Cecil Gershwin Palmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lasthumanvoice) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-10-13 02:12 pm
lasthumanvoice) wrote in ph_logs2024-10-13 02:12 pm
[OPEN, Mingle] Yamsgiving
Who: Cecil and EVERYONE
What: Another Harvest Celebration
When: Beginning of Pumpkinfest
Where: Center of town
Warning(s): Discussion of the Gala and its attendant CWs may come up
1. Yes, we're happy as fish [Food Prep, Oak and Iron kitchen]
Cecil's made a point of seeking out the best known chefs in town to help him put everything together for this meal. While sweet potato dishes are the star, at least one available with every course, he's hoping to hit a broad variety so everyone can find something they like. He, of course, is peeling and chopping his eternal sweet potato to make sure there's enough to go around.
(Of course you don't need to worry about him with a knife! He's fine! Don't you know he was once a boy scout?)
If someone needs an extra hand for their dishes, though, he's happy to lend one. There's an attitude of camaraderie and cheer in the room, with Cecil even breaking out singing at one or two points in the evening.
2. And gorgeous as geese [The Meal; Festival Green]
Everyone's invited to the feast. That is, in fact, the whole point. Cecil's always been pointedly neutral in the town's tensions, working as the most unbiased media monkey he can. He's the Voice of Pumpkin Hollow, and that means not taking sides between Dahlia and Neil and the Temple and whoever else. But after the gala, he's made a choice to act, to try to foster goodwill and warm feelings. This isn't the stone stew he offered during January's famine, this is a Redwall-style feast.
So, between glasses of mead from Kasprak Farm and dandelion wine, everyone is invited to fill their plate with candied yams and zucchini bread, roast chicken and venison donated by one of the Enforcers. There's a homemade cranberry sauce with citrus wedges and dandelion-leaf salad with an apple cider vinaigrette and toasted acorns for garnish. There's pasta with a homemade pesto sauce and cheese. Desserts, too, are plentiful, some even flavored with...chocolate. But many are not, and feature sweet potatoes. Muffins, pies, etc.
Find a table with a friend or a stranger, and indulge. This is a warm-fuzzy type thing--feel free to use it as a mingle.
3. And wonderfully clean in the morning [Cleanup; Also Festival Green]
Cecil is, quite honestly, expecting to be the only person to stay and clean up. He's been up since about five in the morning and he's dragging a bit at this point. Oh, he did take the time to eat, so he's not starving, but like. He could use help putting the Green back to rights.
4. We've got everything, we're growing everything [Cecil Wildcards]
[You know how to find me to plot.]
What: Another Harvest Celebration
When: Beginning of Pumpkinfest
Where: Center of town
Warning(s): Discussion of the Gala and its attendant CWs may come up
1. Yes, we're happy as fish [Food Prep, Oak and Iron kitchen]
Cecil's made a point of seeking out the best known chefs in town to help him put everything together for this meal. While sweet potato dishes are the star, at least one available with every course, he's hoping to hit a broad variety so everyone can find something they like. He, of course, is peeling and chopping his eternal sweet potato to make sure there's enough to go around.
(Of course you don't need to worry about him with a knife! He's fine! Don't you know he was once a boy scout?)
If someone needs an extra hand for their dishes, though, he's happy to lend one. There's an attitude of camaraderie and cheer in the room, with Cecil even breaking out singing at one or two points in the evening.
2. And gorgeous as geese [The Meal; Festival Green]
Everyone's invited to the feast. That is, in fact, the whole point. Cecil's always been pointedly neutral in the town's tensions, working as the most unbiased media monkey he can. He's the Voice of Pumpkin Hollow, and that means not taking sides between Dahlia and Neil and the Temple and whoever else. But after the gala, he's made a choice to act, to try to foster goodwill and warm feelings. This isn't the stone stew he offered during January's famine, this is a Redwall-style feast.
So, between glasses of mead from Kasprak Farm and dandelion wine, everyone is invited to fill their plate with candied yams and zucchini bread, roast chicken and venison donated by one of the Enforcers. There's a homemade cranberry sauce with citrus wedges and dandelion-leaf salad with an apple cider vinaigrette and toasted acorns for garnish. There's pasta with a homemade pesto sauce and cheese. Desserts, too, are plentiful, some even flavored with...chocolate. But many are not, and feature sweet potatoes. Muffins, pies, etc.
Find a table with a friend or a stranger, and indulge. This is a warm-fuzzy type thing--feel free to use it as a mingle.
3. And wonderfully clean in the morning [Cleanup; Also Festival Green]
Cecil is, quite honestly, expecting to be the only person to stay and clean up. He's been up since about five in the morning and he's dragging a bit at this point. Oh, he did take the time to eat, so he's not starving, but like. He could use help putting the Green back to rights.
4. We've got everything, we're growing everything [Cecil Wildcards]
[You know how to find me to plot.]
no subject
...yes, this one specific sweet potato.
"But if you really want to help, I won't say no. I saw you brought some meat, too. Did you have plans for how you want that handled?"
no subject
John blinks, tips his head in confusion—then dismisses the remark. He knows better than to question a statement like that…
“I brought some thicker cuts for a roast.” John replies instead, settling for reaching around him, shifting Cecil’s grip on the sweet potato so he can keep his fingers out of the way while he cuts—at least further out of the way.
“Haven’t caught any turkeys out there, so I figured it would be a nice alternative, y’know?”
no subject
no subject
“Or you mean the anniversary of coming through the famine?” John asks, frowning thoughtfully as he picks up the wax paper wrapped package of meat he’d set on the counter. “Was that around this time? I still got three years and a couple continents between me and that.”
no subject
He holds up the sweet potato demonstratively. If John's paying attention, Cecil's cut like, several cups of diced sweet potato off it. It is, however, completely whole and uncut right now.
no subject
“Yeah?” He replies, reaching up to tug the leather cord from under his shirt to reveal Serranai’s talisman: a green glass bead encasing a flower, now accompanied by a leaf carved from wood hanging beside it.
“I serve Serranai.” He explains, his smile turning thoughtful. “So you do this for Celestine, huh? That’s a great idea. Maybe I should do something in the spring for her…”
no subject
He has a Jewish community. What would they think of his relationship with Celestine, in whatever form it may take?"This is just a thank you, not any commitment. Besides, she probably wouldn't want me anyway, right?"
no subject
He trails off, thinking about how to explain his own way of seeing it.
“Y’know I’m Catholic. Still am, even though I serve her…but my relationship with her is different than the one I have with God. I put my faith in him first, but I…love her. And if God is love, and I put my faith in him first, then loving her—he would respect that. Not forgive it or allow it, but welcome it as long as I don’t abandon him for her. Does that make sense?”
no subject
"Sure, it makes sense to me. But would it make sense to Lev and Anzu and Zivia? Would I still get invited to holidays with them? Or would I lose that little community, that small connection to my heritage? I didn't grow up with anyone like them to teach me how to be Jewish. Now, I'm getting to learn more than I did as a kid."
Cecil has talked about some of this, in the abstract, with Lev. Back during the flood, they say on the clock tower in the rain and cried together. But the specifics, he's avoided. The depth of his whatever-he-has with Celestine.
no subject
"Celestine is a scholar, isn't she? So, she's probably really proud of how much you wanna learn about your faith. And...I dunno much about Judaism, but I've heard there's a lot of study involved. Your faith encourages you to think and question and educate yourself, mine not so much. So...wouldn't learning more about other faiths kinda inform your own better? Give you new insights--maybe even bring you closer to your own God? I'm not trying to spin anything, just...I get needing community. I struggled with finding my own growing up, one my dad wasn't fond of but helped me a lot. But I'm saying if you just wanna know Celestine better, not convert or commit? I don't think anyone, her or your community, would judge you or have a problem. Especially Lev 'n Anzu...I know 'em, too, and they've been nothing but good to this good little Catholic boy."
no subject
Cecil looks at the pile of sweet potato he has in front of him, judges it sufficient, and put it on a baking sheet to roast with honey and some herbs.
"I don't care how close I am with my G-d, that's wholly not the point. Not for me. Gods are...not quite a dime a dozen, but more plentiful than most places, back home. It's about fitting in and being accepted and the lies we tell to get that for ourselves."
no subject
"Why do you think fitting in and being accepted have anything to do with each other?" he asks. "Honest question. Always been my experience that they're very different things."
no subject
"They're pretty closely related. Not the exact same, but deeply, deeply linked. And if you don't fit in, you stand out, and if you stand out, you're at risk of being punished for doing so. The nail that stands up highest gets hit. Bang-bang-bang. We don't talk about the Sheriff's secret police or the Vague, yet Menacing Government Agency. Angels do not exist. All hail the Glow Cloud. We do this to be accepted."
CW: child abuse, parental death, homophobia/biphobia, toxic masculinity
"We do this to fit in." he corrects softly. "That's not acceptance. There's safety in acceptance--there's none in fitting in. If you're accepted...you may worry what others think, stress over how you're perceived, how you're doing, if you're good enough, but you're never truly afraid. If you don't fit in, you have reason to be scared. Fear is the difference, 'cause the people who accept you? You're never afraid of 'em. When you're accepted...you feel a lotta things, but real, primal fear? Never comes into the picture."
He thinks about his own experiences, and hopes that his own banal struggles will translate to Cecil's strange, fascinating perception of the world.
"To fit in, I pretended I only wanted women. I pretended I didn't need to cry when my mother died. I pretended I was a 'real man' as my father put it, and I lived in constant fear. In the place I was accepted? I cut my hair to mourn my mom, I learned about other genders without even realizing it. I became a real man by becoming a whole person. I worried a lot about being good enough...but I was never afraid."