#also many geese but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[asexualbookbird]

went to The Bog to watch the eclipse! Saw some neat critters including swans on their nest, a merganser, and itty bitty turtles stacked on top of each other. It was a good day.

[lorata]

Why don’t you like the mockingjay epilogue? You mentioned that you always cry for katnisa when you read it

mm, backreading can be ... not dangerous, exactly, but ... not entirely accurate? views change and evolve, who we are as people and our relationships to the characters can shift and grow, that sort of thing

I’m still not sold on the epilogue, but I can now appreciate what it was trying to do. it doesn’t land, for me, but I get it, even if, for me personally, it’s a bit of a punch in the face

so, with the caveat that I get its intention and I understand people like it and my reading is not meant to be the One True Interpretation:

Katniss chooses dandelions and peace but they don’t have therapy, they have each other, two broken kids tossed back in a district on fire, there is a coal mine on fire, they don’t have their doctor anymore, they don’t have family, they don’t have therapists???, they have their book of dead friends to go over like a litany because it’s their responsibility to ensure they don’t go forgotten. Haymitch has his geese but there’s no community in survival, everyone has splintered, there is a darn good reason in all my AUs I rescind this decision and have the survivors cluster together and also give them therapy (ACTUAL therapy not the Capitol torture artist thank you very much), because 20 years later there’s no indication Katniss has healed or moved on or that the shadow has lifted from her shoulders whatsoever. after such close POV in the trilogy the distant narration of the epilogue felt like the edges of a dissociative episode.

I am a person who never wanted kids, had a visceral fear of pregnancy, had a hard time untangling “do I not want them myself, am I resentful of the protector role that was placed upon me as a child, am I afraid of the world they’d grow up in” (never mind gender identity issues, less of a Katniss thing, but she does have to hyper-commodify her femininity in order to survive). I was always drawn to characters who, for whatever reason, also didn’t want kids -- but in the end, they always, always had them anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and they found happiness and meaning and blah blah blah. the pre-epilogue MJ ending, I thought, was sweet and touching and had the perfect balance -- but then, boom, there it was.

“but Peeta wanted them so badly” broke me, like, do I think he pressured her, no, but he wouldn’t have to. he spent 10-15 years wanting kids and not asking, not saying anything, being very careful not to pressure her, but being extra tender around kids, having that little look in his eyes when he interacts with them, being kind and baking extra treats for them, and she knows, she knows, and in the back of her mind is Haymitch “you could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know...” and he’s given her so much, in so many lifetimes, and Katniss has lost and lost and lost again until the guilt piles up, how could she take this for the rest of her life, she can’t undo the war but she can give him this, and all it takes is her fear. what’s more fear, really, after everything?

I wish they’d had time. I wish they’d both had therapy and a support system and a few years to learn to live and forgive themselves and find their footing, for Katniss to learn to breathe again and stop feeling like she owes the world for daring to survive when others died -- and THEN grow back together. and then, after all that, if they did have kids, it wouldn’t feel so ... off.

I don’t hate the ship, I like Peeta, I just -- reading it made me feel so sad. war is hell and it leaves people broken (Collins’ dad was a war vet with PTSD and it informs pretty much everything she writes) and seeing that message invalidated by LOOK AWW BABIES TEAM PEETA WINS flung around during the movie’s heyday made me uncomfortable. Collins obviously was not saying that, she included the epilogue to show that while Katniss’ PTSD continued and everything was still not fine, things were getting better, so there IS hope, it’s just that by tossing kids in like that it hit my own personal buttons a bit too hard.

meh. meeeeh!!!!!! fiction is interpretive, none of this is meant to be negative or put anyone down, Everlark fans don’t come for me I will turn off my inbox

[robotslenderman]

My Cabbie headcanon, or: How a Vampiric Cab Driver Scared the Everloving Shit out of the Entire Tremere Pyramid, or: The Greatest Prank of the 21st Century

So in my headcanon, the Cabbie is a 4th generation Malk who thinks he’s Caine and has actually convinced Jack that he is. Cabbie was Malking along minding his own business, sired Maddy at some point, and left her post-Embrace with one of his descendant childer... who was held responsible for Maddy’s illegal siring and subsequently executed without anyone bothering to talk to the guy at all.

Before I go more into the events of this headcanon, I’m gonna do some justification as to why I have a vampire OC with such a ridiculously low generation. 

Scroll to the bolded bit to skip the rambling.

I decided that Maddy was so low generation because of a combination of things -- firstly, I don’t think it makes sense at all that Caine himself would just hang around driving a cab. Like. Why. He can do anything he wants and he ends up... dealing the shittiest customer service job ever that’s so bad that kine have gotten killed doing it? Yeah that always bugged me. It’s not like there’s a shortage of roles he could pretend to take that are lowkey. But, whatever.

And then there’s the abilities of the PC. First of all, Strauss immediately gets in touch with you so early that you’re still a nobody who’s expected to die on your first mission. Like, as soon as you wake up in Santa Monica, his card is there. You’re at the point where nobody thinks you’ll last five seconds.

Strauss is the only person who gives any indication of knowing that you will. And he’s certain enough he wants you on his side.

He has no reason to believe you’ll survive. You’re a Fledgling. You’re newly Embraced. You don’t have a sire to guide you, and LaCroix is essentially your adopted sire now (he says in the prologue that he’s now responsible for you) but everyone knows that’s a joke, and he wants you dead so he throws you at the Sabbat. No doubt everyone knows that he’s going to do that for the bit of humiliation that was your not-execution, even if they don’t know you’re being sent to blow up the warehouse. Everyone expects you to die.

Strauss doesn’t. If you’re Tremere that gives him reason to reach out, but if you’re of any other clan he has no reason to reach out to what’s essentially a baby that has just been punted into a snowstorm with a bunch of starving snow leopards.

Secondly, Strauss refers to your great power. It bookends his appearances in the game -- his first introduction to the player has him referencing the Fledgling’s power in his letter, and if you play his ending, it’s also one of the last things he mentions. He followed you during your ending while under the cover of obfuscate. It’s almost certainly the reason why he reached out to you at all. Best to get in early, when the other vamps think you’re a joke, before they realise you’re not.

Thirdly -- Strauss is totally right on that. The Fledgling, despite being such a new vampire, not only fucks up incredibly powerful enemies but enemies that an eighth generation of any age would have extreme difficulty with. It’s so blatant that people speculate that Caine lowered your generation artificially. And yet, Strauss is the only person to notice at all that you’re more powerful than you should be by any rights -- and did so before the PC even meets the Cabbie, even if the PC first meets the Cabbie off-screen while being transported to Santa Monica.

(At one point during the prologue you also see Strauss, who was quite relaxed and blowing off Velvet Velour a moment before, suddenly sit up as if taking notice of something. I don’t think it was due to what LaCroix said -- LaCroix was still going on about how Naughty the PC’s sire had been, so it can’t have been that; I thought that might have been his “IT’S OVER NINE THOUSAND” moment.)

(Oh god I just realised that my younger readers might have no idea what I’m referring to, wtf)

So... because of all of those things I headcanoned that Cabbie was a very low generation Malk, and Maddy his childe. Because yeah, a Malkavian who already has delusions of grandeur would absolutely think that being a cab driver in LA is a good idea and a Caine-like thing to do. And it’d explain why the PC is so powerful, and how Strauss detected that power so quickly before you meet the Cabbie for the first time.

Obviously the whole thing falls apart if you play literally anything but a Malk.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now on with the headcanon of what the Tremere were up to during VTMB -- 

So obviously Strauss realises pretty quickly, “Wait, she is way too powerful to be that man’s childe. Better keep an eye on this one.”

And if she’s not this guy’s childe, who does she belong to? She must be the childe of an even more powerful vampire.

And there’s an atmosphere in LA that’s unsettled all the kindred, too.

So he quickly puts two and two together -- there’s a Methuselah in LA, and its mere presence is bugging the shit out of everybody. While LaCroix, Beckett, and everyone else has their eyes turned to the Elizabeth Dane, Strauss is the first and only person uninvolved with Jack’s shenanigans to realise that it’s a red herring. He doesn’t dismiss the Sarcophagus being involved out of hand, but he’s pretty sure that the Methuselah is what everyone should be worried about, especially if Gehenna is a real thing.

The Methuselah’s presence is incredibly bad news. If the superstitious kindred are correct -- and he’ll never claim to know better than them without evidence, just as he won’t claim to know better than the Gehenna denialists -- then there’s somebody roaming around LA during the beginning of the End Of Days who could be an awakened ancient, and it’s going to be extremely difficult to stop him when, and not if, he decides to smack a few Camarilla like bugs.

(I’m saying “he” because, well, he’s a he. But the Tremere don’t know that.)

And said Methuselah has a kid now. One that is powerful enough that his childe’s power is almost on par with LA’s elite the same night she’s Embraced. 

And it just drives home how fucked LA’s kindred could be -- there’s absolutely nothing stopping this Methuselah from spawning his own army and it would be more than a match for LA’s elite. They’re fifth generation. They don’t need to hang around gaining power if the Methuselah makes enough of them.

Sure, the prevailing beliefs are that the Methuselah are the Antediluvians’ enemies, but that’s still no reason to want a fucking Methuselah gaining power in your city, and if it turns out to be a rare ally of the Antediluvians then that’s even worse news because that means you’re going to have an ancient running around eating people.

And if the Methuselah decides to actually raise his childer to maturity and then strike, they’re even more fucked because by then the childer might not be contained to LA, and their powers will be much more developed and under the guidance someone who’s a way better teacher than any elder or ancilla would be.

So Strauss is like, “Oh. Fuck.”

There is absolutely nothing good about this. And he’s come to all of these conclusions before Maddy’s even finished the tutorial. By the time he’s back in his haven, his Lord already knows what’s going on and Strauss has his orders -- screw the sarcophagus, watch the childe.

There’s two factors that might save them -- Maddy doesn’t know who her true sire is and so won’t seek him out, and she’s under the guardianship of the Camarilla. She can’t sneeze without LA’s kindred knowing how many tissues she reached for. Because of that, if the Methuselah tries to reclaim her, Strauss will know about it and the Camarilla as a whole would immediately take notice. It’s the only reason, in fact, that the Pyramid don’t immediately decide to warn the Camarilla. 

Maddy is basically treated as a potential alarm for Gehenna that could go off at any moment.

So while LaCroix and all of LA are chasing after wild geese, Strauss is busy networking and spying. When Maddy finally shows up Downtown, it’s immediately obvious it’s one of Malkav’s childer who’s in LA -- Strauss is able to extrapolate that Madeline is fifth generation, as she’s powerful enough to be a threat to a sixth generation vampire, but it’s almost impossible that it’s Malkav himself running around LA given that people are still pretty sure he’s stuck under Jerusalem or whatever. (Hopefully.)

Her being a grandchilde of Malkav means her sire, however, is a bit of a wildcard. You never fucking know with Malkavians. With literally any other clan, the Tremere can go “Yeah, they’re up to no good and they’re going to destroy us all and/or get us all destroyed”, but with a literal childe of Malkav... who the fuck knows. It could be a childe of Malkav who thinks he’s an Antediluvian, or somehow better. It could be a childe of Malkav who’s actively trying to fulfil Gehenna, because yeah, if there’s one bunch of Methuselahs who’d kick off Gehenna it’d be the fucking Malkavians.

Or there’s even the possibility that one is just literally passing through and doing what the fuck ever.

They just don’t know. No clue. Any other clan they’d have a better idea, but nope, she had to be a grandchilde of fucking Malkav, so they have a lot less to work with and a lot more uncertainty.

It’s to the Pyramid’s absolute relief that she seems to get quite attached to Strauss very quickly and tends to pop by the Chantry to ask him questions. She doesn’t quite ask for guidance, but she asks him for facts, and he does his best to guide her all the same without being too pushy in case he alienates her. He is very, very careful with her. While the Anarchs and LaCroix are bossing her around, he is quick to establish himself as someone who respects her as a person who can make her own decisions, and has no interest in manipulating her himself.

(It’s for damn good reason -- she’s more useful to him just by being around than by doing his bidding. He cannot risk alienating her at all, especially because part of such a fickle clan and it’ll take some time before he feels he knows her well enough to put her to other uses.)

And the Pyramid discusses things, and Strauss’s Lord gets back to him and basically tells him, “It’s a long shot, but it might be worth getting in touch with the Malkavian primogen to see if he knows or can foresee anything.”

So Strauss reaches out to Grout.

And he doesn’t answer. So Strauss stays calm and gets in touch with Gary... who’s just as puzzled as he is. Okay, it’s never a good sign when a Nosferatu primogen doesn’t have answers, but he reaches out to the other primogen just in case and not a single one knows what the fuck has happened to Grout.

And the Pyramid is like, “FUCK.” This can’t be a coincidence. A Malkavian Methuselah running around LA, and at the same time the Malkavian primogen mysteriously goes missing? Yeah, no.

(Yeah, yes. Thank you, LaCroix and Ming-Xiao, for giving the Tremere a collective fucking heart attack.)

So LaCroix is cornered by the primogen, sends Maddy to Grout, quickly rings up Ming-Xiao all “hey I have an idea”, 

and then Maddy comes back all “yeah, no, Nines was there and also this random German guy.”

Cue the Tremere going ???????????????????????????????????????? and Strauss having to take a few moments to catch them up on Who’s Who of the Anarchs in LA.

“Who the fuck is the German guy?”

“According to LaCroix, a member of the Society of Leopold.”

“????????????????????????????? The fuck are they doing in the middle of all this?!?!”

Shit just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

So now Strauss has to not only track down the Methuselah (which he’s been trying to do the whole time without much luck), he has to track down Nines (who’s gone into hiding) and see if he knows what the fuck is going on, and subtly get the Nosferatu to see what the Society of Leopold are up to in case they’re a possible red flag there, and they’ve made zero progress on that by the time Maddy reappears telling them that somebody’s fucked off with the Ankaran Sarcophagus.

It really, really isn’t Strauss’s week. It’s not even two steps forward, one step back, it’s just all backwards. Shit has gone completely out of control and there’s a whole bunch of wildcards just chucked into the area and nobody knows what the FUCK is happening. The Tremere are scrabbling. Maddy disappears into Hollywood, has more squabbles with the Sabbat, turns up again with the Ankaran Sarcophagus. Thank fuck. 

Unfortunately, before the Nosferatu and Tremere can turn up any links between any Methuselahs and the Society of Leopold, LaCroix has hysterically thrown Maddy at them trying to murder her and all that happens is that Grunfeld Bach and his headquarters, and any evidence of any links with the Methuselah, are blown the fuck up.

Great.

Just fucking great.

Even Strauss’s Lord loses his touch of professionalism long enough to remark, “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m just glad she’s not pointed at us.”

Literally the next night Maddy’s set on the Hallowbrook hotel and a Blood Hunt is declared on her.

Cue the entire Tremere going, “oh no he didn’t.”

This is the perfect opportunity for the Methuselah to strike, to grab Maddy and abscond. And sure enough, he does, although not the way anyone expects.

Strauss’s Lord: “Oh my fucking Christ, we’re getting rid of LaCroix, this is unacceptable. Strauss, want a promotion?”

Strauss, internally: are you fucking serious.

Strauss, out loud: “If it serves the Pyramid, my Lord.”

So now his orders are to wait another night and see if Maddy shows up. They’re all crossing their fingers and hoping that Strauss did his job well enough that he’s the first person she comes to for help. When/if she does, they kick LaCroix the fuck outta LA because you fucking IDIOT you’re going to GET US ALL KILLED.

If she doesn’t show up that night, Strauss’s Lord’s Pontifex is going to the leader of the Camarilla (whose name escapes me at the moment) to personally tell him everything they’ve discovered and get him to put LaCroix on a fucking leash. 

They are seriously lucky that the Methuselah hasn’t, for whatever reason they can’t figure out, just literally made another goddamn fifth gen. He could do this whenever he wants, but he hasn’t. They have no idea why, but Strauss hasn’t noticed any other new faces in LA’s kindred community and certainly none with Maddy’s power, so they can only assume that the Methuselah got spooked by what happened with his descendant’s execution and decided to lie low for a bit. 

The Tremere know he’s still in LA, because everyone’s still on edge and Strauss can feel it thick on the air. He’s there. Watching. It’s looking more and more likely he swooped in and grabbed his childe -- 

And then Maddy turns up, all puppy eyed and stressed out and hallucinating more than normal. Strauss’s Lord has been telepathically keeping an eye on him since it got dark in Vienna and has been really antsy because the sun’ll be up in a few hours there and fuck where is that childe. But Maddy shows up and as soon as Strauss basically tells her he knows she’s innocent (he actually doesn’t know for sure, he barely knows what the fuck is going on, but he’s sure as hell not going to tell her that) she’s absolutely over the moon

And Strauss knows that yes, he’s done his job, this childe now belongs to the Pyramid.

And he sends her to arrest LaCroix and secure the Sarcophagus. He knows she can do it. She does. LaCroix is arrested, the Sarcophagus is secured, LaCroix is secured and now he’s the Prince of LA. The Methuselah didn’t strike quickly enough to get a hold of Maddy; soon as she woke up in Santa Monica that evening she made a beeline for Strauss.

Later that night Strauss is standing outside personally overseeing the loading of the Sarcophagus in a truck for transport. And he feels it -- that heaviness in the air is suddenly much more potent, much stronger than before. It’s there. And for a brief moment he thinks that oh god, there’s something in the Sarcophagus, it was all true, it wasn’t the Methuselah we should be worried about, it’s in the Sarcophagus and it’s awake -- 

But the truck drives away. And the feeling remains.

And then Strauss suddenly realises where it’s coming from, just as a nearby taxi starts up and drives off in the opposite direction.

Strauss makes a mental note of the taxi’s number plate, and over the next few nights he has ghouls and Nosferatu agents track down the cab in question to find out who it was transporting and what their destination was.

But the agents get back to him:

There’s no taxi registered under that number plate. There’s no car registered under that plate at all.

Strauss sends out orders to all who report to him to search the city for the taxi, but by the next dawn the heaviness has lifted from LA, and the taxi is gone, and never seen again.

[mcrtimersmith]

Copy this post into a new text post, remove my answers and put in yours, when you are done tag up to ten people and also tag the person who tagged you.

stolen from: @iinvadcr tagging: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Remember to repost, not reblog!

A - Age: 25 B - Biggest fear: geese  C - Current time: 4:27pm E - Every day starts with: screaming at the void F - Favourite song: ehhhh i have too many.... G - Ghosts are they real: yes I - In love with:  the current crush :3c K - Killed someone: nah L - Last time you cried: a few nights ago because my roommate drank the last of the peppermint schnapps. M - Middle name: Peter.....some irl friends call me Petey. N - Number of siblings: 1 O - One wish: that my uncle’s wife will stop judging my sister/my mom/my family in general and will stop being such a raging bitch c: P - Person you last called/texted: my sister Q - Questions you are always asked: “When are you getting married?” “Are you still crushing on that other boy?” “When are you going to grow up?” R - Reasons to smile: chicken nuggets, glow-in-the-dark stars, my friendos on discord/tumblr, and french fries. S - Song last sang: Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. T - Time you woke up: 8:09 U - Underwear colour: blue with so many feesh V - Vacation destination: Disney World but is Florida worth it? W - Worst habit: i make a lot of weird noises with my mouth X - X-Rays you’ve had: my leg. Y - Your favourite food: bread and butter Z - Zodiac sign: Scorpio

[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 2 (24):  (1587) Second Month, Fifteenth Day, Morning.

24) Second Month, Fifteenth Day; Morning¹.

    [I] went to offer tea at the Nanshū-ji [南宗寺], in the 4.5-mat room².

◦ [Guests:]  Oshō [和尚]³, Nambō [南坊]⁴, Ze shuso [是首座]⁵, Sōnō [宗能]⁶.

Sho [初]⁷.

﹆ Engo [圓悟]⁸.

◦ Kama shi-hō [釜 四方]⁹.

◦ Hora-dana [洞棚]¹⁰:     ◦ above, the suzume kōgō [雀香合], by itself¹¹;     ◦ below, mizusashi Seto [水指 セト]¹²;     ◦ the habōki was suspended [on the peg]¹³.

▵ [The meal was served] on a handai [飯臺]¹⁴.

▵ Shiru saku-saku [汁 サク〰]¹⁵.

▵ mosso [モツソ]¹⁶.

▵ nimono fu ・ ao-me [煮物 フ ・ 青メ]¹⁷.

    One round of sake [was served]¹⁸.

Go [後]¹⁹.

◦ In a [tsuri-]bune [舟], me-yanagi [メ柳]²⁰.

◦ Hora-dana:     ◦ above, chaire Shiri-bukura [茶入 尻フクラ], on a tray²¹;     ◦ below, the mizusashi as in the beginning²²;     ◦ the hishaku was hung [on the peg]²³;     ◦ futaoki, bamboo²⁴.

◦ Chawan Shima-suji [茶碗 嶋筋], carried out [from the katte at the beginning of the temae]²⁵.

_________________________

¹Nigatsu jū-go nichi, asa [二月十五日、朝].

    This chakai was held on the 23rd of March, 1587, according to the Gregorian calendar.

²Nanshū-ji [h]e cha-jisan, yojō-han in te [南宗寺ヘ茶持參、四疊半ニて].

    Jizan [持參] means to bring something with one when visiting another place; to carry something along.  Rikyū, in other words, brought everything with him on this occasion, when he offered tea to the monks of the Nanshū-ji.

    The precise location of the 4.5-mat reception room within the Nanshū-ji is not known, but it likely was built in what is now known as the reverse orientation (that is, with the guests seated on the host's left), and with a 1-ken tokonoma.  In this type of room, rather than a dōko, the host opened the fusuma on the right side of the utensil mat and lifted the various utensils in from there.  Often these things were arranged on a tana that was set up in the katte on the far side of the fusuma -- Rikyū's san-jū-dana [三重棚], which is shown below, was designed for just that purpose (in the sketch, this tana’s location is shown by the gray square in the katte, immediately to the right of the fusuma)*.

__________ *Originally all tana with four legs -- with the exception of the shin-daisu -- were intended to be used in this way.  They only came to be placed on the utensil mat during the Edo period, once the original teachings that dictated their use had been forgotten.

    It is not know how Rikyū may have done things on this occasion, however, since the small number of utensils that were not arranged on the hora-dana could also have been lined up on the floor of the katte.

³Oshō [和尚].

    As explained in the previous post (and in contradiction to what the Japanese commentators have said), if Book Two of the Nampō Roku really is an actual kaiki written by Rikyū* -- as opposed to a series of random chakai arranged into the order of a year, as some say -- this could only refer to Kokei Sōchin [古溪宗陳; 1532 ~ 1597], Rikyū's own Zen teacher.

    Kokei had himself been trained in the Nanshū-ji, and so would hardly have been a stranger to the place. __________ *The several gatherings that are also mentioned in tea diaries of some of the guests all refer to chakai hosted during the year 1586 to 1587.  Of the chakai that can be dated, none are found to have occurred outside of this very specific time-frame.

    The arguments against this being an actual kaiki of Rikyū’s all hinge on things like identifying “Oshō” with Shōrei Sōkin [笑嶺宗訢], who is known to have died in 1583, or Nambō with Takayama ukon (who only began to use the nickname Nambō upon his retirement, at the very beginning of 1591); or the presence of a kuro-chawan in the tori-awase (where this term is assumed to refer exclusively to Chōjirō's black bowls -- though bowls that were clearly made by Furuta Sōshitsu were also referred to as kuro-chawan in his day:  indeed, Oribe's bowls were, in fact, the the first “kuro-chawan” ever seen outside of the Chinese temmoku, and they created an immediate sensation precisely because the koicha looks much better in them than in bowls of any other color).

⁴Nambō [南坊].

    Once again, this would have been Nambō Sōkei*.

    The fact that Sōkei became the unofficial steward to Rikyū's Sakai household (after Rikyū was compelled to set up a second household in Hideyoshi's compound) implies that he had already resigned his position as the shuso [首座] (head of the monks) of the Nanshū-ji†. __________ *Some of the commentators state that this refers to Takayama ukon Shigetomo [高山右近重友; 1552? ~ 1615] -- even though Shigetomo did not begin to use that name until the end of the Twelfth Month of Tenshō 18 (early 1591).

    Their reasoning turns on the argument that this kaiki was written not by Rikyū, but by Sōkei (suggesting that they did not carefully read the section of Book Seven where Sōkei, implying that he was acting as an unofficial steward in Rikyū's Imaichi-machi household, says that he removed various documents from among the papers that Rikyū had put out to be sold to the waste-paper collector for recycling), and so he would not have numbered himself among the guests in this way.

    Yet, even if Sōkei was more or less an unofficial member of Rikyū's household, this would not preclude his presence as a guest on occasion (where often his function seems to be to assist the shōkyaku -- who may not have been especially well versed in chanoyu).  And there are simply details in these documents that nobody but Rikyū himself could have written.

†Shuso [首座] was an administrative position.  In addition to physically keeping the monks in order (and disciplining them when necessary), and acting as a sort of intermediary between them and the Abbot and the senior monks of the temple, the shuso also apparently had to keep a sort of written record of each monk.

⁵Ze shuso [是首座].

    Shibayama Fugen states that, while his version of this kaiki has Su shuso [足首座], this appears to be a mistake (with the correct form being Ze [是], as here); while Tanaka Senshō interprets this as a description of Nambō Sōkei's position*.  Kumakura Isao, however, seems to believe that this refers to a different monk from Sōkei -- the person who was currently the head of the monks.

    The former would refer to a monk who would have been known as Sōze [宗是], while the latter to someone called Sōsu [宗足].  In either case, all that can be deduced (from this entry) is that he was a monk -- and, further, that he was the shuso [首座], or head of the monks (perhaps in the Nanshū-ji).  Nothing else is known.

    Possibly this person was Sōkei's replacement in the temple's administration, and for this reason he was invited to be present. __________ *The kanji ze [是] can also be read kore [是], meaning “this” or “like this.”  In other words, meaning “I am the shuso” or (depending on the author) “who is the shuso” -- referring to Nambō Sōkei.

⁶Sōnō [宗能].

    This was the man more commonly known as Zeni-ya Sōtotsu [錢屋宗訥; ? ~ 1590], an important member of the machi-shū from Sakai (the Zeni-ya firm was one of the leading money-exchange and banking houses of the day).  He was also an experienced chajin, and, according to the Yamanoue Sōji Ki [山上宗二記], owned several meibutsu utensils.

⁷Sho [初].

    The shoza.

    With respect to the kane-wari:

- the toko contained the kakemono, and so was han [半];

- the room had the kama in the ro, and so was likewise han [半];

- and the tana held the kōgō (on the ten-ita), mizusashi (on the ji-ita), and the habōki (hanging on the peg that was attached to one of the sides of the tana) -- but apparently the habōki does not contact the kane (the way the hishaku does), and so had no influence on the total -- making the tana chō [調].

    Han + han + chō is chō.  This was appropriate, since this chakai was being held in the morning.

⁸Engo [圓悟].

    This bokuseki consists of a partial text of a lecture given at Língquán-yuàn [靈泉院] by the Chinese Chán monk Yuán-wù Kèqín [圜悟克勤; 1063 ~ 1135].

    Yuán-wù Kèqín wrote the commentary on the text of the Bìyán Lù [碧 巖 錄] (Heki-gan Roku; the Blue-cliff Records), as well as the series of poems (by Xuědòu Zhòngxiǎn [雪竇重顯; 980–1052], who is known as Setchō Jūken in Japan), that is still used today by students of this great Zen classic (indeed many respected versions of this work are little more than English translations of Yuán-wù's original commentary).

    This is said to have been the scroll that Ikkyū Sōjun presented to Shukō when he advised Shukō to use tea as the medium through which he pursued his training in Zen.

⁹Kama shi-hō [釜 四方].

    This was the four-sided kama cast by Yoshirō, Rikyū’s kama-shi.

¹⁰Hora-dana [洞棚].

    This tana had been designed by Rikyū's great friend Tsuda Sōkyū.

    Hora [洞] means “cave” -- and the shape of the compartment in which the mizusashi is placed does resemble a dark cave.

¹¹Ue ni suzume kōgō hitotsu [上ニ雀香合一ツ].

    This was Rikyū's ruri-suzume [瑠璃雀] kōgō.

    The word hitotsu [一ツ] means that the kōgō was placed on the ten-ita by itself -- that is, the habōki was not arranged there with it.

¹²Shita ni mizusashi Seto [下ニ水指 セト].

    Rikyū's Seto mizusashi had been made for Jōō, with the intended place of use being the fukuro-dana.

¹³Habōki kakete [羽帚カケテ].

    The Hora-dana has a peg attached to the side closest to the katte, and on this peg the habōki or hishaku was supposed to be suspended.

    While the feathers used to make this habōki are not mentioned (since the habōki was generally used for only one gathering, and then discarded), this was again the season when the wild geese were flying overhead.  Since one name for this bird is kari [雁] -- which is a homophone for the word for transience or impermanence -- its feathers would have been appropriate to use during this chakai.

¹⁴Handai ni te [飯臺ニて].

    A handai [飯臺] is a sort of low table, around which up to four people could congregate for a meal.  According to Rikyū, a handai should be used only with a strictly vegetarian menu.

    According to Rikyū's explanation, first the handai is brought out and the tabletop is wiped with a dry towel that the host carries in the futokoro of his kimono.  Then the host brings out a nagabon, on which are arranged a set of eating bowls -- the lidded rice bowl (containing one portion of rice measured out in a mossō [物相]) is stacked inside the empty soup bowl (as shown below) -- and a pair of chopsticks for each guest.  The original style of eating bowls is shown in the photo.

    He takes the empty tray back to the preparation room and returns with a spouted kannabe of soup, a ladle, a small bowl of prepared mustard, and a towel arranged on the nagabon.

    The guests separate the two bowls in front of their place, and then take turns handing their empty soup bowl to the host who places it on the towel, ladles a scoop of the vegetables into the bowl, and then fills it with soup via the spout.  The bowl of mustard is placed on the table, so that each guest can help himself.

    The host then returns to the katte and brings out the communal bowls of vegetables (in this case, one containing mozuku [海蘊], and the other fu [麩] and ao-me [青芽] that had been boiled in broth) from which the guests can help themselves.

    At this time sake (limited to one round, in this case) was offered, which the guests drank from the lid of their rice bowls.

    After the guests have finished eating, a katakuchi of hot water (which had been boiled in the pot in which the rice had been cooked -- so the water was flavored by the scorched rice adhering to the bottom of the pot) was brought out, with which the guests rinsed out their bowls before returning them to the host -- who collected then on his nagabon and returned them to the preparation area.

    Finally, after once again wiping the top of the handai with his towel, it was removed from the room.

    It seems that on this occasion, perhaps in deference to the monkish custom of abjuring kashi, kashi were not served after the meal.

¹⁵Shiru saku-saku [汁 サク〰].

    This was miso-shiru in which coarsely chopped greens (from the kitchen garden)* were suspended just before the soup was served, so they would still be crisp when eaten by the guests†. __________ *An assortment of daikon [大根], hakusai [白菜], na [菜], and kabura [蕪] seedlings that were sewn in a row in the kitchen garden in the autumn.  They provided the household with a source of fresh greens during the winter and early spring months.

†Saku-saku [さくさく] means crisp, crunchy.

¹⁶Mosso [モツソ].

    This appears to be a miscopying (by Tachibana Jitsuzan*) that recurs occasionally in this book.  A mossō [物相]†, as was explained before, is an object, usually resembling an oversized cookie cutter (with a wooden plunger that exactly fits its inner shape) used to measure rice (originally in the temple setting).  It is not be used to serve rice, and there is no reason that such an object would be brought out into the tearoom (even though Rikyū is hosting this chakai in a temple).

    According to both Shibayama Fugen and Tanaka Senshō, the word should be mozuku [モツク = モヅク = 海蘊]‡, which is the name of a variety of seaweed (Cladosiphon okamuranus).  This seaweed is free-floating, filamentous, and green in color.

    Though it can be cooked, it seems more likely to have been served as a su-no-mono [酢の物] on this occasion**. ___________ *The entry in the Enkaku-ji version of the text clearly reads mo-tsu-so [モツソ], which is the way Rikyū would have “spelled” the word mosso.  Jitsuzan apparently misread the final kana ku [ク] as so [ソ] (through the loss of the horizontal part of the second stroke of ku).

†As was mentioned before, the interpretation of these three kana as mossō [物相] was provided by Hisamatsu Shinichi [久松真一; 1889 ~ 1980], the editor of the Sadō Ko-ten Zen-shu [茶道古典全集] version of the text (who includes that word in his notes).

‡These men had access to other manuscripts of the Nampō Roku -- Tanaka Senshō, worked from Jitsuzan’s original (the copy taken from the original Shū-un-an papers, from which Jitsuzan subsequently recopied the text into the notebooks that he presented to the Enkaku-ji; making this version closer to the original Shū-un-an documents), while Shibayama Fugen had recourse to copies made by contemporaries of Tachibana Jitsuzan (some of whom were still alive when he began his studies, so that he was able to question them directly) who had been present during the discussions on the manuscript that followed Jitsuzan’s presentation of the work to the Enkaku-ji.  In questions like these, their sources should be considered definitive -- especially when they are in agreement -- yet differ from the Enkaku-ji version of the text.

**That is, the raw mozuku was dressed with rice vinegar (probably flavored with sake, mirin, or other things of that sort, and a little grated ginger).  Sliced cucumbers were often mixed with the mozuku.  The dish was similar to namasu.

¹⁷Ni-mono fu ・ ao-me [煮物 フ ・ 青メ].

    Ni-mono [煮物] means food that has been cooked by boiling in broth.

    Fu [麩] is wheat gluten.  Formed into balls resembling dango [團子]*, the fu was often fried lightly in sesame oil (thus giving it some flavor) before being placed into the broth.

    According to Shibayama Fugen, ao-me [青芽] is an alternate name for wakame [若芽]†, a type of green seaweed (Undaria pinnatifida) that is similar to kelp (though formed on a smaller and more delicate scale). __________ *Dango [團子] means meatball.

†Wakame is often served in miso-shiru, together with small cubes of tōfu.

¹⁸Sake ikkaeshi [酒一返].

    Ikkaeshi [一返し] means one round.  The guests used the lid of their rice bowls (which was shaped like a shallow dish) to drink the sake.  While up to two rounds was permitted to monks, since they were eating in the temple apparently they limited their indulgence to a single serving -- out of respect for the Buddha’s admonitions.

¹⁹Go [後].

    The goza.

    In terms of the kane-wari:

- the toko had the tsuri-bune hanging from a hook nailed into the back side of the otoshi-gake, and centered in it, and so was han [半];

- the room had the kama in the ro, and so was also han [半];

- and the tana had the bon-chaire (above), mizusashi (below), while the hishaku hanging on the peg projected far enough that it contacted the kane, and the take-wa resting on the ji-ita near the handle of the hishaku, making the tana also han [半].

    Han + han + han is han.

²⁰Fune ni me-yanagi [舟ニ メ柳].

    Fune [舟] refers to a tsuri-bune [釣舟].  Per Rikyū’s custom, he would have nailed an iron hook into the back side of the wooden beam on which the otoshi-gaki rests, and hung the boat from there.  The hook would have been in the center of the otoshi-gaki.

    Me-yanagi [���柳] refers to a budding branch of the weeping willow.

    While nothing was said by Rikyū, most likely the kakemono was removed during the naka-dachi, since otherwise the tsuri-bune would have been hung in front of it, making it impossible for the guests to look closely at the scroll again.

²¹Chaire Shiri-bukura bon ni [茶入 尻フクラ 盆ニ].

    This was Rikyū's treasured Shiri-bukura chaire [尻膨茶入], arranged on its red-lacquered Chinese tray, as shown below.

    With this chaire, Rikyū would have used an ori-tame [折撓], made to match the proportions of the chaire and its tray.

²²Shita ni, mizusashi moto no [下ニ、水指　元ノ].

    That is, the mizusashi was the same one that was there during the shoza.

²³Hishaku kakete [ヒシヤク カケテ].

    The hishaku was hung on the peg that is attached to the side of the tana.

²⁴Futaoki take [蓋置 竹].

    This was one of Rikyū's take-wa [竹輪].

    As mentioned above, it was displayed on the ji-ita of the tana, near the handle of the hishaku.

²⁵Chawan Shima-suji hakobite [茶碗 嶋筋 ハコヒテ].

    This was another of Furuta Sōshitsu's creations -- the name refers to the raised bands that encircle the circumference of the bowl.

    The original bowl (if it still exists) has never been photographed.  The chawan shown above is a sibling -- nearly identical, but with less-complete rings evident on the sides of the bowl.

    And, though it is also not mentioned, Rikyū would have used a mentsū [面桶] as his koboshi.