#The Alpine Troupe

[princessmisery666]

Just Don't Say You Love Me

Summary: Dean believes you have a good thing going. When you tell him your moving on, he realizes he needs to reassess the relationship and his life before it’s too late.

Warnings/Genres/Troupes: angst, miscommunication, unrequited love, friends with benefits, implied smut, Dean doesn’t get a happy ending. 

W/C: 4,776.

Characters: Dean Winchester, Jody Mills, Sam Winchester. 

Pairing: Dean x fem!reader (you - no descriptions of body type or ethnicity).

Bingo: @jacklesversebingo Square Filled: Just Please Don’t Say You Love Me by Gabrielle Alpin.

A/N: I tried to fix the angst, but it’s not happening, so the unhappy ending will remain (for now). Special shoutout to @kazsrm67 and @pink-sparkly-witch for helping and offering words/comments of encouragement.

Betas: @deanwinchesterswitch // all mistakes remain my own. 

Graphics: made by be on canva. Dividers by @talesmaniac89

Master Lists: JAcklesVerseBingo / Dean Winchester / Main

You knock on Jody’s door, taking a deep breath to calm yourself, some residual adrenaline still playing havoc with your nerves. It’s been a long and insightful day. 

Dean opens the door with a smile, but it quickly morphs into an appreciative grin as his eyes travel the length of your body. “Wow,” he says, “who knew all that was hiding under that uniform.”

You laugh, stepping through the door, not in the least bit phased by his comment. It's not the first time you’ve been told that. “Yeah, that uniform is like an invisibility cloak. I put it on, and no man sees me. Guess you're no exception,” you explain, turning to look at him again. 

“Well, I see you now,” he says, quickly lifting his focus from your ass to your face. “Um, they’re through there,” he gestures for you to go ahead of him. 

“There she is,” Jody says, embracing you with one arm while she places the huge bowl of salad on the table. “How’re you doing?”

“Guess I’m still a little shell-shocked, but I’m okay.” 

“Well, we’re all here to help you…adjust,” Sam offers with a kind smile.

Discovering monsters are, in fact, very real and not just a Halloween marketing ploy is definitely going to be an adjustment. But what choice do you have? These people have given you an in. They’ve let you into their secret club, and honestly, you feel privileged that they trust you and think you are capable enough to help.

If you weren’t capable, neither Jody nor Dean would be here right now, a fact Sam keeps thanking you for over dinner.

“Thank you for being so cool about this,” he says again, lifting his beer bottle to clink it against yours. 

“I’ll freak out later,” you joke, though you probably will. 

“Seriously, you rushed in there, no hesitation, and you held your own,” Jody adds to Sam’s praise. “You certainly proved I picked the right woman for my team.”

“And I can’t thank you enough for that,” you say, genuinely grateful for the opportunity to work with her.

You’ve had some awful bosses and equally shitty jobs over the years, so it's nice to have found Sheriff Mills. Okay, so you’ll be fighting real-life monsters occasionally, but what’s a little compromise? 

They answer all your questions, and you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little overwhelming. Dean keeps flashing a tight smile in your direction, and you’re not sure if it's meant to be reassuring or if he’s biting his tongue and trying not to be rude. Regardless of his intention, Jody and the boys’ promises to help you come to grips with it all make it seem manageable.

“Am I going to get to hear the story of how you met those two?” you ask Jody in the kitchen later. 

“Definitely, but not tonight,” she explains, handing you a clean, soapy plate to rinse and dry.

Dean and Sam laugh in the other room, and Jody smiles wistfully. It’s so sweet and motherly it chokes you up a little.  

“The years have not been kind to those boys,” she says, focusing back on the dishes. “They keep their circle small, and I’m grateful that they let me be a part of it, and now you get to join it, too.”

“It’s a damn good-looking circle,” you confess.

Jody chuckles, “Ah, so you noticed Dean as much as he noticed you.” 

“Don’t go all matchmaker on me again,” you warn, “do I need to remind you of the disaster that was Paul?” 

“No, you do not. I’m just making an observation. The circle is indeed good-looking, and Dean has been doing a lot of observing of his own.” 

“Yeah, not sure that’s for the reasons you’re implying,” you say, “Dean doesn’t seem like he wants me to be helping out.”

Dean’s voice startles you, “You saved our asses.” You jump, twisting to look at him, “that’s enough.”

“But if I can do more…”

“The life of a hunter isn’t a life I'd recommend,” he explains, reaching for a beer from the fridge, “ it’s messy and painful and usually ends badly.”

“That’s life in general,” you counter, “and if something is happening and I don’t do anything to help, I’m part of the problem.”

“That’s fine,” he says, throwing his bottle top into the trash. “You’re a bigger part of the problem if you get into a situation you can’t get out of.”

“Dean,” Jody scolds, “take it easy. You said it yourself, she saved our asses today. She’s proven she’s capable.”

“All I’m saying is I’ll help where and if I can,” you explain. “I’m not going to go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer and start patrolling graveyards.”

It’s faint, but a slight quirk tugs his lips, breaking the building tension. 

“Besides, I’m sure our uniform makes us invisible to monsters as well as men.” 

He laughs properly at that, “Not invisible to me anymore,” his tongue sits behind his teeth, and you're suddenly jealous when he wraps his lips around the bottle.

“Good to know,” you say.

You hold each other’s gaze, perhaps a challenge to see who will shy away first. 

“Cool it, you two,” Jody warns, flicking water off the tips of her fingers at you both. 

“Sorry, boss,” you laugh. “And on that note, I’m gonna get going.”

“Need a ride?” Dean asks, a smug smirk in play. 

“I would love one,” you wink, but follow up with, “but it’s a nice night. Think I’m gonna walk, work off some of that wine.” 

“Why don’t you walk her home?” Jody suggests. 

Dean nods, “lead the way.”

When you’d balked, telling Dean you didn’t need an escort, he’d countered, saying he needed the fresh air, but you think it’s more to check up on you and maybe flirt a little more without an audience if your instincts are correct. It’s been nothing but small talk since leaving Jody’s until you're standing on your porch facing one another.

“So how are you really taking all this?” he asks. 

“I had a little freak out before I got to Jody’s,” you answer honestly, “but truthfully, it makes me feel a little better about the world.” 

He huffs a laugh, and his confused frown is adorable. “Okay, that’s a first.” 

“There’s so much evil in the world. It’s scary enough without knowing what I know now,” you explain, adding, “Maybe some of the unexplainable evil that’s all over the news is explainable. Maybe it’s not humans being horrible. Maybe it’s actually something evil.”

“Huh, I never thought of it like that.”

“I’m not saying I’ll remember that the next time a vamp is kicking my ass,” you laugh. 

“Hey,” he scolds, “you agreed, no hunting.” 

You hold your hands up, surrendering. “I won’t go looking for it, but if it comes to Sioux Falls, I’m all over it,” you promise, but your body has other ideas as an overall ache spreads through you as the day's events catch up with you. “Well, maybe in a few days when I’ve recovered from the last one.” Subconsciously, your tongue rolls over the cut on your bottom lip.  

“That hurt?” he asks. 

“I’ve had worse.” You shrug. The way he’s looking at you dulls the sting of the cut, and the tired ache in your bones shifts and reshapes into a simmering itch that needs scratching.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks, pointing over your shoulder toward your door. The implication of you being alone goes unsaid.

“I’ll be fine,” you say, trying not to roll your eyes. “But maybe you want to come in? Have a coffee or something, distract me a little longer so I don’t freak out too much?”

He smiles, wetting his lips. He knows that’s not what you're asking, and you wonder how often the offer of ‘coffee or something’ has been used successfully on him. He looks down at his shuffling feet, heaving a sigh. “I should get back.” 

The hesitation is clear, yet he doesn’t move. A surge of adrenaline spreads through you, and your heart rate increases. When he looks up, catching your eyes, the intensity of the long, loaded pause is enough to make you wonder, if monsters exist, then maybe that electricity everyone talks about is real, too, because it feels like if you touch your hand to Dean’s face, sparks will fly.

“Thanks again for the save today,” he whispers.

“Anytime,” you smile. 

You don’t know who moves first, but suddenly you're as one, mouths connected, exploring the other’s, hands groping and gripping, and your lip stings for a split second, but then Dean has you pinned against your door, and you forget about it.

He pulls away and kisses your neck, “Maybe,” he says, scraping his teeth against your jaw, “we should take this inside.”

Your arrangement with Dean works. No pressure, no expectations. Summer comes, and winter fades, but your relationship remains mutually beneficial. 

He rolls through Sioux Falls, that charming smile - that you’re not sure he knows quite how charming it is - “passing through,” but he stays a few days. He always claims it’s to catch up with Jody and the girls, but he spends most of his time at your place, and it’s too coincidental that you’re never on shift or scheduled for a few days when Baby pulls up outside.

Jody insists she has nothing to do with it. Yes, she's the sheriff, yes, she’s your boss, and makes the rotas, but “The only thing I swing is that I get to work with you,” she’d promised, winking. And you love her for that. Some of the men are still stuck in the past, and though they don’t say it, you can tell they don’t think women can do the job.

If only they knew. You’ve helped on a few hunts now. There’s no doubt in your mind that your relationship with Dean wouldn’t be what it is if you didn’t know about the real evils of the world. But each hunt ended the same: a dead monster and your body beneath Dean’s. 

You're in your room lacing up your little white summer pumps when the Impala’s engine announces his arrival.

You jump to your feet, quickly check yourself in your mirror, smoothing down the already smooth summer dress, and call out, “It’s open,” when his knock echoes around the house.

“Wow, look at you,” he says, freezing partway over the threshold to admire you as you bounce down the stairs.

You deliver your usual greeting, a swift kiss to his lips, and the unmistakable aroma of leather and cheap motel soap assaults your senses - damn, you’ve missed him - but you won’t say it. Instead, you show it, making the kiss deeper.

He shuffles inside, uses your hips to steady himself as he kicks the door closed, and then wraps his arms around your waist to hold you tightly against him. 

Your phone rings, and you fumble to find it on the table by the door, but as soon as you do, Dean releases you, kissing your neck and collarbone. 

“Hey, hi,” you answer. 

“Hey babe,” your best friend sings, and you know it's because she needs something. “Can you grab some ice on your way over?” 

“Yeah, sure, okay.” 

“You okay?” 

No. Yes.

Dean is kneading your breasts, nibbling on the skin that spills out the top of your sundress. “Yeah, just rushing, I’m running late.” 

“So late,” he mumbles into your skin.

“Well, hurry more,” she says before hanging up.

“Oh fuck, Dean, you gotta stop,” you whine. 

He groans, dulling the sting of his bite with a sweet kiss, and pulls back to look at you. “This a bad time, isn’t it?”

You nod, feeling as disappointed as he looks. “It’s my friend's birthday. She’s having a barbeque.” 

He sighs, leaning his head on your shoulder and mumbling into your neck. “Damn it.” 

“I have to at least show my face,” you say, using your hands on his cheeks to pull his head up to look into his eyes. “But you can stay here, take a shower, watch a movie or something, and maybe in a couple of hours, I get a headache and need to come home.” 

Wetting his lips, he smirks before delivering a brief kiss. “Or,” he draws out the syllable, mild hesitation clear in his eyes, “Maybe I can come with you?”

Since Chuck is no longer an issue, Dean has been making an effort to live in the moment, opening himself up, if only a little. So you try to quell the shock of his suggestion. It quickly evolves to a pleased grin when your mind flashes to your friends' faces when you walk in with the infamous Dean. They will lose their shit. You like spending time with Dean but don’t want to cross any lines or make assumptions. “I’d like that,” you smile, “but you really don’t have to.”

“I’m sure I can survive a couple hours with your friends, and you know I can always eat.”

“Okay,” you nod, smile widening. “If you’re sure.” 

He kisses you again, a simple but effective peck on your lips. “But maybe we both get a headache in a couple of hours.” 

“Deal,” you agree, sealing it with another casual kiss. “Maybe lose a few layers. It’s summer.”

He laughs, shrugging off his jacket. ��I’m sure I have a clean Fed shirt in the trunk.”

“Perfect,” you say, grabbing your bag and keys. “Want me to drive?” 

He rolls his eyes, jesting, “Did that kiss fry your brain?” as he follows you out the front door.

He opens the passenger door for you, and before you slip inside, you tell him, “Oh, and whatever my friends say I’ve said about you, it’s all lies.”

He grins smugly, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

The shower has done wonders for your developing hangover. Your friend's barbecue lasted longer than you had anticipated, but the day couldn’t have gone better. 

Dean fit in well with everyone and crushed it at beer pong. It was a success all around, and when you’d quietly asked if he wanted to leave, he’d said no, that he was having too much fun.

The fun continued when you got home, and Dean is undoubtedly still feeling the effects as well. It’s almost midday, and he’s still sound asleep in your bed when you enter your bedroom in clean sweats and your bra while you towel dry your hair. 

Dean is lying on his stomach, with his face smushed adorably against the pillow he’s hugging, taking advantage of all the space now that you’ve vacated.

You crawl across the bed, leaning over him, and he still doesn’t stir. You put your lips close to his ear and half whisper, “Morning.”

His brow instantly creases, and he squeezes his eyes tighter, groaning, “No, no, you have to go away.” 

“You gotta get up. It’s almost midday.”

“Nuh-uh,” he grumbles, eyes still squeezed shut. “You have to take your horrible talking, talky mouth away from me.” 

“Okay, you asked for it.” You laugh, sitting back and wringing your hair out so the excess water drips on his naked back.

“Ah,” he groans, arching up off the mattress.

You jump off the bed, laughing as you walk to the mirror to start doing your hair. Turning over, he rubs a hand over his face and then both through his hair, causing it to stick up adorably. He catches you staring in the mirror, and you quickly avert your eyes. 

“Damn, your friends can drink,” he says, sitting up against the headboard. 

You laugh, that’s an understatement. “They definitely know how to have fun.” 

“They seem like a good bunch.” 

“They liked you too,” you smile at his reflection, and he grins back. “Laura told me to invite you to her and Chris’ wedding.”

His expression shifts, staring off into the distance for a singular moment as if he’s imagining how that would play out. But as quickly as it appears, it drops when he scrubs a hand down his face to put the mask back on. “That’s cool, but I can’t make that kind of commitment.” He swings his legs off the bed, putting his back to you. “I don’t know where I’ll be.”

You hadn’t expected a solid answer, but the double meaning behind his words settles thick disappointment in your stomach. You’ve never asked for any commitment nor discussed the arrangement between you, but hearing him say it aloud singes the hope you always try to contain.

Dean quickly gets to his feet, swaying at the abruptness. “I’m gonna grab a shower.” He mumbles, avoiding eye contact as he heads to the bathroom.

It’s been less than ten minutes, and you’re sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through your phone, when he finds the courage to face you again. He’s talking to Sam on his phone, obnoxiously loud, as he descends the stairs, trying to make a point of his hasty need to depart.

He appears in the kitchen doorway, jacket in hand, hair dripping onto the shoulders of his henley. You guess you should be grateful he wasn’t cowardly enough to have just shouted goodbye from the door. 

“Listen, I’m sorry about before.” He moves closer to the table, eyeing you as he raps his knuckles on the polished wood. “It’s just that, even with Chuck out of the picture, I’m not sure how things are going to play out. I can’t make any, uh, long-term commitments. Sam and-“

“I get it, Dean.” The last thing you want is any tension between you, so you nip the growing uncomfortableness. “We don’t need to have any awkward conversations.”

He bobs his head, hope swimming in his eyes. “So, we’re good?”

You take your mug to the sink, and once your back is to him, you say, “Yeah, we’re good.”

“You sure?” You didn’t hear him move, but the air shifts behind you, bringing his warmth along with it.

Plastering on a smile, you turn to face him and nod. “Take care of yourself.”

The corner of his mouth curls upward, and he kisses your forehead before heading to the door, “Talk to you soon,” he calls before the door clicks shut.

Fools rush in. Dean is no fool. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel like being one sometimes. Usually, it’s when he’s on the road, heading home from a hunt or supply run, he daydreams about how things could be with you. 

The daydream isn’t much different from how things already are. The sex would just be coupled with more official dates – dinner, movies, watching him, which for some reason turns you on, ‘do his thing’ as you call it when he’s hustling suckers at pool. Hell, even grocery shopping. He’d sneak unhealthy snacks into the cart because you promised Sam you’d take care of him, and you would. Dean knows you’d be good to him, that you are good for him. But he’s lived that life. He doesn’t need a wake-up call to know how it ends.

It’s a nice daydream. It gives him a much-needed boost of serotonin when he’s in short supply. But like the gas that fuels Baby, the thought has vaporized by the time he shuts off the engine.

Chuck isn’t calling the shots anymore, but that doesn’t mean the big bads aren’t still gunning for the Winchester's demise. Sam has it all figured out with Eileen, and Dean wishes he could be as sure about what he wants life to look like now. But he can’t be sure of anything, at least not yet. He’s still working on adjusting to a life not consumed by hunting. Trying to come to terms with the fact that there isn’t something lurking around every corner, that the choices he makes – good and bad – are truly his and not fueled by some life-ending curveball Chuck tosses at them. 

The doubts bore deeper, and as always, when he’s drowning in his own head, he thinks of you.

He remembers how you busted down the door with borrowed equipment from Sioux Falls. You’d looked frantic but still in control. Your mere presence had calmed him, and not because you were there to rescue him. You didn’t waste a breath with a witty comment like he would have. You let off two shots, dropped the ghoul about to take a chunk out of him, and then untied him.

You’d been cool and calm, checked him for injuries, but didn’t believe he was truly okay till he kissed you breathless. That adrenaline-filled, kiss-swollen lips, slightly frantic edge to your eyes, is the picture he conjures whenever he thinks of you. 

It’s been a while since he’s seen you. You’ve exchanged a few calls, but now that his mind is stuck on that picture of you, he has to see you.

He shoots Sam a text, telling him he’ll be in Sioux Falls if Sam needs anything, and then pulls an illegal u-turn to put himself in your direction. 

Dean’s not phased that you aren’t home when he shows up. It’s not like he called ahead. He never does. But now that he’s here, he doesn’t want to waste time tracking you down, so he calls. 

“Hey,” you greet brightly.

The smile in your voice brings out his. “Hey, yourself. I’m at your door.” 

“Shit, sorry, I’m not there.”

He chuckles, “Are you around, or does my timing suck again?” 

“No, no, it’s kinda perfect, actually,” you say. “I was gonna call you later anyway. But I need a half hour or so.”

“I can wait.” 

“Greasy Sal’s?” you offer. 

He smiles, already salivating at the thought of a Greasy Sal’s cheeseburger. “Throw in some curly fries,” he requests.  

“Okay, got it,” You laugh.

Dean sits on the Impala’s hood while he waits, head tilted toward the sun, eyes closed while he catches the day’s last rays. The sound of your car’s engine isn’t as distinct as Baby’s, but he knows it well enough that as soon as he hears it, he opens his eyes and watches you turn onto the street. It’s not until that moment that he realizes how eager he is to see you. Maybe Greasy Sal’s can wait; he has another hunger he needs to sate.

He waits till you shut off the engine to open your door, “such a gentleman,” you quip, taking his offered hand to step onto the sidewalk. “Or are you clambering for food?” 

“Not what I’m hungry for,” he says, guiding you against your car. He presses himself against you, feeling the coolness of the air conditioning on your clothes. He circles the tip of your nose with his own, whispering, “Hey,” against your lips before claiming them as his own. 

Frustratingly, you push a hand into his chest after the first brush of his tongue, and he pulls back to look at you. You're looking up at him from under hooded eyes, and he feels like his heart skips a beat, or maybe he’s just a little out of breath. But he knows that with you gazing up at him like he’s a beautiful sunset, he really has missed you. 

“Maybe we should take this inside.”

“Absolutely,” he says, slightly impatient that he can’t get you naked then and there.

He walks to the trunk to get your shopping bags and follows you up the path. He has a bag packed with his essentials but never brings it inside until the next morning. Something about bringing it in before you’ve had sex seems presumptuous, which is crazy because, as per the arrangement, that’s exactly what he’s here for.

“It’s good to see you,” you say, entering your kitchen with him close on your tail.

“Yeah, you too.” He genuinely means it. It’s like things fall into place when he’s around you. 

“How’s Sam?”

“He’s good,” Dean explains, placing the grocery bags on the countertop. “He’s taken Eileen away for a couple days.” 

“Good for them.” 

You unpack the groceries and take a beer from the fridge; as always, it's his favorite brand. Though he never warns you of his pending arrival there is always a supply cooling in the refrigerator and his favorite snacks in the cupboards. 

He takes the open bottle from you, leaning in to deliver another kiss, but you turn to grab more groceries, and he realizes it's a not-so-stealthy way to give him your cheek.

It seems to be the day of revelations because he’s super aware of how easily you flow around each other in the small kitchen. Dean plates up the burgers, grabbing another beer for you from the fridge, and he’s surprised to see that it’s the only one left. That, coupled with the kiss avoidance, gives him pause. Something’s wrong. 

You sit at the table and take a large gulp of the beer. “You okay?” he asks once you’ve swallowed the beer and the nervousness you're exuding. “You seem a little…off.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say, then inhale deeply before adding, “Actually, no, I’m not. We need to talk. And I hate how cliche that sounds, but I don’t know how else to bring it up, and I don’t want to get all emotional on you, but I need to tell you something.”

He feels the panic fizz in his gut. You can’t be pregnant. He's seen you take birth control, and he uses protection every time. So it can only be one thing …you're about to ruin everything.

You're going to utter those three words, and it's going to be the death blow to all the good stuff between you. 

He takes a swig of his beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Please don’t,” he begs, looking you dead square in the eyes. “What we’ve got going on is good, we’re good…” 

“Dean, I …” you try, but he holds a hand up to cut you off.

“Don’t say it.” he pushes his chair back and rubs his hands on his thighs, palms suddenly sweaty. “I like what we have. It works, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to it or that I don’t miss you. But I just got back a little peace of mind and…” he pauses, clearly searching for the right word, “caring about someone…” he shakes his head, reaching to wrap his hand around his beer bottle. “...Loving me, even with Chuck gone, it doesn’t make it any less of a death sentence. So please don’t say it.”

You reach across the table for his hand, clenched around his beer, but he’s quick to pull back. “Dean,” you choke out, the remorse you feel slipping from your eyes in a single tear. “I’ve met someone.” 

He stares at you, mouth agape, not sure that he heard you correctly. 

“It’s still new,” you continue, rushing to explain as your tears spill. “But it’s going somewhere. Somewhere great, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

Of course, you haven’t been sitting at home waiting for his sporadic visits. You’ve been out living your life as you should be. The possibility of meeting someone else, someone you could say those three words to, and it be a life sentence and not a death sentence, had occurred to him more than once. It poked at him like a swarming gnat, knowing you deserved to find someone better than him, but selfishly, he swatted at it until it went away. 

He’s holding his breath and will get light-headed soon if he doesn’t find the ability to breathe again. 

“Dean,” you coax, “say something.”

He feels as if you’d blindsided him, come out of the left field, and taken his legs out from under him. Now he’s on his back, the wind knocked out of him, and waiting for the feeling in his limbs to return. 

Abruptly he stands. He sees the panic in your eyes and knows what’s coming. As you plead, “Don’t leave,” he says, “I gotta go.”

He strides quickly toward the door. You call his name as he goes, but he doesn’t stop. 

He rushes out your front door, leaves it open, and as he reaches Baby, he has a singular moment of wondering what will hurt the least - holding on or letting go.

“Dean, please,” you call from the door. 

He slides behind the wheel, deciding to let go.

Part 2 - The Right Guy On Paper.

Tags info

/ @alexxavicry / @b3autyfuldisast3r / @deandreamernp / @deanwinchesterswitch / @fandom-princess-forevermore / @foxyjwls007 / @jc-winchester / @justagirlinafandomworld / @katbratsupernaturalwhore / @leigh70 / @letsbys-library / @lyarr24 / @mrswhozeewhatsis / @nancymcl / @shanimallina87 / @stoneyggirl2 / @waywardbaby / @wildbornsiren / @writercole / @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior / @pank0w / @kmc1989/ @deans-spinster-witch / @spnbaby-67 / @roseblue373

Master Lists: JAcklesVerseBingo / Dean Winchester / Main

[waterlemon-melon]

✨our spectacular guest percussionist: trucy wright✨

og text post | phoenix | miles | maya and pearl | franziska | mia | apollo

a prodigy percussionist (queen of polyrhythms), mainly plays the auxiliary percussion instruments (triangle, castanets, tambourine) and mallet instruments (xylophone, glockenspiel), but as with all percussionists, she can also play a lot more (drums, hammer, cannons, even piano as she has to study it as a percussionist and also bc she’s the daughter of a famous pianist lol). the gramarye family was a famous percussionist playing family that does some weird but fun stuff with percussion. how did she manage to join the actual big orchestra (instead of a normal youth orchestra) we may never know (some say her daddy has a hand in it (miles definitely pulled some strings)).

her go-tos:

strauss alpine symphony: she’s on the wind and thunder machine as well as her normal parts

the cannons!! the chimes!! she loves making apollo go deaf!!

she’s on the snare drums here! while this actually requires a true mastery of sound from the snare, she also loves slowly making everyone a lil bit annoyed with the constant music

trucy being a supportive artistic friend with klavier and absolutely loves being the bell sound!! (courtesy of twoset violin 4 mil concert encore)

she has a field day with this one! creating (the) theme from just percussion alone is one of her specialty as a descendant of the gramarye troupe

the hammer strikes down, signaling the hero’s downfall. he receives three blows from fate, the third of which fells him like a tree

(signaling phoenix’s downfall, with trucy dealing the blows)

[race-week]

Do we think Alpine will have a fun dance troupe or some other chaotic element at their launch again, yes or yes?

I expect that it’ll be very French

[sebscore]

Hello I'm back! Been gone cause of exams but I hath arisen! (They arent over I just have a long break till my last one)

Anyway here's a little brain riot to celebrate my return;) :

On a driver name association game thing for Grill The Grid these were some of gzd's answers (so basically she says the first thing that pops into her head when she hears a drivers name)

Interviewer person: Max?

Gzd: du du dudu Max Verstappen du du dudu

Interviewer: Lance?

Gzd: oh! Lana del Rey! Lance is definitely Lana coded.

Int: ....ok?..... Charles?

Gzd: "I am stewpid" and "nothing just an inchident"

Int: *trying not to laugh* Lewis?

Gzd: seb's platonic husband. The shippers are gonna love me for that

Int: Lando?

Gzd: RUMPELSTILTSKIN! oh and kinder joy cause his middle name is kinder

Int: Fernando

Gzd: ALL THE TIME YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE SPACE

Int: Pierre?

Gzd: I'll do you a favor. Esti Bestie and Pierre: enemies to lovers. One bed troupe

Int: Oscar?

Gzd: Alpine. Wait can I say that?

Int: we'll allow it. Logan?

Gzd: Florida man.

Anyway cause I'm to lazy your imagination can run wild with the rest.

As always love you loads my dear. Stay safe and look after yourself

💤

I’m happy for you that your exams are over and I hope you’re having a nice break so far, darling! 💙

anyway- I LOVE THIS 😭😭😭 how you always come up with these funny quotes and stuff is beyond me, but I enjoy them every time!

THANK YOU BABES!!! I love you too and hope you’re taking care of yourself! 🥹🫶🏻🦋

[austerlitzborodinoleipzig]

Défilé du 14 juillet :

Mon frère fredonne la seule marche de se défilé que je ne connais pas. Ce n'est ni la Marche Consulaire (qui joue quand Macron passe les troupes en revue) ni Sambre et Meuse (qui joue quand les écoles défilent).

Ma soeur checke la page Wikipédia d'Albert Séverin Roche, et le lexique propre aux chasseurs alpins.

Ma mère pète des câbles car le caméraman a massacré les prises de vue du passage du Cadre Noir et au lieu des figures de haute école on a eu des gros plans sur la putain de flamme olympique.

Mon père se souvient que dans les années 90 les chœurs de l'armée rouge, gominés et enfoncés dans leurs uniformes ont pour la première fois chanté des chansons jazz et de la variété. Inconcevable sous l'URSS.

Quand j'avais trois ans j'ai foutu la honte à ma grand mère dans la boucherie de mon village. Le boucher tend le sac avec la viande en disant tiens. Du haut de mes trois ans je chante a plein poumons dans la boutique : voilà du boudin

[personal-reporter]

Edoardo Raspelli racconterà la provincia di Verbano Cusio Ossola

In prima serata sabato 21 ottobre alle 21.30 andrà in onda la seconda puntata della seconda serie de L’ITALIA CHE MI PIACE…IN VIAGGIO CON RASPELLI. Sarà la volta dei formaggi e vini della Val d’Ossola, della lavorazione delle erbe alpine, di un inedito incontro in piantagione con i produttori di Camelia del tè a Cuzzago di Premosello Chiovenda, momenti che si alterneranno a riprese dei panorami del lago d’Orta e del Lago Maggiore. Edoardo Raspelli e la troupe si muoveranno tra le bellezze e le bontà di Baceno, Crodo, Domodossola, Santa Maria Maggiore, Pieve Vergonte, Verbania, Gignese… Tavolata alla Cascinetta di Gignese, sopra Stresa. Le 10 nuove puntate andranno in onda non solo su ALMA TV (canale 65 del digitale terrestre nazionale) ogni sabato alle 21.30 con replica la domenica alle  15, ma saranno visibili anche su CANALE EUROPA, una delle principali piattaforme streaming a livello nazionale ed europeo, all’interno di un ricco ed interessante palinsesto che comprende anche Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Fire TV e Roku. Sul set, accanto ad Edoardo Raspelli, si alternano Paola Bonacina Sara Colonna ed Isabella Saladino. L’ITALIA CHE MI PIACE…IN VIAGGIO CON RASPELLI ha come produttore ed autore il celebre paroliere Fabrizio Berlincioni (vincitore di due Festival di Sanremo, per anni autore anche di Melaverde su Canale 5, proprio con Raspelli) con al suo fianco la figlia Nastassia. Il regista è Carlo Tagliaferri, operatore Samuele Pollini. Le foto dei set sono di Nastassia Berlincioni e Carlo Tagliaferri. Si inizia con il Piemonte, con quattro province, in collaborazione con la Regione Piemonte, Visit Piemonte e le ATL, le Agenzie Turistiche Locali delle singole zone; due puntate sono in collaborazione con la Camera di Commercio di Nuoro, una con l’Azienda di Soggiorno e Turismo di Bolzano, due puntate sono dedicate ai prodotti della Orogel ( tra Cesena e Policoro, Matera) , una alla Novi (di Novi Ligure, Alessandria) ed alla King’s, lo storico salumificio (dal 1907) di Sossano (Vicenza).1   Asti Langhe Monferrato Roero   14 ottobre2  Verbano Cusio Ossola           21 ottobre3  Alessandria e provincia        28 ottobre4  Cuneo e provinc                 4 novembre5  Irgoli (Nùoro e provincia)I    11 novembre6  Irgoli (Nùoro e provincia)II   18 novembre7  Bolzano (e provincia)          25 novembre8  Policoro (e provincia di Matera) 2 dicembre9  Cesena e provincia               9 dicembre10 Novi Ligure (Alessandria) - Val Liona (Vicenza) - San Daniele del Friuli (Udine) 16 dicembre. Clicca qu�� per le puntate in streaming e on-demand. Clicca quì per Canale Europa Primo Piano. Read the full article

[furiefrancaise]

Jean CALDERON, le "chien fou" du commando Cobra selon les termes du Général Gaget, nous a chaleureusement accueilli chez lui et nous a raconté ses aventures :

"Fils d’immigrés espagnols, j’ai du commencer à travailler très jeune, ce qui fait que à 8 ans, je vendais des beignets dans les rues de Saida. J’y ai gagné le surnom de «Tayo» qui m’a suivi au commando bien plus tard. A 17 ans, je me suis engagé à la légion étrangère, mais après un mois mon père m’a réclamé pour continuer à vendre des beignets, la légion m’a mis à la porte et la mort dans l’âme je suis reparti dans la rue vendeur ambulant. Mais cette situation ne me plaisant pas je me suis engagé dans une GMPR (groupe mobile de police rurale), une troupe de supplétif de l’armée française chargée du maintien de l’ordre. Seul européen au milieu des musulmans, nous vivions dans une ferme dans des conditions assez difficile. On me donne un fusil us 17 et on m’apprend à tirer. Un soir, de garde, vers 23h, les fellouz attaquent, je suis seul dans le blockhaus et me met à tirer un coup de la fenêtre de droite un coup de la fenêtre de gauche jusqu’à l’arrivée des renforts (quel soulagement) C’était mon baptême du feu !!Après un an dans les GMPR, continuant à vendre des beignets sur les plages avec mon père, ils m’ont foutu à la porte à cause de ces absences.. De nouveau civil, un client qui était au 8ème RIM me dit de m’engager dans son régiment, ce que je fais et on m’envoie faire mes classes à Rennes. Première fois que je mets les pieds en France ! Avec mon expérience je me démarque rapidement du groupe et m’adapte très rapidement à cette nouvelle vie.                                                                                                                                   De retour à Saida, on m’affecte à la sixième compagnie du 8ème RIM qui allait passer commando. Une quinzaine de jouir après la formation du commando arrivent le lieutenant Gaget et son fidèle compagnon, le sergent chef Hadj, véritable chien de guerre. Puis c’est l’arrivée de Bigeard à Saida, et là, tout change, l’équipement, l’armement, le matériel, mais surtout l’état d’esprit. C’est la création du commando Georges pour le renseignement avec une majorité de fellouz ralliés et notre commando prend le nom de Cobra, nous serons la troupe d’intervention qui traitera les renseignements récupérés par « Georges ». La première mission du commando sera un fiasco, ce qui vaudra à Gaget de se faire traiter de « Cobra miniature » par Bigeard. Ce qui permettra au lieutenant de structurer le commando en plusieurs groupes ou stick dans notre jargon. Au départ voltigeur du groupe d’intervention « Rapide », je passe rapidement caporal puis sergent. Nous enchainons les opérations et les bilans deviennent rapidement positifs. Tous les soirs, à 21 heures, nous nous déplaçons à pied et marchons jusqu’à 6heures, puis nous tendons des embuscades. La journée nous ratissons les coins qui nous ont été désignés. Je recevrais ma première citation lors d’un combat en 1959, lors d’un ratissage, dans un thalweg, nous tombons nez à nez avec environ 70 fellouz, pendant quelques secondes nous nous regardons ébahis, puis l’enfer se déchaine, je me mets à genoux, tire avec ma MAT 49 alors que le porteur FM tire au dessus de ma tète au jugé avec sa AA 52.. Nous arrivons au corps à corps et lorsqu’ils décrochent les poursuivons sur quelques kilomètres. Après cette victoire, le soir, l’alcool a coulé à flot, il fallait fêter cet accrochage dignement.Il y en a eu énormément des accrochages comme ça.

Une fois, avec le commando Jaubert, nous avons poursuivi les fellouz sur environ 7 km après la frontière du Maroc, il y a eu des réprimandes au niveau diplomatique, mais étant jeune et un peu fou je ne faisais pas attention aux détails de ce genre, et les commandos marines avaient eu deux morts, ce qui fait qu’ils voulaient se venger..

Il y a eu aussi l’opération de la soif, nous n’avions plus d’eau et avons erré, les points d’eau étaient à sec, des hommes tombaient de déshydratation, le lieutenant n’arrivait plus à s’orienter et à donner des ordres clair, il délirait.. Le camion venant nous approvisionner a sauté sur une mine et 10 gars sont morts, quand enfin des camions ont réussis à nous rejoindre, rentré au camp, il a fallu une quinzaine de jour pour nous rétablir. Une autre fois, une rafale de MG42 m’est passé entre les jambes, j’ai reçu d’ailleurs une autre citation ce jour là car j’ai réussi à prendre cette mitrailleuse après avoir tué les fellouz servant cette mitrailleuse allemande. Mais il a fallu d’abord monter jusqu’à eux qui étaient retranchés en haut d’un piton entre des cailloux.

Pour résumer l’histoire du commando Cobra, à force de travail, et grâce à notre encadrement de grande qualité, nous avons réussi à devenir l’un des meilleurs commandos de secteur et à transformer de jeunes appelés en loups de guerre, ils ont fait du travail de professionnel. Pour finir, ce sera l’abandon par de Gaulle, la dissolution du commando qui lèguera ses traditions au 8ème RI et aujourd’hui à la compagnie Cobra du 3ème RPIMA qui a d’ailleurs repris notre fanion. Moi, j’ai du quitter mon Algérie natale pour laquelle je me suis battus, j’ai continué ma carrière dans l’armée, avec un passage au chasseur alpins et j’ai fini major. Aujourd’hui j’anime le souvenir du commando et en suis le porte drapeau.

« Cobra » ne m’a jamais quitté!

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Idiot's Delight (1939)

Harry Van, an American World War I veteran, tries to reenter show business and ends up in a faltering mentalist show with an inept, aging alcoholic, Madame Zuleika. While giving performances in Omaha, Nebraska, he is courted by Irene, a trapeze artist, who claims to come from Russia and hopes both to replace Harry's drunken partner in the show and be his lover. They have a romantic night, but he is suspicious of Irene's overstated flights of fancy. Harry, keeping Zuleika, and Irene's troupe board trains going in the opposite directions the next day.

Twenty years later, after a number of jobs, Harry is the impresario and co-performer with Les Blondes, a dance group of six women on a trip through Europe. While taking a train from Romania to Switzerland, they are stranded at an Alpine hotel in an unnamed, belligerent country, when borders are suddenly closed as war becomes imminent. The passengers watch through the hotel lounge's large windows as dozens of bombers take off from an air field at the bottom of the picturesque valley and fly away in formation.

Among the passengers lingering in the lounge, Harry meets Irene, a glamorous platinum blonde with an exaggerated Russian accent, who is traveling as the mistress of a rich armaments entrepreneur, Achille Weber. Although she claims never to have been to Omaha, Harry's casual innuendoes show he is convinced that she is the acrobat he knew there, and he believes that she recognizes him, too. An agitated pacifist rants to his fellow travelers about Weber's guns, which he says are behind the war that just started, and describes for them how the planes they saw disappear over the spectacular snowy mountains will be killing thousands of people in other countries. The pacifist is hauled away and shot by the border police, commanded by the friendly and impeccable Captain Kirvline, who mingles with the travelers while they wait at the hotel.

In their hotel suite, an upset Irene explodes and tells Weber "the truth [she has] always wanted to tell." She blames him for the likely deaths of untold numbers of people in the war, whose victims – in her vivid accusations – might include the newlywed English couple, the Cherrys, they met at the hotel, all killed with the weapons that Weber sells.

The Swiss border opens again the next day, and the people at the hotel are able to continue on their journeys. They learn they had better be off as soon as possible because foreign countries are likely to retaliate today for yesterday's air raid and bomb the air field near the hotel, which could be hit by mistake. As everyone rushes to leave, Irene finds out that Weber has decided to dump her when he refuses to vouch for her flimsy League of Nations passport to Capt. Kirvline, who tells Irene she must stay at the hotel.

Having escorted his Les Blondes to the Swiss border, Harry returns to stay with Irene. She admits she is the woman he met in Omaha 20 years ago, and she still loves him. Harry talks about her future, performing with him and the blondes. They hear approaching planes and are told to run to the shelter, but Irene declares she does not want to die in a cellar. As Harry tries to take her there anyway, a bomb partly destroys the hotel and blocks their escape from the lounge.

The print that has aired on TCM since 1999 shows the international ending and briefly displays The End followed by a title card that reads: “You have just seen the original ‘International’ 1939 ending of MGM’s ‘Idiots (sic) Delight’ which is spiritual and optimistic in tone. We now present the original ‘domestic’ theatrical ending that seems to ignore the fact that the rest of the world is at war.” However, the second ending does include Irene’s line, “The whole world has gone to war!” Dramatic music plays while this card is displayed.

Domestic

The ending shown to the domestic (U.S., Canadian) audience replaced the hymn from the play with Harry and Irene talking about their plans for the future in hopes of diverting their minds from the bombs exploding outside the lobby windows. Harry rehearses with her the secret code Irene watched him use with his "mind-reader" partner in Omaha. As the bombing stops and the Alpine valley turns serene once more, Irene excitedly describes their future act together while Harry begins to play the damaged piano. The film's ending does not go as far as the original in sounding the knell of destruction, it takes a lighter and more romantic course in dealing with the menaces of bombings.

International

In the ending intended for international audiences, Harry plays the piano as together they sing a hymn ("Abide with Me") from Harry's youth in hopes of distracting their minds from the bombs exploding outside the hotel windows. They embrace after the Alpine valley turns serene once more. The studio's marketing goal with the more solemn bombing sequence failed. After the trouble to which the producers went to make this palatable for the totalitarian states, it seems all the more futile that it was banned in those nations despite the hazy geographical location and the scrupulous use of Esperanto.

[buckybarnesbingo]

BBB Week 21 Roundup!  Lots of awesome content this past week!

Title: Dinosaurs, Dragons, and Dorks (Oh My!) Collaborator: newtypeshadow Link: AO3 Square Filled: K5 - Hot On Your Heels Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: none Summary: Bucky is being chased by a t-rex. That's his own fault. That the t-rex is going to catch him? That's all on Clint. Word Count: 1122

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Title: Red String of Fate Collaborator: ariasfandom Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B1 - AU: Soulmates Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: Aesthetic, soulmates, 40s Stucky, red string of fate Summary: none

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Title: The Name You Gave Me - Chapter 31: Epilogue Collaborator: rebelmeg Link: AO3 Square Filled: C2 - December 16, 1991 Ship: Tony & Natasha & Bucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: violence, epilogue/sequel teaser, Winter Soldier, character death, car accident Summary: It's been seven years, and time has changed everyone. Except for one thing... Tony and James never stopped searching. They never could have predicted that their sister would find them first. Word Count: 49,400

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Title: Aria in B♭ - Chapter 2 Collaborator: tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: B3 - Kink: "Harder” Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, opera singer Bucky Barnes, nobleman Tony Stark, Prostitution, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Dubious Consent, Pining, Dueling, Gambling Summary: Word Count:

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Title: Dial 1-800-HAWKEYE Collaborator: squadrickchestopher Link: AO3 Square Filled: C5 - tech support Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: explicit sexual content, D/s Summary: Clint is taken captive while on a mission, and his comms are off. Luckily, Bucky has a way of communicating with him. Word Count: 11,855

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Title: [Art] Bingo Clusterfuck - Chapter 4: you don't fight fair Collaborator: Call_Me_Kayyyyy Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - Cat Ship: Stucky Rating: Gen Major Tags: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Pet Adoption, Happily Ever After, art   Summary: It's standard procedure to take a photo of a new owner with their fur-baby before they head home after an adoption. This is Steve and Bucky's photo after Bucky convinced Steve to adopt half the shelter. They were just there to LOOK and see if Bucky felt a connection with any of the cats. Next thing you know Bucky used his best "big sad recovering assassin" face to explain how he NEEDED all of them. Now that they owned their place in Brooklyn there was no one tell them no. Not even Steve could say no to that face. They all came with their own names the shelter gave them but the only one Bucky didn't want to rename was Alpine, a large white cat that didn't seem to care much for Steve. The rest clung to Steve like he was their own personal savior and Bucky decided to rename them after their friends. That's how the orange tabby cat with nails like knives ended up as Natasha Jr., the cat on top of Steve's head that seemed to like heights Clint Jr., the jittery one, Tony Jr., the regal yellow one who keeps head butting everyone Thor Jr., and the sweet cuddly one Sam Jr.

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Title: The Americans - Chapter 2: Part Two: I am inevitable Collaborator: grimeysociety Link: AO3 Square Filled: C4 - Mulitverse Shenanigans Ship: Stucky/Darcy Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Major Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War (Movie), Explicit Sexual Content Summary: When Thanos snaps his fingers, half the universe is gone, including Steve Rogers. Given the impossible task of moving on, Bucky Barnes befriends Darcy Lewis. A chance encounter gives them and those left behind the opportunity to fix it all and bring back everyone who dusted. Meanwhile, across universes and timelines, trouble’s been brewing, and at the root of it all are two legendary humans simply known as The Americans. Word Count: 3944

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Title: The Last Drakkon Collaborator: squadrickchestopher Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - AU: dragon rider Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: explicit sexual content, dragons Summary: He stops as a massive shape comes rearing up from the cliff’s edge, almost twice the size of The Avenger, red and shimmery and brilliant. It lands with a thud on the clifftop, hard enough to shake the entire thing and knock Clint on his ass. He barely even notices; he’s too busy staring at the giant red creature perched in front of him. It stares back, blinking slowly.“Holy stars,” Clint says, staring at him, suddenly remembering the stories he used to read as a kid. “You’re a drakkon?” Word Count: 17,035

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Title: Clint's Hugging Service Collaborator: pherryt Link: AO3 Square Filled: B3 - Learning to be Loved Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, touch starved Summary: Bucky really, really wants to know what a Clint Barton hug feels like. Everyone else seems to swear by them. Word Count: 7612

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Title: First Touch Collaborator: caitriona-3 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U3 - PTSD Ship: Bucky/Darcy/Clint Rating: Teen Major Tags: soulmates, fic and moodboards Summary: Who knew something good could come out of being stuck in an elevator? Word Count: 2345

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Title: HYDRA Scientific Report Collaborator: startrekkingaroundasgard Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y2 - writing format: HYDRA POV Ship: Bucky/Winter Soldier x Reader Rating: Teen Major Tags: mention of torture, physical experiments, brainwashing Summary: A restricted memo from the desk of the HYDRA scientist in charge at Nemesis base, detailing the latest update on their new asset.

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Title: Knock Knock Collaborator: ialwayscomewhenyoucall Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B4 - hot water Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: mention of injury, sharing a bath, anal sex, blow jobs, pining, angst and fluff, protective bucky, explicit sexual content Summary: Clint is injured on a mission and he and Bucky have to hide out in a safehouse. Bucky would much rather kiss Clint than tend his wounds, but of course he can’t tell Clint that. So with top notch logic, he decides Clint needs a bath. What could go wrong? Word Count: 6970

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Title: [Podfic] Boom, Baby Collaborator: shadow-ravin Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Thighs Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Clint Barton, Explosions, Semi-Public Sex, Explosion Kink, Intercrural Sex, Hand Jobs, Mildly Dubious Consent, due to brainwashing and lack of identity and knowledge of consent, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes Summary: The two of them were connected, he knew it. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. (In which Hydra captured Clint and turned him into the second Winter Soldier)

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Title: Long Have I Waited for You Collaborator: Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 - cold Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: Violence, torture, Howard Stark’s A+ Parenting, Child Abuse Summary: Howard agrees that if he has a son, he would give Bucky said son's hand in marriage. Now, 80 years later, will Bucky hold up his end of the deal? Word Count: 2122

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Title: Bound Collaborator: hddnone Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C3 - free Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: bondage, D/s vibes Summary: It had been the easiest decision Bucky had ever made, giving Tony the end of his leash. Word Count: 752

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Title: Aria in B♭ - Chapter 3 Collaborator: 27dragons Link: AO3 Square Filled: C1 - Secret Relationship Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: historical AU, attempted rape/noncon, dubious consent, prostitution, pining, dueling, gambling Summary: Lord Stark has his faults -- a bit too fond of a drink, a little too reckless at cards, and entirely too happy to flout his good fortune in his rivals’ faces. But a man as wealthy and powerful as Tony Stark is bound to have a few peccadillos. What he is not, is the sort of man who would force himself upon another unwilling, unlike Lord Killian, who seems to have taken a particular shine to an opera singer in the troupe Killian is hosting. Tony rescues Mr. Barnes from Killian’s untender mercies, moves the troupe into his own home, and takes Mr. Barnes as his bed companion for the season. The arrangement provides protection for Bucky and the troupe from Killian’s spite, and tweaks Killian at the same time -- a win all around, as far as Tony is concerned. He wasn’t counting on Bucky being so utterly charming and wonderful, or for the possibility that he might actually, after so many years a bachelor, fall in love. Word Count: 15,755

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Title: [Art] Bingo Clusterfuck - Chapter 5: before I put another notch in my lipstick case Collaborator:  Call_Me_Kayyyyy Link: AO3 Square Filled: U4 - Hair Braiding Ship: Stucky Rating: Explicit Major Tags: art, feminization, lingerie Summary: After a two week mission away Steve will be home any minute. Bucky's ready to make up for lost time.

[celticfeather]

Chapter 1: https://celticfeather.tumblr.com/post/188433697686/akatsuki-fic-campfires

Cannibals Chapter 3: The Lineage of Izanagi

-Uchiha Itachi-

Something particularly loveless prodded Itachi awake.

"You're the last watch till dawn," Kakuzu said. Itachi activated his sharingan as he woke, his dark eyes shifting to red. He could see Kakuzu's green ones were dilated near-sightlessly in the blackness.

Itachi rose and leapt up their chosen watchman's tree. The sharingan allowed him to see a wider spectrum of visible light than a normal human, and what should have been the black jungle night gained a strange ultraviolet tinge, a whitish-purple color somewhere between neon and dark that his language could not well describe. The stars and chakras shined different, coldly-bright, minty colors too. But he saw no glows of enemy shinobi in the night, just the gentle silver chakra silhouettes of sleeping birds and insects, and the three ninja below him. He let his sharingan fade. In an hour it had become bright enough for ordinary humans to see.

He alighted between the three ninja sleeping on the ground to no response. So much for Kisame's 'I only half sleep' claim.

Unsure of the best way to wake them, Itachi announced at normal volume, "It's dawn."

They rose quickly and quietly, professional in every mercenary sense of the word. For a troupe of cantankerous rogues, Itachi was surprised no one complained. He supposed that would resume once they decided they were no longer being hunted.

"No sign of the enemy since I've been awake," Itachi reported.

"Time to get the hell out of the land of Lightning. Anyone gotta take a piss, now's the time," Kakuzu said. After a short moment, the four ninja oriented themselves against the eastern dawn, and began leaping through the trees.

"Where's Zetsu when you need him?" Deidara muttered as they ran. "He'd say what Pain wants us to do about this."

"You don't need Pain or his pet mushroom. You have me," Kakuzu said.

"Yeah? And who made you second in command?"

"I'm the one who actually talks with our contractors. So naturally, I have our mission intel, and there's no reason to stop work."

"Hmpf," Deidara said.

"Since you fucked up the least, Kisame, I'll let you pick what you do." Kakuzu said. "You want to fix this Raikage incident, or make some money?"

Kisame looked at Itachi for his opinion. Itachi merely raised his eyebrows in reply.

"Make money," Kisame answered. Good. Itachi wanted to be away from this disaster.

"Great. You two go to this shithole village and kill their patriarch. When you're done with that, some pirates could use a lesson in not leaving witnesses." Kakuzu tossed a scroll to Kisame and one to Itachi, who each caught them deftly. Kakuzu then looked at Deidara.

"Deidara, you and Sasori will fix your fuck up. We don't want the Cloud or Mist investigating the Akatsuki. Blame it on different terrorists."

"How do we do that?"

"Doesn't matter," Kakuzu said.

Deidara frowned. But his calmness suggested he thought Sasori would know how to fix it.

They were soon over the border of the Land of Frost, where they said the brief goodbyes of stiff men. Itachi and Kisame continued west. Deidara went north. Kakuzu south. They stopped at a collection point on the way to get Kisame a new robe and gear, and began their ascent to the next mission's village in the afternoon.

They stopped along a river to prepare. The mint-colored alpine meltwater cooled the air in a low dense pocket from the beating sun. Itachi opened the scroll of mission intel and familiarized himself with the details. "Small town. Better we don't make a stir."

Kisame grunted in acknowledgement and stepped towards the river, swinging Samehada off his shoulder. He summoned a large deep-blue shark along the bank. It opened its mouth, and Kisame pressed the wrapped Samehada inside its white-fleshed throat. The two ninja being armed to the teeth was useful for intimidation, but a hindrance to infiltration. As if it was a loyal horse, Kisame patted the magical shark once on the muzzle once it closed its jaws around Samehada.

"You ever touch a shark before, Itachi? Try it."

Like he had been invited to partake in the most dangerous petting zoo, Itachi wet his feet at the bank where the shark, high as his hips, swayed half submerged. He thought the shark would look at him, or at least acknowledge him, but its circular black eyes didn't waver. With a slowness Itachi hoped the fish would interpret as respect, he brushed his palm against its exposed gray flank.

"It feels like sandpaper."

Kisame smiled. "Shark skin is actually made of dentin, the same material as teeth."

Because they need more of that, Itachi thought. He removed his hand, and deeming its duty done, the huge probably-sentient carnivore disappeared with a puff of mist to the realm Kisame had summoned it from.

"It's not easy to make a summoning contract with a shark, you know. Ninja tend to not come back," Kisame said.

"I thought you said sharks don't like how people taste."

"Oh, the sage sharks of Koraru Depths make exceptions for arrogant Mist chunin. You don't taste that bad."

He sent Kisame a reproachful look at his choice of pronouns, but Itachi's face was something of a resting scowl, so Kisame seemed not to notice.

To appear like a traveler of the civilian sort, Itachi untied his shuriken packs and the ninja headband. They kept their robes, no one yet recognized the red clouds as unique. He thought living in the forest on the run gave him enough of a convincingly rough appearance. Lifting his gaze from the water's reflection, he regarded his partner.

"Do I pass for a trader?"

"You look fine. It's your voice that's the problem."

"My voice?"

"I don't know how much you know about the Hidden Mist, but there we have a caste system, and the Hoshigaki belong to a certain caste. And people like me can tell by your dialect, Itachi, that you come from a noble family, and there's not a chance in hell you're a traveling merchant."

Itachi never thought of himself as in an upper class, and caste had been abolished in his land seventy years ago. Kisame's background in the Mist allowed him to perceive things that Itachi never intended to exude. "I see."

"Try gotcha, instead of I see."

"Gotcha."

Itachi pulled a piece of paper from the scroll and unfolded its careful nine-faceted square. A sketch of the man they were paid to kill stared back at them. Taika Hiroki. About sixty years old, leader of the local clan, someone had it out for him. Kisame nodded, having committed his face a last time to memory. Itachi burned the incriminating documents between his fingers.

The pair climbed ancient stairs carved from wood, stone, and roots, along a humid forested mountain crest. Traditional torii winged gates arched over their heads, and the small village soon appeared along a glacial lake between the mountains. A chunin posted at the doorless entrance looked the two travelers up and down. He pulled a root of wild licorice from his teeth before he spoke.

"What brings you to Honomura?"

"We're merchants," Kisame said.

"Here for the festival?"

"Of course."

The guard escorted them in. A minor official who clearly did not get enough visitors gave them each wooden travelers' passes. What a bothersome village.

Itachi felt more endangered in these hamlets. He paradoxically would be less noticed in a large ninja village. It was in these tribal redoubts, where most of the settlement consisted of a single clan, that he knew he was immediately recognized as an outsider. By the introductions they made with petty officials, the pair gleaned that three quarters of the settlement's two-hundred-odd population had the surname Taika, and it would not be easy to find theirs.

But the presence of the foreigners attracted mercifully little attention at the festival. Like moths drawn to the warm haze of paper lanterns, the outlaw pair wandered dazed to the center of the fairgrounds. After weeks in the forest they were transfixed by the live music, the vendors, and best, the greasy scent of real food -not whole animals- which glistened with salt and sauce. They looked at each other with testing eyes that betrayed the same poorly concealed thought.

"How much money do we have," Itachi said.

Kisame checked himself. "I've got eight hundred."

"I have one thousand."

Crap.

"I'll find some more money," Kisame said. Good. They were on the same line of the same page. In less than two minutes, Kisame had stolen a two centimeter wad of cash from a food stand.

Itachi's eyes darted from stand to stand. "What do you want to eat?"

"Do I look picky to you?"

Bristling with treasures —foods on sticks and cups of tea and sake between their knuckles— Itachi and Kisame seated themselves at one of many low tables near the town's stage and began to eat. Soon enough an announcer entered stage center, and introduced an act on the origin of deities.

"How's your knowledge of religion, Itachi?"

"Average."

The play began as they ate, and rusted to art forms, Itachi found himself paying rapt attention. Two actors dressed in white robes, a woman and a spear-wielding man, stepped onto the stage, where white lanterns cast the empty scene in an ethereal fog. Dipping his spear into the water, or rather tapping the stage floor, the man created land, and the white-clouded lanterns slid on the string to be replaced with ones tinted a jungle green.

"Izanami and Izanagi," Itachi whispered to Kisame. "Siblings, but also..." he waved his hand in esoteric explanation.

The creation gods Izanami and Izanagi had several deformed and normative children. First born was Hiruko, stricken with a hunched back, and cast into a river. They had many others, at last birthing Kagutsuchi the fire god. Izanami died giving birth to the flaming infant.

"And with Izanami's end, the world's first death occurred, and with it the age of creation. Intent to amend his wife's unjust fate, Izanagi plunged into the underworld, which then, was not separated from the realm of men," the narrator read.

Izanami wandered through a darkened stage, and stopped short. Behind a veil shined the unmistakable silhouette of his beloved wife.

The curtain lifted, but the woman it revealed was not fair Izanami. The actress's serene white face-paint had become putrefied in death. Children's gasps accented the moment. Fingers curled in shock at his rancid beloved, Izanagi turned away. His wife was enraged at his superficial rejection, and spurred demons after her former lover. Izanagi raced from the underworld, off the stage, where demons in fur-rimmed masks chased him through the audience until Izanagi circled, panting but safe, back onto the stage of the surface world. He pushed a prop-boulder over the cave, forever sealing life from death.

The narrator stepped onto the stage, and a spotlight centered on him, with Izanagi bathing himself in background.

"Izanagi cleansed himself from the underworld in a rushing river. The water that streamed off his face became three new gods:"

The spotlight jumped to greet the new characters in regal dress:

"From one eye sprung the proud moon god, Tsukuyomi."

"From the nose, the mischievous god of sea and storm, Susanoo."

"And from the other eye, artful and enlightened, patron of our village: Amaterasu the sun."

"Amaterasu was by far the most righteous and beautiful of the three new gods," the narrator crooned, and stooped low to leer at her backside. Amaterasu raised her fan to her face, whumphing the announcer without a lapse in grace, and the audience laughed.

The three new gods greeted the world of men -the audience- each with kabuki flourishes that reflected their personalities. He thought Amaterasu made eye contact with him from behind her fan.

"Hm." Kisame smiled slightly and his pupils slid to Itachi.

Itachi sipped his tea. "We might be the most interesting thing that blew into this town in a week."

"You should talk with her."

"I'm not good at flirting."

Kisame snorted. "Just like your knowledge of religion."

"I'm not being modest. I haven't spoken with a girl my age in years. In this town, I'm just a merchant."

"A kind, handsome one."

Itachi was struck that Kisame had called him 'kind.' He did not think Kisame would evaluate someone with that category. Not knowing how to take the compliment, Itachi stared back at the stage. Amaterasu and Susanoo competed over who was a stronger god. Amaterasu had just turned Susanoo's sword into five human beings, versus Susanoo's ability to spring only three from her necklace.

Their low table quaked. Kisame had plunged his cup down so hard and fast that his drink sloshed over the rim. His wide nose wrinkled and the stare Itachi met was battle-urgent.

"There's blood, buckets of it, enough to drain ten men."

Itachi forced his shoulders to relax. They must not act or show awareness of this yet. His eyes scanned the crowd as a cheering arose and the taiko drums beat an excited sinister trot into the space between his ribs. A column of fifteen men and boys carved a path like a wild river through the parade grounds, a coarse wooden platform undulating on the men's shoulders. Atop it glistened a bleeding heap of fresh red muscles and white fascia. It was a dead, skinned, horse.

Kisame squinted. "What the hell?"

"The crimes of Susanoo. Upset with his sister, he flayed the skin off Amaterasu's horse," Itachi explained. He also noted that in these conditions, Kisame could not differentiate human from animal blood.

Susanoo charmingly presented Amaterasu the horse carcass from the audience. Amaterasu strode off the stage in grief and anger, her silken white-red sleeves snapping, and the stage darkened with the egress of the dawn goddess, plunging the realm of men into darkness. Susanoo smirked and laughed, and the loping demons in fur-rimed masks began to howl. String instruments climaxed crescendo and fell, marking the end of the play's chapter. The audience gasped and clapped. The festival night was now without the Sun's guidance, and any kind of crookedness could occur before dawn returned.

The men heaped the horse onto a pyre, and a chunin lit it with a fire jutsu, enflaming a birchwood pile which was small enough that the meat might be cooked rather than carbonized. The village had a dark interpretation of their worship: Itachi thought that the goddess Amaterasu would not appreciate the flaying of another horse in her name. But the villagers seemed to like it.

"The Leaders of the Mist would consider this barbaric," Kisame said, his sly eyes smiling behind his cup.

Itachi matched Kisame's sentiment. No, the great ninja villages did not sacrifice simple horses to gods of sun, but sacrificed men and souls to gods of war. Gods they hailed each time they smithed a kunai, and who licked their lips at each newborn baby.

The next performance started, some students playing taiko drums. It was a banal sight compared to the play. Itachi ate his dango and drank his tea, listened to the music, and watched thick smoke rise from the pyre.

A gang of the village's teens stood by the pyre, the actress for Amaterasu among them. She had removed the headdress and white facepaint, but she still wore Amaterasu's red and white wake-sleeved furisode. One of the group looked at him and Kisame and giggled, as if discussing a dare. Then Amaterasu looked at the two travelers and grabbed a tray. He realized with a start that she was coming towards them. Kisame, who smelled caste like he smelled blood, tugged Itachi's robe, telling him that this is when merchants stood.

She dipped her head in greeting. "Excuse me sirs, my name is Taika Hato. I'm priestess at our temple and actress at the theater. We noticed you're not from around here. Would you like some horse flesh?"

Itachi blinked: the sun goddess Amaterasu had just offered him to eat her horse. He stumbled out a yes.

"And you, sir?"

"Please give me the shoulder, Miss Hato."

"Sure. May I ask your names?"

'Itachi' meant weasel. Weasels were small, ambitious, mean, and hungry. His parents' birth judgement had been imperfect: Itachi had become a man who was calm, sharp, and observant.

"I am Karasu. And this is my companion, Mekajiki. It's very good to meet you, and thank you for the food." Itachi bowed his head and gave himself a name meaning crow, and swordfish for Kisame.

"You're welcome! How was the show?"

"Your performance was stirring. I only hope your next act is soon: if I remember, demons terrorize everyone on earth until Amaterasu comes back," he said, trying his best to exude friendliness, but he had not spoken to anyone he considered a friend in years. He sat down, and with a gesture to the empty space, he invited Hato to join them if she wanted. He noticed Kisame's chin dip near-imperceptibly in approval of his manners.

"You know your religion," she said, taking a seat. "Stick around tomorrow at seven to see me kick Susanoo's butt. What brings you two here?"

"You mean, you can't tell by our dress?" Itachi asked.

"It is odd," she agreed.

Itachi smiled. "We're charcoal burners."

"So you...?"

"We fell trees, burn the logs in an earthen kiln using fire and water style, and then travel from village to village selling the charcoal. Smiths burn it to keep their forges at the correct temperature. It's also used in cooking, fertilizer, detergent, explosives, traditional medicine- even cosmetics. We've got a wagon full of it down the road."

Her look between the two men deduced Itachi was the fire user. "How good is your fire style?"

"Just the basics," he said modestly.

Hato's eyes changed from simply friendly to that of intrigue, and her expression became appraising and hopeful. "For the last act, the village guards cast fire jutsus as tributes to Amaterasu. You should join them."

"I couldn't possibly intrude on your ceremony as an outsider."

"When it comes to this ceremony, I am the authority. Plus, gifts from strangers mean more than gifts from friends, we say."

Itachi nodded. He would make an offering of flame to Amaterasu. And the girl, her representative, smiled with her eyes. "Thank you, Karasu! They'll love it."

Kisame stretched, looked at the two youths, and stood to leave. His gaze alerted Itachi not to expect his return. "I'm going to… get some more sake."

"You don't want to watch your friend perform?" Hato asked.

Kisame grinned and waved. "He's not so impressive."

Hato led Itachi backstage to meet the village's top military brass: a gaggle of four men spanning years fifteen to thirty who passed a ceramic bottle between them. The root-chewing gatekeeper was youngest among them. Hato was received warmly by the soldiers. She introduced Itachi as a pious charcoal merchant, and he was quickly ignored by the men.

For this dangerous and final act of the night, the stage had been stripped bare of its curtains and paper lanterns, and strapping men spilled buckets of water across the hardwood stage. A grinning bucket-spiller splashed the remaining water dregs onto the squealing children in the front row. From the backstage tent, Itachi watched the first four performers submit their offerings, each casting the biggest sun he could into the night sky in honor of Amaterasu. The crowd shrieked and laughed, fire reflecting on their wide scleras. Stepping forward for his turn, Itachi decided he would create a fireball that was the third largest- no need to upstage the locals.

Itachi mounted the stage as the penultimate performer left. His eye caught on Hato staring at him encouragingly, she flashed a thumbs-up, and he was bolstered with a better idea. Halting just one step onto the stage, Itachi faced profile, and his chest swelled like a bird. He blew, and his fire bloomed a deep ferrous red sparking with trace elements, and the chakra fireball sprinted across the stage in the shape of a stallion. Mane flaring, embers sparking from its light hooves, the fleet, shrieking horse appeared and faded in a vacuum roar. He returned backstage to raucous applause. When the soldiers' mouths gaped wide enough to catch frogs, a quiet grin cut Itachi's lips.

It hadn't been larger than yours, he thought.

Hato linked arms with him and led him through the festival crowds. She would introduce him to people and he would forget their names. Villagers welcomed him like a hero and plied him with sake. A kind old lady handed him a skewer with cubes of horseflesh. Any friend of Amaterasu was a friend of theirs. He was happy. Kisame was gone, the mission was something for tomorrow, Hato was a nice girl, and he could pretend to be normal for a night. Her attention made him feel pleasantly male, that he wasn't strange, isolated, murderous or evil.

She had showed him around the small town and they found themselves walking along the cold, white-graveled shores of the glacier lake. The gentle summer alpine night glowed cobalt blue, lightened by a huge low moon, whose coolness was relieving compared to the warm and dark frenzy of the blood festival.

"Actress and priestess," Itachi said as they strolled. "One's devout, and old people would say the other is sinful. I haven't met a person who's been both."

She smiled. "Each coin has two sides, and the same goes for you. Where'd a merchant learn ninjutsu like that?"

"The road is dangerous… and," he whispered like sharing a secret, "Sometimes really boring."

"Hah! Can't be less interesting than here."

"Did you know, that was a curse you'd tell your enemies in the old days? 'May you live in interesting times'?"

"Sounds menacing when you say it. Can you do other ninja tricks?"

In a heartbeat, he threw three kunai in a perfect line along a slender birch, each resonating a deep thunk that merged into one. A white and gold moth fluttered impaled on the center knife. She gasped.

But when he looked back at her, her face seemed uncomfortable. The throw was well above chunin level, above most jounin. Itachi knew he should not be careless in his desire to impress her by throwing beyond the abilities of a merchant. But somehow, the throw had not pleased her.

"Is something wrong, Hato?"

"What I liked about your fire jutsu wasn't its killing power; it wasn't a weapon, it was art."

"Art..."

"It's like how you and Mekajiki use fire and water style to make charcoal. Your fire style painted Amaterasu's horse, and it was beautiful. Performance is art, and it makes people happy."

Itachi regurgitated what he knew of art. "Do you think art is a single rapturous instant, or eternal?"

"Weird question. Art isn't a period of time, but a place. It transports you somewhere you've never been before, to some feeling you've never felt before"

"Hm," Itachi pondered. He thought that was a better philosophy than that of either Deidara or Sasori. He wondered how mad they would be if he answered like that, and decided he would next time they asked his opinion. Which would probably be never.

She smiled at him. "I've got a stupid dream. Wanna hear it?"

"I'd love to."

"I dream to lead a group someday that practices more peaceful uses to ninjutsu than war. Even if it was just a traveling circus of theater artists, and all we accomplished was making some villagers laugh."

"You've already got a talent for performance. The road is dangerous, but train and surround yourself with others like you, and only a fool would rob you."

She smiled sadly. "Dad wants me to marry a prince in the next village."

"Bring the prince along."

The actress said nothing and skipped a stone over the lake. It failed after two stops, and she made a noise of embarrassment. Itachi picked up a small flat stone and also skipped it badly. Ripples in the lake reflected the moonbeams like bobbing driftwood.

"It's late," Itachi said after a while.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?"

Itachi did not answer right away. She said, "Stay the night at my house."

Itachi bowed. "That's very generous of you. I would be happy to stay overnight in your stable, and my partner as well, if possible."

There was a sly shift of her eyes, lids heavy around her big, black pupils. "I think he'll have found an inn by now. But that shouldn't stop you."

Hato escorted him across flagstones that shone silver in the moonlight. Carrying their shoes, opening a sliding door with the utmost care, the two tiptoeing teens entered her sub-clan's complex and slipped into her bedroom.

Itachi set his shoes along the wall, wondering to what extent he should undress himself. When he turned around, Hato had knelt on her white futon. With her eyes trained at him, she slowly loosened the belt of her furisode to bare her chest. Itachi did the same. He reached to kiss her, she kissed him back. He shed the rest of his clothes, then did the same for her. He leaned into her. This is what people did.

He shuddered at the unfamiliarity when her weak hands touched his neck, they were warm and soft, hot as death-blood. He banished the rising memories, memories from the last time he did this, no, from the last time he thought he did this with Izumi that terrible night. Their bodies fit together like hot white ivory, and like smoke and steam, a very un-normal man tried his best to do this very normal thing.

Author's Note;

Heyo, thanks for supporting this fic. I plan to post Chapter 4 around Friday Nov 23. This will be a long dramatic fic with probably about 10-15 chapters this length, and I have a lot of progress made already.

Let me know your thoughts. And thanks of course to thanks again to beta myochiikurin!

Steadfast,

Kelto

Follow on FF or Ao3

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13409132/1/Campfires

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019778/chapters/49992863

[amerivex-blog]

11 U.S. Cities Perfect for a Weekend Getaway

The Way to spend time: Cover as much as you can of the 1,200-acre Balboa Park, spend a day on Coronado Island, and finish each night with a sunset at Sunset Cliffs. Eat your fill of California burritos in Nico's Mexican Food, and drink your plenty of beer from breweries including Ballast Point, Mike Hess, Stone Brewing, and AleSmith. Proceed south of the border, too, with Turista Libre, which takes travelers to hyper-local areas in Tijuana and Valle de Guadalupe.

Denver, Colorado

The Way to spend your time: After checking into the Art Hotel, spend a day at the seven-story Denver Art Museum with Monet's Le Bassin des Nympheas and Paul Klee's Palace Partially Destroyed, followed by a meal at Avelina. On day two, take advantage of this recently revived Winter Park Express Ski Train, which goes from downtown Denver to Front Range's Winter Park Resort in two hours. Come warmer weather, head 16 kilometers west of downtown Denver to the almost 900-acre Red Rocks Park, that has miles of hiking trails, sandstone cliffs, and also a geologically shaped amphitheater that's hosted everyone from The Beatles to Stevie Nicks.

New Orleans, Louisiana

The Way to spend your time: Eat Shaya and Brennan's, each of which left our best restaurants in the entire word list, along with the latter of which has been firmly entrenched in the French Quarter as 1942. Crush a bag of beignets at Morning Call, which has considerably shorter lines compared to Cafe Du Monde--and pristine City Park views. When the sun sets, go beyond Bourbon Street, also do not miss music-driven evenings on Frenchmen Street, which has the Big Easy's most celebrated jazz.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

How to spend your time day in Fishtown, namely to wait in line for Pizzeria Beddia and crawl out of microbrewery into a microbrewery. A day of walking: Wander along North 3rd Street (duck into Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) and East Passyunk (play a 60-minute' Escape the 80s' match ) before dinner in Michael Solomonov's Dizengoff or Zahav, where you'll dip into some of the best hummus in the nation. Finish at Hop Sing Laundromat, a somewhat-hidden cocktail bar and a rite of passage.

Baltimore, Maryland

The Way to spend your time: Eat your Way out of a new restaurant to the next before (shh) everybody puts in on the key: think Argentinean empanadas at Bar Vasquez; seafood risotto in Cosima; tea-smoked duck breast in Gunther & Co., and barbecue-flavored ice cream out of meals hallway R. House. Stroll off the moments across the historic Inner Harbor, and hop in an hour-long tour, by boat, of what has been deemed among the most underrated cities in the U.S. Catch a show at the gorgeous, refurbished Hippodrome Theatre. Allot three hours to the Baltimore Museum of Art, and get lost in Lexington Market, that will be like the Pike Place Market of Baltimore--if Pike Place was open since 1782, that's.

Portland, Maine

The Way to invest your time: Take the ferry to Peaks Island. Eat your weight in lobster rolls at Portland Lobster Company, and make sure to also hit Central Provisions, The Honey Paw, and Eventide Oyster Co., the"oyster bar of your dreams." (More than a dozen local craft breweries including Allagash and Rising Tide supply the drink; if you're sick of beer, attempt Portland Hunt & Alpine Club.) Walk panoramic Fore Street. Hop on a bicycle for a 6.5-mile flat loop of Portland, which sits on a peninsula, or spend a day" hiking" 70 miles of the increased city through Portland Trails. Push into Portland Head Light, a still-operational light station that has occupied its place five kilometers south of town because of 1791.

Nashville, Tennessee

How to spend your time: Start the day with a cup of house-roasted coffee at Crema. Shop 12 South for a souvenir: a customized pair of jeans from Imogene + willie, maybe, or handcrafted objects from White's Mercantile, a modern twist in an old-time general store curated by Hank Williams's granddaughter Holly. Eat sexy chicken from Hattie B. Honkytonk on Second Avenue at Robert's Western World, or Remain in the Gulch for bluegrass at The Station Inn. Spend two hours in the Frist Museum for Visual Arts, which was Nashville's central post office.

Charleston, S.C.

How to spend your own time: Take a walking tour of 18th-century architecture, and pick your preferred Georgian mansion from Rainbow Row or The Battery. Read a book under the 1,000-year-old, 1,700-square-foot Angel Oak Tree, and nap on the beach of Sullivan's Island. Make a booking at Husk. Possessing a fried chicken sandwich (or 3 ) in Leon's Oyster Shop--it's been known to make even the most severe vegetarian drop off the wagon, and no doubt contributed to Charleston being voted the most magnificent little city in the U.S. To burn those calories, walk into the middle of the Ravenel Bridge (1.25 miles) for sunset over the Cooper River--or say, hey, I'm on vacation, and have a cocktail on the roof of this Dewberry instead. Once the evening has entirely fallen, head within the centuries-old Dock Street Theatre for local and Broadway touring productions.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Way to spend your own time: Create artsy Lyndale, one of Airbnb's hottest areas of 2017, your foundation. Pay homage to hometown hero Prince in Paisley Park Museum one afternoon, or browse where the musician himself often shopped for music at indie store Electric Fetus. Lake hop: Lake Harriet, Lake CalhounLake, and Lake of the Isles are connected. Beer from Surly Brewing Company, dessert from Milkjam Creamery, and James-Beard award-winning Minnesotan cuisine in The Bachelor Farmer. Spend a couple of hours at the Walker Art Center, one of the nation's most excellent contemporary art museums. The American Swedish Institute is much more fun than it seems; and the Jucy Lucy from Matt's Bar--a beef patty with a core of molten cheese--is much better than it looks, intentional misspellings apart from

Madison, Wisconsin

The Way to spend your time: Bike 12 miles around Lake Monona. Make such as a Badger and wander some of those 20-plus miles of paths at the UW Arboretum (or, in winter, ski, snowshoe, or increase them), until filling up on fried cheese curds and Ale Asylum in Dotty Dumpling's Dowry. Take a 40-minute road trip to visit the New Glarus Brewing Company, which only awakens in Wisconsin. Take a 50-minute street trip to the shore and Ice-Age rock formations of the Driftless region. Get your art fix at the Chazen Museum of Art and the stunning, glass-walled Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Shop in the Saturday morning farmers' market on Capitol Square, reportedly the largest producer-only farmers' market in the nation. Eat dinner at Estrellón, and spare room for the Basque cake.

Louisville, Kentucky

How to spend time a sexy brown in The Brown Hotel. Walk the Old Louisville neighborhood, which allegedly has the most extensive collection of Victorian homes in the country. Pay tribute to The Louisville Lip in the Muhammad Ali Center. Take a trip to Maker's Mark and dip your bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Pop from the Speed Art Museum, fresh off a $50 million renovation and expansion. Do not miss a performance from the LGBT theater troupe Pandora Productions.

[likarotarublogger]

La bellezza unica della Svizzera 🇨🇭 Crans Montana, Vallese .

CRANS-MONTANA UNA VACANZA DI QUALITÀ NELLA NATURA ALPINA

L’immagine simbolo di Crans-Montana con la famosa scritta che si riflette sul Lago Grenon fulcro di tutte le attività sportive, culturali e di semplice piacere.

Ci sono molti motivi per scegliere una vacanza a Crans-Montana, in ogni stagione, d’estate come d’autunno. La storia turistica della regione inizia ai primi del novecento e da allora è stata una crescita continua, fino a diventare una delle destinazioni svizzere fra le più ambite dal pubblico di tutto il mondo e, dal 2017, ad essere inserita nel circolo ristretto di Best of the Alps. Situata nel Vallese, su un altipiano che dalla Valle del Rodano raggiunge i 3000 m. del ghiacciaio della Plaine Morte, la regione di Crans-Montana è un terrazzo naturale ricco di laghi, prati, vigne, boschi, foreste e alpeggi. La posizione eccezionale consente di ammirare una sfilata delle più maestose cime alpine, che si estende dal Breithorn al Monte Bianco, passando per il Weisshorn e il Cervino.

Cosa fare a Crans-Montana: ottima d’estate come d’autunno

Ecco allora, andiamo insieme alla scoperta di tutto quello che una vacanza nella meravigliosa regione di Crams-Montana può offrire. Da soli, in coppia, con un gruppo di amici, ma soprattutto in famiglia, ci sarà sempre tanto da fare e da vedere. Chi ama la natura e contemporaneamente apprezza la varietà di alternative di una città potrà essere soddisfatto, ma ognuno potrà sempre scegliere secondo le sue attitudini. E vorrà ritornare, come i tanti che già la conoscono.

COSA MANGIARE COSA BERE

Più informazioni possibili contattare il turismo

mailto:infoegna@crans-montana.ch

L’articolo di @elenarodicarotaru-blog @likarotarublogger

La nostra troupe cinematografica pandatariafilm diretto dal regista Salvatore Braca insieme a Elena Rodica Rotaru, cameraman Andrea Quero, Bruno Miani e Alessandro Leligdowicz ringraziano dal profondo del cuore Evan Pasquini l'agente di viaggio della zona di Crans Montana, a lui va tutto il nostro apprezzamento per aver organizzato il percorso natura per un'intera settimana cinematografica dalla tradizione, l’arte culinaria, vendemmia e la tranquillità insieme all'incantevole bellezza geografica del Vallese.

[marie-bradshaw]

L’Homme est un animal social

Une étude récente montre que le lien social prévient 32% des AVC et 20% des crises cardiaques. 

Assise dans ce hall de l’un des lieux les plus passants de Paris, la Gare Montparnasse, après avoir lu ce fait dans une revue culturelle, je m’interroge. 

Il est clair que l’Homme n’est pas fait pour vivre seul. 

Les différents liens qu’il tisse au cours de sa vie à travers son éducation, sa famille, son travail, ses amis, ses loisirs ou sorties, assurent l’équilibre de son éco-système. 

Alors pourquoi ces liens?

Dans le milieu pro comme dans celui des loisirs, de l’éducation, il assure en premier lieu un rôle d’apprentissage via la communication et l’échange. 

On se balance des idées, des questions, on se répond, et ainsi va l’évolution de la conversation et des chemins de pensée. 

Car tout être humain est conditionné par ce que j’appelle son prisme: visualisez le prisme des Sims au dessus de la tête de chacun, chaque facette contient un facteur de conditionnement. 

On y retrouve notamment la personnalité, l’expérience, l’éducation, les valeurs et les besoins pro/perso. 

L’addition de chaque facette nous donne un filtre qui vous fait voir une situation A d’une façon quelque peu différente d’un autre individu. 

Quant au lien plus émotionnel que social, via notre cercle d’amis principalement, il nous organise à la façon d’une ruche d’abeilles. 

Chacun a sa place, sa personnalité bien distincte, des atomes communs lie le groupe, mais globalement on se complète tous et chaque relation s’établit et se renforce en duo. Ainsi on retrouve souvent des paires où la proximité est accrue renforcée dans une même “tribu”. 

Et chaque individu ressort à sa manière, un peu comme les drôles de dames!

Si je prends l’exemple de la mienne, elle se distingue en plusieurs groupes bien distincts, de l’univers des sports mécaniques aux parisiens pure souche, mais dont chacun partage mes valeurs de bienveillance, de loyauté, de soutien, et d’amour indéfectible. 

Ma “bande” principale étant mes copines parisiennes. 

Aurore, tout d’abord, véritable maitre Bouddha, mon phare dans la nuit. 

Elle est le yin de mon yang. D’un calme imperturbable, je crois bien que je ne l’ai jamais vue en colère en quatre ans. 

Coup de froudre amical dans mon ancienne boite, mon énergie rayonnante l’a séduite, et moi son humilité et sa bienveillance. 

Que ce soit pour retourner un bar, pour jauger d’un éventuel prétendant, ou pour arracher de la tapisserie toute la journée, elle est toujours là bien que moins présente physiquement en ce moment. 

On a fait les quatre-cent coups ensemble, et je lui confierais ma vie. 

C’est vous dire à quel point je lui fais confiance. 

Biensûr nous ne sommes pas toujours d’accord, d’un caractère plus passionnel, plus impulsif, j’ai souvent tendance à l’entrainer dans ma folie, et elle à me calmer. C’est ce qui fait la beauté de notre équilibre. 

Il n’y a jamais de jugement entre nous, rien que du love et une écoute ouverte.

Ensuite arrive Stephanie, ma meilleure amie non avouée (selon elle c’est trop de responsabilités...), rencontrée via une amie commune sur Toulouse, et l’élément central de notre joyeuse troupe. Toutes les soirées se passent chez elles globalement, son appart est le plus cool et le plus central!

A bien des niveaux on se ressemble, la même force de caractère, le même sens du leadership et de la détermination, la même douleur dans le coeur de nos parents respectifs, comme Aurore, Sarah, Céline et Luisa d’ailleurs. 

Nous sommes la team Phoenix, celles qui ne meurent jamais, se relèvent toujours plus fortes de leurs cendres. 

On se distingue principalement par nos looks, le sien plus sage, le mien plus extraverti, et notre conception de l’Amour. 

Elle est plus dure, plus terre à terre que moi. 

Je reste la grande romantique du groupe, à tous les niveaux. 

Depuis quelques mois on est inséparables, Tic et Tac. Elle a été là quand je me suis fait réopéré de l’épaule, et on passé Noël ensemble. 

On s’appelle tous les soirs, c’est notre rituel quotidien. 

Et ça part très souvent en fous rires.

Elle voit ce que je ne vois pas et inversement, ce qui fait que nous sommes de très bon conseil l’une pour l’autre. 

Pointilleuse, grande gueule, les gens la prennent souvent à tort pour une Bobo parisienne coincée, et bien qu’elle refuse toujours de franchir le périphérique pour aller où que ce soit, ou de boire de l’eau du robinet, il n’y a pas plus rentre dedans que cette nana. 

Sarah maintenant, plus timide, introvertie, elle a un coeur aussi gros que le Brésil. Et j’ai appris aux dépends de notre relation qu’on ne pouvait pas rire de tout, parce que nous ne fonctionnons pas de la même manière, tout simplement. Chacun a ses codes, ses règles, qu’il faut intégrer.

Après un verre ou deux en revanche, elle n’a plus sa langue dans sa poche, et on l’adore aussi pour cette double personnalité. 

Céline, que je connais moins, est sans doutes la nana la plus généreuse que je connaisse. Madame de Pompadour pour les intimes, elle fait toujours les choses en grand. Drôle, attentionnée, son énergie est positive et on a envie de l’avoir autour de soi. J’aimerais la connaitre d’avantage.

Luisa, copine formidable en dehors de la bande. 

Elle et moi on est pareil côté glamour et sens de l’esthétique. D’ailleurs je l’ai rencontré sur ce domaine, elle a commencé par me poser mes extensions de cils et on a tout de suite accroché, parlant astrologie et garçons. 

Puis elle a traversé une période sombre, se séparant d’un ex violent, et j’ai tout de suite voulu être là pour elle (ayant traversé la même chose). 

Depuis c’est ma deuxième super copine parisienne. Elle était là pour me récupérer à chaque sortie d’hôpital, et dieu sait qu’il y’en a eu un paquet l’année dernière, et quand je suis triste elle m’offre des roses dans la rue pour me faire sourire. 

C’est le genre d’amie en or qui va tout faire pour te protéger, quitte à brûler la baraque de ton ex. 

“La plus bonne de mes copines” comme je l’appelle, petite bombe latine à forte poitrine.  

Elle a un coeur énorme, est d’un naturel généreux avec ceux qu’elle aime, mais des barrières de fer contre la gente masculine. On était pareilles là-dessus, de très lourds mécanismes de défense, et une passion pour tout donner dès qu’elles sont franchies. 

J’ai évolué. Sur la partie défenses en tout cas, et ça m’a pris du temps et le sacrifice de ma dernière relation.

Elle s’habille toujours en noir, se maquille simplement, quand en elle c’est un feu d’artifice de couleurs. 

Quand elle rencontre quelqu’un elle commence toujours par demander son signe astrologique et ça me fait mourir de rire. 

Un jour, après une rupture, je me souviens qu’elle m’ait regardé dans les yeux et déclaré “Faut qu’on arrête de tout donner comme ça”.

Je lui ai répondu “Toi et moi on donne peut-être tout, et on peut souffrir d’être abusées, mais pour rien au Monde je ne changerais qui nous sommes pour des êtres aux coeurs fermés et limités, nos grands coeurs, c’est aussi ce qui fait notre beauté”.

Elle acquiesça, et je lui souris. 

Je l’aime d’amour.

D’ailleurs on part bientôt pour de longues vacances d’été ensemble, et j’ai vraiment hâte. 

Passons maintenant aux plus éloignés géographiquement...

Florian, alias Bugs, mon meilleur ami depuis presque dix ans maintenant et un rider moto (Stunt) incroyablement doué.

On s’est connus via un ex qui m’avait amené à sa soirée d’anniversaire, et lors d’un event de sports extrêmes où je l’ai hébergé et où il m’a sauvé la vie, on s’est rapprochés. 

Ce mec a la même folie et la même loyauté que moi. 

A bien des niveaux c’est mon alter égo masculin. 

Combien de soirées, combien de fous rires, de nouvels ans à drifter sur des ronds-points encore alcoolisés, combien de weekends de ride moto a-t-on passé ensemble? 

Il a toujours été là pour moi, comme je l’ai toujours été pour lui. 

Lui et moi c’est à la vie, à la mort. 

Si demain l’un de nous deux commet un meurtre, l’autre sera là avec un sac poubelle et de l’acide. 

Quand mon ex violent m’a frappée pour la première fois, il était là, dans la pièce à côté. 

Je ne l’ai jamais vu dans un état pareil. 

En comprenant ce qui s’était passé, en me voyant sous le choc en sanglots, il avait dévalé comme un jaguar et l’avait saisi au cou pour le plaquer violemment au sol. 

J’ai vraiment cru qu’il allait le tuer. 

Aujourd’hui je rêve d’un avenir où je tomberais amoureuse d’un homme qu’il approuve, je cite “qui soit assez bien pour toi” et où nous partirions tous ensemble à l’aventure avec sa chère et tendre et son nouveau né. 

Ici loin des yeux, mais jamais du coeur. 

Et si j’ai décidé de redescendre dans le Sud c’est en grande partie pour pouvoir le voir plus souvent qu’à Paris. 

C’est ma famille. Et je donnerais ma vie pour lui. 

Sa mère a longtemps cru qu’on finirait ensemble, et pourtant, comme je le disais souvent à son ex, la base de notre amitié c’est qu’il n’y a aucune attirance entre nous. Un amour purement platonique. 

Et oui, je fais partie de ceux qui croient à l’amitié homme-femme. 

Tant qu’il n’y a pas d’attirance d’un côté ou de l’autre. 

Drew, mon “bro”, de mon époque lyonnaise, ou mon petit frère caché. 

De nos rendez-vous post cuite au Starbuck pour débriefer aux longues heures passées au téléphone aujourd'hui,  il est toujours de très bon conseil. 

Saltimbanque à ses heures perdues, c’est un grand nounours qui a toujours un sourire fixé aux lèvres. Le genre de Vibe dont on redemande. 

Il me connait par coeur et je lui voue, comme aux autres, une tendresse et un amour inconditionnels. 

Il passe sa vie à m’inviter à venir le voir en station alpine, et cette année c’est décidé j’irai! 

Elisa, l’une de mes plus vieilles amies, et meilleure amie bis. 

Sa grand-mère nous a élevés et je la connais donc depuis mon plus jeune âge. 

Quand j’étais petite, je n’étais pas très populaire, l’intello de la classe à la coupe de cheveux bizarre (ne laissez jamais votre mère s’approcher de vous avec des ciseaux!), et je me rappelle avoir toujours été d’un naturel possessif pour qu’on ne me pique pas “MON” amie. 

Calme, les cheveux châtains clair, lisses, j’étais son opposée, turbulente, brune, des bouclettes plein la tête. 

Elle a appris à parler en premier, quand moi je courais déjà. 

On se complète. 

Et j’ai l’honneur d’être la marraine de son premier né. 

D’origine italienne, toute sa “familial” est à proximité, toujours là les uns pour les autres, et je me sens toujours chez moi avec eux. Elle continue à partager ses traditions, en matrone de son propre clan à présent. 

Athlète aguerrie, elle m’a fait découvrir les joies de la pole dance, et vous n’aimeriez pas la prendre au bras de fer.

Féroce pour défendre ses êtres chers, je me souviens notamment d’un épisode où j’avais séduit deux meilleurs amis pompiers du côté de son homme, (l’un après l’autre hein), lors du baptême de mon filleul, Rafael, et forcément ça s’est terminé en carnage. Que voulez-vous, j’étais jeune et incertaine, et la bonté du deuxième avec les enfants m’a fait chaviré.

Le premier des deux jeunes hommes en questions s’est donc emporté et m’a manqué de respect devant elle, me traitant de tous les noms, furieux que je l’ai “lâché” pour son ami. 

Je n’ai jamais vu Elisa s’emporter comme ça. 

Imaginez-vous un ouragan croisé avec un tsunami et la fameuse “gueulante” d’Harry Potter. 

Croyez-moi, personne n’aurait aimé se faire déchainé de la sorte.

Elle l’a littéralement détruit sur place, en véritable louve qui défend sa meute, et interdit de visite au domicile conjugal.

Je savais déjà qu’entre nous ce serait toujours la famille, même si c’est quasi impossible de la faire quitter sa province pour s’aventurer sur Paris, mais à ce moment là j’ai su qu’elle serait toujours là pour me défendre. Et je lui en serai toujours reconnaissante. 

Comme quoi, méfiez-vous de l’eau qui dort!

Lulu, zoophile de mon coeur (comprenez hétérosexuelle) 

On s’est rencontrées au Poney Club, quand je venais de quitter la province parisienne pour la bordelaise, bien plus verte. 

Je suis tombée amoureuse des collines pleines de vignes, de sa région chaleureuse, et si je retiens bien une personne de mon adolescence c’est elle. 

Ici encore, nous sommes de deux natures totalement différentes. 

Posée, calme, quand moi j’ai longtemps été plus explosive que calme, elle est la beauté au naturel. 

Et son amour du cheval et de la voile la rapprochent encore plus de mère Nature.

On s’est aimées, on a ri à en pleurer, on s’est soutenues dans quelques unes des épreuves les plus difficiles de nos vies, et je me souviendrai toujours de nos premières aventures à scooter, tentant de pousser notre monture dans les descentes en criant “Petit oiseau si tu n’as pas d’ailes, eh bien tu ne peux pas voleeeeeer”. 

Ça fait bizarre aujourd’hui de se remémorer toutes nos aventures. Des premières soirées à dormir l’une chez l’autre en parlant toute la nuit, et dévorant les bons petits plats de sa mère, ou rire avec son père, à notre colocation bordelaise des années plus tard.

Aujourd’hui jeune maman, elle a trouvé sa moitié en Sebastien, et honnêtement je ne vois comment ils auraient pu mieux se trouver tous les deux. 

Ça fait plaisir à voir. 

Margaux, ma soeur de coeur toulousaine (d’ailleurs sa mère et sa soeur m’ont adoptée, c’est officiel).

Rencontrée en soirée dans la ville rose lorsque je bossais pour Corona, on ne n’est plus lâchés. Impulsive, parfois un peu extrême, un manque d’amour caractérisé qu’elle comblait en séduisant la gente masculine, elle fait partie de ceux qui ont su le plus évoluer ces dernières années. 

Son grand Amour, Julien, l’y a fortement aidé, je ne pourrais pas être plus heureuse pour elle. 

Généreuse, le coeur sur la main, elle sait aussi dire non et si elle n’a pas envie rien n’y fera. Son côté princesse. 

A côté de ça, elle peut te pousser un rot à t’en réveiller les morts, et c’est cette dualité girly/camionneur du dimanche qui nous fait rêver chez elle. 

Récemment éloignées par un conflit mineur - une dissonance cognitive entre ma perception de la loyauté et la sienne, et je suis triste de la distance qui s’est installée entre nous suite à ça. 

Mais on se retrouvera, (elle et moi), j’ai confiance. 

Nini, ma witch lyonnaise. 

Féroce, impitoyable, et en même temps adorable. Je sais qu’à première vue, ça ne va pas forcément ensemble, mais pourtant si. 

Très proche de sa mère, elle fait son bout de chemin dans le tattoo et je sais que peu importent les années qui nous séparent, nous pourrons toujours compter l’une sur l’autre. 

Quand je suis tombée enceinte de mon ex-copain violent sur Lyon, c’est la première personne que je suis allée voir. Et c’est elle qui m’a accompagnée dans cette épreuve, avec Aline, à l’époque notre trio du diable. 

Je les aime tous d’un amour incompressible par le temps. 

Ils sont mes vrais “amis”, ceux à qui je donnerais un rein sans réfléchir. 

Et si le lien social évite pres d’un tiers des AVC, c’est peut-être parce que l’amitié renforce le coeur. 

Nos points communs mais surtout nos différences et leur acceptation, nous élève et nous unie. 

Regardez autour de vous, et prenez le temps d’apprécier chaque personne qui constitue votre “famille de coeur”.  

[lapenseedechrisdf]

Les vins d’Italie

Le Frioul, à la frontière de l'Autriche et de la Slovénie, est devenu l'une des régions viticoles les plus excitantes d'Italie grâce à ses blancs aromatiques complexes. Le producteur Giampaolo Venica et l'écrivain Anya von Bremzen partent à la découverte, cours d'œnologie découvrant la polenta et le prosciutto divins et beaucoup de pâtes copieuses. Zoom d'image © John Kernick Au sommet d'une colline au-dessus de cascades de vignobles en terrasses soignés encadrés par de doux pics pré-alpins, Giampaolo Venica me parle de l'agriculture promiscueuse. "Et souriant." En fait, c'est juste notre terme italien sexy pour l'agriculture mixte ", explique le beau garçon 38- scion vieille de la célèbre cave Venica & Venica. Jusqu'à ce que le vin prenne véritablement le Frioul au milieu des années 80, tout le monde plantait des vignes à côté de tout ce qu'il cultivait déjà: fruits, blé, maïs. " En regardant autour de moi - l'Autriche est au nord, la Slovénie est presque visible à l'est et la mer Adriatique à 30 kilomètres au sud - je décide que le Frioul incarne lui-même une "promiscuité" intrigante: des cuisines et des identités, des traditions et des langues. Les climats aussi. "Les brises salées de l'Adriatique combinées aux Alpes italiennes créent des microclimats distinctifs", me dit Venica. "Cela donne aux blancs du Frioul leur structure et leur complexité particulière." Cette poche autrefois obscure située à environ 160 km au nord-est de Venise, où Mitteleuropa rencontre la Méditerranée, captive les sommeliers italiens et internationaux. Moi aussi, je suis venu au Frioul pour découvrir ses blancs aromatiques à base de raisins locaux - Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia et d'autres cultivés ici pendant des siècles - ainsi que les fameux Sauvignons et Pinot Blancs, raisins français introduits par les troupes napoléoniennes. Mais je veux aussi explorer les aliments du Frioul, qui est considéré comme une frontière culinaire dans la cuisine italienne. Pour les trois prochains jours, avec Venica comme guide, je vais apprendre à quel point ses vins se marient idéalement avec les plats copieux de la région. " Notre premier arrêt, avant de partir à la recherche des meilleurs salumi, fromages et boulangeries du Frioul (nous nous approvisionnons pour une fête en l'honneur du millésime 2015), est la cave familiale. Dans un domaine verdoyant à Collio, nous dégustons la Malvasia délicatement florale avec un strudel aux pommes cuit par la grand-tante de Venica, Iole. Son père, Gianni, et son oncle Giorgio, tous deux vêtus de gilets bleus, me racontent l'histoire de la cave. La famille Venica cultivait autrefois des cerises, des pommes et des prunes tout en produisant du vino sfuso (vin en vrac) pour leur trattoria, célèbre pour son frico - pas la galette vaporeuse connue des Américains mais une crêpe de pomme de terre épaisse et au fromage - et, toujours, de la polenta. En 1988, dix ans seulement après leur première mise en bouteille, les Venicas ont reçu le Tre Bicchieri de Gambero Rosso, le premier prix du vin italien. Plus d'acclamations ont suivi; le domaine a grandi et, finalement, les Venicas ont converti leur trattoria en B&B et ont commencé à se concentrer sur le vino, avec Giampaolo comme ambassadeur mondial de la marque. «Au début, je faisais du porte-à-porte comme un mendiant», dit-il, «plaidant des sommeliers américains à propos de notre Frioul». Peu de temps après, les acheteurs de vin américains devinrent plus curieux au sujet des blancs italiens régionaux et commencèrent avec impatience à le chercher. Bientôt, l'intense Sauvignon de la famille ("a vino dramatico" selon Giampaolo), son Pinot Grigio étonnamment complexe et son velouté Friulano figurèrent sur les listes de restaurants comme Eleven Madison Park à Manhattan et Alinea à Chicago. Saisissant quelques bouteilles pour le déjeuner, Venica nous lance dans notre tournée de dégustation. Dans la jolie ville médiévale de Cormòns, nous discutons et dégustons du porc avec le célèbre producteur de prosciutto Lorenzo D'Osvaldo et son fils Andrea. Le Frioul est réputé pour ses jambons doux et soyeux de San Daniele, mais la production minuscule de D'Osvaldo est différente. "Contrairement à la méthode italienne classique", explique Andrea, "nous fumons nos jambons à la manière autrichienne après le salage." Ils le font au-dessus d'un chaudron alimenté de laurier et de cerisier qui ressemble à un lieu de culte des druides. Tragiquement, je suis informé, la police alimentaire de l'UE sévit contre de telles méthodes artisanales. Nous maudissons l'UE à une table sous un olivier alors que Venica débouche son Ronco delle Cime Friulano en or foncé 2000. Sa minéralité profonde et sa structure élégante sont un accord étrange avec les boucles de prosciutto et d'albâtre vieillies de 24 mois de graisse guanciale. "Les frioulans ne boivent jamais de vins rouges avec du prosciutto", explique avec force Venica. Zoom d'image © John Kernick Le dîner ce soir-là est à la Trattoria al Cacciatore della Subida, étoilée au Michelin, connue pour ses lustres en bois de cerf, sa nourriture incroyable et sa carte des vins frioulane complète. Nous commençons par un plat à base de polenta locale, garni de salade de ricotta émiettée. La polenta légèrement grossière est mélangée à partir d'une "cuvée" de cinq maïs locaux et est légèrement fumée d'avoir été cuite sur un foyer fogolaire, le foyer frioulan. D'autres mises à jour des spécialités austro-italiennes par le chef Alessandro Gavagna incluent eggy girini (têtards en italien ), une pâte de type spaetzle garnie de courgettes râpées et de fromage Montasio vieilli Ouvert dans les années 1970 par Josko et Loredana Sirk et maintenant géré avec leurs enfants Tanja et Mitja, l'endroit a évolué pour devenir le meilleur restaurant du Frioul. "Friuli doit un énorme pâté au Sirks, "déclare Venica, non seulement pour leur nourriture, mais pour leur programme" Collio in Vespa "qui fournit des scooters jaune vif aux touristes. La trattoria fait partie de la station de La Subida, à l'orée d'une forêt de chênes, qui comprend un cluster de maisons d'hôtes chics et rustiques. Le projet de la famille pour animaux de compagnie, cependant, est le vinaigre parfumé produit à partir de raisins locaux, macéré avec de la peau pendant un an, puis vieilli pendant trois autres en fûts. "Je veux que le monde soit accro à la Frioul n vinaigre ", explique Mitja. Le lendemain matin, nous sommes à Cividale del Friuli, fondée par Jules César. Venica me présente le gubana, un rouleau de levure avec une garniture aux fruits secs et aux noix. Dans la boulangerie Del Fabbro à l'odeur sucrée, les propriétaires façonnent des cordes de pâte farcie en nœuds pendant que je trempe furtivement une cuillère dans la cuve de garniture. C'est une bouillie de raisins secs, de noix, de restes de génoise et d'amaretti écrasés, humidifiés avec beaucoup de grappa et de rhum. Pour le déjeuner, nous essayons un salami doux braisé au vinaigre local, servi avec des masses d'oignons au bar folk Trattoria Al Campanile. C'est le genre de nourriture des chasseurs qui nécessite des gorgées de vin rouge si tannique qu'on l'appelle Tazzelenghe, ou langue coupante. «Ce sont les saveurs de notre cucina povera», explique Venica à propos d'une frittata faite avec des légumes verts de printemps, et un frico de pomme de terre qui se présente comme un disque brun croustillant cachant du fromage Montasio gluant. Il servira ses versions de nonna lors d'une fête qu'il lance au vignoble le lendemain après-midi. Zoom d'image © John Kernick Le dernier jour du voyage, tout est une brume de Friulano, Malvasia, grappa, fromage fondu et graisse de prosciutto. Je me détends avec Venica et sa femme, Chiara, dans leur maison lambrissée dans un vignoble. Nous aspirons tous à un salatone rafraîchissant (grande salade); au lieu de cela, je rejoins la famille et les amis de Venica autour d'une table de pique-nique pour célébrer le dernier millésime. "La vinification peut être un désastre permanent de la grêle, de la sécheresse, des coulées de boue et de la pourriture", se souvient Venica. "Mais 2015 était comme des vacances!" Andrea D'Osvaldo sculpte une jambe de prosciutto; Venica propose des assiettes de frittata, frico et polenta, et verse le vin avec abandon. "

[man-creates-dinosaurs]

BIGFOOT JOINS THE RANKS OF AMERICAN CHRISTMAS ICONS

When did Bigfoot become a Christmas icon? I’m sure that question sounds strange to most of you, but I can’t be the only one to have noticed Sasquatch’s gradual induction into the pantheon of modern American Christmas characters. Right now you can buy Bigfoot Christmas tree ornaments, sweaters and stockings online, while a retailer as mainstream as Wal-Mart currently has a pair of yuletide Yeti shirts for sale in stores. If you need more proof just pull up Netflix and check out the new film Pottersville (2017, Dir. Seth Henrikson); an indy Christmas comedy with some major league talent including Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water), Judy Greer (Jurassic World), Ron Perlman (Pacific Rim) and Ian McShane (American Gods) – the latter doing his best impression of Robert Shaw’s character from Jaws (1975, Dir. Steven Spielberg). The film revolves around the small town of Pottersville – from the Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life (1946, Dir.  Frank Capra) – which has fallen on hard times economically. The residents gets an unexpected Christmas gift however in the form of a series of Bigfoot sightings which instantly transforms their forgotten hamlet into a must-visit tourist attraction!

Naturally, some people will scoff at the idea of Bigfoot becoming a part of the American Christmas holiday, but personally I’m all for it. I’m a big fan of Christmas monsters, ghosts and goblins – all of which were a part of the season long before Frosty the Snowman and Elf on the Shelf came along and something which I spoke about at length with John W. Morehead of Theofantastique last year. But still, the question persists, when exactly did Bigfoot get in on the holiday scene – or has he always been here?

When looking for Bigfoot’s entry point into the Christmas season the most obvious starting place is Rankin/Bass Productions’ 1964 holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Dir. Larry Roemer & Kizo Nagashima) featuring stop-motion by underappreciated Japanese animator Tadahito Mochinaga. As anyone who has experienced this timeless piece of Christmas Americana knows, Rudolph and his friends spend much of the movie being menaced by a giant Yeti referred to by the various characters as either the Abominable Snow Monster of the North or just the Bumble for short. Perhaps the only true Christmas kaijū, scholar Jason Barr sees the Bumble as one of the many thematic descendants of King Kong, which corroborates author David Coleman’s observation, as found in his encyclopedic The Bigfoot Filmography (2011), that no single film has had more impact on the pop-culture perception of Bigfoot and the Yeti then King Kong (1933, Dir. Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack).

Of course, King Kong is a work of paleo-fiction, specifically the ‘Lost World’ sub-genre and as a result retains elements of the colonialist worldview which gave rise to the literary and cinematic tradition of stories concerning white explorers traveling to distant exotic lands where – unlike back home – “time stands still” and primitive beasts and people exist in Eden-like bliss; or at least until our intrepid adventures decide it’s their god given right to run roughshod over the place killing and/or capturing the animals and conquering the indigenous inhabitants.

As Barr writes in his book The Kaijū Film (2016), Rudolph’s Bumble is no exception to this tradition as we see the fearsome Snowman “is not only outwitted by the gathered cast” but also reduced to literal “toothless subservience” and subsequently put “to work decorating Christmas trees” in Santa’s workshop. Truly a sad fate for any once ferocious Christmas monster.

But in more recent years the Bumble’s kith and kin appear to be getting their revenge!

This leads us to our second possible point of origin for the modern Christmas Bigfoot; researcher Phyllis Siefker’s 1997 tome Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men. Here Siefker challenges the conventional notion that America’s Santa Claus is merely a modified version of Europe’s St. Nicholas. After all, asks Siefker, why would Protestant immigrants to the New World bring with them the tradition of an extremely popular Catholic saint? As an alternative explanation Siefker proposes that Santa – with his great beard, furry coat, and habit of nocturnal prowling – is really based upon the ancient pre-Christian figure of the Wildman as outlined in such excellent scholarly works as Richard Bernheimer’s Wild Men in the Middle Ages (1952) and Roger Bartra’s Wild Men in the Looking Glass: The Mythic Origins of the European Otherness (1994).

The idea that Santa isn’t actually a “right jolly old elf” and instead a hairy, savage Bigfoot-like monster must have been at least part of Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander’s inspiration for his fantastically bizarre 2010 film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale in which plucky child protagonist Pietari discovers that “the Coca- Cola Santa is just a hoax” while the actual Kris Kringle is a Kong-sized goat-horned monster who “tears naughty kids to pieces” until “not even their skeletons are left.” Unfortunately for Pietari and his friends, a rich oil tycoon from America – possibly inspired by real-life American oil tycoon Tom Slick (d. 1962) who spent much of his fortune hunting for Bigfoot and the Yeti – has come to unseal the tomb buried beneath the Korvatunturi mountain range where the Saami people imprisoned Santa long ago.

Of course for cryptozoologists like Loren Coleman who entertain the possibility that there might be some truth behind such worldwide Wildman tales, Siefker’s work represents more than just a radical rewriting of Christmastime folklore, but rather the tantalizing – though unlikely - possibility that a character as iconic and beloved as Santa Claus may have been inspired by a relic population of anomalous-primates!

More recently a different kind of yuletide Wildman has been making his presence known here in the US. This, of course, is the Krampus; a kind of shaggy demon with curled goat horns, a lolling red tongue and a talent for punishing naughty children with switches and chains. As outlined in Al Ridenour’s excellent The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas (2016), Krampus hails from Austria where in small remote mountains towns such as Bad Gastein and Öblarn the day preceding the Catholic Church’s feast in honor of St. Nicolas sees the celebration of Krampusnacht (“Krampus Night”) in which children of all ages anticipate a visit from St. Nicholas and his posse of Krampus. These house visits are enacted by local Krampuspass (“Krampus Troupes”) composed of men ranging in age from their late teens to early forties who prepare all-year by sewing heavy wool suits made from sheep and goat’s hair and carving handcrafted wooden masks – called klaubaufkopfe (“Krampus heads”) – which along with chains, bells, switches and baskets will be worn by the performers as they accompany St. Nick – typically played by the tallest member of a troupe – throughout the town to distribute rewards and punishments. In addition to these house visits many towns also feature a Krampusumzüge (“Krampus-Run”) in which dozens of individuals dressed as the Krampus run through the streets threatening and menacing children as well as occasionally smacking a pretty young girl on the rear with their switches all while consuming copious amounts of alcohol. All of this makes for a festival that is equal parts Christmas, Halloween and Mardi Gras.

Since the early 2000s Krampus has begun an unassailable assent through mainstream American pop-culture gradually, and now undeniably, situating himself among other time honored holiday icons. According to reporter Christopher Bickel as of 2014 there are annual Krampus runs, bar crawls, parties and other related events being help in over thirty US cities nationwide while Krampus’ likeness can be found on a huge number of products including Christmas sweaters, stockings, ornaments, playing cards, plush and vinyl toys, decorative figurines, t-shirts, books, comics and in cartoons ranging from Scooby-Doo to American Dad. In 2015 Hollywood unleashed two theatrical Krampus flicks with the William Shatner staring anthology A Christmas Horror Story (Dir. Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban & Brett Sullivan) and Legendary/Universal Pictures’ Krampus (Dir. Michael Dougherty). There’s even a company selling an 11-foot-tall animatronic toddler swinging Krampus which you can put in your front yard! Krampus may also have played a part in inspiring another popular 20th-Century American Christmas monster: The Grinch. As artist Jeffrey Vallance – who via several essays has picked up the torch lit by Phyllis Siefker and continued exploring the possibility of Santa’s Wildman roots – has observed: “Over the ages, the brutal Wildman figure evolved into a character more like a clown or holiday fool. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss follows a classic Wildman scenario: The Grinch is a hairy, Bigfoot-like creature that lives in an alpine cave in a mountain similar to the Matterhorn.”

While Theodor Geisel – aka Dr. Seuss – maintained that The Grinch was primarily an autobiographical character, considering the beloved children’s author’s German ancestry one cannot help but wonder if yuletide Wildman characters like Krampus didn’t also play some part in the formation of the beloved holiday humbug.  

Back in November I delivered a presentation at the American Academy of Religions in Boston on the Krampus in which I argued that American’s recent infatuation with the Krampus – and other Christmas monsters, including apparently now Bigfoot – can best be understood as an oppositional response to conservative’s alleged “War on Christmas,” a moment perhaps best embodied by comedian Stephen Colbert’s 2009 declaration that Americans “need to bring Krampus to America to fight the War on Christmas.” While it seems clear that many Americans who desired a more interfaith approach to the season did not initially see themselves as engaged in a “War” the continual insistence by certain factions – and Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in particular – that there was indeed one eventually drove those opposed to a totalitarian Protestant interpretation of the holiday to fight back and call in the cavalry in the form of a monstrous menagerie of older darker Christmas creations. As scholar Joseph P. Laycock has observed monsters are often underappreciated sources of religious meaning, a set of symbols and rituals which can be used to inspire awe in the beholder, be it participating in a Krampusumzüge or catching a brief glimpse of Bigfoot. 

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Le SF participera à la cérémonie militaire en hommage aux troupes alpines tombées pour la France >> mercredi 18 décembre 10h00 à Rauba Capèu Nice #montagne #bim #bca #alpins #7ebca #27bca #ChasseursAlpins #ilovenice #raubacapeu #nissa