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trappezoider · 8 months

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Happy Christmas

The snow crunches pleasantly under Sebastian’s boot. He looks ahead of him, picture fogging up from every interval of his hot breath, and smiles. He’s finally home. The snow still clings to him when he gets inside the house. The smell of ham and cinnamon enters his nostrils. “Uncle Sebastian! Look!” “What is it, Abigail?” Abigail’s soft, brown curls jump from excitement as she presents him a toy horse, led white, with tiny specks on its rump. They’re almost a replica of her freckles scattered around her nose. It neighs once, twice and stares at Sebastian with its bright emerald eyes. “Very good! Now show me what it can do," he says.

The horse spins around and goes into a wild gallop around the air. Abigail is clapping her little hands together in delight, giggling as it passes her.

"You're spoiling them," Sebastian hears.

Anne leans over the countertop, smearing a huge piece of ham in a syrupy amber glaze. Sebastian chuckles at her, and after taking off his robes, slides over next to her, giving her a peck on the cheek. He grabs an apple from the basket. It tastes funny. Not like an apple at all.

"Christmas is only once a year," he says and the apple is gone. Sebastian loves Christmas. He would have Christmas forever if he could.

"You say that every year."

"Do I?"

"You do."

Anne finishes the glazing with a light dusting of chives and shoves the whole thing in the oven, into the blazing fire. It chars into a black lump of coal.

"Uncle! Look at mine!" Simon squeals, voice high-pitched and deafening. He clings to Sebastian's mint school blazer and shows him the exact same horse as Abigail did.

Abigail is by the fire, staring into the flames. She looks like she's about to jump in.

"Very good!" Sebastian says, staring at her.

"Simon, I've told you to keep it down, haven't I?" Anne chides.

Simon's face distorts. It looks exactly like Anne's. Like mother, like son, like…

"Anne," Sebastian says and kneels in front of Simon. "Don't listen to your mama. It's alright if you're loud. You can scream."

"Please don't, Sebastian. You know how much Solomon hates it when they scream," the adult Anne sighs and she's rolling a pin over a lump of dough. It stretches into a perfect, cream-coloured square. Sebastian wants to grab it and throw it into a wall but his body doesn't let him.

"Happy Christmas!"

Sebastian whips his head towards the door. His breath leaves him.

Ominis stands there, snowflakes stuck to his long lashes and perfectly pomaded hair. He leaves his topper and cloak on the hanger, over Sebastian's robes. He's clad in a wine red suit. It hugs and drapes over the contours of his body in a way that makes Sebastian's legs buckle. Has he always looked this beautiful?

"Uncle Ominis!" the twins screech. Abigail withdraws her hand out of the fire and runs into his spread out arms. Simon follows her, and Ominis presses their tiny little backs into a tight embrace. Sebastian loves how his nose scrunches up from how hard he squeezes them.

"Happy Christmas!" Anne yells and offers him and Sebastian a glass of wine each. She doesn't have one herself. Sebastian notices how round and swollen her belly suddenly is.

Ominis' wand locks on Sebastian. He comes closer until their chests are pressed together, flush and warm against one another. The wine glasses break, shatter into tiny fragments between them. Sebastian doesn't feel it. The wine stain is invisible on Ominis' red suit.

"I love you," Sebastian hears and it's his own mouth saying it. "Will you stay with me this summer?"

Ominis smiles. He's looking straight at Sebastian. He leans in to kiss him, and Sebastian can smell cinnamon on his breath.

Their lips push against one another, ardently, feverishly. Sebastian's legs do give out. Ominis' tongue is slippery - it's soft and warm inside him, and it feels like it's all that Ominis has morphed into. The glass cracks between them with each movement and press of their bodies.

And then the shards sink into Sebastian's skin.

His eyes fly open.

He's in his bed, in his soaked through jammies, his blanket half on its way to the floor. It's already light outside; he can see the dust dancing by the window above the kitchen nook, where Anne had just finished glazing the ham. The birds are screaming their love songs. He's alone.

Tears start rolling out onto his cheeks. He brings his knees to his chest and an ugly, core cracking wail escapes past his throat and spills into his hands.

Sebastian wants to go back to sleep.

#sebinis #hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #ominis x sebastian #sebastian sallow #sebastian x ominis #gauntlow #ominis #sebastian #harry potter #angst #hurt #no comfort #only pain

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wishing-stones · 9 months

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How would Ren feel if they got the chance to see and even interact with a bitty version of each of the boys?

Well first, they'd struggle with the concept that there are smaller, cuter, less-capable-of-murder versions of them. They aren't quite sure how that's possible, but these guys all have roughly the same attitudes as their full-sized counterparts.

With Killer, you have to keep all sharp things out of his reach. Fortunately, he's as much of a ham in fun size as he is in full size. He shoulder-rides and sleeps in pockets. He also keeps getting hold of sewing needles and breaking them into small weapons for himself. He goes by Razor

Dust's spends a lot of time sleeping in pockets and lounging where he can. He's pretty chill, but bitey, so if anyone's hands come near him who... he doesn't want to touch you... get bit. He'll also hide under hair, if he can, and prefers not to be seen. He goes by Speck

Axe's bitty is a little bigger than the others, but not by a whole lot. He's got a bit of a problem with resource guarding, but it's sort of expected. Give him his own snack-sized bag of chisps and he's fine. He's otherwise pretty placid and tolerant. He goes by Scrap

Cross' likes head rides. It lets him see everything around him and keep constant vigilance. He takes keeping them safe very seriously, even if they're vastly more dangerous than he is. He likes to pretend he doesn't need as much affection as the others but... kind of melts if you get right under the back of his skull. He goes by Chi

Baggs' bitty is a hilariously uptight little tyrant, who tries to keep everyone else in line. He is also a little gremlin who can be bought with pizza rolls. While he still possesses hypnosis powers, they're really only strong enough to deal with other bitties. The worst he can do to someone full-sized is make them a little drowsy. He goes by Dryl.

Nightmare's is a little grouch who doesn't like anyone, really, but... he's a bitty, so he has to put up with others. He prefers his own company with a book, and will happily bask in front of a space heater like a cat. If you are patient and gentle, he will eventually spend more time in contact with you, and relaxes somewhat. He goes by Dread.

If they ever do come into contact with these guys, it's liable to be brief, since... they're kind of fragile and not great in a group (unlike their larger counterparts). The playing field is more even, so power struggles are frequent. They generally get recommended to homes where they're the only bitty, or one of two. None of them play very well with others unless they're clearly the dominant one.

#k answers #k headcanons #feat. r&r crew #and their bitties?#I don't know too much about bitties #but I'm gonna go ahead and say they're a little more animalistic than the big guys #they're meant to be pets so they behave like (mostly) domestic pets who are waayyyy smarter than animals and can talk #but... not quite capable of self-sufficiency on their own

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ostdrossel · 2 years

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Yesterday was a great day

because all of a sudden, I saw more Hummingbird activity than the whole season. There were at least two that were visiting all day. I think they are both young, a male and a female. The male is especially funny, he needed some time to fiigure out feeders. But he is also a super ham. And just turning into a man - with two tiny red specks on his throat, the beginnings of what gives the Rubythroated Hummingbird its name.

#birds #backyard birds #Rubythroated Hummingbird #hummingbird #Kolibri #tiny winged jewels #birds of Michigan #birds of north america #birdwatching #birdlovers #nature #Ostdrossel #birdphotography

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williamy3w · 8 years

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Log #5

Number five of logs. Henry told me about a memory again. Some night when he was rustling about a little abandoned church on a hill and came outside and the sun had just set. And he sat on the grass cross legged and unwrapped a ham sandwich he’d packed from home. And he says in the kinda big valley expanse below, little twinkling lights started rising from the grass. Lightning bugs, he says they are. Like a fly with a little light bulb strapped to its rear end. I can find photos of them now, sure, and I can imagine the kinda effect these things would have if you had a whole lot of them. And he says tons of these little things just started appearing, as the sky got real dark and the grass didn’t look like grass anymore, just real murky-like with these little specks of light swimming around in it.

And he says after he finished his sandwich he laid down on the grass and looked at the sky. Every single star had popped out. I know stars. I’ve seen a lot of them. Most of what I remember seeing, matter of fact, I think. Henry knows the constellations, which I don’t. And I ain’t ever seen a lightning bug in the flesh. But Henry says the stars in the sky were exactly like the lightning bugs in the valley. Which kinda helps me imagine.

I don’t think I’ve sat in the grass before. Or laid down in it. I can’t really remember a ton about grass. Henry says it smells nice. Especially in the nighttime, or the early morning.

#memory logs with Henry

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bardnuts · 4 months

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how do I explain that every time I buy speck (my favorite food, essentially smoked prosciutto, a delicious thin and tender ham slice) my brain lengthens it to speculum (a horrid instrument which has too many times cracked open my tender male vagina like an unripe pistachio) and traumatizes me anew

#i suppose a better question is why i would ever explain this to anyone #read my drivel boy

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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The "Soup is a Nazi Meal" article is just...we did it we finally got to actually "Hitler ate sugar". Parody has become reality.

I was too giddy about making a solid quip to remember to actually look it up, really hope I didn't get a poes done to me. Neglecting my title of 'guy that's really annoying because he keeps fact checking things'

We're about to find out together.

We've got a real article with headline, Atlas Obscura so could go several different ways from here.

TL:DR; it's not soup and stew are nazi foods, therefore you are a nazi if you eat these things.

Actually kinda wholesome if you remove the whole nazi thing from the equation. Also fascinating so I'm including the full text.

On October 1, 1933, Germans sat down to an unusually frugal Sunday lunch. For decades, even centuries, the norm had been a roast dinner, usually characterized by a great, bronzed hunk of animal, flanked by potatoes. This was the crowning glory of the week—a meal to be savored and celebrated. But that day, nine months after the Nazis first came to power, Germans ate simple, inexpensive food. Some ate Irish stew; others steaming pots of pea soup, made with Speck and dried beans. Another common dish was macaroni Milanese, a stodgy predecessor to mac and cheese flecked with a confetti of rosy ham. All these dishes had three important things in common: They were inexpensive; they were made in a single pot; and they had been officially sanctioned by the Nazis.

This was the Eintopfsonntag campaign—a Nazi push to make German families eat one-pot meals. Eventually, it would endure well into the Second World War and popularize these stews, soups, and pilafs in Germany for generations to come.

The impetus was an annual charity drive, the Winterhilfswerk, run by the Nazis to feed and clothe veterans and the poor throughout the winter. Wealthier Germans were expected to pitch in as much as they could, but actually getting people to cough up cash had proven challenging. So, in October 1933, the Nazis developed a new campaign centered around these one-pot meals.

On the first Sunday of every month, they decreed, every German family should replace their traditional roast with a thriftier one-pot meal—an Eintopf, from the German ein Topf, or “one pot”—and set aside the savings for the charity drive. On those Sunday afternoons, collectors around the country knocked on doors to recuperate the money. Even families who didn’t want to cook were expected to join in: Restaurants were legally obligated to offer appropriately inexpensive Eintopf meals at a reduced rate on the designated Sundays.

At least initially, Eintopfsonntagen were quite popular. People seem to have enjoyed the challenge of finding meals that fit the bill, and the campaign raised hundreds of thousands of Reichsmarks for charity.

Its popularity was aided by extensive government efforts. As gatekeepers to the German kitchen, housewives and mothers were especially targeted. In time, a whole genre of cookbooks for these kinds of recipes appeared, bolstered by suggestions in magazines and newspapers for one-pot meals. Sauerkraut with lard and broad beans was a classic example—traditional, inexpensive German food that used scraps of meat to canny effect. The government even released children’s books about Eintopf and promotional photos of Adolf Hitler sitting down to a steaming pot of stew. The message was clear: Everyone is doing this, and participation is a national obligation.

In fact, while Hitler officially supported the campaign, he probably did not participate privately. By 1937, he was known internationally as a vegetarian, and had likely been eating a mostly plant-based diet for some time. While Eintopf meals were occasionally meatless, they often featured some bacon or beef. On top of that, Hitler vacillated between preferring a raw diet—he blamed cooked foods for cancer—or extravagant vegetarian meals, occasionally set off with spoonfuls of caviar. Eintopf recipes, on the other hand, were plain, stodgy, and always served hot.

But charity and thrift do not fully explain the Nazis’ zeal for one-pot meals. There was an equally important allegorical element: A single pot meal was democratic and accessible, blurring class lines and undermining bourgeois eating culture. All across the country, Nazi propaganda materials theorized, people of the same race would eat the same diet at the same time: common sacrifice for a common purpose. More than that, writes Alice Weinreb in Modern Hungers: Food and Power in Twentieth-Century Germany, “Cooking in ‘one pot’ (ein Topf) was supposed to symbolize the Nazi creation of ‘one people’ (ein Volk), the crafting of a delicious casserole by combining diverse ingredients analogous to the uniting of the various native German peoples into a single and self-sustaining whole.” (Of course, this so-called diversity—Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon—was as limited and homogenous as many of the suggested dishes.)

To take part in Eintopfsonntag, Germans had to experience deprivation for the good of the collective—a common, unifying Nazi theme. In a 1935 speech, Hitler castigated those who did not take part or give as much as they could to the Wintershilfswerk: “You have never known hunger yourself or you would know what a burden hunger is,” he said. “Whoever does not participate is a characterless parasite of the German people.” Those who greedily refused a day’s abstinence were said to be “stealing” from the collective. As one regional report put it, “Just as faithful Christians unite in the holy sacrament of the Last Supper in service of their lord and master, so too does the National Socialist Germany celebrate this sacrificial meal as a solemn vow to the unshakeable people’s community.”

What went into the country’s pots was equally symbolic. Eintopf recipes favored indigenous ingredients—root vegetables, dried fruit, German pork—and Nazi nutritionists claimed that the best way to nourish the Aryan body was through a racially appropriate diet. In practice, this meant German-grown potatoes and produce. One officially sanctioned cookbook was entitled: “Housewives, Now You Must Use What the Field Gives You! Healthy, Nourishing Meals from Native Soil.”

The aesthetic of Eintopfsonntag similarly drew from a kind of manufactured nationalist nostalgia. Outside of certain northern regions, Eintopf meals had not been popular before the campaign, and the word was unheard of before 1930. Yet publicity campaigns included sentimental images of one-pot meals, eaten in the trenches of the First World War, and rosy-cheeked peasant families tucking into bowls of stew. In the simplicity of an Eintopf meal, Nazis presented a romantic, bourgeois view of some radical, agrarian future.

Over time, however, people grew disillusioned with the campaign. The rich wanted their lavish roasts back, and the poor resented the loss of income. In the underground press, countercultural cartoons criticized the Eintopf obligation. “Which Eintopf dish is the most widespread in Germany?” asked one. The answer: Gedämpfte Zungen. Zungen means “tongues,” and Gedämpfte means both “steamed” and “silenced.” Eventually, amid the chaos of the Second World War, the campaign petered out.

In the end, however, Eintopfsonntagen proved more consequential than the Nazis likely anticipated. More than 80 years later, Eintopf dishes remain popular in modern Germany, and the word is still commonly used—though with scarcely a thought to its strange, racially charged origins.

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Long I know

Funniest thing I can come up with this is how it actually mirrors a lot of left wing policies and ideas, I wouldn't use them in any kind of attack on things but looking through there and seeing how I can connect "Meatless Mondays" to nazi germany tickles me.

Got the buy and produce local bits there, for the better of the collective talk, some other stuff in there too.

Gonna be able to point some stuff at the right wing too, traditional values and all that jazz.

almost like pigeonholing people and ideologies is a bad idea

and now I want chunky soup

#itsgeauxtime

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askwhatsforlunch · 6 months

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Venison Stew

On this very chill Sunday, I am warming up in the kitchen, stirring and steaming my Christmas Pudding, and cooking this mouth-watering Venison Stew. I used to eat game often enough, when visiting my grandparents in Autumn and Winter, when I was a child. And I had missed the hearty, earthy flavour of venison. Thus, I was happy to find deer meat at the butcher's the other day. This comforting Venison Stew brought as much gastronomic pleasure as it did fond memories. Happy Sunday!

Ingredients (serves 3):

2 slices Speck ham

1 tablespoon olive oil

half a large onion

2 small garlic cloves

1 tablespoon olive oil

500 grams/1.10 pound venison (deer) stewing meat

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 small turnips, rinsed

4 medium carrots, rinsed

a few sprigs dried thyme

2 large bay leaves

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon plain flour

1/4 cup White Port

3/4 cup good, robust red wine (like a Southern France Fronton or a Barossa Valley Shiraz)

1 1/2 cup Beef Broth

1 heaped tablespoon whole-grain mustard

4 tablespoons

Preheat oven to 160°C/32°F.

Heat a large Dutch oven over a high flame.

Once hot, add Speck ham slices, and fry, about 2 minutes on each side until browned. Transfer to a plate. Set aside.

Add olive oil to the Dutch oven. Reduce heat to medium-high.

Thinly slice the onion, and stir into the Dutch oven. Fry, stirring often until softening and browning, about 4 minutes.

Peel garlic cloves, and stir them into the Dutch oven. Cook, 1 minute more. Transfer to a plate as well; set aside.

Heat olive oil in the Dutch oven.

Cut deer meat into large chunks. Add to the Dutch oven, in batches, to brown well, about 4 minutes on each side. Once all the deer chunks are well-browned, transfer them to a plate. Set aside.

Melt butter in the Dutch oven.

Peel and dice turnips. Cut carrots into thick slices. Once the butter is just foaming, stir in turnips and carrots. Add dried thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Cook, stirring often until golden brown. Transfer to the plate with the onions, leaving the fat in the Dutch oven.

Return deer chunks to the Dutch oven, along with their resting juices. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper. Sprinkle with flour, and cook, stirring well, 1 minute.

Deglaze with White Port and red wine, stirring energetically until sauce thickens.

Roughly chop Speck ham.

Return Speck, along with reserved onion, garlic, turnips and carrots to the Dutch oven.

Stir in Beef Broth and whole-grain mustard. Bring to the boil.

Once boiling, cover with the lid, and place Dutch oven in the middle of the hot oven. Cook at 160°C/320°F, 2 hours. After a couple hours, stir in Quince Paste, and cook, a further 15 minutes, atr 160°C/320°F. (If the venison is not fork tender yet, you can add a bit of water, and cook a tad longer.)

Serve Venison Stew hot, onto Parmesan Polenta, Cheddar Parsnip Mash or Bay Leaf Kūmara Mash.

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hwangyeddeongie · 3 months

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I bet on losing dogs

chapter 1: I guess that’s the way things go

the hunger games ryeji au I’ve been waiting to post

Warnings: none yet (key word yet) but it will get serious in later chapters.

The sun rose lazily above the rooftops of the District 2 residences, so slowly it seemed it was trying to delay the day, as if it knew what was happening.

Ryujin had never been more excited in her life than she was in this moment. Well, except perhaps for that time the mayor took her and four other kids for a ride in his car (a real car) for being the top performing students at the Academy.

Today was Reaping Day. More specifically, it was the day Ryujin would volunteer as tribute for the 74th Hunger Games. She’d trained for years to perfect her skills and make sure she could win. And she was perfectly confident she would.

She had woken up at the crack of dawn, her jitters preventing her from sleeping a healthy amount. When she saw her mother had laid out a dress for her to wear, she deflated a little, but quickly got her mood back up.

She munched on a piece of bread with ham and cheese, one of the fancier meals she’d had this month, and scrubbed her face clean, making sure not a blemish or speck of dirt remained.

Once she’d shimmied into the dress (she made a face but thanked the heavens it wasn’t a floral pattern) she even sprayed two small spritz of the one precious bottle of perfume they kept.

It reminded her of her grandma (and it had probably been there since before the old hag was even born), a little musty and a bit like withering roses, but it was better than nothing.

Finally, she did her hair up in a simple half-do, partly because she was running out of time and partly because she didn’t feel like putting that much effort into her appearance when she would only be on camera for two minutes, tops. Besides, she was already attractive enough that half the Academy was lined up for her, so she didn’t really worry too much.

When she finally stepped out of her house with her father (as silent as ever) and mother (who fussed over her appearance), it struck her that this was her first reaping without her brother, but she brushed the thought away before she could feel something preposterous, like grief.

After she’d been scanned and passed through the security check, she took her spot among the girls her age, some nervous and others the perfect picture of elation.

The arrival of the Capitol pet, a ridiculously dressed

clown with dyed pink skin and a massive green wig, signalled the start of the Reaping.

“Welcome! Welcome to the 74th annual Hunger Games! Where one boy and one girl will be chosen as tribute to represent their district in a battle for glory and honour!”

He then recited the usual speech they had all heard year after year, and played the traditional video of how the Hunger Games came to be. When the last notes of the music rang out into the square, he took

his spot in front of the microphone again.

“I’ll get right to it. Ladies first!”

The strawberry-coloured man had just barely brushed a slip of paper with his fingers when Ryujin shot her hand up and declared at the top of her lungs,

“I volunteer as tribute!”

She felt the entire crowd turn their eyes on her, some of the girls around her looking disappointed with their hands halfway up in the air.

Ryujin held her chin up high, smug and confident, as she made her way up to the stage.

“It looks like we have a volunteer!” The Capitol pet didn’t seem surprised, but delighted all the same.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” He asked as soon as she was on the podium.

Ryujin cringed a little at the pet name but didn’t let it show.

“Shin Ryujin.”

“Let’s have a round of applause for our Shin Ryujin!”

The square erupted into cheers. Ryujin kept her gaze just above the crowd, careful not to look for her parents. She didn’t want to see their disappointed faces.

A boy was reaped, and naturally someone volunteered in his place. A Lee Minho. She shook his hand and they stood for the Capitol anthem.

After what felt like forever, they were led into the waiting rooms, where they would say goodbye to their friends and family.

Ryujin didn’t have to wait long for her parents to come barging in. Her mother enveloped her in a tight hug, and Ryujin could tell she was holding back tears by the way her shoulders shook.

She rubbed her back in what she hoped was a reassuring fashion and said,

“It’s okay, mama. I’m ready. I trained my whole life for this.”

“So did your brother.”

Ryujin paused, unprepared for those words.

“I’m not my brother.” She said firmly, squeezing her mother’s shoulder before pushing her away.

“Don’t cry, mama. Can you make me some apple pie when I get back?”

Ryujin hadn’t had apple pie since she was six, but she remembered her mother’s recipe was the best she’d ever had (the only one she’d ever had).

Her mother didn’t reply, and just nodded fervently.

Ryujin turned to her father, stoic and straight-backed. He was a strong man. And Ryujin admired so much about him. He never cried, but she could see the sorrow in his eyes, the same sorrow that she had seen when her brother died.

He nodded.

“Make us proud, Ryujin.”

As they were all but dragged away by the guards when her time was up, Ryujin couldn’t help but wonder if she would return, a lone victor and a hero, or if she would simply become another dead child of her parents.

…

The train to the Capitol was the most luxurious thing Ryujin had ever seen. It topped the mayor’s house and even the city hall. Who needs crystal chandeliers for a two-day journey?

The dining hall was stocked with food, things Ryujin would have to sell a limb for or just wouldn’t find at all in 2.

Every door was motion-sensored, and every surface was perfectly pristine. The culture shock was insane. The two tributes we’re bode to sit down and eat.

“We’ll watch the other district’s readings after dinner,” the Capitol pet, who they now knew as

Kaspa, said.

Ryujin are her fill and then some of roasted meats, delicate pastries, juicy fruits, and an assortment of things she didn’t even know the name of.

The soft, fluffy, buttery loafs were nothing like the thin, stale slices she was used to, and the cheeses tasted like they cost more than her house. They probably did.

She topped every thing off with a melty chocolate cake. She’d only ever had chocolate once in her life, when a nice Peacekeeper had offered her a

piece when he’d found out it was her eighth birthday, and Ryujin had thought back then that she could just eat chocolate for the rest of her life and she’d be happy.

Once she had determined that she was physically unable to stuff her face anymore, she rose and followed Kaspa into a different room, where a huge screen was set in the middle of the wall. When she and Minho had settled on the sofa, another woman walked in, this time someone Ryujin did recognise.

“Hello, my name is Nayeon. I apologise for not joining you all for dinner, I usually don’t eat in the evenings.”

Ryujin just stared at her, jaw agape. The infamous victor of the 62nd Hunger Games was their mentor?

Before she could say anything stupid, like, “oh my god, I’m such a big fan!”, Nayeon sat down and played the recordings of the other reapings. She chimed in from time to time with suggestions, like who to team up with and who to look out for, as well as who seemed weak.

Their allies, Jang Wonyoung and Park Wonbin from District 1, seemed fierce enough, but Ryujin doubted they had what it took to win. The District 3 tributes didn’t especially stand out, but the boy from District 4, Nishimura Ri-ki, was tall, and had a stoic, disinterested look about him. They would see his skillset later on. The boy from District 11 towered over the crowd, and he clearly was very strong. A threat to look out for.

And then, Ryujin saw something she was completely unprepared for. The text at the bottom of the screen helped her pin a name to the face

that so shocked her.

District 12, Hwang Yeji.

…

Gorgeous, was the first word that came to mind when Shin Ryujin first saw Hwang Yeji.

What with her delicate nose, adorned with a mole, to her exquisitely arched lips and pronounced Cupid’s bow, to her eyes—God, her eyes. They were piercingly dark, sharp, and curiously feline.

Ryujin found herself unable to look away, and only snapped out of her daze when the screen went black.

“So,” Nayeon began, arching a brow. “Thoughts?”

Minho answered first.

“There’s not that many outstanding tributes this year, but the District 1s are obviously our allies.

The boys from District 4 and 6 could be useful. And the guy from District 11 looks like a threat.”

Nayeon nodded in approval. Ryujin blurted out,

“The girl from 12.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to look at her, one confused (Minho), one surprised (Kaspa), and one intrigued (Nayeon).

“What about her?” The mentor questioned, and Ryujin swallowed.

“Her build. She’s fit. She doesn’t seem underfed, which means she probably hunts her own food. Not to mention she’ll get lots of sponsors from her looks alone,” she continued, “I don’t know if she has what it takes to win, but we shouldn’t underestimate her.”

Nayeon nodded at her, pleased (and impressed?), before standing up.

“You two should get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll discuss strategy and arrive at the Capitol in the afternoon.”

With that, she turned around and left the way she had come.

Kaspa spoke up, still bubbly after hours of standing in a glittery, probably itchy, suit.

“Let me show you to your rooms!”

Their rooms were across from each other, and could only be opened by handprint scanning, which made Ryujin a little less paranoid. There were built in showers (actual showers, not just a large bucket), with heated water (heated!).

Ryujin took the longest shower of her life, standing under the shower head and letting the warm water run over her again and again and again. She’d probably scrubbed away the remnants of last year’s dirt with how long she was in there, and her fingers were pruny.

The towels were white and fluffy and, shockingly, also heated (how did they even do that?). The first drawer of the cabinet next to the bed was filled with different sets of pyjamas, probably enough that she could change sets every hour for as long as she was on this train and still have some left over. The second drawer was full of bottles of creams and substances she didn’t know what to do with (with her limited reading skills, she could make out “whitening serum” on one, but she didn’t know what a serum even was).

Just to be petty, she poured a bit of everything on her palm and rubbed it into her face. Which then resulted in a harsh burning sensation that had her running back into the bathroom to wash it all off.

After that, she only eyed the drawer with some disdain and suspicion.

She didn’t know what she expected from the last drawer, but it was definitely not what she saw. She’d only ever seen a condom once or twice before, and it was always near the Peacekeeper’s wards, strewn on the floor and used. She’d definitely never seen a whole box of them, much less any of the other objects placed neatly in the drawer.

She slammed it shut, feeling her face burn again, but not from the ‘serum’ she’d applied. She felt gross, like she had just seen something she hadn’t wanted to or prepared for. How sick do you have to be to think teenagers on their way to certain death would even entertain the thought of doing…that?

She got dressed and tucked herself tightly under the covers of the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, and tried to forget what she’d just seen. It was almost unnerving how soft the mattress was. She could feel herself sinking into it, her eyelids dropping closed against her will.

She could get used to this.

#ryeji #itzy #itzy au #the hunger games #snow this ones for you

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angstyaches · 1 year

Text

A scene that comes before an early-days Shayne/Charlie hunger-related request. It became very long and plot-heavy, so I decided to split it in two, at least for now.

Takes place during the prologue, sometime after Shayne confronts Charlie’s demon and before Shayne visits Charlie at home for the first time. (Note for die-hard readers: “Rin’s Exposition Inquisition” is basically being retconned and no longer canon, because I want to develop her character and story a bit more slowly in the rewrite.)

Hunger/whump happens in part two (hopefully posted later today; if not, it’ll be next week because I’m travelling again this weekend).

CW: mentions of death, anxiety, insecurities, childhood trauma, food mention, horror elements (mentioned).

___

“Hey, Charmander.”

Charlie had been peacefully eating his ham and cheese sandwich when Rin Johnson swept up next to his desk. It was rare to see her without her band of pals these days, but she was alone.

Before he could even open his mouth to question her choice to call him by a Pokemon’s name, she pulled up the empty chair from the desk in front of Charlie’s, spinning it around to face him.

As she sat, she drew a couple of glances from some of Charlie’s classmates who’d formed little groups throughout the room. It wasn’t against the rules for students from other tutor groups to eat in another tutor group’s base classroom, but it was a little unusual. If people wanted to mingle, they went outside, or to the canteen, to eat. Rin usually went to the latter.

There was also the fact that as far as secondary school social hierarchy was concerned, Rin was considered royalty. Not quite a queen bee, but perhaps a princess.

“Charmander?” Charlie asked.

Rin smiled secretively, propping her lunch bag on an empty corner of Charlie’s desk. “We’re officially friends now, and I have a whole bunch of nicknames I want to try out on you.”

Her floral water bottle was placed on Charlie’s desk, too, while Rin rummaged in her lunch bag. She started tearing into the wrapping on her sandwich.

She hadn’t bothered to tie her hair in its usual space buns today, and it fell in fiery-orange waves around her shoulders. She had a small streak of pink glitter drawn across each eyelid, and she didn’t seem to have noticed that a speck of it was stuck to one of her glasses lenses.

She looked up at him, chewing. “You don’t even want to question me on the ‘us officially being friends now’ thing? I was getting ready to bribe you. I brought Tucs!”

In case he thought she was bluffing, she put down her sandwich, reached into her lunch bag again, and pulled out a snack-sized packet of salted crackers.

“You don’t have to bribe me, Rin,” Charlie smiled. “I already thought of you as my friend.”

She smiled in what seemed to be relief, which was a bit confusing to Charlie. What exactly had she expected to happen?

His gaze was drawn back to the packet of crackers she’d put on his desk. He remembered taking them to primary school to have as a snack, and he was suddenly in the mood to relive his youth. “Although, I do kind of want to open those.”

“Go for it! A bribe’s a bribe, even if it was unnecessary.”

Charlie picked up the packet and split the side of the wrapper. “Share them?”

“Sure.”

“When you really think about it,” Charlie said as he opened the packet, “I’m the one who should have been begging you to be my friend.”

Rin frowned.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Charlie grinned. “You’re so much cooler than I am, Rin. And even if you weren’t… I mean –” Charlie pulled a cracker out and used it to gesture all around him. There were about fifteen other students in the room, all convening at different points and at a considerable distance from Charlie’s desk. “I can’t exactly afford to be picky, can I?”

Rin bit into her sandwich and glanced around too, though she seemed to be looking for somebody, rather than following Charlie’s point.

“Well, we do have something essential in common, you and I,” she said around a mouthful. A conspiratorial look crossed her face as she swallowed and leaned in closer. “Something that binds us.”

Charlie bit back another smile, not wanting her to think he was laughing at her. He adored the way Rin could romanticise the mundane, or make a lunchtime chat feel like he was being indoctrinated to a secret society.

“Okay, well now I have to ask,” he said, crunching down on his Tuc. “What is it?”

“Rejection.” Rin wrinkled her nose, as though the word tasted bad in her mouth. “From the same boy.”

All of the heat, along with the remnants of his smile, left Charlie’s face. What the hell kind of rumours were going about now?!

“What – I haven’t – what are you talking about?”

Rin gave a thin smile and touched the back of Charlie’s hand. “Shayne Devine rejected my friendship, too. Only that was about… wow, I guess it was about twelve years ago.”

Charlie barely had time to settle his frantic heart – friendship, she’s just talking about friendship – before his head started reeling with this new information.

“You knew him twelve years ago?”

“Well, yeah. We went to primary school together.”

Charlie nodded, battling a sudden wave of despair. Of course. That made sense. Rin and Shayne had grown up in the same town. They knew each other from way back. Meanwhile, Charlie had never been in one place long enough to hold down a friendship for longer than a year, let alone know anybody from way back. The only people he knew from way back were family members, most of whom he wouldn’t have anything to do with if he wasn’t forced.

“I tried so hard to get him to be my friend, but he would never even come to my birthday parties.” Rin dropped the remnants of her sandwich back into her lunch bag and pulled a pot of yoghurt and a spoon.

Charlie nodded again. The birthday party thing was a big deal. Ingrid had insisted he go to every party he was invited to, even if he didn’t know the birthday kid for very long. Charlie had always suspected there was a political force behind children’s birthday parties. Like the more birthday parties your child attended, the better it reflected on you as a parent. He tucked that thought away for later interrogation.

Rin peeled the lid from her yoghurt pot and began licking it clean. Charlie realised he wasn’t even remotely surprised that she was the kind of person who did this.

“So, Shayne was always… the way he is?”

Rin tilted her head to one side. “Well, he was always extremely shy…”

Charlie struggled to swallow a mouthful of his food. After the number of insults he’d been handed by the person in question, he wondered how anyone could ever describe him as shy. He took another bite of his sandwich to keep himself from making a shady remark.

“But he wasn’t always so…” Rin glanced towards Shayne’s empty desk, as though it might be listening in and would report back to him later.

“Cranky?” Charlie suggested sheepishly.

Rin flinched. “Sure. Let’s go with that. That only happened after his parents died.”

Charlie nearly dropped his jaw, and a mouthful of his sandwich along with it. Nobody had ever mentioned this before. Charlie had known Shayne was adopted, but he hadn’t known that Shayne had once lived with his biological parents.

“They… died?”

Rin frowned. “You didn’t know?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Oh. Crap. Um, sorry, babe! I’m used to everybody knowing everything about everybody. But, yeah, they died when we were, like… I guess nine or ten.” Rin’s eyes became unfocused for a few seconds. “Well, let’s see. We had Miss O’Rourke as our teacher that year, I think… yeah, we were ten. It messed him up really badly.”

“I can imagine,” Charlie whispered numbly. Judging by the way she had started staring blankly into her yoghurt pot, Shayne’s parents’ death had probably affected Rin in some way, too. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and cleared her throat. “I guess what I was trying to say is that I get it. He acts like he doesn’t want anything to do with you, but he still sort of… pulls you towards him, doesn’t he?”

Yes. He didn’t trust himself to say it out loud, certain that he’d betray the depth of his feelings if he did.

He nodded.

“I guess I always thought it was just me.”

Charlie was entranced by how much this conversation seemed to be affecting Rin’s mood, like it was sucking her entire personality away from her. It must have been an extremely sad story...

Charlie stiffened as goosebumps rocketed up and down his body. No. No, it couldn’t be… Someone would have told him…

Right?

“Uh, Rin?”

She listlessly picked up a Tuc and popped it in her mouth. “Uh-huh?”

Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Charlie swallowed the fear in his throat. “Shayne’s parents weren’t involved in that… that tragedy that happened at Mulberry, were they?”

Rin’s eyes took on that glassy, faraway look again. Charlie thought she was going to slip into the habit that most people had, of avoiding that particular topic at any cost. He half expected her to tip her yoghurt all over his desk, exclaim about how clumsy she was, and run off to get some paper towels, only to never return.

“They…” She seemed to swallow with some difficulty. “They were kind of unusual, from what I remember. Shayne’s mum was… She was so beautiful and kind, but always carried this air of, like, sadness. But her pies were always the best thing at the school bake sales. I didn’t know much about his dad, but my dad got along well with him. I… I don’t think I stopped crying for a week after they…”

Charlie felt a lump in his own throat. He’d only been able to stomach reading a few details about the incident; he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be a kid growing up in a town with a story like that attached to it.

But beneath his sadness, there was a pit of anger bubbling. How had no one thought to mention this to him before?

“Anyway.” Rin drew a circle in her yoghurt with her spoon. “Have you… Have you been out in the woods since you moved in?”

“No,” Charlie croaked. “They give me a weird feeling.”

Rin looked up, her spoon stilling. The absent look fled her eyes, leaving behind what could only be described as... desperation? Like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff, and the only person who could grab her and pull her to safety was Charlie.

Charlie was just relieved that some of that furtive intensity was coming back to her.

“What kind of feeling?” she whispered.

“I…” Charlie’s heart sank as he tried to gather the words. “I don’t know. It’s…”

Careful. The voice insisted. She doesn’t know.

She might know, Charlie thought, examining the interrogative look in Rin’s eyes.

She doesn’t.

She… kind of acts like she knows.

Charlie…

“It’s kind of like… I’ll walk up to the edge of the garden feeling normal, and as soon as I think about putting my foot over the line, it’s like this huge wave of nausea crashes over me. I look through those trees and it feels like… like I’m staring into the ribcage of some huge… decaying… corpse.”

Rin put down her yoghurt with an air of finality.

“Sorry,” Charlie muttered, placing the last section of his sandwich back in its box.

“No, no, you’re good.” Rin drummed her fingers against the table. “You know, everyone says there’s something weird about Mulberry, but as soon as you start getting into detail, they just...”

Charlie’s heart skipped a beat. Does she know? ... Maybe she knows.

“Crap! I have to go,” Rin exclaimed, glancing at her watch. “I completely forgot there’s a yearbook meeting today.”

She gave Charlie a pleading look, like she wanted to be rescued from something, as she packed away her lunch.

Charlie grimaced. “Um... sorry this turned so dark.”

“Oh – no, don’t be sorry for that.” Rin’s eyebrows knitted together. “You have any idea how much of a relief this was?”

“It… was kind of a relief,” Charlie said. This was the first time in weeks that he’d been given new information, either about his house or about his desk neighbour. He also hadn’t mentioned how much the woods at Mulberry unnerved him to anybody else, and he could feel a new lightness where it’d been weighing on his chest.

He didn’t really know what made it a relief for Rin, but that was what he liked about her company. They seemed to understand each other’s emotions, even if it wasn’t clear how they’d arisen.

I’ll tell her, he realised. I’ll tell her everything. Another time.

“You have my number, right?” he asked.

“I – yeah, I think so.”

“Do you want to come over this weekend?”

Rin raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Please. I’ll text you.”

“Cool.” Charlie watched Rin scoop up her bag. “Have fun at your meeting.”

“With a room of self-obsessed control freaks? How could I not have fun, Charlie Bear?” Rin tilted her head as she stood up. A hint of her smile crept back. “Hey, I like that one.”

#StW Rin #StW Charlie #Swallow the World #OC stuff #plot stuff #death mention #parental death mention #horror #horror mention

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paldean-sandwich-rater · 5 months

Note

Two bred crumbs, a speck of cheese, and a mote of ham.

Ingredients: Two bread crumbs, a tiny portion of cheese, and whatever a mote of ham is.

Smell: If you tried to smell this you would just suck it up into your nose. 1/5

Taste: I feel like all you would get would be 2 seconds of the ham and cheese. Which. Is fine I guess. 3/5

Texture: You are eating 4 crumbs. 1/5

Would Chunk Eat It?: If I presented this “sandwich” to Chunk he would sadly lick it off my hand and look at me with the biggest saddest eyes you’ve ever seen. He would eat it, but I think it would make Chunk so sad that I would have to make him an actual meal afterwards. You don’t get a 5 for this. 3/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Critic’s Notes: If you want a tiny sandwich just make a slider or something. This is ridiculous.

#asks #sandwich rating #anon sandwich sub(mission)

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aveegrex · 2 years

Text

I’ve been a little stuck on some Nanami thoughts lately. Being more specific, the doom of Nanami Kento.

(extremely dark and extremely graphic content under the line. violence, gore and blood)

the man doesn’t know who he is. this is implied with his introduction, and it’s the exact reason he hasn’t mastered the Domain Expansion despite being a grade one sorcerer.

he doesn’t know who he is, and this is the exact reason he’s so frustrated when his favourite sandwich gets discontinued. when you don’t know who you are, you tend to define yourself through things you take a liking to (amongst else) and that’s why every detachment of those feels like a personal offense.

when you don’t know who you are, you lack control. it’s impossible to control your life without knowing what purpose the control serves. one can put up an act of control, and Nanami mastered that. But he’s floating like a balloon that slipped a little kid’s hand when they got distracted with a cute dog.

I think Nanami would make an absolutely terrifying villain because of that. he’d start of cautious, but all pent up frustration and desperation straining the seams of his facade would quickly burst that preppy bubble that he’s been building for years.

he’d kill, definitely. first murder planned out, not a single detail slipping his mind, his caution and precision making it impossible to trace the bloodbath that he’s caused back to him.

after that first time though? after a little drop of his victim’s blood splashes on his sharp cheekbones? he's gone.

he’s on a murder spree. he’s violent, rampant, he’s voracious. caution tossed aside, he’s now addicted to the rush of it. To the absolute control.

at a certain point, the random killing spree becomes a hunt. he’s had his fill, a huge one at that, and now he’s playing with the victims. he wants to see how many ways there are to lure an unsuspecting soul into his trap. how obvious might he get. how easy it might be to rid someone of life.

he’d become sinister. mad. outrageous and so alive every time he picks a sheep out of the crowd and seduces them, whispering the absolute truth in their sensitive necks how he’d ravage them. how he’d sink his teeth into their flesh and tear their body to pieces.

his victims only lean closer, his hot breath and sultry voice corrupting them into the new kinks. he doesn’t hide and they still feel like they’re safe, only for him to smash their head on the wall in some dirty alleyway and slice their skin open, hypnotised as the blood absorbs into his beige slacks.

the epitome of Nanami would happen in his pristine clean apartment. in the living room, to be specific. under some Bauhaus inspired lamps and scandinavicly cold furniture, the dismembered bloodless body sprawled on oakwood floors.

it’s absolutely same to the inflatable doll he slivered a week before his first kill. gojo’s gag gift surprisingly did open his eyes to his own kinks.

the body is just that. lifesize, lifeless doll. it’s members sprained at angles incompatible with life. spine twisted to golden ratio. eyes gauged out. not a speck of blood.

nanami sits there, lifesize and lifeless. munching on the homemade replica of his favorite sandwich. oakwood covered in crumbs, his eyes trained on the ham sticking out.

his domain - expansive and vacuous.

#nanami kento #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen nanami #jjk nanami #jjk nanami kento #kento nanami #nanami kento fanfic #Nanami kento thoughts #nanami fanfic #nanami thoughts #evil nanami #villain Nanami #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen horror #Nanami kento horror

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