#really just wanted to add my two cents to the pot

[dreamboyhalo]

How are you all omega dream truthers but mpreg george enthusiasts at the same time. Unrelated image but

[ms-demeanor]

You seem like a good sort of person to ask; how does one go about building up a good spice rack? Not only just having the spices, but knowing what they are and how to use them, when and in what quantities, and developing a wider spice palette in general? I grew up in white suburbia and my mother has no idea how to use anything other than salt and ground black pepper, and I want to start making my foods more flavorful. I am tired of utterly flavorless dry roast pork! But I have no idea where to begin lol.

I'd say to start by trying a lot of foods that use a lot of different spice profiles and seeing what you like. If you like Thai food, look into Thai spices and try cooking a few recipes. If you like Indian food, try Indian recipes. If you don't know if you like a particular kind of food, go out and try it and see if you do.

I think the best way to build up your spice rack is to do so slowly over time as you familiarize yourself with different flavors. Don't go out and buy a ton of stuff, go out and buy cumin and make a rice recipe that calls for cumin and see if you like it, then next time maybe add another spice like cayenne pepper to the recipe and see if you like it.

Spices can be really expensive, but they can also be really cheap if you're looking in the right places. Try to avoid the shiny organic spice jars, and see if there are packets of spices in the various "ethnic" food sections of your grocery store (in California it's pretty common to have a Mexican food section and an Asian food section in the store and you'll often find stuff like a packet of cumin for 70 cents that's got the same amount of spice as the organic jar that costs five bucks in the spice aisle).

Once you've got some basics down, start branching out and seeing if you've got any good markets nearby that have more unusual spices. Large Bastard and I get most of our bulk spices from a Middle Eastern market around the corner from our house or at an Indian market a few miles away because it's WAY cheaper to get allspice or turmeric or garam masala from those stores than it would be from the grocery store.

And if you're starting at the basic-basics, like how to season a simple pork roast, check recipe blogs. Find different bloggers and test their recipes until you find someone you trust, then follow their recipes. One good place to start is with Chef John and Food Wishes - he has a wide variety of cuisines that use a lot of different spices and has recipes that range from very simple to very complex.

Large Bastard really likes Food Wishes and trying recipes from Chef John - he cooks less than I do and has less of a sense of what to add to a pot to get something to taste the way he wants it to, but he's gotten very good at taking Food Wishes recipes and tweaking them or adjusting them and figuring out how to mix and match flavors.

Just cooking - finding a recipe that looks interesting and following it - is a really good way to get better at this kind of thing.

That's actually one of the reasons that I think meal kit boxes like blue apron can be worth it for people who want to learn how to cook - they give you recipes you wouldn't have thought to look for and provide small amounts of the required ingredients so you can sample them and figure out if you like them. My dad and sister got blue apron for like two years and it has significantly improved their cooking skills and ability to mix and match flavors.

It just takes time and money and trial and error. Easy, right? (It isn't, but there's also no way to make it faster other than doing more experiments. Thankfully there are ways to make it cheaper, and yeah looking at local specialty markets is a good way to save on spices)

[duhragonball]

Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)

I wouldn't say I'm feeling better today, but I'm feeling less bad than yesterday. So let's see if I can put some words together.

In case anyone still hasn't heard, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1, 2024. This news was made public on March 7 or 8. I woke up early on Friday morning and found out while I was checking Twitter. I had a long, busy day at work, and I kept getting on my phone to scroll through fan reactions and tributes.

I think that, more than anything, is what's gotten me so worked up about his death. My Twitter timeline and my tumblr dashboard were just chock full of touching message and images about how Akira Toriyama's work has changed their lives. I wanted to write my own tribute, but I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't already been expressed by Archie Comics, professional wrestling trio The New Day, and the Republic of El Salvador.

There's this immense, global community of fans, and it's easy to lose sight of just how big it is. It's easy to get bogged down in the infighting and petty squabbles. I saw one tweet responding to the criticism of Dragon Ball not being like this "entry level" franchise compared to other, more high brow anime and manga. It's popular with so many people, that critics will assume it's designed to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator. But the opposite is true! Dragon Ball is accessible, which is how so many people from so many different places and walks of life can get into it. The guy telling the story was such a master storyteller that he could grab an audience's attention and make it look easy. So easy that the haters would start to think that it was a trick, and he must be overrated.

Let me talk about this panel for a minute.

Last night I started going through the original manga, looking for panels to screencap. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe a selection of panels that really stood out for me might be worth posting. I'll probably still do that one of these days, but I got to this one, where Gohan tells Chi-Chi about Goku's death, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

This was a powerful scene in the anime, of course, but in the comic it's even more profound. It's just one panel, no dialogue, because the reader already knows what's happening here. We know Gohan is telling his mother that Goku died in the Cell Games, and that he refuses to be wished back, because he thinks his presence on Earth will attract new enemies. It was hard enough to hear when Goku said it to Gohan and the others, and now Gohan has to relay that message to Goku's wife. All she can do is lie prostate on the floor and weep.

And look at the composition. She's surrounded by all that negative space. Gohan's there for her, but she still feels so alone, surrounded by her husband's absence. Pots of flour for food he'll never eat. An empty chair he might have sat in. Their son, who will have to grow up without him.

I saw this, as though for the first time, and it was so gut-wrenching that I had to post it by itself. I felt like it summed up my feelings better than any words could. We're all Chi-Chi in this panel, reacting to Akira Toriyama's death. And we're all Gohan too, each of us consoling one another with our own thoughts and tributes.

So what did Akira Toriyama mean to us all? Lots of people have answered this in a lot of different ways. Obviously his art, storytelling and cultural impact speak for themselves. I've seen people compare him to other luminaries like Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka. I'll try to add my own two cents with this:

I wrote a post about "Dragon Ball Daima" back when it was first announced, and I led off with this image of a note from Akira Toriyama. I guess this was from some big fancy presentation about Daima at a convention. I forget which one. In particular, I was skeptical that the Daima rumors were even true, and if they were, the whole idea seemed half-baked to me. Turning Goku into a kid had been done before, and it wasn't exactly successful the first time.

But this note from Toriyama was very reassuring to me. More than the trailer clips and character designs, this was what got me interested in the show. That's because he took the time to not only hype up the show, but also to explain what's going on behind the premise. He took the time to tell everyone that he's working on this show, and what "Daima" means, and why all the characters get turned into kids. It's "due to a conspiracy", and the good guys will have to "fix things". In short, he established a plot, conflict, and resolution to the story. He didn't just slap this together to sell new merch. I'm sure that was part of the motivation to make Daima, but there's more to it than that.

I think that's the loss I feel with Toriyama's passing. It's not that there won't be new Dragon Ball stories in the future. I'm sure others will continue telling their own versions long after I'm gone. I'm not that worried about the fate of Daima. I'm sure they'll figure something out, whether it's delayed, rewritten, or canceled. But we'll never see another message from Toriyama to promote a new project, and that's what I'll miss. From here on, his credit will just be an acknowledgement of his past contributions.

There's this great credibility with Akira Toriyama's name. Fans will argue about how involved he was in a project as a way of establishing how good or bad it was. Dragon Ball GT has his name on the credits, and he provided some designs and artwork early on, and for some fans that proves the series has his endorsement. For others, the sole problem with the show is that he wasn't directly writing the script. There's similar debates over Dragon Ball Super, where he was involved, but only writing those mysterious "notes". So if a fan doesn't like something in DBS, who do they blame? Did Toriyama lose his touch, or did his co-creators fumble the ball? Dragon Ball Evolution basically ignored all of Toriyama's advice and bombed, while Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly, and Super Hero all put Toriyama's writing credits up at the very beginning, and each film made plenty of money. I read his comments on the Daima confirmation, and immediately thought "Okay, this should be pretty good. Akira Toriyama knows what's up."

That's gone now. I mean, there's still a lot of talent out there, but we'll never again have the little gas mask-wearing robot telling us that this story will be good because he worked on making it good. I don't think I really appreciated how much I trusted that guy until now. I still can't believe he's really gone.

I'll probably have more to say about this in the coming days, but I'll stop here for now. Thanks for letting me ramble a bit on this.

[rottenpumpkin13]

Okay so touch of angst here. But I’ve kind of been thinking about the canon idea that Sephiroth holds no attachment to objects, and that his apartment is really sparse.

And I kind of thought, what if it’s not? What if it’s the opposite? We know he holds onto his mothers photo for dear life, so what if Sephiroth actually has a bit of an issue with getting rid of stuff because of the fact he wasn’t allowed to have many possessions as a child? What if Sephiroth’s apartment is an ordered mess of things that he’s squirrelled away from under Hojo.

I’ve got this idea that maybe Angeal and Genesis have tried to help him sort through it but they struggle to get him to let go of things because he seems to have a story and an attachment to everything. And their shocked because you wouldn’t think Sephiroth is a particularly sentimental person. In fact in everyday conversation he comes of as the exact opposite, but where his stuff is concerned, Sephiroth just cannot let go.

I dunno dude, I’m making myself sad. Thought I’d share.

Let me add my two cents, I hope I did this wonderful idea justice:

• Sephiroth's apartment is indeed minimalistic and neatly-kept at first glance. He has a few personal touches here and there, such as a nice, blue throw blanket on his couch that used to be Genesis's, a few of his favorite books scattered around, a potted plant Angeal gifted him that he takes care of, all normal things.

• But every drawer, closet and cupboard is packed, filled with things he tries to keep as organized as possible but ultimately fills due to the sheet amount of stuff.

• Items Sephiroth refuses to let go of include:

• Newspaper clippings of comic strips he accumulated. There was a brief time in his life where the only joy derived from his day was reading the funny pages in the newspaper every morning. So he saved each one of those moments of bliss in a shoebox under his bed.

• Various toys and trinkets in almost every drawer of his apartment. He is a compulsive buyer of toys he was never allowed when he was a child. He rarely plays with them. Yes he will keep buying them.

• A music box that has long stopped working. It was the first purchase he made with his paycheck that was made purely because he wanted it.

• A jar of candy wrappers that has been sitting in his nightstand for five years. It had been once filled with sweets, but he, Genesis and Angeal ate them all once one night, talking, laughing, and goofing around. It had been one of the first times Sephiroth felt like he truly belonged and was finally making friends. At the time, he had been convinced that he would never be as happy as he felt in that moment. So he kept every wrapper, and hangs onto that memory to this day.

• A pair of wool mittens he keeps in his glove drawer. They're a bit ripped and don't fit anymore, but professor Gast gave those to him. It was the first and only present the professor had given him.

• A broken, plastic hair clip. When he had begun growing his hair out, Genesis had just cut his shorter and no longer needed the clip, so he gave it to Sephiroth. Sephiroth naively tried to lay down with it and broke the clip upon impact. Though he never got to use it, their subsequent shared laughter was enough to make the hair clip special.

• A broken blender in his kitchen cupboard. It had broken long ago, Sephiroth had always meaned to get it fixed, but there is a small chicken wing sticker on the base of the blender that either Genesis or Angeal had gotten from a cereal box and placed there. After a particularly stressful week where he barely ate, Sephiroth looked at the chicken wing sticker and was suddenly struck by the craving for fried chicken. It was the only thing that got him to eat that week. He keeps it around in case it ever happens again.

• A drawer full of magazine clippings of women who vaguely look like that picture of his mother.

• Multiple sweaters and hoodies. The lab was cold and Hojo was stingy with layers, oftentimes insisting that Sephiroth was fine with that he had and reprimanding him for being so weak. As a result, Sephiroth has far too many sweaters, blankets, and layers. Far more than he will ever be able to use. Some of them don't even fit him anymore because of how much he's bulked up over the years.

• A yellow flower pressed and preserved in an old book. It's the very first flower he had seen as a young boy being sent out on a mission.

• An old, green baby blanket he's had since was young. Though Hojo would never admit it, he suspects it could have been given to him by his mother. It's certainly colorful enough, different from the sterile white ones he would've expected. He often wonders if she too held it like he holds it every night before he falls asleep.

[kstewdeux]

@inukagfluffweek

August 11, 2021 - Touch

Lewd

For the life of him, Inuyasha could not figure out why people were staring at them more than usual or, more unnervingly, why Miroku kept giving him some very uncomfortable glances filled to the brim with amusement. Per the norm when the things made him uneasy, Inuyasha had taken to sticking a little closer to Kagome than he traditionally would have in a clearly hostile village. Not because he couldn’t protect himself, okay? He was perfectly capable of protecting himself and had for over a hundred years. And, to be clear, being around her didn’t make him feel safe. Definitely didn’t need to feel safe when he could defeat these assholes with one hand behind his back. He absolutely did not need Kagome to protect him and she wouldn’t be able to do much on that front in any case. It was just that he felt a little more secure near her. Secure was not the same thing as safe. Not at all. He didn’t need her to feel safe. Just…a little more confident when he was admittedly a little anxious people were staring. At first, it actually wasn’t that bad but the stares just kept getting worse and so…

But he was not staying close because he was scared. He wasn’t scared of anything. Except, well, losing her so…so that was probably why he felt the need to stay close. So he could protect her if shit hit the fan. Knowing that she was safe made his chest less tight and his stomach stop churning. Sure as hell wasn’t because…

Letting out a controlled exhale, Inuyasha distractedly flicked at some crust that had somehow lodged itself in the corner of one eye before letting his hand drop again.

“What a beautiful public display,” Miroku hummed as he sidled up to his companions and gave Inuyasha a mischievous grin, “It’s almost heartwarming to see two young people so in love.”

For some unknown reason, Kagome choked as her heart started beating so fast from fear Inuyasha’s instincts nearly went into overdrive. Why the hell was the wench so terrified?

Glancing around, amber eyes widened at the realization that Kagome might be just as worried about the stares they’d been receiving. Maybe she was staying close to him for….similar reasons he’d been staying close to her.

“You need to shut up,” Inuyasha hissed quietly before lowering his volume more so as to not be overheard - somehow making the monk look even more amused, “This ain’t the place to say shit like that. The villagers have been watching me like a hawk.”

“I absolutely cannot imagine why,” Miroku snickered as he pointedly glanced down and set his jaw to keep his shit eating grin in check, “In any case, Sango is almost done buying provisions so why don’t we move on ahead, hm?”

“Fine by me,” Inuyasha huffed as he began walking forward only to realize - when the thing in his hand jerked once to keep him in place - exactly why people were staring. Amber eyes widened in mild horror as they darted to the hand clasped securely in his own which was attached to the miko herself.

When did they start holding hands? He sure as hell didn’t do that and yet his palm was slightly sweaty indicating he’d been holding her hand for some time now.

“We should wait for her,” Kagome chided nervously as she gave Inuyasha’s hand a light squeeze making butterflies erupt in his stomach, “It shouldn’t be much longer.”

Mentally going over their day, Inuyasha tried to pin point when exactly the hand-holding started. They’d been walking side by side most of the day but he…he didn’t remember…

She must’ve started it.

“Why are you holding my hand?” Inuyasha asked - even though he took no action to cease the contact.

Giving him a strange look, the miko gave him an answer he did not like.

“Because you kept putting your hand in mine?” Kagome replied slowly - her worried look morphing into an amused one, “Wait…”

Some flashed behind her eyes and the melting look on her face made his stomach churn.

“Aw, you didn’t…”

“No ‘aw’. There is no ‘aw’ here,” Inuyasha huffed as he pulled his hand back and tucked both hands into his sleeves, “You did this. Not me.”

The melting look increased and Kagome gave him an affectionate smile.

“Awww….”

“What did I say about no ‘aw’!” Inuyasha huffed desperately, “I didn’t start this.”

“Yes you did,” Kagome sing songed and much to Inuyasha utter shock, a nearby elderly human woman chuckled softly to herself while looking between the pair with something akin to strangerly affection. Which disturbed him as much if not more than whatever was happening with him and his wandering hand.

Breathing heavily, Inuyasha’s mind continued racing down every moment of this fateful day. Trying to find the moment or apparently moments where he’d been the one to instigate the offensive touch but no matter how hard he tried, he had no memory of it. None whatsoever. Every minute of that day had felt natural. Normal even.

“D-do I do shit like that a lot?” he finally asked - his Adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to keep his composure.

“No but I liked it,” Kagome admitted with a hum before taking a step closer and giving him a shy smile that had his ears pinning back against his head.

And then she did something that absolutely crashed his mind…

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss on his cheek.

“You can hold my hand whenever you…”

“Are you insane?! You can’t just kiss me like that in strange villages,” Inuyasha hissed as his mind finally caught up - his hand desperately trying to wipe away the perceived sin. Kagome’s grin only made his anger and discomfort grow hotter.

“To be clear then, it’s okay if I do that in familiar places?” came her teasing retort and for a moment, Inuyasha was almost very, very stupid. He almost said something along of the line of forbidding kisses entirely. Something he most certainly did not want to forbid. Especially considering she was pretty much saying she’d give him kisses if he wanted them.

Blushing faintly, Inuyasha decided the best course of action was to react normally. Brush her off and declare her stupid…

Thankfully the old woman watching saw the incoming relationship bomb coming before it landed and for some unknown reason, felt inclined to defuse the explosive before it detonated.

“Be bold boy and say yes,” the elderly woman chuckled softly, “A girl like that won’t wait for you forever and the monk is right. Anyone with eyes can see you love her.”

“Stay outta this” Inuyasha snapped irritably - a reaction to which the old woman thankfully seemed amused by, “What makes you so bold?”

Miroku’s hand flew to the top of his head - hoping his friend didn’t just incur someone’s wrath and also…didn’t Inuyasha just say they shouldn’t draw attention to themselves? Was this just how he coped with fear and anxiety? Antagonize people? If so, how was Inuyasha still alive?!

“Well this was my husbands village and now it belongs to my son. Everything that happens here is my business,” the old woman hummed - giving the somewhat nervous trio a reassuring smile, “And seeing as how you’re in my village, what I say goes.”

“Crack pot,” Inuyasha huffed - earning a full blown facepalm from the miko - and the old woman, to her credit, simply smirked. Not at all afraid of the teenager even with all his fangs and demonic energy. Mostly because he was obviously domesticated and in the presence of equally powerful friends who could stop him from doing any real damage but also because this demon clearly had a good heart and therefore, she reasoned, wouldn’t harm her.

And while that was all mostly true, that didn’t mean Inuyasha wasn’t seriously considering punching her.

“Inuyasha, you need to be nicer to people.”

“Fine. Fine,” Inuyasha huffed as his blush deepened. Glancing at the old woman to make sure she wasn’t upset by what he’d said, Inuyasha turned his gaze back towards the miko who was clearly expecting him to apologize to the old woman. Which he wasn’t gunna do but he could fix one thing that probably needed fixing for a while now.

Squaring his shoulders, Inuyasha cleared his throat and…tried…

“It’d be annoying but if you…you want to kiss me sometimes, I won’t stop you.”

Kagome blinked once then twice.

“Come again?”

Quickly reaching over to push Miroku away face first before he could add in his two cents, Inuyasha tried to look like what he’d said wasn’t awkward as hell.

“I said if you want to kiss me, go ahead. Old bat was right,” Inuyasha hufffed before his eyes widened in horror at what he’d impulsively implied, “I mean, you already j-just do shit. I c-can’t really stop you.”

Kagome made a bemused face and wrinkled her nose at this bizarre admission. That was at least twice now that Inuyasha hadn’t shot someone down after they announced he loved her. Which was unusual and for someone as easily triggered as he was, that left her with a most wonderful conclusion.

One that he apparently realized she’d come to and so Inuyasha did what Inuyasha do.

He tried to protect himself. Poorly.

“I see that look. Don’t be stupid. I mean…yeah, she was right about…about the love part…I do, um, love you, ya know, as a friend. A good friend. And, um, sometimes friends they kiss I think.”

“Well if that is true I must inform San…”

With a soft groan at his own cringeworthy awkwardness, Inuyasha once again necessarily pressed his hand against the closer than usual monk’s face and gave it a light push. This was already nerve racking enough without the monk making it more weird on purpose. First he was holding his woman’s hand without realizing and now he’d all but admitted how he felt. Something he’d been denying himself because he didn’t want to force someone to walk beside him as he faced the constant pile of shit being thrown at him. Add to that he didn’t deserve to be happy when Kikyo was suffering and it was just…wrong to feel like he did.

What he wanted didn’t matter. It never mattered…

Kagome smiled and his stomach turned into pleasant knots.

Except it did. Hell did it ever. He couldn’t even go more than a day without this woman before he lost his fucking mind. What was he going to do if she knew and didn’t feel the same way? Or worse, what if a chance at a relationship ended badly?! If she left him, she’d take the only friends he’d ever had with her…

He’d be alone…

“Uh….huh…”

Panicking now, Inuyasha decided to rely on old faithful and go for an insult to force her back into friendship lane. This was getting into dangerous territory. She knew. Mainly because he told her but he…he could fix it.

“W-why are you so s-stupid, huh?” Inuyasha added a little desperately and much to his horror Kagome’s knowing smile only grew, “I’m just saying you just do shit and…I mean, what am I supposed to do, huh? You just throw yourself at…”

The old woman snickered at the scene and threw in her thoughts with a bemused laugh, “Please just kiss him young lady and put us all out of our misery. He talks far too much for his own good.”

“STAY OUTTA THIS YOU OLD…” Inuyasha began to bellow before whimpering softly when Kagome sealed his mouth with her own. Before he knew it, his arms were pulling her up and against him to give her the best access. It was beautiful and pure and everything he’d hoped a real kiss would be like. While she had done that before, this was the first time she’d done it for a reason other than saving his sorry ass. She’d done that only because she wanted to and that fact that she’d done it just because nearly brought a tear to his eye. Did she…did she love him back?

“You know,” Kagome panted lightly as she pulled back and nuzzled her man’s nose, “I love you too.”

Visibly wilting in relief, Inuyasha gave Kagome the most affectionate look anyone had ever seen on his face. A look that crumpled and turned to annoyance when Miroku made another comment about ‘public displays’.

The old woman simply rolled her eyes and continued on her way - mentally chuckling to herself about how the youth of today could be so foolish and how life was far too short.

A short distance away her middle aged son was watching his mother with a weary smile while the pair of mercenaries seemed to discuss something of great magnitude.

“That’s a dangerous thing you just did.”

“I did nothing but nudge those two down a path they were already on,” the old woman chuckled softly - reaching out to pat her son’s arm, “Love is love sweetheart. It’s one of those funny things in life that just is.”

For a long moment, the son watched the newly formed couple as they resumed holding hands before sighing and turning to follow his mother.

“I meant you meddle far too much” the son continued - glancing over his shoulder to make sure they went being overheard, “They’re mercenaries by trade. You saw their weapons. Probably fresh from some war and…”

“Mercenaries deserve love as well…”

The son let out a long exhale and rolled his eyes.

“Mother. That boy had claws…”

“Claws deserve love…”

The son stopped mid step and groaned that kind of exasperated groan only a child with an embarrassing parent would understand before glancing over his shoulder to watch the little band move on towards their next bounty. One day his mother was going to try to play matchmaker with the wrong two people…

But thankfully, it would seem she always managed to pick the right ones.

[tartagliaxx]

I just watched a vid about how all the fandom is making Childe OOC, because win his quest and in general he's serious, has a hug battle lust and only cares about his family. So the cheerful, house husband, goofy tartaglia is not real. He is

What do you think?

My opinion is that this person is should distinguish between Tartaglia/Childe and Ajax, Ajax is different, he doesn't need to be super cheerful and goody but it's true that Ajax is softer, he cares and he's willing to make happy the people he loves the most. Tartaglia is cold, serious, that man is a living weapon as we could see in out battle with him.

I'd like to add extra points like he can cook, clean, he can be kind and doesn't care about money, money is to spend after all, he also invited traveler to his hometown, he has a soft side but working for The Tsaritsa, plus his birthday letters are so... Cute ? He honestly wants to spend time with traveler and not only to fight, but just to have a talk or fishing.

But yeah, that's my opinion, I wanna read yours please? 💕

first and foremost, fancontent is fancontent. it’s totally fine to make your content ooc bc it’s *your* content. you’re not legally or morally obligated to make a character as lifelike as possible unless that was your intention. second, i really don’t think i’m the right person to ask this because istg i look at his pretty face and melt. what do you mean childe is a murderer? my baby boy would never hurt a fly! /j here’s my two cents tho! its utc! uh.. warning, it did get long but that's expected. this is my husband we're talking about. ofc im not gonna be able to shut up abt him </3

whenever i write for childe, i decide which facet i’d be using. childe, the reckless and battle-hungry warrior who is at home in the gore and bloodshed of war, tartaglia, the tsaritsa’s loyal follower who would stop at nothing if it means the fulfillment of his god’s will and finally, ajax, the family man who adores his siblings with all his heart. the thing is, these parts of him are not exclusive. they merge and blend to make up his character. when you’re traveling with him, you’ll find that he dons the most cruel smile as he demolishes one mob and another but as soon as night draws close, he’s cooking up a pot of stew that he personally says is his favorite during his childhood when all that he has to battle the winters of snezhnaya was a warm bowl of his mom’s cooking. and of course, if the situation turns for the worse, he won’t hesitate to cut you down in honor of the tsaritsa though he would do so with much regret. that is who he was. when he joined the fatui, he was tartaglia first, childe second and ajax to the very few he chose to trust.

i agree that childe is cold and serious to the core. he’s not a good person and he’s not afraid to admit that. he could be selfish and manipulative but he’s also very sincere when he says that he loves his family and would choose to protect them even if it means them hating him for the rest of their lives. it doesn’t make him a good person nor does it justify his actions but it does prove that underneath all the cruelty that made him who he was now is the same, young ajax who helps his parents do chores  — the same one who joins tonia’s teaparties where they read foreign books together and runs around having snowball fights with teucer and anthon. i also believe that his relations with the traveler is just as sincere. his ‘ajax’ facet is reserved for his family, yes, but the ones he truly respect and kind of care for in the sense of being worthy comrades/rivals (like the traveler) might see a snippet of that side of him from time to time. i think that he appreciates that there’s someone who can keep up with all three sides of him, not reprimanding him for it because in reality, no human ever has only one side. the traveler recognizes him as someone who is part of the fatui — therefore bad and that they should be careful around him — but they also accept his sparring invites from time to time. in rarer moments, they relate to him because they have a sibling too and they will do everything for them. thus, the traveler recognizes that ajax is a part of childe and he is softer and kinder than his other two personas. it’s unfair to say that ‘malewife’ childe doesn’t exist because i genuinely believe that he does. it’s just not for everyone to see.

point is, he’s such a complex character and fictional characters like he is are often up for anyone’s interpretation. most fancontent out there are based on some vague interaction he had in the few cutscenes he appeared in. in reality, we’ll never know what’s ooc or not because we’ll also most likely not see him in the situations we fantasize about. anw, ooc or not, malewife childe superiority. i love him. marry me sir and if our marriage goes south, please eat my poisoned squid and die with a smile <33

[pumpkinpot]

Hoshi

A/N: this is part of the Citrus Dome Sci-Fi collab. this is also pure fluff. no smut, no real angst. just spooky summer vibes and poly love. I hope you enjoy. (I’m sorry for grammatical errors in advance.)

synopsis: since beginning your relationship with Katsuki Bakugou and Ochako Uraraka you’ve developed a love for exploring abandon places with them whenever you three have time to explore. This time, so happens to land on a derelict observatory. (additional head canons for this story on my tik tok under pumpkinpots)

“It says here it was abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century due to the spike in light pollution with the growth of the city,” you say, pointing to the dome at the peak of the building. “All of the mobile telescopes were transferred to the university's observatory, while this placed rotted away.

Uraraka half listens, levitating sheetrock from the doorway and discarding them in the nearby field.

“Why just abandon it?” Katsuki asks, fiddling with varying lenses in his camera bag. “Couldn’t this have been a museum or something?”

“Yeah,” you agree, shifting a glance to make sure Uraraka doesn’t need help. “It looks like it was bought by a merchant in the eighties who wanted to turn it into a house, but he was indicted for tax evasion before the renovations ever finished. It hasn’t been touched since.” 

He scoffs with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Rich idiots.”

Uraraka brushes specks of dust off her palms across her cut-off shorts before urging us alone. “Shall we?” 

It takes two and a half pushes to nudge the door wide enough to squeeze through. The observatory opens to us with a groan of whining metal and the scratch of loose dirt on concrete. 

Centered in the main foyer, a gaping mural of blue and white cobblestone depicts a dusty map of astrology stars. 

Katsuki has to be coaxed with a promise to be flashed to pose under the Taurus constellation for a picture, meanwhile, Uraraka floats just above Pisces with a cute puffy cheeked expression. 

Names, small sayings, and symbols decorate the wall in vibrant graffiti, the place a cocktail of color and wild Ivy.

"It's a lot more lit than I thought I'd be," Uraraka says, stuffing her flashlight into her bag. 

Katuski keeps the light attached to his camera lit as he weaves in and out of rooms, zooming in on old books and broken equipment. 

We follow him through a puzzle of what seemed to be living quarters and small classrooms, ending in a half oval auditorium. 

At the center of the stage a white globe balances on a pillar of cement. 

“What’s this?” Uraraka asks. 

You touch where someone had attempted to derail the sphere like a baseball before trailing your eyes above the layered seating. “It's a projector ball. Technicians would likely project light from there into the ball to make it seem like the planet or star they were studying. That's why it's,” you knock on the sphere's cool solid surface. “Crystal.”

Uraraka shines her phone’s light into it, the shattered pieces reflecting shapes in a dim glow.

Katsuki points the camera into the orb, the bluish tint reminds you of the similar one in the abandoned lighthouse you’d explored with them two years ago. Though that one would have lit from the inside. 

Quickly you explore the base and second levels, eager to get to the actual observatory. It's evident where the renovations to make this a home had been started and never finished. Small cracks in the floor, sealed with caulk, loose wooden planks pillaring knocked in walls. 

It could have been a beautiful home, you think to yourself. 

Up the second flight of stairs gradually more and more light fills the space until you are bathed in the orange glow of early dusk. A large open scare slits the dome, edging with rust and ivy. The circular room holds nothing of true value, nothing left behind but broken tables and a ladder to the viewing balcony tailing the opening of the dome. 

“The big telescope that would have been here-” Uraraka says, fiddling with the screw holes in the floor, “- would have been a refracting telescope. It uses small bits of glass to magnify what you’re looking at, then is bent back through the telescope hitting the eyepiece. The other kind is a reflector,” she continues, “It's got a primary mirror at the bottom of the lens into a second mirror than a third eyepiece mirror. This one is mostly used to see the different parts of a star to see what it's made out of.”

Katsuki and you exchange looks of pure astonishment. "how do you know all this?" you ask.

She fishes a gum wrapper from one of the holes, tossing it to the side. “Before I was accepted into UA I was really considering going into astronomy. I thought it fit so well with my quirk, but the courses were too expensive.” 

"More expensive than UA?" Katuski asks, refocusing his camera. 

She nods, seeming just as dumbfounded as us. 

“Do you think it could work on my explosions?”

“If you were in space maybe,” you hypothesize, “but in that case, we probably wouldn’t see it for a long while.” 

He seems semi disappointed as if his evening plans had been somehow derailed.

You run your hands across the walls of the dome, dusk sun baking its metal frame like a soup pot. 

For a moment you just watch them. It’d been so long since the opportunity arose for the three of you to go exploring. With you still temporarily stationed in the American hero commission and those two workings in Japan it was rare to find time to skype let alone go on adventures. You were lost in the bliss of having your partners so near without having to scream about a lost wifi connection when your hand hit something protruding from the wall.

“What are these?” you ask, inspecting circular gears attached to a crank.

“It looks like the wheel to turn the dome,” Uraraka says.

Katsuki zooms in on the puzzle of rigid plates. “This bitch turns?” 

“Yeah, that slit doesn't move so the dome has to, to accommodate where in the sky they were looking.” 

Katsuki fingers the gears a moment, mapping its track all across the sphere. He traces along the parts not layered in rust until he’s back at the start. “Do you think it still works?” 

“Not without some serious lube and strong arms.”

“We’re one for two,” you suggest. 

Katsuki hands over his camera to Uraraka, positioning himself opposite you to push the lever, while you pull left.

At first, the dial stays put, its stance unforgiving, but after a bit more pull than push a deafening whine reverberating through the entire observatory. 

No visible move happens until the second crank roundabout when the shift of light against concrete becomes clear.

Katsuki’s eyes light with sheer amazement as the entire dome rotates around you. We are halfway through a full rotation before Uraraka shouts for you to stop. 

You push on the lever stilling its movements as quickly as you can.

She holds a finger head tilted to the side. “Do you hear that?” 

Your breath balloons in your chest as you lean in closer. The tiniest of whimpers echo around the dome from the viewing balcony. 

One after another you file up the ladder, hopping on the edge of the dome. Balancing on the concrete crease between the moving track and the rest of the building you search for the sound. 

“Here!” Uraraka yells from the other side.

 You sprint as much as you dare, teetering along the two-story edge. 

She squats over the body of a squirming animal, a tuft of fur caught in the track of the dome's rotation. She coddles its little frame, before reaching a hand out to you. “Y/n, your knife-”

Hesitantly you hand it over. She snips away the stuck pieces muttering thanks that none of the actual tail got caught. She folds the blade back into itself, pinching leaves and sticks from the animal's fur and tossing them over the side. 

She holds it up, floppy ears and a black nose making it a nearly recognizable creature. A puppy. 

He looks to be light brown, but that could be the soot. 

Katsuki checks around the dome for any signs of a litter or mamma, before joining us with a shake of his head. 

The pup squirms and with an open mouth, letting all sorts of noises tumble from his dirt-covered tongue. 

Uraraka floats the puppy to the floor of the dome, as we file down the ladder. You empty the contents of your water bottle into a cup for drinking and the rest onto its back for cooling.  

His fur peaks through white and brown spotted under layers of grime. 

“Well,” Uraraka says, “we’ve been talking about wanting to expand our family.” 

“I suppose there’s no better place to start,” you add, both of us looking to Katsuki for consensus.

He passes glances between the three of us. “Fine, but I get to name it.”

“Alright, but we get veto power.” 

“Explosion-”

“Veto,” you say in unison. 

He looks around puffy-lipped. “I didn't even get to finish.” 

“Explosion nothing,” Uraraka clarifies. 

He’s silent for a long moment looking around the space. “Hoshi?.” 

“Star?” you confirm.

“This observatory was used to study the stars, wasn’t it?” He bats.

You and Uraraka exchange a satisfied, yet surprised look. You hadn’t expected something so- normal. This is after all the same man that made you name your golden pothos “boom boom boi” in his honor. 

“I like it,” you say.

“Approved,” adds Uraraka. 

We better take our picture before it gets too dark,” he says, turning away so you can’t see the blush on his cheeks. He switches out his filming camera for a smaller polaroid, propping it up on the edge of a broken table. 

He runs back as the timer ticks down. He slides to your right side, Uraraka on your left. Their arms link behind you as you hold Hoshi up to your mid-chest. Clicking down from five you all give your cheesiest grins. A rectangular card spits from the bottom of the camera. 

Ochaco shakes it a few times, swapping you a picture, for a puppy. 

You wait for the picture to pixelate before opening the ninety-cent notebook of film slips and position it in the next available spot.

Urarka’s cut-off shorts and Katsuki's tanned shoulders are a stark contrast to the puffy blue coat and chunky knit beanie from the last abandoned mansion expedition last time. Before that, the three of us accidentally matched our windbreakers to Midoryia during a tour of The Ghost Candy Shop in Kyoto. We look like a group of tourists. 

The small book seemed to be filling quickly despite the rareness of time to get away. Memories pile up from when it was just Uraraka and Katsuki to when you became a staple to their adventures. They’d given you responsibility for the book to garner your importance to them in their relationship until the reasoning for the gift became nothing more than routine. You were theirs, and they were yours. 

Now a new member had sprouted in your little family, and if you squinted, you could imagine the rest of the pages being filled with the pup in aged years to maybe more as time goes on.

 Right now, you were happy with the three and a half of you.

[ve1vetyoongi]

Operation: Love Letters | 04

💌 CHAPTER INDEX 💌

♡ ⇢ pairing: ot7 x reader.

♡ ⇢ chapter word count: 7k

♡ ⇢ genre: mystery, college!au, romance, fluff, eventual smut.

♡ ⇢ warnings/rating: none, PG

♡ ⇢ summary: When every student on campus is going crazy about a survey that claims to make true love bloom, your best friend manages to convince you to join in on the fun — except you’re disappointed to find out that your results just seem to be lost causes. That is until a love letter from a mysterious secret admirer turns up and you find yourself on a mission to find the person behind the pen — but you quickly realise it’s going to be a lot harder than you initially thought when you have 7 possible bachelors to investigate, right? Operation: Love Letters a-go!

♡ ⇢ schedule: updated every day at 5pm GMT in the run up to Valentine’s Day 2020!

"I'm having second thoughts about this." You whine as Jimin fishes around in his leather waist bag for a pen so he can scribble your names down under KISSERS on the fundraiser sign up sheet. "What if my admirer doesn't even turn up? Or worse, what someone kisses me and I get sick and then I die before I can uncover their identity?"

Jimin just rolls his eyes, already finished dotting the I's in his name with tiny hearts before he slips his arm through yours and drops his head on to your shoulder as you walk across campus.

"Taehyung got totally suspicious when he found out you were signing up for the kissing booth. So, he knows you're gonna be here. What's stopping him from coming?"

"We don't know if he is my admirer yet." You point out. "Their name was ripped off, remember?"

"Well why else would he have had that letter in his backpack? It doesn't take much to read between the lines. Don't deep it too much. Besides, I've already started an intense lip treatment so I'm ready for the big day!" He smacks his lips with a wink and you can't help but scoff.

"Hey! You're supposed to be focused on finding my admirer not making out with every student on campus!"

"What? A guy can't even have some fun around here anymore?" Jimin tugs on his satchel with a dreamy look in his eyes. "Besides, who knows? Maybe I'll find an admirer of my own!"

"I just wish the note hadn't been ripped right where my admirer wrote his name." You sigh. "That would've made this whole thing a lot easier."

"Sure, but in a way it's a good sign. The fact that he signed his name at all suggests that he wants to be found, so I'll bet he's gonna turn up at the kissing booth for real."

You shake your head, already nervous. "You better be right."

Jimin just sends you a wink. "When am I ever wrong?"

"Okay, I was wrong." Jimin murmurs, nerves evident in his tone as you elbow your way to the front of the crowd that has formed outside the gym. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

The kissing booth is a small wooden shack set up in the middle of the gymnasium, surrounded by red foil balloons in the shape of hearts and jars of pink jellybeans and bouquets of chocolate covered strawberries. The air is fragrant with the red roses that are scattered by the dozen along the path leading up to none other than Kim Seokjin, who stands on a stepladder as he adds the finishing touches to a sign labelled with prices in chalk, from 5 cents for a kiss on the cheek to 5 dollars for a make-out.

When he sees you emerging from the crowd his face breaks out into a beaming grin and he rushes over to pull you both into a bear hug. "I knew I could count on you two to come along! The other kisser's pulled out last minute, so you guys are gonna have to work extra hard today!"

"What?" Jimin exclaims. "The two of us have to kiss all of these people?"

Before Seokjin can open his mouth to let out a reassuring excuse, a familiar head of blonde hair stuffed messily beneath a baseball cap rounds the corner.

"Dude, Taehyung popped another one of the balloons, d'ya got any spares..." Yoongi calls, before stopping like a dead weight when he sees you standing there. He offers you a confused but friendly wave. "Oh hey, Y/N."

"Yoongi? What are you doing here?"

"Seokjin paid me twenty dollars to man the tip jar." He explains, opening a nearby pot and pouring a handful of pink bubblegum into his mouth despite the distasteful look Seokjin sends him. Yoongi just shrugs and slumps down onto the stool behind the booth, flashing Seokjin a look of his own. "He didn't mention that slave labour would be involved, though."

"Yoongi? Did you get more balloons—"

None other than Taehyung skips around the corner holding a bunch of pink balloons, stumbling gracelessly like a crazed, blue haired bowling ball into your form in his haste.

"Taehyung, too? What are you doing here?" Jimin narrows his eyes, and nudges you in the ribs with a knowing wink. Way to not be suspicious, you think. "Are you here to perhaps...kiss a special someone?"

"Me? No! Uh...just...helping!" Taehyung stammers, avoiding Jimin's gaze like the plague while jumping foot to foot nervously and managing to somehow pop one of the balloons in his grip which falls to the ground limply. He flashes you a sheepish smile. "See, helping..."

"He's definitely being sketchy." Jimin whispers in your ear as Yoongi rolls his eyes and ties the balloons to the booth where Taehyung can't accidentally destroy any more of them. "Look at how much he's sweating!"

"I think the real question is, why are you guys here?" Yoongi nods towards the coordinating pink jumpsuits Jimin has convinced you to wear because they were Valentine's appropriate. "Didn't think you did a lot of charity work."

"I like charity work!" You insist, though Yoongi just raises an eyebrow unconvinced, nodding his head when your true motive slips out. "But truth is I'm trying to find my secret admirer. It's just I didn't think there would be so many people..."

Yoongi follows your gaze out over the line of people waiting to get a kiss from the booth, face after indistinguishable face buzzing with excitement until they disappear around the corner, probably getting longer as the minutes ticked by.

"How do you even know if the guy is here or not?" Yoongi points out. "This could be a waste of time."

"I don't know." You shrug. "I guess I'll know when I see them?"

"How?" Taehyung suddenly interjects. All eyes fall on him and he turns sheepish, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "I mean how do you know if someone is in love with you just by looking at them? Can you tell?"

Jimin fishes for his phone, pulling up a website and holding it out to Taehyung and Yoongi who read through it curiously. "I looked online and apparently there's, like, a ton of body language cues to tell if someone's in love with you. Like if they touch you a lot, or their pupils get bigger when they look at you, or they save you from harms way—"

"So Y/N should just throw herself in front of a car and see if her knight in shining armour shows up to save her?" Yoongi scoffs, handing Jimin his phone back with an amused shake of his head.

"Uh, actually...about that." Seokjin pops up from behind the booth, two slips of pink silk dangling from his fingertips. He holds it up to his eyes, obscuring his vision in demonstration. "You two won't be seeing a single thing."

"What?!" You exclaim. "Seokjin, this was your idea! Why didn't you tell me we would be blindfolded before I signed up?"

"Because you know as well as me that you wouldn't have come if I told you and I needed someone actually hot to sign up for this thing if I wanted to raise our goal amount." You cross your arms and blow a piece of hair out of your face in frustration. Seokjin throws up his hands in defence. "Hey, don't look at me like that! You're our moneymaker, Y/N!"

"That's not the point! How am I supposed to find my secret admirer if I can't even see them?"

"It's okay," Jimin clamps a hand on your shoulder and turns you to face him. "If your secret admirer is here, you'll know it as soon as they kiss you." He looks off into the distance, eyes glassy as he leans in closer and drops his voice to a dreamy whisper. "It'll feel like fireworks!"

You punch him in the shoulder. "Dude, I know you're a hopeless romantic but I don't think that's how real life works."

"I think it's kinda sweet." Taehyung calls from the step ladder, stood on the top step on his tiptoes attempting to nail a sign to the wall, though his focus seems to be on Jimin as he muses over his words, seemingly to engaged to notice how he wobbled back and forth. "Hey, Yoongi are you sure you're holding the ladder steady—"

Before you know it, Taehyung is losing his footing and crashing to the ground, metal sign in tow. Your reaction time is slow and if it weren't for Yoongi who throws his body around yours and pulls you to safety, you'd be laying in a pile of crushed limbs beneath Taehyung who mumbles in pain and rubs his butt on the floor beside you.

"Woah!" Yoongi exclaims, eyes wide as they look you over to see if you're hurt. "You okay?"

"Uh...yeah." He lets out a sigh of relief, awkwardly letting you go and taking a couple steps backwards when you glance down at where his hand grips yours tightly, like he's still scared to let go. "Thanks. You really saved me, there."

That was weird, you think when Yoongi just grumbles something about it being nothing or whatever and bows his head to cover the way his cheeks burn, but Seokjin swoops in your save you before you have a chance to ask him what was up.

"Hey guys? The people are getting restless so we better get back to work and stat." Seokjin clamps one hand onto your shoulder, the other onto Jimin's, and starts to steer you towards a pile of unwrapped candies that need to be sorted by colour. "Oh, Yoongi? Could you hang that sign back up while these two get ready?"

Yoongi sends a half-assed eye roll at Seokjin as he drags himself over to the sign, and you just about get a glimpse of the scrawl on the front.

PUCKER UP FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN THE GRAND PRIZE!

You turn to Seokjin. "Grand prize? What's that?"

"Everyone who buys a ticket gets entered into a raffle for the grand prize. A kiss on the lips with the kisser of their choice! They say that if you kiss for at least 7 seconds you fall in love!" He sees your eyes widen, patting your back reassuringly and gesturing towards the crowd. "Why else do you think we had such a good turn out?"

"What's the point if they can't even see the person?" Yoongi grumbles, taking the pencil balanced behind his ear and scribbling a mark for the nail on the wall. "Seems kinda dumb."

"Isn't that the point of a secret admirer?" Seokjin huffs, producing a roll of pink tickets from his pocket and handing one to both Yoongi and Taehyung. "Tell you what, here. Both of you take one of these. On the house for all your hard work."

"Wow. I'm touched." Yoongi slides it into his pocket with a roll of his eyes but Taehyung looks down and the ticket and back up at you and Jimin again in wonder.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll win." Seokjin winks. "Now chop chop you two! Go get ready to pucker up!"

Hours pass and 78 kisses later (yes, you counted) and you still haven't felt the fireworks Jimin said you would when you and your secret admirer locked lips.

"I'm starting to think he's not coming, Jimin." You sigh, feeling around in your blindfolded state for your best friend who is busy applying hundreds of layers of lip balm to his puckered lips. "Maybe Yoongi's right and this whole thing was dumb."

"Don't give up just yet," Jimin responds, pouting his lips and crooning a finger towards the next customer. "We still have the grand prize winners to go!"

As if on cue, Seokjin jumps up onto the main stage and taps a megaphone, the sound quieting down the rumble of chit chat and budding love that lingers in the gym.

"Okay everybody, it's the moment you've all been waiting for! Time to announce the winners of the grand prize!"

The crowd let's out a unanimous cheer and you silently cross your fingers beneath the booth that the power of love was strong enough to make your secret admirer's number the winner.

Seokjin sticks his hand into a jar filled with tiny slips of paper, eyes squeezed shut as he closes his hand around the winning number. You can't see it but you can hear the triumphant grin on his lips at the ripple that runs through the crowd when he produces not one but two pieces of paper from the jar.

"Looks like the universe has spoken, and we're going to be awarding two kisses today! Could number nine and number thirty please make their way to the front of the gym and select their kisser of choice!"

The crowd erupts into applause and you hear a pair of shoes scuffle across the ground towards you, almost hesistant.

"Hey." You feel a person stop a short distance away from you, and you flash them a small smile. "Congrats!"

The person says nothing and you're about to open your mouth to ask them their name when Seokjin interjects.

"Hello? What are you waiting for? Kiss!"

The crowd starts to chant kiss! kiss! kiss! and you're suddenly overcome with nerves. What if this isn't your admirer? But then again, what will you do if it is?

A shiver runs down your spine when you feel a breath ghost across your face, and even though you're blindfolded you find your eyes falling shut in anticipation when a hesitant hand gently cups your chin. The touch is more careful than the others, a thumb rubbing soothing circles into the flushed flesh of the apple of your cheek as you stand on your tip toes to finally connect your lips to the one's hovering inches from your own.

This kiss is different. Slower, languid, careful. A plump bottom lip that slots just perfectly between your own, like it has always belonged there. A heat that sends tingles through your entire body and makes your heart race and your blood run hot as you wrap your arms around the neck of the person and then—

"7 seconds are up, dudes! Time to move along to the next person!"

Within seconds the lips are gone and you reach for them but a hand grabs your wrist and prises your hand open, placing something into your palm and then curling your fingers tightly around it. You're utterly frozen, lips tingling, as he leans in and places a single kiss to your cheek before you feel his warmth disappear all together.

Your hands shake, eyes shooting open as you rip the blindfold away.

Fireworks.

"Jimin!" You exclaim, grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him out from behind the booth much to the groaning disappointment of the growing line of customers. "I felt it. That was him! I'm sure of it!"

Jimin is touching his lips carefully, vision distant as he squeezes his eyes shut and let's out a hazy sigh of satisfaction. "Me too. I felt... fireworks!"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go find them before they get away!"

You scan the gym with greedy eyes, immediately zoning in on two figures who are pushing their way backwards through the crowd in opposing directions. The dude to your left glances over his shoulder briefly, and you just about catch a glimpse of blue hair poking above the crowd from beneath his hood when he does.

"I'll go left, you go right!" You call to Jimin, who nods and scurries after the other figure who has already been swallowed by the crowd, and you ignore Seokjin's shouts from behind you and break into a run to catch up with your suspect.

Sharp elbows prod your ribs as you bust through the crowd, weaving through bodies that seem to come at you like obstacles whenever you get slightly too close to the boy speed walking away, until you're spat out into an empty hallway and there's no sign of him to be found.

"What the heck? Where did he go?"

The door to the lobby swings shut to your left and you speed up, zeroing in on the sound of a pair of sneakers squeaking against the floor nearby. You gain speed, launching yourself into the lobby and that's when you see him; hunched over and panting for breath, a flash of a pink ticket glinting from between his fingertips as he grips his side desperately. He lets down his hood to reveal a head of seafoam hair and that's when you're sure. You've found him. Your potential admirer.

Before you can think better of it, you're launching yourself through the air and wrapping your arms around the shoulders of the blue-haired-runaway. He lets out a yell of surprise, briefly struggling before he drops to the ground and you manage to wrangle yourself onto his front, pinning his arms to the ground and smiling triumphantly when you find none other than Kim Taehyung looking up at you fearfully.

"I knew it! It's you!" You punch the air, missing how Taehyung's eyes narrow in confusion. "You're my secret admirer, right?"

"What? No! Your secret admirer is..." He swallows hard, eyes widening like he let something slip that he shouldn't have. "Uh wait! Forget I said that, um I gotta go—"

"Oh hell no," Jimin appears, out of breath, and grabs Taehyung by the collar. "You know something? You're coming with us."

"Uh, sorry again for, you know...tackling you to the ground or whatever." You say as you place a cup of coffee down in front of Taehyung. Jimin has dragged you both to the nearly empty cafeteria to talk so you figured it wouldn't hurt to offer a sorry gift. "I really thought it was you."

"It's fine." Taehyung offers an awkward smile as he rubs the back of his neck, shooting you a set of finger guns. "Better hope I don't sue you if it bruises, though."

There's an awkward silence as you and Jimin just stare at the table, unamused by Taehyung's attempt at lightening the mood, so he takes to sipping his coffee in silence instead. "

"Soooo..." You swirl the straw in your cup of soda meaninglessly, catching the way Taehyung's eyes flit across the cafeteria like he doesn't know where to look. "You said you knew who sent Y/N the love letter?"

Taehyung freezes, head jerking up to stare at you directly, tongue eventually snaking out to wipe away the coffee froth on his upper lip. "I do."

Your fingers tap against the table top impatiently. "So? Who is it?"

"I..." Taehyung bites his lip, sinking back into his seat with his hands curled in his lap in defeat. "I can't tell you."

"What? Why?!" You exclaim. "We're so close and you won't help us?"

"It's not that I don't want to!" Taehyung rushes, hands in the air in surrender. "But I've been sworn to secrecy by your admirer and...I think it's better if he tells you himself."

"And how can we be sure you aren't just lying to cover your own tracks?" Jimin interjects, chin in palm as he looks between the two of you he's been listening carefully this whole time. He narrows his eyes and points right at the blue haired boy opposite who flinches. "Explain how you had this letter that day after the frat party?"

Jimin looks left and right to check the coast is clear before he slides the ripped piece of paper you found in Taehyung's bag across the table.

Taehyung's brows furrow as he studies the note closely, confused, but then he flips the page and his eyes light up like he just put a puzzle piece together."Oh that?" He twists in his seat to rummage around in his backpack, emerging with the missing letter piece.  "Here's the other half."

With a smug grin you rip the note from his hand, quickly lining it up with the letter you had read over and over again for clues, heart thumping as you read the words littering the lines and hope for answers. "A-ha! This is...a grocery list?"

Taehyung shrugs. "I was wondering where that got to. I guess your admirer used my notebook and I forgot to check the back of the page before I ripped it out. Sorry."

So all this time Taehyung was just using the back of the love letter your admirer wrote from his heart to remind him what to buy at the store? The disrespect!

Jimin slides his glasses down his nose, peering over the lenses as he slams his hands down right in front of Taehyung, unconvinced by his story.

"Then how come you were holding a pink ticket and we saw you walking away when we took off our blindfold."

Taehyung chokes on his drink, eyes trained to the table as he fiddles with the rings on his fingers nervously. "Well, I did kiss someone..."

"What?" You and Jimin exclaim in unison.

Taehyung nods. "But it wasn't you, Y/N."

"Then..." Realisation suddenly hits you like a ton of bricks and all eyes land on Jimin who is frozen like a statue, mouth opening and closing in disbelief as Taehyung's confession.

"You kissed...me?" He swallows. "Me?"

"Yeah." Taehyung stammers, finally blinking up through his long lashes at Jimin to gauge his reaction."Is that okay?"

"Y-yeah. Yeah it is." Taehyung's lips curve into an unabashed grin and you can't help but giggle at how red Jimin's cheeks have bloomed, your best friend's eyes filled with hearts as they stare at the blue haired boy opposite him with content disbelief.

So...this development is pretty much confirmation that Taehyung is definitely not your secret admirer. A weight settles in your stomach when it dawns on you that your last lead just came to a dead end, and you are still no closer to uncovering the identity of your secret admirer.

Maybe it's time to give up. All you had left was a pinboard filled with useless clues and now you could place another cross next to Taehyung's name.

But as you look between the two boys hitting it off in front of you, you can't help but smile, somehow glad that at least something good came out of this whole thing. It is the season of love, after all. Even if it wasn't for you.

"Oooookay." You announce, getting to your feet when you zone back in and notice how much closer Jimin has scooted towards Taehyung. "Well, I guess this is my cue to leave you guys to it."

"Wait!" Taehyung grabs your wrist, pinning you in place. "I really do hope you find your admirer. I know I couldn't help much, but have you tried talking to Jeon Jungkook? He programmed the Love Calculator so maybe he can."

"Jeon Jungkook..." Where have you heard that name before...wait!

"Jeon Jungkook!" Jimin exclaims. "That's the last name on your list!"

Huh. Maybe you haven't hit a dead end after all.

[fantranslatorbychoice]

Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi Volume 6 Chapter 5 - The Tanuki's Marriage

T/N: Hey y'all, here's Chapter 5. I didn't notice at first that the sentences in the original text were separated into paragraphs and stuff so I am putting that stuff here today lol Oh well, hope you all still enjoy. Also you can try the recipes but at your own risk, I am not liable for any mishaps for following these recipes lol

Also if you like this translation, you can heart it, share the link, reblog, I just respectfully ask that DO NOT REPOST ELSEWHERE. This is my contribution to the scant English content of this fandom, and I worked really hard to finish this thing, it’s not like I just copy-pasted everything. I even had to build the kanji in Jisho one by one. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

You can rave about this, rant about this, reblog, like, reply, but if possible please link back to this page. If you’re unsure how to do that, just copy the web address of this page. If you’re on a blogsite just insert the web address as a hyperlink as a link back to here. Honestly if this light novel was officially-published in English, I wouldn’t even be doing this right now... And if it did, I’d take this offline to support the publishers and Yuuma-sensei. Creators support creators, is what I believe in. I’ll prolly do 1-5 once 6-10 has been done, or however long I can manage to translate the raw texts, it can take a toll at times.  As previously-mentioned in earlier chapters, if you stumbled upon this one, the two seasons of the anime covered volumes 1-5, so other than the extra details, you didn’t miss much stuff. Here’s chapter 5 now

P162 That is, the morning of the inn being closed for the day. Today in Yugao, is the debut appearance of the Kiseki beef shank made into beef stew. Since yesterday the meat has been soaked in red wine, and the ingredients for making Demi-glace sauce has been prepared. Because I have some ketchup and Worcestershire sauce that I prepared myself, I could successfully make Demi-glace sauce. Alas, Ginji-san handed over to me, with so much regret, his treasured but also very important red wine... "When we were given Kiseki beef, I decided that I wanted to make beef stew." Orio-ya is so generous, they gifted us so much with all cuts of the Kiseki beef. We couldn't eat all of these in one gulp so for sure it's all going to get refrigerated but, I was thinking that the beef shank is absolutely going to be made into beef stew.** I immediately pulled out the shanks soaked in red wine, and sauted them in the frying pan. After searing both sides, I added the red wine marinade with bay leaves and boiled them down. Ah, it's been a long while since Kakuriyo has been this peaceful, the fruity fragrance of the red wine... T/N: Yeah the tastiest part of any meat is the one that gets the most exercise and the nearest to the bones, but seriously, give it a chance to soften and it just has so much flavor. Just like the limbs of fowl, or pigs, the limbs just have so much flavor and collagen lol dang it no I can't be hungry now T_T Also marinating in red wine with bay leaf is a legit way to add flavor to red meat, if you're a meat eater you can try this. or if you want to kick it up a notch, use balsamic vinegar, either way it helps soften the tough meat parts. Of course, I can't guarantee if you'll like it, but I tried this once, it mellowed the beef taste and the annoying stench of the meat. But hey that's just my two cents lol try at your own risk P163 While the meat was boiling down in the red wine, I started cutting the vegetables that I'll add in the stew. White onions, garlic, and I added a lot of the seasonally-apt shimeji mushrooms. I sauted all of these in a pot, and added the boiled-down meat with the red wine and bay leaf marinade, and added more water before simmering these in a low fire. Slowly but surely, slowly but surely. It seems that it will be done boiling after an hour or so. "After this, hamburger. I will make a sauce for the hamburger." Not only beef stew, but I'm also deciding on cozying up today's menu with hamburger. I want to use the Kiseki beef in succession, and with the especially-made Demi-glace sauce I was also thinking that I want to serve Western-style hamburger here in Yugao. I promptly made a sauce for the ground Kiseki beef hamburger patty. A beef-only burger patty** without onions. Binders would be panko and cow's milk, sprinkled with salt and pepper and then mixed altogether, shaped into small flattened circles, and I have made the hamburger's shape. Yeah, this is 100% branded beef, a beef-only hamburger is somehow extravagant... With the ingredients that I normally have, the supply is always made affordable, and I want to serve a lot of Western-style food for the Ayakashi. "Aoi! This is terrible, terrible!" This time, it was O-ryo who flew inside Yugao. Normally it was Kasuga who does this. Why O-ryo? T/N: So historically, Japanese people didn't normally eat meat since it's an expensive product, and beef is the most expensive of all. Their burgers are normally beef and pork, or pork and chicken, mostly mixed meat so it won't be too expensive. I actually tried curry-flavored beef and pork deep-fried burger patty, it was actually good and crunchy. hwah... P164 I think she may be hungry, but it doesn't seem to be the case. O-ryo's face has gotten pale. "Kasuga, Kasuga is going to quit Tenjin-ya!" If she was extremely panicking, it's because of the sudden announcement. I couldn't understand where it all began, and I just blinked my eyes a lot. The simmering noise of the boiling pot echoes all around... "Wh.. What do you mean by that?" "That's the point! Really, Kasuga is going to quit? She’s gonna quit being a waitress, she's gonna leave?" "Wh..." Why? Before the inn's closing break, we ate amberjack shabu-shabu in our girls' night-out, we had fun while putting things together in the pot as we were chatting. "Kasuga.. Kasuga, she has decided to get married!" "Marriage, Kasuga, that Kasuga, who's she going to get married to?" "That girl, until now she hasn't told her personal history, but in reality she's unbelievably, an Ojou-sama!**" Speaking of the Ojou-sama that I met in Orio-ya, I remembered Yodoko Ojou-sama, I wonder if she's also an Ojou-sama from a rich family? T/N: Ojou-sama=お嬢様=a young girl or a daughter of a noble or a pampered upbringing. Yeah, I know right, even I was shocked. Oh well, we need a plot twist here lol And you think she's just a follower, but apparently Kasuga's got nobility in her blood. Ma, ma, maiya gwahahaha oh well who would’ve thought right? P165 "Kasuga, Kasuga is... The Emperial Court's Minister of the Right**, The Great Tanuki, Lord Ieyasu's youngest daughter!" "Whaaaat?!" Ehrm... My reaction was surprise, but it seemed that it was lacking as I had no idea what it meant. Simply put, she was the daughter of an esteemed person in Kakuriyo? O-ryo went "Ahhhhh come here right now!" and dragged me towards the main building. "A- Ai-chan! The pot is cooking, look after it! Mix it if it looks like it's about to get scorched!" "OK Aoi-sama!" Instantly, from inside the pendant Aoi-chan who already has her black-haired ogre-girl look jumped out. Wearing her personal apron, she tended to my precious pot. Immediately we went to the main building, and the excitement of every employee with the topic in question has pumped up. "That girl was somehow, unexpectedly, the Minister of the Right's daughter, wasn't she?" "Why is she a waitress here in Tenjin-ya?" I could only hear the hushed and surprised voices of the Ayakashi. "Oh well, anybody would be surprised. It's no match, the Minister of the Right's position is like a Hachiyo, an esteemed person. I had no idea and I pushed around and scolded Kasuga. I might get punished after this..." It wasn't only O-ryo who was worring about this. Even Akatsuki in the front desk, he also remembered, and for sure couldn't calm himself down as cold sweat T/N: It's like a left and right wing something, like two opposing factions in the government. Heh, too much political stuff, I don't even wanna touch that. Major spoiler alert: Our old pal Raijuu is a leftist. Ouch. P166 flows down his face. "Oh, I see." I was thinking of asking Kasuga's relative the Gesokuban Chiaki-san, but he wasn't in the lobby. The Gesokuban were in charge of the straw slippers and geta sandals of the guests, and their work is like bellboys that bring the luggage into the rooms, I often catch a sight of them before business hours. I have seen him call in a row the ogre kids who do a lot of different kinds of chores, and make a roll-call on them... "Say, Akatsuki, where's Chiaki-san?" "Ah.... Chiaki-san is with Kasuga in Odanna-sama's office. In relation to that, Chiaki-san is the Minister of the Right's younger brother.. If he was esteemed, I should have been more respectful to him..." Mortified at being too late now, Akatsuki had a distant look. Confirming about Kasuga and Chiaki-san's positions, they were from the North-west's Hachiyo, the Bunmon Tanuki. Kakuriyo's biggest and most difficult school to get into, "Bunmon Imperial University" is where the Hachiyo, who is also the University Director resides, and it seems that Chiaki-san is the son, and in turn Kasuga is the granddaughter. Incidentally, Chiaki-san's brother is Kasuga's father, which O-ryo and Akatsuki previously-mentioned has the position of the Minister of the Right in Kakuriyo. Talking about the North-western Lands, it is a college town, they have a prestigious university and large hospital institution, a research facility and a huge library, they have talented scholars and doctors, they have a lot of graduates that become government officials, it didn't engage in trade and commerce but the Hachiyo has great political powers, P167 it's a particularly unique place. But if that's the case, why were Chiaki-san and Kasuga working at Tenjin-ya? Also, why did she decide to quit working in Tenjin-ya now? "I'm.. Going to Odanna-sama's place." "Wait, Aoi, I'll go too!" O-ryo and I hurriedly left the front desk and climbed up the central staircase. "Hey, you two! Don't you dare disturb Odanna-sama... Oh well, I guess I'll go too" In the end, Akatsuki came with us too. The three of us went to the topmost floor where Odanna-sama's office was.

"Oh..." Outside the room, Ginji-san the Wakadanna-sama was standing with his arms crossed. When he saw us, he looked like he's saying "So, you've come?". "It's useless, guys, it's not work-related." "But... Ginji-san..." "I understand how you feel but... Hey!" I wasn't listening to anything that Ginji-san was saying, and we all placed our ears in the gap between the sliding doors, and eavesdropped P168 on the conversations inside. "Truly, your mind cannot be changed, Kasuga?" "... yes. I will quit Tenjin-ya, and I intend to marry into, the head of Hyourijou Castle in the Northern Lands." In such situations Odanna-sama's voice had always been calm and collected, even now when Kasuga has already reached a point where her mind cannot be entirely changed. "Chiaki, do you think that it's a good idea?" "...yes, Odanna-sama. With the marriage of the two, the instability of the Northern Lands, our North-western Lands can prove it and help hold the issues at bay. In addition to that, the chaotic Northern Lands can find a bit of stability." "...oh, I see." I wanted to hear more of Chiaki-san and Odanna-sama's conversations, but O-ryo suddenly raised her voice hysterically and shouted "Did she say Hyourijou Castle?!" "Hey O-ryo, shut up!" "But.. it's the head of the Hyourijou Castle of the Northern Lands!" "O-ryo be quiet!" Me and Akatsuki and O-ryo were suppressing our voices, when suddenly the sliding door opened with a rattle, and the three of us, like dangos, fell inside the room. "You lot..." P169 "O, Odanna-sama" Odanna-sama stared down at us with his astonished, red eyes. We tried to dodge it in any way, and the three of us just ended up wearing lop-sided smiles. "Aoi-chan, O-ryo sama, Bantou-sama" "Haha... So everyone eventually came, didn't they?" Even at Kasuga and Chiaki-san, the three of us smiled crooked smiles at them. "Say Kasuga, is it true that you're getting married to the head of Hyourijou Castle?" "O-ryo sama... Yep, that's the plan." "Even so! That head's an extremely old and senile, bedridden old man! You, are you going to get married to a senile old man who's about to die?!" O-ryo was very well-informed. Well, she did came from the Northern Lands. That's why her face was full of bewilderment. "It's not like that, O-ryo. The Hachiyo of the Northern Lands has finally been replaced." "...really?" "In the Northern Lands, the Great Old Sage who has been the Hachiyo for a very long time has retired. The next Hachiyo who took the position was the Old Sage's youngest grandchild, the Young Master of the Hyoujin** Tribe. Kasuga's marriage, is to that Young Master, Lord Kiyo." "..."

T/N: Hyoujin Clan- directly translates to Ice people Clan. Something. I did say previously in my earlier translations that direct translations will be minimized. Also if you’re interested on what Kiyo looks like, I’ll prolly post a photo here, he’s depicted in vol 8′s cover. Oh gawd, that’s a long way off but don’t worry fams we’ll get there somehow P170 It's impossible for me to know who that is, O-ryo who's acquainted with the dealings in the Northern Lands just looked puzzled, and Akatsuki just went blank. Behind us, was Ginji-san who, one way or another was the only one who looked like he had a full grasp of the situation. "Uhm, I...." Suddenly, Kasuga stood up, and only went to the entryway where the three of us were still lying down, and went in front of us. When I looked at her face she seemed like an adult, and in an instant, the cheerful and innocent Kasuga that I knew had gone off elsewhere, and I felt a painful sense of loss. Could it be that Kasuga, with regards to her engagement, in her heart she truly doesn't despise it? But from my point of view, I have no choice but to accept it. "When I saw these people's faces, somehow I felt hungry. Odanna-sama, what is good to eat on mornings like these?" "...Kasuga" Were we worrying that much, to that extent? Everyone understood that, and while we were in the middle of not saying anything, Odanna-sama wordlessly stared at me. I easily understood him without him saying anything. "Ka...Kasuga! If you want, let's go to Yugao. I'll give you something I made. For today, I made something called beef stew. I really want you to try it!" P171 "Beef stew?" "Yeah! I'll also give you hamburger steak that I cooked with it. It's like when Kasuga was in her Tanuki form, it's brown-colored cooked food. It's delicious--!" "..." Amidst the confusion they only got perplexed, and didn't even seem to hear that it was delicious. Everyone's faces only spelled "What is she even saying?". But the beef stew, it's definitely delicious!

I dragged Kasuga to Yugao. Before business hours, everyone else went back to their work posts, and it seems that I'll be taking care of her hunger. When we got to Yugao, Ai-chan has diligently looked after the pot for me. "Thank you, Ai-chan, you did a great job--" "OK--- I wanna eat something swee--t!" "As your reward, I'll give you some test-trial manjuu. Ah, that manjuu's a secret. We haven't given that to anyone yet." P172 "Yaaay!" Ai-chan with her manjuu, and her cup of milk, immediately sat on a chair and took her break. Now then. The time for the beef stew's ingredients to boil down has been sufficient. To this I'll put in some parboiled potatoes, and add more Demi-glace sauce, and add some seasonings while I mix it from time to time. Kasuga sat on the counter, and lazily propped her chin with her hands. "Kasuga, just wait for a little bit. The beef stew still needs to be boiled down some more. While it's doing that, I'll make you a little something to eat, OK? Have you eaten an avocado?" "...Avocado? I've seen one in an illustrated encyclopedia, but I haven't eaten one." "Hee hee. It's something like the ones in Utsushiyo, but in Kakuriyo, the Southern Lands where there's plently of heat they have started to grow it and other similar vegetables too. You might be surprised when you first try it, but once you get used to eating it you'll get hooked. It's because avocado is called 'the butter of the fields'." Butter isn't really something special in Kakuriyo, so she might not understand anything. But Kasuga's interest seemed to be deep, and her eyes got round with wonder. While the stew was boiling down, I went ahead to make something. Avocado and persimmon, the sweetness is entirely Japanese. P173 Firstly, the in-season persimmon's skin was peeled off, and the flesh cut into cubes. The avocado was also cut from the sides, the two halves were rotated on the round seed's axis, and between the half with no seed and the half that has the seed attached to it, the one without the seed was used. Doing that was quite fun. The lovely light green flesh of the fruit appeared. I quickly scraped the flesh off, and also cut those into cubes. Along with the persimmon cubes I cut a while ago, I served all of these in a glass bowl, and in true Japanese fashion mixed these altogether with a citrus dressing. Alright, it's nicely done. I served this with a spoon and placed it in front of Kasuga. "OK Kasuga, this is Japanese-style avocado and persimmon. Please try it." "Wah, it's pretty. Green and orange. I really love persimmon too, so I'm going to eat it now--" Instantly, Kasuga's face naturally fell into a smile. Holding a spoon, she took a huge bite, and tried the avocado that she was deeply interested in. "Wow, this is amazing. Feeling the avocado's texture for the first time, it's a fun and soft food, isn't it?" After this, she bit into the avocado and the persimmon at the same time. "Its seasoning, the persimmon's sweetness, its taste is really like a side-dish for rice." "Is that so? The persimmon's sweetness and the avocado's mellow texture and taste suit it well, and if it's just the persimmon it's going to be too sweet. The citrus fruit juice, along with toasted sesame seeds and soy sauce dressing give it a Japanese flavor and taste." P174 While Kasuga was eating a lot of the side dish, I took out the hamburger patties that I made that morning, and I pan-fried those in a shallow pot. When the surface looked brown enough, I poured in about two to three ladles of the beef stew, and simmered this for five minutes. And again, in a smaller frying pan I made a runny sunny side-up egg... "Kasuga, between white rice and bread, which one would you like? Beef stew goes well with either one..." "Hmmm.. Definitely it's rice." "OK, I get it. Even I too, like Western food with white rice, it's good enough." Along with the hamburger patty, I have asked Ai-chan to heat and cook some simple stir-fried foods and serve them in dishes, such as this beef stew. Par-boiled broccoli were also added as a fluffy touch. I added some cream and swirled it around with a spoon, and lastly I topped the hamburger with the runny sunny side-up egg. The white rice was also shaped into a sphere, and plopped it over a plate, like Western style. I placed all of those on a festive four-legged tray, and brought it to Kasuga's seat. "Alright. Tea house style, moon-viewing beef stew hamburger steak is served--" "Wooow. That really smells good. A while ago, the wafting smell made my stomach growl. There's also a fried egg on it-- And tonight's also a full moon, isn't it? It really looks like the Full Moon's spherical form." "Hee hee. Since it's already autumn, in Utsushiyo it's a time where anything with fried egg is "something for full moon viewing" and it's always added in a set meal." P175 In the food industry, a hamburger steak with a fried egg is called a moon-viewing burger, among others. When adding a runny fried egg, it always make it seem even more delicious, it's a mysterious and puzzling force. "And it's really a tanuki-colored cuisine, it is." "It's a fact that tanuki-colored cuisine is the model of deliciousness. If I could, I'll eat it for lunch.” If it was me, I would eat the beef stew with left-over toasted bread crusts on the side. Yep, it's enough to fill the stomach. I pried apart the meat with a spoon, and it crumbled off. I took a bite of that beef stew. Oooohh, the meat! The meat!! It's soft and moist, there's no stench, the thick and rich Demi-glace sauce really ties everything together. This is really over-the top extravagance! "Wow, wooow! What is this, this is soooo good Aoi-chan! The runny egg yolk, the hamburger and the stew eaten altogether, it's already the best. So many flavors all packed in one bite" Having one bite of the whole thing, the corners of Kasuga's mouth stretched wide, and her Tanuki ears went plip-plopping a lot. This time she bit into everything, including the large carrot chunks and  the shimeji mushrooms. "Hmm... crumbly---" P176 Cooking food with Kakuriyo's state of the art Youkai-fire platter and spiritually-powered pot allows the fire to pass through the vegetables' core, the sweetness and deliciousness of the vegetables get trapped inside, and is suitable for cooking stews. "Aoi-chan you've already given me hamburgers before, but this is the first time that I've eaten beef stew. For me, I really enjoy foods like these. It's because foods like these have a rich taste and depth. I have read about these in a book, but I couldn't imagine how these would have tasted like." "Kasuga, you've read something about beef stew from a book?" "Yep, the library in the Land of Bunmon had so many books. There's also a book on the history of Utsushiyo's culture. It was a book that was about Western cuisines, when we. Were. Young. We had so much fun having wild imaginative ideas. Since I was a child, I was raised surrounded by so many books.” "..." We? Kasuga ate some more hamburger, and slurped in some more beef stew. After this she ate more white rice, and took in some beef stew again. All of the flavors blend well together in one bite, "Ah, it tastes good--", it makes the body weak. Seeing Kasuga's satisfied and fluffy face, I was delighted. While I was eating nearby, I initiated by saying that "The stew also tastes good with bread", and started eating as such. P177 In my case the umami envelops the bread, there's a resounding crunch, this has become a devilish food. Together, the bread crust that's always looked over, it has become an illusionary steak. "Phew, my stomach's all full!" After all that, our luxurious lunch has ended. Who would have thought that before business hours, we're already full and satiated? But for sure, without a doubt our strengths came back because of the food. "I'm glad that my stomach's gotten full. When you said that you were hungry, it was a surprise. Everyone was shocked. Back there when Kasuga said it out loud, it was of a large extent." "Ahaha. Well it was an important conversation with Odanna-sama, and I was already hungry for a while, it was because of Aoi-chan." "What are you saying? When I saw you, you didn't particularly appear to be hungry when you were talking with Odanna-sama." Uhm, yeah, that was a lie. "After that, just when it was about to get really serious, Odanna-sama pushed me to appear as "The I-wanted-to-help" person. "Really, Odanna-sama somehow made you do that? He's always dignified and composed, he doesn't give me that impression. In front of Aoi-chan, he's expected to be different." "Ah, when you see him that way, his movements are considerably mysterious." "Odanna-sama, he's really wrapped in mystery, isn't he?" P178 Kasuga and I, when talking about Odanna-sama, I realized that the meanings of "mysterious", were quite different. I recalled what my situation was, but after learning about Kasuga's circumstance the clarity has slowly gotten dimmer. "Say, Aoi-chan, are you going to get married to Odanna-sama?" She deliberately asked that question. I normally handle such questions lightly, but with Kasuga this time, it's a heavy-handed question. Her situation and mine's, they're a bit similar. "I'm not going to get married. I still have Yugao to tend to right now." Saying that, somewhat I couldn't understand why my body, in my chest, I felt so much discomfort. What the heck is this. "But Aoi-chan, you don't dislike Odanna-sama anymore?" "Well, uhm, hearing you say "dislike', it's not the answer anymore but.." "If that's the case, you like him now?" "Uhm, that is..." My eyes started swimming. Kasuga was determined to get into my head, and she looked at me quietly. "It sure doesn't seem to be that way. But I, do not know anything about Odanna-sama." That was more or less my refusal. Not really, I do know something about Odanna-sama. Contrary to what he looks like, he's a mischievous prankster, P179 and he's unsophisticatedly kind, when I see him make his moves, his strong drive leaves me wondering why... he has supported me in very important times, he's also become trustworthy, I've learned a lot being with him. And yet, I still don't know a lot about him. Odanna-sama's inner self that he holds dearly inside, I mostly don't know about it. I don't know anything about that, and he doesn't easily say anything about what he likes. Like myself for example, if I told someone that I knew nothing about "I like you", I still think that despite doing that, I still know nothing about them. "That is why, I would want to get to know more about Odanna-sama... But he's not telling me anything." "...Hmph" While Kasuga was grinning at me, I was drenched in cold sweat. What the heck, I feel like I wanted to run away... "Hee hee, that's good, Aoi-chan. It's very unnatural of you, but with time, as expected, you bestowed a great deal to Odanna-sama." ".. Kasuga?" Kasuga looked up at Yugao's celiing. Those eyes, they seem hollow somehow. "Kasuga, Kasuga getting married, you really don't dislike it?" I placed my hands on Kasuga's shoulders, and asked her earnestly. P180 It seemed that Kasuga has already been resolute of her marriage, and I wanted to ask what her true intent was. "Marriage to the Hachiyo of the Northern Lands. That is not a politically-motivated marriage." Kasuga continued to stare up at the ceiling, I only saw her flit her gaze to me once. Between those brown-colored bangs I could only see her eyes, she doesn't appear to be a mere waitress at all. Over there, she's already sharing the burden with the North-western's Hachiyo, being the daughter of Kakuriyo's Minister of the Right. A holder of many positions and degrees and ranks, but nevertheless a single Tanuki girl. "A politically-motivated marriage cannot be helped. If I do it by myself, so many risks and significances can arise. Bunmon Tanuki, are scheming creatures. Because Tanuki are extremely weak, it's the only way to live this long." Kasuga pointed to her head and suppressed a laugh. "The Hachiyo of the 'Land of Bunmon' is the Institutional Director Baba-sama**, and in each land the Tanuki under her command are sent out to gather and collect information and intel. Wherever you go and whichever way how, the Land of Bunmon will never be at a disadvantage. For example, my dad. He steadily accumulated power and influence in the Imperial Court, and eventually became the Minister of the Right. And then there's Tenjin-ya's Chiaki. That is my father's younger brother, he may be my uncle but when he was employed back there, he was an outstanding investigator. Odanna-sama likely knows the Tanuki's circumstances, and he must have deliberately hired Chiaki, I think." "... uhm.. Tanuki's circumstances?" "And now, I am going towards the Northern Lands. How I'll do that, I only have my T/N: Baba-sama, basically Kasuga's granny is the Hachiyo as well as the Institutional Director aka the President of the Imperial University in Bunmon. I am still wrapping my head around this. Honestly I am still confused and doubtful as to why I am even translating this sh** when I'm still actually learning Nihongo honestly I hope my translation even make sense to you all srsly I have no idea what I'm doing lol but rly send help pls T_T P181 intent to do so and nothing else. With that, gradually, bit by bit, leaping into the innermost parts of each land, the steadily increasing influence of us Bunmon Tanuki have been exposed. .. And that, is the way of the Bunmon Tanuki.** "..." That was an incredible story. Also, it's a really frightening tale. But with that reasoning and explanation of the circumstances, I am just as clueless as before. I wonder if Kasuga is fine with that. "Kasuga, have you fully grasped what marriage is? It seems that your fate was to be born under a Hachiyo's household but selecting your marriage partner, can you be honest with that?" "...Aoi-chan?" "I am, in a way worried and troubled about Kasuga and what could happen. Is it possible, that, if Kasuga is being forced to get married, then I..." For me, that has always been the case. But Kasuga hid her face in her sleeve and stiffled a laugh. "Aoi-chan. Everyone's like Aoi-chan, but I'm a girl who does not go against my destiny." ".. what?" Kasuga's speech, her explanations allowed her thoughts to pass through, and in some way she sounds like an earnest adult. With that gaze, and voice, and words. T/N: LOL I wanted to translate this part as "And that, is how the Bunmon Tanuki do." Srsly it's the direct transliteration of the original text lol if you understood the reference, Hi-five y'all P182 "I think Aoi-chan guessed that wrong. I didn't say that I was reluctant to get married. Rather, I was only anticipating it. Kiyo, is not someone that I didn't know." Kiyo. For sure, that's the name of the new Hachiyo of the Northern Lands. "Kasuga, you know the person you're going to get married to?" "Yep, I know him well. Because he's my childhood friend." "Childhood friend?!" "The last time that we met, I was still a small Tanuki. That being said, he's my first love." "Whaaaat?" Kasuga placed her index finger onto her lips and said "It's a secret". That was a shocking revelation. Surely, she did say something about her first love when we had the girls' night-out. "That's amazing, Kasuga. You're going to get married to your first love." ".. hee hee. Well, somehow he might not like me..." Kasuga's foolish demeanor, is a bit self-deprecating. But soon after that, a shadow fell over her facial expression. "I did have worries, it was a painful thought...That I didn't not want to get married**. When I leave Tenjin-ya, I'll be very very sad." Until now her calm voice has been OK, but her voice has started to shake a bit. With a face that's almost into tears, Kasuga broke into a smile. Her expression, it's easy to see that she's trying to hide her flurry of emotions, T/N: I told you guys, there's inception raised to the nth power with the double triple quadruple negatives srsly I can't even rn O_o P183 but I was emotionally welling up with what I truly feel inside. I see. Kasuga wasn't against her marriage at all. She's surely marrying the Hachiyo of the North. And therefore... she won't be staying at Tenjin-ya any longer. "Thank you, Aoi-chan. You gave me delicious food to eat. Aoi-chan's cooking, not only strengthens the weak body, but also fills an Ayakashi from the inside." "Ka, Kasuga..." "Aoi-chan, you're awesome. You came from an overwhelmingly unfavorable condition, and now this is where you've come. It's by your own strength." "..." "As for me, what will I do? My only plan is getting married to a Hachiyo, I only have myself." Eventually, Kasuga went back to Odanna-sama's office, she has to return and continue their talk. It's Kasuga's courageous attitude. As for me, I couldn't comprehend the entirety of her complicated heart, I could only fill up her hungry stomach and nothing else.

It was in the middle of Yugao's business hours. "What's wrong, Aoi-chan? Your face seems out of it, and you only keep sighing." "Are you sighing because there's not many customers?" P184 "It's not that. But yeah, that too." It was our frequent customers Juujirou-ojisan and Tsubame-obasan, the Ayakashi couple who lives in Gintengai, and for today had their feast of the beef stew topped with fried egg. The two were locals who didn't stay at Tenjin-ya, but goes into the baths and later to Yugao to have their meals, once a week. "Yet I was surprised. It seems that the Hachiyo of the North has been changed. It's in the newspaper extra delivered to Gintengai. The Hachiyo looks extremely young, it's the hot topic among everyone." Juujirou-ojisan slowly pulled the newspaper out, and opened it in front of me. "Ah! Can I look at that for a bit?" "Oops" I hurriedly borrowed and opened Juujirou-ojisan's newspaper that he was reading, and I eagerly looked at the newspaper publication's colored photo. On the picture, wrapped in a pure white kimono, and holding a Buddhist ringed staff made of ice, was an ephemeral-looking young man. "This boy..." As expected, he was still young. With regards to Ayakashi he's probably older than me, but based on what they look like, he looks about 15 years old. It's probably because Ayakashi live very long lives, when one is said to be very young, then the Hachiyo is probably very young indeed. That boy was Kasuga's first love. P185 Also, he is Kasuga's prospective husband. He's.. He's a handsome youth... "Would it be alright if that boy becomes the Hachiyo? Kiyo-sama is sickly, it's said that he's practically always in the University Hospital in the Land of Bunmon." "It can't be helped. There aren't any other successors among the clan of Hyoujin, you know." Snow lady, snow man, icicle lady and other generic names were used for the members of the Hyoujin clan's Ayakashi. Among the entire group, O-ryo surely fits in well. But O-ryo looks like an adult, remarkably... The ties of that one clan is so strong, it's peculiar that when one becomes the Northern Land's Hachiyo, they have to come from the pedigree line of the Hyoujin Clan's head, but they couldn't gain the support of the entire populace. "The previous generations of the north were majestic, but the successors were raised to be lazy and always sick and bedridden. It's a good thing that a strife between the foolish heirs erupted, other than the youngest grandson Kiyo-sama, they should all just die." "You're believing those rumors again! I'm sorry Aoi-chan, there has been unsettling stories among our people." Tsubame-obasan slapped the drunk Juujirou-ojisan's behind, and after a bit has left the restaurant. I sent off these regular customers, and finally Yugao's business hours has ended. The newspaper that they left as it was, I worried about it from time to time.

End of Chapter 5, Volume 6. Previous - Intermission 2 Next - Chapter 6

References:

Wonderful site for the youkai references

Other stuff I used to do this: Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary (you can buy here, I’m not sponsored btw). I was about to buy the older edition but then the newer one came out 2013 so I bought that instead. Worth buying since I was able to find nearly all of the words I needed just by stroke pattern alone.

Merriam-Webster's Japanese-English Dictionary (the red-covered 1996 version is apparently out of print right now). This is what I have been using for a very long time, I bought it when I was still a fetus (yes I am old so what lol), and after so many years, when compared to newer editions, I still prefer this one since its entirety is Japanese-English, the English to Japanese gloss are just 16 pages tops, so you get more Japanese words for your buck. But that’s just my opinion, maybe other people prefer the Jap-En x En-Jap IDEK.

Basic online dictionary, Jisho. Knowledge of verb conjugations  and other words are necessary since not all have entries.

If you can read Japanese, you can buy the whole set in Amazon Japan, they’re shipping worldwide now, I think.

[lowspoonsgourmet]

Fancied up top ramen that reminds me of Thai soup!

The dishes for this recipe are the soup pot you use to boil the noodles, a knife, a cutting board (or whatever you want to cut things on), and your bowl and utensil (no bowl if you eat it from the pan)

It takes approx 10 minutes including quick dishes

Ingredients:

1 package chicken flavored top ramen (flavor is personal preference) ($0.25 US)

1/2 a head of broccoli (or some pre cut broccoli to save on the cutting board dishes) any vegetable will really do but broccoli is my preference. Baby bok choy would be good too. (Between $0.25 and $1 depending)

A clove of garlic (a few cents?)

A little knob of ginger about the same size as the clove of garlic (also a few cents? You typically get enough ginger for a lot of other recipes too)

A dash of soy sauce (free if you have packets laying around from take out)

A sprinkle of red pepper flakes (also free put packets from pizza)

1/4 of a lime for garnish (less than a dollar tbh)

To make: fill your soup pot with a little more than the recommended two cups of water, and heat it up to boil.

While your water is coming to a boil, cut your broccoli or other vegetable up, peel and crush your garlic clove, and peel your ginger.

Once the water is boiling, put in your noodles, vegetables, and ginger and garlic. You can cook the vegetable first, scoop it out, and then cook the noodles if you want, as they don’t tend to fit very well in the pot together when I do it and my broccoli comes out a bit over cooked. It just takes a few extra minutes to do it that way.

Once these are cooked, pour soup into a bowl (or leave in pot), then add half the flavor packet that came with the ramen, a dash of soy sauce (just enough to darken the soup a shade), and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. Cut a lime into quarters and serve with the soup for squeezing over the top. Done!

I don’t eat seafood so I’ve been searching for a cheap homemade version of the (chicken) Tom Yum soup from my local Thai place and this surprisingly hits all the right flavors for me. The lime, soy sauce/chicken flavoring, and the red peppers really compliment each other nicely. You can of course substitute out fresh ingredients (like garlic and ginger powders and bottled lime juice) but I can’t guarantee that it’ll be as genuinely delicious as the fresh stuff.

[therainroguefanfiction]

⁂ American Christmas (Axis Powers & Allied Forces)

Genre: Friendship, Family, Comedy, Holiday, Christmas ☁

Word Count: 1,987 ☁

Pairing: None ☁

World: Hetalia ☁

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“Alfred~!” you groaned, following behind your blonde brother as he headed towards the living room. In his hands was a large brown box filled to the very top with various types of ornaments. “Did you have to invite all of them? I can barely stand putting up with you and England, let alone the other idiots!”

Alfred smiled as he set the box down in front of the tall, lush Christmas tree that stood against the wall. It was bare aside from the brightly colored lights that danced along the branches. “You worry too much, dude! It’ll be fun!”

You groaned again, falling onto the couch. “It will not be fun, it’ll be torture! I should go stay with Greece for Christmas…”

When the comment reached his ears, Alfred dropped the little red ball that he was about to place on the tree. It clattered to the wooden floor but thankfully didn’t break. He turned around, lips stuck out in a pout with his eyebrows furrowed and eyes shining with sadness. “You have to be here for Christmas! We’ve never had separate Christmases before!”

“Don’t look at me like that!” you scowled, looking away from your older brother. The puppy pout was too hard to resist.

He whimpered like a lost child, sitting on his knees in front of the couch with his head in your lap, “Y/N~ You have to stay here!”

“Meh, I’ll think about it, Aly dear.”

He frowned for a minute before his lips curled up into a bright smile. He launched himself at you, arms wrapped tight around your neck, “Okay!”

You watched as your older brother bounded back over to the tree, humming happily as he placed the colorful glass orbs on its branches. Apparently, Alfred took ‘I’ll think about it’ as ‘I’ll stay’. You let out a sigh, pushing off the couch and walking over to the box.

Alfred smiled even brighter when you started placing them on the tree. It was fun to decorate Christmas trees, it was one of the best aspects of Christmas, beaten only by the snow and present wrapping, but it was even more fun when you did it with someone you truly cared about and loved.

When the last ornament was placed on the tree, you stepped back to admire their work. The tree was brightly lit, the lights taking turns flashing a rainbow of colors. The star on top was clear like glass. There were various types of ornaments, from round balls to doves and Santa Claus with sleighs and reindeer. Underneath the tree lay several presents, varying in size. Most of them were for yourself, Matthew, and Alfred, but there were quite a few for the other nations, as well.

You were thankful that you had chosen to go shopping before the holiday rush. That way you didn’t have to deal with crazed holiday shoppers that had a bad habit of pushing you out of the way to get what they want – you sore up and down they were barbarians in disguise.

“I’ll start cooking!” Alfred announced, turning around and heading towards the kitchen.

“Hold it!” you grabbed the back of his t-shirt, pulling him back to his original position, “Number one, Christmas isn’t ’til tomorrow. You’re supposed to cook the food the morning of, remember? And number two, what were you planning on cooking, exactly?”

He looked over his shoulder, blue orbs blinking innocently, “Hamburgers.”

The urge to slap him was strong, but you somehow resisted. “You eat hamburgers every day, Alfred. Christmas is special and I will be cooking it, understand?”

He frowned, “But I wanted hamburgers~”

“Too bad. Now, give me your credit card, I have to go grocery shopping.”

Alfred looked at your outstretched hand before whining and placing his silvery-blue credit card in your hand. You simply grinned and left the house. This was one time when Alfred would not get his way – opposed to all the times he did get his way which, according to record, was quite a lot.

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It was Christmas morning and you had woken up around seven A.M. After admiring the small flakes that were falling from the pale gray sky, you headed into the kitchen and got to work. You had plenty of time to cook, but due to how much food you actually had to make – Alfred alone could eat a whole family’s worth – , and the fact that you were cooking alone, made it slightly challenging. You knew you could rely on China for help in the kitchen, but he wasn’t due to arrive until noon. Until then, you’d just have to play the role of superwoman – or, in this case, supercook.

When noon finally arrived, the house was alive with the aroma of standing rib roast, honey ham and dressing, along with the scent of the pine tree in the living room. It truly did smell like Christmas and that brought a smile to China’s face when he entered America’s home. The blonde was nowhere to be found, but you were in the kitchen cooking your American butt off.

“Would you like some help?”

You whipped around, breathing a sigh of relief when you saw China standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Your lips curled up into a smile and you nodded, grabbing his wrist, “I’m so glad you’re here! I could really use a hand!”

“Well, you’ve got two, aru~” He smiled, walking over to the stove where a pot of eggs was boiling.

“Just cut those up and add it to the giblet gravy, okay?”

“Sure,” Yao pulled the pot from the stove and set it in the sink, draining the hot water before running cold water over them to cool them off, “Where’s America?”

“He went to meet up with Iggy, I think. Apparently, he, Germany and Italy all came together.”

“I see.”

Spreading the marshmallows on top of the candied yams, you wiped invisible sweat from your forehead and smiled. Dinner was coming along nicely.

You had told Alfred that you weren’t too happy about all of the nations belonging to both the Allied Forces and the Axis Powers coming to the christmas party, but deep down, you were happy that both groups could come together and share Christmas without trying to tear each other apart. The only ones you were really worried about was the bi-polar Russia and that womanizer France.

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“Good afternoon, Y/N-san.”

“Don’t touch me, you bloody git! Hello, Y/N.”

“H-Hello, Sis.”

“Bonjour, beau.”

“Hiii~ Y/N! Are you making pasta for dinner?!”

“Thanks for having us, Y/N.”

“Здравствулте, Y/N. This Christmas, you will become one with mother Russia, da?”

“Don’t hit on my sibling, Russia~!”

You facepalmed as you watched the Axis and the Allies interact with one another. Japan was standing off to the side of the room watching the idiots argue. England was attempting to shake off America, who was busy yelling at Russia about hitting on you while clinging to his back. Canada was also standing off to the side, holding Kumajirou and trying to add his two cents – though he was blatantly ignored. France was standing beside you, trying to woo you. Why Alfred was ignoring that and going after Russia, you couldn’t understand, but you’d much rather be hit on by Russia than by France.

Italy was standing at Germany’s side; he was singing about pasta and pizza for Christmas, while Ludwig was trying his hardest to ignore him by focusing on the three-sided fight between America, England, and Russia – who simply smiled that creepy little smile of his.

You shook your head and facepalmed again.

China, who was standing beside you, let out an airy laugh and set his hand on your shoulder, “It is good that everyone is together for such a joyous holiday, even if they are arguing, aru~”

“I guess, but…” you glanced at the group before looking back at him, “Is it really worth it if they end up killing each other?”

“Hmmm,” he set his hand on his chin in thought before smiling brightly, his dark brown eyes closing. “Look at it this way: If they do end up killing each other, at least you will have fewer idiots to deal with~”

You watched in disbelief as he walked back into the kitchen. Did he…? China just pulled a Russia! You shook your head and followed him. You didn’t make it far, though, thanks to the auburn-haired Italian who latched onto your body.

The blonde german was blushing and attempting to pull the male off, to no avail.

“When will the pasta be done, Y/N~?”

“She already told you, Italy. We are not having pasta for Christmas, now let go of her!”

“But, Germany! Christmas can’t be without pasta!”

“Sorry, Feliciano.” You turned in his grip and ruffled his auburn locks with a small smile, “If you eat dinner with us tonight, I’ll buy you some pasta tomorrow before you return home, okay?”

His face lit up and he jumped up, his legs wrapping around your waist and arms around your neck, “I love you, Y/N~!”

‘I’m sure you love everyone who offers you pasta’, you thought, patting his back awkwardly.

“Get off of her!” Ludwig shouted angrily, ripping the Italian off. He then turned to you with a sheepish look and tinted cheeks, “I’m sorry.”

You smiled, patting his warm cheek. “No worries, Luddy~ You can’t always take responsibility for Italy’s actions.”

He simply smiled, nodded and dragged Italy away.

You headed into the kitchen. Yao was grabbing plates and beginning to set them up on the large table that had been placed in the kitchen for the holidays. You helped him place as much food as you could fit onto the red-clothed table, the rest being left on the counters and stove along with the dessert and giblet gravy.

It was a tight squeeze trying to fit everyone at the table, but everyone managed to find a spot and the feast began. Some of them were reluctant to try the American food but once they decided to try it, they found it to be quite good. Of course, they still preferred their own country’s food over America’s, but it was edible enough. The fact that China and yourself had been the ones to cook it made it even better – or so you were told by both England and Japan.

“That was great, sis! So, what’s for dessert?”

Everyone froze, staring at Alfred like he had just grown three heads and seven tails. They couldn’t believe how much he had eaten. Alfred had consumed five helpings of food. Not normal helpings, either. His plate had been so full, it was stacked like a mountain that reached over his head. After eating five mountain-sized servings of everything the two of you had cooked, how in god’s name did he have room for dessert?

“Errr… We made three, actually. Apple pie, pumpkin pie and fudge.” you blinked, fork stuck in the air in mid-flight to your mouth. Your eyes were slightly wide as you stared at your older brother. You secretly wondered if he was a cow with three stomachs.

“Sweet! I’ll have all three!”

How had he not gained a single pound over the years? It just wasn’t possible! ‘Meanwhile, I breathe and gain ten pounds,’ You snapped out of it, standing up and rushing after your brother while yelling, “You better not eat all of my pumpkin pie or I’ll bake you!”

“Haha! Whatever you say, sis!” was his carefree reply.

The table full of varied countries erupted in laughter at the one-sided fight over the pumpkin pie reached their ears. Common knowledge was that you loved pumpkin pie, and would fight anyone to the death for it. Knowing that better than anyone, oblivious and carefree Alfred continued to test you.

Their laughter could be heard all around the world~

The all American Christmas wasn’t so bad, after all.

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[mrswhozeewhatsis]

To stop the accusation that I’m dragging this out to please the drama llamas, I’ve studied everything I got (and spent a fair amount of time searching for things on blogs), and managed to whittle things down to their bare essentials. I’ve also tried to talk to everyone about everything, which took time. I won’t address everything that everyone has said on both sides, just a few points that are either concrete, or I can’t address them privately for whatever reason.

The timeline as I’ve been able to piece it together is like this:

Vanessa made a post about more popular writers complaining about lack of feedback. 

Beka messaged Vanessa wanting to know why Vanessa had a problem with her.

Vanessa responded in a way that upset Beka.

Beka blocked Vanessa.

Vanessa got around the block and sent anonymous asks to Beka.

Beka outed Vanessa by responding to the asks publicly.

Vanessa deactivated her blog.

Friends of both proceeded to attack each other.

Claims about Beka (this is not a complete list):

Only supports her friends on her blogs and in Pond Angel Fish Awards

Although it’s been a couple of months since Beka has reblogged fics from other writers at all, by going back through her #read with me tag, I see reblogs of fics from at least a dozen different writers just in May and June. I’ve only been tracking Angel Fish Awards since February, but since then, Beka has nominated 8 stories by 8 different writers.

Ignored asks for Big Fish advice sent to her blog

If there were a way for me to prove this, then I wouldn’t be listing it here. As it is, it’s impossible to prove. As a Pond admin, I’ve experienced the weirdest stuff with asks. I spent one evening chatting with a member while they repeatedly tried to send in asks, and we didn’t get a single one. I do know that asks sent via the app seem to be more likely to be eaten than asks sent via desktop, but asks sent both ways have disappeared. 

There are other claims, this is not a complete list, but I will be addressing them with Beka personally (I have already started doing this, actually). I’m only including these two because they can be proved or disproved with facts. Some of the other claims have been leveled against Big Fish in the Pond other than Beka, as well. The Pond will deal with those privately, but we hope you will see an improvement in these areas when the Pond returns from hiatus.

Claims about Vanessa:

I’ve talked to Vanessa about these, without anything constructive coming from it. I tried. I tried to explain to her that she could have gotten further by using less provocative language and offering constructive suggestions. We ended up having the same old arguments about unrelated issues and going around in circles. The only thing Vanessa ceded was that she should not have continued to reach out to Beka after Beka blocked her. She has apologized for this. I don’t need to list the rest here, just know the conversation happened and nothing came of it.

Claims about Beka’s opposition:

Made unsubstantiated claims about Beka sending herself anon hate

I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t have a single clue how to figure out who has sent an anonymous ask on Tumblr. However, what I do know is that it requires access to the inbox the ask was sent to. In order for someone who is not Beka to say that Beka sent herself an anonymous ask, they would have had to have hacked into her account, somehow. I don’t know much about this, but it sounds illegal. Since there was proof of this offered, it’s a useless claim.

Picked apart posts on her personal blog and said they were intended for her writing audience when they were not

Beka’s personal blog was, she thought, relatively private. It was not meant for her readers to see. (There is an argument to be made about how it’s still a public blog that the world can see, but the charge is that she intended for her readers to see it and respond, and that is not the case.) Yet, someone took it upon themselves to stalk it, and then match posts between the two blogs, making it look like it all came from one blog. They then took their argument to the absurd and claimed she was using her mental health issues to drum up patrons on her Patreon. If that were the case, then it all would have been on her writing blog. But it wasn’t.

Belittled Beka’s cries for help, and then attacked her further

I don’t care if you didn’t believe her when she said she was on the edge, you just don’t do that, folks. That right there is the point where you either walk away or report her to Tumblr as a threat to herself. The last thing you do is double down on your attacks. Take a break, walk away, find a kinder, gentler way to make your point. I don’t care who they are or what they believe or have done, when someone puts the gun to their head, you do not tell them they are an awful human being.

Dissected every post, word by word, including auto tags, using intentionally provocative language

Not every post made was like this, but a lot were. This is high school stuff, guys. To rip apart words used by someone obviously in pain instead of reaching through and looking for the meaning behind it is petty and cruel. Not to mention it takes so much more energy to dig into things like that than to just respond to the meat of things. To take someone’s blog name and twist it into a degrading moniker is sickening. To attack words used in an effort to distract from the topic at hand, or to just add on to the already heaping pile of anger you’re throwing around is unconscionable and pointless. This is not what people who are coming from a place of love or kindness do. This is what you do when you hate someone, and that’s just not cool, guys.

Brought up old issues thought to have been settled a long time ago

My husband calls this “stamp collecting.” There’s a statute of limitations on things, and it depends on the thing, but my personal limit on Tumblr is about two weeks. If nothing has been said about something for two weeks, I assume it’s in the past and I try to move on. I say this because, if it weren’t settled, then we’d all still be working on it, right? If something is bothering me, and I work on it with someone, but I’m not happy, then I’m gonna keep working on it with that person. If they seem to forget (which happens because we’re all human), then I’m gonna send them a quick message. “Hey there! I’m still working on this thing. Can we talk about it again?” I do this with contractors who work on my house. I did this with clients when I worked in an office. To bring up something that happened a long time ago like it’s still an active issue is pointless, and goes against one of the main tenets of effective arguing.

Taking obvious glee in tearing down another person

Do I really have to talk about this? If you had any care for the other person, even enough to just care that they are a person, you would not gloat about how you’re going to tear them apart.

Really, all of this stuff comes down to if you are approaching the world and everything you do from a place of love or from a place of anger and pain. Even if you are angry and in pain, treat other people like you love and respect them, and you will find that everything is just better. 

If you feel like I’m coming down on one side or the other of this situation, just know that I’m not. Pretty much, I don’t like things that were done by both sides. These are just the things I feel more comfortable talking about in a public post like this.

Other stuff that’s come up in the course of all of this:

Complaining about notes/followers

So many writers, lately, are frustrated. Tumblr sucks balls on a good day when it comes to notifications and the whole algorithm mess, and that’s still being generous. In an effort to keep the porn blogs at bay, they’ve stifled all creators. Add to that how tags seem to never work when you’re searching for something, and disseminating your work is nearly impossible.

I could tell you all the different ways you can change your focus on the readers you do have, give you lists of things you can do to expand your audience, and offer advice about not comparing yourself to other writers. But you’ve already heard all of that. So, I’m just gonna say it.

If you complain publicly about a lack of notes or followers, you’re gonna look like a dick.

That doesn’t mean you are a dick. You’re just gonna look like one. You’re going to look like you’re ungrateful for the readers that you do have, which is going to turn off those readers, and you’ll end up with even fewer notes and followers. If you manage to disparage other writers while you’re complaining, you’re gonna look like an even bigger dick. So, just don’t do it, unless you don’t mind looking like a dick. 

Need to vent about it? Find a close friend and send it to them in a private message. Have a funny thought about it that you want to share? This is exactly what private messages are for. Create a group DM in discord. Heck, I think even Tumblr has a group chat option, now. Just, don’t put it on your blog, unless you want to lose followers. 

The number of admins at the Pond

Some folks seem to think that the Pond needs to add more admins in order to react more quickly when something goes down. Honestly, I have talked to Mana and Kale about stepping down as admin because I believe the opposite is true. We have a policy that we all must agree on the big things. However, we are separated by 8 time zones. There is a rare hour every few days (sometimes it’s weeks) when all three of us are awake and not occupied with caring for family members. We have a private group chat thing where we each toss ideas and questions and such into the pot when we’re doing things. When the others get to it, they add their two cents. Usually, there are two of us active at a time, and then we wait for the third to stop by for approval. Often, the third has a question or argument that then needs to be addressed, but the first or second one isn’t available. More admins would only be a good thing if we were all in the same time zone. But we’re not. We are an international group, which I believe is a good thing, but the downside is that it slows us down. Sometimes, being slow is a good thing, too. Generally, at least one of is calm and level-headed at any given time. It shifts on who that one is, but they keep us from doing anything rash.

The whole problem is that no one feels like they can tell you when there’s a problem

I’ve heard this so many times, now, but I haven’t responded to it publicly, so here goes. 

Most of you don’t know what I’m like in person, but I’m built like a linebacker. I’m tall, I’m heavy, and I have wide shoulders. I have literally scared small children. Take Jared Padalecki, add another Jared Padalecki on the side, and then take away all the pretty, and you come close to what I’m like when you see me walking down the street. 

I don’t want to be a scary person that anyone is afraid to approach. My goal in life is to be kind and fair. I will give you second and third chances, because I know how awful it feels to be written off. 

My ask box is always open. My chat windows are always open. My email address is mrswhozeewhatsis@gmail.com. I’m the same on discord and skype. I don’t care if you think your thing is stupid, if it’s something that’s bothering you, and I can help, then I want to help. I can’t always help, but I always want the opportunity to try.

If I have ever done anything that made you feel like I didn’t care, then I give you permission to tell me. I’ll hate hearing it, but I need to hear it. 

If I have forgotten to follow up on something for you, PLEASE REMIND ME. Holy, cow, I have a TERRIBLE memory. It’s really bad. I have tricks and stuff that I do to try to make sure I don’t lose track of things, but it still happens. Please, come back to me and remind me that I promised you something. I guarantee that I will not be mad or upset. I will be glad, because you’re helping me to be the person I want to be.

I think that’s about it. The Pond is still on hiatus, indefinitely. We have a lot of things we’re talking about for if/when we come back, and some of them are really exciting to me. I hope we come back. I hope we can make the Pond what we always meant it to be. We’ll need help, and constant feedback from our fishy family, but I still have hope.

[genghisconeat]

Quarantine has me eating two dinners a day...

Sorry to my zero readers, I am starting off this recipe with a story. I am a New Moon Leo, I cannot help myself. 

The LA lockdown has me indulging the devil on my shoulder aka my second dinner stomach. Second dinner stomach does not want to eat kale. Second dinner stomach is not interested in lean meets. Second dinner stomach does not give a fuck about my 9-5 lactose intolerance. I think this body part is a close coworker to my quarantine liver. Liver working the “it is okay to drink at 3pm” circuit. Maybe fear of unemployment leads to frontal lobe damage in 28-year old petite asian girls. People of science, let me know. 

I made this recipe while listening to “XS” by japanese-anglo queen Rina Sawayama, who my blessed friend George introduced me to two sunsets ago. On repeat. No ear buds. Sorry my dear husband. 

So many apologies. My inner Cancer is SCREAMING. 

The Inspiration: I have been watching a ton of korean street food videos and have been craving spicy rice cakes. I had no rice cakes at home, but thankfully had some gnocchi. Despite my love of potatoes, I am generally indifferent to gnocchi and had only grabbed it in my first pandemic-panic shopping spree. Good choices under pressure. 

Toasted Gnocchi with Kimchi Butter Sauce

Serving Size: Party of 1 

Ingredients:

1 pound potato gnocchi

1/2 onion finely chopped

4 - 8 garlic cloves to taste 

3/4 cup napa cabbage kimchi 

1/2 cup kimchi juice 

4 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp olive oil (enough to saute onions and garlic if not using bacon fat)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

Pepper to taste (a whole lot for me)

Cool but not necessary

2 strips of bacon 

1/4 cup of red pasta sauce (or 1 tbsp of red pepper paste?) idk thought it might work

1 green onion

Dice onions, mince garlic, chop green onions (use the white part too, it won’t bite), chop kimchi. Chopped kimchi should be similar in size if slightly bigger than diced onion. Set aside.

If using bacon, start here: 

Cut bacon into chocolate chips sized bits. M&M size works too. In a dutch oven render our the fat on the bacon bits. Do this on low heat so we can get all the fat out without cooking through the bacon. We do not want any burnt bits. When most of the fat is cooked out, try to scrape out bacon with a spoon. At this moment, members of the Bon Apetit test kitchen would delicately remove the bacon with a slotted spoon or perhaps a fish spatula. As I have been trying to save money and curb my drunk Amazon prime shopping, these items are not at my disposal...yet. Set aside bacon preferably in the bowl you will be eating with. For the sole purpose of doing fewer dishes. I used one of those shallow pasta bowls. 

If using olive oil, start here

Heat olive oil (or use leftover bacon fat). Toss in onions. On medium-low heat, cook onions for 3 minutes. Then throw in minced garlic. Cook for another 2 minutes. I am always nervous to burn garlic because I hate starting over and will end up just eating burnt garlic. Fun. So aromatic. So refined. 

Turn heat up to medium and throw in chopped kimchi. Let this cook for 5 minutes. Pour kimchi juice at this time and cook for another 5 minutes. Reduce heat back to medium-low and add in 2 tbsp of butter, sugar, pepper, salt, and tomato sauce (optional). Let the butter melt down and cook for another 5 minutes. Or whenever it looks like it is one sauce, one world. Then try best to scoop and place in same bowl as bacon. The sauce should be pretty oily because of all the bacon and butter. Try to get all of the oil out if possible. I think there is flavor in there. If not flavor, a few cents of butter. And in this economy, those butter-pennies are not to be wasted. Set aside. 

Now I have this dirty dutch oven. I use a towel to hold the handles, then bring it to sink to rinse with water. Try to get any burnt bits off, it is okay if it is still a bit greasy. Wipe down so surface is not wet. Again, greasy is okay. 

Because of poor time management and inability to more than one thing at a time, I now start to boil water. You could have done this earlier, but I did not want to stress myself out. I usually start the boiling water in an electric water boiler while I fill the pasta pot to 1 inch of water and let that try to start to boil on the stove. The inch of water is so the pot is not just ripping hot by itself on the stove. I have this unverified worry that heating an empty bot is somehow dangerous or bad for the pot. Though the resolution may be one google search, I prefer to manage my trauma with one inch of water. Once electric kettle water is boiling, I pour into the bowling 1 inch of water. Have I saved time? I am unsure. Do I continue to do this? Every time. 

From here, throw the gnocchi into water. I chose not to salt the water because the gnocchi is only there for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, drain gnocchi. No need to reserve any pasta water. That is usually when I burn myself anyway. Shake the drainer furiously. The intention is to get the gnocchi pretty dry because we are going to toast it. The water might make it steamy. This could be a good time to pat down the gnocchi with a towel. Paper towels are in limited supply at grocery stores, so I am opting to conserve. 

In the dutch oven heat up 2 tbsp of butter over medium-low heat. When butter is warm and shiny, put in half of gnocchi for toasting. It should be light to medium brown, but not black. After 1 minute, flip gnocchi to crisp other side. I honestly just tossed it around and hoped for the best. If you are a person of purpose, you can flip each gnocchi with chopsticks. I was hungry. Let second side toast for 1 more minute. Remove gnocchi and put in eating bowl that has bacon and kimchi sauce. The butter probably has separated at this point. But I really have no idea to help myself or you with that problem. Toast rest of gnocchi repeating same steps as above. 

When the second half is done toasting, throw everything in the eating bowl back into the dutch oven. At this point, because doing two things at once is hard, everything is probably not warm. Cook everything together for 10 minutes on medium heat, stir frequently to avoid burning. If you think it is overcooking stop earlier. 

Pour contents of dutch oven back into eating bowl. Sprinkle green onions over top. We have finished cooking. Your second stomach bellows out in victory. Walla walla. Eat alone. 

Pairing Notes: I ate this with a glass of chardonnay that I got a discounted 2 bottles for $10 at the supermarket. It was fine and divine all at once. Something I would have loved to add is some mozzarella cheese, maybe at the end, just so it gets a little melty. Maybe 1/4 cup? Maybe 1/2 a cup? Maybe 1/4 cup inside pasta? And another 1/4 side mozzarella for snacking? All reasonable additions. 

Personal Notes: It is really strange to be using tumblr at 28 versus when I first got an account in high school. It is way less fun seeing a penis gif on here than it used to be. 

Hope you enjoy the recipe! <3

Peace and pizza,

Connie, the Amateur who Tries 

[fbwzoo]

Hello! I've seen your wonderful crab posts and figured you'd be one of the best people to go to. I've been put in a weird situation. My roommates got me a hermit crab. I'm aware that they require a lot of care; however, he is currently living in the fish bowl that they provided me with with a sponge, some shells, a little plastic house, and generic crab food. What is the most immediate way I can provide him with good housing/food/stimulation until I can save up for something better?

Ooof, that’s a rough situation, I’m sorry! :/ But I’m glad you’re aware of their care needs and want to improve things for your new crab!

Okay so housing first thing. Plastic totes are your friend! They’re cheap, easy to get, and will work great for a temp enclosure for a few months. If you can, get one that’s at least around the size of a 10g tank, but a bit bigger will be better & easier to set up - think 20-40g size. Make sure you get a lid with it, as you’ll want that to help hold in humidity for your new friend.

On the plus side, substrate is pretty cheap for these guys! Play sand is the bulk of it, and usually you can get a 50lb bag of that for $3-8 at a hardware or home improvement store (Lowe’s, Ace, Home Depot, etc.). Depending on the tote size you get, you’ll need at least one, maybe two bags. Make sure you buy it from inside the store if at all possible - outside sand is more likely to end up with mold or fungus spores in it. If you can, get a brick of Eco Earth to mix in with the sand. You’ll want to add water to expand it, let it dry out for a little bit, then mix it in. The loose stuff in the bag works fine too, if you’d prefer, and doesn’t need water added to it. You want around 6″ of substrate, at least, so your crab has plenty of room to dig.

Enclosure decor - This can be pretty cheap & easy! You can use some tupperware containers for water pools - they should be deep enough for your crab to submerge in completely. Make sure they have a way to climb in & out though. Plastic cross stitch canvas is really good for this & costs like 25 cents a sheet. I prefer to double up the bowls - this way you can leave the bottom one in place (in case crab is buried around it) and just take the top one out to change the water. 

Hides and climbing stuff can be a lot of things. Coconut hides, tupperware with holes cut in them, ceramic plant pots, etc. Climbing stuff can be  cross stitch canvas, coconut mats, fake plants, wood, etc. http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ if you check out the Crabitat Conditions, DIY, and Pictures sections on there, you should be able to get some good ideas for these things! Just be careful as some things are more prone to becoming moldy, like hay/straw, twine, some types of wood, & such.

You can get cheaper fake plants from dollar stores & craft stores, just be careful that they don’t have glitter, small plastic pieces (like berries) that will come off, not painted, and the dye doesn’t leak when you clean them before putting in.

Heat & humidity - Make sure the tote is closed up & that will help keep heat & humidity in. Larger water bowls will help add humidity, and so will bowls or piles of sphagnum moss (which you can spray carefully, don’t spray the rest of the enclosure so as to avoid flooding substrate). You can add air stones/bubblers to the pools to help boost humidity as well, but the equipment for that stuff can cost a bit more unless you find it secondhand. Small fish filters can work too, but in both cases, you want to be careful that water isn’t splashing out of the bowls a lot, which is a flooding risk.

For heating, you’re really better off spending the money on something better right now. Pet store heating pads aren’t great, IMO, and most of them are meant to be stuck on & not taken off (which can break wires & turn into a fire hazard). http://www.reptilebasics.com/ultratherm-heat-pads are the best heating mats IMO, and can be attached to the back of the tote with tape (I use packing tape) and then taken off to be used on another tank. They can also be safely insulated with cardboard or styrofoam to help increase temps. It’s best to use them with a thermostat, especially if your room temps vary a lot. But tbh, I don’t have mine on thermostats as crabs do okay with some temp fluctuation within the proper ranges (as opposed to other animals that need stricter temps to avoid overheating/injuries). Put the heating mat on the back of the tote, above the substrate line (or as much above as you can).

For measuring temp/humidity, these are my favorite gauges currently - https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-Humidity-Thermometer-Hygrometer-Indicator/dp/B0013BKDO8/ It’s best to have it hanging from the lid or at least set in an empty bowl or something to keep it off the substrate (which can alter numbers).

Food & water - Crabs need both fresh & salt water. Both need to be treated for ammonia & heavy metals. Prime is what most people use & that little bottle will last you ages since the dosage is only 2 drops per gallon (or for less than a gallon). For the salt water, you want to get Instant Ocean salt, not the stuff sold for hermit crabs (which isn’t complete). Same thing, that box will last you a while! Word of advice, it’s worth splitting it up into single use baggies/containers when you open it, as moisture gets in immediately & turns it into a big brick pretty fast. The amount for that is ½ cup for a gallon, you can make a gallon at a time & then dose it with the Prime when you put it into the tank.

For food….Toss out the commercial stuff. You can often feed them bits of stuff you eat, with no spices/additives. Fresh/frozen fruits & veggies, raw or cooked meat (shellfish must be cooked though), stuff like that is good for them. The HCA forum I linked above has safe & unsafe food lists. I also like the Facebook group Land Hermit Crab Owners Society, and they have safe/unsafe food lists in their files as well, if you join. 

Since they eat so little & fresh foods go moldy fast in the humid heat of the enclosure, a lot of people feed dry foods, which can be left in for a week. There’s all kinds of things you can get from the pet store & grocery store, so I have a post about what you can get & where here - http://fantasticbeastsandhowtokeepthem.tumblr.com/post/163525780954/hermit-crab-food-shopping There’s also a post linked on that one to my nutrition post, which explains more about what they need in their diet!

Also uhhhh if this isn’t too weird, feel free to message me off anon & I can send you some food stuff if you want! I hoard crab food & have a lot of some things because I buy in larger packages (like the supplement type stuff, worm castings, green sand, etc.). I’m sending out a food package to someone else soon as well. I can’t give food to everyone (unfortunately), but I would like to help where I can! But no worries if you’re not comfortable with that!

And lastly, shells. Here’s a good post about types of shells & where to get shells - http://fantasticbeastsandhowtokeepthem.tumblr.com/post/135316962746/hermit-crab-shell-guide-on-shell-types-and-buying I will say that I would highly recommend going to Joann Fabrics if you have one around you, or other craft stores. You can often find cheaper usable shells there. Joann has this awesome green shell pack that has tons of green turbo shells that I’ve bought at least 5-6 of. If your crab is the right size, that could be perfect! Other than that, I really like Naples best for making sure you get the sizes you want.

I think that’s about it, just a couple other things I wanted to mention.

First, once you have things set up for your little one, it’d be a good idea to get them a friend. Crabs are social & live in large colonies in the wild, so it’s really recommended to have at least two. If you don’t want to get another one from the pet store, check Craigslist, or else check out the LHCOS adoption program - http://lhcos.org/adoption-program-beta/ 

Second, if you’re really not sure you’re able to take all of this on, that’s okay! If you’d rather see if someone who already has things set up can take your crabby, you can check the above link for someone in your area, & submit a form to place your crab for adoption.

I hope all of this helps and isn’t too overwhelming! Please feel free to ask if you have any more questions or if anything is confusing. The LHCOS Facebook group is really helpful as well, especially for new owners! Good luck!

[risubewitching]

Candle tips for the thrifty witch

So I discovered a way I could save some money on candles and figured I’d share! These might be pretty obvious, but I enjoy sharing my work anyway, so here’s some money saving DIY tips (^～^) 

You’ll need:

candles

knife

containers

glass candle cups (or small glass jars)

candle wicks

wax crayons (optional)

essential oils (optional)

Getting more candle per candle

So if you live somewhere in Northern Europe, you’ll know Tiger is a great place to get some knick knacks for cheapy cheap. They also sell candles! You can get one of these packets of three candles for two euros, which is pretty good! 

They’re cheap, small and convenient! But, if you’re impatient and fidgety like me, they’re still a little bit too big for spells that require you to burn out the entire candle. So I decided to cut them in half! Boom! Six candles for the price of three, in a more convenient size for spellcasting! 

Although you should leave the bottom part slightly bigger, since you’ll need to carve a little bit of the wax off to expose enough of the candle wick for the bottom part as well.

NOTE:

As you’re cutting/carving the candle, lay a piece of newspaper or something to catch all the wax bits. It’ll make cleaning easier, plus you’ll need them later! 

It’s a good idea to cut around the candle rather than straight through it. These suckers have a tendency to break at inconvenient angles. 

Using leftover wax

So now you’ve got a whole bunch of wax flakes (and you’ve figured out that your candles were only coloured of the surface like I did). Here’s where we make more! 

Take your wax flakes, put them in whatever container you want to use for them and put it in boiling water. This is where you add bits of crayon and/or essential oil as well if you want to customize them! You don’t need a lot of crayon to get a good color, so if you buy a pack of ‘em, they’ll last you a while. 

NOTE:

Be careful! Have a towel or an oven mitt close by to remove the container from the water, and a bowl of cold water in case you burn yourself. Obvious statement is obvious, but the glass gets hot. 

To help the melting process along and to ensure an even color, use a popsicle stick or something similar to mix your wax. A spoon works too, but use the end that doesn’t go into your mouth. I don’t know much about chemicals, but it never hurts to be careful. 

Don’t use a microwave! Like with chocolate, melting it in water is slower but safer. 

You can also reuse wax form old candles you’ve already used! Buying new candles is sometimes a hard urge to resist, but you’ll save money (and the environment) if you reuse old wax.  

Melt until smooth. Carefully remove the cup from the pot and place it on a heat-proof surface to cool. Insert your candle wick and hold it in place for a while as the wax solidifies a bit. Let cool. 

NOTE:

You can get candle wicks on eBay for super cheap! I got a bag of 100 (3 cm) wicks for around 99 cents / 0.65€!

Baby food comes in small glass jars (at least around here) that’ll work if you don’t have candle cups. Mango sauce is a delicious snack and doesn’t cost that much. The glass is thinner so you’ll need to be a bit more careful when working with them, though.

You don’t need to have your stove on a high setting all the time, just bring the water to boil and then turn it down.  

PROFIT! 

And voilá! Self-made, customized candles from leftover materials! If you already have leftover wax, old crayons and containers, all you really need to buy are the wicks! (And you can probably DIY those too!)  I’ve had so much fun with these candles and my little garden, I never realized how much I actually enjoy this DIY stuff. I’ll have to start thinking about a new project  (｡◝‿◜｡) Stay tuned for more stuff like this! 

[thefearlessgastronomist]

Cookbooks I’m Excited to Dive into in 2019

Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat & Cravings: Hungry for More

BY CHRISSY TEIGEN

I used to be indifferent to Chrissy Teigen. She was that lady married to John Legend and a television personality (what exactly does she do on Lip Sync Battle anways?)... but that that was about it. I didn’t even know or remember her as a model.

Then her cookbooks came out. I don’t know what it is about her recipes, but I think everyone was just as surprised as me at the success of Chrissy’s cookbooks. And naturally, their popularity piqued my interest. While many ingredients and meal ideas are day-to-day staples (like pork chops or mac+cheese), the spicy twists and Thai turns on various foods truly are recipes for food you want to eat. Paging through both books, I’m fairly certain I said “Yum” or “I want to try that” for just about every recipe. Not to mention, her humor makes her so incredibly personable.

Pull Up a Chair: Recipes from My Family to Yours

BY TIFFANI THIESSEN 

I’ve mentioned Tiffani before, but let me do it again.

The first recipe of hers that I tried in my own kitchen was the Blackberry Jam portrayed on her show, and it became an instant hit (I even gave small jars away as parting gifts for a family get together; it is amazing on vanilla ice cream). As simple as making jam may be, I knew then that I wanted to try more of her recipes. I immediately ordered her cookbook when it was released. 

Some of her recipes I might consider slightly posh, but trust me when I say they still easily doable and sound absolutely delicious. Just remind me to try her Grilled Artichokes again, now that I actually know how to properly eat them. *facepalm* Also, her hostess flair comes through in the last section of the book called “Picture Perfect Parties” – which has menu, decor ideas, and other such notes for hosting various types of get-togethers (i.e. tailgates, brunches, family campouts, etc.)

The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart

BY ALEX GUARNASCHELLI

Over the years watching Food Network and Cooking Channel, I’ve really become a fan of Alex Guarnaschelli. She’s a fellow Italian (Italians have an unspoken bond lol), the first female to win Iron Chef and the second overall female Iron Chef (after Cat Cora), but really... the lady just knows her stuff. When I heard that she was releasing a cookbook, I was super excited to get my hands on it. Yes, me being excited about books of any form is a recurring theme for me.

One thing I look forward to in Alex’s cookbook – as well as with Giada’s down below – is experiencing how a fellow Italian does Italian food (although that is merely a portion of The Home Chef). We all have our own interpretations of Italian dishes based on our individual backgrounds. But I suppose that could be true of many cultures and many dishes. 

Also mildly prevalent in Alex’s cookbook is the sort of... “upscale” demeanor that I might associate with professionally educated chefs. It’s not many cookbooks you find recipes for bouillabaisse, unless they trained went to culinary school or studied in France  – or in Alex’s case, the two combined (she attended La Varenne Cooking School in Burgundy, France). 

Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering

BY JOANNA GAINES

I always try to resist the charm of Chip and Joanna Gaines... but guys, it’s really hard. And, not gonna lie, a lot of the merchandise from their line at Target is SO PRETTY and on my wishlist 😍 Damn you, Gaines’s. 

While I am not entirely into the modern farmhouse aesthetic showcased on Fixer Upper or loosely included in their Target line, I am really feeling the down-to-earth homey recipes that Joanna shares in Magnolia Table. Many have that “fresh from the farm” Southern feel (based on her childhood in Kansas), where a handful of others include her Korean and Lebanese heritage. 

Eat What You Watch: A Cookbook for Movie Lovers

BY ANDREW REA

I discovered this book at work and I absolutely LOVE the concept! In fact, I’ve been plotting a project for myself with a similar concept (more on this later). 

Eat What You Watch encompasses 40 recipes to help recreate the amazing food moments in film – butterbeer from Harry Potter, the apple strudel from Inglorious Basterds, the titular ratatouille from Ratatouille. Essentially, this cookbook is the PERFECT way to combine my two favorite things. And I’ll get to watch some new movies in the process 😋

Giada’s Italy: My Recipes for La Dolce Vita 

BY GIADA DE LAURENTIIS

I have an... interesting connection to Giada de Laurentiis. 

Noooo, no it’s not just because of our shared Italian heritage (she was born in Rome!), but rather a foodie experience I had a few years ago. 

In late 2016, I traveled to Las Vegas with my aunt for her birthday. As a special birthday meal, we dined at Giada’s namesake restaurant on Vegas Strip. Sparing you the details, I think this was actually the first fancy-ish and refined dining experience I’ve ever really had. I spared no expense and splurged as much as I could, from appetizer to dessert. I really don’t know how to explain it properly but Giada just holds a special place in my and my aunt’s hearts thanks to this experience we shared. Later on, I even planned and together we cooked an entire meal inspired by our experience, utilizing Giada’s own recipes from her website Giadzy. 

Unlike her other books, however, I felt that this one was more authentic. There are the people that want “everyday” and “weeknight” recipes for oversimplified meals, but Giada’s Italy to me just felt more... real. More Giada than her other titles. And, as I mentioned along with Alex Guarnaschelli’s book, I look forward to tasting Giada’s interpretation of Italian food, especially knowing that Giada’s recipes incorporate a Californian flare, spawning by her childhood in Los Angeles. 

Bread Illustrated  BY AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN

This cookbook is part of my ever-evolving desire to cook more items from scratch. As an Italian (I know I know, I’ve already mentioned this too much in this post), there are two things we (or at least I) really love as eaters: pasta and bread. It seems only natural for me to be excited to utilize this book. And, of course, it makes the house smell amazing! There’s nothing like the aroma of baked goods. I am always so fascinated by how varying measurements of flour, yeast, and wet ingredients can create beautifully diverse loaves of bread.

Mediterranean Cookbook

EDITED BY MARIE-PIERRE MOINE

A final repetition of this concept – Mediterranean Cookbook is another way I want to discover Italian food interpretation. However, this title is also much, much more than that. The Greek, Spanish, Andalusian, etc. foods within Mediterranean Cookbook allow me to uncover the flavors of the entire region, flavors that go well beyond Italy. I just might have to get over my distaste for olives to tackle this one.

Equally as entertaining will be trying to understand and use the titles of dishes – most, if not all of them, are not in English. But, if anything, I consider it a way to immerse myself into the culture of each dish.

Regions include (listed in the index): Middle East, North Africa, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, Greece, and Turkey.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: The Book of Greens: A Cook's Compendium by Jenn Louis with Kathleen Squires In a strange turn of events, I've taken an interest in *gasp* salads and vegetables and healthier foods 😝 And while I also purchased The Vegetable Butcher by Cara Mangini a couple years ago, I knew it couldn't hurt to get my hands on a book just about greens; how to select, break down, cook them AND what flavors pair well with them. Let's be real, I just love any book that is essentially an encyclopedia for chefs. Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Sara Quessenberry & Kate Merker Now that I have two Instant Pots in my possession (a 3-quart and an 8-quart), it is now a matter of actually using them. My first meal from the Pot was butternut squash soup, and I have since experimented with hard boiled eggs, a pot roast, and chicken breast (both from frozen!) that all turned out wonderfully... but I would definitely love to add more to my Instant Pot reportoire. I may still enjoy cooking the old fashioned way, but you can't deny how well the Instant Pot works. The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings by Nathan Williams I got this book as an absolute steal at a garage sale; I think I literally only paid 10 cents. I may not read Kinfolk Magazine, but I was immediately drawn to the beautiful composition and cultural aspects of it. Not only does the cookbook encompass recipes from around the world, but also the stories that inspired them from the people who shared them. Although The Kinfolk Table is divided into Brooklyn, Copenhagen, The English Countryside, Portland (Oregon), and "The Wandering Table," the book's contributors span the entire globe.