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aceghosts · 10 months

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for the prompts-> Trying to reach for a book on the top shelf and the other helping them with it

Thank you for sending this one in! I had some fun with this one. I hope it's okay I did this prompt for Emerson/Ortega; I think it fit them the best.

[Prompt List]

Summary: Emerson and Ortega share a small moment at a local bookshop. Words: 1,101 words. Content Warnings: References to Emerson's assumed death and the Heartbreak Incident. Mentions of grief (Ortega) and guilt (Emerson). But in all honesty, this is mainly fluff with a little angst.

Christ, why did it have to be on the top shelf of all places? Was fate simply torturing them for their short height? Glaring at the white book on the top of the dark brown wooden bookcase, Emerson lets out an annoyed sigh, briefly clenching their fists. It was just their luck that the book would be out of their reach. They couldn’t jump high enough to reach it, and climbing the shelves would probably get them yelled at or worse. (And Emerson had to admit they liked this bookshop too much to get in trouble.) Emerson could always use their telepathy to-.

“Need some help?” Emerson shifts their glare from the book to Ortega, who leans against the wooden bookshelf. He smirks at them, a sentimental fondness in his dark brown eyes. The sleeves of his light blue button-up are rolled up, crossing his arms over his chest. Of course, Ortega would show up now when they were having trouble, originally leaving them to wander the bookshelves alone while he talked to the owner. Noticing their slightly distracted focus, Ortega smugly teases, “or are you checking something else out?”

They rip their gaze away, back to the book on the top shelf, faintly aware of the faint blush on their cheeks. “Don’t need you to break a hip on my watch, old man,” Emerson teases, trying to regain some control of the situation, “Steel will never forgive me.”

“I’m not that old, Emerson,” He lets out a short laugh, “and I don’t think he would hold it against you.”

“Just because you don’t hold everything against me every time I bat my eyelashes, doesn’t mean everyone else does.” Shaking their head, Emerson makes the mistake of looking over at him.

Ortega moves closer into their space as he uncrosses his arms. Emerson smells his cologne along with the mix of ozone as they feel the heat roll off him. It makes them think of the other night, the one that they spent in his bed. The one they keep trying to forget; the one that they should want to forget. Christ, they really need to get a grip. Ortega is the enemy, and right now, they’re playing a role to keep suspicion off themself. “Is that what you’re doing right now?”

“What? Batting my eyelashes?” They deadpan with a raised eyebrow. He nods, and Emerson shakes their head. “Nope, just trying to get my book, which…”

He looks up at the top shelf, and Emerson points to that same book, the only white on the top shelf. “It’s by one of my favorite poets, it’s-,” Emerson explains, as Ortega reaches up, grabbing the book off the top shelf, “a collection of her poetry.” He turns it, finally reading the cover: Devotions-The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. The teasing smirk slides off Ortega’s face as he holds the book in both hands. They notice the somber look on his face, waiting for him to hand it over. A few seconds later, they realize he’s trembling faintly, and Emerson realizes they need to do something. “Ortega…”

No response.

“Ortega!”

Again, no response.

“Ricardo!” Calling Ortega by his first name, something Emerson does in their more intimate moments, brings him back to them. His eyes meet their stormy grey ones, Emerson noticing the tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Sorry, I…” He takes a deep breath, wiping at the corner of his eyes.

“Got lost in a bad memory?” Something Emerson is all too familiar with.

He nods. “After your death, I kept some of the poetry books, especially the ones that you used to write in. I knew Mary Oliver was your favorite, so I used to keep your copies of her books on my nightstand.” Emerson remembers the small collection of books they kept back when they were Sidestep, living in a shoebox of an apartment. They would write and doodle in the margins, highlighting any lines that spoke to them. It was so incredibly stupid, but it made them happy. Christ, even after escaping the Farm and putting their plans as Retribution into motion, Emerson couldn’t break the habit. Ever since finding them in that diner, Ortega encouraged them to start building up their collection, something Emerson couldn’t say no to. Every one of these moments made Emerson feel closer to their old self, a dangerous thing. “Whenever I missed you, I would open it up and read your notes,” He lets out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck, “It felt like you were still here, like you weren’t really gone. I could still hear your voice, like I wasn’t alone.”

And they’re still not here. Or at least, the Emerson that Ortega once knew died on that day of the Heartbreak Incident. They’re someone different now, a liar, a deceiver. “I know you insist that you’re a different person now, but when you do things like this, it makes me think that you’re still the same Emerson.”

“Ortega…”

“I know, Emerson. I love you, either way.”

Christ! How does he keep doing that? Keep saying that he loves them even though the person in front of him is an imposter? Keep chipping away at the old stones that surround their heart? Their cheeks heat up, turning bright red. “I…I…,”

Ortega smiles, still looking at them with that same sentimental soft look. “Don’t worry, Emerson. You don’t have to say it.” He hands Devotion over to them, and Emerson stares at the cover.

“Do you still have them?”

“I do. Do you want them back.”

Emerson shakes their head. “They’re yours now.” He seems surprised, tilting his head slightly in curiosity. “I want you to have them.” They look away, shrugging their shoulders as they try to play it off like it’s a casual gesture. But Emerson can’t deny that they’re touched. It’s the same way they felt when they saw the chipped Sidestep cup in his apartment.

Understanding the meaning behind their gesture, Ortega leans in, placing a soft kiss on their lips. They grab the collar of his shirt with their left hand, pulling him closer. His hands find their waist, nipping at their bottom lip. A few seconds later, Emerson pulls away, smirking at him. “We should pay for this and get out of here. I don’t think the owner will appreciate if we start scaring off customers.”

Ortega releases their waist as they let go of his collar, taking their left hand in his. “Come on!” He pulls them enthusiastically towards the front, Emerson shaking their head, and rolling their eyes fondly.

#fallen hero #chargestep #Emerson Wright #ricardo ortega #ortega #fhr ortega #the emerson fic tag #kate writes #OTP: When It All Goes To Hell #I hope this came out okay #I'm still finding my footing when it comes to Emerson and Ortega's voices #but I kinda like how this turned out #even if Emerson might be a bit softer here than they are in the game #anyway these two are a lot of fun

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dearamericaroyaldiaries · 1 year

Text

I might be a few books ahead. I make no commitment to continue this.

Love Thy Neighbor, 1774-1775, Prudence Emerson

By: Ann Turner

Protagonist Age: 13

Started- 7/21/2022

Finished- 7/26/2022

Summary:

Prue’s whole family is loyal to the Crown in the days lading up to the American Revolution (except for maybe an older brother?) Her father’s shop struggles to do business and the Tory children are ostracized in school. After one too many incidents all of the family, except for her oldest brother and aunt, move to Boston to live with her uncle’s family in the hopes of finding more safety. After a few months in Boston both families make the decision to move once more, this time to Nantucket.

#ReadingThoughts

By this point she should be been in stays of varying stiffnesses (not corsets) for most of her life. Stop trying to make corsets an issue for most historical people. It’s like wearing a bra. Get over it. (Spoiler: they did not get over it.)

I don’t feel like the average 18th century teacher would be super focused on spelling. There wasn’t really standardized spelling so spelling anxiety phonetically probably wouldn't have been a huge deal I wouldn’t think.

I probably should have expected the house divided politics thing but big oof. I suppose this will be the case for a good chunk of the Revolution and Civil War books.

When did George III get the rep of being mad? I thought his first episode was after the Revolution but I could be wrong. (Internet indicated a potential episode in the mid 1760s but nothing concrete until the late 1780s so after the end of the Revolution.)

The recipe listed on page 12 is better than 90% of what I find online because I don’t have to skim past someone’s life story for a million years first.

I understand that it’s listed out for the reader but the list and the “Meh, I hate all of these chores” comes off as a very modern attitude. Granted, I don’t think that any kid ever had enjoyed all of their chores.

How quick is the 18th century mail service? Also, a white silk pocket? For a child? How bougie are these people?

Boston makes sense for the short mail turn-around. Would Tories have called themselves Tories or would they have referred to themselves more consistently as Loyalists? Would a Tory have called those on the other sides “Patriots?” I think not.

I think the American intended audience means that even Tories refer to this conflict as a revolution, not a rebellion (or insurrection), because hindsight tells us we won. Had it gone the other way, I’m sure the Empire still would have fallen apart, we’d just refer to the 1770s as a failed rebellion or insurrection.

Would Thanksgiving have been celebrated at this point? The internet indicates maybe but probably not like we’re thinking.

More anti-corset propaganda. You can breathe in stays. The point wasn’t to reduce or constrict for most people. It was to support and give a conical shape. I am not here for this nonsense and Emma Watson can bite me.

Was the lavender soap yummy? (The best Gif I could find with minimal effort.)

I wonder at what age most midwives learned their trade.

How frustrating it must be for someone to come to you for a vital service at which you are skilled and have them be embarrassed to come to you. Kudos to Mama Emerson for how she handled that situation and shame on Mr. Jeptha’s Dad. (We do not stan this dad.)

I’m kinda amused that big bro is hiding pro-Revolution newspapers under his mattress like a porn stash.

Corset nonsense x 2!

Would Papa, a shop owner, know cobbling? That is a skilled trade and not easy as far as I know.

And on your left you’ll see a variety of trauma responses.

How old is Cousin Betsey? I don’t think most 13 year olds would be seriously contemplating matrimony as anything but far off, something for a few years down the line.

Corset nonsense

Waltzing? In 1775? In the colonies? That doesn’t sound right to me.

Corset nonsense.

Thoughts on the Afterward

The epilogue was fine. I liked that it noted that Mama delivered all 5 of Prue’s babies

Overall Thoughts After Reading

I feel like this was an unusual choice for publication in 2003 but it would be an even more unusual book to publish today. I thought it was interesting that the Emersons were seen as too Papist (Catholic) for decorating for Christmas.

Overall this book was fine. I rolled by eyes at every instance of Corset Nonsense (All 6 times. Stay tuned for this exciting new segment. *cue another eye roll*) and there were a few items that I need to check into a bit more. I remember reading this one when I was younger but have no strong feelings or memories about it.

Rating Scale

7/10 Papist Pine Boughs

Other Possible Contenders: Golden Stars (too basic) and Corset Nonsenses (this is an actual number and thus should not be confused but also being a rating scale)

Photo Credit:

Cover: Still me!

#Dear America #Read With Me #History #Historical Fiction #American Revolution

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grandhotelabyss · 2 years

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Despite my carefully cultivated reputation for contrarianism, my answer to the first question is “not really.” When it comes to the canon, I’m pretty much a normie; the test of time is a real test. Back in 2017, all the literary bloggers were listing the books in their “personal canons.” I participated too, but introduced my take on the exercise by saying that I would only list formative works of nonfiction, particularly philosophy and literary/political theory, since my actual favorite books were so boring. I wrote, “Greatest writer of the modern west? Shakespeare. Greatest English novel? Middlemarch. Greatest twentieth-century novel? Ulysses. My favorite lyric poem, I tell you no lie, is the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’” Then I quoted Emerson (my favorite American essayist, by the way) from “Experience”:

[I]n popular experience, everything good is on the highway. A collector peeps into all the picture-shops of Europe, for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon-sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St. Jerome, and what are as transcendent as these, are on the walls of the Vatican, the Uffizii, or the Louvre, where every footman may see them; to say nothing of nature’s pictures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every day, and the sculpture of the human body never absent. A collector recently bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakspeare: but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet, and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein. I think I will never read any but the commonest books—the Bible, Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton.

So I have no quarrel with the books you’ve listed. (Caveats: I unfortunately must plead ignorance on the classical Chinese and Japanese novels; also, I never went beyond Swann’s Way in Proust.) Some of the names you mention are if anything underrated or not rated in their proper dimension: do people understand how transcendently good Wuthering Heights and Villette really are, not just as the stormy romances the Brontës are known for, as if they wrote nothing better than the precursors to Rebecca, but as genuine spiritual and social testaments, the prose successors to Milton, Blake, and Shelley, Melville’s trans-Atlantic sisters, as well as ingenious formal inventions to rival Austen or Flaubert? (As for “the other guy” though, I started but did not finish The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The talent, it seems to me, ran in the blood only so much.)

If we must have controversy, since you mentioned Madame Bovary, I am ambivalent about Flaubert and his influence, though I should probably revisit him soon. (I read Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education, and Three Tales in my 20s, in translation, albeit with not-incompetent though not-fluent glances into the French.) All that fussing over the sentence, all that inorganic technique—see GD Dess’s recent essay against “craftism,” as well as James Wood’s “Half Against Flaubert” (in The Broken Estate) and Borges’s neglected “The Superstitious Ethics of the Reader” (in Selected Nonfictions) which I quoted here almost a decade ago—to my mind creates an immobilized prose, paragraphs through which no breeze blows, even in post-Flaubert writers as talented as James, Conrad, and Nabokov, and even the Joyce of Dubliners. But Joyce, exceptional in this as in so many things, then transcended the limitation of this aesthetic by making perfected prose move as poetry moves—with a word-by-word drama that opens up the sentence—rather than as prose does in Portrait and Ulysses.

Must we rank? Should we rank? Ranking is inevitable, despite your apt objection to its listicle extremes. Why would we not want to know what the best is? If resources of time and material are scarce—only so many weeks in the semester, only so many pages in the anthology, only so many days in your life—then it’s a practical matter to know what comes first. We just have to be careful not to be small-minded about it. I think of Orwell’s judicious comparison of Tolstoy and Dickens as a model of how to think carefully in these matters, attentive to difference as well as to quality. (This can be extrapolated mutatis mutandis into areas where social biases like race, nation, class, and gender may enter, as nation and class do enter into a comparison between Dickens and Tolstoy.)

Does this mean that Tolstoy’s novels are ‘better’ than Dickens’s? The truth is that it is absurd to make such comparisons in terms of ‘better’ and ‘worse’. If I were forced to compare Tolstoy with Dickens, I should say that Tolstoy’s appeal will probably be wider in the long run, because Dickens is scarcely intelligible outside the English-speaking culture; on the other hand, Dickens is able to reach simple people, which Tolstoy is not. Tolstoy’s characters can cross a frontier, Dickens can be portrayed on a cigarette card. But one is no more obliged to choose between them than between a sausage and a rose. Their purposes barely intersect.

My candidate for “best novel”? It probably has to be Ulysses since in its cyclopedic ambit it manages to contain all the others. But I acknowledge a spiritual dimension to experience that Ulysses is finally too secular, too satirical, to encompass, and this is found in Tolstoy and especially Dostoevsky.

#literature #literary criticism #literary theory #novels #fiction #western canon #james joyce #fyodor dostoevsky #leo tolstoy #charlotte bronte #emily bronte #gustave flaubert

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kxowledge · 2 years

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which are your favourite self help books?

None of them. I regret the time I spent on them if anything.

Here’s a list of better books to pick up –to believe that it is possible to do anything you set your mind to, to develop a life philosophy, to learn how to deal with adversities, to take action, to pick up virtues and discipline, to understand human tendencies, to lead a better life and to appreciate it fully.

Nietzsche, The Will to Power or Twilight of the Idols

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

A biography of a historical person you admire (I recommend Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon: A Life)

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

St Augustine, Confessions

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Instead of just going through a book – the way you would with a ‘self-help’ book – spend time with it. Savour it. Break down the meaning of each part. Understand its implications. And don’t let it be just theory, but put it into practice.

#[I mean - I may say that but it's not real regret. I understand why I did that at that specific time and I understand what I was lookingfor #Life's a journey and I've changed and I'm glad I did. In that sense reading those books was not a waste of time - they led me to who I am #today which includes rejecting self help books. But do not think for a single moment that it was the content of those that pushed me along #the way because they did not. they are mostly filler content books with one or two basic insights that might make you feel *productive* or #*motivated* but that instead is wasting your time your energy your money]#im going to tag this as #excellence #but it should really be under life philosophy.#book notes #probably emerson should be on that list too

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arrowfam-events · 3 years

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im making a spreadsheet of every time an arrowfam member has popped up in comics but im not really that familiar with them—who would y’all like to see included in something like that? question for both you and your followers since im sure different people have different opinions and i’d like to not forget anyone :) (do not say this project is insane i am well aware of that. i love spreadsheets. it WILL be done in time for the prompt week :3)

!!!!!!!!!!! I love that for you, and both here on this blog, and over on @thequiver I'd love to boost this if you're willing to share when it's done. I too love a good spreadsheet!

So in my answer to this I'm giving you what's probably WAY more people than you're asking for but I wanted to cover all my bases so the first list is going to be the main family, these are the figures that canonically make up the core Arrowfam. The second list is going to be more extended familial connections, or those who have been assimilated into their found family. Third list is honorable mentions thanks to throwaway lines in canon and popular fanon. Let's begin.

The core family consists of: Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Roy Harper, Connor Hawke, Mia Dearden, Emiko Queen, Sin Lance, and Lian Harper.

The extended family/"family" consists of: Hal Jordan, Shado, Jade Nguyen (and Tommy Blake Jr. if I'm being generous and fulfilling my own desires), Robert Queen II, Sandra Moonday Hawke, Grant Emerson, Dinah Sr., and Eddie Fyers. )*If* you want to include stuff from the N52, Rebirth, and influences from Arrow, you could also count Malcom and Tommy Merlyn, John Diggle, and Henry Fyff).

Honorable Mentions: Bonnie King and Cissie King Jones. (Bonnie used to sleep with Ollie and it's implied that Ollie could be Cissie's bio-dad however this isn't proven in canon and it should be noted that Cissie has never met these people and has no connections to them outside of popular fanon).

The line up that *I* personally ascribe to is: Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Roy Harper, Connor Hawke, Mia Dearden, Emiko Queen, Sin Lance, Lian Harper, Hal Jordan, Shado, Jade Nguyen, Grant Emerson, and Eddie Fyers. Sometimes I add Cissie for a bit of spice, but only in non-canon compliant AUs. Who you add is ultimately up to you, and if any of our followers would like to add their thoughts they're more than welcome to shoot us an ask to publish or to comment on this post!

We wish you all the best with your spreadsheet and can't wait to see it completed! 💚 💚 💚

~ @thequiver

Should be noted that I include Cissie as an Arrowfam member in most of my fanon, mainly because I love her and want her to have a better family but I agree with everything Mari said. Best of luck with your spreadsheet! Can’t wait to see the finished product!

~ @overheard-over-chili

#asks #arrowfam week 2021 #Arrowfam

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ohmysparkle · 3 years

Text

Spellbound intro III

🌙 Pairing: Hyunjin (Stray Kids) x Reader

🌙 Genre: Dark Fantasy AU, Mystery, smut.

🌙 Teaser Length: 3K

🌙 Warnings: Blood, bodily injury, cannibalism in this chapter. For the series overall, smut, gore, witchcraft, religious themes.

🌙✨Tag List: @xviternity @straykisz @97lovestay (unable to tag)

✧･ﾟ:･ﾟ *✧･ﾟ. ✨ . *: ･ﾟ 🌙 * ･ﾟ✧ * : ･ﾟ✧. ✨･ﾟ.*.✧

It’s smouldering hot, and the once neatly dressed man that stands on the corner of the street has now soiled his white clothes with sweat. The beads shimmer on his dark skin, and he rubs at his brows, to remove the tension as well as to wipe the perspiration before it falls to his eyes.

He’s had enough. If the man he waits for doesn't come to him, then he shall go to look.

The first person to ask is only a few steps away. He stomps past his own - empty - storefront and enters the following shop, the butcher’s shop precisely.

“Eustace!” The sweaty man calls, awaiting for a dimwit in his 20’s with a curly head of hair to appear. The front stall is empty, but somewhere in the back he hears a clang before his call is answered.

“Ji - Jiggly? What can I help you with today?” Eustace replies in confusion.

“Your brother is late.” Says the man, rather matter-of-factly.

“Hmm.” Eustace thinks, for longer than necessary, “He should have been by yours a while ago.”

“Yes - I know that, which is why I’ve come here to tell you he’s late. It’s almost ten o'clock and I’ve yet to finish the filling for the meat pies - they wont be done in time for lunch unless Emerson shows up now.”

“Well…” Eustace thinks. The impatient man pauses at the worrying thought that he, the older of the two brothers, is somehow to inherit the family business. It’s not a match for his mind.

“Eustace - could you call your father to figure out how much longer the delivery will take?”

“Oh, dad’s not at the other shop. Emerson was only going in today to pick up the day’s delivery orders.”

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“I really have no idea.”

“Ah - goodness Eustace, does that not bother you in the least?”

The man storms out from the butcher's place, mumbling and grunting to himself, making his way to the corner once more to see if Emerson has made an appearance. He looks over the bend, down a block to where the road runs along the shore of the lake - nothing.

It’s getting late, and he’s sure his clientele would not appreciate the absence of his meat pies.

The lake, glistening in that cool morning sun…

Just how desperate was he to find Emerson?

“Why do they talk to you like that?” Jiggly asks you, clothed in your usual black, but in thinner fabrics to allow for the breeze to cool you on that one summer day.

“Like what?” You ask him.

“Well - they actually talk for starters. And they’re kinda nice, don’t look like they’ll bite you.” He says, watching in awe as you gently take the hand of each of the ladies in the water as a greeting.

“Jiggly… look. Mermaids, sirens, think of them as regular leg people. Do you walk up to a person on the street and gawk? No. Do you slowly socialize until they are acquainted with you? Yes. Just come down and make small talk from time to time and they’ll get along with you just fine.”

“But don’t they eat people?!”

“Well… they could, but I brought them apples so I guess they’re not really hungry now.”

“Apples? That’s all it took?” He looks at the three wet ladies, sitting upon the small embankment that piled onto the paved sidewalk. “Just apples?”

“Well… fruit in general they tend to like. I always start with apples, nobody has dietary issues with apples. Sometimes I make them some food too.” One of the ladies, with long hair that winds and circles around her body covering her figure along with some small white garments, strokes your calf as if she were petting a cat. It all seemed so bizarre, the water women were always so angry, hissing and growling, baring sharp teeth and nails.

“They’re fond of physical contact once they trust you.” You explain, taking a bite of one of your spare apples. Another lady, a younger, girlish one, pokes at your thigh as you are about to eat more. You roll your eyes and relinquish the apple to her.

“I’m not taking chances.”

“You underestimate how helpful they are. They can go from one side of the lake in a minute, they share everything they hear with one another, they travel the oceans. If you’re on their good side, they might just let you submit some mermail to them.

“Mermail?” Jiggly is in awe, it’s like the two of you were in two different realities with you always saying things that stunned him so.

“Yeah, mer-mail… mermail? Get it? Like, put a message in a bottle and they’ll ship it to wherever you need so long as it's close to a body of water?” You elaborate.

“Yeah, yeah - I know what it is. I just didn’t think it was… real.”

“Ha!” You snort. You turn around to the water ladies, saying something in an older language he does not recognize - they seem to understand it though, and laugh along with you.

“Jiggly… mermail is real.” You deadpan. “It’s not like… a myth or anything.”

“Mail?”

“Yes… well, packages, letters, messages… ”

“What do you pay them with? I thought the mermaids didn’t use money.”

“Eh, they sometimes do. But all it’ll cost you is kindness, or maybe a little favor. They’ll do plenty of little favors if you just give them a little kindness in return. Real nice sense of community they’ve got…”

Kindness…

He had that. What he lacked for this specific task was confidence.

But there they are, just a couple of them. Young girls, in their early teens, wearing some dry cloth sheets over their bodies to break the ever chilling wind, just enjoying the morning sun as they etched pebbles with tools, most likely to make some jewelry, as they sat on the edge of the footpath with their feet hanging over the surface of the lake.

“Ehem… hello?” The man cautiously says, his voice nearly cracking due to the uncertainty. He is at a loss of words, just momentarily, when they return a gaze with their bulbous, unnaturally blue eyes. The irises nearly gone, it was like staring into water itself.

“Hello?” He says, closer this time.

“Hssss.” one of them hisses at him, like a cat, baring her small sharp teeth.

The other one pats her shoulder to silence her, and raises her hand to beckon the man over.

He approaches fearfully.

“Hi.” The calmer girl says, staying put. Her voice is quiet and hoarse, almost whisper-like, just like all the other women who lived in the waters. You had once explained it to him, it’s because they were sometimes unused to speaking above water, and they often had accents of old languages, now that newer ones weren’t quite common below.

“I’m Jiggy - the baker.” He says trying to be as personable as possible. “You might remember my friend… Dr. Nemo.”

The girl nods politely. Good.

“She told me you might be able to do me a little favor. If you want I can make you anything for lunch in return.” He was trying to smile, in a friendly neighborly way, not in a creepy man in his thirties way.

“Lunch?” The polite fish girl asks.

“Yes!” He sings, almost like some character from a children's program.

“Fish?”

“No, I don’t carry fish.” Did he ruin it? Did they only eat fish?

“Pork? Bacon.” She says again.

“Yeesss…” He does his best friendly-dinosaur impression.

“Yes. Bacon.” She looks at the girl that had hissed, and she nods in return after a brief moment of silent conversation. “What… do you need?”

“Well… you might know the man that drives the meat truck.”

“Stupid man?” The polite girl says in her funny voice.

“Yeeesss… the stupid man.” Clever girl. “Could you ask around and find out where he is? He’s late and I need him to bring me my cuts of meat.”

“Where? Where do we look?” It was a good question… Emerson only delivers between two neighborhoods.

“Eastbend by the Shore!” He points to the area further up along this same side of the lake. Over there the houses are smaller, climbing up the sloping hills. It's cooler from all the trees, and that is where the slaughterhouse of Edwin & Sons lies - and where Emerson should be stalling.

“Right over there!” Jiggly points, nearly seeing the white roof of the taller building among the quaint brick houses. “Right over - AHH!” Something in his hand pinches every bit of his attention.

Chomp!

He looks down to the pinching and blunt pain on his hand - it was the hissing girl biting him! Latched on to one of his fat fingers with her sharp teeth - the audacity!

He tries to pull his hand away, and it's like he can hear it, a rip. The girl's pale, veiny face is suddenly painted by a splatter of blood that she’s made the flesh release, gushing from his index finger, an arc of red liquid painting a line from her mouth to her forehead. Her furious blue eyes, still trained on his hand, almost satisfied at the outpour.

“Aaaaaaaaahh!” He shrieks, a long piercing howl.

The polite girl begins to scold the other, Jiggly can hardly comprehend, but when she smacks her companion across the head it does not make the hold of her jaw relent. It only makes his skin drag further from his bone.

If he moves back she’ll rip it off, if he pulls closer she might latch her bite further up. He is paralized, his entire body feels pins and needles from the panic, but it begins and ends with his one, bitten finger.

Smack! The polite girl smacks the other right across the forehead, one last time and now the girl lets her jaw slack. The man holds his hand up, shrieks once more as he sees his bone beneath the torn and bleeding skin. Even against his dark fingers, the blood is so red and so bright, so so bright. No translucency at all, just a solid red, redder than anything he had seen before. But there, a peek of something pale within the digit - and he could feel it; the bone.

The girls bicker and argue.

“Fucking fishy!” He cries at her.

“Lunch!” The bloodied girl cries. She goes back to smacking her lips, picking at her teeth with her tongue as if there were flesh stuck between her teeth. There probably was.

“It - it’s the baker! Come help!” a man yells behind him, having been attracted by the screams. There is a clamor of feet approaching the scene.

Jiggly turns, men approach him from behind, the girls swat and slap at each other in front of him, his finger bleeds.

“Jiggly! What happened?” He recognizes the voice. It's the captain of the cadets from this side of the lake, a handsome man that seems to eat too many of his croissants for the size of his waist, one of his very best customers. But alas, here he is, running as he does daily, with all of the young recruits in training panting behind him as he stands there with barely a mist of a sweat on his face.

As he turns to face the handsome man, he can hear a growl from one of the girls behind him.

“My fi-finger.” He chokes out, an airy whimper making up his words. ”Hal… She bit my finger.” he says, pointing at her bloody face with his bloody hands.

The man is of the unflinching kind, bats his eyes as he pieces it all together, but he doesn’t react with any repulsion.

“Does anyone have a clean towel?” He yells at the cadets. Someone hands it to him and he expertly wraps Jiggly’s hand. “You all, keep going. I’m taking him to the doctor.”

“Doctor…” Jiggly ponders, too distracted by his bleeding finger.

“Are you feeling lightheaded?” Hal questions. “I’m taking you over to your friend, Dr. Nemo.”

It’s a few blocks of his dazed stumbling. He didn't notice what happened to the fish girls, or the cadets, or how long it took him to get there. All he knows is that suddenly he is at the steps of your clinic, the big dark blue door looking over him and Hal firmly holding his side..

And as if you sensed it, even before Hal could let go of the cloth he pressed to his hand to knock, you open the door. There, above them, in your usual dark and neat attire.

“What happened?” You inquire.

“Doc! Jiggly’s had an accident.” Hal explains.

You usher for him to come inside, Jiggly feels as if he levitates as the muscular, but gentle, man guides him up.

“Just sit him down somewhere.” You say absentmindedly, grabbing things from the many cabinets and shelves. “Caro! We have a patient.” You shout for your apprentice. The girl would usually come down sooner.

“Yes Miss Nemo!” She politely replies, eager to attend however she can. Until she sees who it is and lets out a gasp. “Jiggles!” She calls in awe, seeing his bloodstained clothes.

“What happened to him?” You ask Hal, seeing that Caro has now taken to applying pressure to Jiggly’s hand.

“I think one of the younger water women bit him…” He ponders. He stands a little too close to you. You can basically smell him, the sheen of perspiration… his dark red locks dampened and slicked back, the muscles in his neck and arms exposed so handsomely.

Focus!

“Siren or mermaid?” You ask.

“I think… mermaid.” Hal replies, unsure.

“Did she have the weird eyes?” You ask.

“Her face was covered in blood, I didn’t really notice if -”

“Yes!” Jiggly shouts from his seat at your small breakfast table. “Horrible eyes, horrible child.”

“Child?” you purse your lips, Caro even lets out a giggle. “How bad could she have bitten you?”

As you set the items on the table beside him, Caro slowly unwraps the bloody rag… and - it’s quite awful.

“Ha!” You laugh, a hearty laugh, Caro eventually joins in. “A child did this to you?!”

“She was feral and - uuaaahh!” He whines again. You had taken advantage of his distraction to pour antiseptic onto his wound, your apprentice dabs at it with some clean linens.

“Shouldn't we put him on one of the tables?” Hal quips.

“Eh, this seems pretty basic. Right Caro?” The girl doesn't reply, being hyper focused on her task, the bloody hand, the bloody rag, the bloody linen. “Caro, I said; this seems pretty basic, right?” you say more sternly.

She blinks back to reality, “Yes Miss, quite simple.”

“See? Just a few stitches and some healing goo and he’ll be good.” You tell Hal, placing a hand on his chest, quite firm and… toned, to push him back gently. You needed the space, he was too close for comfort, as usual.

“Miss… stitches or, do you think we could use the good stuff?” Caro suggests… ah yes, expensive magical healing ointments.

“Fine… just a little should be enough.” You conceded, after all he was the most popular baker on the lake, and you weren’t sure how happy the townsfolk would be with his being out of commission.

Hal once more, is upon you… it’s a bad habit of his that you’ve tried to quell. And he is never subtle, which you wouldn’t particularly mind if he weren’t so keen on doing so in public.

“You know, I’ve gotten a letter from my cousin.” He says, “She sends her regards, inquires about you.”

“Your cousin, the demon hunter?” Jiggly buds in, and for a moment, you wish to chastise Hal for his lack of prudence. “How does Doc know her? Isn’t she halfway around the world?”

He stutters, not knowing how to answer Jiggly’s question. How indeed does he explain to Jiggly that you are acquainted with his cousin, who is a local legend but has not returned to the area in quite a few years, that you know her despite never having been in town at the same time as you?

He regrets his insolence. How could he have said that so easily?

“I don't. We don't know each other at all.” you reply, with a special and strange tone.

“But he just said you did.” Jiggly argues.

“No he didn’t.” A little more charmingly.

“He didn’t?” Caro tenses as Jiggly resists, but she continues to treat his wound.

“He didn’t. He hasn’t mentioned anything about his cousin at all.” It takes a moment for your words to sink in, but slowly, they do.

“That’s right… Hal hasn’t said anything about that.”

“Precisely Jiggly, he hasn’t said anything at all.” You reply contently once you see him nod with a distant daze in his eyes. As soon as Jiggly’s attention is diverted by your apprentice, you look back to Hal.

“You lack prudence.” You sternly whisper, making sure Jiggly is unaware. “Leave - and make sure he gets home.”

“I - forgive me. It slipped, and I -”

“Don’t make any mention of it to him - ever again. Not to anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“You are the only person in this damn place that knows, and I guarantee you do not want to be responsible for it getting out.” You cut him off before he can respond. “Caro, are you done?”

“Yes Miss, just about!”

“Good. Jiggly, Hal will take you home. Let your hand rest for today but you should be fine tomorrow.”

Caro quickly ushers them out, and once the door is closed behind them, she turns to you.

“Do you think it worked?”

“Of course it did - do you doubt me?” You ask her, almost displeased.

“It's just… you haven’t done anything like that in a long time.”

“Girls like me - like us - don’t get rusty.” You remind her, finishing her sentence with a tap to the tip of her nose.

At the doorstep of your clinic Jiggly feels confused, almost dreamy, as if he only had the faintest impression of what had just occurred during this particular morning.

#hwang hyunjin smut #hwang hyunjin #stray kids smut #hyunjin au #strange devotion skz collab

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jandjsalmon · 3 years

Text

FICS I’VE READ THIS WEEK (52)

Hello everybody!! This is a long one. Sorry about that.

It’s been a full year since I started this nonsense, can you believe it!? It’s been a year since our fandom changed irreparably following that leak and horrible, horrible musical episode (that many -including myself- have never seen all the way through). In fact, I resigned myself to watching through gifs, unsubscribed from the CW and unfollowed basically every social media account for the show and cast (save one) and blocked a whole lot of new terms.

I took on this project because I wanted to remind myself how much I loved fanfiction - and how it didn’t matter what happened in canon because we had so many amazing and talented content creators. And I’m SO pleased and happy that I was right.

If anyone is interested in the spreadsheet I created for this exercise you can check it out here on this googledoc. I’m going to be taking part in a different fanfiction challenge next (check out @fanfic-reading-challenge) - so this doc won’t really be updated. It’ll be weird not keeping track like this but perhaps I’ll come up with a better, more efficient way to keep track of all the words and chapters that I read...

Anyway here are some stats:

I’ve read 22,455,909 words (7,996,649 of them Bughead) since April 16, 2020.

The bughead author I’ve read the most of unsurprisingly was @thepointoftheneedle - I reread her entire collection three times - upwards of 800,000 words of hers alone. It’s not a secret. I’m a fangirl. But I also like her as a person so that’s a special benefit of being involved in fandom.

Of course then there was my girl @likemereckless - whom I beta read many many fics for during this pandemic. So when I say I’ve read 384,883 of her words - I mean, I’ve probably read them all three or four times that as I edited and fangirled and was a cheerleader for her through the year.

One spot for improvement, I guess, would be that I only read 3 fics (total) of non-Bughead riverdale fic (though one is actually Bughead adjacent because it’s their son). I suppose I should check out some Varchie fics (as long as they don’t break up Bughead of course) - so I can support our friends in the bugvarchie community. On my to-do list.

I was introduced to new pairings I’d never read before like at the end of May 2020 - when @anniemurphys shared a single link to a “The Society” fic (a show I’d never actually watched before) - and then I got SUCKED in. That led me to a bunch of really great writers - like @livinginrhythm - who’s collection I’ve read through twice (all except the cheating fics) - and some of their oneshots have 35000 words! I kept track and I read more of their words than anyone else - a total of 1,069,203 words belong to them!

Then @feelavalanche answered my call for pairings to read - cajoling me into watching Midsommar and delving into the fic. Between Anonlady and Rimanez I’ve read 1,125,000 words (+675,000 for rimanez and aonlady +450000 words). And I also gained a crazy obsession with this low-key actor from Sweden (because they make them pretty there) and now know way more than I should... and I’ve seen way more of him than I should. 👀 Gösta *cough*.

I read pairings I’d never thought of before - like Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson for Mother Maple - who loves Miss Fisher. I did not love the fic (I’m sorry, MM) but it was interesting diving into something new and different (even if it was only for one fic).

I watched new shows (like Never Have I Ever, Boardwalk Empire, Bridgerton, The Happiest Season, and Fargo) and with those came new fics and new pairings and new fandom friends.

I’m so grateful for all of you who came along for the ride. *pointedy looks at new friends @portiaadams @winterlovesong1 and @queenie-004*

Now I’m going to go read @thepointoftheneedle‘s new masterpiece. It’just BARELY didn’t make the cut for this week (because I’d done all my calculations before she posted it. Ha ha.)

I hope you all stay healthy and stay safe. 😘

Thanks for being here.

Anyway - here is my last reading list for this exercise. This is the list for the week of April 09-April 15th

Weeks 1- 51 (3580 chapters)

Week 52 (116 chapters)

(Annual Chapter Total = 3696)

---

BUGHEAD - 14

Becoming Eleanor by @srainebuggie (chapter 7)

Sharing A Wall by Melaniemia (chapter 3)

right back where we started from by @stonerbughead (chapter 2)

five endings jughead never wrote (and one he did) by @imreallyloveleee (1/1)

the shadows cannot keep you by @winterlovesong1 (2/2)

I only love you more when it snows by @winterlovesong1 (1/1)

make it new by @sullypants (chapter 3)

Regrets Collect like Bullet Shells by @loveandcoffeeandsimplicities (chapter 29)

The Tides that Change by @loveandcoffeeandsimplicities (chapters 3 & 4)

slowing down by @fallout-mars (1/1)

in the air by @sullypants (chapters 18 & 19)

---

Bughead Rereads - 3

subway song by @literatiruinedme (1/1)

the things that make us (the way we are) by @darknessaroundus (1/1)

don't give a damn ('bout your bad reputation) by @darknessaroundus (1/1)

---

MISCELLANEOUS - 74

In Through An Out Door by @djgrannyglasses (Hyde/Jackie - chapter 3)

e-mails from Austenland by @everyl1ttleth1ng (Austenland - 62/62)

the sweetest life (and the loving is easy when you're with me) by @latinasmoak (Penelope/Colin - first chapter!)

Fluctuations by @treaddelicately (Scott Lang/Hope Van Dyne - 1/1)

everybody wants you by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

i could never give you peace by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

you're right in the center by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

Counterplay by @alexandra-emerson (Draco/Ginny - chapters 25-28)

The breeding program by Chevalier_Barthelemy (Five/Vanya - chapter 11)

Hand in Hand to Hell by @portiaadams (Boardwalk Empire - chapter 2)

---

Misc. Rereads - 25

tenderness of heart by liminal (Austenland - 1/1)

you belong somewhere close to me by georgiestauffenberg (Anne/Gilbert - 1/1) *Anne with an E - SOULMATES! It’s amazing*

even when you're here i kinda miss you by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

i wanna call it for what it is by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

whoever says it first is the bravest by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

right before i close my eyes by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

keep pushing back the time to call it quits by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

You'd Be Here By Now by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 4/4)

will you have me? by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

tell me i should stay by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

I'll Unfold Before You by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 1/1)

Someday We're Gonna Know Too Much To Know It All by @livinginrhythm (Harry/Allie - 11/11)

#reading fics with jandy #fics i've read this week

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emersonfreepress · 3 years

Text

New Year's Eve 2000 @ the Emersons'

"Is he here? Have you seen him?!"

The laughter in Heidi's clique fades abruptly and the queen herself scowls at her brother for his interruption.

"Seen who?" Jessie asks in such a sweet tone Heidi's forced to wipe that sneer off her face. Good ol' Jess. Curt can always count on her to diffuse the H-bomb before it even gets going.

"Gabe." Curt does another cursory glance around the room and still doesn't see him. Then he checks his watch and groans. "It's like five minutes to midnight, where the hell is he??"

"I'm pretty sure he isn't coming," Madison says. She crosses her legs and looks up for a second in contemplation. "Is he even in town still?"

"What do you need him for?" Brooke whines with a pout and a subtle toss of blonde hair. "Come sit with us, the countdown's starting soon."

"Brooke," Curt starts. "You're beautiful."

Brooke quits pouting and preens under the unexpected compliment, batting her lashes with a small smile. "Curtis..."

"But I see you all the time."

She deflates just as quickly.

"Cortés said he would be here, he wouldn't just..."

The girls all stare at him. Madison fails to hold back a laugh.

"Oh." Madison covers her mouth slightly. "Sorry."

"He wouldn't just lie to you?" Heidi asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. Her eyes add, 'Are you stupid?'

Curt just groans again and walks away. He can't explain himself to them. Jessie might know what he's talking about but he's only got four minutes left to find Gabe and he's already got his answer: they haven't seen him.

Is it possible he really didn't show? Curt doesn't know how to feel about that. He's not an idiot, that was sort of what he expected. Gabe has skipped the holidays in Emerson for two years straight and it was pure dumb luck that Curt even spotted him at all downtown last weekend. He didn’t seem all that different, busy as ever somehow, but he'd at least had enough time for Curt to invite him to his parents' New Year's Eve bash and to give a polite yes.

Curt sighs. Maybe that was the sign. The politeness. Since when has Gabe ever been polite to him?

It's only ever hostile neutrality or whining with that guy...

Three minutes.

Curt is being stopped by a former classmate/future nobody or some family acquaintance every few seconds now. Even if Gabe is here, there's no way he's going to find him before the clock strikes twelve. Sighing forlornly, he decides to make his way back to Heidi and her friends. At least Brooke is reliable for a kiss.

- - -

"Oh!" Jessie beams and jumps up from her seat. "There you are!"

Gabe gives her half a genuine smile before settling into a more careful one for Heidi and the Madisons—um, Brooke and Madison. He should probably stop thinking of them like that.

"Hey, Jess." The two hug and Gabe shuts his eyes for a quick second as he gives her an affectionate squeeze. They part and he greets the other girls. Heidi shoots him a nod of acknowledgment and a raised glass while Madison gives him a short wave. And Brooke... crosses her arms and ignores him.

Okay...

"Curt's been looking for you," Heidi says, holding an empty champagne flute out to him before standing to grab their table's bottle of Dom. "Apparently you promised him you'd come."

"Ah, yeah. I wouldn't call it a promise, though. " Gabe almost passes on the champagne but Jessie's bright smile leads him to accept the glass and the alcohol that follows. "More like..."

"Placating a child?" Heidi asks, amused.

Both Gabe and Madison laugh at that.

"Sure, that."

"One minute, everyone!" someone shouts.

"Here we go..." Madison gets to her feet, nearly reaching Gabe's height in her heels.

Brooke jumps up, perplexed. "What, already? Who the heck am I supposed to kiss??"

"Aw, I'll give you a kiss, Bee."

Brooke's arms uncross just to rest on her hips alongside another pout. "That won't count, Mads."

Madison just laughs in response and teases Brooke some more. Meanwhile, the remaining empty hands around the room quickly fill with glasses while more and more people begin joining the countdown. Heidi makes sure their group's glasses are filled before swapping the bottle in her hand for a tumbler of whiskey and downing it. Gabe also notices her shoes are off and to the side—someone's had a long night.

Jessie lightly nudges him in the side with her elbow, breaking him from his observations.

"So are you leaving tomorrow, after all?" The soft smile on her face is hopeful so Gabe sighs, regretful to disappoint her.

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "I just... This town is..."

"'Stifling?'" They both wince a little, Jess in her attempt to keep a smile on despite her disappointment and Gabe at hearing his exact word quoted back at him.

"Right. It's not the people—"

Jess giggles and pats him on the arm. "Oh come on, Gabe. It's the people."

He rolls his eyes with a light laugh. "Okay, yeah. Even just being here right now..."

Jessie sighs. "Yeah, I know. It's always weird coming back just after a few months out of state. I can't imagine after two years."

Gabe nods, the thin glass stem in his hand suddenly feeling a little too brittle for how tense he is. How tense this environment makes him. He shrugs, though.

"Well, I'm glad I got to see you, at least."

"Ten seconds! Ten! Nine!"

Jessie hits him with the full brightness of her smile and one of her tiny bounces of joy.

"Yeah! Me, too."

- - -

Just as the entire party begins counting down from ten, Curt finally gains sight of his sister and her friends again. Brooke catches sight of him too and smiles, knowing exactly why he's returned. He smiles back at her for a second before he falters when he sees...

Ha! I knew he meant it!

He's never wrong about these things. Curt smirks hard and licks his lips, unable to keep from internally gloating. Gabe showing up at all is a victory in and of itself.

"Eight! Seven!"

Oh, wait. No, it's not. Curt speeds up his approach.

"Six! FIVE!"

It's only really a victory if he reaches him at midnight!

- - -

"I have a good feeling about 2001!" Gabe rolls his eyes, cynical as always, but Jessie cheerfully insists. "Just watch, this year is going to be perfect and—oh! Three! Two!"

Gabe refrains from counting but turns with everyone else to face the giant screen displaying the Times Square Ball Drop.

“ONE! Happy New Year!”

The room they’re in, and the rest of the house, erupts in raucous cheers, shouts, and champagne glasses chiming. Jessie nearly crushes Gabe with a giant hug as she shouts “Happy New Year!” and that manages to pull a real smile from him, even as they almost spill both of their drinks. They both laugh and clink glasses instead.

“Happy New Year, Jess.” He turns to the other girls, who are just toasting each other. “Happy New Year, Heidi. Madison.”

Heidi wears a polite smile and nods as she raises her glass to him and Madison enthusiastically clinks her glass against his with a breathless “Happy New Year!”

Gabe turns to Brooke, who’s turned away from him and is fluffing her hair. Should he bother? Eh... might as well. “Happy New Year, Br—”

- - -

Curt is vaguely aware of Brooke leaning into him as he walks up to Gabe, but his tunnel vision forces him to sidestep her with a smile. Everything’s fallen into place: it’s a bangin’ party, it’s midnight, Auld Lang Syne’s just started, and the belle of the ball has finally arrived. He doesn’t wait for the boy to finish whatever he was saying and just goes for it.

Gabe’s eyes widen just a bit before Curt plants a kiss fully on his mouth, placing one hand lightly at his lower back for support as he leans into him. Gabe lets out a stuttered breath and clasps at the lapels of Curt’s suit jacket to keep upright. That brings a cocky grin to Curt’s lips and he raises his other hand to brush his thumb along the bottom of Gabe’s jaw, just as lightly.

"Mm." Curt darts his tongue out to savor his old classmate for just a moment longer before finally drawing back. With a boyish smile and a slight bite to his own lip he says, "Happy New Year, Cortés."

Madison makes a strangled noise somewhere between a gasp and a shriek.

“God—DAMN it! I told you I needed my camera, Jessie!” The girl darts away in a flash of jet black hair and spilled champagne, presumably to go find it. Brooke has gone pale. Heidi rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her champagne.

Gabe is frozen, gobsmacked. After he starts to feel others’ eyes on them, though, his expression finally breaks into one of angered incredulity and he shoves Curt away from him.

"What is your fucking problem, Emerson?!" He wipes his mouth on his sleeve as his face breaks into a subtle yet violent blush. "Is—" Gabe’s expression clouds, the brief panic that was there gone in an instant. "Is that why you invited me?!"

Curt frowns, confused.

"Of course! I said I couldn’t wait to kiss you at midnight!”

Brooke, completely forgotten, makes an indignant sort of squawking sound.

Gabe's hands curl into fists and the look he throws him is venomous. "Curt."

“And I’ve said kissing you's on my bucket list?” Curt blinks, lost. “Like, a thousand times at this point, Gabe."

Gabe’s fists curl tighter and Jessie steps between them, her glass waved between the boys like a penalty flag and a deceptively natural smile plastered on.

“Oookay! Curt, I think you just startled Gabe. I’m positive he didn’t think you were being serious, right?”

“No, I fucking didn’t,” Gabe growls.

Curt has the gall to look even more confused.

“For six years?”

Gabe shuts his eyes, his anger in danger of rising faster than he’s able to suppress it.

“Jesus, Curt. Just apologize.” Heidi looks more annoyed than anything else. But at least Curt finally catches on to the huge party foul he’s committed.

“Sorry! Sorry, man. I thought you knew what I meant.” Curt is, for whatever it’s worth, blushing now, seeming actually embarrassed for once. When Gabe doesn’t reply, he raises his hands in a placating manner, then brings them together at his chin with a truly pleading look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I’d take it back if I could, don’t be mad!”

Gabe rubs a hand over his face and lets out a long, hard sigh. Then his other hand rakes through his hair briefly as he looks away from the blond idiot.

“Fine. Fine.”

Curt sighs in relief.

Then, because it’s very important to him, he asks, “It was good, though, right?“

Heidi barks a laugh, flopping back down into her seat. Jessie winces and pleads, “Curt, no...” Brooke, of course, seethes and plops into her own chair, quietly downing the contents of her flute.

And even though the anger has dissipated, Gabe’s annoyance surges to new heights. But before he can even voice his disdain, Curt’s looking around the immediate area as if something’s just dawned on him.

“Oh, wait a minute.” Curt huffs, dissatisfied. “I’m the only one without champagne!”

#not canon #canon?#idfk #future canon whoosh #their names are Brooke Madison and Madison Feng btw 😂 hence the grouping #now to hopefully nurse this hangover completely away #and possibly cuddle with my cat but... that seems very unlikely lmao #cie snippets #i ship it #in my heart ^ ^

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

Text

Treat Your S(h)elf: I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide To Wine, by Roger Scruton (2009)

You could say that wine is probably as old as civilisation; I prefer to say that it is civilisation, and that the distinction between civilised and uncivilised countries is the distinction between the places where it is drunk and the places where it isn’t.

- Sir Roger Scruton, I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide To Wine

When I first got talked into investing in the dreams of my two cousins and their French families to continue to manage an old French vineyard I thought of Roger Scruton’s book. I already had this book on my shelf alongside his other works. Re-reading it nudged me to take a risk and go for it.

For one I have always loved wine and have drunk it from a very early age. Secondly what could be more cultured or civilising than to marry body and mind through the palate of philosophy and wine?

And finally, and perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to escape the madness of modernity - as well as make peace from war as a British combat veteran of the Afghan war by not so much as coming home but finding a new one - by getting back into nature with hard honest graft on the land that Mother Nature blesses. All of this I found especially appealing.

Of all the things we eat or drink, wine is without question the most complex. So it should not be surprising that philosophers from Plato and Socrates onwards to our contemporary times have turned their attention to wine: complex phenomena can lend themselves to philosophical speculation.

Wine is complex not just in the variety of tastes it presents – ‘wine tastes of everything apart from grapes’, I once heard a crusty old French vintner say – but in its meaning. Only the most woodenly literal-minded would deny that wine has a meaning: in its history, its role in human social life, in religious and other ceremonies. Though they drink it copiously over dinner at High Tables in their Oxbridge colleges, academic analytic philosophers do not spend as much time as they might in this kind of investigation of meaning or significance of wine – what we might call a phenomenology or a hermeneutic investigation.

Of course, there are more narrowly phenomenological questions which wine raises.

How do vintners or winemakers manipulate the underlying biochemical material to create the kinds of taste which they intend their wine to have? Does the ‘terroir’ of a wine really make a difference to taste, and if so how? What is the basis of evaluative judgements about the quality of a wine?

Arguably only those who actually make the wine and those who are life long wine connoisseurs can conceivably answer that on some experiential and technical level. But these are not the only philosophical questions in this area: the hermeneutic questions have their place too, in an understanding of the phenomena.

Sir Roger Scruton’s 224 page book is about the hermeneutics of wine rather than its psychology or phenomenology more narrowly conceived. Scruton, the late great conservative philosopher, is that rare breed who comes closer than most to bridging the gap between the grass roots and the High Table in answering such mysteries. The result is an engaging, insightful, informative and (in parts) a very funny book. It is immensely readable, more in the anecdotal style of Scruton’s England: an Elegy (2000) or On Hunting (1998), than his more heavyweight philosophical works, such as The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Sexual Desire (2004), Beauty (2009), and his writings on Wagner and high culture. He does often come across as curmudgeonly, but his (written) relations with women, music and poetry are very delicate and tender. And so it is with his love affair with wine. It is indeed a very personal book and its is warmly personable, like the man himself, and it contains so much of Scruton’s distinctive wit and intellectual personality, it ought to be of interest not just to wine enthusiasts (whom Scruton likes to call ‘winos’) and philosophers but also anyone curious enough to understand the place of wine in our world civilisation.

The first and obvious thing to say about Scruton’s book is how the title of the book is of course a play on words. It’s a playful wink to Eric Idle’s “Philosophers’ Drinking Song,” in which the Monty Python cast, lightly disguised as a group of Australian philosophers all named Bruce, list the world’s thinkers from a drinking standpoint. This includes the couplet slightly amending Descartes’s proof of his existence: “And René Descartes was a drunken fart / ‘I drink therefore I am.’”

The pun on words is Roger Scruton’s way of taking the Monty Python couplet seriously. After all Descartes was a serious man and though he was born in Touraine, the rich French wine region, did probably not drink much. He treats all this as a paradox that G.K. Chesterton might well have toyed with - that is, as a truth standing on its head to attract attention - and examines the drinking of alcohol as a way in which human beings learn more about each other, fellowship, some of the deeper realities, God, and not least themselves.

In this Scruton is a wise philosopher who teaches us how wine cultivates our moral virtue and our civilisation. He encourages us to recognise that stream of liquid descending from our pursed lips into our throat as the red or golden chord that runs from heaven to earth, and binds everything in-between into a cosmic whole. Wine both reflects and helps constitute our participation in all strata of reality, and points the way to our redemption, divine or otherwise.

In Scruton’s Prelude (a musical term, of course) where he quotes Emerson “who commends the great wino Hafiz [a Persian poet] in the following words: “Hafiz praises wines, roses, maidens, boys, birds, mornings and music, to give vent to his immense hilarity and sympathy with every form of beauty and joy.” This is echoed in Scruton’s terms that “by thinking with wine you can learn not merely to drink in thoughts, but think in draughts. Wine, drunk at the right time, in the right place and the right company, is the path to meditation, and the harbinger of peace.”

The book is divided into two parts, labelled ‘I drink’ and ‘therefore I am’ respectively. The second part of the book is more strictly philosophical - Scruton starts it with the nice conceit that ‘therefore I am’ contain the whole of philosophy, each word standing in turn for reason (therefore), consciousness (I) and being (am). But arguably wine and Scruton enthusiasts will probably get more out of the first part.

The first chapter is a nice description of his own discovery of wine as a young man. Warmly written, the chapter is devoted to his friends who made him “fall” for wine (or is it he who made them fall?) and his acquisition of a 1945 Château Lafite, “the greatest year from the greatest of clarets”. His first memories are happy ones of his mother’s home manufacture of elderberry wine in a post-war England where the French (and Spanish and Portuguese) grape had not yet “conquered the suburbs.”

“For three weeks the kitchen was filled with the yeasty scent of fermentation. Little clouds of fruit-flies hung above the jars and here and there wasps would cluster and shimmer on the spilled pools of juice.” Other Englishmen of Scruton’s generation will recognise and sigh at this description as many fathers - including my own - made his own beer and wine from motives of both fun and economy.

Thus ill-equipped, Scruton goes to university ignorant of the rich variety of wines available even then to an English wino. At Cambridge and, later, in Paris, a succession of tutors, patrons, and friends not only introduce him to a growing list of wines but also teach him how to drink them. Some of the wines he is given are complex and expensive Burgundies, others cheap French supermarket vin ordinaire.

But Scruton discovers that all have certain inherent qualities that an educated palate can discover by drinking them attentively and appreciatively. By learning their provenance and history, he enriches his knowledge of the locality that produced the wine — and he can imagine (I would like to believe this is so) that he can glimpse the character of the local people in the wine itself. He learns finally that certain wines go with certain things, not merely certain foods, but certain occasions, certain friends, certain thoughts, even certain topics of conversation. He becomes a wino.

When in his early middle years, Scruton buys a farm in southern England, he discovers to his delight an array of homemade-wine equipment, identical to that of his mother’s elderberry experiments, on the kitchen floor: “I listened to the bubbles as they danced in the valves, and studied the wasp-edged puddles on the tiles. I had come home.” Yet it is a different person who comes home. Scruton celebrates his good fortune not with elderberry wine but by opening and drinking in quiet happiness a treasured bottle of Château Lafite 1945 that had accompanied him in the long wanderings now ended. For, by this time in his life, Scruton is a confirmed Francophile in his drinking tastes.

The chapter ends on a remark concerned with the “new habit, associated with American wine critics like Robert Parker, of assigning points to each bottle” which should not only be “viewed with nothing but contempt” but also compared to “assigning points to symphonies, as though Beethoven’s 7th, Tchaikovsky’s 6th, Mozart’s 39th, Bruckner’s 8th all hovered between 90 and 95.

Perhaps his second chapter ‘A Tour de France’ is the best one. This is a very personal, but informative and interesting, guide to Scruton’s favourite French wine regions. starting in Burgundy, down to the Rhône Valley, the Pyrenees and ending in Bordeaux with T.S. Eliot’s description of a spiritual journey that applies equally to a journey through wine:

We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring

 Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

With much reason, Scruton does not think very highly of blind tasting: “To think that you can judge a wine from its taste and aroma alone is like thinking you can judge a Chinese poem by its sound, without knowing the language.” I let out a whoop of appreciation when I read this. In one clean swoop he casually casts aside the resultant snobbery that comes from the ritualising and self-importance of blind tasting events.

I think blind tasting whilst sincere is also an exercise in showing off. I’m not saying people don’t have a nose for wine or can tell certain elements but blind tasting is not the best way to truly appreciate the full complexity of wine. Indeed in my embryonic wine making experience (by watching my cousins and the managers on our vineyard) I would say terroir is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of wine making and it determines the difference between good wine and a bad one.

It’s great to read that Scruton defines himself as a terroiriste. Not the French word for a terrorist! But a believer in the French word, terroir. It is derived from the Latin word terra meaning earth or land. It’s a word coined by the French to express a wine’s sense of place. There is no English equivalent for this word. It was originally used to distinguish the wine making practices of old world wine. In other words terroir is how a particular region’s climate, soils and aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine alongside the traditions gone into producing the wine. Some regions are said to have more ‘terroir’ than others. Johan Joseph Krug (1800–1866), the famous champagne producer, once suggested that “a good wine comes from a good grape, good vats, a good cellar and a gentleman who is able to coordinate the various ingredients.” No trace of terroir.

But I think Krug is wrong and vintners as well as the wine industry as a whole have come to the same realisation of the importance of terroir. Back in the 1980’s, many of these ‘terroir-driven’ wines were actually affected by wine faults including cork taint and wild yeast growth (brettanomyces). Vines thrive in a range of soil compositions from highly draining granite and schist based soils to limestone and clay and vines, in turn, react to these different soils in different ways. And on top of the differing soils, certain areas of the world have such unique combinations of geology and topography that interact with specific sun exposures that the resulting wines have distinct characteristics that cannot be found anywhere else.

Nowadays terroir is used to describe practically every wine region. Because much of European wine (old world) is steeped in tradition it is easier to get a sense of terroir. It’s a bit harder in a place like Napa or Sonoma (new world) because of the looser laws that govern winemaking but younger winemakers are coming around to the idea of terroir and trying to express the land. But certainly in France today vintners - as they come to increase their geological knowledge and environmental understanding and find ways to marry that to their unique artistry and craft - have realised the unique role terroir plays in the wine making process.

The next chapter looks at wine from “elsewhere:” Here Scruton looks at the Middle-East where wine was born; Greece where Bacchus, Dionysos, and more importantly, Eros used to hover; the United States; Australia, New Zealand and their misspelling of Syrah as Shiraz, the Iranian city of poets, gardens, nightingales and last but not least, wine; a few lines on South Africa, then Italy, Romania and Spain. But “travel narrows the mind, and the further you go the narrower it gets. There is only one way to visit a place with an open mind, and that is in the glass”.

Scruton had already warned the reader in the previous chapter not to read the “elsewhere” chapter: “After punishing body and soul with Australian Shiraz, Argentine Tempranillo, Romanian Cabernet Sauvignon and Greek Retsina, we crawl home like the Prodigal Son and beg forgiveness for our folly. . . [Bordeaux] is the wine that made us and for which we were made, and it often astonishes me to discover that I drink anything else.” I rather fancy he is being tongue in cheek here.

This is for the “I drink” part of the book. Its author then moves to the “therefore I am” part which often needs much deeper philosophical knowledge than perhaps than even your average educated layman might have some difficulty having if they are not versed in a basic understanding of aesthetics as philosophical discussion. But here his aim is to rescue wine from the philosophers and the so-called wine experts.

To those who have never been captivated by the complexity of wine and the way it is bound up with western civilisation, a book on the philosophy of wine might be dismissed as the typical product of conservative snobbery and elitism. But this would be a mistake. Scruton is not a snob about wine (nor, for that matter, about anything else). On the contrary, one of the strongest themes in his writing is his deep love of the everyday, of the simple pleasures of society as he imagined it once to be, where people were at one with the land and with the traditions of their culture. According to Scruton, this is something that (although it probably never existed) should be open to all, but which is being destroyed by the march of modernity. (In a nice aside, he asks: ‘Who am I to stand against the tide of history? Come to think of it, I am the only person I know who does stand against the tide of history’.)

In passing, Scruton evokes the great philosopher Avicenna who lived in Isfahan (Persia) during Islam’s Golden Age (980–1037 AD); he was a wine aficionado who recommended drinking at work defying “the Koranic injunction against wine, citing it as an example of sloppy reasoning,” that does not take into account whether it is a small or a large amount. Scruton (p. 133) also points to the fact that “in surah xvi, verse 7 of the Koran wine is unreservedly praised as one of God’s gifts. As the prophet, burdened by the trials of his Medina exile, became more tetchy, so did his attitude to wine begin to sour, as in Surah v verses 91-92. Muslims believe that the later revelations cancel the earlier, whenever there is a conflict between them. I suspect, however, that God moves in a more mysterious way.”

Scruton is very quite skeptical that the vocabulary used by so-called experts to describe wine is of much help: “If I say of a wine that it has a flowery nose, lingers on the palate, with ripe berry flavours and a hint of chocolate and roasted almonds, then what I say conveys real information, from which someone might be able to construct a sensory image of the wine’s taste. But I have described the taste in terms of other tastes, and not attempted to attach a meaning, a content, or any kind of reference to it. The description I gave does not imply that the wine evokes, means, symbolises or presents the idea of chocolate; and somebody who didn’t hit on this word as a description of the wine’s flavour would not show that he had missed the meaning of what he drank or indeed missed anything important at all. Our experience of wine is bound up with its nature as a drink [which] endows wine with a particular inwardness [and] intimacy with the body [that is not] achieved by any smell, since smell makes no contact with the body at all, but merely enchants without touching, like the beautiful girl at the other end of the party. . . Nothing else that we eat or drink comes to us with such a halo of significance, and by refusing to drink it people send an important message —the message that they do not belong on this earth.”

Again, I found myself saying amen to that.

The good part of the second part is Scruton trying to make a case for the cultural uniqueness of wine. In one sense, Scruton is right to do this: it is undeniable in many parts of western culture, wine has played a unique role in religious and social rituals, which no other drink has. But he can push his point beyond plausibility when he attempts to argue that because of the qualities of wine itself – and what it is to drink it properly – nothing else could play this role (more on this later).

The argument starts well, with a very illuminating discussion of the distinction between the various ways in which a substance can intoxicate. There are those that merely stimulate without altering the mind (like tobacco, for example). Then there are those which have mind-altering effects, but whose consumption itself brings no plea- sure (e.g. heroin). The third category contains those things which alter your mind and bring pleasure in their consumption: cannabis and forms of alcohol other than wine are his examples. Wine, Scruton argues, is in a fourth category of its own: here the alteration of the mind is internally related to the experience of consuming it.

These distinctions are very useful, and the distinction between the third and the fourth category is subtle but certainly real. It relates to the question of what non-human animals can and cannot do. Scruton makes the nice observation that an animal cannot savour wine (or any- thing else). In being able to savour or relish the taste of wine, a person no more separates out the effect of the wine from its taste than they can separate the meaning of a piece of music from its sound. Although one would not realise this from reading the thousands of words that are written daily about wine, wine would not be the drink it is if it did not intoxicate.

The last two chapters deal respectively with wine and whine, and being and bingeing. Though Scruton has something to say in favour of Puritanism, he castigates the ease with which “puritan outrage [and in particular, prohibition, but also sexual behaviour] can be displaced from one topic to another, and the equal ease with which the thing formerly disapproved of can be overnight exonerated from all taint of sin.”

He vehemently protests against “the humourless mullahs,” and the misuse of drinking, but also rejects the idea that fermented drinks are just shots of alcohol, and insists on their social functions across civilisations and time: “The burden of my arguments is that we can defend the drinking of wine, only if we see that it is a culture, and that this culture has a social, outward-going, other-regarding meaning. . . When people sit down together sipping drinks, they rehearse in their souls the original act of settlement, the act that set our species on the path of civilisation, and which endowed us with the order of neighbourhood and the rule of law.” But he has not much against drinking alone, and ends with a few words from the Chinese poet Li Po (700 BC), the same poet whom Mahler used in his Lied von der Erde (though in a very approximate translation):

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. 

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three men.

Scruton points out in several brilliant passages, the prohibitionist, like the modern day Islamists and moral police in the West and the all too familiar binge-drinker are alike in their ignorance of the virtue of “temperance.” They can envisage no stopping place between abstention and alcoholism. Their absolutist logic, he argues, is like objecting to a first kiss on the grounds that it will one day lead to a divorce. And neither can really understand drinking for any reason other than to get drunk.

Scruton confirms the wider value of temperance in our lives: “Virtue should be cast in human form if it is to be humanly achievable. Saints, monks, and dervishes may practice total abstinence; but to believe that abstinence is the only way to virtue is to condemn the rest of mankind. Better to propose the way of moderation, and live thereby on friendly terms with your species.”

As it happens, the occasional bender may actually have therapeutic qualities in moderation (i.e., if indulged in infrequently). George Orwell, who can hardly be accused of lacking a puritanical streak, thought that people should get drunk every six months or so. The experience, he thought, shook one out of one’s regular complacency and could be compared in this to a weekend abroad. Certainly it very often produces a feeling of greater humility in those who can remember what happened. Yet getting drunk is something that most drinkers do very rarely, if at all.

Changing our mood and outlook is a very different matter. Under the influence of a moderate amount of alcohol, our inhibitions are loosened. Shy people become bold, the tongue-tied talkative, the dull lively, the unimaginative fanciful, and the isolated social. (Even “mean drunks” usually start the evening in festive and forgiving mood.)

That last loss of inhibition is the most important because it promotes the fellowship that is the basis of a decent society. Not all intoxicants perform this vital function. Cannabis and similar drugs tend, if anything, to imprison the taker within his own consciousness (however expanded it may seem to him in his dreams). Except for those who lose themselves in alcoholism (and consequently become asocial in their attempts to deceive others about their condition), however, alcohol is a profoundly social drug. At the same time, not all varieties of alcohol are equally social in their effect. This thought leads Scruton to narrow somewhat the scope of his enthusiasm. Having rejected teetotalism, he continues: “The real question, I suggest, is not whether intoxicants, but which. And - while all intoxicants disguise things - some (wine preeminently) also help us to confront them by presenting them in re-imagined and idealised forms.”

Scruton makes a fascinating and intriguing point related to our historical relationship with the vine to make wine the highest ideal form. He claims that wine derives from a crucial historical transition in our relation to the earth – when human beings settled, put down roots and stopped being mere hunter-gatherers. In a memorable phrase, Scruton claims that in this way wine celebrates ‘the earth itself, as the willing accomplice in our bid to stay put.’ But of course one could say similar things about distilled spirits and beer. Such drinks are not made in such an incredible variety as wine is, but Scruton’s point is not about variety but about the intrinsic and relational qualities of the drink itself.

In the end, one cannot help feeling that he is relying a little too much on the sheer panache of his writing to help his argument bounce along: ‘Wine is not simply a shot of alcohol, or a mixed drink. It is a transformation of the grape. The transformation of the soul under its influence is merely the continuation of another transformation that began maybe fifty years earlier when the grape was first plucked from the vine.’ Wine is a transformation of the grape, to be sure. And the mind or soul is transformed in its consumption. But these two transformations are so very different that it is hard to see what can literally be meant by the one being the continuation of the other.

In fact, Scruton’s view is not just that wine is unique as a stimulant, but that it has to be drunk in a particular way in order for the harmony of taste and intoxication to take hold. It is not hard to agree with Scruton’s argument that there are more or less civilised ways of drinking wine. And this part of his thesis is very plausible: ‘The burden of my argument is ... that we can defend the drinking of wine, only if we see that it is part of a culture, and that this culture has a social outward-going, other-regarding meaning. The new uses of wine point towards excess and addiction: they are moving away from the old way of drinking, in which wine was relished and savoured, to the form of drinking typified by Marmeladov, who clutches his bottle in a condition of need.’

However I still found all this a tad unconvincing in that he makes a case that only the savouring and relishing of wine can play a central cultural role as opposed to other spirits - think of Scotch whisky for the Scots and beer for much of Northern Europe or even tea(!) for the English. So my apologies to Roger Scruton but I remain sceptical of his argument that of all stimulants, wine is uniquely civilising, however much I want it to be true.

I think Scruton is also wrong to despise cocktails. A well-made cocktail is as complex a set of taste experiences as a good Bordeaux. A good-strength cocktail is the perfect prelude to the theatre, giving one exactly the right lift to help the play to entertain, but not suppressing one’s appetite long enough to spoil a post-theatre dinner. It can be the booster rocket that starts a convivial evening. But the cocktail has its limits. The alcoholic strength of most cocktails reduces their usefulness both as an aid to sustained fruitful conviviality and to the kind of imaginative introspection that Scruton thinks necessary for a happy life.

That aside, Scruton knows that the best (including Li Po’s poetry) should be kept for the very end. The bouquet (of the wine, but in French the word is also used for the finishing of a firework) comes with the Appendix: What to drink with what, though here the second what does not stand for food, but for philosophers. This part of the book I very nearly coughed up my wine as I found it terribly amusing to pair a suitable wine, as one would with food, to a philosopher one might be reading.

St Augustine: Drink a glass of Moroccan Cabernet Sauvignon, though “the City of God requires many sittings, and I regard it as one of the rare occasions when a drinking person might have legitimate recourse to a glass of lager [which I did in Odessa, while reading Scruton], putting the book to one side just as soon as the glass is finished” [which I did not do, since I had three glasses, each of which containing half a liter].

Francis Bacon: “Any discussion of his insights should, I think, proceed by the comparative method. I suggest opening six bottles of a single varietal��say Cabernet Franc- one from the Loire, one from California, one from Moravia, one from Hungary, and if you can find two other places where it is grown successfully you will already have given some proof of the inductive method—and then pretending to compare and contrast, taking notes in winespeak, while downing the lot.”

René Descartes: “As the thinker who came nearest, prior to the Monty Python, to stumbling on the title of [my] book, Descartes deserves a little recognition. . . He has ended up as the most overrated philosopher in history, famous for arguments that begin from nothing and go nowhere. I would suggest a deep dark Rhône wine [that] will compensate for the thinness of the Meditations.”

Baruch Spinoza: “The last time that I understood what Spinoza meant by an attribute it was with a glass of red Mercurey, Les Nauges 1999. Unfortunately, I took another glass before writing down my thoughts and have never been able to retrieve them.”

Immanuel Kant: “And when it comes to [his] Critique of the Judgment, I find myself trying out [several wines], without getting any close to Kant’s proof that the judgment is universal but subjective, or his derivation of the ‘antinomy of taste’— surely one of his most profound and troubling paradoxes, and one that must yield to the argument contained in wine if it yields to anything.”

Friedrich Nietzsche: “Although we should drink to the author of The Birth of the Tragedy, therefore, it should be with a thin, hypochondriac potion, maybe a finger of Beaujolais in a glass topped up with soda-water.”

Edmund Husserl: “I recommend three glasses of slivovitz from Husserl’s native Moravia, one to give courage, one to swallow down the jargon, and one to pour over the page.”

Jean-Paul Sartre: “Sartre’s great work of philosophy, L’être et le néant, introduces the Nothingness that haunts all that he wrote and said. . . If ever I were to read Sartre again, I would look for a 1964 Burgundy to wash the poison down. Small chance of finding one, however, so there is one great writer whom I shall never again revisit—and I thank God for it.”

Martin Heidegger: “What potion to complement the philosopher who told us that ‘nothing noths’? To raise an empty glass to one’s lips, and to feel it as it travels down—noth, noth, noth, the whole length of the tube: this surely is an experience to delight the real connoisseur.”

In conclusion I really enjoyed reading this book (again and again).

This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves wine and wants to try identify what, in all its complex connections with so much of what is valuable in civilisation, might be special about drinking it. I think he does a wonderful job in looking at the philosophical and religious questions related to wine, from the Koranic injunction against alcohol to the true nature of temperance. These questions take us far from the vineyard at times, making excursions into terroir as different as Wagnerian music dramas and the philosophical nature of smells. His arguments as well as his beautiful prose are fresh, original, teasingly provocative, but also joyous.

This book is only about 224 pages but fun to read either in one sitting or dipping in and out at pleasurable intervals.

There are pages of useful advice on what wine to buy that are also glimpses into what to look for in the wine. I think his recommendations are good ones even if he leans too heavily into French wines. As someone who co-owns a vineyard I can say with reasonable confidence that I know my French wines but also wine from South Africa but confess my ignorance of wines from the new world such as California or Chilean wines. But I see that as an opportunity to discover rather than stay in my comfort zone. Here Scruton gently prods you along to do just that.

As an aside Scruton, who never shies away from his staunchly conservative Tory beliefs, perhaps forget to mention one juicy vignette in that Karl Marx’s political and philosophical ideas were probably inspired by wine. Indeed Karl Marx’s family were the happy owners of a vineyard in Trier, a small affluent Rhineland city, on the rolling hills of the Mosel River Valley. The family sold it due to hard times. Then as now these vineyards of the Mosel Valley remain mostly small-scale, are still known for their fruity white wines, and especially their lemony Rieslings and agrotourism. It seems the politics of wine (tariffs and import taxes) played a larger role in the history of leftist thought than their quaint appearance might suggest. In the early 1840s, the economic struggles of these very vineyards inspired Marx to criticise the draconian Prussian government - and in the process, some historians argue, begin developing the theory of historical materialism for which he is best known. In fact there is a delightful book I can recommend written by Jens Baumeister called, ‘How Wine Made Karl Marx a Communist’ (2018) if anyone is interested in reading more about that.

Of course it’s always hard to know how seriously one is supposed to take Scruton in some of his more extravagant comments in the book, like many things he says in his other books: ‘you could say that wine is probably as old as civilisation; I prefer to say that it is civilisation, and that the distinction between civilised and uncivilised countries is the distinction between the places where it is drunk and the places where it isn’t.’ His desire to outrage and court controversy rises to the surface, and can result in some of the funniest moments in the book. But as with everything he writes, some of Scruton’s claims must be taken with a pinch of salt or more appropriately, with a glass of claret.

Indeed I prefer to picture his words as if he was one’s old and familiar drinking companion sitting on weather beaten leather chairs and making provocative but teasingly good natured remarks out of a desire to amuse rather than to be boorish or loutish. Indeed this book is best enjoyed with a glass of wine on hand whilst sitting on a comfy old worn out leather chair curled next to log burning fire as the light dims outside.

I would whole heartedly agree with Roger Scruton that wine is a “drink that causes you to smile at the world and the world to smile at you.” Instead of imprisoning you inside a solitary introspection, it takes you out of yourself - and your ideas with you - to mingle with others and their ideas. Wine is therefore a voyage of discovery - and rediscovery - in many senses. And for this I can happily raise my own glass and say amen to that.

But what glass of wine would I raise when reading Scruton’s own book?

Well, one bottle won’t do. So temperance is out of the window then - sorry Roger. You will need a good French Sauternes or Barsac (preferably 2014) with the nostalgic autobiography, a finely bodied Bordeaux wine (I would go with a more complex wine from Saint Emilion) with the philosophy section of the book, and a champagne (of course) to drink with the philosophical jokes towards the end of the book.

Oh go on then, finish off with a tipple of Cognac before bed time, I am sure Scruton wouldn’t begrudge anyone that pleasure.

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theliberaltony · 3 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

It’s official: For only the fourth time in U.S. history, a state will hold an election on whether to recall its governor midterm. The long-expected gubernatorial recall election in California is set for Sept. 14, and 46 candidates (not including the governor himself, Democrat Gavin Newsom) have officially qualified to run. But perhaps the most intriguing development in the race has come in recent polling. After the recall looked uncompetitive for months, evidence has emerged that the race is tightening.

Until last week, there had been no new polls of the recall election in about a month. But since then, we’ve gotten two — and both showed Newsom in danger of being recalled. First, an Emerson College/Nexstar Media survey found that 48 percent of registered voters in California wanted to keep Newsom in office, while 43 percent wanted to recall him. Then, a poll from the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times found that 50 percent of likely recall voters wanted to keep Newsom and 47 percent wanted to oust him. These fresh polls — both within the margin of error — differed markedly from a handful of surveys released in May and June that found the recall effort trailing by at least 10 percentage points.

Who casts a ballot in this unusually timed election could be pivotal. The UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll underscored why: Among registered voters, Republicans were far more likely to say they’d vote than Democrats or independents. Eighty percent of Republican registered voters said they were absolutely certain to vote, compared with only 55 percent of Democrats and about half of independents. As such, likely voters were opposed to removing Newsom by only 3 points, while the spread was much wider among all registered voters — 51 percent were opposed to removing him compared with just 36 percent in favor (in line with the pollster’s findings in early May and late January). In fact, Republicans’ enthusiasm for this race is so high that they make up roughly one-third of the survey’s likely electorate, even though they constitute only about one-quarter of California’s registered voters.

Irregularly timed elections, like a gubernatorial recall held in September of an odd year, can produce unexpected results and lopsided electorates. However, there’s one reason why that might not happen in this race: California has extended its pandemic-inspired election-law changes that require ballots to be automatically mailed to all active registered voters through the end of 2021. Mail elections don’t inherently help the Democratic Party, but studies have found that they do increase turnout, which could help insulate Newsom from a scenario where only his most fervent opponents bother to cast a ballot.

It’s tempting to point to COVID-19 as the chief cause for why Newsom is in hot water since the pandemic helped galvanize the recall effort in the first place. The highly contagious delta variant has led to an uptick in cases of COVID-19 in California, and Newsom is now weighing whether to impose statewide restrictions, which could further energize his opposition. (Los Angeles County has already reinstated an indoor mask mandate.) The governor has also had disputes with teachers unions and school administrators over the reopening of schools, and many Californians are still frustrated by the state’s continually changing vaccination-distribution plan. Yet Newsom’s handling of the pandemic might not be his biggest liability. A slightly greater share of likely voters in the Berkeley poll agreed with the statement that Newsom should be recalled “because he has failed to adequately address many of the state’s longstanding problems,” such as homelessness, income inequality and wildfires (48 percent), than agreed with the statement that he should be recalled “because he greatly overstepped his authority as governor when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic” (44 percent).1

In other words, California voters may be displeased with conditions related to COVID-19, but other problems in the state are troubling them, too. Thus, the pandemic may not be solely responsible for what we’ve seen in the polls.

For his part, Newsom is painting the recall as a contest between him and a rash of Trump-supporting Republicans (for instance, the governor has tried to pin the growing number of COVID-19 cases on Republicans and conservative media and their misinformation on vaccines). But this strategy may be complicated by a judge’s ruling on July 12 that Newsom won’t be listed as a Democrat on the official recall ballot.2 Most Californians are probably aware that Newsom is a Democrat, but having his party affiliation spelled out in black and white could have helped him on the margins in this very blue state.

Recent developments in the recall haven’t been all bad news for Newsom. Crucially, his efforts to discourage other prominent Democrats from running in the recall seem to have paid off. Of the 46 candidates running to replace him, only nine are Democrats — and none are established politicians. By contrast, 24 Republican candidates are in the race, as well as two Green Party candidates, one Libertarian Party candidate and 10 independents. This means that, in the event that Newsom is recalled, it’s very likely a Republican will win the race to replace him (the second question on the recall ballot).

If California does get a new governor, which Republican is it likely to be? According to both recent polls, conservative talk-radio host Larry Elder has the most support (16 percent per Emerson, 18 percent per Berkeley). Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and perennial candidate John Cox make up the second tier, each receiving 6 percent in the Emerson survey and 10 percent in the Berkeley poll. Reality-TV star Caitlyn Jenner, despite getting a lot of media coverage, barely registered in either poll. At this point, though, the race is still very fluid, with the plurality of voters (53 percent per Emerson, 40 percent per Berkeley) still undecided on who should replace Newsom.

And, of course, that question will only come into play if Newsom is recalled. The latest polls suggest real danger for Newsom, but he’s still not in the same troubled territory Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was back in 2003, when Californians voted by 11 points to recall him from office. Surveys conducted around the same time in that election cycle found Davis in very bad shape: The vote to recall him led by about 20 points or more in most surveys, and his approval rating was in the 20s. By comparison, Californians are more inclined to retain Newsom, and they tend to approve of his job performance somewhat more than they disapprove (among registered voters, the Emerson and Berkeley polls put Newsom’s job approval at about 50 percent and disapproval at 42 percent).

Still, Newsom clearly has his work cut out to raise Democratic interest in the recall vote. And if he fails on that front, an unusual off-year electorate might be just Republican-leaning enough to boot him out of office.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #405

“today i went to therapy, told him the embarrassing issues that i’m having with my life / he told me that i need to change; life is not a video game, so stop playing & open up your eyes”

What was your favourite sweet as a child? Things like Baby Bottle Pops, Ring Pops, Airheads, etc. Do you like to wear socks to bed? NOOOOOOO. I don't wear socks unless I have to. What’s your favourite berry? Strawberries. If you have a job, how long is your shift? I don't. Do you like sunflowers? Well yeah. Are you counting down for anything? No. Are you watching TV? What’s on? No. Do you have make-up on? No. I haven't worn makeup since last October. Are you any good with kids? People have told me I am, but I beg to differ. What if you had a baby with the last person you kissed? We're both cisgender women, we physically couldn't. Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years time? It'd be nice honestly, but I kinda doubt I will be. What is your favorite card game? Magic: The Gathering. What is the weirdest thing you’ve done in public? Ha, probably the times I've gotten down on the ground beside the road to photograph roadkill... More than once has someone stopped and asked if I was okay, haha. Favorite sleeping position? Twisted half on my side and stomach with my legs just sorta splayed out. What is your dad’s name? Ken. Have you ever been on a diet? Multiple times. Do you own any jersey shirts? No. Are you proud to be of the nationality you are? There are two moods I have on this: I'm either neutral or embarrassed. Can you remember what you last clapped for? Omg the woman who facilitates my TMS treatment was telling Mom and me about this one time a tiny snake got in the lobby and I did a lil squeal and clapped a bit because I was just excited to hear about a little snake, haha. What is the geekiest part of your music collection? *shrug* Maybe game soundtrack music. What do you eat when you raid the fridge late at night? Well, not really the fridge, but w/e. I'll usually get a granola bar or something of the sort. What is the little physical habit that gives away you're insecure moment? Kneading/wringing my hands together is a dead giveaway. Do you have too many love interests? No. How much money would it take to get you to give up the Internet for one year? If you want honesty... probably no amount would lmao. I rely way too heavily on the Internet for so many things. Do you talk a lot? It depends on my mood and who I'm around. Do transient, homeless, or starving people sometimes annoy you? What a fucking awful question. They don't annoy me. It can be awkward driving past them, but they're in no way annoying. Do you consider yourself to be a nice person? I definitely try to be. What is your ideal marriage location? Either a gothic-looking mansion or something of the sort or a wooded area in the fall. Do you tell your friends about your sex life? I don't have one to talk about. Would you ever admit to having done plastic surgery of any kind if confronted? Yeah? No shame. What kind of watch(es) do you wear? I don't wear watches. What do you cook the best? My family likes my scrambled cheesy eggs... basic as that is, haha. When my sisters would go to Taco Bell all the time and save the hot sauces for later use, I would use some packets in the eggs I cooked. Honestly amazing. What's one car you will never buy? "Anything that is two door, or low to the ground." <<<< This right here. On the other end of the spectrum, I also won't ever buy a car that's high up. I need a good medium so I can actually get in with ease. What's one thing you're a sore loser at? Hm, I dunno. What kind of first impression do you think you give to people? "Wow, she's awkward." What's one thing you like to do alone? Draw. When's the last time you cried? Not long ago at all because I was just so exasperated over my weight gain. Do you think you're cute? God no. Do you have problems changing clothes in front of friends? I don't change in front of anyone if I can avoid it. Did you like kissing the last person you kissed or the one before that more? The last person. I gotta say I was not a fan of kissing Girt because for whatever reason his lips were ALWAYS wetter than lips naturally should be and I just didn't dig it, man. That and every kiss with him was awkward. Whose bed other than yours did you last lay on? My mom's. What turns you off immediately? Acting sexist, to name one. Which city do you particularly enjoy visiting and for what reasons? I don't like going into cities. Do you often take pictures with the camera on your phone? No. I don't like the camera on my phone. In the past year, have you lost weight or gained weight? How much? Gained. You don't need to know. What year was the last car you rode in/drove? I have zero clue. What’s your worst/funniest experience with one of your neighbors? "Worst" and "funniest" are very different... but I can tell you the worst easily. At my childhood home, our next-door neighbors had a pair of Rottweilers in their back yard within a chain-link fence, and we had a LOT of outdoor cats at the time. (I will emphasize every time I bring it up to NOT keep cats outside.) Somehow the dogs got loose and went on a rampage trying to kill our cats; one young one was killed, while our fearless mother cat, Chance, literally fought them off to defend her new kittens. More were maybe killed, I honestly can't remember. My mom was hysterical and threatened to call animal control if it ever happened again. I was absolutely, utterly heartbroken. The last time you burned your tongue or mouth, what were you eating? Ummm I want to say it was some sort of pasta that I didn't let cool long enough. Honestly, are you shallow? Far from it, honestly. Can/could your parents tell when you were lying? Not always. Besides clothes, shoes, and accessories, what’s your favorite thing to shop for? I love window-shopping at Morph Market, haha. AAAAAAAAAALL those ball python morphs, man... *drools* Does/did your parents ever go through your computer or cell phone? When I was younger, Mom was very intent on figuring out why I was always so secretive about what I did on the computer (mostly RP-related things) that ohhhh yeah, she'd do some digging. The night she finally snapped, demanding I tell her my passwords to everything, and she ultimately found out about me being a forum RPer, was literally almost traumatic to me, I think. I know, that sounds INCREDIBLY overdramatic, but I'm not fucking joking. I was in my room SOBBING on my best friend's shoulder, who was spending the night. I was just so embarrassed, and I *still* am when I share that fact with people I know, even though I have no reason to be. Like I don't do any weird or kinky RP shit, it's just genuine, artistic writing with actual, well thought-out plots, but I still feel like people would think it dumb, childish, and just weird. What song reminds you the most of a particular day in your life? Why is that? "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. I've talked about it a few times before and really don't feel like doing it again. Do you have any close friends that were adopted? I don't think so. Who, in your opinion, is the best thriller writer? I don't know. Does your mom eat meat? Yeah. Was your dad ever on a sports team? Lots in high school, I believe. Do you prefer thick or thin crusted pizza? Thick, by a long shot. What do you have in your fruit salads? Not a fan of fruit salads. Have you ever spent more than two weeks in a wheelchair? I've only needed a wheelchair once in my life, and that was just to get inside and maneuver around the doctor's office when I tore a ligament in my foot. So no. What are your favorite word? Serendipity, tranquility, lucid, etc.; pretty, peaceful words like those. Is there a lot of drama in your life? Nope. I don't do enough or have enough people in my life for there to be. What are you listening to? An extended version of "Nightsong" from WoW. Do you hear any animals right now? No. I'm sure I'd hear birds if I didn't have my earplugs in, though. Have you ever played fetch with a dog? Yes. Have you ever pet a stingray? No. Who is the last baby you held? Emerson, my youngest niece. Do you have any scars from an animal? Yeah; I've got looooots from my cat playing too rough. Have you ever seen an Igloo? I don't believe so. Do you like Korn? They're high on my list of faves. Are you more afraid of tornadoes or hurricanes? Absolutely tornadoes. Do you like mushrooms? Ugh, NO. Have you ever been on Omegle? No. So do you have a favorite M&M? Just the regular ones. Have you ever snuck out? No. Do you currently feel like you have pretty stable career goals/a pretty stable life plan? Have you ever felt this way? I don't know, man. I know what I WANT to do, I just don't know if I'm ever going to get there. Or if what I want will be financially supportive enough, now that I'm really losing interest in photographing people. I might just have to if I want to be financially stable with photography, which would be okay, but bleh. I'd much rather just work with nature. If you could buy an android that was was convincingly human and could be tailored to be your perfect partner, would you want one? No. I don't want to build my own partner, nor do I want my romantic partner to be an android. I want life to just introduce me to a person who is uniquely themselves, who have built themselves from their own life experiences, and not just have a perfect spouse tailored to everything I like. If you do not identify as being “straight,” can you remember back to your childhood some things you did that were, in hindsight, possible indicators of your future sexuality? Yes, especially in middle school. I thought women were prettier than probably a straight kid would, and looking back, I definitely found the natural curves of the female figure to be attractive. When you consume media (movies, books, etc.) with a romantic element, what sort of romance scenarios interest you most? Hm. I know I prefer serious ones over silly; like I'm a sucker for Nicholas Sparks' style, if that says anything. If you are female, do you feel connected to other women as a class? What sort of things make you feel a strong sense of sisterhood or female empowerment? This is too big of a question for me to feel like delving into right now, haha. But I can say it more so depends on the individual than the gender when it comes to feeling connection over anything.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''game over'' by falling in reverse

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profiler-in-courage · 4 years

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So I started writing a story about a police detective and pictured Claes Bang playing him and now I’m SIX chapters deep.

For those of you that wanted me to post it, here is the first chapter. It’s long I’m sorry!

Chapter 1.

Emerson Woods sucked his hazelnut iced latte out of the green straw, while he simultaneously flicked his thumb over women’s Tinder profiles who were somewhere between 30 and 45. He was a hip cop.

Detective actually, 10 years. He had made detective when he was just 35 years old.

And look at me now, he thought.

Forty-five and single, he had somewhat ashamedly resorted to making a profile on a “dating” website. His niece had told him about it. Which to him was even more pathetic. His niece was 16.

He sighed as he closed the app. What was he doing?

He glanced out his car window and scratched the side of his face. If you wanted to get technical, he was sitting in his silver ’63 Karmann Coupe Porsche. No, not bought from a detective’s salary, an inheritance from his father.

Emerson was on what the movies call a stake-out, but what anyone in law enforcement calls boredom. It’s not like TV. Nothing ever comes from sitting in your car for hours in the middle of the night, at least not in his experience. And there weren’t even donuts.

Well, at least he had coffee.

There had been a series of disappearances in the Connecticut city of Creekmore. All had been women, all from different parts of the city, from low income to high-income parts of town. They had been different ages as well. The oldest fifty-three, the youngest four. It had been going on for a few months now. No leads.

Emerson sighed, debating whether or not to open up the Tinder app again. It was nearing 11 pm, and he was tired. And bored.

The Creekmore Police Department had officers sitting in every neighborhood in the city, wary that since the last disappearance had taken place a little over five months ago. Whoever was abducting these women was due to strike again.

He was stationed in a residential middle-class neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood he would’ve liked to live in. Once upon a time.

Trees lined the sidewalk along with painted white houses with dark roofs and watered grass. The typical picturesque street.

He pressed his thumb over the red and white app.

Kristy, age 39, occupation: elementary school teacher.

Among her list of things she liked to do was:

Hit the bar for a night on the town.

He swiped left. He didn’t drink.

Emerson thought back to the last time he had tasted alcohol. A year after his wife died, which had been eight years ago.

He hadn’t taken her death well.

Who takes death well? he thought.

He supposed a better way to put it was he took it with a bottle of bourbon every day for a year.

Lyla had been 32 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. It didn’t take long.

Every time he heard the term he felt a silent rage build up inside him. Cancer felt like it had escaped a life sentence because of a technicality.

Emerson gritted his teeth. Eight years later, he had made peace with the death of his wife but not with the fact that cancer was still incurable.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, flecks of grey scattered throughout it.

11:30 pm.

His hazel eyes flicked back down to his phone screen. He rubbed the side of his Warby Parker Haskell frames.

He had paused on a picture.

The image of a woman with dark brown hair and even darker brown eyes. He pressed on it.

Gwyn, 33, occupation: artist.

Her bio stated:

Please don’t use slang and conduct your sentences like you’re somewhat educated. If you want a response.

The corner of Emerson’s mouth tugged up into a smirk. It was something he could’ve written himself.

He swiped right.

He had a moment of regret only for a second when he wondered if 33 was too young for him. He mentally shrugged.

11:49

He was beginning to yawn now. Bored with sitting in his car, bored with his bachelor style life. He turned the keys in the ignition, about to press his foot to the gas pedal, but stopped.

He had to stay. He had orders to until sunrise. Though no one would know if he left.

You can’t, he thought.

However bored this stake-out was making him, his morals wouldn’t let him leave. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened. And with his luck it would.

He dropped the keys back into his shirt pocket.

His center console buzzed. His phone had vibrated. Gwyn had matched with him.

Emerson wondered if he should send her a message, or wait. His usual style was to wait. He had been using Tinder for a month and while he had sent the occasional message, the conversation had never gone anywhere. People didn’t know how to talk anymore.

Through the conversations that had gone on for more than three days, came dinner dates. Three women so far, all had led to nothing except him buying their meal.

Not that he was looking for casual sex. He wasn’t, he just wanted to find someone he wanted to date. And more importantly, that wanted to date him.

He’d found that a lot of women didn't fancy the idea of dating a police detective.

He didn’t know if he should find that concerning or not.

He swiped over to his own profile.

Emerson, 45, occupation: police detective, likes reading, people who know how to use their indoor voice, and the handful of people who take this app seriously. My niece says my style is professor-chique with a hint of cowboy.

The pictures he had of himself on there consisted of two selfies. One with glasses, one without. One clean shaven, one with scruff. Different light-colored button-up shirts. He figured he’d keep it simple.

He went to his phone’s weather app. It was currently 48 degrees. He could feel the cold settling into his car. The sweater and blazer he thought would be enough, apparently wasn’t.

His boots were doing nothing for warmth either but he had refused to go around wearing those clunky winter boots people on the East Coast seemed to love. He’d stick with his square-toed Ariats.

Probably should have went with hot coffee instead of iced, he thought.

To take his mind off the cold, he began running it over the case. The only thing that connected the eight women who had disappeared was that they were all female. The pattern in which the killer chose, was hardly even a pattern. One a week, age of the victim varied. Sometimes it was back to back adult women, sometimes a woman then a young girl. All from different areas, all different races. Frustrating.

He worried about his niece. If it were up to him, he would be sitting outside of her house. Headstrong, fearless, sixteen, no regard for her curfew. His sister had her hands full with Abigail. Detective Burnham, his best friend, was stationed around his sister’s neighborhood.

They will be fine, he thought.

Still, it didn’t stop his brain from depicting scenarios. He had experienced tragedy once, there was no rule that said it couldn’t happen to him again.

After Lyla died he had moved from San Antonio to Creekmore to be closer to his sister and Abigail. They were the only family he had.

He pulled up Abigail’s contact and typed a text message.

I’m assuming that since you are in high school, you are still awake at this hour?

The bubbles that meant she was typing popped up.

I’m safe in my bed, not abducted Uncle Emerson.

He smiled, she was intuitive. And for once not out partying. The stories his sister Eve had told him, it almost made him glad he didn’t have children. But not quite.

Abigail was typing again.

So…any new matches?!

Since she had persuaded him to download Tinder, she had amusingly become interested in his personal life.

He remembered her saying something along the lines of,

“Stop being a stereotypical lonely detective and get yourself a love interest!”

Emerson responded.

One. Go to sleep. School tomorrow.

He could picture her rolling her eyes as she read it.

His phone vibrated. Gwyn had sent him a message,

G: Hi Emerson.

That was it?

Though something about the simplicity of the message intrigued him. No one had said a simple “Hi,” to him on here, they usually began with,

“What’s up.”

Or,

“What are you doing?”

Somehow this felt more personal. More genuine.

E: Hi Gwyn.

He had faith that sending an equally simple response wouldn’t stop her from sending him another message.

As another one from her popped up, his phone rang. It was his precinct chief.

“Woods, get to Wilshire as soon as you can. We have bodies.”

He clenched his teeth. He had a bad feeling.

Even when called to a homicide the chief always had some sly remark or joke about Emerson’s whereabouts and why he wasn’t already at the scene.

This time there had been nothing. Only a quick order.

He put his keys in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

As Emerson drove down the barren streets his stomach started to churn. He felt sick almost, like the sort of feeling you get when you’ve eaten something that’s been sitting out for a while.

That happened to him sometimes. Though only when something really bad was about to happen. It was like his own version of seeing the future.

It had happened the day his wife had told him about her breast cancer, the day his parents had been in an accident, but never before seeing a body.

He was good with crime scenes, even the really gristly ones.

So why did he have this feeling?

He pulled up to the yellow caution tape and walked out to where he saw the chief and Detective Rawley standing. Wilshire was on the outskirts of town, the street was in between two fields that went on for a couple of miles.

This is weird, he thought.

All of the other bodies that had been found had been in the city.

Just as Emerson was thinking they might not be victims of the town serial killer, the chief caught his eye.

No, it’s him.

“Woods,” the chief nodded in greeting.

Rawley looked up at Emerson in uninterested acknowledgment.

“Chief…..Rawley,” Emerson nodded to each of them.

He hadn’t even seen the bodies yet and Emerson was already in a bad mood. He couldn’t stand Rawley. Arrogant, rude, loud. All qualities he despised.

He stepped over the marshy parts of the field to get to where the tarps were covering the victims.

“What do we know?” Emerson asked, as he lifted up one of the tarps.

It was a female, white, blonde, age anywhere between 13-17 he would guess.

“First one is Halley Reece, age 15. Judging from the backpack it looks like she has been missing since school got out this afternoon,” said Chief.

Emerson lifted the tarp on the other. Female, white, brunette, same age range.

Chief sighed, “Her friend is Melanie Myers. Fifteen, also looks like she had been missing only since this afternoon. Both of their ID cards say they went to Creekmore High.”

Emerson’s eyes wound over their bodies, studying where the blood had pooled.

“Stab wounds cause of death?” he asked.

“Yes, different from last week,” Chief answered.

That was another erratic thing about the killer, his methods were all over the place.

One week it was stabbings, the next it was gunshots or strangelings. But always female. That was the only constant.

“Dude must have a bad ex-wife for him to hate women this much,” Rawley joked.

Emerson rolled his eyes.

“Do we have someone talking to their families?” he asked.

Chief nodded, “I have the patrol cops who found them handling it.”

That was the one thing Emerson did not miss whatsoever about being a beat cop, being the first to inform next of kin.

He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose,

“Have forensics been here yet?”

Chief let out a curt laugh, “Are you kidding? You know how long those guys take. I swear they intentionally wait 20 minutes before getting their asses out here.”

Emerson glanced at his watch, it was almost 1 am. He was tired and wanted to go home. If forensics hadn’t even been here yet and patrol were taking to the families, there was really nothing he could do right now.

And my stomach hurts

He couldn’t shake the doom feeling. He needed to sleep it off.

“Anything else Chief? I should get home and start looking over the case files, see if anything matches up.”

Lies

Chief said he could leave and he would see him tomorrow. Emerson quickly evaded the muddy puddles and headed back to his car before Rawley could say some gaudy remark about going home and fucking one of his many one night stands.

How the chief put up with him he would never know.

Emerson pulled into his driveway and just sat in the car for a moment. Thinking.

He still had that feeling in his stomach and he knew it was because of the killings.

They were speeding up. It had started as one every couple months, then went to one every couple weeks, and now it seemed like it was one or two every week.

With no leads.

The killer left absolutely nothing behind. No prints, no hair, no signatures.

Nothing.

At this rate, the whole city would be dead in a couple years if they didn’t catch him. The town was in a cloud of panic.

It was mind boggling. Stomach churning.

He grabbed his phone from the center console and went inside. By the time he showered and got into bed it was nearing 2 am. His stomach hadn’t stopped hurting yet either.

As he leaned over to set his phone on the nightstand, he remembered he had gotten a message from Gwyn right before Chief had called him.

He opened up Tinder.

G: Inside voices huh? What about when in bed?

He smirked.

E: If the bed is inside the rule still applies.

He saw message bubbles pop up.

G: Hmmm so you’re a whisper in the ear kind of guy? I like that. Takes the pressure off having to fake it, or having to scream, “YES ALL POWERFUL WIZARD WIELD THAT STAFF!”

Emerson raised his eyebrows.

E: Have you actually said that before?

While he waited for her reply he checked the local news. The story hadn’t broken yet.

G: Never let a friend drag you to a World of Warcraft singles mixer. Also, never sleep with someone from said mixer.

He scratched his nose, he wasn’t that great at banter but Gwyn’s easy going humor made it a little less challenging for him.

E: Are you not someone from said mixer?

This was certainly the most interesting conversation to come from Tinder.

G: No, I was dragged there, against my free will. Come to think of it, you should probably arrest the woman who dragged me there.

Emerson chuckled.

E: I would say I need a warrant but I think this is grounds for an exception to the law.

G: Thank you.

E: You’re welcome.

He could barely keep his eyes open at this point, and decided that discussing arrest tactics with Gwyn would have to wait till tomorrow.

His stomach felt better though

#claes bang #is this a fanfic idk #it gets better i promise #wait till he meets gwyn #im dying at them

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

Text

The Right Choice - Part 2

Summary: You had hoped going to Korea to look after your estranged grandmother would allow you to connect in some way to your mother’s culture. However, being half-Korean and a single mother meant you would face the stigma of a narrow-minded society instead. Had you really made the right choice to come here?

Pairing: Mark Tuan x reader

Genre: single mother au / strangers to lovers au / self-growth / angst / romance

Warnings: open prejudice and stigma over solo parenting

A/N; Although the warnings seem rather negative, this story is one I hope a lot of you will enjoy! I’ve wanted to write this for over eight months now, and I’m glad I finally sat down to do so. It isn’t as dark as it sounds, and nor is it intentionally a dig at Korean culture as a whole.

The Right Choice will be posted daily at 10am NZST.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

You hadn’t slept a wink overnight.

As soon as you had stepped inside the gate, your grandmother had started listing off the reasons why she had requested your help. You could see from the fragile gait she maintained that her legs had worsened since your mother had last visited her, and her breathing was a bit haggard too. All the same, the older woman had an air about her that didn’t want you to pity or fuss over her.

You were simply here to assist her daily needs, that was very clear.

“Can you cook?”

“Yes.”

“Korean meals?”

“My mother taught me as much as she knew.”

“That doesn’t leave me with much hope. Are you a good learner?”

“Yes, Grandmother I am.”

She turned then, eyes small and dark. “You look like him.”

“Uh, I do?” you replied awkwardly, smiling lightly. “A lot of people say I look a lot more like my mother. Just with different eyes.”

“I hated his eyes.”

“Oh.”

She spun around then, ambling into the homestead again. You could tell she was house proud. The place was clean and everything had its place. You made a mental note to spend more time the following day looking at all the memories around the house but for now, you travelled behind her, rocking Emerson whenever she stopped to catch her breath. Eventually, your grandmother showed you into the room for your stay.

“I don’t have anything for the baby set up. I didn’t know you were married.”

“I’m not.” The judgement was instant and you avoided eye contact. “It’s just Emerson and I.”

“I suppose the way of life over there allows for such sin then.”

You refrained from telling her that Emerson was created with a purpose and not from a natural conception either.

“Well, I’ll let you settle in. Tomorrow I have an appointment at two-fifteen. Can you remember that?”

“Two-fifteen, of course.”

Another grunt left her and when she shut the door behind her departure, you slumped down onto the bed, your tears slipping down your cheeks silently.

And then your phone went off. Recomposing yourself, you connected to the call. “Hey, Dad!”

“That bad, huh?”

“She’s a little rough around the edges,” you admitted, rubbing Emerson’s back slowly as you sniffled back the remnants of your emotions. “I’m sure she’s just used to being on her own and doesn’t like that she’s had to reach out for my help.”

“If you begin to feel too uncomfortable, we’ll make other arrangements.”

“We can’t just do that, it’s not our place to, Dad. I’m sure with some time, it’ll be fine.”

He sighed into the receiver. “You just hold on to that hope kiddo. She will try to squash it.”

Emerson had started to fuss when you had pulled out the travel bed you had packed for her, and you had heard the clearing of a throat from outside of the door loudly soon after. You were frazzled enough about being here, and that only made you feel rushed to silence your child. As you rocked her back and forth gently, you tried your best to hold it together. Chanting over and over to yourself that things would be okay.

You were up searching for the kitchen as soon as the morning shone through the windows, a bottle in one hand. With the stress of travelling, feeding Emerson naturally wasn’t working nearly as well as you hoped it would overnight. So you aimed to ensure she had enough in her system for breakfast, smiling to yourself when you finally found the right room.

You set about heating the milk for Emerson quietly when your grandmother walked in. “You’re an early riser.”

“Most mornings, yes.”

“Because of the child?”

You smiled forcibly. “Yes, because of Emerson.”

“What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?” you questioned and the elder shot you a look.

“The name.”

“Uh, I think it’s a German name.”

“You’re not German though, why use a foreign name?” she retorted and you attempted to laugh to ease the mood. It wasn’t appreciated by the woman and you ceased the gesture.

“I happened to like the name.”

“Another weird habit of you Americans, huh?”

“All the same, it is her name,” you replied, somewhat defensively. The woman stared back at you, an indescribable look within her eyes. You found your confidence and smiled again. “It is my child’s name and I’d appreciate you respect that.”

“We name our children with dreams and goals we have for them here in Korea. In hopes they live up to their names,” she mentioned before leaving the kitchen with her cup of tea in hand.

You slumped down into the chair in the bakery an hour later, letting out a heavy breath. Not even the smell of freshly baked bread could perk you up, though you did smile when Mark approached you.

“Did you even sleep?”

“I want to say that I got maybe an hour’s worth,” you replied and he sat down across from you, pouting softly. It made your mood improve being in his company. You then glanced around the bustling store. “Is it okay to vent?”

“None of the ladies are here,” he confirmed and you groaned loudly. “Y/N, you’re doing better than most. You lasted the night.”

“Barely.” You then shot him a disgruntled look. “I thought she would be happy to meet me. Especially since you mentioned I had been a topic to discuss.”

“Well, she did seem rather excited about it when she was talking with her friends. It’s rare to see Mrs Kim smile, but she did.”

“I guess I didn’t live up to her expectations.”

He reached out for your hand gently. “It’s only been a day, give it some time.”

“Speaking of time, I don’t think I have too much time for myself this morning, so I should make my purchase.”

“No way, it’s on me today, remember?”

You grinned at him and after being told to wait there, you glanced down at Emerson sleeping against your chest and sighed. At least after all that fussing, she was finally catching up on her rest. You hoped you would be able to get an early night’s rest tonight.

Mark then returned with a tray brimming of baked goods. You glanced up at him in surprise. “All of this?”

“You haven’t been to Korea, that’s what I was told. So I’m guessing you’ve never tried Korean bread before either.”

“Not authentically,” you agreed with a smile and picked up one, taking a bite of the sweet bun. You melted into your chair. “Oh my god, this is so good! Did you make this?”

“Ha-ha, no. I just work here to discount my rent. You can find me here every morning from seven to midday.”

“And then do you disappear?”

Mark chuckled. “Into the world of study, sure.”

“You’re a student?” you questioned, your cheeks growing pink. “Oh, I didn’t expect you to be so young.”

“I’m a teacher’s assistant at the local university,” he answered, smirking lightly. “I teach math.”

“The one subject that I’m weak with.”

He grinned again. “Maybe you’ll need some lessons.”

“I’m a bit old for school, I graduated many years ago.”

“You don’t look too old to me, Y/N.”

“I’m older than you think.”

“Does age matter?”

You sighed softly. “In this country, it seems a lot of things matter.”

You didn’t mean to unload your frustrations onto Mark, yet he was an easy listener. You told him how much you had doubted who you were in the past twelve hours more than you had in your entire life. You forgot he was a stranger you had only met last night, though you didn’t spill everything about your life either.

When you were done and pulling apart another pastry with your frustrations, Mark finally responded. “You’re not a bad person for being a single mother, Y/N. You’re right; there is a lot of stigma around children and parenting in this country. It’s a narrow-minded viewpoint. But she should be grateful you’re here. You could have said no because you’re a mother to such a young child. You didn’t though.”

“I guess I didn’t want to let her down.”

“She’s not exactly offering you something positive in exchange though.”

“My Mum married my Dad, who is obviously not Korean,” you announced, pointing to your eyes to prove it. “I think she is still bitter over it, and since I look like both of them, maybe I’m a sore spot for her to look at.”

“You’re still her granddaughter, and I remain convinced that she was boastful about your achievements here the other day. Old people tend to be more traditional. Give her some time to open up.”

You nodded, smiling at him lightly. And then it dawned on you just how much time you had spent here, and further, how much you had said. Before you could say anything, Mark raised his hand to dismiss your thoughts. “I told you where to find me for a reason, Y/N. You’re more than welcome to come and seek me out. I’ll listen. It’s the least I can do.”

“You’re a good person.”

“Not as good as you are. But you’re right; she’s probably convinced you’re using this trip as a vacation and off sightseeing by now.”

“I should go!”

“We’ll do the sightseeing later in the week then,” he commented with a grin and you mirrored it, nodding before dashing out the door.

At least you had someone rooting for your success here.

_________________

Part 3

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goalcaufield · 5 years

Text

I don’t think I could accurately describe the feeling in my chest to anyone that would ask. Happiness because I would be with my family and my brothers, dread having to restart a whole new life for myself, miserable for having to leave all my friends and my teammates behind, and eager for all of the opportunities I knew would come my way with being with my family again. But still, the sadness seemed to outweigh the happiness. And I feel selfish for that, because the whole reason I came home was for my brothers and that should put me at the bottom of the selfishness list.

From beside me, my Mom places her hand on my arm gently, obviously noticing the glum look on my face as I stared blankly out the car window. “I know you’re upset honey,” She begins, and I know she’s trying to tiptoe around her words. “But this is what you wanted. You wanted to be with Jack before he left this summer, support Luke his last few years, be able to go to Quinn’s games before he signs. And you needed this for yourself, you haven’t been the same since you and Brady broke up, are you sure you’re okay?”

My eyes close on instinct at the mention of his name. It makes me flinch, and you would think by now she would understand he wasn’t a light subject. “Mom, I’m sure. We broke up a month ago, I’m moving on. He was a jerk anyway.”

“Okay, okay,” She mumbles, finally getting onto the highway away from the airport towards our house. “The boys still don’t know that you’re home! I’m sure they’re gonna be thrilled to see you again.”

“Yeah, I hope,” I chuckle, looking out the window at the vaguely familiar landscaping that whizzes past. It was strange how New Hampshire was more of my home than Michigan and Toronto was more of a home than both of those states combined. Honestly, I’d go back to Canada in a heartbeat if I could.

In my hand, my phone starts buzzing persistently, and I recognize the ringtone everywhere. It’s my best friend, Savannah, facetiming me. I quickly answer it missing her face already, and when I do, there’s more than just one face in the frame. “Hey guys.”

“I miss you!” Is the first thing that comes out of Sav’s mouth and her lips form a pout. “Our room feels so empty without your stuff everywhere.”

“Is Mama Hughes there?” Kylie butts in, a grin on her face. I point my phone towards my mom, and instantly all my former teammates and best friends start saying their hello’s to her. “We really miss you, J. Practice wasn’t the same without our captain.”

“It was so… weird,” Savannah shudders. “Coach had to compose us all instead of you doing it. I had to lead stretches, Emerson lead some drills, it just isn’t the same. I can’t wait to see you in February, you better make it to that tournament.”

I smile at Savannah through the screen. In February we had planned to come to Michigan for a tournament, and it worked out perfectly now with me being home and being able to go. “You know that I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Hey, did you guys decide on a new captain yet?”

“Nope,” Ronnie says immediately. While a part of me is partly happy, the other feels guilty about leaving my team behind. “I don’t know if we will, honestly.”

“So, that means McKenna didn’t get the C,” I state, and the girls on my screen nod. I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god.”

“Hey J, wrap it up. We’re almost home,” Mom says quietly, and that’s when she turns down onto our street.

“Hey guys, gotta go. We’re home. I’ll text you all later for sure. Don’t miss me too much!” I tease, and the girls all say goodbye, leaving me to hang up. Mom pulls into the driveway of our house, and I can’t help the way my stomach twists in knots.

Mom’s hand reaches out grabbing my own. “Jordan, are you sure you’re okay?” She asks softly and I nod, moving to unbuckle myself and quickly get out of the car. “I really hope you would tell me if you weren’t.”

“I’m okay, Mom,” I reassure her, pulling my hand away from hers to get out. “I just can’t wrap my head around the fact I’m home, and home for good. I’m gonna be starting school here, actually living here for the first time.”

I had pretty much always lived in New Hampshire, having attended a private academy in Wolfeboro. We also had a lake house in the same town, so after school ended I never flew back to Michigan. My family would fly to New Hampshire for the whole summer and that was that, we’d all spend time there. There was never a need for me to be in Plymouth.

As soon as I get out of the car I can hear my brothers around the back on the outdoor rink. A smile forms on my face, and I’m suddenly itching to get out there with them. Mom and I quickly grab my numerous bags and suitcases, lugging them all inside and up to my bedroom that was like every other room in the Hughes household – covered in USA Hockey memorabilia, jerseys from throughout the years, medals from tournaments, you name it.

“Are you gonna go out there with them?” Mom asks giving me a look as she puts a few shirts in my drawers. “I can unpack for you, honey. Go with your brothers.”

I hesitate, looking at all the suitcases and bags that just needed to be unpacked. “Are you sure? I can unpack myself,” I say, but my mother urges me on. I thanked her and grab my stick and skates before making my way downstairs. Instead of going right out, I stand and watch. Alex is out there – he’d been living with us for the past two years and I absolutely adored the kid – and the boys are playing some two on two. I can’t help but smile, especially as Luke steals the puck away from Jack as if it was nothing.

No matter how bad I want to go out there, I can’t bring myself to tear my eyes away from my three brothers and the boy that was pretty much an honorary brother at this point. It didn’t hit me until now, this very moment, that I could possibly be messing up a system the boys had down pat. Instead of coming home and calming the storm, I could just be the eye of the hurricane and bringing the storm to wreak havoc on my family.

“Hey kiddo,” I hear my dad speak, so I whip around to engulf him in a hug. “We missed you, you know.”

“You saw me like two months ago,” I laugh against his chest, pulling away a brief few seconds later. “But I missed you guys too and I’m really happy to be back.”

Dad offers me a soft smile before his eyes glance from my stick and skates to outside, where the boys are still fooling around. “Are you gonna go out? I’m sure they’ve got room for one more.”

“I will in a few,” I say, looking over my shoulder at the boys.

“Honey, what ever is on your mind you need to push it away. The boys missed you, especially Jack and you know that. Don’t be so worried.”

I turn back to look at my dad. “How’d you know my mind is racing right now?”

He chuckles and pushes me on. “You’re my daughter, Jordan. And quite frankly something is always going on inside of your head. Now go out there.”

Finally I muster up the courage to go outside. The cold Michigan November wind bites at my skin, but if anything it just feels like home to me. There’s no place I’d rather be, especially if it meant I was surrounded by my family and my brothers. I know exactly the way to go to not be seen thanks to many occasions of scaring the boys, so going unspotted was fairly easily, and I make it to the dressing shack to get my skates on. Once I’m laced up I push open the door.

“Hey, you got room for one more?” I yell over the commotion of the boys laughing, and just like that it all stops and they’re all facing me.

“Jordan!” Lukey is the first one to react - he’s skating over to the boards and I hurry to meet him there. “What’re you doing here?”

I wrap my arms around my youngest brother, who even though is on skates, is now nearly a whole foot taller than me. “Hi Lukey,” I giggle into the fifteen year old who’s pretty much squeezing me to death, but I’m not complaining. Then I’m trapped in a group hug of four of my favorite boys.

“What’re you doing home? You still have half a semester left, you’re supposed to be in class right now.” Jack asks, and once they all release me I rest my arms on the top of the boards.

“I’m home.”

“Well no duh you’re home,” Luke retorts and I’m quick to shoot him a look. He puts his hands up defensively.

But Quinn is the first one to connect all the puzzle pieces. A grin forms on his face. “Wait, wait, really? You’re home-home?”

“I’m home-home,” I confirm, and the three of my brothers all exchange knowing smiles. “So sorry, Alex. Now you’ve got to deal with me too.”

Alex chuckles. “You’re never a problem, J. You know that. I’m probably just as excited as them.”

Jack then starts to hit his best friend repeatedly on the arm. “Dude, now we have to tell the guys about her. Now they get to meet her.”

My eyes light up at the mention of the NTDP boys. Sure, I had been to Jack’s games for the US program before, but I had never actually met his teammates before.

“Are you sure you want her around those boys?” Quinn asks.

“On second thought, never mind.” Jack says, but then he sticks his hand out to help me over the boys. “C’mon J. We need a goalie, Luke and Alex are kicking our asses.”

“You know, this is the one time I will ever willingly be goalie.”

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