#no really cute girls come over for homemade scones and cats

[frostmoths]

Is anything really hidden in the tags anymore? Thank you :3

I guess I'll talk about the Big News under a cut 💦💦

The impossible actually happened and I got my own house. All on my own. It was a long and nerve-wracking process of looking at overpriced trash heaps, negotiating with the bank, and hashing it out with my codependent mother, but it's at an end and I close in a few days.

It's surprisingly not a trash heap, very nice residential neighborhood in a city, much closer to where I work so no more long commutes across the river/state line in congested toll bridge-detour traffic.

I am completely stunned because I never, ever expected this to happen without being legally married, or at least long-term partnered and moving in to someone's established home (and given how poorly that worked out between 2016-2019, I really didn't want that life). I'm just. Four years ago I was disabled, out of work, kicked out of my home with an extra large insult to injury, and all before Covid struck. Now I'm getting a house without anyone's help (anyone outside of the bank, that is). This is literally one of my top 3 dreams come true. idk if that means I have to trade in the other 2, or if I shouldn't give up entirely on them.

I haven't been talking about it because 1. I didn't want to jinx it and 2. ever since things soured within my little twitter bubble I've been keeping quiet about my personal life. But this is kind of a big deal and too awesome to not share 😎

[iamarosegarden]

Social Media

yo! it’s day two of the countdown, i did a youtube au, even though i’m sure a lot of other people did. i felt like it, also i couldn’t really think of anything else. so, here it is.

ao3

PLAY

The screen filled with black, than a snowball rolled across the screen, spelling out “SimonSn☃️w”.

Then the screen was filled by a boy, with curly (curly) bronze hair and blue (blue) eyes (Aleister Crowley, he’s hot). Wearing a pale green sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, and jeans. He was standing behind a kitchen island, with his hands on his hips, looking off-screen.

“Penny, I am not making german chocolate cake again. The video’s not even a year old!” the boy (presumably Simon) says, taking a hand off his hip to drag it through his hair. Only, it gets caught partway through and he has to untangle his fingers.

“But Simoooon,” says a girl’s voice off screen (probably Penny), “I really want some,”

“Nope.” Simon says, glancing at the camera, “we don’t have the ingredients anyway”.

“I’m about to go to the store, I’ll get them!” Penny said, appearing on screen, an indian girl with deep indigo hair (a lot of indigo hair, wow) and a pair of cat-eyed glasses. She ducks behind Simon grabs a pair of keys off a bowel on the counter.

“I- Penny! I’m not making it!” yells Simon after Penny as she disappears off screen again, shaking his head as he hears the door slam shut (Baz can’t help but snicker at the look of fond exasperation on Simon’s face). He sighed before turning to the camera, “In case any of you are wondering, she has the ingredients list memorized.”

-

It cuts to Penny appearing on screen, with Simon facing her, leaning against the counter.  She has at least ten bags looped over her arms quickly rushed to the island to set them down. “Sooooo,” she began, looking up at Simon hopefully, “these are all the ingredients you need.”

“Fine, but you have to help with this and the scones, and I’m posting this on my side channel,” Simon said, and started pulling ingredients out of the bags. Penny beamed at him and then turned to the camera.

“I knew he’d cave,”

“Shut up Penny,”

“Looooove you,”

-

It cuts to Simon standing facing the camera again, with Penny next to him. His shoulder are slumped in defeat and Penny’s grinning like a madwoman. (Baz feels like Penny’s always grinning like a madwoman.)

“Hi guys! It’s Simon Snow, and today I’ve been wrestled into making another german chocolate cake by my friend and flatmate Penny, or as you guys might know her, PennyofyourThoughts. Thanks for watching, and I hope your desserts tastes great!”

-

It cuts to a fast montage of them measuring all the ingredients out, text popping up in the corner of the screen to tell you what the measurements were. (It seemed like Simon had just spliced together all the funniest moments, and while Baz didn’t want to admit it, he may have giggled a few times.)

Two cups all-purpose flour: Penelope emerging from the pantry with the bag of flour held over her head triumphantly, Simon laughing in the background.

One and a half cups granulated sugar: they’ve both somehow gotten flour on their faces, and a cup of it sits neatly on the island counter as Simon pours some sugar back into the bag, glaring at Penelope. “You know it only taste good if you follow the recipe, right? Because this much sugar would  have been disgusting.” Penny’s moan of frustration is cut off as the next clip plays.

Three/fourths cup of cocoa powder: Simon pulls something out of the shopping bag, then turns to Penny with a look of horror. “This- this is Nisquick Mix, Penny! This is… this won’t work.” Penny just stares at him. “You’ve seen me make this before, right? You watched the video? You have the recipe memorized?” Penny nodds. “THEN WHY DID YOU GET CHOCOLATE MILK MIX, PENELOPE?”

“There’s a difference?”

“I- Yes! There’s a difference.”

“Oh, I see,”

“You see,”

“I’ll be right back”

Simon just shakes his head at her as she leaves.

One teaspoon salt, One teaspoon baking powder, Two teaspoons baking soda: all three of these went into a small bowl, Simon hovering over Penny to make sure she used the right spoons.

One cup buttermilk: Simon pours the milk into the cup from high enough up that it splashes on the island counter, and then it cuts to him sadly wiping it up.

One half a cup vegetable oil: this time Penny pours it, and Simon watches intently from where he’s crouched behind the island his eyes level with the cup.

Two eggs: Simon cracked them both, one in each hand, and Penny gasped.

One cup hot coffee: Penny and Simon both downed a mug in silence while staring at the camera.

-

Then it cuts to Simon and Penny standing behind the island, staring gravely at the ingredients that were neatly laid out in bowls and cups. Then they looked at each other and started laughing.

“So, I don’t really want to go into detail with how you make it and stuff because, there’s already a video on that…”

“You could do a Q&A?” Penny suggests, already pulling her phone out of her pocket to tweet about it.

“Yeah okay that works,”

-

“Okay so, we tweeted out for questions, and I’m gonna finish making this cake while Penny reads them,” Simon shoves up his sleeves from where they’ve slipped down, and Penny nods from where she’s sitting on the counter behind him. “I mean, this is pretty easy to make anyway. Um, link to the recipe on my blog in the description,”

“@snowsiman asks ‘are you in a relationship?’” Penny reads off, wiping her head up to look up at Simon’s reaction.

Simon’s ears are going red, and he ducks down to focus on where he’s stirring the dry ingredients together. “Uh, no,”

Penny snickers at his answer “you’re blushing an awful lot there, Simon,” she says, which just makes him blush harder.

“Penny…” he groans, dropping the spoon to cover his cheeks with his hands. (god, he’s so cute.)

Penny shoves her hair out of her face before reading off the next the next one. “@SnowBaz asks, ‘will you ever do another blind baking video?’”

Before Penny has even fully finished talking Simon’s rushing to answer, “Noooooo! Never again,” (Baz had watched that video, it was hysterical) he turned around to glare at Penny, who just cackled and read off the next question.

“@DappleDesserts asks ‘how did you start baking?’”

Simon blew a curl off his face and shoved the bowl under the stand mixer before grabbing another one for the wet ingredients.

“Well, you know I’m an Orphantm.” Simon started (he flahsed the ™ on the screen as he said it, and even though Baz felt kind of sorry about it, he laughed), his eyes now pinned to the new bowl as he slowly stirred (slowly stirred). “One of the foster homes I got placed in never really had enough food for all the kids they had taken on so I stepped up. I was maybe 12? I just started with like microwave mac and cheese and then real pasta and then stuff like homemade pizza and stir fry and eventually the older kids would bring me ingredients with requests for stuff and the like.” he laughed a little at that. “I liked it cuz none of the other kids would bother me when I was measuring stuff out because they wanted it to taste good but then one of the new girls gave me three dollars and asked me if i could make her something sweet because she missed her mother’s angel cake and of fucking course I did because…” he trailed off and sniffed, staring at the bowl in silence for a few seconds before continuing, “uh anyway I made it and I already liked cooking, but the way it made me feel when she thanked me was just- it was something. And I’ve always loved food and that was where the dream started. I still kinda want to open a bakery but,” Simon shrugged “sometimes dreams only come halfway true and that's better than nothing”

Penny she was wiping her eyes. “Uh” She coughed into her arm, “@snowball4life asks ‘what’s your favorite dessert/pastry,’”

Simon laughed, (transforming back into the golden boy that he was) looking back at the camera, “This is waaay more serious than my tragic backstory. Penny already knows, but I just wanna clarify before I answer, just because this is my favorite pastry, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing I ever eat, so don’t pull that shit where it’s the only thing you bring to conventions, I do not want another repeat of the Roast Beef Incident,” he poured the wet ingrediants into the dry and then turned on the mixer, “it’s Sour Cherry Scones,”

Penny started laughing again. “Oh my god, I’d almost forgotten about that,” she leaned toward the camera from her perch, “basically, someone asked him what his favorite food was during a livestream, and then at that year’s vidcon, all people brought were different variants of roast beef, and their versions of his desserts, of course. But mostly roast beef. And because Simon’s such a fuckin’ sap, he didn’t want to throw any of it away, so for the longest time our fridge and freezer were just, full of roast beef shit. It was great… but Simon couldn’t eat roast beef for like a year after that,” she snickers again (Baz along with her, he remembers that con, it was before he’d known anything about Simon Snow (ah, the blissful ignorance he’d had) and had been very confused about the smell) “Anyway, @🌈Mordelia🌈 asks ‘are you one of us gays?’” (goddamn it Baz was going to have a talk with his sister, because he knew that’s her handle)

Simon frowned for a second as he grabbed the coffee and started pouring it in the mix, “I don’t really like labels, but when pressed for one I usually say I’m bi. But yeah, I don’t like labels. But I mean, it’s fine if you like labels, for some people it helps them feel more secure and stuff. I’m totally chill with other people using them, just don’t force one on me, ya know?” (Baz mentally rejoiced at the confirmation that Simon liked both genders, and then had to remind himself that he’d never met Simon so it wasn’t like he really had a chance)

Simon ducked under the island as Penny read off the next question “@PrincessPriya, hey, shoutout to my sister, follow her on twitter, asks ‘Simon are you you afraid of the dark ? 😈’”

Simon popped up from behind the island and whirled around and pointed at Penny, who was grinning evilly, “Fuck you, Bunce,” he spun around and faced the camera, pointing at it, “and fuck you, Bunce,” he finished, setting three cake pans down on counter. “I am afraid of the dark, you can’t see in it,” he flicked off the mixer and flipped up the spatula to let the batter drip off, “Next question,”

“@pitchsviolin,” Penny pauses, “that’s another Grimm-Pitch watcher. There’s a weirdly big overlap between your subscribers. @pitchsviolin asks ‘will you and Grimm-Pitch ever do a collab?’”

(Baz didn’t know if he should be frustrated or grateful that his and Simon's followers seemed so determined to get a collab.)

Simon detached the spatula and quickly tossed it in the sink, going off screen for a second to do so. He started pouring out the batter as he answered, “Um, I don’t know… I mean, he doesn’t seem to like me that much? (Baz mentally smacked himself, he could see how Simon had gotten that impression. Back when he’d been in intense denial of his crush he may have answered a few questions about Simon a bit too aggressively) And what would we even do? I make baking videos and vlogs, and he does violin, dancing, and Q&As. But I don’t know, maybe at next vidcon or something he and I can meet up and talk about it,” (Baz paused the video for a couple seconds to let that sink in. He couldn’t decide if he loved or hated the idea.)

Simon turned around and stuck the pans in the oven. “I think that’s gonna be the end of this video. Making the icing is kinda loud, and I also don’t feel like doing fancy icing or decorations, which would be kinda boring to watch so, yeah. Also I think this is a good stopping point.”

Penny hopped of the counter and walked offscreen, Simon’s eyes following her as she moved behind the camera.

“Thanks for watching, don’t forget to do all the youtube things, and check out my other videos at the links on screen. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee,”

There was a fast zoom to his face on the ‘bye’ and then the screen changed to Simon’s endcard, a snowy mountain with links to his channels on either side, some generic music playing in the background.

End of Video