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melanielocke · 2 years

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The Stars Collide - Chapter 20

I really have to get back to writing this story because now I have no chapters left. I did work really hard at the Witch in the Woods, my Hansel and Gretel retelling, and finished a round of edits today. I'll probably go over it once more and then I'll need some people to beta read it so if anyone's interest, let me know. Next chapter of the Stars Collide will be sometime next week, though I'll have to write it first. AO3 | Chapter list

Alastair felt a little uncomfortable around his sister. He hated that he felt this way, he’d missed her so much over the past six years and was happy she’d come to Fair, but he also hated how she knew what had happened to him.

Cordelia didn’t say anything, likely Thomas had asked her not to, but he could still see the way she looked at him. With worry. With pity. He was older than her, and it had always been his duty to protect her and keep her safe. He’d never wanted her to see how broken he really was, and her trying to protect him felt wrong.

‘I’m really excited to see Lightwood,’ Cordelia said. ‘The biggest forest of the planet. I read that there are lots of small villages and settlements in the woods, nothing like the castle and surrounding cities I’ve seen so far.’

‘There’s lots of farmland too,’ Thomas said. ‘When my sisters and I were little, we used to help pick tomatoes and berries and the like during harvest season. They always needed extra hands for the harvest and my father believed it important for us to help out and get some experience with manual labor. Genie used to eat some of the berries she picked until one time a farmer got really mad at her for it.’

‘I’ve never done anything like that,’ Cordelia said. ‘Is it harvest season right now?’

‘For pumpkins,’ Thomas said. ‘For berries it’s a little late.’

‘Can I sign up to help harvest pumpkins too?’ Cordelia asked. ‘Sounds like fun.’

‘I’m sure you can. I never did, because we used to be in school during pumpkin season, while we had summer break when the berries were harvested.’

‘With some of the larger pumpkins, you can carve them out and put a candle inside,’ Lucie said. ‘They work as charms when I make them and are some of the strongest protective charms I can make. Until the pumpkin expires, that is. Maybe we can decorate the house with those, to keep you safe.’

Alastair listened to the conversation, but didn’t add anything himself, choosing to focus on one of the books he’d borrowed from Thomas. It was a novel set in an ancient world where a young man fell in love with a demon. It fascinated him, because who could love a demon? Who could love something so dark and rotten? But a little later into the book, he’d discovered the demon wasn’t evil, not really. He was just broken and sad and blamed himself for things that had never been his fault. The main character was the first to see the demon for who he really was, the first to take away some of his burden and help him find a way to heal. The main character reminded him of Thomas, in a way. So open, so kind. He had a reckless streak too, and didn’t always make the smartest decisions, but he was determined to prove his demon was not the evil everyone believed him to be. Alastair hoped the two would find a way to be together. Unfortunately, it was only the first in a series and book 2 wasn’t coming out for a few more months.

‘How much longer is it?’ Alastair asked when he finished the book.

‘Two more hours,’ Thomas said. ‘Lightwood is a six hour flight.’

‘You don’t happen to have another book?’

‘We have lots of books in Lightwood,’ Thomas said. ‘Until then we can play a game though. Cordelia has a supply of board games on the ship. Or we can eat. I brought some leftovers from the freezer we can heat up in here.’

‘I could eat,’ Alastair said. ‘What do you have?’

Alastair had weighed himself that morning, and he’d gained ten pounds since marrying Thomas. He was almost at a healthy weight.

‘Eggplant mash, two portions lentil soup and spiced cauliflower and potato,’ Thomas said.

‘That all sounds delicious,’ Alastair said. ‘Can I have the eggplant mash?’

Eggplant was one of his favorite vegetables, something that was commonly eaten on Turan too. Eggplant mash reminded him of home. They all ate dinner, Cordelia putting the plane in autopilot to come eat too. Cordelia returned to the cockpit after dinner, while Lucie stayed behind and decided they would play a game of Rummikub.

‘You’re far too good at this,’ Lucie complained after Alastair had rearranged half the board to put away his last stone. ‘None of this should be allowed.’

‘I followed all of the rules,’ Alastair said. ‘I won.’

‘Come, Lu, we’ll go for place two and three.’

Alastair sat closer to Thomas, looking at his stones and the board. He had one difficult stone, but there were two he should be able to lose once Lucie finished her turn. He looked over the board, analyzing different ways to move the stones, lose the ones Thomas had in hand and have everything turn out complete.

‘You need to rearrange this,’ Alastair said once Lucie had given up and picked a stone from the pile.

‘You’re not allowed to help!’ Lucie yelled.

Alastair wisely shut up and waited until Thomas figured it out himself. It took some time, during which Lucie took out her laptop and started typing, occasionally asking Thomas if he was done yet.

‘Maybe next game we should put a timer during which you’re supposed to make your move,’ Alastair suggested.

‘If you think this is long, you should play Rummikub with my dad,’ Thomas said. ‘During his move you can make tea, come back, finish it, and he still will be looking if there’s really no way to lose that one stone.’

‘Maybe I’ll try,’ Alastair said. ‘I would like to get to know him better, at least.’

With Henry and Charlotte, his relationship had been cordial, yet distant. He was more of an acquaintance to them than family, though he had recently learned Henry did care for him. He hoped to build a better relationship with his new in laws. He’d been so alone during his time with Charles, and Alastair never wanted to feel like that again.

They tried several other games until in the end Lucie settled on a purely luck based game called Ludo. Alastair had too much insight and memory for most of the other games they’d found on board of the plane. He lost magnificently at Ludo, Lucie kept throwing his pawns of the board, making him start over.

It was close to midnight in Lightwood when they landed the plane on a designated spot near Lightwood estate. There was a four hour time difference, and Alastair didn’t feel like sleeping quite yet. They dragged all their belongings to the Lightwood estate, and Thomas showed Alastair to his room first, and then helped Lucie and Cordelia get their bags into the guest room.

Thomas’ bedroom was nice. It was a little bigger than the bedroom of his quarters at Fair palace, but similar in coloring, nice and cozy. The bed was made and everything looked nice and clean. Alastair changed into his pajamas, then found his way to the bathroom to clean himself and brush his teeth before getting into bed. Thomas joined him not long after, and for a moment Alastair considered getting a little closer to him. He had loved being held by Thomas, and he wished Thomas would hold him here too. But he couldn’t ask that. It would be too much, it would scare Thomas away from him.

When Alastair woke the next morning, Thomas was still asleep and Alastair decided to get dressed quietly and leave the bedroom so Thomas could sleep a little more. He soon realized he didn’t know exactly where he was going and after taking a wrong turn somewhere, he entered a room he thought Thomas had said would like to the library, but he was wrong. This was a study, but it looked unused and rather dusty. He was about to turn around, when he noticed the portrait of a young woman. She had brown hair and green eyes, a piercing gaze, a haughty expression on her face. Alastair could have sworn he’d seen her before and yet that didn’t make any sense because he couldn’t figure out when.

‘Who is- oh, Alastair. You must have lost your way?’

Alastair startled. He turned around to see Thomas’ father standing in the doorway.

‘Didn’t mean to scare you,’ Gideon Lightwood said. ‘It’s just, this used to be my father’s study. No one usually comes here. I heard your footsteps.’

‘Thomas told me where to find the library, but I think I misinterpreted his instructions,’ Alastair said.

Now that he went over them again in his head, they were somewhat ambiguous and Alastair had picked one he thought Thomas had meant. He often found it difficult when people were ambiguous in what they meant.

‘That’s alright, you couldn’t have known. Come, I’ll show you to the library.’

‘Wait. Who is that woman over there?’ Alastair asked. ‘I feel like I’m supposed to remember her.’

‘She’s my sister, Tatiana,’ Gideon said. ‘I haven’t seen her in a long time. She left Fair after both our father and her husband died. Last I heard she fled to the Edom empire. I think it’s unlikely you’d have met her.’

‘I guess so,’ Alastair said. ‘With my memory, I would remember. Perhaps I’ve seen her picture before, or just someone who looks like her.’

Still, it bothered Alastair. Why didn’t he remember her? Why would her face be so familiar? She was from Fair originally, but hadn’t lived here in some time. Would it make sense if she had anything to do with the experiments?

‘How long was it ago, that she fled?’

‘Almost thirty years,’ Gideon said. ‘Her husband died shortly after she’d married him, along with my father.’

Gideon’s tone indicated he didn’t want to talk about this any further and Alastair respected that. He could sense there was something difficult there. Maybe Thomas would know more, but Alastair wouldn’t press him about it either for now.

‘I’m sorry about your father.’

‘Don’t be. He was not a good man,’ Gideon said. ‘The library is this way.’

The library was a cozy room with a sofa and several comfortable looking chairs and a coffee table in the middle. The seating arrangement looked out onto the forest through a wall of windows. On the other wall, there were book cases filling the rooms.

‘I love this set up,’ Alastair said. ‘And the view, it’s lovely.’

‘It is beautiful,’ Gideon agreed. ‘The books on the far side are old, but many are newer. It’s not that much compared to the Herondales, but I’d still consider this a big collection. What kind of books do you like?’

‘Oh, all kinds. I used to read a lot about politics, but nowadays I’m getting more into fiction. Thomas had a lot of books I’m enjoying.’

‘That shelf on the right are Thomas’ books,’ Gideon said. ‘Maybe you’ll find something you like there.’

‘I’ll take a look,’ Alastair said. ‘Thank you. But would it be okay if I ate something first? I don’t know where the kitchen is and I’m a little hungry.’

‘Of course. Come, I’ll show you. Is Tom not up yet?’

‘I figured I’d let him sleep. Usually he makes me breakfast, I don’t always eat breakfast. He’s a very good cook, I gained ten pounds since we got married. I used to be really underweight.’

‘He gets that from his mother,’ Gideon said. ‘I never had much talent in the kitchen, I’m afraid, but Sophie is an amazing cook and she taught Thomas. I’m glad you’re eating better, you look healthier than you did at your wedding.’

‘Thanks you,’ Alastair said.

He wondered how Thomas felt about that. Would he find Alastair more attractive now that he’d gained some weight? He looked better than he used to and started to feel a little less insecure about his body. Perhaps foolishly, he still hoped Thomas could develop feelings for him.

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @styxdrawings @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @broodyhawthorne @ikissedsmithparker

#Alastair Carstairs #Thomas Lightwood #Lucie Herondale #Cordelia Carstairs #Gideon Lightwood #the last hours #tlh #the stars collide #fanfiction

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impernaway · 1 year

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5+6. the tentacle beast / the monster's hide

The walkways are with rain again, the drizzle reducing the limited visibility yet further as twilight slowly encroaches. Even before the sunset, the world out here had been hazy. Not that there'd really been anything to look at: There's nothing out here but the still ocean stretching out in every direction around the floating research platform.

Officially, the station Rhys is manning alone is Seapoint Piscium Delta. He likes to call her Fishfood Four instead. He's made it to week nine of a six month placement - by the end of week one, he'd already understood why they'd been reluctant to schedule him for even that much on his first posting. Sure, he gets to video call the team whenever he wants, but at the end of the night when they all go home? He's still out here in his flotel.

On the other hand, the pay is really good. If he can stick it out without losing his mind, he's looking at a hefty sum at the end. And he doesn't have to pay rent out here either. Plus he doesn't have to deal with the fallout of how things went with Jess. So like, that's a perk!

He checks the door for the lab is firmly shut, rattling the large door-locking circle on the bulkhead door to make sure it's fully in place. It's his last wind-down task before retreating back to his room again. The whole place is pretty much fully automated, but the doors aren't part of that. It's what he's there for. Somebody has to oversee everything just in case it goes wrong, you know? Plus doing the actual analysis on what the sensors feed back.

Last stop is the drone room. The repair and maintenance room takes up nearly as much space as the lab does, but it's also pulling double duty as the power room so it kind of makes sense. Not like the drones themselves need all this room. All they do is just slowly rise and sink through the ocean, sending regular little updates to tell them about the ocean. Things like how temperature it is, what the pH level and salinity is like, what's going on with the currents, the odd sample from the sea bed if the pre-programmed route takes them down that far - all the things that help them work out what's been going on out here lately. He pauses as he tests the door. It's not resisting as much as it should.

He pushes the hatch open anyway, stepping through into the dark room. The lights are off, which is how it should be, but he didn't - It's not like him to shut everything down but forget something like the door lock.

....Fuck it. It's not like anybody else will know if he doesn't say anything, right? And he caught it. No harm, no foul. That's what the double-check is for. He seals the hatch, twisting the ring around firmly and listening to the bolts all sliding home. He can investigate the door lock tomorrow when he's officially clocked in again.

Rhys carries on along his way, wiping the rain off his face before he shimmies up the ladder that takes him back to his living quarters. He makes a point of wiping his feet off at the welcome mat he asked for. There's enough ocean around here already without him bringing it in here with him as well. His nose wrinkles as he shucks the lab coat and drops it off on it's hook, hand reaching for the pull-cord for the light.

"God," he says, "It reeks in here. Did I leave a window open or something? Come on Rhys. Get it the fuck together, mate."

The delivery of fresh food isn't coming for another week, so it's another night of deciding between mash potato from a powder mix or tinned soup. He finally finds the pull-cord, blinking at the bright sudden light. Something is making the back of his neck prickle like he's being watched. The smell is, somehow, even worse now. His eye darts around the room to try and figure it out-

His eyes land on the table crammed into the kitchen, a can of diet pepsi knocked over on it from where he'd left it there that morning. The dark brown carbonation is still fizzing gently even as it drips down onto the linoleum flooring.

There's been no wind today. Barely any tides. Fishfood's been stable all day. Something primal in his brain screams at him, and it drives Rhys to slowly turn around. He's the only one here, but he's not. He's really, really not.

The wall moves.

He screams as he throws himself back, legs failing to catch or support him as his eyes move up and up and up. Up along the tentacle that is rapidly changing colour to stop mimicing the white of his walls, up along the torso of the thing clinging to the ceiling, up and into the large yellow eyes of something that is baring teeth at him. He scrambles across the floor before instinct kicks in and has him roll over to push himself up and back onto his feet and away away AWAY from the fucking octopus monster that is dropping down and coming after him.

Somehow, he makes it to the bedroom door first and slams it shut behind him, leaning against it as something on the other side roars. Fumbling hands shove the lock bolt into place as it begins hammering on the door.

"Oh my god," he chokes, legs going weak again. "Oh my god."

It - did it have claws? He doesn't think so. The hammering on the wood tapers off, and he wheezes in fear as his heart keeps up the rhythm. Wide eyes tear across the room as Rhys looks for something - anything, God, please - that isn't nailed to the floor or the wall to make sure it can't get capsised overnight. Nothing. Nothing to barracade with. Behind him, the doorknob rattles but the lock holds. He holds his breath until it stops again. The window is too small and can't open more than an inch, and this is the only door. There has to be something. Some way out. Surely there must be-

Something brushes his ankle and he jumps out of his skin as he pushes off from the door and falls a second time. He looks down at the tentacle slowly pushing its way through the gap at the bottom of the door. It - it's too small. It can't figure out the door, and now it must be trying to see if it can get under. It's too big though, surely. Surely.

Rhys watches, frozen in place as the tentacle pushes through further and further, the strange muscle twisting and unfurling as it works its way through the gap. It takes all his effort to scoot back further until his back is up against the side of the bed, legs tucked as close as they can be to his body. The tentacle continues to feel around blindly for him, and he watches. Maybe he can just - just wait it out. Wait for it to decide he isn't worth the effort.

He whimpers as the tentacle instead starts to slowly feel its way up the door.

"No," he says, his fingers going numb as he watches. "Fucking no, please, stop it."

Everything is silent. He cannot move. There is no escape. He can only watch. The tentacle keeps going, impossibly still coming. He watches as it reaches up. Slowly, almost tauntingly, it reaches the slide lock where it sits, just below the handle, and pulls it out of the way before dropping to the floor.

The door swings open, revealing the large hand pushing it and the larger yet figure behind it, a man down to the waist and then all octopus limbs below that, and Rhys once again finds his eyes dragged unstoppably upwards towards its face. The light in the living room backlights it, enough that he just about see it. It's smirking at him, mocking and cruel, and it slowly ducks its head as it pushes its way into the corner he's trapped himself in.

It's just Rhys, the ocean, and the monster pushing the door shut behind it again.

#monsterous may #monsterousmay #my writing #what if a mermaid decided you were a free lunch in a cool lunchbox #and you are in the middle of the ocean about it

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i-call-me-clarence · 6 months

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Hey so I was wondering if anyone on here had similar stomach problems to what I have currently. It’s not a stomach flu (it’s been progressively getting worse since an incident I’ll explain under the cut) but it has gotten A LOT worse lately. So if you have gastrointestinal problems I would really appreciate if you’d read under the cut and tell me if anything sounds familiar. And before people go off, I know this does not replace a doctors visit. I’m extremely poor (no job ((thanks business partner for kicking me out of the BHR biz because you fucking lost the plot)) and am relying on family and friends just to survive at this point) so a doctors visit is possibly even a year away.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Forced Starvation, the effects of starvation, gastrointestinal issues, mentions of vomit

Anyways here’s what’s going on:

Okay so backstory. I was forcibly starved seven years ago which over three months caused me to go from 160 to 100 pounds. The last month I had no food at all, just water and Gatorade. When I was finally able to escape the situation and ya know, eat again, I found it to be extremely painful. My dad was an army medic so fed me liquids at first and then mashed potatoes and fruits and some weird bar thing he’d put in water that would make it like a very think porridge thing I can’t remember what it was called. Even the Gatorade hurt. Badly.

I had access to weed and it helped immensely with my stomach issues ((wasn’t throwing up, little to no pain)). But then my situation changed and I could no longer afford it. The past two years I’ve had very little to no weed at all. I noticed almost immediately that my stomach problems were back with a vengeance. Things got progressively worse until one day I drank some vodka (I know, bad idea with stomach problems but I was very desperate and it did numb my stomach and in that moment it’s literally all I cared about)). And then before bed I took two baby aspirin ((I know I know bad idea again)). I woke up about six hours after taking the aspirin and threw up, which was normally how I wake up I doubt it had much to do with the vodka. But when I looked at what I’d thrown up, I saw the aspirin tablets. Completely undisolved after six hours in my stomach which had vodka in it. They were not coated in anything I could easily crush them into dust. I put aspirin into vodka as an experiment and it dissolved quickly. Put it in water and same thing. I still have no idea wtf if happening in my stomach.

After that incident I noticed all my throw up tasted exactly like when it was still food. I don’t think I’m digesting really anything and it’s taking up to eight or ten hours for my stomach to empty into my intestines. Things started to get worse, I threw up after almost every meal. And I started gagging whenever I coughed too. Like even clearing my throat makes me almost puke now. This has NEVER happened before and also when I brush my teeth this doesn’t happen at all.

Last December I had the worst pain I’d ever had after I ate a meal. It felt like a ball of razor blades in my stomach and my stomach felt hard as a rock if you put your hand over it. I was delirious with pain and just screaming and crying.

I started drinking pickle juice ((like a lot)) with every meal and that seemed to help up to February, when I started throwing up food that tasted like when I ate it again, no matter how much pickle juice I drank. So I switched to mainly ensures and soups. I was doing okayish, still in pain, but it wasn’t as bad. Then the weight loss really got out of control.

So I had gained some weight due to the weed so I was at about 165. Cutting out weed due to expense put me down to 160. No big deal. From February to today (April 6th) I have lost 30 pounds. Most of it in March. I came to my parents house two weeks ago. After the first week of my dad basically force feeding me tons of food I had gained five pounds. This was only possible because I started chewing benedryl before eating so my stomach was numb. I’m eating the same amount of food now, but am back to 130 and I have no idea why. I haven’t thrown up recently (since starting the benedryl trick in late March). Why tf am I still losing weight??? Also for reference I’m 5’10 so 130 makes me look like a skeleton (I hate everyone who keeps telling me how good I look, you can see all my ribs and my torso looks like a normal torso that got flattened). I’m weak all the time, my fibromyalgia is ten times worse. I’m just suffering so much rn and can’t go to a doc about it. Anyone have any ideas or similar experiences?

#gastrointestinal problems #extreme weight loss #help #starvation

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socialvinod · 7 months

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lunapwrites · 3 years

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(I am once again posting unedited nightmares to Tumblr.)

CW: strong language, violence, character death. The first thing Remus noticed was that the floor was cold. The texture rough against his stubbled cheek, scraping against his forearms as he slowly pushed himself up. He blinked blearily, eyes adjusting to the dim torchlight. Stone floors, stone walls, iron bars.

A cell.

His head was throbbing; there was dried blood in his hair. This time it might have been his own. He recalled bright lights, curses flying, sizzling past his ear. Red. Darkness.

A Stunner.

How did they find me?

He couldn't remember.

If he concentrated, he could hear breathing, other heartbeats. One, two, three... no, four. He scented the air; three male, one female. Human, goblin. Familiar — very familiar, though he was struggling to think beyond the pounding in his skull. He couldn't recall their faces.

Somewhere out of view, a door swung open: hinges creaking, wood groaning, scraping along the floor. A jangle of keys. This scent... (juniper berry and wood shavings and cheap dusty tea) this scent he knew.

rat rat rat

"Oh good, you're not dead," Peter said in a tone that might have sounded cheerful if not for the underlying tension of attempted murder and heart-wrenching betrayal.

"Sorry to disappoint," Remus replied. His voice was rougher than the stone he'd woken on and twice as cold. On the other side of the wall, two heartbeats quickened; a quiet intake of breath.

They know me.

"Ah, don't be like that, Moony. I've brought you supper."

"Think I'd rather starve, thanks."

Peter gave that snorty little laugh that Remus used to privately think was endearing and now just made him want to yank the bastard's brains out through his nostrils.

"Just as dramatic as ever, I see." He showed the plate to Remus. "It's just a bacon sarnie. Light on the butter and practically raw, just the way you like it."

It was the way he liked it, and Remus hated him for it.

"Why am I here?"

"Skipping right over the small talk, eh? That's not like you at all." Peter opened a small grate, pushing the plate through the bars. "Come on, Moony. You know why."

"Don't call me that."

If he hadn't been watching for it, he'd have missed the tiny flicker of hurt across Peter's face. The twitch of his brows, the near imperceptible thinning of his already too-thin lips. The shadows under his eyes darkening.

He looked terrible. He looked sorry. Remus hated him even more.

"Alright, Remus then. Or would you prefer Lupin?"

"I would prefer you didn't call me anything, honestly."

"Too bad," Peter said briskly. "I'm the jailor, so unless you just don't want to talk at all..."

"That would be lovely, actually."

"Liar." Peter grinned. "You love hearing yourself talk, always did. You were worse than James—"

The bars rattled as Remus slammed into them, fury bubbling in his veins. Peter leapt out of his reach, eyes wide, frightened as he'd been that night in the shack.

"DON'T!" Remus snarled, fangs bared. "Don't you ever speak his name!"

Peter stared at him, his hummingbird pulse slowly steadying as he remembered who was on which side of the bars. He put his hands up, placating.

"Alright, Remus. Fair enough. I'm sorry."

No you're not.

Peter hovered awkwardly for a moment, rocking on his heels like he had something more to say — like there was anything more to say. As if he had a right to be disappointed that Remus would sooner swallow his own tongue than accept anything he offered.

"Right. I'll leave you to it, then. Be back tomorrow."

Remus watched him slip out of the room in silence, the heavy door swinging shut, the lock turning with a dull click just as the plate shattered against the wall.

"Brought you some soup today," Peter said conversationally. "Figured you might need it after talking to Bellatrix."

He slipped the bowl through the grate; Remus didn't move from his spot against the opposite wall. Every one of his nerve endings was on fire, but he'd be damned before he'd show it.

"She really needs to work on her conversational skills," he croaked, and immediately regretted it. Peter's eyes sharpened, searching his face.

Nothing to see here. Not for you.

"She was always mad as a hatter before, but Azkaban really didn't do her any favours in that regard." Peter sighed, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed. "Can't say I'm upset about getting out of that one."

It was in that moment that Remus decided that the Killing Curse was too good for Peter.

He hauled himself to his feet, trudging over to the front of the cell on shaky legs, leaning over carefully to pick up his supper.

"I see you remembered my favourite again." He sniffed at the bowl of soup suspiciously, checking for strange ingredients.

Potato. Leek. Broth... chicken I think. Cream. Bacon again, probably leftover.

"Figured a taste of home might not go amiss," Peter said quietly, frowning. "I haven't poisoned it, you know."

"I'm well aware that the only thing you poison is friendships," Remus agreed. "If you wanted to kill me, I should watch for a knife in my back."

"...That's not fair."

"Isn't it?"

They stared one another down silently, Peter with his best rainy morning face on, Remus towering above him like a thundercloud. He slowly poured the soup out onto the floor, flinging the bowl back through the bars. Peter dodged at the last second; it bounced off the wall next to his ear and clattered harmlessly to the floor.

He'd learned his lesson since the plate, apparently.

"Right," Peter declared in an overly plummy tone as he pushed off the wall, "we'll just try again tomorrow, shan't we?"

The following day, Peter brought down bangers and mash; it was cold and grainy, and the bangers were burned to hell.

Remus ate it anyway.

"You know, as pleased as I am that you've stopped throwing tantrums over the food," Peter mused through a mouthful of toast, "I'm genuinely surprised you haven't asked me why I did it."

Remus paused, looking up from his plate through one, unswollen eye.

"Probably because it doesn't matter."

He spoke slowly, as if to a particularly dim child, as if he weren't lying through his teeth.

Peter scoffed, spots of colour rising to his cheeks.

"Please, like you didn't spend twelve years tearing yourself up over Sirius. Why should my reasons matter less?"

"I'll give you three guesses."

Peter wrinkled his nose, scowling.

"You always liked him best."

"Dunno what to tell you, Pete. He gives great head."

There was a muffled snort from the neighbouring cell. Dean, by the sound of it. A week ago, Remus might have even been embarrassed.

"Remus Lupin, unfiltered," Peter said with a wistful shake of his head. "I fucking missed you, you know."

"This is very good bread. Do give my compliments to whichever unfortunate elf was responsible for it."

"That would be me."

Remus snorted at him, raising his mug of water in toast.

"Here's to moving up in the world."

"Fuck off." Peter eyed him speculatively for a long moment. "It was because I wanted it to end."

Remus peered at him over the rim of his mug.

There was a dark intensity emanating from Peter. Not dangerous in the same way that Bellatrix or even Sirius was; sharp and sinewy, a predator stalking prey. It was as if Remus was moving among the stars and encountered a vast nothing that devoured everything it dragged into its field.

No sound, no light, just cold, dead silence.

"All my friends were dying or turning into people I didn't recognise anymore, and I was terrified," Peter continued quietly. "Every day I was terrified, and I just wanted it to end. I didn't care how."

He pushed off the wall, leaving without waiting for a response.

It didn't matter. There was nothing to say.

On the fifth day, an apple rolled off the plate as Peter approached the cell. It hit the ground, rolling at his feet. He leaned down to recover it, and the rest happened very quickly.

Remus rushed forward, his arm darting out to catch Peter around his neck as he rose back up, yanking him back hard against the bars.

"You always were an idiot."

Peter thrashed and struggled in his grip. His fancy silver hand clawed at Remus' forearm, more powerful than Peter had any right to be.

But Remus was stronger.

"I would be lying if I said I didn't miss you, Pete," he said calmly, tightening his grip. "I missed you every day, like a limb. I still do."

The keys were jangling against Peter's belt loop, against the bars. Remus could reach through and grab them now, if he wanted to.

"You weren't the only one who was afraid, you know? We were just kids. Only the rest of us learned to kill our enemies instead of our brothers."

It wasn't about the keys.

"My brothers died twelve years ago." The fingers scratching and scrabbling against his arm were weakening, slowing. "I buried one with his wife in Godric's Hollow, and they put up a little statue for them that I still can't stand to look at."

Peter's knees buckled, his weight against Remus' steady arm adding pressure.

"I buried the other in a little plot in Coxheath, and I used to wonder why it couldn't have been me. And I grieved."

Remus took a deep, slow breath. A holy calm settled over him.

"I want you to know," he continued in that same soft, conversational tone, "that everything you've done has amounted to nothing. That you are nothing, and no one will remember you."

Things happened very slowly after that.

Peter stopped struggling.

Remus counted heartbeats.

There were six.

And then there were five.

He reached down and pulled the keyring from Peter's belt, popping the beltloop clear off. It wasn't like Peter needed it anymore. He left the body against the bars, opening the door to his cell without looking back.

"Hullo Professor."

Dean was watching him open their cell door with wide eyes, more surprised — appraising — than fearful. Luna waved at him cheerfully, same as when he'd last seen her, if a little taller. Remus nodded to them both in greeting.

"I'd say it's good to see you both, but I'm rather sorry you're here. Can everyone move under their own power?"

"Ollivander and Griphook are both a bit worse for wear," Dean said apologetically.

"Alright, well give me a hand now then."

It only took a few moments for them to get Griphook and Ollivander situated on Dean and Remus' backs, respectively. Remus, in the meantime, had been coming up with a plan.

So long as they were quiet and careful, he could sniff out the exit while avoiding the manor's residents. They just needed to be quick about it; he didn't know how long it would be before Peter was missed.

But no sooner did he reach his hand out for the door than it burst open, revealing a particularly unhinged-looking Sirius, closely flanked by Harry and Ron.

There was a short pause in which the two men processed one anothers' sudden appearance.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Remus asked faintly.

"We came to rescue you," Sirius said with a vaguely affronted tone.

Remus turned around, looking at the assortment of prisoners he'd broken out and the cooling body of the jailor at the other end of the room, and then turned back to Sirius.

"Well done."

Harry let out a choked sort of noise that might have been either a sob or a snort, he wasn't quite sure.

"Right," Ron said quickly. "So, mission accomplished, let's go!"

He and Harry ushered Dean-and-Griphook and Luna up the stairs first, Ron taking point and Harry flanking. The moment they were out of the room, Sirius reached out and cupped Remus's jaw, brushing a thumb across his cheek. He felt something damp on his face.

"Have you been crying?"

Remus shrugged.

"Maybe. I didn't feel anything," he said quietly, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. Let's go."

Remus pushed past him, following the boys up the stairs. Sirius followed close behind.

They didn't look back.

#remus lupin #peter pettigrew #malfoy manor #dark fic #angst #mild humor #lunapwrites #i am on my bs #finally #please note the cw #read at your own risk #wolfstar

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crosscanadakate · 2 years

Text

Adapting to change, and Day 1

Yesterday we started our trip. It’s not the trip I thought I’d be taking. It’s not the one I talked about in my first post, and it’s not the one I spent so many hours planning. That’s unfortunate, that’s okay, I am excited and glad to be on this journey.

What Changed

The road trip across Canada was predicated on the notion that I’d be driving the new car we ordered in January. The estimate for when we’d receive it was 3 months, which would have been the end of April. However, there are global microchip shortages affecting car production, and we still do not have our new car.

I knew this was a possibility, so I have had a rental car booked as a backup for quite some time. This would allow me to still take the tip, but would more than double the cost of the trip. In the end, I decided it makes more sense to postpone the road trip until next year when we have the car.

The New Plan

The first part of the trip has remained the same. Neil and I are on a road trip to Montréal that will take about a week. Instead of continuing across Canada from Montréal on my own, though, we’ll head back to Nova Scotia together. Then, I’m flying to British Columbia for a visit with friends there.

There will still be road tripping. There will still be camping. There will still be time with loved ones and friends. It’s summer, and it’s vacation!

Day 1

Neil and I woke up bright and early and packed Kona, our rental car, with all the supplies we’ll need for our week-long road trip to Québec. We got on the road at around 7:45 am, which was a little later than planned, but still gave us plenty of time for the 1000 km drive to Québec City.

The weather and roads were pretty perfect except for some rain once we crossed into Québec, but that rain was only heavy briefly, and it dissipated by the time we arrived at our destination.

We made three stops on the way. The first stop was in Amherst. I had to pee.

For lunch, we stopped at the Blue Canoe Irving Big Stop in Fredericton, NB. It had been quite awhile since my last Big Stop meal. It’s not exactly gourmet cuisine, but Big Stops are conveniently located right on the highways, and they have cheap, generously portioned meals. They are also very nostalgic to me - I have many memories of meals at the Big Stops in Saint John, which was very near to where I grew up, and the one in Salisbury, which was on the road between Halifax and Saint John, so a common stopping place when making the trip home to visit my friends and family. Big Stops feel familiar and comfortable. Like home.

Our last stop was a quick refuel and stretch in Edmunston. There are six exits from the highway into Edmunston. I told Neil we should just assess each one as we came to it and see which one felt right. We decided on the 3rd exit, and it served our needs.

As we passed into Québec from New Brunswick, Neil contemplated how long it has been since we’ve left the maritimes. It’s been longer for him than for me, but it feels like a long time. It’s nice to be traveling and exploring after the isolation and restrictions Covid brought with it.

Another thing we realized upon entering Québec is the time change. Our devices automatically updated to reflect the hour we gained, but we had both somehow forgotten that this would happen... We laughed about not having considered this extra hour, and felt even better about the time we made on a long day of driving.

We checked in to our hotel, the Hôtel-Musée Premières Nations in Quebec City. I’d heard about this hotel several times recently, and it seemed like a very special place. We didn’t get to explore the hotel much, but we did make it to the hotel restaurant, La Traite, for dinner. They brought us the cutest, tiniest cups of pea soup, as well as bannock and ciabatta breads to start. For our main course, they brought us mashed potatoes to share. Neil ordered the bison, and I got deer. They were both delicious!

After dinner, we were both pretty tired, and also mentally an hour ahead... so we turned in pretty early.

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imaginejamesandsirius · 4 years

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I love the way you write James and Sirius so much. I was wondering if you could write a soulmate au where you see bits and pieces of your soulmate in your dreams (fav color, hear their laugh, see things they like, etc) and James is pretty sure Sirius is his soulmate but isn’t completely sure. If not, don’t worry about it but if you can, thank you!💕💕

Soulmate dreams were different from regular dreams. Regular dreams were weird, often nonsensical, and evaporated the next day after being awake for long enough. Soulmate dreams lingered. There was still a dreamlike quality to soulmate visions that couldn't be shaken, but they were more memorable than normal dreams. Soulmate dreams were weird for a lot of reasons, but mostly it was because they were so random. You never knew what you were going to get from one or why. Sometimes it was stuff they saw or were thinking about, and other times it was them.

For example, James knew that his soulmate had hair that went down at least to their chin, probably a little bit longer. He knew that because that day at Hogwarts, they'd been playing with their hair, and that night, he dreamed about it. He'd been aware of the professor at the front of the classroom during the dream, but after he woke, the only detail that remained was the hair.

Obviously that was just an example of a single dream. The dreams didn't come every night, but James had been dreaming of his soulmate for his entire life. He had a few details of his soulmate and how he could identify them, but most of it was stuff that his soulmate liked.

That's why James thought that his soulmate was Sirius. Sirius had the long hair, he had a laugh that warmed James to his core, and he had deep grey eyes that James had caught glimmers of from time looking in a mirror.

Soulmate dreams never showed the full face or let your hear someone saying their name. Hearing a laugh was pretty good, as far as identifying features went. If James could actually remember how it sounded instead of the way it made him feel, he'd know for sure if it was Sirius.

Another reason that he wasn't one hundred percent about it being Sirius was that most of his soulmate dreams were about food. Sodding food. Sirius was his best mate and all, and he knew him better than anyone else in his entire life, but Sirius's appetite seemed to change based on the planet's position and how late he'd stayed up the night before. James couldn't make heads or tails of it. Sometimes, Sirius said that he couldn't stand scrambled eggs and how dare he have to smell them on an otherwise pleasant morning. Two days later, he was wolfing them down like there was no other food in existence. And he did that with everything. Shepherd's pies, treacle tarts, beans and toast, soup... everything. Absolutely everything.

So it didn't really mean anything that one night James dreamed of mashed potatoes, and the next week, he dreamed of candied plums. He tried to connect it to Sirius's eating habits, but it was no use. Half the shite James's soulmate dreamed about wasn't food that Hogwarts had, anyways.

"Hey, Sirius?" James asked. They were in the library, doing homework. History of Magic would be a lot easier to pass if the professor actually looked at them every once in a while, but it meant that when they had an essay they needed to write, they had to actually go to the library if they wanted good marks.

"I'm not done with this yet," Sirius said, assuming that James was going to ask to see the book he was currently reading.

"Not that. Just- do you know who your soulmate is?"

Surprised, Sirius glanced up at him. "Why are you asking?"

"Do you know?"

"What does it matter?"

"Why are you being so weirdly closed off about it?"

"I'm not being weirdly closed off; I'm being normal closed off, and it's because I don't think you'll like the answer you get."

"So you do know who your soulmate is," James said. There was no other reason why Sirius couldn't tell him. 'No' was an easy answer. Lots of people didn't have enough details to figure out who their soulmate was-- and even if they did have plenty of details, there was nothing they could do if they hadn't met them.

Sirius scowled at him.

"Who is it?"

"Are we really doing this?" Sirius asked. "Right here in the library? You've never asked about it before but you're going to try and squeeze if out of me while we're in public?"

"The library doesn't count as public; there's no one else in sight."

"Maybe it's not public, but it's definitely not private. Do we really want to have this blow up right here? It'll be fun-- everyone can hear it and call it a domestic."

"We're not going to have a domestic," James said, rolling his eyes. "Just tell me who your soulmate is."

"Why the hell would I do that?"

James glared at him. "Because I won't shut it and let you finish your essay otherwise."

"You won't let me finish it if I do tell you."

"I will."

"Liar," Sirius said. "You always think you'll be calm, but you never sodding are."

"When have I ever tried to claim that I'll be calm and not followed through?"

"Normally, you're calm because you don't give a shite. You'll care about this, which means you won't be calm about it."

"You're overthinking this," James said. "Unless your soulmate is buggering Snape or- it's not Snape is it?"

"Ew, no."

James relaxed again. "Then we're fine."

"Why do you even care? You haven't cared in the past six years."

"Not bothering you about it isn't the same as not caring."

"So why do you care?"

James didn't feel like admitting to something so revealing, especially when Sirius had already admitted that he knew who his soulmate was, so he shrugged.

"A shrug isn't gonna cut it, Prongs."

He hesitated. "How about this: I'll tell you why I want to know after you tell me who it is."

Sirius didn't accept right away, which was enough to make him nervous. Then he sighed. "Fine, but you don't get to freak out. We're not going to be able to finish this essay on time if you freak out."

"We've worked under tighter time constraints."

Sirius stared at him flatly.

"Fine, fine, I promise. No freaking out." If Sirius's soulmate was James, then he could just be happy-- no freaking out required. If it wasn't James, then he'd be too sad to move. He was going to sit here and mope until curfew, if that was the case. "So?" he prodded, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

"You shouldn't do that; it makes you look like your glasses are about to fall off."

With a huff, James let his face return to normal. "You're stalling."

"It's you."

"No, it's not. Do I look like I'm the one stalling?"

Sirius threw a quill at him. "You're my soulmate, you absolute arse."

"Oh." James blinked, then threw the quill back at him. "You could've told me that the first time I asked, tosser." Shaking his head at Sirius's particular brand of ridiculous, he turned back to his essay.

"That's it?" Sirius asked, so incredulous that James looked up at him again.

"Erm. Yes? I mean, obviously there's stuff I want to talk about, but I promised I'd let you finish your essay if you told me."

"Actually, I think what you promised was that you wouldn't freak out."

"I can do both."

Sirius stared at him for a long moment. "Did you already know that I was your soulmate?"

"I had my suspicions."

"How the hell did you only have suspicions? I knew it was you after we were dormmates for a week."

"Okay," James said, pointing a finger at him, "you don't get to judge me. I was only ever dreaming about food! You're so buggering weird; couldn't you have just picked two foods you liked and stuck with that? I dream about red curry, and then the next day, you refuse to eat it. Talk about mixed signals. I've been guessing at your favourite foods for sodding years."

"It's not my fault that sometimes I'm in the mood for something that stinks," Sirius muttered petulantly.

"So you're in the mood to eat it, but you refuse to because it smells bad?" James asked. He wasn't judging, but he couldn't really relate. He had a couple foods that he didn't like, but everything else was fair game. Comparatively, Sirius was the most picky eater in the world. Not that James really cared, except for the soulmate thing. "And you couldn't have explained that to me earlier?"

"I didn't realise your sanity was on the line," Sirius said dryly, but his expression was still that touch of vulnerable that he only got around James.

"My sanity is always on the line when you don't tell me things," James said, flashing him a grin that helped soothe Sirius's nerves. "Look, it won't take us that long to finish this, so let's get it done with and..."

"And?" Sirius asked, quirking a smile at him.

"Well," James said, trying to push down the warmth bubbling in him-- if he let it do its own thing, he'd never be able to focus on finishing this essay. "We can figure that out later."

The fond look on Sirius's face made it clear that he knew exactly what 'figure that out later' would end up meaning for them. They'd snog for a while, fall asleep, then wake up, snog some more, and then talk about it. That talk would probably go along the lines of 'soulmates? cool', but at least they would've done it. "Alright," Sirius said. He picked his quill back up and looked at the book he'd been reading before James interrupted him.

It would almost be like nothing had changed, except Sirius now had a faint smile on his face, and James couldn't ignore the happy butterflies in his chest if he tried. Without looking up, Sirius nudged his leg with one of his own feet. James glanced at him, and Sirius's smile widened, eyes still stuck to the page. James chuckled and turned his attention back to the essay, but he kept his leg where it was, pressed up against Sirius's.

#prongsfoot #marauders #fanfic #james potter #sirius black #filled #hogwarts time #getting together #no voldemort au #soulmates #siriuslystarbucks #Anonymous

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doctorthasmin · 4 years

Text

It’s a chilly autumn afternoon when Sam walks up the garden path to Ryan’s front door, smoothing their shirt down and checking their hair wasn’t too messy. The bottle of wine feels cold in their clammy hands as the doorbell rings out, there seems to be a big racket before the door swings open and a blonde in a striped T-shirt and shirt trousers answers.

“Hey! You must be Sam, come in come in, Graham’s cooking, I’m the Doctor by the way.” The Doctor says cheerfully, shaking their hand guiding them into the living room where Ryan and Yaz are yelling at each other playing tekken.

“Hey Sam, nice to see you mate, thanks for coming round.” Ryan wheezes as he crushes Yaz to the sofa in order to beat her player. Sam grins and hands off the wine to the Doctor.

“Yeah thanks for the invite, I love a Sunday roast.” Sam swallows nervously, watching as the Doctor presses her eye super close to the bottle watching the liquid.

“Oh yeah me too, Graham’s especially.” The Doctor agrees, taking Sam’s hand gently pulling them into the kitchen to see a flustered Graham with two tea towels over his shoulders.

“Sam’s here, they brought wine.” The Doctor states happily, hearing a loud ruckus in the living room she darts off to defuse the situation.

“Hi Sam nice to meet you, so glad you came, Ryan’s friends never usually want to come round for food.” Graham grins, taking the wine with a soft squeeze to their shoulder.

“Oh I love roasts, and Ryan talks about you a lot I wanted to meet you.” Sam smiles, handing Graham the tongs he was reaching for.

They spend the next ten minutes or so plating everything up and chatting about Sam’s job and Graham’s career as a bus driver. Soon enough Graham whistles loud and the three gangly fam members squeeze through the archway trying to get to the table first.

“Right, everyone sit down, I want no more roughhousing whilst my good crockery is out.” Graham warns sternly, smiling as Sam sits down beside Ryan, who heaps a load of roast chicken slices on Sam’s plate.

“Gotta get the protein in.” Ryan jokes as Sam hands the mashed potatoes over to the Doctor, who sprinkles what looks like sugar on top. Mind Americans do that don’t they, Sam wonders before shaking their head and filling their plate.

“I must say I prefer the carrots steamed with butter and a little mint you’ll have to thank your dad Yaz, he gave me his recipe on the back of a business card, when I saw him down the shops yesterday.” Graham notes biting into his bright orange carrot.

“Sometimes dad hits it out the park and other times it’s a car crash.” Yaz shrugs, pushing some of the assorted vegetables towards the Doctor, who seems pretty content with her mountain of mash potato, a pool of gravy in the top like a volcano.

“Yeah well that’s universal, don’t ask Grandad to make tinned soup he’ll find a way to make it inedible.” Ryan says through a mouthful of chicken, earning a kick under the table from Yaz.

“What about you Sam? Like to cook?” Graham asks, leaning round to pour Ryan and Sam a glass of wine, Yaz and the Doctor abstained as always. Sam shrugs, biting into another forkful of tender juicy meat nearly groaning.

“I’m single, so it’s mostly baked beans on toast for me, especially being an electrician, pretty much always on call these days.” Sam explains, smiling back at Graham who’s beaming.

“Nothing wrong with baked beans on toast that was my speciality too before I met Ryan’s Gran.” Graham chortles, looking up to see the framed picture of Grace, Ryan and himself on the wall.

“Yeah Grace was a great cook, remember that barbecue she did for your 16th birthday, football and hotdogs but she’d got all the side stuff too it was great.” Sam recollects, smiling as Ryan chuckles taking a sip of his wine.

“I remember later that night when she gave you a telling off for not telling her about your pronouns.” Ryan smiles, bumping his elbow against Sam’s who rolls their eyes.

“Yeah she was pretty upset, she boiled the entire kettle and we talked through six cups of tea.” Sam recounts, watching as the Doctor watches the four of them carefully, like she wasn’t party to the conversation.

“My gran was the same when I came out too, I don’t know how much chai she forced down my neck in aid of talking it out eh.” Yaz grins, lifting her glass of juice up to clink with Sam’s wine.

“Well there’s a good time for a toast, to those we love, may we be thankful.” Graham toasts, raising his wine glass as the entire table follows suit, none more so than the Doctor who drains her glass in one fell swoop.

The rest of dinner goes on with amiable chatter about this and that, turns out Sam and the Doctor are in complete agreement in the renewable energy advances (of the 21st century) and it takes all the Doctor’s might not to take Sam to the reaches of the energy age and all the glorious technology that would be developed after their lifetime.

Sam leaves a few hours later after an epic game of scrabble in which Yaz and Graham won handily. They’re not allowed to leave until Graham has packed them enough left overs to see a small family through the week, and as they leave with one more wave to the group they notice, these group of friends are unlike anything they’ve ever seen, closely bonded by something Sam just can’t put their finger on. But whatever it is, they’re family.

Sam fancied a roast, so do I! I went back and forth about writing this but just decided to fling it out there and hope it lands. Felt weird not writing centred on one of the fam but still I hope everyone likes it! Replies and reblogs are really appreciated! Stories every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #yasmin khan #ryan sinclair #graham o'brien #doctorthasmin stories

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basicjetsetter · 5 years

Text

At the End of the Day (I)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 4.9k

Warnings: Lil Fluff, Lotta Angst, Language, Violence – an extremely violent scene, might not be suitable for some, don’t continue to read if it triggers you.

Summary: All Bucky wants to do is protect his family and keep them happy, keep them safe. But no matter what he does, danger hunts him down and makes his life a living hell. It has a name. Baron Zemo.

A/N: This is my first time writing for Bucky. I hope y’all love it as much as I do. If you want, you can listen to Sometimes by H.E.R. The fic isn’t inspired by the song, but I felt like it fit. (Gif not mine, all credit to its creator). Also I apologize if the translation is wrong. Happy Reading!!

Part II

Bucky had it all planned out.

Race out of the debriefing room as soon as the meeting adjourned, jump into his car, still grimy and clothed in tactical gear, and gun it to his house to get there in time for dinner. For the most part, the plan was successful. He left the Compound at 3:45 p.m. and made it to the driveway by 5:50. The clock on the dash reads 6:18. He can’t get out of the car. Every time he attempts to unfasten the seatbelt his muscles lock up until he caves under the exhaustion.

Missions never take this much of a toll on his body, but to be fair, he did hurl himself out of a ten-story building like an idiot. He remembered how the world outside swayed, remembered hearing Sam shout into the coms, telling him that everyone was safely out and that he needed to get out too. There was nothing else they could do.

The floor underneath his boots shuddered. Stairs were out of the question and there was no time for Sam to figure out which side of the building Bucky was in. So he jumped.

By now he’d thought he’d be used to imminent death. After all, it came with the job. And yet this knowledge didn’t keep him from squeezing his eyes shut and holding his breath until his lungs cried for air. It didn’t help his hammering heart or the tight clench of his gut as he plummeted to meet the concrete.

Everything had gone a bit fuzzy afterward. A lot of people rushed in to see if he was still alive. He thought he saw a familiar face, but chalked it up to be a trick of the light. Sam and Wanda hovered over him, repeatedly asking if he could hear them and if he was alright. Nothing hurt too bad. He somehow managed to rotate enough so his left side took most of the impact. His head hurt like a son of a bitch, though, and his mouth tasted metallic and felt like sandpaper.

Medics pawed at him the entire way back to the Compound, checking his vitals, shining bright lights in his eyes to rule out concussions. One of them suggested he be left in their care for the night.

What he needed was a goddamn aspirin and a nap. If he let them hook him up to all those machines, he’d be stuck in there for… Christ knows how long. Hours? Days?

Bucky just wanted to go home to his girls.

Instead of listening to the docs advising him to do such and such, he thought of you seeing him like this, bruised from head to toe, covered in rubble and blood. You’d seen him look worse, but every time he came in with even a cut you worried at your bottom lip and a small crease of a frown darkened your features. But he knew you’d be relieved to have him at home in one piece.

So he disregarded their caution. Within 48 hours he’d be right as rain. The perks of being a souped-up solider, he thought ruefully.

Only one good came out of this mess. Bumblebee is going to go through the roof with excitement. He can hear her screams now, “No way! That’s so cool! Mama! Mama! Did ya hear that? Daddy jumped out of a building!”

6:32 p.m.

He wouldn’t be able to tell her anything if he couldn’t haul his ass out of the car.

Bucky groaned as he grabbed hold of his canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder, then kicked the door of the Jeep open. He gingerly climbed out, whimpering with each movement. He shouldn’t have sat in there for so long. All his muscles are stiff as a starched shirt. He leaned against the car door to close it.

As Bucky limped up to the front door he heard the sounds of Bumblebee and Tater, their golden retriever puppy, running around and you laughing as Bumblebee huffed in frustration, “Give me back my shoe, Tater!”

The corners of Bucky’s mouth curved into a large grin despite his crushing headache. He put his key in the lock and frowned when it didn’t click. Already open. Sighing deeply, he twisted the knob and pushed open the door. Scampering feet ran out of the kitchen into the foyer. “Daddy’s home!”

Sure enough, Bumblebee, and Tater right on her heels, dashed into him just as he dropped his canvas bag on the ground and jumped into his open arms. He grunted in the effort to keep her up in his aching arms, staggering back a couple of steps. “Jeez kid, you’re getting big on me.”

She pouted. Miniature versions of your eyes examined his face. “Are you okay, Daddy? Why’re you all purple and blue?” Her smooth, chubby hand brushed away a stray hair from his face. “Does that hurt?”

Had he winced?

In front of him, he heard a sharp inhale. Shit. Reluctantly, Bucky lifted his eyes and met yours. He’s probably not his usual sight for sore eyes. In fact, he’d be willing to bet that he’s the cause of those sore eyes.

You assessed him from head to toe, no doubt noting how he shifted your daughter to his right side to protect his left.

“James.” Your tone is viperous.

He’s in for it. “Don’t say it,” he pleaded.

“Buchanan.”

Bucky hid his face behind his daughter’s shoulder. “Doll, I-“

“Barnes. What the hell happened to you?” You didn’t wait for an answer, striding over and taking your daughter out of his arms and setting her down. “Honey, why don’t you go finish up your dinner. Daddy and I need to talk about grown-up stuff.”

The girl looked up at her dad with a defiant set of her mouth. “I want Daddy to come and eat with me.” She is her mother’s child, but the way she held herself reminded Bucky so much of himself before he became a pawn to Hydra. Cock-sure and confident, ready to hold his own. That’s his little Bumblebee.

You sighed. “He’ll be there in a minute, baby. I promise. Go on,” you smiled sweetly. He knows you don’t want her to worry, but you aren’t doing a good job at neutralizing your frantic expression.

Your daughter still didn’t budge.

“Celeste, please. For Mama?” you supplicated, leaning down to meet her stricken gaze.

“Is Daddy in trouble?” she asked, her voice now small and quavering. It broke his bruised heart.

Bucky’s knees buckled as he kneeled and he did his best to minimize the sound of his groans. “No, no, Bumblebee, I’m fine. Mama just wants to take care of me, that’s all. As soon as we’re done, I’m all yours.”

“Promise?”

He nodded and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Super promise.”

She perked up as if her mood hadn’t soured at all and skittered off into the kitchen, Tater trailing after her with a tiny shoe in his mouth. Bucky waited until he heard her chair scrape across the floor then peered up at you. “Might need some help getting up here, Doll.”

Despite your apparent anger, you giggled lightly and held out your hand. Bucky grabbed it with his right and pulled himself up, but leaned against the wall adjacent to the front door for support, panting.

“God Bucky, you look awful,” you whispered, running a hand through his tangled hair. “Did you get hit by a train?”

“Sort of.” At your stern frown, he confessed. “I-uh… I may have jumped out a ten-story building and the ground might’ve broken my fall. It’s nothing,” he rushed. “I’ll be fine in a few hours.”

He sucked in a breath as you softly pressed a hand to his left side. You set to work on undoing the harnesses and buckles of his vest. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?” he asked.

“Lie to me.” Bucky fixed his mouth to deny it, but you continued. “We’ve been married for six years… Don’t you think I know you like the back of my hand by now? You aren’t fine. It’s not nothing. You’re human, no matter what you or anyone else thinks. You can still feel pain.” Your voice dropped to a murmur.

At first, he thought your silence resulted from the weight of your words because now he certainly felt like he got hit by a train. But he followed your eyes. You’d successfully ridden him of the top half of his tactical gear, laying everything in a heap at the bottom of your feet. Angry welts, cuts, and bruises smattered down his chest in an intricate pattern, ranging from red to purple to blue. The puffed scar connecting his cybernetic arm to his shoulder paled in comparison.

Hearing you sniffle brought him back to the present.

“Jesus Bucky.” Tears shone in your eyes, pooled, then fell down your cheeks.

This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to come home after being away for three weeks and immediately upset his girls. The sheer sadness laced in your words hurt him more than his wounds. And that sadness wouldn’t just go away in a few hours.

Bucky pulled you into his arms, welcoming your soft body against his like a heat compress. You smelled like roasted garlic chicken with a hint of buttery, herbed mashed potatoes, and lavender soap. His stomach growled.

“Remember that time we took Bumblebee to Wollman Rink and she accidentally fell on her head and got that nasty bruise?” Bucky asked, resting his head on your shoulder and pressing small kisses to the side of your neck. A small sigh of contentment sifted into the air.

“Yeah.” Another sniffle. “Sam, Wanda, Peter, and Rhodey all bought her big teddy bears and ice cream to cheer her up. My poor baby. I never wanted to hear her cry like that again.”

Bucky nodded in agreement, recalling how every rational thought fled his mind as he rushed to his daughter, cradling her small body to his chest. They took her to the Med-Bay and she stayed there for a week and he never once left her side.

“We didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. Sam all but locked us out of her room and told us to take a shower and change into some fresh clothes.”

You cocked your head back and gazed confusedly into his pale blue eyes. “You going somewhere with this?”

“We can’t…” he paused, clearing his throat. “There is a healthy amount of worry we’re allowed to give before it becomes too much, you know. We’ll go mad wanting to keep each other out of harm’s way and that’s exactly what you’re doing. This is my job, Doll. I get hurt. We just gotta accept that.”

You pulled out of his arms and crossed yours. You didn’t damper the bitterness as you spoke. “You’re such a hypocrite. What would you do if I came home covered in bruises and cuts every night? Huh? Shrug it off? That’s what you’re telling me to do?”

Bucky didn’t know if he should answer, so he kept his mouth shut, down-casting his eyes. That’s not quite what he meant, but it’s in the same vein.

“Alright. Fine.” You turned away from him and walked out of the room, into the kitchen.

That didn’t turn out how he wanted it to, but Bucky didn’t have the energy to go after you. You need time to simmer.

He picked up his stuff and dropped it off on the foot of his office, quickly showered and changed into a pair of gray sweatpants. His muscles appreciated the warm water and comfortable clothes.

The lights in the family room and dining room were shut off by the time he finished, leaving only the kitchen to be illuminated in a faint glow. A stack of dishes sat in the sink and the leftovers were contained on the counter, ready to be put away in the fridge. On the other side of the house, down the hall, the light in the second guest bathroom gleamed. He heard the splash of water and giggles. Bath time.

Despite his cloudy mood, he smiled. Bucky missed this.

After he scarfed down some microwaved chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots, he got to work on the dishes.

The act always soothed him. When every second of his day had to be calculated down to the last minutiae, taking the time to listen to his thoughts became a welcome gift. But all his thoughts led back to you. Your warm body in his arms, your head propped against his chest as you made little sighs of happiness. He understands why you’re upset, and no, he wouldn’t like it if you came home hurt every night as he does. Hell, he wouldn’t be able to stand to be away from you as long as he does now.

You’re concerned for him. The least he can do is empathize and lessen your fears. Him not saying anything translated to you as, “Yes, I’d prefer if you didn’t care about me.”

“I’m such an asshole,” he muttered, tossing the dish towel onto the counter after drying the last plate.

He heard you shuffle behind him and he turned in time to see you drop an armful of blankets and pillows onto the couch.

“Thank you,” you mumbled, acknowledging the clean dishes. “If you need some more pillows there’s a couple in the hall closet.”

Before you could lope off into your bedroom, Bucky called out, “I’m sorry.”

That stopped you short.

He chanced a step forward, then another, until you put a hand out to confirm the distance. “About earlier… You were right.” Bucky itched to hold you, but instead, he settled for pulling his hands through his damp hair. “If the situation was reversed, I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it and the fact that you’ve been doing it every day since we got together… I’m gonna be more careful. I promise. I can-I can request some time off. We can—”

You interrupted him, so quiet even his enhanced hearing strained to pick up the noise. “Do you know why I handled it, Buck? Why I never complained?”

He shook his head, again finding his tongue too tied up to answer.

“Because it’s your job. You’re an Avenger. You’re this awesome superhero who saves hundreds of people every day. How can I complain?” Your words choked off with emotion, yet somehow you managed to push past it, sounding rugged and defeated. “H-How can I be so selfish to want to keep the Winter Soldier safe? The craziest thing is, I never see him when I look at you. The soldier, I mean.” You bowed your head and swiped away ceaseless tears. When you brought your eyes back up to meet his, both of your eyes glistened. “I see you, Bucky. And you’re someone I can’t lose.”

Bucky didn’t react fast enough. As soon as he took that last step forward to stand right in front of you, you turned and dashed into your bedroom, shutting the door. He didn’t hear the lock turn.

He walked over to the door and placed his hand on the knob. Pressed his ear against the wood. You sounded close. Crying with your hands clamped over your mouth to muffle the sobs. Nothing would be able to stop him from going in the room to comfort you, locked door or not. But if you wanted him to be near you, you’d have left the door open.

How had this whole day turned to shit?

He went into his daughter’s room. You being upset with him and him landing himself a night on the couch were huge setbacks, but he’d be damned if he didn’t tell Bumblebee a good-night story. She loves those. He loves telling them to her.

They have their ritual every time he’s home. She’s usually sitting up against the headboard, wearing a toothy grin. He’d come in and she’d scoot over to the side to let him lie on the bed with her. Some nights they’d doze off together.

When he cracked open the door and peered in, her back faced him and the blue covers were drawn up over her head.

Bucky took a seat on the corner of her twin mattress, feeling how it slightly bowed under his weight. Tater is curled up on the other corner. His head rested on his paws and his eyes dolefully glanced up at Bucky.

“Bumblebee,” he whispered, stroking her head. “Hey, kid. You sleep?”

Silence. He heard her breath quicken. She’s still awake.

“You mad at me too?”

He held his breath. Utter silence.

“Guess I can’t blame ya.” Exhaling slowly, Bucky leaned in and kissed the back of her head. “Sweet dreams, sweetheart. I love you.” Then he got up, turned on her rainbow nightlight, and delicately closed the door.

The family room felt too small. Too still. Too vacant. Trying to sleep on a couch, especially this one, in particular, had to be the worst sleeping arrangement he’s ever experienced, on par with sleeping on dirt floors and metal cots.

A previously recorded football game is playing noiselessly on the TV. All the lights are turned off. The exhaustion Bucky warded off earlier returned in full force. He blanked out by the time the game reached the second quarter.

“Good evening, Sergeant Barnes,” a distant voice lulled. It’s familiar. Accented. It stood nearby, standing right above him. “Or would you prefer Winter Soldier?”

Bucky’s eyes opened as slow as a stream of molasses. His head swam and his body felt out of place. He didn’t know what was up or down, left or right. That wasn’t what shocked him, though. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even twitch his pinky.

Isn’t he supposed to be in jail? How did he find me? How the hell did he even get in here?

As far as Bucky can tell he’s still in his family room, laying on the couch. The covers around his body have been thrown back. A needle is sticking out of his right arm, connected to a small drip bag.

“Whahh—” he slurred. It took him a while to pull his eyes away from the needle and up to the man looming above him with a gaunt smirk.

God no.

“Oh good, you remember me.” Zemo pulled up a chair and sat right by Bucky’s head. He’s wearing a plain black sweater and dark jeans. “Don’t worry, it isn’t poison. Simply a temporary sedative. The effects will wear off as soon as I take out the needle.”

Bucky tried to scream with everything inside of him. He called your name over and over again, but nothing came out higher than a whimper. Even if you heard him, he doubted if you’d be able to alert the others in time. What if he already got to you? Or Bumblebee? A cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

Zemo watched in amusement at the emotions flitting over Bucky’s face. “You’re a hard man to find, but easy enough to keep track of. Your little band of do-gooders always makes the front page. But you know what those covers don’t show? Hm?”

He held up a picture frame level to Bucky’s eyesight. It was you, him, and Bumblebee, all going down a slide together. Sam took the picture a year ago. You were at the top, holding up your then three-year-old daughter, and Bucky at the bottom. Bumblebee gripped his long strands of hair with a vicious glee in her eyes. Your eyes are closed from laughing and Bucky is looking up at his wife and daughter with a rapt smile.

“You have a lovely family, Sergeant Barnes. Reminds me of mine.” He pulled out a small folded copy of a photograph, creased due to the course of time.

Bucky saw a family, but he didn’t take them in. He didn’t want to care.

Zemo paid him no attention as he stared fondly at the picture, taking them in for himself and then comparing it to Bucky’s family.

“You see, I went about this all wrong the first time around. Taking on the Avengers as a whole resulted from my hubris, if you will. I saw the potential to exploit a weakness and work around the outside. Some might say I instigated the War. No,” he smiled and took the needle out of Bucky’s arm. “I merely set them on the right path.

“Captain Rogers was indeed quite fond of you, but I knew Stark wouldn’t be so disillusioned to your heinous crimes. Though, I admit I may have given him too much credit. A tin man set up to fight against two of the world’s best super soldiers? A failed endeavor, yes, but necessary. It brought me reason. Why influence a whole and almost succeed when I can influence one at a time. Leaves less room for marginal error, don’t you agree, Soldat?”

As the sedative ebbed away, feeling gradually flooded into his fingertips and toes. In a couple of minutes, he’d be free from the immobilizing numbness. He prepared his body to spring.

Zemo pulled one more object from behind his back. A red book. An old, red book with a black star branded on the front.

An icy gust of recognition shot shards of panic through his system. It couldn’t be. He’s fixed. Shuri fixed me.

The man went on in relish. “Of course you recognize your creator’s book. A handy thing, this is. Hydra is many things, Sergeant Barnes. Many things. But one thing they remain to be is prepared.” He thumbed through the pages, stopping to the last several pages. “Two steps ahead and all that stuff.”

Bucky forced out the word, “Why?”’

“Why?” Zemo mocked. “Why is it that an abomination, a murderous machine such as yourself, can have this type of happiness at the end of the day? Doesn’t it strike you as unfair, Sergeant Barnes? Why should you have this beautiful family while mine doesn’t even get an ounce of recognition? No front covers. Not even an obituary. I’m simply taking matters into my own hands and dealing justice where justice is due. And Sergeant Barnes, you have over 70 years of undue justice stacked against you.”

Tears stung Bucky’s eyes. Every inch of his body trembled. His teeth painfully chattered. He felt his lips move. “No, please. No, no, no, no, no. God no. I can’t. I can’t.” Not to them.

“This is the way it has to be, Sergeant Barnes. I truly am sorry.” Zemo rose from the chair, walking around to the back of the couch. “Возвращение (Return).”

Bucky’s whole body drowned in a cold sweat and the blood drained from his face. Those bastards! Those goddamn fucking bastards! He pushed off the couch on jelly legs, falling in a heap of blankets.

“сброс настроек (Reset).”

Anger propelled him to his feet and he staggered drunkenly around the couch, standing arms-length away from Zemo. Only a few feet stood between him and the front door.

“не помнить. Добро пожаловать назад зимний солдат (Forget. Welcome back Winter Soldier).”

Zemo closely watched the man standing rigid in his sweats, chest heaving. Bits of his hair is in his face and one blanket is caught around his ankle. He heard the harsh grinding of his metal palm curling into a fist. The asset’s face smoothed over into a mask of stiff submission and indifference.

“Ready to comply.” Mechanical, detached, lethal.

“Terminate everyone inside the house.” With those final words, Zemo withdrew from the house, exiting out of the front door. It slammed shut.

You weren’t really asleep.

Even trying felt like a waste of time. The king-size bed swallowed you with its vast amount of unfilled space. Sleeping in an empty bed was hard enough not knowing where Bucky was. Turns out it’s even worse when he was just outside the door and down the hall, sleeping on an uncomfortable couch.

You knew that he knew the door wasn’t locked.

Relief and an inkling of regret settled your nerves thirty minutes after you closed the door. He wasn’t going to come in. He was giving you space.

Is it wrong to want Bucky laying here with you, even though your heart wasn’t ready to face him? Maybe you’re being ridiculous. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s an amazing father to Bumblebee. He’s an amazing husband. Work doesn’t consume him and if it does start to become an obstacle in your marriage, Bucky’s quick to rectify the problem.

You inched over onto his side of the bed and buried your face in his pillow, taking in his heady scent. Were you too hard on him? Were you irrational? Bucky can’t help who he is.

He’s your daughter’s hero.

He’s yours too.

At 2 a.m. you fretfully turned back over to your side of the bed when you heard one of the doors slam shut, ringing out like a shotgun

You’re on your feet and rushing out without a single thought of caution to stall you. Bucky is out there. So is your Bumblebee.

Bucky stood in the middle of the room. Blankets are strewn around and one of them wrapped around his ankle.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

His head swiveled up at the sound of your voice. Empty, calculating eyes snapped to yours.

Something’s wrong.

You tripped back a little, finding your balance against a wall. Fear mounted in your chest. “B-Bucky?”

No reaction.

“Buc—"

In an instant he advanced towards you, stepping out of the blanket as if it was never there. A scream caught halfway in your throat as metal coiled around your neck. Squeezing. Squeezing. Squeezing.

Black pinpoints and stars shaded your vision. He watched you splutter. You’re sure he didn’t feel your nails clawing at his shoulder.

None of the things Bucky taught you about self-defense came to mind. You couldn’t think, but you had to act. Instinctively, you kicked out. One kick landed dead in his hard abdomen. It felt like kicking at a boulder. He coughed out a surprised grunt and his grip slackened. You aimed another kick at his crotch, dead on the center, and the hand around your neck loosened enough to send you scrambling on the ground.

Your lungs scorched. Your palms and knees ached from landing unceremoniously on the hardwood flooring. By the time you began to crawl away, it was too late.

Bucky regained himself quicker than humanly possible. His hot flesh hand snagged your ankle in a bruising grip and yanked you back.

You cried out, hoarsely. “Bucky stop!”

He paid you no attention. Almost didn’t seem to hear you at all.

His hair fell into his face, darkening the mask that slid into place. He barely struggled to pull you underneath him. Strong, thick thighs caged your lower half to halt your flailing legs as he straddled your hips.

The pressure instantly returned. Both hands crushed your windpipe. His fingers dug into your skin. The wedding band fitted on his flesh hand bit deeper than the metal of his cybernetic hand.

In a last-ditch effort, your fingernails impaled his forearm, breaking the skin. Five half-moon crescents beaded up and trickled in lines of scarlet red, slicking along his arm and on your fingertips.

He never flinched.

Tears streamed out the corners of your eyes.

Darkness bled into your vision, starting at the corners and then filling in the rest as the seconds ticked by. Each beat of your heart painfully thudded in your chest, each thump clunking slower and slower. More spaced out.

Numbness spread until you resigned to it.

Your lids slid shut. You didn’t want those eyes to be the last thing you saw. Those arctic blue, barren eyes. Not Bucky’s eyes.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Stop it, Daddy! Stop it! Get off of Mama!”

You wrenched your eyes back open in time to see your daughter smacking her father over the head with her rainbow nightlight.

Hope and absolute dread wracked your body as Bucky unclasped his hands and turned to look at the small girl standing her ground behind him, nightlight half-raised in the air for another strike. Tater is in front of her, barking viciously at Bucky.

“Run!” The word tore itself out your mangled throat. “Run!”

Bumblebee watched in horror as Bucky rose to a towering height, and she let out an earsplitting scream as he ripped the light away from her, then gripped the front of her Avengers pajama shirt, lifting her into the air.

“BUCKY NO!”

Past the rush of oxygen flowing back into your lungs and the thunderous beats of your heart, you heard terrified crying.

Your baby.

Wailing. Scared.

For a second, you’re back at the skating rink and your eyes land on Bucky, sitting on the ice, cradling her to his chest. Nothing else mattered.

Bucky frowned.

The first sign of emotion flickered over his features since you came out of the room.

Confusion.

You saw his eyes drop to the ground, saw him shake his head. Then he looked at the girl in his hold.

Recognition.

Grief.

Fear.

Horror.

Agony.

Bucky trembled, slowly and shakily lowering Bumblebee back onto her feet. She skittered around him, putting as much space between them as possible, and stumbled to your side. Tater is still growling at him.

You watched his eyes reluctantly settle on your body, watched his face crumble.

Bucky choked out. “I’m sorry.” He took a step back. He looked at his arms and saw the indents of your fingernails. Saw the imprint of his hands around your neck. Took another step back. “I…I…I didn’t—”

He turned and ran out of the house.

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x you #dad!bucky #bucky barnes x reader #post endgame #baron zemo #bucky barnes angst #winter soldier

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docholligay · 4 years

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Top 10+ Penzey Spices? I've never bought from the before so I thought I'd get your professional opinion!

BOY ARE YOU IN FOR A TREAT! I’m going to treat this ask as “If you were going to have someone get ten spices from Penzey’s what would they be?” because I don’t know if you mean mixes or just in general. THis answer also assumes that you have a fairly normally stocked spice rack. Their EVERYTHING is some of the best, but this answer is intended to expand your rack, more than anything

In no particular order:

Smoked paprika. A lot of people either don’t have this at all or buy some shitty McCormick version of it for one recipe and then let it go stale. It’s so useful! I use it every week! It adds a lot of smoke flavor that you’re used to getting from bacon. My replacement for pork belly in my Clam Chowder is actually a scoop of duck fat and some smoked paprika.

Sandwich Sprinkle. This is such a silly thing, but it really does absolutely taste amazing on sandwiches and salads. And if you aren’t seasoning your sandwiches and salads: Why are you letting yourself live an unhappy life? It’s so much better with a little bit of seasoning.

Minced Lemon Peel: Listen I am a lazy asshole and if you think for even five minutes that I’m going to be all about rasping a fucking lemon while trying not to get the pith you are wrong and this fucking stuff works great.

Vietnamese cinnamon: This one is a bit of a gamble as I am certain you have cinnamon in your cupboard but this is the best cinnamon out there, much stronger and richer than any other kind. (Penzey’s has five types of cinnamon)

Extra Bold Indian Black Peppercorns: I love pepper, and I want it strong, and after I had these, I can NEVER go back. You’ll appreciate the difference, trust me.

Fox Point: Here’s one of their blends! I think this goes perfectly, with eggs, on fish, I mean seriously I just slap it on fish with some olive oil to RAVE reviews. I also have used it in quiches and on veggies, it’s really good in tuna salad, etc.

Frozen Pizza Seasoning: It sounds ridiculous, but it will change your frozen pizza life forever. i also use it to make tomato sauce for pasta and for my own homemade pizza! It even makes fucking bagel bites much more amazing than they have any business being!

Bold Taco: This is, for my money, the best taco seasoning out there, and it’s so easy, throwing it into meat for a quick taco, or my favorite, using a slow cooker to get some long great flavor out of something. I throw this in with black beans, chicken thighs, some canned tomatoes, a dried chili or two, in the crock pot for six hours, and it’s literally one of my wife’s favorite meals.

High fat cocoa: I tried their cocoa once and will never go back. the high fat content lends a tender texture to cookies and cakes and I am obsessed.

Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle: I actually got this as a freebie the first time and was like...I will not like this but I was wrong! It makes great dips, popcorn, a great seasoning for cream soups, baked potatoes, amazing in mashed cauliflower.

#Anonymous

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thewrongjackpot · 5 years

Text

I hit the wrong jackpot. *Spoiler alert, it’s cancer.*

[Originally written 1/3/20]

Warning: There may be a fair amount of sarcasm throughout this post coupled with some dark humor. Also, if you’re new to this channel, please disregard a lot of the other ramblings here, unless one dares to be bored.

“What jackpot did you hit?” you may ask. I hit the cancer jackpot. You read that right. C-A-N-C-E-R. This fun-loving 26-year-old has been diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma and of a newer subtype called Sclerosing. Take those words in. I had to have Google repeatedly tell me how to say it before I got the hang of it. It’s a jackpot because to say it is uncommon in adults is an understatement. A friend told me I need to get my butt to Vegas with all this rare luck.

“Wait, what? How did this all happen?” asked no one. Here’s a fun “little” deep-dive into everything that’s been going on the past few months, and how I’ve been dealing with it. Remember, you chose to continue reading this long post from here on out.

Well, let’s take it back to early-mid August. It started with what I thought was just TMJ issues because I was stressing some and clenching my teeth, so my jaw and temple started off sore. It then progressed to limited range of motion with my jaw (opening/closing), a small protrusion along my temple, and some numbness on my face. The urgent care doc essentially told me it’s TMD, the muscle is swollen, to chill, and it’ll go away. Well, that was extremely off. I saw my primary doctor, who then referred me to an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor. Now, we’re at the end of November, and I had to take some MRIs and then was referred to another ENT doctor. I had a biopsy, and the doctor said it looks more mild-moderate than severe like he was initially thinking, but he was pretty sure it was malignant with how quickly it has been growing. Christmas Eve morning, I get a phone call. The final pathology came about, and it’s an intermediate grade Rhabdomyosarcoma. I was referred to a hospital with a Sarcoma specialist and saw her just after the new year began. She doesn’t know staging yet because she doesn’t know if it has spread anywhere else yet. I only had MRIs done and that was over a month ago now. So next week I get the joyous pleasure of more MRIs, a bone scan, a lumbar puncture, and a bone marrow biopsy. EXCITING. They’re also going to need to start chemo soon, so they’re working on getting that set up in the background. As of right now, the oncologist was saying it’ll be about 5 months of chemo, radiation and/or surgery, and then more chemo. More will be known in the coming weeks, but at least there’s finally a real start and direction to this all.

Needless to say, it’s been a crappy holiday season and last several months. Here’s a list of what this jolly (not green) giant growth in my head/neck has caused:

Swollen temple/face

Limited ability to open my mouth (~1.5cm)

Misaligned jaw

Numbness along half my face

Sharp shooting pains throughout my head/neck

Impacted breathing out of my left nostril

Fluid in my left ear (impacted hearing)

Trouble swallowing

Fatigue

Body aches

Pressure throughout the entire left side of my head

Large growth(s) inside my mouth encompassing cheek/mouth real estate

Accidentally chewing on said growths, which I think is the reason there’s blood in my mouth periodically

After my first meeting with the oncologist the other day, some topics hit home harder than others.

One of the points that almost made me cry on the spot was when I was asking about fertility. She was saying that she could recommend me to a fertility clinic to harvest my eggs. However, that could take 2-4 weeks, and we might not have that time to spare. I know that there’s so much more at stake, my health and well-being taking spot numero uno. I also know that there are other ways to still have kids, but it’s still such a depressing feeling and thought. Along with hearing that 2-4 weeks is not time that can be spared, it begs the question, “How bad/serious is this really?”. Having my own child is a choice that may never even be mine to begin with. I just always had this picture in mind about how life would be never thinking this is the luck I would be dealt. Then again, I don’t think anyone ever envisions something like this happening to them… Although, my vision of six dogs at any given time could become more of a reality. *shrug* (Honorable mention goes out to my brother who was cheering me up big time on this one.)

Next, the fear started to really set in when talking about all these tests that needed to be done. I’m absolutely terrified of pain, and the thought of all these huge needles makes me want to cry, throw up, and pass out. It’s not just the pain and needles I’m afraid of, it’s everything that comes along with the actualization of what this really is. Since we don’t know the full extent of this, my mind can’t help but think the prognosis is possibly more grim with all these tests needed and how quickly this tumor has dominated my face. I’m scared about having to go to treatments, having to feel sick, fatigue setting in, and withering away. I’m scared about losing my hair because, boy, let me tell you, I’ve always had long thick hair my whole life. There are only two occasions I can think of where my hair was shorter than mid-back. I’ve broken down crying several times in the shower while washing my hair; it was always a safety blanket for me. Although, I said I should jump the gun and get a bowl cut already haha. On a more serious note, I’m absolutely mortified that I’m not going to make it through this…but being a fighter and a survivor is in my blood, so I’m trying to not let that run my mind too much.

On a more physical and literal level, one of the most debilitating aspects of this is the limited range of motion with my mouth because I can barely eat. Eating has become almost a punishment because after a few bites of something, it hurts everywhere. It’s hard to swallow at times; it’s just all-around depressing. At this point, I’m closing in on having lost 30 pounds in about three months. I’m eating maybe 1000 calories a day. I try to force myself to eat, but it’s difficult. Some days everything makes me nauseous. I’ve mostly been drinking smoothies, eating soup, and other soft foods like mashed potatoes. Even when I am eating something, it’s extremely defeating when I wipe soup off my chin because the little piece of potato couldn’t fit in my dumb mouth and caused soup to drip down, and I couldn’t feel it because my face is too busy being numb. Moments like that are extremely disheartening. Stupid mouth.

Also, another difficult aspect of this is sleeping. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in months. No matter which way I lie, there is either uncomfortable pressure or some sort of pain. I’ve literally woke up crying like a fussy baby because it hurts so much, and all I want to do is sleep.

DESPITE ALL OF THIS, I’m down, but I’m not out. I still have so many things to be grateful for. My husband continues to be amazingly strong, knows how to comfort me when I need it, and has been picking up my slack. Some of my family members have seriously stepped up in ways I could not have imagined that genuinely caught me by surprise. For those family members who have been with me on this so far, they have been so supportive and simply there for me when I need them. My parents are doing whatever they can from wherever they are to help me, e.g. my mom is flying up next week to be with me. I have some solid friends, and even my husband’s friends have been amazing. Work is working well with me through this, and even my old boss and coworkers have been checking up on me. Side note: I saw this lady at work today (whom I rarely interact with) only to find out her brother got treated where I am by the same set of doctors, and she said his experience was great as was the staff. That was an unexpected nugget of good vibes I did not expect today or ever.

One of the other biggest items I realized a few days ago that I am extremely grateful for is having moved away from Hawaii. Since moving, I go back and forth on whether leaving was the best decision, but now who knows what would be of me if I didn’t. If developing this cancer was an inevitable piece of my life story, being in Hawaii would have been one of the worst things for me. For one, there are doctor shortages, so being seen would have been dragged out so much longer than here. Secondly, Hawaii does not have the specialists to even treat me. I would have had to fly somewhere else anyway. As an aside to this, I’m even more grateful that we moved to the west coast because family is more accessible than in DC, and my husband and I have friends here as well.

Well, that’s about it for now. I like to talk/write, so I’m honestly going to post updates on here even if they fall on deaf ears. Just like this page says, I’m someone rambling lol.

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll give you a cake pop one day or something.

TL;DR

I have a rare form of cancer that’s been progressing pretty quickly. A lot of it really sucks right now, but there’s finally some real direction in getting me treated. Also, I am surrounded by a lot of love and dope people, and I still have so much to be grateful for.

#cancer #chemo #sarcoma #rhabdomyosarcoma #tumor #jackpot #rambling #long post #coping #cancer sucks #dying

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arcaneapologist · 6 years

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Partners in Crime- Ch 10

hey what do you know. i forgot it was monday. again. anyways... here’s chapter 10. i apologize for the title but uh. i really struggled with it and decided to make the temporary title the permanent title. so uh. here’s the link to a03. and a big thanks to @vinndetta who wrote a small lil fic that gave me some inspiration rewrite/finish this chapter.

Chapter 10: FUCK THIS FUCKING THANKSGIVING CHAPTER.

Dan was wandering through the grocery store by his house, attempting to decide which two side dishes to make for Thanksgiving. It was proving to be far more difficult than he imagined, as he had no idea how to cook. Dan still had two days, but he wanted to get this figured out sooner rather than later. Especially since everyone else already knew what they were making. Then, there was the subject of decorating his house. He’d found out Suzy and Holly and Arin went all out when it came to Holiday decorations.

He left the groceries and headed towards the seasonal aisle. Maybe while looking at something else would help him figure out what he was going to make. He picked up a few plastic pumpkins and set them in the cart, then turned in a circle. There was so much to choose from, and this was something else he’d never been good at. Dan pushed his hair out of his face and groaned. Why did everyone have to come to his house? Because you volunteered your house, Dummy. Though it was still small, his town-home was far bigger than anyone else’s apartment.

“You alright there? You seem to be having some sort of crisis.” A giggly voice asked from behind him.

He turned around to find the girl from a few weeks earlier, “Oh. Hello again.”

“It seems like I’m following you this time.” She took a step around her cart, suddenly serious. “But really. Are you okay?”

“Ugh... No.” Dan sighed. “I’ve got... I’ve got like five people coming over for Thanksgiving and I have absolutely no idea what I should cook or how to cook or how to decorate... Or anything really”

The woman laughed and walked over to Dan’s cart, examining the contents. “Well. For starters, you should probably get a tablecloth, and, unless you want to be washing dishes all night, some festive, cute paper plates and plastic silverware.”

She walked a little further down the aisle and Dan followed her, “Right… I’m sorry, what was your name?”

She put on her sweetest smile and ran a hand through her hair, “My name is Clara. What’s yours?”

“Danny. I… I think these will work?” They stood side by side, looking at the plastic tablecloths and paper plates, while he pretended to have any idea of what defined “festive and cute.”

“Yeah. I think those would be great, Danny.” She pulled a small, artificial hay bale from a shelf and threw it in his cart. “This is also nice. Hay just screams fall, you know? How many people do you have coming again?”

“There’s five coming, so six altogether.” Danny found a bag of fake “fall harvest food”, as the label called it, and threw that in the basket as well.

“And you said they’re all friends? No family?” Clara knew he hadn’t said, but wanted to see just how much he was paying attention to the conversation.

“Right. I’ve got my three best friends, and then these two guys that I’ve only met once. But the other three insist they’re super nice and I should invite them, anyway.” Dan rolled his eyes, not seeing the smirk on Clara’s face. Dan was as clueless and flighty as his ex had said. She could probably openly stalk Dan and he’d be none the wiser. The only hindrance she’d face would be Arin,Suzy, and Holly. There’s no way Matt and Ryan would remember her well enough. Besides, if they did, she could take care of the, fairly quickly.

“You should make macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes. You can buy the boxed stuff and have it done in thirty minutes. Plus you don’t have to be able to cook at all.”

“Yeah…And Arin loves mac and cheese.” He mumbled, mostly to himself. Then turned and smiled at Clara, his voice softening . “Thanks for all your help. I hope I run into you again sometime soon.”

“Yeah, no problem Danny.” Clara smiled and waved as he walked away.

~~~

Dan was elbow deep and cursing into a pot of mashed potatoes when all of his friends got to his house for Thanksgiving. He’d stupidly changed his mind at the last second and decided to make the potatoes and mac and cheese from scratch instead of out of the box. The macaroni had turned out fantastic, but the potatoes were giving him hell. He could barely hear the knocking on the door over the mixer in his hands. He yelled for everyone to come in, instead of acting like a proper host and answering the door himself. He dumped more milk and butter into the pot, hoping the potatoes would thin out some.

Ryan came in first, Matt right behind him, each carrying a store bought pie. “Hey dude. Can we put these in the fridge.”

“Yep.” Dan grumbled. “Don’t fucking care.”

Suzy and Holly came in next more side dishes. Holly gave him a tight hug from behind “Happy Thanksgiving, Danny!”

Suzy set her dish down, then checked his pot of potatoes before grabbing the milk jug. She poured even more in, enough to worry Dan that the potatoes would be soup. “Put the mixer on the highest setting, Sexb//ang, and go to town… And happy thanksgiving.”

She leaned up and kissed his cheek before following the other three into the living room. Sure enough, in less than a minute, the potatoes were the perfect consistency. It wasn’t until Dan set the mixer down that he realized he hadn’t seen Arin. He grabbed a paper towel to wipe his hands off with, before heading into the living room. As he walked past his front door it swung open, revealing a breathless Arin and a very large foil wrapped turkey.

“Sorry I’m late. I was seeing my mom.” He smiled at Dan, before yelling. “In the kitchen guys. I’m starving, let’s eat!”

“Happy Thanksgiving, by the way” He gave Arin a small pat on the back.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Dan.”

They all crowded around Dan’s tiny kitchen table, having to leave the food on the counters just so they had somewhere to eat. Dan soon found out Suzy, Holly, and Arin had been right. Inviting Matt and Ryan was a great idea. They bickered like they were brothers and seemed to turn the most normal sentences into a joke.

Once they’d finished eating everyone pitched in to help Dan clean up the dishes, before they settled into the living room. Dan wanted to watch the football game, but he seemed to be the only one. He was overruled in favor of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, though everyone agreed to let him check the score during the commercials. None of them talked all that much, instead sitting in comfortable silence and playing on their phones.

Dan continued to surprise himself with how close he had gotten to Matt and Ryan in just a few short weeks. They were stretched out on the loveseat, facing opposite directions with their feet in each others faces, and sharing a blanket. When he found out they were trained assassins he was a little apprehensive, but now they were like the younger brothers Dan never had. He let out a heavy sigh, his thoughts turning to his own family he doesn’t talk to. Right before she’d cut ties with Dan, he’d found out his sister was expecting her second child, another son. His nephews probably didn’t remember him, but he wished they did. He wished he’d gotten his act together sooner.

Dan let out a small laugh at the thought of even having his act together now. He could see his family’s reaction upon hearing, “Yeah, guys. I hang out with a bunch of criminals. The usual run down: a con artist, two disguise and surveillance experts… Oh and two professionally trained assassins.” His family would probably move states and change their names. Dan shook his head and reached for the TV remote. There was a very real possibility that his entire family had moved and Dan wouldn’t have even known about it.

Arin stirred from his section of the couch, leaning over and setting his head on Dan’s shoulder, “Why the face and the sighing, buddy?”

“Just… Thinking about my family… Or lack thereof I guess.” Dan shrugged.

“Yeah… I get that. But sometimes family isn’t… Family, you know? It’s not always the people who raised you. Sometimes the people you meet in your twenties or thirties are a better family than the ones who raised you.” Arin still sounded groggy and like he was ready to go back to sleep, but he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Sure.” Dan could tell himself that all he wanted that his friends were all the family he needed, but it didn’t make a difference.

“Dan, I know you don’t want to believe me, but I promise you all of us here love you and care about you.”

“Arin… That’s not it. I miss my family. I miss my sister and my parents. I have two nephews and I’ve never even met one of them. My parents celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and I wasn’t there. Do you know how awful that feels?” Dan ran a hand over his face. He didn’t want to discount how close he was with any of his friends, but it just wasn’t quite the same.

“I… I don’t… But I’m really sorry.”

Arin stood and moved to wake up the rest of the group, they all had somewhere they needed to be. They all noticed the shift in Dan’s mood from earlier and seemed reluctant to leave, but he politely pushed them out the door. Dan just needed to get out and get his mind off of everything. He waited a few minutes before grabbing his own coat and keys and heading out the door.

#yeah it's alright. not the best. not the worst #i struggled so. much. with this chapter #like. a lot #but here it is #i really like the next two chapters tho #there's conflict and scary stuff!#my writing #partners in crime fic #egobang #polygrumps #shipgrumps

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chanoyu-to-wa · 6 years

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Nampō Roku, Book 2 (13b): (1587) Twelfth Month, Sixteenth Day, After the Morning Meal, Part 2.

13b) After [chanoyu in the small room] was finished, [Hideyoshi] deigned to go out into the shoin; [and] Oshō took his leave¹.

▵ Shiru tsuru [汁鶴]².

▵ Namasu [鱠]³.

▵ Ni-mono hara-hara kou imo [煮物ハラ〰コホウイモ]⁴.

▵ Ni-no-shiru tara [二ノ汁鱈]⁵.

▵ Kawarake ko-tori [カハラケ小鳥]⁶.

▵ Ae-mono uto [アヘモノウト]⁷.

▵ Sashimi koi ・ mana-katsuo [サシミ鯉・マナカツホ]⁸.

▵ Kō-no-mono [香物]⁹.

▵ O-sakana tairaki ・ uzura [御肴タイラキ・ウツラ]¹⁰.

▵ Hasu [ハス]¹¹.

▵ Suimono hashira ・ ko-kabu [吸物ハシラ小カフ]¹².

▵ Kashi kan ・ senbei ・ zakuro ・ ko-neri ・ nashi [菓子カン・センヘイ・サクロ・小ネリ・ナシ]¹³.

[In the] toko [床]¹⁴

◦ A pair of landscape paintings by Ba En [馬遠]¹⁵.

◦ Sai-kōro [豺香爐], [displayed] on a guri-guri kō-dai [クリ〰香臺]¹⁶.

[On the] shoin-doko [書院床]¹⁷ ◦ [子昂硯]; ◦ [龜水入]; ◦ [筆架]; ◦ [筆・墨]; ◦ [子昂軸物]¹⁸.

[On the] chigae-dana [チカヘ棚]¹⁹ ◦ jikirō [食籠]²⁰; ◦ bon-san Kiji [盆山　紀路]²¹.

[Hideyoshi] expressed his desire for the daisu to be arranged, and he made tea [with his own hands] using a taikai²².

_________________________

¹Migi sugite shoin [h]e oide-nasare, uma-no-toki o-zen deru, Oshō ha o-kaeru [右過テ書院ヘ御出被成、午時御膳出ル、和尚ハ御歸].

Migi sugite [右過テ] means “after the preceding was finished....”

The details of Rikyū's shoin during this period are unclear. All that seems to be known with any certainty is that it had a 6-mat jō-dan [上段]. The above is a reconstruction based on the shoin in the Hisada family's residence* (however, the Hisada shoin had a 4-mat jōdan, rather than one of six mats). At any rate, this will give the reader at least a general understanding of the nature of the room in question. (Note that the 6-mat area at the top of the sketch is the jō-dan, in which a 2-mat area, in the upper left-hand corner, was raised still higher as the seat for the nobleman: the dashi-fu-zukue is appended to that part of the room, and it was there that the hand-scroll of Chinese poems was displayed -- together with Sugō‘s writing implements.)

Oide-nasare [御出被成] is a polite form meaning that Hideyoshi (and the others) moved on to the shoin.

Uma-no-toki [午時] means “at the hour of the Horse,” in other words, in the noon hour. Given the amount of food that was served, there likely was a certain delay, during which the guests inspected the objects that Rikyū had placed on display in the toko, and on tsuke-shoin and chigai-dana.

Oshō ha o-kaeru [和尚ハ御歸]: as mentioned in the previous post, Kokei Sōchin probably excused himself after the inspection because he did not care to participate in the banquet that would follow (which would naturally include fish and fowl, and drinking as well). This early departure would have been accepted by Hideyoshi without any ill feeling.

With respect to the kane-wari of this arrangement, the two kakemono and kōro count for three units, and so are han [半]. The writing implements count as a single unit (since they are grouped together, as shown in the sketch), while the hand-scroll of Chinese poetry is separate†, giving the dashi-fu-zukue a value of two, which is chō [調]. And the jikiro and bon-san arranged on and below the chigai-dana count for two units, and so the tana is also chō [調]. Han + chō + chō is han, as is suitable for the latter part of a chakai held during the daytime. __________ *The Hisada family descended from one of Rikyū’s daughters, and seems to have actively tried to preserve Rikyū‘s legacy in details such as this.

†Tanaka Senshō said that he believed that the hand-scroll of poems was displayed on the chigai-dana, rather than the dashi-fu-zukue. While this disagrees with the way Rikyū has formatted the entry, it has no bearing on the total count, so far as kane-wari is concerned.

²Shiru tsuru [汁鶴].

The first bowl of soup (probably a clear soup) contained crane.

Crane (and other large birds, such as swan and wild goose) were occasionally taken by Hideyoshi's hawkers (hawking was enjoyed by Hideyoshi and his court), and then prepared and served at court banquets -- as well as during chakai held within the palace complex when the fowl were available, as a sort of special treat.

Soup was made by boiling the bones, while the meat was usually mashed and formed into dango [團子] (meatballs), which were cooked in the broth along with pieces of daikon, mushrooms, and other seasonal vegetables.

³Namasu [鱠].

Namasu is a sort of salad, made from julienned daikon and carrot, served raw, dressed with a mixture of rice vinegar, soy sauce, and mirin.

⁴Ni-mono hara-hara gobō imo [煮物ハラ〰コホウイモ].

Ni-mono [煮物] are food cooked (and usually served) in a broth. The difference between “shiru” (soup) and “ni-mono” seems to be that a soup course contains more liquid, while the ni-mono is primarily solid food*.

Hara-hara [はらはら]† is dried daikon strips‡; gobō [牛蒡] is burdock root; and, imo [芋] -- which is usually translated “potato” -- refers to the corm of the taro. These three vegetables were cut into bite-sized pieces and boiled in dashi**. __________ *It is possible to serve the ni-mono in a bowl or dish without any soup at all, though in chanoyu some soup is usually included.

†Hara-hara [はらはら] means something like flutter down (like snowflakes). The image refers to the dried strips of daikon, which flutter (so they say) when the mound is fluffed (in the latter stages of drying) -- in contrast to the way the freshly chopped daikon would behave.

‡The daikon is cut into strips and sun-dried in a shallow basket for a week or so. This process sweetens it, and deepens its natural flavor. Modern-day kiri-boshi daikon [切干大根] is similar, though it is shreded more finely than hara-hara.

The hara-hara needs to be rehydrated (by soaking in water) before it can be used.

**Japanese soup-stock made by boiling kombu [昆布] (kelp) and katsuo-bushi [鰹節] in water.

For ichi-ban-dashi [一番出し] (used for miso-shiru and for cooking foods with a strong flavor), the kombu is boiled first (starting from cold water, after reaching a boil it is kept simmering for about 5 minutes, then the kombu is removed and a cup of cold water added to lower the temperature of the broth), then the katsuo-bushi are boiled (after returning to a boil, the katsuo-bushi are boiled for a further 5 minutes or so). The pot is removed from the fire and the katsuo-bushi allowed to settle, after which the clear broth is decanted.

Ni-ban-dashi [二番出し], which is usually what is used for ni-mono, reuses the above kombu and katsuo-bushi -- added to water, the mixture is brought to a boil, and then simmered for about 5 minutes or so (some people prefer to remove the kombu as soon as the liquid begins to boil, while others leave it in the pot for the entire session).

⁵Ni-no-shiru tara [二ノ汁鱈].

This would be what is usually called tara sumashi [鱈清汁] -- a clear soup containing pieces of codfish (tara [鱈]), daikon*, e-no-ki mushrooms, leeks, and a small piece of yuzu-skin added to each bowl just before the soup was served. __________ *Perhaps a little crushed garlic was also added to the soup, since Rikyū was from Sakai.

⁶Kawarake ko-tori [カハラケ小鳥].

Ko-tori [小鳥] -- literally “small birds” -- is a generic term for the various sparrows and finches that were taken by the hawkers. These were cleaned (the heads, lower legs, feathers, and internal organs were removed) and then minced very fine, and mixed with miso. Then the mixture was baked on top of an unglazed plate set over a charcoal fire until the flesh was cooked.

This kind of miso-based food was always served with sake.

⁷Ae-mono udo [アヘモノウト].

Udo [独活] is a Japanese vegetable with long, asparagus-like stalks, that have a delicate, fennel-like flavor. When served as an ae-mono [和え物], the immature stalks are cut into julienne strips and then dressed with a mixture of rice vinegar and white miso (2 parts to 1), with soy sauce and sesame oil added to taste.

⁸Sashimi koi ・ mana-gatsuo [サシミ鯉・マナカツホ].

Koi sashimi [鯉刺身] refers to what is usually called koi-arai [鯉洗い]: the cleaned fillets of carp are placed into a hot water bath before being chilled in cold water.

Mana-gatsuo [真名鰹] (above) is a distant relative of the katsuo [鰹] (“slapjack tuna”). It has white flesh (whereas katsuo is pink to red in color) that is very oily. Accordingly, while delicious, people should not eat much of it, or it will cause digestive problems.

These would likely have been served with iri-zake [煎り酒]* as a dipping sauce -- though it is also possible that a shallow dish of precious soy sauce was offered to this important guest. __________ *Iri-zake [煎り酒] is a sort of dipping sauce prepared from "old" sake (sake that has lost a lot of its alcohol through evaporation). First, a piece of dashi-kombu is soaked into the room-temperature sake for several hours (to deepen the taste), then removed. Then several ume-boshi are placed into the sake, and the sake is brought to a boil. After about 5 minutes, a large handful of katsuo-bushi is thrown in to the sake, and it is allowed to continue simmering until the volume is reduced by half. Then (as when making dashi) the pot is removed from the heat and allowed to cool for five minutes while the katsu-bushi settle. Then the clear liquid is decanted off (or filtered through a piece of sarashi).

This is the iri-zake, and it can be used as a dipping sauce once it is fully cooled.

⁹Kō-no-mono [香物].

Kō-no-mono [香の物] are vegetables pickled for a time* in a brine solution -- this is what is usually referred to as shin-tsuke [新漬け] today. The pickled vegetables (sliced cucumbers, hakusai, carrots, and so on) were usually served with crushed sanshō [山椒] (Japanese pepper) as a seasoning. __________ *Ranging anywhere from overnight to several days, depending on the desired result.

¹⁰O-sakana tairagi ・ uzura [御肴タイラキ・ウツラ].

O-sakana [御肴] refers to the course usually referred to as shii-zakana [強肴] today. Sakana [肴] means cooked or prepared food; while shii-zakana refers specifically to such food served as an accompaniment to drinking. Irrespective of the name, this course would have been accompanied by several rounds of sake.

The tairagi [タイラギ = 玉珧] (Atrina pectinata) is commonly known as the Japanese scallop or Comb pen-shell. It is the kai-bashira [貝柱] (the muscle that opens and closes the shells) of this mollusk that is eaten. This kind of scallop can be prepared in numerous ways -- including as sashimi, grilled over charcoal, broiled on the half-shell, cooked in broth, and even as tairagi-dengaku [たいらぎ田樂]*. Rikyū does not indicate how it was served.

Uzura [鶉] is the quail†. There are two ways it could be prepared. First is by mashing the flesh and bones into a paste, forming the paste into meatballs (dango [團子]), and boiling these in broth. Three dango are typically skewered on a bamboo brochette, and served in that way (either with a dipping sauce, or with some sort of sauce poured over).

The other way that these, and other fowl, were sometimes prepared for Rikyū's guests was as what he called senba-iri [船場煎り]: the cleaned quail were roasted over a wooden fire while being basted with a mixture of soy sauce (or possibly iri-zake [煎り酒]‡), sake, mirin, sesame oil, and perhaps crushed garlic (since this sort of food was endemic to the wharfs of Sakai). __________ *Dengaku [田樂] is a type of grilled food, originally eaten by the peasants though taken up by the upper classes during the sixteenth century. The food (halved egg plant, momen-tōfu, shiitake mushrooms, or -- in this case -- scallops) is skewered and grilled over charcoal, and dengaku sauce is brushed over the upper side. After the sauce is dried, the food is turned over to caramelize the sauce.

The sauce is made by mixing white-miso (though red miso or other varieties can be used, depending on the preferred taste) with mirin, and sake (in the present white sugar is also added to make the taste sweeter -- though probably not in Rikyū's day): roughly, one measure each of sake and mirin (and sugar) are combined with two measures of miso.

†Tanaka Senshō comments that some people conflate these two things, resulting in tairagi-uzura, which they say means the quail were split in half and (presumably) grilled in that way.

‡See the sub-note ("*") under footnote 8. Iri-zake was often used the way soy sauce -- which was both rare and very costly in Rikyū's period -- is used today, both for cooking and as a dipping sauce.

¹¹Hasu [ハス].

By hasu [蓮] (lotus), Rikyū seems to be referring to ren-kon [蓮根], lotus root.

Usually lotus root is braised by sauteing ("stir-frying") the thinly sliced root (actually, it is a rhizome) in sesame oil, and then simmering in sake (until the liquid is gone), and then mirin (again, until the liquid is gone). In the present day this is usually followed by adding sake and continuing to simmer briefly, though this last step may have been missing in Rikyū's day (or the soy sauce was replaced by iri-zake).

¹²Sui-mono hashira ・ ko-kabu [吸物ハシラ小カフ].

Suimono [吸物] is food cooked (and served) in clear broth.

Hashira [ハシラ = 柱] seems to mean kai-bashira [貝柱] -- though most likely from a different variety of scallop than what he served above. Probably these were quite small.

Ko-kabu [小蕪] means small turnips -- probably from the kitchen garden, since kabura was one of the plants grown for winter greens.

¹³Kashi kan ・ senbei ・ zakuro ・ ko-neri ・ nashi [菓子カン・センヘイ・サクロ・小ネリ・ナシ].

Kan [柑] refers to the citrus fruit usually called mikan [蜜柑] -- tangerine -- today*.

Senbei [煎餅] are rice-crackers. They would have been procured from a specialty shop.

Zakuro [柘榴] is the pomegranate.

Koneri [木練り] are naturally formed hoshi-gaki [干し柿] (dried persimmons), and so of very small size†.

Nashi [梨] is the Oriental pear‡. __________ *Mikan [蜜柑] means honey-sweet (mi [蜜]) tangerine (kan [柑]), and was probably originally a marketing term.

†Usually, natural koneri -- the name means to soften on the tree -- also have many seeds: the small size and presence of many seeds both facilitate the natural drying process (since larger fruit would simply rot before drying: artificially drying persimmons requires the removal of the skin for this reason).

‡The skin cannot be eaten, so the pear must be pealed and cut into bite-sized pieces. Oriental pears are more juicy than the Western varieties, so they are generally eaten with a yōji [楊枝] (such as a a small kuromoji [黒文字]), rather than with the fingers.

¹⁴Toko [床].

This was the toko in Rikyū's shoin, which seems to have been at a level below the jōdan [上段] -- the elevated seat for a noble guest -- as shown in the sketch.

¹⁵Ni-fuku ittsui Ba En san-sui [二幅一對馬遠山水].

Ni-fuku ittsui [二幅一對] means a diptych, a pair of pictorial scrolls intended to be hung in the toko at the same time*.

“Ba En” is the Japanese pronunciation of Mǎ Yuǎn [馬遠; c. 1160 or 1165 ~ 1225]. Mǎ Yuǎn was an important painter, from a family of professional painters, of the Southern Song dynasty. Mǎ Yuǎn's works are mentioned six times in the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki [君臺觀左右帳記], by Nōami [能阿彌], and four times in Sōami's [相阿彌; ~ 1525] O-kazari Sho [御飾書].

Nōami notes that, when hung as a diptych, one scroll should be a landscape, while the other should have the figure of people. Meanwhile, Sōami indicates that the diptych of small scrolls consisted of one painting by Mǎ Yuǎn, paired with one by (Mǎ Yuǎn's contemporary) Xià Guī [夏圭 or 夏珪; dates unknown, but active between 1195–1224].

In the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki, Nōami simply segregates Mǎ Yuǎn's (and other artists') works by genre (landscape, birds-and-flowers, paintings of figures, and so forth), without giving them titles by which the individual paintings might be identified. And while Sōami's original manuscript of the O-kazari Sho originally included small sketches of all of the works cited, none of the subsequent copies (which are all that survive) have any. Consequently, it is impossible to determine which of Mǎ Yuǎn's works were displayed by Rikyū on this occasion -- or whether or not those paintings are still extant today.

Above are two of Mǎ Yuǎn's surviving paintings which I selected as representative based on Noami's specifications regarding the two scrolls included in a diptych†. __________ *The pair of scrolls were usually prepared with identical mountings, indicating they were part of a diptych.

†A glimpse of the mountings are usually not included in photographs of these works (and most were remounted during the Edo period anyway, since the preferred proportions came to be based on Kobori Masakazu's [小堀政一; 1579 ~ 1647 -- he is better known today as Kobori Enshū, 小堀遠州] creations, rendering the earlier continental model employed by Nōami and his fellow dōbō [同朋] uninteresting), thus even this potential clue to which of the paintings were used as diptychs is lacking.

Most of the diptychs and triptychs that were decided upon by the dōbō-shū [同朋衆] were broken up during the early sixteenth century, and those that continued to be used together were almost all split divided into different collections in the Edo period. Thus there is no clear historical evidence to go by, either.

¹⁶Sai-kōro guri-guri ko-dai ni [豺香爐グリ〰香臺ニ].

The kanji sai [豺] means a jackel*. It seems that Rikyū is referring to a piece that would usually be classified as a variety of shishi kōro [獅子香爐]†.

The above piece, made of purple bronze, was one of Jōō's personal treasures, may be the kōro that Rikyū displayed on this occasion‡.

Since this, and several other utensils that Rikyū used on this occasion eventually ended up in Hideyoshi's collection (without the records indicating that they had been owned by Rikyū previously), some scholars have suggested that Rikyū did not actually own them, but that he had taken them on consignment from other Sakai chajin, with the intention being that, should Hideyoshi like them, they would be sold to him for a good price (which Rikyū naturally would negotiate -- while accepting a generous fee for facilitating the sale from the original owner**).

Unlike Rikyū’s kōgō, the guri-guri kō-dai was probably black††. __________ *In Japan, where such exotic creatures had never been seen, the sai was reimagined as a yama-inu (which name is more commonly written yama-inu [山犬], meaning a kind of feral dog). The Japanese wolf (ōkami [狼], Canis lupus hodophilax), with which the sai is sometimes equated, differs in several ways from the yama-inu. In fact, recent genetic evidence suggests that both of these creatures were ancient wolf-dog hybrids (the Japanese wolf has been considered extinct since the early 20th century).

That said, it is not clear whether Rikyū actually considered this kōro to resemble a wolf, or whether he simply wrote the wrong kanji.

†With which speculation Tanaka Senshō concurs.

‡The other “shishi-kōro” [獅子香爐] commonly associated with Rikyū was one made for him of pale-yellow Seto ware by Furuta Sōshitsu, shown above. However, this would have been too many things made by Oribe, so the purple bronze kōro seems more likely.

**As a number of these utensils actually had been among Jōō's personal treasures, it is possible that they had been passed to Rikyū by Imai Sōkyū, who was managing Jōō's estate on behalf of Jōō's son Sōga [宗瓦; 1550 ~ 1614].

Rikyū accused Sōkyū of selling these things and then keeping the profits for himself (which Sōkyū said was to reimburse himself for the expenses of Sōga's upkeep); and this may have been how Sōkyū's name came to be associated with this chakai (the inclusion of this gathering in the Imai Sōkyū Chanoyu Nikki Nuki-gaki [今井宗久茶湯日拔記], mentioned above under footnote 6 -- which collection seems to be at least partly spurious -- may have been calculated to support these accusations; or, possibly, to validate the traditional denrai [傳來] of certain pieces in the Tokugawa family collection -- pieces which do not appear to have had any actual connection with Rikyū, beyond the assertions made in this document).

††Guri-guri pieces were painted with alternating layers of red and black lacquer. While Rikyū's guri-guri kōgō had red as the outermost layer, most guri-guri pieces (especially furniture and trays) seem to be finished with black lacquer (probably so scratches would be less visible). Guri-guri-nuri is not shiny like shin-nuri.

¹⁷Shoin-doko [書院床].

Shoin-doko [書院床] seems to be Rikyū's name for the dashi-fu-zukue [出し文机], the built-in writing desk that was found in the shoin.

The way to arrange the writing implements on the dashi-fu-zukue is based on Nōami's recommendations in the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō-ki. __________ *This built-in desk is usually called a tsuke-shoin [付書院] today.

¹⁸Sugō suzuri, kame mizu-ire, fude-kake, hitsu sumi, Sugō jiku-mono [子昂硯、龜水入、筆架、筆墨、子昂軸物].

Sugō [子昂] refers to Chén Zǐáng [陳子昂; 661 or 656 ~ 702], an important poet of the Tang period. In fact, according to scholars, Chén Zǐáng was responsible for bringing into being the style of poetry that is considered to be “characteristically Tang.” By many he is considered to be the first poet of the Tang period.

The objects arranged on the dashi-fu-zukue seem to have been all associated with Chén Zǐáng:

◦ Sugō suzuri [子昂硯] -- this ink stone was supposedly the one owned by Chén Zǐáng;

◦ kame mizu-ire [龜水入] -- this was his water-dropper;

◦ fude-kake [筆架], this was a small stand (sometimes carved from precious wood, sometimes made of pottery, and sometimes of jade or other stone) against which brushes were rested, so the brush would not roll around, or the wet head stain the desk (or paper on which the person was writing) -- however, the fude-kake in question has not been identified;

◦ fude ・ moku [筆・墨] means a brush and an ink stick (while probably both imported from the continent, the specific brush and stick of ink, or who the previous owner might have been, cannot be known from the little that is written here);

◦ Sugo jiku-mono [子昂軸物] -- this was probably a horizontal scroll, an anthology of Chén Zǐáng's poems, though whether it was an actual Tang period manuscript, or (more likely) a later continental copy, is unknown: the scroll has not been identified.

Above is a late Song or early Yuan period hand-written copy of one of Chén Zǐáng's poetry collections. The jiku-mono displayed by Rikyū on this occasion may have appeared similar to this.

Perhaps some of these things (as well as other objects displayed in the shoin) had originally belonged to Jōō (certainly, as a trained poet, Jōō would have enjoyed owning just such relics of a very significant poet from the past), and were on loan to Rikyū (from Imai Sōkyū*, into whose keeping they had been given when Jōō died† -- hence his name being ambiguously associated with this chakai) so that Hideyoshi might view them (and possibly purchase them). While some of these things were used by Rikyū at future chakai, other things are associated with him this one time only, after which the denrai [傳來] suggest they entered Hideyoshi's collection (often without mentioning Rikyū as a previous owner at all), and passed from him (surely unintentionally, at least on his part) to the Tokugawa family, where they still remain.

As mentioned above, Tanaka Senshō argues against the jiku-mono being placed on the tsuke-shoin (even though that is how the kaiki is formatted). He prefers to think that the scroll was displayed on one shelf of the chigai-dana (with the jikirō placed on the other). Nevertheless, at a chakai included in the Rikyū Hyakkai Ki, an open scroll is definitely displayed on the dashi-fu-zukue, and the way Rikyū wrote the present account suggests that this was his preferred way to do things‡. __________ *Imai Sōkyū was married to Jōō's sister, and hence his brother-in-law.

†Jōō's son Sōga was a child of 5 when Jōō died, and Sōkyū was designated both foster parent and executor of Jōō's estate.

It is said that the bad blood between Rikyū and Sōkyū was occasioned by Sōkyū selling some of the meibutsu utensils that had belonged to Jōō, and then keeping the profits for himself. Sōkyū claimed this was to reimburse his purse for expenses related to Sōga's upkeep; but Rikyū was disinclined to accept this explanation. Perhaps this chakai was the occasion on which this sale was initiated -- and, if so, Rikyū would therefore have been intimately aware of the monetary details, since he would have negotiated the price with Hideyoshi on (he would have assumed) Sōga's behalf.

‡The scroll was supposed to be inspected by the guests. Displaying it on the chigai-dana may have encouraged them to wait until Rikyū entered, so he could retrieve it for them. Placing the scroll on the writing desk, however, would invite them to inspect it at their leisure without waiting for the host to help them -- and since part of the reason for the delay was so that the meal could be prepared, this seems like it might have been the best way to do things.

¹⁹Chigae-dana [チカヘ棚].

Rikyū's semi-phonetic rendering of the word chigai-dana [違い棚] -- the staggered shelves usually found adjacent to the dashi-fu-zukue.

The jikirō [食籠], containing kashi, was probably placed on the lower of the two shelves (while the upper shelf remained empty), with the bonsan displayed on the floor beneath the pair of shelves, as was customary.

²⁰Jikirō [食籠].

This was a container -- originally a lacquered basket (as the name implies) -- for kashi that was displayed on the chigai-dana -- together with a bon-san [盆山].

Rikyū's jikirō has not been identified, though the one shown above (which was made during the Ming dynasty) seems to agree with his taste.

²¹Bon-san Kiji [盆山　紀路].

Kiji [紀路] is the name of a bon-san*. It has not been identified, and may have been lost. Perhaps it served as the model for Rikyū's sketch, found in the Nambō-ate no densho [南坊宛の傳書] (though the sketch is just as likely to be fanciful).

According to the Yamanoue Sōji Ki [山上宗二記], only two of the viewing stones belonging to Ashikaga Yoshimasa were worthy of note (and so suitable for display during chanoyu gatherings)†:

- The first of these was named Zan-setsu [殘雪].

- The second was called Sue no matsu-yama [末ノ松山], and that stone is shown below.

According to Sōji, these stones were sometimes arranged on a shallow Korean platter (kōrai-bachi [高麗鉢])‡, and sometimes in a lacquered naka maru-bon [中丸盆]**, both of which may be seen in the photos, above. __________ *Bon-san [盆山] literally means a mountain in a tray (or a tray-sized mountain). The more modern words bon-seki [盆石] (stone arranged on a tray) and sui-seki [水石] (an abbreviation of san-sui-seki [山水石], which means a landscape stone) refer to the same things. They are often referred to as “viewing stones” in English.

In Yoshimasa's period, these kinds of stones were used in a type of meditation practice, with ones vision concentrated on the stone until one entered into a state of peace (after mentally running though the various thoughts that the sight of the stone inspired). According to a poem by Yoshimasa, when arranged on a tray, two mounds, representing sand-dunes, should be raised up in front of the stone, while the sand behind the stone should be raked to resemble waves (the nature of which was changed depending on the natural conditions of the ocean during that season).

†Apparently Yoshimasa had assembled a sizeable collection of these stones -- which usually resemble distant mountains, or suggest other such scenes from nature -- over the course of his lifetime. But only these two stones had been celebrated in poems, and it was perhaps for that reason that they were judged suitable for display during chakai (while the others were rejected by Sōji).

The same sort of (what we might consider) nitpicking is found with respect to which of the Ogura shikishi were originally considered “suitable” for display in the tearoom: while they were all written by Fujiwara no Sadaie, and all represent poems carefully selected by him and his committee of eminent courtiers (and written on paper selected by him to complement the verse that he would write on it), Jōō is said to have declared that only those poems written on paper that had a background painting on them (the paintings were done by professional artists) could be hung in the toko, while those written on plain colored paper (or Chinese paper with a block-printed decoration) were “wholly unsuitable” for use in chanoyu.

‡This shallow platter (it is described as being a Korean bowl, korai-hachi [高麗鉢] in the Yamanoue Sōji Ki) was made of Korean bronze or sawari [四分一] (it is variously referred to as a kane-no-hachi [金ノハチ], and sometimes as a Namban karakane [南蠻カラカネ], in the various kaiki from the sixteenth century in which it is mentioned: sawari is a pale gold with black mottling when it has not oxidized, and this aggrees with the platter seen in the photo).

**This tray was 1-shaku 2-sun 3-bu in diameter, with straight sides (that had a raised band on the outside, as can be seen in the photo). Yoshimasa seems to have used this tray because the original (which was destroyed when Yoshimasa's storehouse was burned down during the Ōnin Wars) had a brass plate inlaid into the face of the tray (the tray seems to have been used in China for carrying hot containers of food from the kitchen to the residental apartments). The brass plate would protect the face of the tray from being scratched by the sand or the bottom of the stone.

²²Gyo-i ni te daisu kazari, taikai ni te o-cha tate [御意ニテ臺子カサリ、大海ニテ御茶立].

Gyo-i [御意] means according to the pleasure (of the noble guest); according to the desire (of the noble guest). In other words, Hideyoshi requested Rikyū to bring his daisu out of storage and display it in the shoin.

Above is Rikyū's daisu and kaigu from this period in his life. This daisu was made around 1586, and so some months before this chakai (during which it may have been used for the first time). After Hideyoshi was initiated into the gokushin futatsu-gumi temae, he forbade Rikyū to teach that temae to anyone else without his express permission. At that time, Rikyū modified the proportions of the daisu (by making the legs half their previous thickness -- this was enough to move the furo and mizusashi far enough apart so that the previous effect was lost), and then had this daisu made to reflect the changes. This was the daisu that Rikyū used from that time until his death (and it -- along with Sōtan's “wabi daisu” that is cobbled together from parts of several old daisu, so the ten- and ji-ita are different sizes -- is the daisu that is known and used today).

Rikyū's Seto taikai-chaire [瀬戸大海茶入] is shown below.

The expression o-cha tate [御茶立] is very formal, and means that tea was prepared (using the daisu) by Hideyoshi. Under the circumstances, it is likely that Hideyoshi served usucha to Tsuda Sōkyū and Rikyū -- and perhaps drank a bowl himself.

The chawan is not mentioned, but perhaps it was the same one that Rikyū used earlier, the Shima-suji-kuro [嶋筋黒] bowl made by Furuta Sōshitsu.

Hideyoshi probably performed his temae using the furo.

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noaroy312 · 2 years

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You Know: How Many Potatoes In A Pound?

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Many plans don't indicate how many potatoes are required, yet notice the weight. Without scales, it will, in general, be exceptionally annoying if you do not indicate how many potatoes you want. It is exceptionally helpful to know how many potatoes you have in one pound. This information will be given to you in this post. How Many Potatoes in a Pound?

In any case, there are more than 5,000 varieties available in potatoes. Each can fit into one of seven kinds of potato: Dainty/Russet, Fingerling Red, Blue/Purple White, Yellow.

Various varieties of potato have various loads.

New uncooked potatoes are almost all the same weight, regardless of their size.

All three have the same weight, regardless of which shading you pick: red, white, or russet.

Comparison of white and pink potatoes near close. This illustrates the similarity between medium, large and small concerning size and weight.

Each variety of potato has a weight and size table.

How Many Potatoes Is 2 Lbs:- Small: 0.2 lbs/100g/(3.5oz)

Medium: 0.33 lbs/150g/(5oz)

Medium/large 0.5 lbs/230g/(8oz)

Large: 0.8 lbs/362g/(13oz)

What is the average load of a white potato?

Medium or large potatoes average about 0.5 lbs (230g).

A medium-large white potato is approximately 1/2 lb in weight.

What is the average number of potatoes in a pound?

It is easy to include how many potatoes are in one pound.

You can fit two medium-large white potatoes, each weighing in at one pound, in your one-handed hand.

One pound is equal to two medium-sized or large potatoes. These potatoes are approximately the same size as one potato.

How Many Russet Potatoes in a Pound? There are many kinds of potatoes. Two medium-large potatoes are contained in each pound. This includes Yukon Gold, Sierra Gold varieties, Russet Burbank and Yukon Gold, Yukon Gold, Shepody, King Edward, and Maris Flutist.

There is no distinction between varieties. Two medium-large Kerrs Pink potatoes weigh one pound.

Eventually, you realize that one pound equals two medium-sized or large potatoes. Being unclear about the size of this medium or large potato is conceivable. Two potatoes will equal one pound, assuming you have a scale. These potatoes will always stay with you if they are in your hands.

Three medium-sized Kerrs Pink potatoes also gauge a total of one pound.

How many potatoes are required to make mashed potatoes?

Make mashed potatoes for your family at the week's end. Each individual should have at least 1/2 pound of potatoes. This amounts to approximately one medium/large potato per individual. Because everyone cherishes somewhat more mash, you would probably want to add more.

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Assuming everyone eats 3/4 of a pound, you'll be giving them that much.

Four individuals: 3 pounds (6 medium/large potatoes)

Six individuals: 4.5 pounds (9 medium/large potatoes)

12 individuals: 9 pounds (18 medium/large potatoes)

Assuming you add roast potatoes to your meal, the vast majority will consume 1/2 pound. Assuming this is the case, then you will require:

Four individuals: 2 pounds (4 medium/large potatoes)

Six individuals: 3 pounds (6 medium/large potatoes)

12 individuals: 6 pounds (12 medium/large potatoes)

For baked potatoes, use the same amount as roasted potatoes. Always save an extra for the unanticipated.

2 to 3 cups of mashed potatoes equals 1 lb.

Utilizations of potatoes

Potato starch can thicken soups, sauces, binders, adhesives, and make papers and boards.

A few nations use potatoes for alcoholic beverages like vodka, aquavit, and salespeople.

You can take care of animals and animals with potatoes.

New potatoes are high in vitamins, amino acids, and enhancements. They also have great wellsprings of carbohydrates and are abundant in vitamins. They are significantly more nutritious than the vast majority realize.

These potatoes are inexpensive and easily available. You can also cultivate potatoes at your home.

It may appear hard to cultivate potatoes at home. When you learn the basics, you'll have no issues and will have a tremendous load of potatoes.

Advantages of potatoes

You can find potatoes in many sizes. However, it is easier to make meals when you know how much potato equals 1/2 pound.

- Containing vitamins and minerals

- Contain antioxidants

- Further creates glucose stability

- Deals with stomach related health

-it's without gluten

- Versatile

Vitamins and minerals found within potatoes include Vitamin B6, Potassium, Folate, Vitamin C, and Vitamin C.

What is the average load of large potatoes?

You can involve one pound of large potatoes for a formula calling for one pound.

In any formula, utilizing a medium-sized potato is better. They are more delicate and taste better compared to small or large potatoes.

Although large potatoes are exceptionally nutritious, they can also be dangerous, assuming they sprout. They should be avoided.

What is the amount of potatoes in 5 ounces of potato?

Everything depends on the size of the potatoes. One pound should be made from eight small potatoes.

A 5-pound bag should have 16 medium-sized potatoes. You ought to, in any case, guarantee that you purchase 5 pounds of potatoes.

Potatoes are best purchased in mass.

It is smarter to go for pound-packaged Ones.

The local supermarket can sell potatoes in 1-pound bags. Weigh scale.

If these decisions are not generally imaginable, train your eyes. Our eyes are the best instrument to measure food.

What Potatoes Are Best for Boiling and Mashing?

These are the top varieties of potatoes for mashing and boiling.

Mashing

Yukon Gold potato: They're great for mashing. They are also great for roasting.

This is because gold potatoes have thick tissue.

They have a lower glycemic index than russets. Gold potatoes are safe for patients with diabetes or individuals who watch their calorie intake.

Various advantages include Vitamins B-6 and C, protein, and a healthy Potassium intake. Potassium is an important mineral for heart health and muscle work. These potatoes play a more important nutritional occupation in the weight control plans of heart patients.

Boiling

The best potatoes are those with high starch. High-starch potatoes like Yukon Gold and Yellowfin have a moderate level of starch.

They retain more moisture and won't break down when percolated.

You can also bubble russets. They absorb more water because of their comfortable surface. After being scalded, you may be surprised at their appearance.

Which potatoes are awesome for your health?

All potatoes are great for nourishment. All potatoes are great for your health. They contain moderate amounts of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

However, potatoes with dark tissue are awesome.

For what reason are small potatoes so expensive?

Small potatoes are more expensive than various sizes. Because small potatoes are more outrageous than various sizes, they are cultivated as legacies. However, they may not be necessary for potato salad.

Medium-sized potatoes are awesome. These potatoes are cheaper and significantly more heavenly. These potatoes can be used for many purposes.

You can also use it are a healthy decision to fingerling Potatoes. They can be taken pleasure in with almost no starch.

What does the pink potato stand for?

At times, you may find pink pockets in your potato. These are known as "Pink Pockets" or "Phenols."

By chemical reaction, phenols are shaped in potatoes.

They react with oxygen from outside. Along these lines, you get a pink potato.

Is A Pink Potato Safe To Eat?

They are exceptionally safe to eat. Vinegar can be added to the soaking water to forestall discoloration. Whenever they are cooked, they will be awesome.

Avoid green potatoes at all costs. They can be deadly.

The Most Normally Asked Questions

How long should potatoes bubble?

Everything depends on the size of the potato. Boiling small potatoes takes 10-15 minutes. Large potatoes may take 20-25 minutes. Medium potatoes can take between 20-25 minutes.

For what reason do my potatoes look so foul?

Because small potatoes are more outrageous than various sizes, treasures are cultivated. A typical kind of bacteria can infect the potato when harvested and graded. There may be certain injuries or damage to potatoes that can lead to a bacterial attack. And that gives them a shocking look.

How Many Red Potatoes in a Pound? After surveying the vegetable decision, we discovered that 1 pound of potatoes equals 3 to 4 medium white potatoes, 7 to 9 small red potatoes, or 12 to 15 new or mini potatoes.

Which potatoes are the most versatile?

The most versatile potato varieties are the Yukon Gold, Red Gold, and Kennebec. They are easy to bubble, roast, mash, and fry.

Avoid wrinkled potatoes, cracked or sprouting. On the occasion that kept in a cool, dark, all around the ventilated place, most potatoes will save for as extended as about fourteen days. How Many Potatoes in a 10 LB Bag? However, new potatoes ought to be utilized within four days of purchase. Generally, three medium russet potatoes or eight to 10 small new white potatoes equal one pound.

Wrapping up

It would be best if you now realized that one pound equals two medium/large potatoes. This will assist you with planning meals and shopping for food. Assuming you are careful with how potatoes are prepared and make yourself conversant with the popular potato plans, you can make them a staple food in your daily eating routine.

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