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@rydalkeener
𝐑𝐘𝐃𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑, A PRIVATE & SELECTIVE ITERATION OF RYDAL KEENER FROM THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY . ROOTED DEEPLY IN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION WITH SELECTIVE INSPIRATION TAKEN FROM NOVEL (1964) AND MOVIE (2014) CANONS . WRITTEN BY SHERRY (SHE/HER, TWENTY6) . MINORS DNI . ESTABLISHED AUGUST 2025 . REVAMPED JUNE 2026 .
𝑨 𝑺𝑯𝑶𝑪𝑲 𝑶𝑭 𝑹𝑬𝑪𝑶𝑮𝑵𝑰𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 ... @keein , @pinkman
¹ . 𝖢𝖠𝖱𝖱𝖣 ² . 𝖦𝖱𝖠𝖯𝖧𝖨𝖢𝖲 𝖢𝖱𝖤𝖣𝖨𝖳 ³ . 𝖢𝖠𝖱𝖱𝖣 𝖢𝖱𝖤𝖣𝖨𝖳
away from home until july 29th for vacation and it has been more chaos than anyone could ever possibly imagine and it's been a struggle, but i'll be around when i can and would love to plot or chit-chat here or on disc any time <3
so guys i fear we're really in the shit. at the start of this, we had three flights cancelled on us and four delayed at the start. then, two days ago, we had a train cancelled on us. yesterday, we arrived at the flat we're meant to stay in over the next two weeks and, despite the listing details boasting otherwise, the ac is broken and the owner is ghosting us/the company is refusing to help. because of the flights, the train, and waiting for maintenance (who never came), we have lost hundreds of dollars spent on event reservations. liiike
Oscar Isaac in THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY (2014) dir. Hossein Amini
the air's sticky 'n soaked with the texture of molasses, somethin' like the faint breath of god. if lucy closes her eyes, she could imagine it. his huffin' breath blurrin' up the windows. smearing shapes into the glass ceilin' above. clouds and planets and stars smudged with the pad of his finger. it makes her shiver to think about, almost claustrophobic even out in the open air. lately, god's been comin' to her in all kinds of visions. ones that position her as small as she feels. ones that keep her locked in the tank of a world. ones that fishbowl her sight until even the sky looks like water, and nothin' makes a lick of sense.
maybe it never did. shit, she's huntin' vampires 'n ghosts, demons and monsters below, and she's talking about sense? tell that to the shotgun shells in her pickup truck, or the freshly-sharpened axe below her bed. sense left the buildin' a long time ago, and the crossroads is only a reminder of that.
"out of curiosity, what exactly is within your area of expertise?" — @rydalkeener, as rydal keener.
"thought y'all knew everything about everything." lucy says, but it's only packin' half the punch. something about all this ain't right, really, but maybe that's because he's right— this isn't her area of expertise at all. vampires? any day. demons? ... now, that's a lil' more of a challenge.
she chews the bottom edge of her lip, contemplative, but doesn't dare let her stare drop. "vampires." she admits. it's final, serious, a lil' bit embarrassed that he'd read her so quick. a recovery, then: "but i can handle you just fine."
CERTAINTY IS SELDOM something possessed , but is instead something worn ; a garment stitched together from repetition and necessity . indeed , humanity has always favored such disguises : they stand straighter , speak louder , tighten their grip upon whatever weapon has most faithfully served and survived alongside them (...) until , inevitably , it betrays itself .
her falter is slight , yet it settles beneath rydal's ribs with a sort of ineffable intimacy ; after so many centuries , there is no sense in distinguishing where observation collapses into feeling . somewhere along the endless procession of borrowed names and trembling voices , humanity had permeated his very being , lodged like a splinter [too luminous to resent] .
perhaps the distinction no longer matters . at any cost , the assertion that decisions are only made at crossroads is falsehood : they are born in the antiseptic hum of hospital corridors , beneath kitchen lights illuminating one untouched plate too many , beside burial sights where the earth has not yet forgotten the shape it was made to receive , inside houses that are not homes but prisons / grief arrives threadbare . rydal has never mistaken himself for the hand that steers one's ruin ; only the guiding hand that helps them navigate the path already chosen [...] but even then , there exists names learned but confidential , unknown to hell and untouched by any ledger . so few that he could recount them upon his fingers despite the centuries . they talk , he listens , they choose to walk away , he lets them .
they are the ones rydal remembers most , and they are the reason a forbidden degree of fondness follows his eyes to her . 〝 i'm sure you could , 〞the words arrive quietly , harboring neither mockery nor challenge , simply belief . the corner of his mouth softens into an almost smile . 〝 i'm not here to harm you . 〞
𝐉𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐍 【 @pinkman 】 : cramming into the backseat of a car together .
THERE EXISTS A MOMENT before lightning remembers the taste of the earth : the sky swells beyond what it can contain (every unseen current searching blindly for another) the world suspended inside a single unbearable breath , and in that breath , recognition : freedom does not belong to those who earn it , but to those willing to outrun the sentence . together they've made strides ahead of their own captors , now retreating to a pocket carved out beyond consequence / retreating ? falling ; rydal shoves jesse down into the backseat , and beyond the window , light dissolves into streaks , music bleeding somewhere beyond recognition .
CONTINENTS subsist beneath a person's skin , remaining forever undiscovered , entire civilizations collapsing into silence : but rydal does not demand completion , instead he savors the pieces willingly revealed . there is something catastrophic in proximity , some ancient instinct that mistakes nearness for permanence [...] yet he does not wish to own jesse / still , he kisses him like a claim , a need verging on animalistic . perhaps seemingly paradoxical in how they crowd into this small space , but in the wake of jesse's moans , the rise and fall of his chest , the thrumming of his pulse beneath starved lips and teeth , this , rydal knows , is what it means to be free [escaping, running, ravaging] hands so often gentle now verge on violence , clawing into jesse's shirt before greedily mapping out skin , nails daring to inscribe their own story there to be traced and reminisced upon later (but a cost of having a taste of freedom is the consequential , impatient hunger) scraping down his stomach , his hand slips beneath the waistband of jesse's jeans in an urgent sort of reverence . 〝 i want to hear you . 〞
Susan Sontag, from “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963″
rydal’s the dictionary definition of cool. he rolls into town like a lawless drifter — snatching cash from unsuspecting strangers, chumming it up with the locals, speaking in gentle, reassuring tones — and doesn’t linger long enough to attract any suspicion. doesn’t leave a breadcrumb trail of public scandals and petty charges. jesse respects the hustle.
but respect isn’t synonymous with what’s been clawing at his ribs for the better part of a month. it’s a classified secret. a shameful, unrelenting want for more. (more midnight joyrides. more rumpled sheets. more ways to keep his pretty mouth occupied. more idle discussions about the stupidest shit he can think of, ‘cause rydal listens to him so intently, watches him so devoutly, that he almost deludes himself into believing it’ll last.) the startled, heady sound that slips through jesse’s teeth is as transient as everything else they’ve shared. enjoy it while you can.
“okaaay, and?” jesse groans, patience wearing thinner with each shaky exhale. “look, man, you don’t gotta give me the whole—” his sweat-damp hand darts to the nape of rydal’s neck, snagging a fistful of dark hair for leverage. for proximity. “nice ‘n slow thing, alright? i’m good.”
THE STORY OF JESSE refuses to yield itself whole , only in fragmented scenes scraped down rydal's back , bitten into his skin , crashed between lips : a scattered scripture , never enough to know , but always enough to return to again and again .
how easy it had always been to close a book , indulge in the next / just another name folded into another entry , pages turned with the practiced indifference of someone who understands that permanence is synonymous with captivity (...) yet somewhere along the way , jesse has become a dog - eared page , a margin crowded with notes and sentiments , sentences underlined so many times the paper threatens to split ; he is enshrined in rydal's journal , photographs tucked between entries and subject of paragraphs spilling across pages long after they should have found their period , and [god help him] it is almost the end .
〝 i'm not doing it just for you , 〞a truth wrapped in gentleness that feels dangerously close to confession , yet they refuse to lessen the quiet , sharp satisfaction gathering at the corner of his mouth as his hand stills at the hem of worn denim . there is greed in haste ; but memory asks for something slower , and rydal wants every detail to survive him .
THERE IS A PARTICULAR KIND OF SANCTITY mankind reserves for blades ; as though sharpened steel could succeed where language so often fails , cleaving the world neatly into two : innocent and guilty , righteous and damned , (hunter and monster) yet centuries have taught rydal that suffering has never obeyed so generous a geometry , instead accumulating in quiet concessions as grief yields to the peculiar exhaustion of accepting there is nowhere left to turn ; by the time a soul finds itself kneeling at the crossroads , the choice has long since been made .
dean's knife rests against rydal's throat [a reminder of the stubborn mortality of vessels] he neither recoils not leans against its edge . there is nothing to defend , nothing to negotiate . fear would imply he believes himself misunderstood ; indignation , that he expects absolution . neither has ever belonged to rydal .
𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 【 @m0tel 】 : 〝 i'm putting you out of your misery . 〞
HIS GAZE SETTLES upon dean with the same patient attentiveness he has afforded kings , widows , murderers , more ; every soul another passage committed to memory , a verse uncovered in humanity's endless scripture / his forbidden fruit and oldest fascination . how curious , he thinks , that history so often condemns the hand that receives , yet seldom damns the countless refusing to reach .
〝 i'm not trying to hurt anyone , dean . 〞no deception mars the words , nor does a plea hide beneath them . instead they emerge with a soft - spoken , unadorned certainty of something he has believed for longer than civilizations have endured . indeed , rydal has never thought himself the author of despair : only its witness and final confidant , the quiet room in which hope , having exhausted every other source , has at last confessed its absence , 〝 no one else answered . 〞
Oscar Isaac in THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY directed by Hossein Amini
ALBUQUERQUE IS STILL NEW , a temporary word and simulated sanctuary , yet already rydal has found himself integrated among friends in all the wrong places . or , perhaps , the right ones [does the world only deem it wrong because it refuses to recognize itself in the reflection ?] he fits in ; the forbidden burn of a cigarette savored around the corner , the weight of a stranger's money disappearing into his pocket , stolen bracelet pressed against it (...) the taste of his father's whiskey taken when he wasn't looking / every trespass another desecration carved into the walls of a cage masking as a home . and then he sees jesse . he meets his eyes , expecting to either find something or nothing (everything)
𝐉𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐍 【 @pinkman 】 : 〝 i need to find a way to get inside . 〞
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS asserted that beauty was a fragment of something higher , some impossible truth reflected imperfectly through the world and all its fragile things , that to witness beauty was the first step towards knowing the divine . rydal wonders then , if they were right : that every beautiful thing is a staircase (...) but no one ever promised that every staircase leads upwards . [later, when he writes of jesse, he thinks he'll use the word exhilarating ... no, intoxicating. yes, that will be closer] he does not want to own the story of him insomuch as he desires to drown in it ; to drag himself through the ink of his trajectory and emerge carrying the stain ,〝 i have a friend ... 〞 not a demand nor an interrogation , but the need to understand / take my hand , even though it may hurt you , 〝 i could get you in . 〞
𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐂 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐒 . . .
TRISTAN & ISOLDE : you're a romantic pulled toward the forbidden . there's something about what you can't have that calls to you louder than what's easy . your love is intoxicating , dangerous , edged with the thrill of secrecy . you know how it feels to risk everything for a fleeting moment , to surrender to desire even when you know the ending will break you . you live for passion , not safety . you yearn for the kind of love that makes your blood rush , even if it costs you everything else . people may see you as reckless or self - destructive , but in truth , you just refuse to accept a life without deep , soul - stirring intensity . your love is beautiful , tragic , and always touched by fate .
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘: @m0tel thank you mwah <3 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: @pinkman, @matryochka, @killerdame
𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 (𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒)
RYDAL KEENER is one of the two reigning rulers of the crossroads . he is the most empathetic - sounding entity in hell [...] and the least emotionally invested in what that empathy does . to the desperate who need a hand , an ear , a heart ... all rydal asks for in return is the concession of that which they're already willing to lose . he does not rely on intimidation or cruelty ; he is subtle , patient , and deeply attentive . people are regarded as more than contracts , but are scripture [his forbidden fruit] his interest in humanity over the centuries borders on obsessive curiosity , fixating on how easily one will rationalize suffering and consent to their own damnation once relief is offered in a familiar voice that promises release . it's not coercion , it's understanding . they talk , he affirms ; they kiss , he collects .
MIRROR ONCE REFLECTING MIRROR , they stand as stained glass mosaics , sin etched into their seams like solder , time past pressed into their now mismatched fragments . they are no longer perfect parallels , but scattered sanctuaries of faces and traumas carried across distance like relics , half - sacred and half - damned . yet recognition remains the cruelest constant , as even in their ruin , he and elizabeth still find themselves in the other / not as they once were , but as a (sanctuary of understanding) in what remains beneath the fracture .
𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐍 【 @keein 】 : 〝 we shouldn't see so much of each other . 〞
RYDAL SEARCHES her face for translation , a futile wish that meaning might still naturally unveil itself between them , but instead finds the offending knife [TOM , carved brutally into the surface] hatred : instinct before articulation , recognition before proof (embedded in rydal's very marrow) aflame in eyes resigned to indifference . and he knows she reads it in him ; he is her book . for her , he held his tongue / for her , he confesses , 〝 i don't trust him , elizabeth . 〞
𝐉𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐍 【 @pinkman 】 : 〝 why should tonight be different ? 〞
A BORROWED NOWHERE , dingy motel room exists to be left behind . another time (the other times) were all urgency and fracture : a desperate hunger trying to outrun itself in the rare moments it was allowed to surface [...] tonight is indulgence , attention and submission to appetite , unhurried / [why should tonight be different?] in the way one savors a last meal . there is no tenderness in it that knows its own name , only the quiet suspension of consequence , the world held at a distance for just a few more hours . the threat of rydal's father , the promise of reformation and disavowal , looms just behind and creeps ever closer through albuquerque / a locked room he refuses to enter , and in this refusal [in his moments with jesse, spent like this] was the impulse to spit in the face of his father and in the face of the world attempting to write his ending . jesse is not escape nor salvation , but stands as proof that rydal is allowed to choose the direction of his own disappearance (you have to keep moving) tomorrow is already forming , and in hours he will be gone : a state , a city , a road . but before then ... the perverse need to be remembered by someone who won't follow , someone who has already been - and will continue to be - immortalized in his own private writings ; it is not attachment , but a sort of depraved fascination , an unintended and unexpected connection destined to be severed but forever lingers . the slow drag of his lips finds a temporary fleeting place of belonging against the bones of jesse's hips , answer easy and unconcerned , 〝 i'm leaving tomorrow . 〞
The Two Faces of January (2014)
A DIM GEOMETRY OF WALLS , the hotel room their temporary escape from the aftermath of their gods' wrath as the world outside tries to recoup in their wake . her head rests in his lap , his hand moving through her hair in slow absence of intention as they talk of everything and nothing , his cigarette burning down between his fingers in willing surrender .
𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐍 【 @keein 】 : 〝 you don't need me , you can write on your own . 〞
RYDAL FIRST THINKS of aristotle : the notion of eudaimonia and internal coherence ; kant : autonomy the condition of dignity , the self as something meant to stand unassisted . he looks down to her then , soft pause as his hand stills against her cheek [... and philosophers be damned] the thought does not survive contact with her , for she cannot be captured by theory , nor resolved into principle or contradiction . indeed , the self is never singular in the way it pretends to be . if there is a soul , it is not something balanced between parts ; it is the quiet insistence of her presence against him , it is the way the world recedes until only what is necessary remains / Her , without her , he is nothing , 〝 you are everything that i am . 〞
THE EVENING UNFOLDS without urgency as the restaurant's light bleeds onto the pavement , each passerby carrying invisible confessions beneath their skin , secrets folded behind their ribs [he wants to rip them out , hold them up to the light] rydal sits aside with wine and smoke , observing the endless procession of almost stories and tells . she catches his attention briefly , bright blue eyes and copper hair cutting through the ordinary architecture of the masses . beauty is easy to name , but what accomapnies is something without name : the feeling of recognition with no memory attached to it . merely a glimpse held before she vanishes , once more lost amongst the crowd . for a moment , rydal considers the peculiar tragedy of ghosts ; thinks of how she will haunt his thoughts for a few days , the obituary of her temporary presence the subject of tonight's journaling .
𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀 𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐕𝐀 【 @matryochka 】 : 〝 you should exercise greater caution . 〞
HER VOICE REACHES him from behind , unexpected and yet he does not startle , eyes drifting calmly to an apparition resurrected / no longer a flicker amongst others , but a presence with edges he can study . there is hunger in wanting to know , a demanding and unbridled ache to understand pieces still hidden , every detail of her denied to him a thread begging to be pulled . rydal lowers the cigarette from his mouth and gestures for the waiter (a second glass, please) , smoke slipping away as the world around them loses its importance , 〝 would you like a drink ? 〞
