The Doorway: a panfandom game

Good luck on your election, Canada. Perhaps eventually, you'll even expel your monarch.

We have some of our holiday teas available now and I admit I am very excited about them. The combination of cloves and spices and cinnamon that they inevitably has just smells so delicious.

This morning's sampler is a Harvest spice - a black tea with a mixture of spices that almost smells as if you've a pumpkin pie in the oven. If you'd like to come and try it out Timeless Teas is open until 5pm today.

[Filter: Kaylee]

I saw the most beautiful pillows in a shop window yesterday. I am half of a mind to redecorate the apartment for fall. What say you?

I require a group of volunteers, with strong able minds, a distaste of tyranny, a passion for civic responsibility, an understanding of commitment, a distrust for the corrupting power of wealth - and and hour or so to spare on Wednesday nights.

There is something that must be done.

[Grantaire]

I have found it.

I have been to a doctor. The less said about it the better.

Never in my life have I been asked so many questions by someone so little interested in hearing the answers - when you ask a man how he feels you should be prepared to sit there and damn well listen. (We've designed an entire meal around it; it's called breakfast here, as far as I can tell, although you do a piss-poor job of it most of the time.) And such questions, too, the relevancy of which I couldn't for the life of me piece together. When - I say again - you ask a man about certain things, you'd damn well better be able to explain what the hell you're getting at. I've tried to call men out for less.

To make a long story short (a device which I'm normally reluctant to employ, but in the interest of sparing you all unpleasantness and promoting the well being of my "blood pressure"), my "cholesterol" is "a little high."

And do you know, I'd rather live with the apparently non-existent symptoms and the thoroughly run-of-the-mill risks that come with it than give in to the profoundly depressing implications of the solution. What kind of piddling race have we become, that dropping off the face of the earth after, say, fifty years of life well-lived makes us so frightened that we spend the rest of our days measuring out our pleasure in pinches and dashes? I'm ashamed to be one of you. You see no difference between food and physic, and by god, that'll make you sick more than walking around with a little poison in your veins. I'm supposed to look at the walnut - that buttery jewel of autumn in le Perigord - as some kind of dose to be taken like bloody castor oil? I'm supposed to consider a piece of fish, one of the most delicate, aromatic peasant pleasures a man can still experience in a great city, as a number to factor into some confounded ratio? I'm supposed to look at the olive, the olive, the fruit that kept company with Jesus fucking Christ in his few exquisite moments of agony, as a pill?

And wine - no. I can't even bring myself to write about the way you talk about wine. I spit on all of you. I won't have any part of it.

Knowledge truly is the engine of Satan. We've lost Eden forever.

It would see that while I might have forgotten myself, there were others who remembered me. By chance, perhaps fate, or merely an attraction to ma langue maternelle, I happened upon this place.

They helped me find my identity, but by the size of the book I won't waste my borrowed hours of life reading about misery I knew too well first hand. Of more interest to me, they offered me a job.


[Grantaire]

et tu - I've resolved to find a use for.

I can't remember who

What's the proper procedure in this place, for pest removal?

It's a damn shame Elizabeth Warren isn't running. She's magnificent, isn't she?

I suppose though, we should honor her request and stop the Wall Street revolving door. Does anyone have a robot suit?

Becoming complacent with the status quo, even when we can recognize the inequality, the injustice and the suffering it brings to the majority of the world is never the only option, and it is never the right answer: When asked what must be done, one replies simply with what must be done.

For centuries, Feudalism -- the exchange of labour and life for land -- was accepted and practiced. The ruling class exploited peasants and enslaved them through means of serfdom.

In France, that changed when Bastille was stormed. In France, the actions and unrest of the citizens brought down the tyranny.

Or at least, readily postponed it.

Why is it then, that we have brought back serfdom in this time and accept it readily -- perhaps we are not enslaved by bonds to the nobility, but instead it is the banks who hold the lives of the people and debt that chains their wrists. Why do we allow for a system which exploits the majority and become complacent when it is in our very responsibility to stop this.

No man is free while he be in another's debt for what is rightfully his. There is no celebration in Bastille Day so long as the policies of oppression which we meant to strangle still loom above us as they always have.

[Grantaire]

It is impossible, with you, to know what constitutes as night, and what you believe to be the day. Are you awake, or did you just retire?

History's blemishes and her triumphs often trace the same scars. We are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past if we fail to learn from them, but we are if we fail to act upon the knowledge that has been handed to us by bloody hands.

I see no greater a sign of our failure to stride forth with all our intelligence, our technology and our progress than what I witnessed today.

What the hell are you meant to be, Toffee Mocha Frappuccino? Your are neither toffee, nor coffee. And I can only assume 'Frappuccino' means chilled sweet abomination. And yet, still, with all this said -- it is still less offensive than what Starbucks passes off as pastries.

N’importe quoi.

Okay so I'm needing something for my next column. I know people all over write to me, but I want to open it up to everyone here too. So if you need advice on anything, drop me a question in my Dropbox and I will respond as quickly as I can. And hey if I have your permission, I might just use it in my next Ask Phoebe column.

<b>Ask Phoebe: </b> <b>Your Name: </b> <b>Your Question:</b>

183 years ago, on the 5th of June 1832. General Jean Maximilien Lamarque funeral procession marked the beginning of the days in which I, and many others -- included my beloved friends, died.

pas de ne pleurent pour nous

3,000 citizens took to the streets of Paris in protest of the wealth of the state against the poverty of her people. In protest of the rampant sickness that plagued our streets without aid, in protest of the succession of kings, all deaf to the people upon home they leeched.

pas de ne pleurent pour nous

It took 60,000 troops and 800 dead on both sides to spend the forces of the rebellion. But the loss of lives never marks the loss of hope. It would not be long before others followed us with great success, marking our sacrifices as few of the many who have died for liberty and the pursuit of fairness.

pas de ne pleurent pour nous

Lives lost, hardships endured, violence begotten -- it always holds meaning. And what is right will always prevail over injustice. It may not happen quick, and when the bayonet is before you, your place might be to throw yourself upon its blade so that others can climb over your back, but it will come.

So do not mourn us.

Stand with us.

Hundreds of years have passed, the reign of kings has ended but there is still illness in your streets, New York, and there is a sickness in your highest towers that causes it. If this is the land of the free, as you are all so quick to claim. If this is the home of the brave, which you all hold your hearts in devotion to -- prove it. Change what you do not agree with, and sign your oath with your blood if you must.

To those who knew her, I cannot find Merrill anywhere. I believe that means she's no longer here. For a blood mage she wa She was my friend.

If anyone is interested, the clinic could use some help around the place. I'm sure I've said it before, but the offer still stands.

( [TONY STARK + PEPPER POTTS (MCU)] )
[CORA AMELL]

It seems my circle of friends is getting quite small. First Hawke, then Merrill. [...] I hope you don't intend on leaving anytime soon, right? I don't know what I'd do without the Warden-Commander around.

From what limited bit I've watched of the most recent season of my show, it deals with finding the author who dictates our happy endings. It's a show based on fairy tales, that move into the real world. But, curiously enough, even in this world, we have an author of sort who writes the show about fairy tales written about by an author.

Do you suppose we have an author writing us here?

It was kind of nice having people my age around.

Am I the youngest person here? I wonder if I'll age like the Gems do... which is not at all. Am I going to be 13 forever??

Hello three day weekend. Anyone have any fun plans?

With all these republicans hinting at candidacy, can primaries be decided with this sort of democracy?

Je tenais ma tête haute quand je affronté la mort. Je vais tenir ma tête haute quand je confronté l'impossible.

[Translation: I held my head high when I faced death, I will hold it high when I face the impossible]




[Grantaire]

This room, we're meant to share it but you are not here. Where are you?

Anyone who quotes himself deserves to spend the rest of his life spitting in the wind but I've already said everything I have to say of any import and paraphrasing is a waste as well as a bore and so I come to an impasse and shilly-shally away afternoons and evenings wondering whether I ought to open my mouth in the first place (no) or tread the middle ground and settle for talking to myself (too late) or perhaps sing in the shower (unlikely, cf. aversion to soap) because at least a man can rhyme a little and not feel like too much of an ass when he's essentially playing shadow puppets with the mirror but then I remember (when did I become so chowder-headed rubbish at remembering?) that the only point is to amuse myself, not myself, oneself, I mean to be as general as a politician, and that's done just as well by not moving one's ass out of bed or dislodging the tongue from the roof of one's mouth and so I suppose what I want to say and you'll have to forgive me because I've said it before but if I do say so myself it's impossible to improve upon is that it's a frightful old world and goodnight.