#i can just eat the candy & biscuits i bought for this at home where it's warm & dry

[moinsbienquekaworu]

It's 2pm, my city's pride parade starts at 2pm in a part of town that's like 20 minutes away in public transportation, my best friend said we would go together but they made other plans for this afternoon so I'm going alone, and it's raining. Do I even bother.

[gojology]

Strawberry Flavored Pocky.

pairing : teen! gojo x gender neutral reader warnings : the big three: unedited, most likely badly written, and some cursing. also there’s like.. graphic imagery that gojo and reader exchange to eachother. it’s just banter though! wordcount : 2273 a/n : for that one anon that wanted teen gojo. my stroke of genius always occurs when im eating strawberry flavored pocky i swear.. anyways yeah this is unfiltered writing n it’s probably like not the best tbh and maybe i didn’t nail teen gojo’s personality but u know what this was so fun to write

     The sound of the tear of the wrapper containing the Pocky you had just bought was music to your ears, crinkling with every touch. Your fingers are itching to grab for the deliciously coated sticks, but you’re stopped by someone none other than Gojo Satoru himself.       “What’d you get?” he inquired, seemingly unbothered by the face you were making, he hadn’t even greeted you with a simple, “Hello.” he sat down on the bench seat right next to you, uninvited.       In his hand were many bags of various sweet treats, you could only make out some familiar ones- ramune flavored gummies, a bag of chips, vibrantly colored candy. Your lips quirk downwards, exhaling, turning to face the setting sun.       “Just some Pocky.” you flatly respond, beginning to pick the biscuit up. Contrary to Gojo’s wide choice of snacks, you only really had one favorite- Pocky. Specifically, Strawberry flavored Pocky. The sweet, yet somewhat tart aftertaste treat dominated your mind almost day and night. It wasn’t everyday that Yaga would be lenient enough to take the four of you to the local convenience store. You were waiting for Shoko and Geto to finish shopping to finally head home for a night of yummy snacking.       Gojo sighs, lazily dropping the treats right next to his side, they sat idly, limply resting on his thigh as he crossed his right leg over his left knee. His hands warmly nestled into his snowy white hair, his elbows jutting into your personal bubble.        “Not one to chat, are you? What’s the problem? You scared?” his tone is teasing, and you jerk your head to face his. Your head is tilted, like your confused, but in reality you’re just astounded how obnoxious he was.       “Why in the world would I be scared of you? You wouldn’t lay a finger on me. Yaga-Senpai would rip your limbs off one by one and fling you into the horizon! And he’s not even that far away, I could report you to him if you even get on my nerves in the slightest.” you shot back, huffing and taking your first bite on the biscuit. You instantly melt.       He flashes you a toothy smile, and you stiffen, did he ever take anything seriously? “Oh my, so riled up. Only scaredy-cats would talk about how not scared they were. Look, you’re even shaking-” he gestures to your just slightly shaking, tightened grip on your Pocky. “-I win, Y/N! Boo hoo, case closed, gimme your Pocky~”        “No, fuck you and your fat ass trying to take my Pocky, I’m not shaking from fear anyways.” you sternly retort, warmth rushing to your cheeks for whatever reason. “I’m shaking because I’m resisting the urge to duct tape your mouth shut and gouge your eyeballs out.”       He chuckles warmly as if your gruesome detailing was humorous, he probably didn’t know you meant it. He too, ripped open one of his snacks. “Calm down, Y/N. I was joking, I could buy Pocky’s whole stock and probably also buy my position up as CEO if I wanted to. I wouldn’t leech off of you, sugar.” readjusting his crooked, circular shades, he looked down at your now slack grip on the wrapper.      Unanswering, you’re grumbling instead. Under your breath, you’re curious as to how Gojo hasn’t realized how obnoxious he was, and how much longer could he survive without his head exploding from how big it was from his inflated ego?      Gojo grinned. He was all too aware of those things, but who really cared?      “Not unless you let your guard down!-” unable to finish the rest of his sentence, he yanked up the wrapper from your hands, using the extent of his long arm to dangle it high above your head. Your reflexes are far too slow to react, causing you to glare at him in a mixture of shock, hatred, and disbelief.      “Give-” you jump, arm reaching towards your snack, but he backs off, snickering and still dangling it above your head. “It-” now you’ve leapt up on the bench, grabbing at the wrapper to no avail. “Back!-” whimpering and flailing your arms out, every time you came close to retrieving your rightfully owned pack of Pocky, he’d simply throw it to his other hand so carelessly it pissed you off. All the while giggling, juggling it like a clown.      A breath of laughter escapes his lips as he looks at you, prancing around like a circus act on the bench, yelling curses and many death-wishes to his clan. Your eyebrows are knitted together, and he can’t just help but realize how adorable you were when concentrated in getting something- so stubborn.    “Okay, okay!” and as if Gojo had flipped a switch, you simmer down, looking at him with an impatient side-eye. “You want it, doggie?”     “Refer to me as doggie, and I’ll send a pack of strays to ravage you.”       Gojo exhaled out of his nose. “You’re a funny one, doggie.” did he just dismiss the conversation you two were having literally 2 seconds prior? “I’ll ask this again, do you want to get your treats back?” his eyes are glinting with amusement and child-like glee. You were almost sure that he had started calling your beloved Pocky as treats because of just how well it suited the nickname Doggie. It looked like you would be getting no where unless you paid no mind to him calling you such a.. Derogatory name.       Grumbling and studying the concrete you were currently trampling on, you exasperatedly sigh.       “Yes. I do want my Pocky back.” you grunt, averting your gaze to anywhere but Gojo’s shoes.       He perks up in approval, drawing out a long, “Hmmm?” as if he hadn’t expected you to give up so easily. “What are the magic words, Y/N?”       This was so humiliating.       “Please?” you politely say through gritted teeth. If it weren’t for the general public bustling about, you would’ve lunged for his unruly hair and tear it out of his scalp.       “Hah! You think I’m gonna do that sorta bullshit?” he crosses his arms, Pocky tucked safely under his arm. You wince, thinking about how the biscuits may potentially be snapped in half. Did you really want your snack still? It probably smelled like Gojo’s armpit sweat, death, and all the bad things in the world combined. “You’re gonna have to earn it, Y/N, in a game.”       Now convinced that Gojo was the manifestation of all the bad karma that you had avoided, you stare at him with wide eyes and fear, the irritation long gone. Games, no, scratch that, literally anything with Gojo only resulted in a small, or maybe large piece of your sanity torn away from you, lost to the infinite dark abyss. Maybe that’s why Geto seemed to slowly go insane everyday.       “On second thought, I’ll just go-”      He cuts you off, alarm now displayed on full view, his face contorting back to neutral. “Wait, no! It won’t be hard. Pinkie promise.” extending a pinkie towards you, you gently slap it away. The mood change was so instant, you were still shocked, that, and he was almost a legal adult and still believed in pinkie promises.      Still hesitant, you quirk an eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’d rather spend another two dollars than play whatever game your planning, unless you tell me about it.”      “That’s a given, besides, it won’t take too long, Y/N. I think you’ll like it.” he replies cheerfully, leaning and whisper-yelling into your ear, fruitfully jolting you up. Seriously, did he have any idea what personal space was?      After just a few seconds of thinking, you roll your eyes in defeat. “Okay, what’s this game?”      His incredibly long fingers inserted themselves inside the crinkling wrapper, pulling out a slender stick. You’re almost sure your salivating, and subconsciously swallow the lump at the back of your throat. “Okay, rules of this game are... Hm, we both place our mouths at both ends of the stick. You get the pretzel part because that part sucks.” mischief flickers in his eyes briefly. “Whoever can get down the Pocky longest without being afraid of kissing and pulling back, loses and doesn’t get the Pocky. Whoever stays in their place wins. I’ll throw in some money, deal or no deal?”       “This doesn’t sound.. Fun.” you were still skeptical, but curiosity was blossoming rapidly inside of you. Could you really resist such an intriguing request? The guy was rich, and he did say he’d throw in some money. Gojo probably hated the thought of you, too. You could probably get up and close, get him to cower away from the thought of locking lips with you, and you’d be on your merry way.       “Um, actually, never mind. Let’s do this.” you chirp, the weariness had depleted completely. Besides, Gojo would pester you into doing it anyways, this would effectively save time. The expression on his face was indecipherable, silently wishing to yourself to see his eyes. You wonder if they’re wide open, in shock of your acceptance.       He gently placed the biscuit between your lips, his thumb brushing against it. Your breath hitches, now he’s up close. The shades adorning his handsome features, concealing those vivid blue eyes of his made your heart pace quicken in just seconds, maybe it was because he could see you- and you couldn’t. Your gaze shifts to the tufts of white hair hanging above his forehead. His bangs look lusciously soft, so soft you wonder what it’d be like to ruffle his unruly hair, what did it smell like? What conditioner did he use?     Your cheeks darken, but you hope he doesn’t notice it. This was what people thought of when they saw pretty people up close, it wasn’t like you had a thing for him, he was just attractive, that’s all.      “You look real stupid holding that stick between your teeth and looking at me.” he comments, charmingly smirking as you give him another death glare, unable to speak in fear of dropping the Pocky stick. You could count each individual hair strand he had on top of his head with the amount of time he was taking.      Chomp.     You take the first bite, and you can’t help but realize how much your heart is fluttering about in your chest. Eyelashes fluttering, nerves getting jittery, the exchange was strangely intimate. No kidding, of course it was- if the two of you were adamant and continued to chomp on the stick, it would only end in a kiss. There was no way around it.      He takes a bite too, his lips look curved in a dopey smile, but there’s not a single word traded between the two of you, just tiny, slight nibbles. It would be eons until someone finished, and you were growing impatient by the minute. Quicken the pace. Quicken the fucking pace.     So you did the unthinkable, you quickened the pace.     Taking a large bite, he pauses for a minute- as if to think, before taking an even larger bite. Now, 2/3′s of the original stick is gone. One more large bite, and a kiss would follow suit. Now, you’re sweating bullets, eyes bouncing from him, back down to the microscopic sized Pocky. His lips are so, so close. Soft, plush pink, so glossy you’re inclined to ask what brand of lip gloss he uses. You can hear his breathing grow heavier, why wasn’t he giving up?      The two of you don’t take a single bite, plainly avoiding the objective, the world around you had evaporated into thin air. It’s you, and Gojo Satoru.      You nibbled a little bit more, and then you make up your mind. You’re going to kiss-       Growing chatter grew closer to closer, and you realize Shoko’s monotone and Geto’s lively voice, alongside a very disgruntled Yaga.       “Yeah, she’s pretty hot. I actually liked the movie- Uh...?” the steady rhythm stopped against the concrete. Immediately, you straighten and clear your throat, spitting out the Pocky stick into the nearby grass. Gojo follows suit, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and twirling around. “Oh hey, Geto!-”       “Are we interrupting something? Something.. Important?” Shoko quizzes, struggling to stifle her giggling. A sheepish smile was displayed widely on your face for the world to see, hands behind your back like you were hiding something. Gojo, on the other hand, is facing the other direction, whistling and staring at the now setting sky.       You stutter, cheeks growing even darker. Yaga looks as disgruntled as ever, facepalming and murmuring to himself. Geto looks ecstatic.        “MY MAN!” he beams. “WERE YOU GOING TO-”       “SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Shoko shushes him in response, turning her head back to the two of you. You looked like you had just seen a ghost. “We thought you hated Gojo, we’re just...” her head is cocked slightly, an understanding expression on her features. “Just surprised, is all.”       Spluttering, you try to explain yourself- but no sound comes out. Your mouth is opening and closing, struggling to find the words.       “I do hate him... I just... He.. Pocky.. He uh...”       “Sheeeeeeeesh! Poor Y/N over here is going through some shock right now!” Gojo muses aloud, he places an arm around your shoulders, pulling you in under his arm. There’s a small, coy grin on his lips. As if he didn’t try kissing you 1 minute ago. “Just ignore them, anyways, what are we having for dinner tonight? I heard there’s a really good KBBQ place down the street that just opened..”      As much as you hate Gojo, his ability to escape anything did come in handy.    Well, maybe you didn’t hate him as much as you were leading on.     You’d go as far as to say.. Maybe you enjoyed some parts of him.      

[softholand]

gingerbread kisses - t.h

pairing: tom holland x youtuber!reader

warnings: a lot of dialogue and some good old festive fluff

words: 2.5k

a/n: this is like a part two of my youtuber!reader series, it can also be read on it’s one but if you haven’t read chocolate kisses yet, you can do it here i really hope you guys enjoy it and please let me know what you think!! ✨

It was another normal workday at your flat, you had all your lights and camera set in your living room, ready to start filming. Today’s video was going to be a Q&A with a special guest, Tom Holland.

It was expected that your baking video with him was going to be one of the most successful ones, but you weren’t expecting the number of views that, to this day, a whole month later, kept coming.

With so many comments almost begging you to bring him to your channel again, you finally gave in and asked him to do a Q&A with you, but since it was the end of the year and Christmas was just around the corner, you decided that, while you answered your viewer's questions, you two could build gingerbread houses.

“Tom, where are you? I’m about to start this without you!” You shouted from the living room floor, where you were seated. “I’m coming, I just had to get something before,” Tom answered, appearing in front of you, wearing a ridiculously ugly Christmas jumper, making you burst out laughing.

“Oh my God! Where did you get that?” You asked, trying to recover from your fit of laughing. “Oh, don’t worry, darling! There’s one for you too!” He stated, taking an identical jumper from behind him.

“You’re not letting me get out of this, are you?” You questioned, sighing when you saw him shake his head. Once you took your (his) hoodie out, replacing it with the ugly sweater, you were finally ready to start recording.

“Hi guys, welcome back to another video! This week we have a special guest that you guys have been asking since our last video together.” You said, giving Tom time to sit next to you. “It’s Tom!”

“It’s me!” He exclaimed, smiling at the camera. “This time we’re not baking anything but, since Christmas is almost here, I thought it was a good idea for us to build some gingerbread houses!” You said, pointing to the kits you had bought on your last trip to the grocery store.

“It’s been so long since I’ve done this!” Tom smiled, clearly excited to start. “But, instead of just sitting here, I asked you guys on Instagram to send some questions so we could answer while doing our houses. What do you think?” You questioned, looking at him.

“Dangerous… but fun!” He said, making you laugh. “So, we have the Christmas tree with the lights on, it’s starting to snow outside, I’ve made us some hot chocolate and of course, we cannot forget our ugly sweaters, courtesy of Tom.” You grinned.

“You’re welcome!” He praised, making you roll your eyes. “I’d said we’re ready to start.” You announced, to which he gave you two thumbs-ups.

Once you had taken the house out of its package, you laid all the biscuit parts in front of you, Tom doing the same beside you.

“So, the first question is “What’s your best/worst memory together?” You let them know while putting the baking glue on your biscuit. “Do you wanna start?” Tom offered, to which you shrugged. “It’s okay, you can go first.” You said, seeing that he already had the answer at the tip of his tongue.

“Best memory is your twentieth birthday party.” He stated, without taking his eyes out of his project. “Why?” You asked, also concentrating on building the house.

“C’mon, y/n! You know why!” Tom finally looked up, making kissy lips to you. “Tom! It’s supposed to be a surprise for the end of the video!” You whined, earning a chuckle from him. “Okay, fine! I’ll behave!” He said, making you laugh this time.

“I think my favorite memory of us is at the Far From Home premiere party! We had so much fun!” Tom declared, making you smile. “Yeah, that was nice!” You agreed, thinking about your favorite memory with Tom. “Mine is probably when we went to New York, I loved that trip!” You confessed, remembering all the crazy things you and Tom did back then.

“Yeah, that was a good one!” Tom agreed, smiling at you. “Worst one has to be the time paparazzi locked us outside of that restaurant. It was awful, I honestly thought I was gonna die that day.” You remembered, feeling chills cover your body. “Yeah, same!” The boy next to you answered, clearly feeling down just thinking about that event, so you made sure to quickly change the subject and ask the next question.

“So, the next question is, what was your best trip?” You asked, motioning for Tom to go first. “Mine has to be Bali, I loved that place and I’m dying to go back.” He stated. “Tell me about it, I was so jealous when you guys went there!” You whined, remembering the photos he kept texting you. “What about you, y/n?”

“Oh, 100% Christmas in New York!” You told him, without even having to think. “It was magical!” You smiled, remembering the trip like it was yesterday.

“Nice! I never spent Christmas in New York!” Tom commented, before going for the next question. “What’s the other Starbucks order?” He asked, taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

“Yours is tea!” You said, rolling your eyes. “Hey, I drink coffee too!” Tom uttered. “Rarely! Most of the time is Chai Latte or a Royal English Breakfast Tea.” You stated and of course, Tom had to agree.

“Yeah, you’re right! I should try more of their stuff. But you also always get the same, White Chocolate Mocha or Peppermint Hot Cocoa at this time of the year.” Tom listed, making you smile knowing that he knew your drink orders.

“But it’s just soooo good! I can’t help it!” Tom chuckled, before passing your phone back to you for the next question. “That’s a good one, who’s the messier one?” You questioned. “I don’t even think I have to answer this, you guys realized that from our last video together!” You declared, making you both laugh.

“Ok, I’ll give you this one. I’m pretty messy! But I’m trying to get better at it, I promise!” Tom added, to which you chuckled. “My house is built, now I just have to decorate!” You announced, making Tom gasp by your side. “What?! There’s no way! I’m still trying to make these walls stick together.” He whined, making you chuckle.

“That’s because you’re not using enough glue, look, you have to put a straight line across the whole biscuit, otherwise it won’t stick.” You told him, showing exactly how to do it. “But the glue it’s showing on the other side.” He reasoned. “It doesn’t matter, Tom! We’ll just make it look like snow. See?” You pointed to your own house and he nodded, going back to work, focused on finishing it so he could start decorating.

“Next question, what’s the most useless talent you have?” Tom asked, already laughing. “Mine is really stupid but I can put my feet on top of my head,” Tom stated, demonstrating exactly what he was saying, almost knocking everything that was on the table in front of you off.

“That’s not a talent, you’re just flexible.” You rolled your eyes, to which he laughed. “You’re only saying this because you’re jealous you can’t do it.” He smirked, clearly trying to get on your nerves. “Shut up, I have a much better one, I can lick my elbow.” You said, also showing your completely useless talent. “That’s… weirdly impressive.” Tom expressed making you both laugh.

When Tom was finally done building his house, he joined you and started to decorate. You told him and your viewers that you were going for more of a white Christmas theme, while Tom expressed his desire to make the house as colorful as possible.

“Tom, I think the next question is for you.” You gave him a look, before continuing. “What is the dumbest way you’ve been injured?” He gasped, putting one of his hands over his chest while you laughed. “Why are you coming for me today?” The brown-haired boy asked, pretending to be offended.

“I’m sorry, but how many times have you broken your nose while filming?” You asked once you had stopped laughing. “Three, actually, two and a half, the last one wasn’t a complete fracture.” He explained, trying to not make a fool out of himself.

“Well, I’ve never injured myself badly, just some paper cuts, which for me it’s very dumb.” You mentioned. “See? Your answer is dumber than mine and still, I get the title.” Tom shook his head, making you laugh. “So, taking a break from the questions, what are you doing with your house?” You questioned, taking a moment to observe his work.

“I’m gluing some gummies on the roof.” He exclaimed, putting the icing on the sugar-coated candy before sticking it on the house. “And you?” Tom asked, stopping his movements to look at yours.

“I’m putting shredded coconut on the roof and a little bit on the floor, to make it look more like snow.” You smiled, happy with what you had done so far. “Uhh, bougie!” Tom uttered, sticking his tongue out.

“Shut up! Okay, question number… I don’t even know what number we are, so… weird habits of each other? Oh my God, Tom makes SO much noise to eat, it’s ridiculous!” You blurted, to which he immediately complained. “I do not!” He exclaimed. “Yes, you do!”

“You never said that to me!” You laughed at Tom defending himself. “I have told you, at least, a hundred times!” You stated. “Well, at least I have control of my own body, you can’t stop bouncing your leg for literally two seconds.” He exclaimed.

“That’s because I have anxiety and you know that! I’m always moving a part of my body!” You practically yelled. “Still annoying!” Tom said. “Well, I can’t help it!” You interjected. “Neither do I!” He replied. “Next question?” You asked. “Please!” He shot back, making you both burst out laughing.

Once you stopped, Tom took your phone and asked the next question. “Do you have nicknames for each other?” He smirked, making you panic. “Hey, you said you’d behave!” You warned, pointing a finger at him. “I will, promise!” He told you, but that didn’t stop you from being nervous about his answer.

“I sometimes call her cherry, because she can do that trick with the cherry stem, it’s unbelievable!” He smirked, making you blush. “That’s actually pretty easy to do!” You said, trying to make light of the situation. “Oh yeah, it’s totally easy to tie a knot with a cherry stem with your tongue. Super chill!” Tom added, without taking that stupid smirk out of his face.

“Stop it! I don’t think I have a nickname for you, I call you spider-boy sometimes but just to spite you.” You smiled, sticking your tongue out. If Tom wanted to play, you could join his little game.

“I wish I could tell them all the other names you call me in bed,” Tom whispered, making you almost choke on your hot chocolate. “Thomas!!!” You screamed, trying desperately to clean the mess you’ve made. “Fine…” He replied, taking a sip of his drink.

“Ok, since we are almost done with the houses, the second to last question is: If you could, what would you change about your first kiss?” You asked, immediately regretting choosing the question. “Oh, that’s cool! Let me see… no, I don’t think I’ll change anything about it, maybe the place. It was a little too crowded.” He replied, not even trying to hide his smirk.

“Really? That’s all you’d change?” You asked, giving him the chance to take back his answer. “Yep, that’s all! What about you, y/n?” You shook your head, feigning disappointment that he didn’t choose to make you his first kiss. “I’d change the person, you idiot!” You answered, throwing one of the icing packages at him.

“Hey, that hurt!” Tom protested, throwing it back at you. “Stop it! We have to finish these so we can end the video.” You warned, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Oh, I’m done!” He announced, showing off his finished gingerbread house with a very colorful roof, windows, and door. “Already? I still wanna do a garland on the door. I even bought special sprinkles for it.” You stated, rushing yourself. “Of course you did!” Tom mocked, to which you simply flipped him off.

Once you had also finished your house, you and Tom did a quick cleaning of the table, before going back to filming. “We’re back!” You said, to which Tom added. “And we’re finished!”

“I’m really happy, they turned out so pretty!” You beamed, looking at your finished works. “They did!” Tom agreed, smiling widely. “So… before we end this video, we do have a last question, one that was the most asked and that is: are you guys together?” You said, finally acknowledging the elephant in the room.

You and Tom shared some guilty looks before blurting it out together. “Yes!” Tom’s smile was so wide that it made you smile too. “Yes, guys! You were all right! Tom and I are in a relationship now and we are so happy to finally share this with all of you!” You grinned, looking at your boyfriend, that of course was looking back at you.

“Yeah, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world and I honestly couldn’t be happier,” Tom murmured, making you blush. “Stop it!” You smiled, now completely lost in his eyes. “I think you have to finish the video now, darling!” He joked, bringing you back to earth.

“Oh, yeah, right! So… that was everything for today’s video, I hope you guys enjoyed it! Don’t forget to give the video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel! Please, let me know what you guys thought in the comments section down below and… I think that’s it. Do you wanna say something?” You asked, shifting your eyes to Tom. “Thank you for having me again and I hope to come back soon for another one!” He said, giving the camera an adorable little wave. “Bye guys! See you next week!” You cheered, getting up to stop the recording. “We did it!”

“Yay! Can I eat now?” Tom quipped, before smashing his house in half. “Thomas!!!!” You shouted, not believing what he had done. “What?! We’re not supposed to eat it?” He wondered, putting one of the cookie pieces in his mouth. “I mean, yeah, but not… like that!” You tried to reasoned, to which he scoffed.

“C’mon, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to make a mess, right?” He smirked, signing for you to come closer. And you did, sliding right in front of him, straddling his waist.

“You’re an idiot!” You teased, clasping your arms behind his head. “Hmm, c’mere!” Tom lifted your chin and there was nothing more to do other than kiss his lips, so you did, only this time, instead of chocolate, they tasted like gingerbread.

tagging some of my mutuals ✨ @stuckonspidey @definitely-not-black-cat @missnxthingg @bi-writes @uglypastels @screamholland @peeterparkr @wazzupmrstark @tomhollandthing @lauras-collection @tommybaholland @mrs-hollandstan @duskholland @allyz @hazinhoodies @hollandcreep @worldoftom @whatevsholland @geminiparkers

[itslieutenanthawkeye]

Beyond the Sea of Pain

Day 3 of Jeankasa Week 2021: Family

AO3

A peaceful life for the girl who longed for love and the boy who gave her it.

Sasha Ackerman had never been one to pry. She carried her mother’s quiet, observant personality, or so her father said. Whenever conversations became for adults only, she excused herself, she never asked too many questions unless it was something that involved her loved ones.

Lately, Sasha had begun asking more questions, simply because most matters revolved around her mother, her mother and the child she carried. At seven years of age, Sasha knew a new baby implied many changes for the family. Both for her parents, and for her. Her whole life, everyone around her had gone to great lengths to make her happy, make her feel loved, and above all, to keep her safe.

All she was surrounded by were protectors: her grandmother who had taught her how to make the omelets her dad liked, uncle Armin and aunt Annie who came to visit the island with hundreds of presents each time, uncle Connie who bought her ice cream and candies whenever he babysat her, and uncle Levi with his perpetual frowns.

This would be the first time she had someone smaller than her, someone to take care of, someone to protect. Her mom had said in conversations she wanted three children, so Sasha had always known that sooner or later she would be the head of a triad of Ackerman children. She would be the eldest sister.

“Sasha, help me, please,” her mother called from the door. She was almost seven months in her pregnancy and still carried out her daily routine as usual. Her father had gotten angry at the beginning, when he caught her carrying things from the market on her own. But her mom was strong, stronger than her father even, and each time she had reassured him with a sweet smile that she could handle herself.

Sasha didn’t want to imagine the level of anxiety in her father during their first pregnancy.

“Where’s dad?” Her mother asked as they laid out the market bags on the kitchen counter. The queen of the island had given her parents a beautiful apartment in the new Shingashina district years ago, for helping bring peace to the world, although her mom always joked that all she and her father had done was work numbers in a library.

“He’s finishing up the baby’s room.” Sasha informed her mother, smiling at the sight of the chocolate biscuits she had bought for her. Her father always said that perhaps names came with traits. And Sasha had certainly inherited her namesake’s appetite.

“Have you helped?” Her mother asked, putting both hands on her waist. “He was up all night setting that crib. Did you paint with him?”

Sasha shook her head. “Dad didn’t let me.”

Her mother sighed. “That man needs to let other people help him.”

“Are you mad at him?” Sasha asked, kind of hoping she was. She had really wanted to help him paint the new baby’s room.

“I don’t think I can get mad at him,” her mother said, smiling as she wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Sasha put her hand on her mother’s belly, drawing in a breath in awe as she felt the baby moving. “The baby know it’s you saying hi. They’re saying hi back to you, you know.”

“Does the baby like me already?”

“The baby loves you, sweetheart.” Her mother replied, placing a kiss on her forehead. Sasha took a hold of her mother’s right arm, her fingers lingering on the ink markings on her wrists, the tattoo that had always been covered by bandages in the pictures from her time in the military.

“Mama, when am I going to get this?” she asked. A crease appeared between her eyebrows then, and for a moment, Sasha feared to have upset her. Her mother crouched to be at her height, with surprising grace despite her advanced pregnancy, and ran her thumb over her cheek.

“My mother gave it to me years ago. She said I had to pass it down to my children,” she said, her hand holding Sasha’s, which still lingered on the ink markings of her skin. “But back then, the world was smaller, honey. We thought this crest was the only thing we had left of our heritage when it wasn’t. There was a whole country beyond the island, and a huge clan with the same emblem and people who shared our blood.”

“That means I can’t get this marking?” Sasha said, feeling a little disappointed. Despite having her mother’s dark hair, she’d inherited her father’s structure; at her age, she was taller than most kids at school, and her eyes were of the same hazel as her father’s. The tattoo would’ve given her another thing in common with her mother, another thing to share that was just theirs.

Her mother seemed to notice the change in her expression, and she cradled her face with one hand. “You can decide to get it or not when you’re older. You’re still going to be my sweet little girl, whether you get it or not,” she said, kissing her cheek. “But I didn’t want to mark you with the emblem, at least not offer it until you became old enough to decide for yourself.”

“I wanted it to remember you,” Sasha replied shyly. “This is how you remember grandma, right?”

Her mother smiled, bringing her closer to embrace her. “You’ll be able to remember me in many, many more ways, Sasha darling,” she said, pulling her apart to face her before she continued speaking. “First of all, your dad and I are going to live for a long, long time. We’re going to take a million pictures, and your dad is going paint a thousand portraits of us. And when those are wrinkled and old, and you’re wrinkled and old, you’re still going to remember our love for you. Because you, dad, the baby, and I are going to live long lives together, okay? We’ll make memories together.”

Sasha nodded, wondering why her mother’s speech had filled her eyes with water. She passed a chubby hand across her face. “I love you, mama,” she said, hugging her again. “I swear, I’ll protect you and dad forever.”

“I love you so much, honey.” Her mother said. Her father always told her she didn’t need to protect them, but it seemed her mother understood her personality a little more in that regard. She understood that drive to protect and remember her loved ones, perhaps because Sasha was much like her.

“Want to go see how dad is doing with the room?” her mother said after a moment, with her usual smile.

Sasha held her mother’s hand as they walked to the baby’s room. The apartment would be small with another child. Their house would be finished in ten months; it had taken a while for his father to convince queen Historia to sell them that land by the river, and a little while longer for them to get all their financing for the house from Hizuru. Her mother had friends there, although Sasha had never met them in person. They would eventually move, Sasha was sure, but in the meantime, dad wanted to make their apartment as child friendly as possible.

“Hello, dad,” her mother said, knocking on the door threshold. They found him finishing up the far wall, the one next to the window. Sasha stared at the paintings on the walls, realizing why her father hadn’t let her help. She would’ve ruined the landscape he’d painted so thoroughly across the walls: it was their summer meadow, the one by the river, the place where they went most weekends to fish and eat and sing. The place that would be their new home in ten months.

Her father turned to look at them with a wide smile on his face. He was tall, taller than most, and had long hair and a stubble on his chin that itched when he kissed her cheeks. “Hello, darling,” her father said, walking up to her mother to give her a kiss on the lips. Then, he gave Sasha a kiss on the forehead. “Hello, little darling.”

And then, her father kissed her mother’s pregnant belly. “Hello, tiny darling.”

Her mother gave him one of those adoring smiles Sasha loved to see. Her mother was beautiful, the most beautiful woman ever, and when she smiled like that, Sasha almost thought she was looking at a doll. It was a look reserved only for dad; it had always seemed her eyes were full of sunlight when looking at him. “Jean, you shouldn’t have done all this.”

“What do you mean?” her dad asked. “Do you not like it.”

“I love it, honey. I absolutely adore it,” she said, grabbing his face to kiss his cheek. “But we’re moving at the end of the year, and you’ve barely slept…”

“You know I like doing this,” her father replied. “Besides, it’s so the baby can get used to the scenery before we get there.”

A low giggle escaped her mother. “Also, Sasha wanted to help you here.”

“She’s a kid, Mika. It was a lot of crouching, a lot of tracing, too much smell of paint,” he said, giving her mother another kiss. He was never shy about showing his love, but the closer she got to the end of the pregnancy, the more did her father kiss her. Sometimes it felt as if he kissed her every second of the day. “I didn’t want her to get all tired.”

“She’s strong, Jean,” her mom replied, smiling still. “She can help you out when I’m not here.”

“I’m sure she’s as strong as her mother,” he said, bending to kiss Sashas’s cheek and then her forehead. “I’m sorry, okay, little darling? I promise you’ll help with the next baby room.”

“Let me have this one first.” Her mom said with a low giggle. “Will you, lover boy?”

“I waited seven years for our second one, didn’t I?” Her father teased.

“Let’s not pretend you haven’t been trying for another one the past seven years, Kirstein.”

“You know I love trying for one, Ackerman.”

Sasha walked over to his set of paints, her eyes on the mixture of colors but her ears on their banter. She liked watching them go about life together; there was such an easy happiness between them, an easy, almost-perfect happiness that could only come from the love they had for each other. A love they poured onto her, a love that filled Sasha with happiness.

Sometimes, when she saw her mother smile at her father, she could barely believe she was the same woman as the one in the pictures from her days in the military. The woman in the pictures was stoic, untouchable, a perfect figure of strength, a statue with the sadness in her eyes as her most defining quality. Her mother, the Mikasa Ackerman Sasha knew, was all smiles, kisses, and kind words; she was low conversations about butterflies, she was warm hugs after a day at school, she was adoring looks for her father when he cooked dinner.

It’s not that her mom didn’t get sad every now and then. Of course, whenever they visited the graveyard where her namesake rested, or when she and her father spoke of the past in hushed whispers in the living room. But still, sadness was not all of her. Her mother had turned into sunlight, that’s the only way Sasha could describe it.

“Why are you frowning, sweetie?” Her father asked.

“You two are being corny again,” Sasha replied. “You’re doing your kissy faces.”

Her mother and father exchanged a look and a smile, and soon her father had lifted her into his arms. “Mikasa, we just made little Sasha jealous,” he said as he twirled her around. It didn’t take long for Sasha to start giggling. “She wants all the kisses to herself!”

“You are too corny! Your beard is itchy!” Sasha laughed. “Mom, help!”

Her mom took her from her father’s arms and gave her a thousand kisses on her cheeks and forehead in the lapse of a second. “All the kisses must be for my sweet little girl,” her mother teased. Her father took her back in his arms, not wanting her to carry Sasha’s full weight so far into the pregnancy. “She deserves them, don’t you think, Jean?”

“Yes, she does,” her dad agreed. “She is the best older sister in all of Paradis. Your little brother already adores you.”

“Or little sister.” Her mother said, giving Sasha another kiss and leaning into her dad to get a peck on the cheek from him.

“Or little sister.” Her dad agreed.

“When do we know?” Sasha asked. “When do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“We need to wait until baby’s born,” her dad explained, using the paint on his thumb to draw a little white star on her cheek. “It won’t take long. We need to be really careful with mommy until the baby’s born, and then some more after.”

“Mommy is top priority,” Sasha agreed, nodding seriously. “Then after the birth, mom and baby will be top priority.”

Her dad chuckled and looked at her mom. “She really does take after you, doesn’t she, Mikasa?”

“I’d say she takes after you,” her mother said, tucking a strand of hair behind Sasha’s ear. “All that concern for my well-being could’ve only come from you.”

“How are we going to name the baby?” Sasha asked then.

“If it’s a girl, we’ve decided it’ll be Carla, right?” Her dad said, and her mother nodded.

“And if it’s a boy?” Sasha asked. Her father exchanged a look with her mother, both at a loss from her question. Sasha figured they hadn’t considered the possibility of having a boy, and the matter of a name for a boy hadn’t come up until now. She shook her head in exasperation; Aunt Annie called them a pair of idiots and although Sasha would never truly consider them a pair of idiots, she could see why she’d granted them that nickname.

“How about dinner?” Her mother said.

“I’ll get to it.” Her father said, kissing her mother again.

Her mother crossed her arms over her chest and let out an exasperated sigh. “Jean, let us help you. Honey, nothing bad will happen to me. I can make dinner for three.”

“I’m sorry,” her father said, frowning, cradling her mother’s face in his hand. “You’re just so pretty. And I can’t believe you’re carrying our child sometimes. I don’t want you to lift a finger, I don’t want to risk you at all, Mikasa.”

“Jean,” her mother said, placing a kiss on his lips. “I love you and I promise I’ll be fine, alright?”

Her dad nodded. “I love you too, Mika.”

“You two are too corny,” Sasha said, jumping from her father’s arms and walking towards the kitchen. “I’ll just eat biscuits while you kiss.”

“Sasha, wait!” Her mother said.

“Young lady, do not fill up before dinner.” Her father called.

Sasha smiled for herself as they followed her into the kitchen. Part of her felt a little bad for interrupting, but if they’d kept being all lovey with each other, dinner would have taken ages. And Sasha cared more about her appetite than letting those two be lovey-dovey. Besides, those biscuits did smell great.

__________________________

It wasn’t until Sasha had gone to bed that Mikasa had the time to sort through the clothes for the new baby. Some had been sent by Levi and Armin, alongside letters promising to visit them after the baby came to help Jean with the house. Some had been made by her own hands; she’d learned knitting from her mother when she was a child, but she hadn’t gotten back to it until she’d met Jean’s mom. All the socks had been knitted by Jean, a fact of which he was proud about.

Mikasa smiled to herself. Of all the things he’d done for her, for them as a family, his biggest pride was that he’d managed to have time to knit a couple dozen pair of baby socks.

“We got a package from Hizuru this morning,” Jean informed her as he walked towards her across the hallway. “Who gives a baby a golden reliquary necklace?”

“Really rich royals.” She said, turning to look at him.

Jean made a disgusted sound as he sat next to her. He leaned his back against the couch and stretched, and Mikasa’s eyes were drawn to the muscles straining against the fabric of his shirt. “Alright, that’s Sasha back asleep.”

“Was it a bad nightmare?”

Jean shook his head. “She keeps dreaming a giant baby’s chasing her.”

Mikasa snorted. “She’s just like you were when she was going to be born.”

“Hey, I wasn’t that nervous. I was just excited.” Jean said, grabbing her gently and bringing her close to his side. Mikasa hugged him, resting her head on his chest for a long moment. She took in a deep breath, enjoying the scent of him, thankful for the constant beat of his heart, for his presence, for his immense love.

Her life had been quiet grief up until the moment they’d returned to the island. She’d never thought she would love anyone ever again as much as she’d loved Eren.

But, apparently, she’d been wrong.

The growth of her love for him had been the thawing of her life, slow but inevitable, leading surely towards what seemed to be an eternal spring. Her constricted heart had gotten used to his presence little by little after his return; in the deep darkness that the rumbling had left her in, Jean had offered his hand to her, and they’d spent peaceful, quiet, love-filled days together.

Their friends had been there for her, but it was his presence, their conversations, their time in silence together, what she came to enjoy the most, what she looked forward to. Soon after, she noticed his appearance, that stirring he caused in her chest. And next thing she knew, Mikasa had been looking at him with the same loving eyes as she’d looked at her first love.

She’d fallen without trying, without expecting to, but she’d fallen irrevocably. And now she couldn’t imagine her life without him, without his kind, gentle presence by her side, always so certain she had the answer to any issue, always so confident in her strength.

The fire, the hatred that had fueled her first love was nonexistent in him; Jean was peace, spring, he was the promise that the world could be rebuilt after being ablaze. And she loved him; she loved all of him, and the fact that he’d given her a child –two, now– had only deepened her love for him. She didn’t regret her past; she didn’t fear the horrible memories, not with him by her side.

“About the name if it’s a boy,” Mikasa said, looking up at him. “I was thinking Marco.”

Jean raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I was thinking Eren.”

Now, it was her turn to raise her eyebrows. Just as he knew how much Eren had meant for her, Mikasa knew how much Marco had meant for him. “But I thought you would’ve wanted to honor him, because of your history together and—”

“I thought the same.” Jean said, brushing her hair back. He liked her hair; on their wedding night, he’d told her about how his crush on her had started, and Mikasa still liked hearing the story every now and then. “I thought you would’ve wanted to have a child with his name.”

“I thought you would’ve wanted to have a child with his name.”

Jean smiled again. “Well, great minds think alike, don’t they?”

“Jean,” Mikasa said seriously. “You’ve done so much for us already. If you were to pick the name, I don’t want you to pick one just because you think that’s what I want.”

“And I don’t want you to think I do all the things I do just to pick a name.”

Mikasa shook her head. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know. Come here.” Jean said. Mikasa finished closing the gap and their lips met. And, like every other time, her chest filled with warmth. She was drawn to him like a magnet was to metal; the comfort his skin offered was unparalleled by anything else she’d ever felt. True, she always teased that he’d been the one to try over and over again for a second child. But, in truth, the one who always seemed to want him on her was Mikasa herself.

“I still think Eren has a good ring to it.” Jean said after a while.

“He’s gonna get teased in school.” Mikasa said, thoughtfully. “What if he travels out of the island, Jean? People out of here don’t like that name. Have you given that idea any thought?”

“Maybe we could call him Aaron or something.”

Mikasa snorted. “You’re silly.”

“And you are gorgeous.” Jean said, kissing the side of her head.

“I still like Marco better for a name.” Mikasa admitted, wrapping both arms around his neck.

“Ah, are you trying to seduce me to get me to agree?” Jean said, placing kisses along her neck, reaching the curve of her ear to whisper hoarsely. “Because it’s going to work wonders, and you know that, Mrs. Ackerman.”

“I’m not,” Mikasa giggled, letting him kiss her neck and chest a little longer. “I just think we need to make up our minds soon. It might be a boy, you know?”

“Why do I feel we won’t make up our minds?” Jean said, his hands searching for the buttons of her shirt.

“I have the same feeling.” Mikasa whispered back, working on the buttons of his shirt as well.

“Well, then, in that case I guess we have only one option.”

“Which is?” Mikasa said, straightening to look at him in the eyes. She enjoyed looking at his hazel eyes; she adored seeing his overflowing love for her in them. Once she’d started to recognize it, she hadn’t been able to keep herself from looking for it.

Jean smiled. “We hope for a girl.”

“Or twins,” Mikasa said as he resumed kissing her lips.

“Or twins.” Jean agreed, kissing her a little more.

“I love you, Jean.” She whispered, going to his ear to kiss him.

“I love you too, Mikasa.”

_______________________

Sasha brought out the tray and smiled proudly at the cookies. They all had perfect shapes, just as she wanted them. The clock on the wall told her she had a couple of hours to decorate and place all the snacks out on the table; her husband said he would be getting everyone from the airport, which was a whole hour and a half away from their small town, and her brother and sister would prepare everything in the garden for the party.

As the eldest sister, she’d always been the one to boss them around, to help them sort out their problems and protect them from whoever tried to bully them. However, the past four years, Marco and Carla (or Charlie, how Sasha liked to call her since her birth, twenty five years ago) had become more than helpful for the little matters she and her husband didn’t notice.

It’s not that they were fools, no. It’s just that they’d been prepared for one child only.

Little footsteps resonated across the hall, and Sasha smiled knowingly as the twins appeared, holding hands as usual, on the threshold of the kitchen. “Sora, Oliver,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, noticing the mud stains on their legs and faces. She crouched in front of them, using a piece of cloth to wipe the mud off Sora’s face. “Kids, weren’t you going to take a shower?”

“Where’s Jeanbo?” Oliver asked as she went to lean his cheeks.

“Huh?” Sasha replied.

“Jeanbo and Mika,” Sora said, pouting. “They were going to help us choose our clothes.”

Sasha straightened, putting her hands on her waist. “Does grandpa know you call him that?”

“He laughs!” Oliver replied, looking outraged.

“Those two spoil you guys too much,” Sasha replied, shaking her head. “You should be calling them grandma and grandpa. It’s disrespectful to call them by their names.”

“But Mika said it was alright!” Sora said, jumping a little in her spot. “She said it’s cute!”

Of course, her mother thought it was cute. She was the main culprit when it came to spoiling the twins. They were her first grandchildren, and neither of the two had inherited the Ackerman’s serious traits. It was all Jean’s, Sasha’s mother often said…from their cheeky smiles and hazel eyes to their loud, proud voices and talent to become the leaders of any group of children. Perhaps that was why her mother found them so incredibly adorable.

Although, to be fair, Sasha thought, they were incredibly adorable.

“Where are they, mama?” Oliver asked.

“They went out for a walk five minutes ago.” Sasha said, looking out the window. “Mom likes feeling the sun, and dad likes holding her while walking.”

Oliver and Sora exchanged an outraged look with each other, then looked up at her. Sasha couldn’t help but to smile wider at the sight of their childish indignation. “They didn’t wait for us!” they exclaimed at the same time.

“Let them be, kiddos,” Sasha said, taking off her apron. Decorating the cookies would have to wait, maybe she could ask her father for help. He’d always been better with art, after all. “Those two will be with you all afternoon. Let them have their romantic time together, okay?”

Oliver and Sora smiled cheekily, showing her the two dimples on each of their cheeks. That one trait, they’d gotten from Sasha’s husband. She adored seeing that tiny part of him on their faces. “What is it, you two?”

“They’re always having romantic time, mama.” Oliver pointed out.

“That’s because they love each other very much.” Sasha said, walking forward. The two let go of each other’s hands and allowed her to stand between them, to hold their hands and lead them upstairs, where a warm bath waited for each.

“Have they always been like that, mama, all lovey-dovey?” Sora asked.

“As long as I remember, yes,” Sasha replied as they went up.

“Will they be like that forever?” Oliver asked then.

“I’m pretty sure. They’ve still got plenty of years ahead, don’t they?” Sasha said, and her children hummed yes in response, at the same time.

Sasha smiled; she’d grown to know their story gradually, how much they’d lost, all the sorrow, pain, and death, and all the light that had followed afterwards. Her mother and father had taken all the little broken pieces of their souls and created a kaleidoscope that reflected in beautiful rays of light in a myriad of colors upon their family. They’d created happiness out of sorrow, and they deserved so many more years together.

They deserved to live through the happy times, the sad times, to grow old together. They deserved to love each other, love their children, their grandchildren, their friends. The family that had bloomed from disaster and pain.

They deserved to live. They all did.

[boizandgurlzinthehouse]

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭 ♡

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛

𝐚 = 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫?)

he appreciate you, but the most attractive in you for him is your loyality. don't matter how many time he get beaten up from the bowers or getting bullied because of his religion, you never leave his side. and everytime you stand by his side, he falls in love with you more and more. 

𝐛 = 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 (𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲? 𝐰𝐡𝐲/𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐭?)

after the school and the university –yes, of course, but if you don't want them, then that's entirely okay. but now, he don't want to talk about kids, or family, he just wants to live his little dream with you. 

𝐜 = 𝐜𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 (𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞?)

stan loves the most when you hug him from behind while he bikes with you. it's even better if you tilt your head to the nape of his neck; the little curls down there strokes your forehead, just like his kisses.

𝐝 = 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞?)

he likes the quiet, peaceful dates. the sunny saturdays, where the two of you just go out, sitting under a tree, reading and eating little biscuits. you make pictures about the birds he likes with your polaroid cam, the instant photo get sticked in his book immediately.

𝐞 = 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐲 ____ (𝐞.𝐠. 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞, 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝...))

"you are my precious."

𝐟 = 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 (𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞?)

stan fell in love with you in the moment when he saw that you sit right before him in history class. your (h/c) locks before him, and when you turned around to give him a pen -

𝐠 = 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞 (𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞? 𝐢𝐟 𝐬𝐨, 𝐡𝐨𝐰?)

he's the most gentle boy you have ever know. not the most pda-ish guy, but at home, in your room, he always gonna stroke your hair at night, or telling you how cute you were today in the t-shirt you bought recently. 

𝐡 = 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 (𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬?)

as i told, stan would kiss you rather than hold your hands, but if you're inscure, or just need a fix point, you can always grab his hand and he would squeeze it, i promise you. 

𝐢 = 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧?)

he met you at first in the library, to search for one books he needs for his tests. you sat there at the table, reading already "the hound of baskervilles", your hair lazily falling in your face, your knees propped up to the edge of the table. 

-sorry, can i... can i sit here? -he faltered, grabbing tighter the books he found. you nodded, smiled a little bit. 

-one flew over the cuckoo's nest? pretty good book -you commented, pointing with your pen on the title, than leaning back to your own work, leaving him flustered and lovely. 

𝐣 = 𝐣𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐲 (𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐣𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬?)

he don't get jealous easily, he trusts you, so please don't disappoint my little bean )): 

besides, if he sees that you're close to richie or bill, stan always have an eye to see, whose hand are where. 

𝐤 = 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬 (𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬? 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬?)

you were the first. and also, his first.  

you and the losers watched a movie at mike's, during the movie you and stan gave soft strokes on the hand or pinches on each other's thighs non-stop –you lied your head on stan's shoulder, bringing your knees close to your abdomen.

when the movie's over, stan guides you home, carrying your backpack, and at the doorstep, you walk in, whispering a little "wait" to him. 

–i forgot something -you mutter, surprisingly pushing your lips to his, quieting his mind and savouring it with love and affection.

𝐥 = 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 (𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 '𝐢 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮' 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭?)

new saturday, new lazy day with stan.

the two of you met on the end of the street, from that point you two can easily go to the fluffy, green field near to the lake. you like these summer days –no school, no responsibilities, only the two of you, a pair of snadwiches from your lovely mom and a good book. 

you hold stan's hand while walking to your usual place, the grass slightly appressed from the several days you spent here. when you sit down, you heard stan whisper something. 

–did you say something, stan the man? 

stan frowns, then shrugging his shoulders, grabbing your hands, kissing your forehead, his tender kiss tingling on the little curls near your temples too. 

–i just wanted to say... that i love you. and thank you for being here for me, darling. 

𝐦 = 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫?)

laying on your flat roof at night, staring at the starry, dark sky, in the summer. soft rock music playing in the background, your favourites... cuddling with him, giving you the warmth you need, but his hands cold enough to give you the perfect temperature. 

–you like this? –he asked quietly, not letting know your parents that the two of you sneak out in 2 am. you snuggle up to his cheek, nuzzling your nose on the curve of his dimple; your eyelashes tickling his soft skin.

–i love it. and you? 

–i love it, too –he mumbles, lifting your shoulders a little bit, so now you lay on his chest. –mainly because i am with you, babylove. 

and you are freaking happy too –with him, every moment is blissful and dream-like, just like him. 

𝐧 = 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐥 (𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐥? 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠?)

he will do everything to reassure you that you're his love, his princess. you saw a missing piece from the comics you read? he'll slip it into your school-box. he always gonna buy you sweets and chocolate, sweet or salty popcorn or your favourite candy ─not only on your birthday, even when you feeling down or stressed. if stan collect enough courage, he will write little love letters to tuck it in your pocket during studying when you don't pay attention  ─just to cause you a small, sweet suprise. 

𝐨 = 𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐟?)

pastel pink. the color of the soft love and angels. 

𝐩 = 𝐩𝐞𝐭 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐭 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐮𝐬𝐞?)

stan will call you babylove ─baby and love, just the pure definition of you for him. 

𝐪 = 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠?)

his old matchboxes (𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘣𝘰𝘹𝘴? 𝘪'𝘮 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩, 𝘴𝘰𝘸𝘸𝘺)): ), little do you know, but when his mother scolds him to clean up his room a little bit, he find them in one old, dusty shoe-box. stan can play with them for hours, and at the end of the turn-out session you can be sure, that he sneaks a pair from them onto the shelf. 

𝐫 = 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐲 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐲?)

sleep. even better if it's with you. 

𝐬 = 𝐬𝐚𝐝 (𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬/𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐮𝐩?)

stan is very, very emphatic, he feels immediately if something's wrong or not so right. he would talk with you, give one shoulder to cry on it, kissing and stroking your hair and cheeks ─sometimes he thinks that he can't do nothing, but when you began to snoring calmly, snuggling to his side, he get's a little more satisfied for being a good boyfriend. 

𝐭 = 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?)

mostly about the future, about a better life, you two can involve into a very deep conversation. stan like it very much when you talk about the things you like, your goals, your ideals –to him, you're a very pleasureable person.

𝐮 = 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐱?)

silence. a little bit of loneliness always helps him to purify his messy mind. if the two of you sit beside each other in silence, that's absolutely perfect for stan.

𝐯 = 𝐯𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐟𝐟? 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐨𝐟?)

he's proud of your relationship: you two can talk about everything, and always help the other to find a solution, to figure out something to the actual problem. 

𝐰 = 𝐰𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐡𝐨𝐰, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞?)

in his mind, his plans are pretty simple: stan would make you the perfect day in your  –going to your favourite town, eating delicious foods, making photos from the two of you (mostly you, but you can't bear the thought to stand alone in all of the pictures; that's so allegoric, isn't it?). then, when the two of you sit on the hood of the car, he gently sneaks his hand into his pocket, gently holding your ring-finger, getting ready with the big speech, waiting for your reaction when you feel the cold stain against your soft skin... 

𝐱 = 𝐱𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞 (𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠?)

tears for fears – everybody wants to rule the world 

❝𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯

𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘰, 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶.❞

𝐲 = 𝐲𝐞𝐬 (𝐝𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝/𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠?)

yeah, actually –a lot!! but don't want to pressure you, if you don't want to. stan would like to know you to be his, forever. 

𝐳 = 𝐳𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚 (𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐭, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐞𝐭?)

stan is not the fan of the animals with fur, he mostly want a little, cute bird, or even more of them –but not to cage those little feather-balls, you help him to build a bird feeder with pastell pink walls and heart-shaped entrance. if you want a cat or dog, he doesn't mind it, but don't let them hurt the birdies, please )): 

—お誕生日おめでとう レビーちゃｎ ♡

𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝 <𝟹

[ohkiyo]

pairing: Miya Osamu x Reader

warnings: this story is like all over the place, it’s so random, also it has at least one swear word, nothing vulgar.

word count: 1.1k

a/n: the amount of times I mentioned the word ‘food’ in this story is just outstanding, anyway, speaking of food, my favorite is mango float!

how about you? what’s your favorite food?

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You have never met anyone who loves food as much as Osamu does, he just loves food so much he even learned how to cook just so he can eat whenever he pleases and whatever he wants. He gets hungry very easily so he always carries a snack with him that he hides in his uniform pockets; biscuits, chocolate bars, candies or anything light that he can carry around.

You’re convince though, that his pocket is like a magic food space because you’ve seen him produce various snacks out of it before, it’s so crazy.

It's so endearing to watch him sometimes as well because he will eat whenever he’s given the opportunity, especially during practice. Those drills the Coach made them do really takes a toll on their body that they burn fats very quickly and consume a majority of their stored up energy. 

So whenever Coach Kurosu gives them a break, Osamu will not waste a second to walk up to where he left his bag and starts stuffing his face with food as much as he can.

“Osamu, slow down you’re going to choke” the look he gave you was just too cute, wide eyes, cheeks stuff to the fullest, he looks like a chipmunk, a very, very cute chipmunk. It was unexpected that you almost dropped the water bottle you were holding. 

He patted the space beside him, as you sat down cross leg on the floor, he pulled out a box of cookies from his bag and gave you a piece. You smiled at him, giving him a kiss on the cheek as you bit on the cookie, enjoying the yummy treat.

“’Samu, gimme some of that too” Atsumu joined your little huddle, flopping down on his twin’s other side. Stretching his hand to take a piece, but his fingers were met with nothing but air. Atsumu blinks, then turning his head to his twin who had the cookie raised up over his head, a look of defiance on his face.

“Get yer own” he said, scooting away from his brother to avoid losing another piece of his snack. It was no secret Osamu doesn’t like sharing his food, unless it’s you of course. 

So no one even tries to ask him for one, but Atsumu, being his womb mate and all thinks it doesn’t apply to him, unfortunately, he learns the hard truth every single day when Osamu denies him a portion of his bento.

Atsumu tackled his twin to the ground, trying to reach for the cookies, but Osamu, who’s been in this situation more times than he could count, easily evaded the setter’s attempt. “Don’t be such a greedy-guts and just give me one cookie, I’m starvin’!”

You let out a sigh, shaking your head, watching the spectacle unfold just beside you as the rest of the team didn’t even make a move to separate them. It’s nothing new, they witness it every day.

“Alright, knock it off! Go back to practice!”

And practice resumed with a very satisfied Osamu and a hungry Atsumu.

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It was now lunchtime and students of Inarizaki High roamed through the hallways, bento boxes in hand for those who brought their lunch from home, food packets from the cafeteria and biscuits from the vending machines installed all around the campus. 

You made your way towards the clubroom, a tote bag hanging on your shoulder containing the bento you’ve made for yourself and the ones you promise to make for Osamu the night before.

Arriving at the said place, everyone was already inside, arranging the chairs in a big circle, so that everyone can enjoy each other’s company much better.

“That’s a lot of food (Y/n)” Akagi commented, eyeing the three lunch boxes you pulled out from your bag and placing them on the table.

“These two are for Osamu” you pick up the two at the top and give it to your boyfriend, passing you the cola he brought from the vending machine. They waited, eager to see what you have prepared for the team’s resident foodie.

“Those look so damn good” Gin, who was situated on Osamu’s other side leaned over, a trail of drool leaving his lips as he smelled the food neatly arranged inside the Tupperware.

“(Y/n)’s cooking is always delicious” Kita commented from across you, biting into his chicken teriyaki as your face lights up at his compliment. You’ve cooked meals for the team numerous times before so their stomach could have a break from all those store bought snacks.

The first time you did it, you were nervous, afraid that they wouldn’t like your cooking. But after they had a bite, a plethora of compliments were thrown your way, and your heart just melted at how they showed their love for the food you cooked.

Those cooking lessons your mom gave you as a child sure was useful.

“(Y/n), ‘Samu is clearly yer favorite”

“Of course he’s my favorite. He’s my boyfriend after all” you responded frowning at the blond, from over your shoulder Osamu shot him a smug look, grinning at his twin. An underlying message of Yer just jealous yer single hidden within. 

Atsumu was so close to throwing his shoes at Osamu.

“It was the food, wasn’t it?” Aran hoped that it wasn’t the case, Osamu had mentioned before that his ideal type was a girl that could cook. He’s wishing that the gray haired Miya didn’t let his stomach interfere with his judgment at the time of your confession “Please don’t tell me you’re only dating her just because she can cook”

“I’m not that shallow, Aran-kun”

“Now that I think about it though, how did (Y/n) confess to Osamu?” Omimi took a sip of his drink, genuinely curious. From what he could remember, there wasn't really any gossip circulating within the team of your and Osamu’s mutual attractions, it was just revealed one day how you two were already dating and everyone just celebrated and that’s it.

“Yeah, did you even do what I told you to do?” Osamu raises an eyebrow at his twin’s words, surprised that you went to Atsumu to ask for advice on how to confess to him.

“Of course not, I did what Suna suggested instead” Suna shot you a thumbs up, a lazy grin on his face. Satisfied that you chose his method instead of the ridiculous one Atsumu came up with.

“And what’s that?”

“Confess to Osamu when he’s eating”

Then there was silence, no one was prepared for that. Did you really take the saying The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach seriously? 

“So it really was the food”

“I told you, it wasn’t”

[sserpente]

24 little kinks | Door 6 🎄

“You remember that chocolate advent calendar I got you for December?”

“I do,” he chuckled and pressed a tender kiss to your temple. “You made me display it in the kitchen so I would not eat it all at once.”

Your smile widened. “How about we get another one?”

Loki raised an eyebrow, only now paying proper attention to the sex toy ad. Then, he frowned. It was an odd mixture of disgust, genuine curiosity and even a hint of arousal flashing in his blue eyes.

A/N: Happy Nikolaus Day to everyone who celebrates! Remember the Krampus will come and get you with rods and whips if you’ve been naughty. ;-)

“It’s Friday, Steve, give us a break. We’re still groping in the dark but Loki and I are doing our best. Enjoy your weekend for once, it’s Christmas.”

“Let me know when you two have a lead.”

“Will do. Bye, Steve.” You couldn’t hang up quickly enough. It was freezing cold in spite of you being wrapped in your warmest pullover and fluffy winter jacket, along with a giant scarf which covered half of your face. Being a Frost Giant, Loki had no problem with the cold whatsoever. Besides, he was still mesmerised by all those delicious Christmas treats you had introduced him to, along with the concept of hot mulled wine.

After all the unease the Chitauri had recently caused, a cosy Christmas market was just what you needed. You could tell Loki was impressed, for it truly was beautiful. Countless Christmas lights decorated the street lanterns and the various stands, not to mention the massive Christmas tree in the middle of the piazza.

There was a petting zoo for children and a pick-up train for tourists—and a Santa Clause taking pictures with children.

Loki nodded in his direction when you put your phone away. “Who is he?”

“Santa Clause. He’s the one who puts the presents under the tree. He climbs down the chimney every year, travelling the world in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeers.” Loki frowned, then opened his mouth in an almost disturbed manner, making you giggle. “It’s just a story you tell the children here. They write letters to him which their parents pretend to send to the North Pole, which is where he lives. He’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice…” You sang.

“That is ridiculous.”

You giggled once more. “No, it’s not. And on the night of Christmas Eve, you prepare some milk and biscuits for him to eat.”

“Let me rephrase that, my sweet. Midgardian children are told that on Christmas, both burglary and theft are acceptable and that an old fat man with a long beard keeps an eye on them all year to find out if they have been naughty.” He paused, smirking a little. “And here I was thinking the Midgardian tales of my alleged adventures were brutal.”

You smiled up at him. “There are countless movies about him, you know. We should watch one tonight. The Santa Clause films with Tim Allen are a must-see every December.”

“Whatever you wish…” Loki replied tenderly, still a little taken aback by the costumed man in the red and white coat taking pictures with children on his lap. “Now, what about those Christmas treats you promised me?”

You came to a halt in front of the stand you had passed already. “I am eager to try everything.” The store owner snorted. He either recognised him or thought Loki to be a rich snot. Well, merry Christmas to you too, sir.

“Everything? Loki, I didn’t bring that much money. We can’t just buy the whole store.”

“Whyever not? You know I could simply duplicate those banknotes of yours in a heartbeat.” He whispered in your ear.

“You could but that would be… wrong. Look, why don’t we get the candied almonds, the chocolate strawberries and then that baumkuchen you were so fascinated with from that other store and then head home to warm up? Pretty please? I am freezing.”

“You forgot the mulled wine.”

“And we’re of course getting mulled wine.” You confirmed, shaking your head in an amused manner. Loki really was a sweet tooth. The biggest one you’d ever met. His blue eyes had lit up like those of a child whenever you passed something sweet and edible.

For the past hour, before Steve had called, you had been exploring the local Christmas market to the fullest, passing stands whose owners sold candles, wooden ornaments, real sheep wool clothing and other Christmassy trinkets. The most beautiful stand, however, had by far been the one with the dozens of snow globes. You had loved the one with the golden castle and reindeer… but then again, seventy-five dollars for a piece of decoration was way too much—even if Loki had insisted on you buying it if you liked it so much.

Half an hour later, you finally returned home. The warm air enveloped you like an old friend, slowly warming your frozen fingers which were completely stiff from carrying the many bags full of Christmas candy. On the way back, you had even bought some candy canes for your Christmas tree.

The mulled wine had done little to warm you up, however, made you a little tipsy. You started grinning once you had kicked off your boots.

“We haven’t opened our advent calendar yet.”

“That is a circumstance we will have to remedy, my sweet.” The alcohol had not affected him at all. Still grinning, you carefully dropped your purchases and took his hand, leading him straight to the bedroom. You could still watch those movies later.

Loki took the small box and opened it, revealing a pair of dice. Words were printed on each side.

“That does not look like a sex toy.” He concluded.

“Oh, but I know what that is. It’s a game. You roll the dice and do what they tell you to. Here, look. This side says ‘kiss’ and this one says ‘lips’. If you dice those two, you’ll have to kiss me on the lips and vice versa.”

Loki smirked. He instantly liked the idea. “I never lose games.”

You chuckled. “I doubt you can really lose this one.” But you guessed the winner would be the one cumming the most… you swallowed. Gods, it had been one cup of mulled wine.

“Alright then… let us play.” Loki had the audacity to wink at you. Your pussy clenched in joyful anticipation.

-

Munching on another chocolate strawberry, you waited, impatiently, for Loki to dice again. You had long lost most of your clothes sitting on the floor on a cosy blanket at the living room table and eating your Christmas treats. The game kept getting more and more interesting. The dice clattered on the glass surface.

“Kiss… toes. Off come those ravishing stockings, my sweet…” Loki pulled them off of your legs so painfully slow you moaned, then lifted them both up to kiss every single one of your naked toes. You shivered, pleasure having taken control over your body since you had started playing.

“My turn.” You whispered breathlessly. Once more, the dice clattered. “Nibble… ears.” You giggled. Loki’s ears were rather sensitive. Unceremoniously, you straddled him and brushed away his beautiful raven hair. You gave his earlobes a quick lick before you started nibbling on them in turn, even sucking a little and making him hiss. He wrapped his arms around you when you attempted to move away again.

“Where do you think you are going?”

He kept you on his lap as he diced again. Not that you would complain. “Tease… nipples. With pleasure…” he added. Blue eyes sparkling with desire, he cupped your breasts and rubbed your nipples with his thumbs, enjoying how they hardened under his touch. You arched your back to give him more access, allowing him to play with the stiff nubs until he had his fill.

You were panting when you took the dice again. Clatter. “Touch… penis.” Just touch? You almost pouted as you cupped him through his leather trousers, making him groan. Loki’s eyes never left yours. You squeezed him a little, making him long for more. He was rock-hard.

“Give me the dice.” He demanded hoarsely. Obediently, you let them fall into his palm. Clatter. “Lick… pussy.” He read, a mischievous smile spreading on his lips. As if Loki saying something so dirty and colloquial like ‘pussy’ wasn’t tempting enough already, you squealed when he lifted you up and laid you back on the floor, prying your legs apart hungrily. Your knickers came off so fast you didn’t know what was happening to you until he gave your dripping cunt a long lick, tasting his meal with relish. You were shaking already… but he did not stop there.

Abandoning the game altogether, he wrapped his arms around your hips to keep you in place, then ate you like his life depended on it. His teeth would gently bite your outer lips and nibble at your clit, his tongue pampering both your wet entrance and circling your sensitive bundle of nerves. Every now and then, he sucked it into his mouth, teasing it with the tip of his tongue until you whimpered. You moaned when he thrust his tongue inside of you, lapping up your juices like a thirsty tiger.

Silver tongue… he reminded you of this title of his every god damn time he buried his face between your legs.

Your orgasm hit you out of nowhere. Sending strong waves of pleasure through your body, you squirmed with Loki’s name on your lips. The God of Mischief moaned in approval. He drank you like the fountain of youth, greedily and eager for more of your pleasure.

You started to whimper when the stimulation became too much but he would hear none of it. Still in frenzy, he held on to you even tighter, massaging your clit with his tongue until your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Another orgasm tore through your body all too soon.

Loki helped you ride it out before he retreated, his chin glistening with your arousal. Satisfied and pleased with his work, he licked his lips, then hovered above you to give you a passionate kiss.

“My turn…” You stated when you broke apart. You knew were to lick and blow next, no dice needed.

-

A/N: Door 7 will be opened tomorrow, on December 7th!

This door included an anon request!

Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! Also, if you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[himboskywalker]

I’m going to uni in the states and my local supermarket has one very sad shelf of british/indian foods that I guard jealously!! today they had a single jar of blackcurrant jam and if you think I bought that jar despite having jam at home you’d be absolutely right ALSO they have exactly four varieties of biscuits and @hobnobs anon while I too love hobnobs my heart beats solely for ginger nuts; the store just replaced them with Jaffa cakes and I am disconsolate

The British food discourse I’ve stumbled into astounds me 😂 I never knew I would be met with so many strong opinions over Hobnobs but same. I need all of you to just send me these delicious sounding foods and drinks,Black jelly seed juice???Picadilly tea????GINGER NUTS???? I do love Jaffa cakes but I have to eat them in moderation,as opposed to Bakewell tarts and Hobnobs because the orange jelly hurts my teeth like a bitch.

And I did try Quality Street when I was in the UK,if you’re talking about the tins of candies? And for anyone studying abroad in the US trying to find foods from home that you don’t have to pay an obscene amount of money for online,if you have a TJ Max near you they tend to carry a lot of international brands of food. I can often find Black Currant Jam and those little red foil wrapped caramel biscuits that I can’t remember the name of there. Too the higher end grocery stores,like Publix,Ingles, or Fresh Market or Earth Fair (if any of those still exist) carry more international snacks and while they’re more expensive,they’re always far less stale than biscuits from Walmart. I have a British tea subscription so I don’t struggle on that front,but I get my PG Tips from Fresh Market and they also carry a really good variety of Chinese and Indian teas and it’s the only place where I live that I get my oolong and Masala Chai. Depending on how rural you are and what part of the country you’re in will really determine your accessibility and I know Amazon is wretched but US Amazon has a much larger variety of international food than UK Amazon and can be a great resource for snagging foods from home. I order my Scottish oatmeal,most of my British biscuits,and my Twinings online and it’s surprisingly stuff like spices and pastes and oils that I have no issue finding in stores. There’s a megaton of horrible fucked up shit about the US,but we do have great grocery stores!

[underaswift-sunrise]

Thank you so much @ashenwren for tagging me!!! This was sooo fun! 😍 I loved reading your answers as well!! It's going to be a bit long so it’s continuing under the cut! :D I won't be tagging anyone this time around :)

Go on reading if you want to know random things about me ;D

1. What is the color of your hairbrush? Black!

2. Name a food you never eat. I can eat almost everything but some types of read meat are just a no-no for me, I don’t like the taste brrrrr

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold? Usually very warm, but highly depends on how much I’m moving in that moment xD If I start walking a bit fast, I can feel too warm very quickly!

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Watching Nirvana in Fire :D

5. What’s your favorite candy bar? I’m not sure if it’s a candy bar, probably not, but it’s from Ferrero so... It’s called Kinder Fetta al Latte in Italian (something like “milk slice”?) and it’s my absolute favorite sweet snack to eat! Strictly speaking of candy bars, I love Kinder Maxi King!

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports game? Yes,several times! I used to go see games of the fotball team I’m fan of, that is AC Milan.I love going to the stadium if I have a nice place to seat in, I’ve been to the hardcore fans sector more than once but it takes 3 days for me to recover afterwards ahah 

7. What is the last thing you said out loud? “Are they really going to show this movie tonight?” I was speaking about Alvin Superstar 4...

8. What is your favourite ice cream? Such a hard question!!! Probably hazelnut, but honorable mentions go to pistachio, melon, coffee, cassata and tiramisù 😍

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? Water ahah

10. Do you like your wallet? I stopped using a wallet years ago because I’m scared it will get stolen on public transport so I only have a small, rainbow colored card holder and I love it :D

11. What is the last thing you ate? A biscuit eheh

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? No

13. What’s the last sporting event you watched? I have been feeling very disconnected from watching football games lately, probably because seeing the stadium completely empty makes me sad... And I was feeling so down during the first lockdown that I couldn’t bring myself to watch football games :( But the last event I watched was certainly an AC Milan game! 

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? The plain one! 

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to? I sent to a friend of mine a video of my cat sitting under the tv while the New Year’s concert in Vienna was playing 😂

16. Ever been camping? I haven’t! :( My family has never been into it, but I’d love to do it some day!!

17. Do you take vitamins? I used to take vitamin D but now stopped.

18. Do you regularly attend a place of worship? I don’t

19. Do you have a tan? I don’t really like being in the sun for a long time and this year I’ve been staying home most of the time so no tan for me xD

20. Do you prefer chinese or pizza? Don’t make me choose between good foods, my brain just can’t do this 🥺💔

21. Do you drink your soda through a straw? I rarely drink sodas but I love drinking through a straw!

22. What color socks do you usually wear? Usually plain black! 

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? No because I can’t drive! I really should get a license but it’s expensive and I don’t really need a car right now!

24. What terrifies you? Getting stuck in a narrow tunnel and never get out... Seriously, this is one of my recurrent nightmares when I get anxious or I’m in a bad place mentally. It’s just... terrifying 😰

25. Look to your left, what do you see? The door 🚪

26. What chore do you hate most? I actually enjoy cleaning if I have time to do it and I don’t mind most chores because I A) transform them into some sort of game (hanging and folding the laundry it’s my fave and also doing the dusting) or B) sing while I do them 😂 but if I have to pick one I’ll say making the bed because I have a bunk bed and I sleep in the top bed so it’s a struggle 😆

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? I like it! I’m not super familiar with it but I like it!

28. What’s your favorite soda? not a fan of sodas but I like Fanta!

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? I never eat fast food but since I don’t drive I’d go in xD

30. What’s your favorite number? 13!

31. Who’s the last person you talked to? My dad

32. Favorite meat? Meat is my least favorite food category but I like chicken 🤔

33. Last song you listened to? In Quest For by Avantasia ❤️

34. Last book you read? Oh dear... I haven’t read many books this year, mostly because I've read so much fanfiction and also... 2ha happened 😂 But the last one I’ve read is Una Donna by Sibilla Aleramo!

35. Favorite day of the week? Saturday, hands down! I think because I associate it with when I was in high school and uni and Saturday afternoon was “sacred”: no homework and no studying (unless I had an exam the week after), Saturday afternoon was made for meeting friends, enjoying my hobbies or just relaxing! And it still retains that atmosphere for me!

36. Can you say the alphabet backwards? Probably? Oh my goodness, I think I could but very slowly??

37. How do you like your coffee? I used to only drink it with milk but lately I like to have a good espresso in the morining! But my favorite always remains my dear cappuccino 💕

38. Favorite pair of shoes? My black combat boots 🥺

39. Time you normally get up? When I was working at the theatre I usually got up at 7,30 am, now I usually get up at 9am!

40. What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? Ahhhh some sunsets make me sad, but it depends on the situation, so I'm gonna say sunrise!

41. How many blankets on your bed? one

42. Describe your kitchen plates. If I could decide I would always have colored/patterned plates because I hate white, empty things (empty walls 😭), they give me a sense of unease! Unfortunately my parents bought white plates xD

43. Describe your kitchen at the moment. Not so tidy ahah

44. Do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? I don’t drink alcohol because I get sooo sleepy and lightheaded after half a glass of wine 😂 I can relate to lwj so much... But I love sweet wine!! Just in very small doses and preferably with a very low alcohol percentage 😂

45. Do you play cards? I used to play cards a lot!! My favorite games where scala quaranta, burraco and scopa, they're Italian games and I don't know if they have an equivalent in English 😱 My problem is I forget about the rules of the game if I don't play for some time xD

46. What color is your car? Don’t have one xD

47. Can you change a tire? I have no idea!!! 😱

48. Your favorite state or province? I suppose this is about the US but I'll talk about Italy and while my region is beautiful my favorite one is Tuscany! :D But there are some regions I've never been to!

49. Favorite job you’ve had? The one I was doing before this pandemic so ballet dancer! I tried different things to survive but honestly nothing beats the feeling of waking up, leaving the house and knowing your workplace is the theatre... Climbing the stairs to the ballet studio, walking through the corridors and hearing opera singers and musicians rehearsing, going to the stage or in the seats just to have a look at the empty theatre 🥺 Ahhh I'm making myself cry here, Gloria out!!! 😂

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nine

Frank spent a good five minutes down the decoration aisle, the last time that he was at the store. Most of the time, it was easy. He got whatever kind of sprinkles went with the season. Or he’d get something that was color coded to match the season. Reds and greens for the winter time, pine trees and snowflakes. Pastels for the spring, easter eggs and flowers. Browns and yellows for the fall, pumpkins and leaves. 

It was the summer now. He didn’t need anything holiday specific. Bright, primary colors were what he focused on. They didn’t do the Fourth of July out here, it wasn’t like he needed red, white and blue. 

But that didn’t stop him from spending minutes of his life standing in front of canisters of sprinkles, trying to find the one he wanted to use for Matt’s donut. Because it’s become a Thing, now. A way for him to say something he was too chickenshit to say out loud. And it’s not like Matt was looking at the sprinkles. 

It was the easiest way to air his feelings out, the way the therapist said he was supposed to, without having to actually do anything about it. Frank got lucky when he fell ass over teakettle for a blind guy, though he was smart enough not to say any of that shit out loud. 

In the end, Frank comes back with four containers of sprinkles, and a half assed idea about what to try next. There were mermaid sprinkles, all done up in shades of pink, purple and seafoam green. Those would sell well, especially this close to the ocean. Tourists like shit like that, and Frank had a feeling Aerith would get a kick out of it too. 

Two others were basic summer colors, one in bright reds and yellows and blues that looked like shattered sea glass, and the other an old school mix that reminded Frank briefly of the way his ma used to decorate cakes back in the seventies, a wild mix of jimmies, nonpareils, and quins in about every color under the sun. 

The last bottle, the one Frank was currently holding in his hand, was the one he bought for Matt, and Matt alone. “You’re a damn idiot.” It’s a murmur to himself, but it doesn’t stop Frank from putting the bottle down so that he can start working on the small batch of donuts that have been on his mind all day. 

The cabinet out front was ready to go, bright lights and variety. There was usually something new in there every few weeks, but Frank knew what sold. Blueberry cake donuts for the boys in the bookshop, old school chocolate glazed for Peter and Eddie down at the bar. The kids at the florist shop were always down to try anything he made, the more wild the better. (He’d candied tulip petals once and put them on iced yeast donuts, and the two of them bought a dozen just for themselves.) 

A little bit of each of those things meant he rarely had stuff go to waste. And when he did have a little bit of leftover, he could usually get Stark to buy them, because he liked to throw bread pudding on the menu at his place now and then. 

The shop wouldn’t open for another few hours. It was still dark outside. That would hopefully give Frank enough time to get this damn thing figured out and fully frosted, so that by the time that Matt came in, Foggy under his feet and morning coffee from Magnus’ place in tow, he could actually like the damn things were out on display for everyone, and not just a sad sack’s attempt to put a little love in his baking. 

Frank wasn’t stupid. Yeah, Matt was a looker, and yeah Frank had spent more than a few showers thinking about him. But it wasn’t that pretty mouth or those long fingered hands or the column of his throat that kept Frank up at night. It was the smokey glass sound of his laughter, and how quick he always was with a comeback. It was the way he said Frank’s name like he knew a secret. 

This wasn’t lust that was making him dumb enough to buy special sprinkles just for a six pack batch of donuts. It was longing. And guys like Frank, they didn’t get happy endings. Not after what he did overseas. (Funny how he still thinks of it as ‘overseas’, like he was sitting back home in the city and not on a pretty little street corner near a beach somewhere in paradise.)

But damned if Matt didn’t make him think about it. What it’d be like to wake up in bed next to somebody that you cared about. And who didn’t fuck your next door neighbor when you were doing a tour of duty in the desert. 

Sharing dinner with somebody. Sharing your silence with somebody. 

The metal mixing bowl comes down from it’s spot on the shelf, and Frank starts with the dry ingredients. He sifts the flower, watching it float down into the bowl like a hard winter’s snow, coating the reflective surface inside. Next comes the baking powder and the salt, through the same sifter. 

Then comes the eggs. The milk. The butter. The dough comes together easy, even with the flat whisk in hand instead of using the stand mixer. Frank wanted these to come out perfect, and he wasn’t fucking that up with a machine. Last is the bloomed yeast in warm water. 

He turns the dough out to rise, and looks down at Misty, where she’s curled up on her bed by the back door. “You ready to go out?” Her ears shoot up, and by the time Frank has the leash in his hand, Misty is dancing from foot to foot. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

They take their walk nice and slow. The streets are quiet, in that time between when the bars close down and the breakfast places open up. The streetlights are globes of gold between pockets of darkness, and the only sound is Misty’s nails on the cobblestones. 

Once Misty is back snuggled up in her bed, Frank turns his attention back to the dough. He rolls it out, getting his biscuit cutter out to get them to the right size, and leaves them to rise again while he works on the fillings. 

See, this is where he got hung up. Frank wanted to do something special for Matt, without it being obvious he was doing something special. And Matt, God bless him, didn’t have the most refined palette. He’d eat Boston cream donuts every day if Frank let him. 

So Berliners it was. Six fried yeast donuts, with six different fillings, because Frank was a glutton for punishment. Two sweet cream, because that was what Matt liked best. Two lemon cream, because the lemons were fresh and in season and you couldn’t throw a stone without somebody trying to sell them to you on a street corner and two with a dark chocolate ganache. 

It was too damn rich, and real Berliners called for a jam filling, but this was Frank’s dumbass idea and he was going to do it his way. 

Three bowls of filling lined up on the counter, with taste tests from him and Misty, and Frank gets his donuts in the oil. He’d do the rest of this morning’s batch once these were done. He wanted these done in fresh oil. 

It gives the Berliners time to cool while he gets the rest of the morning’s display set up, and then Frank takes the six smaller donuts and cuts into them with a paring knife, filling them each to the brim with their filling. When they’re done, he dusts them with powdered sugar and moves them into a cardboard pastry box. 

It’s only then that he stops, looks to the shelf, looks to the box, and then looks to Misty, who’s watching him with one eye open. “Misty.” Her tail thuds against the wall in a slow rhythm. “Why the hell did you let me buy sprinkles for a goddamn donut that isn’t iced, and you don’t put sprinkles on?”

The dog doesn’t lift her head. Frank is pretty sure she’s calling him a dumbass in her head, but she’s too polite to make it obvious. 

Well there it was, the definition of how damn stupid he was for Matt Murdock. Stupid enough to spend ten dollars on sprinkles in pinks and yellows and blues, that he wasn’t even going to use on these donuts. 

The bell over the door tinkles, and Frank looks up to see Matt, backlit by the soft pinks, yellows and blues of the rising sun that looked an awful damn lot like the sprinkles sitting useless in Frank’s kitchen right now. 

“Black coffee. Two sugars.” Matt shifts the cardboard container holding both of their drinks to his other hand so that he can feel out the counter before he runs his fingers along the sleeve on the cups. Magnus must have done something to tell them apart, because Matt feels something and offers the cup over to Frank, smiling.

“Thanks, Red. Have a seat, I’ll get you something out.” He hears a wry ‘sir, yes sir’ behind him, though how the hell he hears it over the beating of his heart is beyond him. Just like he knows that the pain in his ass is flipping a sarcastic little salute behind his back. A bad one, too. He’s shown the son of a bitch how to do it right before, now Matt was just doing it to get on his nerves. “I saw that!” He calls behind him, not bothering to fight his smile. Frank flips his judgemental dog the bird where she lays, watching him and grabs the small pastry box. Now or never. And he put hours into these damn things. It was now. 

“I’m trying something new.” The swinging door to the kitchen catches him on the ass on the way out. Frank puts the pastry box down on the table he’s come to think of as Matt’s, and drops to a crouch so that he can offer a leftover piece of fried dough to Foggy. Even working dogs needed breakfast. 

“Berliners. They’re real popular in…” Berlin, you damn fool. The name got the point across pretty clearly. “Chile.” They were, actually. But it’s pretty fucking obvious by the quirk of Matt’s mouth that he knows that Frank wasn’t thinking about Chile when he started talking. “Thought you might give them a try and see if they’re worth putting on the menu.”

They’re not actually that much work, compared to the hours he already puts in during the early morning. But it’s not about that. It’s about getting some kind of reaction out of Matt, and Frank is man enough to admit it. 

“The two on the right are sweet cream filled. Two in the middle are lemon cream. The two on the right are a dark chocolate ganache.” Frank has to resist the itch in his legs to squirm, or move foot to foot. Matt makes a pleased sound low in his throat just at the mention of what was in the donuts and Frank feels it all the way down into his marrow. And other places a man didn’t talk about in polite company.

“And I want your honest damn opinion, Red. Not what you’d say to a friend who you’re trying to salvage their feelings. I want the review you’d give to somebody else if you never had to face me again. I wanna know if the filling is too sweet, or not sweet enough. If I cooked the damn things too long. I want ‘em to be perfect.”

I want them to be perfect for you, Matty. That’s the words he doesn’t say.

I want them to be perfect for you.

[aroworlds]

Fiction: The Pride Conspiracy, Part Two

December isn't the best time of year for a trans aromantic like Rowan Ross, although—unlike his relatives—his co-workers probably won't give him gift cards to women's clothing shops. How does he explain to cis people that while golf balls don't trigger his dysphoria, he wants to be seen as more than a masculine stereotype? Nonetheless, he thinks he has this teeth-gritted endurance thing figured out: cissexism means he needn't fear his relatives asking him about dating, and he has the perfect idea for Melanie in the office gift exchange. He can survive gifts and kin, right? Isn't playing along with expectation better than enduring unexpected consequences?

Rowan, however, isn't the only aromantic in the office planning to surprise a co-worker.

To survive the onslaught of ribbon and cellophane, Rowan's going to have to get comfortable with embracing the unknown.

Contains: A trans allo-frayro trying to grit his teeth through the holidays, scheming aro co-workers, a whole lot of cross-stitch, another moment of aromantic discovery, and many, many mugs.

Content Advisory: A story that focuses on some of the ways Western gift-giving culture enables cissexism and a rigid gender binary, taking place in the context of commercialised, secular-but-with-very-Christian-underpinnings Christmas. Please expect many references to said holiday in an office where Damien hasn't figured out how to run a gift exchange without subjecting everyone to Santa, along with characters who have work to do in recognising that not everybody celebrates Christmas.

There are no depictions or mentions of sexual attraction beyond the words "allosexual" and "bisexual" and a passing reference to allo-aro antagonism, but there are non-detailed references to Rowan's previous experiences with and attitudes towards romance and romantic attraction as a frayromantic. Please also expect casual references to amatonormativity and other shapes of cissexism.

This section contains multiple depictions of platonic physical intimacy.

Length: 4, 789 words (part two of two).

I’ll have a pride coat! And nobody will have the least idea what it means!

On the last working day of the year, Rowan staggers into the office holding a plate of homemade shortbread—the top layer of plastic wrap bearing the Sharpie-written words “NOT FOR HOUSEMATES BUY YOUR OWN FUCKING BISCUITS”, his mood sour. On the one hand, he’s free until January (although he’ll prefer that circumstance more should this be a paid break). On the other hand, Christmas and its family awfulness tag-team with the heat to curse him with mind-racing, restless 4 AM wakefulness.

He chose right. Didn’t he?

In six days, he’ll have survived the family dinner and his housemates will be with their people or travelling for the holiday. He can bag up his presents for their customary donating, buy something online and spend the day baking food he doesn’t have to share or hide.

Christmas will be an exercise in endurance, but it’s a known terrible. Better to suffer one day of hell and leave than to poke the hydra in each of its eyes and allow it, enraged, to hunt him across the earth. Right?

“Rowan!” Melanie greets him at the door, today wearing a silky blouse with a poinsettia print, a pendant shaped like a miniature tree bauble, and stocking-shaped earrings of the heavy, dangly kind. A Santa hat trimmed with silver sequins and a large golden bell sits atop her short hair. “Merry Christmas!”

“Uh … back at you?”

“You didn’t wear anything Christmassy!” Melanie flutters her hands at him: she painted her glossy crimson nails with white and green stripes like the fancier sort of candy cane. “Can’t you get anything in your size?”

“No...” Rowan glances at his usual outfit: dress shoes, jeans black enough to resemble slacks on forgot-to-do-laundry days, navy shirt.  

Couldn’t he have worn his cherry-red Docs?  

Her suggestion gives him a convenient out, but isn’t he trying to be honest about his feelings? “I didn’t look. Christmas … isn’t that exciting when you’re enduring family.” He barks a laugh, hoping Melanie understands. “At least being trans, nobody asks me if I’m dating anyone or when I’m going to bring someone home to meet the family, because they don’t want to think about trans people in a relationship.” He steps sideways, hoping to navigate around her, put his plate down and move the conversation towards something less fraught. “I made shortbread. Do you like shortbread?”

He stiffens, trying not to panic, when Melanie envelops him in a bear hug, smushing Rowan’s chest and one arm against her necklace. “You spend Christmas with your family?”

“Don’t most people who celebrate it?” He shuffles out of her embrace to slide his cling-filmed plate onto Shelby’s desk beside a plastic container of pizza scrolls. He slips the ingredients card from his jeans pocket, straightens the creases and rests it by the plate. “Uh … is cling-film better or worse for the environment than biscuits in a freezer bag? I had a set of clip-seal containers, but my housemates left me two condiment-sized ones in the cupboard. I could use a bit of plastic or defrost frozen stir fry, except I didn’t know what I’d put that in if I used the stir fry container for the shortbread...”

Rowan realises he’s rambling and presses his lips together before he rants on how his containers must be growing five types of mould in the bottom of Matt’s backpack.

“Happy Holidays, everyone!” Shelby, both arms burdened by plastic cake containers, enters wearing a red T-shirt with the legend “All I Want for Christmas Is a Unicorn”, a glittery ribbon tied around the end of her braid. Only twice before has he seen her without a blazer. “Mel! Your earrings! Millers?”

Rowan swallows a laugh and, freed from awkwardness, heads for the relative comfort of his desk.

A party day, he soon realises, possesses a distressing lack of work. He acquires plates and spoons from the kitchenette, he works on a few photos from last week, he sorts his emails. He notices Melanie pulling Damien aside to talk about something that requires the waving of candy-cane fingernails, but, before he can start to wonder, the volunteer ropes him into a conversation about a loving family with unusual pavlova-eating habits. Shelby saves him from that oddity only to tell the story of her family’s chipping in to get her granddaughter a four-hundred-dollar dollhouse. “My parents wouldn’t have spent that much on a toy! How can anyone charge four hundred dollars for plastic?”

That seems like a good time to head over to the food table.

Shelby does make a good chocolate cake.

“Rowan.” Damien heads towards him, his approach signalled by a trailing, bell-ringing Melanie. “A minute?”

Nothing good has ever been heralded by this question. Nothing.

Rowan nods and follows them over to the whiteboard, standing in front of the List.

“Do you,” Damien says, at least doing the decent thing of asking straight out, “need somewhere to go for Christmas?”

Oh, god. What provoked this horror? Melanie?

Why...?

“We’d non-romantically love to have you.” Melanie’s smile beams as bright as her nails—her lips a close match for their glossy crimson basecoat. “Me and my daughter and her partner, I mean—not me and Damien together. It won’t be anything fancy, but you’re welcome to come.”

“My wife said my telling her about being recipro makes so much sense, and she’d like to ask questions of someone who actually knows things.” Damien nods, his holiday cheer demonstrated in the absence of a tie, rolled-up shirtsleeves and reflectively-shiny shoes. “And I make beer batter fritters.”

Never has Rowan heard Damien speak in aromantic-identity terms with that much casual fluidity, and he would smile but for two co-workers waiting, expectantly, for his answer.

How does he express appreciation for their kindness while explaining that he can’t not go home for Christmas?

A few moments pass before Rowan’s lips and tongue produce sounds that aren’t “I”, “uh” and “I … uh”. “Thanks? But … well, I’d be fine being alone on Christmas and I'm not doing that because … that’d be bad, so... And, you know, family? And I want to see my dog? So ... thanks, but...”

“But you’re one of us,” Melanie says with unusual solemnity, resting a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “Just like Damien’s now one of—wait, we need to get you a mug! Why didn’t we get Damien a mug?”

“Well, actually...” Rowan, thanking the Aro Gods for Melanie’s willingness to head down any conversational tangent, darts towards his desk and satchel, the latter housing a heavy tissue-wrapped box. Pinkish-red, of course. “Here. Have a mug.”

“Oh! You should have told me!” Melanie’s lips tremble as she and Damien follow him back across the room. “I would have gotten a mug with you!”

Rowan rests the box on his lap, startled. Why didn’t he think to tell Melanie that he bought Damien a mug? (How else does one welcome another into aromantic kinship?) Why didn’t he wait until Damien was busy and order a mug with Melanie, instead of buying one on his phone on the train home from work?

Rowan owns skill in list-making, cross-stitch, baking, fixing other people’s photos and designing his own leaflets. He’s quietly proud of the many arts in which he dabbles with varying degrees of success. He’s mastered, too, survival on the fringes of other people’s lives, survival in a world where few are worth trusting. That ability though, makes him a man too comfortable in isolation. It makes him, in ways that have nothing to do with allosexual frayromanticism beyond his living in an aromantic-antagonistic world, a man who doesn’t know how to welcome other people into the house behind his five-metre fence.

He keeps everyone at arm’s length, even when—perhaps especially when—he plies his crafts for their benefit.

Does everyone experience acute flashes of insight at inconvenient times, the irrevocable sense that their personhood is one bewildering state of immeasurably fucked up?

“I’m sorry. Really.” He passes the mug to Damien, looking at Melanie. “I’m used to doing things on my own. I should have thought, but I didn’t.”

“We do realise that,” Damien says, tearing both wrapping paper and the box lid in a sharp tug. “You got the green-stripe one—oh, wait, it’s got both?” His hands render the mug’s size almost laughable, but Rowan couldn’t find soup-sized variants from a store willing to custom print aromantic flags on crockery. “Mel, there’s both. The recipromantic-only one and the shared one. Thank you!”

Is Rowan imagining that hint of passive-aggression? “You realise...?”

“That you’re independent, that’d you’d rather suffer alone than risk asking for help, even when it causes problems for you. That you’re only comfortable with people when you’re in a position of knowledge or authority. We learnt early on that you work best when we get out of your way.” Damien sets the mug on the desk with a soft clink. “I’m not completely useless in my job, so try harder to stop rolling your eyes over my photos.”

“They’re terrible,” Melanie says, squeezing Rowan’s forearm—apparently forgiven. “You know that, right?”

“The next person to say they can do better has to prove it—”

“My dog photos prove it!”

“At an event! Not in your backyard!”

For a reason likely tied up in internalised ableism, Rowan thought anxiety his designated, annoyance-causing personality failing. His tendency to overreact, freak out, let things get to him; his tendency to shaking hands and rambling incoherence. He didn’t consider that, in the company of people more inclined to decency and less inclined to avoid criticism on deadnaming and cissexism by casting him as the problem, they may find something else frustrating or difficult.

“Is this...” Rowan halts, thinking better of it, before he says the words “being fired just before Christmas”. Even he doubts Damien capable of inviting someone to join him for the holiday only to retaliate with a firing on Rowan’s refusal, although logic doesn’t still his hands. What’s the good of logic if my anxiety still ignores it? “What is this?”

Damien shrugs, tapping a finger against his new mug. “Yearly performance evaluation, maybe? Shame that I’ll have to write it down. I’d rather just call this sort—”

“What’d you say on mine?” Melanie blurts, clapping her hands.

Damien raises both eyebrows. “As if I’d answer that sober!” He shakes his head; Melanie trills her laughter. “We realise that there’s reasons, Rowan. It isn’t a real problem for us, but it may be one for you. If you find yourself in the company of a therapist at some point, consider mentioning it?”

Reining in Melanie wasn’t the reason Damien asked her to work with Rowan, he realises in yet another dizzying, revelatory moment, but that isn’t the cause of Rowan’s spluttering. “If? You think it’s only if? I’d have more aro shit on my desk if I weren’t paying a psychiatrist and a psychologist!” He sighs and nods. “January. I see them January.”

“I don’t like to assume.” Damien shrugs again; Rowan guesses it his attempt at conveying casualness. “Given that this isn’t quite the … er, situation for this conversation, I should—”

“I’m fine,” Rowan says, thinking Melanie’s heedless interrupting a contagious quality. “Really. It’s good. Like actually...” He doesn’t know how to voice this feeling that, for the first time in his life, someone has voiced a critique that doesn’t feel like he’s being disdained or unravelled. “Melanie … again, I’m sorry.” He thinks the time right for another distraction and grabs the second parcel from his bag—tissue paper tied with strands of aro-coloured embroidery floss. “Here. I’ve been working on this. I got your name.”

Melanie lunges for the parcel, struggling to untie the knot with her long fingernails until Shelby—was she close by?—hands over a pair of scissors. Blades click shut; Melanie pulls away the paper.

Twenty square embroidered patches in the purples and greens of many aro-ace and aromantic pride flags cascade from Melanie’s hands onto the worn carpet.

Melanie has always been given to laughter, but the way she bends over, resting her elbows on her knees as though she can’t hold herself up, has Rowan fearing that he’s given her a heart attack via pride patches.

“Aro-ace! Are these all of them?” She draws a shaking breath and carefully kneels, gathering patches. “I didn’t know there were this many!”

“Aro and aro-ace. The ones I know about, anyway. There’s probably a few I don’t.”

“Did you make all these?” Shelby asks. “You should sell them!”

Rowan considers explaining why he’ll never make even minimum wage selling hand-embroidered patches in aro pride flag colours, but Melanie’s pulling him into another grasping hug has him scarce able to breathe, never mind speak. He doesn’t know for how long Melanie smothers him, just that she, like an eventual retreating tide, steps back, leaving Rowan bewildered and giddy. Perhaps this is too much?

“You’re a liar, and this must have taken forever, and you shouldn’t have. I can’t believe you sew!” Melanie shakes her head, shuffling through the patches. “There’s the aro-ace flag with blue and orange, and a combined one, and one without black stripes—oh, thank you!”

Rowan shrugs, relieved that she seems happy. “Do you have something to put them on?”

“I have a coat. I’ll have a pride coat! And nobody will have the least idea what it means!” Melanie grins, shaking her head, before leaning over to tap Damien on the forearm. “Should the rest of us swap gifts now?”

Damien settles himself down on the closest chair. “Good idea. Do you want to—”

“We’re doing Secret Santa now!” Melanie stands on her tiptoes, waving the hand not clutching a handful of patches. “Find your person and give your gift, and then come here and show me what you got! Rowan made me aro-ace patches! All the aro-ace patches!”

“You know your evaluation says ‘needs to stop interrupt—’”

“Quickly, because Damien’s nattering on about performance evaluations!”

Damien sighs, shakes his head and leans back on his chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Lord give me—is that mould up there?”

“Probably,” Rowan says, hoping that he doesn’t look like a man expecting to open a set of golf balls. Did Shelby get him and lie about Melanie? Does that explain the voice recording? “Does the janitor have a step ladder? It’d be easier to tell if we got up close.”

“She does, because of the lighting.” Damien shakes his head. “Remind me first week back to get someone in to look at that. Or to write it on the whiteboard before we leave.” He reaches inside his left trouser pocket, removes a small card-sized parcel held between thumb and pointer finger, and flips it onto Rowan’s lap with surprising deftness. “I think this will be appropriate? While I didn’t know what you planned for Melanie, I saw you working on the train one evening. You had earbuds in and were too busy looking at your hands to notice, but I guessed then you’d made your bag’s patches.”

“It’s hard to cross-stitch on a moving train,” Rowan says by way of apology, a shade confused: what gift needs this explanation? “Hard to cross-stitch well. Not so hard if you don’t care about neatness.” He peels back the tape—Damien wrapped the card the way he presses his suits, the edges inhumanly crisp—and finds a gift card for his local sewing store. Rowan stares, drops the card on his lap and slides his hands under his legs, doubtful he can say anything comprehensible past this isn’t a gift pack of golf balls.

“That’s what you got him? A gift card?” Melanie shakes her head and pokes Damien in the shoulder with startling vehemence; only Damien’s size and his feet, firmly planted on the ground, keep him from falling. “Did you put any thought into that? I don’t like to be that oldie—” She stops, scowling: Rowan can’t hold back his spluttering laughter. “As I was saying, gift cards are the laziest way to—Rowan’s laughing at me, isn’t he?”

Damien tucks his hands behind his head and leans further back in his chair, grinning up at the popcorn ceiling.

Moments—in which Shelby gives Damien a six pack of fancy-looking artisanal beer—pass before Rowan’s ribcage resumes its regular pattern of movement. Finally, he manages to rasp an explanation: “Buying a gift card for a department store? Impersonal, but okay if they shop there. Buying a gift card for a trans man at a clothing shop where every tag has woman on the label? Hateful, unless you know he wants it. Buying a gift card related to someone’s interests so they can pick what they want? Good. And I need fabric, so … thank you.”

“Did someone get you a Millers gift card?” Melanie asks, her hands raised to cover her mouth. “That’s horrible!”

“That’s Aunt Laura,” Rowan mutters. Melanie’s expression of horror, Damien’s surprising evaluation and the wonder of a good, useful present leaves him inclined to truth: “That’s the most considerate gift I’ll get. One with thought that isn’t ‘outright cissexism’ or ‘you’re a man so we’ll ignore your personality to give you the most generically-male of generically-male items’.” He places the gift card and paper on his desk before nodding at Damien, who continues his overgrown Cheshire Cat impression. “Really, thank you.”

Even though Rowan isn’t standing atop his desk to blather about names, the room falls into an uncomfortable quiet.

Shouldn’t someone rustle some wrapping paper? Bite into a biscuit? Thank somebody for their gift? Why aren’t they making noise?

Melanie breaks into a broad smile, threading her fingers together like a self-congratulatory cartoon villain. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Rowan’s body, ever alert to strangeness in the people around him, stiffens long before his brain concurs that this change in conversational direction is at minimum odd and veering towards confronting with a high likelihood of I’m so not going to like it.

Damien jerks upright, chair creaking. “Didn’t we talk about how to do this—”

“His aunt gave him a Millers gift card!” Melanie grabs Shelby by the arm and drags her towards the meeting room like an illegal firework gone out of control.

Damien isn’t much an arbiter of this office’s brand of chaos, but he’s the closest thing to a pillar of stability inside this mouse-scented bewilderment and therefore the person at which Rowan directs his questioning: “What...?”

“You know how Melanie gets all enthusiastic?” Damien runs both hands through his already-mussed hair. “She comes up with plans and you can’t so much stop her as guide her in the safest direction and hope you’re alive come the landing?”

Does Damien know that is the worst answer anyone can give to a man with more than one anxiety disorder? At least short of pronouncements like “we volunteered you to give year 12 biology students a seminar on recessive genes and you’re starting right now”? Wasn’t that something to do with the monk who grew beans? Hendel? Mendel? Or did he just grow beans at a monastery for some reason? Or was it peas?

“What...?” Rowan croaks, staring at the dark meeting room like a man waiting to face a starving tyrannosaurus.

“She thought we should demonstrate our acceptance of you, after our failures in this. And then she realised Christmas isn’t a great time of year for you, which made her even more … uh, enthusiastic. I made her promise she’d do this after everyone else left, but...”

Melanie staggers out of the meeting room with a large basket held in both hands, a basket covered with glinting cellophane and decorated with a mix of blue and green ribbons.

Shelby trails after her, clasping another pair of scissors.

Rowan will never understand, never mind be able to explain, the thought processes leading to his diving off his chair for the sanctuary underneath his desk—just that one moment he’s sitting on his chair and the next he’s crouching beside computer cables and a lid from someone’s Pikachu lunch box. Some primeval sense of cave as safety, perhaps … but didn’t prehistoric humanity fear cave bears and cave lions? Aren’t large, bright spaces, with visibility and room to run, safer than small, dark places concealing unknowable predators? What about drought, then? Or deserts? Are there any safe places, really...?

Melanie holds no respect for the ancient tenets of let the hiding man hide undisturbed until he’s ready to stop hiding, but she does rest the basket on the ground at the entrance of Rowan’s desk-cave, blocking legs and chairs from sight. “Merry Christmas,” she warbles from behind the mountain of cellophane and wicker. “We hope there’s something there that you like!”

“Happy Holidays!” Shelby echoes, followed by a few more rounds from the rest of the office. “Do you want scissors? Melanie wraps things like she’s paid to use sticky tape by the metre.”

“We only have cheap tape in the office! It won’t stick unless you use heaps!” A thunking sound echoes from above Rowan’s head, and then Melanie’s candy-striped hand reaches around the leg of his desk, offering Shelby’s scissors. “Here. You’ll ... probably need them.”

There’s something to be said for this workplace’s willingness to treat escapades atop and beneath office furniture as normal, Rowan thinks. Breathe. “Than—uh—thanks.” He takes the scissors, staring at the back of shining cellophane; a miscellany of shapes wrapped in green paper sit within like an aromantic dragon’s treasure hoard.

“Damien, can you make them give us better tape next year?”

“We can have good tape if we stop spending the stationery money on good coffee and your fancy teas?”

“The tape’s fine,” Melanie announces before changing the subject: “Rowan? Are you opening anything? You have to tell us what you’re opening if you’re going to do it down there. Oh, do be careful—I think Liam used to shove his chewing gum under the table.”

Rowan shudders, but better his hair brushing old chewing gum over seeing his gift-opening become the focus of everyone’s attention! He draws a steadying breath, tells himself delay won’t help and slits the cellophane until he can draw out a wrapped box, one suspiciously weighty. At least fifty pieces of tape fasten the flaps on each end; Rowan promises himself that he’ll wrap everything in string and tea towels from now on before ripping into the paper. A mug with five horizontal bands wrapped around its body, the trans flag fading into the aro flag—blue into green, pink into green, white unchanged, pink into grey, blue into black.

Shelby, he thinks in disbelief, the non-existent golf balls making their appearance inside his throat. He rests the mug in his lap before reaching through the cellophane with shaking, sweating hands for another box. Another box with the same dimensions and weight...

“Oh, god,” he whispers.

His co-workers got him a basket of pride mugs for Christmas.

Melanie breaks into ringing laughter.

He needs a moment to find his voice, a moment in which he unwraps a mug with a gradient allo-aro design and another with the aromantic flag on one side and the bisexual flag on the other. “Did you  … did you … uh, get me any coffee to go with all my mugs?”

“It’s on the bottom!” Melanie trills. “And it isn’t just mugs!”

“Mostly mugs,” Damien says.

After another couple of minutes, a gradient frayromantic and a frayromantic-and-allo-aro mug join the collection precariously balanced on Rowan’s thighs. He sighs in relief when the next item in the basket feels soft, flat and light, something rustling underneath the wrapping paper, but a second lot of golf balls settle in his throat when he spots the pink and blue stripes, the drape of fabric: a trans pride flag.  

He can’t swallow, can’t lessen the burn in his eyes or ease the stiffness in his jaw and neck; his fingers fight to tear, peel and grasp. Bewildered to the point of dizziness, he finds an aromantic flag with its glorious green stripes, a frayromantic-and-bisexual mug and the expensive coffee Rowan permits himself on special occasions.  

He scoops wrapping paper and boxes back into the basket before hugging his clinking pile of mugs and flags.

Inchoate feeling abounds: a tangle, a knot of emotion with trailing threads of pleasure and overwhelm, surprise and gratitude, guilt and shame ... and something like the shock of being slapped across the face. They shouldn’t have done this! He shouldn’t be like this! Why is this too much? Why can’t he say “thank you” and express a normal, sensible gratitude for these people doing what Rowan’s family can’t ... instead of struggling with the feeling that Rowan, ungrateful and demanding, doesn’t deserve anything from people who have provoked his annoyance, frustration and alienation?

Mugs. Mugs and flags.

Why does something this wondrous have to hurt so much?

After a few moments, the only sound from him the chink of shifting crockery, someone moves the basket. Melanie sits on the floor and wriggles herself backwards underneath the table, grunting, to sit beside him. For once, she doesn’t speak; she rests a hand around his shoulder and lets him be a shivering mass of man clasping mugs.

Finally, Rowan’s rasping, croaking voice manages a few words: “Is this why Shelby recorded me ... talking about my identities?”

“I told you he thought it was suspicious!” Shelby crawls to Rowan’s other side, her braid trailing over the carpet. “Mel said you’d think it was just me being old—no, nobody does that!” She clasps his forearm, squeezing like a vice on wood. “Mel tried seeing if you’ve got a … all those accounts that aren’t Facebook, where you might say what you are? But she couldn’t find you, so I had my granddaughter show me how to record you. We knew we wouldn’t remember if you just said them.”

“I don’t know all the flags yet,” Melanie says in apologetic tones. “And I thought if I made the others check, they’d learn more about us!”

Part of Rowan feels a habitual spike of terror at the thought of offline people finding his social media accounts; part of him feels a quiet pride at Melanie’s using him to educate others in aromanticism. Most of him, fearing a blubbering breakdown, clings to the lifeline of asking questions: “And why Damien started that whole conversation?”

“We had to know where your mug seller was.” Damien bends down to peer underneath the desk and, at Melanie’s brow-arched stare, adds: “I’m not getting under there! You’ll have to call the SES to cut me out!”

Rowan nods and draws a breath. “I … I...”

“You’re very welcome.” Shelby squeezes his arm again. “Can I have your shortbread recipe? They’re good!”

“Yeah. Bag. Front pocket, left-hand side. People ask, so...” Rowan tries for another slow inhale. It’s supposed to help. Supposed.  

His family expects gratitude said clearly and directly, even when undeserving; they’ll never take emotional speechlessness as its shorthand. They want the formula followed, interactions never deviating from the same narrow structure: gift given, thanks provided, everything right in their world where it’s the thought that counts justifies disrespect of another’s personhood. They avoid messiness and honesty; they fear navigating and acknowledging mistakes and missteps.

They won’t see him as a man, or understand the pain they cause in believing his masculinity something he can put aside for their comfort, because they fear a world with unpredictability and fluidity.

Mum and Dad will never conspire to give him a gift like this. They’ll never want to get to know Rowan well enough to try. They’ll never put his needs ahead of their comfort. They’ll never speak of challenges or difficulties with Damien’s kind casualness. They’ll never want to acknowledge their failures. They’ll never give him an awkward, chaotic Christmas that veers from their notions of how things are supposed to be.

Does he want to endure their narrowness, now that he knows what better looks like?

Does he want to endure their truth that Rowan Ross isn’t a real man to them—and won’t be a real person until he remembers his deadname and the stereotypical trappings of the gender presumed to accompany it?

Or does he want to expect and get something else?

Maybe he doesn’t want a world so predictable his erasure becomes acceptable collateral damage for sticking to the pattern.

Maybe, despite his anxiety, he wants a world where people can surprise him.

“Melanie? Damien?” Rowan, shaking, pokes his head out from underneath the desk. “Can I … can I still spend Christmas with one of you?”

[nostalgiaispeace]

1919.

1. What’s the last thing you ate?

leftover nachos

2. What’s your favourite cheese? pepper jack

3. What’s your favourite fish? ew none of them

4. What’s your favourite fruit? blueberries

5. When, if ever, did you start liking olives? never

6. When, if ever, did you start liking beer? never

7. When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish? never

8. What was the best thing your mum/dad/guardian used to make? my mom was never a good cook haha

9. What’s the native specialty of your hometown? i’m not sure

10. What’s your comfort food? mac and cheese

11. What’s your favourite type of chocolate? milk

12. How do you like your steak? i don’t like steak

13. How do you like your burger? Well-done

14. How do you like your eggs? hardboiled

15. How do you like your potatoes? in every way that they are made

16. How do you take your coffee? black

17. How do you take your tea? sugar and honey

18. What’s your favourite mug? my NYC mug

19. What’s your biscuit or cookie of choice? chocolate chip

20. What’s your ideal breakfast? french toast, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns

21. What’s your ideal sandwich? egg salad

22. What’s your ideal pizza: just cheese

23. What’s your ideal pie (sweet or savoury)? cherry

24. What’s your ideal salad? cheese, chicken, dried fruit, peppers

25. What food do you always like to have in the fridge? cheese, eggs, and bread

26. What food do you always like to have in the freezer? chicken nuggets and pizza

27. What food do you always like to have in the cupboard? pasta

28. What spices can you not live without? salt and pepper

29. What sauces can you not live without? Tomato and Alfredo

30. Where do you buy most of your food? kroger

31. How often do you go food shopping? every two weeks

33. What’s the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own? idk

34. What’s the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen? not sure

35. What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without? stove

36. How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients? just the weekends

37. What’s the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients? shepherds pie

38. What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig and poultry? i only eat chicken and beef really

39. What’s the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor? i don’t do that

40. What’s the last time you ate something you’d picked in the wild? idk

41. Arrange the following in order of preference: Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Sushi – Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Indian

42. Arrange the following in order of preference: Vodka, Whiskey, Brandy, Rum – Rum, Vodka

43. Arrange the following in order of preference: Garlic, Basil, Caramel, Lime, Mint, Ginger, Aniseed – Garlic, Basil, Caramel

44. Arrange the following in order of preference: Pineapple, Orange, Apple, Strawberry, Cherry, Watermelon, Banana. – Strawberry, Banana

45. Bread and spread: peanut butter

46. What’s your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order? chick fil a, spicy chicken sandwich

47. Pick a city. What are the best dining experiences you’ve had in that city? NYC and literally everything

48. What’s your choice of tipple at the end of a long day? tea

49. What’s the next thing you’ll eat? idk

50. Are you hungry now? no

51. Do you eat your breakfast everyday? yeah

52. At what time do you have breakfast? 7am usually

53. At what time do you have lunch? 1pmish

54. What do you have for lunch? sandwich or leftovers

55. At what time do you have dinner? 8pm

56. What do you have for dinner? i make a lot of different things

57. Do you light candles during dinner? No

58. How many chairs are there in your dining room and who sits in the main chair? none

59. Do you eat and drink using your right hand or the left one? right

61. Mention the veggies that you like most: peppers, onions, asparagus, greenbeans, corn

62. What fruit and vegetable do you like the least? alot lol

63. You like your fruit salad to have more: berries

64. You prefer your vegetable salad to contain more: peppers

65. What’s your favourite sandwich spread? peanut butter

66. What’s your favourite chocolate bar? all of them

67. What’s your favourite dessert? ice cream

68. What’s your favourite drink? coffee

69. What’s your favourite snack? candy

70. What’s your favourite bubble gum flavour? peppermint

71. What’s your favourite ice cream flavour? cookie dough

72. What’s your favourite potato chip flavour? plain

73. What’s your favourite soup? tomato

74. What’s your favourite pizza? cheese

75. What’s your favourite type of dish? carbs

76. What food do you hate? seafood

77. What’s your favourite restaurant? mexican

78. Do you eat homemade food, or food delivered from outside? both

80. Who cooks at home? me

81. What kind of diet (e.g. low-fat, high-fiber, high-carbohydrate, balanced diet etc.) do you have? none

82. How do you keep yourself fit? lol i don’t

[scullyeffect]

ok today was the second time i went out since march 14th (i went out for groceries march 20th). i had officially rationed out all my groceries from march 20th (except yogurts). if you want to read the post about what paris was like a week ago, you can read that here. here’s what Paris looked like today:

so this time i went to the larger supermarket (worthy of the word ‘supermarket’ but nowhere near the size of a walmart) about 6 blocks away from my apartment. when i got there i joined a line of people that wrapped around the corner of the street standing in 1 metre intervals. signs on the supermarket windows told us that “there is enough stock for everyone. please don’t buy more than you need, and think of others. customers more at risk for the virus will be given priority entrance. we are limiting the amount of people allowed inside the store. please be patient.” and then, below, “restons solidaires” (stick together). i don’t know if it’s a play on our “stay at home” mantra which is “restez chez vouz”, but i liked it for two reasons: 1) the image below was of two people standing together holding hands which goes against all the rules, and b) it took all my strength not to joke and say “yeah, but restons solitaires” (stick alone). the signs also said that every three hours all the carts, baskets, touch screens, and escalator railings were cleaned, and gloves were changed if they came into contact with a customer. 

contrary to last time, today i saw more people wearing masks. however, i was taken aback by how the people who weren’t wearing masks actually smiled at me, or gave a little nod of recognition, which i’m very unused to in Paris, and it felt really nice. a woman joined the line behind me and when i turned around to smile a bit she smiled back and shrugged with a “c’est la vie” expression. behind her was a man wearing a mask who struck up a conversation with her. i listened, unashamed, because it was the first in real life human contact i’d had in six days. turns out she was swedish and he was british, and they continued speaking in french even though i heard her say she thought english was much easier than french. instead of talking about the virus they talked about the complexities of the french language while we waited in line, keeping a far space between them. an old woman walked by, dragging a caddy of groceries behind her, and stopped to look up at the sky, then turned to us and said (in french), “spring is here. it’s such a beautiful day”, and walked away. finally the line moved and i got inside.

just like before, everything, even the toilet paper aisle, seemed well stocked, and people were going about their shopping very calmly. keep in mind i live in a very central, very busy area of Paris where this is the main grocery store in about a 2km radius. everyone was very responsible and kept their distance. i noticed that the aisles of easter chocolate and candy were relatively untouched, and the only section that seemed slightly bare was the shelves of dish and hand soap. this is what i bought:

can of vegetarian chili (deLICIOUS)

green beans

orange juice with pulp

green tea

some tea biscuit things 

8 tortillas 

a jar of guacamole (can you tell i’ll be eating burritos for 5 days?)

a green pepper

a bag of spinach (i eat it raw like an ANIMAL)

a bag of clementines

four apples

a litre of milk

sliced rosette sausage

smoked salmon

cheddar cheese 

MINT ICE CREAM BECAUSE I WANTED TO OK

a tooth brush lol

total: 35e / $38

in line for the self checkout we waited in line a metre apart again, and instead of having 8 registers open they only had 4 to keep distances. one employee was there to press all the onscreen buttons with a gloved hand so multiple people (esp with ungloved hands) would touch them. use of cards was discouraged but i had one so...i guess i’ll take out cash in the future. 

on the way back home in a probably unnecessary but inspired move i went to a pharmacy and got a multivitamin with some vitamin D in. i don’t know if it’ll do anything, but i doubt it’ll hurt since my diet is so whack. 

and then read my other post for how i disinfected myself / the apartment when i got home (except this time i didn’t wash my face or shower since it was only 6pm)

overall i was really pleased with how parisians (and foreigners, apparently) behaved and respected the rules. last time i went shopping it was a little chaotic and again, even though i’m not at a high risk and i’m not staying at home all the time because i’m paranoid, i’m just doing it because i can finally not feel guilty doing it, being thorough like this makes me feel responsible. because i find myself often slipping into a “yeah, but i won’t get it lol” mentality and that’s not good. anyway, idk if anybody cares but i find posting this interesting plus it gives you guys a chance to see what life is like in another country if you don’t live here. 

[purplesurveys]

900

1. What’s the last thing you ate? Shawarma. It was a usual meal of mine at school so I’ve been missing it a lot during this quarantine, and I was happy when my dad got me a couple ones yesterday.

2. What’s your favourite cheese? I haven’t been super experimental when it comes to cheese mainly because the better ones are a little expensive and I’m more willing to spend my money on other foods...but the best one I’ve had is feta.

3. What’s your favourite fish? My favorite cooked or grilled fish is tilapia and eel; as for raw fish I love tuna.

4. What’s your favourite fruit? I don’t really like fruit but I’m open to eating avocado-flavored things like shakes and cheesecake; and I’m okay with strawberry-flavored candy hahaha.

5. When, if ever, did you start liking olives? I’ve never liked olives. I take them out of my pizza and such.

6. When, if ever, did you start liking beer? I never *liked* beer but sometimes I’ll have a bottle if and only if it’s to socialize at a party. I just keep the grimace to myself lol because I personally never found it good. I had my first beer at Marielle’s debut, four years ago.

7. When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish? High school. That was when my palate started to expand and I wanted to try being more adventurous with food. I got into shellfish pretty early on and my mom even used to buy a kilo of mussels just for me. 

8. What was the best thing your mum/dad/guardian used to make? I love my dad’s laksa, risotto, curries, and chicken wings. My mom doesn’t cook much but I do like her spaghetti.

9. What’s the native specialty of your hometown? My city doesn’t have native food of its own; and I’m not sure about my province’s specialtes either only because cuisines from other provinces are far more popular. I can say though that most visitors who come to the country often try adobo, sinigang, kare-kare, and bulalo.

10. What’s your comfort food? Cheeseburgers, samgyeopsal, pad thai, and chicken wings.

11. What’s your favourite type of chocolate? Milk chocolate. And it gets a lot of flak because it’s not actually chocolate, but I do enjoy the flavor of white chocolate too.

12. How do you like your steak? Rare.

13. How do you like your burger? I like mine with caramelized onions, a mayo-based sauce, and brioche buns; barbecue sauce or jalapeños are add-ons I have no problem being put in my burger. I don’t like tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce.

14. How do you like your eggs? Scrambled if on toast; omelette with cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, and bell peppers if with rice; and obviously, poached if on top of an Eggs Benedict. I don’t have a preferred style for eggs.

15. How do you like your potatoes? As French fries or mojos.

16. How do you take your coffee? If someone is making the coffee for me, I request for lots of cream and sugar. I’d drink any kind of coffee but black. If I’m at a coffee shop I typically get caramel macchiato.

17. How do you take your tea? I enjoy lemonade iced tea. I don’t really like hot tea.

18. What’s your favourite mug? I suppose my favorite is the only mug I own, which is a white mug that changes colors depending on the temperature of the drink inside.

19. What’s your biscuit or cookie of choice? I can’t stand biscuits anymore because those are what my grandma/mom packed for my recess nearly everyday throughout grade school. I don’t like store-brought cookies either because they taste super processed, but my favorite as a kid were the Presto peanut butter cookies.

20. What’s your ideal breakfast? Garlic rice, a packed omelette, and hashbrowns if I’m somewhere fancy. Scrambled eggs and hotdogs when I’m at home.

21. What’s your ideal sandwich? Monte Cristo or banh mi.

22. What’s your ideal pizza: Quattro formaggi. If we’re talking more experimental pizzas, barbecue pizza is a guilty pleasure.

23. What’s your ideal pie (sweet or savoury)? I’m not a big pie person but I do love savory a lot more, like chicken pot pie. I think most of the sweet pies out there are fruit-based anyway.

24. What’s your ideal salad? Spicy tuna salad. I’ve been having such a craving for it :(

25. What food do you always like to have in the fridge? We always have white bread, eggs, my mom’s cranberry juice, and veggies.

26. What food do you always like to have in the freezer? In the freezer we never run out of various meats and frozen meal packs, like frozen bangus, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, French fries, etc. We also often have ice cream, but it’s not a must-have for us obviously.

27. What food do you always like to have in the cupboard? Pasta, canned food like luncheon meat and corned beef, cup noodles, various condiments like soy sauce and fish sauce, 3-in-1 coffee.

28. What spices can you not live without? I can’t cook but I do know I like salt, pepper, paprika, and cumin. I’m sure I’m missing other essential ones lol

29. What sauces can you not live without? Sriracha, bagoong, banana ketchup, gochujang, peanut sauce, gravy, barbecue sauce, aioli, mayonnaise.

30. Where do you buy most of your food? My parents don’t have a supermarket preference; they just go to wherever is most convenient for them at the moment. Once I start doing my own grocery shopping though I would rather go to a supermarket where they’d have a wider selection for foreign foods, like those that would have Pop-Tarts and sriracha sauce. Just the foodie in me that constantly has to have food from other cultures.

31. How often do you go food shopping? My parents do the groceries once every two or three weeks, I think.

33. What’s the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own? Aside from the obvious ref or cooking range, probably the coffee maker. Not sure how much it cost my parents but it’s supposed to be branded haha.

34. What’s the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen? Dad bought a couple of pans because he didn’t like how our old ones were starting to get too many scratches.

35. What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without? Refrigerator. So many things would spoil without it...that’s why when we get blackouts the first thing we worry about is how long the ref would stay cold.

36. How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients? I’ve only done it once.

37. What’s the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients?

38. What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig and poultry? Crocodile, carabao, lamb.

39. What’s the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor? Don’t remember exactly when but it has to be sometime recently. I’m not too grossed out by this.

40. What’s the last time you ate something you’d picked in the wild? I have never done this.

41. Arrange the following in order of preference: Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Sushi – Indian, Thai, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican. This question is a teeny bit annoying and a little offensive. How would you like it if I referred to American food as ‘ribs’ lol

42. Arrange the following in order of preference: Vodka, Whiskey, Brandy, Rum – Vodka, rum, (some) whiskey. I don’t drink brandy because that’s what my grandpa, who had alcohol issues, used to drink.

43. Arrange the following in order of preference: Garlic, Basil, Lime, Mint, Ginger, Aniseed – Aniseed, garlic, basil, ginger, lime, mint.

44. Arrange the following in order of preference: Pineapple, Orange, Apple, Strawberry, Cherry, Watermelon, Banana. –

45. Bread and spread: I don’t really munch on this particular food. Toast and butter is enough for me.

46. What’s your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order? It’s either KFC or Jollibee. In KFC I get a Zinger and a brownie; in Jollibee, I usually order the chicken-spaghetti set, large fries, and a Yum Burger. If they have tuna pie on the menu I’d get that too. My appetite gets exceptionally large when it comes to Jollibee hahahaha.

47. Pick a city. What are the best dining experiences you’ve had in that city? I no longer remember what exactly I ate but I had a blaaaast eating in Bali. I also had a sushi platter in Fukuoka that I’ll never forget.

48. What’s your choice of tipple at the end of a long day? I don’t drink regularly but if I’m out with friends and we want to chill after a tiring day, we get a pitcher of a mixed drink.

49. What’s the next thing you’ll eat? Eggs and hotdogs for breakfast. Probably with bread.

50. Are you hungry now? A little bit, considering it’s nearly 10 and I still haven’t had breakfast.

51. Do you eat your breakfast everyday? I’ve been having it everyday now because I’ve been home for...most of the year...sigh. But I skipped it all the time when I was in school because getting to class on time and having a clean attendance record mattered to me more than filling up my stomach. 52. At what time do you have breakfast? On weekdays I have it between 9-10 AM. On weekends when my parents are home, we have brunch instead at around 10:30-11 AM because they wake up late.

53. At what time do you have lunch? I normally skip lunch now. In school I just had tiny eating breaks throughout the day, but I didn’t have lunch per se.

54. What do you have for lunch? My usual purchases were instant noodles/kwek-kwek, tapsilog from Rodic’s, or shawarma rice. Thrived on these three for my entire college life.

55. At what time do you have dinner? 7-8 PM, depending on whenever my dad is finished cooking.

56. What do you have for dinner? My dad likes changing up our dishes everyday :) It’s one of my favorite things about quarantine. Outside of the quarantine, I’ve never had a main dinner dish.

57. Do you light candles during dinner? No.

58. How many chairs are there in your dining room and who sits in the main chair? 6 chairs. We don’t have a ‘main’ chair that’s larger than the rest, but my dad is the one who sits on the chair on one end of the dining table, or what we call the kabisera in Filipino. My mom, siblings, and I sit on either side of him. 

59. Do you eat and drink using your right hand or the left one? I use my right hand for the spoon and my left hand for the fork. I drink with my right hand most of the time.

61. Mention the veggies that you like most: Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, asparagus, string beans. Idk what eggplants and bell peppers are but I like those too.

62. What fruit and vegetable do you like the least? Cucumber and ampalaya. 63. You like your fruit salad to have more: Air. Hahahaha I do not like fruit salads.

64. You prefer your vegetable salad to contain more: I love vegetables but don’t really eat vegetable salads? I don’t think I’ve even heard of those.

65. What’s your favourite sandwich spread? Whatever goes on banh mi.

66. What’s your favourite chocolate bar? Whittaker’s peanut butter chocolate.

67. What’s your favourite dessert? I really love macarons, cupcakes, and cheesecake.

68. What’s your favourite drink? Just water. Other drinks make me fuller more quickly.

69. What’s your favourite snack? Pringles, French fries, corndogs...anything deep-fried, really.

70. What’s your favourite bubble gum flavour? Strawberry, or just the original bubblegum flavor.

71. What’s your favourite ice cream flavour? Salted caramel, queso real, or cookies and cream.

72. What’s your favourite potato chip flavour? Original or sour cream and onion.

73. What’s your favourite soup? Miso. Have to have it whenever I have Japanese food.

74. What’s your favourite pizza? Already answered this, but I will always order quattro formaggi if I see it on a menu.

75. What’s your favourite type of dish? I have lots of favorites, but I think chicken curry takes the cake for me. 

76. What food do you hate? Fruits, any dessert with fruits.

77. What’s your favourite restaurant? Yabu. It’s a Japanese restaurant that doesn’t even serve sushi (because I’m still ticked off by that sushi question lol).

78. Do you eat homemade food, or food delivered from outside? These days I eat food cooked by either parent. But when I’m on my own, I buy my food.

80. Who cooks at home? My dad does most of the time. My mom will make breakfast on the weekends.

81. What kind of diet (e.g. low-fat, high-fiber, high-carbohydrate, balanced diet etc.) do you have? I’m not on any.

82. How do you keep yourself fit? I just moderate my food intake in general and make sure I stop eating once I feel full. I don’t work out or count calories and stuff.

[guiltypleasurefandomface]

The British Sweets

I keep seeing the word “Candy” being said in fic by british characters, and then I keep seeing sweets we don’t have here in the UK being eaten by british characters, plus Candy to mean including chocolate. So I’m gonna just throw some sweets out there as good alternatives as a go to equivalent for if you’re in desperate need of your character having a sugar fix.

First off. It’s never candy, and sweets don’t usually include chocolate bars. If and when they do, it’s usually the bars are the fun size bars or the teeny tiny lucky bag type included in with other types of sweets. If you’ve gone to the shops and you buy a snickers and a mars bar and fry’s chocolate cream, you’ve bought chocolate bars, not sweets.

And also we call Cotton Candy “Candy Floss”. You can get three bags for £1 in Southport. Or you could before Covid 19 ruined the world. But yeah THREE BAGS. Poundland sometimes sell little tubs of tricolour candy floss but they’re £1 each. Rip off, especially if you’re in southport. Just leave poundland and go up the road to the pier and go into one of the shops opposite the arcade. THREE BAGS!! For £1!! I went to a fair once and it was 99p for one stick!

So. Character A has fucked up and they want to buy a bar of chocolate as an apology to Character B. They’’d either get a big cadbury’s milk bar or a galaxy bar. Our galaxy bars are American’s Mars Dove bars. (Dove here is a bar of soap). If they’re feeling fancy, they might buy a Cadbury’s Milk Tray, which is a box of chocolates, and if they’re feeling Really fancy and really apologetic, they might get a Cadbury’s Dairy Box. And if they have really, really fucked up and want to fork out a bit of money, they would get a Thornton’s Classic. And if the Basic Classic doesn’t scream “I am so fucking sorry for what I did” enough, they would get the continental box.

If it’s just a show of affection of a random Tuesday, they might get the heart shaped box. D’aww.

Character A  wants to munch something at the cinema? No worries. The cinema sells every Nestle sweet you can name (Modern times the sharing pouches are £3.89 though, cinema prices!! Go to B&M or Home Bargains before you go to the cinema and buy from there instead, and with some cinemas you don’t even have to sneak them in cos they don’t care), plus there’s a full wall of Pic’n’mix. 

Liquourice All Sorts Jellybeans Jelly Babies Jazzies - Milk chocolate disc-like sweets with hundreds and thousands on them Snowies - White chocolate disc-like sweets with hundreds and thousands on them Pear drops - boiled sweets in the shape of a pear, sort of taste like pear, and all that sugar hurts your mouth after about 2 o them Footballs - Round solid chocolate balls Torpedos - Jellybeans with a solid outer layer Strawberry Laces Raspberry Laces Cola Bottles Fizzy Cola Bottles Milk Bottles - Chewy sweets in the shape of a milk bottle. Foam Shrimps - Soft chewy sweets in the shape of prawns. Foam Bananas - Soft chewy sweets in the shape of bananas, very sweet Foam Mushrooms - Soft chewy sweets in the shape of mushrooms Black Jacks - Liqourice flavoured chew squares, like chewits Mojos - Varoety of flavours of chewy squares, like chewits, but HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED SINCE 2012!!! Chocolate covered raisins Chocolate covered peanuts Chocolate covered Brazil nuts Space Ships - HORRIBLE sweets which is edible paper filled with sherbert in the shape of a traditional space ship Rasberry Bombs - Only in some pic-n-mix, not sure how long they were around for, they were sour chewy balls of raspberry flavoured jelly sweets. Not to be confused with Berries Berries - Raspberry and Blackcurrant flavoured jelly sweets. Apparently very nice and soft. Milk Chocolate Mice - Horrible cheap chocolate in the shape of mice White chocolate Mice - Same as above, but worse.

And you can buy any of those in a sweet shop, in little bags as well.

Other sweets not usually found in a pic’n’mix

Penny Toffees - They were small toffee discs that you could literally buy one for a penny each.

Teeth - Chewy sweets in the shape of false teeth. Vampire editions at halloween.

Strawberry softies - They were discontinued around about 2008, but a cheap company now do them and you can only get them in poundland! But they taste exactly the same. They are foam-like sweets, in the shape of a heart-shaped strawberry, and they just melt in your mouth.

Aniseed balls - Hard boiled sweets, strong aniseed flavour. Very popular with aunties. I get called an old lady whenever I buy them.

Lipstick Pops - A hard boiled sweet in the shape of a lipstick. I don’t know any kid who just ate and sucked on it like you were meant to eat it, everybody pretended they were putting on lipstick when they had one.

Now the few more acceptable usages of the word ‘Candy’

Candy necklaces - a ring of string you could wear around your neck, in theory, full of little sweet disc like beads.

Candy bracelets - same as above, but smaller for your wrists

A retro sweet that is no longer here cos it was discontinued in the 1980s, was called Spangle, and it’s slogan was “The Sweet Way to go gay”. I am not joking.

Some chocolate bars that were around a few decades ago, for when your fic is set in the 60s and 70s ;)

Fry’s Chocolate Cream which was/is dark chocolate full of fondant, still around today, unlike Fry’s Five Centres which were discontinued in the 1990s, brought back for a limited edition and then gone again. They were dark chocolate bars with flavoured fondant in the middle - Orange, Lime, Blackcurrant, Coffee and Raspberry. They now do a mint flavour bar and recently brought back the raspberry flavoured bar. Some people incorrectly called them Fry’s Five Senses, which was actually mixing up two different products apparently, but I don’t know anything about that other product. I think it was hot chocolate.

Wagon Wheels - Like two chocolate biscuit discs with marshmallow in the middle, and then the Jammie one has strawberry jam in the middle as well. They are still around today but a classic of my parents teenage years.

Caramac - My mum, god rest her soul, talked about this chocolate bar fondly. They did bring it back but “It’s not the same!” and they discontinued it again and brought it back again. Wikipedia describes it as “ a light Brown colour, and is manufactured using sweetened condensed milk, butter, various flavourings, and sugar “

The much acclaimed Aztec bar. To be honest, the way my parents described it, it’s a bit like a snickers bar without the nuts, so I guess like a mars bar, but apparently it was a lot nicer than a mars bar.

And this is not a sweet but if you have a brit in your fic and you don’t know where they would buy any of these sweets, well you just send them to Woolworths. If they’re a kid and want to spend their pocket money on some sweets, have them weigh out some from the pic’n’mix and we will all be happy bunniess

[ceciliatan]

Duck Day 2019 Menu and Recipes

Our thanksgiving-day extravaganza is done, and as usual I’m posting a blog entry for posterity and my own reference so I can find these things again if I need them. :-)

We’ve done “Asian fusion” many times–it’s kind of corwin and my culinary wheelhouse–but this is the first time we really incorporated more filipino flavors.

First, the menu:

2019 Duck Day: Tour of the Eastern Rim of the Pacific (Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Palu)

“Sinigang” Amuse Tomato Dashi & Sake (Kubota Hekijyu junmai daiginjo) with a dehydrated mushroom chip powdered shoyu powdered tamarind

“Pu-Pu Platter” with Scorpion Bowl Curry puff with curry mayo Lumpia (traditional filipino fried spring rolls) Chicken wings with candied ginger and orange Pickles: honshimeji mushroom, yuzu-pickled napa Assortment of dipping sauces

“Adobo” served with Sapporo Premium duck confit adobo style (with soy, vinegar, garlic and ginger) with a duck-fat crisped potato and adobo-style vinaigrette tossed peas topped with crispy garlic

Zhajiang Mian (fried sauce noodle) homemade chewy wheat noodle with ground duck and bean paste sauce With shochu oolong hi-ball

Duck a l’kalamansi (filipino bitter orange) with Trimbach Reserve Gewurtzraminer Rice two ways Steamed bok choy and a caramel vinegar gastrique

Palate cleanser Yuzu sorbet with finger lime caviar, served with Kikusui Perfect Snow unfiltered sake

Dessert Saikyo miso ice cream With almond brown butter Sablé cookies Puffed rice And hot chocolate

Tea, Coffee, and Mignardise candied ginger almond coconut mango-marmalade thumbprint cookies almond brown-butter-chocolate cookies

Every year there ends up being something we forgot to serve. This year it was the matchstick carrots and cucumber that were supposed to garnish the zhajiang noodle! Ah well.

“Sinigang” Amuse

Tomato Dashi & Sake (Kubota Hekijyu junmai daiginjo) with a dehydrated mushroom chip powdered shoyu powdered tamarind

This dish combines two things. One is the idea of sinigang, which is a filipino tamarind-flavored stew/soup that often has fish, tomato, and onion. The other is the technique of mixing sake with a hot, intense broth to delicious effect. We learned this trick one wet, cold rainy afternoon while out day drinking with a chef friend-of-a-friend in the Akabane area of Tokyo. One of the places he took us was an oden (stewed fishball & tofu) shop where you could buy a one-cup sake. When you drank half your sake, for ten yen you could get them to top up the glass with the oden broth.

corwin made the broth by starting with our home-canned smoked tomato water (already one of the most umami-intense things we have), simmering it with kombu and bonito flakes to make it tomato dashi, and then going over to a friend/s house to borrow his Spinzall (food centrifuge) to clarify it.

For the tamarind flavor we put tamarind powder on the plate for folks to rim their glasses with. We also gave them the soup and the sake separately to mix as they liked. And also some powdered soy sauce we got as a parting gift at one of the fancy restaurants we ate at in Kyoto: Shimogamo Saryo.

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Some of the delights of #duckday2019

A post shared by Regis (@rmd1023) on Nov 28, 2019 at 9:49pm PST

“Pu-Pu Platter” with Scorpion Bowl Curry puff with curry mayo Lumpia (traditional filipino fried spring rolls) Chicken wings with candied ginger and orange Pickles: honshimeji mushroom, yuzu-pickled napa Assortment of dipping sauces

Curry Puff corwin made the curry puff (karipap), startingwith making his own curry powder. He didn’t use the karipap recipe in Asian Dumplings but instead used his own biscuit dough recipe and it worked beautifully.

Lumpia It was my first time making lumpia. Lumpia is one of those foods that was at every filipino party we went to when I was growing up, but my family was never the one that made them. (We brought the pancit or the dessert.) It was traditional for the aunties to complain about what a pain they are to make, though. Well, now I know what they mean, but it is SO WORTH IT.

This is by far the weirdest dumpling skin or wrapper I’ve made yet. Andrea Nguyen’s ASIAN DUMPLINGS is my go-to book–she hasn’t steered me wrong, yet. The technique for making these involved picking up the entire blob of wet dough in your hand and them blopping it onto a slightly hot pan, and the smear you leave on the pan IS THE LUMPIA WRAPPER.

What I learned is if the pan is too hot is that it just sears the ball of dough in your hand but it doesn’t stick to the pan. This is bad. And if the pan isn’t hot enough, then it doesn’t work either. So there is a very narrow window where it works. I had to turn the burner on and off between each one and also dribble a little extra water into the dough before each one. What would work is I would make one, and when the pan was the right heat, the wrapper would release, and this would mean it was now the right heat for the next one to be made. I would turn off the heat, make the next one, let it cool for a few seconds in the pan and then have to heat it back up again to release it and be ready for the next one.

Here’s Andrea Nguyen’s short video on how to do it:

The filling I used was similar to the recipe in Asian Dumplings, but I replaced the carrot and bean with water chestnuts (and the ground meat was duck). If I do it again I’ll probably use pork and up the intensity of the spices/salt/fish sauce. It could use dried shrimp in the sauce.

Chicken Wings with Candied Ginger and Orange This was one of those ideas I had one day while we were out and I made a note in my phone months ago: what if instead of just having a chicken wing that was honey-glazed and chewy you could take that to the next level by having actual bits of candied ginger and candied orange rind in the glaze? I tested it last week and was very pleased with the results.

Although I candied my own ginger for the mignardise in this meal, I used some that I had bought at Cambridge Naturals for this recipe, and the candied orange rinds were some fancy artisanal ones corwin picked up at Formaggio. But I think Trader Joe’s or whatever would work just as well.

The first step is oven-frying the chicken wings as detailed by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats (as in this recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/01/hot-and-numbing-oven-fried-xian-chicken-wings-recipe.html)

I ran tests last week where I tried both spicing them with a technique as described in the Serious Eats article (toss the crispy wings in oil and then in a spice mix) and also by tossing them in a glaze. Turned out the way we liked them best was tossed in the spices and THEN dipped in the glaze separately. That was a little impractical for a large dinner party so I settled for brushing them with glaze and then sprinkling the chopped bits of candied ginger and orange rind on them. By not coating them completely in glaze, they retain more crispness.

Glaze: 1 cup orange juice 1 cup water quarter to half cup yuzu marmalade or other citrus marmalade quarter to half cup apple cider vinegar 1/8 to quarter cup brown sugar powdered ginger minced garlic

I am a little loose on the quantities in the glaze recipe because I think it really depends on how sweet the orange juice is and how sour the vinegar is — you just have to taste it to see if it’s what you want.

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Second course: “pu pu platter with scorpion bowl”. I reinvented the chicken wing for this, with candied ginger and orange rind. Curried duck puffs. And fried lumpia with ground duck and shrimp filling (Filipino spring rolls) which are the fiddliest thing I’ve ever made! But damn they came out great! #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:18pm PST

“Adobo” served with Sapporo Premium duck confit adobo style (with soy, vinegar, garlic and ginger) with a duck-fat crisped potato and adobo-style vinaigrette tossed peas topped with crispy garlic

Adobo is a filipino dish that has more variations than there are islands. The common element seems to be the combination of soy, vinegar, and garlic. Some have curry powder, some have ginger, etc. Some stew chicken and pork together, some are just chicken. My family’s adobo was usually chicken, potatoes, and green beans, stewed together in soy and vinegar with garlic (and served over white rice).

To deconstruct it, corwin confit’ed duck legs sous vide with soy-vinegar-garlic-ginger in the bags. Then he shredded the meat and crisped it in cast iron, and served it with an adobo-flavored reduction, topped with crispy garlic. I boiled the potatoes in advance, then crushed them slightly to give them crisp edges roasted in duck fat. The beans in the dish I replaced by making a mix of bias-cut fresh snap peas and fresh snow peas tossed in a soy-vinegar-ginger-garlic vinaigrette.

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Deconstructed Filipino adobo. Confit duck with a soy-vinegar reduction and crispy garlic, duck fat crisped potato, and fresh snap pea in adobo-style vinaigrette #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:21pm PST

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Poultry differently. #duckday2019

A post shared by Liz LaManche (@liz_lamanche) on Nov 29, 2019 at 10:55am PST

Zhajiang Mian (fried sauce noodle) homemade chewy wheat noodle with ground duck and bean paste sauce With shochu oolong hi-ball

Normally we do a lot of wine pairings, but a lot of wines just don’t pair with these strong and tangy flavors as well as other alcohols do.

For this one we made Chu-hi, which is the Japanese shochu high ball, using dark pearl oolong tea and a whiskey-like shochu called Gokoo that we first had at Momi Nonmi in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago. (It’s seriously great if you’re a whiskey drinker.)

For the wheat noodle we ended up borrowing a pasta extruding machine from our friends David and Diane. What was funny is when corwin ran our test, he made the dough way too dry, so the noodles came out very rough and odd-looking. But they were so tasty and the chewiness was really good, so we decided to just keep going and use them in the meal.

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Noodle extrusion experiment. I think the pasta is too dry….?

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 25, 2019 at 9:53pm PST

The sauce I sort of improvised on some zhajiang mian recipes but I wanted something somewhat spicier to highlight the duck. (Among the ones I looked at: Woks of Life, China Sichuan Food.)

Sauce: 1 lb. ground meat — let sit in 1 tablespoon corn starch, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp white pepper, 1 tablespoon oil 15 minutes before starting

6 slices ginger, minced 6 cloves garlic, minced 6-10 fresh shiitake, chopped/minced

1/4 cup sweet bean paste 1/4 to 1/2 cup ground bean paste 1 tablespoon chili bean paste

1/3 cup dark soy sauce 1 cup water

Soften the ginger and garlic in the oil and then brown the meat. Add the mushrooms after a minute or two, and once the meat is no longer pink, add all the wet ingredients and stir together to combine. Let simmer 15 minutes. Then add 1/2 cup water with 1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in it to thicken. If still too thin, simmer 5 more minutes.

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Zhajiang “fried sauce” noodles – homemade thick wheat noodle with ground duck and bean paste sauce. So happy with how this came out! #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:24pm PST

This was the dish where I forgot the garnish! I have all these matchstick cut carrots and cucumber and I forgot entirely to put them on the plate! There’s always SOMETHING that gets left off.

Duck a l’kalamansi (filipino bitter orange) with Trimbach Reserve Gewurtzraminer Rice two ways Steamed bok choy and a caramel vinegar gastrique

This is basically duck a l’orange, which we’ve never done in all these years of making duck. Typically this comes out too sweet because people use regular oranges instead of bitter oranges. corwin ordered a bunch of kalamansi (filipino bitter orange) online, though, when he was getting our now-nnual yuzu order. This is also when he picked up the finger limes for the palate cleanser.

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Duck a l’orange done Peking style with calamansi oranges for a Filipino touch. #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:25pm PST

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Yin yang rice. One of the elements of one of the courses. #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:03pm PST

Palate cleanser Yuzu sorbet with finger lime caviar, served with Kikusui Perfect Snow unfiltered sake

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Palate cleanser! Yuzu slush with Australian finger lime caviar! And an unfiltered sake

#duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 28, 2019 at 10:28pm PST

Dessert Saikyo miso ice cream With almond brown butter Sablé cookies Puffed rice And hot chocolate

This dessert was inspired directly by Chris Chung at Momi Nonmi, who serves a saikyo miso ice cream regularly and damn, it’s good. Saikyo is a sweet miso, but it’s also salty, and the result is sort of like a butterscotch or salted caramel flavor. corwin made the ice cream and I made the almond brown butter sable cookies, and crisped the rice.

The crispy rice topping was probably the most work. You have to cook it three times: first you just cook the rice. Then spread it in pan and bake it until it’s dry (around 45 minutes at 250 degrees, IIRC), and then you deep fry it in small batches and spread on paper towels to dry. It kept crispy in an air tight container with some silica gel packs for a few days just fine.

The brown butter sables took some experimenting but I settled on was not only incorporating brown butter into the sable dough, but brushing the tops of the cookies before baking. Otherwise the brown butter flavor was too subtle. I made these by rolling a quarter of the dough into a log shape, letting it chill, and then slicing the log into circles.

I then used the other quarter dough to make these almond chocolate mignardise. (And the other half is still in the fridge waiting for me to do something with…)

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Inventing cookie recipes when I can’t find the exact thing I’m imagining. #duckday2019

A post shared by Cecilia Tan (@ctan_writer) on Nov 26, 2019 at 7:32pm PST

Tea, Coffee, and Mignardise candied ginger almond coconut mango-marmalade thumbprint cookies almond brown-butter-chocolate cookies

Candied ginger: I used Alton Brown’s recipe. If I do it again I’ll cut the ginger thicker.

Almond coconut mango-marmalade thumbprint cookies (GLUTEN FREE!) — I based these on this recipe by Texan Erin: https://ift.tt/34ySMcx Using the Trader Joe’s Virgin Coconut Oil gives them a really strong coconut flavor and scent.

I made the mango marmalade by taking yuzu marmalade we already had, and a mango that corwin’s mother mailed us from her yard in Florida that we had in the freezer (she sends a whole box and we don’t always get to eating them all before they start to go too soft). The frozen mango flesh doesn’t even need to be pureed — it’s basically mush — so I just cooked it down with the marmalade and a little extra sugar to combine them and thicken up.

These stay soft. They might have been slightly crisp at the edges right from the oven but they soften as they sit. Still delicious.

That’s all I can think of! Now I can close all my recipe tabs!

from cecilia tan https://ift.tt/2q3BVzo via IFTTT