myownface | Reading

Nell had spent a very long day at Soulwood on Sunday, working the land and setting out everything that needed to be take care of. Today, before and after work, she'd done more planting and digging here, which meant that by the end of the day she was amazingly grateful that there was a hot tub she could sink into to ease her tired muscles and joints.

Yes, it might be ridiculously hot outside and yes, she'd be grateful to be back inside in the air conditioning afterwards, but for right now she was content. Though she'd be much more content once Gladio got home.

The class met outside by the pond, as ~~handwavily~~ ordered. The flamingos were wandering around Ghanima's improvised classroom, which had plenty of overstuffed pillows for laying about. Along the edges of the area were small low tables, each with two cushions to sit on and various items placed upon them.

Once everyone had arrived, Ghanima looked up from where she was sprawled on the ground playing with some strange hexagonal... tiles? cards? and smiled. "Destiny," she began with preamble, dropping the cards into Trebor's lap and pushing to her feet. "Refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. It is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe."

"Destiny may be seen either as a fixed sequence of events that is inevitable and unchangeable, or that individuals choose their own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life." Ghanima paused to smile at them briefly. "Confusing, isn't it?"

"Many Greek legends and tales teach the futility of trying to outmaneuver an inexorable fate that has been correctly predicted. This form of irony is important in Greek tragedy, as it is in Oedipus Rex or Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, where in spite of all the character's attempts otherwise, it does not preclude a horrible fate," she said, wandering among them to pass out a handout on Oedipus.

"Some believe that one's destiny may be ascertained by divination. In the belief systems of many cultures, one's destiny can only be learned about through a shaman, babalawo, prophet, sibyl, saint or seer. In the Shang dynasty in China, turtle bones were thrown ages before the I Ching was codified. Arrows were tossed to read destiny, from Thrace to pagan Mecca. In Yoruba traditional religion, the Ifá oracle is consulted via a string of sixteen cowries or oil-palm nuts whose pattern when thrown on to a wooden tray represents the 256 possible combinations whose named "chapters" are recited and verses interpreted for the client by the babalawo." Ghanima grinned. "Every society has their own way of foretelling a future, from worm entrails to crystal balls. My empire put its fate in the hands of a family that can walk the veils of time, forward and back, to see what lies beyond, and now they're stuck with the future that the Mahdi chose. Oracles can be a tricky bunch, and you must always assume that they may have a hidden agenda of their own."

"Today, it's time for you to see if you can chase destiny." Ghanima gestured to the tables ringing the room as Trebor waved one of the cards and laughed. "First, we'll talk, then we're going to pair up, wander around, and pick a method of divination that speaks to you. Read your own destiny, or that of your partner, and then discuss if you agree or disagree with the results you obtained."

Raiden had been made aware of a gremlin...situation in the supply closet.

Maybe more like a gremlin situationship in the process of breaking up, from what Tito could tell.

"Okay, just, uh...close the door and don't open it. And maybe turn the music up a notch or two."

He hoped the problem would stay in the supply closet. If gremlins tried to take their squabbling near his pizza he was going to get after them with a broom.

Specials
Summer Mushroom Grilled Pizza with Pistachio Vinaigrette
Chile Lime Chicken Street Corn Pizza
Goat Cheese Pizza with Tomato and Mint

Pizza Planet is open! And hopefully won't need anything from the supply closet any time soon.

Good news, class! Anakin was not a cat today!

Bad news, class! You now have to present him with amazing cat toys anyway!

However your cat toys were being judged by Ahsoka, so you weren't all going to come equal last (however much Anakin wished you would).

"Welcome back," Anakin said, not looking thrilled to be there. "Please show Ahsoka your homework."

"I'm sure you all picked worthy offerings," Ahsoka said, looking for too pleased with herself.

Anakin shot her a baleful look, which was still a strangely cat-like expression.

Good thing Ahsoka had practice ignoring that look!

A decade of it, even!

"And then we'll get to your real task."

Also cat-themed! Completely coincidentally, no doubt.

Utterly coincidental. That was Ahsoka's story and she was sticking to it.

Once she'd finished judging the cat toys, she led that class outside one by one to where a large number of small red bags were laid out in a pattern. One that if they happened to get to a high enough viewpoint looked a lot like this.

"You need to let the cat out of the bag," she told them. "Fewest attempts wins."

"Hilarious," Anakin said dryly.

...he will shenanigan!

Okay, I'm a little punchy from all the driving. Anyway, sign up for this week's ridiculousness here.

Look at Rey, in clean clothes that weren't like, sports bras. And she was well-rested!

She did get a call complaining about someone's washer being broken and they did not want to accept that the machine could be regular broken instead of Fandom broken. She clearly wasn't equipped to blitz anything Fandom broken anyway.

[Open!]

Okay, well, they had gotten through an entire week without the restaurant burning down, going broke, or being swept out to sea by the merciless arm of a kraken. And their laundry delivery had finally come in, meaning everyone had clean kitchen towels and uniforms to work with. Raiden was feeling pretty good about this.

"We have enough potatoes, right? And eggs? 'When will I stop asking?' I don't know, we're always going to need enough potatoes and eggs."

Specials
Prime Rib Benedict
Strawberry Buttermilk Pancakes with Honey Butter
Baklava Granola with Vanilla Yogurt

Over Easy is open! Welcome to brunch!

You can't be serious. I did this yesterday.

*chittering*

I only just went back to bed.

*more chittering*

'We know,' is not helping your case. No, no, there's no need to pull my hair. I shall simply...oh, dash it. Why are there so many--right. Right.

*clears throat*

( Kraken Drill Radio )

RageFest had only been a few days for Summer at this point, but she was already having a blast. And she hadn't even debuted her jello yet! That was for next week, when things were really going to amp up, but, boy, things were off to a great start. She'd already....well, things were all sort of a blur, and she hadn't really been spending a whole lot of time at the townhouse. But last night, there was this whole fire show that went horribly wrong (or, depending on who you asked, gloriously right), and she, like so many others in the crowd, fled the scene in a hurry, lest they all get caught in the far more personal than intended pyrotechnics. In the rush, she ended up all but colliding with some guy, which was pretty irritating until she actually got a look at this absolute stud, and then, well, one thing led to another, especially once he told her he could read mind, and she made him prove it by thinking the most depraved, dirtiest things at him, and she didn't even need to say a word after that.

And with Liliana and Ignis still back at Fandom? Perfect. She might not have had to say a word, but she still had plenty of noise to make.

So imagine her surprise when she, eventually woke up, threw on a shirt and bounced down the stairs to find Ignis in her...err, their....kitchen.

She stared for a moment, thinking maybe if she didn't move...

"Hello, Summer."

"Dammit. How are you so good at that?"

"Well, to your credit, anyone could have been fooled by such a graceful gazelle of a descent."

Summer stuck here tongue out at Ignis (was that a flash of something metal on her tongue? Maybe. She'd like to see him hear that!), gave a little finger-waggling wave over to Liliana, and immediately moved over to the coffee pot. She didn't need the caffeine, though, to instantly perk up with bright enthusiasm. "But that's perfect, actually! You being here! Now you can make us some breakfast."

A brow lifted. "Us?"

Somehow, Ignis didn't think Summer was referring to brunching with her esteemed hosts.

"Yeaaaaah." And what Ignis could hear now for certain was the grin in it. "I might've brought someone home last night? I mean, I'm probably going to try and ditch him with the Izzet later because there's word of a secret Dimir pop-up club tonight, so I guess that's like....a speakeasy but with drugs and Russian roulette, although I guess they call it Dimiri blackjack or something, IDK....and he's really fucking cute, like, Ignis. Adorable. But he'll definitely just cramp my style. Either way, he should be down in a moment, he's just up there rocking a piss, so I hope you have a lot of eggs, because my guy is gonna need that protein replenishment."

The intake of Ignis' breath seemed to be taking into account a lot of things, but, in that moment, the only one he was going to address was going to Liliana.

"Remind me again," he requested, "why we thought this was a good idea?"

But if you thought he wasn't already pulling out more ingredients to double the portions of the meal he was in the middle of making, then you clearly didn't know Ignis. But that did remind him of another issue.

"And please, Summer," he said, "tell me you're going to be doing something with all this jello stuff soon, because there's barely any room to work in here with all your paraphernalia everywhere."

"Don't sweat it, my dude," Summer waved a hand dismissively, but she did swoop in to start moving some of her things to a place less in his way, and, in her defense, she wasn't expecting them, if she had she might have already taken care of it. "I'm launching officially next week. I wanna hit up the Gruul with it first, after I totally kick some ass--ooooh, actually, I wonder if I'll have time to whip something up for tonight, that could be a good way to get some whispers already stirring around town..."

Dammit, Ignis! Making her think this early (ish) in the ~~morning~~ ~~day~~ afternoon! But she might be able to pull it off...

[[ for thems that are there, anyone who might want to get in touch, and nfb for distance! ]]

Class met at Portalocity as they had been ~~handwavily~~ notified to. When they got there, Lana was dressed in casual Earth clothing, a tunic and jeans with boots. "Welcome everybody. We should do introductions in case we don't all know each other, but let's head out first."

Once they stepped through the portal to find themselves on a street near water, Lana spread her hands. "I thought we'd begin close to home, so this is Harbor East, in Baltimore. We probably could have driven here, but portals are much more convenient. They have a lot of stores, some local, and some of the type you'll find throughout this country. So, introduce yourselves to the group, then enjoy yourselves, and I'll see you back here in an hour."

She nodded to the first person on her left.

Watts was, perhaps predictably, in an exceptionally good mood as he got caught up on everything that had happened last week at the station. Which was, also predictably, not all that much.

One of the costume jewelry gems was still faintly glowing, as it had been when Remy had first spotted it earlier in the week. Harley had also spotted it, by now - which meant it was now in a little display all its own, complete with a sign that read VERY SPECIAL GLOWY GEM, NO BATTERY NEEDED and a price tag that was now triple what it had originally been.

Harley was considering quadrupling it.

But right now, she was dealing with a clothing crisis. Sure, she'd done laundry semi-recently, but there had been an unfortunate glitter-and-ketchup disaster (don't ask) near and in her wardrobe upstairs, and now she was stuck going through the vintage pieces they had in the back of the store for something she'd like.

Except.

"... Are we having a moth invasion??"

Yes. Apparently they were.

(open!)

You seem to be confused. Today is Friday. I do this on Saturday.

*chittering*

Yes, but--oh, just give me the notes. Good morning, everyone, and it is I, Miss Lydia Bennet, here to bring you the news of yesterday, today!...Just a day early this week. I do hope this means I shall get to sleep in tomorrow. Probably not. The squirrels are so unkind.

Let's get started, shall we, with the school, where Miss Vess began her, ah, "Five Times Urza Ruined Everything" class. Mr. Sims wished to know why Mr. Urza's wife didn't leave him, whilst Mr. Rand commented upon his falling out of a tree. Mr. Scientia and Miss Vess, shall we say, caught up after class. *ahem* Miss Vess also held her office hours--I didn't know those were a thing. Are they supposed to be doing that. Has anyone told the rest of the teachers? I digress. In Finding More New Hobbies, Mr. James Stark taught his students about 'origami,' which is a form of Japanese paper-folding. Folding paper? Sounds dull. The students introduced themselves, and Mr. Grant spoke to Mr. Stark after class. It seems that he and Detective Watts got married on their recent holiday, so congratulations to you, sirs. I suppose? I don't know the correct form for two men! You congratulate the groom and give best wishes to the bride and-- The squirrels are looking at me as if I am speaking French, so let's just move on to The Wonderful World of Pizza, which went to Naples to eat pizza, which was most perilous to everyone's wardrobe.

Let's see...no notes for the dormitory, so we shall move along to the town, I suppose. At the museum, Mr. Grant returned to work after the aforementioned holiday, and Detective Watts came by for luncheon. If one is looking to refresh their wardrobe, they may have some difficulty at Pixie Dust, as Miss Zarrin found a dearth of clothing on offer, but plenty of shoes and accessories still available. At The Devil's Nest, Lord Thor had apparently opted not to wear a shirt entirely. My goodness. That...must have been quite the sight. I mean! *ahem*

Lastly I've a few notes from the Supper Club, which yesterday met at Llamas' Corner in Baltimore, where I must report a sad lack of llamas. Mr. Scientia seemed to think the lack of llamas a good thing, whilst Miss Skywalker wanted to know how I still have clean clothing. I didn't tell her the answer is magic And that seems to be all the notes I have for the Supper Club, but I want you all to know you're welcome to join us any given Thursday! Next week we shall be upon the island somewhere, come and find us! Until next time, whenever that may be, farewell, dear listeners!

Don did not have enough clothes for this. His cargo pants had at least one mysterious stain on them and he was, here at the end of his wardrobe rope, wearing a shirt obtained from Anakin's Wednesday madness last summer, and eyeing Thor's corresponding side of the closet thoughtfully.

He was still drinking coffee, even though he recognized it as a dangerous endeavor at this point, especially when you were already a little on the wobbly side. He didn't care. Coffee was what was getting him through this. He did set the coffee down when his students came in, though.

( Doctor Don gets talky under here. )

Class was out in the park today. Because, well, the name of the class strongly implied it. And maybe neither of your teachers had meant to be part of this and maybe they were trying to figure it out on the fly. But the one person who wasn't unprepared was a gremlin in a black turtleneck and beret. Because artistic reasons.

"Okay, so drama," Jane said, eyeing the gremlin warily where it was taking notes. "Not what I expected to teach, but we can do this, right?"

"It can't be that hard," Cara agreed, dooming them all with a single sentence. "Today we'll be doing what we always do during the first week even though we already know each other by now. Introductions."

The gremlin coughed and passed Cara a note."I mean 'auditions', apparently."

"Is that really necessary? I mean, everyone is here and everyone deserves a chance to--" Jane stopped as another note was passed. "--wow, you're harsh. But let's get into it. And there are some extra shirts from the Wednesday shenanigans if anyone needs them."

They just had a lot of opinions on the craft, folks. Costuming. Yes.

This was going to be the greatest public theatre Fandom had ever seen.

Were you sleeping soundly in whatever underwear you had left, Fandom? Not anymore!

At 2 AM, sirens all across the island began to blare. A PA system turned on, featuring a metallic voice loudly yelling: "KRAKEN DRILL. KRAKEN DRILL. ALL INHABITANTS GRAB RAIN GEAR AND ASSEMBLE AT THE INTERSECTION OF LOON DRIVE AND GRIFFIN WAY. I REPEAT. KRAKEN DRILL. KRAKEN DRILL. ALL INHABITANTS GRAB RAIN GEAR AND ASSEMBLE AT THE INTERSECTION OF LOON DRIVE AND GRIFFIN WAY."

If anyone hoped it was going to stop before 4 AM, sorry: no.

At least there wasn't an actual kraken, so Loon Drive's stone streets wouldn't be slippery with rain. And at least Mayor Faden hadn't deployed her tie yourself to a building addition to the kraken emergency plan yet...

[[ have at, all ]]

Belle had treated herself to a milkshake before walking in to her shift. The milkshake had treated itself to her outfit and she'd had to run back and change into something else.

Was she wearing a fancy dress right now? Yes.

Was she glaring at the gremlins who were pointing at her and giggling? Yes.

Was the library just waiting to do something messy and terrible to her and anyone who might come in? Almost certainly.

One would think Thor, who wore his armor near-exclusively, would not be impacted by the odd plague of laundry upon their island of late, but he wore fabric between the armor and his skin, and he did not keep many changes of clothing. He didn't exist half the time to wear it, anyway. So, faced with few choices, he had opted to conserve what clothing he had left and resume the tradition of shirtlessness tonight at the bar. You're welcome.

Specials
Red Sangria
Strawberry Margarita
Blueberry Daiquiri

The Devil's Nest is open!

Raiden's students should have received a message telling them to meet at Portalocity, where they would find their teacher in jeans with a hole in the knee and one of the last clean shirts he'd had in the closet, which was a nice, burnt orange button down. It was a shame it was not likely to stay clean very long.

"All right, everybody, listen up," he said once he'd counted what he thought was the correct number of heads. "I'm Raiden, and this is..." He did a drumroll with his hands on the desk, which made the gnomes sigh. "The Wonderful World of Pizza! Today we're getting started by going to the birthplace of modern pizza, Naples, Italy. While there have been of course flatbreads with stuff on them since ancient times, it was in Naples that this was really refined and tomatoes were added to the mix, creating the modern pizza. At first, pizza was sold at open air stands, frequently by the slice, and it was food for the poor and working class, something you could easily pick up and eat on the go. It only really took off after it got royal approval in 1889...but that's another story. Today we're going to the oldest pizzeria in Naples, the Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, which got its start as one of those open air stands in the 1700s before moving into a brick and mortar building during the 19th century. You can try the pizza--the Margherita is, of course, a classic, but in a port city like Naples you can't go wrong trying the seafood--and then explore the city a little, maybe pick up a pastry like a sfogliatella, another regional classic. And maybe a souvenir t-shirt or two." He would be shopping for one, because it was that or try to squeeze into the clothes Smalls had left around his place. "Sound like a plan? Let's go!"

Hobby class, today, was meeting in a generic classroom. Stark was standing at the front of the room with some books on the desk by him along with a stack of squares of colorful paper. Stark was also dressed in what could charitably be described as 'threadbare' clothing today. There were holes. He hadn't even known he still had this shirt.

“I’m Stark,” Stark said. “If you don’t know me by now. Welcome to a workshop on finding new hobbies. More new hobbies. We’ll try out something new each week and maybe find something we want to keep doing. Or not. Easy enough to never try something again after the first time.”

“I’m looking for ways to help keep myself busy.” Moreso right now than at the beginning of the summer, even. “So I thought I’d share that. I do better when I have things to do. And today’s thing to do is folding paper into shapes. It’s called origami, it’s from Japan, and it’s you make little paper sculptures.”

He held up a small paper frog. “Like this frog. It jumps.”

He demonstrated, then held up a few other shapes including tiny stars. “So, try some things out. And…I suppose we can do introductions? In case not everyone knows each other. If someone would like to start before we start folding? Or you can fold and talk. No reason not to do both.”

Profile

Sparkle

September 2019

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Abstractia by chiming
Theme: Fabulosity by nornoriel

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 16th, 2025 11:02 pm

Through the Mail Slot

I'm a Shapeshifter

Reading

Monday evening: 43 Unicorn

Destiny & Free Will [Monday, Period 4]

Pizza Planet, Monday

2 Problem 2 Creative [Monday, 2nd period]

If You Let Him Shenan Once...

Stark Industries- Sunday

Over Easy, Sunday Morning

Fandom Radio, Saturday, July 12

Liliana's Townhouse; Precinct Five of the Tenth District; Ravnica; Saturday Morn-Afternoon [07/12].

Markets of the World(s), 2nd period

Trooper Station, Friday

Needful Things; Friday

Fandom Radio, Friday, July 11

First Aid 2: First Aider, Friday, Period 3

Drama in the Park-a-Rama [Friday, Period One]

FIRE (KRAKEN) DRILL!!!, LOON DRIVE, FRIDAY NIGHT

Library, Thursday 7/10

The Devil's Nest, Thursday Evening

The Wonderful World of Pizza, Thursday, Period 3

Finding (More) New Hobbies, Thursday Period 2

Profile

September 2019

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags