New Plan, Step One: Provide For My Community [open]

[summerdude]

Magnus needs something to change, so when a Mansion calendar helpfully informs him that it's International Falafel Day back on Earth, he goes to the library for some cookbooks, and then to the kitchen.

He lays out ten different falafel recipes. He gathers the ingredients they list, as best as he can understand them. He has canned chickpeas and fresh chickpeas and dried chickpeas and chickpea flour and box mixes of falafel that say 'just add water!'

Cripes.

"I can do this," he says, peering at the assorted recipes intently for a good ten minutes, and then takes the dried chickpeas over to the sink to rinse and soak.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Dionysus?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"He seems nice. Apollo, as well." Not that he particularly likes Apollo, partly because he so often feels he doesn't understand what Apollo is saying.

[summerdude]

Magnus makes a face. "Apollo is from my world," he says.

[lanselos_du_lac]

This seems to surprise him -- though it also makes a kind of sense. "Is he?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, and he freaking sucks. He was a huge dick to my cousin."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What did he do to your cousin?"

[summerdude]

"He was a god at her," Magnus says, which in his book is a complete explanation.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What does that mean?"

[summerdude]

"Gods like to take advantage," Magnus says, with an angry jolt of summer directed at the chickpeas. They start sprouting, and he withdraws his power immediately. "And make things complicated, and give you quests, and tell you the world will end if you fail, and then you hustle to take care of it so the world doesn't end, and then at the end they're like, whoops! Turns out I could have solved 70% of all the problems I just gave you if I just bothered thinking about anyone else for a hot second." He takes one of the sprouted chickpeas out and squeezes it. It smushes the way he thinks it probably should? Hey presto, shortcut! "Plus he's the god of prophecy, which means he's categorically the worst."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I see, I think." There's a little pause before he says, "I had only one God to choose from and it was, in fact, not a choice at all."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, that guy sucks, too," Magnus says, trying to run the food processor again. This time the chickpeas sort of grind up? He'll take it!

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot chuckles a little, "Blasphemy."

[summerdude]

"I thought he was fake till I got here," Magnus says, stopping the food processor and opening it to check the texture of its contents. (He does not know what he's looking for!) "I mean, I know Jesus was around once upon a time, because Thor hates him, but I thought he was just some guy. But he's such a dick to Galahad. So. He's as bad as all the others."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What do you mean? About Galahad?"

[summerdude]

Perhaps predictably, Magnus clams up. "Galahad can tell you about that," he says. Or not, if Galahad doesn't want to! "That's his business."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot nods, "That's a fair answer."

[summerdude]

"I know," a little grumbly. "Anyway, I've only met, like, three halfway decent gods." He pauses. "Plus Uncle D."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I've only ever met those here who claim to be gods."

[summerdude]

"It's not just a claim. They really are gods."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"How does one know? God does not just... walk among mortals, in my experience."

[summerdude]

"They do, there's just this whole, like, essence thing usually. They're not all concentrated in one spot most of the time, so you don't get the full brunt of their divinity and, like, die. Um, it varies by pantheon though. Annabeth said the Egyptian ones have this whole possession thing going on instead of just, like, sleeping with mortals or whatever. Um, but, maybe the christian one doesn't hang like the others? I've only heard of one or two alleged kids from that guy." Magnus pokes at the falafel mixture, desultory. "Gods are immortal and have really specific powers and most of 'em won't freaking shut up about being gods. And they, like, rely on their worship for strength. You know it's a god if they have a lot of stupid power and care about attention, good or bad, and if they meddle in mortal affairs for their own benefit and they don't really seem to get the value of a life or the magnitude of, like, a year. Cuz they've been around so long. But you said there were Vikings, in your Britain, so that means there were definitely gods hanging out. Like, somewhere. My dad is one, you know."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He laughs in something like surprise, "Your father? A god?"

[summerdude]

"Where did you think I get all the--" Magnus wiggles his fingers to indicate both healing and growing things and the Peace of Frey, which he's been practicing deploying on purpose about once a week during their sessions "--from?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot shrugs, "Aren't you from Valhalla? Or whatever?" This last is strategically deployed in a tone not unlike Magnus' own.