#cat docent

[daily-rayless]

I don't know if this character has any sort of name, but it's the cat spirit (?) from Big Fish & Begonia. It's only visible in a few shots in one scene (starting at around 31:30) to guide Chun through the Chamber of Heaven. I have no idea what its deal is, but it seems to be a quiet person who takes their work very seriously. Because it lacks an official name and sort of guides her through a museum or library, I'm calling it the Cat Docent.

Cat Docent is a good animated cat that I think more people should know about.

#cat #big fish and begonia #animated cat #anime cat #cat docent #2023

[overwijs]

🄲🄰🅃 🄾🄽 🅃🄷🄴 🄼🄾🄾🄽

Ik ben meestal van 8 tot 5 op school aanwezig. Soms begin ik iets later en regelmatig blijf ik ook langer. Mijn werk is dan nog niet af en het nakijkwerk doe ik eigenlijk altijd thuis.

Met toetsen geen ramp, maar met posters loop ik dus met kratjes te zeulen. Best lastig als je lopend van en naar werk gaat 😅.

Mijn katten klagen er nooit over. Want toetsen en zeker posters liggen heerlijk. Dus terwijl ik op de bank de ene poster beoordeel, controleert mijn kat, Murphy, de rest. Dat deze leerlingen precies een maan op haar maat hadden gemaakt, dat is denk ik bonus. Want die maan die ligt verrekte goed.

Dus dan heb je twee keuzes: stoppen met nakijken of de rust van de kat verstoren.

Zullen mijn leerlingen het begrijpen als ik mijn nakijkdeadline niet gehaald heb? Ik had ze namelijk wel vandaag de cijfers beloofd maar er is een cat on the moon…

#docent #leerling #onderwijs #afbeelding #foto #cat #kat #nakijken #poster #maan #moon #OverWijs

[deepfocusreviews]

It was a “mighty tall ladder” to climb, but life at the top is truly as good as Louis always imagined. Under his ownership the Azalea has become the “brightest club in the district.” It’s successful enough to continue providing his loyal, beloved employees generous salaries. And on top of star performer Jelly Roll Morton, they just hired a new singer who heard about the place “all the way in Atlanta. They talking about this place in Atlanta!” “1917 sounds like it was a pretty good year,” Daniel agrees. Tensions even appear to have cooled with Lestat; in contrast to the frightening scene that closed the previous session, this one opens on a midnight date in Jackson Square, before Louis takes his nightly victory lap at the Azalea. It’s reminiscent of their early courtship, playing docent to the new, mysterious gentleman in town—save for one key difference. Two sessions ago Jackson Square meant comfort, an opportunity for Louis to shed his armor and share himself with someone other than Paul; now he and Lestat sit in silence. It appears the tenor’s death is still weighing on Louis, even after half a year. Humiliation. Complicity. A lifetime of joy destroyed in half an hour. The fear that stopped him from objecting in the parlor no longer factors. “The poets, composers. . . . Shouldn’t we spare them the randomness of our killing?” It’s Lestat’s turn for disinterest. No one knows better than he, after all, that if you “thrust [any human] into circumstance, whisper to them their Lord, God and Savior is not listening . . . you will see all kinds of depravity.” Nonetheless, a rare and well placed “mon cher” gets him off the bench and testing Louis’s theory. He has some questions of his own, as they stroll through Storyville. How do we decide who’s bad enough? How long do we wait to confirm they are? “Say we come upon a murderer planting a flowerbed, thinking only of flowers.” A thief finally meets Louis’s requirements; Lestat prepares the victim before they can dawdle any longer. Louis, faced with exactly what he claimed he wanted, grabs the nearest cat instead.

Pivoting: last-ditch effort or sound business strategy?

#amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire #iwtv #iwtv analysis #iwtv meta #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #daniel molloy #claudia #claudia iwtv

[camp-counselor-life]

My top job ideas for myself are:

Eternal camp counselor

Prop and set designer for the National Treasure franchise

Science consultant for a children's show

Docent at an oddities museum

Cat petter at a cat cafe (unlimited mochas and chais)

Unfortunately, these are not full time, well paid jobs, so I guess I'll work for Girl Scouts, which is... full time at least.

[astranauticus]

the rwd season 4 qna inspired me to start thinking about college au headcanons except a lot of these are gonna be really specific to my school and y'all are just gonna have to deal with that <3

Kyana feeds some of the school cats. she would feed all of them if she could

Dani smuggled Plug (the scrawniest black cat you've ever seen) into her dorm room illegally and somehow management hasn't caught her yet (based on a true story) (Kyana visits to see Plug all the time)

Finbar keeps an updated tier list of every canteen in the school with breakdowns of the best stalls/dishes for each

A senior from the school of engineering once said to me 'all the engineering people dress like rats cuz our classrooms don't have aircon' (context: tropics) anyway that's Dani

Kyana would probably be involved in a lot of freshman orientation events from second year onwards. she just likes talking to the new kids and giving them advice like she would be the kind of orientation group leader who'd get messages from her freshies asking about all kinds of random nonsense because she's made sure they know they can always contact her with questions

VR-LA is The Guy you go to for textbook pirating resources

(this is more of a 'wouldn't that be funny' but VR-LA is just Veerle's discord handle)

Docent is the name of VR-LA's old laptop that broke down so he gave it to Cassimere (computer engineering major he met once at a networking event) to fix except Cassimere got everything off the hard drive and then somehow managed to fuck it up Even More so he had to get a new laptop (and named it Emi)

Roy has gotten food poisoning from his dorm meal plan at least once (based on at least one true story)

The heap trio + Mandy would be those friends constantly playing majong in the dorm lounge and if all the majong tables are taken they just play in one of their dorm rooms on a towel to dampen the tile shuffling noises (it was Mandy's idea)

Every morning Dani goes to the drinks stall at her faculty and orders one iced coffee to the point where the stall owner starts preparing an iced coffee whenever they see her approach (based on my true story)

Roy would be one of those people who goes clubbing every other week and every time he tries to drag the rest of the heap trio and Egan almost always goes and Dani would go if she didn't have a good excuse but always begrudgingly. anyway Roy would always be the only one having a good time until Egan gets drunk enough to start having fun

Finbar actually uses the dorm kitchens instead of just buying canteen food and it always makes the hallways smell really good

Vhas also uses the dorm kitchen sometimes but like. one time i walked into the pantry on my floor and someone had left cut sweet potatoes and 2 eggs in an inch of water in a pan on the stove. that's Vhas

Kyana's constantly applying for overseas exchanges and international summer/winter school programmes. the world is large and she wants to see it!

Maxim's the definition of a hall phantom. you know he lives on your dorm floor because you pass him by in the hallways sometimes and literally nowhere else. sometimes you're not convinced that he actually exists

VR-LA and Maxim's friendship stems from them being from wildly different faculties (VR-LA's in STEM, Maxim's doing anthropology so arts/social sciences) but also having lots of weird interests they cant really bug anyone in their home faculties about

Elyse is in student government and every once in a while Finbar receives a series of angry texts about the newest idiocy she's had to put up with

MR-SN and AS-TR start a stargazing club together. other notable members include AS-TR's girlfriend E-DN, MR-SN's friend C-RA (the one who always volunteers to carry the heavy ass telescopes) and MR-SN's friend K-LB who he pestered into coming to fix one of the wonky scopes even though K-LB's actually in electrical engineering but he's the only engineering person MR-SN (an arts student) knows

oh and of course VR-LA joins because he genuinely just likes space (developing a crush on his club chairperson was not on his bingo card)

Kyana and E-DN were MMA sparring buddies at one point which is how she found out about the stargazing and joined immediately

honestly i can probably think of more but this post is fuckin long LMAO

#rolling with difficulty #'do not let the internet turn you into an american' i say as i make posts that can be understood by me and me only #i mean im not sorry about it this is my house #like my experiences are just gonna be extra incomprehensible because my countrys fuckin tiny so the target audience really is me and me onl #too bad! you think its hard to read my posts? i gotta live like this! #if i sound extra confrontational i got 5 hours of sleep for the whole week unfortunately so just know its all /lh more or less #really tempted to make some kind of business major joke for roy even though obviously the heap trio would all be in engineering #bc its just common knowledge in my school that business majors are the ones with the most free time to go clubbing all the damn time #and *also* theyre the faculty that dresses the best which also tracks?? #didnt really nail down specific majors for everyone (besides the obvious ones like food science for finbar and mech eng for dani) #but i kinda like the idea of cs for VR-LA because of that 'programmers are real world wizards' joke and also.. projecting #cs with focus area in AI would even make sense bc of docent and emi. if i want to make the projecting Even Worse! #also if i ever do human designs for the old crew (doubtful cuz i find drawing robots more fun than drawing humans) #look up sally hansen hypnautical nail polish bc i wanna give human AS-TR that as a nod to her original design #didnt really get into the fashion of it all bc again i live in the tropics so nobody really dresses well here #the goal is to dress to not sweat more often than it is dress to look good #hands down my favourite line in the cqna was noir's i thermoregulate through my forearms #so in the middle of summer i still wear all black and just roll up my sleeves #like thats ME. except its summer ALL YEAR ROUND #walao #asto speaks

[pastafossa]

I don’t want to gatekeep you, I want you to love the thing, I want you to come in, I want you to walk by all the framed family fandom pictures on the walls as I narrate what scenes they’re from and then I sit you on the couch so I can serve you fandom tea and let the fandom characters sit on your lap like cats so you can pet them while I put on a minor low budget production about why this thing is fun and why you might like it too, I am your fucking docent, my knowledge is your knowledge and if I don’t know something I know another docent who does, follow me through the gates to the promised land my friend

#aka i was at a store and a lady saw my DD shirt and said she only knew a little about it and was it any good? #but she had that wary tone that made me think she'd gotten shit for not knowing something in the past #NO MY FRIEND I WANT YOU IN HERE COME IN HERE WITH ME IT'S LOVELY COME IN COME IN COME IN COME IN COME IN

[tropes-and-tales]

Uncertain

CW:  Pure angst

Word Count:  4668

Other Pieces:  This is a sequel to this.

You finally feel like your life is starting.  Washington D.C. is free of Marcus Pike.  He’s back in Texas with Teresa Lisbon (you gave in to your misery for a weekend, and you had stalked the woman’s social media until you felt sick and deleted your profile altogether).

Then you decided to be happy.  To move on.  To set the misery aside, to consider your years’ long crush on Marcus Pike as a painful lesson.  

You do just that.  You move on.  You find a semblance of happiness.

You love D.C.  You love your job.  You find a townhouse in Truxton Circle, a mile from work, and you bike there every day.  Your neighborhood is walkable, and it reminds you of your time in Europe.

You can’t fathom how this is your life.  You can’t quite believe that the girl raised in a working class home with a mechanic father and a waitress mother grew up to get her doctorate in art.  

Sometimes you go to sleep worried you’ll wake up in the morning to find that it was all a dream.  Love-life aside, you have a dream job in an interesting city.  You have a great townhouse with a lot of old character, and the entire scene rounds out when a stray cat adopts you and moves in, just saunters in your backdoor one morning like she owns the place.

You don’t allow yourself to think about Marcus.  You know he moves fast; you know he’ll probably propose to Teresa and remarry soon.  Maybe this one will stick, but you don’t care to hear about it either way.

Deep down, underneath all the hurt, you know you still love him.  But that love has only ever been nourished by your own fragile hopes, and it’s like a hot coal banked under cold embers.  It still could burn bright, but with each day that passes, it flickers a little dimmer, grows a little colder.

Someday it will be a cinder.  Someday your love for Marcus Pike will just be a burnt piece of ash.

-----

You love your work in restoration because it’s so many things at once.  It’s art and history, science and economics.  It’s sociology.  A woodblock from feudal Japan is utterly unique when compared to an oil painting by a Dutch master…but it’s also exactly the same.  It’s the same human impulse to create, to form something in their time and place.

You love the National Gallery.  You love everyone who works there:  your teammates, the docents, the gift shop employees.  The guard who hails you each morning when you scan in, the coffee shop lady who calls you “sweet pea” when she slides your coffee across the counter at you.

But you love the work more than anything.  You love receiving a new painting.  You love being a steward of fine art:  knowing that others came before you and others will come after you, but that you’re linked to your predecessors and successors over a mutual love of timeless pieces.

You love x-raying the paintings to see what secrets they reveal.  Other paintings that the artist covered over.  Sometimes it’s earlier, poor attempts at restoration or even censorship.  The Catholic Church was especially famous for the latter, covering up the upsetting genitals of fat little cherubs, turning black Madonnas lily-white.

A lot of your work is collaborative.  Other museums reach out to you.  Galleries.  Auction houses and private collectors.  You help verify paintings with dicey provenances.

More rarely, you help law enforcement.  It’s only been twice, so far, and both have been consulting outside of D.C.  One was NYPD—a rumored Rothko turned up in a raid.  Another was DEA, when a cartel capo’s house was raided and trio of unknown Tamayo paintings were found.

When you get a call from the FBI, you don’t think anything of it.  Marcus is in Austin, so you get that dip of excitement in your stomach at the prospect of a puzzle to solve.  There was a shipment of contraband intercepted, and there’s a crate full of art pieces.  They need your help identifying some of them.

“Of course,” you tell the guy—an agent named Roberts—over the phone.  “Bring the pieces over as soon as you can, and I can look at them.”

-----

It takes a couple days, and you never once think you’ll see Marcus.  There’s no portents, no omens that your life in D.C. is going to turn.  There’s no crow cawing at you from a tree.  There’s no dark cloud following you as you ride your bike to work that morning.

Life isn’t like a movie.  You have no sign that your world is going to tilt off axis.  You scan in that morning, sort through some mail.  You eat lunch with a coworker.  And then at one o’clock, you stroll down the hallway to the workshop where the FBI’s art pieces—and the FBI agent, Roberts—are waiting.

When you open the door, it’s not one agent.  It’s two.  A tall man with greying hair at the temples—Agent Roberts, you assume.  

And Marcus Pike, standing right beside him.  Looking at you like he’s been shot.  His eyes are wide, and his mouth falls open for a fraction of a second before he snaps it shut.

Goddamned, fucking Marcus Pike.

*****

It’s been almost a year since Marcus saw you last.  It was that disastrous dinner when you had, he assumed, wanted to confess your feelings for him.  When he instead broke your heart by telling you about Teresa Lisbon.

Almost a year.  A lot has happened.

He falls fast and hard for Teresa.  He proposes too early.  He asks her to move to D.C. with him when the promotion comes up.

He is left, in the end.  Teresa chooses Patrick Jane over him, and Marcus finds himself with the prospect of being alone.  Again.

Alone, his impulse is to reach out to you.  You had blocked him, however—his calls and texts don’t go through, his emails seem to go into a black hole.  He could find your address but doesn’t dare.  

For the first time ever, Marcus is left to be uncomfortable in his own feelings of loneliness and heartbreak.  For the first time, you aren’t there to prop him up, to be his one-woman hype-crew.  

He wallows.  He finds a condo in D.C., but he doesn’t bother to unpack most of the boxes.  His stubble turns into a beard, a little patchy, and he finds that he doesn’t care to shave it off.  It makes him look roguish, on good days, and downright depressive, on bad days.

Almost a year, and then he sees you again.

Roberts is the one with the hookups at the Smithsonian, at the National Gallery.  He knows all the local experts, and when their raid turns up a crate full of unidentified art pieces, Roberts reaches out to his experts.

“I know of a guy,” he says, but Marcus doesn’t realize that his partner uses the term “guy” in a gender neutral way.  

The guy Roberts knows of is you.  

A few thoughts occur to Marcus all at once.  First, that you must be setting the art restoration world on fire to have already acquired a reputation as an expert.  Second, that you’re an utter professional, because you shake Roberts’ hand and then his own, giving away none of your personal ire at him.

And third….you look good.  If Marcus has fallen apart a bit, if he’s living in slightly rumpled suits and a patchy beard, you’ve pulled yourself together.  You’re in dark wash jeans and a button down Oxford of sky blue.  Your hair is in a low ponytail.  You look casual and professional at the same time, polished and understated.

You look lovely.

You also look eager.  When your eyes drift from him back to Roberts, you light up.  You rub your hands briskly together and ask the other agent what goodies he’s brought you.

-----

You’re good.  Marcus is good, but you’re better.  He can see where you got your reputation.

There’s five oil paintings.  You dismiss four of them outright.  You pull on a pair of magnifying glasses, click on the small light on the frames, and you peer at the paintings closely.  Marcus and Roberts stand off to the side, listening as you mutter about pigment types and aging, and then you stand up.  Click off the light.

“These four were done in the style of Titian,” you tell them.  “But I’m certain they are recent copies.  I could run an analysis on it, but some of the aging qualities look like faking.  Tea bags.  Nicotine.  These are no more than thirty years old, tops.”

“Okay, good,” Roberts says.

You nod and then turn to the fifth painting.  Click your light back on and study it.  

“Can you give me any details around the operation?” you ask them as you focus on one corner of the painting.  “Where it came from might help.”

Roberts gives you the details:  they are running down a smuggling ring out of Russia.  The son of an oil oligarch has been stealing rare paintings from small museums and galleries and private collectors in former Soviet countries, then releasing forgeries back into the market.  Allegedly.

“Huh.”  You say it like you have an idea, and a moment later you whip off your glasses and stride—almost running—over to a laptop.  You tap furiously on the keys, then throw a switch that projects your screen on a nearby wall.

“Okay, so this fifth one might be something,” you tell them, and your voice is shaky.  It sounds like you might cry, but when Marcus looks closer, he sees that you’re trembling.  You’re practically vibrating, and he realizes that you are excited.  

“Just eyeballing the pigment, it looks 16th century, but I can test it and verify.  But look at these details.”  You point at the painting they brought you, then point at the painting you are projecting.

“See the lily of the valley in that pot there?”  You point at the projection, then point to their painting.  “Sure, lilies were a common motif in religious paintings of the Virgin Mary, but look.  It’s almost exactly the same.  The same pot of lilies of the valley.  And here, in the corner of each painting, the signature.  A single ‘G.’”

“What is the painting you’re comparing to?” Marcus asks, and whatever anger you feel for him has been buried under the excitement of your possible find.

“It’s Annunciation.  It’s the only known, signed work by a painter called Master Jerzy.  Jurek Almanus.  He’s almost completely unknown.  There’s been a couple of other paintings that they think might have been his, but….”  Your words trail off, and you just stare at the confiscated painting from the raid.

“I saw Annunciation in Krakow when I was in Europe,” you add, and your voice has a hushed, reverential quality to it.  “I fell down a Jerzy rabbit hole.  I never thought I might see a second painting of his.”

“We can sign the painting into your custody,” Roberts tells you.  “If you can verify it, it might help us start the trail of its provenance.”

“I can get in touch with the Czartoryski Museum, where Annunciation is, as a start,” you reply.  Your eyes never leave the painting they brought you, and your face is full of wonderment.  

Marcus knew that you loved art—obviously so, since you got your doctorate for the love of it—but he had never quite grasped how much.  You gaze at the painting like you are witnessing a miracle in real time, and maybe to you, you are.

-----

The recovered painting is a foot in the door.  It’s a way back into your life.

Marcus isn’t too proud.  He asks Roberts if he can manage the possible Jerzy paining, which means checking in with you at regular intervals.  It’s only phone calls, and sometimes emails, when you send him lab results from your National Gallery email.  Official business only, as much as Marcus tries to pry that door open a little more each time.

The first call:  he asks how you’re doing.  You ignore the question altogether and update him on the talks with Krakow.

The second call:  again, he asks how you are.  You give a terse, “I’m fine,” then explain that you’ll be sending the x-rays of the painting that show an earlier, discarded painting underneath it.  The confiscated painting is a palimpsest, and there’s a quality of excitement in your voice when you tell him so.

The third call:  he’s in a low spot already.  He’s heard news about Teresa and Jane, and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does…but it does.  On the phone with you, after you update him on the chemical analysis of the painting—the pigment, the canvas, the frame—there’s a beat of silence that Marcus fills awkwardly.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, weary to the bone.  Wanting just a fraction of comfort from you.

He can hear your sigh.  He can hear the long stretch of uncomfortable silence, and he knows that you’re probably struggling with how to reply to him.  It makes him feel even worse.  His best friend is a stranger to him now, and he doesn’t know how to find his way back to her.  To you.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” he adds, sparing you the awkward need to reply to his admission of missing you.

Sparing you the need to lie and say that you’ve missed him too…or worse, telling him the truth:  that you haven’t missed him at all.

-----

It takes a while before the painting is verified.  There are a million tests you have to run, conferences and long hours arguing with other art experts.  An expert from Poland flies in to examine the painting, and he helps pick up part of the trail on this painting’s long journey across time.

Marcus goes to the National Gallery, ostensibly to pick up a thick folder of your findings, though you have been emailing a lot of it to him piecemeal, as you’ve gotten it.  But you’ll pulled together an impressive amount of research, and it’s an excuse to see you.

An excuse to try and push that door open another fraction.

You hand him the folder, and Marcus pages through it with an appreciative whistle.  “If you ever get tired of working in a museum, the FBI is always hiring.  This is remarkable work.”

The bit of praise makes you smile.  “That’s the thing, though.  This job is art and detective work.”

“Best of both worlds.”

“It really is.”

He shuts the folder, taps the cover in a nervous tattoo with his fingertips.  This paltry exchange is the closest he’s gotten to a meaningful talk with you.  It’s nothing at all, but it’s the best he’s got.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, echoing his last call with you.  

You sigh again.  “Marcus—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he interrupts, hasty to not hear what you may reply with.  “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve missed you.  And I thought I might get a coffee with you sometime.”

You look at him, and he can’t read your expression.  You’re inscrutable now.  Maybe you always have been.  Maybe he’s never read you right before.

“You want to get a coffee?”  You ask finally.  “Let’s go then.”

“Now?” You glance at the watch on your wrist.  “Yeah, why not?  It’s that time in the afternoon that I start to flag, so a coffee will do me good.”

*****

You don’t know why you agree to get a coffee with him.  Maybe because you have missed him, despite it all.  Maybe because you can’t help the way your traitorous heart stammers in your chest when you see him, despite how disapproving your head may be.  Maybe you’re curious about what he might say.  Maybe he’ll apologize.

Maybe you’re just high on the research, on finding a missing painting from a mysterious guild painter.

Either way, you find yourself at a nearby café, a mom-and-pop place that serves the D.C. workers, not the D.C. tourists.  At two in the afternoon, it’s quiet—just you and Marcus, pretty much.

He orders a coffee.  You get a honey halva latte, and when he tries to reach past you to pay, you turn your shoulder and block him, muscle memory from all the times the two of you play-fought over the check.  You don’t even realize you’re doing it until his hand brushes against you, and you frown at how easy it is to fall back into the old patterns with him.

If I’m not careful, I’m going to let him break my heart again, you chide yourself.  It’s your logical mind that thinks the thought—and it’s your duplicitous heart that hammers against your ribcage at the touch of his hand.

The two of you take your drinks and find a quiet table tucked away in a corner.  You watch Marcus stir creamer into his coffee.  He looks…less crisp than he used to.  He looks a little dog-eared, a little worn down.  You like the stubble, actually, but his eyes look forlorn.  

All it takes is a simple, polite question from you to open up the floodgates.  The usual, polite-society question.

“How are you, Marcus?” you ask, and yes…you fall right back into the old pattern.

He treats you just like he used to.  He treats you like his therapist:  he tells you about Teresa, and someone named Jane, and you don’t know if Jane is a first name or a last name, or if Teresa left him for a man or a woman, but his words wash over you and you stop comprehending what he’s telling you.  His voice fades away and a low roar fills your head:  the hot-blood of your temper being raised.  The fuzzy, staticky roll of years’ worth of anger and disappointment and heartbreak filling you.  Making your face and neck break out in a hectic flush of rage.  Making your hands clench into tight fists in your lap.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter under your breath, interrupting his litany of words.  

Marcus stops midsentence.  Cocks his head and asks, “What?”

You’ve always swallowed your bad feelings down with him.  Always.  You’ve choked on disappointment, swallowed the bitter wash of unrequited love.  For so long—since you were a fucking kid.  You hate that he has this power to make you feel like that kid again, that unworthy, second-best kid who can’t compare to the random, disappointing women he convinces himself are the One.

“I said you’re unbelievable,” you repeat, and you unclench your fists.  You realize that you’ve been slumped over—that insecure teenager again—so you sit up straight.  Push your shoulders back, lift your chin and stare him down directly.  

The anger must be apparent in your eyes.  Marcus flinches at what he sees.

“I haven’t seen or talked to you in over a year,” you say, and you keep your voice low and steady.  You’re in public and you don’t want to make a scene.

“That’s why I wanted to get a coffee…”  He trails off, uncertain.

You laugh, bitter.  “Get a coffee so you can unload your problems on me?  Nice, Marcus.”

“We are friends,” he says.  He sounds defensive, even if his eyes look sad.  “Or we used to be.”

“Were we friends?  Really?”

He sighs and looks down into his coffee mug.  “I know you had a thing for me,” he starts to say, but you don’t allow him to get any more of that thought out.

“A thing.”  You laugh again, a short bark that is mirthless.  “Marcus, I was in love with you for years.”

“I didn’t know that.  Didn’t know it back then, I mean.  But we were friends….”  He trails off again, but he raises his head to look you in the eyes.

“We weren’t friends, not really.”  You shake your head and snort at how fucking obtuse he is.  “You know, I’m not even mad that you never loved me back.  You can’t help who you love.  I’m not it for you?  Well, that’s tough for me, but that’s life.  I was never mad about that.  Sad, sure.  Disappointed?  Sure.  But never mad.”

“You seem really mad at me now.”

“Because you call me a friend!”  You raise your voice, and you hate how girlish you sound when you’re mad; your voice is shaky with anger, and it sounds like you’re about to cry.  Which, you might.

“You are a friend!”  He raises his voice too, lifts his hands in frustration before letting them fall back onto the tabletop.

“I’m not a friend to you, Marcus.  I’m your…your fall back plan.  I’m your therapist.  Your….I dunno.  I’m your emotional punching bag, and I’m not going back to that place with you.”

“I don’t know what—”

“You never come to me unless you need something,” you clarify, and now your voice really is trembling.  Your throat feels tight from the sobs that want to tear free, but you push through it.  You need to tell him this.  You’ve sat with it for years, and now it’s coming to light.  It’s a festering wound that is finally being treated.

“When you have someone, you disappear,” you continue.  “You lose yourself in that person, and you put me back on the shelf.  And I’m just supposed to sit there and wait until you need me again, but all you want is someone to tell you that it’s okay and that you’ll find real love someday.”

Marcus seems to go pale under his tan.  He wilts in his seat, slumps a little.  “That’s not true,” he protests weakly.

You lean forward and fix him with a glare.  “When have you ever asked about my life?  Or put me first?  Isn’t that what friends do, give and take?  You just take though, Marcus.  You take and take and take, and you save all the give for the disappointing women you date.”  You snort.  “Or the women you marry.”

“I—”

“You didn’t come to any of my graduations, and I had three.  You never dropped me a note or got me a gift to celebrate any of the milestones I’ve hit.  You barely talked to me when I was in Europe because you were married.  Even my celebration dinner back in Austin turned into the fucking Teresa Lisbon hour, and how did that end up, in the end?”

He doesn’t answer.  He opens his mouth but then shuts it, and he only gazes back at you.  He looks so sad, it might have dampened your ire any other time.  But this is the first time you’ve ever said this stuff out loud, and it feels cleansing.  Like you’re bleeding out all of the poison that had accumulated over the years of loving him without receiving any love back.

You take a deep breath and will your hammering heart to calm.  You lay your hands on the table.  

“Just answer me this, Marcus.”  Your voice is quieter now, and a lot of the anger has burned off.  

He nods at you, gestures for you to continue.

“If Teresa had moved here with you…if the two of you had gotten married and moved to D.C., and then you ran into me about the Jerzy painting again.  Would you have asked me out for a coffee to catch up?  Or was this just you being alone and lonely again?”

The guilty look on his face is all the answer you need.  You nod, once, and stand up.  You could yell at him more, but you feel exhausted all of a sudden.  Spent.  Drained.

“Take care of yourself,” you tell him softly, but he doesn’t reply.  He doesn’t even look at you.  He keeps his gaze fixed on the table in front of him, an unhappy frown on his face.  His eyes glassy with tears.

*****

Marcus knew he had messed up, but he never realized just how badly he’d done.

He thought it was a broken heart.  Unrequited love.  Maybe it was that, but it was so much worse.

He wants to argue you with.  He wants to tell you that you’re wrong, that he’s always been there for you…but he can’t.  As you lay your recriminations at his feet, he realizes that you’re right.  That he’s faded out on you when he was in a relationship.  That he pulls you back into his orbit when he needs you.

You’re right:  he takes from you, but he rarely gives you anything back.

If he thought he felt low when Chloe cheated on him and he got divorced….or when Teresa chose Jane over him….neither of those moments compare to this.  You’ve been his dearest friend for years and years, but he hasn’t been that for you.  You had let it slide in the past because of some misplaced, blinding love for him, but he’s never been a real friend to you.

What can he possibly do to make it up to you?  Blocking his number and his email, moving away without a farewell—it all feels like the end.  Like you crossed that bridge and tossed a match after you, and only now he’s seeing the burnt remains between you and him.

All he can do is honor your wishes.  He hands the bulk of the case back to Roberts, makes up an excuse about wanting to focus on other cases, which isn’t a complete lie.

But not before he sends you an email:  from his personal email address to your work one.  He doesn’t want to guilt you or put you into an uncomfortable position.  He only wants you to know that he understands.  He finally understands, years too late.

I’ve handed the case back to Roberts, he writes.  I realize now how I failed you for so long.  I don’t deserve your friendship and probably never did, but please know that I always treasured it.  I want to respect the boundaries you’ve put up.  I won’t reach out again, but please know that if you ever need anything from me—anything at all—you can call me.  I will always want the chance to be the friend you always needed but never got.

When he hits “send,” he feels a rush of various emotions:  shame at the situation with you getting to this point, to where he’s reduced to communicating via email.  Guilt too.  

But the most prevalent emotion:  a deep melancholy that seems to sink into the very marrow of his bones.  It’s more than sadness.  It’s a feeling of finality, just as he’s starting to wise up to the fact that he’s lost you, before he had the space in his life to realize just how much you meant to him.

You don’t reply to his email.  He doesn’t expect you to.  All he can do is be patient and work on himself.  He needs to not fall into the next convenient relationship; he has to stay single and really address the deep-down issues that cause him to be so clingy, so quick to move in a relationship.  

He waits a few weeks, and then he finds a therapist.  Twice a week, he sits and spills all of the secrets of his heart, and sometimes he feels better after, but sometimes he feels worse.  It’s all good work, though—the hard work of learning who he is, what drives him.  

Marcus Pike may never hear from you again, and he’s probably lost you forever.  But there’s always a chance you may return to his life, and if you do, he wants to be the best possible version of himself.  He wants to be well-adjusted and conscious of how he treats his friends.

In case you ever choose to speak to him again, he wants to be the man you always thought he was.  The friend you always needed.

~~~Tag List~~~ @bananas-pajamas  @massivecolorspygiant​   @imspillingcoffee​   @amneris21​   @paintballkid711​   @mad-girl-without-a-box​   @bestattempt   @rosiefridayrogersunday​   @strawberrydragon​   @hoeforthefictional​   @greeneyedblondie44​  @leannawithacapitala​   @stardust-galaxies​  @buckybarneshairpullingkink​   @harriedandharassed​  @thatpinkshirt​  @isvvc-pvscvl​   @mrschiltoncat​  @stillshelbs​   @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics​    @tobealostwanderer​   @nuvoleincielo​  @knivesareout​  @frankie-catfish-morales​    @prostitute-robot-from-the-future  @probablybraindamage​   

#marcus pike #marcus pike imagine #marcus pike x reader #the mentalist

[vinnybox]

So for the Shadow batman au the best way to keep the blob man from running off is to quite literally step on him. it catches him in his tracks like if you stepped on someone's coat or dress. if he likes you hell just stop and sulk, if he docent you'll be bowled over Charlie Brown style

SGDSDSFDGSD STEPPY ON HIM-

Shadow!Batman's lil ears going droopy when he's stopped in his track like "No justice? :("

Or when he bowl over and just looks at you like a cat that you won't let go outside cause how DARE you keep him in this house.

#Shadow!Batman AU #Shadow!Batman #DC ask #anon #ask vinny #ask

[bribumblebee]

Get to Know Me, Pt. 2

Tagged by @magicandarchery and @bigassbowlingballhead ❤️❤️

1. Were you named after anyone?

Yes, my middle name was my Nonna's name. If I had been born before my cousin, it would have been my first name.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I cry often. It's a key trait. Last time I cried was probably the beginning of this week?

3. Do you have kids?

Not yet!

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

Growing up, I played softball and soccer, but basketball was my main sport. Haven't played in a while, so I'm certain I've lost any skill I had, but I do miss it.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Absolutely.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Probably their eyes.

7. What’s your eye color?

Hazel!

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, happy endings! I am a scaredy cat.

9. Any talents?

Uhm. Probably not.

10. Where were you born?

New Jersey. Jersey girl through and through!

11. What are your hobbies?

Reading. I like to walk/go to the gym. Uhm...I guess travel?

12. Do you have any pets?

Yes, a kitty cat!

13. How tall are you?

5' 5.5"

14. Favorite subject in school?

History.

15. Dream job?

Ooh, I'd love to work in a bookstore or a library. History wise, I'd love to work somewhere that I could research, but then also talk to the public. A kind of curator/docent mix.

#me

[snipertrifle]

15 people, 15 questions

@lttrsfrmlnrrgby tagged me in the 15 things meme, and I'm finally not on mobile!

1. Are you named after anyone? No! Which is surprising, because my Dad's side of the family was very big on naming everyone after someone. Luckily for me Dad hated what he got saddled with.

2. When was the last time you cried? Pretty sure it was mid-lockdown in 2020 because whoo-boy. That sure was a thing.

3. Do you have kids? Nope. I think I would have been a good mom, and I loved teaching elementary school when I did that for a few years, but it's just not how things went.

4. What sports do you play/have played? As a kid I didn't consider myself sporty at ALL even though I did years of Tae Kwon Do and fencing. Now I run, hike, do yoga and weightlifting and LOVE IT. What a difference it makes when it's play and not punishment.

5. Do you use sarcasm? Who? Moi??? Never!

6. What's the first thing you notice about people? Smiles and laughter.

7. What’s your eye color? Blue

8. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. Life's scary and I read the news, that's plenty.

9. Any talents? I am (mostly) not afraid of looking stupid or being bad at things, great at puns, the best at useless trivia, absurdly good at cobbler/butterfly pose.

10. Where were you born? Kansas

11. What are your hobbies? the above sports, plus reading, drawing, baking, knitting... I'm not sure I've ever met a hobby I didn't want to try.

12. Do you have any pets? I have the best cat and you should be jealous. She is so sweet and loving and pretty and absolutely stupid.

13. How tall are you? 5'3"/160cm

14. Favorite subject in school? History, Language, Art

15. Dream job? If I could make my mortgage payment being some kind of museum docent or any job where I can infodump and make jokes at the same time. Sometimes art restoration and just sitting there and mindlessly cleaning a painting all day sounds pretty good too.

No pressure tags for: @twigcollins, @thornescratch, @flidgetjerome, @windlion, @waxjism, @ickaimp, @arinrowan, @starry-eyed-darling, @immoveableobject, @tittypocalypse, @atlantis-is-burning, @marloweseyeball, @anthogna, @alessandriana, @lisdumatin

#ask memes

[windermeresimblr]

Download a Sim: Grand Admiral Thrawn (Mitth’raw’nuruodo)

This iteration of the Grand Admiral is based on his appearance in the “The Last Command” comics, illustrated by Edvin Biukovic and Eric Shanower, and his personality in the Expanded Universe/old Thrawn Trilogy and short stories.

 He still likes art and wreaking havoc on his enemies through carefully plotted strategy; this is augmented by enjoying a cold mug of Forvish ale, slouching villainously in his villain chair, buying tickets to risque art exhibits using the Imperial credit card, and petting his Force-repelling ysalamiri (not pictured; perhaps you might give him a cat or dog to play with instead). He dislikes Force users, people who don’t appreciate art, and bugs (especially ambiguously-humanoid alien bugs who are also on certain Imperial councils). 

Genetics

Mamyrocker’s A Matter of Skin (blue ramp) | Ifca’s retexture of WingsSims TZ0710 | SK-SIMS’ Face Shadow | Lavoieri’s Sclera Lenses |  IncoherentSimming’s “Single Scratch Scar” tattoo | multiple sliders; please look up the sliders listed here

Personality

Traits: Ambitious | Evil | Genius | Perceptive | Proper

Favorites: Frogs’ Legs | Classical | White

Zodiac Sign: Taurus (based on the release date for Heir to the Empire)

Everyday

Base Game Supervillain Outfit and Boots (you may need to use the unlock outfits cheat before opening CAS if you want to edit the presets)

Formal

Carversims’ Edit of Movie Stuff’s Super Skunk Outfit | Nectar-Cellar’s Crisp Coat Accessory Gloves | Movie Stuff

Sleepwear

Into The Future

Athletic

Into the Future 

Swimwear

Into the Future

Outerwear

Seasons Alien Outfit and Boots (you may need to use the unlock outfits cheat before opening CAS if you want to edit the presets)

Get him here. Please tag me and let me know if he’s conquered your corner of the galaxy, if he’s volunteering as a docent at your art museum, or if you have any issues with him. 

Credits:

@studiok2sims​, Kosmokhaos, and TheaiNyx for the poses | Venus-Princess for the backdrop

[sewisdelrey]

tagged by @gasmilton !!! (me tarde en completarlo pero viste como es la vida del docente jeje??? * escupe sangre *

10 random questions and a compliment

tea, coffee or soda?: I love coffee but a world without soda is sooo boring, so soda.

dogs or cats?: cats but I love dogs too!

can you play an instrument?: piano and bass, but I dont play bass for almost a year rn :c

What is your sun sign?: Cancer

Do you have any tattoos?: nope

Favourite place you've travelled?: san bernardo, partido de la costa, argentina. My place in this world after buenos aires 

Last movie you watched?: puss in boots 

Do you have any hobbies?: uhhhhhm reading? and playing mobile phones?

You can hang out with one fictional character for an hour, who do you choose?: rn, Remus Lupin I guess

compliment yourself: I already know what Ilike about myself, I dont want to show off that to random people

taggin' the besties @antonioisanitalianjesus @thisismyworldyeah @green-like-the-sky (dont do it if you dont want to, I just tagged you bc i had to tag someone)

[frenchiefitzhere]

In which I copy/paste the live-react word vomit I spewed into Discord about Hocus Pocus 2

I will now be live reacting to Hocus Pocus 2

I have only waited almost 30 years for this

already into this fuckin kick ass bird

Ohhhh dope!!!! Child!Winnie

Oh Billy!! Stealing smooches

Oh we doin the give the villains a multi-dimensional backstory thing…

This mentor witch is amaze

Ok show me the modern day protagonist…

and imma wait for that cameo from Max and co

Ok wait I think I see where this is going 3 friends… y’all gonna be 3 good witches

YUPPPPPPP

I love banana teacher

How do y’all live in Salem with no accents???????????

Tony Hale is an American treasure

…and a DILF

WAIT WHO IS THIS BLACK CAT?!?!?! WTF?

I also am very interested in the docent who runs the Sanderson house now. He is a beautiful man. And a snappy dresser. And is kind to children. And has a cat.

Here we go…

So they’re just gonna enter with a song? I’ll allow it

Omg the Walgreens

I love that for real these kids just point the witches at some retinol

GILBERT LOML

Bette Midler you fucking QUEEEEEEEN CAN I PLS BE YOU WHEN I GROW UP?!??

BILLY AND GILBERT BESTIES YES YES YES YES YES I WANT THIS SO MUCH

THEY ARE SINGING ON STAGE AND IM JUST

NO BUT ITS LIKE A THRILLER MOMENT AND IM DYING AND IM SO HAPPY AND TRANSPORTED BACK TO CHILDHOOD RN

Omg witches and smart speakers fuck yeah fuck yeah

”The Gothic Golden Girls” TONY PLS

#hocus pocus 2 #disney plus #go ahead for that money grab #I'm here for it if you give me #the sanderson sisters

[shipping-trash-the-musical]

Hi im well aware no one im cares about this but seeing as this is my blog an i do what I want let me yell about lukadrien

So we all agree luka is a bi king (if not well your wrong) how had crush on both marionette and adrien ( fight me those looks thay give each other in desperado are way to romantic to be platonic) I mean you cant tell me that luka thought of adrien as cute the first time he saw him and even before that because u know famous super model. so when thay meet his inherit flirty bi king mode takes hold and what we see is luka attempts at gauging Adrien's gay dar. As time time goes on his feelings for Marinette increase and his adrien attraction isn't going any were because Adrian is a very hapless and confused gay how is yet to discover himself and is using ladybug as comp-hete. things end up going south with her though. However as things go on and luca hangs out with marinett more he gets to know adrien more and his attraction grows into a crush that at this point in time luka sees as one sided because I will die on my Adrian is a useless gay how's to stupid and traumatized to realize he's gay hill. Then however wishmaker happens ×(spoiler ahead)× in wish maker luka finds out both marionette and Adrien's identity and at first he trays to keep it secret that he knows from both heros identitys but as time goes on and using his weird hearing the secret song of peoples hearts power he has (note what kinda hippy musa fairy of music winx club bullshit drug are u on luka?) he connects the dots that alyia knows martinets ladybug and she acts as marionettes therapist and helper. However he relies Adrian docent have this kinda help and being the simp and all around good boi he is luka decides to be that support and reveal he knows Adrian's cat Noir. So the two exchange in a lot of major bonding , mostly just Luca giving Adrian hugs whenever he feels like he's not good enough to be chat noir and he feels like he's being overshadowed by ladybug but luka docent believe those things so he just lets Adrian cry it out and the 2 just hug and grow closer to echother. Do to these events Lukas small time crush turns into love because he's truly experiencing the real Adrien that no ever sees but also the dude he constantly thought of as cute, caring and soft runs around paris in full leather cat suit every day. Those 2s friendship also help Adrien realize that holy shit I am so gay. the two end up dating it's amazing it's cute. And since it's revealed in wishmaker that luka doesn't actually want to be a musician when he grows up he wants to be an instrument maker so he helps teach Adrian how to play guitar to be more rebellious and Generally more free so Adrian ends up taking Lucas place in kittie section and Adrien gets to be a cool rockstar while his boyfriend helps build and set up all the instruments. Tldr i just think there really cute

#miraculous ladybug #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #luka x adrien #ladrien #au idea #how 2 tag #wishmaker #made this at 2am

[professoragatinha]

Acolhemos orgulhosamente EZGI AVSAR em nosso corpo docente! Ela é uma MULHER-GATO que leciona na Casa OPHELIA aos TRINTA E DOIS anos. Ele pode passar a impressão de ser CARISMÁTICA e EFUSIVA, e talvez você a confunda com a padrão BURCU OZBERK, mas garantimos que é apenas uma coincidência.

Costuma-se dizer que gatos são frios, independentes e não gostam tanto assim de humanos. Talvez isso seja verdade sobre alguns da espécie, mas definitivamente não se aplica à Ezgi e à família de homens-gatos dela. Com dez irmãos mais novos, ela aprendeu muito cedo sobre responsabilidade e sobre ter outras pessoas dependendo dela, mas também sobre não ter um minuto de paz. Por ter sido a primogênita, foi a única da família a ter estado na Túrquia, uma vez que os Avsar se mudaram para o Massachussets quando o pai de Ezgi conseguiu um emprego como professor em Nevermore.

Gigi não esperava que fosse seguir os passos do progenitor. Por anos, fez parte de um grupo musical com duas de suas irmãs, conhecido como "The Kitty Cats", e para os padrões que estão lendo: pensem na maior vibe Destiny's Child, e ela achava que era a Beyoncé, é claro. Quando tudo deu errado porque não se pode misturar tretas familiares com tretas de colegas de banda, as Kitty Cats se separaram e Ezgi foi a única que não conseguiu se reerguer numa carreira musical. Suas duas irmãs estouraram entre os padrões e os excluídos, já ela... bom, teve que procurar outro futuro. Decidiu que nem gostava de ter um grupo musical e ser famosa tanto assim e se escondeu entre os padrões para estudar em Juilliard, onde foi aceita para a graduação.

Chegar à Nevermore não foi coincidência, considerando o histórico do pai. Ao finalizar a faculdade de Música, teve uma recomendação e começou a atuar como professora de Composição, Estética e Estruturação Musical, Fundamentos da Harmonia e Teoria Musical II para a Casa Ophelia.

Espécie: homens/mulheres-gatos.

São uma espécie de excluídos que, assim como os lobisomens, assemelham-se aos felinos domésticos. Possuem orelhas de gato (que são facilmente escondidas com uma peruca), olhos de cores diferentes, cauda de gato (que também pode ser escondida nas roupas) e pequenas presas. Alguns também podem possuir manchas no rosto que se assemelham à bigodes, e listras pelo corpo, que é o caso de Ezgi, embora ela use maquiagem para cobrir tanto as listras quanto as manchas-bigodes quando perto dos padrões.

Homens e mulheres gato possuem um único dom, que é a comunicação telepática; geralmente entre membros da mesma espécie, mas pode se desenvolver para outras espécies também. Além disso, há as habilidades características da espécie, que incluem a visão noturna, agilidade e facilidade em se esconderem em lugares inusitados, como caixas (mas não vamos nos alongar nisso!).

Falando de Ezgi, ela consegue se comunicar telepaticamente com os seus alunos, mas não consegue acessar os seus pensamentos e nem receber nenhuma resposta deles. Ou seja, pode falar em suas cabeças, mas não pode ouvi-los de volta.

Disciplinas que leciona: Composição, Estética e Estruturação Musical, Fundamentos da Harmonia e Teoria Musical.

#jurei que tinha postado já #୧ ⋅* ‧ 🐈 ꒰ 𝒆𝒛𝒈𝒊 ꒱ 𓂃 intro.

[adelaideriedesel]

Cats… The Animal Not the Musical!- Week 8: March 1, 2024

I was so excited to go back to my internship after I missed last week due to being sick. I am still a little stuffy, but nothing too bad! The theme for this week was one of my personal favorites so far…Cats! We did the usual 3 books and songs and the kids as usual were very sweet and obviously rambunctious. 

I then started working on my project! I spent a lot of time looking up how to make museum labels and different aspects like fonts, sizing, and content. I made a template of how I want it to look so far and I started with my favorite artifact, the veterinary medicine bottle. I also started thinking about what narrative I want the exhibit to be and what I want to portray to the visitors. What I’ve come up with so far is placing the artifacts in areas that emphasize the humanity of the home and the people who lived there. I also want to have visitors leave the mansion with a sense of connection to the past. To tell this narrative I want it to flow with the docent’s tour and what they say. Towards the end of the day I went into the mansion and kept in mind what I could adjust or add to help foster that narrative. I went from room to room and made notes of what could be improved, adjusted, or added. A lot of this included remaking labels that already exist, add information on existing artifacts, and where to put the artifacts I have found in a cohesive way that makes sense to the space. I also measured pictures and shelving so I could utilize what they already have. 

This is a shorter entry as I was doing a lot of research and more administrative work, but that’s the process of doing something like this… and it helps that I really do enjoy it! Before next Friday I hope to do some organization and plan of what I want to do moving forward. I want to try to make a schedule so I can be on time with finishing everything before my internship is over. 

The pictures for this week are the cat books from story time and a fireplace shelf where I'm thinking of adding some artifacts and hanging the pictures to utilize the space I have!

Bye!

Adelaide