficult considering I'm an idol."

“Don't try to sound smart. You know what I mean.” You turned away from him and started walking. “I never want to see you again, Jeon Jungkook.”

[inazumine]

Sameness in Difference: EnKi Things

Okay, so like, hear me out for a second.

There’s one pairing in Inazuma Eleven that I think codifies the “enemy turned rival turned friend” dynamic, and was the first in the series to do so. From the start, these two have been defined by their similarities despite coming from vastly different worlds, and are equals that understand each other in a way no one else quite does, and grow to support each other on every front. That pairing, is EnKi (Endou x Kidou)

(WARNING: Another long ass post, even longer than the first one and straight trash.)

To begin an analysis of EnKi worth its salt, I feel as though we have to first understand who Kidou is, and the context through which he operates in the beginning of the series before the Teikoku v. Raimon match, then compare it to who Kidou becomes by the end of the series. Endou fundamentally changes Kidou’s world view and helps him reconcile the divide between his role as a soccer player and his feelings as a person.

Kidou begins the series as “Teikoku’s Commander” and “Kageyama’s Protégé”, our first taste of the level of soccer that Inazuma puts on full display, and a demonstration of the level of cruelty that can come out of the sport. Kidou only explicitly says it far later in season 3, but as viewers we see that his origin as a soccer player, at least through his eyes, begins with Kageyama and his teachings, and that’s something he struggles to separate himself from as the series continues. Kidou and Kageyama both see Kidou as someone who stands above others, with other weaker schools and even his Teikoku teammates on a level below him to be subjugated. Until a certain point, that worldview was never called in to question. That is, until the first game with Raimon.

God Hand shocked everyone on the field and in the audience, but it was Endou’s determination that broke expectations, and that’s what Kidou latched on to in his interest. It’s Endou’s tenacity and simple mindedness that breaks Kidou’s calculated expectations. Just the way Endou interacts with Kidou, with pure enthusiasm as an equal without formalities and without restraint, is why Kidou’s barriers start to come down and he starts calling the role of ”Kageyama’s Protégé” in to question: Rather than the Commander’s soccer, what is Kidou Yuuto’s soccer? Kidou is constantly in Kageyama’s shadow, and it’s Endou that starts to pull him out of it.

Initially, Kidou and Endou looked like completely opposite sides of the spectrum, but once Kidou starts to shed some of Kageyama’s influence, he returns to Kidou Yuuto’s values. Like Endou, Kidou loves to be challenged and he wants to play soccer giving everything he has on an equal playing field, because soccer is now again something fun, and not just something to win and dominate. And Endou knows this, he knows that despite how Kidou initially seemed, that Kidou is more than Kageyama’s copy and has his own way of doing things. Outside of Teikoku, Endou is the first person to truly trust in Kidou for what he is past “Teikoku’s Commander” and “Kageyama’s Protégé”.

After Teikoku’s defeat, Kidou seems to develop a strong amount of trust in Endou as a rival, and then as a friend. Kidou seems to continuously marvel at how Endou is able to answer to Kidou’s worldview with his simplicity, and after a while it’s something he’s able to confide in.

(Okay sidebar gonna talk about episode 17 now it’s liKE MY FAVORITE ONE IN THE WHOLE SHOW)

In episode 17, Kidou really puts on full display how much Endou affects him. I don’t know how many people have actually visited Kidou’s home, something’s telling me not many if any, and it’s telling that Kidou invites Endou on the spot without even having known him for what at that point must’ve been a few weeks maybe? He also divulges his family situation, which he says he explicitly hasn’t told anyone before. When Endou says that Kidou and he are the same, it’s a big moment because until that point Kidou had acknowledged that distance between himself and others, and had started to envy Endou and his soccer where there is no concept of it, just pure hearted feelings for the fun of the game. It brings Kidou to a point where he can start to engage with the world differently, and as he says later, begin looking for the soccer that fit him over the one Kageyama prescribed all this time. Endou continuously ignores the distance that Kidou seems to have put between himself, his soccer, and other people, and strips him of anything that isn’t explicitly Kidou Yuuto.  

Gouenji goes on to tell Kidou that he’s only ever looked at Endou from the front, which means as an enemy but also has the implied meaning of “at a distance”, and asks him to let Endou look after his back. Letting him look after his back means so much, because it means not just joining the team, but Kidou learning to let his walls down and be looked after. You can clearly see Teikoku is supportive and works together as a well-oiled unit, but at Raimon there’s an emphasis on covering for each other’s weaknesses, and it’s Kidou admitting to himself that he has weaknesses that’s a big step in learning how to play alongside others, and not just in front of them. Endou is a captain but he’s also a friend, and that’s what Kidou needs.

(LMAO Gouenji stop trying to be cool)

Fast forward a bit to season 2 where Endou and Raimon are up against a threat they can’t even conceive of. They’re getting battered and beat up left and right, teammates are starting to break down and leave, and Endou is beginning to grow weary and question himself and his decisions. Yet still, there’s one person who continues to hold fast and completely trust in him and his world view, who stays until the end and beyond and never once stops supporting Endou and his vision, and it’s not even Endou himself, it’s Kidou.

Throughout season 2, we see Kidou continue to change in this same way, where he stops distancing himself from others and grows closer to Endou and Raimon as a whole. There’s more moments of Kidou goofing off with everyone, loosening up and being dorky, and just smiling and acting like, y’know he’s 14 and not 30. Here more than ever is where Kidou and Endou truly seem like close friends and equals, when Endou starts getting down on himself and can’t really find anyone else to talk to, especially about Gouenji’s departure.

I really wish we saw more of Kidou and Teikoku interacting, especially him and Sakuma/Genda so I could have a little more to go off when trying to analyze how Kidou is with them vs how Kidou is with Raimon, but for now I can say I think it’s because it’s Endou that Kidou doesn’t have to posture or act like a commander, and this is even supported by Sakuma during the training for Death Zone 2: “You’re more yourself at Raimon.”

(He’s looking at Endou oh god WHAT A SOFT SMILE)

Speaking of Teikoku, we all remember the nightmare that was Shin Teikoku in season 2. At this point in the series, Kidou’s been removed from Kageyama and is given space to breathe, but it hasn’t even been close to long enough for the trauma to subside, which is why seeing Fudou, Sakuma, and Genda like this is such a big hit to his psyche.

Kageyama seeks control, and his obsession with Kidou leads him to hurting his friends as collateral damage, because people like Sakuma and Genda are expendable if it means getting Kidou to realize where he belongs. This is straight up emotional abuse and midst Kidou trying to fight against Kageyama’s grip, he in turn loses control of himself and is caught between trying to protect his friends from destroying their futures, win the game for Raimon’s sake, and beat Kageyama for his own sanity to reaffirm why he walked away in the first place. Alas, things don’t end cleanly, and Kidou is forced to push it all aside for the sake of beating Aliea… until season 3.

Season 3 is truly a test of Kidou’s and Endou’s mental strength, and moving forward to be better leaders for Inazuma Japan, and this is where we really see how parallel Endou and Kidou’s stories become. Endou has to deal with growing out of his his grandfather’s shadow, and Kidou has to deal with growing out of Kageyama’s shadow, seeing if Endou Daisuke’s grandson and Kageyama’s protégé live up to and can progress past their legacies.

Kidou thinks Kageyama is well and gone by this point, and even still just the thought of Fudou being a national team member sends Kidou back in to questioning if he’ll ever really be free of Kageyama and all the progress he’d thought he’d made in spite of his origins as Kageyama’s protégé. It only gets worse as we see that Kageyama is still alive and influencing the events of the FFI to get rid of Inazuma Japan and control soccer for good. Kidou plunges back right in to Kageyama’s clutches and goes forward futilely struggling against him with no direction, forgetting about how much of himself he’s become since he broke away from Kageyama all those months ago.

For Endou, if his reason was to take down Kageyama for his grandfather’s suffering, it would be understandable, but it isn’t. He knows how Kidou is struggling and what Kageyama does to him, and he wants to be there for him more than anything else. Endou moved past Kageyama’s hold over him way back in season 1, and whereas Endou is able to move on and focus on playing his soccer that lies ahead, Kidou is stuck in his past. It takes a kick in the face (metaphorically) from Fudou for Kidou to realize this, and it’s none other than Endou who’s literally next to him for Kidou to finally get the push he needs to reject Kageyama’s influence over him for good. It’s Endou’s influence that has pushed Kidou forward all this time, and he wants to keep going that way, with Endou and Inazuma Japan right next to him helping him walk his own path. Endou helps pull Kidou away from his past and focus on the present, what he can do for now over contemplating what he couldn’t do because of yesterday.

As always, I have to state that this isn’t a one-sided ship. Like I said earlier, Kidou is the first and longest-lasting rival (in terms of episodes anyway) that Endou has in the series, and Endou returns that trust and confidence in Kidou almost immediately and ten times over. Endou sees Kidou as a close friend that has stayed beside him since the beginning, and is beyond grateful for his support in leading Raimon and Inazuma Japan, especially in season 3. He may not be able to wax poetic like Kidou can, but there have been more than enough occasions where Endou has gone starry-eyed over how cool Kidou is, or explodes at the thought that Kidou is anything less than amazing.

(I’M NOT CRYING, YOU ARE)

As captains Endou and Kidou share a bond that not many in the series can lay claim to, and they understand each other in so many ways even though they have almost completely opposite personalities and upbringings. Both Endou and Kidou know the burden of being a captain, and Kidou knows exactly when Endou’s frustrated or troubled, and often for what reason (ie. Before and after the Kidokawa match, Aphrodi’s sudden visit, during like the entire second season.)

Kidou plays a support role to Endou’s captainship, being the brains behind Raimon’s success, and laying out plans of attack to supplement Endou’s motivational role. For someone like Kidou, who’s been so used to leading his entire life, I can’t imagine that wasn’t hard to get used to, but he does it wholeheartedly because he trusts Endou and is there to back him up, not usurp him. Endou in turn knows most intimately about what kind of things Kidou struggles with, and fights him whenever he starts to get self-deprecating because, in his words, Kidou is amazing. He sticks to Kidou’s side when he needs him and does his best as one of his closest friends.

For Endou, Kidou has been a friend and an amazing guy since the beginning, something that never changes, and for Kidou, Endou goes from Raimon’s idiot captain to his best friend, and his captain that he’ll follow no matter what.

That’s because he’s Endou Mamoru!

I think the best thing about EnKi is just how much Kidou adores Endou and how much he tries to be his support after he joins Raimon. I mean, Kidou legit says the sweetest things, like how “pure-hearted and straightforward” Endou is, and you can see how much he explicitly trusts Endou, not just his skills, but that because it’s Endou he’ll do everything in his power to help his friends and win with them all. There’s so many times where Endou’s capability and prowess as a goalkeeper and a captain get called in to question, especially in the second season where Endou goes through some of the toughest times in the series, and Kidou will usually be the first person to be like “nope, you’re wrong” and state his unwavering confidence in Endou. It’s almost like Endou’s modified Kidou’s internal logic: Endou’s drive and optimism have broken down Kidou’s calculated expectations so many times that as soon as you introduce Endou in to the equation, Kidou’s like “ah, of course” and knows Endou will move them toward the best case scenario.

(HE’S SMITTEN, LOOKING AT THE SUN)

ANYWAY, I think this has gotten long enough. Tl;dr, Endou and Kidou are almost two sides of the same coin even if they don’t seem like it in the very beginning. Endou and Kidou both think the other is the best thing since sliced bread, and they help and support each other through being captain’s and trying to handle more stress than I feel like middle schooler’s should ever have to. They mirror each other in a lot of ways, and through their differences make up for where the other can’t to help themselves and their teams move forward, going from enemies to best friends. 

As always, whether or not you ship them romantically or platonically or none at all, I feel like their relationship is important and I hope you guys do too! 

[bccity]

AUGUST 2019 BC ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of August 31 KST September 7 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly limit).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on the monthly schedule.

Threads and solos do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Overall Company

There’s still a ban on public talk of Goeun, but the tension immediately following last month’s news has had time to lessen some. Things around the company are almost eerily quiet thanks to over half of the company’s roster either touring or preparing for tour, which is good for company profits that investors want to improve, but could lead to some backlash from Korean fans that aren’t so happy to see their favorite artists spend so much time overseas.

Important dates:

N/A

BC Soloist 1

She’s already doing very well for a new soloist debut, and BC is giving her their support, having already booked her for her first ever KCON appearance barely two weeks after debut in LA. She’s also been invited back to Weekly Idol less than a month after her pre-debut appearance, this time alongside girl groups from Dimensions and Gold Star who are promoting at the same time as her. The goal for the episode is to represent different companies and generations of female idols.

Important dates:

August 8: Filming of Weekly Idol episode (also appearing: Fuse and Gal.actic, to air August 14).

August 11: Fan sign in Gangnam, Seoul.

August 14: Fan sign in Yeouido, Seoul.

August 17: Fan sign in Mapo, Seoul.

August 18: Performance at KCON LA at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA, USA (also performing: CHARM).

August 24: Fan sign in Gangnam, Seoul.

August 31: End of music show promotions.

Decipher

Following up on KCON NY last month, Decipher is also on the schedule for KCON LA this month. They’re performing on the first day and have the same itinerary as they did in New York (a hi-touch, a meet and greet, and participation in the concert.). A few days after their return to Seoul, the group will be called into a meeting to confirm comeback plans for the full group with a mini-album in December. December is notoriously the worst month of the year to comeback and original plans had been earlier, but this album is a end of year profit push for BC, not an award push and the company has, as is characteristic of them lately, given CHARM’s comeback priority over theirs.

Important dates:

August 17: Performance at KCON LA at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA, USA (also performing: Knight). 

August 25: Performance at 2019 K-Asia Festival in Incheon (also performing: Element and 7ROPHY).

              ↳ Decipher R & V

Decipher V’s single will be finished recorded at the beginning of the month, so the rest of the month is spent preparing for promotions with stage outfit fittings, promotional photo shoots, and the MV filming. On the day BC announces their impending comeback (August 19), the unit will hold a VLive to hype up fans for their return as a unit after almost five years. They’ll talk, play a “Most Likely To” game between the three of them, and drop small spoilers for the comeback.

Important dates:

August 19: Decipher V VLive.

August 20: Stand By Me MV filming.

BEE

In a continuance of their Mise En Scene brand deal, BC and the hair product brand have planned for BEE to release a special project single sponsored by the brand as an advertisement for their bubble hair dye. The single, titled “Hello Bubble”, will be recorded this month before they record the accompanying music video next month. The song leans more into the group’s cute side than their recent singles in order to appeal to the broadest audience. There’s also choreography for the song to be learned this month, so it’s almost like comeback preparation this month without the promise of music show promotions. Besides this promotional single, BEE has been selected to perform their singles “Something”, “I Swear”, “Touch My Body”, and “Be My Baby” in a special show for the nation’s armed forces alongside some of the other popular senior girl groups in the industry.

Important dates:

August 18: Performance at K-Force Special Show (also performing: Lipstick, Silhouette, and Aria)

Knight

Their comeback promotions come to an end without BC making much effort to push it into better performance for award eligibility it seems unlikely to end up qualifying for, but part of the group’s dance line has been scheduled in to do a video collaboration with a popular dance studio YouTube channel performing an alternate choreography to their title track. Following the end of promotions, Knight is attending the second US KCON event, but besides that, they’ll be focused on beginning tour rehearsals. The set list will include recent title tracks and b-sides and a number of unit and solo stages that have been arranged and assigned by management to the members as follows:

Main dancer/vocal & maknae/lead dancer/rapper & main rapper/vocal - See You Again

Lead vocal/lead dancer & main vocal 3 - Nothing Like Us

Leader/vocal/rapper - Been Through

Main vocal 1 - Versace On The Floor

Main dancer/rapper/vocal - Fools

Main vocal 2 - Shallow

Important dates:

August 3: Fan sign in Gangnam.

August 7: 1MILLION Dance Studio collab video filming (main dancer/rapper/vocal, lead vocal/lead dancer, and maknae/lead dancer/rapper only).

August 9: End of music show promotions.

August 12: Idol Star Athletics Championships filming (also attending: Lucid, 7ROPHY, Aria, Fuse, Unity, and WISH, to air in September).

August 17: Performance at KCON LA at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA, USA (also performing: Decipher).

              ↳ White Knight

No schedules for the month.

Important dates:

N/A

Lipstick

Lipstick is another of BC’s groups in the studio this month, this time recording “Heaven” and “Crazy Driver” (line distribution), the two songs on the Japanese single they’ll be releasing before their planned early 2020 Japanese album release. They continue their tour in Indonesia and have also been picked to perform “Lil' Touch”, “Gun”, “Bingle Bangle”, and “Heart Attack” at a special show for the Korean military.

Important dates:

August 10: Prima Donna tour concert at Mata Elang International Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia.

August 18: Performance at K-Force Special Show (also performing: BEE, Silhouette, and Aria)

              ↳ Lip Gloss

No schedules.

CHARM

Their Japanese tour wraps up during the first week of the month and then they return to Seoul, but that doesn’t mean a break from work. They’ll be filming their MV for Happy Ending and preparing for their KCON LA performance on the 18th. They’ll stay in LA until the 20th to do some American promo. A few of the members (vocal 2, performance unit leader/main dancer/sub vocal, vocal unit leader/lead vocal, main rapper, and maknae/main dancer/lead rapper) have been chosen to record the main OST for the upcoming web-drama A-Teen, so those members will be in the studio to record that this month.

Admin note: Members will leave for KCON LA on the morning of the 17th in Seoul to arrive on the morning of the 17th in LA, with the exception of Dai who will take a flight with a manager to join the rest of the group in LA following his first Inkigayo MC filming on the afternoon of the 18th in Seoul to arrive a few hours before the KCON concert on the 18th in LA.

Important dates:

August 1: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

August 2: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

August 3: CHARM 2019 Japan Tour ‘Haru’ concert at Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

August 4: CHARM Japan Fanmeeting - ‘Hana’ at Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

August 5: CHARM Japan Fanmeeting - ‘Hana’ at Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

August 10: Happy Ending MV filming.

August 18: Performance at KCON LA (also performing: BC Soloist 1).

August 19: Filming of Who’s Who video for Buzzfeed.

WISH

The tense management atmosphere from their last comeback seems to ease this month as BC sets the girls on track to make their second and final comeback of the year. It’s a standalone single, the first of their careers, and is a bit of a different sound than WISH usually releases, even compared to Fancy, but it continues to Fancy and Breakthrough’s precedent of more apparent girl crush elements than before. They’ll hear the demo for the first time on the 13th and be expected to be ready to record by the time they return from a period of filming in Hawaii. During their time in Hawaii, the members will be filming a special Japanese variety show for fans. They’ll be split into two teams to complete fan requests and buy gifts they’ll sign and send to fans, then all together, they’ll learn to hula dance, and record a special dance video of Happy Happy.

A Team: Leader/main vocal, lead vocal 1, lead vocal/lead dancer, lead rapper/vocal, main rapper/vocal

B Team: Lead vocal 2, main dancer/sub vocal/sub rapper, lead dancer/vocal, maknae/vocal

Important dates:

August 1: M2 X Genie Music Awards.

August 10: WISHlights Tour concert at Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, Philippines.

August 11: Performance at Lotte Duty Free Family Concert (also performing: Origin).

August 12: Idol Star Athletics Championships filming (also attending: Lucid, 7ROPHY, Aria, Fuse, Unity, and Knight, to air in September).

August 14: Happy Happy Japanese single release.

August 15: Pocari Sweat fansign in Samseong, Seoul.

August 19-21: Filming in Hawaii, USA.

August 21: Breakthrough Japanese single release.

August 22: Soribada Best K-Music Awards at Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul (also attending: 7ROPHY and Dimensions Soloist 2).

August 23: Performance on TV Asahi Music Station in Tokyo, Japan.

August 24: WISHlights Tour concert at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore. 

[illogicalword-blog]

Religion and Secular Injustice

           I've lived in the state of Arizona most of my life. Sometimes, I'm really proud of that. For instance, we just elected Kyrsten Sinema to the US Senate.  Not only is she the first Democratic senator elected from Arizona since the eighties, she's the first openly bisexual member of Congress and the second LGBT member of Congress.

           But last Monday, February 11, 2019, something happened in the Arizona state legislature that makes me ashamed of this state.  Representative Athena Salman delivered the morning invocation that day. Representative Salman is nonreligious, and delivered a secular prayer inviting all present to ponder the "wonders of the universe" and the interdependence of the earth, how insignificant we are in the grandeur and size of that same universe.  She asked, in a secular way, if we could fathom what it takes to support the many types of lifeforms on this little planet in this out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy.

           There was a response to this invocation. Representative John Kavanagh has sixty-eight years to Representative Salman's twenty-nine or thirty, a booming voice, and a good ol' boy's mannerisms.  He invited his "guest:" God.  For God was in the gallery with them, "as he is everywhere." It was rude, it was snarky, it was demeaning.  It sounded like it was meant to be.

           But Representative Salman did not let it lie. The next day, with a group of supporters behind her, she quoted a number of ways Representative Kavanagh had displayed "behavior unbecoming of a member" of the House.  That day, the reason, perhaps, that Salman was delivering the invocation, was Secular Day, and members of the Secular Coalition for Arizona were in the gallery.  This was likely the reason for Kavanagh's rebuttal to the invocation devoid of a traditional deity.  He sent an emailed response to the Phoenix New Times that expressed no regrets, calling what he said a "friendly counterpoint to Representative Salman's hijacking of the prayer."  He added, "I felt it proper to restore God to the prayer, which is the purpose of the prayer."

           I invite you to view Representative Salman's invocation, Kavanagh's "friendly counterpoint," and her rebuttal the following day on the YouTube channel secularcoalition.  It was how this actually came to my attention, bad local politics follower that I am.  Let me know how friendly you think Representative Kavanagh sounds.

           I have to admit, I have a lot of admiration for open atheists and secularists like Athena Salman in politics.  I've heard it said before that being an atheist in politics is committing career suicide, but she's been reelected more than once.  This isn't the first controversy that's come up over her invocation, either.  In 2017, the House took her to task for delivering one that wasn't religious enough.  No, really.

           I found an article about that on Arizona Central, and the House required by policy for the invocation to invoke a higher power. The House Majority Leader, John Allen, had suggested that if the lawmaker making the invocation had no interest in a higher power they should "ask the members to focus on theirs."

           At this point you might be asking, as I was, why in the hell there's a prayer before a legislative meeting anyway? I've never watched one, I should point out.  But apparently this is a common occurrence in every single state (at some point in the proceeding) and even at the federal level.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, "The constitutionality of legislative prayer was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983.  In its decision on Marsh, Nebraska, State Treasurer, et al V. Chambers, the court ruled that Congress and state legislatures do not violate the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state even when clergy are paid to lead devotionals."  So apparently that case was more about the payment than the secularism, but Chief Justice Warren Burger went on to say that prayer during these legislative proceedings is not "an establishment of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment or beliefs."  Again, no mention of lack of beliefs.

           Evidently, this use is part of the pomp and circumstance of legislation, part of the ceremony of the proceedings, and while it may be unnecessary, it goes all the way back to the British Parliament, preceding the creation of the United States of America.  I might point out that the British government is distinctly religious (in theory), with the monarch being the head of the Church of England, while the United States is designed to be the opposite.  But perhaps I shall leave that for another day.

           Representative Salman brought up several arguments for why Representative Kavanagh's behavior was unbecoming of a member of the House. Let's take a thorough look at each of those in turn.

           First, she brought up the Arizona Constitution, Article Twenty, Section One.  This reads, in full, "Perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured to every inhabitant of this state, and no inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship, or lack of the same."  The Arizona Constitution was ratified in 1912, when Arizona became a state.  Other subjects of section twenty include a banning of polygamy and a requirement of state officials to read, write and speak in English.  It determined which lands were public lands, which were Native American lands, where the state capital was located, and which lands belonged to the state.

           The point is, the very first section established not only religious freedom, but freedom for "the lack thereof." And yet Representative Salman was publicly shamed for offering a secular invocation on a secular day with a secular group in attendance.

           The second point she offered was the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 of the Town of Greece vs. Galloway.  This ruling involved a town that had similar invocations in their meetings, but the town was largely dominated by one religious denomination.  The ruling determined that volunteer chaplains could open each session with a prayer.  Now, Jewish and atheist women who had filed suit were disappointed by this ruling, as were secular groups.  Ultimately, though, this comes down to what is a prayer?  We already know what Arizona thinks a prayer is.  Cough, cough, higher power, cough.

           That being said, Representative Salman pointed out a passage in it that "prohibits the disparaging of other faiths or none."  Moreover, one of the constitutional prescriptions for the prayer is that "The body may not dictate what is in the prayers and what may not be in the prayers."  That kind of suggests Arizona can't say that it needs a higher power, though I'll admit the prescription goes on to say, "A prayer may invoke the deity or deities of a given faith, and need not embrace the beliefs of multiple or all faiths" and says nothing and a prayer invoking no deity at all.

           Let us briefly consult our friends at Merriam-Webster, since I have no subscription to the Oxford dictionary.  While the first definition of prayer is "(1) : an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought, (2) a set order of words used in praying," the second part of the definition is only "an earnest request or wish."

           Representative Salman's next point turned to the Arizona Supreme Court of Appeals and Cochise County 1982.  The court stated in that treatise "We cannot imagine that the Legislature would give preferential treatment to one religion over another because one is perhaps more established and thus more acceptable than another." For the record, this appeal had to do with a family of Christian Scientists whose children had been taken away after one had died due to not receiving necessary medical treatment.  And in defense of my state, who it seems decided there was no abuse other than the lack of medical treatment and was awarding the children back to the parents, they also referenced the case of Prince vs. Massachusetts, stating, "Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children."  This suggests they were still going to have people follow up on whether the children were receiving medical treatment if they were in need of it.  I hope.

           Arizona is a peculiar state.  It leans conservative, despite being surrounded by liberal states.  This is because the largest population center, the Phoenix metropolitan area, leans conservative while many of the other populations centers such as Tucson and Flagstaff lean liberal.  And Sedona. Whacky, whacky Sedona.  According to pewforum.org, Arizona is 67% Christian, with 21% Catholic, 26% Evangelical Protestant, and 5% Mormon.  And yet 27% are Unaffiliated.  Looking at the United States, 70.6% are Christian and 22.8% are Unaffiliated—with another 15.8% being nothing in particular.  So by that logic, there should be 38 Senators who are not religious, and 165 members of the House of Representatives.  Or at least who are nothing in particular.  In reality?  There is one. Representative Jared Huffman of California.  In 2017, Representative Huffman gave an interview with the Washington Post didn't say he was an atheist, but did say he was a non-religious humanist.  He is quoted as saying "I suppose you could say I don't believe in God."

           He was reelected in 2018.  Thank you, California.  Few other states would have done it.

           Even more interestingly, in seven states—eight, if you count an ambiguous line in Pennsylvania's state Constitution—it is still on the books that you must believe in a god to hold public office. This despite the 1961 Supreme Court ruling of Torcaso v. Watkins in which the Justices ruled unanimously that it was unconstitutional for the notary public in question, Roy Torcaso, to be submitted to any kind of religious test upon being appointed to office. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states, and has stated from the beginning, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  This supersedes the line in the Constitution of Maryland—which, I might add, is still there today—where "a declaration of belief in the existence of God" is necessary for somebody to take public office.  For the record, the next time a referendum can be held in Maryland to discuss modernizing their Constitution is 2020.  People of Maryland, I urge you to let your voices be heard!

           Religion is a divisive subject for people.  I don't understand how people can be so offended when they feel their religion is being belittled, and yet treat people who profess to believe in no religion in the same way.  For many, choosing not to believe in a god is a logical conclusion after study, questioning, and learning.  It's not something we choose so Christians can mock us or preach to us—or both at the same time.

           The original prayer that brought Representative Salman up in the news—you know, the one that wasn't religious enough—was as follows:

Take a moment to look around you at the people gathered here today. We come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but the passion that ignites us; the fire that burns within us; is similar.  We all seek to form "a more perfect union," creating change from an abiding passion to improve the lives of the humans of this city. There is wonder in that. More importantly, though, there is unity.  In a nation often eager to be polarized in its views, allow us in this moment to recognize what we have in common: A deep-seated need to help create a more just and positive world.  As we speak today, remember that commonality. Remember the humanity that resides within each and every person here, and each and every person in the city, and in all people in the nation and world as a whole.  In the words of former President of Illinois Wesleyan University Minor Meyers, Jr., "Go forth and do well, but even more, go forth and do good."

But remember.  Don't just take my word for it.  Learn everything.  Question everything.

[rainbowamory]

A piece of my writing (OCs)

The photos are pics I found online of dolls from two different sources. I do not own these images. I put these images side by side only as reference pics for how I imagine my characters’ facial features. The guy sometimes changes in my head but this comes close... except my male character is blond and green-eyed and his hair style is a little different.

[For more images, see artwork:

 OC Commission Review 1, and OC Commission Review 2]

Ages for this scene:      Syden (16), Cela (16), Sia (12), Kate (17 going on 18)

My Characters: Syden, Sia and Kate are siblings. Cela is their cousin.

Point-of-view: Cela

Written by: Rainbowamory

These are placeholder names because I don’t want to put my characters’ names here. This is a piece I wrote for practice.

Brief Background:

[My Note: At this time in their lives, Cela and Syden would mostly see each other at school since they went to the same highschool since Gr. 10, and during the couple of times a month Cela stayed at his house… otherwise, she needed to go home after school and he needed to go to his home or to the Castle (his other home). Syden’s house was the middle ground for the two of them—the neutral space untouched by the disagreements of war. While they did see each other more than when they were kids, they still were not always together as often as they wanted to be. And they didn’t have all the same classes either, only some. I’m still deciding on how their setting/world looks but I may go for a mixture of modern and traditional fantasy elements… If so, there would be two ‘realms’… one where there is magic and old style fighting, and the other where there is modern technology. I’m still working on how to properly structure everything.

This scene takes place at a high-end clothing store, in the more modern part of the same world OR realm # 2]

[The prompt for this scene was one I made up specifically for their kind of relationship. I wanted to show how they express platonic vs romantic love when around other family members. This scene is told wholly from Cela’s point-of-view.]

Actual Scene:

Cela sat on one side of the circular sofa chair. The whiteness of the cushions matched her outfit—a pair of white denim pants and a cream-coloured silk blouse. Her shoes and handbag were more of the same shades. Only her long dark hair and dark eyes stood out against the monochrome surroundings.

Syden’s outfit was not too bad looking either. In his smoothly pressed dress pants and shirt, with blond hair swept gracefully across his forehead and a thoughtful look on his face, he could’ve made a pretty persuasive mannequin for the store.

“You look good in black and white,” she said as an aside, keeping her eyes on the little game she was playing on her portable console.

She saw him look her way from the corner of her eye.

“You too,” he said.

He was seated between Cela on one side and his little sister Sia on the other. Sia’s hair tumbled in golden waves down to her shoulders, kissing the thin straps of her summer dress, a lovely canary yellow thing that ended just at her knees. She had on makeup, though she hardly needed any; like others in her family, Sia had a natural beauty about her. Cela remembered how excited the girl had been at the idea of accompanying them. But the three of them knew that this was really Kate’s day.

Kate’s last year in highschool was rapidly coming to an end, which meant looking for the perfect dress for her prom. Syden had agreed to accompany her for the sake of keeping an eye on Sia, while Cela had been invited to help her choose her outfit. If anyone could be counted on to tell Kate what color went best with her skin tone or whether the dress was not too slutty—without a hint of competition or self-serving intentions—it was Cela.

They had requested a set of private dressing rooms on one of the upper floors of the building. The cubicles were arranged in a semi-circle, their white doors decorated with ornate silver and gold patterns. The round sofa was placed in front so that those in the waiting area were facing the cubicles. Underneath one of them, Cela could see the lower part of Kate’s legs as she tried on different dresses.

They had been there for nearly two and a half hours, during which Kate had tried on various different styles—ranging from flattering to plain to impractical. To entertain themselves, Syden and Sia had gone off to have a tour of the mall. When they returned, Cela and Syden had passed the remaining time by sharing the gaming console between each other. It had been Cela’s turn and she was nearly done with her round when one of the cubical doors swung open.

Cela put down her console to see Kate as she stepped out in a sparkling orange and gold dress that brought out the glow in her copper blond hair. It was covered in large disks that looked like shimmering scales flowing down the length of her slim body. There was a v-shaped opening on the front that curved around her breasts just right without being overly revealing.

Syden and Sia went up to her for a closer look. Cela followed momentarily.

“So sparkly!” Sia chittered, reaching out and running her hands all over the fabric.

“You look like a goldfish,” Syden stated in his usual toneless way. Sia giggled in spite of herself.

Cela shot him a reproachful look but the remark did not seem to faze Kate.

“It’s very elegant,” said Cela. “I’d rate it a ten.” Sia echoed her judgment.

Kate beamed, her soft brown eyes brimming with warmth.

“What about you, Syden?” she asked.

Syden pretended to take his time thinking. “Eight.”  That was the best she could expect from him.

“Thank you” she said. There was a mirror placed in the middle of the line of cubicles. Kate lingered in front of it for a moment, looking at her reflection from different angles, then swiftly disappeared back into her little room.

A few minutes before, Sia had asked for some dresses to try on. They arrived just then on a wheeled clothes rack, delivered to her by a store employee.  Sia grabbed an armful of the most colorful ones and disappeared into the middle cubicle.

This left Cela and Syden to themselves. They went back to the couch, and back to their waiting game. Cela picked her console back up and was about to continue her round when a flash of red caught her eye. It was a dress that had been left on the rack since it was not the right size for Sia. When she went up to have a closer look, she saw that the dress was scarlet, with no shoulder straps. It looked simple enough and seemed to be about her size.

On a whim, she took it off its hook and went inside one of the empty dressing rooms on the opposite end from Kate’s. A few minutes later, she came back outside to look at herself in the mirror, noticing briefly that Syden had picked up her console while she was gone.  She heard tiny shooting sounds coming from it as she stood in front of the mirror. A few seconds later the sounds stopped and she heard the crude electronic voice say, “End of Round 5—You Have 3 Casualties and 2 Kills.”

She turned to look at him just as he looked up from the game screen.

Cela thought the dress was ok-looking but one glance at Syden’s face convinced her it was better than that.

He wasn’t typically the most expressive person. But occasionally, she could tell when he was feeling something by looking into his eyes, as she did now.

“What do you think?” she asked anyway.

He stared a little longer.

Cela was disappointed.

“Is that all you have to say?” she asked, tossing her hair so that it fell lustrously around her bare shoulders.

Syden still looked dazed.

Cela’s lips curved into a subtle smile in spite of herself. Syden didn’t seem amused.

“Tease,” he said sardonically.

She walked up to him to allow for a closer look, turning slowly in front of him so he could see her from all sides. When she came around to face him again, he reached up to brush his fingertips lightly across the curve of her waist. She took his hand in her own and held it for a second, thinking.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, standing and cupping her face with his free hand.

“Nothing,” she said. He was so sweet when he wanted to be. She thought for a moment then started walking towards her cubicle, leading him along behind her.

“What are you—” he began in a confused voice, but before he could object, she had pulled him inside the dressing room and shut the door.

It didn’t take him long to get her meaning, as if beneath his apparent confusion he was only just waiting for the right signs. He waited all but two seconds, then walked up close to her, pushed her gently against the cubicle wall and began kissing her. First on the neck, then on the lips.

There were three ways Syden communicated best: art, swordplay and touch. This was probably a good thing. As her mother liked to say, people who were seldom good with words should use them sparingly.

Cela gently tangled her fingers in his hair as she kissed him back. They were so involved in the moment that they didn’t think anyone would be wondering where they had gone.

The awakening came with a knock on the cubicle door.

Syden pulled back from her with a wide-eyed look on his face. Cela was less concerned. She recognized the feet on the other side before she opened the door. Even Syden didn’t seem that shocked once he saw who it was. He was a bit flustered, but in no hurry to hide anything.

Kate stared at the two of them for a few seconds. She stood with her orange dress over one arm and her handbag slung over her shoulder. She was back in her usual clothes—a knee-length navy blue skirt and long sleeved white top. The look on her face was mild irritation rather than surprise. This was nothing new to her.

His whole family knew by now the nature of Cela and Syden’s relationship and had gotten over the shock a long time ago... Not that it was much of a shock to begin with. Though they had never even kissed until they were fifteen, and despite not seeing each other for almost eight years, Cela and Syden had been close as children. Some saw their current relationship as a kind of extension of that early bond.

Kate appeared more bothered by the fact that they were making out in a public place.

She finally spoke up.

“Do you know where Sia is?” she asked patiently enough.

Cela looked at Syden. Syden shook his head.

“She was trying on dresses…” he said.

“Well, she’s not anymore,” said Kate, somewhat more sternly.

“Oh,” said Syden. “Where did she go?”

Kate shook her head and began walking away, leaving them no option but to follow.

Syden helped Cela change back into her clothes, then they both went looking for his older sister.

“You were supposed to watch her,” Kate said to Syden as the two of them caught up with her. Cela could tell that Syden wasn’t exactly proud of his negligence. It wasn’t like him to take his little sister’s safety lightly. Neither of them blamed Cela.

They left the private dressing area by taking some stairs down to the 1st floor and there began meandering in the maze of stalls that covered much of the space. Kate stressed the importance of sticking together, so that no one else would get lost.

As they walked past rows of many colors and styles of clothing, Cela scanned the room for a sign of a little blond head among the lanes. Twice she thought she found her little cousin but both times it turned out to be some other girl with sun-streaked hair.

“How are we supposed to find her in a place this big? She could be anywhere,” Syden complained.

“Well, we’re not going home without her, so try a little harder,” Kate replied.

The three of them continued winding down the aisles, with Kate leading the way, peaking over the stalls every now and then to see if they could catch a sign of Sia.

The building was one large white tower made up of three levels, each with a domed ceiling. There were windows high up on the walls, with sunlight streaming through them. All around them were other fashionable people moving about on their business, picking out dresses or suits for special occasions. Some of them worked for the store. Beautiful people helping beautiful people. Cela felt somewhat out of place among all the glamor.  

There were several stores, each leading into another through connecting arches. They passed from store to store, following the curve of the walls. They even asked a few people if they’d seen the girl, all with no luck. Once they arrived back where they started, Syden and Kate were both starting to get moody.

They got into an argument over whether to check the 2nd floor children’s playground or the adult-only stores on the 3rd floor. Syden seemed to think Sia’s curiosity would take her places she shouldn’t go… Kate insisted the girl was too young to attempt that kind of behaviour.

Cela vaguely recalled Sia saying something about how she was tired of trying on “kiddy clothes” and wanted something different.  

The debate ended with the two of them deciding to go separate ways. Cela, not wanting to offend either of them, decided not to choose sides. She told them she would wait by the lounge area near the entrance, and would keep a look out for anyone who resembled Sia leaving the store.

When she reached the spot, she found herself a couch chair and put her feet up, pulled out her console and began playing. From where she was sitting, she had a clear view of the inside of the first store as well as the outside lobby. If she failed to catch Sia pass by, she was still in a position where Sia could see her clearly.

In the meantime, Cela chose to continue with the game she had been playing, picking up on Round 6. It was called “Witch-Hunter”. One side consisted of an army made up of angels and guardians of the world while the other was made up of ghouls, demons and witches. You had to set up your army with the right equipment and roles at the end of every round. If you failed to do this properly, the other player would have an advantage. Each player was represented by one lead commander.  In this round, one of her main targets was the ghost of the previous player, who tried hard yet ineffectively to evade the shots she sent his way, all the while throwing unearthly curses at her army. When at last she managed to take him down, and heard his angry little howls echo off the screen, she giggled with intense self-satisfaction.

She played on until the army of darkness was in tatters, then ordered herself a hotdog. Glancing at the time on a nearby clock, she realized that 20 minutes had passed since she first sat down. The meal had made her somewhat sleepy, so she lay back into the cushions and closed her eyes.

Her thoughts went to home—not his home, hers—and what awaited her there. Her family had been busily preparing for a major upcoming event. There was to be a council of sorts, with others from her father’s line of work: skilled fighters and investigators and sorcerers. There would be some people her own age as well, the children of her father’s peers. Some of them would no doubt be curious about her fighting abilities.

She’d discuss with them the importance of their cause; to be a deterrent to dark magic users around the world. She’d talk about some of their main targets, including Sorcerers like the one Syden was working for… She wasn’t sure if anyone would mention Syden himself, since he wasn’t their main focus, but he was still one of the best soldiers the enemy had, and the Sorcerer’s personal Shield. If his name was brought up, she would need to talk of him with contempt, like everyone else at the meeting.  

This would’ve been easy enough to do once upon a time before they had started dating. She was still getting used to how much he’s changed since they were kids. Sometimes she thought she caught a glimmer of the boy he used to be in a gesture or a word. But other times she wondered if that sweet boy ever existed in the first place…

She reflected on how detached he had been when she visited his house again after years of being away. He seemed keen on avoiding her, like he couldn’t stand being around her. It took her months to realize he had actually been watching her closely all along, trying hard to reconcile the mental image he had of her in childhood with the young woman she was becoming.

In her musings, she had fallen into a light slumber. She saw a vision of herself standing at the edge of a cliff, in bloodstained battle clothes, with dead men strewn over the ground for a mile behind her. Syden stared back at her, expressionless, from the other side—against a similar background of carnage. There was a chasm between them.

Someone was touching her shoulder. She awoke to find that she was staring into a pair of green eyes, the same ones from her vision. Syden was leaning over her with little amused smile on his face.

“What were you dreaming of, I wonder…?” he said.

Cela sat up, rubbing her temple.

“None of your business,” she replied, stretching and looking up at him. She tried her best to appear clear-headed. “So, did you find her?”

He stepped away from the chair and made a sweeping motion with his arm towards Sia, who had been standing behind him with Kate the whole time.

Cela was relieved to see her.

“Which one of you found her?” she asked out of curiosity.

Kate glanced down at the floor.    

“Me of course,” said Syden. “I know my sister better than anyone else…”

Cela looked at Sia and saw her blush.

“What were you looking at on the 3rd floor?” she asked the girl.

“Lingerie,” Syden answered for her.

Cela felt discomfited. A 12-year-old girl should not be looking at such things.

“But she learned her lesson. Didn’t you, Sia?” Syden asked her.

The blush on Sia’s face seemed to deepen.

“Y-yes.”

“It’s no fun being followed by creeps that are twice your age,” he added candidly.

Kate grimaced and took Sia by the hand.

“It’s ok now,” she said to the girl. “We’re going home.” She looked at Syden. 

“Can I trust you to look after her while I go pay for my dress?” she asked. Syden nodded, and Kate left them.

Syden found a seat for Sia and sat in a chair beside her. Cela could tell that the girl was still shaken.

“Sia,” she heard Syden say. “Someday you’ll get to do whatever you want, wear what you like… date a guy close to your own age maybe. But growing up isn’t as fun as you think. Highshool drama, heart break, teachers that just don’t get you, bullies… and more shit I’d rather not talk about.  You should make the most of being a kid, and don’t rush it. You’ll regret it if you do.”

How cute, thought Cela. He left out the part about being trained since the age of 7 to be a killing machine.

Sia stared at him longingly.

“I promise I won’t tell mom,” he said. “And Kate won’t either.”

At those words, the girl’s anxiety seemed to lift a little. She smiled an angelic smile, then threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.

Syden returned the embrace.  

…

When they pulled apart, he stood up and walked over to Cela. He asked her if she wanted to buy the dress she had been looking at. She said she’d call the store and reserve it for later.

He showed her a necklace that he had bought for Kate, shortly after he found Sia. It was a simple gold chain with a blazing sun pendant at the centre, to go with her ‘goldfish’ outfit. He asked Cela to keep it a secret until closer to Kate’s graduation.

By the time Kate returned to them, Sia was her carefree self again and they were set to go. Sia and Syden walked on ahead, arm-in-arm, while Kate and Cela walked behind, side by side.

Kate seemed pleased with how the day had gone, but Cela could tell she was nervous about something. As they left the building and were walking to the spot where the chauffeur was waiting for them, Kate finally spoke up.  

“I have everything I need for my prom,” she said. “All except a date.”

Kate never talked about guys nearly as much as she did about her studies, but there was one she often brought up in conversation: a classmate whose work she admired. He enjoyed the Sciences as much as she did, and, according to Syden, the boy was as much a “hopeless nerd” as his sister was—a boy who “ate books for breakfast, lunch and dinner”.

“Have you tried asking someone?” said Cela.

Kate shook her head.

“You should try. Sometimes you have to take a chance to know what is possible.”  

As she watched Syden and Sia walking before them, talking and laughing together, she took comfort in the knowledge that, whoever he had in his life, he would always be hers first.

…

ADDITIONAL NOTES for SELF:

[Syden doesn’t bother offering to buy Cela her dress because they have an understanding that she can take care of her own material needs with her own money. She is not with him for his money and he knows that. She would take it as an insult if he were to buy a lot of pointless stuff for her, so he doesn’t. He only buys her stuff for her birthday or holidays and occasionally for spontaneous reasons.]

[Though Syden and Cela have been trained to fight since they were very young, neither of them entered the actual battle field until they were 14. But by then they had developed many skills already]

[luciensfox]

Sleeping Fires

The missing scene between Helion and Lucien. (contains spoilers for ACOWAR) Rating: T Words: 5k+

“Her fox dreams of wings and sleeping fire.”

At least, that was what Elain had told him as Lucien passed by the garden two mornings ago.

If he were being honest with himself he knew that he had rushed by, nearly tripping over his own feet, not because he was in a hurry to join Feyre’s meeting with a newly crowned High Lady, but because of what he saw burrowed between the flowers. Upon noticing that Elain wasn’t alone— that shadows unspooled from the edges of her small lavender field— he had felt his heart speed up, then skip a beat. The sudden halt inside his chest caused him to stumble, but before his mate could look up from her delicate handwork and inquire if something was wrong, he had fled. But he had no doubts that those shadows saw him, and that they drew back slightly… as if they didn't intend to harm. As if they were… hesitant.

It came out of the wind sighing against the tall grass.

Both he and Azriel stared at her, one Fae in pursuit of the city below, the other resting on his elbows beneath a tree. She blushed gently at their attention, and mumbled an apology for “being so obtuse.” Azriel looked like he wanted to say something, but as his eyes drifted back to the Autumn Fae, he just frowned. Lucien, not knowing what else to do, said hoarsely, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And then he was gone.

The path from the Town House into Velaris was but a few minutes, and soon he found himself shrugging the shoulders of his jacket closer to his chin. A calming chill settled against the wind as grey clouds smudged the midmorning sky, causing shop owners to close their windows and children to hurry back indoors. As if waiting for the last civilian to find shelter, the rain began.

Candles slowly lit every storefront, the scent of freshly baked pastries and incense from the nearest high priestess’s vigil shrouding him in a foreign aroma reminiscent of when he was younger and his brothers, not yet soured with time, would created towering bonfires under a plumb, star speckled sky.

He ducked through the heavy wooden door and shut it gently with his long fingers.

Whereas outside the scent of rain and smoke lingered, in this shop the air was peppered with metal and firewood and often times sweat or the occasional spilled spirit. As usual, it was empty. The only patrons who deigned to enter were either fumbling apprentices, lordlings with unchecked boredom, and occasionally the Illyrian commander himself. But Lucien knew that with Cassian it wasn’t so much the shopping he was interested in than it was screwing around with the newly acquainted Inner Circle member.

Lucien didn't know how he felt about any of it; that he was considered part of their family, or that Cassian visited him more frequently than any of the others.

It… unsettled him.

This sense of home.

“Are you done shuffling around like a newborn bat or shall I have you solder more hilts?”

He glanced at the women perched in the far corner of the room, boots propped up against the rickety table, sharpening a blade between her hands. The murky sunlight that filtered in made her rich brown skin seem luminescent against the shadows cast by the hearth, and her braided onyx hair was neatly parted to either side of her neck, exposing the silken black tattoos that rose from somewhere beneath her shirt to the corners of her ears. And if the tattoos weren't a dead giveaway for who she was, then the membranous wings that stretched behind her sure as hell were.

“I see you’re as cheerful as ever,” he said.

She gave him a warm smile that did nothing to warm the gesture of her middle finger quirking upward. But Lucien laughed. And that laugh scratched up his throat like a trapped hothouse bird.

She never lifted her hazel eyes from her work as he sat down across from the Illyrian blacksmith and began to draw a new design against a recently forged sword. Peering at the one she held, Lucien could see twin dragons scaling up the hilt of the weapon and the beginnings of a star motif being wrought into the design.

His own latest creation was a chaotic scene full of elemental things. The sun stretched against the quicksilver tones of the knife, it’s rays curling into stars that melted into waves that burned into flames and so forth. Woodland creatures gathered near the pommel, upon which a massive fox had it’s lips curled back as though it were laughing or shrieking at the sun.

The two of them didn’t forge weapons for battle. Now that the war was over, the only time they ever created surplus amounts of armaments was when Rhysand inquired for more to be sent into the camps to be used for training.

But Lucien had always been infatuated with knifes, perhaps a dark part of him that still drew ties to the Autumn Court, and the artwork and craftsmanship that went into creating them. No two knives were ever the same, for each was forged in different fire.

It was exactly what he had told her when he first entered her shop. It didn't take long to form a friendship with the blacksmith, and soon he was offering his labor free of cost. Both of them found it to be relaxing— about as inviting as Feyre found painting to be.

So he continued to play with fire, even though something else festered inside him.

It was days like this, when the sun was overcast by storms, that a foreign tug pulled at his ribs, as though he was tethered to the missing light and it cried for him to return.

“Your drifting again, fox.” Valora quipped, finally looking at him.

He rested the tools on the wooden table and gave her a bored stare.

Valora had been one of the numerous Ilyrian women who decided to live in Velaris after the secret City of Starlight became painted on every map of Prythian. Most of them who relocated into the city did so on their own accord, Valora had explained, for the treatment of women in the camps had gotten progressively more tolerable. Wing clippings ceased all together and everyone trained side by side, given equal opportunity to pursue the Blood Rites and join the legions in the skies.

She had mentioned even bastard borns were given better living quarters. Lucien knew without her telling him that the new treatment was likely born from how vital Cassian was to their winning of the last war. He wondered if the commander was even aware of the pillar he knocked down.

But every so often, Lucien would catch Valora staring to the North.

Just as he sometimes glanced southward and wondered what was becoming of his old courts.

They never spoke about their previous homes.

And they preferred it that way.

After Hybern had fallen, Prythian entered a state of silence. The rebuilding didn’t start until a month ago and it was still considered the earlier stages of the aftermath. Things had been so surreal, but they had not won easily and the death toll was much larger than the one charted from the Mortal War centuries ago. He had not been born yet, but the stories told from both his eldest brother and his father made him glad of that small blessing.

The two worked in silence for a moment more until Valora grew bored and announced that she was returning to the Steepes for a few weeks.

Lucien frowned.

“I’m only going back to check in with my sister. She just gave birth shy of two months ago and I want to see her son, my nephew,” she explained.

Standing up, he grabbed the jacket he had discarded. “You don’t have to justify anything to me. If you want to return… there, then what is stopping you? Go check on your family, V. I won’t cause too much trouble in your absence.” He had been about to say home. If you want to return home.

And from the wariness drawing her usual lively face…

She snorted, albeit a bit forced. He offered a small smile.

Before he left the shop, Lucien placed his hand on hers and squeezed tight. Valora looked up, her molten eyes shinning, and curled her fingers around his. They didn't speak, because they didn’t have to. The relationship built between them was highly platonic, if not a bit familial in the sense that an older sister might have with her younger brother. From spending so much time in the presence of the other, sharing wounds and sympathies, they’d formed a friendship as strong as the one he’d seen Azriel and Cassian have.

He wondered if that was a common thing, or if it felt this way to him because he was unaware of how this bond should feel. He once thought he’d experienced it with Tamlin. Now he wasn’t sure he could ever rely on his emotions to guide him.

The rain had stopped some time before Lucien walked back up the path of the Sidra. But now night was prominent and thickly lapsing against the drowning sun behind the mountains.

He must have stayed longer than he’d thought, considering he’d left Elain in her garden around noon and now the sky was bleeding blue.

Stopping only to retrieve a cup of tea, Lucien continued his journey back to the house when he realized there was something missing. It hit him when he saw a boy perched against a fountain in the square, a heavy book in his lap. He’d promised Feyre to visit the library and check in with the women there. In the aftermath of the war, Rhysand vouched that at least one member from his Inner Circle, including himself and his High Lady, would go to see the Priestesses every day and inquire about their well-being. And with the High Lord off in the Hewn City, the High Lady visiting the Winter Court with Mor, and Cassian stationed somewhere in the Illyrian camps for the week….

The prospect of seeing where Azriel went (or rather, where he didn’t go since Lucien last saw him) was too painful to bear, and he’d sooner visit the Weaver than ask Amren for any favors….

With a little reluctance, he turned around and hurried towards the library.

Lucien knew that his trepidation to visit the women didn't stem from anything other than his own trauma. Now that he was slowly patching things together, he was more aware of himself than he’d ever been before. And recognizing that he was also a survivor of abuse and rape made visiting this specific building a thousand times more terrifying. He’d only offered to go once. Upon Mor asking him how his visit went, he just smiled around a cup of wine and replied that the women were all safe and at peace. He forgot to mention the three times he had thrown up his guts after rushing back outside and ducking into the nearest alleyway.

How could he face them and offer support when he didn’t know how to cope with himself?

Feyre… tried to help. She would speak with him every day, as if he were the Priestesses they all visited and coddled and soothed. She would hold his hand only when he let her and tell him that he had escaped, that nobody would hurt him, that he had the power to withstand anything and that he could live without only breathing as a means of life.

He didn't deserve it. Any of it.

So perhaps that was why he never told them about how hard it was for him to do this task. Even when he knew it offered him a small solace whenever his friend did it for him. But then again, he had always been a coward.

Light spilled in from the high windows—moonlight, meant to cleanse and illuminate. His silent footfalls dipped into each pool of light as his tall frame cast mountains against the rows of books and wooden shelves. The tea in his hand was now cold, and he cursed himself for not thinking to bring food with him. Maybe if he left to find some pastries…. that always made people seem happier….

Fuck it.

He needed to keep walking forward.

But the closer into the heart of the keep he got, the farther the noise and light reached. It was as if the library had been enclosed in a grave for years, with no light or living creatures to reside down here. And he wasn’t an idiot— he knew that for however quiet this place often was, tonight it seemed like that silence was a real thing. A creature that lurked in the abyss, perhaps taking a bed where Bryaxis once slept.

Lucien felt it then. The wrongness.

Discarding his cup and steadily reaching for the knife at his side, he walked along the carpeted path that spiraled downward. His breathing was rapid, his heartbeat nearly shrieking in his own ears. He didn’t say a word, knowing that would out his location if there really was a threat here. So instead he scanned the hollow place with whatever dregs of power he could conjure to his mind. Yet even doing so, he felt nothing but solid air and emptiness.

If something had happened to the Priestesses while he was meant to visit them…

He ran.

Clotho should have been at the front gate. His first giveaway that something was off. And then there was the lack of light, and the lack of sound. Perhaps they were sleeping, but all of them? At such an early hour? It was a fool’s hope.

He flew on swift feet, checking every corner and crevice for either the women or the thing that hid from his reach. For half a second, the thought of calling for help crossed his mind. He was already entering a panic that he knew wouldn't ease until he was back outside in the fresh, cold air. But he also knew he couldn't leave until he knew everyone was safe.

And that is precisely when it happened.

Lucien froze.

And whirled around to face the vibrant eyes of a naga-hound.

“Fuck me.”

It lunged, grey fangs dripping with gore, and it’s claws dug into his jacket faster than he could procure the blade at his side. They slammed to the floor with enough force to wake whatever else was resting in the library. Lucien snarled and thrust the creature off him, gripping his weapon and letting it sail straight for the hound’s head. The naga noticed it a moment too late, forcing the blade to slice off an ear rather than hit the central point of it’s head. It screamed, and the sound was like a dry tree snapping in half.

Lucien went for his second blade, the last one on his person, and waited for the beast to advance. If he discarded that weapon he would have to rely only on his magic, for his strength was nothing in comparison to the muscles on this Hybern bred creature. So he waited, and the thing didn’t disappoint.

But what Lucien had miscalculated was the silence. It had gotten too quiet again, right before the second attack, and then suddenly he was knocked from behind as a second naga-hound burst from the darkness and ripped into his throat like a pair of shears clipping clean into a rosebush.

He cried out, feeling warm blood leak from the fresh wound. It had hit a vital artery at the rate in which his life-force was now bleeding out of him. Lucien grew light headed, but growled back at the creatures and forced his knife into the nearest available aim. The beast went down instantly, taking with it an entire bookcase as it rocked the earth beneath it. The second one howled, bellowing it’s fury.

Lucien quickly glanced to the side, his chest rising and falling erratically, to see his knife wedged deep into the hound’s right eye. His stomach turned over and he had to choke back his own vomit. Not now, not now, not now, not now.

But those were tears in his good eye.

He shakily rose to his feet and backed up, never once wandering out of sight from his opponent. But when his shoulders hit a solid barrier he felt his hope completely vanish. Feeling behind him, where he knew was once open air, was now a magic wall concealing him and the creatures inside this sector of the library.

The Mother must be laughing herself hoarse.

The naga-hound crouched low, and Lucien braced himself. When it erupted off the ground, however, it wasn’t met with his blade or fist…. rather, the thing erupted into flames and hit the ground as it turned to ash. Its cries were choked off by the blast of power he felt coursing through his veins. That fast it was gone.

Lucien slumped back against the barrier and slid to the ground, staring at nothing.

He had summoned fire for the first time in decades. Not just any small kindle of light to create a candle, or heat a slab of meat, or warm a bedside. No, he had channeled a source of power only his brothers had seen him wield. And he’d wielded it with more force than he’d ever conjured before. It was almost like seeing Rhysand mist all those Hybern soldiers, yet instead of feeling awe and slight fear, he just felt… numb.

It was then, as his wounds ever so slowly stitched back together, drenched in his own blood with two naga-hounds trapped in the crevice of a dark library with him, that he sensed someone winnow behind him. And for whatever strength he had left, he couldn't find it in himself to turn around and face whoever it was.

But he didn't have to.

The barrier he’d been leaning against was gone, but it took him longer to realize that it had vanished before the other person entered the hall. Yet, from the sharp intake of breath, it would seem like they had been present to watch it vanish. To see what power Lucien always knew he had, but never fully acknowledged for fear of learning something that would likely be used against him.

For it was Day power that also mixed with the fire of Autumn in his blood.

The scent of figs and warm tree bark replaced the reek of the decaying naga hound as Helion Spell-Cleaver stepped in front of him and stared at Lucien with unreadable eyes.

The bolt of white fabric carefully decorating his powerful body was still resplendent in the darkness, an inner light illuminating from within. The golden serpent coiled around his bicep stood out starkly against his skin, and the crown of glowing spikes atop is head appeared like the elongated shadows Lucien had casted upon entering the sanctuary.

Powerful, with lazy grace, and wrath hidden beneath those amber eyes. And yet, when he looked at Lucien, there was something offsetting his usual carelessness. The way his eyes widened, his muscles strained… indeed, Lucien was quite the sight to behold at the moment.

Lucien waited for what was to come.

But the High Lord of Day just stared and stared at him.

So the Autumn Fae swallowed thickly and made to stand up, feeling the blood drain from his head and out the open gash in his neck. A second passed where there was nothing but blinding light painting his view. And then Helion crashed to his knees before him and reached for his shoulders, drawing him towards that source of eternal warmth and brightness.

“Lucien,” he whispered, his voice shaking.

Lucien didn't respond, the loss of so much blood finally taking a toll on him. But the wounds closed together, stitching shut until his flesh was smooth and unmarred save for a small scar at the base of his collar bone. Blinking back spots from his vision, Lucien noticed the gore that covered him, drying to his golden skin, and the fingers that were trembling as they touched where the gash had once been. Following the hand to its owner, he froze and stared up at amber eyes, a shade like burning leaves…

“Thank you, High Lord.”

Helion began shaking his head, clutching Lucien harder. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound cam out. Lucien didn't think the High Lord had ever been speechless in his life.

Those trembling fingers straightened and the hold on Lucien lightened as Helion helped Lucien to his feet, still keeping an arm around him in fear that the other might fall down again even though there was no longer a scratch on his body. The High Lord, somewhat unknowingly healed all wounds from Lucien, including the paper cut on his index finger from that morning. Why there was such strength behind that healing he did not know. Didn’t even think the High Lord knew, especially since it was Thesan who excelled at such powers.

“Are you hurt? Does anything still pain you?”

They were calm questions but they did nothing to hide the severity behind those words.

So Lucien slowly shook his head. “I am fine.” Even though he felt anything but. Even though being in this place made him want to curl in on himself like an animal in winter.

Something like devastation crossed Helion’s face, but it was gone a moment later.

Carefully, as if weighing each word, the High Lord asked, “How were you able to bring down that wall?”

The fear came back full force, causing him to look anywhere but those burning amber eyes. Thankfully he was saved from answering as Rhysand and an unknown Darkbringer, by the look of the warrior’s armor, winnowed before them. The High Lord of Night focused on the scene in front of him and his jaw tightened. There was a silent communication between him and his warrior before the Darkbringer nodded and drew his blade, walking down the corridor to their left to find more possible enemies lurking in the dark.

“It would seem that I missed a party.”

Lucien was going to strangle him, but from the unimpressed look on Helion’s face he might have to beat him to it. “There were two naga-hounds prowling about your court, Rhysand. This is hardly the time.”

Rhys’s eyes darkened as he looked upon the ashes and the broken bones of the creatures behind them, and he addressed Lucien as he said, “I was in a meeting with Kier regarding the boundary lines of the courts when I felt one of the Priestesses press the emergency bell. I brought a few of the Darkbringers with me in case the threat was more than I anticipated, but it would seem that Helion also decided to come offer aid. He and Tarquin were at the meeting as well, but Tarquin had already departed when I felt the pull to the library.”

It explained why Helion was also here, but now why he was acting this way around Lucien.

Rhysand seemed to glean something else occurring and wisely kept his mouth shut save for informing them that the women were all safe and had been hiding from the creatures until Lucien arrived and was trapped with them. That was the moment Clotho rung the bell.

The relief was instantaneous and he nearly sagged against the male holding him upright, but kept his eyes on the wall ahead, where the exit to the building resided. Rhysand murmured something he missed and Helion narrowed his eyes, but nodded. Then Rhys was gone. And Helion turned back to face Lucien.

Slowly, he let him stand on his own. As if he were a newborn deer and had to be monitored. Lucien felt a growl build in the back of his throat. “I can stand on my own without you hovering.”

The High Lord of Day ignored him and raised a hand to gently touch the scar that marred Lucien’s face. Lucien flinched, staring at that hand like it ended in claws, and Helion felt bile rise to his throat alongside the rage that entered his heart. “What have they done to you,” he rasped.

As he took in the familiar copper eyes, a shade or two darker than his own, and the skin a tad darker than the rest of his brothers, and the straight nose, the crooked smile, the scent of bonfires and cinnamon and… earthly sunlight…

Helion Spell-Cleaver felt tears slide out the corner of his eyes. His warm hands rested softly on Lucien’s shoulders—Lucien, who had noticed all these revelations and began to piece things together in his mind— and he felt his heart stutter in its cage.

“All this time… you were here all this time. In my own home… in my court when you were sent as emissary… under the— by the mother, Lucien.”

Lucien was shaking, his hands slackening at his sides as he came to the same conclusion that was always so glaringly obvious but that he was terrified to admit for fear of being resented or hunted or used…  

“My son,” Helion gasped, gripping him tightly, “my own blood and I did not know you were right in front of me. Always there, always—,” he slammed his eyes shut and bowed his head. Lucien lightly let his own head fall against his fathers, his true father, and softly let all the trappings and masks fall away as he cried. Helion’s arms were suddenly there, circled around him as he held onto his son for the first time. He held him as he would have the day he were born, with a hand resting on his fiery head, the other against his back. “I will never let anything happen to you again. Please, please forgive me for not being able to stop it. What you have went through, what you had to endure…. know that I will live out the rest of my existence with that weight on my shoulders.”

“…Father,” Lucien said quietly, hesitantly, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Helion drew back to stare at his son and felt his heart break all over again, like the day Lucien’s mother was taken from him back to that creature Beron in the Autumn Court. One day, he’d make blood rain down like falling leaves. He swore that upon the Cauldron.

“Does…. does your mother,” he couldn't even ask. The possible answers to his unasked inquiry too damning to hear. But Lucien gathered enough of what he was trying to say, and he paled.

“I’m not sure.” It was all he could offer as well.

The High Lord nodded hurriedly, knowing that he needed to find her as soon as he left this court. But for now… for now, he needed to be with his son. And his son needed to know what a home truly felt like, if he’d have him.

“Come back with me. Live in the Day Court. Be my heir, or my emissary, or even a mere Lordling— I don’t mind. But Lucien, please, I don’t think I could bear not being near you now that I know who you truly are. I might be a millennia old, but my heart still wavers for certain things. You and your mother above all else.”

To leave Night, he would be leaving behind all that which he had worked so hard to create here. Feyre would want him to go, to experience this, and he was positive Nesta and Amren wouldn’t give much of a damn. The Illyrians he had taken a liking to, especially his friend Valora… but if she could return to the camps and find happiness, then so could he.

The thought of leaving his mate was unbearable. But the thought of not going with his father to the Day Court…

Elain was not ready for him. So he’d wait for her, no matter how long that took. If it were a month, a year, or the rest of eternity— he would wait. And if she found love with another, if someone made her as happy and free as she needed to be, then he would fight every instinct in him and let her go. But this…

This he could not walk away from.

So Lucien smiled at his father, a real smile that garnered his title as Lord of Foxes, and Helion shone so bright the whole of Velaris must have wondered if Bryaxis returned to its home with the sun in its mouth.

Together, they winnowed to the Day Court.

Later on, Feyre would wink at her mate and Rhysand would smile back.

Somewhere in Prythian, a women stopped staring out her chamber windows, rose to her full height, and grabbed her cloak. Then she walked right out the palace doors, starting a long journey North. In her dreams, a fox encounter a male with wings. In her dreams, the fire slept long enough for her to leave its embrace. In her waking plight, she went in pursuit of her son.

[flauntpage]

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art

Interview and visual essay by Lise McKean

Melissa Hilliard Potter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and co-founder of the Papermaker’s Garden at Columbia College in Chicago, where she is an associate professor of Art and Art History. We began our conversation in the Papermaker’s Garden on a late afternoon in June, just after a sudden shower made the soil fragrant.

Mel Potter in the Papermaker’s Garden at 620 S. Wabash in Chicago

Lise: Since we’re starting out in the Papermaker’s Garden, let’s begin with hearing about what you are growing this year in your raised bed garden here in the Loop?

Mel: I’m focusing on a perennial bed dedicated to the idea of pleasure for women. Last year’s Papermaker Garden included the Roe v. Wade and Bosnian Magic beds. After much focus on women’s biology, I decided that the most feminist investigation I could do this year would be to investigate pleasure.

The plants I’ve selected are for pleasing the nose and eyes—and for psychotropic recreation. For example, I’m growing absinthe and burdock in my Plants of Pleasure bed. My partner in the Papermaker’s Garden, Maggie Puckett, has a bed for growing plants she discovered while investigating witches, some of whom were her ancestors. She calls it Witchcraft and Colonial Warfare.

Poster for 2017 Plants of Pleasure Garden

Lise: I’m curious about the psychotropic plants—what brings them to your garden?

Mel: I’ve been doing research on women shamans because a lot of the psychotropic vision work in traditional societies is very male-centric. I’m interested in the intersection of psychotropic recreation, visionary quests and experiences, and consciousness-raising. I’m going to explore how these plants can be turned into psychotropic materials. I’m also looking at some of them for their calming and anti-anxiety effects. Some of these plants can be recreational as well.

Lise: Being around plants is intensely sensual, engaging our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and even hearing. Culture shapes the experience and use of plants, too. How do the plants in the Papermaker’s Garden mesh with your work as an artist?

Mel: All my work is about female culture. It ranges from contemporary feminist practice to female ethnobotanical and intangible heritage, which is made up of traditional craft practices. I explore how these are distinct languages and forms of communication and history-making. They parallel recorded history, but are completely different ways to interpret the world. I’m always on a quest to search for practices with the potential to reveal something that could be transformative. We’re unaware of them because they’re not included in dominant narratives.

The craft practices I explore range from bio-culinary traditions and handmade felt rugs to women’s tattoo cults and hand papermaking. These are tremendously under-recorded practices that reveal fascinating narratives.

2015 Food, Sex, and Death dinner party in the Papermaker’s Garden celebrating the Hull House Wage Worker research on brothels located at garden’s site at the turn of the 20th Century

Lise: Mention of tattoo cults appear here and there in ethnography. Tell me more about the one that interests you and how you came across it.

Mel: When I was in the Republic of Georgia I saw a pagan ritual taking place on the street that I identified as similar to a film I had done in South Serbia. My colleague Clifton Meador bought the book, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan in preparation for our work in Georgia. I wrote to Robert Chenciner, one of the book’s authors, asking him whether the designs I saw in the pagan ritual were the same as those in the women’s tattoo cult in the same region. He wrote back a long email and so began our friendship.

Women use similar symbols from the “book of life” for her children, her parents, her illnesses. It’s an old tradition. There are still many tattoo practices. All the symbols come down to a few basic things. Don’t mess with my crops. Don’t mess with my family. Protect me from evil and the evil eye. A lot of the designs are plant based and burdock is one of them. Some ethnobotanical designs are used over and over. A traditional woman has repertoire of images. Through color and image she can tell a specific story, just as a rug can tell a story about its family.

Ethnographer Robert Chenciner holding a rare hand-felted rug from Daghestan

Lise: These tattoo cults give women a way to record on their own bodies events in their lives that are important to them. Tattooed Mountain Women must be fascinating. Traveling back to your garden here in downtown Chicago, what happens to all the plants at the end of the growing season?

Mel: We’ve learned that a perennial garden is a year-round phenomenon. We let some of the plants go to seed because it’s good for pollinator bugs. Many of the crops are cut and cooked and made into paper to use for artwork. During the winter months, I work on making the paper at the Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Lise: How do you run the garden as a collaborative project?

Mel: We invite people as guest gardeners and community guests. The South Loop Alliance has a bed with us. We invite graduate students at Columbia. We help out each other with watering, weeding, and events here at the garden. Running a ten-bed garden would be impossible without a group of collaborators. My project with Maggie Puckett, Seeds InService is the garden’s other main project.

Flax handmade paper laminates, pulp painting, and electroluminescent (EL) wire embeds by Melissa Potter

Lise: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist. Did you start out that way?

Mel: I’m the director of the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program at Columbia. Interdisciplinarity is naturally collaborative. My personal interdisciplinary practice is ethnographic. I don’t consider myself a botanical expert.

I started in print and paper because it’s a family legacy. My grandmother was a printer and painter. My aunt was a letter press printer. My mother is a quilter, knitter, and crafter. It started there. My high school yearbook said I wanted go into anthropology. Everything I’ve done since then goes into that direction.

Lise: As an anthropologist, I’ve known some who knew from childhood that’s what they wanted to do. Where did your interest come from at such a young age?

Mel: My grandmother, aunt, and I aunt studied a lot of pre-Christian goddess cults. Women scholars were starting to write female-centered ethnography. My grandmother and I went to Crete and drew at goddess sites. She called her journal, “Melissa, the Minoans, and Me.”

Lise: How did you find your way to merging art and ethnography? Were you doing that in art school, or did it come later?

Mel: I have to credit Columbia primarily. After finishing grad school, I spent 12 years in New York City leading a traditional art life showing in alternative galleries and collaborative spaces. When Columbia hired me in the Interdisciplinary program, I was given free rein to explore curatorially, artistically, and critically the interdisciplinary space. It’s a distinctive program. It’s no accident that my strongest work comes out of my time here when I was institutionally supported to do these off the grid things like tattoo cults and paper cultures. I’ve been here now for 10 years.

Lise: From the wide world of peoples and cultures, where did your interest in Bosnia and Serbia come from? Is that your ethnic background?

Mel: My grandmother and I sponsored a Bosnian refugee in the 1990s. She was in Croatia as a refugee. Her village was ethnically cleansed and then the Serbian militia turned it into a rape camp. I was reunited with her in 2015. By then I had spent 20 years exploring the arts, culture, and ethnography of the larger Balkan region. I didn’t work in Bosnia until recently.

Poster for the 2016 Bosnian Magic Garden, dedicated to Potter’s grandmother and Zejna. View is from Zejna’s front window.

Lise: That’s an intense commitment.

Mel: It was obsessively captivating to me. I used to go two or three times a year. I’ve been there 35 times, staying up to six months at a time.

Lise: I haven’t yet had a chance to see your film, Like Other Girls Do. Congratulations on all the attention it’s been getting since it came out in 2015. You’ve told me it grew out of your interest in the custom of sworn virgins in Montenegro and Albania.

Mel: The film is a collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. It’s 30 minutes and explores another female-centric traditional cultural practice. When there are no boys born in a family, a girl is raised as a boy to inherit the father’s property. I interviewed Stana Cerovic, the self-proclaimed last sworn virgin of Montenegro. I was exploring Stana’s legacy. She died in October 2016. The film also includes my interviews with five women in the Balkans under the age of 40, and their thoughts about personal identity and gender expression.

I’m working on a second part of the project about how to create a legacy in an environment that doesn’t record us. Stana isn’t in her family tree, even though she made the sacrifice to be a boy. In all likelihood, she was not buried as a man even though she wanted to (I am waiting for confirmation from my ethnographer colleagues in the region). I find it heart breaking that they’re not only forgotten, but if they’re remembered, it’s falsified. There’s no reward for the sacrifice.

  Lise: What does the role of virginity play in this tradition?

Mel: They’re called sworn virgins because they take an oath of virginity. They don’t marry. They usually live with their families or alone. They can’t have a heteronormative relationship.

Lise: How does the film contextualize this tradition within contemporary culture?

Mel:  Like Other Girls Do is about Stana’s village and about death. The story shows her visit to the cemetery where her family members are buried and explores the issue of how she will be remembered. I asked a graffiti artist to make a tag for Stana. The film ends with her making Stana’s tag on the streets of Belgrade. I wanted the women I interviewed to connect with Stana in a two-way conversation.

Stana Cerovic with photograph of herself dressed as a man. Photo by Melissa Potter

Lise: Did they make the connection? What happened between the women?

Mel: I think they reflected on Stana’s story. They asked themselves about their own willingness to engage in traditional Balkan society and the sacrifices they’re already making. I included the queer narrative—and the way society restricts full development of an identity. This was true for Stana and the five women. The queer activist was the most liberated in some ways. To live as a queer-identified person in the Balkans is a radical act of self-assertion.

Lise: The film has been widely screened. What are some highlights of its travels over the past couple years?

Mel: It’s had a nice life. Last year it was shown in Paris at Cineffable, the world’s largest feminist film festival. It’s also traveled to around the U.S. and the Balkans and to Denmark, India, China and Slovenia. It’s been featured in some exhibitions too, including Becoming Male, a show featuring artists like Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin at Albright College.

Making a film is a huge project. I loved every minute. My collaborator was Saša Sreckovic at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. My editor, Jelena Jovcic is my better half. Editors don’t get the credit they deserve. Composer Aleksandra Dokic created the music for the film.

Lise: We’ve talked about your work as an interdisciplinary artist in terms of ethnography and ethnobotany, paper making and film making. What else are you working on?

Mel: I pray it’s not going to be another film. I’m going do something on my grandmother and Zejna, the Bosnian woman refugee. I recently obtained my grandmother’s O.S.S. file. The O.S.S. was the US office of intelligence during World War II. She was an O.S.S. operative. I’m curious to see where that goes. I met with Zejna twice. I started a four-part narrative, with my grandmother, Zejna, myself, and a fictional version of Zejna’s daughter. It will be a study of women and war and how women experience war in a gendered and particular way.

Lise: Am I hearing that you have another film on your hands?

Mel: Do you want to take me and shoot me right now! I’ve been doing some prints of my grandmother and Zejna and writing annotations. I’m building a visual archive. It probably has to be a film. It could be a book. I like working in film, but it’s a hard medium. I’m not wealthy enough to play in it. If you don’t have money, you have to wait for it.

Equal Pay 4 Equal Work, designed by Melissa Potter in handmade felt

Top 5 Weekend Picks (12/9-12/11)

Forest for the Trees

Episode 172: John Jennings and Damian Duffy

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (5/31-6/2)

The Glitch is the Thing

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[presidentsclubkrp]

Our crime tale begins with KANG TAEYOUNG, a FORTHY-FOUR year old member of THE PRESIDENT’S CLUB. HE works as their MONEY MAN, but he’s better known as the infamous SMOKE. JOIN THE HEIST?

PART ONE; the basics

Name: kang, taeyoung

Alias: n/a

Code name: smoke

Faceclaim: jung woosung

Gender/Pronouns: male, he/him/his

Date of Birth: january 2nd, 1976

Age: 44

Hometown: pyeongtaek, republic of korea

Occupation: senior border control officer, port of incheon

Canon: the money man

PART TWO; about

Biography (trigger warnings: none)

i.

kang taeyoung was born into a typical nuclear household in a working-class neighborhood. his father was a fisherman, his mother a seller at the seafood market. although the man was often gone from home for weeks on end, he always made up for his absence with quality time in between intervals, and while the woman was very affectionate, she wasn’t so weak-willed as to give into overindulgence. there might’ve occasionally been a few errors in their shared approach to child-rearing, but nothing to warrant the development of a warped outlook. they surrounded the boy with enough necessary requisites to become a benign, law-abiding citizen like they were. unfortunately for them, his was a case where nature prevailed against nurture, and he was inherently resistant to the values and beliefs they were trying to impart.

growing up in modest circumstances as dictated by his parents’ fluctuating income streams, he was told be content with whatever means within which they were living. however, at a young age, kang taeyoung was already fascinated with the affluent lifestyle portrayed in mainstream media, designed to either offer escapism or stimulate consumerism, mostly imported from foreign countries. the wealth itself was one thing, the gap between his own and the televised quasi-reality another. in a sense, he was inspired, and since nobody wouldn’t wish to improve their living standards, being ambitious shouldn’t be a problem. except that his motives were ill-directed: the way he saw it, in a world overrun with nobodies, to be recognized with riches was to have his status elevated above the masses. he wanted to be admired – envied.

ii.

kang taeyoung wasn’t among the hardest-working students in his school, yet he certainly was the most fashionable. he placed a heavy emphasis on appearance because it was the foremost basis upon which judgments would be formed, so there was always something either on or with him to widen the kids’ eyes and pique the adults’ curiosity as he walked by - whether it was his clothes, his accessories, his toys or his bicycles. upgrades happened one at a time, often enough to maintain and dial up the interest level, though not as much as he would’ve liked. he never went around bragging to his peers when he got a new item, simply vaguely implying its expensiveness once they brought it up with timid awe. it was a dignified satisfaction to have people speculative about the possible disparity in worth between one’s and their possessions.

the question wasn’t about how he managed to get his hands on authentic goods, but how he almost constantly managed to outdo himself. some neighbors came with accusations of excessive lenience and offers of management tips, only to give his parents a chance to express how proud they were to have such a mature son who understood the family’s hardships and ran errands even beyond town to cover his own expenditures, blissfully ignorant of the actual nature of his activities. truth be told, kang taeyoung was generating money from helping his uncle cheat at illegal gambling games and exploiting strangers’ compassion. the former executed via sitting in a corner and spying on the opponents’ cards, then reporting back through specific gestures. the latter, with antics like slip-and-fall accidents. he started all this at the age of seven.

iii.

as political stabilization and economic prosperity increased the volume of movement through their town, the fisherman sold his boat and invested the family savings into operating a convenience store with the help of his son. at the time, kang taeyoung could no longer tag along to his uncle’s cards games under the pretense of needing babysitting, and while he was seeking a replacement source, embezzling from the shop’s register didn’t cross his mind. until he witnessed how much of a pushover his father was now that the man was landbound. every deadbeat in the neighborhood owed him money, anyone who came in with a sob story got to leave with a free product. attempted intervention simply resulted in lengthy lectures on cynicism, so the boy thought, this was better off being wasted on his personal gratifications instead.

meanwhile, his portfolio of shenanigans was steadily expanding, so he recruited a distant cousin for assistance. sparing the vulnerable and focusing on non-locals due to the unlikelihood of unexpected re-encounters, their usual scenarios revolved around trading dropped wallets, fake watches, prized antiques, etc. for cash; with complex schemes like spanish prisoner and black money occurring periodically as his youth undermined the plausibility and his older yet less quick-witty partner had to be thoroughly prepped. a key to their successes was to convince the victims what they were doing were shady, because people loved the idea of beating the system and their voluntary agreement later prevented them from contacting the cops once they realized they were cheated. in high school, the duo began running an illicit id forgery business.

iv.

the store went bankrupt around his high school graduation. the total amount of his embezzlement stood at fourteen millions won, and although it posed an equal contribution to the business failure, he showed no remorse, pinning the blame entirely on his father’s misplaced generosity. seven months later, the man passed away, no one wept harder - or moved on faster, than he did. at this point, the town was reduced to a bacterium, he was far beyond its bitter jealousy of his rather inexplicable capacity for unrestrained spending. it was high time he stepped into the real world, and the pressing question on his mind was about how to sustain the desired perception of his status on a grander scale. never did kang taeyoung intend to become a full-blown con artist, which wouldn’t generate enough to cover what he was striving towards anyways.

he wanted awe without strings attached because idolization would bring social responsibilities and public scrutiny, seeking to garner prestigious possessions to remind the nobodies how miserable they were with their mundane cycles and demonstrate to the somebodies he was a force to be reckoned. the international trade sector seemed like an optimal place for the collection of significant amounts of money at fast paces : not all imports / exports were authorized, and officials carried within them various degrees of guiltiness, i.e. acceptance of bribes in exchange for feigned oblivion or misappropriation of confiscated goods for resales on the black markets. the best way to evade the laws was to understand the loopholes from the inside, hence kang taeyoung’s decision to enroll in a criminal justice degree with a major in homeland security.

v.

there kang taeyoung was, the go-to handler for smugglers and customs-cheaters, as well as the number-one black-market dealer for illicit goods in the entire gyeonggi province. armed with a silver tongue and a handsome visage, he had all the right tricks up his sleeve to leverage his bargaining powers over the opposite parties. he sold the benefits not the features, he applied time pressure to discourage critical thinking, he adapted his dress codes to facilitate cultural compliance, and he cited social evidence to drive the deals down the desired paths. his credence was further guaranteed by a national crime syndicate, headed by none other than his distant cousin. despite his extensive ties and his proclaimed preference for no-one to lose if everyone could win, he never let himself be part of anyone else’s crusade, only pursuing his own self-interests.

can trust nobody when you strike it rich was the motto he lived by, but people blinded by love forsook their strictest principles for the mistaken beliefs that their significant others were worth the exceptions. for the longest time, kang taeyoung was involved with the owner of a popular hostess club. so utterly infatuated, he didn’t think thrice when she asked him to co-sign for a loan of five-hundred millions won. the femme fatale then proceeded to vanish, and his attempts to track her movements through card usages and cellphone signals were to no avail. with the loan shark breathing down his neck and the mob blocking his exit out the country in order to avoid a strife with the former’s enforcers, the opportunity to extricate himself from this parlous situation presented itself in the form of an invitation to join the president’s club.

[ncmagroup]

By Maggie Aland

  Event planning has a lot of moving parts, and you need to know when different tasks need to be completed by in order to keep everything on schedule. Trust me, I know how quickly things can become unmanageable, which is why I created this checklist based off of my experience in planning events.

Follow along with our event planning checklist here as I go through and explain each item on the list. If you plan ahead, you’ll be able to reduce the stress of planning your event and ensure it’s a success.

Did you know you can advertise locally via Bing? Click here to advertise your event to a targeted audience and boost event signups & attendance.

Note: The amount of time needed to plan an event is based on my experience planning a luncheon for 300 people. However, this can vary based on the size and type of event.

6 Months Before: Big Picture Planning

Determine Your Budget

The first thing you should do after you decide to hold an event determines your budget. Things can get expensive quickly, so keep a spreadsheet of all costs so you know when you’ve reached your spending limit.

For any business event, you will most likely need the following things:

Venue

Food and beverages

Entertainment and speakers

Marketing

Insurance (to cover A/V equipment and event workers)

Consider budgeting for the items below if you want to delegate tasks or have money to spend on added features:

Production company (ensures everything runs smoothly the day of the event)

A/V Equipment

Photographer

Alcohol

Decorations (balloons, pipe, and draping, flowers)

Miscellaneous items (promotional items, signs, badges)

These costs vary greatly depending on the type and size of your event. If you want to hire celebrity entertainment or have a three-course meal, you can expect to pay much more. However, you can decrease costs by finding entertainment that’s willing to perform for free or little cost. My event was an awards ceremony and we did not have to spend money on speakers since the award recipients were the ones who gave speeches.

You can also decrease costs by only serving coffee, tea, and bagels (or beverages and hors-d’oeuvres) over a full sit down meal. Consider having one of your staff members bartend at no additional cost. However, sometimes a venue will require you to use their staff for the event, such as their bartender if you want to have alcohol at your event.

You might want to find a venue that has amenities, such as tables, chairs, tablecloths, and wifi included in the price. This could decrease cost and make things easier for you if everything is included and you don’t have to worry about transportation of these items.

Have Concrete Goals and Objectives

The next important step is to determine your goals and objectives.

You need to decide what you want your business, your attendees, and your sponsors/partners to get out of the event.

For example, I used to work for Association TRENDS, a magazine that’s geared towards non-profit and association executives (such as the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers or the CFO of NPR). Since traditional print media is declining, we decided to try an event in order to diversify our revenue sources. Here are the goals we came up with:

Build our brand as the authority on association news and trends in the association space

Create an enjoyable atmosphere for our audience to network and form business relationships

Get sponsors that we can connect with high-quality leads

Now that we know what we want to get out of the event, we can get more specific about our audience.

Decide on Your Target Audience

You may think your target audience is as simple as whoever wants to come to the event. However, it could be in your best interest to have a more exclusive event. This is because you want to keep your attendees and potential sponsors happy.

Look back at your goals to help you decide who the audience for your event should be. For example, when I was planning the event at my previous company, we wanted association executives to attend the event because we wanted to build our brand among this group. We also thought this group would enjoy networking and building business relationships with each other and therefore get more out of attending the event. Finally, we knew that this group would attract the sponsors that we wanted to target.

We did not invite people working at corporations because we only wanted corporations to attend if they were paying thousands to sponsor the event.

Choose an Event Type

Once you have your budget, goals, and audience, it’s time to think about the type of event you want. Is your event going to be educational? Then you probably don’t want to do anything outside of work hours. Do you want to do something celebratory? Consider a cocktail hour or a lunch event.

Choosing the right time and date is critical to your event’s success. Think about your target audience and what their typical schedule looks like.

Possible events include:

Seminars

Trade shows

Golf events

Networking events

Product launches

Award ceremonies

Deciding which one is right for your needs really depends on what you want to get out of the event.

4-6 Months Before Logistics

Pick a Venue

Once you know the type of event you want to hold, it’s time to choose your venue.

“When choosing a venue for your event you should first consider what type of event you are hosting and create a list of needs your venue should meet. In a metropolitan location such as DC, venues that are metro accessible are ideal for great attendee turnout. To lower your rental charges, seek out a venue that comes with amenities such as tables, chairs, free WiFi, and lighting packages included in the rental fee.

Lastly, seek out venues that give guests a different feel. Hotels are great, but there are plenty of special event venues that break up what attendees are accustomed to. The look, feel, and experience your guests receive from a perfectly chosen venue will leave them waiting for the next event and new hot location.” -Kimberly Blackburn, Eastern Foundry

Here are some alternatives to hotels that will make more of an impact with your guests:

Art gallery

Boat cruise

Science museum

Zoo or amusement park

If you’re looking for a venue that won’t break the bank, try one of the following:

Office space

Park/ outdoor space

Restaurant

Before landing on a venue, you will want to get cost estimates from a few different spots. Then you can compare pricing and determine a fair price. You can almost always negotiate, so don’t accept the first price the venue comes back with.

When negotiating prices with vendors, Brian Kelly & Sean Koski from Ticket2Events share the following tip:

Hit vendors with a price that is 20% lower than the budget you set aside for this product. Typically your vendor will come back with a yes or no. If yes, the price is right under budget anyway. If no, you have some room to negotiate.

If you have already received a pricing proposal from a vendor, we suggest telling the vendor that there is a budget you neglected to mention, and you really want to stay within that range. If the vendor doesn’t want to adjust their price, we suggest moving on to a new vendor but keeping the proposal the old vendor has. We suggest “shopping around” and keeping all proposals on file.

It also doesn’t hurt to let the vendor know that if a negotiation can happen for this event, you’ll be more ready to re-use them and deliver repeat business!

Choose a Date and Time

The date of your event is largely dependent on when your venue has availability, so try to keep an open mind about the date. However, take these things into account before you commit:

Make sure there are no competing events

You don’t want your guests to have to choose between your event and a similar event in your industry. When planning our event for association professionals, we made sure it was nowhere near the annual event that draws thousands of association executives every year.

Check the date with people involved

If you’re working with partners or sponsors, make sure to clear the date with them. You also need to make sure that everyone staffing the event has an open schedule that day.

Choose a time that works for your type of event and your audience

If you are holding an educational event, you want to have it earlier in the day when people are more focused. If it’s a celebratory event with an audience that works full time, hold something in the evening.

For our event, we decided to do an awards ceremony during lunch on a Friday. Association executives are typically middle-aged men and women. We decided to do the event during work hours since most have families they need to get back to after work. We wanted the event to be fun, so we chose a Friday when people are typically in better moods than at the beginning of the week.

Have a Back-Up Plan

Unfortunately, since there are so many variables when planning an event, it’s possible that everything will not go your way. If you do have to switch to plan B or plan C, “remember that no one attending your event actually knows how it was ‘supposed’ to be or how your high expectations are/were, so don’t stress,” advises Blaine Ashley of NYC Champagne Week.

Also be prepared for the worst case scenario, having to cancel the event.

Should the unexpected happen and you must pull the plug, be it due to weather, low RSVPs, or other contingency, you have to know how to handle it, and quickly. David Jacobson, the founder of TrivWorks, recommends following the three steps to ensure canceling doesn’t result in angry customers and/or negative online reviews:

Tell invitees immediately – use any and all means at your disposal: phone, email, text, publish an alert on your website/social platforms.

Hang up signage – people who decide to come at the last minute don’t want to arrive to an empty venue with no notices as to why the event isn’t happening.

Reschedule quickly – preferably for a similar time/day of the week as the originally scheduled date, so as to minimize conflicts for attendees.

Create a Website/Landing Page and Marketing Plan

Once you have your venue, date, and time nailed down, you want to create your event website as soon as possible. It’s easy and cheap to make a website, and we have a guide that walks you through how to set everything up for $3.45 or less per month.

The website is important because it is where people can go to learn more about your event and register if they are interested. Depending on the size and scope of your event, you can create a dedicated website for it, or just make a landing page on your existing website.

If you want people to be able to find your event organically through Google search, it’s a good idea to create a website with a domain name that is dedicated to the event (ex: http://www.yourevent.com). You can check the availability of your domain name in the domain search tool below:

You will want to include the following elements on the page:

Benefits of attending the event

Speakers/entertainment with pictures and bios

Schedule of events

How to register and cost to attend (if applicable)

Sponsor logos

It’s also time to create your marketing plan. This is an important step to make sure you stay on track since marketing is key to getting people to attend your event. View our guide on event marketing ideas the pros use to get tips for the best ways to market an event.

Get Speakers/Entertainment and Lock Down Sponsors/Partners

Whether you are looking for informative speakers to educate your audience, or you want performers to entertain, you need to confirm this well before the date of your event. Having the right speaker or entertainment selection can make or break your event. If your attendees don’t enjoy your event, it won’t look good for your business, and it will make it harder to get them to come back next year.

Getting sponsors can help you defray some of the costs of your event. If you want to have sponsors or partners for your event, get them to commit well before the event date. Set a deadline so they have an incentive to confirm by a certain time. You need to know how much money will be coming in from them so you know how much you can afford to spend.

2-4 Months Ahead: Get People Excited

Create Buzz Around your Event

Now that you have the logistics worked out, it’s time to get people talking about your event. Here are a few ideas:

Send press releases about your event

A press release is a great way to get media attention for your event, but make sure to focus the release on something interesting. For example, when I worked to plan an awards ceremony, we sent out a press release when the winners were announced. This works great because the person receiving the award probably has a large network that will want to share the news. View our press release template, examples, and distribution tips to learn more.

Promote your event on Facebook

You can create a page for your event for free on Facebook. Then, you can pay as little as $5/day to promote the page to the exact demographic that you want to attend the event. For example, if you’re hosting a networking event for women in business, you can show your ad only to women ages 25-45 in your area who are interested in business. View our guide on Facebook advertising to learn more.

Create teaser videos

A fun way to get people excited about your event is to promote a clip of your speakers or record the CEO of your business speaking about why you are holding the event. Videos tend to get more attention than pictures or text, so by posting videos on your social media sites, you are more likely to engage people.

Meet with All Third Party Vendors

Since so many people are involved with the planning of the event, it is vital that everyone is on the same page. By meeting with all of the event vendors months before the date of the event, you can rest easy knowing that everyone knows what their responsibilities are. This will lower the chance of confusion when the event day arrives.

Finalize Design of Event Signs and Program

You want your event to have a cohesive look when it comes to all signs and printed materials. You may even want to create a separate logo specifically for the event, especially if it’s one you want to hold multiple years in a row. If you don’t have a design team in-house, you can hire someone on Fiverr to do this for you for as little as $5.

If you have sponsors, you will want to ask each of them for high-resolution logos to include on all marketing materials for the event.

Order Promotional Items to Leave a Lasting Impression.

Giving away gift bags at an event with promotional items is a great way to keep your business top of mind even after the event is over. Ask your sponsors if they would like to include a small gift as well. Chances are, they will jump at the chance to give away swag to their target audience.

Here’s a list of some good promotional item ideas with longevity:

Blankets

Portable phone charger

Coffee mugs/ water bottles

You can also do a themed gift that relates to your event:

Fun in the sun kit (sunscreen, sunglasses, koozie)

Stress-free (stress ball, scented candle, eye mask)

Many companies are tempted to give away marketing brochures about their business. However, no one wants a gift bag full of paper, and chances are only a small percentage will actually read it.

Jamie Herring, Association TRENDS, said, “Last year at my event, one of the sponsors brought selfie sticks. The event was full of high-level association executives and they loved them! We took it a step farther by creating posters that encouraged people to upload their selfie on Twitter with the event’s hashtag.”

Hand out a fun promotional item such as a selfie stick to get people involved

The Week Before: Final Countdown

Have All Signs/Pamphlets/Brochures Printed

By now, registrations should have given you a good idea of the final number of attendees that will be at your event so you can have your signs/pamphlets/brochures printed. The pamphlet or brochure should include sponsor logos and a schedule of events, and you can possibly sell advertising space within the pamphlet or brochure to increase revenue. View our in-depth guide to brochure printing, price, and design to learn more.

For any event, you will definitely need plenty of signs advertising your event at the venue. It will be frustrating for your guests if they show up at the hotel when the event is supposed to be, and they don’t know where to go, or once they get to your event, don’t know if they’re at the right place. You can order these signs at your local FedEx, and turnaround time is really quick (typically same day).

Ramp Up Your Marketing Efforts

It’s the last week to market your event, and you want to make sure that you convince everyone who is on the fence that they must attend your event. One creative way to do this is to promote how much time left the potential customer has to register for the event (ex: 5 days left) plus a reason why they should attend. People often need frequent marketing to get them to pull the trigger and register for an event.

Print the Badges

If you are hosting a networking event or if you have assigned tables for seating, it’s a good idea to have badges for your attendees. Having a name badge makes it easier for people to network, and having assigned tables helps larger events run more smoothly. Plus, with assigned tables, you can strategically place high-quality leads at your sponsor’s tables.

Run Through the Roles of All Staff

The week before the event, you should get everyone together from your company that is helping out and let them know what they will be doing the day of the event. You may think you will have time to do this the day of the event, or that people will naturally know what to do, but this is not the case most of the time. By informing everyone what is expected of them, you are maximizing your resources. Also, let everyone know what time they should arrive the day of the event.

According to Kimberly Blackburn of Eastern Foundry, “When deciding how early to show up to an event, think about how much time you’ll need to set up, then add 1-2 hours to that, and that is when you should show up. Nothing adds more stress than not having enough time before an event.”

1 Day Before: Last Minute Details

Set Up at the Venue

You will need to set up the day before or the day of the event, depending on the time of the event and when the venue will allow you access to space. During this time, you should put your gift bags together, put up any decorations that the venue is not providing, and make sure everything is in place for your event.

Run Through Script

It’s important to get anyone speaking at the event to meet the day before to go over the script. Everyone’s speeches should be reviewed, so you can make sure they don’t run too long or short, and to give the speakers themselves time to practice the final version of the speeches. Print out a copy of everyone’s speech just in case something happens with the electronic copy.

Confirm Number of Attendees

Even if you had a projected number for the event, you should now have the final count (from registrations). Share that with the caterer, and make sure you have the right number of tables if it’s a seated event. Having too few tables is obviously not a good idea, as people will be standing and not get a meal. On the other hand, having too many tables will make your event look empty and not well attended.

If you have sponsors, you will also want to send them the list of attendees so they will know who will be attending and who they will want to make sure they meet.

After the Event: Follow-up

After your event is over, your job isn’t done! A lot of people drop the ball when it comes to following up after the event, but it’s an important part of the process. This is especially true if you plan on working with the same people in the future or want to run the same event next year.

Ask for Feedback

The easiest way to know what worked and what didn’t at your event is to ask your guests for feedback. This is important if you want to hold an event for your business in the future. You could have a feedback box at the event, or you could send a follow-up thank you and survey by email to attendees.

Post-Event Publicity

Now that you’ve had your event, you want to keep the momentum going. Post pictures and videos of your event on your website and social media. If one of your event speakers had a great speech, post it on your website. You want to keep people talking about it so that they will be excited about your next event.

Send Thank You Notes

Let people who participated in making the event a success know that you appreciate their help. This includes sponsors, speakers, and anyone who helped out during the event. This helps forge a relationship between you and the person you’re sending the note in case you need their help at a future event.

Bottom Line

Event planning can be extremely stressful, especially if you don’t have much experience with planning. By keeping everything organized and following our event planning checklist, you can ensure that everything stays on track. The most important thing is to give yourself plenty of time to complete all of the steps involved in creating an amazing event.

Have a question or comment? Let us know below…

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

Event Planning Checklist & How-To Guide By Maggie Aland Event planning has a lot of moving parts, and you need to know when different tasks need to be completed by in order to keep everything on schedule.

[thrushed]

uhh hi i have Questions regarding those hcs: 1) [nsfw] i didn't know getting fucked on all fours was roro's LEAST fav position because that's what love did FIRST?? he's sorry. unless robin liked it. smiles. 2) survivor's guilt pls expand, what happened? why doesn't he use his real last name? 3) do you have any team hcs! 4) lag in formal education? 5) i love u

we wanted to reveal backstory stuff ic only because robins v private with an intense early life but whatever lets do this shitstorm.

1. gross. answered the nsfw privately to you.

2. survivor's guilt pls expand, what happened? why doesn't he use his real last name?

survivor’s guilt is how his ptsd manifests itself the most. sleep disturbance and nightmares, social withdrawal, mood swings and irritability are big with him. when the trauma felt too close he used to self-medicate by drinking. alcohol was the easiest thing for him to access even when he was underage. but robin has never had a high alcohol tolerance or a healthy sense of pacing (he would binge drink once or twice a week). it always made him sick, feel worse while recovering, impaired his daily life enough that it dashed some education and career prospects. this relates to the lag in formal education. for a while he was in a shit place at an age when a lot of kids went to combat school. going to school was the furthest thing from his mind when he just wanted to get by each day, make lien, try to be happy. the mentor who taught robin archery in the first place was a hometown hero success story, a huntress, and part of the guild that robin was a member of for most of his youth- more of a ‘young mens association’ or a futuwwa that wasn’t restricted to men. 

Futuwwa (Arabic: فتوة, "young-manliness" or "chivalry") was a conception of moral behavior around which myriad institutions of Medieval confraternity developed. With characteristics similar to chivalry and virtue, these communal associations of Arab men gained significant influence as stable social units that exerted religious, military, and political influence in much of the Islamic world.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futuwwa

robin and this huntress became really close. talking about their full relationship i won’t do here because it’s long and important. robins combat style and all of its unconventional-ness mirrors hers. she was without a doubt one of the most important people in his life. she started robin on a path that could have become a local success story too; something similar to pyrrha’s fame via tournament competitive success, which robin came to love participating in starting with archery tournaments moving into combat tournaments. but robin fell off the wagon fucking hard and any brilliant word like prodigy that used to be attached to him is long dead and gone. robin is fine with this.

he has largely kicked binge drinking. he drinks socially but only in good company. no straight hard liquor. fine with wine, beer, nursing one glass or bottle for a very long time, maybe a mixed drink but hes careful of those since they can be deceptively easy to drink while getting you fucked up.

what happened? i won’t say exactly what happened but robin didn’t have to personally dirty his hands to know that it was his own blindness and selfish selflessness (i.e. robin hooding, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, adventuring, other philanthropic-questionable ventures that his association did) that put his family at risk in the first place. he was orphaned and feels guilt over being left alive. his parents died unfairly and violently by people who robin knew and associated with. the guild gave itself a protector type role over the community. their town was poorer, vulnerable, far from the capital that can’t keeping up everything happening in periphery regions. these associations helped maintain peace. or they made youths into rapscallions. depends who you asked. 

robin feels like he could have prevented his parents deaths if only he made different decisions. maybe if he didn’t steal. maybe if stayed home more and helped around the house by getting a normal job in town. maybe even if he wasnt a part of the guild at all even though it was his life. he failed his do-goodery in the worst possible way. he has days where he feels wrong for being the one to survive. wrong being alive period. he has never sought vengeance against whoever actually did the deeds. he has complicated feelings towards the word victim, if he even is one, etc.

now robin is extremely estranged from his hometown, his community, and the only remaining immediate family member he has, his younger sister wren (winny), to the point that he is not sure if she is still alive or not. they’ve completely lost track of each other for three years now and barely communicated before that, maybe once or twice a year not always directly (eg. robin being informed of wren’s whereabouts via someone else. robin sending her lien). but robin is sure she would want nothing to do with him anyway because she believes robin is to blame for the death of their parents. wren has never been responsive. never once accepted a transfer of money from him. supposedly called it blood money. maybe she thought robin still lived a certain lifestyle. maybe she knows he still has a bounty on him. there’s not much he can do or feels he has the right to do about salvaging their relationship when she doesn’t want him and is probably better off without him.

he doesn’t use his real last name mostly for this. his sister wants nothing to do with him. their shared surname gained some notoriety due to the ordeal that got their parents killed and robin’s involvement in the association (like disney’s robin hood he had become a key part of a merry band and was a bit of a poster child). robin hopes wren can live with and recover from everything faster by completely disassociating his place within the branches of their family tree. it was something he thought about a lot especially as they grew more estranged. at the same time it was part of the withdrawal and distancing that survivor’s guilt gave him. it’s not perfect logic. the decision might be saving himself more than his sister, who’s now bearing the family name without a chance for a reinvention as thorough as robin’s, who has moved away, lived alone for a few years, gone to school better late than never, and become a huntsman-in-training able to re-join and contribute to society in good ways unless someone discovers and cares about that bounty enough to try and claim it. robin isn’t very concerned about that.

after a long process he legally changed his last name to dogwood on his 18th birthday. dogwood is a flowering tree that symbolizes renewal and beginnings.

someone using his real last name feels like deadnaming. it hasn’t happened in years. he enrolled into haven as robin dogwood. no one knows it’s not his ‘real’ surname, not his teammates, not anyone new he meets. not many know his past enough to dig it up.

3) do you have any team hcs!

evie (evelyn) is the G in RGNT and a partner that robin relies on. she’s basically co-leader. robin will defer to anyone on his team if they’ll do the thing better than he can. his guild experience and long apprenticeship under a huntress helps his leadership. he’s fine with taking orders and knows how to assign roles and when roles don’t mean shit as long as they can get through a mission. his personality isn’t as free and lively as it was in the past although he has flickers of slyness and wildness that still come out. his teammates don’t hate him probably.

4) lag in formal education?

answered in 2. robin did not go to a combat school. he enrolled as a first year student of haven academy a couple years older than the age of most first year students who enroll at 17. he’s a first year student who’s 20 or 21 verse dependent. imo this kind of thing doesnt feel like it would be exceptional considering how dangerous remnant is and how peoples lives can get fucked and disrupted by everything from grimm to local crime and violence. imo invitations like rubys or exceptions like blake or tricks like jaune’s probably happen a lot as long as they talk to the headmaster about it first or find a loophole. we’ve seen with blake how the student doesn’t even have to divulge every single detail or rationalization on why they want to enroll as long as they test well and are skilled. robin tested very well in combat. he took placement tests for whatever subjects was needed since he had no transcript. and he became acquainted with lionheart’s office once or twice before being accepted to haven.

5) i love u 

ilu

[nofomoartworld]

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art

Interview and visual essay by Lise McKean

Melissa Hilliard Potter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and co-founder of the Papermaker’s Garden at Columbia College in Chicago, where she is an associate professor of Art and Art History. We began our conversation in the Papermaker’s Garden on a late afternoon in June, just after a sudden shower made the soil fragrant.

Mel Potter in the Papermaker’s Garden at 620 S. Wabash in Chicago

Lise: Since we’re starting out in the Papermaker’s Garden, let’s begin with hearing about what you are growing this year in your raised bed garden here in the Loop?

Mel: I’m focusing on a perennial bed dedicated to the idea of pleasure for women. Last year’s Papermaker Garden included the Roe v. Wade and Bosnian Magic beds. After much focus on women’s biology, I decided that the most feminist investigation I could do this year would be to investigate pleasure.

The plants I’ve selected are for pleasing the nose and eyes—and for psychotropic recreation. For example, I’m growing absinthe and burdock in my Plants of Pleasure bed. My partner in the Papermaker’s Garden, Maggie Puckett, has a bed for growing plants she discovered while investigating witches, some of whom were her ancestors. She calls it Witchcraft and Colonial Warfare.

Poster for 2017 Plants of Pleasure Garden

Lise: I’m curious about the psychotropic plants—what brings them to your garden?

Mel: I’ve been doing research on women shamans because a lot of the psychotropic vision work in traditional societies is very male-centric. I’m interested in the intersection of psychotropic recreation, visionary quests and experiences, and consciousness-raising. I’m going to explore how these plants can be turned into psychotropic materials. I’m also looking at some of them for their calming and anti-anxiety effects. Some of these plants can be recreational as well.

Lise: Being around plants is intensely sensual, engaging our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and even hearing. Culture shapes the experience and use of plants, too. How do the plants in the Papermaker’s Garden mesh with your work as an artist?

Mel: All my work is about female culture. It ranges from contemporary feminist practice to female ethnobotanical and intangible heritage, which is made up of traditional craft practices. I explore how these are distinct languages and forms of communication and history-making. They parallel recorded history, but are completely different ways to interpret the world. I’m always on a quest to search for practices with the potential to reveal something that could be transformative. We’re unaware of them because they’re not included in dominant narratives.

The craft practices I explore range from bio-culinary traditions and handmade felt rugs to women’s tattoo cults and hand papermaking. These are tremendously under-recorded practices that reveal fascinating narratives.

2015 Food, Sex, and Death dinner party in the Papermaker’s Garden celebrating the Hull House Wage Worker research on brothels located at garden’s site at the turn of the 20th Century

Lise: Mention of tattoo cults appear here and there in ethnography. Tell me more about the one that interests you and how you came across it.

Mel: When I was in the Republic of Georgia I saw a pagan ritual taking place on the street that I identified as similar to a film I had done in South Serbia. My colleague Clifton Meador bought the book, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan in preparation for our work in Georgia. I wrote to Robert Chenciner, one of the book’s authors, asking him whether the designs I saw in the pagan ritual were the same as those in the women’s tattoo cult in the same region. He wrote back a long email and so began our friendship.

Women use similar symbols from the “book of life” for her children, her parents, her illnesses. It’s an old tradition. There are still many tattoo practices. All the symbols come down to a few basic things. Don’t mess with my crops. Don’t mess with my family. Protect me from evil and the evil eye. A lot of the designs are plant based and burdock is one of them. Some ethnobotanical designs are used over and over. A traditional woman has repertoire of images. Through color and image she can tell a specific story, just as a rug can tell a story about its family.

Ethnographer Robert Chenciner holding a rare hand-felted rug from Daghestan

Lise: These tattoo cults give women a way to record on their own bodies events in their lives that are important to them. Tattooed Mountain Women must be fascinating. Traveling back to your garden here in downtown Chicago, what happens to all the plants at the end of the growing season?

Mel: We’ve learned that a perennial garden is a year-round phenomenon. We let some of the plants go to seed because it’s good for pollinator bugs. Many of the crops are cut and cooked and made into paper to use for artwork. During the winter months, I work on making the paper at the Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Lise: How do you run the garden as a collaborative project?

Mel: We invite people as guest gardeners and community guests. The South Loop Alliance has a bed with us. We invite graduate students at Columbia. We help out each other with watering, weeding, and events here at the garden. Running a ten-bed garden would be impossible without a group of collaborators. My project with Maggie Puckett, Seeds InService is the garden’s other main project.

Flax handmade paper laminates, pulp painting, and electroluminescent (EL) wire embeds by Melissa Potter

Lise: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist. Did you start out that way?

Mel: I’m the director of the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program at Columbia. Interdisciplinarity is naturally collaborative. My personal interdisciplinary practice is ethnographic. I don’t consider myself a botanical expert.

I started in print and paper because it’s a family legacy. My grandmother was a printer and painter. My aunt was a letter press printer. My mother is a quilter, knitter, and crafter. It started there. My high school yearbook said I wanted go into anthropology. Everything I’ve done since then goes into that direction.

Lise: As an anthropologist, I’ve known some who knew from childhood that’s what they wanted to do. Where did your interest come from at such a young age?

Mel: My grandmother, aunt, and I aunt studied a lot of pre-Christian goddess cults. Women scholars were starting to write female-centered ethnography. My grandmother and I went to Crete and drew at goddess sites. She called her journal, “Melissa, the Minoans, and Me.”

Lise: How did you find your way to merging art and ethnography? Were you doing that in art school, or did it come later?

Mel: I have to credit Columbia primarily. After finishing grad school, I spent 12 years in New York City leading a traditional art life showing in alternative galleries and collaborative spaces. When Columbia hired me in the Interdisciplinary program, I was given free rein to explore curatorially, artistically, and critically the interdisciplinary space. It’s a distinctive program. It’s no accident that my strongest work comes out of my time here when I was institutionally supported to do these off the grid things like tattoo cults and paper cultures. I’ve been here now for 10 years.

Lise: From the wide world of peoples and cultures, where did your interest in Bosnia and Serbia come from? Is that your ethnic background?

Mel: My grandmother and I sponsored a Bosnian refugee in the 1990s. She was in Croatia as a refugee. Her village was ethnically cleansed and then the Serbian militia turned it into a rape camp. I was reunited with her in 2015. By then I had spent 20 years exploring the arts, culture, and ethnography of the larger Balkan region. I didn’t work in Bosnia until recently.

Poster for the 2016 Bosnian Magic Garden, dedicated to Potter’s grandmother and Zejna. View is from Zejna’s front window.

Lise: That’s an intense commitment.

Mel: It was obsessively captivating to me. I used to go two or three times a year. I’ve been there 35 times, staying up to six months at a time.

Lise: I haven’t yet had a chance to see your film, Like Other Girls Do. Congratulations on all the attention it’s been getting since it came out in 2015. You’ve told me it grew out of your interest in the custom of sworn virgins in Montenegro and Albania.

Mel: The film is a collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. It’s 30 minutes and explores another female-centric traditional cultural practice. When there are no boys born in a family, a girl is raised as a boy to inherit the father’s property. I interviewed Stana Cerovic, the self-proclaimed last sworn virgin of Montenegro. I was exploring Stana’s legacy. She died in October 2016. The film also includes my interviews with five women in the Balkans under the age of 40, and their thoughts about personal identity and gender expression.

I’m working on a second part of the project about how to create a legacy in an environment that doesn’t record us. Stana isn’t in her family tree, even though she made the sacrifice to be a boy. In all likelihood, she was not buried as a man even though she wanted to (I am waiting for confirmation from my ethnographer colleagues in the region). I find it heart breaking that they’re not only forgotten, but if they’re remembered, it’s falsified. There’s no reward for the sacrifice.

  Lise: What does the role of virginity play in this tradition?

Mel: They’re called sworn virgins because they take an oath of virginity. They don’t marry. They usually live with their families or alone. They can’t have a heteronormative relationship.

Lise: How does the film contextualize this tradition within contemporary culture?

Mel:  Like Other Girls Do is about Stana’s village and about death. The story shows her visit to the cemetery where her family members are buried and explores the issue of how she will be remembered. I asked a graffiti artist to make a tag for Stana. The film ends with her making Stana’s tag on the streets of Belgrade. I wanted the women I interviewed to connect with Stana in a two-way conversation.

Stana Cerovic with photograph of herself dressed as a man. Photo by Melissa Potter

Lise: Did they make the connection? What happened between the women?

Mel: I think they reflected on Stana’s story. They asked themselves about their own willingness to engage in traditional Balkan society and the sacrifices they’re already making. I included the queer narrative—and the way society restricts full development of an identity. This was true for Stana and the five women. The queer activist was the most liberated in some ways. To live as a queer-identified person in the Balkans is a radical act of self-assertion.

Lise: The film has been widely screened. What are some highlights of its travels over the past couple years?

Mel: It’s had a nice life. Last year it was shown in Paris at Cineffable, the world’s largest feminist film festival. It’s also traveled to around the U.S. and the Balkans and to Denmark, India, China and Slovenia. It’s been featured in some exhibitions too, including Becoming Male, a show featuring artists like Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin at Albright College.

Making a film is a huge project. I loved every minute. My collaborator was Saša Sreckovic at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. My editor, Jelena Jovcic is my better half. Editors don’t get the credit they deserve. Composer Aleksandra Dokic created the music for the film.

Lise: We’ve talked about your work as an interdisciplinary artist in terms of ethnography and ethnobotany, paper making and film making. What else are you working on?

Mel: I pray it’s not going to be another film. I’m going do something on my grandmother and Zejna, the Bosnian woman refugee. I recently obtained my grandmother’s O.S.S. file. The O.S.S. was the US office of intelligence during World War II. She was an O.S.S. operative. I’m curious to see where that goes. I met with Zejna twice. I started a four-part narrative, with my grandmother, Zejna, myself, and a fictional version of Zejna’s daughter. It will be a study of women and war and how women experience war in a gendered and particular way.

Lise: Am I hearing that you have another film on your hands?

Mel: Do you want to take me and shoot me right now! I’ve been doing some prints of my grandmother and Zejna and writing annotations. I’m building a visual archive. It probably has to be a film. It could be a book. I like working in film, but it’s a hard medium. I’m not wealthy enough to play in it. If you don’t have money, you have to wait for it.

Equal Pay 4 Equal Work, designed by Melissa Potter in handmade felt

Episode 328: Buzz Spector

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from Bad at Sports http://ift.tt/2sRcb5n via IFTTT

[flauntpage]

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art

Interview and visual essay by Lise McKean

Melissa Hilliard Potter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and co-founder of the Papermaker’s Garden at Columbia College in Chicago, where she is an associate professor of Art and Art History. We began our conversation in the Papermaker’s Garden on a late afternoon in June, just after a sudden shower made the soil fragrant.

Mel Potter in the Papermaker’s Garden at 620 S. Wabash in Chicago

Lise: Since we’re starting out in the Papermaker’s Garden, let’s begin with hearing about what you are growing this year in your raised bed garden here in the Loop?

Mel: I’m focusing on a perennial bed dedicated to the idea of pleasure for women. Last year’s Papermaker Garden included the Roe v. Wade and Bosnian Magic beds. After much focus on women’s biology, I decided that the most feminist investigation I could do this year would be to investigate pleasure.

The plants I’ve selected are for pleasing the nose and eyes—and for psychotropic recreation. For example, I’m growing absinthe and burdock in my Plants of Pleasure bed. My partner in the Papermaker’s Garden, Maggie Puckett, has a bed for growing plants she discovered while investigating witches, some of whom were her ancestors. She calls it Witchcraft and Colonial Warfare.

Poster for 2017 Plants of Pleasure Garden

Lise: I’m curious about the psychotropic plants—what brings them to your garden?

Mel: I’ve been doing research on women shamans because a lot of the psychotropic vision work in traditional societies is very male-centric. I’m interested in the intersection of psychotropic recreation, visionary quests and experiences, and consciousness-raising. I’m going to explore how these plants can be turned into psychotropic materials. I’m also looking at some of them for their calming and anti-anxiety effects. Some of these plants can be recreational as well.

Lise: Being around plants is intensely sensual, engaging our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and even hearing. Culture shapes the experience and use of plants, too. How do the plants in the Papermaker’s Garden mesh with your work as an artist?

Mel: All my work is about female culture. It ranges from contemporary feminist practice to female ethnobotanical and intangible heritage, which is made up of traditional craft practices. I explore how these are distinct languages and forms of communication and history-making. They parallel recorded history, but are completely different ways to interpret the world. I’m always on a quest to search for practices with the potential to reveal something that could be transformative. We’re unaware of them because they’re not included in dominant narratives.

The craft practices I explore range from bio-culinary traditions and handmade felt rugs to women’s tattoo cults and hand papermaking. These are tremendously under-recorded practices that reveal fascinating narratives.

2015 Food, Sex, and Death dinner party in the Papermaker’s Garden celebrating the Hull House Wage Worker research on brothels located at garden’s site at the turn of the 20th Century

Lise: Mention of tattoo cults appear here and there in ethnography. Tell me more about the one that interests you and how you came across it.

Mel: When I was in the Republic of Georgia I saw a pagan ritual taking place on the street that I identified as similar to a film I had done in South Serbia. My colleague Clifton Meador bought the book, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan in preparation for our work in Georgia. I wrote to Robert Chenciner, one of the book’s authors, asking him whether the designs I saw in the pagan ritual were the same as those in the women’s tattoo cult in the same region. He wrote back a long email and so began our friendship.

Women use similar symbols from the “book of life” for her children, her parents, her illnesses. It’s an old tradition. There are still many tattoo practices. All the symbols come down to a few basic things. Don’t mess with my crops. Don’t mess with my family. Protect me from evil and the evil eye. A lot of the designs are plant based and burdock is one of them. Some ethnobotanical designs are used over and over. A traditional woman has repertoire of images. Through color and image she can tell a specific story, just as a rug can tell a story about its family.

Ethnographer Robert Chenciner holding a rare hand-felted rug from Daghestan

Lise: These tattoo cults give women a way to record on their own bodies events in their lives that are important to them. Tattooed Mountain Women must be fascinating. Traveling back to your garden here in downtown Chicago, what happens to all the plants at the end of the growing season?

Mel: We’ve learned that a perennial garden is a year-round phenomenon. We let some of the plants go to seed because it’s good for pollinator bugs. Many of the crops are cut and cooked and made into paper to use for artwork. During the winter months, I work on making the paper at the Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Lise: How do you run the garden as a collaborative project?

Mel: We invite people as guest gardeners and community guests. The South Loop Alliance has a bed with us. We invite graduate students at Columbia. We help out each other with watering, weeding, and events here at the garden. Running a ten-bed garden would be impossible without a group of collaborators. My project with Maggie Puckett, Seeds InService is the garden’s other main project.

Flax handmade paper laminates, pulp painting, and electroluminescent (EL) wire embeds by Melissa Potter

Lise: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist. Did you start out that way?

Mel: I’m the director of the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program at Columbia. Interdisciplinarity is naturally collaborative. My personal interdisciplinary practice is ethnographic. I don’t consider myself a botanical expert.

I started in print and paper because it’s a family legacy. My grandmother was a printer and painter. My aunt was a letter press printer. My mother is a quilter, knitter, and crafter. It started there. My high school yearbook said I wanted go into anthropology. Everything I’ve done since then goes into that direction.

Lise: As an anthropologist, I’ve known some who knew from childhood that’s what they wanted to do. Where did your interest come from at such a young age?

Mel: My grandmother, aunt, and I aunt studied a lot of pre-Christian goddess cults. Women scholars were starting to write female-centered ethnography. My grandmother and I went to Crete and drew at goddess sites. She called her journal, “Melissa, the Minoans, and Me.”

Lise: How did you find your way to merging art and ethnography? Were you doing that in art school, or did it come later?

Mel: I have to credit Columbia primarily. After finishing grad school, I spent 12 years in New York City leading a traditional art life showing in alternative galleries and collaborative spaces. When Columbia hired me in the Interdisciplinary program, I was given free rein to explore curatorially, artistically, and critically the interdisciplinary space. It’s a distinctive program. It’s no accident that my strongest work comes out of my time here when I was institutionally supported to do these off the grid things like tattoo cults and paper cultures. I’ve been here now for 10 years.

Lise: From the wide world of peoples and cultures, where did your interest in Bosnia and Serbia come from? Is that your ethnic background?

Mel: My grandmother and I sponsored a Bosnian refugee in the 1990s. She was in Croatia as a refugee. Her village was ethnically cleansed and then the Serbian militia turned it into a rape camp. I was reunited with her in 2015. By then I had spent 20 years exploring the arts, culture, and ethnography of the larger Balkan region. I didn’t work in Bosnia until recently.

Poster for the 2016 Bosnian Magic Garden, dedicated to Potter’s grandmother and Zejna. View is from Zejna’s front window.

Lise: That’s an intense commitment.

Mel: It was obsessively captivating to me. I used to go two or three times a year. I’ve been there 35 times, staying up to six months at a time.

Lise: I haven’t yet had a chance to see your film, Like Other Girls Do. Congratulations on all the attention it’s been getting since it came out in 2015. You’ve told me it grew out of your interest in the custom of sworn virgins in Montenegro and Albania.

Mel: The film is a collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. It’s 30 minutes and explores another female-centric traditional cultural practice. When there are no boys born in a family, a girl is raised as a boy to inherit the father’s property. I interviewed Stana Cerovic, the self-proclaimed last sworn virgin of Montenegro. I was exploring Stana’s legacy. She died in October 2016. The film also includes my interviews with five women in the Balkans under the age of 40, and their thoughts about personal identity and gender expression.

I’m working on a second part of the project about how to create a legacy in an environment that doesn’t record us. Stana isn’t in her family tree, even though she made the sacrifice to be a boy. In all likelihood, she was not buried as a man even though she wanted to (I am waiting for confirmation from my ethnographer colleagues in the region). I find it heart breaking that they’re not only forgotten, but if they’re remembered, it’s falsified. There’s no reward for the sacrifice.

  Lise: What does the role of virginity play in this tradition?

Mel: They’re called sworn virgins because they take an oath of virginity. They don’t marry. They usually live with their families or alone. They can’t have a heteronormative relationship.

Lise: How does the film contextualize this tradition within contemporary culture?

Mel:  Like Other Girls Do is about Stana’s village and about death. The story shows her visit to the cemetery where her family members are buried and explores the issue of how she will be remembered. I asked a graffiti artist to make a tag for Stana. The film ends with her making Stana’s tag on the streets of Belgrade. I wanted the women I interviewed to connect with Stana in a two-way conversation.

Stana Cerovic with photograph of herself dressed as a man. Photo by Melissa Potter

Lise: Did they make the connection? What happened between the women?

Mel: I think they reflected on Stana’s story. They asked themselves about their own willingness to engage in traditional Balkan society and the sacrifices they’re already making. I included the queer narrative—and the way society restricts full development of an identity. This was true for Stana and the five women. The queer activist was the most liberated in some ways. To live as a queer-identified person in the Balkans is a radical act of self-assertion.

Lise: The film has been widely screened. What are some highlights of its travels over the past couple years?

Mel: It’s had a nice life. Last year it was shown in Paris at Cineffable, the world’s largest feminist film festival. It’s also traveled to around the U.S. and the Balkans and to Denmark, India, China and Slovenia. It’s been featured in some exhibitions too, including Becoming Male, a show featuring artists like Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin at Albright College.

Making a film is a huge project. I loved every minute. My collaborator was Saša Sreckovic at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. My editor, Jelena Jovcic is my better half. Editors don’t get the credit they deserve. Composer Aleksandra Dokic created the music for the film.

Lise: We’ve talked about your work as an interdisciplinary artist in terms of ethnography and ethnobotany, paper making and film making. What else are you working on?

Mel: I pray it’s not going to be another film. I’m going do something on my grandmother and Zejna, the Bosnian woman refugee. I recently obtained my grandmother’s O.S.S. file. The O.S.S. was the US office of intelligence during World War II. She was an O.S.S. operative. I’m curious to see where that goes. I met with Zejna twice. I started a four-part narrative, with my grandmother, Zejna, myself, and a fictional version of Zejna’s daughter. It will be a study of women and war and how women experience war in a gendered and particular way.

Lise: Am I hearing that you have another film on your hands?

Mel: Do you want to take me and shoot me right now! I’ve been doing some prints of my grandmother and Zejna and writing annotations. I’m building a visual archive. It probably has to be a film. It could be a book. I like working in film, but it’s a hard medium. I’m not wealthy enough to play in it. If you don’t have money, you have to wait for it.

Equal Pay 4 Equal Work, designed by Melissa Potter in handmade felt

Tuesday’s Video Pick

Episode 476: Sylvie Fortin

Episode 429: Michael Velliquette and Oliver Warden

Digital Luminance: The Paintings of Jason E. Carter

Yale Art Student Uses Abortion as an Art Medium

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art

Interview and visual essay by Lise McKean

Melissa Hilliard Potter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and co-founder of the Papermaker’s Garden at Columbia College in Chicago, where she is an associate professor of Art and Art History. We began our conversation in the Papermaker’s Garden on a late afternoon in June, just after a sudden shower made the soil fragrant.

Mel Potter in the Papermaker’s Garden at 620 S. Wabash in Chicago

Lise: Since we’re starting out in the Papermaker’s Garden, let’s begin with hearing about what you are growing this year in your raised bed garden here in the Loop?

Mel: I’m focusing on a perennial bed dedicated to the idea of pleasure for women. Last year’s Papermaker Garden included the Roe v. Wade and Bosnian Magic beds. After much focus on women’s biology, I decided that the most feminist investigation I could do this year would be to investigate pleasure.

The plants I’ve selected are for pleasing the nose and eyes—and for psychotropic recreation. For example, I’m growing absinthe and burdock in my Plants of Pleasure bed. My partner in the Papermaker’s Garden, Maggie Puckett, has a bed for growing plants she discovered while investigating witches, some of whom were her ancestors. She calls it Witchcraft and Colonial Warfare.

Poster for 2017 Plants of Pleasure Garden

Lise: I’m curious about the psychotropic plants—what brings them to your garden?

Mel: I’ve been doing research on women shamans because a lot of the psychotropic vision work in traditional societies is very male-centric. I’m interested in the intersection of psychotropic recreation, visionary quests and experiences, and consciousness-raising. I’m going to explore how these plants can be turned into psychotropic materials. I’m also looking at some of them for their calming and anti-anxiety effects. Some of these plants can be recreational as well.

Lise: Being around plants is intensely sensual, engaging our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and even hearing. Culture shapes the experience and use of plants, too. How do the plants in the Papermaker’s Garden mesh with your work as an artist?

Mel: All my work is about female culture. It ranges from contemporary feminist practice to female ethnobotanical and intangible heritage, which is made up of traditional craft practices. I explore how these are distinct languages and forms of communication and history-making. They parallel recorded history, but are completely different ways to interpret the world. I’m always on a quest to search for practices with the potential to reveal something that could be transformative. We’re unaware of them because they’re not included in dominant narratives.

The craft practices I explore range from bio-culinary traditions and handmade felt rugs to women’s tattoo cults and hand papermaking. These are tremendously under-recorded practices that reveal fascinating narratives.

2015 Food, Sex, and Death dinner party in the Papermaker’s Garden celebrating the Hull House Wage Worker research on brothels located at garden’s site at the turn of the 20th Century

Lise: Mention of tattoo cults appear here and there in ethnography. Tell me more about the one that interests you and how you came across it.

Mel: When I was in the Republic of Georgia I saw a pagan ritual taking place on the street that I identified as similar to a film I had done in South Serbia. My colleague Clifton Meador bought the book, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan in preparation for our work in Georgia. I wrote to Robert Chenciner, one of the book’s authors, asking him whether the designs I saw in the pagan ritual were the same as those in the women’s tattoo cult in the same region. He wrote back a long email and so began our friendship.

Women use similar symbols from the “book of life” for her children, her parents, her illnesses. It’s an old tradition. There are still many tattoo practices. All the symbols come down to a few basic things. Don’t mess with my crops. Don’t mess with my family. Protect me from evil and the evil eye. A lot of the designs are plant based and burdock is one of them. Some ethnobotanical designs are used over and over. A traditional woman has repertoire of images. Through color and image she can tell a specific story, just as a rug can tell a story about its family.

Ethnographer Robert Chenciner holding a rare hand-felted rug from Daghestan

Lise: These tattoo cults give women a way to record on their own bodies events in their lives that are important to them. Tattooed Mountain Women must be fascinating. Traveling back to your garden here in downtown Chicago, what happens to all the plants at the end of the growing season?

Mel: We’ve learned that a perennial garden is a year-round phenomenon. We let some of the plants go to seed because it’s good for pollinator bugs. Many of the crops are cut and cooked and made into paper to use for artwork. During the winter months, I work on making the paper at the Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Lise: How do you run the garden as a collaborative project?

Mel: We invite people as guest gardeners and community guests. The South Loop Alliance has a bed with us. We invite graduate students at Columbia. We help out each other with watering, weeding, and events here at the garden. Running a ten-bed garden would be impossible without a group of collaborators. My project with Maggie Puckett, Seeds InService is the garden’s other main project.

Flax handmade paper laminates, pulp painting, and electroluminescent (EL) wire embeds by Melissa Potter

Lise: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist. Did you start out that way?

Mel: I’m the director of the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program at Columbia. Interdisciplinarity is naturally collaborative. My personal interdisciplinary practice is ethnographic. I don’t consider myself a botanical expert.

I started in print and paper because it’s a family legacy. My grandmother was a printer and painter. My aunt was a letter press printer. My mother is a quilter, knitter, and crafter. It started there. My high school yearbook said I wanted go into anthropology. Everything I’ve done since then goes into that direction.

Lise: As an anthropologist, I’ve known some who knew from childhood that’s what they wanted to do. Where did your interest come from at such a young age?

Mel: My grandmother, aunt, and I aunt studied a lot of pre-Christian goddess cults. Women scholars were starting to write female-centered ethnography. My grandmother and I went to Crete and drew at goddess sites. She called her journal, “Melissa, the Minoans, and Me.”

Lise: How did you find your way to merging art and ethnography? Were you doing that in art school, or did it come later?

Mel: I have to credit Columbia primarily. After finishing grad school, I spent 12 years in New York City leading a traditional art life showing in alternative galleries and collaborative spaces. When Columbia hired me in the Interdisciplinary program, I was given free rein to explore curatorially, artistically, and critically the interdisciplinary space. It’s a distinctive program. It’s no accident that my strongest work comes out of my time here when I was institutionally supported to do these off the grid things like tattoo cults and paper cultures. I’ve been here now for 10 years.

Lise: From the wide world of peoples and cultures, where did your interest in Bosnia and Serbia come from? Is that your ethnic background?

Mel: My grandmother and I sponsored a Bosnian refugee in the 1990s. She was in Croatia as a refugee. Her village was ethnically cleansed and then the Serbian militia turned it into a rape camp. I was reunited with her in 2015. By then I had spent 20 years exploring the arts, culture, and ethnography of the larger Balkan region. I didn’t work in Bosnia until recently.

Poster for the 2016 Bosnian Magic Garden, dedicated to Potter’s grandmother and Zejna. View is from Zejna’s front window.

Lise: That’s an intense commitment.

Mel: It was obsessively captivating to me. I used to go two or three times a year. I’ve been there 35 times, staying up to six months at a time.

Lise: I haven’t yet had a chance to see your film, Like Other Girls Do. Congratulations on all the attention it’s been getting since it came out in 2015. You’ve told me it grew out of your interest in the custom of sworn virgins in Montenegro and Albania.

Mel: The film is a collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. It’s 30 minutes and explores another female-centric traditional cultural practice. When there are no boys born in a family, a girl is raised as a boy to inherit the father’s property. I interviewed Stana Cerovic, the self-proclaimed last sworn virgin of Montenegro. I was exploring Stana’s legacy. She died in October 2016. The film also includes my interviews with five women in the Balkans under the age of 40, and their thoughts about personal identity and gender expression.

I’m working on a second part of the project about how to create a legacy in an environment that doesn’t record us. Stana isn’t in her family tree, even though she made the sacrifice to be a boy. In all likelihood, she was not buried as a man even though she wanted to (I am waiting for confirmation from my ethnographer colleagues in the region). I find it heart breaking that they’re not only forgotten, but if they’re remembered, it’s falsified. There’s no reward for the sacrifice.

  Lise: What does the role of virginity play in this tradition?

Mel: They’re called sworn virgins because they take an oath of virginity. They don’t marry. They usually live with their families or alone. They can’t have a heteronormative relationship.

Lise: How does the film contextualize this tradition within contemporary culture?

Mel:  Like Other Girls Do is about Stana’s village and about death. The story shows her visit to the cemetery where her family members are buried and explores the issue of how she will be remembered. I asked a graffiti artist to make a tag for Stana. The film ends with her making Stana’s tag on the streets of Belgrade. I wanted the women I interviewed to connect with Stana in a two-way conversation.

Stana Cerovic with photograph of herself dressed as a man. Photo by Melissa Potter

Lise: Did they make the connection? What happened between the women?

Mel: I think they reflected on Stana’s story. They asked themselves about their own willingness to engage in traditional Balkan society and the sacrifices they’re already making. I included the queer narrative—and the way society restricts full development of an identity. This was true for Stana and the five women. The queer activist was the most liberated in some ways. To live as a queer-identified person in the Balkans is a radical act of self-assertion.

Lise: The film has been widely screened. What are some highlights of its travels over the past couple years?

Mel: It’s had a nice life. Last year it was shown in Paris at Cineffable, the world’s largest feminist film festival. It’s also traveled to around the U.S. and the Balkans and to Denmark, India, China and Slovenia. It’s been featured in some exhibitions too, including Becoming Male, a show featuring artists like Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin at Albright College.

Making a film is a huge project. I loved every minute. My collaborator was Saša Sreckovic at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. My editor, Jelena Jovcic is my better half. Editors don’t get the credit they deserve. Composer Aleksandra Dokic created the music for the film.

Lise: We’ve talked about your work as an interdisciplinary artist in terms of ethnography and ethnobotany, paper making and film making. What else are you working on?

Mel: I pray it’s not going to be another film. I’m going do something on my grandmother and Zejna, the Bosnian woman refugee. I recently obtained my grandmother’s O.S.S. file. The O.S.S. was the US office of intelligence during World War II. She was an O.S.S. operative. I’m curious to see where that goes. I met with Zejna twice. I started a four-part narrative, with my grandmother, Zejna, myself, and a fictional version of Zejna’s daughter. It will be a study of women and war and how women experience war in a gendered and particular way.

Lise: Am I hearing that you have another film on your hands?

Mel: Do you want to take me and shoot me right now! I’ve been doing some prints of my grandmother and Zejna and writing annotations. I’m building a visual archive. It probably has to be a film. It could be a book. I like working in film, but it’s a hard medium. I’m not wealthy enough to play in it. If you don’t have money, you have to wait for it.

Equal Pay 4 Equal Work, designed by Melissa Potter in handmade felt

Zine Workshop at ThreeWalls this Saturday

The Object Within

Repost via Mother Jones: A Fantastic Journey Into the Mind of Collage Artist Wangechi Mutu

Holland Cotter Wins Pulitzer Prize

Video | Surprise Attack

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art

Interview and visual essay by Lise McKean

Melissa Hilliard Potter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and co-founder of the Papermaker’s Garden at Columbia College in Chicago, where she is an associate professor of Art and Art History. We began our conversation in the Papermaker’s Garden on a late afternoon in June, just after a sudden shower made the soil fragrant.

Mel Potter in the Papermaker’s Garden at 620 S. Wabash in Chicago

Lise: Since we’re starting out in the Papermaker’s Garden, let’s begin with hearing about what you are growing this year in your raised bed garden here in the Loop?

Mel: I’m focusing on a perennial bed dedicated to the idea of pleasure for women. Last year’s Papermaker Garden included the Roe v. Wade and Bosnian Magic beds. After much focus on women’s biology, I decided that the most feminist investigation I could do this year would be to investigate pleasure.

The plants I’ve selected are for pleasing the nose and eyes—and for psychotropic recreation. For example, I’m growing absinthe and burdock in my Plants of Pleasure bed. My partner in the Papermaker’s Garden, Maggie Puckett, has a bed for growing plants she discovered while investigating witches, some of whom were her ancestors. She calls it Witchcraft and Colonial Warfare.

Poster for 2017 Plants of Pleasure Garden

Lise: I’m curious about the psychotropic plants—what brings them to your garden?

Mel: I’ve been doing research on women shamans because a lot of the psychotropic vision work in traditional societies is very male-centric. I’m interested in the intersection of psychotropic recreation, visionary quests and experiences, and consciousness-raising. I’m going to explore how these plants can be turned into psychotropic materials. I’m also looking at some of them for their calming and anti-anxiety effects. Some of these plants can be recreational as well.

Lise: Being around plants is intensely sensual, engaging our senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and even hearing. Culture shapes the experience and use of plants, too. How do the plants in the Papermaker’s Garden mesh with your work as an artist?

Mel: All my work is about female culture. It ranges from contemporary feminist practice to female ethnobotanical and intangible heritage, which is made up of traditional craft practices. I explore how these are distinct languages and forms of communication and history-making. They parallel recorded history, but are completely different ways to interpret the world. I’m always on a quest to search for practices with the potential to reveal something that could be transformative. We’re unaware of them because they’re not included in dominant narratives.

The craft practices I explore range from bio-culinary traditions and handmade felt rugs to women’s tattoo cults and hand papermaking. These are tremendously under-recorded practices that reveal fascinating narratives.

2015 Food, Sex, and Death dinner party in the Papermaker’s Garden celebrating the Hull House Wage Worker research on brothels located at garden’s site at the turn of the 20th Century

Lise: Mention of tattoo cults appear here and there in ethnography. Tell me more about the one that interests you and how you came across it.

Mel: When I was in the Republic of Georgia I saw a pagan ritual taking place on the street that I identified as similar to a film I had done in South Serbia. My colleague Clifton Meador bought the book, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan in preparation for our work in Georgia. I wrote to Robert Chenciner, one of the book’s authors, asking him whether the designs I saw in the pagan ritual were the same as those in the women’s tattoo cult in the same region. He wrote back a long email and so began our friendship.

Women use similar symbols from the “book of life” for her children, her parents, her illnesses. It’s an old tradition. There are still many tattoo practices. All the symbols come down to a few basic things. Don’t mess with my crops. Don’t mess with my family. Protect me from evil and the evil eye. A lot of the designs are plant based and burdock is one of them. Some ethnobotanical designs are used over and over. A traditional woman has repertoire of images. Through color and image she can tell a specific story, just as a rug can tell a story about its family.

Ethnographer Robert Chenciner holding a rare hand-felted rug from Daghestan

Lise: These tattoo cults give women a way to record on their own bodies events in their lives that are important to them. Tattooed Mountain Women must be fascinating. Traveling back to your garden here in downtown Chicago, what happens to all the plants at the end of the growing season?

Mel: We’ve learned that a perennial garden is a year-round phenomenon. We let some of the plants go to seed because it’s good for pollinator bugs. Many of the crops are cut and cooked and made into paper to use for artwork. During the winter months, I work on making the paper at the Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Lise: How do you run the garden as a collaborative project?

Mel: We invite people as guest gardeners and community guests. The South Loop Alliance has a bed with us. We invite graduate students at Columbia. We help out each other with watering, weeding, and events here at the garden. Running a ten-bed garden would be impossible without a group of collaborators. My project with Maggie Puckett, Seeds InService is the garden’s other main project.

Flax handmade paper laminates, pulp painting, and electroluminescent (EL) wire embeds by Melissa Potter

Lise: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist. Did you start out that way?

Mel: I’m the director of the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program at Columbia. Interdisciplinarity is naturally collaborative. My personal interdisciplinary practice is ethnographic. I don’t consider myself a botanical expert.

I started in print and paper because it’s a family legacy. My grandmother was a printer and painter. My aunt was a letter press printer. My mother is a quilter, knitter, and crafter. It started there. My high school yearbook said I wanted go into anthropology. Everything I’ve done since then goes into that direction.

Lise: As an anthropologist, I’ve known some who knew from childhood that’s what they wanted to do. Where did your interest come from at such a young age?

Mel: My grandmother, aunt, and I aunt studied a lot of pre-Christian goddess cults. Women scholars were starting to write female-centered ethnography. My grandmother and I went to Crete and drew at goddess sites. She called her journal, “Melissa, the Minoans, and Me.”

Lise: How did you find your way to merging art and ethnography? Were you doing that in art school, or did it come later?

Mel: I have to credit Columbia primarily. After finishing grad school, I spent 12 years in New York City leading a traditional art life showing in alternative galleries and collaborative spaces. When Columbia hired me in the Interdisciplinary program, I was given free rein to explore curatorially, artistically, and critically the interdisciplinary space. It’s a distinctive program. It’s no accident that my strongest work comes out of my time here when I was institutionally supported to do these off the grid things like tattoo cults and paper cultures. I’ve been here now for 10 years.

Lise: From the wide world of peoples and cultures, where did your interest in Bosnia and Serbia come from? Is that your ethnic background?

Mel: My grandmother and I sponsored a Bosnian refugee in the 1990s. She was in Croatia as a refugee. Her village was ethnically cleansed and then the Serbian militia turned it into a rape camp. I was reunited with her in 2015. By then I had spent 20 years exploring the arts, culture, and ethnography of the larger Balkan region. I didn’t work in Bosnia until recently.

Poster for the 2016 Bosnian Magic Garden, dedicated to Potter’s grandmother and Zejna. View is from Zejna’s front window.

Lise: That’s an intense commitment.

Mel: It was obsessively captivating to me. I used to go two or three times a year. I’ve been there 35 times, staying up to six months at a time.

Lise: I haven’t yet had a chance to see your film, Like Other Girls Do. Congratulations on all the attention it’s been getting since it came out in 2015. You’ve told me it grew out of your interest in the custom of sworn virgins in Montenegro and Albania.

Mel: The film is a collaboration with the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. It’s 30 minutes and explores another female-centric traditional cultural practice. When there are no boys born in a family, a girl is raised as a boy to inherit the father’s property. I interviewed Stana Cerovic, the self-proclaimed last sworn virgin of Montenegro. I was exploring Stana’s legacy. She died in October 2016. The film also includes my interviews with five women in the Balkans under the age of 40, and their thoughts about personal identity and gender expression.

I’m working on a second part of the project about how to create a legacy in an environment that doesn’t record us. Stana isn’t in her family tree, even though she made the sacrifice to be a boy. In all likelihood, she was not buried as a man even though she wanted to (I am waiting for confirmation from my ethnographer colleagues in the region). I find it heart breaking that they’re not only forgotten, but if they’re remembered, it’s falsified. There’s no reward for the sacrifice.

  Lise: What does the role of virginity play in this tradition?

Mel: They’re called sworn virgins because they take an oath of virginity. They don’t marry. They usually live with their families or alone. They can’t have a heteronormative relationship.

Lise: How does the film contextualize this tradition within contemporary culture?

Mel:  Like Other Girls Do is about Stana’s village and about death. The story shows her visit to the cemetery where her family members are buried and explores the issue of how she will be remembered. I asked a graffiti artist to make a tag for Stana. The film ends with her making Stana’s tag on the streets of Belgrade. I wanted the women I interviewed to connect with Stana in a two-way conversation.

Stana Cerovic with photograph of herself dressed as a man. Photo by Melissa Potter

Lise: Did they make the connection? What happened between the women?

Mel: I think they reflected on Stana’s story. They asked themselves about their own willingness to engage in traditional Balkan society and the sacrifices they’re already making. I included the queer narrative—and the way society restricts full development of an identity. This was true for Stana and the five women. The queer activist was the most liberated in some ways. To live as a queer-identified person in the Balkans is a radical act of self-assertion.

Lise: The film has been widely screened. What are some highlights of its travels over the past couple years?

Mel: It’s had a nice life. Last year it was shown in Paris at Cineffable, the world’s largest feminist film festival. It’s also traveled to around the U.S. and the Balkans and to Denmark, India, China and Slovenia. It’s been featured in some exhibitions too, including Becoming Male, a show featuring artists like Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin at Albright College.

Making a film is a huge project. I loved every minute. My collaborator was Saša Sreckovic at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade. My editor, Jelena Jovcic is my better half. Editors don’t get the credit they deserve. Composer Aleksandra Dokic created the music for the film.

Lise: We’ve talked about your work as an interdisciplinary artist in terms of ethnography and ethnobotany, paper making and film making. What else are you working on?

Mel: I pray it’s not going to be another film. I’m going do something on my grandmother and Zejna, the Bosnian woman refugee. I recently obtained my grandmother’s O.S.S. file. The O.S.S. was the US office of intelligence during World War II. She was an O.S.S. operative. I’m curious to see where that goes. I met with Zejna twice. I started a four-part narrative, with my grandmother, Zejna, myself, and a fictional version of Zejna’s daughter. It will be a study of women and war and how women experience war in a gendered and particular way.

Lise: Am I hearing that you have another film on your hands?

Mel: Do you want to take me and shoot me right now! I’ve been doing some prints of my grandmother and Zejna and writing annotations. I’m building a visual archive. It probably has to be a film. It could be a book. I like working in film, but it’s a hard medium. I’m not wealthy enough to play in it. If you don’t have money, you have to wait for it.

Equal Pay 4 Equal Work, designed by Melissa Potter in handmade felt

How We Work: An Interview with Nick Jirasek

“Strange Weather, Vague Suspicions”: Karsten Lund at Peregrine Projects

Amanda Ross Ho Speaking Tonight at DePaul

Some More Thoughts About Asco, The Foreigner, Kitsch

Thursday, September 19th Edition of The EXPO Register

Thinks: Mel Potter on EthnoFeminist Art published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv