#the Museum part is important too though because History

[ryanlewisandclark]

Friends and foes, this feels like the moment to reference the cultural force that was Bob Ross.

“Anyone can paint!”

The power and effectiveness of The Joy of Painting as a series, and its success as a style of education, is rooted at its core to this three word maxim.

Anyone can paint!

The whole point of a Bob Ross, wet-on-wet style oil painting, is that countless people were encouraged to literally do it in their homes, taught how, taught theory and technique in casual language very quickly, and for those paintings to be of equal quality to the one produced on screen during the episode in real time (assuming you watched last episode and have your canvas ready).

Are Bob Ross’ paintings somehow less pleasing to observe, less interesting to consider, less meaningful creations not worthy of esteem or appreciation, less descriptive of their subject matter, less capable of inciting the titular joy of painting, simply because they are produced quickly through an intentionally accessible-ized method designed to produce countless remixes of identical quality?

I think the only way to answer yes is if art is exclusively a commodity and its only value is market value. As I reject that conclusion, I reject that response.

In point if fact, as you, dear internet denizen, may have already surmised from the tone of this post and it’s precedents, it is my firm belief that precisely the opposite is true.

Conflating Value with Ease of Production/Access sounds like an extractive trap to me.

Things are not only worth what they sell for.

The most horrifying aspect of parents saying "my kid could do that" about art is that they never ever ever mean "wow my kid is good enough to be in a museum" and they always always always mean "I want to disrespect you so much I'll do it by implying that this thing is just as worthless as the things my child makes with their hands" and right in front of them too. Your kids can hear you u know, and the things they make with their hands are the least worthless and most precious aspects of human life I'll kill u

[niteshade925]

April 14, Xi'an, China, Shaanxi History Museum, Qin and Han Dynasties Branch (Part 2 - Daily Life, Societal Structure, and Culture):

This is one of the undisputed stars of the museum, the “Strange Golden Creature” (no joke, that's literally what's on the plaque), unearthed in Shaanxi Province in 1957. The reason for this name is probably because archaeologists haven't figured out what mythical creature this is supposed to be. It does seem to be from the ancient Xiongnu culture and appears to be a "chimera" of sorts, in the sense that it combines the general body of a deer, multiple birds (17 total; most are part of the antlers), and the branches of a tree. This artifact is one of my favorites, and showcases the advanced gold-working techniques of the ancient Xiongnu people. I can already imagine this mythical creature in a painting (although I suck at painting lol).

A yubi/玉璧, or jade disk, decorated with gu pattern/谷纹 (谷 means "grains"), this is because these patterns resemble sprouting rice kernels.

Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) era jade cicada amulets (玉蝉). Cicadas symbolize "rebirth" into a new form (specifically becoming a xian/仙 immortal) in Chinese mythology, since they burrow beneath the ground as nymphs and re-emerge before moulting into their adult forms. There's a sentence in the biography of Qu Yuan/屈原 (the guy whose death was said to be the reason why Duanwu Festival/端午节 and zongzi/粽子 exist) from Records of the Grand Historian/《史记》 that gives an idea on what cicadas represent:

"Standing in muck yet can cleanse himself (referring to Qu Yuan) of it, like a cicada emerging from muddy filth, able to fly above and remain unsullied by worldly dust, persisting in its innocence despite it all." (濯淖汙泥之中，蟬蛻於濁穢，以浮游塵埃之外，不獲世之滋垢，皭然泥而不滓者也。)

There are two types of cicada amulets, the ones with holes are meant to be worn as jewelry, and ones without holes are meant to be placed in the mouth of the deceased before burial, so that the deceased can become a xian immortal after death.

Left: jade decor piece, not sure what it was a part of. Right: the decorated jade pommel of a sword.

A Han-era painted clay statue of a sitting woman. As mentioned in an earlier post, this sitting position is called jizuo/跽坐. Sitting like this on cushions or on specialized T-shaped stools called zhizhong/支踵 (designed in such a way that one is basically sitting on the stool and not on one's legs) was the proper formal sitting posture, until chairs were popularized post-Tang dynasty (618 - 907 AD). Before then people used beds as chairs.

Han-era painted pottery figurines of entertainers

An arrangement of pottery models and figurines that shows life in the courtyard of a residence in Han dynasty:

Pottery figurine of a chef/butcher (this type of figurines is called paochuyong/庖厨俑). I think that thing on the table is a......fish?

Left: pottery model of a stove. Right: pottery model of a mill

Painted pottery models of areas on farms and painted pottery figurines of domestic animals. Don't know what those long-necked animals in the pen are supposed to be though......

A life size gilded bronze silkworm. It goes without saying that silkworms were an important part of life in ancient China:

Left: Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) silver sitting deer. Right: a small figurine of a waterfowl eating fish

Diagram of the cattle-drawn ploughs used during Qin and Han dynasties. The 4 line drawings of different ploughs are taken from unearthed stone reliefs depicting daily life:

Eastern Han era (25 - 220 AD) "country estate" (田庄; not sure if "country estate" is the correct translation, but in any case many Chinese terms do not have exact equivalents in English, so even if this is "correct", it's probably the "close enough" translation) structure. This base-level societal structure remains without too much variation throughout the dynasties, and is the reason why people have defined imperial China's social structure as "feudal"--again, not the exact same as feudalism in Europe, since on a general overall political level imperial China (Qin dynasty to Qing dynasty) governs by centralization of power (中���集权制 in Chinese), but imperial China is "feudal" in many ways at the base levels of society, especially in terms of farmers and their relationship with land (their means of production; farmers may not always own their own land and may be forced to work for landlords). Side note: this is why people have proposed the statement "皇权不下县" ("the emperor's powers cannot reach below county level"), why farmers were the main force in many rebellions, and why tax reforms throughout Chinese history also had to do with land ownership (ex: Song dynasty Wang Anshi's Equal Tax Law/方田均税法 and Ming dynasty Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Reform/一条鞭法; I will be touching on the latter in my future posts on the show Under the Microscope).

Peacock lamp, from the tomb of the famous Eastern Han dynasty official Yang Zhen/杨震:

Map showing the spread of Buddhism and Christianity to different parts of the world by 600 AD:

And lastly, this small part of a wall relief does a great job capturing my mental state after pulling an all-nighter:

[tgmsunmontue]

To wake, perchance to dream WIP 3/?

Hangster - Jake wakes up ~13 years in the future and thinks he has amnesia. Instead it's a glimpse of what his life could be. When he wakes up right before being called back to Top Gun for the special detachment he's going to try his damndest to make that future come true...

CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

                He’s never seen the wheels of the Navy work so fast, which makes him equal parts excited and apprehensive about what he’s going into. It’s obviously big, and difficult. And incredibly time sensitive. Also it’s a fucking ego boost to know that he’s been picked to assist in whatever is happening. He wracking his brain and trying to remember if there was anything that had maybe been mentioned or left as a clue by his other self… There’s nothing that jumps out though so he’s going in blind and just has to hope that being himself and repeating Bradley’s words, about being patient with him, are going to be enough.

                When he sees Javy, younger, much less grey, he just grins and holds him tight. If he’s here then everything feels like it’ll be alright. He’s been a part of Jake’s life forever and there for every major milestone. If he’s here then he knows he can deal with anything and everything thrown his way. They enter the Hard Deck and Jake grabs them a couple of beers, jerks his head towards the dart board.

                “Come on, I need to beat you at darts.”

                “Twenty bucks you can’t get three in a row.”

                He lands the three darts effortlessly, and god it feels good to not have a single care in the world right now, even if he’s wondering where Bradley might be. How he can maybe get his number and start up… something. Anything. Javy insists they move to pool, which is fine, he has even less of a chance of beating Jake at pool but he’ll let him keep dreaming. The bell rings indicating there’s a round on some poor sucker who has either insulted the Navy or a lady, or a complete greenhorn who has placed their phone on the bar. He sinks two balls simultaneously, impressing even himself and Javy makes an annoyed exclamation and he grins, looks up and…

                “What do we have here? If it ain’t Phoenix! And here I thought we were special, Coyote. Turns out the invite went to anyone,” Jake teases, because the woman in front of him is going to become one of his best friends and she needs to know he’s not going to stop being his normal slightly irritating self. And she’s going to make Javy so happy, and he already loves her for that.

                “Fellas, this here’s Bagman.”

                “Hangman,” Jake corrects. Damn. He’d forgotten she could give as good as she could take but that Bagman feels like an insult now but it was a teasing endearment what only feels like a few days ago.

                “Whatever. You’re looking at the only naval aviator on active duty with a confirmed air-to-air kill.”

                “Stop,” Jake says, pretending to be flustered, because that’s better than spiraling again, thinking too much about actually killing someone.

                “Mind you, the other guy was in a museum piece from the Korean war.”

                “Cold war.”

                “Different wars, same century.”

                “Not this one.”

                “Who are your friends?”

                “Payback.”

                “Fanboy.”

                Jake feels a swoop of recognition because those callsigns were in his phone, these people are going to become important enough to him for him to have them in his phone in the future. And they’ll have the same callsigns.

                “Hey Coyote.”

                “Hey.”

                Jake’s eyebrows shoot up, because that tone of voice tells him a story he hasn’t heard before. These two have a history, and it’s one that isn’t that far in the past and he shoots Javy a look, because he is dragging that story out of him kicking and screaming.

                “Who’s he?” Phoenix asks, and his attention is drawn away from his best friend and there’s another aviator sitting to the side eating peanuts and Jake blinks, doesn’t recognize him at all.

                “Who’s who?” Javy asks, Jake can tell he’s a little peeved Phoenix is no longer paying him attention, but Jake can direct this.

                “When did you get in?”

                “Oh, I’ve been here the whole time.”

                “The man’s a stealth pilot.”

                “Literally.”

                “Weapons systems officer, actually.”

                “With no sense of humor,” Jake adds, rolling his eyes.

                He leaves Phoenix setting up the table with Bob, indicates he’s going to leave them to their small talk and collect the free drinks and… Penny. He had dinner with her, and she’s Amelia’s mom, and he’s not met Amelia yet, but that witty, intelligent woman he knows he considers family, who he knows put herself in his phone as Best Person Ever…

                “Penny, my dear.”

                “Yeah.”

                “I’ll have four more on the old-timer,” Jake says, and as he studies the other guy more closely he would swear it’s Maverick. Bradley’s father-figure who he feels like he just had Sunday dinner with, along with Penny. Except this guy looks considerably younger, which he guesses makes sense and then he does a double take and looks at Penny. She’s looking at the guy, the maybe-Maverick like she’s not sure what to do about him and…

                Holy shit.

                If it is Maverick they aren’t together. Yet.

                He hears Phoenix yell out Bradshaw and he can’t stop his head whipping around to look. There’s Bradley, looking younger and just as gorgeous, wearing one of his shirts and his hair just short enough to be regulation still, watches with amusement as Phoenix proceeds to use the pool cue to hit Bradley in the balls, and he’s glad he’s not the only one she’s acerbic with. Well, she’s not with Coyote and that’s interesting. He glances at the guy he thinks is Maverick from the corner of his eye, he’s not making any move to go and talk to Bradley, so maybe it’s just another guy who looks a lot like him.

                “Here you go.”

                “Thank you. Much appreciated, pops,” Jake says, because it pays to be polite and he’s not totally convinced, can’t quite read the name, but can see the wings. He heads back to the others, stopping by the jukebox on the way, finds a song that he likes and then passes the beers around before steeling himself to see his… husband?

                “Bradshaw. As I live and breathe.”

                “Hangman. You look… good.”

                Amusement and arousal swoops through him, the beginning of this playful back-and-forth seeming familiar from his weird dream, and he grins.

                “Well, I am good, Rooster. I’m very good. In fact, I am too good to be true.”

                Part of him is thrilling inside, because this exchange feels familiar, like it’s right and the beginning of something, except instead of getting a grin Bradley is rolling his eyes and Jake’s gut clenches. Of course it’s not going to be that easy and his good mood immediately dissolves.

                “So…” Javy says, and Jake can almost hear the eye roll. “Anybody know what this special detachment is all about?”

                “No, mission’s a mission. They don’t confront me. What I want to know: Who’s gonna be team leader? And which one of y’all has what it takes to follow me?”

                “Hangman, the only place you’ll lead anyone is an early grave.”

                What the fuck? Jake stands up from where he’d been about to take a shot, anger flashing through him and

                “Ooooh.”

                “Well, anyone who follows you is just gonna run out of fuel. But that’s just you, ain’t it, Rooster? You’re snug on that perch, waiting for just the right moment… That never comes.”

                The moment between them stretches and the entire exchange leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, eyes stinging a little. He can’t believe he just said all that, just slipped back so easily into stripping pieces off the people around him. Of course, he’s not alone. He’d also forgotten what an asshole Bradshaw was.

                Being patient is going to be harder than he thought.

                He can’t tell Bradley he loves him, but god he wants to.

                “I love this song!” Jake says instead, stepping back and away and putting some much needed distance between them, well aware of the others all feeling the tension in the air which he just created.

                “Check it out,” Fanboy says, head jerking in the direction of the door and Jake watches as more naval aviators walk in.

                “More patches.”

                “That’s Harvard, Yale, Omaha. Shit, that’s Fritz.”

                “What the hell kind of mission is this?”

                “That’s not the question we should be asking,” Phoenix says, and her voice is tight. “Everyone here is the best there is. Who the hell are they gonna get to teach us?”

                His song stops mid-lyric and he glances up from his game, see Bradley heading towards the piano and then he looks across the bar at the person he thinks is maybe Maverick Mitchell, but Penny is calling him over and giving him and Javy the signal to throw him out, surely Penny wouldn’t throw her future husband out of her own bar?

                “Great to see you, Pete! Overboard!”

                Fuck. Definitely Pete Mitchell then.

                “Overboard! Overboard!”

                “Overboard! Overboard!”

                He’s committed to the act now, but his heart is pounding. This is definitely Bradley’s father figure. Not that they’ve even looked at each other in the Hard Deck just now. Penny had though, looked between them, and he has no idea what’s gone down between them all, but he’s wishing he asked more questions.

                “Thanks for the beers! Come back anytime!”

                Fuck.

                He just threw Pete Mitchell into the sand outside the Hard Deck.

…            …            …

                “Would you calm the fuck down?”

                “No. We just threw Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell out of the Hard Deck!”

                “Bullshit.”

                “Did you not see his patch? We are going to regret that.”

                “Yeah, sure. Okay. When it comes time to regret it you can tell me you told me so and rub my nose in it okay? But you still need to calm down.”

                Jake sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, because it’s not like he can actually un-do throwing Maverick out of the Hard Deck. The person he’s pretty sure is somehow going to be very important to his future.

…            …            …

                The next morning Jake is nervous, chews through three toothpicks before he’s even left base housing, Javy sick of his leg jiggling so much he refuses to sit next to him when they get to the weirdly laid out desks and chairs.

                “Attention on deck!”

                As Admiral Bates talks Jake chances a quick look back, grinning to himself as Phoenix takes the opportunity to flip him a subtle finger.

                “Half of you will make the cut. One of you will be named mission leader. The other half will remain in reserve.”

                He looks to Bradley and his gaze is met evenly and Jake so badly wants to just go over and kiss him or hold his hand or… anything other than sit here feeling the animosity coming off him in waves.

                “Your instructor is a Top Gun graduate with real-world experience in every mission aspect you will be expected to master. His exploits are legendary. He’s considered to be one of the finest pilots this program has ever produced. What he has to teach you may very well mean the difference between life and death. I give you Captain Pete Mitchell. Call sign: Maverick.”

                He turns back around quickly to Javy, mouths I told you so and then turns back to the front of the class.

…            …            …

                The way that Maverick talks makes him feel like his blood has bubbles in it. He’s never felt more alive than pushing his limits and he feels like even with their less than auspicious beginning he’s going to learn a lot. There’s no book learning involved, not for this mission, it’s all about flying a simulated course and dog fighting and learning to be one team. Well. He’s got all of that down, even if he’s not so great at showing the last one in practice.

                He can’t tell what Bradley and Maverick are saying to each other, but he can read enough of their body language to know that none of it is good. He doesn’t know what their history is, wishes he’d thought to ask, not that he thought he’d need to know it. Maybe he doesn’t need to know what it is, can just be there and… help? Fucked if he knows.

                He needs to be patient.

                That’s what Bradley had said to him, but Jake is feeling like he needs more information. Patient with time? Or patient with Bradley? Well, obviously with Bradley because he’s currently auditioning for world’s biggest asshole, but Jake needs to know if he can just… say something. Or maybe doing something is better. He’s always been a man of action.

                Then he’s listening to Maverick over the radio and he knows Maverick is good, but Jesus the man is cocky with it. He makes a comment about giving him an ego check and he hears someone mutter well you’d know and he ignores them. Then he’s up in the air and he abandons Phoenix and Bob only to get shot down himself and he hates losing like that, hates that it hadn’t panned out how he’d hoped and thought it would. The only albeit solace he can take from the exercise so far is that he’d heard Maverick say he was good. He’ll take it.

                He’s back up in the air, this time with Bradley and he looks across at him, knows everyone can hear them on the radio, but he needs to know and everyone thinks he’s an asshole anyway, so he can’t dig himself any deeper.

                “So, Rooster, mind if I ask you a personal question?”

                “Would it matter if I did?”

                “What’s the story with you and Maverick?” Jake asks, glad to finally get the words out, even though he expects he won’t get any type of useful answer right now. “It seems like he’s got you rattled.”

                “That’s none of your business. Now where the hell is he?”

                “Been here the whole time.”

                “Holy shit,” Jake says, watching as Maverick manoeuvres his plane smoothly around Bradley’s, like he’s mocking him and god he wants to fly like that.

                Then, as he watches someone he would normally consider calm and level headed turn completely feral he really needs to figure out what the fuck is going on. Their planes are spiralling together downwards and he’s heart is in his throat, cannot believe that either of them are being so damn stupid, doesn’t know if he’s even breathing as he watches, has a front row seat to what he is terrified might be carnage. Then Bradley is pulling up and away, playing it safe and the relief he feels is palpable. They’re both still alive. Then Maverick theoretically kills him and Bradley has to do another two hundred push ups and Jake doesn’t know what the fuck he should do.

                He can’t figure out what it could be, because the Bradley and Maverick he knows clearly loved each other, and these two can barely say hello without wanting to seemingly throw a punch. Hell. He thought Rooster had a problem with him, but it’s got nothing on whatever his issues with Maverick are. Be patient with me. God he wishes he’d asked more questions, knew more what to expect right now rather than just know he somehow gets a fairytale ending.

                If he in fact does get that ending and it wasn’t just some weird fever dream that somehow happened without the fever. Crazier things have happened. Probably.

…            …            …

                “Jake man, you can’t drink like this. Not with the mission as delicate as it is.”

                “I had one drink. One drink I really really needed.” You ever think about alternate timelines?”

                “No. What’s got you asking me that?”

                “Just… I had a weird dream.”

                “Dream?”

                “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t even know if I want it to be a dream or not anymore.”

                “Uh… you sure you’ve only just had the one drink?”    

…            …            …

                He sees the photo, Maverick alongside a man who looks like the spitting image of Bradley. Same last name. Holy shit. It has to be his father. Some things start to fall into place and it gives him a starting point and he does a little digging. Rooster’s dad died and he was in a plane piloted by Maverick. Fuck. Okay. That explains the anger and animosity. Except… how do they become friends or the family that he remembers them as? God he’s confused.

                He listens as Maverick talks them through the mission parameters, then they fly the simulated valley. He needs to be the fastest, the best, needs to go on this mission because Bradley is distracted and upset and in no fit state to give all his focus on completing the task ahead and surviving it. When Maverick drives it home that their choices and actions will kill their team members he doesn’t think much before he speaks and well… he knows he’s fucking it up as he talks, but if Bradley lives then he’ll live with his decisions to apparently blow up his entire fairytale ending.

                He doesn’t expect Bradley to come at him, feels his own fear and anger bubbling too close to the surface and he doesn’t know how to make it right.

                God he wants to make it right.

…            …            …

                He didn’t think his life could somehow take such a sharp nosedive in such a short period of time but apparently, he has angered several deities. He almost vomits when Javy goes into g-LOC, the only reason he doesn’t is because it’s all over too quickly, Maverick once again somehow pulling off the near-impossible and returning his best friend to him. He’ll need to find him and thank him, because there are currently very few people in his life who he feels know him, and Javy is pretty much it. Then the bird strike happens, he doesn’t say anything, just reaches over and grasps Bradley’s shoulder with his hand and tries not to feel the sting of rejection when it’s shrugged off.

…            …            …

                He’s left Javy at the hospital. Not because Javy needs the hospital, but he’s staying with Phoenix, his fingers laced with her while she’d laid in the bed looking at Javy with fucking cartoon heart eyes. He and Bob had exchanged commiserating looks, clearly feeling like the third and fourth wheels respectively. At least he could escape, seeking out Maverick to thank him for helping Javy. That’s why he overhears what Bradley says to Maverick. Fucking hell. He knew Bradshaw had issues, but the way he’s lashing out makes Jake wince. It makes what Bradshaw said to him at the Hard Deck seem like mild-teasing in comparison.

                This is meant to cut deep.

                Then there’s yelling and okay, maybe now is not a good time to thank Maverick for his actions, or to even try and talk with Bradley. At least he now knows why Bradley is so upset with Maverick, he suspects everyone in the building probably now knows. This seems all sorts of fucked up, and he thought his own family were bad. Then Warlock is standing behind him and he startles.

                “Lieutenant.”

                “Admiral Bates sir. I was just, uh, waiting for Bradshaw sir.”

                An eyebrow goes up and Jake shrugs helplessly, then Warlock is interrupting them and Jake can’t really parse what is happening, watches as Maverick suddenly seems to deflate, Bradley looks devastated and Jake missed what it was Warlock said exactly, too busy watching and trying to figure out if they were about to start swinging. Maverick leaves with Warlock, and he doesn’t understand why he’d leave Bradley behind, looking like his world has just fallen apart.

                “How much did you hear?” Bradley asks, his voice tight and clipped.

                “Uh… all of it? I think?”

                “Fuck.”

                “Yeah. Sorry. You need therapy man…”

                “Yeah. Probably,” Rooster says, the words coming out on a long exhale and Jake’s eyebrows shoot up at the easy acceptance, because he’d expected a punch, some verbal sparring at the very least, not this easy self-depreciating acceptance. Upon closer inspection it looks like Bradley is close to tears and god he feels like an asshole all over again.

                “I’m sorry by the way, for being an ass and bringing up your dad.”

                “Well, at least we can both agree on you being an ass.”

                “Well. I think you like my ass.”

                It slips out, the little flirty comment, and he has no excuse for it, not really. Fully expects Bradley to get angry again, to stand up and walk out, push past him and pretend he doesn’t exist all over again. Instead he hears a soft huff of amusement and when he chances a look, Bradley makes a face like he’s conceding that Jake may have a point.

                Holy shit.

                They sort of stand there just staring at each other and Jake’s starting to get turned on, the memory of Bradley looking at him like this, before taking him apart. Bradley doesn’t have those memories or visions or fantasies though, well, Jake doesn’t know what Bradley might fantasize about but he lives in ever increasing hope; the hope increasing by the second as the moment between them continues to stretch.

                “Do you ever feel like you can never live up to something, because it’s impossible. That you’re chasing a ghost?”

                “What?” Jake blinks, the sudden and abrupt change somewhat of a shock; he repeats Bradley’s words in his head. Okay. “Man, I had so many expectations on me. I ran in the opposite direction and took to the skies. No one was tying me to the ground…”

                “Yeah. No one tied me down either…”

                “Rooster...” Jake starts, because it’s obvious Bradley’s getting lost in his own mind. “Bradshaw...” Still no response. “Bradley...”

                That gets him eyes locked on him again and it’s still fucking intense and sad and he doesn’t know what’s got Bradley twisting up in on himself, but he can make a stab in the dark at least.

                “You almost lost Phoenix today. You're allowed to feel a little rattled.”

                Bradley pulls a face then, like he’s struggling with Jake being nice. And sure, Jake doesn’t usually leave his defenses down and wide-open like this, but he feels, no, knows, it could be worth it.

                “I'm sorry about making a joke about you leading people to an early grave...”

                Jake grimaces, because the comment had smarted. Not untrue given his younger and dumber days, but definitely untrue now. He’s also pretty sure Bradley owes Maverick an apology too, but he for sure as hell isn’t going to push that any time soon.

                “The world is not against you. I am not against you…” he adds quietly, because it’s true. Bradley is definitely studying him much more closely now, like he’s trying to figure out the angle Jake’s taking to cut him down and he can’t take back every bad word he’s said, but he can try not to say any more going forward. Patience. Right. Cause that’s always been one of his attributes people have listed when describing him. Fuck.

                “Yeah. I know it’s not. Just. Some days it’s really hard to believe that that’s not the case.”

                “You want to get out of here? Get some food?”

                Bradley blinks at him, but then nods once and then they’re walking toward the parking lot; Jake heeding toward the loaners but then Bradley is jerking his head toward his Bronco and Jake just goes with it. Doesn’t have any reason not to. The get food via drive-thru, Bradley relaying his order and then about fifteen minutes later Bradshaw’s pulling up in front of a little bungalow that seems trapped in time. He’s about to make a quip but snaps his mouth shut as he takes in the tight clench of Bradley’s jaw. Oh shit. This might be his parents’ place. That is… maybe not the healthiest thing to have held on for years but he’s not going to say anything, not when the civil moments between them are being counted in minutes rather than hours or days.

                He follows quietly and when he steps inside he can see why they got take-out, the kitchen is a demolition site, although a coffee maker and microwave have been set up on the small table in the dining room. Then he’s in the living room and there are photos of a much younger Bradley, Nick Bradshaw and someone who can only be Bradley’s mom. Bradley doesn’t seem older than thirteen or fourteen in any of the photos but there are also gaps on the shelves where he suspects there used to be photos. So definitely his parents’ place, but the fact he seems to be remodeling the kitchen make Jake feel slightly better about where Bradley’s headspace might be.

                Bradley gestures to the sofa and Jake grabs his takeout bag and lowers himself, knowing fully the only reason they’ve not argued with each other for the last forty-five minutes is because they haven’t said anything to each other. They eat in silence and he wonders why Bradley seems okay with him there, because it’s not like a simple apology has got him this far before. He pauses. Tries to remember if he’s actually ever apologized to Bradshaw before and oh… yeah. Fuck. That might do it.

                “So, uh, you want to share your world is against you story?”

                Bradley looks at him, lips twisted in distaste but Jake is pretty sure it��s about the potential topic of conversation rather than the fact that Jake just raised the potential of baring his soul to him. He’ll go first then.

                “You figured out my dad died. Well, then my mom died when I was twelve.”

                He’s figured as much, just from looking around at the photos.

                “I’m sorry.”

                “Yeah well. It is what it is right? Maverick is, was, my legal guardian. My godfather.”

                “Okay.” He hadn’t expected that.

                “And you heard me yelling at him before. He pulled my papers to USNA. I was legacy. My dad went.”

                Jake bites his lip, doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t want Bradley to stop talking.

                “Phoenix is my family,” Bradley offers, voice quiet, and the bird strike today hits different hearing that. Squadrons are close, like family, but aren’t family. If Bradley is saying she’s family, then she means more to him, like she’s a sister. “You’re right. Today rattled me. Then I found out that someone died, so feeling a little, uh, raw.”

                “Someone close?”

                The look Bradley gives him is inscrutable and Jake wonders when exactly he heard the news given that todays just seemed like one thing after another and he’s either been within spitting distance or on the radios. Bradley is taking his trash, scrunching it up and heading toward the kitchen. Jake would think he was being ignored or dismissed if it weren’t for the head jerk he gets, an indication he wants Jake to follow him.

                “Well, yeah. We were close I guess. I lived with him and his family when Mav was deployed. But he didn’t stop Mav from pulling my papers so I stopped talking to him too.”

                “Right. So. Regrets huh? Unfinished business?”

                “Yeah. Yeah you could say that,” Bradley says, and obviously unfinished business with a dead person is never going to get finished. But there’s still Maverick. If he’s made that connection, then Bradley sure as hell has. He doesn’t look happy about it though and he knows what he wants to do.

                “Come here man, you look like you need a hug.”

                The look Bradley gives him is incredulous, like he expects Jake to start laughing, but he reaches out with both arms and gestures with his hands for Bradley to step into the embrace. Just like that Bradley crumples, making himself small like the trash he just balled up and Jake wraps himself around him. For all he’s picking at Bradley issues right now, he's also feeling a little raw, hearing Coyote be in g-LOC was terrible, and the idea of holding someone tight, even if it isn’t his best friend, soothes something inside him.

                He doesn’t quite bully Bradley into bed, but he doesn’t give him very much choice. It also means Bradley doesn’t need to ask for what he might want or need right now, and Jake is pretty confident that what that is, is to not be alone. He can help with that. He borrows clothes and gets changed, insists on Bradley changing. Ignores the little sniping comments about he usually wears less clothes when he’s taking a guy to bed and Jake just smirks, tells him there’s always next time. As Bradley falls asleep in his arms he hopes like hell there is a next time, the feeling of sharing his space coming back to him as easy and automatically as breathing.

…            …            …

                The next morning, Bradley looks embarrassed. Jake tries to joke and shrug it off, make light of it despite the fact that his entire body and mind are finally felling like they’ve caught up and are synchronized together again. Bradley isn't letting him joke about it though, is looking at him with the same intense gaze he remembers from his weird dream.

                “Rooster? You okay?”

                “I like it when you call me Bradley...

                Then he's being crowded against the dining table, not in any way where he couldn't just step away, but he stays where he is, heart rabbiting away in his chest as Bradley closes the space between them, one hand reaching up to cup Jake's face.

                “Thank you for last night.”

                “I... Anytime. Think we both needed to... Not be alone.”

                The slow smile Bradley gives him is cut off when he moves even closer, too close for Jake to see his lips or face because he's being kissed, super softly and his lips tingle and itch as the pressure is removed and a simple press of lips shouldn't uproot his life like this, but he's wondering now, what he might need to do to get more kisses, to somehow make his dream a reality.

CHAPTER FOUR

[dresshistorynerd]

kinda random question but how do you go about researching? I’ve wanted to get deeper into fashion history than just watching youtube videos, but I don’t really know where to start.

ps. thanks for making such detailed posts. they’re really interesting to read.

Thank you! I'm really glad you've found my posts interesting!

This is great since I've kinda answered this in replies couple of times, but not properly. I very much understand the struggle. Dress history is a relatively new academic field and there's not that much reliable sources available and so so much unreliable sources everywhere. Internet of course has this problem but so does a lot of books too.

I thought this would be a short one and yet, here we are again.

Disclaimer: I'm writing this from a western fashion history perspective, since that's what I know best, but especially reading up on academic research and doing primary source research applies to non-western cultures too, though often it's harder to find sources for non-western fashion.

Getting started

Imo the best place to getting started is to read a book that gives a general timeline of fashion through history. I'm not sure if that's just how my brain works, but it helped me a lot of when going deeper into one period or another to understand the broader context and what roughly came before and what after. However these books are inherently difficult to make well, because there's so much nuance and variation in every period of dress history and if you're writing about the whole timeline through thousands of years and keeping it book length, there will need to be a lot of simplification to the point of inaccuracy. There's many popular fashion history timeline books with illustrations made for the book, but I would avoid those since non-contemporary illustrations often give a distorted image of the fashion, especially when it's about earlier periods in history. I've seen some really inaccurate illustrations depicting Middle Ages and Renaissance especially.

Costume and fashion: a concise history by James Laver - I'd recommend this as the starting point. James Laver was a art historian, an important pioneer of fashion history and curator of Victoria and Albert Museum, which has one of the most extensive costume collections now. The book is therefore based on serious academic study, but being a pioneer means you'll be outdated, when the field is more established, which is partly the case with this book. There's some outdated parts, but the images are primary sources and it does give good historical background. It should be taken as a starting point, not as the end point.

A History of Fashion by J. Anderson Black and Madge Garland - This is another similar book. It's more recent, but it also suffers from some outdated parts. The writers are not academics, but it has more primary source pictures which does help (at least me) understand visually what's being said.

Books

In a given subject I'm researching I usually start with seeing if I can find a reliable book on it or related to it, if I haven't already read much on it. Often what I want to research goes deeper into details than what a book usually does, so it will work as a starting point. As said it can be hard to find these books that are actually reliable, but here's couple of reading lists to help with it.

Here's a reading list by a retired professor of dress history from Helsinki University. It's very extensive and has a wide variety of books and papers listed. There's a bit of leaning towards Finnish sources, but most are in English and about more international western fashion.

Here's a reading list by @clove-pinks, who is excellent and writes a lot about the Romantic period, especially men's fashion here on Tumblr. These are all books that can be read free on Internet Archive, which makes the list even better.

Internet sources

There's a lot of bad sources floating around in the internet, but also some excellent gems. As dress history is such a new field, there's a lot of unexplored spots and lacking research still, but some troopers in the internet have done some great legwork in going through primary sources and gathering them together. These can be excellent especially when trying to research a specific garment, since often these blog posts are by historical costumers, who are detailing their background research in reconstructing a specific garment. It's not always easy to find them, since they might not come up in the first page of the google search, but I often find them through pinterest, where the blogs are linked into the primary source images and images of the reconstructed garments. Though be sure to look with blogs like that with critical eye. The best sign that it's reliable is when each image is given a source.

There's some more general sources too that need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Fashion History Timeline - This is a page with entries to the whole timeline of fashion as well as entries of specific garments. It's very well sourced and has usually pretty good image sources too. I will say though that it often gives a pretty limited description of the period focusing on some specifics, without giving a good overall picture, especially in the Medieval sections. The medieval sections are honestly pretty useless. It's at it's best in 19th century imo (I haven't checked out the entries to 20th century since I rarely research vintage styles, but I'd assume they are pretty good too). But since it has great sourcing it is usually informative. It just shouldn't be relied upon to give full picture of a period.

Wikipedia, History of Western fashion - In some ways this is the opposite of Fashion History Timeline. Wikipedia has articles on each period. The sourcing on these articles is often quite lacking and the information shouldn't be taken at face value. Especially the terms for the garments are often used in these articles in very questionable ways. However what these articles have is pretty good primary source image collections, and what is nice is that in Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern periods they are often divided into regions, and they often have images of working class clothing, which are for some periods really hard to find. These articles often don't either give a full picture of the period, but in someways the basic picture of the period is easier to grasp from these than from Fashion History Timeline. I use these mostly for the primary source images, and the texts of them should be taken with a bucket of salt.

Academic papers

Going deeper into something will inevitably require reading up on some academic papers. I'm lucky since I get access to a lot of academic publications through my uni, but JSTOR (my beloved) gives free access to 100 papers per month (you'll just have to make an account). Through google scholar you can search for papers on a given subject, or if you don't have access to other publications, you can just use JSTOR's search engine.

Primary sources

If some MVP hasn't already combed through primary sources to gather them on a give subject, you can do that too. It's not necessarily an easy task though. There's thankfully a perfect guide for that.

A Handbook of Costume by Janet Arnold - Janet Arnold was a legendary dress historian, who really defined the modern field. This book details the process of researching dress history and how to analyze primary sources. And it's free on Internet Archives.

I'll give some basics here though.

Extant garment

Most of us who are not academic historians don't have physical access to extant garment, but many museums have nowadays excellent digital archives of their costume collections. Here's a list of the most well known ones. MET and V&A has sometimes great descriptions of the clothing and their history, but not for every item.

MET Costume Institute

Kyoto Costume Institute

LACMA

V&A Costume Collection

Palais Galliera

Extant garments are of course the ideal sources to study, since they are the actual garments and not just representations or descriptions of them. Sometimes the collections even have pictures of the insides of the garments, giving invaluable information about their construction. However, extant garments have limitations for research, since there's a strong survivorship bias. Firstly, they heavily lean on later periods as textiles deteriorate relatively quickly. You won't find extant garments from Middle Ages, at most fragments of them. Secondly, they are mostly clothing of the upper classes. Lower classes used their clothing till they broke down, and even then often salvaged any fabric that could be salvaged for new clothing and other textiles. Upper classes didn't necessarily have to do that, so what survives is usually very expensive formal clothing that people would wear rarely and rather preserve than salvage the fabric from it.

Photography

Since camera was popularized in early Victorian era, you don't get photos before that. Photography is a great source from the times it was available, since yes it's still only representation of the clothing, but there's less artistic interpretation than in paintings and illustrations, though importantly, there still is artistic interpretation. As long as there has been photography, there has been photoediting. They of course used it for creepypasta purposes by editing them holding their own heads and editing ghosts into backgrounds, but also editing their waists smaller. Basically the exact same way photos are still edited. So no, this is not really how small the waist got in Edwardian era, since this is edited.

Another obvious limitation for early photography is that it didn't have colors, so popular colors of a given time period and given styles have to be found through other means. A great thing about photography though was that compared to painting, it was relatively cheap, and therefore a lot of lower class people were able to photograph themselves. We even get people outside in everyday situations not posing.

Photography can be found with search engines like google and pinterest, though they should be always sourced then. You sometimes come across very Victorian looking photos that are actually just modern photos that are well edited. And also it's important to date the photos, which might not be easily with photos just randomly floating in the internet. Libraries and museums sometimes have good digital collections of old photos. For example:

Digital collections of New York Public Library (NYPL) - It has a wide variety of collections including photography, fashion plates and other illustrations. I haven't found a great way to search through the collections, but the best way I've come up with is to search images within the Clothing & Dress topic, put some limiting filters, then click some right looking image and then go to the collection it was from. I bet there's an easier way but I haven't figured it out.

Paintings

A great thing about paintings and statues is that they date basically through whole history of organized civilizations. Paintings are more delicate so even with murals in antiquity, you'll get more surviving status from that time period. But because of the strong artistic interpretation inherent to these art forms, there's some tricky parts to them as sources for historical fashions.

You'll find a lot of paintings by just searching for fashion or paintings of a given period in google and pinterest, but it's sometimes tricky to source them to figure out where and when they were painted. Therefore I often check from Wikipedia a list of artists from a given time and place, and search their paintings from digital archives of museums. It also helps when you choose artists who were specialised in specific type of paintings. What kind of paintings depends on what you're researching and the time period.

Portraits are of course great sources. They depict the actual clothing an actual person wore and if the person was historically important enough you can find out who they were and gain a lot of context for the clothing. However, they are usually all rich people, though not always. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes portraits portray the subject in a costume. This became a pretty big trend among nobles in 18th century. They had costume parties and would have their portrait painted with their costume, but also there were trends of costume that were not even worn for parties, but only for having a portrait. Sometimes the painting would be painted like a scene and not like traditional portrait. Van Dyke costume (first picture below) in first half of 18th century paintings is one such example. It referred to mid 17th century fashion that was seen as timeless at the time. Peasant costume (second picture below) is another example of a popular costume for nobles to wear in portraits. Costume balls continued to 19th century, but after the popularization of camera they were mainly photographed. People would continue to dress up in costumes for portraits, but it wasn't as big of a trend as in 18th century.

Genre paintings were a genre of paintings that became popular first in 16th century Low Countries and then In Netherlands/Belgium area during the Dutch Golden Age (from late 16th century and thorough Baroque) and during Baroque's popularity all over Europe. Genre paintings depict normal everyday life of peasants, working class people and the bourgeois. During Baroque they often had elements of idealization, symbolism and even sexualization of the subjects, so they should be taken with a grain of salt, but they do usually depict accurately the clothes the people wore. Rococo era had a lot of these types of everyday scenes about the upper class. During the Romantic era peasants were heavily romanticized in genre paintings, but there was also a lot of genre paintings of bourgeois thorough 19th century that was wasn't as strongly romanticized. These scenes were sometimes also depicted in portrait form. Realism brought another interest into the genre and Realistic genre paintings often focused on the working class. They did the opposite of romanticism though and often exaggerated their subjects to look more wretched.

History paintings depict events and scenes that were for the time historical too. They became very popular in 19th century, when Historism was the dominant in arts, but they have existed long before. There's even some from late Medieval period, and in those earlier history paintings, the historical figures are usually depicted in contemporary clothing and there's no attempt at recreating historical styles. In later periods, especially during 19th century Historism they very much tried to recreate historical styles. This is why it's important to always source paintings. I've too often seen Victorian paintings used as images for Medieval fashions.

Religious paintings have sometimes a bit of the same issue. They were very popular during Medieval and Renaissance eras, and usually the biblical figures would be depicted in contemporary fashions, though not always, sometimes in vaguely "biblical garbs". Religious paintings also have the issue of often being highly symbolic, so sometimes the characters in them are not dressed for the situation, or a character that in the biblical canon very poor is depicted in upper class contemporary fashions.

Illuminated manuscripts

Medieval manuscripts with illustrations are invaluable sources for Medieval fashions. They are usually commissioned by royalty and detail historical narratives, so they mostly depict royalty and nobility, but some illustrated scenes depict commoners too. You often find images of the illustrations floating around in pinterest but they can be hard to source when the source is not linked (which is quite often). The illustrations can be spotted by the quite consistent style (though sometimes they are not from illuminated manuscripts but some other rarer illustrations like playing cards).

A lot of illuminated manuscripts have been digitized and British and French libraries have quite extensive online collections of them which are linked below. The manuscrips in those are mostly English and French of course but there's manuscrips from other places in Europe too, I've seen quite a lot of the German speaking area especially.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) The British Library

Fashion plates

Fashion plates became a thing in 1780s, so they are not useful for periods before that. They are basically illustrations that show the latest trends and they were published in fashion magazines. They don't reflect the way everyone dressed, since as they did show the latest high fashion and the people who would be wearing that were mostly young rich fashionable people. However, fashion at the time had a little different meaning than today as it was linked to dress code, and to be respectable you needed to follow fashion. So everyone, even working class people, would follow the new trends to an extent. This is especially true when we get to Victorian era, when mass industrial mass production and the emerging middle class made clothing cheaper and more available to more people. They wouldn't maybe follow every new trend or with every detail and with as much extravaganza or with the most expensive fashionable materials.

While the fashion plates didn't necessarily depict specific existing clothing, they were based on existing clothing and they were often used as guides for dressmakers. Kinda like you might go to a hairdresser with a picture of a famous person's hair or hairdressers sometimes use pictures of famous person's hair to show what they might do. And the people who might not afford something as extravagant as shown in a fashion plate, might still show it as a guide and get a simpler version of it made for them. People of the middle and lower classes especially would also use them as guides to sew themselves fashionable clothing.

Fashion plates are quite easily found on the internet, but as with other things, if you don't go straight to some organized archive, it might be really hard to date them accurately. Many bigger museums and libraries have fashion plates in their online archives, for example NYPL which I mentioned earlier.

MET Fashion Plate Collection - This is a pretty extensive collection.

Regional costume illustrations

When genre paintings became popular, artists didn't necessarily have the change to go and see what peasants wore in the places they were setting their genre paintings in, but because the whole point of them was to depict authentic real life, there was a need for illustrations of regional dress around Europe. And some artists would travel and create costume collections for resource to other artists. These are really invaluable to us today, though they should always be taken with a grain of salt, because sometimes the artists who created these drew dresses for places they never had even been in. For example some of these collections include non-European dress and they should all be probably disregarded as fantasy costumes basically. You can usually assume that the closer the region which dress they depict is to their own place of origin, the more accurate and based on reality it is. It's also good to try and google the artist and see if you can find information of where they actually traveled, because sometimes we know that pretty well.

These collections can also be found in the digitized archives of big museums and libraries, again there's some in NYPL collections.

British Museum's collections by Hippolyte Lacomte from 19th century

A collection from late 16th century on BnF archives

Honorable mentions

There's many other primary sources in different periods that can be helpful, but the ones I've mentioned are the major ones and easiest to access, when you're not doing academic research with institutional resources. I thought I might mention couple of other sources that have become handy to me as examples.

Magazine and news paper ads became wide spread in the Victorian era and from that onward is a great source. They advertise specifically ready-made clothing, so clothing that was much more available to a regular person and therefore can be really helpful to understand what a regular person might wear. I don't know a great source for them though. Many libraries have digitized old papers and magazines so going through fashion magazines is perhaps the best bet, but it's definitely a lot of combing though. Some people have though gathered ads in blogs.

Satiric comics can be surprisingly helpful for researching sort of alternative styles and seeing what trends garnered backlash. For example I've long been obsessed with Aestheticism and the other counter-cultural movements related to it, and there's quite a lot of women's Aesthetic extant garments, photos and paintings available, but very little of men's Aesthetic fashion. But then I found that Punch Magazine (conservative satire magazine) loved mocking the Aesthetes and therefore drew a lot of comics with men in Aesthetic fashion. Caution should be taken though since satiric illustrations do often exaggerate for comedic effect. For example the idea that 1770s ladies made ships out of their massive hair comes from a satiric illustration mocking the large and elaborate hair of the time.

Runaway ads of slaves and indentured servants are bleak, but can be helpful source for the clothing of poor people during 18th century. This is specific to US, but because of the colonialism poor people there would often wear at least similar clothing as those in Europe, especially Britain and France, which had the most colonial presence in that region. The clothes were described in great detail in these ads for identification purposes. These runaway ads can be also found in news papers of the era, many of which are digitized in archives of bigger US libraries, but it's definitely even more combing through. Though again some people have done some of that work already and documented it in blogs.

[gemsofgreece]

Γειά 😊 I'm taking a weekend trip from Athens to Monemvasia, probably Nafplio too, I'd appreciate any tips for sightseeing or places to eat traditional food. Thanks in advance ♡

Γειααα! I have no idea about places to eat because I haven't been in those places much. If you are a tourist from abroad, the general rule of thumb is to avoid places that seem to target tourists more than locals. For example, if a restaurant has a menu in English first and then a menu in Greek, that's a red flag. Opt for a restaurant where the menu is in Greek first or only. Check tripadvisor too though.

As for sightseeings:

Monemvasia is on its own a sightseeing. Logically a considerable part of the time will be to walk around and explore it. Then you can also visit the fortress and the upper town, the Archaeological Collection and the 12th century Byzantine Agia Sofia church. If it's warm enough, you can also swim in the beaches around the rock of Monemvasia.

In Nafplion the most important sightseeings are its fortresses and the views they provide. The following attractions have a lot of significance in Modern Greek history. You could visit the Palamidi castle, the Akronafplia fortress, the Bourtzi castle (the one inside the sea) and also the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, the Archaeological Museum, the War Museum and the Church of Saint Spyridon. This church is of particular historical interest because it is the location of the assassination of Greece's first governor, a great man and politician, Ioannis Kapodistrias, and you can still see in the column of the church a bullet that lost its aim. Oh, and odd recommendation to follow after the previous one but I think Nafplio has pretty good gelato! Bear in mind that the fortesses and the castles of Nafplion need a lot of legwork. Don't forget some extra walk in the Nafplion promenade of course.

As a sidenote, Monemvasia and Nafplion each are parts of regions (Laconia and Argolis respectively) that are full of great destinations but if you are going for a weekend there's no way you can see more than these two towns. But if in any case you want to know what else to see in those greater regions check out my Peloponnese page in the Regions segment in my blog and read the Laconia and Argolis paragraphs.

Detail from the second church I mentioned.

[1863-project]

Hi!! I’ve followed u for a while and only noticed recently that your desc says you’re an archivist! Im also a history nerd and trying to go for archives as a job in the future, especially in NY which would be really fun. If it’s alright to ask, do you have any general advice/tips for future archivists, and what’s your favorite part ab the archiving job you do, or the archive itself (that you work with)? No worries if not, either way congrats on having the coolest job ever >:D!! - Fellow autistic archive enthusiast

Hello, future fellow archivist!

The most important thing is that if this is the career you want to pursue, you're going to have to go to library school and get a degree in archives and records management. I know it's a lot of work and gets expensive (I'm still in debt), but most big archivist jobs won't even look your way without that Master's degree, which does suck.

It also took me an extremely long time to land my current position. I finished grad school in December 2014, and I finally ended up here, in a proper archival job, in February 2024. That's nearly ten years of working temp positions and at reference desks at public libraries as I searched. Archival jobs can be few and far between, because once an archivist settles in, they're going to become the one who knows the collection best and stay for a long time, so stay sharp and apply to every opening you find! Don't be afraid to take on temp jobs and processing archivist projects because that experience goes a long way on both your resume and for you personally. It can be discouraging, but if you really want this, don't give up - it's an extremely fulfilling career path if you're passionate about history.

My current position is essentially a dream job for me because of the subject matter I'm archiving. If you're lucky, you'll hopefully have that experience too, working at a place where you have a lot of subject expertise and passion.

I cannot suggest volunteering enough, though. Even before I went to grad school, I was volunteering at historical societies, libraries, and museums to help out where I could and get my foot in the door. Those connections are important - you'll need references to tell the jobs you apply to how good you are at the work - but it's also a really good way to make sure you actually like the work in the first place! Archiving can be a lot of drudgery and repetitive cataloguing, and that's not for everyone. (As an autistic person it suits me just fine, but that won't be the case for every single autistic person, and certainly not every single person!)

The best thing about working where I do now is the relative safety compared to my previous job. I was at a public library for 5 and a half years before this as their local history librarian/a reference librarian, and it felt more and more unsafe for me, especially mentally, because I couldn't use certain accommodations on the reference desk and I was constantly doing emotional labor for patrons who saw the reference librarians more like social workers (even though the library had an actual social worker). I got to a point where I was non-functional at home when I wasn't working there, and it scared me. I was deeply burnt out by the time I managed to get my current position, and I'm still recovering now. I was actually assaulted at my former job - a patron put his hand on the back of my leg above my knee and started to move it up towards my ass, but he didn't get there because I hit him (the staff defended me on that one; we had video footage, too). That was in November 2021, and from that point on I felt actively unsafe at that job and less and less like I would be protected if things happened because of a number of changes that occurred afterwards.

But now I'm behind a door that locks. Patrons can't come directly up to me. Researchers have to make an appointment in advance or email or call me if they need information. I'm archiving. I'm not constantly doing reference work, not being thrown around at random to different branches because there aren't branches, just storage locations, not having accommodations like noise-cancelling headphones or my sketchbook taken away from me. I'm so much safer here, and it's a place I can start to heal from everything in.

I hope this answers your initial questions, and if you want details on anything, hit me up - I'm so glad to help people get started in archiving and figure out their next steps!

[mariacallous]

During the month of October, many folks get into the spirit of Halloween by putting themselves in scary situations, like going to see a horror movie or visiting a haunted house. However, some travelers seek that feeling all year round by engaging in “dark tourism.”

Dark tourism is the act of going to places that are connected to the macabre, or historical sites where death and suffering took place. Places such as Chernobyl; Auschwitz; Salem, Massachusetts; and notorious crime scenes are some of the places connected to the darker narratives of history that travelers choose to visit. Aside from the historical interest, people visit these places to feel a connection with the victims and come to terms with the injustices they suffered.

Another part of the appeal is the physical charge one often gets from being in a state of unease. James Giordano, a neurobiology researcher at Georgetown University Medical Center, says getting frightened triggers a specific response in the human body.

“The idea of being somewhere that is evocative of fright or evocative of horror and the garish is exciting,” Giordano says. “Going to those places is like we are hanging out over the edge a little bit.” Think of when someone might look intently at a grisly auto accident on the side of the road, he says. Going to some of these spaces where tragedy has occurred may evoke similar feelings, but in different ways.

Fear, and the rush of adrenaline that comes with it, is present. So is a capacity to relate in some ways to the lessons of history that one can glean from visiting a site of historical terror. But another key element is also present: safety. People are expecting to be scared, but they also know they’ll be safe the whole time. As Giordano puts it, the allure of dark tourism is about getting “all of the rush but none of the reality.”

More Than Just Witchcraft

A museum in the tiny Swiss town of Ennenda commemorates the last person to be executed for practicing witchcraft in Europe. Visitors can learn about the historic site and even see the sword used to behead the impoverished accused woman, Anna Göldi, who was killed in 1782. Nicole Billeter, one of the curators of The Anna Göldi Museum, says the museum and its presentation are meant to educate visitors about incidents that happened hundreds of years ago in a way that counters the historical misinterpretations of witchcraft from the 19th century.

“There are so many false images around witchcraft which are starting from the 19th century,” Billeter says. “Everyone has this historical picture of [what people who are condemned for witchcraft did] which is really historically false. We want to correct it.”

Anna Göldi's history is discussed in school in Switzerland, Billeter says, and so local tourists come seeking a connection to history. “In Switzerland, we have all kinds of young people,” she says. “I was astonished that teenagers are coming.”

But tourists from around the world come to the museum too, all genders, all walks of life. Most are interested in dark tourism, but one recent visitor from Brazil came for a very specific reason: She wanted to see if Anna was one of her ancestors. “She came in because her last name was Göldi,” Billeter says.

The appeal of visiting places connected to witchcraft goes beyond just an interest in the occult. “I think it speaks to everyone not just because of the witchcraft, but because of this class difference,” Billeter says. “You can really relate to someone being thrown under the bus who can’t defend herself because she has no rights at all. I think everyone can really take something from it.”

Billeter also says that, even though Anna Göldi was executed centuries ago, her life and death are still important to discuss. “There are always people who are treated unfairly, and there is still capital punishment around the world.”

A Tour Filled With Tales

Los Angeles historians Kim Cooper and Richard Schave started giving dark history tours with their company Esotouric Tours in 2007 after their Los Angeles true crime travel blog, “The 1947 Project,” became popular.

“People are drawn to this because these types of stories are almost operatic in nature,” Cooper says. “They feel very connected to the people in these stories. They know who the good guys and the bad guys are. They know about the victims. They’ve read where they can. And, in some ways, they’re just hungry for something that is less sensational and more fact-based.”

The pair explain that their tours are curated with the specific intention to reveal “the past and current shortcomings of Los Angeles” and to expose the vast “quagmire of corruption” that defines crime in Los Angeles.

Like the Anna Göldi museum, Esotouric tends to primarily draw local tourists. Cooper and Schave have seen multiple generations of Angelenos come to share knowledge about the history of the city. These locals often add to the tapestry of understanding of the crimes documented on the tour and how the tales of the past can sometimes reveal issues that are still needing to be addressed in the present.

Some individuals come to these tours to help them process the grief that has been sitting with them for decades. Schave says an elderly man in his eighties who had come on one of Esotouric’s bus tours spoke to him about his experience as a young boy on the day Elizabeth Short—known historically as the Black Dahlia—was found murdered and mutilated in a highly publicized killing that was retold in a novel, a film, and in multiple episodes of American Horror Story.

“The man said, ‘I was a paperboy on January 15th, and no one had seen our friend who had the paper route on Norton Avenue. We hadn’t seen him in a couple of hours. Another kid said that there were police on Bobby’s route. We didn’t know what to do, so we all ran over there on our bikes … and we saw this bisected corpse.’” The man had told Schave that he was only 12 or 13 when that happened. It had taken him a long time to process being haunted by the image of Beth Short’s corpse.

In a city full of crime history lore, smaller stories can sometimes get lost among the bigger ones, and this typically happens at the expense of the victims and families affected by the crime. Cooper came to this realization when she was curating a tour and added a stop along the route to mark what she referred to at the time as a “throwaway case”—a crime, unlike so many in Los Angeles, with no sensational backstory or Hollywood connections. The case involved a man whose car got repossessed. The man got so angry, he drove to the Cadillac dealership and shot the auto dealer. “A guy at the back of the bus said, ‘That was my uncle who got shot.’” The moment changed Cooper. “It was early on, and it made me think. There are no throwaway stories. It’s a heavy thing that has kept me honest.”

Gaining Understanding

People choosing to engage in dark tourism come with their motivations: to learn, to share, to process, and to grieve. They come to feel like they are part of a larger human story. This is particularly the case with visitors to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland, which stands on the former site of the World War II concentration camp, and which has become a dark tourism destination.

While it takes a strong will to visit these places, some people purposely bring themselves to these intense spaces in search of a deeper understanding of history.

“I deal with a lot of medical students who take a fellowship sojourn to Auschwitz because they learn about medical ethics and the bastardization of science,” Giordano says. These places bring about a “profound sense of deep homage and pathos,” he says, that provide individuals with emotional tools. In the case of the medical students, that can give them an understanding to help them move forward in their personal and professional journey with the lens of additional insight.

Being afraid and curious is natural; it gives us life. When we embark on trips to places connected to death, we are reminded of both the darkness and lightness of life. Perhaps the illumination we get by going to a space connected to mortality can serve as a light to teach us what’s necessary to conquer the darknesses that occur in our everyday journeys—before our stories someday cease to exist as well.

[nycexhibitvisits]

Getting Historic on Election Day

Super Tuesday was rung in early on a sunny morning and then celebrated at the New York Historical Society.

The museum's collection is vast and varies greatly, historical artifacts, modern paintings, president statues, even a delightfully out of place padded skylight room of sorts.

My place of interest was on the bottom floor. At 11 am on a Tuesday the kids section of the museum was nearly empty, and nobody noticed or cared about a marginally overage student photographing the playground adjacent museum.

Bus/Trolley Interactive Experience for kids to climb in.

This section of the museum was so brilliantly set up for children. All of the descriptions were readable, all of the objects were well selected, and the space was engaging and easy to navigate. Younger children can work low to the ground and play and read, older ones can read at higher levels and enjoy the artifacts on display, and none of it is too watered down for the enjoyment of adults.

Thematically the exhibit focused on the history of New York, and the historical roles of children in New York. I love this because it introduces historic concepts to kids in the context of something they are already familiar with. That doesn't make it any less interesting for older people but makes it more accessible for younger kids. They can learn in a hands on way and they can understand and comprehend historical concepts in a way that relates to them.

Here are some artifacts that kids have a schema for (dishes) displayed at a level where smaller people can see them at eye level. This gets children used to the idea of a museum setting in a way that is built for them!

This part of the museum had a ton of interactive features which I think is really important to keep little hands engaged and had very little in the way of noise makers which was appreciated.

Some artifacts could be touched which was genius because of how kids like to be able to touch things.

The back of the room houses an enclosed library of sorts packed with thematic books, this is a great way to get a bit of a break, leave a kid in a place where there is one exit and entrance so you can watch them safely, and to have a bit of a calmer place to experience the museum.

Generally, this setup works for visitors of all ages which I think is not easy to do and very impressive. The youngest kids can just play with historically themed analog toys, a little older can play on the play pieces and look at artifacts, older can interact with the features and read about them, adults can read and look at artifacts as well. It is very well done.

Topical historical election ballot, a lot has changed since then! (apparently not people's opinion on human rights though).

Overall, the historical society did a wonderful job in this kids space and I was very impressed both with this and the larger place that is the museum.

[virgo-mess]

Silver Thread Chapter 6 part 3

I'm sorry this took me so long to write. I'm launching right into Part 4 as I post this, so I'll hopefully have the next part up in the next two days. And we'll finally get to her surprise in that part. I'm not fully satisfied with this part and could end up editing bits for my sanity, but it shouldn't change anything plot wise. I didn't want to leave you waiting any longer 🥲.

TW: Mentions of Neglectful Parents, Consensual public fondling, heated kissing, some fluff, some humor, Veda and Terry just being adorable, mentions of spunky redheads and teen girls that circle in on Terry like a pack of wolves

Veda’s Pov

Veda wasn’t sure how she didn’t notice that what she was feeling for Terry was love but something in the way he said those three words to her put everything into perspective. Everything clicked into place, and it was like her whole world made sense again. She now knew why she wanted to spend all her free time with him, why she missed him so much when he was away from her for more than hour, why he occupied all her thoughts and dreams, and why she desperately wanted to know all his thoughts and dreams. It’s why she feels so warm, so safe, so happy, so content whenever Terry is with her. It’s also why she feels so much empathy towards him and why his mildly predatory kinks don’t bother or scare her anymore. She supposed the reason she hadn’t noticed she was truly in love with Terry was because she hadn’t felt anything like it before. Up until now she had been under the impression that Dutch was her first love, but it became apparent to her that he was merely her first boyfriend and what she felt for him was fake love. She couldn’t recall ever actually enjoying being with Dutch because everything with him came with a price, a condition, a hurt. If she dared to cry in front of him about “joke” he made at her expense, he’d yell at her telling her she was too sensitive and couldn’t take a joke. He made her feel like everything was her fault constantly, if he hit her it was he fault for making him mad and when he cheated it was her fault for being a prude. Whereas Terry just gave her everything he possibly could without expecting her to be anymore than she already was. He didn’t try to change her and had her feeling like the most beautiful woman in the world and he treated her as such.

Veda and Terry strolled through the Natural History Museum clinging to each other as Terry opened up to her about his family and his experiences in the war. Veda listened intently feeling nothing but endless waves of warmth, empathy, and love as he told her about his troubled relationship with his father. As they stood in front of one of the displays in the dimly lit African and North America Diorama hall, a warm amber glow dancing on the side of his face as he spoke to her quietly. Veda couldn’t help but see him as an unsung romantic hero as she began to understand some of the more callous tendencies he had in the beginning stages of their relationship. The warm amber lighting made her feel like they were caught up in a movie.

“My dad and I have just never really gotten along; I don’t even think he really likes me he just likes having someone to control. I only enlisted during Vietnam to get away from him for a while, he wanted me to take over Dynatox because I didn’t think that’s what I wanted to do. I thought it might make him respect me a little more since I was pretty scrawny back then. All it did was make him resent, he still forced me to take over the company, and then the war just made living really hard for me after that, you know. I saw some unspeakable things,  I did some unthinkable things to survive and sometimes I relive it. It’s not so bad now that you’re around though, you keep me calm and make me very happy baby girl. Don’t know what I’d do without you, you’re the most important person in my life and I love you so much” he said with a genuine smile, Veda blushed feeling her heart flutter at his words leaning up to pull him into a brief tender kiss.

“I’m really sorry your dad is so hard on you all children deserve to feel loved by their parents, the state of your relationship isn’t your fault, Terry. I will be more than happy to chew him out on your behalf no questions asked just give me a time and place and I’ll set him straight the Jersey way.” Veda said kittenishly with an impish grin. Terry bit down on his lip looking at her with lust swirling in his eyes pulling her closer to his chest. Veda felt her cheeks flush at the action her mind reeling back to that day in his office weeks ago; part of her really wanted to feel him grip her that possessively again. The lighting really was doing wonders for them right now, all they needed was a delicate piano score swelling around them.

“You don’t know how much I’d love to see that baby girl” he murmured huskily leaning down to place opened mouth kisses on her neck. Veda let out a breathy giggle feeling a wave of arousal wash over her, she glanced around to see if anyone was watching them happy to see they were the only ones in the large hall at the moment. Veda nudged Terry slightly waiting for him to remove his face from her neck, Terry instantaneously pulled back probably assuming she wanted him to stop. He gave her a soft smile as Veda gazed up at him sheepishly before leaning in to whisper in his ear even though no one was around. Feeling incredibly shy because she’d never asked someone to touch her in this way before. Terry sensed her nerves and ran his hands in soothing circles on her back.

“What is it baby, you know you can ask or tell me anything” he said reassuringly, placing a tender kiss on her temple. Veda found her body relaxing but still stuttered getting the words out.

“Can you um, do what you did in your office, you know when you carried me in there. I uh, actually liked that…” she trailed timidly, turning her head to look up at him as she placed her cheek on his chest. Terry’s eyes softened as he looked down at her reaching to stroke her hair.

“You don’t have to be shy sweetheart” he said leaning down to give her a sweet kiss on the lips, Veda let out a content sigh feeling instantly comforted at the action as he pulled away to look at her. “Which part did you like, the pat or the squeeze” he cooed, Veda bit her lip slightly.

“Both” she said coyly watching as Terry’s lust filled eyes lit up, pulling her in for a more passionate kiss as he trailed one of his large hands to her ass to do exactly what she requested, alternating between firm pats and squeezes. Veda let out a soft sultry moan against his mouth feeling her clit throb as he hardened against her stomach, Terry let out one of his pleased rumbles before parting for air never letting up on his firm grip. Glancing over her shoulder for a moment.

“I’m really glad you like this baby girl because your butt has been driving me crazy” he crooned, placing kisses down her neck and shoulder, Veda giggled nuzzling her face against his shoulder before pulling back to look at him with rosy cheeks. Suddenly remembering that they strayed far away from their initial conversation, she reached up to cup his face stroking his cheeks with her thumbs as she looked deeply in his eyes. Terry’s eyes softened again as he placed his forehead against hers.

 “I’m sorry you felt like you had to enlist to prove yourself to him, I know that must have been really hard for you, people didn’t treat the soldiers coming home with the amount of grace or compassion they deserved. I know was just a kid when it ended but I remember seeing how the ones returning home to Jersey being spit on and being called baby killers. I can only imagine how that felt for you but I’m glad that you’re as happy being with me as I am with you, I love you too Romeo” Veda said with a tender smile, Terry beamed back at her before leaning in to place a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose. Veda giggled scrunching her nose up intentionally because she knew he adored it.

“You’re so sweet, my angel. Maybe we should head over to the science center, people are starting to pile in here. You know USC isn’t far from here we could go take a peek at the campus if you want” Terry coaxed with an alluring smile and a mischievous glint in his eyes, Veda narrowed her eyes at him playfully.

“Are you hoping that taking me to see the campus will entice me into accepting your outrageous offer, Mr. Silver” Veda said playfully rolling her eyes at him, Terry put his hand over his heart in mock offense and looked down at her with big innocent puppy eyes.

“Now why would I ever do that baby girl, I just thought you’d like to admire the Romanesque Revival style buildings, they’re beautiful. Not that CalTech isn’t prettyish” he said with another alluring smile. Veda shook her head at him playfully before grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers.

“I’d rather see the space shuttle and then get some food in my belly. I’m hungry” she said quickly changing the subject, hoping Terry wouldn’t press her further on the matter. Terry had already spent so much money on her in the last couple of months and she still felt a bit guilty for accepting any of them. Veda still felt like she wasn’t worthy of his grand romantic gestures to some degree they just reminded her they weren’t on the same level. She still had that lingering fear Terry would come to his senses and drop her once they took their relationship to the next level; him assuring her he loved her unconditionally gave her a bit more confidence in the nature of their relationship.

Veda pulled Terry out of the museum with her, gripping his hand a bit tighter at the thought of their relationship ending. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to pick herself back up if it ever did end. She felt Terry start drawing soothing circles on the back of her hand on their short walk over to the Science Center.

“Are you okay baby girl?” he asked, placing a kiss on her cheek. Veda looked up and gave him a soft reassuring smile as she nodded her head, she felt this conversation was better suited for another day they’ve had so many heavy conversations today. Deciding just to give him the short version for now and leave the heavy stuff for later.

“I’m okay, I just need some more time to think about USC Terry. I’ll let you know how I feel closer to the end of fall term, last day of classes is December 1st. Then I can make sure I end the winter and spring terms on a high note” she said with a coy smile, Terry beamed at her pulling her in for a passionate kiss that left her feeling dizzy. Terry pulled away and took a moment to pepper her face with adoring kisses. Veda giggled at his at his adorable display.

“I didn’t mean to sound pushy baby girl I just want to take care of you. Seeing you happy makes me happy so lets head on in and see that shuttle so we can get some food in your stomach” he said placing another kiss on her forehead before tugging her into the museum.

After leaving the Science Center they shared a quick intimate brunch cuddled up in a booth being as lovey-dovey with each other as ever. Veda sat on Terry’s lap as usual and he insisted on feeding her again but wouldn’t let her return the gesture, reminding her that today was all about her being treated like a princess. By the time they were headed back to the car Veda was quite full and slightly drowsy, leaning into Terry slightly as they left the restaurant.

“Do you wish to be carried, birthday girl” he cooed in her ear, Veda giggled rolling her eyes at him, the car wasn’t even that far away. Although she loved him doting on her so much today.

“No the car isn’t that far, where are heading next Romeo, my surprise perhaps” she trailed battering her eyelashes at him, Terry chuckled catching on to her trying to get information out of him again. Terry opened the car door for her like usual, shutting the door gently before hopping in the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

“No, your surprise isn’t until tonight Veda and I’m not telling you what it is because then it wouldn’t be a surprise would it. We’re heading up to Beverly Hills now to check out the Virginia Robertson Gardens, LA County Museum of art, and the La Brea Tar Pits before checking into the hotel. Unless you want to go to the hotel first and rest for a bit baby girl, you do look tired” Terry said giving her a warm smile as he placed a hand on her thigh, Veda gave him a warm smile in return.

“I appreciate you being so attentive and thoughtful my love, but I should be alright. What hotel are we staying at?” she asked, placing her hand on top of his and drawing circles on the back of it. She let her head rest back on the seat deciding she might just doze off for the twenty or so minutes it would take them to get there.

“The Beverly Wilshire, in the Wilshire Presidential suite sadly the Beverly Hills Hotel was all booked. I thought you’d look so pretty sat up in Marilyn Monroe’s bungalow in one of your cute little sets or nighties” he said pouting, Veda looked back at him with wide eyes in disbelief. “You’ll look just as pretty at the Wilshire of course baby girl” he crooned.

“Are you crazy Terry, those are the most expensive hotels in Beverly Hills I would’ve been just as happy sleeping in the car, you know” she said with an exasperated sigh and a yawn. Terry chuckled rolling his eyes at her.

“I thought we established that I am crazy Veda, crazy for you my sweet girl, so I will continue spoiling you regardless of what you say. You are never ever sleeping in a car, do you not watch the news the Night Stalker is still at large, we really need to talk about moving you to a safer area. I get so worried when I leave you there alone” he said looking at her with genuine concern swirling in his eyes, Veda tightened her grip on his hand in reassurance as she looked at him lovingly.

“I was just joking about sleeping in the car, Terry and you don’t have to leave me alone. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to stay in my shack, you should be happy I chose to get an apartment anyway otherwise we would be cuddled up in a dorm room with little to no privacy ” she said teasingly the lack of privacy was really the only thing she was trying to avoid. Babysitting Daniel for most of her life left her with very little alone time, those first couple of years their dad was gone Daniel clung to whoever he could. He never really did grow out of it he simply substituted Veda and their mom with Mr. Miyagi. Veda was really happy Daniel finally found someone to look up to but she missed the close relationship they used to have before they moved to LA. They hadn’t spoken much after everything that went down between him and Cobra Kai because Daniel was very vocal about his disapproval about her dating Dutch. Veda knew it was coming more from of place of concern, Daniel became very protective over her and their mom after their dad’s death. But often times his concerned lectures bordered on humiliation sometimes she felt like he underestimated her intelligence. He didn’t seem to understand that anyone can fall victim to a toxic relationship. Veda was pulled out of her inner thoughts by Terry letting out a soft chuckle, glancing over at her with an amused glint in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t call it a shack it’s really quite cozy I wouldn’t mind staying there if you wanted me to, but you know, you’re always welcome to stay at my place, you still haven’t come to see it” he trailed with another one of his alluring smiles, Veda giggled rolling her eyes, she hadn’t been over there yet he was rather tight lipped about what his house looked like and just insisted she had to see it. Veda often wondered what kind of house Terry would chose to live in, he very clearly liked having extravagant things.

“Do you live in a castle; you strike me as a man who lives in a castle. How big is it, I probably should’ve told you I won’t date anyone with less than 3,000 square feet to their name” Veda quipped with a teasing smile, Terry chuckled again giving her thigh a gentle squeeze.

“Well it’s a good thing my house is 6,000 square then, it’s also not castle, we can take a peek at it when we head up to Griffith Observatory and make a stop at Shakespeare Bridge tomorrow if you want” he shrugged nonchalantly with a slight smirk on his lips. Veda’s jaw just about dropped open at hearing the square footage of his house quickly assessing that the house he was talking about was in fact the Ennis House. She hadn’t got a chance to stray up towards Los Feliz or Hollywood since they moved but she had mentioned Shakespeare Bridge in one of their fleeting conversations. Terry really did remember everything she said no matter how insignificant she thought it was.

“I get to see Shakespeare Bridge and the Ennis House” Veda gasped excitedly; Terry gave her a bashful sort of smile as he turned off the expressway.

After spending a few hours between the beautiful Virgina Robertson Gardens, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum they decided to check in to the hotel. Moreso Terry decided to check into the hotel after Veda took a tumble down an incline when they were walking near the tar pits, scrapping her knees and forearms, after her wedge got caught on something. It hurt for a minute but she was okay though you wouldn’t know it by the way Terry panicked and flew to her aid, insisting on carrying her back up to the museum to get patched up before heading to the hotel.

“I’m fine Terry, just a couple cuts, I can definitely walk though. You don’t have to do this” Veda giggled as Terry wrapped an arm around her back and his other behind her knees. Terry shook his head placing an affectionate kiss on her cheek that made her heart flutter.

“Nope, the ground is too uneven for your shoes and you’re bleeding don’t want you in pain for your surprise later, so grab on baby girl” he said in a firm tone that left no room for discussion. Veda sighed rolling her eyes as she wrapped her arms around his neck, Terry scooped her up with ease as he made his way back up the hill and out of the park, back into the museum lobby. Veda giggled under her breath finding his display sweet but quite dramatic though she didn’t really expect any less from him.

“I really appreciate you doting on me this way Romeo but don’t think you’re being a little dramatic” she said teasingly, giving him a peck on the cheek and nuzzling her face into his neck despite her feeble protests because she still liked the feeling of  being cuddled up against him. Terry chuckled softly to himself.

“See your mouth is saying no, baby girl, but you’re not acting like you really want me to put you down” he said amused, Veda looked up at him to stick her tongue out at him playfully.

“It’s not like you were going to put me down if I asked you to anyway Terry. So, I might as well enjoy the ride and the view from up here while you’re at it” she shrugged playfully leaning her head back against his shoulder. Terry let out another breathy chuckle under his breath as he walked further into the busy lobby. Veda chuckled at the little kids peering up at them with wide eyes.

“You know me so well, doll. We’re going to get you patched up then head up to the hotel so you can unwind, get the full princess spa treatment and then head over to the place where your surprise is” Terry said being intentionally vague knowing it would get her asking him questions again. Veda decided to entertain his idea to distract her for a bit.

“Why do I need to be all dolled up for the place we’re going, hmmmm, are you throwing me a surprise party Mr. Silver as long as the music isn’t mind numbingly loud and I’m free to be a wallflower for some of it I’ll accept it” she said with a bashful smile. Terry shrugged his shoulders at her playfully, they were interrupted by the receptionist before he could answer her.

“Oh, is she okay, do you guys need anything” she asked with a concerned look on her face as she came out from behind the desk, Terry nodded swiftly walking closer to the desk in a few short strides so the girl could see all Veda’s life altering “injuries”.

“Yeah, we need a first aid kit, she fell down the hill by the tar pit hurt herself pretty bad, see” Terry said holding her like she could fall to the floor and break into a million pieces with one wrong move, Veda let out a soft exasperated sigh as Terry sat her on one of the benches gingerly. The receptionist nodded disappearing back behind the desk quickly.

“No really, I’m okay Terry. I only skinned them, they don’t even hurt that much” Veda said with a reassuring smile, toying with the end of his ponytail softly. Terry gave her a kiss of the forehead, pulling away to grab the first aid kit from the receptionist who walked closer to Veda, grabbing her arms gently to fully survey the damage.

“No, Miss he’s right we don’t want you catching an infection, some of these are actually quite deep, I don’t think you’ll need stitches but you’re defiantly going to feel this tomorrow. You’re lucky to have such an adoring husband, you know” she said before walking back behind the desk. Veda felt her cheeks tint at the comment and Terry gave her a smug looking smile as he opened a few alcohol wipes.

“Have you noticed everyone always assumes  we’re married, this is going to sting a bit, my sweet girl, I’m sorry” he said sincerely as he pressed a wipe to each one of the gashes on her knees and forearms, Veda let out a soft hiss of pain at the feeling the cuts did hurt a bit more than she let on she just didn’t like Terry being worried about her that way. Remembering how his demeanor changed when he brought up the possibility of the Night Stalker ever getting to her. Veda thought the chances of the Night Stalker being the one to take her out were slim, if it was anyone it’d probably be Dutch. She hadn’t kept in touch with too many of her friends from Pasadena so the likelihood of him knowing she was seeing someone else were slim but never zero. She was anticipating an angry voicemail from him any day now but since it hadn’t happened yet she didn’t feel the need to tell Terry that this might be a possibility. She’d survived much worse than scraped knees before , but Terry seemed adamant about her never getting so much as a papercut while he was around.

“Well, we have been married for three years and together for five don’t you remember” Veda said jokingly watching Terry plaster more Band-Aids across her wounds then she really needed , an amused glint in her eyes as he blushed at her comment. Veda loved seeing him flush like that for her and she wished it would happen more often. Terry quickly went over to hand the receptionist the first aid kit back, Veda took his distraction as an opportunity to rise to her feet, scurrying quickly towards the doors before Terry had a chance to scope her up again.

“Veda Noelle, you stop right there” Terry chided as he took off after her, Veda giggled at him trying to sound like a scolding parent, weaving her way through a group of school middle school aged kids swiftly, some of whom were as tall as she was. Veda glanced back to see him trying not to step on little feet, noticing a group of preteen girls circling around him, finding it hard to move out of his way as they gazed up at him rosy cheeks and bashful smiles. Completely ignoring their teachers demands for them to move out of the way. Veda couldn’t help but laugh at the sight as Terry looked at her with pleading puppy eyes.

“Excuse me” Terry said politely, giving them all one of his dazzling smiles which only made the girls break out into a fit of nervous giggles and whispers. Veda chuckled finally deciding to come to his aid feeling fully amused because she honestly didn’t blame them at all for swooning over him like that.

“Come on, Romeo” Veda cooed, reaching out to grip his hand, the girls parted for her but let out soft disappointed groans as Veda laced her fingers with his. Veda tried her best to stifle her laughter until they made it out of the museum. Terry rolled his eyes as she broke out into a fit of laughter, taking the opportunity to scope her back into his arms and head towards the car.

“Why would you try to run away from me like that baby girl, sacrificing me to the pack of teeny boppers in there. I just wanted to hold you” he pouted jutting out his bottom lip at her as he walked down the stairs, Veda looked back him amused leaning up to place multiple kisses on his cheek.

“I’m sorry I was only messing with you honey, I didn’t know they’d circle in on you like a pack of hungry wolves. You really didn’t help yourself any by giving them that charming smile of yours though, Romeo, I didn’t know teenage girls were so frightening for you. You could’ve gone the other wayyyy” she giggled, gripping and pulling the car door handle so Terry could just set her on the car seat gently. Terry chuckled rolling his eyes, taking a second to buckle her seatbelt for her, pulling her in for a sweet kiss before hopping in the car.

“I tried to, but that spunky little redhead looked like she was going to pounce on me. I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you baby girl, she looked like she was plotting your downfall when we were leaving” Terry chuckled throwing the car in drive. Veda let out an exaggerated sigh before dramatically plopping her head on his thigh.

“Oh, woe is me! I can’t compete with a spunky redhead; I fear my Jersey girl mystique won’t be enough to spare me from such a dismal end, Romeo. So, I’m afraid you’ll just have to appease her spunky demands while I shack up with some troubled possessive cop who reminds me of you” Veda let out another dramatic sigh as she looked up at him in mock sadness. Terry looked down at her amused as he reached down to stroke her hair.

“That’s oddly specific, baby girl. How many troubled possessive cops do you know who look like me. You are so precious, my angel ” Terry chuckled as he pulled out of the parking lot.

[no-passaran]

hi! I'm visiting Spain in a couple days, flying into Barcelona! I'll there a few days -- anything important/cool you recommend seeing? I'm real interested in learning more about the civil war/marxist/anarchist history and the catalonian independence movement. I'm going to museums etc but I wanted to ask if you had thoughts :)

Hi! I hope you enjoy your stay in Catalonia and all your trip ^^

Okay, more or less in historical order:

I recommend visiting the el Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria (you can find it shortened to el Born CCM) which is an archaeological site from a part of the city that was forcefully destroyed after the Spanish invasion in 1717, you can see it from above for free or you can get a guided tour (they're very cheap) to go down to the site, which I recommend.

Born CCM is very close to el Fossar de les Moreres (right next to Santa Maria del Mar), which is the most symbolic place for Catalan independentists. It might not seem like an impressive place just for what it looks like, but it's a place that's near the heart for many of us. It's just a small square with a monument, but it's the location of one of the main cemeteries during the Siege of Barcelona, where many of the inhabitants who died fighting against the Bourbonic army were buried. It's where Catalanist demonstrations have been celebrated since the late 1800s and people still go pay homage nowadays.

For the time period right after the War of the Spanish Succession and until the Franco dictatorship, I recommend the Castell de Montjuïc (Montjuïc castle). It's a military fortress on top of a mountain overlooking the city, where Barcelona was bombed from many times. Inside the fortress, there's a small exhibition you can visit where they explain the history of working class revolts in the city in the 19th century and their repression, which I think is very interesting. What the Montjuïc Castle is most famous for is for being a jail after the civil war and during the dictatorship, and a place where many dissidents were killed, including Lluís Companys (president of Catalonia and founder of the antifascist committee during the Civil War). The Fossar de la Pedrera right next to it is a common mass grave where more than 4,000 antifascist prisoners who were kept in the fortress were buried. If you go to the castle, I recommend getting a bus there (or a cable-car, if you're up to spending more money). You can catch the bus at Plaça Espanya.

For more of the Civil War, you can visit one of the air raid shelters (Refugi 307) but I think you can only visit it in guided tours, though I'm not completely sure, but I know on Sundays the tours are free.

If you read popular places to visit, you'll see visitors also like going to the anti-air defence on the Turó de la Rovira in the Carmel neighborhood (mistakenly called the "Carmel bunkers"). It's where the anti-aircraft batteries to block fascist attacks were located during the Civil War, but most tourists go there because it has great views of the city (from the opposite side of what you'll see from Montjuïc). Honestly I'd say if you have few days in the city, you can skip this one. Between this and Montjuïc castle, I'd sooner recommend Montjuïc Castle because of its history and because you can see the fortress there, while the anti-aircraft batteries visible are less impressive.

You can see the remains of the bombs on some walls of the city, too. I think where you can see it the best in plaça Sant Felip Neri (next to the Cathedral). It was where refugee children from Franco-occupied areas were staying and it was hit by one of the (many) bombs that were dropped by the fascists during the war.

Also right next to the Cathedral (facing the Cathedral, it's the building on the left in the corner with Via Laietana avenue), you can take a look at the building that used to be the CNT's headquarter during the civil war. If you've seen pictures from back then, sometimes they're taken in front of there. Sadly you can only see it from outside because nowadays it's the headquarters of the employer's association 😵‍💫

Another civil war location that you'll surely walk by sooner or later is Plaça Catalunya square, it's where there's the Telefonica building that was collectivised by the CNT and which sparked the May Events of 1937. (My great-grandfather was in the CNT and was working there in the Telefonica building so I confirm from what he explained that it's true that the anarchists used to barge in the government's private conversations to make fun of them, one of the reasons that sparked the May Events, it's not a rumour he said he did it too lol). Also in Plaça Catalunya there used to be Hotel Colón where the famous Marina Ginestà photo was taken.

For museums, the Museu d'Història de Catalunya (Catalonia's History Museum) gives a general view from prehistory to the modern-day. It used to be a very fun museum because it had more interactive things but sadly they're very underfunded and haven't been able to replace them when some of them were damaged, so now there's less interactive things. Still, it's a good place to get an idea of all the history, at least to take a walk though it. The top floor is the one that has the civil war and the dictatorship. Otherwise, the MNAC (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya) is an art museum from the Middle Ages to the 1940s I think so it's also a nice way to walk through history in a more aesthetic way.

And unrelated to the war, if you're visiting the Sagrada Família remember to book the tickets online in advance. They're a bit expensive but it's because the Sagrada Família is an expiatory temple so it can only be built with the money from donations (and tickets count as a donation), not public funding or anything, so at least you know the money is being well spent. Personally I think the inside is very beautiful but the outside is a bit ugly lol, so I recommend going inside.

Besides that, mostly I'd recommend walking in the old city centre (Gothic quarter), starting near Santa Maria del Pi and the Cathedral, down Carrer del Bisbe to Plaça Sant Jaume, oh also Temple d'August is there which is a part of the Roman forum inside a building, and Plaça del Rei, and walk all the way to Santa Maria del Mar in the Born area, and then you can end at the Ciutadella Park.

Also, I'll link you to a post by @useless-catalanfacts from a while ago about places to visit in Barcelona:

I'll answer this publicly because I have some followers who are also from here so maybe they have something else to add!

I hope you have a great time in your trip! ☺️

[justsomestoicguy]

What.

So...

I'm not exactly thrilled about my newest group project, but hey, at least I got paired with decent people: 

Kai, Hikari, and Tanaka (again, surprisingly enough).

Our task? Researching important figures in Japan for our history assignment. Which means a trip to the museum.

Hikari bounces on her heels, her bracelets jingling and sundress flowing as she does. "I'll take the 20s!" she announces, her voice bubbly. "There's so many cool heroes from that time!"

"Then I'll handle the 30s," Kai speaks next, fixing his grey hoodie. 

"I'll cover the 2140s," Tanaka states, already looking so done with everything. 

I sigh, stuffing my hands in my pockets. "Guess that leaves me with the 50s."

Lucky me, I get stuck with the late 2150s, the era of Scourge—the vigilante who ended All For One's reign and took away my life's purpose. Cool, right? 

Might learn some stuff I didn't know about her.

Except, not really. 

Because I have a good feeling I won't be getting any more info on her beyond what I got on the internet.

And what did I get after four years of scouring exactly?

Alias: Scourge. Role: Head of the Vigilante Ops (that's what the media calls her vigilante organization). Appearance: female with white hair and purple eyes. Quirk: barrier.

And that's all!

Her real name's unknown, her background's obscure—heck, even her face is still a mystery thanks to that mask she always wore.

Damn it.

I let out another sigh, dragging my feet through Hoshizora Archival Museum's sterile halls.

Better start doing my work.

Pulling out my phone, I begin lazily snapping photos of exhibits and reading plaques with an unamused squint. 

The museum is all polished glass and polished floors, with exhibits that range from ancient artifacts to modern heroes. 

It's busy enough, tourists and school groups milling about, but I'm not really interested in any of it. I skim through the displays, mentally checking off the ones I've seen before.

As I wander around though, I notice a section that's surprisingly quiet. It's tucked away, almost like an afterthought. 

Curiosity piqued, I wander in. It's still part of the 2150s section, so I guess it's relevant. 

The lighting is dimmer here, and the air feels a bit heavier, like I've stumbled into some forgotten corner of history.

Then, I see it.

A massive golden statue, smack dab in the center of the room, of Scourge.

All imposing and magnificent. 

My jaw drops. 

Why haven't I seen this online before?! 

It's like the world wanted to keep this thing under wraps! 

Why?

I look around and notice someone else in the room; a lone tall man with black hair standing in front of the statue, gazing up at it. 

Geh—really?

I'm not too keen on getting close to strangers in quiet, echoey places. 

Guess standing here will have to do.

My eyes flicker back to the left and spot a plaque below the statue. Positioning my phone, I zoom in and read the inscription.

[In Loving Memory

2132-2159]

Damn, that's it? 

No name, no detailed bio—just a lifespan. 

I snap a quick pic of the plaque, frustrated by the lack of info. 

But as I raise my phone to get a shot of the statue, my camera catches a glimpse of the man again, who is now looking directly at me.

My blood runs cold.

I recognize that face. 

I'd recognize that elongated, triangular face anywhere!

Stain.

My heart pounds in my chest. 

What is the infamous Hero Killer doing here?! 

My instinct is to hide, to put my phone away, to disappear into the nearest shadow. But before I can even react, Stain moves—fast. In the blink of an eye, he's now right in front of me.

I yelp, stumbling backward. I brace for the impact of the cold floor, but it never comes. Stain catches me, holding me steady. My breath hitches, my mind racing. 

This is it. 

I'm going to die. 

Goodbye, new life. It has been a good 14 years.

"I've finally found you."

I blink. 

Did I hear that right? 

The words are spoken with a solemn, almost reverent tone. 

I look up, my wide eyes meeting Stain's. There is a softness there, a tenderness that seems so out of place on him.

"Master."

...

HUH?!

—

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

Chapter 1

[silvermaplealder]

Okay so by request of @gothamslostboy I'm going into my rampage about how due to greed and the desire to mass produce (like cutting out artists by using AI generated things) we lose important knowledge and whole trades.

I went to college and accidentally studied agroecology. My main focus turned to oxen, which is a term quite a lot of people don't even know today. So to start, oxen are working cattle that are 4+ years old. Working steers are anything younger than 4 years that are training to be oxen. I was given the opportunity to raise my own team in college. These were my boys:

Working steers/cows and oxen were a vital part of life for thousands of years. We've been working alongside these gentle giants for countless generations, and yet now you never see them anymore. I'm certain you've seen horses pulling carriages, or people riding horses, but oxen and working cattle were used for these purposes too. Horses are much faster than cattle, but they are more flighty and are very expensive to care for. Oxen on the other hand are slower, stronger, and tend to be more docile. And we can't forget that we get a majority of our dairy products from cattle.

So... what happened? The Industrial Revolution happened. Before the IR, all cattle were considered triple purpose: beef, dairy, and draft. Though now, if you say triple purpose you'll get a few laughs. "Dual Purpose" is the new term because draft isn't used anymore, at least not in the US. With the demand for greater production in the late 1700's, there became two different types of cattle: beef and dairy. Horses could outspeed oxen any day in a field. There became a steady decline of the 'family milk cow' which were also used for draft work. Farmers turned horses for working fields while using beef and dairy for production.

And then we lost the horses too once the tractors came along. There had been so much development in various equipment for oxen to make them more comfortable. People spent their whole lives working with these animals. They passed their knowledge onto their children. But with changing times, oxen weren't the best suited to keep up anymore with the demands. Even now, dual purpose breeds are becoming rarer and rarer.

If you look up oxen yoke makers in the US, you'll only find a handful. Older folks who are still trying to pass on the tradition. If you look up oxen harness makers in the US, you'll find 1. Just one. Otherwise, oxen folk now have to rely on making everything themselves or refurbishing old equipment. You know there used to be oxen shoers? Like horses, oxen used to wear shoes. Good luck finding someone to shoe your ox. It's almost impossible now. In a recent survey, some states said that they didn't have any farmers left that use oxen, or even own oxen. Though this can't be confirmed due to many folks that may not have had access to the survey.

With dwindling interest, and the constant loss of folks with the knowledge, oxen working in the US is almost unheard of. You'll find it at living history museums still. Some county fairs in the North East still have oxen pulls. There are some organizations that are still trying to preserve the knowledge, but access to land and equipment becomes harder and harder for younger folks.

This is the fate that other trades face. As artists are being pushed away by AI generated things, there will be a loss of talent. Techniques will be lost. Styles will be lost. It might not be our generation. But it could be the next. Or the one after that.

[signedkoko]

Hello, me again, sorry lol,

I was wondering, could I please get a Helluva Boss matchup? multiple characters are okay, if you think it's fitting or necessary.

I'm 21, pansexual/romantic, and polyamorous

General personality stuff:

MBTI is INFP

Ennegram types 2, 4 and 8

Zodiac Taurus sun, pieces moon and rising

Appearance: 5'3, kinda chubby, a few tattoos, somewhat muscular, tan, brown eyes, brown hair (it's usually dyed or bleached), and a few piercings. I've also got a fair amount of scars. I'm pretty plain, I'm ngl. Fashion consists of graphic tees (with puns, memes, and trippy art) and jeans or shorts. I'll wear lots of different kinds of jewelry, and don't really have a set aesthetic.

my friends have told me that I'm smart, funny, sarcastic, polite, thoughtful, strong, empathetic and compassionate. I can be jealous/envious (but I've been working on not letting it affect my relationships). I have a bad habit of taking stuff personally and dwelling on issues that I should let go. I don't love being around new People and can get annoyed/frustrated easily, especially if I'm overstimulated. I do my best to stay patient, though. I'm also very jumpy and gullible. I've been told that I'm a bit too trusting, and it's very easy to appeal to my emotions. Communication is very important to me in all my relationships.

My friends will usually come to me for advice, and I've been told I can be a good listener. I tend to daydream and can be pretty anxious. I've been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD. When I first meet people, I'm overly formal and will crack a few jokes, but once I'm familiar with someone, I cuss a lot and enjoy playful teasing, but I always encourage people to tell me if I go too far or set boundaries if they need to.

I collect a lot of stuff. I have a Ton of comfort items- my posters, stuffed animals, collectible figures, etc. I'm a big over thinker. I can be pretty independent and self sufficient (sometimes) but I'm also very very insecure and doubt myself a lot. I'm pretty excitable and enjoy talking about pretty much anything. Big on current events and media analysis. I've got lots of vocal stims and am pretty fidgety.

I show my love through acts of service and words of affirmation. I enjoy doing things for my loved ones and making sure they can relax, feel safe, and be happy. I could talk about my friends for hours.

Hobbies/likes- roller skating, playing video games, driving, listening to music (and singing along.. Badly), smoking weed, watching TV shows and movies, hanging out with friends, drawing, Writing, reading, going to museums/amusement parks, taking care of/watching animals, and analyzing media

I hope this isn't too overwhelming, and I apologize if I overshared a bit. Please don't feel pressured to answer.

Take care 💛

You got...Stolas!

There's no one better for you than the Ars Goetia member himself, who is one of the most considerate and caring people behind the curtains.

Stolas absolutely adored literature, but doesn't have much hand in media. Despite that, he would love to trade stories with you and look over your writing- keeping anything you write for him- and would encourage you to introduce him to your favourite shows or movies so he can speak about them with you.

His love language is mainly quality time, he can listen to you speak for hours, or tell you all kinds of things about his history. Watching movies, reading in one another's company, every second counts. He can be a bit clingy because of it, but once you tell him you are off somewhere he backs off and leaves you be. The reunion always makes it seem like he hasn't seen you in decades, though.

Stolas never kept any typical pets, unless you count his carnivorous plants! They warm up to you, as well, and you become one of few people who can feed them without any scratches. Stolas trusts very few people to care for them properly and is stern about their caretaking- but fortunately you don't struggle with it at all!

Part of his home is grandiose collections of items, mostly valuables only royals could get their hands on. Nevertheless, he keeps a shelf or two for your items and treats them with just as much respect, all stuffed animals and figures are regularly cleaned and kept safe and sound for when you need them, and your posters are likely framed with gold and glass to keep them protected and to suit his aesthetic.

If anyone is good at keeping things relaxed, it's him! Whenever you feel overwhelmed or stressed, he can take for a stroll through the stars, where everything is relatively silent, calm, and beautiful.

Even better is that Octavia finds you a lot less stressful than Stella, and thinks a lot of the media you're into is pretty neat. She doesn't speak much with you, but youll catch her taking pictures with your things a lot and see the posts later that have some pretty flattering captions.

Expect lavish parties where you get to dress up and then sneak out together when it gets boring, and lots of activities and errands to go around with Stolas doing.

Author's Note - Your runner ups were Moxie + Millie, followed by Striker! Thank you so much for being my first request and being so considerate <3

[wonder-in-wings]

TIMING: Mid-September-ish. Wibbly Wobbly timey-wimey shenanigans. September, the whole month. September. that's it. that's all you get LOCATION: The Natural History Museum PARTIES: Cass (@magmahearts and Parker (@wonder-in-wings SUMMARY: Cass decides to get a job and the museum sounds great! Parker thinks it's a much less good idea BUT... this is the fae that Metzli told him about so he has a talk with her. CONTENT WARNINGS: None

She’d been toying with the idea of getting a job for a while now, for a few reasons. Not because she cared about capitalism or anything — fuck capitalism, to be honest — but more like… the idea of having money without having to steal it might be nice. Cass wanted to be able to treat Alex to nice things without having to feel bad about picking pockets, wanted to be able to buy Wynne a coffee or bring Aria snacks without having to slide quarters across the counter or shove things into her pockets.

Plus, working at a museum seemed like it would be cool. Steven Grant worked at a museum, and he was Moon Knight! She’d be great at it, she was sure.

The interview had gone well enough… though there might have been some binding involved to get her the job. It was fine, it was whatever. She’d be a good employee, so it wasn’t like anyone would get in trouble for it. She straightened her shirt, grinning as she pulled open the door that read curator’s office on the plaque. There was a man sitting behind the desk, looking intently at something. Cass knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. “Hey, Mr. Curator Dude! I’m the new intern. Cass Akamai, here to muse this um.”

—

He spent time at the museum with decreasing frequency. Ever since the… Parker was still thinking on what to call it, the tumultuous storm of emotions, the pendulum that swung wildly inside him, he had come to a handful of small realizations. The first of which was that he was wasting too much time not dedicating himself to his passions, hobbies and the job he performed with better efficiency. The second was that he just didn’t like the museum. He understood the importance of maintaining some semblance of a social structure - he wasn’t doing it for the money but for the steadiness of human interaction. People were why he was there. Not him, specifically, of course, but Wardens in general. Part of the Wright Legacy was protecting the general population through the distribution of knowledge, and that was one the parts Parker didn’t struggle in. He considered knowledge to be important. Few places were better for the accrual of knowledge and information than museums. It was just that he wondered if other branches of science were more suited for information because as it stood, while he was “enthusiastic” enough to teach people about entomology, after recent events he found his temper notably shortened. Perhaps it was just a lasting side effect of the crystal’s manipulation over him, frustrating as it was to think about. Today he was in his ‘office’, poring over a general layout for changing up the exhibition, though nothing seemed right about it. He didn’t want those next to those, the colors on this display were completely inappropriate when placed directly next to the other display. The whole aspect of it was mildly irritating on his best days so suffice to say, Parker wasn’t paying attention at all to his surroundings until he thought he heard a knock. Inhaling sharply, he glanced up when he heard it and his steely blue eyes found a short girl with dark, thick hair and a round face. His mouth started to move as though to say ‘what’ but he managed to stop it and he instead laid the papers down on his desk, getting to his feet. “...” He sighed softly. Another one? Maybe this was the reason why he didn’t like the museum anymore; after the fiasco with the last intern at the beginning of the month, he wasn’t sure if this was the right day profession for him. “Ah.” Parker stood stiffly, keeping his eyes on the young adult named Cass and gesturing for her to take a seat. “I wasn’t aware that… we were hiring new interns.” He spoke through slightly gritted teeth, not bothering with the pleasantries of forcing a smile. “I’m… Parker Wright, curator of the entomology exhibition here.” He knew she knew that, it was protocol that he had to check off in his head.

—

He looked a little irritated, which didn’t bode well for Cass, did it? If the new boss was already in a bad mood on your first day, things probably weren’t going smoothly. But it didn’t matter — if the day sucked, there’d be nowhere to go but up. She offered the man — Parker Wright, apparently, whose job title sounded big and unpronounceable in a way that meant it was promptly forgotten — a bright grin as she entered further into the office.

All cards on the table, Cass wasn’t entirely sure what to expect out of this job. She’d never even been to a museum before ‘applying’ for this position. The most she knew about them came from a combination of Night at the Museum and Moon Knight, and somehow she didn’t think either was an entirely accurate depiction. But the job seemed easy enough, and they were going to pay her for it, so she wasn’t sure how much it mattered. Experience wasn’t half as important as people made it out to be. Plus, the only way to really get experience was through working, so… She was doing what she had to do.

“Well, I don’t know that they were planning on hiring anyone, but my resume’s pretty sick. Hard to say no, you know?” She offered Parker Wright an exaggerated wink, taking the seat across the desk from him and folding her hands in her lap. “So, what’s on the agenda, boss? You need me to feed the dinosaurs? Fight the mummies? Play poker with the cavemen?” 

—

Parker wasn’t gifted with being able to guess the approximate age of anything that wasn’t a tree, something he only knew because of childhood teachings to count the rings once the thing was cut down. So while he wasn’t gifted with guessing, he did anyway and placed her judging by her behavior as… He didn’t even know. Most people under the age of 35 all talked the same nowadays. She could’ve been 16, she could’ve been 30, he really didn’t know. She looked young though, perhaps early 20s. All of that flew right out of the window, however, as she got closer to his desk and the moment she sat down acted as shockwave through his bloodstream and Parker tensed so instinctively and so quickly that the pen he was holding in his hand cracked audibly with the pressure of the force applied to it. This was a nymph. There was a nymph who just strolled into his office and sat down across from his desk, asking him about fighting… mummies and feeding dinosaurs and– “I think you might’ve confused the museum for the amusement park or local arcade.” Parker said bluntly, internally admonishing himself for the brief lack of control as he set the pen down as gently as he could considering the pieces it was in now. Once that was done in his head, his mind quickly switched gears and imagination began to flourish. What type of nymph was she? What did she possess that he could obtain? Normally, he would’ve asked what she was but given his recent track record in that godforsaken town coupled with how he’d been completely caught off-guard by her mere existence in the same room as him, he wasn’t sure if he had the willpower to keep from leaping over the table and attempting to strangle her if she answered with something trivial and unimportant. So, instead, he popped his neck to release any of the tension that gathered in his body. ‘You’re the one in control, not them.’ “I suppose I should ask what you think this job is, for starters.” He turned his icy blue eyes to her, studying her features, wondering what was under the glamour, deliberating on how long he should’ve kept the facade going… and why, for some reason, her appearance seemed familiar. 

—

Living on the streets taught you a lot of different things. It taught you how to tell what food in a dumpster was safe to eat and what ought to be avoided, for starters. It taught you how to stay dry in a hurricane even when you didn’t have a roof to place over your head. It taught you how to slip your hand into someone’s pocket undetected and come back holding their wallet, or how to say things that were technically true but still bent the truth enough to make someone want to give you the contents of their bank account. 

Mostly, though, it helped you understand when something shifted. When the person you were talking to went from amicable to annoyed, when that annoyance went from inconsequential to dangerous. It was an important skill to have on the streets… and it was coming into play here, too.

She approached Parker’s desk, and something shifted. His grip on the pen in his hand tightened so much that it cracked. Cass couldn’t figure out what had done it. Her jokes about the responsibilities of a museum employee might not have been his cup of tea, but surely they weren’t so bad that they’d inspire pen-breaking, right? Cass’s expression turned to something a little more uncertain, but Parker seemed willing to continue as if nothing had happened and she could do the same.

“Well, the listing just said ‘intern.’ It wasn’t super specific. You guys should probably work on that a little bit. But, uh… I figure cleaning, maybe? Sorting… exhibits? Maybe some tour guide stuff, which I think I’d be, like, super great at, by the way. Or, uh, something in the gift shop? I’m down to do whatever, dude, as long as I get paid. I won’t lie to you, I am in this for the money.”

—

‘You guys’...? If Parker had his way then there wouldn’t even be an internship for the entomology exhibit. If the museum was so desperate to get people to fill positions that were mysteriously opened due to strange circumstance - which this town was full of - then that was their prerogative but that didn’t mean they had to include him and his collection in their repertoire. He really needed to branch out and make his own little gallery. For now, though, the Warden kept his unsettling stare on Cass, wondering what the hell he should do. If absolutely nothing else, the two were mutually incompatible when it came to extended interactions, though Parker didn’t necessarily blame her– ‘Why not? She’s a fae. You seem to forget that those are, y’know, dangerous and overall bad for everyone.’ His brother was fortunately the one who chimed into his thoughts this time. He inhaled, clenching and unclenching one of his hands as it lay on his desk. “Have you ever… had a job before?” He asked, maintaining his stare though as he was asking, the gears in his mind were turning quickly, trying to figure out how he could get her out of his room and to avoid working with her at the very least. Contrary to everything he learned, everything he witnessed, everything that fae had done… he was apathetic at best. Parker cared nothing for what would happen to this nymph if another Warden found her. And indeed, if he were to ascertain that she had something of value, she’d be in his sights as well but as of right now, this particular instant, he almost wanted nothing more than to just tell her to beat it. “What are your… hobbies and interests?”

—

He kept looking at her. Just staring with a blank face that was a little unsettling, if he was being totally honest. Like, when did this dude ever blink? If she was going to be working here full time, she was definitely going to find some way to binding him into blinking more. It’d be for his own good, really. Weren’t his eyes getting tired? Didn’t it hurt? Someone needed to save him from his own weird habits. Cass would be doing him a favor, honestly.

She clicked her tongue at his question, tilting her head to the side as if she had to think about it. She didn’t. She knew the answer. “I guess it depends on your definition of job,” she replied, deciding that this was a good road to take. Admitting that she actually had zero experience was a bad move, she knew enough to be sure of that. But pretending her experience was just a little more unique than what might fit on a resume? That was a lot better. “I’ve been supporting myself for a very long time.” A true statement, even if her means of supporting herself had been far from legal. And ‘a very long time’ was likely longer than he’d guess. Most people wouldn’t assume that someone had been on their own since before they were a teenager, after all. 

“Oh, I’ve got all kinds of hobbies. I like superheroes. Steven Grant works in a museum in the MCU version of Moon Knight, you know. I actually kind of vibe with the change. There are way too many billionaire superheroes already, so I don’t mind that they made him broke. I like the outdoors, too. Hiking, climbing, all that stuff. Do rocks count as a hobby? I love rocks. And volcanoes. What does that have to do with this job, though? I know how capitalism works, dude, I’m not going to be doing my hobbies at work.”

—

She was young and Parker didn’t know how long constituted a ‘long time’ but considering she was a nymph, when she said ‘supported herself’ he had to assume that she wasn’t part of an aos sí and that she probably didn’t have much work experience. Not that any of this mattered; she could’ve been the single-handedly most competent and appropriate person for any position and he would’ve still found a way to get her away from him. Then she spoke about her hobbies which, once he muscled past the fact that he had zero idea what she was talking about about superheroes and Steven Grant or whatever, he considered what she said about rocks and volcanoes. Oreads were uncommon; Parker had only met one in his life so far and it wasn’t his mark but his brother’s. Oreads, from what he’d observed, were his ‘least favorite’ type of nymph, though he would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t manage to find a piece of it to collect still - he briefly recalled the chunk of rock inlaid with smooth obsidian that sat on his shelf in his den. They were… They lacked grace and finesse at the worst of times (though that wasn’t specific to them) and, of course, they lacked the precious things that Parker obsessed over. Still though, he finally blinked as he looked away from Cass, glancing down at the paper instead. “Sometimes your hobbies can work in tandem with your profession.” He said with a half-shrug, his posture managing to relax somewhat as he finally had a read on what the nymph sitting before her was, aside from a child, a fae and presumably one who hadn’t been formally employed before. “You said you enjoy rocks and volcanos; that’s an unusual hobby but there are jobs that utilize those skills.” Soon enough, his steely eyes darted to her once more, studying her features, wondering why she inherently looked familiar. He kept his mind from being consumed with curiosity at what she looked like now, assuming that she was a rock fae, and instead quirked an eyebrow absently. “I have two more questions, forgive me if neither of them means anything to you: does the word ‘oread’ mean anything to you?” A pause. “And… Do you know someone named Metzli?”

—

Was he going to find her a job that had to do with rocks, then? The idea was a little exciting. Cass had really only been interested in this position because it seemed more fun than working in a coffee shop or a retail store, and because she’d seen a few movies and shows about people working in museums. She’d always assumed it was something she’d do until she got bored of it, collecting a paycheck big enough to let her take Alex on a fancy date before moving on her way. She’d never imagined that she might actually enjoy it, but if the guy in charge really wanted to know about her interests so he could find her some tasks to do that included them? Maybe she’d stick around longterm.

The oread leaned back in her chair, humming. “Is there a rock section in the museum?” That was something museums might have, wasn’t it? They’d put stolen rocks on display, pluck them from where they belonged in order to allow people to look at them in a way that was comfortable for them, in a way that didn’t require them to hike up mountains or spend time outdoors. It was silly and stupid and wrong, but if Cass was given a position in such a department, she could correct it. She could steal back the stolen rocks and if she couldn’t put them where they belonged, she could at least keep them with her. They’d be a lot better off that way, she knew. But of course, she’d never say any of this aloud.

The ‘interview’ continued, and Cass blinked at the line of questioning. She might not have had the most traditional fae upbringing, but even she knew better than to tell a stranger what she was, so she shrugged. “Aren’t there oreads in DND?” Answering a question with a question was a great way to avoid lying directly. She’d gotten good at it, over the years. But the second question… “Yeah, I know Metzli. Do you know Metzli?”

—

Parker must’ve missed the part where there was this vague implication that he was the director and/or hiring manager at the museum. Granted, over the years, he’d reluctantly gotten to know some of the other employees and exhibitionists but he wasn’t sure where this idea that he was more suitable for the hiring of young adults, interns and college kids came from. And he found himself just slightly frustrated internally, too - he was largely apathetic to the plights and struggles of other people, preferring to take an objective perspective and by that logic, it was true. Cass could’ve easily found work that dealt with rocks. He’d know about finding professions based around incredibly specific niches and even then, geology wasn’t as narrow as he was sure people thought. But he put her question about that on hold, preferring to get to the bottom of what she was and why her description seemed familiar. So she might not’ve currently belonged to an aos sí but he supposed he was being overeager to assume that that meant she either didn’t come from one or that she wasn’t taught better than to just… admit what she was. Maybe she didn’t legitimately know what an oread was. He doubted that, though. “I don’t know what ‘dee enn dee’ is.” He replied bluntly, opting to narrow his blue-eyed stare as he seemed to lean forward slightly. He wasn’t observing her anymore, he was scrutinizing her, attempting to stare through her at whatever her unglamoured form looked like. She knew Metzli. At first, Parker thought maybe this wasn’t the right girl but by their own admission, Metzli was an uncommon name and the affirmation of knowing them activated the reply of the conversation he had with them about collecting - a girl. Tan. Black hair. About 5’4”, button nose. That description was painfully vague when he initially received it but he wondered how fortunate he had to have been if this was the same girl. “I do.” He replied, his expression softening though he still stared intently at her. “They spoke to me of someone they’re fond of, someone who matches your description and…” He inhaled, hesitating as he chose what to say; should he be transparent as a display that he meant what he said when he gave Metzli his word? His brother and father gave him contradictory statements in his head, one of them saying ‘yes’ and the other saying ‘hell no’. Anonymity, the knowledge and churning sensation of his blood able to recognize fae long before they knew what he was, was one of his most valuable tools. He cleared his throat. “I told them I would leave whoever that was alone.” He still stared at her, but his eyes were almost… pleading. Almost. “If you’re who they were talking about, I need to know. I need to know what you look like so I don’t–” He cut himself off and unclenched his hands. “...Disappoint them.” 

—

He was staring at her in a way that felt odd, a way that sent the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end for reasons she didn’t quite understand. Was this part of the interview? It struck Cass that she didn’t entirely know what a job interview consisted of, or if it came before or after you were hired. The parts of human life she knew the most about were the parts often highlighted in movies and television shows, and few pieces of media wasted time showing things as mundane and boring as job interviews. The ones that were showcased were typically the ones where everything went wrong, with a laughtrack going in the background even though Cass never entirely felt as if she was in on the joke. How could she laugh at something going wrong without knowing what it looked like when it went right? It didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to her.

She shifted under the curator’s gaze, offering him a small smile. “It’s a game. I’ve never played it, but they talk about it in Stranger Things all the time, so I read about it. You pretend to be someone you’re not and go on adventures, I think.” It sounded like fun, if only because Cass was always so tempted by things that allowed her to be someone else for a while. Maybe that was why this job held such appeal, too; she could pretend to be different here the same way she might pretend to be different in a game of DND. 

But only if she made it past the interview.

The curator leaned forward, so Cass did, too. She didn’t understand why Metzli would have described her to a stranger, couldn’t figure out the motivation behind offering someone they wouldn’t have known she’d meet at all a physical play-by-play on how to recognize her. Were they just telling strangers about her the way one might gush about someone they cared for? Was the description because they hadn’t had a photo to show off? The thought warmed her just a little, though it was a more cautious warmth than it would have been before Metzli’s stint of locking themself away. Cass had been burned by abandonment enough times to be wary of someone who’d left once already, even if she didn’t want to carry that wariness with her.

“I think they’re fond of me,” she replied, and there was a painful honesty in her uncertainty. She thought Metzli cared about her, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever be certain about it again. Cass’s ability to believe that people loved her was such a fickle thing already, slippery and hard to hold. Once she dropped it, it was impossible to readjust her grip in a way that stuck. “But… I don’t understand what you mean. Why would they want you to leave me alone? You’re not bothering me or anything. And…” She paused, a little uncertain. “You already know what I look like. You’re looking right at me.” At a version of her, at least. She felt more like the glamour than her true form some days, anyway. 

—

His subtlety wasn’t working. It made sense, when Parker thought about it - when he was hunting with either Walker or another hunter, he didn’t have to dance around concepts as often because he knew he had (at least pseudo) reliable backup. Similar logic could apply when he was alone with one but this was that third option, and with a particular set of rules, at that. He legitimately didn’t want to disappoint Metzli; their first, strange interaction aside, their conversations had been short, succinct and refreshing. He could be frank, candid. Honest. ‘This is why you don’t make friends, boy.’ His father was right. Friends, if he could legitimately call people like Rhett, Metzli, Winter and Jade that, served as distractions muddying up his purpose, clouding what was normally a clear vision and one of the sole reasons for his existence. Parker could feel his father’s eyes on him again, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end which, in conjunction with his blood swirling the way it was due to Cass’ close proximity, threatened to spark something in his brain. That couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it to happen. “Metzli is very fond of you.” He emphasized, feeling his hands start to shake as he staved off the unpleasant combination of sensations he felt on him at this moment. He faltered on his words for a moment, trying to think about what he should say and what would keep the situation from escalating in ways that would’ve become unmanageable. “I need to know what you look like - both forms - so I can hold myself to my word that I won’t pursue you.” Parker opted for that path, instead. “You don’t have to show me but I need to know if you’re an oread.” There was a brief pause as he kept his stare, arguably as earnest as it had been since she walked into his office. “I’m a Warden.” He explained. “Which means… I’m supposed to stop people like you. But… But I made them a promise that I wouldn’t hurt their girl. I think you’re the girl they were talking about.” He slowly got to his feet now and he began to pace back and forth, three steps one way, then three steps the other as his hands clenched and unclenched, all the while keeping his unwavering gaze on her. “If… you’ll work with me and tell me what you are, ideally that you don’t hurt humans, I’ll do what I can to help find a position for you here.” It wasn’t a deal and if she knew what Wardens were then Parker knew she’d be able to tell why it wasn’t a deal but he also meant it with sincerity.

—

He spoke again, emphasizing that Metzli was very fond of her with a certainty Cass couldn’t maintain herself. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold a certainty like the one in his voice when claiming that anyone was fond of her. There would always be doubts, always be a voice in the back of her mind whispering that something wasn’t right, that she was fooling herself. But the curator was sure, and Cass could find some comfort in a stranger’s insistence even if she still didn’t quite understand why he was saying it. 

But then, he kept going. He needed to know what she looked like so he wouldn’t pursue her? Why was he pursuing anyone? Immediately, Cass was tense. She thought of Alex and Teagan, of what they’d told her about hunters. The bullet in Alex’s hip, the way Ariadne still trembled with the memory of the van she’d been locked in. Cass had so little experiences with hunters, but she’d seen her friends suffer at their hands often enough to know that they were bad. So if this man was one, if he was pursuing people like Cass, if a promise to Metzli was the only reason he wouldn’t go after her… Why was Metzli friends with him at all?

He confirmed her suspicions, admitting outright to being a warden who was supposed to stop people like her, and Cass shrunk into herself a little, making herself smaller as her heart thrummed desperately in her chest. He stood, and she flinched, pulse in her throat going haywire. Metzli made him promise? Why? Metzli couldn’t bind him to the promise the way Cass could, so why would they take him at his word if he was hurting people? 

Her throat felt dry, and she remembered what else she’d been told. “If you’re a warden,” she said, the word feeling foreign and uncomfortable on her tongue, “can’t you already tell? Aren’t you — aren’t you supposed to know?” The question was far more daring than she felt, in the moment. The bravado was false, but she clung to it anyway. “It’s like you said. Metzli is very fond of me.” It tasted like a lie in her mouth, her own uncertainty turning the words to acid on her tongue. “They’d be upset if you hurt me.” That one, at least, still felt true. “And I’m not hurting anyone. I don’t do that. I wouldn’t.” Another true statement. “But I don’t trust that you wouldn’t hurt me. You promised Metzli you wouldn’t? Promise me.” 

—

He inhaled through his arrow-straight nose at her set of questions. “I know you’re a nymph.” He explained after a pause. “But I don’t know what type.” It was true; nymphs were the most common of fae in his experience due to how many different types there were so it made sense for them, especially entomids, to fall into Parker’s area of expertise but outside of that, all he could do was tell from that initial churning of blood in his veins that whoever he was interacting with was a fae. After briefly considering leaving why he needed to know what she was out of his explanation, he ended up adding to it instead. “If we happen to run into each other and you’re in your unglamoured form, I’ll be able to tell that it’s you.” It sounded completely obvious because it was. ‘Fae’s a fae, they all look the same to me’, he could hear his father say but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Parker could tell almost immediately when he saw an unglamoured fae if they’d met before. They surely recognized him. Each one was unique down to the details in their wings or the particular spiral of their horns, a fingerprint of an identity. “If I can tell that it’s you, I’ll know to leave you alone.” That was the gist, he was just… maybe a little frustrated that for all the word games and dancing around, the one time Parker tried to be more frank, it still didn’t work and he needed to be even more obvious.

Then came her insistence to promise. It wasn’t unexpected that she wanted him to make an actual promise to her the way he’d simply given the word to Metzli. He and Metzli were friends. Parker wasn’t sure what that meant, not in its entirety or how genuinely, but they still talked to him even though they knew what he was, what he could do just as he knew what they could do. They still offered to let him talk about his interests, still warned him when there was something dangerous in town. They didn’t expect perfection from him and from their conversations, if he didn’t know any better, they trusted him to hold his word. Was that perceived friendship worth… going against his Legacy? Make a promise to a fae not to hurt them because of a vampire? He could feel his father’s eyes on him again, almost as if daring him to do it. Spit on the name and the Legacy. Reject your sole purpose. He paused for a long moment, simply staring down at the nymph, a glossy sheen on his eyes for a moment as he was looking in her direction but not actually at her. His breathing grew shallow before it got back under control, almost as though it didn’t know it was being lost to begin with. With a final exhale, he blinked and focus returned to his icy blue eyes.

“...I promise that I will not physically harm, maim, target, harass, or attempt to kill you unless I learn that you have been using your powers, any and all that you possess, to intentionally mentally, magically or physically harm me as well as humans presumed to be innocent unless or until proven guilty.” It was a mouthful but it was as specific as he could be as every conceivable counterargument that she could offer ran through his head before he spoke. ‘What if it’s a bad guy?’ ‘What if I need to protect someone?’ ‘She disagreed with me so I just took a thank you for future use, it’s not a big deal’ ‘You’re guilty, that means I can harm you’ ‘Well when you think about it, it’s not wrong to promise-bind a millionaire since he doesn’t have a soul anyway’ or whatever other generational sentiment she could conjure up. Vague implications weren’t something that sat right with the Warden, knowing what he knew and how even the smallest idea that something could be interpreted more nebulous than the original thought had immense power. Children, teenagers and young adults had such skewed views on what justified defending themselves, their emotions and committing crime and while Parker had no inherent interest in the comings and goings of pickpockets, vagabonds and thieves, there was a difference between using street smarts and manipulating someone through the use of magic. It wasn’t fair, he knew, but that was something that fae had to learn to deal with if they wanted to assimilate into human society. If not, they could go spend their time in their aos sí, doing… whatever it is they did instead of ruining the lives of humans. Cass was here, and this was what he was dealing with. “If that’s disagreeable to you, then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.” The Warden keenly stared at her. 

—

It was… uncomfortable, the knowledge that the only reason he might not attack her if he came across her in unglamoured form was because of her relationship with Metzli. It was uncomfortable knowing that that might be the only reason he wasn’t attacking her now, while she sat glamoured in his office. Cass had no real experience with hunters. She thought, with retrospect, that Debbie might have been one, but she didn’t really know for sure. None of the older fae back in her aos si had seen it fit to warn her. She liked to tell herself that it was because they didn’t want to scare her, but she knew the truth was likely something more sinister — it would have been far more convenient for all of them if she found the wrong end of a hunter’s blade and had no idea that she even needed to defend herself from it. 

“You could just leave everyone alone,” she said, her voice a little tight. Her relationship with Metzli would save her from this hunter, but what about her friends? She didn’t want anyone she cared about to be in danger just because this man wanted to… to what? To hurt people just for being? Maybe if he’d make the promise for one person, he’d make it for more… but certainly not for Cass. She wasn’t even important enough to be protected by her own family back in Hawai’i. She was only important enough to protect here because Metzli had said she was, and even that had probably been born of guilt following their arguments after the vampire’s stint of locking themself in a shed. 

She watched him, the way his whole body seemed to tense with her words. She’d bound a lot of people, but never like this. It was so rare for someone to know that she was binding them, so impossible for them to walk straight in with their eyes wide open. If he didn’t make the promise, it would come as no surprise. But if he did, wouldn’t it be heavier? Wouldn’t it mean more than the people who threw the word around like it was nothing, like it hardly mattered at all? The silence stretched long and heavy between them, with the curator not blinking, barely moving. Cass sat similarly still, uncharacteristic and so different from her usual animated state.

And then, he spoke. He said the words, and her eyes widened. She bound him to the promise quickly, like she was worried he might back out somehow if she was slow. She felt the bind tighten like a pair of cuffs, but it wasn’t quite as restrictive as it could have been both due to the specificity of his words and the fact that Cass found she didn’t want the promise to hurt him. Not unless he really broke it. Not unless he tried to hurt her. 

She let the silence stretch on a moment longer before she nodded. “Okay,” she agreed. “I think we can be on the same page.” She hesitated a moment, then nodded again. He hadn’t included a clause in his promise that she needed to hold up her end of the bargain in order for it to take effect, but she wasn’t a liar. She’d hold up her end, anyway. “I’m an oread,” she confirmed. “Volcanic. I won’t show you my true form in here, ‘cause there’s lava and it’d make your office smell like sulfur or whatever, but I’m pretty sure Metzli was talking about me. They’re my friend.” They called her their child, sometimes, but Cass was too afraid to ask if that meant she could use another word for them. For all she knew, it was just… part of Metzli’s struggle with English. To find out for sure might be devastating. “I can show you somewhere else, sometime, but… Maybe not today.”

—

It was psychosomatic but Parker had spent enough time both learning about and interacting with fae that though he couldn’t feel the magic weaving itself around his words, it didn’t change the fact that he could easily visualize that collection of words wrapping themselves around his neck like a collar; snug, comfortable but abnormal ready to dig into him should he attempt to go back on his promise, with the invisible tether now sitting in the open palm of Cass. He despised the feeling of restraint but refused to believe that this interaction and subsequent promise was the result of poor planning, thought or a lack of intelligence. It was as accurate and specific a transaction as he could’ve made it. Still though, that was effectively the first promise Parker had made to a fae and part of him wanted to tell her that but he didn’t dare. Rather, a different part of him hoped that she could understand that he wasn’t just another person on the street blindly making promises and giving information away - for some reason or another, regardless of whether or not Cass would be able to understand it (let alone that Parker himself didn’t quite understand it), something about his friendship with Metzli was important enough for a Warden to willingly promise a fae. He wondered if Metzli would understand the importance of that. He supposed it didn’t matter; it was specific enough that it could be effectively broken if Cass didn’t live up to her side of the promise either so this wasn’t an ‘all-or-nothing’ scenario. And, strange as it seemed, Parker found himself wanting to… believe that Cass didn’t just go around harming humans. He could tell that she was subtly matching his body language, which gave him the impression that she was imitating him even though she must’ve been uncomfortable knowing that he was a Warden. He also knew that she wasn’t stupid and furthermore, she told him what type of nymph she was even though she wasn’t under an obligation to answer his request to know. With that and with her explanation that she was willing to show him her unglamoured form at a different time, in a different place, Parker forced himself to ease up from standing stiffly and he slowly, but with a semblance of casualty, sat down across from her once more. “I believe you.” He replied, still staring at her but with a slightly softening gaze. “Oreads are uncommon.” ‘And you aren’t interested in harvesting from oreads, right?’ His brother asked. It was true; Parker’s interests lay strictly in wings and, much more recently, tails and horns. Rocks, minerals, gemstones and the like that oreads featured were of value to Parker but only in as basic a sense as ‘it holds monetary value for normal people’. “You said volcanic?” He nodded faintly. “I believe you.” He repeated. “You don’t have to show me; I appreciate you telling me, Cass.” Another honest statement, now accompanied with her name to help him with the association of her face, her name, what she was, and running the promise over and over in his head so no part of it could be misinterpreted. “Did you… still want me to search for a position for you here?” He asked after a beat. “I understand if this exchange has made you wary.” 

—

He said he believed her and, somehow, it felt as if she’d passed some invisible test. As if she’d done something right. She told herself she didn’t care what this man thought of her. She shouldn’t care, she knew; he was a warden, and he hurt people like her. He hurt them just for being. The only reason she was exempt from it was because she happened to be friends with someone he liked, and that was a thought that settled a weight of its own into her chest, a thing she didn’t want to think about too much or for too long. She shouldn’t care what this man thought of her at all, shouldn’t give the tiniest inkling of a shit whether he thought she was lying or not. 

But Cass cared what everyone thought of her. That was what it really came down to, in the end. She cared what Parker thought of her. She cared what the strangers on the street thought of her. She cared what people in the grocery store thought, what children on their way to school thought, what her friends thought, what her enemies thought. She was incapable of seeing someone, anyone, and not wondering what they might think of her, of not caring whether those thoughts were good or bad. To Cass, to be loved was to be seen, and to be seen was as necessary as breathing. Parker believed her, and it felt good even if it shouldn’t. It felt like it mattered, even if it didn’t.

She offered him a small, tight smile. She was still uncomfortable, still uneasy. How could she not be? Binding him took away some of the strain, but she was still afraid of him. She’d never met a warden before unless you counted Debbie, and Debbie was there and gone so quickly that Cass sometimes tried to convince herself that it had never happened at all. Like a bad dream, the last pieces of it already fading as consciousness settled in. 

At his question, she paused. She took stock of how she was feeling, let it settle. “No,” she said quietly, “I don’t think I want to work here.” Not if she’d feel like this every time she stepped through the door. Cass dealt with her feelings by pushing them away, by piling optimism on top of the quiet fear and the tense uncertainty. Here, with this man, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do that. And to Cass, nothing was scarier than the thought that she might have to exist in her own feelings as they really were, with none of the fluff she used to make them lighter. 

Getting to her feet, she stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said, because she was supposed to. Because that was what you said to people, even if it wasn’t nice to meet them at all. Even if they scared you. Maybe especially then. “I’ll be going now. I hope you manage to find someone who’s a better fit.”

—

He knew the answer to his question almost before he even asked it. No, of course she didn’t want to stay. But the important part of his asking was that he could say without lying, himself, that he tried. Parker was a meticulous man, this was obviously by the way he acted, spoke, carried himself. He thought carefully about things despite it seeming like he thought of nothing when in the grips of fascination and artistic expression. The Warden knew that Cass would say no, but that she would choose that for herself. He wondered if she knew that if he were any other Warden, they wouldn’t have been having this conversation. There would be no promise to prevent harm, no rhetorical question about offering her a position, no exchange of names. She was a fae and Parker was a human; she was a menace and he was a tool. She was an oread, a sentient rock and he wasn’t interested in her aesthetically, which was almost worse when he thought about it. She had nothing that he wanted, yet he was here, taking her hand in his strong, calloused palm, feeling his blood recoiling as it wanted to redistribute the iron to his skin to burn her but also feeling the words around his neck tighten at the notion. “Wherever you go,” Parker replied, keeping his unblinking stare down onto the oread. “Be honest.” It was his turn to lower his voice. “It wasn’t nice to meet me. But it was important.” One of the corners of his mouth twitched, as though threatening to pull it up into the semblance of an unnatural smile; he made absolutely sure to make no such promises that he wouldn’t or couldn’t psychologically mess with her. People were so sensitive, those days. If he promised ‘no harm’ in general, he wouldn’t have gotten anything done.

He let go of her hand gently and his own hand crossed over the other one against his chest. “I hope you find a job more to your liking.”

[braveryhearted]

Player Character / Tav of Baulder's Gate 3 Character Sheet

Name: Serenity ( Sere ) Caldwell. Age: Early 20s. Height: Medium. Clothes in Camp: Minthara's aka she looted it like the Rouge she is. :3 Hair Color: White / Silver. Eye Color: Light Elf Purple and Dark Elf Purple. Hair Length / Style: Medium / Winterfell Scarf. Ears: Pointed. Complexion: Pale. Profession: Folk Hero / Noble. Alignment: True Neutral. Class: High Elf Half Mermaid Rogue. Sub Class: Arcane Trickster. Boons: Slight of Hand, Charisma, Deception, History, Arcane. Weakness: Strength, Defense, Constitution.

Granddaughter of Wyllyck and Abelea. Daughter of an unnamed Caldwell and Undyne of the Forgotten Lands.

The Caldwells are one of the oldest families in the Gate, and under her grandfather Wyllyck's leadership, sustained their great wealth. Serenity's grandad, however, did not hoard his wealth, and instead distributed a lot of it to charity. Because of this and several other reasons, the Caldwell family is very well regarded, not just in the Upper City, but city-wide. Her grandfather Wyllyck even invested into businesses in the Lower City, giving him great repute in the area. In addition to general charitable works, he donated very generously to the Church of Last Hope, Shrine of the Suffering, Watchful Shield, and the High House of Wonders.

Serenity shares a lot of her personality with her grandfather. She's said to be very modest, talented, and philanthropic. Serenity is more interested in studying, discussing alchemy, and conducting charity work, and thus declined invitations to noble galas. She believes most other patriars were too concerned with their own pleasure in order to care about the Lower and Outer City. Serenity was against the Guild, though that did not stop her from looking into issues within the Outer City.

In Baulder's Gate, Serenity could often by found in the Wide, studying alongside her fellow alchemists. The Caldwell patriarch is well liked all over Baldur's Gate. Many persons and organizations were impressed with Wyllyck and his extended family, including Duke Torlin Silvershield, the Parliament of Peers, and even his political rival, Ulder Ravengard.

Wyllyck has an intelligent wife, Abelea Caldwell, who was skilled at finance and business management. This is where Serenity gets her pragmatic skills and her stealing everything she sees, even if it's not really valuable. If it's sellable even for one gold, it's worth every yoinked slight of hand.

In 1482 DR, the Parliament of Peers planned on electing Serenity's grandfather, Wyllyck Calwell to become a duke and thus part of the Council of Four. Wyllyck had very strong support from existing dukes, and citizens from all around Baldur's Gate. However, Caldwell never became duke. He was eventually passed over in favor of Lord Ulder Ravengard.

The Caldwells originally made their fortune on the the extensive orchards of apples and pears that were grown south of Baldur's Gate. In the 1400s, they branched out into importing raw timber and exporting cut and treated lumber, thanks to their own treatment process. This was used by the majority of builders, carpenters, coopers, shipwrights, and wheelwrights in the region. By the 1480s DR, they'd expanded into shipping upriver and bought and operated two ships, Abelea and Sweetseed.

They are very well regarded within the city for their numerous charitable endeavors and financial investments in businesses located throughout the Lower City. They made generous donations to several temples: the High House of Wonders, the Watchful Shield, the Shrine of the Suffering, and the Church of Last Hope. By 1492, they had ownership of most of the art museums in Baldur's Gate. Nevertheless, their riches were still not a patch on those of the Silvershield family.

Wyllyck and Abelea had multiple sons, in which one unnamed one fell in love with the mermaid Undyne, who grew legs and left the sea to be with the one she loved. They eventually wed and had Serenity, their only child. Her mermaid gene is more submissive than her High Elf one so when they classified her after the birth, she was put under the High Elf category. The only affects that she has that can been scene is her impulsive tendency to steal almost anything, especially skulls and bones and her melodic singing voice, said to even outshine the harpies on the beach.

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In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same traditions), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans / human-like beings. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople.

The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythology, which were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day.

Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (1836). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films.

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Her (battle) theme is LOVE THE SUBHUMAN SELF from Guilty Gear. She's deeply in love with the fellow high elf rogue turned vampire, Astarion Ancunín. Verses if they are in a romantic relationship are dependent here. Not gonna force anything. Her relationship with her mother Undyne is strained, as her mother is jealous and has tried various attempts on the young woman's life through the years, as Mermaids tend to be envious of anyone else and wish them dead.

[flowerliker]

@lavamollusks

Sorry if I'm being a bother, but I was wondering if you had any experience with Lileep? I routinely work with geologists, and one of them offered me a root fossil some time ago. Its pretty much been sitting on my shelf ever since.

Sometimes I think about getting it revived, but I would want to make sure I knew what I was getting into first.

oh it's not a bother at all!!! 💛 lileep are SO interesting, they're actually really different from lots of grass-types but i've still tried to do lots of research on them!!!

in general lileep are really docile and won't like to move around very much. i think they don't mind being carried (at least if they like you!) but they probably won't want to do much running after you. they'd have a hard time with it anyway because they're ocean pokémon!!! 🌊 i know they're happiest if they have a seawater tank. not to stay in all the time but it's important they spend some time there to stay healthy!!! i think maybe someone who works with sea life would know better about the specifics about what sort of tank you should get and its upkeep, but since i live really close to the oceanic museum i bet i could ask and someone might know! oh and maybe this seems obvious but just in case, since they're ocean pokémon you don't need to water them!!!

also!! i mentioned that lileep don't move around very much!! when they lived in the sea they used to pick one rock they really liked and stick to it forever! i wonder if maybe that made it hard to hunt and that's part of why they went extinct... 😓 i guess i wouldn't really know though. anyway a lileep will be distressed if it doesn't have something it can hold onto! i think it would be a good idea to pick something really solid but not so heavy that you can't carry it... you can't force a lileep to let go of something it's holding onto! it's just too strong!!! 🏋️‍♀️ you have to try bribery with nicer things instead hehe

also lileep are carnivores!!! you can still feed them pokéblocks and stuff but they won't be healthy unless they're eating meat too... i don't think it's good to put anything live in their tank with them but i bet you could throw in its meal and let it "hunt" to keep it engaged hehe!!

i think you should also talk to someone who knows about ocean pokémon too!! lileep is really different from the grass-types i usually work with but i like all grass types and especially since i used to be a big history nerd i worked hard to learn a lot about it hehe 🤓 but i hope that's helpful!!!! i can talk to the people at the oceanic museum and see if they know anything for you too!!!