#eats your art like a fine divine meal

[cherrypikkins]

FE3H OC: Kitt Burgess (they/them) - Academy Phase Art

Featuring some canon characters :3

cw: mild body horror for some of the images

The first part of their backstory can be found on my previous post!

I've also included some additional support and quote information under the cut :3

Dining Hall

Flayn - B/C Support

Flayn: "I do enjoy having these meals with you, Kitt. …Though, not so much the awkward silence."

Kitt: "Better than awkward conversation, if you ask me."

Flayn - A Support

Flayn: "You should allow me to cook something next time, Professor! Kitt here agrees, do you not?"

Kitt: "You know I always look forward to your inventions, Flayn. But let's make sure it's something that the Professor can actually digest first."

Seteth - C Support

Kitt: "Look who emerged from the office. Don't you have work to do? Some poor soul to lecture about the dangers of falling from divine grace?"

Seteth: -sigh- "So that's how it's going to be. Very well, then."

Seteth - B Support

Seteth: "There's no need for those sidelong glares, Kitt. Can we at least sit and eat together in relative civility?"

Kitt: "Oh, I don't know. Can we?"

Seteth - A Support

Kitt: "Well. I suppose it isn't so bad sharing a meal with you every now and then." Seteth: "Any small amount of improvement is better than none at all."

Linhardt - C/B Support

Linhardt: "By the way Kitt, there is something I've been meaning to ask you-" Kitt: "Do you really expect me to split my attention between the food on my plate and the topic you have in mind?"

Linhardt - A Support

Kitt: "I'm glad that you're chewing your food in silence, but must you stare at me all the while?" Linhardt: "Oh, does that mean you're finally willing to hear out my questions? Wonderful."

Lysithea - C/B Support

Kitt: "I wonder if there's cake on the menu today. No? That's a shame." Lysithea: "You could have picked some other way to poke fun at me without getting my hopes up!"

Lysithea - A Support

Kitt: "Seriously though. Why is there never any cake on the menu? I want to know what all the fuss is." Lysithea: "Oh, alright. I'll share some of mine with you later. Then you'll finally know what you're missing."

Working Together

Flayn - C/B Support

Kitt: "If anything goes awry, I'll never hear the end of it from Seteth." Flayn: "Then we must simply see to it that he remains blissfully unaware."

Flayn - A Support

Kitt: "You've been pulling your weight a lot more these days. You're more capable than you look." Flayn: "Did you not think me capable to begin with? Truly, I'm hurt."

Flayn - Result

Flayn: "Did we do well? I think we did well. Please say that we did well, Professor." Kitt: "You're not going to get any honest praise acting desperate like that."

Felix - Picking Weeds

Felix: "For someone who's always avoiding the training grounds, it's alien to see you put in this much effort." Kitt: "Who says I'm avoiding that place? You're always there, so maybe it's you I'm treating like the plague." Felix: "That's… ugh, forget it."

Felix - Clearing Rubble

Felix: "I don't get it. I never see you at training, so how are you hauling more rubble than I am?" Kitt: "Excuse me? Sounds like you're the one who needs to train a little harder." Felix: "Unbelievable."

Felix - Result

Kitt: "Why the sour look, Felix? We got the job done. You even helped a little." Felix: "Hmph. I wasn't about to let you make a fool out of me."

Marianne - Cleaning Stables

C/B Support

Kitt: "Hello, Dorte. You look fine today." Marianne: "Kitt? ...Are you talking to the horses?" Kitt: "I've seen you do it, thought it wouldn't hurt to try."

A Support

Kitt: "Oh Dorte, we're really in it now." Marianne: "Kitt… That's not Dorte." Kitt: "…Wait, have I been talking to the wrong horse this entire time?"

Result:

Marianne: "Um. We finished, Professor. Kitt was the one who did all the real work." Kitt: "Oh, please. You don't expect the Professor to believe that, do you Marianne?"

Hapi

Kitt: "Just a little sigh, Hapi. Something to help us get away from all this work." Hapi: "Watch it, Kitty-Cat. I might actually take you up on that offer."

Result

Kitt: "I'm just saying, a monster showing up would have made things a bit more exciting." Hapi: "Would've been more of a hassle to deal with too."

Bernie - Clearing Weeds

Kitt: "Don't pick up any dangerous-looking rocks, Bernie." Bernadetta: "Wait, r-rocks? Why rocks? Don't you mean dangerous-looking plants?"

Result

Kitt: "We're done, Professor. Bernie did really well today." Bernadetta: "Hey, don't put me on the spot like that! Even if it means I get to have a little more credit…"

Seteth - Sky Watch

C Support

Kitt: "If you're going to lecture me, Seteth, I'm just going to look the other way." Seteth: "Actually, I was going to comment on how you seem to be putting in more effort these days. But… I suppose silence works just as well."

B/A Support

Kitt: "How about a race, Seteth? You and me, just like old times. Seteth: You know I will do no such thing, Kitt. Although, I suppose if no one is looking…"

Result

Kitt: "All done, Professor. Seteth did his best today." Seteth: "A little condescending, but I'll take it as praise regardless."

Generic Quotes

Dining Hall

Favorite: "Now that's an interesting dish. I can't wait to try it." Regular: "Do you ever get bored eating the same old thing every day? Makes you glad for the variety here." Disliked: "I don't hate this kind of dish… just feels a bit plain is all."

Gifts

Favourite: "For me? I must be dreaming!" Regular: "I'm grateful." Disliked: "...Is this a joke?"

Cooking "I know a thing or two about cooking. Can't promise that our tastes align though." "Back where I'm from, we did all of our cooking outdoors. Why don't we try something like that next time?"

Choir "There's no need to think too much when singing. Just do what feels right."

Tea Time:

Greetings:

"I'm here, Professor." "Hello there."

Favourite Tea: "Do you like this kind of tea, Professor? It's actually my favourite."

Expensive Tea: "Ooh, you brought the fancy stuff! For me? You shouldn't have."

Conversation Phase:

"Professor, did you know that you can use tea leaves to divine the future? Looking at your cup, I'd say… good fortune is heading in your direction!"

"How much do you know about Demonic Beasts, Professor? Oh. Sorry, I guess that's not something I should bring up over tea and cookies."

"You know, I often get super anxious when things are this quiet. But for some reason I feel perfectly calm when you're close by."

"I know I shouldn't skip sparring. But aren't you worried that things could get… I don't know, dangerous?"

"Whatever happens in this war, you're the one person I trust to set things right. Try not to let me down, okay?"

"I'm not fond of these small dorm rooms, but yours isn't so bad."

"The others may call me superstitious. But when the future is so uncertain, what's wrong with hedging your bets?"

"I try to be nice to everyone. But not too nice."

Observation Phase:

"Is my face really that fascinating to look at, Professor?"

"Just so we're clear, it's only fair that I get to stare right back at you."

"This scarf? I've had it since I can remember. I take extra care to keep it looking good as new."

"I always keep this knife around. With all due respect, Professor, you don't need to know what it's for."

Leaving: "I had fun today. Let's do this again some time!"

Thanks for making it this far! Here is a theme song for Kitt for your troubles. :3

Fast as you can - Fiona Apple

[argu-collective]

Supper Club Series #001

Before heading over to the decaying heart of the East Village, I crushed a six pack of Modelo. I had to ease the nerves a bit, afterall, I had a huge part to play tonight. We had to tell everyone what the dinner party is really for, the club, ARGU.

I go over the main points in my mind; ARGU is counter culture. ARGU is trying to revitalize the youth and art scene in New York. ARGU picks things back up from a time we weren't from, yet crave. ARGU is the attempt at progress through revision.

I walk through the streets, passing a red cup of my final beer from hand to hand so that my fingers don't freeze off.

Black shirt and blue jeans, that’s the outfit I have on - my old reliable, it’s non-threatening. Before I’d left I promised I’d bring a few plates from my place so I brought about three in an orange tote bag. Anyway, I checked my phone when I got to Houston and Avenue B and picked my feet up when I realized that I was already 10 minutes late. In a blur I passed bars I’d forgotten about, restaurants I’ve had first and final dates at, and corner stores I’ve wandered into at all hours of the day and night of every season.

Once I finally arrived at the address on the invitation, (ADDRESS REDACTED), I called ARGU’s founder and one of my favorite people - Jah - because I misread the apartment number. She corrected me and I buzzed up. I walked in to music, conversations in flux, and food being prepared, all mediated by wine and good company.

As I let myself melt into the room and more guests started to arrive, it became extremely clear that we were in the process of achieving exactly what we wanted to with this dinner. We wanted to bring people together, we wanted to form connections, we wanted to make ARGU feel more real. After answering and asking the routine questions - “what’s your name?”, “what school do you go to?”, “what’s your major”, etc., it was off to the races for everyone there. It felt like something special was happening, some divine grand union of creativity, a masterclass in the human experience unfolding in front of my eyes. People talking about their passions, their projects, and perfect strangers bonding over mutual friends and shared experiences.

The meal was prepared over the course of an hour and a half, with bruschetta and a charcuterie board to start followed by steak and clams with linguini - utter ambrosia. The entire room was intoxicating, it was a petri dish of talented degenerates that had eager eyes set on each other and on the future. After eating a bit while observing the room, Jah came up to me in distress, “Marco.” she said, touching my arm. “Hey Jahdae!” “What do I say later?”

“Just tell them what you’d tell me. Everything we’ve talked about.” And she nodded yes. “Alright - you’re right. I’ll start the speech later. You have to finish it though.”

I say okay and turn around to roll my eyes and continue a conversation about something I don’t remember, but was probably about a bar or a restaurant or something like that.

There are little things that I disdain more than having to speak to a group of people and get them to emote. I’m cursed with being monotone, which is not helpful in getting a reaction from a crowd. But, I know that it’s for the greater good and is necessary for the growth of the club and the collective and blah blah blah yadda yadda I needed some more liquid courage to deal with this.

I got a glass of wine and I talked to Sami about her band, Jack about ketamine, McKayla about New York, Zay about my house party last week, and Masai about FIT. We took some photos of the night and one way or another wound up all sitting around the dinner table for the aforementioned speech to begin.

Thankfully it all went fine. I didn’t get a big reaction from my words but I wasn’t expecting one. Hopefully they were strong enough to evoke an internal spark in the group, though I’m not sure. Regardless, the night continued as it had gone, as time fell away and we all fell deeper into the night. We ate, we laughed, and all celebrated with Mike Dough as his single dropped at 12.

Eventually people started to find their way home, but not before embracing one another before leaving - people that before the night started were complete strangers that would walk by each other the street without a glance, strangers that if you’d met at a bar or a club you’d talk to and then disperse from without a trace. I hoped that those hugs were a sign that those experiences were not this. I hoped that ARGU could be a rarity of this city and isn’t something that’s disposable.

I hope we’re building something real

[M.M.]

[passivenovember]

And Everyday was Overcast.

Part One : Hammers and Nails

Billy needed someplace to go when the grave was desecrated.

When his eyes unglued themselves, peeling off eyelashes in their wake, when the earth was overturned, torn and left hanging like shreds of old fabric; Steve had been there. By some miracle he had been consumed like he always was, sat thinking by a plot that had grown yellow flowers to blanket Billy in his eternal sleep. And maybe it was those small visits sheltered between morning runs and eight hour shifts stocking the horror section that Billy had come back.

From the grave. From the brink.

The Earth started vibrating, spidery cracks turning volatile, and Steve was met with ocean blue. Red rimmed eyes locked on his face, hands reaching and gripping. Nails digging in as Steve wrapped Billy's grime covered shoulders in his own jacket. Rubbed the chilled skin of his arms, looked in his eyes, and took him home.

Someplace Billy could wash the day from his skin.

--

The blonde haired boy who had turned from human to creature and back again deserved something more than what he was left with. He deserved warm meals, and sunshine on his skin, and soft bed sheets that opened like a celestial sky when Billy felt like shelving the enormity of what he had discovered. What waited after death.

Steve wanted that for him.

Not happiness, not closure, exactly, but something close to it.

At the root of it all, Steve knew Billy should feel safe. Welcome and warm and comfortable, in the house that Steve’s father had built for his mother all those years ago when she was plump and round with child. Steve felt like his father that day as he carried the last box over the threshold and took in the rigid, tense line of Billy’s shoulders.

He let the moment rest. Let it breathe, as his father always instructed. “Do you think you could feel safe here, Billy?”

The air sat heavy. Cold and wet and warm, somehow, like the morning after a night of heavy rain. Billy sucked in a sharp breath and pivoted slowly, face reverent, as if standing barefoot in a cathedral among gods and heroes. Met with divinity.

Instead he got Steve.

Just Steve, trying not to stare at the lone curl hanging over Billy’s forehead when he offered a tight, controlled smile. “It’s fine.” Billy said, only.

Steve tore his eyes away. Focused on the second story banister to stop his gut from falling through the floor. ”Fine? As in, I would rather eat my own toenails than live here, fine or, like. It's okay, I don't mind it here, I might even like it someday, fine?"

Billy adjusted the strap across his shoulders. “It’s just what I expected it would be.”

Steve shook his head. “What’s that mean?”

"Relax, Harrington, it's." Billy turned again, eyebrows scrunched together. “Its. Pastel. And huge. Obscenely decorated—“

”My mom had it professionally done before they—“

”It was built for a happy family with lots of kids. Lots of love, but now it's. It feels. Lost.”

Billy had started saying things like that.

Heavy, saturated, impossible things that left Steve scrambling. Wishing for the intelligence to absorb the meaning rather than question it. Steve rested the box at the foot of the stairs and offered a smile to the second story. Runoff for the pools of blue that looked on.

"That's a lot of adjectives. I can get you a hotel, maybe. Or an apartment. I could cosign, I know they gave you a pretty penny and you could probably afford your own, but. I could. I would." Steve said harshly. "For you. I would."

"It's fine here. It's okay."

Steve felt like a science experiment. Egg boy with three heads and ten legs or something. Suckers on the tips of his thumbs, the way Billy studied him. Steve counted the freckles on Billy's nose--one, two, three, four--trying to stay afloat.

--

Dinner was made every night though Steve never saw it happen.

The cookbooks sat alphabetized over his mother's antique bar cart on that little periwinkle blue shelf. He'd come home, every night, at six on the dot, to a set table. The mixing bowls were always clean and put away, counters wiped and ingredients stored neatly on the shelves his pantry, but the wooden spoons spelled it out for Steve, still shifting from dark to light as they lay drying on the dish rack.

"You don't have to make dinner, you know." Steve took another bite of Salisbury steak, furious that it tasted so good. Like love soaking into his skin.

Billy shook his head. "I want to."

"I know, I'm saying it's okay if you decide not to, one day. Like if you get caught up reading. Or if you can get Max to drive you to the history museum, or if you--"

"It's the least I can do."

Steve hated that. He let his fork clatter to the table. "I'm not expecting repayment for this."

"I'm not a freeloader."

"And I'm not an asshole." Steve deadpanned, lifting a finger that sewed Billy's smug lips together. "Don't say it."

"Say what?"

"Whatever you were thinking, with that clever glint in your stupid blue eyes."

Billy cracked his knuckles, clearly fighting a smile. "Never thought you noticed the color of my eyes, Harrington."

"Yeah, sure." Steve stood, gathering the plates and forks and knives from the table, his own eyes counting primary threads. "Can see those things from space, Jesus." He finally looked up, at Billy's curiously pink face.

Pink lips, cheeks, nose.

Steve gripped ceramic. Swallowed against a swell of guilt. "You don't owe me anything, Billy. I like having you here. I want you here."

Billy gave a simple, controlled nod.

Steve got used to it.

--

The shack wasn't built until the doctor told Billy that he'd probably wouldn't remember all of what happened. The big things would stick out, neon greens and blues against the forest head, but Billy shouldn't be too hard on himself if the important things got thrown away.

And some of those jagged little pieces were there. The bad things. Anger and hatred, both for self and world, left hanging on the cliff of who he was now. Everything that had formed Billy Hargrove--the person he was, the person Steve had pretended not to notice--were packed away. Soft, silky emotion covering knives left dull and rusted in their drawer.

Billy remembered like flashes of lightening across the summer sky--sudden and then gone. Here and away. He remembered Hawkins high and Max who'd grown six inches in three years. Dustin who had been wearing that stupid shirt when the mall burned down.

And Steve.

Always Steve, sat next to him. A foot away at first and then holding his hand, later, when Owens said Billy should be kind to himself. Gentle.

He wasn't.

And he didn't come out of his room for three days after that, after the wall was placed in front of him. The crack under Billy's door always keeping Steve at bay. Trapped behind the starting line. He paced around on the carpet, lifting his fist and letting it fall again, never breaking up the silence.

Billy was crying.

Billy never cried, anymore, but he cried that night and Steve felt helpless. Pathetic and stupid and useless, locking himself in his father's study and trying to formulate a plan, just like Owens had told him to when the sun fell on a world without Billy Hargrove and then suddenly rose again, set anew.

Set crooked when Billy stormed from the hospital room, slamming doors that echoed like rolls of thunder in his wake.

Figure out a way to help him.

Sterile, eerie white walls stared back at him as Steve shrugged his shoulders on the third day, aluminum hospital chair groaning beneath his weight.

I'm not sure how to do that.

You don't have to do anything. Owens said. Just help him get the emotion out. Let him write, draw, sing, dance, whatever he needs to assist in telling us his story.

--

Potato casserole and red wine bore witness to Steve's leap of faith. Billy turned away from the novel he had tucked under his arm when Steve got home from work that day, eyes curious. "Spit it out, Harrington."

"I'm not sure what you--"

"You've been giving me the side eye since you got home." Billy turned the page in his book, still managing to read both it and the room as he urged, "Tell me what's wrong."

And nothing was wrong, and.

Everything was wrong. Steve leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Do you want to come with me to the art store tomorrow?"

Billy frowned. "I don't need anything from the art store."

"It's not always about what you need," Steve reasoned, patting his mouth with a napkin. "We could get stuff you want. That's all, just pretty things. Nice things. It could be a treat."

"Paper and scissors are considered a treat?" Billy cocked an eyebrow. "I do love touching shit, it's one of my favorite hobbies."

Steve scrubbed at his mouth, swallowing down against a big, fat, crooked smile dripping with affection. "C'mon, it'll be fun. We can get whatever you want; clay, oil pastels, acrylics--"

"I wanted to check out the library tomorrow."

"You go everyday, blue, you're a regular bookworm."

"So?" Billy demanded, taking another bite of casserole. "I like to read. Just 'cause you can't doesn't mean the rest of us have to hold back." He grinned, low and slow. "Don't let your jealousy turn you into a tyrannical landlord, pretty boy."

"God, you're the absolute worst."

Billy turned back to his novel. "The art store will just inspire me to paint nudies."

"So paint them." Steve challenged.

Bait. Hook and line.

"You gonna pose for me if I let you buy out the joint?"

Steve shrugged. "Maybe once, if you look at the easels while we're there."

"No shit?" Billy leaned forward, biceps flexing in his cutoff as he stuck a polaroid of a smiling blonde woman between the pages of his novel. "The fuck is this about, Harrington?"

"I'm worried."

"That you'll take me to a crafts store and I'll put you out of house and home? Reasonable concern, I guess."

"About the diagnosis, dipshit. About you." Steve gulped down the rest of his wine. Made sure every last drop had seasoned his words before any were said aloud, where they might do damage. He let the glass rest on the table between his fingertips, stem rolling from pad to pad. He took a deep, steadying breath. "You haven't been the same since--"

"I got hijacked by a space demon or crawled out of my own grave?" Billy shrugged, picking at something in his teeth. "Be more specific."

Steve fiddled with the handle of his fork. Hand picked his words. Refined the meaning. "Yes, and. Both."

Billy didn't say anything for a while and the room finally settled. Falling fast asleep, thick with inertia and silence until the book was opened once more and Steve went back to digging through his casserole, picking at the spring onions.

Letting the moment breathe.

Until, finally. "I feel like I could crawl out of my own skin."

Steve tripped over himself to get those blue eyes on him once more. "That's understandable--"

"I feel fucking useless." Billy snapped, voice cracking in two, and. Suddenly Steve couldn't look at him. Couldn't bare to see his face. "I'm trying to replay what happened. Every second, I'm trying to figure out why. Why me."

Steve counted the primary threads in the table cloth. One, two, three. "You can't go on asking yourself questions like that."

"I can do what I--"

"It wasn't your fault, Billy. Any of it."

"I'm not talking about the Fourth of July, I'm talking about. Death. I'm talk about what comes before and what comes after and how they're the same." Billy turned the page in his novel furiously, eyebrows scrunched together. "I never thought they'd be the same. It's like I've started over."

Steve couldn't possibly understand, but.

He watched pools of blue scan the page. Took measured breaths, never pushing until Billy was ready to share more. Until he tossed the book on the counter and sighed, head buried in his hands. "I don't understand how I got here."

"Easy," Steve whispered. "That's easy. You were born from love--"

"My parents aren't in love anymore."

"But they were, once." Steve shook his head. "When you were made. They loved each other, and they loved you, and your life was full of love that never made sound but it was still there." Steve willed Billy to look at him. Willed the skies to turn blue again.

They didn't.

Billy sighed, low and slow. "Did love bring me here again?"

"I guess so."

"Who's love?" Billy demanded, leaning forward into the table and crushing his novel where it lay against light oak tabletops. "Who loved me enough to bring me back here? To wish for me."

And.

There were a lot of things Steve wanted to say. Lines he wanted to map out, directions that lead from A to B and back again, but it didn't seem useful. Didn't rest important, as Steve took the novel from its place on the table and smoothed worn pages, tucking the polaroid in its place. "I'm sorry things feel weird for you." He said softly.

Billy grabbed the book, staring down at his casserole. "'S not so bad, I guess."

And, for Steve, that wasn't good enough.

--

Billy worked mostly in charcoal. He painted nightmares, and doorways into the past, delicate, swirling lines telling a story that made Steve's heart ache to see. To hear, with every drag of material across fruited canvas'.

Steve asked him about it, once. Over dinner, with the lights turned low. "Why do you paint such horrible things?"

And Billy had smiled. Bright and true. "How's that?"

"Y'know. Black scabs and eyeballs melting out of skulls and sliding down the ridge of people's faces, and--"

"It's what I see." Billy replied, voice soft. Measured. "It's what follows me around."

So Billy spent every hour locked in his shed, curls tucked over a growing body of work. Fingers turned rotten with charcoal soot as he made sense of what happened.

Steve liked to watch him work.

Liked to see the tension ease more and more from the strong shoulders that travelled beside him up the stairs each night. Steve felt the dig of each pencil in the crevice between his ribs when Billy finished masterpiece after masterpiece.

Still, it wasn't enough.

Along the ridges of creation, therapy lay half buried in the sand. It was state mandated, that Billy go and learn how to deal with the things charcoal couldn't straighten out for him. Like the nightmares, and the migraines that kept him from eating dinner at the table when June gave way to July.

Steve worried. Constantly, fervently, but Billy refused to go, always wiping his hands on the powder green apron Steve got for him at the art store, and insisting, "This is a form of therapy." Billy gestured around the room. To the mountains of loose sketch papers and half finished canvases that lay strewn across every surface. "This is how I cope."

And it was.

And it happened the same way every time.

Things got bad for him and Billy would disappear into his shed. Steve would come home from the office to find that his mother's prized Thomas Kincaid collection had been replaced by Billy's work. It was haunting. Sick and twisted and so, so beautiful.

He found himself standing and staring at it for hours, eyes tracing over the swirling lines of purgatory.

It made Steve feel helpless, but.

Still, Billy refused to go. Still, he buried himself in his work. Still, he painted himself into a hole.

The path toward recovery was littered with charcoal drawings until it wasn't.

Until Steve came home one afternoon to find Billy talking with a little boy who had his throat cut open.

[purgatoriorpg]

ALL PEOPLE ARE DRIVEN TO THE POINT OF EATING THEIR GODS, AFTER A TIME.

THE DINING TABLE IS STILL SEATED FOR SIXTEEN. The head of the table left conspicuously empty, a gilded throne for a once-beloved king, a cenotaph to the reason you’re all here. You could almost picture him seated there, lounging like a fallen seraphim with a crown of empyrean curls, his halcyon gaze drinking you all in like divinity amongst worshippers. 

The opening feast of the Solstice bachannalia was always one of the central highlights of Julian’s spectacle and splendour. In the past, he would fly in private chefs hailing from the finest Michelin-starred restaurants and bistros in the world. His dinners had hosted masters of French haute cuisine, culinary delights from Chinese imperial dishes, modern Blumenthal gastronomoical delights, Omakase menus from the finest sushi chefs in Ginza. The opening night of the Solstice was a symbol, a tantalising taste of all that was yet to come.

Pre-dinner champagne and hors d’oeuvres so exquisite they could serve as miniature pieces of art, appetisers and amuse-bouches arriving one after the other. And then, the main course, the magnum opus of every chef’s menu. The waiters glide out of the kitchen, pausing behind each guest, and with a perfectly orchestrated flourish, unveil the main course. 

A ripple of breathless astonishment ripples through the room, lightning flickering across each face, stunned — each guest has been served a different course. Rare Miyazaki Wagyu eye fillet and fine Kobe tenderloin for SÉVERIN and DANTE; a seafood platter brimming with freshly-caught produce, Maine lobster and caviar for JASMINE; luscious Venetian risotto al nero di seppia served for SUTTON; Ratatouille that could have prepared by Ducasse himself sits before BELLAMY; Lechazo for HECTOR. For those whose most beloved dishes are derived from humble origins: Shepherd’s pie served from London’s Ivy for HADRIAN and classic fish and chips from an award-winning local joint in Nottingham for NIKHIL. The rest find their favourite meals and cuisines gleaming before them as if siphoned from dreamscape or desire.

It’s a reminder of how infinitely generous Julian could be, how magnanimous and lavish he was with his frequents gifts and exorbitant dinners. A gesture of his largesse, and a striking invocation of his extraordinary memory for the most seemingly insignificant details about his friends. DANTE cuts clean through the suspended silence, brandishing his glass in the direction of the absent Caesar. “A toast, to Julian.” You echo him, lifting your own glasses, swallowing down the wine, the heady thrill at being here again with all of them, with Julian’s shadow carved out of his hollow throne.

Liquor and conversation flows as if time and distance have faded into the periphery. There’s a familiarity and intimacy between all of you that even the murder of your leader could not kill. You could almost forget his empty seat still enshrined at the head of the table. 

—  ⟡  —

APRIL 2016.

“You all know why we’re here. I won’t waste breath on semantics or euphemisms.” 

If it feels strange that HECTOR is the first to speak in place of Caesar, the thought in their minds of his very name is circumvented like malediction. His absence looms impossibly large over the musty, airless pub in Montreaux they’ve gathered at. It’s the day before their final term begins at Verdamme, and the one and only chance they’ll have to able to assemble en masse one last time without his ubiquitous observation. 

“Then, please, let me.” DANTE grins, ever the fool in a court of kings and conquerors. But there’s a glint of something lethal in his smile, dangerous. “We are here, friends, countrymen, damned souls, to discuss a beast without a heart. For far too long, we have allowed him to feast on our hunger and blood lust. We have sacrificed our sins and our greatest terrors upon the altar of his tyranny.”

“— And how has he repaid us?” HECTOR smoothly intercedes the transition so seamless as to appear rehearsed. “With reckless, petty games and retribution. The moment we dared to step a single foot beyond his shadow—the borders of the kingdom he dictated—he set out to ruin us. To punish us. If he had stopped there, at finite vengeance, perhaps we might have even forgiven him.” His gaze sweeps a wide arc across the room, settling on each member of his audience for a half-beat of implicit wavelength. 

“But he didn’t.” VERITY says, biting and abrupt. “So now here we are.”

DANTE: “Here, carissimi, is where we make our proposition. A very simple but elegant solution. An ode to Occam’s razor.”

AUGUST: “What you’re proposing is cold-blooded murder.”

SUTTON: “You think what he did to BELLAMY wasn’t cold-blooded? Pre-meditated? He almost killed him—mid-performance.”

GENEVIÈVE: “Let’s not forget what he did to the rest of us — sabotaging VERITY’s exhibition and HADRIAN’s performance, planting the accusations of plagiarism against me, deliberately submitting the wrong essay on NIKHIL’s behalf.” 

DANTE: “My darlings, it’s time to open our eyes to the truth: Julian can see the end of his reign quickly approaching. And when a tyrant refuses to let history run its course, he will do anything to kill the future itself.”

HECTOR: “He wants to take our futures from us. Condemn us to live forever in hell with him. If there was another way, then we’d do it. We’ve explored all the options there are, and this is the only one that will hold.” 

JASMINE: “Are you certain, are you absolutely certain we’ve considered all the possibilities? Is there really no other way?”

AMIRAH: “Either he dies, or one of us will. You saw him after the play. Did he seem regretful to any of you? Apologetic? A monster doesn’t know when to be sorry until it’s too late.”

BELLAMY: “Cowards die many times before their deaths. He wasn’t sorry, merely sorry that he didn’t succeed.”

ARI: “Isn’t there always — ...what about the poison? Couldn’t we at least try that?”

NAZRIN: “Have you seen the kind of shit he puts in his body on a bender? It’d take a pharmacy just to incapacitate him, let alone for a more permanent solution.”

DANTE: “But alas, Caesar must bleed for it! Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods.”

HADRIAN: “Poison, murder, a knife through the chest... in the end, it’s all the same, isn’t it? Either way, he dies. Either we eat him or he eats us.”

—  ⟡  —

MONDAY, 13 JUNE 2021.

TW: gore, implied animal cruelty.

The opening feast draws to a close with dessert — yet another show-stopping opportunity for sumptuous excess and intricate artistry. But this time, only a single waiter appears at the entrance of the dining room, bearing an oversized platter with a giant chrome cloche concealing the wondrous dessert within. He comes to a stop at the head of the table, placing the platter dead centre before Julian’s throne. An urge for inappropriate laughter, some absurd release from the tension suddenly pulled taut through every angle of the room, chokes at your breath. You watch, eyes fixed first on the silver dome reflecting the chandelier lights and crystalware, and then the movement of the waiter’s gloved hand as he reaches to lift the cloche. 

NAZRIN, seated closest to the throne by right, sees it first. Lets loose a bloodless scream that ricochets off glass and porcelain and silver. ARI, seated opposite to her, is rooted in silent, muted horror. A horror that passes from her to DANTE, then HECTOR, catching within each guest at the dining table like a violent strain of swift and deadly hysteria. 

Arranged on the vast, circular platter is a severed carcass. Slaughterhouse carrion. The beheaded cadaver of Julian’s prize stallion, Cicero. All-encompassing silence, a deluge of fear and sublime terror, a single thought hammering beneath the arch of your ribs like a tell-tale pulse: is this Julian’s final act of vengeance? The only one daring to move, let alone breathe, SILAS rises from his seat and stalks forth to the decapitated head. He bends to inspect the bloodied display of viscera and innards and does something incomprehensible: he reaches out a finger and draws it through the blood pooling beneath the horse’s neck. The tip of his finger is vermillion as his tongue flicks out to meet it.

“Raspberry... with hints of blackberry and cherry, I believe.”

A surge of incredulity refracted across thirteen different faces. All save for SÉVERINE. She saunters from her seat to the head of the table, winding around her brother to dip her finger into Cicero’s protruding left eye. “Marzipan,” she answers, a savage delight dancing in her eyes, matching the growing, vicious smile on Silas’ face. 

The head, it turns out, is a perfectly designed, hyper realistic replica of Cicero’s severed head, if it were made out of black forest cake, marzipan and fondant, and cherry, blackberry and raspberry sauce. The majority of the guests politely abstain. Other than twins, only GENEVIÈVE, HADRIAN and DANTE deign to partake. The act of cutting into the cake is akin to autopsy. You watch with varying degrees of macabre fascination and revulsion twisted across your faces, but you’re reluctant to fill the void with words. To attempt to make sense of this would be sheer and utter madness.

The waiters appear to serve the last and final course of the menu, mignardises in the form of delicate petit fours. Conscious of the bloodied extravaganza of dessert, NIKHIL reaches for his fork to slice his petit four in half. Before the edge of the fork can even come out clean, an oozing scarlet spills from the incision. More of the raspberry sauce from the cake, perhaps, a saccharine reduction masquerading as fresh blood. “Arsenic, perhaps?” The others cut into their own, with teeth and fingers and cutlery. More blood, pouring out of the miniature desserts like a severed artery. Only JASMINE remains silent amidst the chaos and cries of revulsion. Hers is pristine, two halves of a round petit four sliced in half—but it isn’t empty. Inside, excavated from the chocolate ganache, are three silver coins. By all appearances, edible, merely covered in silver foil. Three denarii. Thirty pieces of silver.

Across the table from her, AMIRAH's mouth flattens into the blade of a knife, recognition searing through her electric gaze. “It was you. You ratted us out, didn’t you? It had to be. You were the weakest link — and all along, he knew. He knew what we were planning to do, and you let it happen.”

Each and every one of them — conspirator, guilty, damned — freezes like a tableaux vivant. As if a spotlight has fallen, they turn towards her.

“— Jasmine... is that true? What did you do?”

—  ⟡  —

Welcome to our opening act and very first scene! Now that all of our players are here, I will be working on updating the pages for THE MURDER, THE TIMELINE and THE CONSPIRACY in the next few days. If you remember from previous posts or asks, these pages are not definitive and don’t hold all the information about Julian’s actual death, or the conspiracy to murder him. They will be designed to present everyone with the same amount of base information, as well as establish what is commonly known by all the characters. 

One important thing I want to reiterate to prevent any potential confusion is that it is currently unknown what exactly happened to Julian. The public and official authorities concluded his case as an accident, but the cast are aware that someone amongst them may have contributed to his untimely demise. Prior to Julian’s death, the cast were planning to murder him. However, the plan was abandoned before the night of his death, due to reasons hinted at in the event, and others which will soon be unravelled in full.

The timestamp for the opening feast is MONDAY, 14TH JUNE 2021. 

ACT I, SCENE I will last for six days in-game and will run from MONDAY, 14TH JUNE - SATURDAY, 19TH JUNE.

IC DETAILS

Formal dinner attire is required for all dinners hosted in the DINING ROOM. 

Dinner starts at 7:00PM, beginning with pre-dinner champagne and hors d’oeuvres, followed by the first courses at 7:30PM. The full dinner lasts for three hours, ending at 10:00PM.

OOC : GAMEPLAY

You’re more than welcome to continue your threads from the PROLOGUE. Threads can be set on any day during the week.

I’ll be reaching out to some people individually regarding plot points on the night of THE MURDER, as well as their character’s involvement in the overall CONSPIRACY. 

If you have any questions about this event, or the plot so far, please feel free to drop it in the Discord channel.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

“I’m fine”

fandom: white collar

whumpee: neal caffrey

for whumpmas in July day 27: “I’m fine”. hope this is ok!!

“I’m fine, Peter,” Neal insisted, for what he thought must have been the thousandth time that day. Ever since he’d foolishly complained that his head hurt a little that morning, Peter had been breathing down his neck even more than usual, asking him if he felt okay, as though he expected Neal to flat out collapse at any minute. It was exhausting-it was barely noon, and Neal was already feeling far too tired by Peter’s constant questioning.

Peter responded to Neal’s insistence by raising his eyebrows, asking the silent question of, really?

Neal replied with a slightly too vigorous nod, which caused his head to throb. He didn’t wince at the pain, though, just stepped out of the Taurus, slamming the door behind him and flipping his hat onto his head. He had a job to do, and he wasn’t about to let a little headache stop him.

He spent the next hour and a half having lunch with Roland Summers, an extremely wealthy businessman who was suspected of insider trading. He was a bland man, Neal thought, considering how much money he had. All he wanted to talk about was golf, and the stock exchange. Neal didn’t get the chance to bring up art even once.

Still, he couldn’t deny that the lunch had been good-or, it would have been good, if he’d wanted to eat it. It looked absolutely divine, and from the price tag surely must have tasted that way, but it had taken all of Neal’s willpower to force down the meal without gagging.

Apart from that one slightly strange thing, however, everything went smoothly. Neal got Roland to reveal some damning information which he knew would prove invaluable in the case against him, not to mention he’d learned more than he’d ever cared to learn about the sport of golf. All in all, a success, Neal thought, smiling to himself as he left his lunch to rendezvous with Peter a few blocks away.

A few blocks...which felt like a hundred, as Neal slowly made his way down the sidewalk, trying not to waver on his feet. He was sick, he knew, but it was probably just a cold, and he’d done his job well regardless. Maybe well enough that Peter would send him home early…

What felt like hours later, Neal arrived back at the car. He slumped into the passenger seat, shutting the door slowly behind him.

“Nice work,” Peter said, as he pulled out into the street. “We’ll move on him tomorrow.”

“Mm,” Neal said in response, lacking the energy to say anything more.

They reached a stoplight, and Peter finally turned to look at his CI. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked, reaching out a hand to touch Neal’s forehead.

Neal swatted the hand away. “I already said I’m fine,” he said, a bit more snappishly than he’d meant to. “Sorry,” he added.

Peter shook his head as the light turned green. “You’d tell me if you felt sick, right?”

“Sure.”

The remainder of the ride back was silent. Neal has wanted nothing more than to close his eyes, but then Peter would ask him why, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to come up with an answer, so he forced them to stay open. Every minute that passed felt like the temperature in the car dropped a degree, and Neal had taken to staring intently at the dashboard in an effort to stop the sudden onslaught of dizziness which happened whenever he looked out the window.

An eternity later, Neal was sitting at his desk, trying-and failing-to fill out some paperwork that Peter had given him regarding this latest undercover assignment. He tried to focus, really, but the words seemed to swim across the page, and his hands were shaking too badly to write anything legibly.

He’d nearly dozed off when something slapped down onto the desk next to him. He jolted up in his seat, looking frantically around for a second before he saw the offending stack of papers.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Peter said, looking at him quizzically. “When you’re done with your report, I need you to look through these.”

Neal nodded, having processed exactly none of what Peter had just said. “Got it,” he replied, hoping that response would suffice.

It did, luckily, and Peter wandered back to his own office, leaving Neal to slump bonelessly across the new papers. Just a few minutes, he thought to himself, and then I’ll get to work.

“Caffrey! I need you in my office!”

Neal slowly lifted his head, brushing off a piece of paper that stuck to his sweaty cheek. Weird, he thought, sure that he’d been freezing earlier, before he’d fallen asleep. He stood up, blinking hard against a rush of dizziness as he did so.

He made his way up to Peter’s office painfully slowly, trying his best not to stop and catch his breath or brace himself against another wave of dizziness.

Finally, he reached the door, stepped inside, closed it behind him...and then everything went fuzzy, and then it went dark.

—-

Neal woke to something cool on his forehead, and something soft surrounding him. Not work, his mind supplied for him. But he’d been at work...where was he now?

He opened his eyes cautiously, looking around at what he could see without lifting his still-achy head. He recognized his surroundings immediately-he was on the couch, in the Burke’s living room. How he’d gotten there, he had no idea.

“P’ter?” he called out, grimacing as he was made aware of his painfully dry throat.

Peter’s face appeared above him. “You’re up, that’s good,” he said, helping Neal sit up against the arm of the couch, removing a cloth from his forehead. “How do you feel? And you cannot say you’re fine.”

“Kinda bad, honestly,” Neal admitted. “Head hurts. Thirsty. Kinda hot, too.”

Peter nodded, handing him a glass of water from the side table and a couple Tylenol. “You’ve got a pretty bad fever. It’s gone down some from when you passed out in my office, but you’re definitely still feeling it.”

Neal took the pills, drank most of the water, and then nearly choked on it when he fully processed what Peter had said-“I passed out in your office?”

“Yeah, you did,” Peter said, his voice more serious than Neal had expected. “Just collapsed to the floor, burning up, after insisting to me all day that you were perfectly fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Neal said, staring at the floor.

“I know,” Peter replied, “and I need to know you’re not going to pull something like that again. You feel sick, you tell me. You do not pass out on the floor of my office.”

“Okay,” Neal said, feeling chastised. “No more ‘I’m fine.’”

“Good. Now you keep resting. I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need me. El will be home soon, and in about an hour you can join us for dinner, if you feel up to it.”

“I’ll do that,” Neal promised, lying back down and closing his eyes. “And Peter,” he added, as the agent turned to head back into the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Peter smiled. “Anytime, kid.”

thanks so much for reading this!!!!! I hope you liked it!

[neurosengarten]

• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

• Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.

• Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.

• Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.

• Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.

• A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

• Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.

• Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

• Don’t trust all-purpose glue.

• Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kickstart their imaginations.

• Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers.

• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

• Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.

• Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.

• Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.

• Don’t be the best. Be the only.

• Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

• Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.

• The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.

• Promptness is a sign of respect.

• When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the worst case scenario.

• Trust me: There is no “them”.

• The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting, be interested.

• Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away.

• To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.

• The Golden Rule will never fail you. It is the foundation of all other virtues.

• If you are looking for something in your house, and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.

• Saving money and investing money are both good habits. Small amounts of money invested regularly for many decades without deliberation is one path to wealth.

• To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.

• Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

• You can obsess about serving your customers/audience/clients, or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.

• Show up. Keep showing up. Somebody successful said: 99% of success is just showing up.

• Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.

• If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.

• Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

• Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.

• This is true: It’s hard to cheat an honest man.

• When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it.

• You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.

• If you lose or forget to bring a cable, adapter or charger, check with your hotel. Most hotels now have a drawer full of cables, adapters and chargers others have left behind, and probably have the one you are missing. You can often claim it after borrowing it.

• Hatred is a curse that does not affect the hated. It only poisons the hater. Release a grudge as if it was a poison.

• There is no limit on better. Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can improve what we start with.

• Be prepared: When you are 90% done any large project (a house, a film, an event, an app) the rest of the myriad details will take a second 90% to complete.

• When you die you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.

• Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

• For every dollar you spend purchasing something substantial, expect to pay a dollar in repairs, maintenance, or disposal by the end of its life.

•Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

• When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problems, no progress.

• On vacation go to the most remote place on your itinerary first, bypassing the cities. You’ll maximize the shock of otherness in the remote, and then later you’ll welcome the familiar comforts of a city on the way back.

• When you get an invitation to do something in the future, ask yourself: would you accept this if it was scheduled for tomorrow? Not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter.

• Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it.

• If you desperately need a job, you are just another problem for a boss; if you can solve many of the problems the boss has right now, you are hired. To be hired, think like your boss.

• Art is in what you leave out.

• Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will.

• Rule of 7 in research. You can find out anything if you are willing to go seven levels. If the first source you ask doesn’t know, ask them who you should ask next, and so on down the line. If you are willing to go to the 7th source, you’ll almost always get your answer.

• How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely.

• Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or a proposal on the phone. The urgency is a disguise.

• When someone is nasty, rude, hateful, or mean with you, pretend they have a disease. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.

• Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.

• You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.

• Experience is overrated. When hiring, hire for aptitude, train for skills. Most really amazing or great things are done by people doing them for the first time.

• A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

• Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.

• Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment.

• Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something, anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss is.

• I’m positive that in 100 years much of what I take to be true today will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong, and I try really hard to identify what it is that I am wrong about today.

• Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.

• The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this pronoia.

[xxisxxisxxis]

Deleted Scene: Gateway Drug

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.

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"Monster In-Law" -- [1981]

My stomach is in uncomfortable knots as I rub foundation over my skin, nervously, trying not to shit myself with anxiety as the clock nears 7:00pm. 

I hope he's not late, but I also hope he doesn't even show. 

"I wonder if it's Luke Ginson." I hear my mother suggest to my father, the sound of clicking silverware lets me know they're setting the table, and I wrinkle my nose. 

"You think Vivian would be interested in the Preacher's son, Charlette?" My dad replies, doubt in his voice. 

"I hope so. He's a Godly young man, Johnny, that our Vivian would be lucky to go with." She replies and I have to hold back a scoff. 

Luke Ginson was our pastor's son but was just as debauched as Vince, Tommy and Nikki, only hiding behind the fact his dad was a preacher as a cover. I'd later find out my mom and Pastor Garret had planned on approaching me and Luke with the idea of going out. I wonder if she felt like an absolute idiot for thinking he was so much better for me than Nikki when Luke popped up in the obituary in 1988 after dying of a methadone overdose…

"Vivian would be lucky to go out with?" My dad questions her. "Any guy is lucky to even be breathing the same air as her, Charlette, don't act like our girl is so--"

"--I'm not." My mom insists. "She just needs a little push in the right direction."

"And Luke Ginson is the right direction?"

"Of course!" She says it as if she's offended he'd dare suggest otherwise, and I let out a heavy breath, my nerves only tensing up more. 

She thinks I'm bringing her Lord and Savior Luke Ginson to dinner...great. 

I'm ready just in time, hearing the door of Nikki's beat up car shut outside. 

I'm darting down the stairs, glad that my parents haven't noticed, and open the door before he can ring the doorbell. 

He's dressed as nice as he can be, jeans, a tshirt, and his leather jacket. 

"Hi." He says, smiling at me, looking me up and down. "You look hot." 

"Thank you." I reply, my eyes catching on the rosary around his neck. "Oh, no, she can't see that, we're Assembly of God, she's gonna think you're Catholic." I mumble as I quickly tuck it into his shirt as my mom says, "Vivian, is he here?" A little too excitedly. 

"Um, yes ma'am, coming!" I call, looking at Nikki.

"Relax, babe, I got this." He assures me deviously as we step inside and I lead him to the dining room, gulping when I meet my mother's eyes as she steps in with a pitcher of lemonade. 

She sets her sights on Nikki and drops the dish, causing the heavy glass to break and lemonade to slosh onto the floor, and I keep myself from squeezing my eyes closed to retreat to my mind. 

"Charlette, honey, be more care--" My dad stops talking when he walks in to see Nikki, "--ful." He finishes, immediately going into salvage mode. "H-Hey, hi," he smiles widely at Nikki, seeming to be amused with my choice of date, "I'm Johnny." My dad extends his hand. 

"Nikki." Nikki takes it. 

"Johnny, Vivian, a word, please." My mom says, obviously seething. 

"Oh, Charlette, we don't have time...the steaks will get cold." He tells her to save me, and she stomps into the kitchen before he looks at me. 

"Thank you." I mouth and he winks at me. 

"She was expecting someone else." My dad tells Nikki, putting an arm around his shoulder and patting him as we step to the table. 

Nikki finds this humorous and snorts a little, causing me to glare at him because it's not funny. 

"Would you like something to drink, Nikki?" I ask quietly as my dad wipes up the lemonade and gets what pieces of glass he can get off the floor. 

"I really don't think your parents have Jack, do they?" He mumbles and I shake my head a little, smiling sadly at him. "I'm in hell." He adds as I chuckle. "Whatever you guys have is fine with me." He says next and I nod, heading to the kitchen to grab him a soda from the fridge. 

My mom's angrily preparing to bring the plate of steaks to the table, her red lips in an almost snarl as she glances at me. 

"This is not what we do, Vivian." She states to me and I roll my eyes. 

"Mom--"

"--You know better than to get in with the likes of him." She keeps on.

"I know he's not Luke freaking Ginson, mom, but he's good to me and I really like him." 

"Oh, he's good to you?" She asks with a mocking laugh, turning to face me with her hands on her hips. 

"Yes, he is." I stand by what I said. 

"Your Aunt Lily is rolling in her grave at the sound of you giving props to the same type of man that completely wrecked her life, and eventually took it away from her altogether." She hisses, turning back around to grab the plate, while I'm struck speechless. "Grab the fries and string beans." She tells me, walking back out to the table. 

I push my tears back and grab the beans, sitting them next to the steaks as I hand Nikki his soda, next. 

"Looks good." He comments about the food. 

"Very good." Dad puts in next, sitting down. "Thank you, Charlette." He says next in reference to her helping with dinner. 

"Who would like to say prayer?" She ignores him, her eyes glassed with tears the longer she looks at Nikki and I next to each other.

"I will." Dad says, and I bow my head and close my eyes. "Father, in heaven, I pray. Forgive me of my sins, Lord. Thank you for continuing to bless us with new opportunities to meet and love on others. Thank you for your comforting hand, and not leaving one tear that's been shed recently over Lilian, unacknowledged. I pray that you continue to keep your hand over this family, protect us and those we love, but above all, I pray whatever your will is, let it be done. Thank you for this meal we are so fortunate to have, may it nourish and strengthen our bodies so our bodies may continue to be used unto your service. In Christ Jesus' name I pray. Amen." He finishes. 

"Amen." Mom and I echo, and Nikki looks at me, already chewing steak, letting me know he started eating during the blessing. 

My mother notices, too, her hand tightening around her fork.

My dad just shrugs it off before asking him, "So, Nikki, what is it you do for a living, or are you in school?" My dad asks him and my mom rudely scoffs as if it's impossible that Nikki's in college currently. 

"No, I'm kinda doing odd jobs. Right now I'm telemarketing." He explains. 

“Is that what the kids are calling drug dealing nowadays?” My mom remarks, snidely.

“Mom.” I say, shooting daggers her way and she raises her brows.

“What, I’m just asking a legitimate question, Vivian.” She tells me, raising her brows. “What, with the knotted, unnaturally black hair, eye liner and uncomfortably ripped pants that make him look like he got caught in a barbed wire fence while escaping a prison, I think it’s safe to assume he enjoys listening to the same sex, alcohol and drug endorsing music as--”

“--Charlette.” My dad sighs out, looking at her as if to say, “seriously?”

“And don’t even get me started on the rosary hiding under his shirt.” She promptly points out and he and I both tense up. “Not only did you bring home an imbecile, Vivian, but a Catholic imbecile.” She sarcastically congratulates me. “I’m sure God is so very pleased with you.” She adds and I wince as she abruptly corrects herself, looking at Nikki as she says, “or, as you Catholics believe, ‘Mother Mary.”

“Mom--”

“--Do you not feel ridiculous believing that you have to plead with dead disciples and Mary to talk to God on your behalf because simply going to God directly in prayer isn’t enough. Because I assure you, what, with the ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of the womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death’, I promise you she’s looking down at your ignorance and telling you to just talk to Jesus or God yourself because she’s a woman, and men don’t listen--not even the divine.” She states, and my father has his face buried in his hands, and I can tell my expression is mortified as my mom just casually starts cutting her steak while Nikki just keeps his amused grin on his lips.

“No, my prayers are usually done in the dead of night in a discreet location in the hills, with the sacrificial offering of a virgin with the entirety of the Sunset Strip nightlife in attendance while Blackie Lawless sings 'I Fly Away’ backwards while wearing a goat carcass.” He tells her without skipping a beat. 

Her jaw clenches, her eye twitching as me and my dad are both sitting, paralyzed, and I feel the color draining from my face by the second. 

"Then you have no business associating yourself with my daughter." My mom quips, staring at him resentfully.

"Mmm, she's our latest sacrificial virgin." Nikki replies and my mother slams her fork onto her plate, throwing her napkin onto the table. 

"I need fresh air." She states in a hiss, going to the door and slamming it. 

We all just sit in silence for a moment, before Nikki looks at my dad. 

"I'm not really using her as a sacrificial virgin." He tells him, and my dad raises a brow. 

"I figured being that it wouldn't do much good." My dad mumbles. "Well, kids, moments like these I wish I wouldn't have stopped drinking." He sighs out next, standing. "I'm sorry for her mother's lack of manners and boundaries. She wasn't always like this." He assures Nikki. "And no matter your beliefs--it's not our business--as long as Vivian's comfortable…" he says next and Nikki nods as if he's thinking about it before my dad opens the door to go talk my mom down.

[splat-dragon]

For reasons wretched and divine ~Jackie and Wilson, Hozier

Whumptober 2020, alt. #7: Found Family

Charles never regretted burying Arthur. The man deserved a burial, deserved a headstone, deserved more than to be left to rot.

But he’d give anything to be able to close his eyes without seeing Arthur laying on the mountain, without seeing his corpse. To remember Arthur without first seeing him dead on the ground, to remember him living and bright, even if it was angry and cruel, before he’d tried to redeem himself if only because it meant he didn’t first think of him half-rotted on that stone.

INSPIRED BY THIS ART BY @amesegue

@whumptober2020

When they’d said goodbye, when Arthur had tried to come with him, when he’d refused to let him, Charles had known he’d never see him again.

 He’d been half right.

 He’d never seen him alive again.

And he never regretted burying Arthur. The man deserved a burial, deserved a headstone, deserved more than to be left to rot.

 But he’d give anything to be able to close his eyes without seeing Arthur laying on the mountain, without seeing his corpse. To remember Arthur without first seeing him dead on the ground, to remember him first living and bright, even if it was angry and cruel, before he’d tried to redeem himself if only because it meant he didn’t think of him half-rotted on that stone.

He hadn’t found out that the gang had been scattered for a day or so after the fact.

 Rains Fall had, face more solemn than usual (which was saying something) stepped into his tent, a newspaper in hand. Pressed it into his palm without a word, and he’d known before opening it what it would say.

 He’d been gone by morning, but it took days to reach Beaver Hollow.

Though he’d hated Beaver Hollow, seeing the camp decimated hurt. He’d not run with them long - only a year and a half, maybe a bit longer, they’d been his home, been his family, even towards the end. And though most of it had been reduced to ash, he could still determine what most of it had been - there was Dutch’s tent, there, the remains of the campfire, and there, Arthur’s wagon.

 Half tangled in Dutch’s tent, Grimshaw’s body, skull picked near-clean by crows that he chased away.

They had never been particularly close.

 She hounded him when he came back bloody from hunting, and more than once had boxed him around the ears when he hadn’t been quick enough to wash clean.

 But she’d been like a mother to him, if a poor one. Chased him to his bedroll if he didn’t sleep after taking the night watch duty, shoved ‘dinner’ and ‘breakfast’ into his hands if he didn’t eat. He didn’t remember much of his mother, they’d been separated when he was too young to remember her, but he liked to think she’d be like Miss Grimshaw… if a bit nicer.

 So seeing her left to be picked clean by scavengers hurt. He took the time to stoop down, cutting the tent and wrapping it around her carefully, mindful of her exposed skull and keeping it together as best he could, her mandible nearly coming loose, before fastening her to Taima’s rump.

 She deserved better, but he didn’t have better, so he gave her the best he had.

The trail wasn’t hard to follow.

 Corpses, picked half clean by scavengers, led into the cave. Led to the ladder, and he knew where it led out, so he left the cave and led Taima up to the hole, followed the trail from there - horse carcasses left to rot where their riders had been collected, though he didn’t know why the Pinkertons back at the Hollow had been left behind - until he found Old Boy and Dipper, pain a shearing wound in his chest.

 Old Boy had been largely eaten, a gaping wound in his side - a bear, maybe, seeking the nutritious innards - but Dipper had been left to decompose, untouched as though she were something holy, something that would bring sour luck on any who dared touch her, though flesh had begun to slough away from her dark face, baring her gleaming skull, and he took the time to kneel and stroke her mane, hair coming out in chunks caught in his fingers, thanking her and then Old Boy though he hadn’t known the Half-bred half so well.

 Up the mountain, and he struggled to keep the trail. Finally found himself clambering up a ledge - then down, and the crunch of breaking bones trickled ice down his spine.

He saw, first, what was easily the largest coyote he’d ever seen. Black as a starless night, it stood impossibly still aside from its head, jerking from side to side and - 

 though Charles was not one who was quick to anger, or to fault an animal for its instincts, he reached for his gun and fired at the coyote.

 But it was quick and, as though it had known what he was going to do, danced back with the grace of a deer, paws so light they didn’t seem to touch the ground, stopping to stand in the middle of the ledge and just barely he was aware of its paw resting on a revolver, but couldn’t look away from its muzzle, dangling open and dripping blood.

 His eyes met its - dull yellow, like spoiled egg yolks - and he couldn’t look away. It went still, didn’t seem to even breathe, and then the spell was broken as a drop of blood splattered to the ground and he brought his gun up again, firing over its head. With a nonchalance that no wild animal he'd ever met had, it sauntered away, turning the corner and kicking away the revolver as it went.

 He stared after it until long after its paw-steps had faded away, jerked as though coming out of a trance and looked over at the form the coyote had loomed over and

“Oh god, Arthur,”

 he’d thought he’d never be unable to see his brother, and he’d been right.

 One of his eyes was gone, only a bloody socket left in its place, skull bared, long stolen away by a scavenger, a bird or something precise, looking for an easy meal, something soft that wouldn’t require much fuss to get to. His stomach churned and he fought the urge to gag - he’d dealt with many corpses in his time, but never one of a man he’d call brother, and finally he lost control and turned, emptying his stomach, as a fly crawled out of his nose, fluttering down and crawling into his mouth, dangling open as though he’d been gasping for air when he died (or, some part of him hoped, his face had relaxed in death, he’d seen that happen before.)

 Blood and… and other liquids, he didn’t know the name for them, wasn’t much of a learned man in such a way, decomposition fluids he supposed they were called, oozed from his nose, from his eyes and mouth and ears, and he had to turn his head to keep from vomiting on Arthur. Though he hated the sight of it, he prayed that the way his nose was at a wrong angle, looked crushed and shattered, was because he was dead and that it hadn’t happened as he died, though from the bruising on his face - at least, he thought it was bruising, but Arthur’s skin sat odd on his face, those frown lines that once lined his mouth now stretched strange down near his cheekbone and jawline, so who knows what it could be - he had a sinking feeling it was due to how he died.

Charles never did know how he died.

 He’d thought Arthur looked beaten in, though he’d been dead long enough that he’d started to look small, skin sliding and falling along his bones, and he’d been sick in the end, losing weight and muscle mass until he’d looked more skeleton than man, so he wasn’t entirely sure.

 Hoped, almost, that he’d been shot, that he’d suffered the short death of a well-placed bullet.

 But when he’d sat back, unable to look his brother in the face any longer, unable to see that single stony eye staring accusingly back at him, he’d found a mess.

 The coyote hadn’t been the first to get there. That, or the coyote had been there for a long time as he was torn open from stem to stern, a mess of torn flesh and bared meat, shredded organs and shattered bone, the flayed remains of his beloved coat, writhing with maggots and he couldn’t unhear the coyote cracking Arthur’s ribs between its teeth.

 He lurched to his feet, put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath, tried desperately to ground himself even as he shook apart. Shucked his jacket - wished he had that tent but he’d have to make do, refused to leave Arthur behind for fear the coyote came back, or any other scavenger for that matter - and lifted him carefully, swallowed convulsively, stomach rebelling at the feel of his loose skin shifting beneath his hands. It wasn’t his first time handling a body, even one long rotted, many rotted even more than this one, but it’s different when it’s your brother.

 There was a chunk missing from his leg - the coyote, he thought, it fit for its size, and maggots poured from it as he scooped him up, cradling him like a bride, holding his breath against the scent of rot and sick, turning and beginning to walk up the cliff.

He wanted, more than anything, to bury him near the Overlook.

 Arthur had been happiest there, he knew. When the gang had been happy, before it had all fallen apart. When they were all alive, before Dutch had well and truly lost his mind. Where Micah had been gone - first in jail, then hiding while he made reparations.

 But he feared trying to bring him down the mountain, wasn’t sure he could hold together for even that small trip, much less on the back of a horse that far of a ride, and he didn’t have enough room on Taima if he managed to either way.

 So he went up the mountain, cradling Arthur as though he were something precious - which he was - mindful of the open wound in his leg, of the hole in his stomach, painfully aware of the eye staring into him. Looked and looked, determined to find somewhere to bury him - he deserved, at least, that much. Remembered overhearing him talking to Lenny and Tilly and Hosea once, a long time ago—

  “Face me to the west, so I can… watch the settin’ sun an’... remember all the fine times we had that way.”

 —and Arthur, when he found him, had been facing east, and so Charles was determined to bury him facing west if it was the last thing he did.

He looked up, frowning as he carefully stepped down a small ledge, and the coyote was staring back at him.

 If his arms weren’t full, he would have shot the damn thing for the mess it had made of his brother.

 It huffed, tilted its head, licked its lips, and trotted away.

Behind where it stood was the perfect spot.

 An outcropping, not too far out but long enough for a man of Arthur’s size, a massive rock at the end like some natural headstone. The grass thick and lush, cradling Arthur when he set him down and knelt to feel the dirt, finding it loose enough to be dug with a tool but hard packed enough that an animal would have to work their paws bloody.

 It was perfect, almost too perfect, and he looked back, frowning when he didn’t see the coyote anywhere. Felt a chill run down his spine, shook it off.

 He moved Arthur so he could keep an eye on him, ready to chase off any birds that might be attracted, not trusting the coyote - clearly brazen, used to humans - not to try its luck.

 Charles carried a trowel in his satchel, having found it useful for a great many things, so he pulled it out and set to work.

Hours passed. By the time he was done his clothes were sticking to him with sweat and he was shaking, muscles throbbing and near to giving out. But he had a grave, ten feet deep just to be safe, and so he wiped off the trowel and set it aside, picking up Arthur as carefully as he could with hands that shook with more than just exhaustion, said a prayer and set him down in the grave, making sure to face him west before clambering out of the hole, collapsing onto his side and gasping for breath.

 He didn’t dare to rest though, knew that just a hole wouldn’t deter any scavengers, and set about filling the grave. Hated to cover his brother with dirt, wished he could give him the dignity of a coffin but had no way of getting one, so could only offer an apology as the dirt scattered over the side of Arthur’s face.

 He doesn’t remember much of burying him. Pouring the dirt back in took hours, he had only his hands and a trowel and he’d dug it deep, but finally he could collapse onto his side after patting it harshly, making sure it was packed down until, aside from the lack of grass and plants, it looked barely different from the rest of the ledge, barely disturbed.

He dozed on and off for the rest of the day, waking as the rising sun cast its light into his eyes. Reached up and wiped his face, was jerked back down to reality when he found himself with a streak of dirt across his face—

 —looked up, and found himself staring down the coyote again. It shifted from paw to paw, looked back over its shoulder, and his only warning was the faintest, far-away clattering of hooves before the most golden stag he’d ever seen strode up to stand beside the coyote as though the coyote wouldn’t eat it if given a heartbeat’s chance, peering down at him critically, before turning right back around and walking away, gone as quick as it had come.

 The coyote looked down at him for a moment longer, then turned and trotted after the stag.

He shivered, and stood, grabbing his satchel - he’d intended on eating and having a drink, but he wanted to get started on Arthur’s grave marker, could always eat as he worked.

Arthur’s grave marker took him five days. Finding the wood took the better part of the first, breaking down the trees took the second. And then was the matter of carving it, of working the wood into a circle, of making it take the shape he could see in his mind’s eye, of making all the separate pieces come together and, more importantly, stay together.

 He intended on taking as long as he needed to make the grave marker. Every time he closed his eyes he saw it, saw it look a certain way, and though he didn’t know why he knew it needed to look as such.

 And on the fifth day, every one woken to find the deer and coyote peering down at him, he had the marker, and all he needed to do - though it was no easy undertaking - was engrave it. He was no religious man, but he knew some sermons, knew some verses as any man of his time would, had spent most of his time carving trying to decide, trying to picture them carved into the wood until it fell to rot, and finally he planted the grave marker carefully and stepped back to look it over a final time,

His knees went weak, and he sank to the ground.

 The culmination of a week - two days ride, five days taken to bury and make his grave marker, a break taken only to bury Miss Grimshaw - stood before him. He felt… oddly empty, until a tear trickled down his face, and then another, and another, and he’d never been one to cry and his face didn’t twist and he didn’t sob but he couldn’t stop.

 Something soft nudged against his face, a warm puff of breath, and he caught a glimpse of golden fur before he was nearly knocked over with the force of the stag’s shove.

 Despite himself, he grinned - it was watery, and shaky, and tasted of salt as tears ran over his mouth, but the stag sighed into his face, smelling of sweet-grass and smoke and horse-sweat and familiar and he reached up, tangling his fingers in the thick fur of its neck, bringing their heads together.

ARTHUR MORGAN

  BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

[santmat]

Talking Animals, Whales that Save Humans: Women Priests, Vegetarianism – An Early Christian Manuscript Holds Some Surprises: The Acts of Philip:   "For sanctity is the bridge for the souls of the righteous, and it abolishes the source of corruption. Therefore, raise yourself above the pollution of desire. Do not allow meat eating and excessive drinking of wine to rule in your members, lest your soul be cast in that mold." -- from chapter 15, verse 3, The Acts of Philip: A New Translation (@ Amazon), François Bovon, Christopher R. Matthews François Bovon and Christopher Matthews utilize manuscript evidence gathered within the last half-century to provide a new translation of the apocryphal Acts of Philip. Discovered by Bovon in 1974 at the Xenophontos monastery in Greece, the manuscript is widely known as one of the most unabridged copies of the Acts yet discovered. Bovon and Matthews' new translation incorporates this witness to the Greek text, which sheds new light on the history of earliest Christianity. François Bovon has spent many years peering into the mists that shroud the early history of Christianity. His investigations have shown him something that might surprise nonscholars that even in the religion's infancy, when the first generation of Christians were spreading the faith, diversity of belief was already the norm rather than the exception. “The usual view is that in the beginning was unity and then schisms developed. Now we have to say that in the beginning there were several communities that differed significantly from one another,” Bovon said. Bovon, the Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion at the Divinity School, has made a major contribution toward clarifying our picture of the early Christian world with his publication of a 4th-century text describing the acts of the apostle Philip. The manuscript describes a community of celibate vegetarians in which both women and men functioned as priests. Bovon and his colleague Bertrand Bouvier of the University of Geneva discovered the manuscript in a monastery library on Mt. Athos in Greece. That they found the manuscript at all is a testimony to Bovon's finely honed detective skills. While examining a catalog of the monastery's holdings, the Swiss-born scholar noticed that a Greek word in the title of a manuscript was plural rather than singular. “Only one letter, and yet it makes a great difference.” The word was praxeis, meaning “acts". The word jumped out at Bovon because most of the other known manuscripts chronicling the career of the apostle Philip record only one praxis or “act,” that of Philip's martyrdom “It was an invitation to me, to find out what was behind that plural.” Philip is mentioned several times in the New Testament, but little is known about him from canonical sources. But there is more information about Philip and other first-generation Christian missionaries in a body of literature known as The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, comprising stories that were eliminated from the New Testament by 4th-century editors. Both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches have tended to preserve these accounts, even though they do not have the status of sacred scripture. This is because the apostles (except for Judas Iscariot) are also saints, and in order to celebrate their feast days, the churches needed information about their lives on which to base ceremonial and iconographic traditions. But these apocryphal texts have themselves been subject to editing by Church authorities in order to bring the liturgical and theological elements in line with orthodox doctrine. The revisions tend to leave out passages that reveal the diversity of practice and belief that characterized early Christianity. “As scholars, we would like to go back before these revisions were made,” Bovon said. Recovering this earlier narrative of Philip's ministry involved something very much like a journey through time. The monastic community of Mt. Athos is a world unto itself, residing on a narrow, rocky peninsula that reaches into the Aegean like a bony finger. At its tip is Mt. Athos, a peak of white marble 6,670 feet in elevation. Along the coast are some 20 Orthodox monasteries that govern the peninsula as an autonomous theocracy. There are no automobiles, little electricity, and by a 1060 edict of the Emperor Constantine Manomachos, which is still in force, neither women nor female domestic animals are permitted to set foot on the monasteries' territory. There is evidence that the first Christian hermits arrived at Mt. Athos in the 7th century, driven out of Constantinople by the Muslims. According to legend, however, the place became a sacred sanctuary in 49 A.D. when a boat bearing the Virgin Mary was blown off course and landed on its shores. At the time, the peninsula contained many pagan shrines, but upon Mary's arrival, these spontaneously crumbled, and a stone statue of Apollo spoke out, declaring itself to be a false idol. Bovon found the manuscript describing Philip's exploits in the Xenophontos monastery, founded in the 10th century. The manuscript was copied in the 14th century, but the original text dates from the fourth century and itself reflects earlier traditions. These traditions are different in many ways from later Church practices. For example, instead of the Eucharist with its ceremonial consumption of bread and wine, Philip's fellow Christians simply sat down to a common meal of vegetables and water. Church leadership was democratic rather than hierarchic, and men and women served equally as priests. In fact, the manuscript describes Philip and the apostle Bartholomew traveling from town to town with Philip's sister, a woman named Mariamne. Bovon believes this woman to be Mary Magdalene. The community described in The Acts of Philip also seemed to follow ascetic practices more extreme than those reflected in New Testament sources. The group insisted on strict vegetarianism and sexual abstinence among its members. “The asceticism was not just a moral issue,” Bovon said. “They believed that living a pure life was a way to better communicate with God.” According to Bovon, the historical Philip along with Stephen and other disciples represented a distinct group of early Christians composed of Greek-speaking Jews centered in Antioch, whose mission was directed largely toward the pagan world. These are the so-called Hellenists of the canonical New Testament book of Acts. Scholars have identified two more groups active in Jerusalem, one led by Peter and another by James, the brother of Jesus. A fourth group, based in Edessa in ancient Syria (now part of Turkey), was led by Thomas, who, according to legend, later traveled to India. Other more radical groups have left traces of their doctrines as well. For Bovon The Acts of Philip is one of many noncanonical early Christian writings that exhibit a fascinating diversity of practice and belief. The author of The Apocryphal Acts of John, for example, describes Christ dancing with his disciples. The Gospel of Nicodemus and the fragmentary Gospel of Peter assert that during the three days between his crucifixion and resurrection, Christ was in the next world preaching to the dead. Another rich source of information on early Christianity is the collection of Coptic writings known as the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, found in Egypt in 1945. Believed to represent a branch of Christianity called Gnosticism, which stressed salvation through knowledge, the Nag Hammadi manuscripts comprise gospels, prayers, sermons, and theological treatises which, like The Acts of Philip, represent a viewpoint “very distant from mainstream Christianity.” These apocryphal writings not only throw light on the origins of Christianity, they can be valuable for understanding early Christian art as well. Bovon regularly takes his students on field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts, where he identifies and interprets art works based on noncanonical Christian sources. A French translation of The Acts of Philip by Bovon, Bouvier, and Frédéric Amsler, a former research assistant and doctoral student of Bovon at Geneva, was published in 1996. In 1999 Bovon published with Bouvier and Amsler a critical edition of the Greek text in the series Corpus Christianorum. It was followed by the publication of Amsler's dissertation, a commentary on The Acts of Philip, in the same collection. A general study, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, co-edited with Ann Graham Brock and Christopher R. Matthews, was published in 1999 by the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2000/02/women-priests-vegetarianism-an-early-christian-manuscript-holds-some-surprises/

[crimeronan]

ik youre not a therapist and i dont want like therapy or anything but im 17 and ive known i was bipolar for 3 years now and i dont know how im supposed to live the rest of my life like this. im so fucking tired. how do you stay alive

you sent this a couple days ago & i’m posting at a weird time so i’m not sure if you’ll see it but.  

i’ve been looking at this message trying to decide how to respond

because i don’t know your situation, your symptoms, how you’re feeling, whether you’ve had positive or negative experiences with medication, psychiatrists, therapists, hospitals, all that related shit

the bipolar life advice i give to people is vastly different depending on the individual. it’s not a one size fits all thing.  and there’s never even a guarantee that my advice will be the right choice

so since i don’t know about your situation or experiences or what you want, i’m not gonna tell you what to do.  i’m gonna focus on the “how do you stay alive” question and try to pen down some personal feelings. and if they help then great, and if they don’t then... this is the most honest i can be

(you can always ask another question to get a better answer. my inbox is a coin slot and i am a vending machine of varied-degrees-of-helpfulness replies offered at varied-inconvenient-too-long-intervals)

-

how do i stay alive

it’s a 2-parter, actually.  i pondered how to condense my thoughts/feelings, and it came down to these two things

1. love 2. spite

-

1. love

the spite is easier to write about than the love.  love is hard to reach when i feel like shit.

spite is where i go when i want to die.  love is where i go when i want to want to live.

maybe i don’t want to be alive.  but maybe i wish i did.  spite doesn’t help me much there.  spite keeps me afloat, but it doesn’t make the floating pleasurable.  there’s more to life than outlasting everything that ever hurt me.  i need a reason to continue when there’s no enemy to fight

so. love

i almost wrote about the spite alone because that’s rawer, realer, more visceral.  that’s the shit that CONNECTS when everything feels hopeless.  but it would be a lie of omission.  spite is only one of the major food groups, you’ll waste away from malnutrition if you eat it for every meal. or at least, i will.

“so you’ve got a bunch of people you love,” you say, “and you stick around for them.  cry on them.  support each other.  like each other.  fine.”  you’ve heard this story before

nah.

i mean - yes.  i have people i love.  i live with two partners, i’ve got a third girlfriend, i’ve got a long-distance platonic life partner.  i have a support net, i have a family i’ve forged, i have confidence that i’m not alone.  i have, in a bare-bones checklist sort of way, fulfilled my physiological human need for connection

but i could live without every single one of them.  i’m not dependent upon any of them for my survival.  i’m not dependent upon them for love, given or received.  (this isn’t a callous cruelty, it won’t hurt them if/when they read this.  i’ve told them all this, they know.  they’re glad of it.)

so.  what the fuck does “love” mean, then?

the short explanation is that it’s my love of life, of things in the world.  it’s all the little connections i’ve made.  every time i love something, a hook tethers to the universe.  hook enough tethers, and i no longer feel the need to float away.  no dissolution of self today, sir

the rest of this section is some of the things i love. partially it’s to show how i connect to little things and ascribe magic to the mundane.  partially it’s because i like thinking about things i love, i like typing them out, and i like that i could keep going for thousands and thousands of words.

i am laying in bed at 7:30 AM with the lights off and the shades drawn.  blue  light comes through the slats because it’s the better time of year, the one where i finally get vitamin D, the one where the birds chirp at 4AM, the one where the sky isn’t impenetrably black til 10PM.

there’s a weighted blanket tucked around my legs.  my partner rafi bought it for us to share because it’s soothing and heavy and comforting and helps with my physical pain.  right now it’s soft on my skin and if i get too emotional as i write, i can pull it over me like a cloak until i’m settled.

the apartment’s walls are blank because we’ve spent eight months intending to put art up and keep forgetting.  but there’s a newly-unearthed dining area in the kitchen because i finally shifted around the unpacked boxes that were dominating the space.  it’s new and it surprises me every time i walk out there.  it’s open and inviting and bright and it’s a sign that we’re making this place home.

we’ll put a cheap IKEA table by the window and we’ll probably never eat family dinners there - why would we sit in hard chairs and make stiff conversation when we could all cuddle on the couch - but my partner dev will create a place to do their art and the surface will be constantly littered with drying watercolor experiments.

we’ll hang our art one of these days, too, when our collective adhd offers a miraculous combo of remembering + having time + having motivation + having inspiration.  rafi has the most art because they’ve been collecting it for years.  i have to start smaller.  i’m not used to keeping physical objects.  dev has a few pieces thrifted or bought at local artist events or painted themselves

so we’ll put art up in the living room, my single “you are magic” flower print alongside a naked monster lady that dev fell in love with when we browsed art at a yuletide event months ago, alongside rafi’s monster girls and comic characters and book characters and literature art and quotes and abstract pieces and whatever else they have hiding in boxes.

my head protests that naked monster ladies do not belong in the living room, although the picture isn’t overtly sexual.  but then i remember that they do, actually, because it’s our space and we can do whatever we want with it as long as the lease isn’t broken.  there isn’t anyone in the local social circles who’d be perturbed by the decor, as far as i know.  i don’t have to hide anything from my parents because i live 3600 miles from them, and even though i miss my mom, the distance is good for me

there are two exquisite chairs on the porch.  they fold and recline from thrones to nearly-horizontal beds.  there are pillows and cupholders and trays and specific spaces for both a book and a phone.  i can sit there while the morning sun rises and read or play word games or browse tumblr, cup of coffee beside me, trees shielding my eyes from stabby sunbeams

there are remnants of the last tenant’s garden in one corner of the yard.  we’ve done fuckall for yardwork but plants struggle through anyway.  some seem to have sprouted by accident.  mushroom clusters populate the edges of the fence.  the apartment squirrel (there are probably several, but i like to think it’s a single energetic creature) runs back and forth along the fence & i always lose my train of thought & then laugh my ASS off at the “SQUIRREL! XD” adhd moment.  birds kick up leaf litter and play on the ground looking for insects to eat, they wiggle their tail feathers and flap their wings and sometimes they disappear and then return with friends

a little more than eleven months ago, i packed all of dev’s and my shit into a uhaul and drove and drove and drove to get to this city i’d never been in before to live with a partner i’d never cohabitated with.  we were homeless for more than a month, we weathered some financial disasters, we met some great people and some shitty ones

on the drive i fell in love with the sky.  i didn’t know how big it can get - actually, that’s a lie.  i’d FORGOTTEN how big it can get.  i’ve loved the sky thirty miles out to sea, no land in sight in any direction, just blue water and blue space above.  i’ve loved the vastness and the yawning beneath me and the knowledge that everything is BIGGER than i can fathom.  the depth of the sea doesn’t frighten me, it’s home. i don’t want to die, but if i had to, the ocean makes a soothing grave

in north dakota i discovered that i’ve been partially blind my whole life, which is a different tale that showed me i’ll never stop learning myself.  in montana we struggled up thousands of feet of mountains with the car huffing and puffing at the trailer’s weight, and when we finally coasted downward, it felt like sudden freefall.  we ended up in the pitch darkness of night on sheer winding interstates with midnight construction projects forcing detours.  the mountains felt hungry, they had teeth.  mountain cliffs are much scarier to me than the ocean depths

i bought a red bull and poured a little out the driver’s side door as an offering to hermes, because i’m not particularly religious but i’ll take help where i can get it.  slammed that back in a few gulps and shook to bright-eyed alertness and ended up behind a slow-driving red pickup truck that guided us over about a hundred miles of mountain terrain

i thought, that’s just some construction worker driving between sites.  the roads are empty at this time of night, but it’s an interstate.  of course we’d end up behind someone.  this isn’t divine intervention.  this isn’t the benevolence of a god

i thought, but it can be a little magic.  if i want it to be.  

and it was.  it stays with me.

god help me but i’ve been writing this stream of consciousness for more than 30 minutes and i’ve said nothing.  i haven’t talked about the city, the parks, the people, the conversations, the books, the tv shows, the movies, the communities, the library, the animals, writing, reading, singing, acting, swimming, analyzing, creating, supporting, building.  and i can keep going.  i can come up with hundreds and hundreds of things i love and i can write paragraphs about all of them

so i’ll stop here.  you get the picture.  love is the life i’ve made for myself, the surroundings i’ve built, the quiet moments i can capture, the inspiration i pin, the magic i commit to memory.

i had to work so damn hard for every single bit of this.

i’ll be fucking damned if i let it go because my brain tried to trick me into thinking death is better.

-

2. spite

there are people who want me to die.

i don’t mean that i have a giant entourage of personalized enemies who curse my name and plan my individual demise.  although there have been plenty of people who have not liked me much.  probably some of them would enjoy my death.  i don’t give a shit about that

there are people who want me dead because i am a dot on a grid they dislike.  a faceless anonymous enemy who meets too many bad criteria with numbers and percentages and shrinking majorities and shifting public opinion

because i’m gay.  because i’m bipolar.  because i’m autistic.  because i’m a dropout.  because i grew up poor.  because my spine curves and my shoulders ache.  because i squandered my potential, because i didn’t have enough potential, because i didn’t love god enough, because i love the wrong gods, because i don’t worship, because i worship wrong, because i didn’t seek a husband, because i never wanted one, because i talk too much, because i can’t be controlled, because i chose to leave the fold when i realized it was suffocating me, because i’m ugly, because i’m gorgeous, because my body belongs to me

pick your poison.

this bothered me growing up, a lot. i knew i did not deserve to die. but if enough people tell you that you should, a little part of you will wonder if they’re right.  that little part might become bigger the closer they get and the louder they shout and the longer they wear you down

we know the rough shape of this story, i don’t need to tell it.  mine was messy and not triumphant and i survived more by chance than premeditation.

i’m older now.  by and large i’m still young as shit - i’m 24 - but GOD i am LEAGUES away from 15, 16, 17. i know who i am. i know what i want. i know how to get it. and when i don’t know that, i find out. i tell the truth.  i ask for what i want.  i use my time how i want.  i do what i want.

there are days that i can’t access the “love” side of the equation.  no finding poetry in birdsong or sugared coffee for me, thank you, i feel like shit and the world is awful and everything is too big and fast and cruel and everything wants me to die and it wants everything i love to die, too.  everyone i love.  it’s all garbage. the good doesn’t touch me

trauma is difficult to describe.  the difficulty is compounded by the fact that my trauma is influenced by my various neurodivergences, bipolar included.  i never know if i’m feeling what other people do.  i don’t know if i’m voicing unpalatable feelings others are afraid to express - or if i’m just othering myself, admitting i’m not as human as everyone else.

there is something malevolent and monstrous inside me.  i don’t touch it all the time.  but i don’t pretend it isn’t there.  it sits in my chest and molders or radiates or oozes.  it presses at my throat.  it curdles in my stomach.  it hurts what it touches, whether that’s me or someone i love or someone i hate.  it sets things aflame with no regard for the precious or the fragile.  it tears down walls and razes shelters and begs for apocalyptic rain.

i can give this thing names, clinical descriptors.  i know what it is on a diagnostic chart, in a ponderous article, in an academic debate, in a fiction novel, in a war movie, in a memoir.  there are a thousand ways to describe this thing.  the descriptors aren’t important.  what is important is this - i have learned that most people do not walk side-by-side with a tornado-hurricane-hellfire-weaponized-open-nuclear-reactor.  this is not a “normal” expression of human emotion, this is not me trying to ascribe power to “bad bipolar feelings.”  this thing lives in me and i know why it’s there and it is not designed to be held/silenced/muzzled/controlled by my body.

it does not help to pretend this thing does not exist.  it does not help to try to reason it away or ignore it or tell it to stop.  it wants what it wants, it does what it does.  possibly if i was better at therapy or stubbornness then i wouldn’t resign myself to that

but it is fucking EXHAUSTING to try to fight something that’s part of me.  to try to reshape it, rename it, pare it down, make it consumable for the masses.  it’s a war i have never won and it’s a war that i will lose if i keep fighting it.  i cannot fight with myself.  i cannot beat my monster into submission.  if we’re gonna battle like that, head to head, me trying to cut it down, me trying to be the hero, it rearing back like a fire-breathing dragon,

then it’s stronger.  it’s always stronger.

so i surrender.

but that’s not where i stop.

can’t fight it.  can’t kill it.  can’t muzzle it.  can’t reshape it, can’t disarm it, can’t contain it.  

alright.  

so what now.

if the surrender was a full giving-up, this is where i’d passively accept that i’m doomed to hurt and destroy everything precious to me.  can’t fix it.  will lose everything, will never experience or deserve happiness, will make the world worse simply by existing.

that sure does sound like impending-doom rhetoric.  hop skip and a jump from some dire-ass conclusions.  

so fuck that, i say. 

here’s a better question.

if it has to get out, then what happens if i control where it goes?

here’s the thing.

the monster doesn’t care what it kills or destroys or hurts.  

“have a conscience, care about things, remember love, stop yourself, don’t do this don’t do this don’t do this.” 

 losing battle.  lost war.

 it’s not the monster’s fault.  the monster doesn’t have complex motivations or hates or fears.  it exists to protect me through scorched earth.  a remnant of a chemical imbalance, maladaptive coping mechanism, bipolar crazy, traumatized injury.  it doesn’t know that its job is obsolete.

i can’t change the monster.

but my mind is a separate thing.  my mind knows what matters, what my priorities are, what i find precious, what i want to protect.  my mind remembers all the things the monster doesn’t.  

my mind has learned things the monster can’t.

when i fight it head-on, the malevolence is stronger than me.  but as i am, walking with it, sitting in my bed writing this while examining the void and the consciousness, describing it, quantifying it,

that’s when i’m stronger.

and with my mind as the stronger force, i can decide where the monster goes.  what it touches.  what it destroys.  what it burns.  where the ashes land.

i do not want to be a destructive person.  i want to be someone who builds, repairs, changes.  i want to make the world better for kids like me.  i want to stop pouring more gasoline onto a fire that’s been burning since long before i was born.  i want to believe - i do believe - that positive change is better than negative.  i do my best to plant good things and enact that positive change instead of becoming a beacon of wrath.

but there are a lot of kids surrounded by people who want them to die, and not all of them have a protective monster.

so it’s good.

when i’m depressed, my mind loses its battles.  my cognizance slips.  i forget why i care.  i forget what i want.  i forget how happiness feels, how to find pleasure in quiet moments.  

i don’t get depressed as often as i used to since my meds are adjusted correctly now.  but it still happens.  it will keep happening for the rest of my life.

my mind weakens and curls up and stops fighting, and the monster is always there.

it’s a very powerful thing when it wants to be.

it wants to survive.

the thing is, it knows there are people that want me/us/whatever dead.  it’s been fighting them forever.  die like they want?  my mind says, sure, what does it matter.

the monster says, nah.  our work isn’t done.  and fuck them, anyway.

so we get up.

-

so that’s how i stay alive.

i typed this for 90 minutes and after editing i’d spent two hours on this post.  i don’t know if anyone will read it all.  i don’t know if it’ll mean anything.  i don’t know if these thoughts even make sense, much less if i’ve conveyed the feelings i have.

i love being alive.  and when i don’t, i love being a monster.  it’s good.  all of it is good.  i’ve reconciled my uglier pieces.  it’s not one or the other, love or spite.  it’s symbiosis.  i need both, i love both.

no guarantees that this is helpful, but based purely on my own life experience, these are my tips for survival:

you’ll have to find your own roots.  i can’t give them to you.  

but it’s possible to dig them in and spread them far enough that one uprooted peg doesn’t shift your whole equilibrium.  

and when you’re tired, rest, and let yourself be tired, and find the reason why you’re staying in the world. 

 i’m positive there’s at least one.

figure out why you’re losing your battles and then change the game.

if you can’t win one setup, don’t try to beat the system.  adjust your strategy.

you’ll be surprised by what you can love when you stop fighting the disparate pieces of you, and instead figure out how to use them.

[sad-af1121]

Its You: Part 3

Summary: In which your date doesn’t go well and you meet a stranger who makes you forget all about it with his witty charm. But no numbers or names are exchanged between you two, leaving you both hopeless yet love crazed, never to find one another. Or so you think.  Modern AU | Requested by Anon | Pairings: Bucky Barnes x CurlyHaired! Reader Word Count: 1.8k Warnings: language, full-on fluff and comedyyyy

A/N: It's good to be back! Disclaimer: I would have made this part longer but it would be too much imo. ALSO I’ll be graduating soon and that means more time for writing! Can’t wait to share what I’ve been planning. As always enjoy AND Feedback is welcomed 💜

PART 2

Seated perfectly at the table, the host distributed the menus before leaving you to to your night. The atmosphere couldn’t get any more awkward than it was, and it tensed your muscles incredibly. But why were you complaining? You were on a date with the guy you’ve been drooling after for the past 24 hours! 

And Bucky? He was over the moon and very thankful that the universe blessed him with a chance to not only see you again but have dinner with you. The moping and dreading Bucky from earlier was nowhere to be seen and he was so drenched in bliss. 

His cheeks dusted with pink, Bucky swallowed the lump of embarrassment that sat annoyingly in his throat, not knowing where to keep his eyes on since looking into yours just made his heart skip a beat. What he didn’t know was that you were experiencing the same thing, looking anywhere but each other. Some people would say it was odd seeing a couple having dinner who wouldn’t even give the knowledge of them being there, but they didn’t know your story. And how you were falling in love every second being in Bucky’s presence. 

“So,” Bucky trailed off, slicing away the silence like a knife to butter. “I’m assuming you know Clint then?” 

His chuckle made your body ache, your heart melting to the deep sound of his rumbles echoing in his chest. Gritting your teeth from smiling too hard, you nod but a squeaky laugh escaped, “Oh my god,” you panicked, knowing damn well he heard it. He probably thinks your half pig now.

Great.

You saw how his eyes went slightly wide but he kept his smile and waved it off. This. This reassurance smoothed away your anxiety, and you just kept your eyes steady on his. “Yeah! He’s my roomie, and like a brother to me. I hope he doesn’t give you a hard time at work… knowing how strong and intimidating his personality can be.”

Bucky smirked, “Oh trust me,” he licked his lips and ducked his head, whispering. “I like the guy, I really do. But he scares the living crap out of me.”

Throwing your head back, you laugh at his confession, covering your mouth from exposing too much. You could tell he was joking but another part was telling you he sort of wasn’t. “Yep, that’s Clint for you.” 

“And I’m guessing Steve is your friend?” You asked with a hint of uncertainty. Bucky smiled at your question, taking a swig of his water. 

“My best friend since we were little. Our mothers were best friends and then we turned out to be best friends. It’s kind of weird, but he’s like a brother to me too.” 

The corners of your lips curved into a sweet smile, your eyes becoming soft as you released a dreamy sigh. This hadn’t gone unnoticed by Bucky and he began to blush again. And this time, you saw what you were doing to him and you actually liked it. It was a taste of his own medicine, trapped in a bubble of affection. 

“Remind me to thank Steve,” you whispered softly, bashfully ducking your head and gnawing on your lip. This brought a shiver down Bucky’s spine, his pupils dilating into a dark sea of passion.

Moments later, the waiter arrives with a glass jug of ice-cold water and a towel draped over his arm. 

“Hello! My name is Scott, like the paper towel brand and I’ll be your waiter for tonight! Make sure you tip me well or I’ll embarrass you in front of all these fine people.” He flashed a smile between you and Bucky, earning horrified and confused expressions from you two. 

“Ah well,” you swallowed thickly, wrapping your head around the waiters' words but before you could utter a word, he cuts you off.

“Ha! I was only kidding, oh my god. You should’ve seen your face, priceless!” Scott barked out a laugh, dismissing the fact that you and Bucky were just so misplaced. However, you found this man insanely amusing, exchanging a funny look with Bucky; he understood your motif and chuckled underneath his breath, trying really hard to stiffen his laughter. 

Refilling your glasses of water, Scott stepped back and sighed - that goofy smirk still plastered on his face. “What drinks can I start you off with?” 

“What drinks do you have?” You smiled. 

Scott smiled back but then it disappeared. He swiftly moved his body, as if he was trying to find something. To his misfortune, he didn’t, bringing him to groan through a tight smile. “It looks like I’ve forgotten the menu. But worry not, I think I’ve memorized it.” 

Bucky couldn’t hold back his cheeky smile, running a hand down his face. He couldn’t wait and see what Scott would bring to the table. Scott went on describing the basic drinks that most bars have but when Bucky asked for a specialty of the restaurant, that was where things went poorly.

The names of the drinks were at least better than the description Scott gave and you had your face buried in your hands the entire time. By the sounds of it, however, you caught on that Bucky knew more about drinks since he was aiding Scott in what alcohol goes in what and how they’re made. Maybe he was apart of some alcoholic beverage making club since he was fascinated with it. 

No, that couldn’t be it. 

Messing around with Scott became second nature to Bucky and you were so lost in drowning yourself in his voice that you hadn’t noticed him calling your name. 

“Y/N?” 

“I’m sorry,” you breathed out a chuckle; sighing dreamingly to the tone of his voice. It was like sweet honey at the tip of his tongue, rolling gracefully and plunging at your gut. 

“Where do you go when you’re in that state?” Bucky pondered, his eyes twinkling with curiosity.

“A place where you won't quite understand,” you teased, gnawing on your lip. Gazing into each other's eyes made your chest fall with ease as Bucky’s lips formed a smile of its own. 

“We’ll have the Cabernet Sauvignon, please,” Bucky informed the waiter without tearing his eyes away and you giggled to how charming he was towards you. 

Expecting the waiter to be gone by the time you looked away from Bucky, you were taken aback when Scott was still standing there, smirking as if he knew something you and Bucky didn’t. Clearing your throat, you shifted in your seat. “Is there something else…” 

“Oh no! I’ll just be going now,” Scott chuckled as he backed away but bumped into a table, almost falling backward over a woman in her seat. Luckily he caught himself in time, before rushing out of the room. 

Neither you and Bucky could hold back your laughter, embarrassed for the man. “He’s got a character that one.” Bucky managed to speak through his laugh as he ran a hand over his head.

“Ya think?” you mocked with aching cheeks. 

Once your drinks had arrived, you two ordered dinner and continued to talk. You found out how he got into engineering and what his actual passions are for the future. Advanced technology in prosthetic limbs was his main goal. He wanted to help those who felt like their lives wouldn’t be the same after losing a part of themselves and giving chances to those who were born without them. You were infatuated by his ideals and knowledge. His wholesome personality was another element that grew your heart to thrice its size. Bucky gave you hope for the future and how humanity can still heal each other even when we can easily harm too. 

Bucky couldn’t get over the fact how perfect you were. In his eyes, he couldn't see one flaw that raised alarms. You also had a passion to just live the world day by day, believing in small goals rather than bigger ones. You explained how the smaller ones were easy to accomplish while the big ones were a desire of “what if”. It was the flame that kept you going and you just illuminated a beautiful radiance of positivity that it was rare to even exist. Working as a research assistant for a curator wasn’t as glamorous as you had thought when applying for the job, but it kept you interested in what was happening in today's art. 

After some time, dinner had finally arrived at your table and it was as divine and as tasteful as it looked. Enjoying your meal, you hadn’t noticed that you had forgotten to take your phone out of your back pocket. The pressure from your rear added pressure to the call button and miraculously, you speed-dialed Natasha. 

***

“Where did you put my sparkling water, Wanda?” Natasha inspected the refrigerator while she tapped her finger against the door. 

Turning away from the TV, Wanda replied, “Oh, I put it in the pantry… didn’t know if you liked it cold or not,” she nervously chuckled, shoveling her mouth with the soup she made for dinner. 

Groaning at her own mistake, Natasha closed the refrigerator door and sluggishly walked to the pantry where her drink sat nicely on the shelf. “I hate when they’re room temperature. I shoulda put them in when I bought them.” 

Wanda shrugged in response and continued eating her dinner. Sighing, Natasha took out the bottle and rest it on the kitchen island before twisting open the cap and pouring herself a glass. As she went to add ice cubes to her drink, her phone began to ring, the classic Michael Myers ring-tone filling the air. Carefully, she placed her drink down and scurried after her phone. Since Wanda was closer, she grabbed the device off the coffee table and chucked it at Natasha who skillfully caught it. 

Glancing at the lit device, Natasha’s eyes shot wide open as your name appeared across the screen. 

“It’s Y/N! It’s Y/N!” 

Wanda quickly set her bowl on the table and paused the TV, jumping out of her seat. “Answer it!” 

“Okay okay,” Natasha pressed the accept button to answer but it closed before she could say anything. Her brows furrowed at the sudden silence. “What the,” she swallowed thickly, the nerves in her body tingling with a pinch of worry. So she decided to call back, and wait till you answered the call. 

Yet to Natasha’s misfortune, you didn’t, prompting her to try again.

And again.  

With her stomach feeling uneasy, Wanda stood near Natasha, nibbling on her bottom lip. Earlier that night, she was informed of the escape plan between you and Natasha. It wouldn’t make sense as to why you were calling other than that reason. The anticipation was making her nauseous. 

“Fuck this. We’re going down there.” Natasha gave up after the fourth attempt. She fetched her keys and bag from her room before darting out toward the front door. Wanda followed behind, slipping on her shoes. 

“I don’t like this, Nat.”

“Let’s hope I don’t murder anyone tonight.” 

_____________

Permanent/Fic tags will be added to reblogs. If you’d like to be added, pls send an ask.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: From the news European countries have been easing the lock down but restaurants and cafes remain closed. So what do you do for food? Do you cook? Are you a good cook? Do you enjoy cooking?

You are right to say in Europe things have been easing up a little. However each European country is responding differently as things present themselves on the ground. In France and in Paris in particular the lock down has eased with shops re-opening and schools have limited re-opening. The shops allow a limited number of people in at any one time so there is a queue usually (orderly and well humoured it has be said, at least in my experience). Cafes and restaurants remain closed pending a further review - in early June I think. But some eateries do deliveries for pick ups by a side window.

I cook. Just how well is more debatable as my criteria for success is not to kill others or myself. So judged on that score I would say I’m a reasonably decent cook. I hate to admit it but next to British food Norwegian food is not really much to write home about. I’m actually being harsh on British cuisine. I know everyone goes on about how bad British food is but it’s a cliche and untrue given the plethora of of cooking TV shows and just how dramatically British cuisine has changed in the last 30 years. I’ve been lucky to have dined at some really great restaurants from childhood because my father in particular was a foodie and we ate well.

I would like to say I learned a lot from my mother but I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. She could very cook well but she did so rarely and at a time when we siblings didn’t take much interest. My Norwegian mother was fortunate to learn culinary skills on a cooking course for girls one summer in the Swiss alps at a finishing school as she was also at a nearby boarding school. Her parents thought she would make a good homely wife and hostess - but typically Norwegian my mother had other ideas. Still, a lot of what she learned had stayed with her and she developed a keen interest in French style of cooking to be able to cook well when she wanted to.

When we lived overseas in some countries - such as in India, Pakistan, Dubai and China - we had native cooks and servants and I remember spending a lot of time watching how the food was being made in the kitchen with the friendly cook. And I learned a few things here and there. We didn’t just eat ‘British food’ at home but actually enjoyed the local cuisine. I loved walking in the bazaars and eating street food - it was tasty and so much fun. My parents would put on lavish parties and that was always catered. I did learn from my mother when I did pay attention and her example stayed with me.

At boarding school and university I would cook as well but again nothing exceptional. Often I would have friends around and we would cook together and I would be naturally curious as to how they made a dish that was from their country and I learned on the hoof from them. At university I also started to write down recipes and kept a record of them in a file. So quick and easy meals from little ingredients because of an essay crisis or during a revision slog or the occasional dinner party where I sweated on making dishes from well thumbed cook books. No one died so encouraged I carried on cooking.

I do love cooking because it allows me to have the mental space to think about other things other than work or personal stuff. It gives me a lot of peace in cooking for myself and for others. I’m not a seat by the pants kind of cook. I envy those who can just naturally toss ingredients together and come up with something divine. I am quite regimented. I like to have all my ingredients clearly cut and put on plates in the right order. I like order over chaos. It doesn’t mean my mind is regimented. I can cook a recipe from muscle memory but I need to have order on the kitchen table.

These days I’m fortunate that I get to dine in some very fine Michelin starred restaurants on my business travels and it’s made a more discerning foodie. I avoid restaurant food in hotels for instance because consistently they disappoint. Instead I always plan ahead if I know I am going to a foreign city I will reserve a table during my stay of a restaurant recommended by foodie friends I respect. Often I have to choose the restaurant for a corporate client we may be schmoozing and that has broadened my knowledge and palate to find the right restaurant through trial and error. In Paris too with friends usually we go and try out restaurants that are on the rise and off the tourist beaten track. For the food gourmand though Lyon is the place to go for a pilgrimage. It is after all the place where the great French chef Paul Bocuse was based.

At home I do like to cook for dinner parties in my apartment. It takes planning in terms of deciding what dishes to cook - French cuisine naturally. Through Parisian friends I am more discerning where to go to get the required ingredients. I plan the whole dinner party like a military operation in terms of the logistics. Some may laugh but I take to heart what the great French chef Jacques Pepin once said that, “great cooking favours the prepared hands”.

As a ritual I always do my vegetable shopping in the weekend food market stalls or I go to particular boutiques shops where there is an artisanal element on display. Even what to cook I take into account the people I am bringing together and how they might get a long over the food. The French never bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party as one might in England. It would be considered rude. And yet wine is a serious accompaniment to the food served. Fortunately for me I co-own a vineyard with my two cousins out in the sticks of rural France so I have become greatly educated about wine and my little wine collection is sufficient for all occasions.  

I think through osmosis I have become a better cook and I can feel it every time I go back to England to see friends or my family. I do look on horrified at what they are eating some times. But I have to remind myself not to fall into the trap of being a Parisian food snob. In England I think the food in restaurants has greatly improved but it’s also true that less and less people know how to cook. This is also increasingly true in France too, especially Paris. Fast food and pre-cooked meals from restaurants as well as Uber/Deliveroo are changing things habits. Habits such as cooking dishes were handed down from generation to generation but instead are at your ready made finger tips.

One of my French friends is a chef trained food critic for a major magazine and he has helped me become a better cook. I feel like I am in a piano class with a stern teacher as he slaps my hands in irritation if I try to write down notes instead of paying close attention to the wafting aromas. To him food is spiritual and aesthetic experience that has to be engaged with the heart and the soul. He keeps chiding me that “You are not cooking. You are making love”.

I don’t quite feel as lyrical or mystical as he but I appreciate the passion and this marvellous trait of actually caring.

From him and other French friends  I feel I’ve become a better chef by absorbing certain key principles in good and healthy cooking: never rush cooking as if you’re chasing a missed bus but savour every moment; eat as fresh and natural as possible; local and seasonal are best; left your ingredients be your seasoning; fat is your friend, use butter over olive oil in dishes; never waste food, use all of it; everything in moderation; and every meal is a celebration and not an ordeal.

The last one in particular is important. A meal is not about eating (or drinking of good wine) it’s about the conversation. In the same way it is impossible for an Italian to cook for one person - try making lasagne or any pasta dish for one because you’ll end up making it for five - so it is for the French. Good food is nothing without good conversation.

For the French a successful evening isn’t just judged by the food but also by the talk around the table. The French love to pontificate, gyrate, and muse on any topic under the sun. It’s not just about the knowledge or intellect one brings to the table but also a worthy argument. A true argument isn’t to exclude people but an invitation to draw people in with their own unique views to come to some settled truth. A riposte must nick but never wound for good manners are premium. Wit and charm are prized but courtesy and grace are precious. Parisians tend to have elevated convivial conversations and yet outside of Paris the conversations are more earthy and hearty - ate least that’s been my experience. Either way conversation is a companion to cooking.

I’ve learned this last principle from my lockdown experience with my neighbours in the small apartment building I live in. Most of the residents have bolted before the lockdown to their country homes in Normandy and Bretagne. A few have remained for different reasons. During the lock down phase a couple of us have been buying food for the more senior aged neighbours.

In particular two neighbours I have done their personal shopping for them since they are classified at risk. One is a retired army general and another is retired art gallery owner. They both have gourmand tastes and I have to trek to particular shops to buy the things they want, usually preserves or cheeses or pastries. I often cook for them and often it’s dishes they are used to having so I’m extending my culinary range. They are both fussy eaters used to having a gourmand palate so I feel like I’m at school sometimes having to be corrected now and again as well as being graded.

They were at first wary of letting me cook for them because they thought I was another English barbarian but I slowly won them over. I’ve even got them to try some very English things. The cakes I did went down well but they really liked my scones as well as the clotted cream and jam to go with it. Here I must thank my new Fortnum and Mason’s cook book which has an excellent recipe for scones. I’m surprised at how quickly people have taken to them. So much so it’s become a weekend ritual with the other residents of the building.

We gather at the weekends in the enclosed court yard and with some the small kids having the freedom to run around a little the rest of us sit and chat and we share food that we’ve all cooked. We listen to music played by two residents each proficient on the violin and cello. It’s a fantastic bonding experience and it brings us closer together to the point we have our own WhatsApp group and we help each other out when we can. And surely that is another reason why one enjoys cooking is the sheer pleasure that you hope to bring to others through the taste of food.

If I have learned anything then it’s that is no good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best. We all have taste, even if we don’t realise it. Whether a person cooks well or badly it doesn’t stop you understanding the difference between what tastes good and what doesn’t.

For me cooking is precious. Cooking brings rhythm and meaning to my life.

Thanks for your question.

[rfield87]

Writing Advice from Best-Selling Authors: Stephen King

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This week’s re-blog is one that was written by Lauren Passell, and is titled: Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers. It was published on March 22, 2013. If you would like to read the blog on the Barnes & Noble website where I found it, I will leave the link below. 

(When I was re-writing this blog I found some typo errors and corrected them as I went along. It must be the editor in me.)

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/stephen-kings-top-20-rules-for-writers/

                         Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers

Stephen King’s books have sold over 350 million copies. Like them or loathe them, you have to admit that’s impressive. King’s manual On Writing reveals that he’s relentlessly dedicated to his craft. He admits that not even The King himself always sticks to his rules - but trying to follow them is a good start. Here are our favorite pieces of advice for aspiring writers:

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out the things that are not the story. Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out.

2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. The timid fellow writes “The meeting will be held at seven o’clock” because that somehow says to him, ‘Put it this way and people will believe you really know.’ Purge this quisling thought! Don’t be a muggle! Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write ‘The meeting’s at seven.’ There, by God! Don’t you feel better?”

3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverbs is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. What about context? What about the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before ‘He closed the door firmly’? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, then isn’t ‘firmly’ an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?”

4, Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”

5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story...to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.”

6. The magic is in you. “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”

7. Read, read, read. “You have tor read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”

8. Don’t worry about making other people happy. “Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second to least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

9. Turn off the TV. “Most exercise facilities are now equipped with TVs, but TV - while working out or anywhere else - really is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs. If you feel you must have the news analyst blowhard on CNN while you exercise, or the stock market blowhards of MSNBC, or the sports blowhards of ESPN, it’s time for you to question how serious you really are about becoming a writer. You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination, and that means, I’m afraid, the Geraldo, Keigh Oberman, and Jay Leno must go. Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.”

10. You have three months. “The first draft of a book - even a long one - should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”

11. There are two secrets to success. “When asked for the ‘secret of my success’ (an absurd idea, that, but impossible to get away from), I sometimes say there are two: I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married. It’s a good answer because it makes the question go away, and because there is an element of truth in it. The combination of a healthy body and a stable relationship with a self-reliant woman who takes zero shit from me or anyone else has made the continuity of my working life possible. And I believe the converse is also true: that my writing and the pleasure I take in it has contributed to the stability of my health and my home life.”

12. Write one word at a time. “A radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply - ‘One word at a time’ - seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple. Whether it’s vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord of the Rings,” the work is always accomplished one word at a time.”

13. Eliminate distraction. “There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.”

14. Stick to your own style. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what the writer is doing may seem. You can’t aim a book like a cruise missile, in other words. People who decide to make a fortune writing like John Grisham or Tom Clancy produce nothing but pale imitations, by and large, because vocabulary is not the same thing as feeling and plot is light years from the truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.”

15. Dig. “When, during the course of an interview for The New Yorker, I told the interviewer (Mark Singer) that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I replied that was fine, as long as he believed that I believed it. And I do. Stories aren’t souvenir tee-shirts or Game Boys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible. Sometimes the fossil you uncover is small; a seashell. Sometimes it’s enormous, a Tyrannosaurus Rex with all the gigantic ribs and grinning teeth. Either way, short story or thousand page whopper of a novel, the techniques of excavation remain basically the same.”

16. Take a break. “If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own.”

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings. “Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings).”

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story. “If you do need to do research because parts of your story deal with things about which you know little or nothing, remember the word back. That’s where research belongs; as far in the background and the back story as you can get it. You may be entranced with what you’re learning about the flesh-eating bacteria, the sewer system of New York, or the I.Q. potential of collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.”

19. You become a better writer simply by reading and writing. “You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. Faulkner learned his trade while working in the Oxford, Mississippi post office. Other writers have learned the basics while serving in the Navy, working in steel mills or doing time in America’s finer crossbar hotels. I learned the most valuable (and commercial) part of my life’s work while washing motel sheets and restaurant tablecloths at the New Franklin Laundry in Bangor. You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

20. Writing is about getting happy. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So, drink.”  

Which of these rules do you like best?

[merrysithmas]

hi! what are your predictions for boris and theo’s future after the end of the novel? are they going to move together and where - new york or antwerp? is boris going to get clean? is theo going to find out boris lied about his wife and kids? please share your thoughts I’m really curious!

I don’t have any predictions bc I know that Donna will just ruin their lives - Lmao. But my FANTASY is that Theo becomes some kind of tenured art professor that travels back and forth from NYC to London with his grants from the high-brow University he works for — he’s head of Art History and looks up to the Dean of his school as a mentor and mother-figure (can’t get away from that one, can ya Theo).

Boris works in his underground Odessa mafia crime syndicate - stationed in Antwerp but often traveling to NYC, Tel Aviv, Miami, Budapest, London, Amsterdam, and various other places — Theo kind of on the DL works as his stony-faced accountant being a bit knowledgable on the laundering and financial fraud end of things himself (he used to dabble in millions in art fraud himself) and fine arts consultant, and everyone knows they are these inseparable partners of unknown dynamic. Boris, flippant and personable and wily, Theo quiet and elitist and aloof - always at each other’s sides.

So Theo’s become a bit of a “we have to find lost and stolen relics and return them to the places where they truly belong, or the very least to a museum!” and uses his grant money from his University to investigate such matters and has been successful in several returns (cue proud newspaper articles that Hobie framed and puts up on the mantle) and has brought some amount of prestige to the University.

However Theo’s philanthropic fixation often clashes with Boris’ “holy fuck this is worth 300 million dollars” attitude and there are hijinx, usually with Boris always caving and/or Theo making it worth his while by appealing to his Boris-ly interests (i.e. “Please I need your resources to go to Syria” “Are you fucking kidding me? For what a plank of wood?” “It’s a sacred Persian relic and it’s in the hands of people like Martin!” “Listen to my words, Potter. It is. plank. of fucking. wood.” “Fuck you, Boris. There will be gold.” “... Gold? How much gold exactly?”).

So as Theo dabbles in Boris’ life, Boris also pops up in Theo’s, unexpectedly interrupting Theo’s lectures in the halls of European museums, waving to the kids, pulling Theo away for “just a moment” as he explains someone in the museum in trying to kill him insisting they “switch coats” and Theo has to hide him in the archives. Or he plops down while Theo is eating outside in a café in Strasbourg, casually sitting down across from him while Theo grades papers and smiles to himself at the familiar shadow falling on his gradebook (they eventually get into a fight and Theo calls him a “walking contraceptive” before he blusters off and Boris is left to eat the rest of Theo’s brunch in the company of a bunch of diners who are side-eying him, taking to reading a paper Theo left behind while finishing his Gerwurztraminer).

Or Boris is exhuasted, burning the midnight oil, black rings under his eyes, thinner than usual, wiry and punkish, under the gun, dead asleep on Theo’s couch in his office at his London library University headquarters, and Theo carefully tucks a heavy woolen blanket around his shoulders as he sleeps like the dead, deep tired breaths, safe, at home, as the rain pours down like a flood outside and Theo smokes quietly in the dark working on another grant proposal.

Or Theo turns up at Boris’ door in Antwerp, late nightcap after a surprise flight for a conference and seminar that he hasn’t told Boris about, and he sees Boris has barely eaten for weeks, holed up after trying to figure he and his gang’s way out of some absolute fuckery they got themselves into and losing one of his longtime members in the process — grieving and he can’t show anyone else and it hurts. And Theo runs his hand through Boris’ hair, and Boris closes tired, red eyes. And Theo is cooking him a meal at 3am, putting on some boiling hot tea, insisting he “come home” for a while. To New York.

New York City in the winter — operas and symphonies — snow falling like feathers and covering Central Park, winter holidays from school and Theo doesn’t have work, gallery events at museums that Boris can complain about - the Old Rich Hierarchal stuffiness - the insulting of which always makes him feel a bit better. Old movies and (bad, hard) drugs and stealing shit for old times sake from Duane Reade even though Boris has enough money for the two of them to span three lifetimes. Hot showers after getting in from the freezing cold and Theo’s apartment is meticulous and Boris disturbs it like a tornado. And they sleep in and for some brief moments, sometimes, tipped over vodka bottles, creaking floorboards in the night, city sounds and Vegas-bright Christmas lights, it’s like they’re kids again.

Meanwhile on the other end Boris’ gang is like a second family to Theo — Myriam, Gyuri, Cherry, Anatoly, Shirley T, Dima (and all their girlfriends, wives, boyfriends - sometimes all three): one is constantly showing up in rotation somehow in Theo’s life. Either randomly in London pulling him off the street “casually” SWEARING he’s not the subject of an assassination plot, or turning up sheepishly and/or desperately at his doorstep for some Boris un-sanctioned advice that Theo feels he is not exactly equipped to give (advice on girlfriends or spurned wives or cheating or kids or haircuts or boobjobs or what’s “in fashion in New York”) but they keep showing up like he’s the crew psychologist so he just pulls out the dining chair at this point. Myriam, now a close friend forged by their mutual taste for the High End of life, keeps an eye on Boris for Theo when Theo is across the ocean — she knows why, of course, they all do, an open secret. The whole gang has them, a criminal syndicate of misfits.

And one day Theo comes to Boris with a proposal to go to Siberia to retrieve an ancient sacred object called The Divine Source (an source of immortality) that was coveted and obscured by the Soviet Union and Boris is like fuck no Fuck no because if there is one place on Earth that Boris fears and sends a shiver up his spine and he doesn’t fuck with - it’s Mother Russia. Growing up in post-Soviet countries it’s an unspoken unanimous agreement among the gang, an overhanging government that has mostly wanted or had their eyes on them all since they were kids for various reasons - stealing or living on the street or used by street gangs - something you don’t want to get involved with or retamper.

And Theo’s a bit obtuse, still American for all his worldly ventures and education, having grown up in relative privilege from a sociological standpoint, and is super upset about Boris’ refusal to help (and thus, his gang’s refusal to help) - thinking they’re overreacting or being bombastic about their fears. The Dean is insisting on his help and Boris has long held suspicions about this lady and has kept it to himself because of Theo’s adulation of her (Boris knows Theo and mother figures are let’s say, a sensitive spot). Not wanting to disappoint the University (and moreover - her) Theo says fine he’ll just go alone to which Boris freaks the fuck out claiming its dangerous and he’s going to get himself killed and the Dean is an untrustworthy bitch who is manipulating him.

Cue an all-out end-of-times fight with Theo basically saying fuck him for all time, he’s done. And Theo leaves for Siberia by way of Syria, and Boris is fuming, left behind.

Long story short Theo gets betrayed by the Dean in a moment of gutwrenching horrifying realization - he was being used, Boris was right, now she has the relic and he’s going to die alone and freezing to fucking death, shot by some operative from the secret organization that Dean is in — he hears footsteps, sees the armored guard walking towards him with a gun, feels his stomach drop and braces himself and then Pow - the guy falls to the ground after a blow to the head revealing— Boris, behind him.

And Theo, overjoyed, alive, is asking how the fuck he got here, what he’s doing here— to which Boris replies incredulously Who do you think has been keeping you safe all this time?

Then Boris, who is very much on edge in this place, gets captured and tortured and Theo is forced to find and hand over the Divine Source in exchange for his life — which he does, terrified of the Source getting into their hands but more terrified of losing Boris. The Source is then greedily opened and eats all of their souls (because of moral impurity reasons but spares Theo and Boris for their self-sacrifcing devotion to each other) a la Raiders of the Lost Ark because of what Theo discovers, excitedly, was a mistranslation in Aramaic (thief of eternal life, not giver) and Boris is like — talk about what do you call it? false advertising.

So they return back to Antwerp with nothing but they’ve got each other and they snooze hard on each other on the plane ride back — several pounds of gold glinting away in Boris’ carry-on under the seat, alongside some old notes of other obscure and stolen relics, because he unknowingly picked up the Dean’s bag, not his, when escaping the sacred city.

So basically their life is a mix of Lara Croft video games (when I got the Divine Source storyline lmao but added a few things), Eastern Promises, The Odd Couple, The Da Vinci Code, and dark academia mixed with shitton of doping. With this mostly unspoken bi-continental devotion to each other over-arching it all.

[nightkitchentarot]

68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

From Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired Magazine...

It’s my birthday. I’m 68. I feel like pulling up a rocking chair and dispensing advice to the young ‘uns. Here are 68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice which I offer as my birthday present to all of you.

• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

• Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.

• Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.

• Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.

• Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.

• A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

• Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.

• Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

• Don’t trust all-purpose glue.

• Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kickstart their imaginations.

• Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers.

• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

• Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.

• Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.

• Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.

• Don’t be the best. Be the only.

• Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

• Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.

• The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.

• Promptness is a sign of respect.

• When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the worst case scenario.

• Trust me: There is no “them”.

• The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting, be interested.

• Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away.

• To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.

• The Golden Rule will never fail you. It is the foundation of all other virtues.

• If you are looking for something in your house, and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.

• Saving money and investing money are both good habits. Small amounts of money invested regularly for many decades without deliberation is one path to wealth.

• To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.

• Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

• You can obsess about serving your customers/audience/clients, or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.

• Show up. Keep showing up. Somebody successful said: 99% of success is just showing up.

• Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.

• If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.

• Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

• Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.

• This is true: It’s hard to cheat an honest man.

• When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it.

• You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.

• If you lose or forget to bring a cable, adapter or charger, check with your hotel. Most hotels now have a drawer full of cables, adapters and chargers others have left behind, and probably have the one you are missing. You can often claim it after borrowing it.

• Hatred is a curse that does not affect the hated. It only poisons the hater. Release a grudge as if it was a poison.

• There is no limit on better. Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can improve what we start with.

• Be prepared: When you are 90% done any large project (a house, a film, an event, an app) the rest of the myriad details will take a second 90% to complete.

• When you die you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.

• Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

• For every dollar you spend purchasing something substantial, expect to pay a dollar in repairs, maintenance, or disposal by the end of its life.

•Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

• When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problems, no progress.

• On vacation go to the most remote place on your itinerary first, bypassing the cities. You’ll maximize the shock of otherness in the remote, and then later you’ll welcome the familiar comforts of a city on the way back.

• When you get an invitation to do something in the future, ask yourself: would you accept this if it was scheduled for tomorrow? Not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter.

• Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it.

• If you desperately need a job, you are just another problem for a boss; if you can solve many of the problems the boss has right now, you are hired. To be hired, think like your boss.

• Art is in what you leave out.

• Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will.

• Rule of 7 in research. You can find out anything if you are willing to go seven levels. If the first source you ask doesn’t know, ask them who you should ask next, and so on down the line. If you are willing to go to the 7th source, you’ll almost always get your answer.

• How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely.

• Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or a proposal on the phone. The urgency is a disguise.

• When someone is nasty, rude, hateful, or mean with you, pretend they have a disease. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.

• Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.

• You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.

• Experience is overrated. When hiring, hire for aptitude, train for skills. Most really amazing or great things are done by people doing them for the first time.

• A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

• Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.

• Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment.

• Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something, anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss is.

• I’m positive that in 100 years much of what I take to be true today will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong, and I try really hard to identify what it is that I am wrong about today.

• Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.

• The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this pronoia.

[thewritewolf]

Eating Habits Chapter 11: A Dupain-Cheng Christmas

Marinette and Adrien move into their new apartment, but they aren’t there for long before heading over to spend a few days at the bakery for the holidays.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3.

Marinette wandered around the apartment that she had spent the last few months living in. Somehow, she had expected it to look bigger now that it was empty again, but instead it just made her wonder how she hadn’t noticed how tiny it was. With the excitement of living on her own faded away, the apartment’s flaws were huge and glaring. The faster she would be out of it, the better.

Just outside the door, Adrien was leaning against the wall on his phone. He looked up at her and smiled when he heard the door close and lock behind her. He fell into step beside her as she marched down the stairs.

“How’s it feel to see it for the last time?” He reached for her hand and wove his fingers between hers. “Nostalgic? Relieved?”

“A little nostalgic, but mostly relieved,” Marinette admitted with a shrug. “I didn’t make a lot of positive memories there, so leaving it behind isn’t that rough. Then again, it is my first place away from home, you know?”

Marinette turned to look at Adrien and saw the understanding in his eyes. Suddenly she wanted to smack herself in the forehead. Of course he knew! He’s been away from home for years now. If anyone could understand, it was him.

But to her surprise, he nodded and said, “Yeah, leaving the bakery was an… interesting time for me too. There is always something sweet about spending the night there.” He pressed a kiss against the crown of her head. “It isn’t the same without you, of course.”

“Something ‘sweet’, huh? Was that a pun, kitty?” She tried to ignore the way her heart fluttered - she couldn’t tell if it was from joy that he called her home his home, or from pain that he never saw his childhood estate as home.

“Maybe it was just a happy coincidence. Some Christmas magic in the air!”

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Speaking of Christmas, are you ready to spend a few days at the bakery?”

“Definitely! It’ll be nice and cozy and full of life.”

“And someone will finally be making food for you rather than you cooking, for once.”

“I do like taking a break every now and then. But I’m more looking forward to you getting a proper, home cooked meal.”

“And here I thought getting a special lunch everyday from my wonderful boyfriend counted as a ‘proper’ home cooked meal.” She looked up at him and smiled, watching with satisfaction as his face flushed. He was such a flirt, but he never was good at taking what he dealt out.

The conversation drifted through Christmas plans and promises to find time for their friends. It touched briefly on the upcoming semester, but they wisely avoided dwelling on it for too long. Marinette had only just finished the fall semester after all. She wanted to revel in her break without a care in the world for just a little longer.

They arrived at their new apartment just as the movers began unloading. An hour later, and the empty space was taken up with boxes of things. Marinette looked around at the boxes, her smile slowly turning into a frown as she noticed a unifying theme with the storage containers.

“Hey, Adrien? Where is all of your stuff?”

“Um…” His eyes roved the room quickly before settling on a few tucked away in the back. He stood beside them and let his hand rest on them. “This is it.”

She glanced between him, the five or so containers all stacked on top of each other, and then at the two dozen or so boxes of hers scattered around the room.

“I… I don’t really have a lot.” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I have some games and a collection of movies, but I gave most of that away back when I moved into the bakery. I don’t have a huge wardrobe anymore either. I guess I just… never really got much for me? Besides some pots and pans, I guess.” He shrugged, an uncertain smile on his face.

Again, Marinette looked at the boxes holding all her things. It wasn’t just the bare essentials, things necessary for her to survive from day to do. They were memories. Hobbies. Studies. The things that turned survival into living. She was suddenly gripped by a piercing sadness in her heart. A little teary eyed she turned back to Adrien, who was looking down at his stack of things with a thoughtful expression, fingers drumming on the plastic lid.

“It’s fine, really. I’ve never actually needed much and it does help cut down on stress while moving, so there is definitely a bright side to-” He was cut off when Marinette ran into him, arms clinging tightly to his waist as she buried her face into his chest. After a few surprised moments, he returned her hug.

“Don’t be afraid to take up space, kitty,” Marinette said into his shirt. “Let yourself live, okay?”

“Thanks, lovebug.”

After a little longer than strictly necessary, Marinette let him go and looked around at the boxes, frowning. “So… where do you want to start?”

Before he could respond, her stomach growled.

Adrien laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Let me just-” Adrien groaned when he opened the refrigerator, only to find it empty. “...How about some grocery shopping?”

-------------

“Are you sure you’ve got all that?” Marinette watched him dubiously as he walked out of the supermarket, each hand holding three or four bags of groceries. “Both of my hands are empty, you know.”

“Oh, right. That’s a good point. Give me a minute.”

Absently, Marinette held out her hand while she opened her phone, expecting him to pass her some of the bags. She blinked in surprise when he started holding her hand instead. Her eyebrows rose when she saw that he’d simply moved all the bags into his other hand.

“Adrien that’s not what I-”

“Come on, let’s go make our first dinner at the new place!” Adrien rushed forward, dragging her along with him as he broke into a light jog towards the bus station.

Marinette couldn’t help but laugh at his ridiculousness. It wasn’t even a full day that they’d been living together and she was already loving every moment of it.

---------------

After a week of unpacking, Marinette and Adrien finally had their apartment set up and functional… only for them to immediately leave to spend a few days at the bakery. Each of them carried a suitcase in one hand and held onto each other with the remaining free hand. They chatted as they walked through the snowy streets of Paris on the way to the family bakery, Marinette cuddling closer as the icy wind picked up.

“Look on the bright side, bugaboo,” Adrien said with a kiss to her temple. “It’ll be nice and warm and perfect when we get back to the apartment. We can just relax for the rest of your vacation.”

“Our vacation,” Marinette corrected. “The bakery isn’t open much around Christmas either, and I’m sure papa and maman won’t be giving you many shifts there while we’re getting settled in. Besides, it's not like being at my parents’ place is stressful or anything.”

“I suppose, but after a semester of running around and working frantically, I’d bet you just want to crash on the couch for a while.”

“You’re not wrong, but…” Marinette said as she squeezed his hand, “...spending time with the people I love is even better.”

She could see his teary smile as they approached the bakery, its lights reflected in his eyes. After walking out in the chilly late December air for the last ten minutes, the gentle warmth of the bakery was simply divine. And that was before taking a deep breath of the sugary air, a scent that immediately took her back to her childhood. It was as if she took the weight of the world off her shoulders and hung them along with her coat by the door.

“Marinette? Adrien? Is that you?” Tom’s voice called out from the living room. Soon enough, his giant self was emerging through the door frame, his face lighting up when he saw them. “Sabine, it’s the kids!”

Marinette had a brief glimpse of a garish red and green sweater before becoming lost in it as she was picked up off the ground and wrapped into a great big bear hug. Laughing, she squirmed in his arms.

“Papa! Let me down!”

Begrudgingly, he did so and looked at Adrien, giving him a strong pat on the back that jolted him forward. “Did you remember to dress for the occasion, son?”

“Did you think I would forget?” Adrien said with a smirk, taking off his coat to reveal a thick red and black wool sweater that Marinette had made for him a couple years back.

Tom glanced toward Marinette, who was wearing a matching green and black sweater. To everyone else, it would simply be a pair of Christmas clothes, but Marinette had known even back then how much Adrien loved wearing her colors. And if he was going to be wearing hers, then naturally she’d be wearing his.

“That’s wonderful!” Tom said, grinning. “I didn’t expect any less. Now come on, we were just about ready to make this year’s Christmas ornaments.”

They followed him into the living room, where Sabine was sitting with some tea in front of her. After giving both of them a tamer but no less loving hug, she passed them a cup of her seasonal brew. Marinette looked at the table, taking in the box of crayons, the blank glass bulbs, tweezers, and the two hair dryers. Not to mention a few more conventional art supplies, like brushes and paint. Her chin settled on her hand as she stared fondly at the supplies, a tradition that they’d been keeping alive for almost as long as she could remember.

A tradition that had evolved into something of a lighthearted competition once Adrien had entered the picture and they could split into even teams.

Her parents let them get comfortable in their seats and familiar with where everything was placed before Tom pulled out his phone.

“Same as usual, kids. One hour to make the most and the best ornaments, with the same grading standards from last year.” He waggled a finger at Adrien chastisingly. “Which means nothing that can start a fire hazard, alright?”

Adrien ducked his head bashfully and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Alright.” Tom held up the phone’s stopwatch, his finger hovering over the enlarged start button. “Ready… set… Go!”

The four of them exploded into a flurry of motions, scrambling for crayons and bits of ribbon. Marinette became focused on what she and Adrien were doing, blocking out her parents entirely. The first ornament was very basic - the only crayons were some green and red and a bit of white. Enough to hand over to Adrien so he could start heating it up with the hair dryer, the longest part.

After she had several ornaments prepped with crayon color pallets, she began working on cutting tasteful amounts of ribbons to top the orbs with. Her hands moved almost by instinct, the long semester having seen more than its fair share of fabric cutting and measurements by eye. By the time she was done with that, Adrien had finished melting the wax of two of the ornaments and was methodically working on the third. The ribbons were quickly tied into a neat bow and she began delicately painting wintery scenes on the outside - white snowflakes featuring heavily alongside flowing script.

Once they got into a groove, they worked like the well oiled machine that they always were. By the time the hour was up, there were eleven finished ornaments in front of them. A quiet sense of pride filled her as she looked them over. Now that she wasn’t timed, she could enjoy how good they turned out. Maybe one of these years she could add them to her online store as a seasonal special?

She looked over at her parents’ side and noticed that they had managed to squeeze in an extra one somehow. After some playfully heated debate, they decide that everyone had won, though it had been especially close this year.

The Christmas tree was adorned with the newest ornaments, but Marinette didn’t manage to hang more than one before she got caught up looking at ones from previous years. Most of them would be given away to friends and family, but the best they kept. Whether it was because they were the highest quality or the ones that were the heaviest with memories, it didn’t matter.

Her fingers traced over a particularly old one, and a small smile warmed her face at the memories it stirred.

“Adrien’s first Christmas here, right?”

Marinette jolted a little at her mother’s voice appearing right beside her. The expression on her face must have been similar to Marinette’s own, eyes distant as if seeing back into that night, years and years ago, when the two of them had just started dating.

“Yeah… he made this one himself,” Marinette replied, turning back to the hung decoration.

It was pretty clear it had been his first attempt at anything like that before. The white and pink of the wax didn’t cover the inside completely and patches of bare glass were frequent. A stick figure with pigtails holding hands with a plain stick figure Adrien had promised was the two of them standing under a green splodge that she was assured was mistletoe. It wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d made - as the years wore on and he spent more Christmases at her home, he’d certainly gotten better - but it was always stayed her favorite.

Adrien groaned when he saw what they were looking at, his cheeks flushing as red as his sweater. “Do we really need to stare at that one every year? It looks awful!”

“It’s cute!” Marinette patted his back. “Little baby Adrien made that one just for me.”

Adrien grumbled and looked away, his blush spreading down to his neck. Mercifully, she let go of the ornament and walked away.

The rest of the night was just as eventful. They baked cookies and sang while they did it, ranging from peaceful lullabies to loud and off-key pop songs. Marinette didn’t realize just how much she had missed the home cooked pastries until she bit into one for the first time in months.

She has halfway through a plate when there was a loud noise from the kitchen. Her papa came out, his apron soaked, but still in good spirits.

“Something happen in there?” Marinette said, raising an eyebrow as she lifted another cookie to her mouth. She had to remember to leave some for Tikki or else she wouldn’t speak to her for a month.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” Tom replied. “The kitchen sink just needs some attention is all. Adrien, can you get the toolbelt? I think it’s time for us to earn our keep, hm?” He smiled and winked.

While Adrien left her side, she settled into the empty space he left and closed her eyes. She was glad she had a home to come back to - and she was happy that she could share hers with Adrien. A satisfied smile came to her face as she thought about their living space now, and how much better it would be now that they were living together again.

The snow started coming down hard outside, but wrapped up in a warmth that went beyond the physical, Marinette didn’t mind a bit.