#plus miscellanious cameos!

[philtstone]

title: we close our eyes and dream (the world has turned around again)

in the year of our lord 2024 i wrote psych fic ... wow there was this hilarious list of reverse prompts floating around tumblr a little while ago and one of them, instead of high school au, was "nursing home au". something somewhere fundamental in my brain clicked and i thought "this would be perfect for shules. i just know it" and then after many years of being generally too terrified to try my hand at the very unique narrative flavour that is psych, i wrote this. title is from "we close our eyes" by the oingo boingos which plays over the final scene of the series finale and always makes me cry. i hope u enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!

Juliet is sitting alone by the couches when she meets him. 

They’re in the dining hall at Glorious Pines, and she’s chewing her lip and staring impotently at her fancy-looking plate of risotto. She hates that risotto is making her feel so weird and insecure. Dinner with Sarah was usually a lot simpler than this; Juliet has never really been a good cook, and her granddaughter was often too busy with work to manage anything more than a mis-mash of premade Trader Joe’s delicacies. Now she’s in this big beautiful building, surrounded by vibrant and dynamic old people who’ve been living here long enough to all know each other and have interesting hobbies and be in on the latest gossip. Juliet’s always loved making new friends, but the risotto is reminding her how out of practice she really is. Up until four days ago she had been taking her meals with Sarah, who’d moved Juliet to Santa Barbara in May so she wouldn’t be all alone in that old house of theirs. And before that – well, she’d been alone. Her hobbies have gotten progressively more old ladyish over the last five years, and while it’s true that she sewed her own pajamas while in her twenties, too, that wasn’t all she spent her time doing. She’s pretty sure her glamorous neighbors by the lemonade bowl who still have the guts to wear red lipstick won’t be too interested in her recent return – for nostalgia purposes only , and not because she likes solving the mysteries before the book does – to her ancient childhood box of Nancy Drew novels. And, gosh, the last time a man flirted with her was … oh, twenty years ago, now.  

She’s pushing the sticky, fragrant rice around and trying not to think too hard about the prospect of socializing with strangers when he materializes into the armchair beside her.

The sudden and graceful materializing is on its own impressive, considering most of the residents of this place have had hip replacements.

“Oh – hello,” Juliet says, mostly just to be polite

“Hi!” says the man. “You’re in my seat.”

Juliet freezes with one spoonful of risotto finally halfway up to her mouth. She narrows her eyes at him from behind her bifocals. “Excuse me?”

“My seat,” he explains. “I was sitting right there. I had, in fact, just gotten up to go grab Gus some orange juice – you know Gus –” Juliet doesn’t “-- And now I am back, and, so, as you can see, that was my seat.”

Juliet blinks. He’s around her own age, early seventies, with a full head of thick grey hair, bright hazel eyes that crease liberally at the corners, no glasses, and a big nose that probably gave him a striking profile in his youth. He’s wearing a garish red polo shirt that says FASHION! on the front in block letters, and house slippers.

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[pxrtgasdace]

♠ devil’s playground, a study of ace’s hands prompted and featuring a cameo by @pilawforhire

Any other day, in any other instance, inked fingers demanded more attention that plain ones. More interesting to foreign eyes they were deemed. 

Even to familiar ones they were still an object of interest, and Ace couldn’t stop himself from taking a peek at Law’s hands as he read from across the room, some book titled something long and with the suffix -ology somewhere in there. Though Ace’s good eyesight allowed him to discern the letters on the cover enough to read them if he wished so, it was on Law’s also letter-bearing digits that he centred his eyes. To watch him flip a page or secure the paperback by changing his hand’s positioning so as not to damage it was far more interesting than to guess what it was he read about with such concentration and collected enthusiasm.

Law’s hands... They were not Ace’s pick. They were what they were, the useful appendages humans had been blessed with by whatever Creator. Still they were worthy of his unconscious fascination every now and then - they’d draw his gaze to them and there it would linger.

But that was any other day. Today, the plain, old boring fingers were worthy of protagonism, which they had earned by their own modest merit.

Leaving Law to his readings, Ace looked down upon his own hands, currently partially obscured by the playing cards interspersed between his fingers. He had been trying to up his skills by playing Napoleon at St. Helena while his mate offered no more than his presence in the living room but, having gotten bored with the complexity and loneliness of the game, had ditched it for some good old house of cards fun.

It would have sounded depressing were it not for the fact Ace was not so bad with it. His hands lacked the precision Law’s hands had been graced with and gotten over the years, and it was true his temper rendered it impossible for him to be best friends with Lady Patience... But, because there was something childish in building a house of cards, and even simplistic in using them for their physical aspect thus stripping them off their playing value, a man like him could enjoy himself.

Ace started placing the cards on the table one by one but he had to stop at finding a particular one amongst his pile. The Ace of Spades. It was said that those bearing the name of ‘D.’ were superstitious fellows - he and Law had never truly sat down to talk about it; they might discuss fate and a cursed existence but never prophecies and the stuff of legend. Could this argument be naught but belief in itself? 

Still, Ace knew enough to say this was what they called the ‘death card’. He’d heard it several times in his life thanks to his sharing of the card’s name. It was always the Ace of Spades. Never the Ace of Hearts, Diamonds or Clubs. It was Death that immediately popped to people’s minds when they made a connection between this Ace of flesh and bone and that of the cards. Rational an assumption - everybody dies - but charged with a sense of imminence that seemed to bid adieu to any joys he could yet live.

Were Ace inclined to such thoughts, he’d find it amusing how Law would bear ‘death’ in his hands while he bore his in his name. Predestination versus choice. For now, he discarded the bit of cardboard and paid attention to his bare hands. 

Like Law’s, they were what nature had given him, a pair of useful must-have anatomical tools. That’s where the similarities stopped, as he found, paying attention to his hands for the first time he could recall. 

His hands were slightly more ample than the average man’s, still keeping to propotion and not freakish enough to demand looks of curiosity and disgust, though, from certain angles where their size was enhanced, they looked somewhat cartoonish. The digits were broad and rough in appearance, with scars scattered all over, in various sizes and ages. 

Most of these Ace had gotten during his childhood where his living outdoors and penchant for trouble formed a dangerous combo which made any boy return home with a collection of injuries and bruises to kill for. Climbing trees, setting traps for wild beasts, directly hitting said beasts when the traps failed, browsing trash, debris and scraps of construction material for things of worth, building things with said finds, wielding his metal pipe in fights against everyone who touched a nerve (and that was a big slice of Goa Kingdom’s demographic)... All activities of action and violence would take a toll in the end of the day. 

Most marks had healed and disappeared with time but Ace still displayed a few.

For instance, he had, on his left hand, between the second and third digits and descending in a line on the back, a scar he’d gotten when defending Luffy from an aristocrat not even a year after the loss of Sabo. 

The boy was running so carefree, challenging his big brother to catch him, when he went straight against the nobleman. More than insulting the juvenile rabble, the man produced a blade the Lord knew from where and took a swing at Luffy. Ace’s reaction, though justified, was disproportionate, with him putting more strength into his own metallic blow than the threat demanded. The blood was boiling hot in him, filling each and every vessel with hellish rage and Ace did not measure his power nor his foe’s. He couldn’t - after Sabo, no one was taking his little brother, the still cry-baby one away.

The man had reacted as he ought to, taking the child as a serious opponent, for Ace’s appetite for chaos rivalled that of many an adult male. Ace could not explain how the fight had gone because blood had deafened and blinded him and everything had been just a blur of black and white and red, with Luffy’s wailing in the background, muffled to his brother’s ears but loud as war trumpets to the crowd. If he had a single scar to prove the story true, he had only himself and the demon that had possessed him that day to thank for. 

Now, while he didn’t exactly feel proud of it, Ace considered it a medal for bravery, embroidered in his flesh.

Speaking of the flesh, Ace’s hand felt like leather to the touch. A rough thing, still it glistened like a delicate craft thanks to the numerous calluses that covered his hands. This hardening of the skin could be relatively blamed on seafaring. The sun, the wind, the sea. The rope scraping flesh every time he moored Striker. 

Part of it was still to blame on the survival skills he’d gained as a kid and of which he still made a good use as an adult - climbing trees and roofs was an effective way of losing chasers or to find one’s way in an unknown city with only a few points of reference; hunting for meat when fish wouldn’t satisfy; knowing how to make a shelter for himself with what was available... Sometimes Ace would even make a use of that dagger he carried against the leg to carve a piece of wood duiring long, lonely and dull times in the company of none but the crescent-shaped raft.

Then, there was a third reason, a much more recent one: his Devil Fruit. Many things in Ace’s biology had changed when he’d become a man of fire. His hands, for example. The fire within them had affected the flesh by multiplying its flaws twofold at least; but there was a plus side, or so the lucky few who were allowed Ace’s trust to touch his hands considered: they were always warm, regardless of weather and external temperature. Not hot, never cold.

This warmth was enough to melt snow if there was no fabric in between, like the sweet warmth of his bodily fire had been capable of melting away some of the ice Law had raised as a wall encircling his heart.

Finally, and not so poetically but in a far more practical note, Ace’s nails were always kept short. More often than not, they were stubby and showcased white spots as the result of mild damages to the nail bed or low calcium - again, consequence of the hardships of a seafaring life. Other than that, Ace could boast of managing to keep all ten fingers in his twenty-two years of existence. And ten toes too, for that matter!

Concluding his analysis, Ace intertwined his fingers together and eyed the cards. From the distance, he heard Law flip a page and its silence enhanced sound cut the air. 

In what gestures were concerned, and still as a part of this study, Ace’s hands were used to performing a couple of them that spoke of his personality, more than sticking to the activities they were meant to carry out. 

As part of an adult take on the childish temperament he wished to tone down, Ace would often crack his knuckles as either a warning his patience was about to end, if accompanied by glaring eyes; or as an alert it had indeed reached its quota if the coals turned wild or the sides of his face looked uneven. He also cracked them as a response not to anyone but himself, whenever he embraced a mission or arrived at a troubling verdict.

He made guns out of his fingers as part of his fighting repertoire, in a move where his injured fingers and their right hand counterparts would face a foe and spit real fire in gun-like blasts. By keeping his middle finger facing the palm of his hand, Ace would do a child-friendly version of these finger guns when with his friends, as to acknowledge a joke or in the way of a salute.

Ace also took his hands to his lips to whistle and, when bored, he’d drum his fingers on what surface was available, whether it was the Moby Dick’s railing, the dinner table or his muscley arm.

Most of all, Ace’s gestures worked in association with his hat. Never had a hat been so cherished after his brother’s straw one and it didn’t even share its meaningfulness. 

Both of Ace’s hands would often go for it in greeting, for various reasons and in a miscellany of combinations. Sometimes he’d spread his fingers over the top in order to lift the cowboy hat from his raven hair. Sometimes he’d hold it between his fingers and his thumb, and so he would nod. Or he’d hold the same way only along the brim to nod as well or give it a soft pull. 

Speaking of which, hats also served as a great means of concealing one’s countenance, as much as they worked on shielding eyes and protecting the head from the hostile weather overall. A wide brim was a helpful friend when the eyes sparked with rage or drowned themselves in tears and hence it was not uncommon to find Ace pressing his hat deeper against his skull, in the hopes of giving silent frustration some privacy.

If it seemed like Ace only knew how to manhandle the trademarked hat, truth was his harsh hands knew how to be gentle with it, even if one would think otherwise at the sight of the man twisting the object when it was heavy with rain as to dry it. Call it ‘tough love’ if you will, but even this misuse was an expression of how much he cared for his hat, which would often receive pats and cleansing brushes of the fingers to send the dust away.

Finally, there were the small things, revealing of his core, also not to be relieved of blame for the pitiful state his hands were on at twenty-two. Cooking gave him no burns but guitar playing benefited from the ugliness of those calluses as much as it shaped them. Slamming his fists against the wall to release the anger. Mimicking Law in his favourite gesture of flipping the bird, though Ace did it less commonly than his Death-bearing counterpart.

Ace looked at the pairs of triangles which formed the two floors of his house of cards. With a single blow of the right hand, soft and almost merciful, he took it down. Law turned another noisy page. Ace decided he’d had enough of being idle.

With all fifty-two cards in his hands, Ace swiped those in his right to his left until he identified the pair he needed. In a mute march towards Law, Ace, rather imperiously, placed these two over Law’s open book so he wouldn’t get lost next time he picked it up. 

The Ace of Spades and the King of Hearts. While he knew the first was the death card, he knew not of the latter’s meaning. All he knew was both could apply to either of them. All that mattered was that Law liked hearts.

“I think you’ve had enough of that medical-ology. C’mon, I’m bored!”

[jbpiggin]

Matteo's Grotesques

Matteo da Milano was a talented Italian illuminator working in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Originally from Milan, he did most of his work in Rome and Ferrara for the Estes, the Medicis, the Orsini and the della Rovere families. His specialty was illustrating for the wealthy clerics from these ranking families and was noted for the borders which he decorated with grotesques, jewels, cameos and other all'antica features, carefully drawn flora and fauna (see article by Andreina Contessa). You can see the style in S.Maria.Magg.12, a lovely music manuscript for use by the choir from Advent to Lent, made for Santa Maria Maggiore of Rome and now in the Vatican Library.

It is one of the latest codices digitized in color by the Vatican Library. My full list:

Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.3.pt.bis, collection of materials on Shroud of Veronica. Curious because title page is got up like that of a printed book, indicating how dominant print style had become by 1616.

Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.62, biographies. Paolo Vian has added a 2014 note at the front saying the catalog item dealing with this codex seems to be partly duff.

Borg.ar.265

Borgh.216

Ott.lat.2862

Reg.lat.243, miscellany with Augustine at ff. 1-53 (11th century)

Reg.lat.261, 15th-century miscellany of Alcuin, Chrysostom and others

Reg.lat.279

Reg.lat.281

Reg.lat.299

Reg.lat.328

Reg.lat.339

Reg.lat.346

Reg.lat.372

Reg.lat.435, Martyrologium, plus an interesting legal glossary at ff 41r-44vB: Summula seu definitiones de legalibus verbis; 12th or 13th century French.

S.Maria.Magg.12, magnificent 15th-century music codex (above)

Urb.gr.120

Urb.lat.320

Urb.lat.859

Urb.lat.1065.pt.1

Urb.lat.1072.pt.2

Urb.lat.1123

Urb.lat.1225

Urb.lat.1229

Urb.lat.1230

Urb.lat.1238

Urb.lat.1222

Urb.lat.1234

Urb.lat.1239

Urb.lat.1240

Urb.lat.1246

Urb.lat.1248

Urb.lat.1256

Urb.lat.1262

Urb.lat.1772

Vat.gr.86, black and white microfilm only

Vat.gr.1702,

Vat.lat.1040, eTK index of science manuscripts lists incipits Utrum de corpore mobili ad formam and Circa initium primi libri de generatione

Vat.lat.1438, legal Bartholomew of Brixen and Bernardo Bottoni

Vat.lat.2151, eTK index of science manuscripts lists incipit Prohemium huius libri continet duas of late medieval logician and metaphysician Walter Burley

Vat.lat.6767

Vat.sir.343

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 114. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib. via Blogger http://ift.tt/2rrg7td