Lydia Bennet

Good morning, it's Steve Rogers again, with the news of yesterday. In classes, Mana learned about a 'brainwashing nature cult', Cinema Studies studied a swell romantic comedy, and Norse Studies learned about Ragnarok.

In town, Vi distracted Steph from the stupid people on the internet with coffee with sprinkles and whipped cream, Thor served wolf-themed drinks at the Devil's Nest, and Supper Club went to an Irish bar for food. That sounds really good. Maybe we'll have fish and chips for dinner tonight.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

mustbeawitch

St. Patrick's Day had come and gone, and being an Englishwoman of a certain vintage Lydia didn't understand all the hullabaloo at all, but she was hardly one to not embrace a theme! So today the Supper Club would be meeting at The James Joyce, while Lydia wondered who James and Joyce were.

Welcome to Supper Club, everyone!

ifwebeworthy posting in

Thor's choice of cocktail theme had Tiny shooting him wary looks tonight, as if he was wondering if Thor knew something he didn't.

He did not, for the record. He was just in a certain kind of mood.

Specials
Grey Wolf
Lone Wolf
Hungry Like the Wolf

The Devil's Nest is open!

ifwebeworthy posting in

"Most of you," Don began today's class, "have probably heard of Ragnarok, the 'twilight of the gods,' the prophesied end of the world in Norse mythology. Again, this class will deal with the myth, not...what may or may not have happened in any particular real world." He'd been dead then anyway.

Don passed around a handout detailing the story of Ragnarok. "The myth-slash-prophecy is very detailed, even including things like how many steps Thor will take before he falls down and dies--nine, if you're wondering. It is also, in some ways, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fenris--excuse me, Fenrir--is maybe the best example of this. In response to the prophecy of Ragnarok saying that the wolf Fenrir would swallow the sun and Odin himself, Odin bound Fenrir in enchanted chains. Now, the prophecy says that those chains will snap at Ragnarok, so the wolf always had to be chained, but also, does this treatment contribute to Fenrir being like, 'Fuck it, I'll just eat the sun then'? If Fenrir had not been chained, and thus one of the conditions of the prophecy left unmet, could Ragnarok be avoided? Discuss."

wrongkindofsith posting in

Well, the classroom might have had a few more blankets than normal, but it wasn't too different in honor of the movie theme this week. Maybe the sleep masks were pushing it, though.

"So, today is a romance movie. Kind of." Jane had some concerns about it.

"One built on lies, deception, and fear of being alone," Cara, you were making it sound much more exciting than it actually was.

"And very ridiculous misunderstandings," Jane added. "But its still a good movie."

Which made for a change in this class.

"In any case, settle in and enjoy."

wrongkindofsith posting in

Looks like it was another quiet Wednesday

Up at the School, The Long Con tried to sell us all a bridge, while in the Library, spring was sprung, and Caleb had some opinions on the weather.

Nothing much happened in the Dorms, while in Town, Adrian was involved in self-care at Pick Your Poison.

deathsmajesty posting in

Well, the nature people would be thrilled with today's location. Stepping into the Danger Shop, they would find themselves standing near a truly mammoth tree, taller and more vast than any mere redwood could ever hope to be. It was a living skyscraper, easily taking up several city blocks' worth of space. Buildings shaped from the living wood nestled in its huge, curving branches, connected by an intricate network of hanging bridges and ladders. Through the giant double doors leading into the trunk, they could spot a cathedral to nature, made of living wood, with large windows to let in the golden light.

"Welcome to Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree," Liliana said, sounding distinctly unimpressed. "The Guildhall of the Selesnya Conclave, one of the Ravnican Guilds. Selesnya describes itself as 'selfless, nurturing, spiritual group.' Other people describe it as a 'brainwashing nature cult.' Who's to say who's right?"

Bet you can guess which description your teacher ascribed to.

( Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of community. --Selesnya Conclave )

They do have their differences, however. Green's other ally is red and white's other ally is blue, which makes their conflict one of head versus heart. Green believes that each individual is born into its role in life complete with the attributes it needs to accomplish its task. This means the key to success is to act on one's instincts. White believes that the true purpose of each individual is to contribute to the welfare of the group. To accomplish this, one must override their impulses and instead use their intellect to figure out how best contribute. In white, green sees a color that constricts growth with petty laws; it constrains and limits. In green, white sees a color too wild for its own good, and too reliant on violence to solve its problems. Green/White's biggest internal conflict revolves around enforcing its beliefs. It wants to grow its cause but isn't always willing to take the action necessary to do so. The pairing of green/white is often very, very slow...but when given the time and space it requires, it can easily become an unstoppable juggernaut--which isn't always the best thing for anyone else around.

drumsticksandd20s posting in

People were still pretty intense about the cat rescue game. This had forced Steph to revise the store code of conduct and post new, larger copies of it around the lounge with the last line, in boldface red ink and in about a 64-point font as opposed to the 38-point font of most of the body, especially prominent:

Look, man, the gamer gremlins don't work for me. Disturb their peace at YOUR OWN RISK.

And now if you needed her for anything, she was likely on her laptop, trying her hardest not to get too involved in an argument about media adaptations and whether there were some things that just didn't need to be adapted, period.

[OOC: My extremely mixed feelings about the LiS show adaptation, let me show you them. Open!]

talentforlying posting in

"Today, we're going to talk one of the biggest scams of all time - real estate," John stated grandly as class got started. "It's a fucking swindle in most countries even when done above the board, which means it's ridiculously easy to do it even when you haven't got a cigarette to sell."

"George Parker was one of the most audacious con men in American history. He made his living selling New York's public landmarks to unwary tourists. His favorite object for sale was the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold twice a week for years. He convinced his marks that they could make a fortune by controlling access to the roadway. More than once police had to roust naive buyers from the bridge as they tried to erect toll barriers. Other public landmarks he sold included the original Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb and the Statue of Liberty."

"Now, George had many different methods for making his sales. When he sold Grant's Tomb, he would often pose as the general's grandson. He even set up a fake 'office' to handle his real estate swindles. He produced impressive forged documents as evidence to suggest that he was the legal owner of whatever property he was selling. He also successfully sold several successful shows and plays, of which he had no legal ownership."

"Parker was convicted of fraud three times. After his third conviction on December 17, 1928 he was sentenced to a life term at Sing Sing Prison by a Judge McLaughlin in the Kings County Court and he spent the last eight years of his life there incarcerated."

"Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, better known as Natwarlal, was a noted Indian con man known for having repeatedly "sold" the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, and the Rashtrapati Bhavan and also the Parliament House of India along with its 545 sitting members. Now that takes talent," John sighed, envious. "By profession he was a lawyer before he turned into a conman, which you could say are the same thing."

"He used more than 50 aliases, was a master of disguises and used novel ideas to cheat and was master in forging signatures of famous personalities. He is also said to have cheated number of industrialists including Birlas and Dhirubhai Ambani taking from them huge money in cash, posing as social worker or needy person. Also he had duped many shop-owners with lakhs of rupees, paying them by cheque and demand drafts, which were later found to be forged."

"Natwarlal was arrested several times, but was last seen by authorities on June 24, 1996; when the wheelchair-using octogenarian vanished while being transported from prison to a hospital for treatment. He disappeared at New Delhi railway station, when he was being taken to AIIMS, under police escort from Kanpur jail for treatment, after which he was never seen by anyone. He was 84 years of age at that time. In 2009, his lawyer requested that 100 charges pending against Natwarlal be dropped claiming that Natwarlal died on July 25; however, Natwarlal's brother, Ganga Prasad Srivastava, subsequently claimed to have cremated him in 1996. No one knows which claim is true."

"So here's your assignment. Pick a landmark from the island, then try to sell it to your classmates. Let's see what you can come up with."

betterthanaplan

Duke had promised Lucifer he'd build them a cabana on the beach. Duke had renovated the Cape Rouge on his own, and had no doubts of his ability to build something that didn't even have to float.

Duke was learning that boat interiors and land exteriors did not actually share all that much in common.

Currently, he was looking concerned at the pile of lumber he'd ordered. He had tools and hardware, he had wood, he just didn't have any idea how to put them together just yet.

"C'mon, YouTube," he said, staring at his phone. "Help me out here."

[for the two who are here with him, if they wanna]

witchoftheflesh posting in

His family had sent a new batch of magical makeup and self-care items, which meant that Adrian was setting up displays around the store. He claimed a few in the name of tester bottles, and was having fun trying to guess the components without looking at the list.

"Hmm...white musk, I think. With a bit of...sandalwood. Vanilla definitely. Warm honey, too. Oooh, this one--ylang-ylang! And jasmine!"

Nerd.

afraid_of_marshmallows posting in

Oh it was definitely springtime. Books about flowers and gardens were all over the library today, angled to show off their illustrations to best advantage. There were several papercraft books out, too, creating lovely origami flowers to decorate the library with.

Sometimes they were a little overzealous and other books needed to be rescued from being folded into a bouquet of paper roses, but Arden managed to grab a bunch of paper from the printer instead.

Uh. Hope nobody was planning on printing anything today.

stykera posting in

Good morning. The notes are much shorter this week than last.

*chittering*

No I don’t think leprechauns have anything to do with it. I think you had too much green rum and forgot to spy on everyone.

So. At the school there was corned beef and cabbage in Raiden’s Feeding Yourself 101 and soda bread. Which isn’t anything to do with soda that you drink but is delicious.

We have a note from the dorms and the porg is dancing around the station right now. Caleb was in his room, learning about an author and apparently none of what he learned was good.

And then we have just two notes from the town. Sairis did not sit in the chair that eats people at the Infinite Consortium even though he was tired. Good. And finally at Caritas Kitty had to deal with every drink being green and apparently this was not Tino’s fault, as she told me when I came in for a drink.

*chittering*

Yes I very much regret the drink.

That’s all I have for today from yesterday.

sairis posting in

Sairis hadn't slept well last night, so he was yawning a bit today. He eyed the chair, sitting there looking innocent and plush.

"Not a chance. I'm still not that stupid."

He set about dusting and straightening things to keep himself awake.

not_a_haint

The Devil's Cradle tended to get a lot of secondhand books and magazines, and a certain regular contributor to Uncanny and the like had been the subject of some discussion among those who enjoyed that genre.

So Caleb had an inkling of how problematic the man was, but Arden's radio broadcast had him morbidly curious.

He did a quick search on his phone.

"Oh for-"

Swearing wasn't exactly encouraged in his upbringing but this came dang close to getting an f-bomb out of him.

carbsliftthespirit posting in

Raiden was, of course, wearing green today, because he didn't like being pinched. "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" he greeted his class. "For those of you who might not know, St. Patrick's Day honors the patron saint of Ireland in the Catholic religion, but even those who aren't Catholic or Irish can celebrate, because who doesn't love a themed holiday with lots of drinking?

"In America, with its large Irish immigrant population, the traditional foods of St. Patrick's Day include beer, green beer, corned beef and cabbage, and Irish soda bread. I figure you can all put green food coloring in beer on your own time, so let's learn to make the others. Corned beef and cabbage is great to put in your slow cooker: you're basically going to throw everything in and forget it all day, then enjoy a delicious dinner. Let's cut up some vegetables!" Once that was done, Raiden moved on to, "Yes, we're making bread today. It's soda bread, which means it's a quick bread! You don't have to wait around on yeast! So follow along with me as we make the recipe, and I promise we'll get there.

"And there you have it! A delicious Irish-American feast really isn't that hard, and what you do to your beer is between you and your God. Any questions?"

throughaphase posting in

Working on St. Patrick's Day meant green. Everything was green, at least when it came to the drinks. Beer was green. Bottles of liquor were full of green liquid. At first Kitty had thought it was maybe Tino hijinks, but she didn't actually think he'd have put this much effort in, so it must be a Fandom thing.

SPECIALS
Green.

[Open!]

afraid_of_marshmallows posting in

What up, Fandom? It's me, ya girl Arden Finch, wishing a Happy St. Patrick's Day for those who celebrate and also patience and fortitude to anybody who owns or works at a bar tonight.

As for yesterday, things were quiet - possibly resting up for today? - which means a nice, easy day for notes for me! School saw people trying to pop balloons in Tasks, the Dorms saw nothing at all, probably because the squirrels were all prepping their livers for today, and Town did have a little hustle and bustle. Mayor Faden visited Sergeant Barnes to wish him a happy birthday. Happy belated birthday, sir! Dr. Isley was checking on the plants at Pick Your Poison and saw that they were all doing well, and Caleb was chatting with the vet about certain really, really racist authors at Furnado. Because we do talk about the orangutan and we do talk about what he named his cat, thank you very much. Professor Vess was playing with her cat at the Infinite Consortium and I can hear you snickering, squirrels, and I'm not the one you have to worry about melting you into goo or whatever, so keep laughing. And, at the Clinic, Professor James got a crababiner and...yeah, I've got nothing for that.

So yeah, that's it for the notes and that's it for ya girl, Arden Finch, so I'll talk at you next week, island. And until then, feel free to rock out with the Dropkick Murphys and Rocky Road to Dublin. Bye!

throughaphase posting in