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mgsapphire · 3 years

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My K-drama recommendation master list Part 2

You can find part 1 here

Look, you gave us relatively new recommendations, what about ones older than 10 years? I'll give you my top 5

Princess Hours (2006) Is a modern Cinderella story. It's 24 episodes long. Available on Viki.

Personal Taste (2010) Honestly, problematic plot if you put your mind into it, but entertaining nonetheless. It's 16 episodes long, each one lasting a little over an hour, available on Viki.

Cinderella's Sister (2010) You hate every character, but there's still something that makes you watch it. Available on Viki.

Thank You (2007) was ahead of its time, it's about a single mother with a daughter who has an HIV+ diagnosis. 16 episodes long, each one lasting a little over an hour. Available on Viki.

Stairway to Heaven (2003) for a good melodrama.

What about romantic fantasies involving fantastic beings?

Guardian: The lonely and Great God(2016) A classic of the genre. It tells the story of a God who was once a man, and is being punished by immortality, unless he meets his bride, who just so happens to be a high schooler centuries later. Available on viki. 16 episodes long with 3 specials, all lasting about 75 minutes.

Hotel Del Luna (2019) it would be unfair to talk about Goblin, without talking about this other masterpiece about a being cursed into immortality and granted special availabilities along with it, but a curse is still a curse, and she must run a hotel meant for ghosts, where after centuries of being, meets a young man who is alive. Availability on Viki, 16 episodes long and each one lastz about 75 minutes.

Tale of the Nine Tailed (2020) You get to see Lee Dong Wook as another mystical being, and Kim Bum is his half brother. 16 episodes long and one special, each one lasting about 65 minutes. Available on Viki.

My roommate is a Gumiho (2021) what's up with gumihos? It's still airing. The title is self explanatory. Available on Viki and Qiyi.

Angel's last mission: Love (2019) is a cute and sad story about an angel who is about to ascend and a ballerina who has a cynical view of the world. Available on Viki. Each episode averages 30 minutes, with 32 episodes.

Doom at your service (2021) About to finish airing. It tells the story of a dying woman who wishes doom upon the world, and the doom who answers her plea. Available on viki, 16 episodes long, each one lasting about an hour.

The Scholar Who walks the night (2015) another Lee Joon Gi entry, but I swear all of his works are great, it's a period drama that tells the story of a scholar who is a vampire and the young bookseller he meets. It's 20 episodes long, each one lasting about an hour. Available on viki. Also, if you've liked Lee Soo Hyuk in Doom at Your Service, I advise you check this one out.

Tale of Arang (2012) two Lee Joon Gi entries in a row? Girl, you have to stop. Anyways, this one is another period piece of a magistrate who can see ghosts and the ghost of a young woman who doesn't remember her life, nor the cause of her death. Available on viki, it's 20 episodes long, each one lasting a little over an hour.

Look, those are fine or whatever, but I started as a K-pop fan, where can I see some idol dramas? Don't worry, I came prepared

Full House (2004) with Rain as the main character is the og idol drama in my opinion. Available on Viki. 16 episodes long, each one lasting about 73 minutes.

Imitation (2021) is currently airing, and it's literally an idol drama about idols. You can find a looot of idols too: Jeong Yun Ho and Park Seong Hwa from Ateez, Chani and Hwi Young from SF9, Park Ji Yeon from T-ara, Lim Na Young from I.O.I and Pristin, and although Jeong Ji So is not an idol, she is the main lead, and I absolutely love her, she's also in Doom at your service. Available on Viki.

Miss Panda and Mr. Hedgehog (2012) features Donghae from Super Junior, and if I'm going to recommend a Super Junior drama, I would rather recommend one featuring him over Siwon.

At a Distance the Spring is Green (2021) is currently airing too, and only has four released episodes, but I've liked it so far. Featuring Park Ji Hoon, and Kwon Dun Bin. Also, I have a lot of opinions about this show. Available on Viki.

I was going to put an IU drama but, all her dramas are good, so go and watch them all, the woman has range.

Dream High (2011) is the king of idol dramas, in my opinion. It talksa about a high school for people who want to be idols. Another one with a long line up of idols, so let me start: Suzy, IU, Taecyeon, Nichkhun and Wooyoung from 2PM, Ham Eun Jung from T-ara. Leeteuk (SuJu and Chansung (2PM) make cameos. Similarly to Imitation, Kim Soo Hyun is not an idol, but he's the main lead. It's 16 episodes long, each one lasting about 65 minutes. Available on Viki.

Wow, quite a few, but they all seem rather popular, do you have some underrated gems? I'm going to have to go down memory lane, but I do

The Queen's Classroom (2013) This one feels like a fever dream, because I'm aware it exists, I watched it back when it first aired, but I can't find it anywhere now. It's based on a Japanese drama of the same name. It's about a strict but warm hearted teacher and her students' lives and struggles. 16 episodes long. DM me if you find anywhere to watch it.

1% of Something (2016) is a really cute drama, the chemistry is off the charts, and if you're looking for skinship, this one is the one for you, underrated arranged marriage kdrama, I'm telling you. It's 16 episodes long, averaging 45 minutes, and it's on Viki.

I'm not a Robot (2017) has a really cute plot, not underrated per se, but not hyped enough. It's 32 episodes long, each one averaging 30 minutes. Available on Viki.

Do you like Brahms? (2020) is a music themed kdrama, really cute and wholesome. If you like 2setviolin and watched their critique on their YouTube channel, let me tell you, the cast actually knows how to play violin and stuff, and there's an actual child prodigy in there. It got so much hate bc of that one yt video. It's 16 episode long, each one lasting about an hour. Available on Viki.

Solomon's Perjury (2016) a good reflection on youth and the pressure society has. 12 episodes long, lasting about 63 minutes each. Available on Viki.

The Greatest Love (2011) is a super entertaining TV show, and just supper funny and cute. 16 episodes long, each one lasting around 65 minutes. Available on Viki.

Two Cops (2017) if you like Kim Seon Ho, I think this was his TV acting debut. It's a hilarious action comedy TV show. 32 episodes long, lasting around 30 minutes. Available on viki.

Do you have any recommendations where time traveling or time is central to the story?

Alice (2020) look, I can't give you a full explanation because it's too mind bending. Let's leave it at detective meets his mother. Available on Viki.

Signal (2016) The premise is similar to that of the movie Frequency (2000) in which there's communication between the past and the present via technology. The plot is based on the real Hwaseong serial murders. Really interesting. Available on Netflix. If you like the premise of communicating with the past via technology Call (2020) is a Korean thriller movie available on Netflix.

Chicago Typewriter (2017) this one is about reincarnation but we get to see both timelines. Available on Netflix.

Tomorrow with you (2017) Time-traveling but make it ✨depressing ✨. The story of a man who time travels, and how that ability messes with his marriage. Available on Netflix.

What about historical dramas? I don't really watch those, but here are some I liked

The Moon Embracing the Sun (2012) is one of the few I've finished. It's really good, it follows the love story of a king. Available on viki. 20 episodes long, each one lasting about an hour.

Gunman in Joseon (2014) Am I recommending you this one because of Lee Joon Gi? Maybe. It has 22 episodes, each one lasting about an hour. Available on Viki.

The Crowned Clown (2019) a story of the Prince and the Pauper if I must give you a description that is relatable, but if you know the book titled Skogland, it's closer to that. It's 16 episodes long, each one lasting about 80 minutes. Available on Viki.

I'm a little ashamed to say this, but do you have any BL? I do, I do

To My Star (2021) is a story about an actor and a chef, and how they learn to cohabit after the actor is forced into hiding. You can watch either the movie version or the drama version, both available on viki.

Color Rush (2020) is a modern romance fantasy about people called Monos who can't see any color unless they meet their Probes, however this may turn dangerous as the Monos may experience obsessive behavior, so what happens when a young high schooler meets his probe?. You can either watch it on its drama or movie version. Both available on viki. By the way, if you're a long time deobi and was wandering what happened to Hwall, he's one of the main leads.

You Make Me Dance (2021) follows the story of a university dancer who is in debt and his debt collector. Available on viki in both versions. The movie is 107 minutes long.

Just Friends (2009) is a short film, but ahead of its time, if you can't tell by the year it was released on. It's a cute story about a man who visits his boyfriend in the military. I found it in dramacool.

That's all from me, if you have any specific genre or them you felt I didn't add in, do feel free to tell me.

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filterjeons · 3 years

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private show | jjk

✦ pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

✦ summary: throughout your relationship, you never thought jungkook would ask a certain type of action from you. however, you take it into consideration...without the intention of him nearly catching you

✦ rating: M, not suitable for minors

✦ genre: smut

✦ word count: 7.4k

✦ warnings: dom!jungkook, sub!reader, tsundere!reader, rough & unprotected sex (wrap it b4 u tap it!!), dirty talk, degradation bc im a whore for that, masterbation, voyeurism, oral (f receiving), fingering, orgasm denial

Honestly, you didn’t know what you did in your past life to earn a man like Jungkook but you weren’t complaining one bit anyways. By just one look at you, people assumed you weren’t the type to have a boyfriend and you would spend the rest of your life alone. Luckily, you managed to prove them all wrong by being with someone who loved you for the way you were instead of your money.

It was a blessing and a curse to be born into a rich family of doctors who expected you to be the heir of the family hospital. Despite having your future already planned for you, you fell in love with playing the violin after being introduced to it when you were young. The feeling of holding the violin against your jaw as the bow ran across the strings to produce a classical melody that you’ve familiarized yourself with throughout the years.

You would much rather be at a violin recital in a beautiful dress playing one of Bach’s sonatas than being cooped up in your room studying biology. However, your parents didn’t feel the same way.

When you were about 6, you ranked second at a competition against tons of kids who were in their later-preteens but that wasn’t enough to prove to your parents how much you loved music. They took it as a sign of failure because “it’s not being first” and always used that argument against you to emphasize on how you have to be at the top of your class.

“Mommy! Guess what, I got second place! Second out of a bunch of bigger kids! I didn’t expect-” you squealed, kicking the back of the limo’s glass partition. Instead of candy, you were buzzing with excitement due to how well you placed in your county’s music recital. But what you didn’t know was that even a place close to first was never enough. “Why didn’t you get first?”

As those words ran through your ears, you felt your blood run cold and the eyes that were dancing of excitement and joy started to dull. You clutched your certificate tightly, tears starting to swell up.

“That’s because there was a sixth grader who was better than me and she was really good, she can play the piano-” “You see, if you can’t get first then you shouldn’t pursue a career in music. It’s too hard and competitive for you anyways. How about you focus on your studies, especially since you’re going to take over the hospital when you’re older.”

Up until last year which was your freshman year of college, you obeyed them by devoting your time to studying and only treating music as just a hobby while you hide your feelings along the way. Now that you think about it, you barely had friends during high school since every break period, you were always alone in the music room and you were too stubborn to go up to people. The only reason why you would talk to someone is to work on a group project but it ended up being that you would do all of the work while they slack off.

Everyday felt dull and uninteresting, especially since you’re being put in a fate that you don’t even want. But like some stupid cliche, it all changed ever since you met him.

You didn’t even intend to meet him, hell you barely knew he existed. But the night of your chemistry midterm, the apartment next to you decided to have a party which most of the school is invited to and blast loud music that could be heard from the next town over.

It couldn’t get any worse as you were already stressed from college and your parent’s crazy expectations and you were definitely not failing otherwise you’re dead meat. Normally, you would just try to sleep it out with earplugs but since you barely ate anything but coffee and granola bars and you were tired from the 24 hour studying, that was your last straw. So you did the thing a person would do in your situation: marching over to the party in your purple star-printed nightgown to give them a piece of your mind.

Already at the door, you could feel people’s stares burn into you, due to why you came to the party when you didn’t bother interacting with people and why you were in your pajamas. Maybe people were going to talk about you on Instagram but you didn’t care, you just wanted to ensure that you have enough sleep so you could at least pass.

Unfortunately for you, you must’ve looked extremely stupid because you were wandering around the same area like a drunk man. Random people did offer to get you a drink but you declined; after all it was a school night. Eventually you gave up trying to even bother talking after seeing the host, local frat boy Jackson Wang, surrounded by the rest of the partygoers in a beer pong game.

Frustrated and exhausted, you hauled yourself up to a seemingly empty room and collapsed onto the bed. Not only did you enter a college party in your pajamas but you wasted precious time studying over something idiotic like this. With all of these negative emotions inside of you, screaming inside a pillow was the first thing that came into your mind. And unfortunately, someone had to be the witness of your near mental breakdown.

“Woah, is everything okay?” a velvety voice chuckled, patting your back slightly. Well, another reason why your night is absolute shit. You turned your face up to chew off the mysterious person but for some reason, your voice was all caught up in your throat.

He was different, different from all of the boys that ever interacted with you. Despite you being a complete loner, the guys in your high school tried to hook up with you but you were never interested. They stunk of axe and the only reason why they’re “popular” is because they were on a sports team. Besides, you were too busy in your academics to even think about dating.

You couldn’t really see him but the guy who’s in the room with you looks better than every single guy in your high school combined: his long dark hair in a mini-ponytail contrasting with his cute bunny-like face.

“Wh-who are you?” “Jeon Jungkook. I’m a member of the boxing team and my family owns a records shop downtown. What about you?”

“I-i-” “Aren’t you Y/N, the smart girl who doesn’t talk to anybody and spends her time either studying or in the music room with her violin?” Thank god the room is dark because your face was burning up badly. Barely anyone knew you and if they did, they had bad things to say about you because you were so quiet and boring. However, what he said was a fact and you shouldn’t blame him for having an impression on you due to what other people said. It hurted nonetheless though, especially since he was a part of a sports team.

“Yeah, that’s me. What do you want? If it’s homework answers, then fine!” you snapped, immediately standing up and walking away. You were absolutely done with this night, all you wanted to do is sleep so you have some sanity tomorrow.

“You sure are feisty. It’s cute,” he said with a cocky grin stuck on his face. Oh, how you wanted to slap it off.

“If you’re asking me out, I’m not interested!” you fought back. Although you were one step out of the door, something about him made you want to stay. Like you wanted to talk to him.

“I didn’t say anything about that but if you want it that way-”

“No! I-I’m sorry for acting all rude, I’m just having a really bad night and I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone,” you mumbled, turning on the light. Oh how it was a bad idea..

Now that you could really see his face clearly, your heart felt like it was about to explode. He was dressed in a simple all-black T-shirt and jeans with combat boots to match. What really captivated you were the tattoos on his hand and up to his elbow, each symbol and design etched out beautifully which must’ve taken hours.

Although you were at least wearing clothes, you felt exposed due to the stupid pajamas you have on. He somehow sensed your embarrassment and gave you a small smirk which made it ten times worse.

“Well, do you want to explain why you were screaming in a pillow earlier?” Normal you definitely wouldn’t spill her feelings to a hot guy she just met five minutes ago but with him, you felt safe. Like for one night, all your worries and feelings are immediately gone and it’s just you and him.

Was this the stupid shit they call “love at first sight”?

“My midterm is tomorrow and I can’t sleep from all of the noise so I came here to yell at the host of the party. Jackson Wang, fuck you and your decision to host a party today,” you sighed, settling yourself next to him. You would expect him to immediately laugh and make fun of you since it was something a lot of people did to you whenever you cared about your grades. Instead, he looked at you with understandment and listened to what you had to say.

“Honestly, I don’t even know why I went to this stupid party in the first place,” he replied, making you snort out a laugh. As you were trying to collect yourself from his statement, Jungkook’s mouth turned up into a small smile.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect that. Anyways, I guess I should get going since I have a big day ahead of me,” you smiled, feeling a small weight being lifted off of your shoulders. As you trudge out the door, Jungkook’s arm stops yours for a second.

“Do you think I can have your phone number? Not for dating but you sound like a really cool person to be around and no offense but you seem lonely.” “Thanks for the compliment. But here you go,” you said sarcastically, scribbling down your phone number on a random piece of stationary in the drawer next to the bed. Maybe this is all a fever dream, maybe you’re hallucinating due to how little sleep you’ve gotten during midterm week.

“I’ll see you soon…” he waved you goodbye as you gave a final look at the door. He was interesting but now isn’t the time to be distracted! You’re pretty sure that if you pinch yourself, you’ll be back in your dorm since this is just a dream? “Also, d-don’t take it the wrong way! It’s not like I like you or anything! I just wrote down my number because you asked nicely! We’re never going to date!” Not only did you pass your midterm but your last line to Jungkook in the stuffy college party would become your famous last words.

It’s been years since you and Jungkook met at that party and a lot has changed then. You started to grow feelings and date him a few weeks after your midterm, eventually making the relationship official in a month. After a few months into dating, he introduced his parents to you first. They were a sweet family with amazing home cooked meals which you were dying to recreate and luckily, they accepted you with open arms.

However, him meeting your parents wasn’t that smooth. Now that you look back on that day, not only were you permanently deciding to be with the one that you love but it also felt like you were breaking free out of the shell that your parents trapped you in because you didn’t want to go down the path they set for you.

You shook your head to yourself, not wanting to be reminded of the painful past. Now, you were a violinist playing in recitals and companies and Jungkook was running his parent’s record shop. You were happy and you didn’t care about what your stupid parents think. They can simply ask someone else to run the hospital and it’ll still be fine.

As soon as the practice track ended, you turned off the metronome and packed your violin away. The apartment that you and Jungkook shared was average-sized, a notable difference from the mansion you used to live in but it was better. You were with the person you love and that’s all you could ever need. It may sound corny but a simple life with him was all you ever wanted.

After you pack away your violin, you impatiently wait alongside the door for Jungkook to get home. Right now, he has boxing practice for a match next week and he wanted to stay with his teammate Taehyung to be the best that he can but he’s stopping by for a day. You’re not into boxing but like the good girlfriend you were, you attend most of his matches (some conflicted with your performances) and cheer him on.

Although you miss having him by your side, you’re also aware of how much boxing means to him as it was a break from the hectic life of owning a music store. Another positive in your new life was the amount of music there was, a good break from the science and math that filled your childhood.

You heard some jiggling among the door locks and surely enough, Jungkook’s handsome face was in your view. He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt and some blue jeans, a very simple outfit after spending most of his time at the boxing gym.

“Hey baby,” he cooed, giving you a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

“Hi. I’m so happy you’re back, I was starting to worry that you forgot about me,” you joked, carrying his boxing bag to your shared bedroom with him tagging behind.

“You know I would never forget about you,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing the back of your neck. Instead of wriggling away like you normally do, you allow yourself to relish in his affection since he wasn’t a person who did it often.

“I missed you..” you mumbled, turning around and kissing him. He returned the kiss more passionately, slipping his tongue inside your mouth. The sudden action made you forget about everything, focusing only on him. Unfortunately, with your senses locked on him, it caused you to fall onto the bed, your head nearly hanging off of the edge. Jungkook used your weakness to have more control over the kiss and you, carefully grabbing the back of your head to deepen the kiss. Even though he always controls kissing you, his lips are also full of love and longing due to him being gone for too long.

“God I missed this,” he mumbled, breaking away to remove the buttons of your blouse and kissing the side of your neck. You whined from his touch, feeling a bit embarrassed due to how much time it’s been since the two of you were together.

“What is it baby girl, are you nervous? Come on, we’ve known each other for years and I know you can take anything I give you.” It was true of course but for some reason, it felt like the first time you had sex with him.

After your shirt has been taken off, you unconsciously cover your chest with your arms. You didn’t know why you’re acting so self-conscious, especially since you’ve been a challenger to him in bed.

“Hey, are you okay? We can stop if you don’t want to-” Jungkook asked softly, reaching over to take your hand.

What’s there to be nervous about? It’s just Jungkook and like he said, you’ve known him for too long. Besides, don’t you have too much pride to act this way? You swallowed the lump in your throat and looked back at him with a seductive smile.

“You were taking too long to take off my shirt. How boring,” you said coyly, tapping his nose playfully. He returned your gaze, his eyes darkened with lust and desire.

“Well then baby girl, how about you take off the rest of your clothes since you seem like you want to do it,” he muttered, sitting up with his attention completely on your chest. One thing you were infamous in your relationship for is being a brat, a mix of you being submissive but not backing down completely. Even though you liked being a good girl sometimes, the rest is just you on the receiving end. After all, you won’t back down to a challenge, nonetheless if your challenger’s your significant other.

If a person only based off of what they saw, they would think that you were the one taking absolute control due to the aura you give off and your harsh personality. However, at least between you and him since you were one to keep your private life a secret, he is the one with the reins and you were completely fine with it.

You unclipped your bra, throwing it at some random place in the room and revealed your exposed breasts. He ogled at your body up and down, his familiar lustful gaze running through his eyes.

“Hey, what are you staring at?” you barked, slowly starting to feel awkward. Unlike you, Jungkook had no shame when it came to your bedroom activities and there were times when he would just stare at you while you’re completely bare. How embarrassing...but it’s no big deal.

“Watch your mouth you little brat. Do I have to punish you on my day back?” he said darkly, his tone immediately making the back of your hairs stand up. Your face softened, heat forming in your cheeks as you twirled a random piece of your hair, a random habit that you’ve done since elementary school.

“I-I’m sorry.” “Sorry what, baby girl? You’re smarter than that.” “Sorry..sir.” After that word was uttered in your soft and obedient tone, Jungkook could feel his dick growing harder by the second. Hearing you give up all of your confidence and letting him control you never failed to turn him on.

“Now take off the rest of your clothes, sweetie. Or are you going to continue being a dumb little girl and keep playing with me,” he growled softly, leaning back on the bed frame. You felt like acting up some more but he truly was scary when he’s upset and you didn’t want to make his visit back bad because of your behavior so you simply did what he said. Even though you wouldn’t admit it to the world, you also love obeying Jungkook.

You quickly unzippered your jeans, pulling them off along with your panties and kicking them out of the bed. The warmth from the clothes were immediately replaced by the chilly air from the air conditioner, your nipples standing up and goosebumps filling your body. It was humiliating, especially since Jungkook can see you so clearly.

“My precious sweetheart,” he cooed, leaning over you and you could feel his hardened member alongside the roughness of his jeans as he slowly grinded into you.

“Ahh…” You didn’t know what to say, except you knew you wanted more. Jungkook’s mouth was latched onto your nipples, sucking them harshly while his other hand was massaging and flicking on them repeatedly. You felt your eyes roll back to your head and your pussy dampening, even though he wasn’t doing anything yet.

“You like this baby?” he asked gruffly, tugging on your nipple teasingly as it sends sparks of pleasure inside you. You only let out a whine in response as he broke apart from your chest and slowly made his way down your body.

All of a sudden, he inserted one of his long fingers inside of your core, sending vibrations throughout your body. You squealed from the intrusion as your body tried to familiarize itself with his finger, your walls clenching around his digit.

“Damn, have you gotten tighter since last time?” He started to thrust his finger in and out of you at a moderate pace, trying to get you used to the feeling. As if one isn’t enough for you, he suddenly inserted a second one to stretch you out.

Your mind was a haze, not paying attention to anything that was happening around you and focusing on the pleasure that Jungkook was giving you. His fingers attempted to reach the spongy section of your g-spot, the place that absolutely had you in hysterics. Surely enough, his fingertips grazed over it and you could nearly come undone at any second.

While he added an additional finger and completely filled you up, you could feel his smooth tongue on your clit, flicking and sucking on it feverishly. High-pitched moans and mewls were coming out of your mouth embarrassingly as you tugged on Jungkook’s long locks in order to steady yourself of the pleasure.

You could feel him curl his fingers and touch your g-spot, sending sparks within you. At this point, you were barely in a stable mindset due to how good he was making you feel. You felt a knot building up in your stomach, your orgasm coming close to you.

“Are you gonna cum now baby girl? Do you want to cum for Sir? Yeah, I know you do, I could feel it coming,” he said tauntingly, his fingers and tongue abusing your cunt and the vibrations among it made the sensation feel even better.

“Y-yeah, I’m gonna-” you whimpered pathetically but to your dismay, he completely stopped by sliding his fingers out and removing his face. With your release dismissed like it was nothing, you felt annoyance build up on you as your body shook from the denial.

“What the hell? Why did you stop?” you groaned, your eyes shooting sharp daggers at Jungkook. If looks could kill, he would surely be dead within two seconds. But all that’s on his face were your liquids and a cocky smirk that you want to wipe off instantly.

“Because I want you to cum on my dick first. It’s been so long since I’ve been inside you, y’know?” he said casually, pulling off his shirt like it was nothing and revealing his impressive 6-pack. One thing that you were always in awe of was his figure. Jungkook was a really athletic person, always finding time out of his day to work out and maintain his muscular body. You didn’t mind if he didn’t have abs but it neutralized his cute face that could easily kill anyone.

“It’s been a while, yeah? You ready kitten?” Jungkook kicked off his jeans and his boxer that covers his massive bulge was immediately in your vision. You could feel your thighs rubbing together as you were craving him inside you.

“You’re calling me kitten now?” you mumbled shyly as he sat on the edge of the bed, palming his hardened member.

“Yeah because you’re my cute kitty, aren’t you? Do you want to take off my boxers for me?” he smirked, knowing how excited you are to see him like this again. Like there was no tomorrow, you yanked it off impatiently and his dick sprang out, hitting his abs before standing up instantly.

“You’re excited, aren’t you? Don’t deny it,” Jungkook teased, stroking his member teasingly before setting you down on your back and hovering above you.

“I want it,” you mumbled impatiently, getting excited with the thought of him fucking you until you can’t walk again. He chuckled at your reaction, slowly slipping himself inside you. You shrieked from the sudden movement and tried to make yourself comfortable even though this wasn’t new to you.

“Alright baby, let’s go,” he said gruffly, slowly pulling out and slamming it back inside within the next five seconds. You let out a scream as he picked up the pace into the all-too familiar rough and fast one.

“Damn, you’ve gotten way tighter since the last time I’ve fucked your brains out. Feels so good for Sir,” he groaned, his dick completely filling you warm and deep to the point where it could nearly reach your guts. “Does my baby like that? Like getting dicked down where I can feel her in your stomach?” “Ahh, oh my god!” You could only moan and whine in response, pathetic noises coming out of your mouth as Jungkook’s dick hit every surface of your pussy. His veins already made it even more pleasurable and you could feel the tip grazing upon your g-spot, making you even more sensitive.

It hasn’t been long but embarrassingly, you could feel your orgasm arrive once again due to how good his dick was thrusting into you. As he continued to drill your abused cunt, you could feel your legs tremble at the sensitive feeling and the impending sensation of your orgasm starting to grow in your core.

“S-sir, oh my god-” you mewled as Jungkook used his force to flip you on your stomach, your face covered in the pillows. You couldn’t feel him inside you for a second but suddenly, he slammed inside you with no remorse and continued fucking you at that fast pace.

Your cunt throbs as you prepare yourself to cum all over his dick. Jungkook could sense it too by the way your walls started to tighten around him, making it even more pleasurable than the last time you two had sex due to how tight you were. You were praying that he doesn’t deny your orgasm again but there were times where he was that cruel. But you’ve behaved enough to not warrant that type of treatment.

“Is my baby gonna cum now? Go on, come for me, I want to see you come undone on my dick,” he chanted lowly, his pace fastening due to his orgasm coming in soon. Like his words set off a reaction inside you, you screamed out his name and squirted on his dick and stomach. Using that as fuel to keep going, Jungkook thrusts even faster than before to catch his own high as you try to calm yourself down from your own orgasm.

“Ahh, Jungkook-” you whined from the sensitivity but you kept holding on so he could cum too. The way his sweat dripped off of his forehead and complimenting with his dark locks nearly made you want to cum again.

“Fuck, I’m cumming, oh shit,” he moaned out, his thrusts slowing down and surely enough, you could feel his dick spurt out his seed inside you. He started to pull out and stroke himself, spurts of his cum filling up your pussy to not waste a drop.

You and him started to breathe heavily from the intense fuck as you gingerly pulled up the sheets to cover your body. It’s not like you were embarrassed of him seeing your body, it was a habit you did after you have sex with him.

“Did you miss me?” he smiled, lying down next to you and covering an arm around your waist. You nodded, snuggling up next to him on the neck of his crook. There weren't any words spoken from the both of you for a while, instead you were just enjoying the presence of him next to you because after today, he’ll be gone again.

If you had it your way, you didn’t want him to go but he really wanted to participate in his boxing match and what kind of girlfriend were you if you didn’t support him? Still, you loved every moment with him and he was the one thing you absolutely loved in your life.

After a moment of silence, Jungkook broke the silence by facing towards you with seriousness in his eyes. You were worried that something may have happened, so you braced yourself with the worst that could happen. But surprisingly, his words were a bigger shock than any other disaster you could think of.

“Y/N, do you mind if I ask something of you? I hope you don’t find it uncomfortable or invasive.” “Sure, what is it?” You should’ve known from the cheeky smirk he gave you that he was going to request this type of stuff.

“I want to see you touch yourself. I think you’ll look so hot fucking yourself with your fingers while all I’m doing is just watching you.” “What the hell?!”

You were lying if you said you didn’t think about it a lot, especially since Jungkook left the house today this afternoon. Now that he wasn’t there, the apartment felt lonely again and you automatically missed him.

However, the thought of him also brings you back to the conversation you had after you two had sex after a while.

“You’ve never touched yourself? I figured that something like that would come easy to you!” “Well- you know I have dignity right! It’s already embarrassing enough that I’m your submissive!”

“You’re right, it’s already hot seeing you act all whiny and needy for my touch.” “Shut up! Stop making fun of me!”

You shook your head, trying to get rid of Jungkook’s words. With the intent to clean your room to take some stuff out of your mind, you walked to the shared bedroom and started to rearrange random knick-knacks that were placed in peculiar locations.

While you were wandering around, your eye caught sight of a black duffel bag that was in a hidden corner of your bed. With curiosity, you approached it to check to see what was inside. It was heavy and filled with boxing gloves and other equipment, meaning that it was Jungkook’s.

He must’ve forgotten it when he left today, you mused, holding the glove to your chest. A normal person would immediately contact him and give it back but it was like a living piece of him, having its name and scent. You can’t believe you already miss him that much to hold onto his boxing gloves for some comfort. How pathetic.

The smell of him already reminded you of yesterday, when he touched you and made you feel so good. You groaned to yourself as you feel your panties dampening just from the thought of Jungkook giving you pleasure.

“Y’know what, it wouldn’t hurt to try, right? Alright Jungkook, I’ll do it,” you muttered to yourself as you slowly grazed your fingers to your lower region. You could already feel the slick coming out of your panties, signalling how wet you were.

You were a smart person but frankly, you were confused on how to touch yourself especially since this was your first time. Memories of the way Jungkook inserted and thrusted his fingers inside you flashed through your mind, giving you an idea on how to start.

You slide your panties off to your ankles and slowly insert your index finger inside of your core, letting yourself get familiar to your own fingers inside of you. It sure felt different than when Jungkook did it, it wasn’t enough to completely make you feel undone. You pumped another finger inside, giving you something inside at least but it was no better than Jungkook’s touch.

“Ahh, Jungkook,” you moaned softly, flicking your own clit with your fingers which makes the pleasure at least a bit better. You would rather have him with you but it was enough to fill up a small part of his absence. Remembering every time he fucked you harshly was enough to quicken your pace with your fingers, your walls clenching around them and your orgasm closely approaching.

Your other hand groped your breasts, flicking your nipple and massaging them while the other was thrusting in and out of your needy cunt. You were completely in your own euphoria, the world completely fading away from you. Unfortunately for you, that euphoria is only short-lived.

An annoying sound ran throughout your room, the culprit being your cell phone. You groaned with disappointment as you attempted to pry your fingers out of your pussy and your orgasm fading away with every time the ringtone chimed.

With your slick-covered hands, you read the text and your blood started to run cold from the words that were displayed on the screen.

[Jungkook ♡]

- Hi babe, I’m coming home bc I forgot my boxing bag.

- Sorry that this was sudden

- Actually, I’m outside the apartment rn

You’re fucked. Absolutely fucked. But lucky, you still had a minute to spare to make it seem like you weren’t doing anything. You put his boxing glove back in the bag and wobbled downstairs to the front door. The door locks started to jingle and you immediately opened them just for him to take his bag and go. You love him with all of your heart but now’s not the time to chat with him.

“Hey Y/N, do you have my bag?” he asked across from you, looking as good as ever. You forced a smile and shoved his bag in front of your face.

“Yeah, it’s this one right? So, here it is so you can get going now! Goodbye!” you grinned, sweat dripping down your face.

Jungkook looked puzzled on why you were acting that way but decided to go along with it. “O-okay, thanks.”

“Of course! Now, you should get going now! Your boxing rehearsal isn’t going to wait forever, is it?” you chuckled, trying to push him out of the door but he didn’t budge. After taking a quick glance at you (more specifically your legs and the amount of slick dripping down), he decided to stay.

“Woah, woah, there’s something going on. Let me in,” he said stubbornly, pushing against you to get inside the apartment.

“What are you talking about? There’s literally nothing going on! You should go back to the boxing place!” you argued but he wouldn’t listen. Jungkook grabbed your hand and pulled you upstairs into the bedroom and set you down, looking straight into your eyes. You immediately blushed as his eyes held such confusion and hunger inside.

“Don’t lie to me, only bad girls lie. So tell me baby, what exactly is going on?”

Surely he didn’t know right? You still have some time to lie because there’s no way he knows.

“I was taking a nap before you texted me.”

“Without your panties on and a shit ton of slick dripping down your thighs?” he asked with confusion, pulling up your skirt and revealing your soaking pussy, throbbing due to the atmosphere. At this point, you were absolutely stuck in a corner as Jungkook stared at the way you’re completely aroused.

“Ahh, um..” “Are you cheating on me, Y/N?” His eyes were now full of sadness and hurt and you could immediately feel your heart start to break.

“N-no! Of course not! I would never cheat on you, you’re the one who I love! It’s just because..” you tried to get the idea out of his head, holding his hands tightly. Jungkook’s face brightened up a bit before being replaced with suspicion.

“So, what’s up? What were you doing while I left?” There was absolutely no talking yourself out of this because Jungkook would find out either way at this point. But at least it’s better than making up a stupid lie, right? “I..um..remember how you said you wanted to see me touch myself yesterday?” “Of course.” “Well...I was doing that..” you mumbled with embarrassment, avoiding his eye contact. Jungkook’s ears picked up what you said and his face lit up with excitement and desire.

“Say that again for me?” he smirked, loving how soft and shy you were now.

“I..was touching myself while I was thinking of you,” you said a bit loudly but it was still so embarrassing. You had no idea why he was all so happy right now but it made you happy nonetheless.

“Do you think you can show me?” he grinned, staring up into your eyes.

“What?! N-no! It’s private right? You see, it’s private for a reason! Now you got your bag and figured out why I was acting weird so you can go now!” you snapped, heat automatically filling up your body.

“It’s okay, I can skip practice today. This is important, why didn’t you tell me?” “It’s not something I should tell you.” “Anyways, you’ve been a bad girl today. Touching yourself while thinking of me, you’re so naughty. So your punishment is to reenact what you did before I came back and I’m not leaving until I see you touch yourself. But don’t worry, if you need help then I’m always here,” Jungkook purred, his dominant persona on. You gulped down a lump down your throat but you weren’t ready to back down to him yet.

“No I’m not! I’m not giving up my dignity just yet!” “Come on, little girl. I know you were fucking yourself like a little whore while you were gone. Did your tiny little fingers fill you up completely, better than my cock? I know you didn’t because even though you’re a whore, you’re still such a slut for my dick.” His dirty words made you even more turned on than normal with even more slick running down your thighs. You knew it was better to obey, especially since he’s talking like this. With that being said, you scooted yourself with the back of your head hitting the bed frame. After a minute of hesitation, you lifted up your skirt which revealed your whole pussy to him. Jungkook stared intently, noticing every little twitch that it made as it’s longing for something to be inside it and how wet it has become. His lips were curled into a smirk as your fingers started to graze over your folds.

Taking a deep breath, you inserted two of your fingers to aid the throbbing in your core. It felt different than when you did it before, maybe due to Jungkook staring at every little movement you made.

Despite your initial refusal, having him watch over you turned you on even more and the throbbing only continued to get worse after you slowly started to move your fingers. You didn’t know how much it turned you and him on, judging from his erection in his pants.

“Ahh, oh my god,” you moaned, adding an additional finger and groping your boobs with your other hand.

Jungkook’s mouth was in shock, shocked at how you can look so sexy touching yourself even though it was your first time. His dick was begging to be released in his now tight sweatpants but just watching you like this was more than enough.

He’s never admitted it directly to you but surprisingly, he’s such a voyeur and seeing you wrecked with only your fingers or even a toy could make him cum as hard as him actually fucking you.

“J-Jungkook, please…” you mewled, rocking your hips against your small hands in an attempt to hit your g-spot, where only your boyfriend knows.

By now, you’ve inserted your whole hand inside of your core and it still wasn’t as satisfying as Jungkook’s long fingers inside you. You should’ve been embarrassed that his vision was at you masterbating but frankly, you didn’t care anymore.

“Shit baby girl, just like that, fucking ruin yourself,” he grunted, slightly stroking his hardened member through his sweatpants.

“I want your mouth on me,” you cried, slowly starting to feel the same ecstatic feeling of your release. The way his eyes were set on you alone brings you closer to your high as you’re practically grinding on your hand.

Luckily, Jungkook heard your wish and immediately brought his face down to your core, taking your fingers out and licking your clit like there was no tomorrow. His face was completely buried with the goal of eating you out and getting your cum out of you. It wasn’t a thought that ever crossed your mind but you never realized how much better Jungkook made you feel and how the throbbing seemed to go away after he was with you. His face was absolutely covered in your juices and adding to his warm mouth were his long fingers.

“You like that don’t you, you slutty little girl?” he hummed, the vibrations of his mouth making you even more closer to the edge. You gripped onto his arm tightly, your fingernails dragging along his muscles due to how much he was giving you.

You felt his fingers curl against you, hitting your g-spot and bringing you closer to your climax. It felt too good and you were craving to be ruined by him. Jungkook stared at the way you were shoving his hand amongst your tight little cunt, grinding on it as you try to reach your high and the squelching sounds it made.

Within seconds, you were close to your orgasm and you were trying to chase after it feverishly. His tongue and his fingers were too much for you, even though you received them last night. They made you feel so satisfied and full, always filling you up to the edge and the way he was hitting every spot nearly made you cream all over his fingers.

Unfortunately for you, he immediately pulled his fingers and mouth away, completely denying you of releasing. The hot feeling and intensity disappeared instantly and was replaced by the familiar throbbing as you let out a groan of disappointment. This was the second time you’ve lost your orgasm and you just wanted to release on him once more.

“Why did you stop? I was going to-” you growled, your face heating up due to the increased temperature inside.

“You’re not going to cum when I’m away. Is that a rule you can follow?” he said sharply, licking every remain of your juices off his face and wiping the excess with a tissue.

“W-why?” “Instead, I want you to send me a video touching yourself but not cumming until my match. Is that an order my little girl can do?”

You absolutely hated the fact that you won’t be releasing for a while but you didn’t want to get him mad. All you can do is just accept your fate and nod.

“There you go, don’t worry, I’m going to make you feel so good once I win,” he grinned, kissing you passionately. You could immediately taste yourself on his lips and felt his hardened member upon you. There were more things that the two of you would’ve done but he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“Well then, I’ll be off. You’ll behave, right?” he parted cheerily, grabbing his bag and leaving the apartment like he didn’t just completely ate you out and denied your orgasm for the second time. As you heard the door lock, you’re left with your skirt drenched from your juices and the aching feeling between your legs.

Oh the things that Jungkook does to you. But what would happen if you gave him a little surprise during his boxing match. Surely, you weren’t that submissive and besides, it would be fun to tease him..

“You did great man!” Taehyung cheered, high-fiving Jungkook as soon as his match ended. He shared the same with a bunny-like smile and went inside the locker room to clean up to see you. Not only did he win but he’s going to be staying with you for a while now.

With a bright spirit, he unlocked his locker and opened his phone to a text message from you. There was an attachment with a seemingly innocent message but once he opened the video, it only fueled his desire.

[Y/N ♡]

- I miss you so much

Inside of the video was you fucking yourself with your fingers, high-pitched and incoherent whimpers coming out of you and from the looks of it, it was like you’re about to reach your climax.

Within the last few seconds, it cuts to you creaming all over the bed and licking your juices off of your fingers seductively with a cute wink at the end. All of that just to rile and tease him.

Shit, the things that this girl does to me, Jungkook sighs, feeling his member starting to grow inside of his pants again. They were simple instructions yet you can’t obey properly. Maybe it was due to you being a brat and wanting to be put in your place again.

Well, if there’s one thing that you and Jungkook know, is that you’ll certainly not walk the next day.

a/n: honestly, i’m not too proud of this but i hope you liked it regardless! let me know what you think and have a great day <3

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tomtenadia · 3 years

Text

Island dream - chapter 24

Chapter 24 has finally landed. It took me a while but it's here. Sorry it took me ages, life happens.

but now it's here and something big happens.

Have fun and enjoy <3

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The holidays had passed and Aedion and Lysandra had gone back to London but Aelin knew this time it was not for long. Her friends were coming back for good and that had been the most perfect present, Rowan’s proposal aside. That had been her most treasured memory of the holidays and probably of her entire life. Malcolm had thrown a Hogmanay party and the four of them had all been invited and they had great fun and welcomed the new year together knowing it was going to be a new year full of future great moments.

It was now January and life had slowly gone back to normality. That morning Aelin woke up and again she felt like death. She had been feeling like that for a while now and she just blamed it to work. She rolled over in bed and slammed the alarm off, then realised that Rowan’s side was empty. He was probably up already as his usual. Slowly she forced herself to roll out of bed and walked to the kitchen in nothing but one of his t-shirts. Rowan was preparing breakfast and packing her lunch as well. He had decided that cafeteria food was not healthy so he had taken upon himself to pack her some Rowan approved lunch. She complained for the first two days then she gave up. The food had been amazing and he actually loved doing it, so she let him fuss. She hugged him from behind and leaned her head against his back and groaned. She would have gladly slept for another week. “You look terrible again. Are you sure you should go to work?” He turned in her arms and faced her. Aelin let out another savage groan “I feel like I was at a party and I got pished pretty hard last night.” Rowan roared with laughter “That’s a very Scottish word.” “Aye, I am surrounded, of course I pick up things. And Malcolm is a bad influence.” She tried to smile but noticed his worried expression “I’ll get better in a few days. Stop being a worrywart.” “You have been saying that for a while now.” He pressed his hand on her forehead followed by his lips “you definitely are not running a fever.” He passed her a mug of coffee and a plate with bacon and eggs, their Saturday treat. Aelin took a bite of bacon but put the fork down when her stomach protested quite aggressively and she ran for the toilet where she felt sick. Rowan was behind her a moment later. Worry deep in his features. Aelin managed to get up and went to brush her teeth “It’s just a stomach bug. I will be fine.” “You should not go to work.” She ignored him and went back to the bedroom to grab some clean clothes “I am going for a shower and I am going to work wether you approve or not.” Rowan sighed “At least have one of your colleagues have a look at you. This is not normal.” “Fine.” She brushed him off irritated “As long as you shut up about it.” And she slammed the bathroom door in his face. Rowan sighed and went back to the kitchen. She had been very irritable as well during the last week and they fought more than they normally did and she had been constantly exhausted for a while now. He had bought her vitamins hoping it would help but it did not. And now she was sick as well. There was something going on and he was really getting worried. But she was not listening to him and kept telling him that it was just an innocent bug. Half an hour later Aelin reappeared again all ready to go. Rowan handed her the thermos bag with her lunch. Her arms went around his neck “I am sorry.” She said, burying her face in his neck “I didn’t mean to…” she sniffled. “Shh… I know, mo chridhe, we are good.” He kissed her head in reassurance “Just get checked, please.” Aelin nodded and lifted her head to kiss him. He pretended to refuse the kiss for a moment then lifted her in his arms and his mouth crushed on hers. “I love you.” “Go, I’ll se you tonight.” She left and he sighed.

It was an half hour later when she reached the hospital and went quickly to her office. She was in charge of the A&E and she went to get the roster for the day and started making plans where to place the two new intern who joined the team two days before. She loved her job. The pace was different from London but it allowed her to actually have a life outside work and she was happy for that. She was flipping through her diary looking for something else, when she noticed something amiss and everything all of a sudden made sense. She flipped a bit more pages and panic rose swiftly in her. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” She ran out of the office and back into the pit where she saw Malcolm, grabbed him and pulled him to an empty bed, then closed the curtains. “What’s happening?” Aelin grabbed one of the carts in the corridor and took out a syringe and a vial and homeostatic elastic “Fill this up for me, please.” “Are you okay?” He asked while donning his gloves before proceeding to draw blood from her. Once he was done Aelin looked at him “No. Yes. Maybe.” She needed to calm down “I was flipping through my diary to look for something when I noticed something peculiar.” “How peculiar are we talking about?” “I missed my period. Then I went back another month and I realised I missed two.” “Oh.” Was Malcolm first reaction “Not to be judgmental, but how can you miss it? I have a sister and I am told it’s quite difficult to miss.” Aelin sighed “I was on the pill. Then I stopped because it was giving me issues. After quitting the pill it goes off kilter for a while so I was not too bothered about not having it.” she explained “Then once I saw the diary it all clicked. All of it. I have been moody. I have been constantly tired and now sick as well and my boobs are killing me. I did not miss my period because I got off the pill.” She explained frantically. “You and that man you yours have been naughty?” His smile was wicked. Aelin folder her arms at her chest and stared at him sideways. “I am just saying…Now, do you need a sex-ed lesson?” He joked, while sealing the vial with her blood. Aelin blushed savagely “a few times Rowan and I might not have been… careful.” “Oh, the savage passion… I hope the wall is still standing.” She and Malcolm had developed a wonderful relationship and they could talk about anything “The house is still standing.” “Good,” he gave her a wide smile and his dimple made an appearance. Malcolm was good looking. There was a high number of nurses who were crazy about him. He was tall, blonde and with beautiful grey eyes. A heart attack on two legs. The first time she saw him she was the one who had almost smashed into the glass door. “I guess you want me to take this to the lab and check for the p word?” Aelin sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder and his hand was on her hair “You are panicking.” “I will be fine.” She took a deep breath and jumped off the bed. “I will take this to the lab and I will let you know as soon as I know something.” She kissed him on the cheek and disappeared back to work.

Aelin tried to go back to her job to keep her mind occupied. She knew the answer already but she had to wait for the test. All the signs had been there for a while now. She was just worried how Rowan would react to the news. She knew he wanted kids, but perhaps this was a bit too early. She sighed and responded to the page and went to help her intern.

It was in the afternoon when Malcolm pushed her into her office and closed the door. He waved a piece of paper in front of her. “Is that it?” The man nodded and Aelin sat on the edge of the desk, her heart hammering “It’s positive, isn’t it?” “It is.” Malcolm gave her the paper with the results and then studied her “You don’t seem happy, I thought you and Rowan wanted a family.” He sat beside her. Aelin started pacing “We do. I do. Mal, we got engaged two weeks ago, we have been together less than a year. I just wan’t expecting it this soon.” “Are you afraid he will be mad?” Aelin scoffed “No. No, knowing him, he will be ecstatic and then probably put me under house arrest to prevent me to overwork myself.” “If he is a bit overprotective it’s just because he loves you and wants to look after you.” She turned to him. His gaze had gone sad all of a sudden “You are quite the protective type as well.” His face went dark and she felt as if she had said something wrong. Shit. “Mal…” “It’s okay.” He said, placing a hand on her knee “you could not know.” Mal took a deep sigh “He was a pilot. I was on an aircraft carrier. I was the medical officer. He was the commander of the air group. We started it off a bit rocky but then we began to get along quite well. Later on in our deployment, I realised I had feelings for him. Then I discovered he felt the same. After a while we got together and we were an item for a while.” He explained “I knew he was good at his job, but as a doctor, well, I had seen my share of accidents and I used to worry about him every time he would go out with his squadron. If I had an empty med bay I would go on deck and wait until he landed back. He would joke saying that I fussed too much.” He tries to laugh a bit “Things got serious between us. Sometimes we were lucky to be together but quite a lot we were posted in different locations. We always worried when one of us would go on tour without the other. Eventually we had decided to deploy one more and then both retire. He never made it back. After his death I went on one last deployment. ” he sighed heavily. Aelin gasped “Mal, I am so, so, so sorry.” “What I wanted to say is let him fuss over you. That man is madly in love with you. I wish Matthew was still here for me to fuss over him for being late or being ill. I miss it. And I miss him.” She turned and hugged him fiercely and he hugged her back. “Nurse Helen and I will look after you. We will find you a hot sexy man.” Malcolm laughed “Yeah she has been trying to set me up on dates for a while.” Then turned to her “No one knows about Matthew, a part from some of my ex Navy colleagues. I don’t want anyone’s pity. You can set me up on all the dates you want not because I am alone but because I am still here, still alive and I can’t waste such gift by wallowing forever, he would not want that. I will always remember him but life goes on.” Aelin nodded “So tall and dark-haired? Muscles? Rowan might have some swimming buddies available.” Malcolm stood “I am very picky.” “I will keep that in mind.” “Good. Now I best go back to my patients before they start to feel abandoned.” He took a step to the door the turned to her “Aelin, thank you for being my friend” and he left.

A few hours later Aelin was on her way to Yrene for her ob/gyn appointment. After the results she had phoned the ward and asked to book an appointment. She had been feeling nervous all day and still coming to terms with the fact that she and Rowan were going to have a kid. She had no idea if she felt ready or not. Once at the reception she told the secretary she was there for her appointment and she was invited to take a seat. She lasted five minutes before she had to dash to the bathroom and be sick. She felt like death. It took her ten minutes to get out of the toilet. When she got back Yrene was waiting for her “You look terrible.” “And I feel even worse.” Yrene invited her in in her office and told Aelin to lie down on the bed. Yrene smiled and pulled the ultrasound machine closer. Aelin lifted the bottom of her scrubs exposing her belly and Yrene spread gel on it. “Take a deep breath.” Aelin was getting more nervous by the minute which was not working well for her already upset stomach. “Let’s see…” Yrene placed the scanning wand on her tummy and looked at the screen. A very strange sound came from the machine. “That is not a regular heartbeat.” Said Aelin terrified, but Yrene smiled. “It’s not because it’s two heartbeats.” “Twins.” Yrene nodded. Aelin let out a ragged breath. “Are they okay?” “Both foetuses look fine and the right size for now. You are about eight weeks pregnant.” Aelin did the math. The getaway. She laughed. “Something funny?” “Yes,” Aelin said brushing her hand in her hair again, she was so nervous “I did the math and it was the first time Rowan and I had sex. And considering the amount of times, well… I am not surprised.” Yrene grinned. “We got… carried away.” Yrene’s hand was on her shoulder “I have seen him. It’s perfectly understandable.” The Yrene’s tone changed “You know the risks with multiple pregnancies.” Aelin nodded . “Hypertension, Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, intense sickness.” “Definitely the last one is starting to appear.” Said Aelin leaning back on the bed. “I want to follow you.” Aelin nodded. She had worked with Yrene and really liked the woman and had discovered she had an amazing experience. “Good.” She cleaned Aelin’s belly and covered her back. “I will see you in three weeks. I want to run some tests. Just to check how you are doing.” “Thank you.” Said Aelin getting up and then she felt sick again and ran for the bathroom.

Going back to work had been tragic. She had spent a good twenty minutes in Yrene’s office bathroom. And left on very shaky legs. “What did Yrene do to you? You look like death.” Malcolm’s voice welcomed her back to the A&E. He gave her a ginger biscuit “This should help.” “Thank you.” Thanks to Malcolm’s ginger biscuits she did manage to finish her shift and she was now on her way home. Her mind kept thinking about ways to tell Rowan. Then an idea hit her. Before heading home she took a detour to the bookshop. Luckily it was closed already and she could get in and grab the book she needed for her surprise to Rowan. She would pay for it but she had to acquire it first without him knowing. Once she was done she drove home and a sense of happiness finally settled in her. The panic had finally dissolved. It would be okay. They would be okay. When she got home she noticed Rowan was not in the living room, and when she heard the shower, Aelin smiled. Perfect timing for her to quickly wrap the book and prepare the present. Ten minutes later he emerged with just a towel around his waist and she almost fainted. No matter how many times she had seen him like that, the vision had the power to kill her every single time. “You should stop showing off.” “Says the one who wanders around the house in super tiny nightgowns.” She grinned and closed the distance to him. Her arms went around his waist and pinched his butt in reply. “Come and sit.” “I should go and change.” “No way…” he sat on the sofa and she straddled him and kissed him, brushing her hands in his wet hair. She could not get distracted. She had to tell him first, then they could indulge in other activities. She pulled back a bit and grabbed the wrapped gift on the table “Very late Yule present.” She joked. “You already gave me my present.” He told her while grabbing the packet. “Just open it and shush.” Rowan did that and his face was puzzled when he noticed the book “What to expect when you are expecting…” Aelin grinned savagely when his smile morphed into understanding. “We are pregnant.” She whispered placing a gentle kiss on his mouth then she opened the book and showed him the picture of her ultrasound “Baby A and baby B.” She explained pointing at the two blobs. “Twins? We are having twins?” There was utter joy in his voice and her heart seemed to finally relax. “Is that why you were not well?” His arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Aelin nodded. He pulled her close to him “I love you so much.” “You are not scared or worried?” He kissed her “not in the least. I…” he took a breath “I want kids in my life, Aelin. I never brought up the subject because I wanted to give you the time to make up your mind on the topic and enjoy your career.” He looked her in the eyes “Truth is… I have been brooding for a while now.” Her hands were in his hair again “I was terrified when I realised I was pregnant.” Her forehead leaned against “Until I saw the ultrasound and I saw the twins on the screen I was panicking. Then something clicked in me and I stopped being nervous.” “We’ll do this together. I will be at your side, I will support you and do all I could for the three of you.” Aelin leaned forward and kissed Rowan’s head. She knew he was going to be the most amazing dad ever. “Guess when it happened?” “I don’t know, considering how active we have been…” Aelin smiled. That they had. After they got back from the getaway, they had troubles keeping their hands off each other. They had tried every possible surface in their house that could hold them. And she discovered that Rowan was creative too. She kissed his nose “The getaway.” Rowan laughed “we are going to have a big family,” he leaned against her, their foreheads touching. And for a while they just hugged in silence and all the fears Aelin had during the day had melted away once and for all. “I got the book from our shop. I will pay for it. I swear.” She broke the silence. Rowan laughed “It’s okay, Fireheart, for such an amazing gift, I will forgive you.” He grabbed the book and pushed her off her lap and started reading but Aelin had another idea in mind. The book disappeared form his hands and ended up back on the table and she straddled him again. Then she grabbed the hem of her scrubs and remained in her bra in front of him. “We’ll read later, Buzzard.” she kissed him while her hand travelled south. “We shouldn’t” he said pulling back from her. Aelin rolled her eyes “we have been doing it for two months now. No issues. It won’t hurt the babies. Believe me.” And went back kissing him to try and convince him. His hands trailed up her sides, brushing the band of her bra. Aelin’s arms went behind her back and freed herself. She felt his hands palm her breasts and leaned into the touch. With a swift motion she pulled away his towel, leaving him naked and a smile appeared on her face when she noticed him ready for her. His mouth locked on hers and her hand trailed south, grabbing him. Rowan gasped against her lips. “I thought—“ he stopped after her hand did something wicked to him “You feeling better, I reckon?” “I have to apologise for the past few days.” She breathed against his lips. “Do you?” “Stop talking Buzzard and use your mouth in the wicked way of yours.” Rowan did not complain. He lifted her in his arms as he stood. Her hand reached for him again and this time he moaned as his lips met hers again. “I can’t deny a pregnant woman her wish, can I?”

The next morning Aelin had started the day with her head in the toilet. She had been there for a good twenty minutes when Rowan finally walked in and sat beside her. She leaned against him exhausted. “Are you sure you have to go to work?” “Yeah,” she breathed getting up. His arms went around her to help her stand. “There are loads of ginger biscuits ready. I have packed some in your lunch. A very light one with vegetables and other ingredients that should not make you sick. There are a couple of bits of fresh ginger that you can use for your tea. Apparently it works. I read it in the book you gave me.” She leaned against him. “How did I end up with such an amazing man?” “You came into my shop and stole my heart.” He kissed her head. “Gee, Whitethorn, you can be so damn cheesy sometimes.” His nose scrunched up “All your fault. I was leading the charts for most unpleasant man in Stornoway and then you came along.” They reached the breakfast table and they sat down. Rowan had prepared a strawberry milkshake for her. He was planning on keeping track of all the food she did manage to eat and the one that caused discomfort. “Let’s try with toast with jam this morning and see if you can keep it down.” He offered her the food and Aelin made an attempt at eating. “You should discuss with Malcolm the possibility of him having to take most of your night shifts.” Aelin stopped eating and stared at him in disbelief “I can’t do that.” “You are pregnant.” “So what? It does not mean I can’t do my job. I sleep during the day like I usually do and do it. We have on-call rooms. I can still sleep and rest.” He was not convinced and glared at her. “Eventually you will have to go on maternity leave. Someone will have to cover for you. They can easily start doing it now.” His tone had turned to annoyance and Aelin braced for a fight. “That is months away. I can work now.” She shouted “Being pregnant does not mean I can’t do my job.” “If you can keep your head out of the toilet long enough.” He fired back “and if you can manage to reach the patient while your big bump is in the way. Or spend the entire day running around the A&E while your ankles double in size. Sure, go ahead. Be my guest.” Aelin scoffed “I can do all those things.” She snarled back. “You are carrying twins.” He added through gritted teeth “Do you have any idea of all the possible issues you might encounter?” He crossed his arms at his chest in defiance. “I am a doctor, of course I know.” She shouted back not willing to lose that battle. He grabbed the plates and started washing them ignoring her on purpose. She stood and slammed her fork on the table “This is why…” she shouted, but then she stopped. No, she could not say what she had just thought aloud. Rowan was not Chaol. She could not go down that road of hate and resentment again. Not with him. “I need to go to work.” She said much more calmly. She gathered the food containers he had prepared for her and all the biscuits. Then took a step to him and kissed him “Thank you.” She was a weakling but she could not stand the idea of fighting with him, of being mad at him. He grabbed her arm gently “Take it easy, please.” Aelin rolled her eyes and left the kitchen in silence. Rowan sighed and went back washing all the dishes.

Rowan had a quiet morning in the shop. He had changed the main display in the window and had gone for a winter theme and had selected books that had a wintery theme or were set in that season. He had added a few props and he was quite satisfied. Then he had taken some pictures and shared them as Aelin had showed him. His social media accounts were working and, especially on Facebook, people were engaging with him. Aelin was still the admin of the page and she would still manage most of the content for him. He browsed through the page and marvelled at the amazing job she had done. Then he looked at his followers and found her, Lysandra and Aedion and smiled. Out of curiosity he clicked on her profile and studied it a bit and the first imagine that appeared made him smile. It was a picture of her holding her ultrasound scan of their babies. He read the comments and laughed, although he assumed Lysandra had found out a moment later after he did. Scrolling a bit more he saw a picture of her bragging about her engagement ring and her upcoming pagan wedding. She was always smiling in her photos and he could not keep his eyes off her. Her smile was the first thing that had floored him the day she walked into the shop. He sighed. It felt such a long time ago and he could not believe how much it had happened already. He kept scrolling through her profile and noticed she had been sharing a lot of her life in the islands and also a lot of the posts he had made from the bookshop profile. And then a wild idea hit him. His hand clicked on create profile and step by step he created his profile. As a photo he used the one of a buzzard he found online. A joke that only Aelin would get. Then he went on her profile and added her, Lysandra and Aedion as friends. And that was it for him. He was not interested in more. A moment later a notification appeared saying that Aelin had accepted his friendship and at the same time his phone went off. “Hey.” “Did you just joined Facebook? Did I create a monster?” On the other side Aelin sounded shocked. “I was posting my new display on the bookshop page. Then I saw that you follow the page and had a nosey at your profile and got curious and created one myself. But I am only having you three as friends. I am not sure I will like it.” “I love the profile photo by the way. You two look very alike.” “How are you feeling?” He changed the subject. “Your biscuits are helping a lot and I made the tea as well. I haven’t had nausea since. And don’t worry. Malcolm has been fussing like a mother hen.” Rowan laughed and decided to thank the man next time he saw him. “I got to go. Sorry. Love you.” Rowan hang up and went back playing with Facebook. The store was quiet and all the paperwork was done. He could indulge in a bit of silliness. He had noticed that both Lysandra and Aedion had accepted his friendship and Aedion had also messaged him. They had started chatting and found out that he and Lysandra were working hard on their plan to move to the islands. He had applied to some jobs and was waiting for a reply. He did not realise how much he had spent talking to Aedion until the door opened and Aelin appeared. “Hello you.” He said, coming out from behind the counter. She slammed into him for a hug with just one arm. The other one was holding a bag full of food. He frowned. He took the bag and placed it on the counter and went back to Aelin. “Hi you.” His voice was soft as he cupped her face with one hand. “I brought cake as a peace offering.” “Why?” Aelin sighed “I was not nice this morning. You were just looking after me and I shouted and I almost said things that I would have regretted forever. It’s just…” she looked away for a moment “The hormones. I realise I have been moody lately. We haven’t fought as much as in the past few weeks. But I still need to apologise.” “We are fine.” Rowan kissed her “I am not worried about our fights. They are more spats because we are both stubborn. They are not out of hate and we are not trying to hurt each other with words.” Aelin looked down “I almost did this morning.” Her hands gripped his t-shirt and tears started to flow “I thought something horrible but I stopped because I can’t hurt you.” Her tears became sobs and Rowan’s arms tightened. “I had enough of those fights with Chaol.” “Shhh… “ Aelin kept crying and he rocked her gently. “I am a mess. A patient gave me a hug because I helped her dad and I cried. I am happy, then sad then angry, then back to sad. I am going insane.” Rowan held her tight “then I hid in my office sobbing when I realised we can’t get married on Beltaine.” He looked down at her “Why?” “Have you ever seen a woman pregnant with twins at five months? I’ll get huge. I will not fit in the dress and will not be able to dance with you at the ceilidh.” Her sobs intensified “And I want to do all those things.” “Hey, we can wait.” His hand caressed her head “we’ll get married whenever you feel ready.” She finally stopped crying and looked up at him “but our kids will be there too.” Finally a smile. “We are a scandalous couple.” He joked and she looked at him puzzled “kids out of wedlock? You ruined me miss Galathynius.”

***

Slowly the winter months had passed and spring knocked at the door and March arrived. Rowan was on its way to the hospital to meet Aelin. On that day they had and appointment with Yrene and they hoped to be able to find out the sex of their kids. They had tried on a few previous appointments but the babies were never in a favourable positions. He hoped this time was the right time. Especially because they had a bet going on. Rowan was sure it was one of each, Aelin was positive it was two girls. If Rowan won, he would eat two slices of one of Aelin’s favourite super sugary cakes, whether if Aelin was the winner he had promised a sexy massage with oils. Aelin really wanted to win. He got to Yrene’s office and noticed the woman was alone. “Hi Rowan, Aelin has been held up. She will be here soon.” Rowan sighed and used that occasion to talk with Yrene. “I have some questions.” “Absolutely. Ask away.” Rowan nodded “I have been reading some books on childbirth and I read that multi pregnancies can be a bit more challenging, which makes sense. But I am worried about some of the things I read.” “That is normal. And I know it can be scary. I am planning on testing Aelin today for pre-eclampsia. Aelin’s babies share a single placenta, so you will have identical twins. This means her scans will be more frequent as there are other issues that might arise.” Yrene explained “Chances are they will be premature, but we can discuss a planned delivery as well when Aelin comes back.” “Is that the safest options?” “Yes. It’s the one I’d recommend.”Yrene suggested “but if she doesn’t want she can try and deliver naturally. I will try to get her as close as possible to term, but her body will decided when it’s time. There is a possibility that she will be confined to bed rest.” “She will not like that.” Added Rowan, worried “Is there anything I can do to help?” “Be supportive. Make sure she doesn’t tire too much and that she eats healthy. She is her second trimester so her hormones are probably running wild. Just don’t take it personally if she shouts at you. The more the pregnancy progress the more uncomfortable she will be.” Another question popped in his head and he felt embarrassment rise “Aelin wants to… do stuff. I am just nervous that it might not be a good idea.” Yrene nodded and smiled “that is up to you two. Right now it is still possible but soon it will be quite difficult for Aelin. There are no risks for now but I will not exclude a no sex policy later on, it all depends on her health. Always let her decide, see what she is comfortable with.” “But it’s not dangerous for the babies… I mean my…” he was now red with embarrassment. Yrene laughed out loud “I will be frank, Rowan. Now matter how well equipped you are, there is no chance you’ll get that far up.” His blush was now savage. “Just wanted to be sure.” “Of course.” In that moment Aelin joined them and laughed at Rowan’s state “why is Rowan blushing?” Yrene laughed “he asked if his downstairs friend can hurt the babies during sex.” Aelin roared in laughter “You are perfect, but let’s be realistic.” And the two women laughed. “So, are you ready for the big reveal?” Yrene announced changing the subject and giving a chance to Rowan to recover. Aelin smiled and slowly dragged herself to the bed, and Rowan helped her when he saw her struggle. “Hopefully they are in a good position.” “I hope so, I have a bet to win.” Aelin grinned laying down and exposing her swollen stomach. Yrene spread the gel and began her job. Aelin stared at the screen and tried to brush up her skill from her ob/gyn rotation to remember how to spot the sex. She sat on her elbows and gasped “Is that a girl?” “Well spotted. She is very clear.” Rowan stared at the screen and felt stupid when all he could see were blobs. He trusted them. “The second is hiding,” said Aelin caressing one side of her belly “come on darling, mama wants to know.” Rowan moved at her side and placed a hand on hers on her stomach “dad too.” They waited for a while but it looked like the second baby had no intention of moving. Yrene was about to call it quits when Aelin shifted and the baby shifted as well and in that second it revealed itself. Aelin screamed in delight “Two girls! I win.” “Yrene hasn’t confirmed it yet.” Said Rowan. The doctor laughed “It’s two girls, Rowan.” He had a massive grin. He lowered and kissed Aelin. “I want my prize tonight.” “Yes, my Queen.”

“Twin girls,” said Aelin dreamingly while they were both walking back to the A&E. “And Yrene said they are identical as well.” Aelin nodded “I knew that.” She turned to him and smiled “we’ll have to find a way to tell them apart.” He kissed her head. They reached the pit and Malcolm was walking to them “so, who won the bet?” “This girl here is having a sexy massage tonight.” Malcolm smiled “so it’s two girls.” Rowan and Aelin nodded proudly. “Congratulations, guys.” And he hugged them both. “Aelin, patient in bed 4 needs your care again.” Aelin swore and turned to Rowan “I have to go.” She kissed him and Rowan placed a hand on her belly. “I love you. And I’ll see you three tonight.” She waved at him and left, leaving Rowan with Malcolm. “Look after my girls, please.” Rowan asked to the man “Asking Aelin to slow down seem to be an impossible challenge.” Malcolm patted his shoulder “I have a plan. I will keep an eye on her while she is here.” “Thank you.” Then Rowan said goodbye and went back to work at the bookshop.

Aelin came home at a decent time and Rowan was in the living room reading a book while waiting for her. Aelin noticed his wicked smile and walked to him. “Someone looks naughty.” He kissed her in response and she straddled him. His hands went on the bump and lifted her scrub to reveal the swollen belly. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the side. Aelin had felt the girls move but he hand’t been able yet and he was dying to feel them kick for the first time. “My three girls are finally home.” And kissed the belly. Aelin stood and smiled at him and then disappeared in their room. A moment later she called him and he followed. Once in the room he noticed she was wearing a long blue gown. She took a step to him “I am very tired.” She undid the sash of the gown “I won a massage…”slowly she lowered one side of the gown, exposing her right shoulder and the top of her breast “A sexy one if I remember correctly.” Another step and now the gown was low on her arms, exposing her upper body “I am so very tired.” She repeated letting the gown pool at her feet standing in front of him naked. Rowan went to his drawer and took out something, then pointed to Aelin to get on the bed. She sat on her knees and he took position behind her. He undid her braid and took in her scent of jasmine and lavender. He pushed the hair on one side and kissed her neck and she leaned back into him. “You are gorgeous.” “I am a whale.” She replied stretching her hands behind her to touch him. “You are stunning.” His hands traced her arms up and down, then took her hands and placed them on her bump with his, his mouth kept tormenting her neck. Then he removed the hands and grabbed the small bottle at his side. He dropped some of the liquid in his hands and began his massage from her shoulders. “Is that pine scent I smell?” Rowan nibbled her ear “correct.” “Are you marking the territory?” She joked. “Of course.” He licked her neck “you are my woman and now carry my offspring. It’s my role as alpha male to mark what is mine,” he laughed. “Territorial bastard.” Rowan kept massaging her shoulders and back kneading the sore spots and Aelin moaned “oh yes,” she exclaimed when he hit a spot on her lower back “your hands are amazing.” “I was thinking…” he said while his hands moved lower “what about names?” Aelin’s eyes were closed and she was enjoying his treatment “Do you have ideas?” His mouth was on her neck again “I thought about it, today at work.” He grabbed a bit more oil and moved to her arms and her sides, with fingers brushing her breasts. “Tell me,” she sounded breathless. “Freyja.” “The goddess of love and fertility. She is quite badass.” His hands finally found their target on her breasts and Aelin moaned. She was hypersensitive and his touch sent her reeling “I love it.” She managed in the end. He continued his massage. “What’s the second?” He palmed her breasts one more time and Aelin moaned throwing her head back on his shoulder. “Don’t get mad. I just really adore the name.” “What is it?” “Morrigan.” Aelin chuckled “the goddess of war.” Her hands covered his “big expectations for our daughters, I see?” “I just like the names very much, but we will look for others if you don’t like them. They are just ideas.” “I love them.” She half turned her head to meet his eyes “They are epic. I adore them.” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” “Sit against the head of the bed.” She did that and he stood on his knees between her legs. He smiled tenderly at the image in front of him. To him it did not matter if Aelin called herself ugly because of her big bump, she was beautiful in his eyes. He grabbed a bit more oil and continued his massage at her sides down to her hips and then back up moving then on her bump. He concentrated on the bump for a while. “The girls are loving it.” “Are they moving?” Aelin nodded. He touched the bump but felt nothing. He continued his work along her legs, brushing gently her inner thighs and Aelin’s legs jerked at the touch. “I think you missed a spot.” She laughed and a wicked smile appeared on Rowan’s face. “Saving the best for last.” He leaned forward and kissed her. In that instant his hand went between her legs and Aelin moaned “about friggin time.” He was busy teasing her when Aelin stiffened and he stopped. “What?” She grabbed his hands and placed them on one side of her belly. Rowan waited for a moment and then he felt it. A kick. A powerful kick against his hand. “Guess our girls approve of their dad giving their mum a good time.” Rowan glared at her, then lowered on the bump, his hands still on the spot where the kicks were and he kissed it as well “Your mum is very naughty.” “And you haven’t finished worshipping me,” and Aelin spread her legs but Rowan was far too busy feeling his daughters. “This is amazing.” He whispered, caressing the bump. Aelin’s hand twined in his hair “Come here.” Rowan leaned forward to her while his hand was firmly on the bump. Feeling his girls kick was an incredible feeling and he didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. He kissed her deeply “Did I tell you how happy am I?’ She shook her head and he kissed her again. Then he moved at her side and leaned against her shoulder, with his hand still on the bump “A part of me was for a moment terrified when you told me we were having twins. I was elated at first but the next day all the panic started to hit me. What if I was not ready? what if it was too soon? What if I was not going to be a good dad?” He let his feelings go “And I am terrified. I read all about how multiple pregnancies can be dangerous. That’s why I am fussing. I want to make sure you three are okay. I can’t wait to meet our girls but I am terrified at the same time.” He looked up at her. “I am scared too.” She admitted brushing his hair “I spoke to one of the nurses who had twins a year ago and now I am just as terrified as you are.” She kissed his forehead “and we will be fine and I know you will be the most amazing, most caring dad our girls could have.” He kissed her shoulder “I have an idea to run past you.” He confessed and she nodded. “I was thinking about our housing situation.” He started and grabbed her hand “As soon as the twins arrive, the house might become a bit too small. We can use your old room for them until they are little and sleep in a crib but after that, the room might be a bit too small for two people.” He explained “So I did some research and I found a great place. A lovely croft in great conditions just outside Stornoway. It has four bedrooms, a kitchen that is huge, two floors and a bathroom on each level, and on the ground floor there is a massive room that can easily become our own library. It comes with a nice whack of land that we can use for planting veggies and fruits or for animals if we want a wee farm.” He told her and saw Aelin’s face lit up in joy “There is plenty of space and nature.” Aelin was now in tears which he hoped were tears of joy “I love it.” She whispered. “I can sell my house and I have savings too. We can buy it and renovate it to our liking.” Aelin nodded “I have saving too and I can help. This is something we do together. It’s not all on you.” “I went to see the other day while you were at work and I took some pictures” and he took his phone from his pocket and began showing her the images of the place. “It’s perfect.” “Are you sure? We can look for something else. I went to see it because I was curious. It seemed like a good deal. I didn’t tell you anything because I wanted it to be a surprise.” She brushed his hair again “It’s perfect. And I love the idea of having a library.” “Oh yeah.” He kissed her “we have a book problem and when I saw the gigantic room on the ground floor I knew it was the perfect place.” “Can you take me there?” Rowan nodded “Next time you have a day off we’ll go and see it.” “Good.” And she kissed him “now go back to your job, Buzzard. You haven’t finished your massage and definitely missed a spot.” And Rowan eventually finished his massage leaving Aelin very happy she had won the bet.

Tag:

@rowaelinismyotp sorry it’s a day late. I forgot.

#rowaelin #rowan x aelin #rowan whitethorn #aelin galythinius #fanfic #Throne of Glass series #fluff

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cinemavariety · 4 years

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Cinema Variety’s Top 25 Favorite Films of the Decade

This past decade has been a monumental ten years for the state of cinema. To think that there were actually still video rental stores all around the country, to almost becoming nonexistent, is statement enough to show how vastly audiences have changed the way they consume media. Through much thought and careful deliberation, the following 25 films are my personal favorites of the decade and are what I think best represent all that indie, international and arthouse cinema had to offer over the past ten years. Honorable Mentions: Shame Green Room A Ghost Story The Lost City of Z Knight of Cups 20th Century Women Jackie Blade Runner 2049 The Lighthouse Ingrid Goes West A Hidden Life

#25 - Suspiria (2018) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“It’s only hours afterward that Guadagnino’s film will cohere for you and yield its buried treasures: the bonds of secret sorority, the strength of a line of dancers moving like a single organism, the present rippling with the muscle memory of the past. It’s so good, it’s scary.”

#24 - Call Me By Your Name (2017) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“The final beats of Guadagnino’s adaptation galvanize two hours of simmering uncertainty into a gut-wrenchingly wistful portrait of two people trying to find themselves before it’s too late.”

#23 - American Honey (2016) Dir. Andrea Arnold

“Part dreamy millennial picaresque, part distorted tapestry of Americana and part exquisitely illustrated iTunes musical, “Honey” daringly commits only to the loosest of narratives across its luxurious 162-minute running time. Yet it’s constantly, engrossingly active, spinning and sparking and exploding in cycles like a Fourth of July Catherine wheel.”

#22 - Post Tenebras Lux (2013) Dir. Carlos Reygadas

“Some metaphors score and some miss, but this is leap-of-faith cinema: the rewards entail some risks.”

#21 - The Revenant (2015) Dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

“Pushing both brutal realism and extravagant visual poetry to the edges of what one customarily finds in mainstream American filmmaking, director/co-writer Alejandro G. Inarritu, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a vast team of visual effects wizards have created a sensationally vivid and visceral portrait of human endurance under very nearly intolerable conditions.”

#20 - Her (2013) Dir. Spike Jonze

“What begins like an arrested adolescent dream soon blossoms into Jonze’s richest and most emotionally mature work to date, burrowing deep into the give and take of relationships, the dawning of middle-aged ennui, and that eternal dilemma shared by both man and machine: the struggle to know one’s own true self.”

#19 - Annihilation (2018) Dir. Alex Garland

“A shimmering example of what Hollywood sci-fi can achieve when the aim is high, Annihilation is a gripping, mystifying adventure and proof that a transportive experience is more rewarding than a story with clean-cut resolutions.”

#18 - The Neon Demon (2016) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“Spectacular, gross and delicious (so unsavory it’s almost sweet), the film is more proof of Refn’s mastery of his trash aesthetic and more fun than anything this indulgent and empty-headed has any right to be.”

#17 - Waves (2019) DIr. Trey Edward Shults

“Propelled by color, energy, electronic music and a quartet of career-making performances, here is that rare sort of cinematic achievement that innovates at every turn, while teaching audiences how to make intuitive sense of the way it pushes the medium.”

#16 - Mother! (2017) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“Mother! is something truly magnificent, the kind of visceral trash-arthouse experience that comes along very rarely, means as much or as little as you decide it does, and spits you out into the daylight dazzled, queasy, delirious, and knock-kneed as a newborn calf.”

#15 - Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars Von Trier

“The vision is as hateful as it is hate-filled, but the fusion of form and content is so perfect that it borders on the sublime. Melancholia is a remarkable mood piece with visuals to die for (excuse the pun), and a performance from Dunst that runs the color spectrum of emotions.”

#14 - Song to Song (2017) Dir. Terrence Malick

“Any number of sequences find feelings both externalized and hidden intermingling within the same shot, continuing in a subsequent image that carries the impression, the feeling, without replicating the exact tenor of what has just been seen. They exist simultaneously as certain backstories and what motivations they may inspire delicately unfold. Malick has found a way to translate how a familiar song has the ability to transport you back to a particular time and conjure a specific set of emotions. Whatever he’s been exploring over the past few years pays off here.”

#13 - If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) Dir. Barry Jenkins

“What Jenkins gets most right—what astonishes me the most about this film—is Baldwin’s vast affection for the broad varieties of black life. It’s one of the signature lessons of Baldwin’s work that blackness contains multitudes. In some ways Beale feels less like a movie than a well-staged, meticulously shot play; a period piece that floats beyond its specific time and place and into the realm of allegory.”

#12 - Samsara (2012) Dir. Ron Fricke

“Simply put, Samsara tells the story of our world, but onscreen, it is so much more than that. A darker and more ambitious meditation on impermanence, Samsara relies on blunt force and unforgettable imagery, overcoming the hazy logic of Fricke's editing to earn your awe.”

#11 - It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) Dir. Don Hertzfeldt

“A highly original and utterly enthralling film that touches on staggeringly expansive themes - more typically expected in the work of master auteur and persistent award-winner Terrence Malick, than from animations. An existential flipbook and a heartbreaking black joke: stickmen have never looked so alive.”

#10 - Upstream Color (2013) Dir. Shane Carruth

“You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.”

#9 - Hereditary (2018) Dir. Ari Aster

“It’s a supremely effective gauntlet of supernatural horror that’s also, at blackened heart, a grueling domestic drama about how trauma, resentment, and guilt can seep into the roots of a family tree, rotting it from the inside out.”

#8 - Spring Breakers (2013) Dir. Harmony Korine

“Spring Breakers seems to be holding a funhouse mirror up to the face of youth-driven pop culture, leaving us uncertain whether to laugh, recoil in horror, or marvel at its strange beauty. Full credit to Korine, who sustains this act of creative vandalism right through to the finish. Spring Breakers unfolds as a fever dream of teenage kicks, a high-concept heist movie with mescal in the fuel tank.”

#7 - The Master (2012) Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

“Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men. Written, directed, acted, shot, edited and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers. Anderson mixes sounds and images into a dark, dazzling music that is all his own.”

#6 - Interstellar (2014) Dir. Christopher Nolan

“It’s a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike, and yet it always feels grounded in its own deadly serious reality. An exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human.”

#5 - The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“A brilliant, towering picture, The Place Beyond The Pines is a cinematic accomplishment of extraordinary grace and insight. The movie succeeds both as a high-stakes crime thriller as well as a far quieter and empathetic study of angry, solitary men proves that Cianfrance has a penchant for bold storytelling and an eye for performances to carry it through.”

#4 - Black Swan (2010) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“A full-bore melodrama, told with passionate intensity, gloriously and darkly absurd. It centers on a performance by Natalie Portman that is nothing short of heroic. This is, no doubt about it, a tour de force, a work that fully lives up to its director's ambitions.”

#3 - Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“From the beginning, it's clear this is not a standard-order action film. It takes its characters as seriously as its chases, shootouts, and fights. Drive dynamically merges a terrific film noir plot with a cool retro look. It's an unapologetically commercial picture that defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking.”

#2 - Blue Valentine (2010) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“Cianfrance and his actors, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, have not made a cold or schematic film. They aim instead for raw emotional experience, one that's full of insight into the ways a relationship can go astray, but mostly feels like a slow-motion punch to the gut.”

#1 - The Tree of Life (2011) Dir. Terrence Malick

"The Tree of Life is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. I wrote earlier about the many ways this film evoked my own memories of such time and place. About wide lawns. About a town that somehow, in memory, is always seen with a wide-angle lens. About houses that are never locked. About mothers looking out windows to check on their children. About the summer heat and ennui of church services, and the unpredictable theater of the dinner table, and the troubling sounds of an argument between parents, half-heard through an open window.”

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residentgoodgirl · 5 years

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Chances are that you know what made Lorena Bobbitt famous in 1993, even if you aren’t old enough to have experienced it in real time. Just over 25 years ago, Lorena — who now goes by her maiden name, Lorena Gallo — cut her husband’s penis off in the middle of the night, driving away with it and throwing it into a field. The trial and media coverage were sensational, as you might expect them to be around any penis-chopping case — and Lorena’s story became a punchline, an oddity, a way to consider supposedly hotheaded Latina women.

Amazon is now premiering a four-part docuseries about her, aptly called Lorena. The documentary, produced by Jordan Peele, covers the trial, of course, but also explores the context around it that people have largely forgotten, or never learned to begin with: the ways Lorena’s husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, allegedly abused her; the cruel treatment she received from the media, her tender age (she was 24 years old); and how this case brought the issue of marital rape to the forefront for the American public.

The timing is excellent, if a total bummer. The embers of the #MeToo movement are still burning, marital rape continues to be a surprisingly controversial topic for the courts to grapple with, and everyone is still afraid of immigrants. Lorena is compelling and well-made, a narrative that focuses both on the salacious details of the case (wanna see a severed dick? Girl, you got it) and Lorena’s activism in preventing domestic violence and sexual assault. It acts as both a historical primer for those who didn’t live through Lorena’s trial and a rectification for the way she was treated, not just by her husband but by late-night talk show hosts, journalists, and the public. “The media was focusing only on the penis, the sensationalistic, the scandalous. But I wanted to shine the light on this issue of spousal abuse,” Lorena told Vanity Fair in an interview this past summer.

As a documentary that reassesses a notable ’90s scandal with the benefit of a couple decades’ hindsight, Lorena is one among many recent examples. And these retrospectives tend to fit a similar pattern: We are asked or encouraged to reconsider a woman whose public image was linked inextricably with a man’s bad behavior, whose reputation was destroyed while the man got away relatively consequence-free.

2013’s Anita was a reconsideration of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The documentary recast her not as an angry black woman trying to keep a man from his deserved job, but a reserved, smart attorney who merely told the truth about a man about to be given a tremendous amount of power. (Sound familiar?) 2014’s The Price of Gold gave Tonya Harding room to tell her version of the story of her career and the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan, replete with class context and details about her own abuse.

The 2016 documentary O.J. Simpson: Made in America, though primarily about Simpson, also forced audiences to rethink how his murdered ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was treated by him and by the press. And 2018’s The Clinton Affair included an interview with Monica Lewinsky herself about her affair with President Bill Clinton — long considered a salacious sexual scandal, with Lewinsky cast as a slut trying to fuck a powerful man — and reframed the incident as one in which a young intern was seduced (and then thrown under the bus) by the goddamn president, who should’ve known better.

These reconsiderations aren’t limited to documentaries. In June, journalist Allison Yarrow published the book ’90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality, which includes Hill, Harding, Lewinsky, and Lorena in telling “the real story of women and girls in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media.” Podcasts like Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes’ You’re Wrong About… also serialize reassessments of history, often focusing on women mired in scandals. They’ve done episodes on Amy Fisher (the “Long Island Lolita”), televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (the “dingo’s got my baby” woman, who never actually said that), Courtney Love, and Lorena herself.

“America is going through this period of realizing how much we misread what was right in front of us,” says Marshall. “We came to the realization that we elected a reality TV president. We elected someone whose image was made by reality TV. That kind of understanding can allow us to go back and say, “What else did I just swallow that I was sold?”

Documentaries that revisit scandals are no doubt valuable in that they can profoundly change the way we consider the past and hopefully, the future. But they also pose a certain temptation to get too comfortable: There is some risk that we might watch something like Lorena, pat ourselves on the back for figuring out who the bad guy really is, and walk away thinking that the past is the past and we won’t make the same mistakes again. But what Lorena Bobbitt’s story meant in 1993 “is not that different from what it means today,” says journalist Kim Masters in Lorena. “It’s the same story.”

Then, too, there’s the reality that these reconsiderations tend to revolve around trials or public hearings, which provide a clear way to revisit the past through criminal records and court transcripts and recorded interviews. These were big, splashy stories that now get big, splashy reappraisals. But the world is filled with smaller, more mundane injustices and oversights, and most of those who suffer will never make it to court or Congress, or receive a high-profile opportunity to seek vindication.

Watching something like Lorena feels important, but it also feels lousy, because not enough is different now. Reconsiderations like these can’t be antidotes if we ignore the cure — if we continue to dismiss women and other marginalized, vulnerable people when they’re being abused, or taken advantage of, or otherwise maligned. Lorena receives a tremendous amount of empathy in Lorena, as she should. But why can’t we extend that kind of empathy to more people like her today, instead of waiting two and a half decades to rethink how we’ve behaved?

Apology tours for sexual misconduct are practically rote at this point: Transgressors get plenty of airtime to beg for forgiveness for touching butts, to come out of the closet, to recommend a supposedly great pizza dough cinnamon roll recipe. Meanwhile, victims or survivors are largely forgotten after the accusation becomes public. It’s relatively new that women like Lorena or Hill are getting some space to tell their stories on their own terms, and still rare that the opportunity is afforded to women of color in particular.

Lorena is timely not only in the sense that conversations about sexual abuse and assault have taken center stage over the past year, but also because anxiety about immigrants taking advantage of the system and of poor, unwitting white Americans is currently at a fever pitch. When Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt got married in 1989, she was 20, and in the US on a student visa. “There’s women who are opportunists, gold diggers, they use you as a stepping stone to advance their career,” Bobbitt says, referring to his ex-wife in an interview in Lorena. “These women, they know that their backup is [to] use law enforcement to their advantage by saying, ‘You know what, if you leave or you fuck up this relationship or you don’t get my citizenship, I’ll call the cops.’”

Despite Bobbitt’s own laundry list of arrests — many of which are for domestic violence against past partners — he still uses Lorena’s citizenship (or lack thereof) as supposed proof that she was unstable, demanding, and manipulative. “She was obsessed with having her American dream, her American dream, her American dream,” Bobbitt told Vanity Fair. “She just wanted too much, too fast.” And even in a supposedly silly reality series like 90 Day Fiancé (a show about bad American people marrying other, noncitizen but still-often-bad people), it’s clear that many of the same biases against immigrants that were at play in the Bobbitt case are alive and well today.

Lorena takes great pains to draw similarities between then and now, reminding viewers that domestic violence is still a secret shame for countless women, and that it’s still incredibly challenging to get away from your abuser. The last episode of the series is called “The Cycle of Abuse” and opens with a slideshow of women’s bruises and scars from domestic violence. “This is about a victim and a survivor and this is about what’s happening in our world today,” Lorena recently told the New York Times.

And that may be true of what Lorena experienced at the hands of the media, as well as her husband. “If Lorena’s story hit today, Fox News would take the place of Howard Stern, and the 24-hour news cycle would focus on what she did, rather than what he did,” says Kim Gandy, the president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Documentaries like Lorena are timely for a reason — a bad reason — and instead of feeling smug for finally listening, 25 years later, it’s worth taking the opportunity to see what we can do better now.

While the outrage around Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court this past fall might have sounded deafening depending on who’s inside your political bubble, the result is ultimately the same as it was for Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill’s testimony. He’s in, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who came forward to detail Kavanaugh’s alleged assault, was left unable to work and in need of a security detail.

I was 3 years old during Lorena Bobbitt’s trial. I was 7 during the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. I was a few months old for Anita Hill’s hearing. When Blasey Ford testified late last year, I was 27. And yet somehow her testimony still felt like unbearable déjà vu, as if I had lived through this already and already knew the inevitable conclusion.

Today, though entertainment industry figures like Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves are facing some long-overdue music for accusations of sexual assault and harassment, it’s taken decades for that to happen. For figures like Bryan Singer and R. Kelly — both the subject of recent reporting that details sexual abuse allegations stretching back many years, both of whom continue to deny any wrongdoing — it remains to be seen what lasting consequences, if any, they will suffer. Their accusers, like Lorena, have been vulnerable people from already marginalized groups — in these cases young, primarily queer boys and black girls — who have been either painted as liars and manipulators or outright dismissed.

What’s upsetting about these stories is not just the abuses they describe, but the public indifference they often get in response; the rumors and allegations around Kelly, for example, have done astonishingly little to tarnish his celebrity or dim public affection until very recently, following the release of the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly. And it’s taken 10 years since Michael Jackson’s death for a significant documentary about the allegations of child molestation against him, HBO’s Leaving Neverland, to crack through the surface.

Ten or 20 years from now, will we be watching a heartbreaking five-part docuseries on the alleged victims of Bryan Singer? On the many accusations against him, on how they were ignored for years, on how they sort of broke through in early 2019, how they quickly petered out, and how he continued to get work — and watch his movies win awards — even after the allegations were made public? (Hopefully not.) Is years or decades of hindsight the only way any of us can begin talking about things like domestic violence or sexual assault? The distance might make it feel safer to discuss, especially when powerful people are involved, but it also means the conversation starts far too late.

Lorena also reminds audiences that she was the subject of wild cruelty from the media and comedians during and after her trial. “David Letterman used to call me his girlfriend,” Lorena says in the docuseries. “The jokes did bother me, because I didn’t know to handle it. People were talking about my background. They were saying I was just a hot-blooded Latina woman. It hurts my heart. It hurts my brain. It hurts my whole body.”

Howard Stern practically made a career out of promoting Lorena’s ex-husband — he had Bobbitt on his show repeatedly and during his 1994 Rotten New Year’s Eve Pageant special, raising money for Bobbitt’s medical expenses. During the pageant, Stern airs a mocking reenactment of Lorena’s crime. “A penis is a terrible thing to waste,” Stern says, holding two pieces of a fake member, cut in half, aloft. The Bee Gees performed a parody song that included the advice “Don’t ever piss off your wife.” The metaphor is so blatant it’s embarrassing: A man’s penis is his power, and this woman had the audacity to try to take it away. She needed to be put in her place. “To me it was just cruel,” Lorena told the New York Times. “Why would they laugh about my suffering?”

In hindsight, jokes like these may seem to be in such bad taste that it’s a wonder Stern still has a career. But jokes at the expense of victims and marginalized people haven’t gone away, and neither have most of the comedians who make them. Amy Schumer used to crack jokes about Mexicans being rapists; she apologized for it years later. Sarah Silverman did blackface in 2007; it took her until 2015 to apologize for it (sort of??). Louis C.K. is, currently, mocking the Parkland shooting survivors and joking about his history of masturbating in front of nonconsenting women, all to applause from comedy club audiences. Every Saturday, Michael Che and Colin Jost turn Saturday Night Live into a Statler and Waldorf sketch where they complain about having to learn a few new gender pronouns. None of this will age well, but even in the moment, plenty of us don’t find these “jokes” all that funny to begin with.

The only tangible thing to learn from watching Lorena, besides the full facts of her case, is that the strongest advantage people like Lorena have on their side is time. You just have to wait. You have to wait out the cruel late-night jokes and the sexist media coverage about you and the gossip and conjecture and slut-shaming and mockery. You have to wait two and a half decades, and then maybe, if your case was a big enough deal, someone will make a movie about you, and you’ll get a chance to wear a nice blouse and trousers and sit on a couch and tell your story from the beginning, without interruption, for the first time in your life. The world will turn in your direction, and your abusers will look worse and worse with every passing day (even if they’ve evaded any concrete kind of consequences), but first — you have to wait.

Scandalous stories like Lorena’s are also undoubtedly complicated by the fact that they don’t only boil down to a bad man and a woman wronged. Even in light of widely publicized and well-produced reconsiderations, not all viewers will be on board with Lorena, who did commit a crime, just as Lewinsky is far from a fully redeemed figure now in the public eye. And both women will always be punchlines to some people; even for the few who do get their turn to reframe the stories of their own lives, not everyone is going to listen.

“We always want to find a victim, a villain, and a hero,” says Marshall. “We accept the story we’re told. Having everyone filed away as a certain kind of person and every event filed away as a certain kind of story is how we impose order in the world.” But if you’re able to turn away from that tidy story, and hear what the people who lived it are really saying, “you get closer to the truth.” ●

CORRECTION

February 19, 2019, at 6:34 p.m.

The name of the Michael Jackson HBO documentary Leaving Neverland was misstated in an earlier version of this post.

#news #tw: domestic abuse #tw rape

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booksinpublic · 5 years

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Endometriosis and male birth control

I turned 30 last November and I'm just now realizing the all-consuming power that my menstrual cycle has on my body. Like most women I know, I've been constantly medicated via injections, implants and pills for more than 15 years, trying to find a birth control option that doesn't ravage me with cramps, cause ruptured cysts on my ovaries or thrust my mind into a vicious darkness at random and always-inconvenient moments.

Maybe I would have reckoned with my natural cycle by now, soothed it and learned how to live with it in peace, had I removed birth control from the equation for any significant stretch of time. I don't know. But I do know I've never wanted kids, and I really like having sex with dudes (and ladies, but they’re polite enough to not randomly impregnate their partners). Male contraception doesn't exist, ergo I've always been on birth control. I've lived with the consequences of unproven, barely tested, hormone-ridden contraception methods my entire adult life, often signing up for consequences even my doctors didn’t anticipate. I've been hospitalized twice in the past two years with heart attack-like symptoms, only to have my period start between the EKGs and X-rays, explaining away my discomfort in one bloody rush. The gut-smack of realization -- Of course it’s my period, I’m such an idiot -- never fades. The second time I went to the hospital, it was in Austin, Texas, during a work trip to cover SXSW in March 2019. After nearly 10 years of reporting at shows like E3 and CES, I don’t exactly look forward to most conventions, but SXSW is different. I enjoy the casual, creative vibe of the show, and this year, I had a lineup of fantastic interviews. I was eager to get going.

My period started because I had recently switched to the pill from Mirena, a high-hormone intrauterine device that for half a decade pushed my emotions to spike and plummet unpredictably, and possibly contributed to years of debilitating nausea.

I vividly recall the day I had the Mirena implanted; IUDs were still relatively new on the mainstream circuit and there weren’t many first-hand accounts of the process online. My gynecologist said I might experience some cramping that night. I felt a pinch around my ovaries as she inserted the device with its dangling strings, t-shaped polyethylene body and 52 mg of LNG, a steroid hormone that mimics progesterone. I drove home, cramping slightly but pleased I didn’t have to pop a pill every day to maintain my non-parent status.

By that night, I was curled into a ball on the bed, clutching my abdomen, riding waves of the worst pain I’d ever experienced. That remains true to this day. I questioned everything that night, but mostly, it exists in my memory as a blur of white-hot agony. I kept the Mirena, of course. Eventually, my periods became erratic, punctuated by agonizing bursting cysts on my ovaries every few months, aftershocks of that initial night. Still, I kept the Mirena.

Fast forward five years. I’d just had the Mirena removed and was in a month-long waiting period before my gynecologist would add Skyla, a smaller and lower-hormone IUD, to my anatomy. After living with Mirena for so long, I forgot to pack my temporary birth-control pills for the Austin trip. On the third day of the show, my period arrived. Before I started bleeding, I had a fantastic day. I interviewed one of my literary idols, Neil Gaiman (and a bonus Jon Hamm), and had the rest of the afternoon to write; it was a dream situation for a convention like this. I walked to a coffee shop to work alongside some colleagues, opened my laptop, and was hit with an intense wave of nausea. My mind was gradually swathed in fog; my stomach roiled and acid hit the back or my throat. I couldn’t eat the soft pretzel I’d ordered. A colleague asked if I'd drank too much the previous night and I laughed it off, heart threatening to leap straight out of my throat. I went back to my hotel room, exhausted, and tried to finish my story. What should have taken an hour took four, and even then my editor called the draft a fever dream. I puked three times while writing it. Dizzy, short of breath, heart thundering in the pressurized cabin of my chest, I tried to eat dinner and sleep. I actually ate half of the burger I ordered. The night wore on, my colleagues went to a SXSW party, and once midnight rolled around, I tried to sleep. The tornado under my ribcage sent prickling tingles down my limbs, making my hands shake and sweat. Sleep eluded me. The signs of a heart attack are different for women and men. Many “traditional” symptoms, such as sharp pain in the chest, don't always appear in women. I knew this, vaguely, and my own body was out of whack enough that I Googled "female heart attack symptoms." I matched them all with uncanny accuracy. The websites I visited recommended calling 911 -- but then, they always do. Around 4:30AM, I called my boyfriend and then a 24-hour nurse line. I explained my symptoms and was advised to call an ambulance. After another half hour spent trying to convince myself I could fall asleep if I just tried a little harder, I got a Lyft to St. David’s South Austin Medical Center (that was $13, compared with an estimated $1,000 for an ambulance). I puked again in the waiting room bathroom, light-headed and paranoid my left arm was going numb. My period started (idiot). Over the following four hours, the doctors ran a few tests, I took some anti-nausea medication, and that was that. I was young and relatively healthy -- it was probably just anxiety or indigestion, according to the hospital staff. Even as I sat in the back seat of the Lyft on the way to the hospital, I knew the tests wouldn't return anything notable. They never did. Which, generally speaking, was a good thing. I wasn't having a heart attack -- great -- but I wasn't all right, either. There were a range of possible causes for my symptoms in Austin, and the same culprit may also be responsible for the years of isolating stomach issues I've experienced. However, by the time I left the hospital, it was clear that these episodes of heart-attacky symptoms were tied to my menstrual cycle. I did some quick online research and found a number of results that might explain my situation, all of them related to my period. This was new information. I knew about PMS and PMDD, the more extreme and debilitating version of PMS, but I'd never heard either word attached to heartburn or heart attacks specifically. I'd seen a gynecologist regularly for the past 15 years, but in the mess of other, more pressing consequences of female birth control, heartburn just never came up.

This is how it goes. I switch contraception methods and a fresh new hell is unleashed on my unsuspecting body, whether it's pain or emotional turmoil or fatigue or personality tweaks or changes in sex drive, and it takes me longer than it should to realize my symptoms line up perfectly with my new sterility regime. Shockingly, I'm not always thinking about birth control, though it's always, always in my life. All of this is to say it's bullshit there is no widespread form of male contraception yet.

THE MALE BIRTH CONTROL CON | An informational interlude by Jessica Conditt

For men, the options are, essentially, condoms or vasectomies. Vasectomies are effective, but they’re also designed to be permanent. In an outpatient procedure, surgeons snip or block the vas defrens, which normally serve as the sperm highway in a man’s scrotum. Planned Parenthood describes the process as relatively pain-free, quick and nearly 100 percent effective after a three-month waiting period. However, vasectomies are for men who are done having kids, as they’re difficult (and sometimes impossible) to reverse.

There have been a few other attempts to fill the birth control gender gap: Vasalgel is a potentially reversible solution that acts like a vasectomy, but with an injected solution rather than actual surgery. This means the process is reversible, in theory. Vasalgel made headlines in 2017 when it was successfully tested on monkeys, but there hasn’t been much movement since.

There is one potential bright spot for the future of male birth control, and it comes in the form of a thin needle.

“Most of the research has focused on the combination of testosterone plus a progestin, another sex steroid hormone that is found in men and women,” University of Washington chief of medicine Dr. Bradley D. Anawalt told Endocrine News in 2016. “Previous studies of male hormonal contraceptives have shown that injectable formulations provide effective contraception that is far superior to the condom and compares favorably to most female contraceptive options.”

In October 2016, researchers reported the results of a study into a particular injection-based method of male birth control. The shots (200 MG of norethisterone enanthate and 1,000 MG of testosterone undecanoate, injected every eight weeks) were tested in 320 men and found to be 96 percent effective. However, the study was halted because the men involved reported particularly high rates of adverse side effects, most notably depression and other mood disorders, but also acne, muscle pain and increased libido. Even with these effects, more than 75 percent of participants said they were willing to continue using the shot.

The most recent advancement in male birth control comes from the National Institutes of Health, which announced in November plans to study a gel designed to prevent pregnancy. The gel, NES/T, is rubbed into a man’s back and shoulders and works via a progestin-based compound called segesterone acetate and testosterone. The NIH is recruiting participants and the study is set to be completed in September 2021.

And that’s about it, when it comes to the technological landscape for male birth control. Promises, tests and silence.

The point here isn't that female birth control sucks or that men are purposefully thwarting attempts to devise a male version. In fact, most men I know are eagerly awaiting the day they can pop a pill and not worry about making a baby.

I'm simply tired of treating my body like a hormone-bomb test site. I'm sick to death of the daily side effects of protecting myself -- and my male partners -- from pregnancy.

That doesn't mean I'll stop any time soon. The possibility of pregnancy is still scarier than the side effects of birth control, for me and for now. I just wish men had as many terrible, effective, agonizing, freeing and emotionally disruptive options as I do.

* * * * * *

I wrote the above words in March 2019, while waiting for my Lyft to arrive at St. David’s South Austin hospital and take me back to the hotel. I typed them deliriously into the Keep Notes app on my phone, caught a few hours of sleep and then got back to covering the show.

When I returned home, I told my gynecologist about the hospital visit, the pain, the convincing heart attack symptoms. She nodded sympathetically and slid a Skyla device into my uterus. One week later, she checked on it with an ultrasound, and found a 5cm cyst inside my left ovary. It was a dense, black hole on the monitor. Endometriosis.

“Wow, it’s big,” she commented. “I’m surprised you haven’t been in more pain.”

I had been. I’d told her about it. But she’s a gynecologist -- her entire job is dealing with women in pain. My complaints of nausea and vomiting, significant weight loss, spasms of agony in my gut and irregular heart rhythms were not cause for alarm in this space. They were simply the price of having ovaries.

I had surgery last week to remove the endometrial cyst and surrounding damage. The procedure was supposed to take about an hour, but mine took three. At one point, my gynecologist was concerned she’d have to remove my entire left ovary, but she managed to keep my organs in place. Regardless, surgery isn’t the last step in living with endometriosis. It’s just the start.

The birth control bouncing around my body for the past 15 years likely kept my endometriosis at bay. The brief gap in IUD placement simply allowed my doctor to finally see it. All along, what I thought was pain from rupturing cysts was actually this disorder sticking my uterus together and filling my ovary with pus the color and consistency of melted chocolate. The cyst was apparently pushing against my bladder; since having it removed I’ve realized how painful peeing used to be.

Like with so many other symptoms, I’d gotten used to it.

#endo #endometriosis #male birth control #birth control #feminism #women #period #periods #menstruation #mirena #skyla #iud #sxsw

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mulderbabe77 · 6 years

Text

Partners

Mostly just shameless fluff with a little angst mixed in. Set during season 6’s Arcadia.

Warning: this is a period fic! Periods/tampons are mentioned. If that scares you, then turn back now!

Tagging @today-in-fic

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She’s running, as fast as she can. Or rather she’s being chased. It’s dark and damp; she thinks she’s in the woods somewhere. She looks to her left and then her right for Mulder, but he’s not there. He’s not anywhere. She can feel whoever is behind her gaining speed, can hear the sound of their ragged breathing. A tree root springs up suddenly from the ground in front of her and she stumbles and falls, hard. Her hands and knees scrape against the rough ground. The chase is over, she has lost. She turns to see who is behind her, heart thumping loudly in her chest, so hard she can feel it -thump-thump-thump- in her ears. She sees Duane Barry’s face coming towards her. Then it morphs into Donnie Pfaster. Then the Smoking Man. He’s come to take her away for more tests.

She awakes with a start, sitting straight up in bed, short of breath and soaked in sweat. She puts a hand on her chest, willing her racing heart to slow. It was a dream, just a dream. She takes in a few shaky, deep breaths.

For a few moments she’s disoriented, can’t place where she is. This isn’t her bedroom, or her house and her heart starts to speed up again. Her brain feels foggy, still half asleep. And then she remembers, Rob and Laura Petrie. They’re undercover in The Falls. In the Klein’s house.

She tries to calm herself again, deep breaths in and out. Her rapid heartbeat begins to slow to a more normal pace. Besides the dream, or nightmare she should call it, something else is wrong. A familiar cramping deep in her abdomen. Menstrual cramps. Her period was coming, or maybe had already arrived, she couldn’t tell yet. She couldn’t think of a worse time for her period to unexpectedly arrive. It wasn’t due now, at least she didn’t think it was, but she should have known better. Her periods are rarely regular since the abduction, coming and going as they choose. And then even more irregular after her cancer treatments, even more than a year or so later they’re sporadic at best.

She heads to the bathroom. Yep, tampon definitely needed. She’s relieved to find an emergency one in her suitcase, but that’s it. She’ll have to hit the drugstore in the morning, which is still a few hours away. It’s only 3am. She balls up her pajamas into a bag of her other dirty clothes. She’ll need to wash them in cold water in the morning.

She re-dresses in fresh pajamas, lays down and tries to go back to sleep. She’s drifting off and straight back to the nightmare she left. This time she sees Eugene Tooms hovering over her. She wakes up panting again 10 minutes later, body broken out in a cold sweat. Her head is pounding, the migraine already taking up residence in her skull, pulsing relentlessly behind her left eye. She’s cramping hard and she feels awful. Ibuprofen. Need ibuprofen, is all she can get her brain to register. She slips out of bed.

The click of the bedroom door wakes him immediately and his eyes flick open to see Scully quietly tiptoeing down the hall trying carefully not to make any noise.

He hears her in the kitchen, shuffling through a box as quietly as one can. He hears the pop of a pill bottle and her shaking some pills out.

He’s on his feet and shuffling into the kitchen. She jumps about 10 feet when she looks up to see him standing in the doorway.

“God, you scared me!”

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

“No, I’m sorry, I was trying not to wake you,” she says shakily. She tosses the pills into her mouth and takes a big gulp from the water bottle in her hand.

“It’s ok, not your fault really. I haven’t been able to get into a deep sleep yet. I keep thinking I’m hearing things. You ok?” He asks, nodding towards the pills. He looks her over carefully, something seems off. She’s pale, and the little tendrils of hair right at her temples are curling and damp with sweat.

“I, uh, I had a nightmare. And I’m not feeling that well,” she stammers, avoiding his eyes.

“Do you have a fever?” He moves to take a step towards her but she shakes her head no and steps back further out of his reach.

“No, it’s not that, Mulder. Go back to bed, I’ll be fine,” she insists and starts to make her way around him.

He doesn’t quite believe her, but it’s 4am, so he’s not going to push it.

“Ok,” he nods, retreating back to the couch.

She heads back to the bedroom, wanting desperately just to curl into a ball and sleep, but sleep won’t come. She lays there in agony for an hour, maybe more. The minutes tick by slowly. She feels sick to her stomach, her body is rejecting the pills she stupidly took on an empty stomach. She wishes she had nibbled on a cracker or something. A little while later she’s heaving into the toilet.

“Scully?” She hears him knock gently, just outside the bathroom door.

“Go away, Mulder,” she pleads.

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re sick.”

He peeks his head in through the door. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, leaning heavily against the wall. She reaches up to flush the toilet before he comes any closer and then crumples down onto the floor again holding her stomach.

“Is it something you ate?” He thinks back to everything they’ve consumed in the last 24 hours. He feels fine.

“No, Mulder,” she sighs. “It’s my period, ok? I feel like shit.”

“Oh.” He’s not sure what to say. I mean logically he knows she has periods (he thinks, based on past observations), and because she’s obviously a woman. He’s somewhat aware of female reproductive health, though he’s never given it much thought and they’ve never talked about it in the six years they’ve been partners.

“Is it always this bad?” He can’t imagine her being this sick every month and him never noticing in six years, but then again, he knows that he can be a bit of a self-absorbed prick at times, though he hopes not to that extent.

“No,” she shakes her head carefully, trying to keep the thumping in her skull at bay. “Only sometimes.” She sighs again. She doesn’t want to be having this conversation.

“I need to go to the drugstore. I didn’t bring anything with me. This was....unexpected.” She doesn’t feel like moving a muscle.

“I’ll go,” he offers.

“No, Mulder. You don’t need to do that. I’m a big girl- I can buy my own tampons. I’ve been doing it the past 20 or so years.”

“Scully, don’t take this the wrong way but you don’t look like you’re in any shape to go anywhere right now. Please just go lay down and I’ll be back in 15 minutes. There’s a CVS just up the main road.”

She hesitates. “Please?” He wants to do something for her, anything to make her feel better.

“Fine,” she concedes. She doesn’t have it in her to argue, just climbs to her feet, walks slowly back to the bed and collapses into a ball under the covers.

He strokes her hair softly, “I’ll be right back.”

Somehow Mulder has survived his entire life without ever having to visit the feminine hygiene aisle of a drugstore, or any store for that matter. He mulls over the vast number of choices and ends up seeing a familiar looking box. He’s fairly certain he’s seen this blue and yellow Tampax box in Scully’s suitcase and bathroom before. He grabs the box off the shelf and hurries towards the register hoping not to run into anyone, but today is not his lucky day.

“Rob! What’re you doing out this early on a Saturday?”

Mulder turns and plasters on his best fake smile.

“Win! Hey... buddy.”

“Cami sent me up here to pick up some treats for Scruffy. I like to get an early start to my days. What are you- ahhhh,” he eyes the box Mulder is carrying. “I see the Mrs sent you on an errand as well,” he gives Mulder a reassuring smile.

“Umm... yep. You know how it is,” he smiles awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“You bet I do. Ten years later and I’m still not used to the mood swings, and all that other stuff that goes along with it. Well, you know - it’s like a roller coaster. One minute they’re happy, next thing you know they’re bawling their eyes out, or screaming at you. Then there’s the cramps, backaches, headaches, bloating, fatigue.” Wow, he sure does know a lot about this, Mulder thinks to himself. Win continues on, “But anyway, I’m sure you know all about it yourself.”

“Sure, sure,” was all he could say. Sure he knew Scully could be a bit moody from time to time but he had never attributed it to her menstrual cycle before. He usually attributed it to him being an ass, or to him ditching her.

“Well I better get going, Win. Got to get back to the Mrs,” he says, hoping for a quick escape as he turns on his heel to head toward the register.

“Good luck!” Win calls after him.

Mulder nods and waves goodbye.

He slips quietly back into the house. Scully is still right where he left her, curled up in bed, but not asleep. He sets the bag on the nightstand and perches on the side of the bed next to her, taking her hand in his.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head no, eyes closed. “Didn’t bring my heating pad, wish I had,” she mumbles quietly.

“Would that help?”

She nods.

“Hold on, I have an idea,” he gets up and heads towards the kitchen.

A few minutes later her returns with a giant stuffed warm sock. One of his dress socks. He puts it in her hands and she moans at the warmth coming off of it, immediately pushing it down onto her aching abdomen.

“What is this?” She sighs, already feeling some relief.

“A little something my mom showed me years ago for muscle aches when you don’t have a heating pad. Just throw some rice into a big sock and microwave for about a minute and a half and voila- instant heating pad. We just happened to have some rice in our pantry of staged food.”

“This is amazing. Thank you.” She gives him a small smile and squeezes his hand.

“Get some sleep ok?” He squeezes her hand back. She nods, already feeling her eyelids drooping. The warmth on her stomach lulling her to sleep.

He tiptoes out of the room, decides to go shower in the guest bath, start breakfast and look over the case some more.

——————-

She appeared downstairs late morning, showered and dressed and seemingly ready for whatever the day would bring. But he could tell by the way she moved that she wasn’t quite feeling like herself yet. Each thing she did he could tell was precisely planned to use as little energy as possible and every ten minutes or so she would stop to rub her temples or massage her lower back with her hands.

He knew she wasn’t exaggerating when she had so willingly admitted to feeling like shit earlier that morning. It was rare for her to actually admit to feeling poorly. He could count the times on one hand, three of them being during her cancer treatments which had made her feel so sick and weak that she had called in and taken a sick day. There was one other time when she had an awful case of the flu that lasted a week, and then today. So he knew it was serious. She was not one of those people who milked any illness under the sun for sympathy- she was the exact opposite, never admitting or giving in.

Their conversation was limited - she didn’t seem in the mood for small talk or their usual chit chat or playful banter. He was careful to give her space and not hover.

By evening and a few more doses of ibuprofen she seemed to be feeling a bit more like herself. They ordered in takeout for dinner- soup and sandwiches. She had asked for something light.

They were cleaning up when Mulder started a conversion, against his better judgement.

She was standing at the sink washing the silverware from dinner.

“How come you never told me it gets this bad sometimes?” he asked.

“Because, Mulder. It’s just not not something I talk about.”

“You don’t talk about anything with me. Especially anymore,” he says the last part quietly, almost to himself. It sounds like an accusation to her. But it’s true, she’s been very closed off from him lately. She’s put a wall up. He’s noticed and he hates it.

She glares at him across the counter, and he continues on.

“Why is it so hard for you to open up to me?” he pushes.

“You really have to ask that, Mulder?”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t mean for this to turn into an argument, and she doesn’t want it to be, but that seems to be where it’s headed.

“Sometimes, Mulder, I feel like I just don’t matter to you at all.”

Ouch. That one felt like a dagger through his heart.

She continues on, he’s gotten her fired up.

“You chose her over me, Mulder. Even after all the proof I gathered. Actual data that the Gunmen and I dug up to show you just how sneaky and secretive Diana Fowley has been since you knew her all those years ago. How do you think that makes me feel? How do you expect me to open up to you about anything when you turn around and take her side over mine and just dismiss everything I have to say?”

And she’s crying. She doesn’t want to be, but she is. Too many emotions combined with hormones swirling around everywhere. She can’t help it. Big fat tears are falling down her cheeks and her shoulders are starting to shake.

She’s been holding this in for weeks. Trying not to act hurt.

“Scully...” he takes a few steps towards her and she falls into his chest. Wanting to seek comfort there but furious at herself for doing so. “It’s not like that at all. You have to know I would never choose her over you. Never,” he whispers into her hair.

“Then why does it feel like you did?”

“Scully, listen to me when I say this. Diana is my past and that’s all she’ll ever be to me. If I gave you any idea otherwise, I’m sorry. I reacted poorly when you came at me with all that information. You are the one who has stood by my side all these years. I’ll always choose you over her. Always. Please, don’t ever shut me out. We’re partners,” and she knows he means more than just work partners, though it’s unspoken.

“I know, it just- it hurt Mulder.”

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into her hair, placing gentle kisses along her forehead and temple.

She’s able to slow her tears after a few minutes and feels a bit foolish when she pulls away from his chest.

“God, Mulder, I’m sorry,” she wipes at her eyes. “I’m just... kind of on an emotional roller coaster today. This is so unlike me.”

“Well I hear that happens during that time of the month. Or at least that’s what Win tells me.”

“What?” She’s really confused now.

“Yeah, I ran into Win at the drug store this morning and he saw what I was buying.”

“Oh God,” she blushes a little bit and winces. “Sorry, Mulder.”

“It’s fine, Scully. That’s what being partners is all about,” he squeezes her hand reassuringly.

“God, I can’t believe we’ve been partners six years and this is the first conversation we’ve ever had about periods,” she remarks and they both laugh out loud.

He secretly hopes it isn’t the last intimate conversation they share. Maybe her walls are coming down.

End

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jaceyourself · 5 years

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End of Year Wrap-Up 24/12/2018

Happy Merry to all you readers!

I’ve had a great year but all us music fans have had an even better one! Streaming services mean that now more than ever we can experience the musical output from all corners of the globe (though overwhelmingly the English-speaking parts of it) to understand different points of view, learn of the goings on in other parts of the world and most importantly indulge ourselves in a bit of a boogie. All the moods, genres and feels you could think of are out there, so over the holiday period perhaps try and listen to something new. Who knows it might break the tension with that younger/older relative round the xmas table when you find they also happen to like k-pop/jazz-funk/grindcore or at the very least you can bicker about the tragedy of the current album charts (Greatest Showman: 21 weeks!). To aid you in your quest for knowledge/excitement/small-talk I have spent almost 30 minutes curating a best-of for both albums and singles in the year of 2018.

(NB even with my album-a-day policy, there’s no way I can get through everything I want to within the 365, so if your fave appears ignored, let it be known that I probably haven’t heard it yet. The full list of everything I’ve listened to this year is at the bottom)

So in no particular order:

Albums

Jinx Lennon- Grow A Pair!!!

The Beths- Future Me Hates Me

The Pistol Annies- Interstate Gospel

Travis Scott- ASTROWORLD

Mount Eerie- Now Only

Cardi B- Invasion of Privacy

The 1975- A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

The Aces- When My Heart Felt Volcanic

Singles

Confidence Man- Out The Window

Cardi B- I Like It

Janelle Monae ft. Grimes- Pynk

Lori McKenna- People Get Old

SOPHIE- Immaterial

Marie Davidson- Work It

Car Seat Headrest- Stop Smoking (We Love You)

BLACKPINK- AS IF IT’S YOUR LAST

The 1975- It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)

https://open.spotify.com/user/jaceyourself/playlist/1kFex3QLVv0l3cCqjVC6dT?si=_GqTJXrOSoSXYaMC9ra_lg

Have a great festive period and I’ll see you in 2019 :D

2018 Albums what I listened to

Floating Points- Reflections – Mojave Desert

James Elkington- Wintres Woma

Miguel- War & Leisure

Ride- Weather Diaries

Sidney Gish- No Dogs Allowed

Emperor X- The Orlando Sentinel, Oversleepers International

Broken Social Scene- Hug of Thunder

MC5- Kick Out The Jams (Live)

Public Service Broadcasting- Every Valley

JJ Doom- Key to the Kuffs

HAIM- Something To Tell You

Camila Cabello- Camila

Sheer Mag- Need To Feel Your Love

Taylor Swift- reputation

Shabazz Palaces- Quazarz vs The Jealous Machines

This Is The Kit- Moonshine Freeze

Japanese Breakfast- Soft Sounds From Another Planet

Tune-Yards- I can feel you creep into my private life

Jupiter & Okwess- Kin Sonic

Various Artists- The Passion Of Charlie Parker

Waxahatchee- Out In The Storm, Great Thunder

Offa Rex- The Queen Of Hearts

Dizzee Rascal- Raskit

Alvvays- Antisocialites

Childhood- Universal High

Marmozets- Knowing What You Know Now

Declan McKenna- What Do You Think About the Car?

Paul Heaton- Crooked Calypso

Lana Del Rey- Lust For Life

Charles Lloyd New Quartet- Passin’ Thru (Live)

Rip Rig & Panic- Circa Rip Rig + Panic

Avey Tare- Eucalyptus

Justin Timberlake- Man Of The Woods

Rio Mira- Marimba del Pacifico

Oddisee- The Iceberg

Aimee Mann- Mental Illness

Katie Von Schleicher- Shitty Hits

Arcade Fire- Everything Now

Girl Ray- Earl Grey

Ezra Furman- Transangelic Exodus

Randy Newman- Dark Matter

Dead Cross- Dead Cross

Chronixx- Chronology

Mondo Cozmo- Plastic Soul

Kesha- Rainbow

Lal & Mike Waterson- Bright Phoebus

Steve Reich- Pulse / Quartet

Orchestra Baobab- Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng

Ratboy- SCUM

Prince- Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Parade, Sign ‘O’ The Times

Stanley Cowell- No Illusions

Oneohtrix Point Never- Good Time Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Downtown Boys- Cost Of Living

Screaming Females- All At Once

Rob Luft- Riser

Sibusile Xaba- Open Letter To Adoniah

Jen Cloher- Jen Cloher

Everything Everything- Fever Dream

Grizzly Bear- Painted Ruins

Bob’s Burgers- The Bob’s Burgers Music Album

Superorganism- Superorganism

Maren Morris- HERO

Courtney Marie Andrews- Honest Life, May Your Kindness Remain

Stefflon Don- Real Ting Mixtape

Ghostpoet- Dark Days + Canapés

Young Fathers- White Men Are Black Men Too, Cocoa Sugar

Queens Of The Stone Age- Songs For The Deaf

Thurst- Cut to the Chafe

John Moreland- Big Bad Luv

Aruan Ortiz- Cub(an)ism [Piano Solo]

Mount Eerie- Now Only

The War On Drugs- A Deeper Understanding

Various Artists- Pop Makossa

Liane Carroll- The Right to Love

Fickle Friends- You Are Someone Else

Nadine Shah- Holiday Destination

Various Artists- Howsla

George Ezra- Staying at Tamara’s

The Doors- The Doors

Filthy Friends- Invitation

Susanne Sundfør- Music For People In Trouble

LCD Soundsystem- LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver, American Dream

Mogwai- Every Country’s Sun

Kacey Musgraves- Golden Hour

The National- High Violet, Sleep Well Beast

The Klezmatics- Wonder Wheel

Hercules & Love Affair- Omnion

Mount Kimbie- Love What Survives

The Aces- When My Heart Felt Volcanic

Matthew Bourne- Isotach

Finished- Cum Inside Me Bro

Forced Into Femininity- I’m Making Progress

Heron Oblivion- Heron Oblivion

Hamell On Trial- TACKLE BOX

Confidence Man- Confident Music For Confident People

Swet Shop Boys- Cashmere

Princess Nokia- 1992 Deluxe, A Girl Cried Red

Steely Dan- The Royal Scam, Aja

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard- Nonagon Infinity

Sparks- Hippopotamus

J. Cole- KOD

Fat Tony- Macgregor Park

L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae- The Night Took Us In Like Family

Little Simz- Stillness In Wonderland

Lady Leshurr- Queen’s Speech

RAY BLK- Durt

Brand New- Science Fiction

Janelle Monae- Dirty Computer

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever- Talk Tight

Fred Thomas- Changer

Myra Davies- Sirens

Laraaji- Sun Gong

The Killers- Wonderful Wonderful

Descendents- Milo Goes To College

Frank Turner- Be More Kind

The Horrors- V

Moses Sumney- Aromanticism

Arctic Monkeys- Whatever People…, AM, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Oxbow- Thin Black Duke

Dee Byrne’s Entropi- Moment Frozen

Mike Stern- Trip

The Vampires- The Vampires Meet Lionel Loueke

Gogol Bordello- Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, Super Taranta!, Seekers And Finders

Umphrey’s McGee- Zonkey

Hard Working Americans- We’re All in This Together

Courtney Barnett- Tell Me How You Really Feel

Jllin- Black Origami

Various Artists- Rough Guide to the Music of West Africa

Wolf Alice- Visions Of A Life

The Young’uns- Strangers

Fever Ray- Fever Ray, Plunge

CHVRCHES- Love Is Dead

Oumou Sangaré- Oumou, Mogoya

Charlotte Gainsbourg- Rest

Daniel Avery- Song For Alpha

Daphni- Joli Mai

Kanye West- ye

Cécile McLorin Salvant- Dreams and Daggers

Trio Da Kali, Kronos Quartet- Ladilikan

Kelela- Take Me Apart

Bob Dylan- The Times.., Another.., Bringing.., Highway.., Blond.., John.., Nashville.., New.., Blood..

Lily Allen- Alright(,) Still, It’s Not Me(,) It’s You, Sheezus, No Shame

Fanfare Ciocarlia- 20

Wolf Parade- Cry Cry Cry

SOPHIE- OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES

Zara McFarlane- Arise

St. Vincent- MASSEDUCTION

Margo Price- All American Made

Bebe Rexha- Expectations

Motörhead- Under Cöver

Orchestre Les Mangelepa- Last Band Standing

Drake- Scorpion

Various Artists- Gentle Giants: The Songs Of Don Williams

Noga Erez- Off The Radar

Baxter Dury- Prince of Tears

John Maus- Screen Memories

Lankum- Between the Earth and Sky

Shamir- Revelations

Years & Years- Palo Santo

Converge- The Dusk In Us

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino- Canzoniere

Fred Hersch- Open Book

A. Savage- Thawing Dawn

Big Thief- Capacity

Kelly Clarkson- Meaning Of Life

Dirty Projectors- Lamp Lit Prose

Robt Sarazin Blake- Recitative

Shed Seven- Instant Pleasures

Spinning Coin- Permo

Call Super- Arpo

Laura Perrudin- Poisons & antidotes

Ellen Andrea Wang- Blank Out

Lori McKenna- The Tree

Wu-Tang Clan- Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Lee Ronaldo- Electric Trim

Deer Tick- Vol. 2

The Paranoid Style- Underworld U.S.A.

Youssou N’Dour- Set, Joko- From Village To Town, Nothing’s In Vain, Seeni Valeurs

Gaika- BASIC VOLUME

Kasai Allstars- Around Felicite

Carly Rae Jepsen- Emotion

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds- Who Built The Moon?

Anna Ternheim- All the Way to Rio

U2- Songs of Experience

Mônica Vasconcelos- The São Paulo Tapes

Travis Scott- ASTROWORLD

Nabihah Iqbal- Weighing of the Heart

Van Morrison- Versatile

Jim James- Tribute to 2

Criolo- Espiral de Ilusão

Maciej Obara Quartet- Unloved

N.E.R.D- NO ONE EVER REALLY DIES

The Beths- Future Me Hates Me

Maryam Saleh- Lekhfa

Naomi Bedford- Songs My Ruiner Gave to Me

Jens Lekman- Night Over Kortedala

The Spirit of the Beehive- pleasure suck

Tom Rogerson- Finding Shore

Paul Jacobs- Pictures(,) Movies and Apartments

Ariana Grande- sweetener

Rina Sawayama- RINA

Marcel Khalife- Andalusia of Love

Gunter Hampel- Bounce (Live at Theater Gütersloh)

BAYNK- Someone’s EP

Omar Souleyman- To Syria(,) With Love

Blood Orange- Negro Swan

Open Mike Eagle- Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

First Aid Kit- Ruins

Shame- Songs of Praise

Homeboy Sandman- Veins

Playboi Carti- Playboi Carti

Eminem- Kamikaze

Troye Sivan- Blue Neighbourhood, BLOOM

Joey Bada$$- ALL AMERIKKKAN BADA$$

Priests- Nothing Feels Natural

Rhiannon Giddens- Freedom Highway

King Krule- The OOZ

Django Django- Marble Skies

Bon Iver- For Emma(,) Forever Ago

Calexico- The Thread That Keeps Us

Mary Gauthier- Rifles & Rosary Beads

Hookworms- Microshift

Aphex Twin- Collapse EP

Rae Morris- Someone Out There

Field Music- Open Here

Rhye- Blood

Shopping- The Official Body

MGMT- Little Dark Age

Christine and the Queens- Chris

Alela Diane- Cusp

Sonic Youth- Sister

Brigid Mae Power- The Two Worlds

Deafheaven- Sunbather

Various Artists- American Epic: The Collection Disc 1, 2, 3

Rich Krueger- Life Ain’t That Long

Lil Wayne- Tha Carter V

Modern Mal- The Misanthrope Family Album

Rejjie Snow- Dear Annie

U.S. Girls- In a Poem Unlimited

The Orielles- Silver Dollar Moment

Tal National- Tantabara

Marie Davidson- Working Class Woman

Superchunk- What a Time to Be Alive

Brandi Carlile- By The Way(,) I Forgive You

Car Seat Headrest- Twin Fantasy

Loma- Loma

Quavo- QUAVO HUNCHO

Marlon Williams- Make Way For Love

Nipsey Hussle- Victory Lap

Insecure Men- Insecure Men

Kendrick Lamar- Black Panther

Rapsody- Lalia’s Wisdom

Khalid- Suncity

Tracey Thorn- Record

Anna von Hausswolff- Dead Magic

Jinx Lennon- Grow a Pair!!!

Gwenno- Le Kov

Judas Priest- Stained Class, FIREPOWER

Robyn- Robyn, Body Talk, Honey

The Magic Gang- The Magic Gang

Essaie Pas- New Path

Bob Dylan and The Band- The Basement Tapes

The Decemberists- I’ll Be Your Girl

Pistol Annies- Interstate Gospel

BCUC- Emakhosini (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness)

Jack White- Boarding House Reach

Yo La Tengo- There’s A Riot Going On

Sidi Touré- Toubalbero

Lil Peep- Come Over When You’re Sober(,) Pt. 2

The Breeders- All Nerve

The Vaccines- Combat Sports

CZARFACE- Czarface Meets Metal Face

Laurence Pike- Distant Early Warning

Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band- Bone Reader

Leo Kalyan- The Edge

Hayley Kyoko- Expectations

Tristen- Sneaker Waves

Thelonious Monk- Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana- Mehliana: Taming The Dragon

Amy Rigby- Til The Wheels Fall Off, Little Fugitive, The Old Guys

BLACKPINK- BLACKPINK IN YOUR AREA

Rose Cousins- Natural Conclusion

Nora Jane Struthers- Champion

Lilly Hiatt- Trinity Lane

The Rolling Stones- The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones No. 2, Out of Our Heads, Aftermath

MAST- Thelonious Sphere Monk

The 1975- A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

Jhene Aiko- Trip

Don Bryant- Don’t Give up on Love

EMA- Exile in the Outer Ring

Small Believer- Anna Tivel

Vera Sola- Shades

Cardi B- Invasion of Privacy

Darkthrone- A Blaze in the Northern Sky

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers- Years

Goat Girl- Goat Girl

Vic Mensa- HOOLIGANS

Unknown Mortal Orchestra- Sex & Food

Alasdair Roberts, Amble Scuse & David McGuiness- What News

Kali Uchis- Isolation

Wye Oak- The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs

Migos- Culture II

Hinds- I Don’t Run

DRINKS- Hippo Lite

Alexis Taylor- Beautiful Thing

Jenny Wilson- EXORCISM

#music 2018 #music #best of #christmas

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a-bittersweet-life · 6 years

Text

Creative Inspiration: Sculpting Time, Essays on the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky

Sculpting Time, “a major retrospective of all seven films by the true master of cinema,” presents a collection of essays that examine the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and offer captivating and refreshing insights into the impact and significance of Tarkovsky’s filmmaking career: One of world’s most visionary, celebrated and influential filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky made just seven features before his tragically early death at the age of 54. Characterized by metaphysical and spiritual explorations of the human condition, each film is an artistic masterpiece of extraordinary visual beauty and stand as enduring classics of world cinema.

Ivan’s Childhood

by Lanre Bakare, Deputy Arts Editor of Guardian US

Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature Ivan's Childhood (aka My Name Is Ivan) was described by the Guardian’s Philip French as “one of the great movies about the horrors of the second world war.” Based on a short story by Vladimir Bogomolov and shot in the damp bleakness of Belarus' Pripet Marshes, it's an account of the travails of the titular 12-year-old boy, who is used as a scout by the Soviets after his parents are killed by the Nazis.

Tarkovsky described Ivan--played by the unnervingly accomplished Kolya Burlaiev--as “a character created and absorbed by war,” someone whose life was in constant conflict. And it is. Apart from the strangely arresting opening scenes of him playing on a beach, Ivan and the older officers caring for him--Captain Kholin, Lieutenant Galtsev, and Corporal Katasonych--his war is presented as a never ending cycle of daily nightmares and nightly terrors where he's haunted by what has befallen him. When he plays, it's to act out the fantasy of avenging his parents, while his school yard is the war soaked marsh that surrounds the action.

The soldiers aren't fit to be parents either (there's a vague idea he might live with Katasonych after the war), and continue to use him as a scout even after his predecessors young bodies are hung from trees by the Germans. Tarkovsky said he “wanted to see the grave changes which war makes in the life of a man, in this case a very young one.”

The film introduced Tarkovsky as a director who took imagery and cinematic vividness, which was called “utterly personal and surprisingly spiritual, even transcendent” by the New Yorker, to new levels. Flashbacks to Ivan's Childhood aren't simply a way to fill in the blanks and to explain his actions, they're opportunities to put the camera where it usually doesn't venture and create moments that weren't just calling cards but a blueprint for one of cinema's most iconoclastic careers.

The horrifying well scene, when Ivan falls into the watering hole, is cinema as fever dream, while Kholin kissing the army nurse Masha as he holds her over a trench in a forest of birch trees is as beautiful as the aforementioned well scene is harrowing. As a Soviet film, Ivan's Childhood took a divergent course by placing the individual front and center. The war, although always lurking in the background, is the setting for a young boy's tragedy, one which drags the soldiers in too and forces them to contemplate their decision to keep a young child near conflict.

While other Soviet second world war films, such as The Ballad of a Soldier, captured the world that revolves around conflict--romantic or otherwise--Ivan’s Childhood forces viewers to confront the horror without flinching and in a manner never before seen.

Andrei Rublev

by Sophie Monks Kaufman, Contributing Editor at Little White Lies

Religion is no longer the heart of social life, but in 1966 Andrei Tarkovsky used the semi-biographical, medieval setting of Russian icon-painter Andrei Rublev to express a worldly Christianity that encompasses everyone, even non-believers.

Rublev (played by the craggily handsome Anatoly Solonitsyn) is an artist, a monk and a wanderer. The film is a chronicle of what he sees over a period of 24 years marshalled into eight parts. There are long sequences in which a first-time viewer may struggle to understand a scene’s significance to the overall story. This doesn’t matter. The atmosphere transmits more than any sub-plot, character or exchange. What seems like a challenging runtime contains nothing extraneous, but this is only clear in retrospect, when you cast your eye back over the meticulously crafted landscape. All that happens in the film contributes to the spirit of the artist. All that he has witnessed and endured years to him, hours to the viewer, give rise to a payoff that is as pure an illustration of redemption as anything I have ever seen. But what exactly came before? What do you watch when you watch the film?

It’s hard to write calmly or clearly about a work of filmic art which has a perspective that binds the tiny and the tremendous in endless symbiosis. Tarkovsky depicts the difficult labor that serious industry requires (the last hour shows the building of a large bronze bell), but the whole is concerned with the shape of life--showing in long gracefully shot sequences, Andrei’s encounters with naked pagans, violent royals, dogs, horses, men, women, and children.

The most infamous fact about Andrei Rublev is that you see a horse (which Tarkovsky bought from an abattoir) killed on screen. During battle, the noble beast collapses down a flight of wooden stairs, then lands on a spear--its fall caused by a bullet fired out of sight. The scene lasts less than ten seconds. The sacrifice was for a flicker of celluloid. This anecdote is indicative of the whole, grave procession, which took six years to realize. Everything is rooted in preparation that spans way beyond the film world. Everything is in black and white until it meaningfully attains color. The breadth and depth of natural vistas are so spectacular that it’s sometimes hard to concentrate on foreground conversations, although each wagging tongue is an extension of each character’s soul.

Andrei Rublev’s main stress is over his own moral value and the fate of the Russian people. There are countless faces in this film, all lingered over lovingly, whether on screen for seconds or hours. Andrei Rublev (the film and the man within the film) is about love. Not earthly love, and certainly not sexual love, but a type of fraternal kinship that finds release from personal burdens by sinking into the mud to comfort another. Andrei Rublev (the film and the man within the film) is also about the point at which, after years of bearing witness in a state of speechless despair, hope, wisdom, and talent alchemize to create an enduring work of art.

Solaris

by Jemma Desai, Founder of I Am Dora, Film Program Manager at British Council and BFI London Film Festival Programmer

Andrei Tarkovsky famously described his filmmaking as “sculpting in time.” As cinephile video essayist Kogonada reminds us in the excellent Auteur in Space, in Solaris this sculpture leads us wondering where his meaning might lie: “He [Tarkovsky] will spend five minutes following a man in a ordinary car traveling along the highway and less than two minutes showing his main character traveling through space.”

So how do we understand the meaning of Tarkovsky’s Solaris after it has been sculpted through the perspective of another passage of time: all the way to 2016? Is it the ultimate science-fiction film, an inner space epic of magnificent proportions, or an anachronism that has become pastiche of cinematic futures?Is it not about the future, or space at all and rather, about universality, the past, and memory? Is it, as writer Philip Lopate has beautifully described, about “falling in love with ghosts...the inability of the male to protect the female, the multiple disguises or ‘resurrections’ of the loved one, the inevitability of repeating past mistakes.”

A series of macho face-offs mark its journey to audiences now. Tarkovsky’s film is based on polish author Stanisław Lem’s novel of the same name. Lem famously had had little love for Tarkovsky’s elliptical version of his novel, resenting his infidelity to the source material (a complaint he later repeated on release of Steven Soderbergh’s remake in 2002). Tarkovsky later regretted any fidelity to Lem at all saying: “The rockets and space stations--required by Lem’s novel--were interesting to construct; but it seems to me now that the idea of the film would have stood out more vividly and boldly had we managed to dispense with these things altogether.”

Deeply embedded in any contemporary cineaste’s reception of Tarkovsky’s inner space epic is another takedown by Tarkovsky. Namely his criticism of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) “for being too enamored by the spectacle of the genre, for being too exotic, too immaculate” and his explicit disdain for the concept of genre in general and the West’s take on science-fiction in particular.

Some decades later, in 2009 when director Lars von Trier made what film publication Variety called his “big fat art-film fart,” Antichrist, the review from its premiere press screening in Cannes reported catcalls and boos which were particularly loud when the credits revealed a dedication to Tarkovsky.

Reading back in time had the audience of international film critics equated a reverence to Tarkovsky as a sign of the ultimate pretension? Or had Von Trier committed the ultimate sacrilege to a great Soviet martyr who had famously struggled to make the “anti-spectacle,” the “anti-2001,” the “anti-Antichrist?”

With all this macho jeering, it might be easy to think there is nothing in Solaris, or indeed in Tarkovsky, for the female spectators. At a screening of Solaris I once attended, a discussion took place afterwards on the influence of Tarkovsky and him as a “filmmaker’s filmmaker.” A question from the audience asked the panel’s thoughts on why Tarkovsky’s was so often cited by male directors as an influence. From Von Trier to Carlos Reygadas, Terrence Malick to Alexander Sokurov. Was there something that made the films resonate more meaningfully with men rather than women? It seems fascinating to think about this question now and see if the rise of feminist film theory in the years since the film was produced might have added another dimension to the meanings the film might have today.

In addition to contextualizing assumptions and myths around Tarkovsky’s isolation and difficulties with Soviet authorities, Philip Lopate also unpicks our go-to cinematic references when we watch Solaris today. Lopate cites Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1956) as a better comparative text than Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. For him, the powerful driver in the film is protagonist Kris’ guilt and grief at his wife Hari’s past suicide. On Solaris, these emotions conjure up another Hari, an apparition, seen only through the gaze of Kris’ desperation “to do anything to hold onto [an image of] her, even knowing she isn’t real.”

Lopate’s comparison to Vertigo gains special relevance when we realize that the same year Solaris was produced (1972), feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey began work on her seminal text Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (later published in 1975), where she explored the idea of the male gaze in cinema, famously unpicking this gaze through her reading of Vertigo.

The ideas in Mulvey’s text--now over 40 years old, and expanded on by many wonderful scholars of both sexes over the years--are my guide map when making my way to Solaris today. This map shows the landmarks of patriarchal critical acclaim as well trod pathways, and invites me on a less travelled path. The monument to meaning at the end of this pathway in here is Natasha Bondarchuk’s extraordinary performance as Hari: one that has gained some extraordinary resonance when in 2010 Bondarchuk revealed she had an affair with director Tarkovsky during the shoot, and attempted suicide when they split in 1972.

So when you go on the journey to Solaris, take this map with you. Make like Tarkovsky and sculpt in time to mold your perspective. Make your way through the multiple gazes on Hari, and Bondarchuck, to see them both for yourself.

Mirror

by Michael Pattison, Critic

In Mirror, Andrei Tarkovsky’s legacy for unforgettable imagery finds its purest form. This intensely autobiographical work, which channels the filmmaker’s childhood memories as well as his father’s own memoirs, is structured as a dreamlike mood poem, progressing by means of associative leaps rather than a strict cause and effect logic. It helps to unshackle the images, affording them a freedom to work as standalone compositions.

For Tarkovsky, these images held deeply personal meanings, rooted to his family history as well as culturally specific notions of Russian identity. But in their startling simplicity, such images have repeatedly proven to be profoundly relatable and endlessly moving for a broad range of filmmakers and cinephiles. In Sight & Sound’s most recent “best ever films” poll, Mirror was voted 19th by critics and ninth by other directors.

The painterly compositions presented in Tarkovsky’s most challenging and rewarding film may defy explanation in narrative terms: a burning barn watched on from a family home, a woman levitating from her bed as she sleeps, a fingerprint shrinking from a tabletop. Though powerful and absorbing in themselves, such moments are only enriched by their juxtaposition. Tarkovsky weaves through this fabric in such a way that opposites don’t so much collide as merge: peacetime and war, the domestic and the social, the past and the far past.

Otherwise ordinary scenes, such as a wind gliding through trees, become strangely haunting, as if the elements are being controlled. Tarkovsky knew that the magic of memories was that they’re always half-fabricated, distorted, allowed to blur into one another like a thick soup. We are guided through this by a masterfully imaginative, rhythmically precise soundscape, in which voiceover utterances of “Papa” and “Mama” act like punctuation marks that glue the emotional meaning of the work together. Likewise, we must adjust to the inexplicable switches between sepia and color--as if this too is part of the magic.

Tarkovsky’s longstanding reputation for slow, single-take sequences is both deserved and reductive. While it’s certainly true that the Russian director has inspired whole waves of filmmakers with scenes of notable duration, he also understood as well as anyone how to mix things up. Mirror, which came at the midpoint of his career, might be approached today as the summation of two conflicting styles that run through the master’s work: complex, drawn-out long takes on the one hand, and exhilarating montage on the other.

Indeed, some of the images in Mirror are all the more beautiful for being so fleeting. And while many of them unfold in slow motion, the film itself never feels slow. Though he helped legitimize a form of filmmaking that was free from the pressure to constantly advance story, Tarkovsky grasped that brevity was the true soul of poetry. Maximizing their visceral impact, he cuts his slow-motion scenes short at the very moment they jerk to dramatic life. As when a bird crashes through a window, for instance, or when another takes flight from the hand of a dying man.

Stalker

by Chal Ravens, Writer for Fact Magazine and The Wire

Stalker contains just under 17 minutes of music--a tiny fraction of the film’s 160-minute runtime--yet its otherworldly atmosphere and subtle science-fiction twist rest on Andrei Tarkovsky and composer Eduard Artemyev’s extraordinary handling of sound. Long, disorienting sections of near-silence, echoes of classical music in the clatter of passing trains, a locomotive rhythm dissolving into eerie electronic drones--nothing is quite what it seems when you enter the Zone.

Even at the end of his career, Tarkovsky had conflicting ideas about the purpose of music in cinema. In his book Sculpting in Time, published just before his death in 1986, he emphasized how “important and precious” music had been to his films, but admitted: “In my heart of hearts I don’t believe films need music at all.” In Stalker, he attempted to resolve this contradiction, showing how the barest use of sound could be even more expressive than an emotive musical score. He directed Artemyev not to write music but to use sound to create “states and conditions” establishing the Zone’s atmosphere of unreality. Watching the film, our suspicions are raised through subtle changes--a distant river suddenly becomes audible, beckoning our three travelers, or we hear a breeze but notice the grass isn’t swaying. The laws of physics do not seem to apply in this strange territory.

Artemyev, one of Russia’s pioneers of electronic music, used the British-made Synthi 100 synthesizer to build on this alien mood. Stalker’s short musical score, first heard in the opening titles, places the long, airy drones of the Synthi 100 under a flute and an Iranian stringed instrument called a tar. This suggestion of Eastern music (particularly Indian classical music, where a tanpura provides a continuous harmonic drone underneath a sitar’s melody) adds to the sense of dislocation--we’re a long way from the sepia-toned Russian town where we first encounter the Stalker.

Artemyev’s electronic scores (including those for Solaris and Mirror) added to a wave of synthesizer-based soundtracks in the 1970s, particularly in sci-fi and horror, where their unfamiliar tones helped establish worlds where normal rules do not apply, as in A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Suspiria and the sound design of Alien, released the same year as Stalker. Tarkovsky believed electronic music had huge potential for cinema, as it could remain indistinct and indefinable, working subtly at the edge of our awareness: “The moment we hear what it is, and realize that it’s being constructed, electronic music dies.”

In Stalker he further loosens our grasp on reality by hiding fragments of famous classical pieces (”La Marseillaise,” Bach’s “Tannhäuser Overture,” Ravel’s “Bolero” and Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”) in the din of passing trains, like the everyday illusion of hearing a familiar song under the noise of a locomotive. Just as the experience of mishearing a melody shows that what we perceive as reality is always colored by our perception, so we might suspect that, in their quest for the Room, the Stalker, Writer, and Professor are really searching for themselves. On their long journey into the Zone, the rhythmic clanking of the motorized trolley dissolves into synthesized drones and metallic echoes. The camera ignores the moving wheels and much of the passing scenery, instead panning between the travelers’ faces; we seem to enter their very thoughts as they cross into the unknown. Their journey is not merely a physical effort, but a mental transformation. Tarkovsky and Artemyev’s achievement is to erase the distinction between the physical world and our inner lives.

Nostalgia

by Carmen Gray, Film Critic/Journalist

Andrei Tarkovsky made Nostalgia in Italy toward the end of a career cut short by his death from cancer. It was the first feature he made abroad, and its culturally alienated protagonist can be seen as a mirror of his own deep homesickness and longing for Russia. Tarkovsky had forged his career under the Soviet regime, but had bitterly struggled to avoid having his work suppressed by a bureaucratic studio system tasked with realizing the state’s view of cinema as a propaganda tool to indoctrinate the masses with heroic communist ideals. He alarmed the authorities with his highly intuitive, personal, and poetic approach to directing. His films, which all deal with spiritual crisis, tend towards a dream logic, incorporating visually stunning imagery with fragments of memory in a manner that defies simple, set interpretation. He did not overtly identify as a political dissident, but he found the pressure exerted by the state on his ability to create with unhampered authenticity so taxing that after going to Italy in 1982 to shoot his sixth feature, he announced he wouldn’t return. The Soviet authorities actively prevented Nostalgia from winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes. This obstruction only strengthened Tarkovsky’s resolve not to go back to his beloved homeland, even though his young son was there and not permitted to leave.

Tarkovsky had made autobiographical work before, his 1975 masterpiece Mirror being essentially a weave of childhood recollections set into the wider context of Russia’s tumultuous history. The fictional story of Nostalgia, which he dedicated to his mother, holds clear parallels to his own predicament of self-imposed exile. A Russian writer, also named Andrei and played by Oleg Yankovsky, has travelled to Italy to research compatriot 18th-century serf composer Pavel Sosnovsky. Andrei is suffering in the throes of a profound sense of displacement. The companionship and declared affection of his beautiful interpreter Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano) only serves as an additional strain. The tension between creative freedom and ancestral belonging troubles his thoughts and is an irreconcilable problem echoed in the fate of Sosnovsky, who had felt compelled to return to Russia despite knowing he would be enslaved again. There, he had turned to drink before committing suicide.

Tarkovsky often used rain and crackling fire in his work to create oneiric, mystically charged worlds teeming with the elemental grandeur of nature. Nostalgia plays out in ruins flooded with water with dripping walls in which indoors and outside merge; in the eerie haze of a steaming Tuscan spa; in a pool in which Andrei attempts to walk from one end to the other without letting a candle extinguish. This last act is called for by local Domenico (Erland Josephson), who may be martyr or madman and who makes an extreme stand against the catastrophic state of the modern world. A final iconic image shows Andrei lying with his dog in front of a Russian dacha, nestled inside an Italian cathedral. Tarkovsky once claimed, after all, that Russians are fatally attached to their roots.

The Sacrifice

by Tom Seymour, Editor of British Journal of Photography and Journalist

In May 1986, a month after the Chernobyl disaster, The Sacrifice won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Andrei Tarkovsky, at the age of 54, could not accept the award. He was in Paris, battling lung cancer.

The prize was collected by his son, Andrei Jr. The Soviets had waited until the recalcitrant genius was beyond cure before granting his children permission to stray beyond the Iron Curtain. Back in Russia, the award went unreported by the state media.

Tarkovsky died, in exile, later that year. And so The Sacrifice, this Dostoyevskian epic of apocalyptic grandeur, can be seen as his final farewell.

Ingmar Bergman once said: “Tarkovsky for me is the greatest director, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

The Sacrifice seems to be the Andrei's way of returning Bergman's compliment. It was shot in the summer of 1985, on the Swedish island of Gotland (the Swedish military denied Tarkovsky access to Bergman's island of Fårö). Employing, to large effect, the Swedish language, Tarkovsky also used two of Bergman's veterans--the cinematographer Sven Nykvist, and the actor Erland Josephson. In the vein of Bergman, the film asks questions of Biblical proportions to frame a midlife crises. The Vatican includes The Sacrifice as one of 45 “great religious films,” yet it is essentially a story about a rather dysfunctional birthday party.

Josephson plays Alexander, a writer and academic of unflinching sincerity whom tells us, in an opening monologue, of humanity’s great moral failings in the authoritarian age of nuclear arms. “Humanity is on a dangerous road,” he says. “We are living like savages.”

Quite a way to kick off one’s birthday. We meet him in his remote, spartan home on the banks of the sea, joined by his wife Adelaide (Susan Fleetwood), her teenage daughter Martha (Filippa Franzén), and their young son (Tommy Kjellqvist), referred to only as Little Man, and whom cannot speak. Two housemaids hover in the background, and he is visited by two friends whose provenance remains uncertain.

The roll of thunder is heard in the skies overhead, and then the thunderous shudder of military aircraft passing by. We hear mysterious cries, faraway in the night. Then a voice on the radio intones with words that shake the party; a nuclear holocaust is imminent, the world is about to end. Only a deal with God, an anti-Faustian-pact, holds the chance of salvation.

In One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich, a documentary about Tarkovsky from another cult cineaste, the late French director Chris Marker, we are given access to quiet, revertant footage of the great man brought low with sickness, greeting his family after years apart. Marker's film contextualizes this with, seven months hence, backstage filming of The Sacrifice. Such sunlit, shimmery footage of Tarkovsky--already ill, exactingly and, in his own way, joyously planning the film's climatic end--is a lovely foil to this weighty, portentous film.

For it is possible to read The Sacrifice as a metaphor for Tarkovsky’s own state of being. Six years earlier, he seemed to foretell the Chernobyl disaster with Stalker, which takes place in an abandoned, desolate expanse called The Zone. Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and Anatoli Solonitsyn, the lead actor in Stalker, all died from a comparable type of lung cancer (Vladimir Sharun, the film’s sound designer, claimed the director and cast were exposed to lethal carcinogens by the production’s proximity to a chemical plant). When he shot The Sacrifice, he must have known the end was in sight.

In the opening act of The Sacrifice, Alexander helps his son plant a tree by the sea. Without speaking, the small boy listens to his father’s instructions--if the tree is watered, every day, it will become something larger than ourselves. It will outlast us, and in that act, a small part of the world will change.

And so, in the final moments of The Sacrifice, we see Little Man, now a bit bigger, carefully watering the sapling, still fragile but steadily growing, winding its roots into the earth.

What a way to sign off. That maybe, in the act of dedicating oneself to small tasks, in the embrace of sacrifice, we might find our chance to build a legacy.

#Creative Inspiration #Andrei Tarkovsky

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kteaandshade · 6 years

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Casino Royale [NSFW] (Taemin Mafia AU) p. 6-FINAL

!Trigger Warning!: Blood/very minor implied gore, mafia talk, possible talk of violence?

a/n: Thank you for reading! I’m going to have a spinoff series based on this, so be on the lookout! I might take a break and write other stuff before then but please anticipate it, it’s gon’ be goooood

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Once the adrenaline wore off, Taemin passed out. It was an hour drive to your mother’s house, and periodically you checked his pulse and his fever. He only stirred a couple times, but never was fully conscious. Just as you planned, your mom stayed silent, and even helped you carry the limp man inside. She wouldn’t let you in with Taemin, however, instead making you shower and change. You let the hot water sting your shoulders as you slumped down against the shower walls, hugging your knees to your chest. And you cried.

You weren’t sure why you cried, you were sure that you cried so long the water went cold. You dried off quickly and dressed in an old pair of pajamas. Your mother was in the kitchen making tea. “How is he?” You whispered. “I removed the bullet, it missed the artery but chipped the bone. I patched him up as best as I could, but he should really go to the hospital. What happened, Y/N?” You sighed, suddenly feeling tired. “The casino was attacked, by robbers…we were trapped on the 24th floor, but I helped Mr. Lee escape.” She didn’t meet your eyes. “So you put yourself in danger by helping the target?” You shook your head. “No, I didn’t, we were together. He helped me as much as I helped him. He promised our debts would disappear, mom. Just by getting him out of the building.” You mother shook her head. “I’m just glad you’re safe, but I would have rather had you alive and well than have our debts disappear.” You sighed, too exhausted to keep defending you and your boss’s son. “I’m going to go check on him.” You mumbled. Your mom poured the steaming tea into two mugs. “I’m going to go to bed. Keep an eye on him tonight, if he wakes up and has a fever, give him two of the tablets I have sitting on the dresser in that room. Goodnight hun.” You kissed her on the cheek. “Goodnight mom.”

Taemin was deep asleep, his leg propped up on a pillow. You set the still-steaming mug on the dresser next to the tablets your mother was talking about and settled in the old chair next to the bed. Taemin didn’t stir, even when the chair creaked. You curled into the arm rest, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, nodding off to the imagined beat of his heart

You woke up to Taemin softly moaning. You shot up, pretending you weren’t asleep, but Taemin was still asleep. And appeared to be having a nightmare. You kneeled next to his bed and felt his forehead. It appeared to be quite warm, so you got up and grabbed the tablets and cooled mug of tea from the dresser. He moaned softly again and twitched. You sat down on the mattress by him and smoothed his tousled hair away from his face. He jumped awake, and you threw your arms out over his leg and shoulder just in case his fight or flight instincts kicked in. “It’s okay! It’s just me, it’s Y/N” His body relaxed, his eyelids lowered. “Oh, good.” He was still breathing heavy. “Are you okay? What were you dreaming about?” You asked gently. He shook his head. “I can’t remember.” But you saw it in his eyes, he remembered, and it hurt. “Your fever is back; do you feel up to taking some pills?” He nodded, taking them quickly and quietly. He sank back onto the pillow, trying to relax. “How’s your leg?” He pushed his hair back. “It’s been better. Y/N, we need to think of a plan.” He sat up on his elbows. “At dawn, we’ll head out. Take my car and go to your apartment. Get a suitcase together…” You held up a hand. “A suitcase?” He nodded. “I have a cabin in Switzerland. No one knows about it but me and my close family. We’ll be safe there. Just for a short while. I promise. You won’t have to work or have responsibilities. Just relax and be safe. When I get the all clear that it’s safe to come back, we’ll come back.” You narrowed your eyes. “What’s up with all of this we talk? Why do I have to go? Just uproot my life and go into hiding. I have my own life too.” Taemin sat fully up. “They know who you are, and they will find you if you stay here. By going off the grid, even for just a few months, they will move on from you. I just want you to be safe Y/N, because I love you.” Your eyes grew hot and you waved your hand. “It’s the medicine talking, go to sleep.” He kept his eyes on you. “I love you Y/N, I want you to come with me.” You shook your head. “What about my apartment? My bills, my plants, my car, my phone…” He smiled. “I’ll have someone check on your apartment, collect your mail. I’ll take care of your bills. You don’t have to worry.” You still didn’t meet his gaze. “Your mother will be protected as well. I will make sure of it. And you can contact her as often as you want.” You sighed.

“Okay, I’ll go.”

Taemin grinned. “Thank you, Y/N., I love you.” You rolled your eyes. “Stop saying that, go to sleep.”

#taemin #leetaemin #shinee taemin #casino #mafia #fanfic #writing

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justanythinggoes · 6 years

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K-Drama is Life <3

Because K-drama is life! Lol. I think after the DOTS fever, the number of k-drama watchers significantly increased. I was so surprised to see so many people watching k-dramas on subways, buses, while waiting in line, as well so many people sharing them on social media. I still watch k-dramas, but I think the height of my k-drama addiction was circa 2011-2013. It was during this time that I was working on a graveyard shift. Because of my schedule, I was always so wide awake on weekend nights. And because I don’t like to party or go to clubs, I would always end up spending the night watching k-dramas.

Here are some of my recommended (kinda not so old) k-dramas that I’ve watched and would want to play back right after finishing.

YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL (2009) – I remember watching this back in my college days. I love the theme – a cross dressing girl joining a band. I also love the songs. I even downloaded the show’s songs and became a big fan of PSH and JGS together. All in all, it was a cute watch for the college then me!

MY GIRLFRIEND IS A GUMIHO (2010) – Something cute, something light, something funny! A feel-good watch with very adorable leads! Shin Min-Ah is one of my Korean girl crushes and she delivered her role well. What a very cute gumiho she is!

CITY HUNTER (2011) – Umm, it’s a LMH starrer, so no questions asked if I’m gonna watch it. Lol. But seriously, this is my favorite drama of Lee Min Ho. I’ve watched him in BOF, it was a fun mess to watch and it was the show that made him a certified Hallyu star. Heirs was all butterflies in my stomach, but the storyline was meh. Personal Taste was forgettable. I forgot to continue watching LTBS because I couldn’t shake-off Jun Ji Hyun’s acting from MLFTS. The feels were kinda the same. But City Hunter was the show that made me a certified LMH fan. The show was so good and action suited him so well. The drama was well executed; the other casts were just as stellar. If I were to recommend a LMH drama, this is the one!

THE PRINCESS’ MAN (2011) – I think I finished this show in one sitting. That means I didn’t sleep for the next 24 hours just to finish this. Wow! The storyline is like a Romeo-Juliet love story set in the Joseon period. What made me so invested in this show was the main couple’s chemistry! They looked so good together that after the watching show, I keep on looking for videos of them together. Hoping they had something going on behind the cameras, lol. Aside from the love story, the storyline about political power and revenge were solid. Although there were some low moments in the middle (Because this is period drama and 24 episodes), the whole drama itself remains awesome. Go, watch it!

GAKSITAL (2012) – Oh, Gaksital! Where do I begin? This drama is a bit long at 28 episodes, but definitely worth the watch! I didn’t expect to watch this one. It’s a heavy period drama centered around a hero wearing a bridal mask (Gaksital) that was set during the period of Japanese occupancy in SK. I can’t remember what made me decide to give this a go, but I’m glad I did! I think it was after 5 to 6 episodes that I started to feel so engaged and excited while watching this show. Every character provided solid performance especially Joo Won and Park Ki-Woong! They’re both too awesome in this drama!

DREAM HIGH (2012) – My heart! I love this show. Don’t we all want a show that makes us want to work hard to achieve our dreams? Plus, the songs in this show are just as amazing. It’s light, sometimes heartbreaking, funny, endearing… And that ending, I loved it!

REPLY 1997 (2012) – My fangirl heart! If you are a fangirl like me, you can totally relate to this show! Lol. Still my fave among the 3 Reply Series. The 1988 series may be the most popular, but it totally broke my heart with what they did to Jung Hwan’s character! Anyways, this show was like a breath of fresh air. A nostalgic look back on the lives of six friends in Busan.

MY LOVE FROM THE STAR (2013-2014) – Jun Ji-Hyun is a winner! She totally owned her character. She is most suited to play this kind of character. I’ve watched her in a movie before where she is quiet, but I would always remember how she is as a Sassy Girl. Haha. Kim Soo-hyun on the other hand is handsome! I’ve known him from Dream High and I already like him from then. Both leads match perfectly and you’re in for a wonderful time!

HEALER (2014-2015) – Healer-nim! This show made a Ji Chang-Wook fan out of me. This show was perfect for him! I just wish they extended it to one more episode so the ending didn’t feel so rushed. Nevertheless, it didn’t lessen my love for Healer. Aside from his action scenes, I love love love the chemistry between the leads. They looked so good together on screen! My gawd! Aside from actions, he’s so good at romance too! What can’t he do? HAHA. I’ve tried watching K2, but it didn’t feel right for me so I dropped it. Lol. I’ve also watched a few episodes of Suspicious Romance, but it also didn’t register so well with me. I feel that I don’t want to watch any other show of JCW other than Healer, Lol. I want to always remember him as Healer!

SPLISH SPLASH LOVE (2015) – Short but sweet! I only watched this recently, but would want to recommend it for those looking for a starter. It’s only a two-part drama special so it wouldn’t take up much of your time. I like Kim Seul-gi! I wish they’d give her more lead roles in the future.

#kdrama #healer #city hunter #dream high #gaksital #my girlfriend is a gumiho #my love from another star #reply 1997 #splish splash love #the princess man #youre beautiful #korean drama

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thefranklinoutdoor · 4 years

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Don't You Stop, We Won't Stop

EC Brown Lise Baggesen Rodrigo Lara Zendejas Sarah Beth Woods Felicia Holman

Opening reception: Saturday, February 15 from 7-10 pm

From February 15 to April 25, 2020

“Hot topic is the way that we rhyme Hot topic is the way that we rhyme One step behind the drum style One step behind the drum style Carol Rama and Eleanor Antin Yoko Ono and Carolee Schneeman You're getting old, that's what they'll say, but Don't give a damn I'm listening anyway Stop, don't you stop I can't live if you stop Don't you stop Gretchen Phillips and Cibo Matto Leslie Feinberg and Faith Ringgold Mr. Lady, Laura Cottingham Mab Segrest and The Butchies, man Don't stop Don't you stop We won't stop Don't you stop So many roads and so much opinion So much shit to give in, give in to So many rules and so much opinion So much bullshit but we won't give in Stop, we won't stop Don't you stop I can't live if you stop Tammy Rae Carland and Sleater-Kinney Vivienne Dick…”

- Lyrics from Hot Topic by Le Tigre, 1999

EC Brown

My wife Catie's annual Krampusnacht event last December included a holiday market, and I presented a bin of paintings on chipboard that were folded like heavy 45 sleeves—with mulch+foliage+ploymer record shapes that became too encrusted to fit inside. The images invented an old psychedelic Krampus underground—militant and Luciferian. Dolly appeared as a surprise digression in the wee hours before the deadline.

For the past seven years of Krampusnacht, I have sidestepped the European relics in favor of thoughts about American undercurrents—rowdy, sexual, heretical, and perilously savage. But I like to imagine that the deeper magma is something propulsive and generative, rather than malignantly atavistic. An inevitable rebellion against civilized living.

With Edra's prodding, I'm pursuing the Dolly tangent: imagining a history in which the liftoff of her solo career was profoundly controversial—to the point that an enclave of armed male consorts developed around her. Perhaps her audience had detected a Luciferian bent in her, that would need time to transition to a more acceptable yet radical Christianity.

EC Brown: I prefer a collision of illustrative image-making that begs attention to narratives, and physical formats that shift these works into roles as implements or tactical objects addressing spaces and situations. Images have been a tempered fever-dream drawing from 1960s–70s aesthetics, pop occultism, science fiction, Modernist architecture, biomimetics, industrial photography and observational cinema. Often they are absurdist historical revisions.

Since 2005, I have mostly operated in Chicago's domestic artspaces. I co-organized Floor Length and Tux (2009–2014, with Catie Olson) and COMA (2006–2008, with Annika Seitz). I periodically organize a roving series entitled ASCII (2011–present). Since 2015, I have been conducting a discreet series out of my home entitled Tascam.

Lise Haller Baggesen

Interpersonal relationships, intergenerational and intersectional eco- and cyber- and xeno- feminism, reproductive justice, therapeutic aesthetics, color field painting, sci-fi tie-dye, hippie modernism, bio-punk, grunge, glam, and disco, are some of the vernaculars that inform my body of work. Since graduating in 2013 from SAIC's department of Visual and Critical Studies, this organic body has manifested itself in a hybrid and polydisciplinamorous practice, including writing, audio-visual installations, textile-, and sartorial works.

Mother is a noun and a verb; I regard my practice as a sourdough, a gestation of material, out of which individual works, texts, and shows are wrought, while the mother remains, active.

Lise Haller Baggesen is a Danish born, Amsterdam raised, Chicago based, interdisciplinary artist. Her hybrid practice includes writing, installation, performative, sartorial and textile-based work. She is the author of Mothernism, and exhibits internationally, most recently with the multimedia show HATORADE RETROGRADE: THE MUSICAL, which premiered at SoEx in San Francisco in 2019 and will travel to G400 in Chicago in 2020

Rodrigo Lara Zendejas

I create memorials—fragmented, mischievous, and imperfect realities that reflect both a formal

break from traditional shape, while presenting an assemblage version of our collective social and political thoughts, concerns, and hopes. Although I was trained in the traditions of classical art, my pieces now are not always clean. Or finished. Or beautiful. My work holds the memory of an intimate process of becoming. In some bodies of work, I present obvious nooks and gashes, broad, quick strokes, and secretive, featherlike fingerprints, all of which aided in the modeling of the clay during the process of bringing the subject to life. It is this visceral and intimate approach to materials and form that drive my subjects of memory and memorialization through all of my works.

When considering the human form and its relationship to memorialization, immediate thoughts of bronze statues at historical sites come to mind. My fascination, however, is in the way that memory—with its inherent, ever-changing fluidity—disrupts our ability to fully or truthfully freeze, or memorialize people, moments, or perspectives in history. Instead, it is our momentary glimpses of memory and hindsight that drive how we understand the present.

As a Mexican immigrant to the United States, my works often rely on my own fragmented memories and stories of home, my direct experiences with fervent Catholicism, and other’s heroic (yet common) anecdotes of border crossing and acclimating to living in America. However, while my memories and relationships to patriotism, politics, my background, and my longing for the familiar certainly influence my work, it is my interest in the process, the poetics of the materials, and the action of sculpting that motivate my continued practice.

Born in Mexico in 1981, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas received a MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2013. And his BFA from the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico in 2003. He has received several awards including: Proyectos Especiales FONCA (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) Mexico City; Emerging Artist Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York City; Jóvenes Creadores, FONCA, Mexico City; Extraordinary Abilities Visa, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Artist’s Grant, Vermont Studio Art Center; James Nelson Raymond Fellowship, 2013 SAIC Fellowship Competition; PECDA Estudios en el extranjero,Instituto Queretano de la Cultura y las Artes; the International Graduate Scholarship, SAIC; and the John W. Kurtich Travel Scholarship, SAIC Berlin/Kassel, Germany; among others. He won the first price in sculpture at the National Award for Visual Arts in Mexico in 2010. Lara held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in the state of Mexico, Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Kruger Gallery in Marfa, Texas, among others. He has been in such residencies as the Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ragdale, Cross Currents: Cultural Exchange, Mana Miami, and Rogers Art Loft. Currently, Lara lives and works in Chicago.

Flatscreen

Sarah Beth Woods

Hear the Glow of Electric Lights is a multifaceted project that centers around a black and white, 16mm reversal film, which investigates the choreographed performances of 1960s American pop music groups featuring girls and young women. During the summer of 2017, Sarah Beth Woods formed The Rhinettes, a conceptual girl group based out of Prosser High School on the West side of Chicago. Referencing the Supreme’s first nationally televised appearance and Cholly Atkins' choreography, the work reveals the inscription of sound on the body and other material surfaces.

Girl group: (L-R) Alexis Strowder, Yahkirah Beard, Anya Jenkins Cinematography: Brian VandenBos Choreography: Courtney Bradshaw Costumes: Ann Heggans, Sarah Beth Woods

Sarah Beth Woods is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist. Woods’ background as a painter and critical cultural worker has led to an interest in the aesthetics and political implications of modern surfaces and the body, specifically skin and hair, saturated color and shine. Cultural influences derived from formative years spent on the Southwest side of Chicago continue to manifest in the content and aesthetics of Woods’ work, specifically black material culture and women’s conceptual spaces as sites of possibility and transformation.

Activation

Felicia Holman

"Originally created as a commissioned response to Edra Soto’s 2018 exhibition ‘Open 24 Hours’, interdisciplinary artist Felicia Holman presents a reprise of her solo performance—Wassup w/that ‘YAC?! (WWTY). As both a cognac enthusiast and a native of Chicago’s South Side, Holman unpacks experiential / anecdotal support of the formative research cited in ‘Open24 Hours’. WWTY centers the perspective of a Black Gen X’er cis-female cognac consumer. How do historic/ (pop) cultural/ social/ economic factors impact and influence her consumption of “that smooth brown spirit”? Guided audience participation optional but warmly encouraged (21+ only). Total running time: 45-60 minutes, no intermission.”

Felicia Holman “Lifelong”: Chicagoan/ artist and Prince "fam" Felicia Holman is an independent cultural producer/programmer, as well as a co-founding member of Chicago-based Afrodiasporic feminist creative collective, Honey Pot Performance. Felicia creates, presents, and supports innovative interdisciplinary performance that engages audience and inspires community. Felicia’s artistic & professional practices are both are grounded in critical thought, intersectionality, community building & embodied storytelling. Some of her recent projects and career highlights include:

*Featured artist in Jenn Freeman's "The People's Church of The G.H.E.T.T.O" and the 10th edition of Erin Kilmurray's "The Fly Honey Show”.

*Selected as City Bureau's Fall 2019 Public Newsroom Series Curator.

*Featured presenter at Arts Administrators of Color Network-DMV's 2019 Annual Convening (DC). *Featured artist / facilitator at Flux Factory's "Must They Also Be Gods" group exhibition (NYC).

*Facilitating career development programming for emerging artists.

THE FRANKLIN

Address: 3522 W. Franklin Blvd, Chicago IL 60624 Cell to text: (312)823-3632Hours: Saturdays 2-4pm and by appointment Online: http://thefranklinoutdoor.tumblr.comInstagram: @thefranklinoutdoor

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newyorktheater · 5 years

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October is always a busy month for theater in New York, but it’s gone up a notch this time. Below is a selection, organized chronologically by opening date.

On Broadway alone, eight shows are opening this month, an unusually high number, and they’re widely varied: two new plays by dramatists making their Broadway debuts (including one still in school) and two new plays by Pulitzer winning playwrights; a concert by David Byrnes; hip hop improv by the group co-founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda; a musical based on a young adult fantasy novel; a Tennessee Williams revival starring Marisa Tomei. And that doesn’t even include the latest edition of “Forbidden Broadway,” which encompasses all of Broadway, but will be running (as usual) Off Broadway.

Also Off-Broadway Jonathan Groff, Tammy Blanchard, and Christian Borle are returning to New York — all in the same show, a revival of “Little Shop of Horrors.” A new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori is opening at the Public; Thomas Kail (the Hamilton director who is helming the improv show on Broadway) is directing “The Wrong Man” starring Joshua Henry at MCC; Repertorio Espanol has adapted Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer winning novel for the stage.

Given what’s happening in the news, it shouldn’t be too surprising that there are two different versions of Macbeth opening this month, plus any number of plays about politics… and politicians — Brian Cox as LBJ and Harvey Fierstein as Rep. Bella Abzug.

The New York International Fringe Festival, which moved last year from August to October, is in this second go-round in the new month seriously pared down to 40 shows (from the usual 200), but that’s still intimidating.

The Fringe shows are not the only out-there shows running in October. There is an immersive version of Sondheim’s “Into The Woods” and a show at BAM with a cast of 100 that has a runtime of 24 hours.

Each title below is linked to a relevant website.

Color key: Broadway: Red. Off Broadway: Purple, blue or black. Off Off Broadway: Green.Theater festival: Orange.Puppetry: Brown. Immersive: Magenta.

October 1

The Great Society (Vivian Beaumont)

A follow-up to Robert Schenkkan’s play “All The Way, this one follows President Lyndon B. Johnson (this time starring Brian Cox) during his presidency from his election until his resignation.

Dublin Carol (Irish Rep)

In this play by Conor McPherson, John Plunkett is haunted by memories of a shameful past and shattered life. On Christmas Eve, an unexpected visit from his estranged daughter, Mary, forces John to confront his demons and grapple with his chance at redemption.

October 2

Freestyle Love Supreme (Booth)

The hip-hop improv show co-founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda comes to Broadway

The New Englanders (MTC)

In Jeff Augustin’s play, Eisa wants to be the next Lauryn Hill and is struggling to break free of her sleepy New England town where she feels hopelessly trapped. Her fathers are being pulled in different directions of their own.

October 3

Fringe BYOV

The New York International Fringe Festival has been pared down from its first two decades. That still leaves 40 shows, but, unlike previous years, none have been adjudicated. Following the Edinburgh model, any company could put on a show. The BYOV means Bring Your Own Venue; the idea was to present theater in all five boroughs, but only one of the six venues this year is outside Manhattan. Irondale in Brooklyn features four shows, including Savana Glacial (pictured above) a dark comedy about a love triangle written by the most celebrated living contemporary Brazilian playwrights, Jô Bilac; The Four of Us, a revival of the 2007 play by Itamar Moses (The Band’s Visit); and Update, by MAD LAB, an immersive performance-ritual using music, dance, theater, creative technology, and installation art

October 6

Slave Play (Golden)

The Old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation — or so it initially seems, with three interracial couples engaging in sexual gamesmanship. My review of the play Off-Broadway

October 7

Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizons)

Set in Wyoming a week after the deadly 2017 Charlottesville riot, the new play sees four young conservatives reunite for a backyard barbecue in Wyoming. Written by Will Arbery (“Plano”)

October 9

The Wrong Man (MCC)

With book, music and lyrics by Ross Golan, direction by Thomas Kail (Hamilton), this musical is set in Reno, Nevada, and tells the story of Duran (Joshua Henry), a man just scraping by who is framed for a murder he didn’t commit,

October 10

Linda Vista (Second Stage’s Hayes)

In Tracy Letts’ play, Wheeler is a 50-year-old divorcee in the throes of a mid-life spiral. Just out of his ex-wife’s garage and into a place of his own, Wheeler starts on a path toward self-discovery—navigating blind dates, old friends, and new love.

Terra Firma (Baruch)

Years after a conflict known as the Big War, a tiny kingdom wrestles with the problems of running a nation

October 12

The Pout Pout Fish (New Victory)

A new musical based on the best-selling children’s book series. After everyone’s favorite frowny fishie tries to glimpse his reflection in Ms. Clam’s mystical pearl, both Pout-Pout and the pearl are suddenly swept out to sea!

The Unbrunch

Explore Wonderland on five floors of a building in “a secret location in Chelsea”

October 15

The Rose Tattoo (Roundabout’s American Airlines)

Marisa Tomei stars in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ play about Serafina, a widow, who rekindles her desire for love, lust, and life in the arms of a fiery suitor

Soft Power (Public)

An odd and hilarious fever dream imagining an American musical as created by theatermakers in a future dominant Chinese society, created by David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Yellow Face) and Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home; Violet; Caroline, or Change)

Scotland, PA (Roundabout’s Laura Pels)

A new musical adaptation of Billy Morrissette’s 2001 film riffing on Macbeth, set in a sleepy Pennsylvania town, involving the manager of a burger joint and his ambitious wife.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Repertorio Espanol)

Marco Antonio Rodríguez adapts the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Junot Diaz about Oscar, a naive “nerd” from New Jersey who has finally left the grips of his imposing Dominican mother and is attending his first semester of college at Rutgers with his rebellious sister. He has big dreams, but feats he won’t get them because of the “fukú”—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations. In Spanish with English subtitles.

October 16

The Lightning Thief (Longacre)

Director Stephen Brackett (“A Strange Loop”) and book writer Joe Tracz bring Rick Riordan’s bestselling young-adult fantasy novel to Broadway. My review when it was Off-Broadway

Forbidden Broadway The Next Generation (The Triad)

After a five year absence, Gerard Alessandrini is back, roasting everything you’ve seen on Broadway since the last edition of Forbidden Broadway.

Last Audience (New York Live Arts)

“A live laboratory for the communal work of conjuring…comprised of a set of unique scores written for each performance.” This is free with a RSVP, but you consent to being filmed. There is also a free public meal before each performance.

October 17

The Sound Inside (Studio 54)

Mary-Louise Parker stars in this play by Adam Rapp: A brilliant Ivy League professor, a mysterious student and a troubling favor.

Little Shop of Horrors (West Side Theater)

Seymour is a down-on-his-luck florist with a crush on his co-worker Audrey. When he discovers a mysterious – and voracious – plant, suddenly Seymour and Audrey are thrust into an epic battle that will determine the fate of the entire human race. A revival hard to argue with, given that its cast includes Jonathan Groff, Tammy Blanchard, Christian Borle

Into the Woods

Rooftop Musical Society immersive version of Sondheim’s fractured fairytale, unfolding on two floors of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “Audience members might find themselves having a drink at the tavern with the witch (who raps!), buying some bread (or sweets) from the Baker and his wife, helping Jack sell his cow for magic beans, trying on Cinderella’s gold slipper, or flirting with royalty.”

October 18

All Hallows Eve (Connolly)

A new horror musical using puppetry about twins bored with Halloween who are confronted by a demoness. Comic, bloody and “definitely not for young children.”

The Second Woman (BAM)

An only-at-BAM kind of show. Over a period of 24 hours, one woman and 100 men repeat the same scene 100 times, with different results. It’s inspired by Cassavetes’ meta-theatrical 1977 film Opening Night. Stay as little or as long as you want.

October 20

David Byrne’s American Utopia (Hudson)

A stage adaptation of David Byrne’s 2018 album

Games (Soho Playhouse)

Based on a true story and set in 1936, Berlin, where Jewish athlete Helene Mayer is selected for the Nazis’ Olympic Squad.

The Independents (The Theater Center)

Playwright Christopher Ward imagines the stormy relationship between young American artist Mary Cassatt and great French master Edgar Degas.

October 21

Power Strip (Lincoln Center)

In this new play by Sylvia Khoury, Yasmin, a young Syrian refugee, spends her days tethered to an electric power strip in a Greek refugee camp, discovering that she must forget everything she values in order to survive.

October 22

For Colored Girls….(Public)

A revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow is Enough,” an unlikely Tony-nominated hit on Broadway in 1976 that Shange (who died last October) called a “choreopoem.” It tells the stories of seven black women using poetry, song, and movement.

Bella Bella (Manhattan Theater Club)

Harvey Fierstein stars as Bella Abzug in a solo-play he’s written set in 1976, on the eve of her bid to become New York State’s first female Senator,

Is This A Room? (Vineyard)

A play based on verbatim FBI transcripts of the interrogation of 25-year-old former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner. She surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S elections. Reality remains in jail with a record-breaking sentence.

October 23

What If They Went To Moscow (BAM)

Based on Chekhov’s Three Sisters,but experimental with audience reactions to two different media. Two audiences in different BAM theaters watch the live performance of the show — one on stage, the other as a film — and then switch at intermission.

October 26

Cole Porter at the York

Panama Hattie (York)

A revival of Cole Porter’s 1940’s hit, in which a brassy nightclub owner must bid for the approval of her fiancé’s family

October 27

Macbeth (CSC)

Corey Stoll and Nadia Bowers star in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

The Michaels (The Public)

Richard Nelson, best-known for his multi-part, low key, in real time family sagas The Apple Family plays and The Gabriels:Election Year in the Life of One Family, brings us another one. In the kitchen belonging Rose Michael, a celebrated choreographer, she and those around her cook dinner, rehearse modern dances, eat and talk — about art, death, family, dance, politics, and the state of America. The seven-member cast includes Nelson regulars Jay O. Sanders and Maryann Plunkett.

Monsoon Season (Rattlestick)

In this “brutally demented romantic comedy” by Lizzie Vieh, it’s monsoon season in Phoenix, Arizona, and recently separated couple Danny and Julia are spiraling into chaos.

October 28

Seared (MCC)

Theresa Rebeck’s play about a talented by temperamental chef who scores a big mention in the press for his signature scallops, but, much to the frustration of his business partner, refuses to repeat himself for the masses. Cast includes Raul Esparza and Krysta Rodriguez

October 29

The Hope Hypothesis (Sheen)

A black comedy by Cat Miller about an immigrant from Syria and a law student who goes to get her green card and gets caught into the maze of immigration hysteria.

October 30

Hamnet (BAM)

Irish theater company Dead Centre, inspired by Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, who died at the age of 11, creates a play about a boy searching for his father

October 2019 New York Theater Openings October is always a busy month for theater in New York, but it's gone up a notch this time.

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