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kscheibles · 8 months

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e la vita ch. 1

content warnings: f! reader, drug mentions, drinking, emetophobia, bisexuality (homophobes and biphobes begone I will block u so fast)

word count: 3.8k

I didn’t want to be in Italy this summer.

That makes me sound ungrateful or something, but it’s the truth. Three months ago, I had planned to stay in Brooklyn with Claire all summer long. Hosting dinner parties, eating greasy breakfast sandwiches, dancing to old $1 records in our cramped apartment, picnicking in Prospect Park, and being totally, delusionally in love.

That was before things went south, she stopped trying and left me with more rent than I could possibly pay in the city. When Christina had first mentioned that a group of her friends was headed to Italy for the summer, I’d dismissed the possibility of going with them. Not only did I dread cohabitating with her wealthy, influencer friends who seemed to deal only in clout, I thought I’d be otherwise engaged. Weeks later, I’d gone back to her groveling, asking if I could sleep on the pull-out couch in Nina’s family villa for the summer. Luckily, the sofa was still available.

Now I sit at a wrought iron table – lease broken and all of my belongings sold to wealthy Manhattanites – in the warm yellow light of the Lombard sunset. Around me are chatty, outgoing girls, each more beautiful than the last. They gab about clubs and brands and boys. In the sea of Botox and iPhones, I cling to Christina like a life buoy. I push my tortellini around my plate to make it look like I have an interest in food, but I really don’t. I’m jet-lagged and uncomfortable. And even if that wasn’t the case, I’ve barely eaten since the breakup, relying on oat lattes and dirty water dogs to keep me alive.

“Try the pasta,” Christina jabs, “trust me, you’ll have a lot more fun this summer if you lean in.” I break the shell open with my fork revealing succulent ricotta curds and bright green spinach. The filing swims in a sauce of brown butter and fragrant tarragon but doesn’t affect me as it should. Nothing does anymore. The group’s conversation interrupts my train of thought.

“They’ve come every summer since the nineties, same as us,” says Nina, smirking at the girl to her left. “Hottest little accents you’ve ever heard, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Who is she talking about?” I whisper to Christina.

“The boys in the other house,” she says, “the one you see on your way up here.” Nina’s family’s home is at a higher altitude than the rest of the city, necessitating a laborious hike to the bottom to actually do anything while in town. I’m sure that they’d been sold on the privacy of the location, but its impracticality left me wanting. The only other villa nearby sat at the base of the lush green hills before the road disappeared into winding dirt.

Another girl chimes in, “I saw them last year at a dinner in the city. They’re cute, too,” she coos.

“I kissed George the summer I turned fifteen,” brags Nina and the whole table breaks into oohs and aahs. I usually have a shut-up-unless-spoken-to policy at group dinners, but I know Christitna is right. If I don’t lean in then the credit card debt I’d amassed to buy my plane ticket and the back problems I'm sure to contract from sleeping on a pull-out couch for a whole summer will have been for naught. Think of it as an acting exercise, I tell myself, a performance of the girl who is totally not hung up on her ex and excited for a fun summer with her friends.

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, “who are these guys?”

“They’re in a band,” says Nina.

“Like a real one?” I ask. Years of living in New York have taught me that all bands are not, in fact, real ones. Nina laughs.

“You’re funny,” she muses, “yes, a real one. They’re like famous. We’ll go over eventually, they throw the best parties you can find around here. Get real drugs, too. Not just liters upon liters of Aperol, not that I mind that either.”

With my question sufficiently answered, I return quietly to my pasta, cutting each shell into impossibly smaller pieces until it’s rabbit food that will glide down my throat and do the hard job of nourishing me without any work on my part.

–

After dinner, I tuck into the pull-out couch in the villa’s spacious living room. The lack of A/C and the balmy summer air make it impossible to enjoy the luxurious wool blankets Nina’s family no doubt splurged on. I allow myself to eavesdrop on the elated sounds coming from upstairs: women confiding in each other, commiserating about their troubles, and shrieking excitedly at each other's successes.

I first try to doze off at 10:15, hoping that an early night will be exactly what I need and I’ll wake up refreshed and on Italian time. After an hour of staring at the popcorn ceilings and trying to suppress my crippling fear of missing out, I’ve tired my mind out enough to begin slipping toward sleep. I have fewer and fewer thoughts until I’m jolted by a hip-hop bassline. It resonates through the trundle bed and rebounds off my ribs, cozying itself into my heart. As I begin to come to, I recognize the chords of a house track that used to play at the girl bar Claire and I frequented in Green Point. The melody is warm and familiar and undeniably annoying. How loud must the music be for it to affect me so acutely even as I’m a few kilometers away from them?

I decide I’m pissed – and yes I decided. I’m freshly single, broke, jet-lagged, and fucking pissed at those entitled rich assholes. I slide my sandals on and head out down the hill in my sleep clothes.

I step outside onto the winding dirt road that leads the way to the boys’ home. The night is dark, lit by stars much brighter than I’m used to seeing in Brooklyn. I tilt my head back to look at them, trying to identify the big dipper. After a few seconds, I’m dizzy. I shake myself and trudge ahead, almost lulled into submission by the constant chirping of cicadas and the sweet fragrance of orange blossom that wafts off the bushes.

With each step I take towards the boys’ villa (what were their names again? Nina said one was called George), the music, electronic and fast-paced, becomes louder.

When I first knock on the faded wood door, I’m quite sure no one has heard me. I stand outside for a few minutes, contemplating whether I should knock again or cut my losses and return up the hill. I decide I may as well disrupt their party as some kind of karmic retribution for keeping me awake even as I’m exhausted from a transatlantic flight. I raise my fist and rap harshly at the door. A moment later, it flies open, revealing a curly-haired boy. Well, not boy, I decide as I inspect his features – lines decorate his forehead, and gray peeks out at me from within a ringlet that hangs over his eyes. He gives me a once over and can immediately tell I’m not here for the party.

“Can I help you?” he asks, annoyed. His accent lilts and falls over the words. All of a sudden, I feel insecure in my braless and plaid pajama-clad state. He’s beautiful – and exasperated by me. I double down on my own annoyance.

“Would you mind turning the music down?” I ask, still cordial, “I’m staying at the house up the way and I can’t get to sleep.”

The guy in front of me purses his lips and considers me for a moment. I feel itchy and uncomfortable. He’s looking at me like he can see through my clothes, to my soft hips and painted toes and peaked nipples.

“Let me show you around, gorgeous,” he smiles, “then maybe you won’t mind so much.” He grabs my wrist and yanks me into the party. A warmth covers me as I cross the threshold into the villa. The inside of the home smells like college: cheap weed, sweet sticky mixers, and sweat. My sandals stick slightly to the floor, reminding me that I really shouldn’t be here right now. Like the alcohol that’s been spilled on the ground is some great cosmic interference to convince me to go home and get the rest I ought to.

Suddenly, a big hand falls on the shoulder of the boy who’s pulling me by my limbs.

“Matty!” says the man. I can make out enough to see that he’s tall and devastatingly handsome.

“George!” the boy – Matty, I remind myself – drops my hand and fully embraces the bigger guy. “Was just showing…” he nods at me to introduce myself.

“Y/n.”

“Around,” Matty finishes. George gives me a once over.

“Did she just roll out of bed? Or get released from prison?”

“Y/n came to ask us to keep the noise down,” Matty declares with fake sincerity, “Not a partier, are ya love?”

“Under the right circumstances, I can be,” I retort. Matty and George’s eyebrows raise in amusement, faces breaking out in smiles. That sounded much more cunning in my head. Now I feel like a toy they’re playing with, winding me up to see what noises I make. It feels infantilizing. I’m uncomfortable, crawling in my skin; pride battered and desperate to go home as soon as it doesn’t look like I’m running away from a fight of my own picking. “I’d better be going actually,” I assert.

Matty puckers his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “I’ll show you out, princess.” It’s a sweet nickname but it tastes bitter out of his mouth. He seems to twist everything good and make it unbearable. I resent him for it. I trudge in front of Matty towards the door with steadfast focus. As I cross the threshold, I turn to meet his gaze.

“Thanks for nothing,” I say calmly. Matty breaks into a devilishly smug grin. His eyebrows tilt a little and his lips reveal a few crooked teeth at the bottom of his mouth.

“My pleasure, darlin’,” he says. I scoff and turn on my heels, leaving Matty in the dust.

–

The scent of freshly chopped garlic fills the kitchen as I stand in an assembly line of young women with cutting boards and chefs knives, each diligently chopping an ingredient for the bruschetta.

In front of me is a bunch of basil, perfectly fresh and green. I gently remove the leaves from the stem and create a pile in the middle of my board. It reminds me of when I would be tasked with raking the leaves as a kid. Too distracted by my childish whims, I would create more work for myself by piling the leaves on top of each other and taking a grandiose dive into them before scooping them up into a trash bag and discarding them. Each leaf was like a piece of confetti, a celebration of the season and of youth. Now I do these things to prove to myself that I’m young and that I can still conjure up that imaginative, playful nature if I try hard enough.

As I rock my knife back and forth over the soft leaves, Christina asks me where I was the night before.

“I came out around eleven to invite you upstairs, but I couldn’t find you,” she says.

Embarrassed, I train my eyes to the task at hand. This is not the group to look like a tattle-tale in front of. Actually, there’s very few groups in which that would fly. My penchant for playing God and divvying out karmic consequences to everyone whose path I cross is a part of my nature I’m not particularly fond of. I’m not keen to share it, especially around people who are still making up their minds about me. Despite my steadfast beliefs and borderline-outlandish behaviors, I maintain a fervent desire to be liked. It’s pathetic.

“I stepped out for some air,” I murmur.

“Really?” she nudges, “Because I didn’t see you on the porch.”

I turn my basil bunch 90 degrees in a flourish, beginning to chop it lengthwise.

“Fine, I couldn’t sleep because of the music,” I spit.

“And…” Christina has always been too good at getting me to reveal my true feelings. She goads me torturously until it’s easier to say what I’m thinking than to conceal it.

“And I went to ask them to turn the music down,” I finish, “There, are you happy?”

“Very,” she smiles.

I pick up the chopped basil, letting the pieces float through my fingers and deciding I need to chop them smaller, still. I whack at the pile haphazardly, ruining the lovely squares I meticulously crafted earlier.

“They didn’t turn it down, if you were wondering,” I pant, “Pricks.” Christina chuckles to herself.

“No one ever does.”

–

The music of the club is omnipresent as I enter hand in hand with Christina. On my feet are heels too high to be comfortable, but the perfect lift to accentuate my calves. As soon as I cross the threshold, I drag Christina to the bartender, ordering two negronis. We idle by the bar for a moment and I take in my surroundings, savoring the bitter aftertaste of my drink and the waltz of the lights that flicker and cover the dancefloor with reverie. I listen to the synths and flourishes of the melody that envelop my senses. I hadn’t expected to like the music, but the DJ is spinning disco and it just feels right: the cold Italian aperitif, the funky basslines, and the tranquil nighttime air. I almost wish I’d left my phone at home. Nights like these aren’t compatible with phones anyway. The atmosphere feels like a relic of a bygone era, full of free love and intoxication.

Nina and a friend of hers find Christina and me at the bar and run up to us with inebriated bravado. “You guys made it!” she squeals. Little does she know we were pre-gaming at the villa in anticipation of this exact moment. I couldn’t handle Nina while sober tonight, that much I was absolutely sure of. It also didn’t help that I was alone – for the first time in several years – in a romantic foreign country without the girl whom I still loved. As unhealthy as it was, alcohol made that reality hurt a bit less. Nina grabs my hands and leads Christina and me away from the bar.

“I need to introduce you to the DJs!” Nina exclaims. I glance at Christina to communicate that no, I’m not particularly enthused at the prospect of meeting some Eurotrash guy whose head is shaved and whose torso is covered in Gucci logos. She returns the glance, silently begging me to behave. I relent.

Nina leads us around the side of the floor to some kind of dark stairwell. Rationally, I should be scared of being kidnapped but my drunken stupor inspires more carelessness than I would usually indulge in. I watch the sway of Christina’s hips and follow her like a lost puppy. Finally, we reach the top and the DJ deck is revealed. It’s shadowy and hazy. To the left is a corner booth with a straight couple making out in a way that really ought to be illegal in public. Past the lookout, laser lights flicker and sweep across the dancefloor, catching on the artificial fog and filling the air with psychedelic color. My eyes fall on the backs of two figures at the DJ booth, smoke rising above their heads. I can make out that one has headphones on and is faffing with the turntable while the other has their hands in the air and the small, flickering glow of a lit cigarette dancing around their figure. I’m dragged towards them by Nina who throws an arm around each of their necks in greeting. As soon as the one with the cig turns around, I catch his eyes.

It’s Matty. Selfish, arrogant Matty. I nod my head and flatten my mouth in a kind of recognition. The room is spinning from the alcohol and my skin is buzzing with discomfort. The bass of the music resonates in my ribs, teaching my heart how to beat. My mouth tastes salty and my knees feel weak.

I’m running to the corner where I can see a bin. Tears prick at my eyes and my hair sticks to my sweaty forehead as I swiftly empty the contents of my stomach into the small trash can. I kneel on the rough carpet and brace myself on either side of the bin with my hands. Between heaves, I lift my head to shake my hair off the back of my neck. The cool air feels grounding, but I’m soon back with my head in the can. I feel a hand on the back of my head, wrangling my frizzy hair off of my shoulders. I gasp, looking back for the sisterly comfort of Christina’s bottomless, cerulean eyes. Instead, I find a pair of brown, honey-flecked irises: Matty’s. I’m reeling too severely to be upset or confused; I’m just grateful when he uses his free hand to sweep my damp bangs out of my face and nods at me.

“Go on,” he encourages, “better out than in.”

I bury my head in the bucket again.

“Atta girl,” Matty coos in my ear. I can almost notice his hand rubbing circles on my back. Even when I’m quite sure I’m finished, I keep my head down for a moment savoring the last few seconds that I don’t have to look Matty in the eyes. Curse him for helping me. I wouldn’t know how to interact with him under normal circumstances, much less when he’s been nice to me – and watched me unceremoniously blow chunks into a bin.

“You feel better?” he asks. I lift my head tentatively, still scared another wave of nausea will hit me.

“I think so, yeah,” I mumble. Matty searches my eyes for any warning sign that I’m still sick.

“Have you got a hair tie?” I instinctually fish in my jeans pocket for one, handing it to him. Slowly, he corrals my locks into a ponytail and secures it, fingers grazing the tops of my ears and making me shiver. I sit back against the wall with my legs splayed out in front of me, knees visibly carpet burnt from my previous position. Matty flops down beside me. He reaches out to touch the red, irritated skin.

“You don’t need a doctor or something, do you?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” I hiss when he applies a little pressure to my knee and shake his hands off me, “Why are you being nice to me?”

“When have I not been nice?”

“You wouldn’t turn the music down the other night,” I state. He smiles at me, eyes scrunching up until his pupils are totally obscured.

“No one ever turns the music down,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Plus,” he adds, “I thought you were a buzzkill. Now I can see that’s not the case, sweetheart.”

“I can usually handle my drink better than this,” I protest, “And I’m also usually not a buzzkill.”

“I guess I don’t know anything about you, then,” he acquiesces, thinking for a moment, “Do you want to start over?”

“Sure, I’d like that,” I nod, smiling tipsily.

“So what’s caused you to be sick tonight?” Matty asks, leaning his head back against the wall. His hair is curled up in perfect ringlets and his skin glows golden even in the dim club light. He looks at me carefully, like his stare could hurt me. It could, I suppose.

“Alcohol?” I say it like that should be obvious. His face wrinkles up again in a laugh I can vaguely identify as something that’s my fault. He looks pretty. I realize I want to make him do it again and again forever. I want to see the crinkles that grow at the sides of his eyes and the curl of his upper lip that reveals his boyishly crooked teeth.

“I figured as much. Anything in particular that drove you to drink?” I frown for a second, trying to remember.

“My ex,” I say quietly.

“What’d he do?”

“Nothing,” I shake my head, “that’s the problem. She didn’t do anything.”

“When was that?”

“Two months ago?” My god, it’s already been two months.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “that’s still fresh.” I shrug.

“It’s alright I guess. You just feel a little betrayed when someone stops trying. I thought that was the whole point of…” I trail off, gesticulating aimlessly with my hands, “love or whatever. To keep trying.”

“I get it,” he utters.

“People stop trying with rockstars, too?” I tease. He smiles.

“How did you know that I’m a musician?”

“Well, first of all, I said rockstar–”

“Which I chose to ignore because it was sarcastic.” I roll my eyes.

“And second of all, the girls I’m staying with told me,” I finish. He nods in understanding.

“Well yeah,” he sighs pensively, “people stop trying with everybody. Even rockstars. If I’ve learnt anything in my life, it’s that giving up usually has more to do with them than it does with you.”

“You’re probably right, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less,” I argue.

“Nothing does. You just have to let it hurt for a while.”

We’re both quiet for a second. I catch a couple of bars of an Earth, Wind, and Fire song and hum along, content with the silence. I let my head fall onto Matty’s shoulder and he immediately turns his head to look at me.

“Oh fuck, sorry. Is this okay?” I ask, hand flying to my mouth “I know I just puked.”

“It’s okay,” he says, “I just didn’t think you would want to.”

“I want to,” I kiss his shoulder through the cotton of his white button-up shirt. He watches me the whole time as though he can’t quite compute what’s happening. Then he snaps back to his regular confident state.

“Let me know if you ever want to deal with your girlf– ex without drinking your feelings away…” he trails off, mouth meeting the crown of my head, “I’d love to show you around here sometime.”

“Okay,” I mumble, the alcohol, tiredness, and emotions beginning to get the better of me and coax me toward sleep.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Matty grabs my hand from my lap and wraps it in his two larger ones, caressing my thumb and humming into my ear.

–

a/n: the next bit is written, but I am still writing the end. smut soon! x

#matty healy fanfic #matty healy x reader #matty healy x y/n #matty healy fluff #matty healy fanfiction #matty Healy

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newyorkthegoldenage · 4 months

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Only the wealthiest Manhattanites have laundry facilities in their apartments or houses, so launderettes are a common sight. This one is in Greenwich Village in 1947.

Photo: Jim Chapelle for Look magazine via Museum of the City of New York (MCNY)

#vintage New York #1940s #Jim Chapelle #launerette #laundromat #Greenwich Village #laundry #vintage NYC #vintage Greenwich Village

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drcyrusbortel · 10 months

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CyberGwen: Morning Crush

Ships: Gwen/Miles

Summary: Gwen wakes up in Miles' apartment... and runs right into Rio. Also, rush hour hijinks!

=/=

2.2: "Morning Crush"

“Miles, honey, you didn’t tell me you had guests!”

Gwen snapped awake. A middle-aged woman loomed over the fold-out, a pass clipped to her t-shirt.

“Mom!” Miles broke into a string of spanish, and the woman - Mrs. Morales, Mrs, Morales - responded in kind.

Mrs. Morales turned her attention back to Gwen. “It’s… Gwen, isn’t it? Miles mentioned you before.”

Gwen nodded. “Yes, uhh… Mrs. Morales. This was… unplanned. We uhh… got off work very late, and Miles was kind enough to offer me a place to rest my head.”

“Ah, the raid at the docks last night, yes? It was all over the news. They’re saying they arrested a lot of people all over the city.” She turned to Miles. “It was a busy night for your father as well.”

“Mom, you know it’s a state security matter.” Miles shot Gwen a furtive glance.

Mrs. Morales smiled. “He uses that excuse for everything. Even when I ask about you.”

She reached into her bag, and produced a large thermos flask. “If I had known you’d be here, I’d have made more turnip soup. It’s good for you. Have some after you freshen up.”

Gwen did as she was told, and wolfed down a steaming bowl of turnips, carrots, and soup.

It was good for her.

=/=

As per its modus operandi, the RTDC had built the obscenely profitable housing estate directly atop the subway station, with the typical giant retail-and-logistics podium sandwiched in between. A short elevator ride, stroll through the shopping mall, and escalator ride brought them to the concourse. They flashed their Agency cards as they walked past the big terahertz scanner - a gesture mostly done for the benefit of the bemused transit security officers ogling their guns than for any official purpose, given that the facial recognition systems were more than capable of verifying that they were authorized to carry automatic weapons in the subway and collecting the fare.

They rushed past the platform screen doors and jammed themselves into the car. With twelve-car trains at ninety second intervals, the line pumped a hundred and fifty thousand passengers per hour from South Brooklyn into the heart of Manhattan, and Miles felt it in every shoulder, elbow, and backpack. Gwen avoided his gaze, instead pressing her back against his as additional passengers flooded into the car in a bid to preserve enough space to hold up her phone. He ignored the not unpleasant sensation as he absentmindedly stared at the big screen on the upper wall.

Between advertisements, announcements, and public service messages, a pretty newscaster yammered on about the war in Argentina, where the Pacifican-backed government of free Patagonia was apparently making headway against the new European-backed regime in Buenos Aires, Brussels’ latest scheme to undermine the Joint Government of the Pacific and destroy the way of life of Manhattanites, New Yorkers, and Pacificans everywhere.

His mother mouthed a goodbye before getting off ahead of the East River, and Gwen turned around to face him, resting her phone against his chest.

“Uhh… I’m sorry about…”

“Your mother’s very nice. You should be thankful that she can still come around to visit.” Gwen’s steely blue eyes were glued to her phone, and it was all that Miles could do to keep his eyes fixated on them instead of…

“Dude. Stop squirming. We’ve got a secure call, and the Agency app has this stupid password…” Gwen pressed an earbud into Miles’ ear even as she grappled with her work phone.

The voice of their supervisor cut through the subway din even as a slightly portly middle-aged man appeared on the screen. “...okay, people, I know most of you aren’t at work yet, but the big boss wants boots on the ground ASAP.”

“Uhh… sir, with all due respect, we’re on the subway. This network isn’t secure, and this room is definitely not secure.” Miles stammered.

Gwen sighed. Everyone knew that internet security efforts had lagged behind government and corporate cyberespionage for decades, and that any network not air-gapped and on servers, fiber-optics, and satellites under your complete control was basically an open book as far as anyone important was concerned. If you wanted to do something secret, you had to do it face to face, in the same room, in a secure installation. As lackadaisical as Special Agent In-Charge Peter B. Parker was, even he knew that, which obviously meant…

“Yeah, yeah, Miles, I know it’s not the 2010s any more, thank you. Rest assured, I am capable of circumspection.” He took another bite out of his pineapple bun. “As I was saying, yesterday’s… operations have already yielded results, and we’re up to our elbows in fresh lists. Chief O’Hara wants us to follow up double-quick, before, quote-unquote, the so-called Front for the Liberation of Quebec and their Eurotrash paymasters can find their footing. As usual, we’ve gotten the scut work. Peni, keep your bots over Staten Island, we’ll move the logistics in place. Noir, get your direct action teams ready, orders to follow.” He turned to Miles and Gwen. “You two, just get off at Morgan Sachs Chase and sign in at the front desk. There’ll be a guy there with the details. If you don’t come in, you’ll be able to get to the hospital on time.”

Miles shrugged. “Great. A bank. We’ll fit right in with casual Friday.”

Gwen chuckled.

=/=

Author's note: Romance! Excitement! Stuck together! Infrastructure plays Cupid!!!

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p-redux · 10 months

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More pics and video of Sam in NYC! Pics don't do him justice. When you watch the video, my God, if I saw him walking around like that, he looks 🔥. I know Manhattanites are immune to celebrities in their midst, but NO ONE is immune to this 👇 I mean, C'MON. 😍

I don't know why when I try to post video lately on IG it does this Log In thing. I'm logged in! Oh well. Go check out Backgrid_USA stories

#backgrid_USA #samheughan #sam heughan #newyork #sassenach tour

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eretzyisrael · 4 months

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by John Podhoretz

I have lost count of the number of times the phrase “I have never felt like this before” has been spoken in my ear, texted to me, or sent to me in an email, in the three months since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

When I talked with Israelis on a trip in November, the phrase described a gut emotion few under the age of 50 said they had ever experienced—the sense that they were personally vulnerable to outside attack in a manner more like an extended military invasion than a terrorist blow. They had lived through years of ineffectual rocket fire that was all but magically extinguished by the Iron Dome and Arrow anti-missile systems. Those interceptions had provided a feeling of near-divine protection. No longer. Israelis feel raw now, and such vulnerability is never momentary or transitory; one might say the opposite. Once it seizes you, it might take years before you wake up one morning and notice suddenly it’s no longer there.

I experienced that blissful moment once in my life, in New York City in 1998, when I was walking alone late at night across Central Park and realized I was doing something I simply would never have done before in my 37 years as a native Manhattanite. The feeling in the gut of every New Yorker of my age—the need to protect oneself from some sudden onslaught, in part because everyone we knew had been attacked in one way or another—was just no longer there, and I had never felt it disappearing. Because of the crime drop, because of increased police visibility, because of the presence of others like me in exactly the same place at exactly the same time, this new sense of freedom was now my new reality.

I am not saying Israelis ever felt secure in quite that way before October 7. They had, of course, lived through 60 years of terrorist attacks (the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964 as a violence-worshipping gang designed to attack civilians on the model of the anti-colonialists in Algeria) and several short wars over the past half century. But through the 2010s and early 2020s, the sense of immediate danger for Israelis had split in two—and might therefore have seemed, oddly enough, twice as weak.

The threat had either become too geopolitically large to affect their quotidian existences (like the existential risk posed by Iran’s nuclear program) or could have only come so suddenly and unexpectedly that it would have been absurd to disrupt your daily life taking personal countermeasures (Palestinians engaged in a bus-stabbing spree at one point; how do you defend against that?).

These kinds of perils were certainly haunting, and they played a significant political role in Israeli elections and Knesset debates, but they were more theoretical to 9 million Israelis than actual.

So, now, when an Israeli says, “I’ve never felt like this before,” what he’s describing is a loss of stability, as though the very earth under his feet is no longer truly solid but might crumble beneath him. This is why the Hamas action, though not a terrorist attack in the traditional sense, may have been the most effective strike against Israel in the history of the Jewish state. It has destabilized people internally, which is terrorism’s goal. It also helps us understand the ongoing traumatic effect of the continuing crisis involving the hostages in Gaza. They have been held in unknown conditions for months now by monsters whose vicious acts on October 7—and sadistic conduct during the captivity of those hostages who have been released—makes the thought of what they might be going through utterly paralyzing and terrifying when it crosses your mind even for a second.

Israelis have the sense that, but for the slightest accident of timing and location, any of them might have been one of those hostages. And they hear the air-raid sirens, and they run to the shelters and do not do so in the almost lackadaisical way most of them did before October 7. The larger threat to Israel’s existence, and their own existences, has moved from the theoretical to the actual. After all, Hamas actually invaded Israeli territory and roamed on Israeli soil for three days before the Gaza envelope was cleared of them. Fail to finish them off now, and it could, it would, it will, happen again.

#israel #hamas #gaza #terrorism #palestinians #israelis

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olet-lucernam · 3 months

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A Hollow Promise [22] chapter v, part iii

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

chapter summary : despite his chains, loki begins gathering his pieces on the board. astrid works on escaping her own confines, and mitigating the damage of disasters to come.

recommended listening : venus in gemini, dezi

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“So. What do you think?”

The question rang slightly in the room, ricocheting against metal plates and graphite-grey walls.

Arms folded, facing out into the open floor, Fury allowed the slight turn of his head and expectant silence to serve as invitation.

After a moment, Alethia- sleekly attired for the autumn chill like a native Manhattanite, in black skinny jeans, mid-heeled ankle boots, and fine-knit turtleneck sweater of berry wool- pushed herself off the wall, stepping forward.

She and Romanoff had been on the roof before Fury called them into the VERITAS testing area, drinking coffee in the cold and soundscape of noise above the city. Alethia had stripped the long wool coat she had been wearing when she arrived inside, draping it over one of the chairs, but Romanoff was still wearing her camel leather jacket, curls soft and mouth faintly pursed, eyes fixed on Alethia’s back.

Glancing over the two of them, Fury could easily understand why Romanoff had identified with her. The resemblance between their circumstances was self-evident, but the subtler physical similarities were in the details; it was written small, in the simple facts of their heights, their builds, the way they moved- a confident ease with a slight tension underneath, like a dancer waiting to fall into the right steps.

They matched nicely against each other. Fury could envisage sending them out into the field together, on intelligence retrieval and social reconnaissance- Romanoff’s ability to assess and assimilate, and Alethia’s eye for truth and steel nerves, would make for an invaluable combination.

Fury’s eye flicked back to Romanoff where she remained in place, exuding a faint anxiety like the vapours from paint thinner.

He knew that Romanoff wasn’t unaware of her bias. But neither did that awareness make her immune to it.

Rather than letting it become a liability, Fury had warped it into an advantage; if Alethia saw the truth in all things, it was better to offer her a favourable truth, in the form of a handler who wanted her recruitment to be successful for reasons beyond fulfilment of mission parameters.

Alethia halted- coffee cup still in hand, its heat-sleeve stamped with SHIELD’s eagle insignia- before the centrepiece of the room, head tilted consideringly, the sheen of her curls shifting across her shoulders.

The wide chair was set on a high swivel, aggressively angular, constructed from darkly brushed titanium, strict right-angles, and heat-sensitive fabric. A biometric plate was affixed into the centre spine, metal cuffs locking at the armrests, leashed with black electrical cables; a unit reminiscent of a cranial halo capped the structure, winged forward to encase the temples of its occupant. Immediately behind where Alethia stood was a large, simple control centre, inset with a touchscreen display.

“The fruits of your labour.” Fury announced with a wry twist of aplomb. “Thought you might like to see it. Ninety-six variables in total, monitored and analysed by a unique algorithm, based on and verified in efficacy by your contributions. Say hello to the alpha version of VERITAS- the Verification Enhancement for Response Input Technological Analysis System.”

“Stars. If that acronym were any more tortured, the Geneva Conventions would have something to say about it,” Alethia quipped, almost more to herself than the room.

“It was the initial code name for the project,” Fury replied with the intonation of a shrug, unfolding his arms and stepping forwards, the leather drape of his overcoat shifting with the motion. “We’ve got a few like that. But, if you feel that strongly about it- give it a new name. The DNA of it is mostly yours.”

People tended to be more reluctant to destroy or abandon that which they felt personally invested in, Fury found.

Alethia gave a quiet hum from the back of her throat, and lifted a free hand to skim the closest cuff of the chair.

“You think so.”

“It wouldn’t have been possible without your input,” Fury admitted, “not on this time scale. Maybe not even in this generation-”

“It was your design, Nicholas. So- congratulations,” she lifted her voice to call out. “It is a highly sophisticated piece of scrap.”

She rapped a fingertip against the cuff, two neat taps.

“I hope that you’re satisfied.”

Fury took a long moment to study her.

In most cases, he would avoid rising to the bait. Not unlike another troublesome asset that came to mind, Alethia had an element of narcissism to her character- and worse, just cause for it; like Stark, she acted like she knew more than anyone else in the room because, most often than not, she did. Fury’s general policy was that they did not feed egos, particularly those attached to individuals that liked to provoke. Indulging it was a short-term solution that would result in long-term headaches.

Alethia was an exception. Unlike other consultants, they had little information to use as leverage, her available history alarmingly sparse- something that happened approximately never, given SHIELD’s not inconsiderable reach and resources. And as Alethia had deduced with irritating accuracy during their negotiations, the threat that had brokered her cooperation- to flag her with every agency that SHIELD had backchannels with, threatening her meticulously cultivated anonymity- was a card that could only be played once.

Romanoff’s evaluation had found that the most effective strategy was to play her game. Alethia would speak in circuitous riddles and rhetoric, but the more you paid attention to her words, the more you engaged, the more threads she would cast out to watch you follow, chasing towards the truth that she was hinting at.

It was a power play- but one that Fury could tolerate. The rules were consistent, for the most part, and Alethia played fair.

“That the most advanced lie detector system in the world,” he answered patiently.

“Nicholas, you couldn’t even use me properly.” Smoothly, she pivoted to face Fury, unimpressed and unusually direct. “This machine can’t talk back when you’re asking the wrong questions. If not scrap- it is a monument to irony.”

“With regards to what?”

Alethia pushed off the chair, shoulder set, a strange pressure gathering in the air.

“SHIELD is a monster. You might be the hand feeding it, but you are not the one holding the leash.”

She flicked her head back towards the gleaming chair.

“Call it Cassandra.”

With that parting shot, Alethia cut a path out of the door.

Romanoff shifted her weight, as though moving to follow her- but Fury halted her with an open palm and quelling look.

Six minutes later, Fury emerged onto the rooftop.

The Base- codenamed in recognition of its legacy as the original headquarters of SHIELD, after it was established on the foundations laid by the SSR- would have been an imposing building in any other city. Within the cloistered, oversaturated streets of Midtown, however, the broad tower block of dark stone and glass panes blended in amongst the billboard-plated skyscrapers and storefronts that lined the avenues, glossed over like any other corporate office building on the island. At over a dozen storeys tall, the roof was far enough above street level that the coordinated chaos melded together into a rush of tires on asphalt and idling engines and a miasma of passing chatter, punctuated by the distant blare of car horns, sirens, and rattle of construction work- a cocktail of sensory overload, diluted down to a half-ratio. The rubble of the Incident had been cleared, its smoking wounds cleaned and under repair, returning the great aortic chambers of the city to full capacity.

Alethia stood near the edge of the roof, gazing down at the traffic below, vanilla hair and underdressed torso caught in a cross-breeze. As the wind twisted around her, Fury thought he caught a snatch of a high-contrast melody- something that rang of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the golden age of Broadway showtunes and classic jazz standards.

“For someone who was so determined to keep her mouth shut when you got here, you’ve sure got a lot to say,” Fury interrupted, projecting his voice above the rush of traffic and whip of the winds, strolling up behind her.

“For someone who demands answers at every opportunity, you’re not very willing to listen,” Alethia retorted swiftly, knocking back the dregs in her cup and setting it on the raised edge of the roof. From the drop of liquid left on the plastic rim, it seemed that Romanoff was continuing to keep her sweet with a supply of matcha lattes.

“I’m listening now.”

“Ah, right. Like you were with the Tesseract?”

Fury’s visible eye narrowed.

“What did you mean by that jab? About monsters and leashes.”

Alethia drew her bottom lip between her teeth, glowering, eyes burning like a golden-hour sun behind storm clouds.

Eventually, she filtered out a shallow sigh, her expression cooling.

“There is a principle,” she began slowly, dark lashes lowered as she watched the traffic below, “in regards to statecraft, that you cannot design a seat of power solely with regards to what will allow one individual to do good- but must also consider what will prevent another from accomplishing evil, if they were to acquire the same position.”

Alethia looked directly at him, sombre in a way that she only was once she had given up any attempt to fight or undermine.

“I would strongly urge you to consider what evil could accomplish in your position, Nicholas.”

“Implying that you don’t think I’m evil,” Fury observed, with some intrigue.

It was an unexpected, and interesting concession; Alethia had made no secret that she held SHIELD wholly in contempt, and Fury by extension as the one at its helm.

“I think that you’re a manipulative, opportunistic bastard with few scruples and broadly altruistic intentions, which makes you very good at your job,” Alethia answered, glancing away with a dismissive air. “I also think that you’re arrogant enough to think that you’re paranoid enough, and about the right things, rather than what fits your worldview and skillset.”

Fury absorbed on her appraisal. He had received less scathing evaluations, but he found himself oddly unoffended by it.

“So what should I be paranoid about?”

She looked to him with a slow blink, her expression hard, more resolute than angry. Her irises seemed deeper than the usual hazel, verging upon amber, despite the flat light of the overcast midday skies.

“I told you. You are not holding the leash.”

The meaning clicked.

Fury’s initial, instinctive reaction was outright scepticism.

SHIELD was strictly compartmentalised for a reason. Trust was a commodity both coveted and scorned in the industry, and any system worth its salt in resilience did not merely trust in the integrity of its participants, but enforced it. SHIELD was no different. Its structure split its various branches and operations in such a way that its design could trap and isolate the first hairline-fracture roots of subversion, before they could sink deep enough to alter the fabric of the organisation, or its directives.

The structure of the organisation was not of Fury’s making, but it was one that he had maintained and improved upon since he had been appointed as director, and it worked. A certain level of grime was to be tolerated- in an organisation like SHIELD, entrenched as its operations were within the global network espionage, geopolitics, and commerce, both legal and black market, there was no such thing as clean hands, and even less so of a clean house. It would be the height of naivety and idealism to believe otherwise. But Fury would have detected the swells of a schism forming, of acceptable margins for disagreement becoming an unacceptable division. The sharks may circle, and there would always be blood in the water, but they would never get close enough for a bite.

SHIELD’s identity, and its purpose, was as secure as they had been when Peggy Carter and Howard Stark had founded it.

Common sense dictated that he should verbalise none of this to Alethia.

“So what do you recommend? Tell me what I should be looking at.” Fury began consciously convincing himself into a counter position that he could justify- that there was more to gain than to lose in hearing her, that it was eminently for Alethia to have noticed a risk that they had failed to assess.

Truth was the only shield that held against Alethia. If he didn’t believe it, then neither would she.

The irked tightening of her eyebrow was not encouraging.

“I know you’re humouring me, Nicholas, but let’s ignore the subpar charade otherwise for now.” Alethia shifted into resigned slant, arms folding against the brisk air. “Alright. First. You need a stricter delineation between personnel files, and dossiers on civilians and associates. Especially in regards to storage and access permissions. The keys to unlock one door should not work on another. It’s a security risk, and more than a little alarming that I have to bring it up. Second- stop kidnapping people. Human rights and due process aside, it’s a good way to build up ill will with the very people you may need help from in the near future. Less vinegar, more honey.”

“They are people of interest-”

“Stop kidnapping them.”

“So you’re telling us to ignore the risks-”

“I am telling you that the secret is out,” Alethia interrupted sharply, “and that the bell can’t be unrung. So- exploit it. Instead of trying to wrench the curve backwards, stay ahead of it. Advise the appropriate legislative bodies. Drive the drafting of fair laws to cover the hypotheticals that have become realities- just like with every other advancement in history. Provide evidence for public trials. Give people due process if and when they violate the law, and stop kidnapping people on the basis that they might, possibly, at some point, become a threat. Offer them the resources to help them control their abilities, instead of the choice between constant intrusive surveillance, working for you, or getting disappeared to a facility that doesn’t legally exist.” She paused, with all the ominous inertness of an active hotplate. “And get some actual oversight.”

“This may be hard for you to believe, but we have oversight.” Fury replied, wondering exactly how inept she was under the impression SHIELD was.

“Your oversight is faceless, tried to nuke Manhattan, and has yet to face any questions in regards to it.” She said flatly, staring at Fury with a particularly blank contempt. “Get better oversight.”

Regrettably, she had a point.

Although, Fury was slightly more concerned with where and how, exactly, Alethia had acquired that information.

“I am well aware of their shortcomings,” Fury answered evenly, “and, frankly, I’m a little insulted by the implication to the contrary.”

“Nicholas,” Alethia sighed, part impatience and part resignation, seething, “I don’t like you. But that does not make me intellectually dishonest. There is a reason why I am talking, despite the fact that you are proving incapable of listening. I know that you know. And I am aware that you are not unreasonable. Or- entirely incompetent.”

Fury ignored the qualifier. It was impressive that she had held out this long without a thinly veiled insult.

“But you don’t trust me.”

Alethia smiled slightly, in a way that declared I would have to be an idiot.

She wasn’t entirely wrong.

“You and yours are not answerable to the public,” she said simply, combing her hair out of her eyes as the wind picked up and tossed it into disarray. “And the Avengers have to be, if the project is going to be sustainable. You had a good idea, but- SHIELD is not the right organisation to execute it. It is not what you’re good at, or suited for.”

“Protecting the world from threats that it’s not ready for?”

“By sealing truth in the well. Yours is a war of cloak and dagger- a necessary one,” Alethia added with a pointed glance in Fury’s direction, as though daring him to accuse her of being unfair, “and you’re good at it. But you cannot protect the public by keeping them ignorant ad infinitum. And treating people as though they’re helpless children won’t help them develop critical thinking skills. It will just keep them- reactive, and uninformed, when the situation forces their awareness. This is not a terrorist cell with a glowing cube that defies the established laws of thermodynamics. This is an entire world that has been emerging for decades, and is past being kept a secret.”

Fury felt his chest expand with a deep, slow breath, his gun holster tightening briefly, leashing in his thoughts.

“So. Stronger protections for our data, more outreach to enhanced individuals, focus on laws, improvement of oversight.” Fury concluded. “Those are your recommendations?”

“It’s not a panacea,” Alethia said, lifting one shoulder, “it’s a safety net.”

“It’s a pretty reasonable report.”

“I’ve learned to lower my expectations.” She lifted her face to the open air, soaking in a sudden break of sunshine from between the clouds, warming her colours and sharpening the contrast between her golden complexion and fair hair. “Nothing that I mentioned should offend your sensibilities overmuch. Although, I notice that you omitted the no kidnapping clause.”

Not for the first time, Fury resented that Alethia was so determined to distrust SHIELD. In some respects, she reminded him of Maria Hill, driven and intelligent and unapologetically argumentative, first to point to flaws that no one else would mention due to adherence to chain of command.

The crucial difference was that Hill was capable of doing what she was told.

“I never thanked you,” Fury decided to say, eventually. “For guarding Loki."

It seemed gracious to acknowledge it, as they neared the end of Project VERITAS.

“It’s unnecessary to,” Alethia stated tonelessly. “You would have forced the issue if I had refused, and I had my reasons to say yes.”

“Such as?”

Alethia lowered her gaze, to cast it out over the city, serenely blank.

“Some that you wouldn’t understand. Others that- you probably wouldn’t credit.”

“Well, I might surprise you,” Fury murmured, before shrugging. “That was a pretty good pitch, by the way.”

“Oh- thank you,” Alethia said, the lightness of her cadence surprisingly devoid of sarcasm. “I spent a considerable amount of time refining it. Including editing out a point about SHIELD’s double standards, hypocrisy, and lack of self-awareness over the concept of unbridled, unknown power in the hands of obscure organisations with dubious motives. I thought it might be- unproductive?”

“Smart call,” Fury replied dryly.

Alethia’s mouth flicked into a smirk, before fading into something more solemn.

“But this doesn’t guarantee that you will take my advice, does it?”

Damn right. A good argument makes you a good orator, not a good strategist.

“You knew it probably wouldn’t. So why make the case?”

This time, Alethia laughed outright, sudden and disorientating as a sun-shower.

“Sometimes,” she said through a luminous smile, “I really just want to walk away, and let all of you die.”

But she wouldn’t.

That much had been proven, by the warnings she issued about the Tesseract, by the fact that she had taken up watch over Loki despite the considerable personal risk, by the arrogance-clad counsel that she offered an organisation that she openly abhorred.

Fury let his mouth quirk.

This, he could be satisfied with. Even if SHIELD had not acquired Alethia’s loyalty, her cooperation was no longer a complete impossibility.

And Fury was reluctant to slam any door shut forever. So long as it was left ajar, he could allow the matter to rest as success enough.

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bracketsoffear · 2 months

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Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir) "the book is about alien microbes extinguishing the sun by siphoning off its light energy to fuel their own metabolism. the book follows the amnesiac protagonist, sent far off into the depths of space to the origin of said microbes to save the world before everything gets too dark and too cold. basically, the sun is dying."

No Power (Todd Kirby) "A blackout. A bloodthirsty beast. The Bronx. This is not how Tom pictured his 17th birthday… His plan was far more bleak. When Manhattanite Tom Walton wakes up from a suicide attempt, he finds himself in a Bronx hospital being attacked by an ancient, savage creature that thrives in the darkness of a summer blackout. Tom, the son of a rich and racist New York politician, teams up with his fellow patients — a diverse group of Bronx natives — in an attempt to fight back. As Tom falls helplessly in love with Kiki, a badass teenage patient, he gains a deeper understanding of the source of his pain and reconsiders his stance on life. But when Tom’s true identity is revealed to the crew, he must work to unify the group and escape the hospital… or be eaten alive."

#dark poll #the dark #poll #the magnus archives #leitner tournament #Project Hail Mary #Andy Weir #No Power #Todd Kirby

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dduane · 1 month

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Of parsnips and parsnip soup

So the question of parsnips, and particularly parsnip soup, came up secondary to this quote from an interview with Terry Pratchett. (Thanks to @captainfantasticalright for the transcription.)

Terry: “You can usually bet, and I’m sure Neil Gaiman would say the same thing, that, uh, if I go into a bookstore to do a signing and someone presents me with three books, the chances are that one of them is going to be a very battered copy of Good Omens; and it will smell as if it’s been dropped in parsnip soup or something in and it’s gone fluffy and crinkly around the edges and they’ll admit that it’s the fourth copy they’ve bought”.

And when @petermorwood saw this, he immediately reblogged it and added four recipes for parsnip soup.

These kind of surprised some folks, as not everybody knew that parsnips were an actual thing: or if they were, what they looked like or were useful for.

The vegetable may well be better known on this side of the Atlantic. (And I have to confess that as a New Yorker and Manhattanite, with access to both great outdoor food markets and some of the best grocery stores in the world, I don't think that parsnips ever came up on my personal radar while I was living there.) So I thought I'd take a moment to lay out some basics for those who'd like to get to know the vegetable better.

The parsnip's Linnaean/botanical name is Pastinaca sativa, and in the culinary mode it's been around for a long time. It's native to Eurasia, and is a relative to parsley and carrots (with which it's frequently paired in the UK and Ireland). The Romans cultivated it, and it spread all over the place from there. Travelers who passed through our own neck of the woods before the introduction of the potato noted that "the Irish do feed much upon parsnips", and in the local diet it filled a lot of the niches that the potato now occupies.

You can do all kinds of things with parsnips. The Wikipedia article says, correctly, that they can be "baked, boiled, pureed, roasted, fried, grilled, or steamed". But probably the commonest food form in which parsnips turn up around here is steamed or simmered with carrots and then mashed with them: so that you can buy carrot-and-parsnip mash, ready-made, in most of our local grocery chains.

It also has to be mentioned that most Irish kids have had this stuff foisted on them at one point or another, and a lot of them hate it. (@petermorwood would be one.) I find it hard to blame anybody for this opinion, as one of the parsnip's great selling points—its spicy, almost peppery quality—gets almost completely wiped out by the carrot's more dominant flavor and sweetness.

Roasting parsnips, though, is another matter entirely. They roast really well. And parsnip soups are another story entirely, as it's possible to build a soup that will emphasize the parsnip's virtues.

So, to add to Peter's collection, here's one I made earlier—like yesterday afternoon, stopping the cooking sort of halfway and finishing it up today.

I was thinking in a vague medioregnic-food way about a soup with roasted bacon in it, but not with potatoes (as those have been disallowed from the Middle Kingdoms for reasons discussed elsewhere. Tl;dr: it's Sean Astin's fault). And finally I thought, "Okay, if we're going to roast some pork belly or back bacon, then why not save some energy and roast some parsnips too? The browned skins'll help keep them from going to mush in the soup."

So: first find your parsnips. I used four of them. You peel them with a potato peeler...

...sort of roughly quarter them, the long way...

...then chop them in half the short way, toss them in a bowl with some oil—olive oil, in this case—spread them on a baking sheet, and season them with pepper, coarse salt, and some chile flakes. (I used ancho and bird's-eye chile flakes here.)

These then went into the oven for about half an hour, and came out like this.

While that was going on, I got a block of ready-cooked Polish snack bacon out of the freezer.

On its home turf, this is the kind of thing that turns up (among other ways) sliced very thin on afternoon-snack plates, with cheeses and breads. But we like to score it and roast it to sweat some of the fat out, and then use it in soups and stews and so forth.

So I scored this chunk on most of its sides, browned it in a skillet, then shoved the skillet into the oven for twenty minutes or so. Here's the bacon after it was done.

While it was cooking, I made about a liter of soup stock from a couple of stock cubes. If you can get pork stock cubes, they'd be best for this, but beef works fine.

This then went into the pot and was brought up to just-boiling while the bacon and the parsnips were chopped into more or less bite-sized chunks. After that, the meat and veg were added to the pot and the whole business was left to simmer for a couple of hours while I went off to do some line editing.

Finally I turned it off and left it on the stove overnight (our kitchen is quite cool, it was in no bacteriological danger from being left out this way) and then finished its simmering time around lunchtime today.

And here it is. (...Or was. It was very nice.)

...Anyway, this is only one of potentially thousands of takes on parsnip soup. Recipes for more robust versions—based on mashed parsnips and more vegetables, or different meats—are all over the place.

Meanwhile, as regards how much damage this soup could do to your copy of Good Omens if you dropped yours in it, I'd rate this at about 5 damage points out of 10. ...Call it 5.5 if you factor in the chiles. Soups along the boiled-and-mashed-parsnip spectrum would probably inflict damage more in the 7.50-8.0 range. But your results may vary: so I'll leave you all to your own experimentation.

#parsnips #parsnip soup #Good Omens #Terry Pratchett #Neil Gaiman #recipes

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