ACTUAL Ancient Food Crimes; Friday, First Period [08/19[.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Morning, everyone!" Summer greeted everyone brightly from the front of the classroom yet again. "And congratulations for making it this far! Granted, we did kind of start with a bang and it's hard to make anything else look so bad once you've had maggot cheese, but hopefully, you learned a few things along the way, even if that thing is that people will pretty much eat almost anything in certain contexts. And our last featured potential ancient food crime does, in fact, come with a whole heap of context.

"Today, we're going to be trying beaver tails. No, not the Canadian pastry, although I did bring some of that along for you all to enjoy as well, but, no, actual tails of beaver, which was pretty popular as a Lenten substitution for meat from medieval times to probably right around the nineteenth century.

"You see," Summer continued, because, lol, this actually was a class, actually, "for a little context, especially for those of you not from around here, there's a period of time in the Christian religion where you're supposed to abstain from a lot of things, including eating meat. But it was decided that fish did not actually count as meat...in some of my research, the logic went that any creature that could have survived the time when God flooded the whole Earth without having to get aboard Noah's big giant species-saving Love Boat was fair game. So mammals like beavers and even capybaras were fair game, and, you know, if you look at a beaver tail, it's sort of textured like scales on a fish, it's sort of shaped like a fish, so pretty much a fish, right? So let's cook it up like a fish, because if there's one thing ardent faithful people love, it's a loophole!

"Beaver tails weren't the only Lenten loopholes, though. Rats, lizards, and unborn baby rabbits also seemed pretty popular, but this one definitely seemed the most interesting to try and, honestly, if you ask me? The most ridiculous but also oddly clever one? Anyway, we've also got some cock ale to wash it down with, because when you have the chance to serve people beer that's had a boiled rooster stewing in it for a month or so, you take it."

Cupcakes, Friday 8/19, 2nd period

[stykera]

As he had been nearly every week previously, Stark was standing at the front of the room when everyone arrived for cupcake class.

“It’s our last class today,” he said, looking around. “I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Odd ingredients and all.” He didn’t need to know if anyone enjoyed the odd ingredients more than the planned ones. “I did.” Maybe not when the boxes involved seafood. That was just upsetting.

“We’ve nearly run out of colors, so today’s ingredients will be black. There aren’t many in here.” Or so Stark foolishly thought as he patted the box in front of him. If he’d picked it up he would have noticed it was clearly much heavier than it ought to be. He ought to know better by now.

“I have black licorice to start. I like it. Not everyone does. But it’s candy and it’s black so it works well for this, I think. Then there’s blackstrap molasses. I also have blackberries and black currants if you’d like to use fruit.”

This was going well so far and Stark relaxed a little before reaching into the box once more for another ingredient. “There’s black coffee which goes very well with chocolate, like black cocoa. And I have Oreos. Cookies are always good. I also have black tea which I think ought to work but I’m not entirely sure. I think I only put the coffee in. Not tea. Maybe,” he started to say, feeling foolishly hopeful for a brief, shining moment, “maybe this is all…oh no. It’s not.”

Stark sighed and started pulling out a few more things. “We have black sesame seeds. That’s not terrible. I’ve had good cookies with those. There’s also black pepper which maybe shouldn’t go in cupcakes but it isn’t too bad an ingredient.”

Stark’s face fell as he peered into the box once again. “Now there are black beans. And there are black olives. Why are there so many olives? Olives don’t go in cupcakes.” Lots of things didn’t go in cupcakes. So many things. More things that had yet to be removed from the box, in fact.

“And now black...garlic?” One student was getting a betrayed sort of look right now.

“Oh dear. And we have…activated charcoal? That isn’t even food. We have that in the clinic.” Stark’s face now was the very picture of dismay. It was only going to get worse with the final item. “And squid ink. I…why?”

What had he ever done to deserve these things in his cupcake ingredients?

“If anyone wants help I can help. If you like.”

Fair warning: he might cry if anyone asked him to help with most of the later ingredients. Or if anyone had brought the non-pasty beaver tails in from Summer’s class.

"Wait...where did the littler box with the holes come from? NO, we are not putting a chicken in anything!"

Relationship Skills, Friday Period 3

[tellmehowstuffworks]

"Well," Yennefer said. "We have reached the end of our time together, and we hope you have all learned many--" perhaps a bit much. "...at least a few skills to improve your relationships."

"It's a process," Jaskier assured the class. Because guess which duo would still welcome back that onion smelling Witcher at the drop of a hat.

That man was going to refuse to communicate with them and drag them all over the Continent, but had you seen him in leather pants? "The important part is that you try. And..." Yennefer consulted her notes. "'Never go to bed angry.'"

"What about drunk?" Jaskier, no.

"It doesn't say anything about drunk," Yennefer observed. "So drunk should be fine." Guys.

Beginning Sith Philosophy, Friday

[unusual_sith]

"Welcome to our last class," Lana said as everybody filed in. "I'll be teaching more next semester, but I hope you've found it interesting so far, at least. Oh, and Libby, could I see you after class, please? I have a proposal for you.

"Anyway, up until now we've been analyzing each line on its own, hunting through them for meaning and picking them apart. Today we get to discuss the code as a whole."

The whiteboard read:
Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion, I gain Strength.
Through Strength, I gain Power.
Through Power, I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me.

"I think we've all had time to adequately form an opinion on each line. The question is, does focussing on them as a whole change your opinion of them in isolation? What is your view of the entire thing? Let's discuss it."

Library - Friday

[onlyajones]

Even though Jo had been enjoying her classes this session, she was looking forward to the upcoming break and then the welcome picnic the following weekend.

She realised that she had now officially been at Fandom for a full year, which felt strange to think that she had not only lasted so long at Fandom but she had made friends and she had settled into Fandom much better than she ever had at Malory Towers, admittedly it helped that she had learnt from all her mistakes that she had made her former school but she was still quite proud of how well everything had been going while she was at Fandom.

She found that she had quite a few books to reshelve so that was keeping her busy for most of the morning.