Egad!

He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"

"What?"

He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"

"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."

Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.

I migrate here from Instagram :)

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This is a recipe I've adapted from various soda breads to make it as easy as possible when I'm dealing with high fatigue, low spoons, and/or no appetite. It has the appeal of warm, soft fresh bread, but the oats make it a bit more substantial.

You will need: Oven (not a microwave) Mixing bowl Spoon Cup or 1/2 cup measure (or something of similar size) Baking tray

Ingredients: 1/2 cup whole oats (not instant) 1/2 cup self-raising flour (or plain flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder) 1/2 cup whole milk A pinch of salt

Instructions: Literally just mix everything together in a bowl, then dump it onto a baking tray in a rough approximation of a round bread roll. Bake at 180C for 15-18 minutes. Allow to cool and eat with whatever you would normally have with fresh bread.

Notes: It doesn't matter exactly how big your measuring cup is as long as the three main ingredients are equal, but you'll need to extend cooking time for a larger piece of bread (or divide into two).

When you've mixed your ingredients you should get something like thick porridge, NOT like dough. If you make a dough you can shape with your hands, it'll come out too dry. This stuff should be sticky and blobby, thick enough that it holds its shape on the baking tray. You should be able to spoon it out and mash it together to make a rather un-aesthetic mound.

If it's too thin, wait a couple of minutes for the oats to absorb the milk. If it's still too thin, add a bit more flour.

I like to mix in some grated cheese to make something a bit like a cheese scone. You could also lean more into sweet flavours to make a muffin-like end result (particularly if you spoon it into cases).

This does NOT keep well, it goes stale very quickly. It's a bake-and-eat thing. I don't know if it freezes.

I haven't tried making it with non-dairy milk. The milk is providing both liquid and fat so you'd want to make sure you were using something that HAS a good amount of fat.

Primarily based on these images

But also because I want Holmes and Morticia to speak French, and for him to fence with Gomez, and teach the kids about poisons and criminals

Holmes folded down the top of the newspaper he was reading so he could see me. “A letter from whom?”

“Not sure.” I turned it over to study it as best I could. The envelope was thick and expensive, postmarked from America. The ink was rich and black, and it smelled unexpectedly floral, with an odd sulphuric note underneath. “Looks to be a woman’s writing, I’d say.”

“If you would.” He held out a pale hand. I passed him the envelope and he neatly sliced it open with his pocket knife. A single page slipped out onto his breakfast plate. He unfolded it with a flick of his wrist, then smiled. “Ah! Morticia.”

“Morticia?”

“Addams. She is my second cousin.”

I was immediately intrigued, for Holmes so rarely talked about his relatives. It had taken several years after our meeting for him to bring up the subject of his elder brother, who lived and worked barely an hour’s walk away. I wasn’t surprised that a second cousin in America had gone unnoted until now.

“Unusual names run in the family, I see.”

Holmes smirked. “Her grandmother was my great-aunt Séraphine, who met and married a quite singular gentleman named Algernon Frump while travelling. They settled over in the States many years ago, and dear Morticia now resides there with her husband.”

“Why does she write you?”

“She is arranging a sort of family reunion on All Hallow’s Eve. Apparently it has been far too long since we have all seen each other.”

“How long is that?”

“Several years at least. It was certainly before you and I met.” 

“And will you oblige her?”

“I suppose I will.” He folded the letter and placed it neatly back in its envelope, tucking it into his inside pocket. “You’ve been angling for a holiday, my boy. Would this satisfy you?”

“Wouldn’t it be terribly rude?” I asked, startled. “She has invited you, not me.”

He tutted. “Nonsense, Watson! Morticia knows we live together, of course.”

“How?”

“She will have read your book.”

“Oh! Well that is kind of her. But a family reunion, Holmes, I am not—”

This has been the most rewarding use of a Sunday afternoon.

says, “let’s make something silly,”

yes and that impulse.

As usual and expected from a blog titled A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry, it does take a long (but very interesting and worth reading) read to get to that point, but I'll point out the interesting thing in this context:

Here, "Big Man" is a stand in for the nobles and rulers and landowners of agricultural societies. While more urbanized and industrial societies may have a use for coinage, what do these societies based in interpersonal relationships can give you as a reward for a quest, as a reward for solving a problem? Social power; a title, a relationship, a promise of support. And not only that, but this isn't often a reward but a necessity in the first place. To have a horse, to have armor and weapons and the means to wage war (go adventuring) in the first place, you don't go to the medieval store and buy them with 20gp, you often have people supporting you and even , you are a man-at-arms, part of a noble retinue a noble yourself, maybe part of a holy order, or in more early-modern scenario, part of a mercenary group.

However, this doesn't happen often in fantasy because of these reasons reasons:

The idea of the selfless hero who doesn't choose glory or fame but instead continues questing endlessly to do good or defeat an ultimate evil. Making a hero have a patron feels like selling out (but I will address that)

Even with those characters who aren't selfless and would probably take the power and titles, it seems to tie them down to a place or obligation and this makes adventures boring (but I will address that!)

Dungeons & Dragons

People say that every generic fantasy world is inspired by Tolkien but I will argue that he's the grandfather of modern fantasy, the father is Gary Gyax. The ideas baked in D&D have been present in ALL over popular fantasy for decades now, even more prominently than Tolkien (and of course D&D 'borrowed' a lot from Tolkien). Now what this means in this particular case is the idea of wandering "adventurers" solving problems for "gold" in "dungeons", often with the undertone of a frontier or decaying civilization full of monsters and bandits to be killed and tamed into civilization (some other people have written about this better than me)

Nevertheless, even beyond the setting implications, there are deep gameplay implications that have filtered down popular fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons is a survival/combat game. It's a survival game because you have to rely in your abilities and limited equipment (which you buy with gold) to survive in a dungeon, through combat. Of course you can do a lot more than that, but this is the core of the game, what it was designed for: buy equipment, go into a dungeon, survive, get treasure, use it to buy equipment, go into another dungeon. Here "dungeon" can mean many things... combat, travel, puzzles, but the loop is clear.

There is no "gain a patron and get social capital" loop in the game, though it might be simulated, it isn't fun. So there is a lack of interest on exploring this, or really, anything beyond the "quest". And since again, it's D&D, not Tolkien, that shapes most popular fantasy, we see popular fantasy repeating this deeply baked in idea of fantasy once and again and again and again. Sometimes even making them into actual, literal points inside the world: making literal worlds with Adventurer Guilds and Dungeons and Quests and sometimes even Levels and XP as part of society (they're only lacking the dice... and that's because D&D is also the main influence behind videogames).

El Cid is both a real person who lived a very interesting life and a folklore figure, and both are very interesting as inspirations for fantasy "adventurers". El Cid was considered (by the social standards of the time) as an ideal knight and a tragic figure. But his whole life is defined by the society he lived in and, as any knight (or noble warrior in general), how he walked the interrelationships of his society; his back and forth of loyalty and betrayal with King Alfonso, his loss and recovery of honor, his service to the Muslims rulers of Zaragoza which indeed gave him his title (these constant intercultural interactions were very common in medieval Iberia, which makes it a very unique and underused setting inspiration), his rulership over Valencia. Over time, El Cid changes and seeks patrons and his changes in his social status (and his dependence on them) are a major part of the story both in real life and fictionalizations.

But this doesn't mean that the life of El Cid is boring or lacking in combat and travels. He gets "adventures" all over the place, he travels and fights over the whole breadth of Iberia, he has countless legends to his name. He wasn't a "murderhobo" that got gold from each adventure and then went to the store to buy a new sword, he took command of armies and he even took power and governed his own realm, but his life wasn't lacking from excitement, he didn't just sit and became a paper-pusher. I need to be very clear I'm not saying El Cid was a hero, I'm saying he led an exciting, interesting life, worthy of most fictional adventurers, but he wasn't just going from place to place asking for gold... well, technically yes, but this involved his status, his honor and his place in society. Which makes for a rich story.