#the troubles of being a jewish cat owner

[azriellaveraon]

Good Yuntif, when I went to blow my shofar at Yom Kippur services, a puff of cat fur blew out instead.

[vvakarians]

World lore and Arc 1 Character lore from Melrose: City of Monsters! This world is a story that myself and my boyfriend @thecoffeerain

Maxime and Victor belong to my boyfriend! 

Charlie’s Twitter | Charlie’s P a t r e o n

Info under the cut!

ABOUT MELROSE: CITY OF MONSTERS

Melrose is a city just south of New York City in America, it’s a small town that is unassuming at first but is filled with dark secrets. Vampires, witches, werewolves, and humans exist together, though in a vaguely dysfunctional way. The government broke the news about vampires and werewolves only five years previous, though they’ve lived in society for far longer than that. At this point people are getting used to them living among the human population, but knowledge about magic is still kept under wraps. Vampirism, lycanthropy, and magic comes from a disease that is both highly contagious and genetic. Once you have it, you have it for life, eternal or not.This information is primarily for the first arc. MC information will be updated with each arc.

MAIN CHARACTERS OF MELROSE: CITY OF MONSTERS

Father Charles ‘Charlie’ Larousse-Robineau

Pronouns: They/them

Occupation: ‘Priest’

Bloodline: Vampire, former Human, Crowley Lineage

Maker: Belladonna Crowley, the Duchess

Origin: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Love Interest: Victor Talbot

Father Robineau is a charming and well traveled individual, having been born in the 1860’s to a fur merchant and his musician wife. A tragedy struck the family in the early 1880’s when Charlie’s father snapped after a fight between them, and he supposedly killed both Charlie’s younger brother Jean Marie, as well as their mother, brutally with an axe. Charlie barely got out alive, killing their father in self defense. After getting medical attention they fled to England, hoping that their extended family would take them in.When they didn’t, Charlie settled in Whitechapel, hired by a brothel to be a charlatan, medic, and overall fluffer for the girls there. It is there where they fell in love with a woman named Lilith Brown, or Lily, as she preferred. They were best friends and messed around with each other, but Lily turned their courtship down. Sad but understanding, Charlie continued to work as a charlatan, only to watch as their friends would begin dying one by one. People suspected Jack the Ripper and would lend no help to the people affected. As we know, the killer was not caught, and unfortunately one of the last to be taken would be Lily.Whether it was Jack, or a copycat, Charlie was determined to figure out who it was. Driven near mad by grief, Charlie called out to anything that would listen while attending the autopsy of Lily. Who would show up would not be their savior, but their Devil. A woman calling herself the Duchess. She promised Charlie power to find the person who harmed their friends in exchange for a favor at a later date. Charlie was then sacrificed on an altar far below Whitechapel, but to what goddess or entity, they did not know. All they know is that they were opened up much like the corpses on the autopsy tables in the morgue, and then drained of all blood, turned into a bloodthirsty monster. Then abandoned on the streets. After becoming feral and accidentally slaying two people, Charlie turned themself in, though they were quickly turned over to the Vampiric Council of the United Kingdom. This is where they were rehabilitated by Delilah Ainsworth and her husband Aegis Stone, then allowed to return to the USA. Though it was still hard to find a food source and the only thing they could think of to get a large group, but not have to worry about too many people finding out -- was build a congregation. This of course backfired and they made more of a cult than anything, and one of their cult members developed an unhealthy obsession with them. His name was Cedric.When Charlie saw what they had created and tried to disband the cult, Cedric intervened, but a few weeks afterwards Charlie would poison his blood supply with silver, enabling them to flee. After that they never saw Cedric again and would go on to serve in World War II before settling down in Melrose in the 1940’s, creating the cathedral they now work in, St Januarius’, but making sure that a cult never happens again. Thankfully with blood bags it’s become less of an issue.Their life changes though when a man named Victor walks into their church…

Victor Talbot

Pronouns: He/him or they/them

Occupation: Sex worker / Artist / Cat Wrangler

Origin: Sussex, England, United Kingdom

Love Interest: Charlie Robineau

Victor is the only child born to a surgeon and an art lecturer. He spent quite a bit of time with his mother who taught him all about Hinduism and the ways of their culture. As a child and throughout his school life he was bullied for being larger than his peers; this made him quite shy and destroyed his self esteem. He did find a love of dance though when he would watch Bollywood films with his mother at home, and then at school he got involved in modern dance. Though it was in secret, as he did not want his peers to bully him further. As he kept at it, Victor lost weight and began eating better, becoming how he’s seen today. Which of course gained him attention and popularity where there was none before. 

While studying medicine, as his father had proclaimed he would as all of the men of his family had, Victor found that he could help people by giving them the medicine they needed but couldn’t necessarily  afford. He then began to sell narcotics to addicts to cover the cost of the extravagant lifestyle forced upon him by his peers. A tragic accident occurred when the man he was seeing stole from his stash and OD’d, then was brought to the hospital where Victor was doing his residency. Victor did try to save his life but the man ended up dying. Of course he came clean about it to his dad, who was the chief of surgery at the hospital, but Victor’s dad told him to keep quiet about it lest he lose his job. Unfortunately, the damage was done and Victor became haunted by the loss of life at what he believed was his hands. Unable to cope with what he had caused, he began to take the pills he used to sell and became hooked. After a severe mental break having spent too many hours on shift he was suspended and dismissed from the program, now having to deal with being haunted continuously with what he’d done.

He would then fall into a drug spiral where he stole his father’s script pad, implicating him in his stealing, which got his father suspended. During this time he began taking street drugs and getting involved in the party scene, all to whisk him away from the trauma he suffered. This cycle only stopped when a tragedy happened for a second time. Another man he had been seeing died while they were together, and he woke up to his lifeless body in the bed. It’s here that Victor blacks out and does not have much memory of, only remembers waking up in the hospital and being convinced to go to rehab. 

After being released and having his parents hovering over him every second of the day, he relapsed, then was cut off by his mother and father. He would then sell all of his belongings, or what he could, and bought a ticket to America where he would be picked up by the infamous Red in Melrose, New York. It would be here that he’d meet Father Robineau at the St. Januarius Cathedral…

Hazel Coldbrook

Pronouns: They/he

Occupation: Personal Assistant + Receptionist

Origin: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Love Interest: Maxime St. Martin

Hazel was adopted at the age of six by a Jewish doctor and a First Nations professor of linguistics at one of the universities in New York. He was put into the system after his father lost custody following a terrible car accident that killed his mother. He did have two younger siblings that were sent to different homes, he never saw them afterward. Hazel did have an older adopted sister named Morgan, who was often cruel and rude to him. She got him into a lot of trouble and often got him bullied by other children at school, more than he already was. It didn’t help that he was starting to have issues seeing and hearing things, on top of paranoid delusions. 

His parents did their best to set him up as much as they could, and he did get better eventually. Therapy and medication got him on the right track, though his night terrors do plague him still. Once he went away to college, Morgan was cut off from the family around the same time after she was arrested for violent breaking and entering. They didn’t see her for a while after that, though at one point she did make a brief appearance. Morgan chased after him and one night broke into his dorms while he was with his girlfriend, Willow. She was killed after trying to wrestle Morgan away from him, and he was bitten by Morgan. Thankfully, he survived, but he did find out that his sister had been turned into a vampire. 

Charlie found him in the dorm shortly after the attack, having gone hunting during a blood bag shortage. They took him to the hospital and then offered him a job as a PA at their church, helping transfer all of his college credit over to the local community college where he is now studying psychology and theology. During his time in Melrose though, he begins attending drag performances at a local club and comes upon a gorgeous drag queen...

Maxime St. Martin / Enzée Bytten

Pronouns: He/him (She/her, in drag)

Occupation: Club Owner/Drag Queen

Bloodline: Vampire, former human, Seraphim Lineage

Maker: Gabriel

Origin: Saint Martin d'Oydes en Ariège Pyrénées, France

Love Interest: Hazel Coldbrook

Maxime was born in a small, self contained village where he did not leave much until his late teens. Unfortunately, the reason why he left was not a matter of simply being sick of the small village life, it was due to a much darker purpose. A man named Gabriel had come to the village and infected the residents with vampirism, causing them all to turn on each other night by night. This was but one prong in a grand scheme to build an entire army of vampiric soldiers indoctrinated with Gabriel’s radical beliefs about humans and vampires. Maxime --being young and impressionable-- followed his Maker in his footsteps, having a sort of love for him that one could only have for a Maker.

As the decades went on, Maxime would turn people he met and attempt to sway them to their side of things, but became infatuated with human culture as he went. Eventually he saw the error of his Maker’s ways and began planning a rebellion against Gabriel. Maxime even managed to convince a human soldier who he had picked up during World War II, who he would then turn after he would get severely injured. You could say the plan went off without a hitch, though there were many casualties and a lot of fighting.

Eventually he would move on to the states where he steadily sunk into his trauma, though he would find a club to make his own in Melrose. There he would build a reputation of being cold and calculating, but as Enzée he is warm and lively -- or rather she is.Le Syndicat is where Maxime would meet Hazel, who had just come to the bar for a drink…

VAMPIRES:

Vampirism, lycanthropy, and magic all come from a single source. Different strains of diseases that all come from one person, who thus far has been lost to history, as well as the war that led to the werewolves and vampires becoming tense with each other. Vampires come from the strain that needs blood to survive, but also an undead host. It attacks all systems aside from the nervous, and shuts most of them down. They do process blood but not in the same way that a human would food. Their waste system is completely cut off and their stomach has become oddly misshapen, different. It ‘digests’ the blood and filters it back through the body so that the vampire can use it as a source of energy when healing, keeping them young, and making sure their body doesn’t rot from the inside out due to their functions being cut off. The disease is parasitic in nature this way, but eventually becomes symbiotic. Vampires need blood to survive and can be affected by blood born illnesses, though never die. At least usually. In the cases of aggressive cancers and autoimmune disorders, it can kill the host, but it’s very rare. Those with vampirism can only be turned after being fed on, drained, and then made to drink the blood of a disease carrying host; be born as a Stillborn, or be born as a fully fledged vampire. They are ever immortal, cannot eat human food unless it has blood in it and even then they cannot eat a lot of it, though this is not the same for liquids, and every bloodline has a ‘feral’ type that is different from another. Reproduction is a bit of an unknown for vampires. There are creatures called Stillborns that are the successful offspring of a vampire and a human, or are the human offspring of a vampire when the disease becomes recessive. Almost always the disease is terminal and it kills them, then resurrects them from the ages 19-31. Scientists think this could be the peak age range for humans healthwise, which is why the disease stops their aging as well at that time. Otherwise, vampires can have offspring with other vampires, however it is unsure how. It could be that their reproduction systems come alive when with a compatible partner, but no one knows for sure and it isn’t full proof. Even so most vampires, just as they will do with humans to prevent possible Stillborns, will wear protection when with other vampires. It is whispered that there are ways a vampire and a werewolf could also have child, but seeing as one is dead and one is alive, that is skepticism at best. Vampires who are born from other vampires age very slowly until that 19-31 age range and then suddenly stop. They can of course be created when one is fed off of or drained, then made to drink the blood of a host. These vampires are called ‘newborns’ and are often very attached to their makers. They acquire a Bond, which is crucial for a newborn, though they don’t always get that treatment from their Maker. A newborn without a Bond will have issues trying to feed and they often become feral. If they do form a Bond, they will feel drawn to their Maker for decades if not for life. Some may need extra care and attention, even touch when they’ve been turned. The stage when a newborn becomes a stable vampire varies from bloodline to bloodline. Becoming feral is usually something a vampire wants to avoid. It happens when they are too hungry and have been starved of blood for too long, or sometimes when they experience very strong emotions. The form of being feral varies from bloodline to bloodline, just as it would for werewolves. When being fed off of a human will feel the pain of the bite but then a euphoria will settle, which is dangerous at times. A pheromone is also given off that makes them smell and taste amazing to a human (such as saliva and skin, this is not a reference to cannibalism lmao), which was once so they could draw in prey to better feed off of. In Melrose, vampires and werewolves live together in a tenuous harmony. Again no one really can point out why they have tension but still that thought has lived on in more traditional, and older people of both kinds. They try not to encroach on the others territory and spaces, and their councils work together along with the human government when needed. Vampires answer to the Vampiric Council of their country when a crime has been committed or they need other governmental help. Currently the hub for vampiric activity is in two parts. St. Januarius’ Cathedral, and Le Syndicat, respectively a church and a nightclub. The church is a safehouse for all werewolves, vampires, and humans , and the nightclub is well...a nightclub. One is ran by a charming but seedy priest, and the other is ran by a cold, but sweet once you worm your way into his heart.

WEREWOLVES:

Werewolves, like stated above in the vampire section, come from one large strain. There was a war a very long time ago but no one really knows that anymore, and there’s just some strain among the more traditional folks. Werewolves can be born with lycanthropy, or they can be turned; though werewolves can have offspring with humans at the normal rate unlike vampires. Their children tend to be hyperactive and need a lot of attention to keep their instincts under control, much like newborn vampires. They burn off a ton of calories and usually need to be on a high calorie diet because of this as well as high in iron, which becomes worse during a full moon. Changing in and out of their forms, whether it be bipedal or all fours, tends to burn off a lot of calories and consume a lot of energy. Werewolf kids need that extra supervision so that they don’t hurt themselves during the night, but they will learn to cope as they get older. Pain management those nights is a must, a lot of werewolves keep a well stocked medicine cabinet. Being turned into a werewolf is not as a rampant problem as people used to think, it never was. Usually they can only turn someone during a full moon when their saliva has more kick to it and is full of the lycanthropic strain, which their body has on a cycle much like a period. However, they can turn someone on the odd night but it’s usually just before or just after a full moon, and they will not get the chance to turn someone during a full moon that time around. Werewolves also often experience PMS like symptoms close to the full moon, no matter what gender they are.

Their hair grows very thick and fast, usually covering their entire body in a peach fuzz and growing more prominent on their arms, chest, pubic area, back, head, etc. Sometimes the back of their hands and feet as well. They see exceptionally well in the dark, usually have the speed and strength to rival vampires, and are always on the taller side. Though there are some exceptions, especially for human born wolves, or those turned into one. Aging is slow for them, some can live up to three hundred years before they pass on. Werewolf society usually comes in the form of a pack, designating an Alpha and Betas (usually two to three) in their own way and coming to them for advice as well as governing matters. They have their own council and converse with the human or vampire government if needed. How they govern is really up to them however, just as it is for vampires. In Melrose there are smaller packs everywhere, and a bigger one out on the edge of town. This pack has recently elected (through a physical challenge of the previous Alpha) Dante Kāne as their Alpha, and he has two Betas : Serj Allgood, and Ty Hacon. The previous Alpha, a man named Gunner, is a very traditional man who put into practice not so great things (drug running, not so safe sex work, etc) but Dante is slowly trying to ease the pack into doing better things.

MAGIC:

Magic is an inherited trait, usually through a distant tie to the strain that gave the world vampirism and lycanthropy, or it is learned. Witches can be born to any human, werewolf, or vampire; though most humans still believe magic to not be real. It can also come in the form of anything, blood magic, rituals, soothsaying, fortune telling, necromancy, green magic, etc. It all exists all at once. Some believe in gods, some don’t, it’s all up to the person.

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress, a child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl; she became a major star of Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. Her most notable films were her first major role, as Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplin's subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Goddard was the daughter of Joseph Russell Levy (1881–1954), the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard (1887–1983). Her father was Jewish, her mother Episcopalian of English ancestry. They married in 1908 and separated while their daughter was very young, although the divorce did not become final until 1926. According to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Levy, Alta absconded with the child.[11] Goddard was raised by her mother, and did not meet her father again until the late 1930s, after she had become famous.

In a 1938 interview published in Collier's, Goddard claimed Levy was not her biological father.[13] In response, Levy filed a suit against his daughter, claiming that the interview had ruined his reputation and cost him his job, and demanded financial support from her. In a December 17, 1945 article written by Oliver Jensen in Life, Goddard admitted to having lost the case and being forced to pay her father $35 a week.

To avoid a custody battle, she and her mother moved often during her childhood, even relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard began modeling at an early age to support her mother and herself, working for Saks Fifth Avenue, Hattie Carnegie, and others. An important figure in her childhood was her great uncle, Charles Goddard, the owner of the American Druggists Syndicate. He played a central role in Goddard's career, introducing her to Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld.

In 1926, she made her stage debut as a dancer in Ziegfeld's summer revue, No Foolin', which was also the first time that she used the stage name Paulette Goddard. Ziegfeld hired her for another musical, Rio Rita, which opened in February 1927, but she left the show after only three weeks to appear in the play The Unconquerable Male, produced by Archie Selwyn. It was, however, a flop and closed after only three days following its premiere in Atlantic City.

Soon after the play closed, Goddard was introduced to Edgar James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, located in Asheville, North Carolina, by Charles Goddard. Aged 17, considerably younger than James, she married him on June 28, 1927 in Rye, New York. It was a short marriage, and Goddard was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in 1929, receiving a divorce settlement of $375,000.

Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929, when she appeared as an uncredited extra in two films, the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks (1929), and George Fitzmaurice's drama The Locked Door (1929).

Following her divorce, she briefly visited Europe before returning to Hollywood in late 1930 with her mother. Her second attempt at acting was no more successful than the first, as she landed work only as an extra.

In 1930, she signed her first film contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Goldwyn Girl in Whoopee! (1930). She also appeared in City Streets (1931) Ladies of the Big House (1931) and The Girl Habit (1931) for Paramount, Palmy Days (1931) for Goldwyn, and The Mouthpiece (1932) for Warners.

Goldwyn and she did not get along, and she began working for Hal Roach Studios, appearing in a string of uncredited supporting roles for the next four years, including Show Business (1932), Young Ironsides (1932), Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) (with Laurel and Hardy), and Girl Grief with Charley Chase.

Goldwyn used Goddard in The Kid from Spain (1932), The Bowery (1933), Roman Scandals (1933), and Kid Millions (1934).

The year she signed with Goldwyn, Goddard began dating Charlie Chaplin, a relationship that received substantial attention from the press. It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his next box office hit, Modern Times, in 1936. Her role as "The Gamin", an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as "the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship".

Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star, but he worked slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (1938) before Selznick lent her to MGM to appear in two films.

The first of these, Dramatic School (1938), co-starred Luise Rainer, but the film received mediocre reviews and failed to attract an audience.

Her next film, The Women (1939), was a success. With an all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, the film's supporting role of Miriam Aarons was played by Goddard. Pauline Kael later wrote of Goddard, "she is a stand-out. fun."

Selznick was pleased with Goddard's performances, particularly her work in The Young in Heart, and considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Initial screen tests convinced Selznick and director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed promise, and she was the first actress given a Technicolor screen test.

Russell Birdwell, the head of Selznick's publicity department, had strong misgivings about Goddard. He warned Selznick of the "tremendous avalanche of criticism that will befall us and the picture should Paulette be given this part...I have never known a woman, intent on a career dependent upon her popularity with the masses, to hold and live such an insane and absurd attitude towards the press and her fellow man as does Paulette Goddard...Briefly, I think she is dynamite that will explode in our very faces if she is given the part."

Selznick remained interested in Goddard for the role of Scarlett. After he was introduced to Vivien Leigh, he wrote to his wife that Leigh was a "dark horse" and that his choice had "narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh".

After a series of tests with Leigh that pleased both Selznick and Cukor, Selznick cancelled the further tests that had been scheduled for Goddard, and the part was given to Leigh. It has been suggested that Goddard lost the part because Selznick feared that questions surrounding her marital status with Charlie Chaplin would result in scandal. However, Selznick was aware that Leigh and Laurence Olivier lived together, as their respective spouses had refused to divorce them, and in addition to offering Leigh a contract, he engaged Olivier as the leading man in his next production Rebecca (1940). Chaplin's biographer Joyce Milton wrote that Selznick was worried about legal issues by signing her to a contract that might conflict with her pre-existing contracts with the Chaplin studio.

Goddard signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and her next film, The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a turning point in the careers of both actors. They promptly were re-teamed in The Ghost Breakers (1940).

Goddard starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film The Great Dictator. The couple split amicably soon afterward, and Goddard allegedly obtained a divorce in Mexico in 1942, with Chaplin agreeing to a generous settlement.

At Paramount, Goddard was used by Cecil B. De Mille in the action epic North West Mounted Police (1940), playing the second female lead.

She was Fred Astaire's leading lady in Second Chorus (1940), where she met actor Burgess Meredith, her third husband,.

Goddard made Pot o' Gold (1941), a comedy with James Stewart, then supported Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), from a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, directed by Mitchell Leisen.

Goddard was teamed with Hope for a third time in Nothing But the Truth (1942), then made The Lady Has Plans (1942), a comedy with Ray Milland.

She did Reap the Wild Wind (1942), playing the lead, a Scarlett O'Hara type character. Co-starring Milland and John Wayne, it was a huge hit.

Goddard did The Forest Rangers (1942). One of her better-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), in which she sang "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang" with Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake. She and Milland did The Crystal Ball (1943).

Goddard received one Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the 1943 film So Proudly We Hail!.

Goddard was teamed with MacMurray in Standing Room Only (1944) and Sonny Tufts in I Love a Soldier (1944). She was one of many Paramount stars in Duffy's Tavern (1945).

Goddard's most successful film was Kitty (1945), in which she played the title role.

In The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), Goddard starred with Burgess Meredith, to whom she was married at the time, under the direction of Jean Renoir. It was made for United Artists.

At Paramount she did Suddenly It's Spring (1947) and De Mille's Unconquered (1947). During the Hollywood Blacklist, when she and blacklisted husband Meredith were mobbed by a baying crowd screaming "Communists!" on their way to a premiere, Goddard is said to have turned to her husband and said, "Shall I roll down the window and hit them with my diamonds, Bugsy?"

In 1947, she made An Ideal Husband in Britain for Alexander Korda, and was accompanied on a publicity trip to Brussels by Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, niece of Sir Winston Churchill and future wife of future Prime Minister Anthony Eden.

Goddard and her husband were among several stars in On Our Merry Way (1948).

At Paramount, she did two movies with MacDonald Carey: Hazard (1948) and Bride of Vengeance (1949). She then left the studio.

In 1949, she formed Monterey Pictures with John Steinbeck. Goddard starred in Anna Lucasta (1949), then went to Mexico for The Torch (1950). In England, she was in Babes in Bagdad (1952); then she went to Hollywood for Vice Squad (1953), Sins of Jezebel (1953), Paris Model (1953), and Charge of the Lancers (1954). Her last starring role was in the English production A Stranger Came Home (known as The Unholy Four in the United States).

Goddard began appearing in summer stock and on television, guest starring on episodes of Sherlock Holmes, an adaptation of The Women, this time playing the role of Sylvia Fowler, The Errol Flynn Theatre, The Joseph Cotten Show, and The Ford Television Theatre.

She was in an episode of Adventures in Paradise and a TV version of The Phantom.

After her marriage to Erich Maria Remarque, Goddard largely retired from acting and moved to Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland.

In 1964, she attempted a comeback in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Time of Indifference, which was her last feature film.

After Remarque's death in 1970, she made one last attempt at acting, when she accepted a small role in an episode of The Snoop Sisters (1972) for television.

Upon Remarque's death, Goddard inherited much of his money and several important properties across Europe, including a wealth of contemporary art, which augmented her own long-standing collection. During this period, her talent at accumulating wealth became a byword among the old Hollywood élite. During the 1980s, she became a fairly well known (and highly visible) socialite in New York City, appearing covered with jewels at many high-profile cultural functions with several well-known men, including Andy Warhol, with whom she sustained a friendship for many years until his death in 1987.

Goddard married the much older lumber tycoon Edgar James on June 28, 1927, when she was 17 years old; the couple moved to North Carolina. They separated two years later and divorced in 1932.

In 1932, Goddard began a relationship with Charlie Chaplin. She later moved into his home in Beverly Hills. They were reportedly married in secret in Canton, China, in June 1936. Years later Chaplin privately told relatives that they were married only in common law. Aside from referring to Goddard as "my wife" at the October 1940 premiere of The Great Dictator, neither Goddard nor Chaplin publicly commented on their marital status. On June 4, 1942, Goddard was granted a Mexican divorce from Chaplin.

In May 1944, she married Burgess Meredith at David O. Selznick's home in Beverly Hills. They divorced in June 1949.

In 1958, Goddard married author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until Remarque's death in 1970.

Goddard had no children. In October 1944, she suffered the miscarriage of a son with Burgess Meredith.

Goddard underwent invasive treatment for breast cancer in 1975, successfully by all accounts. On April 23, 1990, aged 79, she died at her home in Switzerland from heart failure while under respiratory support due to emphysema. She is buried in Ronco Village Cemetery, next to Remarque and her mother.

[kaelen]

10 question tag

thanks to @soulful-studyblr for tagging me in this! (and sorry that it took me forever to do)

the rules: answer the questions the individual who tagged you asked, then make up your own and tag as many others as you please :)

questions from @soulful-studyblr:

Favorite color- that prize has got to go to green. moss, frogs, sunlight coming through trees, what’s not to love?

Why do you like language- ‘cause it’s cool. no, but seriously, there’s no way to explain it without sounding like a colossal idiot, but that’s how people communicate, and live their lives, and that’s just indescribably cool to me. it all makes sense to them, and i want to be a part of that. even with english, there’s always so much more to learn, and the more exposed to the language you are, the more you get to know about the people who speak it, and that’s just. it’s pretty awesome. makes my internal organs clench up. in a good way. 

Why are you learning your 2nd languages- my second language is spanish, and i think i’m partially learning it out of practicality, but also because i like it :) there are a lot of other languages that i like too, of course, but i started learning this one first. it’s easily accessible, and there’s a whole wealth of cultures to learn about in the meanwhile. that wasn’t a super cogent answer, i guess, but i think i sort of got my point across.

Least favorite taste- hm. i mean my own bile has got to be up there, but i bet someone else’s bile would be worse. i’ve has the merciful good luck of not having to find out though, so in terms of things i’ve actually tasted, i would cautiously say that my least favorite is (my own bile, seconded by) shirataki noodles. you can say that i’ve never had them prepared properly, and you’re probably right, but the way that i’ve had them, the smell, the texture... they don’t actually taste like much but that somehow makes it worse. i have no clue how people eat those. 

dogs or cats- well, i have a dog, and she’s quite lovely, so i’ll say dogs, but really i love them both. i used to be a diehard dog person, but my first boyfriend loved cats, so i became, if not converted, very sympathetic to the cat person cause. i think my first pet out of college will be a cat, but i love them both!

Would you rather- i think i would rather, yes.

Have you always liked learning?- 100% yes, but academia-type subjects in particular (literature, languages, anything you’d find on a medblr) have always been my favorite. i’m willing to pick up welding, but i doubt i’d like learning it as much.

2nd favorite book- what a delightfully random question! i forgot the name of it, but it’s this book i read in maybe 2017. i might give kind of a spoiler trying to describe it oops. so it’s a historical fiction set in maybe france around the 1300s (a total guess), and it starts with this traveler sitting down in a pub, and he can’t afford a beer, so the owner offers him food and drink in exchange for a story. so then he starts to tell the story that’s the main plot of the book. it’s about this magical young girl, and her dog who came back from the dead, and two boys (there are some things that make them special too but i forgot what. i think one of them is an orphan and jewish. and one is black maybe) gallivanting around the country together trying to accomplish an objective that i’ve forgotten. along the way they wreak a fair amount of havoc, and the king sets out to kill them because they caused him some trouble. and as all this is happening, the traveler is describing events getting closer and closer to the present, until, as the book ends, the kids enter the pub where the story is being told. there’s no way i’m doing it justice here, but it was just great. an amazingly well-written book, so pretty to read (had that old book aesthetic), and the story was just so well-researched and ghfshgjka. i loved it. i wish i remembered the name. something illuminating??? OKAY I GOT IT MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE JUST LOOKED UP 50 SEARCH TERMS TO START OUT WITH. IT’S THE INQUISITOR’S TALE BY ADAM GIDWITZ AND IT’S ABSOLUTELY GOBSMASHINGLY FANTASTIC. 

Favorite time period for fashion- i think that the last 50 years or so have been pretty good fashion-wise for the middle class in america, with lots of more affordable, low-maintenance clothing options, but that’s not a fun answer. now, i had to do reasearch for this. if i get to be obscenely wealthy and exist in any location i so choose, i think that Italy from 1500-1510 would be my favorite for fashion. i prefer the more open necklines, especially square ones, embroidery, dramatic sleeves, and cinched silhouettes to earlier ones, though i’m not a huge fan of the layers and boning, even that’s not as bad when you get into southern Italy. (even though i would still love to be rich in the present day and circle through 60 or so teuta matoshi dresses. and long peacoats. i love peacoats.)

One good thing that happend to you today- hm. well, i’ve been really stressed out lately trying to figure out how to get into/pay for college. (my dream school is a private liberal arts/small research university on the east coast. i won’t say exactly which because there are a few top contenders at the moment that i could never afford or get into anyways.) so, the good part is that i finally got to laying out a plan for practicing for the sat, applying for jobs, applying for scholarships, and working on my meager serving of extracurriculars, which will hopefully increase my chances of getting into/being able to afford the schools i want to go to. i guess that that’s not something that happened to me because i made it happen, but it’s similar enough.

thank you for tagging me !

i’m tagging @ninasowl-studyblr and @la-biblioteca-de-ciana. both are excellent accounts, and, as i’m fairly new, pretty much the extent of my mutuals. 

questions:

if you could travel anywhere (in or out of the world) right now, where are you traveling? (pretend c*****v**** and money aren’t issues)

why did you start your blog?

how ya doin’?

are you a chocolate or vanilla person?

what’s your motivation for learning your tl(s)?

what’s the next language you would like to learn, if any?

what’s your favorite song at the moment?

favorite food?

feelings on duolingo?

what have you done to be proud of recently?

[annaalexiswrites]

I’m gonna start sending out the beginning of Chasing Your Chances to Beta and Sensitivity Readers, so like this or IM me if you’re interested in being one! Here’s the summary of it:

Running away from her abusive and troubled past, Rosa Moore ends up in Ashwick Wharf with nothing but the clothes on her back, her backpack and a calico cat she found just outside of town. She ends up working at the local bakery, Bluebell’s, where she meets the good looking baker who doubles as an artist, his persistent best friend who’s determined to help Rosa whether she likes it or not, the owner of the bakery who has a troubled past of her own, as well as a troubled present, and the regular customer who seem’s to know everyone and everything.

With everyone in town determined to either help her or expose her, a boy Rosa is sure is determined to screw everything up for, an absentee father showing up, a mysterious trio and their almost equally mysterious employee's, holiday festivals and a very rude neighbor, Ashwick Wharf might have been just the wrong place for Rosa to come to, or it might have been just the right place for her to live.

And here’s the type of Sensitivity Readers I need:

Asexuality

Being African American

Being in a biracial relationship

Being in a blended family

Being adopted or growing up in the foster system

Being Muslim

Being Indian

Being Chinese

Being a recovering alcoholic

Being in a polyamorous relationship

Having a physically abusive father

Being Hispanic, specifically Brazilian

Being Jewish

Being Catholic

Being a Lesbian

I can’t pay, but I can be a Beta Reader or do Sensitivity Reading for the following in exchange:

Bisexuality

Having Social Anxiety

Having Autism

Having a mood disorder

[fictionfromafar]

The Untameable by Guillermo Arriaga

The Untameable

By Guillermo Arriaga

Translated by Frank Wynne & Jesse Mendez Sayer

MacLehose Press, Quercus

Guillermo Arriaga is a Mexican author, screenwriter, director and producer whose previous books have been translated into 18 languages. I awaited the release of The Untameable with high anticipation as it is Arriaga's first novel since he rose to prominence as a screenwriter on the Oscar nominated Babel, 21 Grams and the BAFTA winning Amores Perros. Seeing the latter movie upon its release really was my first insight into Mexican life; the clever interplay between three different story lines which are brought together by a car crash remained very vivid for me. By chance I actually re-watched Amores Perros shortly before hearing of this book.

The Untameable is an epic read which clocks in at just over 700 pages and alternates between two storylines. The primary focus is upon teenager Juan Guillermo who lives within one of the lower middle class barrios of Mexico City in the 1960s. The second is the tale of an Inuktitut hunter named Amaruq who starts tracking a wolf in Yukon in the far north west of Canada in an initially undeterminable time. The book also features a series of short passages relating to various historic events and folk stories from around the world the purpose of which later become clear to the reader.

The English translation of The Untameable has been completed primarily by esteemed translator Frank Wynne who has translated many outstanding works from Spanish and French. These include The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto (shortlisted for the 2013 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize), The Siege by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and all translated titles by Pierre Lamaitre. As is the case for those novels the translation is flawless and the language always fresh. Arriaga’s talants as a screen writer enhance his storytelling which is vividly told, leaving a very strong impression of the key characters and their surroundings

Juan is the first person narrator of his part of the story and we join him at the age of 13 during a hot Mexican summer living at home with his family. This consists of his parents, grandmother, elder brother of 6 years Carlos and their pets, a brindle boxer called King and their Australian parakeets Whisky and Vodka. No sooner do we have a chance to visualise his family setting, than we are ominously informed that he will the only one to remain alive over the next 4 years. Tragically the first to go will be Carlos who we learn will be murdered.

The Untameable is marketed as a coming of age novel which is partly true but it is also so much more. There is an obvious crime, in fact multiple crimes, it’s part a historic novel, part romance and it’s also a tale of long awaited revenge. From the storylines in Yukon it is also a travel adventure. Little wonder that renowned Colombian writer Santiago Gamboa calls The Untameable one of the best books he has read. Juan’s story is always absorbing as it builds to the details that scarred him most, his desire for retribution and atone for his own regrets while the story from Yukon gradually evolves bringing new components to the book which only link at the conclusion.

Juan tells us his story on a mainly reflective basis. We learn how his life was saved through blood transfusions and about his experiences at a private school which his parents could barely pay for. An early injustice he faced is when he is expelled yet a wealthier child is not. It is just the start of an examination of the inequality and misfortune that will tarnish the experiences of Juan and the lives of his family. His older brother Carlos is the most enterprising family member in tough economic conditions. Having received a chinchilla as a birthday present starts to breed them for their fur. There could be scenes that some readers may find upsetting in respect of the treatment of the chinchillas and local stray cats, also in Canada where some animals are trapped. However I would state that these are not intentionally graphic. I interpret these being shown as part of methods to develop and preserve the protagonists livelihood rather than to needlessly harm. The brothers have refused requests to put their dog into dog fighting for financial gain so there are no scenes like viewers may recall from in Amores Perros.

A lot of the interaction with neighbours comes from the boys moving from rooftop to rooftop. While Juan and many of the other local boys were raised without a strong religious faith, another group known as “The Good Boys” follow their twisted interpretation of the bible. Led by Humberto they try to recruit other younger boys and preach to Juan and his friends for a while. Our narrator realises the contradictory nature of their beliefs:

"On the one hand everything that happened was the result of Divine Will: “God willed it so” on the other hand the Devil was lurking everywhere, waiting for the opportunity to tempt Man and lead him from the path of righteousness.”

Effectively this group are “an army in training”, fundamentalists who with the consent of the local priest dispatch punishment to those who are Jewish, Communist or are believed to carry out immoral behaviours such as homosexuality. They attempt to draw Juan and his friends into what is effectively a clandestine death squad. Juan is in denial of their true harm at first as he is far more interested in his discoveries of William Faulkner, Jimi Hendrix and his first regular sexual experiences.

We also learn of the corrupt policeman Zurita. The captain is more concerned with getting a cut from illegal activities than stopping them. As Carlos’ businesses expands into other areas and he continually refuses to cooperate with Zurita, his enterprise eventually makes him a target for The Good Boys. Before we learning of the events that are to unfold Juan uses biblical images to describe how his life is about to change: “then came the plaque of destruction, and the locusts of death devoured everything in their path.”

While Carlos is trying to keep ahead of his enemies by monitoring unknown cars and finding regular hiding places, there is also a battle of wits on the Canadian tundra between Amaruq and a giant grey wolf he calls Nujuaqtutuq. The beast is luring him further northwards where the chances of both finding food are slimmer. Amaruq is under a belief this particular animal is one his grandfather warned him about:

"Of all the wolves you will see in your life, one alone will be your master.”

The descriptions of the landscape in the Canadian scenes are as detailed of those in Mexico City so that you can virtually visualize them. This is a key feature of this book, the details of the settings are always vividly relayed without detracting from the narrative of the story.

The strength of the characterisations particularly mark this book for distinction. Juan sustains our support as the main protagonist throughout his troubles. His grief for the accumulated loss of family members is palpable and his reactions feel realistic. There are very lifelike stumbling blocks at the start of his romance with the once promiscuous Chelo as they borh try to adapt to the terrible circumstances that life has thrown at him. He receives a sympathetic role model after meeting Alives as they both belong to the “community of orphans.” Juan is protective of the family pets and even adopts the fearsome Colmillo who could not be tamed by his owners. Humberto is almost Juan’s polar opposite but there is enough given about his own background to develop him as a convincing character. In this barrio in late 1960s Mexico City it is those that portray themselves as good are those who carry out the most evil of acts. We see Juan wrestles with his conscience and desire for a settled life with Chelo against his determination to exact revenge; knowing that there will be consequences for him. He would be breaking an unwritten rule: “victims could not be aggressors, and if they did, they were declaring war.”

The Untameable is an exceptional novel. It addresses sudden bereavements and attempts at reconciling these during adolescence, it tackles themes of societal inequality and corruption, the complete lack of morality in some locally organised religious groups and more widely the concept of vengeance. It is a fascinating tale with contrasting textures, writing styles and literary references. Its length should not be a deterrence due to the multiple storylines, timeframes and themes within the story. If any of these intrigue you then I would urge you to read The Untameable. Ultimately this is a captivating chronical of one brave boy’s struggles against almost unsurmountable challenges which will hook you in, immerse and captivate you right until the end.

[thelcvewitch-blog]

About Claudia Daviau

GENERAL

FULL NAME

claudia adina daviau

NICKNAME(S)

cloud, dia, dee

AGE

thirty-six 

BIRTHDAY

august 7th

GENDER

cis female

PRONOUNS

she/her

FACE CLAIM: Gal Gadot (Adult), Adelaide Kane (Teen-Young Adult), Ayelet Zurer (Older than 40)

LIFESTYLE

LANGUAGE(S)

spanish, french, english, hebrew, and german.

EDUCATION

a phd in psychology (specifically, she studied criminal psychology, because originally she wanted to be a criminal psychologist)/ police academy

OCCUPATION

homicide detective

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS

upper class

RELATIONSHIPS

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: gray-bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic

MARITAL STATUS: single and mingling 

PARTNER(S) coffee.

FAMILY

HOMETOWN

boston, ma

ETHNICITY

ashkenazi jewish, german, polish.

PARENTS

Ivan & Susanna Daviau (adopted); Steven Falk & Delphine Rosen (biological)

SIBLINGS

arabella daviau (adopted), rosemary daviau (adopted), claire daviau (adopted), ivan daviau ii (adopted), robert falk (biological), amada rosewell (biological)

CHILDREN

verse dependent 

PETS

a yorkie named ‘cerberus’ who she’s always walking

PERSONALITY

ZODIAC SIGN

leo

CHINESE ZODIAC

ox

TEMPERAMENT

choleric

MTBI

istj

HABITS

talking with her hands, creasing in her eyebrows, tapping on random surfaces, reading the newspaper in the morning, reading in general, closing her eyes to process or review information, crossword puzzles before bed, practicing conversations in mirrors, she's usually eating candy of some kind (lollipops are her go-to), using a honeyed tone of voice when she likes a person, quirking up her eyebrows.

HOBBIES

reading in the dead of night, crossword puzzles, jogging in central park, pilates

LIKES

puzzles, games, challenges, putting clues together, wine, her job, keeping busy, languages, "ah-ha!" moments, anything aesthetically pleasing, sarcasm, witty people, morning runs, people she can’t read, cleanliness, any sort of pampering, stealing clothes from dudes/chicks (she takes little things from people she’s fond of, whether the relationship is platonic or sexual), cooking (she loves to cook and watching people eat her cooking), keeping busy, dedication, the news, talking to her sisters, listening to others.

DISLIKES

mint chocolate chip ice cream, being alone for too long, people who chew with their mouth open, men who talk over her or don’t say excuse me when they’re walking past her on the sidewalk, people who are cruel to their children, nosy people, when people shove their beliefs down her throat, people who type too slow..

Normal Verse:

♦ At the age of two, Claudia was adopted by Susanna and Ivan Daviau. Susanna could not have children and Ivan wanted them. Both the Daviaus were attentive parents, even though they were busy with their own personal lives. Susanna, a former socialite, worked as a television host in New York city. Ivan worked as the owner of a hotel chain (The Daviau Hotel) and the owner of a few oil wells. They adopted other children, who they loved dearly, and were very supportive of Claudia while she was growing up. Since the Daviaus were busy people, when they weren’t around, the young children were usually in the company of nannies. Claudia found herself growing attached to her nannies and saw them as her extended family. And while her nannies were great and helped her grow into the woman she is today, they all would come and go throughout her life.

♦ One nanny in particular had grown rather fond of her, and Claudia grew fond of her as well. Her name was Lucinda and she would read with her and her siblings every night. A majority of the books were silly – mostly Dr. Seuss and Shell Silverstein. While others stuck with her and helped shape her adult life. Although the detectives in Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes were fictional, Claudia found their search for answers admirable. She began to pretend to be those detectives and began to search for the hidden truths and secrets found in the lives of people around her.

While Susanna thought it was wonderful that Claudia had found a new interest, she wanted Claudia to branch out and try new things. Susanna got her to try piano, ballet, fencing; but Claudia always wound up interested in her search for truth. The more Susanna tried to push her away from her new-found hobby, the more invested in it she became.

♦ During this curious phase of her life, Claudia learned her family’s picture-perfect life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. With all this information in mind, she finally opened her eyes to the fact that the world was flawed and that everyone made mistakes. She found that beautiful, because she was reminded that no one was perfect.

♦ When she was thirteen-years-old, Claudia went to private school. It was this age where Lucinda quit to go live with her family in Mexico. The loss of Lucinda crushed her like nothing else had, but she trooped through it with the support of her siblings and parents.

♦ In private school, she was meant to learn manners and good behavioral skills. However, Claudia became even more invested in her education and speaking her mind. While making friends was hard at first, she managed to find a few people who were worthy of her time and attention. Being around this small group of people led her to believe that she really enjoyed talking to others and that she was interested in learning about what made her friends act the way acted and that pushed her to learn what made them who they were. Claudia’s friends helped her get in touch with a more humane side of herself, helped her become more charismatic, along with more open to others and their stories. In the end, though, she did choose her studies over her friends. With summer classes, determination and an intense dedication to her studies, Claudia graduated three years early.

♦ During university, Claudia focused on achieving her goal of becoming a psychiatrist. While attending school, Claudia found herself testing out the waters of various clubs, even joining a sorority for a short period. To her, university was freedom. It was a reminder of how much she could do to make something of herself. She was moderately homesick, though, and often wrote and called her family to see how they were doing.

Away from school, the start of her residency proved to much more exciting than she thought. Always on the move, always distracted, Claudia enjoyed keeping busy; it was one of her favorite things about her job. After receiving a job with the emergency psych unit and working her ass off , Claudia randomly decided she didn’t want to be a psychiatrist and decided to change her career path: she wanted to work as a cop. Having taken courses in criminal psychology and profiling, along with her prior credentials, it was something she planned on (but didn’t expect to happen) from the get-go. In order to follow this new path, Claudia signed up for the police academy. Much like school, Claudia dedicated herself to the academy and eventually got her badge. Though it took her a long while to receive her ‘land legs’ when it came to the occupation, her co-workers soon discovered her knack for profiling criminals and talking to the victims of crime. At first, she worked small jobs - like giving people tickets and stopping house parties - but eventually she made it to detective.

♦ Enjoying her work, she adapted to her new life and the excitement that came with it. She found a friend and roommate in a woman named Rachel and the two happily lived together. However, to her surprise, Claudia eventually ran into trouble with a man named, Jackson Kent. Jackson, an intelligent man with a fucked up sense of humor, got her mixed into a disturbing game of cat and mouse. While she was able to fend for herself and succeeded in catching the bastard – one gunshot to the knee - she soon discovered Jackson was only a small piece of an even bigger puzzle. What she was dealing with was a group of people being manipulated by one person in particular. And even though she had a long, serious, and angry conversation with Jack in the interview room about who the fuck that person was, she wasn’t given any answers. She was annoyingly given a smug laugh and a riddle on expecting the unexpected.

It took her roommate, Rachel, shooting her, for Claudia to understand Rachel was the person pulling the strings. Once Claudia learned the truth about her friend, Claudia felt stupid and decided to quit her job for a short period of time.

♦ She didn’t want to let Rachel win, however, so she ended up going back to work. With the support of her family and colleagues, she went right back into the swing of things with little problems. Now, not only does she put one-hundred percent into her job, she has signed up for various activities to keep her mind occupied and has been spending more time with her siblings. Frequently, she will go to family game nights and dinners, or will call her family to have her own.

Psychic Powers/Immortal Verse:

tw: death, bullying, brief description of corpse

At the age of two, I was adopted by Susanna and Ivan Daviau. Susanna could not have children and Ivan wanted them. They were both busy people who cared for me in their own ways, but were much too invested in their personal lives to really give me the attention I wanted. Since I was usually in the company of nannies, I found myself growing more attached to them. And while my nannies were great and helped me grow into the woman I am today, they all eventually left me. One nanny, in particular, had grown rather fond of me, and I her. Her name was Lucinda and she would read with me every night. A majority of the books were silly; mostly Dr. Seuss and Shell Silverstein. While others stuck with me and helped shape my adult life. Although the detectives in Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes were fictional, I found their search for answers admirable. I began to pretend to be those detectives and began to search for the hidden truths and secrets found in the lives of people around me. My mother thought it was a waste of time and wasn’t having any of it. She tried to ignore it, at first. In her mind, if she got me to try new things – piano, ballet, fencing – I’d get over my newfound interest; but I didn’t. The more she tried to push me away from my new-found hobby, the more invested in it I became. During this curious phase of my life, I discovered my father would throw away the letters my mother would give him in the mornings. I learned that my older brother pretended to be the son my father wanted him to be, instead of the cruel bully who smoked pot by the side of the house. Most importantly, I discovered my mother wasn’t the perfect wife and mother she presented herself to be in front of her friends. She was filled with secrets that ranged from one-night stands to having a son I didn’t know about. A son who had gone missing, whose body had yet to be found. With all this information in mind, I finally opened my eyes to the fact that the world was flawed and that everyone made mistakes. When I was thirteen-years-old, my mother sent me away to a boarding school across state. She also fired Lucinda, which crushed me like nothing else had. I suddenly felt lost and more alone than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I never forgave my mother for Lucinda’s loss, either. I began to hate her and made the effort not to reply to her holiday cards. I wanted nothing to do with her.  I thought she was attempting to ruin my life. During my stay at boarding school, I had picked up a few friends. The girls were my age, intelligent, and enjoyed my company – weird quirks and all.  Being around them, I learned they held their own secrets as well. Though I could easily tell their secrets to everyone, I didn’t. I trusted these girls. The girls I didn’t trust, however, I did reveal the secrets I learned about them and they weren’t very happy about it. One group of girls, who called themselves ‘The Gems’, hated me. After they bullied a friend of mine, I snitched to our teacher that I had seen one of the girls smoking in the schoolyard. I assume she got into a lot of trouble because during one of the free days we were allowed to roam around town one of the bigger girls in that group had ganged up on me and put me over her back. She took me to a nearby cemetery where the rest of the girls were. They gave me a talking to and beat the shit out of me. When they left me, I learned something new about myself …I could see ghosts. [title]What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. - Tana French, In the Woods[/title]

I’m not bullshiting, either. I was no ‘Long Island Medium’ pretending to see things for money. I could actually see what I assumed were ghosts. The first ghost I ever saw came to me in the cemetery I got beat up in and she was very kind to me. At first, I thought she was some random passerby who wanted to give me a helping hand. But when I reached out to her, my hand went right through her and I freaked the fuck out. I ran right out of that goddamn cemetery and I never looked back. My friends all assumed I looked as mortified as I did because of what had happened to me with The Gems. I let them believe that, too. I was too horrified and too embarrassed to tell them what I had seen. They would think I was crazy. More annoyingly, I’d be made a laughing stock. After that day at the cemetery, I dedicated myself to my studies. I adored my friends, but I no longer could identify with them. I had seen a dead woman and I could no longer shake the image away. I had matured from the experience and hid in my books and studies, instead of putting myself out there as I had before. Until that day, I did not know what it was like to have a secret I did not want anyone to know. I had dedicated most of my life to discovering secrets, and now I was scared of someone finding out mine.

Due to my vigorous study sessions, I graduated a few years earlier than my classmates. Graduating was a freeing experience, but I continued to see and hear things. I knew it would be something I would never be able to get rid of, so I promised myself that I would not let my little gift get in the way of how I lived my life. This was why, when I studied at Columbia University, I made the effort to make friends and involve myself in school activities. I put in lots of effort to be social, while putting in even more effort to make my way into a career as a psychiatrist.

After surviving my residency, I found myself working the emergency psych unit in New York. It was a lot of work. People were always in need of assistance. There were rarely ever any breaks because I was always on my feet. It was my job at the psych unit that made me realize how speaking with ghosts wasn’t as terrible as I was making it out to be. Some of the patients I saw would sometimes pass and I usually stopped what I was doing to try and communicate them. Like their living counterparts, they had secrets. The only difference now was that their secrets had the capability of helping them. I wound up helping a few of them, while a few others were stubborn and decided they didn’t need help, that they got a better kick out of fucking with me. And as much as I enjoyed my job at the emergency psych unit, I decided to change career paths in order to pursue a career as a police officer.

Working as a police officer was exciting. Even when I was doing nothing but handing out tickets and telling party-goers to turn down their music, I was having the time of my life. I felt much happier as a police officer than I did as a psychiatrist. However, once I was given the shot to work as a homicide detective, I got to combine my love of puzzles with the information I’d learned while studying psychiatry.

After about a year, I was given the opportunity to work on an interesting case with one of my colleagues. Her name was Rachel and she was beautiful in a Hitchcock blond sort of way. She was also incredibly good at her job, and for that I admired her. The case started out minor, as though it would be solved in a week or month’s time. But as we dove deeper into the case, we both began to notice things were more complicated than we assumed they’d  be.

The mutilated bodies of several of our missing victims had been found in various parts of Los Angeles. We assumed the killer would have gotten bored after six murders, but we discovered differently about a month later into our investigation. With one of the victims escaping, we learned we were biting more than we could chew. The news was surprising to both Rachel and I, and when we reported our findings we were told to let it go. Obsessed with the case, I began to get bored. All I could think about was victims I had tried to find who were found in various parts of the city. I was furious that we weren’t given any answers. Even worse, I felt like the answers were hiding right under my nose. It was a stupid move on my part, but I used my spare time to dedicate myself to the case. From a good friend who took over the case, I discovered that there had been a new body.

I walked to the scene of the crime, claiming to one of my old colleagues that it was important for my work. Of course the crime scene was still as cluttered and messy as the others, and of course, the body had been found somewhere out in the open. Like all the other bodies found, the parts of the victim I could see looked as though she was ready for a date – make-up perfectly kept, opposed to mascara stains, and well-styled hair. Not only that, but when her home was searched, none of her technological devices were found. An important thing I noticed was the fact that I shared similar characteristics of these young women – I had brown hair, I was tall, and olive toned skin. With this in mind, I continued my own investigation by putting myself on dating apps and websites. In the process, I discovered the killer I had stupidly went in search of. Instead of the killer being a man, the killer was a woman. To make matters worse, this woman wasn’t some random woman who was bored and decided to go on a killing spree – this woman was Rachel. Since I had no back-up, Rachel showed me her true colors. I thought she was going to attack me like she attacked her other victims, but instead she shot me twice, leaving me to tumble down the stairs, before telling me to watch my back. ———————————————– PLATONIC Right now Claudia works as a homicide detective. She quit her job for a little while, due to a rough case that nearly ended her life. Although claudia’s sarcastic and blunt nature has a way with pushing people away, she is quite gregarious and won’t shut up once you get her talking. She’s her most social when she’s working, because she can’t afford to be shy when looking for answers. Very active in the community, she has found herself making both wanted and unwanted new friends and acquaintances along the way. She is a very energetic and playful person, along with a very great listener, too. Being friends with claudia might be awkward at times, however, since many of her reactions to things are what she expects people want from her. Meaning, in a way, she only reveals as much to people as she likes, and very few people know the real her. Still, even with her negative personality traits, people who she decides to call ‘friend’ or ‘acquaintance’ get the see a lighter side of her, along with any help they need when they are in need of a helping hand.

ROMANTIC Oh my God, so Claudia is very adventurous and cocky and is in no way shy about her sexuality. She has been known to sleep around and isn’t apologetic about it. However, she is very loyal when she has a romantic partner that she’s serious with. It would be great for her to have a friend with benefits who is more like an enemy with benefits, because she’d have a lot of fun with someone she gets to play argue with it. She likes when people are snappy with her; she thinks it’s really hot. Other than that, I’d really want her to have a future partner (male or female) who drives her up the wall? She’s a bored over-achiever who lives off cheap thrills, so if anyone out there is willing to shake up her life a little, please do

ANTAGONISTIC  this garbage fire of a woman is bound to have a few enemies. once she decides she dislikes someone, she tends to let her opinion be known. she hates when people take advantage of her and isn’t afraid to speak her mind when bullshit occurs. sure she’s loyal to those she holds near and dear, but the people who have become her enemy know she’s not the angel she makes herself out to be. when provoked, claudia is not afraid of mind-games or even ruining one’s reputation for the sake of a little old-fashioned revenge. there’s also the fact that her sarcasm could rub people the wrong way. same goes for her realism. not only that, her job as a detective has probably given her just as many enemies as friends.

[robininthelabyrinth]

LOT fic: The Esteem of Cats (Coldwave)

For @oneiriad, who wanted more Len being a cat person, and also Egyptian gods.

Fic: The Esteem of Cats (AO3 Link) Fandom: Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

Summary: “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”

(Leonard Snart is a cat person - and the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet notices)

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Len’s always liked cats. When they’re nice, they’re the friendliest creatures he’s ever met; when they’re not, they’re assholes, and he can respect that. He's an asshole too, the majority of the time. You just have to respect them and understand them as far as you can, and accept what you can’t understand, because they’re innately unknowable.

When he breaks into the rich man’s house in Nepal – the one in the city, where he brings guests he wants to charm, not the creepy lonely mountain path that he goes up on a regular basis and which Len’s instincts had told him not to follow – he finds a bunch of old antiquities, and a cat.

The cat is lounging, as cats do, around a statute of a cat-headed goddess. It’s a pretty statute: sand-colored stone and two pretty gems in the eyes, one green, one blue. It’s a pretty cat, too: slick gold fur, lightly spotted, and long tail swishing back and forth.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Len says, dropping down and offering his hand politely – he wouldn’t pet a strange cat without it indicating that it approved; he likes his hand in one place. “Hope you’re not a guard cat; I need this job to go off smooth, or the people behind it might hurt my partner.”

The cat, which had strange, mismatched eyes, one green and one almost human-blue, looks at him for a long moment, then finally inclines its head to the side and purrs.

Approval given, Len gives the cat a few long strokes, marveling at how soft she is, then he gets up and goes to collect the items he was told to get.

And a few extra, of course; it’s only fair.

“What do you think?” he asks the cat, gesturing between two equally ugly gold statutes. “Fat man with grapes or baby with a harp?”

The cat stretches long and lithe, and gets up lazily, wandering over. She studies the two statutes before placing a paw on the one with the harp.

“Harp it is,” Len says agreeably. He’s just going to sell them anyway. “That’s my baby sister’s skating instructor paid for,” he tells the cat, who purrs approvingly. “And this –” he plucks a crappy looking diamond necklace from a pile of similar looking ones, “– is what my partner’s going to use to make us dinner for the rest of the year.”

The cat huffs, and it sounds almost like a laugh.

“No, really!” Len protests, smiling a little. He liked talking on jobs; he keeps trying to break the habit, but he hasn’t quite gotten there yet. He usually has Mick there so he can pretend he's actually talking to someone who's listening, but honestly, Mick probably only actually bothers listening about as much as this cat is. “I eat like crap, my cooking’s worse, but he’s great. Anyone – anything – that eats his cooking, he likes. I’d offer you some, but, hey, he’s currently being held prisoner, which is the only reason I’m even doing this stupid job.”

The cat hums approvingly.

Len finishes collecting the items and bids the cat farewell, even though it follows him at least until the doorway, rubbing its head against some weird carvings against the frame there.

He doesn’t remember taking the cat-headed statute with him, but he finds it tucked into his pocket when he gets back to his hotel.

He considers selling it along with the rest of the extras he took, but he decides not to. It’s small, made of stone. The only thing worth anything are the gemstones, and they don’t look like emeralds or sapphires or anything all that. Besides, he likes the look of it, and he’s never really appreciated art for its own sake before.

So he keeps it.

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Mick always found it funny that Len never seems to notice the cats.

Oh, Len loves cats; it’s probably the most badly hidden fact about him. He’ll devote hours to petting them, figuring out where each cat likes it best and working his hands until they’re sore and the cat is a puddle of feline happiness, but never going overboard and pulling away as soon as the cat indicates they’re no longer in the mood. He respects them and he likes them and he has no idea about them.

Specifically, that there’s a positive battalion of cats that live in their safehouses.

Len seems content to just pet each cat that walks by, lets them curl through his feet, uses them as living paperweights for his blueprints. As far as Len’s concerned, they just wander in and out as they please, which is true.

Mick is the one who feeds them.

He sets out the litterboxes outside – the cats all behave quite well, which never ceases to surprise him, given that a good three-fourths of them are definitely wild – and he puts out the water for them and he makes sure they all have plenty of spare furniture to tear into. Most of all, though, he feeds them. He’s always liked it when his cooking is enjoyed, and the cats all line up like nobody’s business.

They love him very nearly as much as they love Len, he thinks.

Never as much as Len. Len is like catnip to them.

Mick estimates they own – and by own he means that he will put in the effort to take them to yearly check-ups at the vet, put their kittens in carriers when Len and him are moving because they’ll have trouble keeping up otherwise, and occasionally see that they get adopted with a nice family, as opposed to the truly wild ones that refuse the pleasure – as many as fifteen right now, not counting kittens.

Kittens never count.

Honestly, Mick’s not sure when they started showing up, but they did, and now he’s given them all nicknames and he will torch anyone who lays a finger on them the wrong way. He never thought of himself as an animal-lover before.

There’s one in particular that Mick likes: a sandy Egyptian Mau, female, adult though he’s not sure how old, gorgeous gold-bronze spotted fur and mismatched eyes. She’s got the bearing of a queen and the other cats fall over themselves to come over to purr at her. She’s the alpha cat of the house, no doubt about it.

She’s quite fond of Len – twines herself around his feet quite often, sometimes permitting him to lift her to his lap, often not – and she seems to be letting Mick grow on her. Lisa’s currently under probation due to an unfortunate ear-pulling incident that occurred when Lisa was still young, but Len gave Lisa a whole lecture and demonstration, and Lisa’s been doing much better now. Cat's still a bit suspicious of her, though.

Mick calls her Bastet, based on her fondness for the statute of the cat-headed goddess Len keeps carting around everywhere. They’ve got similar eyes.

“How is he so oblivious to all you cats?” he complains to her lightly, not really meaning it. She’s got a wise gaze; he sometimes almost feels like she understands him. Either way, she makes a great set of ears to whine to. “You think he’d know by now. Though given that he hasn’t noticed my thing for him yet, either, so I guess I don’t mind him being so dense…”

The cats end up surrounding them three days later, meowing frantically until the two of them notice there’s a spring of mistletoe that Mick totally didn’t put there in hope of winning a Christmas kiss from his Jewish partner.

Mick flushes. “Cats,” he says helplessly.

Len flushes a bit, too. “Can’t say I’d mind,” he says, averting his eyes.

Mick draws him in, and forgets about the cats.

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Len doesn’t know how Mick kept the cats fed. He did feed them, right? Or did they just wander in?

He has no idea. He never paid attention; Mick as always the one who cooked.

Mick’s not here right now.

Mick’s –

Mick’s not going to be here ever again, because Len left him. Len’s a terrible partner, and no matter how cold he tells himself he has to be, how much he tries to ice over his heart and say no: I can’t put up with nearly losing him to the flames, not again, never again, I just can’t, it doesn’t work. He just can't convince himself of what he knows to be true, which is that he’s a terrible partner.

He’s a terrible cat-keeper, too.

Hell, how are there so many? Where did they even come from?!

“I’m sorry,” he says to the cats, dropping his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I don’t – Mick’s gone, he’s in the hospital, I broke him out of the ambulance and got him to a clinic where they won't arrest him, but I’ve left him, so he's not coming back and he's not going to feed you and I swear I’ll do my best, but I just – I don’t know.”

The cats gather around him and purr forgivingly.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do without him,” Len says.

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When Mick wakes up in the crappy hospital clinic bed – really wakes up, not the half-consciousness that he’s been drifting in and out of recently – there’s a cat on his knee.

It’s Bastet.

She’s licking a paw delicately.

“I fucked this one up, didn’t I?” he asks, resigned. He doesn’t remember much after the fire – it was mostly pain – but he remembers Len breaking him out of that ambulance, getting him here, remembers Len telling him they were through with ice in his voice and tears in his eyes.

She purrs in agreement.

“He’s never going to come back,” Mick says, trying to make himself face up to it. No more Len. No more safehouses filled with cats that love him; no more Len petting five cats in a row without seeming to notice that they’d replaced each other; no more Len fast asleep on the couch with a half-dozen kittens using him as a bed; no more telling Len that he needs to eat as a good example for the cats; no more Len. “He’s gone. It’s my fault.”

Bastet lightly hops onto his belly, which makes Mick hiss; he’s still a bit tender, even with the painkillers.

She pads up and looks down at him.

“And there’s no reason for him to come back, anyway,” Mick continues. His attempts at steeling himself have shifted to self-pity, he knows it, but he can't seem to stop himself. He's gotten too used to spilling his guts to the cat. “The docs said it's third degree burns, most of 'em. Over a third of me, burned away; they say there’s probably be infections, and scarring, and I’ll probably never be able to move my arms right again. I’ll just be dead weight for him now. Don't see why he would come back, anyway, even if he was stupid enough to agree to.”

She stares into his eyes.

“You think he might forgive me, one day?” Mick asks hopelessly. “I don’t even care about the rest; that’s on me, my fire, my fault. I should’ve left sooner. But Len – do you think?”

She dips her head down and touches her nose to his.

He finds himself falling asleep again, a clean and easy sleep, sleep undisturbed by nightmares.

When he wakes up, Bastet is long gone, and the doctors tell him – not without a tone of some puzzlement – that he’s expected to make a full recovery. Scars a-plenty, sure, and some deadening of the nerve endings, but no impact on his mobility or strength, and no sign of any lingering disease.

Mick takes the win and gets out of there.

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Len rubs under the cat’s chin, just the way she likes it.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a cat person,” Sara says.

“They’re usually assholes,” Len says. “I empathize with my people.”

She barks a laugh, surprised. “You own any?” she asks, nodding the lovely Egyptian Mau that Len is petting, the one eyeing Sara with a suspicious look.

“Nah,” Len says. “Cats don’t really let you own them. They wander in and out of our houses, sometimes.”

“You and Mick?” Sara asks.

“Yeah,” Len replies, shaking his head in fond memory. “You should’ve seen how much trouble we had getting them to understand that the cold and heat guns weren’t new cat toys we bought just for them.”

(or getting out of the bedroom long enough for him and Mick to reunite properly, as husbands long separated by their own stupidity ought to; now that had been an uphill battle – for some reason, the cats seemed to feel like they were entitled to be a part of the ongoing celebrations)

“I was always more of a dog person,” Sara says with a shrug, going to sit down on one of the chairs in the galley.

The cat curled in that chair hisses at her and she jumps right back up before she sits on him.

Len sniggers.

He can’t help it.

Sara gives him a dirty look, but apparently she can’t stay angry at a man with a kitten on his head – there are three in the hood of his parka, and a one brave one has managed to scale up his ears to cling tenuously to his skull with tiny little paws that barely prick the surface of his skin even when they dig in – and her look of annoyance fades.

“Gives you some character, the cats,” she says, nodding at them.

Len snorts. “By which you mean, you think if I pet cats I’m not as evil as I come off?” he drawls. “That’s Hollywood for you.”

“It’s the kittens,” she says with a shrug. “Girls are a sucker for kittens.”

“I don’t know if that’s true for everyone on board this ship. Don't hawks eat kittens?” he observes.

She laughs.

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Rip has no idea how these cats got onto the Waverider. If only he could figure out when they were from, he could return them, but he doesn’t want to risk transmitting some sort of cat plague to the past or to the future.

Better to just let the crew think they came with the ship.

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There’s a cat on his cot.

Kronos is pretty sure that’s against regulations.

He should probably mention it to someone, but, well, it’s a cat. It's hardly dangerous or any cause for worrying. He doesn’t want the other Bounty Hunters to think he’s gone nuts or something, complaining about a cat in his quarters; it’s probably one of the Time Masters’ pets gotten loose, and they'll be pissed off if he so much as twitches the wrong way in its directions and then he'll really be in for it. The Bounty Hunters are pretty low on the Time Masters' list of priorities.

Besides, the other Bounty Hunters are as consumed with unending rage as he is. Someone might hurt the cat, and Kronos –

Kronos would be annoyed by that.

He goes to let the servants – mechanical drones, mind-wiped humans – remove his armor and dismisses them, turning back to the cot.

Cat’s still there.

Pretty cat, actually. Spotted, gold, interesting eyes.

Pretty as a statute.

Len’s statute.

Kronos gasps as if he’s been punched in the stomach, his eyes sliding shut as the memories flood back in.

He’d forgotten.

How had he forgotten?

Len –

Len had left him.

For the fucking team of fucking heroes.

Rage lights up in his stomach, but not the general, formless, empty rage of the majority of the Bounty Hunters. Oh, no.

This rage is focused, laser-sharp, on his partner.

He's going to find him, Kronos is, and when he finds him, he's going to -

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“Sorry, Bastet. I guess I’m kind of a bastard sometimes.”

Len blinks a little, frowning at the empty space in his arms where his partner ought to be.

His partner, who is currently talking to the cat sitting on the desk.

“Mick,” he groans into the pillow. “Stop talking to the cat and come back to bed.”

“I need to get the pills Gideon prescribed for you,” Mick says. “You’ll start feeling that face if I don’t.”

“It’s fine,” Len lies, even though his everything is starting to really hurt. He’s getting to old to be beaten as badly as that. His face is sore, his joints are stiff, his muscles all over are locking up and spasming…maybe he could do with some pills.

But he’ll go to hell twice over to get Mick back into his arms, and damnit, that’s what he wants right now, not pills.

Mick comes with pills anyway, and a nice warm washcloth, and that helps.

“I’m sorry,” Len says. It’s not the first time he’s said it; it’s been something of a refrain. He'd never say it in public, but he was always more touchy-feely after getting laid. He swallows the pills obediently.

“Tell your cats not to eat my liver when I’m asleep in payback,” Mick replies, carefully running the washcloth over Len’s bruises.

Len snorts and wraps his arms around Mick’s waist. “This one’s all mine, pretty,” he tells the cats. There’s the Egyptian Mau, of course; two tabbies and a black cat, and of course the speckled kittens that have been training themselves to climb things this last two weeks. “Leave him alone. I’ll make sure he’s appropriately punished.”

Mick snorts. “You’re a pushover.”

“I am not.”

“When it comes to cats, or me? What do you call it, then?”

“Good taste,” Len declares.

The cats purr approvingly.

Mick glances at them, then away.

“It’s disturbing,” he says. “The kittens are just two weeks older, and it’s been so much longer for me.”

“Trust the cats, not your brain,” Len says. He’s comfortable now, the pain starting to fade away again. And Mick’s here. He’s missed Mick. “Forget the rest.”

“You know, I think I’ll do that,” Mick says. “You sure you don’t want to go heal up the bruises?”

“I’m sure,” Len says firmly.

They’re the price he paid for Mick. He’ll wear them gladly.

The cat Mick called Bastet jumps onto the bed and curls around Len’s feet.

He thinks, in the moment before he falls asleep, that she approves of his decision.

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Len is fast asleep on the big, warm pillow. He’s got the best spot in the whole place – right in the sunbeam – and he’s not moving for anything.

“My child,” a warm voice says.

Okay.

Maybe for Her.

Maybe.

Len cracks open an eye.

The woman’s skin is dark bronze, an inhuman gold so deep in color that it makes him think of rust and ancient coins, and splattered with freckles, which are the only thing that keeps her from looking like a statute come to life. Her clothing is white and her glittering necklace heavy around her neck; her eyes are mismatched, green and blue.

Len purrs for her.

“My child,” she says again. “I am here to take you home.”

Well, that’s certainly not going to happen. Does she know the pain in the ass it was to get here in the first place?

“Yes,” she says, amused. “I particularly enjoyed your attempt to debate with Ma’at regarding the weighing of your soul. Not to mention your attempts at arguing that Jews get a free pass since you are not technically subject to our religion...”

Hey, he made it in the end.

“Barely, my child.”

Doesn’t count how close the lion’s jaws are to closing on your tail, as long as he catches nothing but fluff in his teeth.

She laughs. Her teeth are white.

“My child, my beloved child,” she says. “You do not need to go home. You can stay here forever.”

Contrary in the way of all of his kind, that’s what gets Len to get up onto his paw and flick his tail at her, asking for more details.

“Mick needs you,” she says.

Mick!

Of course Mick needs him.

…couldn’t Mick come here, where it’s warm and comfortable? Len would totally share his pillow, if it was with Mick. Even the catnip. (Catnip is amazing.)

“He is hastening his own journey,” she says. “His heart is broken, and does not heal. If you do not come home now, he will be here soon – far, far too soon.”

Len’s not going to let that happen. Not on his watch, not to his Mick, no sir.

“I thought you’d see it that way,” she says, amused, and gathers him into her arms.

“Be glad,” she advises him. “Very few get second chances like this. Use it well!”

Len purrs.

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“I have no idea where your catgirl statute went,” Mick says apologetically. “It’s like one day it was there, and the next day it wasn’t.”

“It’s fine,” Len assures him. “I ain’t angry or nothing. It’s just a statute. And it wasn't a catgirl! It just, you know, had a cat head.”

“Yeah, but it was your favorite –”

“You’re my favorite,” Len says, just because it makes Mick flush with pleasure if Len says anything even remotely favorable about him, and also because it makes Mick come over and kiss him, and that’s where Len wants him to be right now. “Relax about the statute, Mick. We still have all the cats, don’t we? Surely that’s enough.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mick says, laughing. “But Len –”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe next time, share the catnip with the cats?”

“Gimme a break,” Len protests. “It smelled really good!”

“Len…”

“Don’t you ‘Len’ me.”

“Let the cats have their catnip.”

“I was never good at sharing.”

“If we put the catnip outside, the cats will all go there, and we’ll have the bedroom to ourselves.”

“On the other hand, I can be convinced…”