#three amigos restaurant

[threeamigosrestaurants]

Three Amigos - Best Mexican Restaurant in Singapore

Looking for Mexican food in Singapore? Check out the best Mexican restaurants in Singapore - Three Amigos.

[thingsifoundongeoguessr]

The tomato forgot his sombrero I guess

[half-oz-eddie]

“Billy, Billy, Billy, why won’t he leave my mind?!” Steve grabbed his hair, groaning in frustration.  “It’s like his eyes are burned into my mind it-it makes me sick.”

“Love sick?” Robin sneered.

“No! No!” He frantically replied. “ Why would you even say that?”

“Because, dingus, you’re thinking about another guy an abnormal amount—”

“It’s—It’s just…he…aggravates me, y’know?”

“Uh…huh.” Robin nodded slowly, making her skepticism evident.

Steve sighed loudly as Robin tried to contain a soft chuckle. 

“What do you think it means?” Steve asked her.

“It means you like him.”

“I don’t—I don’t like him—I-I-I don’t even like guys! I like girls! I like y’know, jiggly boobs a-and vagina—”

“I’m very convinced.” She responded flatly. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with having a crush—“

“On a guy I hate? That hates me? You can’t like someone you hate!”

“Oh, Steve, it’s very possible for the heart to have love and hate for someone at the same time.”

“How?”

“You make room.”

“Well, I don’t have any room in my heart for a guy like Billy Hargrove, with his stupid blonde hair, or that—that cologne he uses that smells soft and pretty like perfume, or those beady blue eyes that feel like they’re staring into my soul—okay maybe I have a little room.” He eventually confessed.

“Told you. Wanna find out if Billy’s heart has room too?”

Steve shook his head. “I’ll pass—hey, what the hell’re you doing?!” He questioned as Robin picked up his phone and dialed Dustin.

“Steveee!” Dustin beamed.

“Nope, it’s Robin.”

“Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“Can you do me a favor and call Max’s house for me?”

“Uh…sure. One sec.”

Dustin three-way called Max’s house, and Billy picked up the phone on the third ring.

“Hargrove residence.” He answered in a forced, polite voice.

“Hi, is this Billy Hargrove?”

“Yeah, who’s calling?”

“I’m calling from…the free dinners club! You won an all expenses paid dinner at Enzo’s tomorrow at 8PM!”

“Free food?” Billy scoffed. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch! Just show up on time and you’ll be escorted to a table and treated to anything you want.”

Billy chuckled. “That’s pretty cool. I guess I’ll be there.”

“Great! Congratulations!” 

Billy hung up, and Steve couldn’t stop glaring at Robin, shooting daggers at her with his eyes, mouthing that he was going to kick her out of his house.

“Still there, Dustin?”

“Yyyeah…? What was that about?”

“Nothing. You’re too young to understand. Bye, kid!” She abruptly ended the call and returned her focus to Steve. “See how easy that was?”

“How easy—you just scammed him!” Steve exclaimed in utter disbelief.

“I didn’t! You’re gonna buy him dinner tomorrow.”

“You told him he won an all expenses paid dinner from some free dinner club!”

“He did! You’re the club!”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe this shit!” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Believe it, dingus. Now let’s pick out something nice for you to wear for your date tomorrow.”

—

Robin tried to sway Steve into wearing a suit, but he refused to make a fool out of himself, especially in a goddamn suit. 

He already knew how Hargrove was gonna react. He’d huff, insult Steve, probably call him a slur and then flip him off before storming out of the restaurant.

Every time that scenario played in Steve’s head, his stomach twisted in knots. 

But there was still that…sliver of hope that things could possibly go well. 

Either way, Steve’s stomach was in knots.

“You look like you’re gonna puke.” Robin noticed, her brows furrowed with worry. 

“I’m not!” He answered in a snippy tone. “I’m fine.”

“Just relax. It’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Who doesn’t like a free meal?”

— 

Billy arrived at the restaurant at 7:55, and Steve walked in seconds later, finding the confused blonde standing by the door. 

“The hell’re you doing here, amigo? Got a date?”

“Well—not exact—“

“You here for the free dinner’s club thing too, then? I got a call to come here tonight at 8 for a free meal.”

“Yeah…I…I’m the…free meal.”

Billy wrinkled his nose at Steve. “What’re you talking about, Harrington?”

Steve sighed, obvious shame in his eyes. “There is no…free dinner’s club. Robin set this whole thing up.”

Billy blinked a few times. “Who is Robin?”

“You know, the girl in the school band?”

“No?”

“Trumpet player? Short hair? Sarcastic?”

“Okay...maybe? I don't really remember."

"A-Anyway. Robin set this up to kinda…push us on a date.”

“A date?”

“Yeah—sorry—it was really stupid of her—“

“What compelled her to do something like that? You wanted to go on a date with me?” Billy smiled cheekily. “You like me, Steve?”

“I—shut up!” Steve turned red. 

“I still want my free dinner.” Billy crossed his arms, staring at Steve expectantly.

“Not a problem. Let’s…grab a table.”

Halfway through the meal, Steve was pretty sure Billy was only doing this for the free food—the most expensive food he could get. 

He ordered oysters, steak and lobster, some overpriced wine—it was so painfully expensive, but Steve probably deserved this dent in his wallet after going along with Robin’s scheme.

“You sure know how to treat a guy, Harrington.” Billy smiled—this time soft, prettier than usual. “Is there gonna be a second date?”

“W—you really want to? You like me too?”

Billy shrugged. “You’re okay.” 

Steve chuckled. “You’re just pullin’ my leg, right?”

“Yeah.” Billy laughed. “I think you’re cute. Next time, I pick the place, okay? Fancy restaurants like this aren’t exactly my scene.”

“Deal. What did you have in mind?”

“The backseat of my Camaro.” Billy winked. 

“Oh—you-you mean now?” Steve paid the check in a hurry and they rushed off to Billy’s Camaro. 

Seems like Billy had room in his heart, after all. 

✨✨✨✨

A silly little thing for some friends to enjoy

@dragonflylady77 @brightside-of-the-upsidedown @shieldofiron

[rmd-writes]

a love note (and some fics)

Sometimes I wonder if there's really anything bigger out there - the universe, some kind of higher power, fate - and then I think about how extremely lucky I am that I became obsessed with a certain tv show and its characters at just the right time so that I could befriend someone who then introduced me to a particular book at exactly the right time to fall in love with those characters as well. And then, because of my need to have more of those characters, I went looking for more stories about them at exactly the right time to meet a group of people (some of them together, some of them later, but that doesn't matter) who would go on to become my friends.

There must be something, right? To bring together a group of people who live in five to seven different time zones depending on the time of year. To create my safest spaces on the internet. To share not just our love for a book and its characters, but parts of our lives with each other. To have them all wedge themselves into the soft spaces of my heart and never leave.

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last two weeks, because those people conspired and collaborated to gift me a collection of 10 incredible fics for a milestone birthday (tomorrow!) - even though some of them haven't written fic for months and months, or don't write for this fandom at all anymore, or have recently been finding it hard to make words work and finish fics, or are just plain busy with other projects and life. That they took the time to find and make words for me means everything and more 💖💖

I've been absolutely overwhelmed with love these past 10 days (probably to the surprise of no one, I have cried at every single fic drop and I'm crying writing this now). So, I want to share the wonderful fics that they've written for me with you all because it's the least I can do to pay it forward and they're objectively stellar fics. If you haven't come across them already then you should definitely add them to your to read lists/open tabs/MFL. Please show my friends some love and read their work.

The Rae of Sunshine! collection, in order of publication (with my very short summaries):

Take It Back (4.2K) by @three-drink-amy

Henry is the head chef at a French restaurant and there's one patron who keeps sending his dishes back. How can they resolve this?

Dick, Dick Dick (You Down) (10.2K) by @everwitch-magiks

Alex runs the craft services trailer on the set of actor!Henry's latest movie. Is he the only person who sees behind the façade?

A deceptively soft story, given the title.

Precious Love (1.3K) by floatingaway4

The fluffiest follow up to one of my favourite AUs Amigos y Migas (aka the food truck au).

Midnight ice cream (5.8K) by @the-amber-fox

Emotional support Cornettos? More likely than you think.

Make it Right (5.3K) by @three-drink-amy (that's right, Ally wrote me TWO FICS)

A rogue little Tarlos fic in amongst the firstprince - a post-season 1 canon divergence that sees TK working in a taco truck while he finds his feet.

a taste of life (7.4K) by @indomitable-love

A journey through Henry's life, told through food. (This one is not my summary, indomitablelove already summed it up perfectly)

Risotto + Melanzane + Dolce (a love story) (16.8K) by @villiageidiot

Alex starts working at an Italian restaurant and is terrible at his job. Somehow, Henry doesn't seem to mind.

Cursed is a State of Mind (WIP) by @welcometololaland & @dustratcentral

A 5 + 1 treatise on cursed coffee consumption.

12 Year Starter (6.6K) by @clottedcreamfudge

When Pez can't make it to Henry's Michelin-star birthday dinner, he arranges for Henry's friend, Alex, to take his place. Featuring CCF's signature banter and fun, and a menu that I wish was real.

Pour Your He(art) Out (WIP) by @athousandrooms

A 5+1 ode to latte art (featuring actual art!)

You can find the entire collection here on Ao3.

[pendragon-writes]

𝒮𝓉𝑜𝒾𝒸 𝑀!𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇 𝐻𝑒𝒶𝒹𝒸𝒶𝓃𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝓌/ 𝒢𝒽𝑜𝓈𝓉, 𝒮𝑜𝒶𝓅, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒜𝓁𝑒𝒿𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓇𝑜

Male!Reader (Who normally talks a little and rarely gives compliments) gives a compliment to these three men.

Ghost

You were both similar in a way.

Not talking much unless necessary, and being serious on the job.

Though he was surprised when you gave him a compliment since he's not used to it

Especially if it’s once in a blue moon.

The two of you had just gotten back from a mission, it was dark and the moon was shining, Ghost got out of the car and proceeded to pull all the gear from the trunk. Once that was done the both of you carried the equipment back to base, and when you were halfway there you finally spoke. "You look good under the moonlight, it suits you." He flinched for a second before continuing his journey, but not without tints of red covering his masked face.

Soap

He's used to Ghost's behavior so he's used to yours.

He doesn't care if you use words much but might tease you a bit about it.

You definitely caught him off guard when you complimented him for the first time

Soap was cleaning up his guns when he heard the door open, he turned around and spotted you returning some of the gear from the mission. He nodded his head in acknowledgment and continued what he was doing. "You did good out there," he heard you say. He paused his moment and slowly turned around. Grinning from ear to ear he responded back, "Thanks! So did you."

Alejandro

In a strange way, he finds it charming.

He finds actions to be more important than words sometimes and he can tell you aren't being rude when you aren't talking much.

Though when you do compliment him he pretends as if you're a different person.

It's funny, but can be annoying at times.

You were both at a restaurant eating your respective meals. It's been a while since both of you had time outside of work to go out and do something together let alone do it peacefully. While he was mid-bite of his meal you decided to speak up and compliment him. "You look good in that shirt." He started choking on his food for a hot minute before calming down with your help. "Qué sorprendente es esto, el mismo hombre tranquilo me está dando cumplidos. ¿Eres el mismo hombre que conocí hace tantos meses o te reemplazó un robot?" "Never mind I take it back." "Wait no mi amigo I'm sorry I'll stop!" he replied with laughs.

Translations:

Qué sorprendente es esto, el mismo hombre tranquilo me está dando cumplidos.

How surprising this is, the same calm man is complimenting me.

¿Eres el mismo hombre que conocí hace tantos meses o te reemplazó un robot?

Are you the same man I met so many months ago or did a robot replace you?

[jinlizz-dragondrama]

Chapter 2

A Hero is Born

18 years later

The sun shines through the purple curtains, groaning. I turn over and smother my face into my pillow, smiling to myself and slowly falling back to sleep. The peace and tranquility were disturbed by a loud alarm ringing in my ear. Lazily grabbing the phone, I look at it, and its bright bold rainbow-colored words it ready. "Birthday Time."

"Wait, what?" My eyes shoot open, and just in case I look over at my calendar and see a very boldly circled birthday date.

Quickly hopping into the shower, and jumping out to brush my teeth, I slide into my room with my wet feet, finding my clothes that I neatly pulled out last night for this occasion which include my signature pink crop top hoodie and purple workout pants, tying on my white sneakers. I brush my unruly curly hair, taming it as best as I can, I grab a little accessory, which is a small backpack purse with the Monkey King logo on it that I stitched

"Oh yeah, looking good," admiring myself in the mirror snapping a quick selfie and sending it to Mei.

Running out of my apartment door and sliding down the stairs railing, I run into a chaotic scene of Pigsy throwing a wooden spoon at MK for giving my dad free noodles. I found out pretty early on that Tang isn't my dad but that he loves me no matter what. MK and I were pretty much raised by both Pigsy and Tang. Once Mei joined, we became the three amigos. I moved into the spare apartment above Pigsy's restaurant since Tang's place was pretty small, and the rest is pretty much history.

"Ugh, Tang, not again. You're gonna get MK in trouble," I sigh as I stretch, I promised Pigsy that I'd do a quick shift with MK to get a little extra birthday money. Pigsy insisted that I didn't have to, but he gave up when I gave him my puppy dog eyes.

Grabbing MK and dragging him out the door with a handful of orders. Jumping into the tuk-tuk, MK starts the directions, and we're off. Each time he makes a stop we go in opposite directions to deliver, which makes it faster and a lot more fun as we time each other to see who delivers the fastest and gets back to the tuk-tuk.

We get to a stop at a construction site, and we go down several floors til we are at the ground level deep underground. I hear a woman's voice, which causes me to stop in my tracks, and MK bumps into me. Quickly grabbing MK we hide behind some rocks and look on there is a woman and young man staring pretty menacingly at a tree with beautiful orange leaves, surrounded by green grass and a staff of some sort impeded into the earth.

"Finally, after all this time, we have the means to lift Monkey King's legendary staff," the woman says

"Monkie King's Staff," we both say, shocked and look at each other in awe

A flashback goes through my head of Monkey King smiling at me while holding it, but as quickly as it came, it disappeared. I shake my head to clear my head, and when I've regained myself, I see MK climbing onto the ceiling and holding onto the pipes above. I freak out quietly to myself. He hangs from a pipe and prays that he doesn't fall. A bull-looking robot walks to the staff and tries to pull it out with no success, and its reward for attempting is losing its arms.

The man with flaming red hair mocks the poor robot and reveals that he has something more powerful to release the staff from its grassy prison. The man I now know called Red Son walks up to the staff and once he makes contact with it a great amount of energy is released pushing me back a bit but I hold firmly to the rock wall I'm hiding behind. It takes the man great effort to release the staff, his hair and eyes explode into flames, and screams out as he pulls. The woman watches on in delight, the vine that wrapped around the staff dies, and soon the staff is pulled from the ground.

But nothing happens, I look up at MK holding on for dear life as he looks down at the unknown people. 

"Mother, are you sure this is the right mountain?" Red Son asks

"No, maybe it was the other mountain with a magical staff sealing away my husband!" She says, annoyed

"Mother? Husband? Then that means..."

The ground starts to rumble and shake, and out from the earth emerges the Demon Bull King. My jaw drops so low that it is probably dislocated.

"Holy Bull..." I start to sweat profusely, and I look up to see a very cheeky bird peck at MK's hands. I move from side to side to try to catch him as he falls, but I miss entirely, and he lands on the daddy/mommy issues man.

"MK!" I stupidly yell, alarming the demon bulk king family of my presence.

"Do you know what you just did? You ruined my moment, " Red Son yells as his hair turns to flames as he throws MK

"Oh boy...." I awkwardly say

"Little eavesdroppers have fallen into our midst it seems a waste to crush something so insignificant as my first act as ruler of this new world. But so be it, " DBK says as he moves his large foot over us with the thought of crushing us like bugs. Thankfully, Red Boy decided to interrupt his father's squashing path.

"Uh, wait...father, waste not your energy on these PEASANTS. Please allow me to show you how powerful I have become in your absence, " He says triumphantly

"Peasants?" I repeat as my eye twitches

"Uh, Nuwa...." MK says while walking over to me

"Peasants!" I repeat as I roll my sleeves up and start marching towards him, but MK holds me back.

"Let me go, MK. I'll show him who the peasant is. He's got the right one on the right day today!" I shout, trying my hardest to reach the red-headed jerk.

"As you wish," DBK says

MK starts to pull me away and try to escape. We see the staff, and both grab it together and use it to block Red Son's punch successfully.

"No way!" We look at each other in awe, but the moment is short-lived when the Bull Bots start to attack us. But with a mighty swing, we send them flying back.

"That stuff doesn't belong to you, children. Hand it over, " PIF says

"Yeah, well, it doesn't belong to you, either." I challenged

The staff started to move, and it catapults us towards to exit. We get thrown into a construction elevator, and the staff punctures through the bottom of it and shoots us up to the surface. When we reach the top, we scramble to get into the tuk-tuk and speed off. Red Son is following closely behind.

"Hand it over, Noodle boy...and accomplice," he shouts

We throw noodles at him and crash through a poor soul's apartment. Crashing into the street, the tuk-tuk breaks down, so we take off on foot. I'm hoping to take a hoverboard we take from a kid while I toss some money at the guy. Red Son is on our tail, but we lose him in a tight alleyway, but that doesn't stop him for long as he deploys a motorcycle.

We zoom down the freeway, and Red Son catches up to us and destroys the hoverboard. We head toward an unfinished part of the freeway, and we scream as we fall off. Thankfully, Mei comes to the rescue, grabs MK, and tosses me my compact motorcycle I deploy into riding mode, we zoom past Red Son, and I stick my tongue out as we continue our escape.

"So long, Red Boy," I shout, taunting him

Once we finally stop and recover from our adrenaline high. Mei and I take a quick selfie after she transforms from her riding outfit.

"Nailed it," Mei says

"Mei!" MK says excitedly

"That was an intense game of tag. You guys looked like you were having so much fun! I wanted to join in, too!" Mei says giddy

"Actually, we almost died back there," MK says

"But you didn't, so let's celebrate with a round of Monkey Mech! You should invite your new edgy friend too" Mei counters

"Yeah, he was trying to kill us," MK says hesitantly

"Well, in that case, where does he live?" Mei says, going slightly psycho as she pulls out her phone with a destroy button on the ready

"Love the enthusiasm girl, but none of that on my birthday, please," I say while slowly pushing her phone down

"Oh yeah, Happy 23rd Birthday! Here's your present, but you can't open it yet," Mei says while handing me a box.

"Aw man," I say while pouting

Pigsy comes out and starts yelling at us about someone leaving a 0-star review. But MK grabs me and pulls me into the restaurant to look for Tang. After we explained what happened, we showed everyone the staff, which they didn't believe at first until we both touched it, and it extended itself and broke a table.

"Monkey King's Staff! I knew it all along. The legendary weapon that only he could wield to seal away evil. Wait a minute. WHT do you two have it? Tang says after realizing we have the real deal.

"All right, I'll bite. If the staff is here, then where is the demon punk now?" Pigsy says, still not believing us

"He's at the shoe store," Mei says

And sure enough, there are posts all over social media with DBK at a shoe store. We watch a video of them flexing to the camera while wearing the very expensive and limited edition shoes. Soon, DBK is rampaging through the city, destroying everything in his path. But we are driving in the Pigsy Food Truck trying to figure out how we're gonna get to Flower Fruit Mountain, and we come across a huge boat. We meet the infamous Sandy, who turns out to be a total teddy bear that loves tea.

I laugh my head off after hearing all the stories of how ruthless Sandy was but not being able to see it. But our puppy eyes work pretty effectively to persuade him to sail us to the mountain. We set sail and we just hung out on the deck while MK fooled around with the staff we stopped at a lava-filled volcanic path but our path was blocked by PIF, MK went in for the attack but PIF used her son's gauntlet she grabbed the staff as I run to try to help him. But she flings him away and he knocks himself into me and we get thrown far off course. Pigsy rushes with Mei back to safety. When they return everyone mourns our loss and thinks of a plan to get revenge on the DBK family.

I wake up feeling sand under my body, I groan as I sit up turning around to see Flower Fruit Mountain. Gasping loudly I shake MK to wake him up.

"Wake up, wake up MK!" I shout successfully waking him up.

"We made it, pinch me," MK says excitedly, i punch Jim in the shoulder

"I said pinch not punch," He says annoyed

"Eh minor details, let's go MK!" I shout while taking off into the brush and he follows after me.

As we made our way up the mountain I saw little monkeys along the way and couldn't resist I had to give them cuddles and neck scratches. We reach a beautiful waterfall, stepping close to it both of us reaching out to touch it a golden seal unlocks and reveals a pathway through a cave.

"This day just gets better and better!" We walk through and follow the pathway

Stopping at a very worn-down mural, we stare at it and all of a sudden everything turns golden and flashes of Monkey King's life. A projection of money king runs towards another opening in the cave which MK follows. I start to follow him but something catches my eye on the mural, I dust off some dirt and see a woman that has horns and her skin is red. Hearing MK call out for Monkey King I rush to see what's going on.

I see a small cozy hut on a hill, looking around for any sign of the Monkey King but to no avail. I put my hand on his shoulder and sighed. Sitting on the ground together a butterfly lands on MK and I look at its interesting wing design but before I can fully process the design it speaks.

"Sup?"

We freak out slightly and I point at it with my finger quivering.

"T-That butterfly just spoke!"

"Yes, yes it is I Monkey...." The butterfly starts to talk but MK steps on it.

"Is it dead?" We both say while I peek over MK's shoulder.

The butterfly transforms into several creatures until it is revealed that it is THE MONKEY KING.

"Mo-Monkey King?" MK asks and I pass out.

"The one and only, so where's my staff?" monkey King asks and I quickly recover as we start crying about how we lost the staff. We find out that he's been keeping a very very close eye on us. Which makes my rye twitch just a bit.

He chuckles and says "Ha! The looks on your guy's face! You're perfect" he points at MK with a bamboo stick

"Uh perfect for what?" MK asks

"To be...my successor," Monkey King says

"Eh?" I look at MK then back at Monkey King

"Look kid not everyone can fight demons, survive, and lift my staff," He says nonchalantly

"Yeah barely survived" I whisper to myself as I scratch the back of my head awkwardly.

While MK and Monkey King gave a pep talk, I looked around, leaned against some vines, and fell through rolling down a hill I hit something that stopped my descent.

"Well, that was fun," I say while dusting myself off. Looking at what I rolled onto it was a small shrine of sorts that was very well taken care of. Some candles and incense were burning, and a folded worn piece of paper was placed in the center of it. Vines and flowers have grown around it which gives it a beautiful ambiance. Being the nosey person I am I opened it up and it was a painting of the same beautiful woman.

"Wow! Who is this person?"

"Nuwa, come on let's go save the world!" MK shouts

I jump a bit, quickly putting back the picture and rushing out of the cave with MK.

"All right now how do we get out of here?" I say while looking at the volcano that surrounds the island.

Some monkeys are jumping on a metal crate which causes it to open and reveal some sort of flying motorbike. We hop in MK starts up the engine and we're off.

"You better not let me die on my birthday MK!" I shout

We barrel straight into the city and crash into Red Son. Falling out onto the ground and wiping the sweat off my forehead I look at the limp body of Red Son and poke him with my foot.

"Oh good, he's not dead," I say sarcastically

Mk took off on a motorbike to fight DBK and was able to retrieve the staff. I summon my bike and drive to MK to help.

"Let's do this together!" I smile at him

"Right" He smiles back

He creates a Monkey Mech and I turn my bike into a small version of my own. We nod at each other and come at DBK from both sides. I dig underground get some momentum from my thrusters and shoot upwards and MK flies down from the heavens with his staff pointed towards DBK.

We shout together, "Here comes Monkie Kid!" And we punch DBK leaving a big dent in the ground

Red Son appears from the rubble next to me and I look at him surprised that he's able to stand. But after having a little tantrum he limply falls into the hole we created and passes out once more. Before we can do anything PIF takes her family and retreats for now.

I transform my Mech back into my bike and sit on it. High-five everyone and head back to Pigsy's noodle shop.

"Well, this was an interesting birthday!" I say while stuffing my face with a steaming bowl of noodles.

"Definitely one for the books" Mei replies while typing on her phone.

We party all night, MK, Mei and I go to the arcade and I beat some serious butt. Once we're done and exhausted MK carries all my prizes to my apartment which is right above his. Deciding to have a sleepover Mei and I get ready and hop into our PJs. I pop some popcorn, grab some snacks and pop, and get the movies ready for a marathon. Mei grabs the blankets and pillows for our fort. I set up the food on a table, MK returns to my apartment in his pjs, we fist bump and I start the movie. While the previews play I decide to put my hair in a ponytail so I go looking for a hair tie in my room. While putting my hair up there is a knock on my French door window, I push it open and see no one but there is a small wrapped box on the porch. I take it, close the door, and start to open it. A small silver comb is in the box, I gently take it out and examine it. It was beautifully made Definitely by someone very skilled.

There is a note inside and it simply read "Happy Birthday from Monkey King"

"No way, he didn't have to get me something" I smile to myself and gently place the comb into my hair. Looking at myself in the mirror admiring what I saw. A quick flashback goes through my mind of someone handing the same comb to me. But it disappeared quickly. Shrugging it off, I return to my friends and start watching the movie.

Little did I know that Monkey King was watching and smiling down at my apartment.

"You've finally returned to me my peach," He says quietly and transforms into a bird and flies off into the now purple and blue night sky.

[goodlucktai]

i’ve been afraid of changing

tmnt 2k7 pairing: mikey & donnie, mikey & april, mikey & woody word count: 4575 pre-movie

well, i’ve been afraid of changing ’cause i’ve built my life around you but time makes you bolder even children get older and i’m getting older too

read on ao3

x

Mikey hates his job.

He thinks it for the first time on a Saturday evening when he’s lugging his catering equipment back to his van, sore all over and with a headache pounding away at the base of his skull, miserable and hungry and with another party to look forward to tomorrow morning.

He shuts the back doors, leans his forehead against one of the dusty rear windows, and thinks I hate my job.

He doesn’t know where the thought comes from. Maybe he’s just tired. Maybe he’d feel better after he got some dinner and played a few rounds of Mario Kart and clocked an hour of kitty therapy with Dr Klunk, PhD. Maybe it’s not a big deal. If he’s learned any one thing from daytime TV, it’s that everyone hates their job.

But it’s the first time Mikey’s ever hated anything about his life. He’s always had his brothers. He’s always been taken care of. He’s always had a home he loved running to at the end of the day. Sure, he didn’t get to play in the sun when he was little, or go to those cool fusion restaurants downtown that April liked, or hit up the movies or the skatepark without enough planning and subterfuge beforehand that the whole thing felt more like the Invasion of Normandy than a fun night out. But his childhood was a happy one. And for awhile he’d had this crazy idea that happiness wasn’t something you were supposed to outgrow.

But now Raph is mean and reclusive. And Donnie is short-tempered and too busy for anything besides his computer. And Leo is still gone. And Mikey hates his job.

He climbs into his van and just sits in the driver’s seat for a minute. He didn’t wear his headset today, because Donnie hasn’t used their private channel in weeks anyway, so what’s the point. There isn’t a familiar little voice in his ear telling him to get a move on, Mike. Don’t stay up there too long. It isn’t safe. Come home. Which is good. He doesn’t want to go home.

He thinks maybe he hates it there.

x

The thing is, Mikey is halfway to Rupert’s to pick up a pie for his birthday, when it occurs to him that he should be upset that his brothers forgot. He actually stops short, halfway down a fire escape, letting that percolate in his brain for a minute.

He should be disappointed or annoyed or hurt, right? But he’s not any of those things. He’s not even sad.

He hasn’t seen Raph in like three days. Donnie had breakfast with Mikey this morning, but the older turtle had shadows under his eyes, and this pale, brittle way about him that Mikey clocked as a migraine and a chronic lack of sleep, so he immediately curbed his own energy and made a mental note to leave his brother alone.

Their birthdays are stupid, made-up things anyway. Dates they picked for each other when they were little, and marked on a big calendar that Splinter hung outside the dojo. Leo’s was a couple months ago, and that night Donnie and Raph got into a screaming fight about—Mikey doesn’t even know what.

Maybe they’ve outgrown birthdays. Maybe Mikey’s going to outgrow every single good thing about his entire life until there’s nothing left but a job he hates doing and a home he never wants to go back to.

Woody is waiting for him out behind the pizzeria. There’s a private drive back there for delivery trucks but the gate is locked at all other times. The building behind Rupert’s is vacant, its windows boarded up. It’s a safe spot for Mikey to venture out of the shadow into the warm, flickering light of the kitchen where it pours from the door Woody has propped open.

His human friend is sitting on an upturned plastic vegetable crate, and smiles automatically when he sees Mikey.

“Hey, amigo,” Woody says, offering his fist for a bump. “Bingo—”

It’s such instant relief to be around somebody who wants Mikey around. He didn’t even realize how much tension he was carrying until he exhales and a bunch of muscles in his back and shoulders go loose and suddenly it’s a little easier to hold his head up.

He grins back and completes the fist bump. “—bongo!”

Woody is still on the clock, but it’s a slow night, and his sister Darcy is running things up front. Mikey met her by accident last year when he was hanging out with Woody in the prep kitchen after close and neither of them were paying attention to the footsteps thumping down the stairs from the second-floor apartment. He’s never told his brothers about that because they’ll probably kill him. Besides, Darcy’s cool.

They head inside, kicking the door shut behind them. The packed heat of the pizza ovens and the heady smell of garlic and oregano and basil is so familiar it brings a rush of comfort.

Mikey stays for hours. They cook pizzas and break-and-bake cookies and a very wonky attempt at a birthday cake in one of the ovens. He goes home with a bag full of leftovers and a meticulously-wrapped present from Darcy that she refused to let him open in front of her. Before he left, Woody hugged him so thoroughly that the warmth of it stayed with Mikey for the entire journey underground.

It doesn’t last long after that.

“Where the hell’ve you been?” Raph barks at him by way of hello when Mikey is barely two steps through the door. There’s a big duffel on the floor next to him, so either he just got in or he’s on his way out.

Mikey should rise to this, he thinks. He should be full of festering hurt, disappointment, resentment. You forgot about my birthday and now you’re giving me shit over a non-existent curfew?

It wasn’t so long ago that he was willing to get right in Raph’s face when Raph was being especially antagonistic. Mikey doesn’t wear anger like his brothers do, but everyone has put on a jacket that didn’t really fit once or twice.

He used to goad and wheedle and harass his big brother into venting his feelings the only way he knew how. Tussles and shouting matches were a vehicle for Raph to express the parts of himself he wasn’t comfortable with talking about. Mikey knows that. And he knows that Raph is always angling for a fight these days because he has so much he needs to say to somebody.

But Mikey isn’t the person he needs. The person all three of them need. He couldn’t be even if he tried. He doesn’t want to try.

He hates his job and he hates being home and he’s beginning to hate how Raphael talks to him like they’re total strangers who made a bad first impression on each other and never managed to forget it.

“I was at Rupert’s,” Mikey says, walking past him. “If you needed something while I was out, you could have texted me. You still have my number, right?”

It takes the shape of a joke, the way he used to tease a good mood out of moments like this. He sets his bag on the table and roots through it, coming up with a tinfoil-covered pizza round. There’s a birthday cake underneath the foil, the sides uncertain and lopsided because it wasn’t big enough to bake to the edges of the round, the buttercream icing a little lumpy and way too rich.

It’s Mikey’s favorite thing in the whole world, because he and Woody laughed the entire time they made it, about a hundred different things, and somehow it tastes like laughter, like they managed to bake that in there with the butter and vanilla. It almost feels like it doesn’t belong in this kitchen. He puts it on the counter anyway.

“There’s dessert if you want it,” Mikey says, meeting Raph’s eyes from right across the room and about a thousand miles away. Raph is frowning at him, but the anger from a moment ago isn’t there anymore. Mikey doesn’t want to know what fresh new thing Raphael has to frown about, so he says goodnight and goes looking for his cat.

x

He cancels a gig. He doesn’t tell Donnie. He doesn’t get out of bed. No one comes looking for him. Everyone else is busy, everyone else is on track. Mikey can’t keep up.

x

Donnie corners him on some random Thursday. It’s been a few weeks since Mikey’s worked and a part of him has been dreading this confrontation. It was only a matter of time.

“We don’t need the money,” Mikey says. Because they don’t. Donnie has been seeding funds from untraceable backdoors into Fortune 500 companies for years. The jobs were Donnie’s idea to keep them busy, back when sensei first forbade them from doing ninja stuff while Leo was gone. “What does it matter if I quit?”

“It’s not about money, it’s about responsibility. If you make a commitment, you stick to it,” Donnie grinds out. His voice is carefully measured, straining on the brink of losing his patience. For some reason, it’s rubbing Mikey wrong. It’s making him feel itchy and restless.

Responsibility. Commitment. What do his brothers know about keeping promises? About sticking to it? They’ve abandoned Mikey one after the other and now Donnie is lecturing him about responsibility and commitment.

“You can’t make me go,” Mikey blurts, too loud. “I won’t. I don’t want to.”

“Jesus,” Donnie mutters, rubbing his forehead. He’s already so fed-up with Mikey after like three seconds of conversation that Mikey can feel his eyes start to sting. “The last thing I want to do is fight with you, Mike. I thought you liked Cowabunga Carl.”

It’s not fair. Donnie’s so smart. He’s tired and overworked and unhappy, but he’s smart. How can he get this one thing so wrong? How can he not know Mikey as well as he used to, like all of those years of being each other’s best friends and co-conspirators and secret-keepers from where they were relegated to the “B Team” aren’t as intrinsic and important and fundamental to him as they are to Mikey? How can he look at Mikey, right in the face, and not understand him at all?

Something breaks.

“I hate it!” Mikey screams. His chest is full of heat and air and nothing he can dig his hands into and ground himself in, just emptiness and panic. “I hate my job, I hate going up there by myself, I hate driving in rush hour traffic, I hate being around strangers who wouldn’t want anything to do with me if they found out I was a freak of nature, I hate the kids when they scream and run around because it makes me feel like I’m in danger even though I know that’s stupid! I hate all of it, I hate going out there and I hate coming back here, and I hate that none of you love me anymore! I hate you!”

There would be a ringing silence in the lair, if not for the way Mikey’s chest is heaving as he gulps for air. He’s crying, but he can still see the way Donnie’s face has gone slack and sickly white with horror, the way he’s looking at Mikey like he’s a fucking alien creature in the living room that Donnie has no idea how to communicate with. They don’t know each other anymore.

“Mikey,” Donnie whispers.

Mikey takes a shaky step back, then another. That burst of too much feeling has left him, deserted him, and now he’s reeling from the lack of it.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he says hoarsely. “I didn’t mean it. I love you.”

Donnie’s hands catch him before he can move another inch.

“Please don’t go, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Hey, look at me.” Those same hands let go of Mikey’s arms and cup his face, framing it carefully and keeping him still. Donnie moves into his line of sight, his eyes round and full, mouth pressed into a wobbling line. “I love you, too. Of course I love you. I’m here. I never should have—I never should have let you think I was anywhere else. I’m right here, okay? Don’t go.”

His hands move again, pulling Mikey into an embrace so tight it almost hurts.

“I don’t hate you,” Mikey sobs. He can’t believe he said that. He can’t believe he knew how to say those words in that order.

“Mikey, I know,” Donnie replies. His voice is all thick and watery, and he presses one hand to the back of Mikey’s head, and holds onto him like he’s terrified Mikey is going to vanish into thin air. “You don’t have a hateful bone in your body. You’re the last good thing I have.”

x

When April and Casey show up a few hours later, Mikey isn’t surprised when they make a beeline for the sofa. He freaked Donnie out pretty majorly, it’s only natural he’d call his best friends for support or advice.

What does surprise Mikey is that Casey only trades a speaking look with Donatello before tugging on Mikey’s mask tails playfully and then heading in the direction of Raph’s bedroom like a man on a mission. April, meanwhile, plants herself on the arm of the sofa on Mikey’s side and wraps her arm around his shoulders.

“I don’t know about Casey, but I’m here for one reason and one reason only,” she confides in him. “To make Donnie watch this bootleg of RENT that I just downloaded from a potentially malicious website. You in?”

Donnie makes a disgruntled support technician sound.

Mikey beams up at her. She’s so cool. She’s one of the best people he knows. She isn’t his friend like she’s Donnie’s and Leo’s, but she’s his big sister in a way they can’t claim. The way she cares about him hasn’t changed a smidge from day one.

“Donnie needs more culture in his life,” Mikey says. “And he’s totally gonna cry during the I’ll Cover You reprise. I’m in, times like, a billion.”

April smiles back at him and takes his face in her hand. She thumbs at his cheek like she can still see the tear tracks there from earlier but she doesn’t say anything about any of that.

She just says, “Good, ‘cause we brought enough Thai food to feed a ninja army.”

Splinter emerges from his rooms, drawn into the open atrium by the sound of their voices. Or maybe he’s in on this, too, because he doesn’t seem at all surprised by April and her formidable arsenal of takeout bags. His dark eyes are gentle as he greets her. He pats Donnie on the arm as he passes by, and tugs on the ends of Mikey’s mask tails in that affectionate way all of Mikey’s relatives do, the way Casey just did a minute ago, and then settles into his recliner.

His presence nearby is like a balm. It always is. Even though he sent Leo away, and saddled Donnie with the mantle of leadership that was never his to carry in the interim, and Mikey is sort of unhappy with him somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s still their dad. He still makes the world make a little more sense, just by being there.

They’re twenty minutes into RENT before Casey reappears, and he’s got Raph with him. Casey accepts a heaping container of green curry and rice from April, gives his red-banded best friend a truly evil look, and pointedly takes a seat in an armchair.

There’s a spot left on the sofa on Donnie’s other side, or in the other chair. Raphael, to his credit, only waffles about it for a moment before he sinks onto the couch. Mikey feels Donnie’s whole body go stiff with tension, but neither of them break into their usual song-and-dance routine—maybe in part because April is absolutely willing to take them down with extreme prejudice if they start a fight right now. Maybe because they don’t actually want to.

“What is this shit, anyway?” Raph mutters.

“Theater,” Mikey, April and Casey say at the same time—only Casey sounds significantly less enthusiastic than his little brother and his fiance both do.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Mikey adds. “Twenty bucks says you’ll have one of the songs stuck in your head tomorrow.”

“You’re on, brat,” Raphael says.

For a minute, they might as well be fifteen years old again, before they started getting tugged in different directions, before Leo’s absence drove a wedge between them that honestly feels like nursing a knife between the ribs.  

Raph turns his head, golden eyes darting past Donnie to look at Mikey sidelong. Mikey finds himself thinking that it’s absolutely crazy he could have ever found anything about Raphael unfamiliar. That’s his brother. No matter what else changes, that’s always going to be true.

So Mikey sticks his tongue out at him. Surprise, relief, and good humor run through Raph’s expression one after the other, and they all settle into a comfortable scowl.

“Pass me that chicken satay before I come over there and take it from you,” he demands.

Donnie snatches one of the skewers off the plate as it changes hands in front of him and smugly says, “Taxes.”

“I’ll show you taxes—”

“Okay, boys, I love the bonding going on here, but talk through Light My Candle and see what happens,” April interjects pleasantly.

Raph and Donnie shut right up. Casey snorts and mutters “cowards” under his breath. Mikey leans against his sister and bites into an eggroll so he doesn’t say something really embarrassing about how much he’s missed family movie night.

Splinter watches them more than he watches the musical. Like something about the rowdy, reactive audience they make is more precious and compelling than anything Broadway could ever have to offer.

x

Donnie works about half as much as he used to, and drags Mikey into his lab with him the rest of the time. Sometimes they tinker and talk, other times Donnie starts, like, solving world hunger or the energy crisis, and Mikey parks himself on the loveseat and watches a movie.

He started out with headphones and a laptop, but then Donnie scolded him for trying to loop him out of Legally Blonde. Now they project movies onto the wall so Donnie can watch while he works, and Mikey can make silly commentary, and it feels like they’re friends again.

Mikey doesn’t hate being at home so much anymore.

“But Donnie can’t babysit me forever,” Mikey confides in Woody sometime later. They’re in the kitchen at Rupert’s, after closing time, and Mikey is helping him shut the place down. Right now he’s doing the books in the broom closet of a back office while Mikey hangs over the back of his computer chair and idly swings himself back and forth, the ever-important moral support. “He hates his job, but he has to have something productive to do or he’ll go crazy. That’s why we started working in the first place. I need to figure something out, too. Not Cowabunga Carl. Something I won’t—hate.”

“Donnie’s a genius, right?” Woody asks abruptly. “He has like two actual PhDs that he got just for fun?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Mikey says. 

“Call me crazy, Mikester, but maybe he’d be happier if he found a job that played to his strengths.” 

Woody shuffles receipts around on the desk until he finds the computer mouse and then Googles “new york remote jobs phd graduate” and gets hundreds of results with buzz words like “researcher” and “scientist” and “engineer” that make more sense in relation to Mikey’s polymath brother than entry level tech support. Mikey reads over his shoulder with wide eyes. 

“Look, NYU is hiring. He won’t even need a teaching degree to work at the university.”

“E-mail that to me,” Mikey demands.

He feels full of purpose. He imagines Donnie as a professor, explaining any number of impossibly complicated subjects to his students the way he’s been happy to explain things to Mikey since they were toddlers discovering the world together. He imagines Donnie brainstorming with colleagues whose minds are as bright as his.

Mikey wants it for him so badly he’s annoyed with himself for not coming up with this idea a year and a half ago.

Woody is watching Mikey in that careful sideways manner that makes Mikey think there’s something else he wants to say.

“You know,” the human settles on, “I’m kind of hurt.”

Mikey is a ninja, and more than that, he’s the youngest of four dynamic, explosive personalities, so he’s good at sussing out tones. Woody is clearly joking, so Mikey tips his head, more curious than anything.

“What’d I do to you?”

“You left me hangin’, amigo. You quit that catering gig—which was the right call—but now you’re sending your resume everywhere but here.” He shakes his head, mock-solemn. Mikey is staring at him.

“I don’t have a resume.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Rupert’s is hiring?”

“You see anybody else back here, bud?” Woody’s smiling at him. “Uncle Rupert cooks days, I cook nights. But nights are significantly busier, and sometimes my uncle comes back in to help me out. He’s gonna work himself into an early grave at this rate. We’ve been looking to add onto the night crew for months.”

Mikey feels like the world just tilted off its axis. He glances around at the kitchen he knows so well, the place he spends all his free time, because it’s where his best friend works. He thinks of how often he helps Woody knead dough, prep gallons and gallons of sauce, box up orders. The countless evening hours they spend drinking cream soda and eating cheesy breadsticks or Chinese from across the street and watching cable TV on the crappy plasma mounted on the wall.

He thinks of doing all of that as a job. He would love it. He didn’t know he could have a job that he loved.

“Really?” he says quietly.

Woody laughs at whatever his face looks like. He gets up and shoves open the order window and bellows, “Darce, take that Help Wanted sign out of the window! And text Uncle Rupert! Mike’s on board.”

“Thank GOD,” Darcy shouts back, and audibly stomps all the way across the tiny lobby to rip their handmade paper sign down.

“Uncle Rupert’ll love you,” Woody confides in Mikey, dropping back into his seat. “I mean, he loves you already. We talk about you enough at home. He doesn’t know you’re a turtle, but I don’t think it’ll be a big deal. You’re way more normal than that one delivery guy who drops off the produce order every Tuesday in a glittery tux, and Rupert keeps him around.”

“That guy’s so weird,” Mikey says, and he’s sort of crying, but he’s laughing at the same time.

x

A little over two years after Leo left New York, April followed a ghost story through a South American jungle and managed to track down the familiar boy behind it. She did her best to convince him to come home, because missing him was like missing a limb.

She told him about Donnie lecturing on half a dozen different topics at NYU, and Raph getting hooked on musical theater, and Casey sneaking Mikey into Comic Con in a DIY Bowser costume just to get an exclusive variant cover edition of the new Silver Sentry comic and how extremely grounded they both were for that.

She didn’t say they’re lost without you, because she didn’t think that was true anymore. But if she knew her friend as well as she thought she did—as well as she used to—then it should be enough just to tell him that his brothers needed him. They missed him. They loved him, and he wasn’t there.

Mikey hears all of this firsthand, about eleven and a half hours later, when April’s plane touches down at LaGuardia and she calls the lair the second she’s allowed to turn her cellphone back on.

He and Donnie are just getting in at around three in the morning, because Mikey is a tiny bit drunk. Rupert hauled down a case of craft beer after closing time and Darcy goaded everyone into a drinking contest and Mikey discovered that a mutagen-reinforced metabolism has nothing on a family of Irish-Americans. Woody called Donnie, and Donnie agreed to come pick Mikey up, and Darcy sat on Mikey’s carapace until his brother got there, because none of them wanted him wandering the sewers and getting lost.

Everyone worries about him a little more than they used to. But the Dirkins clan sent him off with waves and laughter, and Donnie was smiling crookedly as he guided Mikey’s clumsy limbs down a manhole ladder, and all of it made Mikey feel cared-for. It reminded him of being younger, being taken care of.

By the time they get home, Mikey’s burned through the fun parts of too much alcohol and now he has a pounding headache. Donnie points him toward a chair at the kitchen table and starts rummaging around in the fridge for the coconut water he keeps on hand for Casey and Raph when they’re in a similar state.

And then April calls the repurposed payphone that serves as their landline and says she found Leo, and Mikey’s heart jumps right into his throat.

“He said he wasn’t coming back, but you should have seen the look on his face,” April says. She sounds croaky and exhausted from her exploits and the red-eye flight, but her voice is still full of care and hope and optimism. “He’s homesick. He misses you guys so much. He doesn’t want to be out there anymore.”

Mikey wants to ask her how she knows for sure. He wants to beg for some kind of impossible guarantee. But he can hear Casey in the background of her call, probably waiting at the arrivals gate to take her home, so instead he says, “Thanks, Apricot. Thank you. Get home safe, okay? Tell Case I said ‘or else’.”

“You bet, honey. I’ll see you later.”

Donnie couldn’t hear the other half of the conversation, even with his freaky ninja hearing, but he knows how to read Mikey’s expression like a book. He’s holding a glass of that fancy water like he’s forgotten it’s in his hand, and his clever eyes are narrow and darting across his little brother’s face.

“What is it?” he asks as soon as Mikey hangs the phone up. “Is everything okay?”

Mikey doesn’t answer right away. He’s still processing.

The truth is, Leo has always had the same number one priority. Before his father’s expectations, before his duty as the eldest son, before his own wants and goals and secret childhood wishes, he had one thing he always put first.

If his brothers need him, he’ll drop everything. He’ll run to them, wherever they are.

Maybe that's still true. Maybe Mikey still knows how to believe in that.

So he looks up at Donnie and says, “I think so.” He even really means it.

[harpagornis]

Pride Bar

To wrap about pride 2024 (as well as my own first visit to a gay bar)

Work Text:

"Yup, definitely an improvement" Sydney said.

The Smoke Room couldn't hold a candle to La Cerva, one of Payton's three gay bars. It was neatly packed between two restaurants, and had a single large window, revealing the rainbow floors and walls. Neon lights began to provide ambiance as the sun set behind the buildings.

"Welp, first time in one of these" Carl said, "Wish me luck."

"Liar" Flynn said, "You lot barged into The Smoke Room back in Echo."

"Only to save you!" Carl said, kissing his scaly boyfriend in the lips.

TJ looked into Sydney's eyes and they two shared a kiss.

Hand in hand, both couples entered La Cerva.

***

"And what will you have?" a serval bartender said.

"A Gin Rickey for me" Sydney said, before turning to Flynn "You wanted a Bramble?"

"Nah, just order pink lemonade."

"Alright, one Gin Rickey and three pink lemonades."

"For a group in a bar you sure are anti-alcoholic" the serval snarked, "But you do you."

"Oh, you really don't want those two drunk" Sydney said, pointing at Carl and Flynn.

"Hey!" Carl said indignantly, "You're the one who gets into pirate songs with three beers!"

"What can I say, I'm a fun drunk. You're not, though."

"Please don't actually get drunk" TJ said.

"For you babe, just one drink and I'm done."

Sydney kissed TJ in the lips, and the lemonades and Gin Rickey arrived at the counter. The four amigos took small sips of their chosen bevaraje, eying the PDAs and conversations of the other patrons.

"This is a nice place" TJ said.

"A boring one" Flynn said

"You're hoping there's a dark room, aren't ya?" Carl said, hooved hand passing softly over scaly skin.

"Nah, I'm past that."

Saying that, Flynn grabbed Carl by the hand and both headed to the dance floor. Carl looked midly uncomfortable, and so TJ and Sydney joined them.

"Thanks, guys" Carl said, and slowly he began to dance, enjoying the rhytmn of the music.

***

"So, should we repeat?" TJ asked.

"Sure, was nice" Flynn said.

"Alright, let's head home" Carl said, and the group crossed the street.

As they drove away, TJ looked one last time at the bar. Indeed, it was nicer than anything Echo could offer.

[bristolianbackpacker]

Day 2 - Buenos Aires

Ben wakes up at 4:30am but Jack manages to sleep until a more respectable time. First stop of the day is to go to Western Union to collect some Pesos. The money situation here is complex and bizarre but basically because of the high inflation and Argentinians distrust of their own currency they have limits on how many USD they can buy. This has created a black market (called the Blue Dollar) for exchange which charges them a higher rate but works out good for tourists. Rather than doing this and having to bring USD notes we opted for a Western Union transfer which currently gives an even better rate than the Blue Dollar.

Once we managed to find the store we collect our wads of notes and stash them in our backpack and head off to try and buy a Subte (subway) card. This proves more challenging…the station has run out and we need to get to the city for our 10:30am walking tour. Overhearing our confusion in trying to understand the station staff, a kind stranger helps us out in translation. It turns out we need to walk 4 blocks to another station, and the kind stranger who lives in New York but is originally from Spain is also heading to the same walking tour and needs a card too. So we head off with our new amigo on a mission to find one of these elusive cards. 20 minutes and multiple enquiries later and having paid more than we should have we are finally proud owners of a Sube card.

We make it to the start of the tour Teatro Colón - a very impressive building. This is more the Buenos Aires I was expecting. Our excellent guide takes us on a three hour walking tour of the Recoleta and Retiro areas…some of the wealthiest areas of the city that were developed during the early 1900s. The architecture continued to impress with all of the palaces from wealth aristocratic families lining the streets.

We have a 90min stop for lunch before our second walking tour this arvo - perfect for a long lunch we think. There is a restaurant near to the end of our tour that was recommended to us so we head there. We opt for the set menu lunch - red wine, empanadas, a spring salad, coffee and ice cream.

After an hour we realise that 90mins is not that long to get through all of that and we rush down as much ice cream as we can fit before dashing for a bus. Everything in BA seems quite spread out and taking the Subte isn’t usually the quickest method. We wouldn’t normally opt for a bus but it’s apparently quicker than an Uber, the traffic is heavy and there is a protest near the end of the trip against privatisation of the biggest bank. Whilst it seems quite big it’s nowhere near as big as the one a few days earlier related to cuts to public education that drew 500k people onto the streets. We end up being 10mins late but they haven’t started yet.

The afternoon tour is quite different to the morning tour - it starts at Congress and covers Palacio Barolo, Evita, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (who bravely protested against the military dictatorship to find answers on their missing children), the Argentinian economy & political situation and ended up at Casa Rosada (Pink Government House).

Lots of steps later and still jet lagged so we needed a nap to be able to make it to dinner at a respectable time in Argentina.

We head out for dinner in Palermo at 9pm and have our first steak. It’s easily one of the best steaks I’ve had. It comes with egg, provolone cheese, potatoes and other fried veggies and a salad. All washed down with a bottle of Malbec. Not the healthiest dinner but delicious! We go to pay the bill but I’ve realised that I brought $10,000 instead of $100,000 so onto the credit card it goes - oops.

Next we head to a bar where we bumped into a guy from our afternoon tour - another New Yorker! After chatting for a while we don’t get back home until 1:30am 😴😴😴

[providing-leverage]

prompt 22 for two aces pls! 🤲🏼

22. let's go on vacation somewhere cheesy and act like we're a couple wouldn't that be sooooo funny haha

I'm always a sucker for them taking a trip to Mexico.

"Are you sure about this?" Jamie whispers, still fildling with the napkin in his lap. If it was a paper one instead of cloth, nothing but shredd would be left.

Across from him, Dani grins. "Si, Jamie. It is a family tradition. A Rojas cannot come to this place and not."

Jamie can't say no to that smile. He never has been able to. "Alright amigo. You ready?"

Their dinner plates have long been cleared away, including the most amazing tamales Jamie's had in his entire life. Mexican food really is better in Mexico. Who would'a thought? Now it's just them, their drinks, and crumbs of chocolate cake.

Nodding, Dani reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out a simple wooden box. Jamie gasps loud enough to draw the attention of the entire restaurant as Dani slides from his seat and drops to one knee.

"Jamie Allen Tartt," Dani begins in a grand tone. "for the last three years you have made me the happiest man alive. I live for your laugh, your kind heart, your sexy body."

A little scandalized but also a lot delighted, Jamie yelps, "Dani!"

"Your strong moral compass and ability to overcome headship take my breath away constantly. Every day is better for having you by my side and I want nothing more than to experience your light every day for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?"

"Oh Dani, of course I will."

The restaurant explodes into applause as Jamie takes the ring from the box and slips it into his finger. It's old but beautiful. Handmade by Dani's great great grandfather. And no stranger to this restaurant, which comps the meals of any couple that gets engaged on the premise.

Apparently Dani's aunt Rosa has a lifelong ban from the restaurant.

From the corner of his eye, Jamie notices a sharply dressed woman heading towards them, the name tag on her shirt glinting in the light. A manager. One who's been here a while, judging by the way she's eyeing the ring.

Shit, they're blown. It's not actually a big deal. They can more than afford to pay. But Jamie is nothing if not committed to the bit.

To hide the ring, Jamie reaches out to cup Dani's head, hand slipping through Dani's long hair. He then uses that grip to pull Dani towards him and press their lips together.

Kissing Dani is... Well it's a lot like kissing anyone else, Jamie supposes, except for the fact that he can't remember the last time a kiss made fireworks go off in his stomach.

After a while, maybe too long because Jamie's lungs are begging for air, he pulls back. Dani's eyes are blown wide. For a second he fears that he's messed up but then Dani is the one grabbing Jamie by the shirt and hauling him back for a kiss.

Just for their cover though. Definitely.

[twopoppies]

Gina, help! I did it again. Was in the middle of a fic then something else shiny caught my eye & I can’t remember the fic I was reading. Louis is the newest employee in an office where Harry and Niall work. Harry bakes Louis brownies. The three of them go to lunch several times at a restaurant called Tres Amigos. Harry is smitten with Louis but can’t tell if Louis in on board. Can you help?!

Hi, sugar. I don't think I know that one.

Does anyone else know this fic?

[threeamigosrestaurants]

Best Restaurant on Boat Quay | Three amigos

Three Amigos Mexican Restaurant in Singapore is the number one spot on Boat Quay Singapore for Mexican food.

[adtothebone]

The Torah/Old Testament had the burning bush.

Three Amigos had the singing bush.

The restaurant guests had the amuse-bouche.

Dale had something from the garage fridge made by Anheuser-Busch.

[unmaskthemagic]

Number Correspondences

I'm going to start posting my study of correspondences. I'll list how I relate to the subject first and then I'll list some common correspondences. I'm realizing correspondences are a good base for understanding why and how witchcraft works, while also making spells, potions, rituals, etc. more meaningful for me.

I'm starting with numbers, because I have been making number correspondences since I was a kid. I suspect this may be an aspect of my autism, but I love categorizing things and I used to put numbers into little families. Like literal families with siblings and parents and aunts and cousins. From what I've learned with tarot, some of my assignments were pretty intuitive, too. I'll include some of my childhood interpretations, as well as what I think now.

0

My interpretation: 0 is God. Or sometimes just the great great great grandfather. 0 was patriarchal in my younger christian years, but now I see it as a force behind everything and nothing. It is a mystery and infinite.

Common: the void, complete nothingness, wholeness, infinity, all or nothing, beginning and end

1

My interpretation: 1 was also a patriarchal number for me as a child. I always thought of him as a grandpa. I could never decide who his kids were, but he was always a father figure to 2. 1 also signifies either success or being alone to me. I picture the dollar bill that's framed in a restaurant, commemorating the first dollar they ever earned. Or a gold medal with a big number one on it. Or a single tree or person, with nothing around them.

Common: innovation, independent, creation, proactive, simple, self

2

My interpretation: As a kid, 2 changed genders. but they were always happy-go-lucky and partners with 3. 2 was full of positivity, probably because 2's and even numbers were always the easiest multiplication. Now 2 is still a happy number for me. It can mean opposites or sameness, but there's always a partnership. It connects single things together. Like salt and pepper, the sides of our body, yin and yang, symmetry, etc. I also like eating small things in twos, so both sides of my mouth taste something.

Common: peace, intuition, indecisiveness, teamwork, feminine

3

My interpretation: 3 has always been feminine to me. Maybe because it looks like a feminine body in several ways? 3 in my childhood was the slightly more spunky partner of 2. 3 kind of made things difficult sometimes, but it was still a great number. Now I think of the common archetypes in stories of the character trio. The Three Amigos, Three Musketeers, Luke, Leia, and Han, Hermione, Harry, and Ron. 3 is just a good round number, that I feel brings more balance than 2.

Common: creativity, positivity, social interaction, youthful

4

My interpretation: 4 is the stable one. As a child I had her married to 5. Sometimes 3 was her sister and sometimes her daughter. But when I think of 4, I think of balance and equality. A square, a table, a chair, animals with four legs. 4 is calm and collected and you can depend on 4.

Common: strength, stability, home, practical

5

My interpretation: 5 was always a father figure in my mind. He's brothers with 6, married to 4, and 2 and 3 are his kids. He's kind of the middle of the whole family. Everyone is related to him. He's amiable and a fun dad. Now I still think of 5 as a friendly number. 5 is very useful and makes life/math easier. I always picture it as a person wearing a baseball cap too, haha.

Common: change, adventure, energy, freedom

6

My interpretation: 6 was the smarter brother of 5. Sometimes he is married to 9 with 3 as his daughter. 6 is quick-witted, a bit of a puzzle sometimes. I also think of all even numbers as more balanced than odd numbers, for obvious reasons. I guess I occasionally think of it as the devil's number, but that's never really felt right to me.

Common: love, harmony, destiny

7

My interpretation: 7 is a troublemaker. 7 was also androgynous and I could never decide which gender to assign to them (in my limited view of gender binaries as a kid. Now I accept that 7 is fully genderfluid). 7 was sometimes married to 8 and sometimes best friends with 8. Occasionally they would date 9. They are the younger sibling of 6 and 5. 7 has always been very mischievous and also just a difficult number. It likes to play jokes on me, which can be fun sometimes. I also sometimes associate Slurpees with 7, lol.

Common: perfection, truth, analytical, curiosity

8

My interpretation: 8 was 9's sibling and also switched genders. They were always 7 or 9's sidekick, because they're more of a quiet one. I always pictured the 8 as a pair of nerdy glasses, always overshadowed by their sister 9 or friend/partner 7. 8 was good friends with 4. Nowadays I don't feel like 8 is quite as sad as I made them when I was a kid. 8 is more centered and peaceful. I now picture 8 as someone meditating with their legs crossed.

Common: ego, peace, achiever, responsible

9

My interpretation: 9 is like the older version of 3. In fact sometimes they were good friends, sometimes mother and daughter, sometimes aunt and niece. 9 was the fun aunt who was always going on adventures. She would sometimes be partners with 6 or 7 and always siblings with 8. She was outgoing, flirtatious, and fun-loving. I still think of 9 this way, but I also have a hard time with them sometimes. I'm not sure what it is, but they remind me of someone who is really happy and confident on the outside, but not that way on the inside.

Common: experience, charming, spiritual creativity, empathy

To come up with common interpretations, I googled "[number] numerology" and scanned for some keywords on various website. Through this process I realized numerology is incredibly complicated and I have a lot to learn about it! I had no idea numbers are sometimes considered equal to a zodiac sign. Definitely don't rely on my common interpretations, because I am not an expert at all.

[umichenginabroad]

Stockholm Week 11-2: Marvelous Days in Barcelona!!! 

Barcelona post is finally here!

Let's get started right away, starting with my flight to Barcelona.

3/27 Wed: Park Güell.ᐟ.ᐟ.ᐟ 

It was my second 6 am flight and I knew the drills. Night bus, Flygbussarna, airport. 

We safely landed in Barcelona and arrived at our hotel to store our luggage before the check-in. 

Our neighborhood was so cute 

The first event I scheduled was the guided tour at Park Güell. 

On the way up the steep hills, I stopped to get the first gelato in Spain. He let me taste three different flavors before choosing - my pick was Strawberry 🍓

I didn’t know I signed up for hiking—walking up all those stairs made me go out of breath. However, the view from the top of the hill was magnificent. 

Birds were greeting us when we finally arrived at the entrance. They were so cute < 3

The guide explained the meanings and purpose behind the structures and architecture. Gaudi’s use of geography and geometry was intricate to the point that it was unreal.  

I walked around for another hour or so to capture everything before I leave 

The guide told us that there is no official documentation of Gaudi, just assumptions formulated around his work. Therefore, the tour gave me a sneak peek into Gaudi’s alleged thoughts and life. 

While we waited for our two other friends to arrive in Barcelona, we walked around La Rambla at night. I couldn’t capture it but it was so alive and attractive. I stopped by multiple shops and got postcards for 1 euro each! 

After walking to the end of the road, we stopped by the port. 

It would’ve been a cute fountain if a stream of water came out from its mouth

All four of us united for dinner at 10 pm. The paella we ordered was huge -- we were glad that we didn’t order two since it would've taken us hours to finish it.

Delicious chicken paella! 

3/28 Thu: Casa Batlló, Picasso Museum, Shôko 

In the morning, we all met up outside of Casa Batlló. As tourists, we didn’t forget to take a billion photos. 

The building looked like it was flowing because of the shapes that were used  

We moved on to Sagrada Familia, where my two friends had a tour scheduled. I had my guided tour booked for Saturday, so I stayed outside and took more pictures in front of Sagrada Familia. 

It’s scheduled to finish construction by 2034, but that’s if EVERYTHING goes well

While my two friends were busy doing the tour, we went to the beach area and rested there for a bit before heading to try our first menu del dia at the restaurant called Granja Los Amigos. Menu del dia is a cheap Spanish course lunch where you typically get a first meal, a second meal, and a dessert of your choice with drinks on the side. The flan at this place was so good that I scraped the dish after I ate all of it -- and I don’t even like flan/puddings! 

This was 12 euros for me! 

Picasso Museum was our next destination. We got in for 7 euros per person (youth price!) and it was totally worth it. Observing thousands of Picasso’s authentic artworks was an experience. 

I did not know but Picasso had a lot of connections with Barcelona: he studied here and met many Spanish artists during his stay. Picasso continuously donated his works to Barcelona!

Afterward, we walked around the vicinity (terrace and cathedrals everywhere) and ate nonstop. Tacos at Rosa Negra (highly recommend), authentic churros, concluding with a drink at night club Shoko. Shoko was located right next to the beach, so we didn’t miss the chance for a walk on the beach too! 

I spy… Jiwoo edition

3/29 Fri: Barcelona Beach + Sunset at Carmel Bunkers, Razzmatazz

Friday morning started with a restaurant failing us for the first time -- Quimet & Quimet was a tapas place I really wanted to go to, but it was closed when we got there. I fully trusted Google Maps but Google did not know that they were closed during the Easter weekend :(

So we went straight to the beach and ate brunch there. The vibes and the food were both great! 

There was a flea market going on along the beach. As a raven that likes shiny things, I could not pass without buying a bracelet and a ring :) 

We sat on the beach for a while and proceeded to get drinks to relax even more.

Yum yum

Even though it was a bit chilly with the wind in late March, Playa de la Barceloneta was packed with people.

We could stare at the beach for hours and hours if it wasn’t for the wind trying to freeze us 

After absorbing all the sunlight we couldn’t get in Stockholm, we moved on to Bunkers del Carmel. It is a popular spot for sunset and night views of Barcelona. Watching the graceful sunset and gradual illumination by the city lights was something I didn’t know I needed. We were so sad that we couldn’t stay past 7:30 pm (the police kicked everyone out), but we got a glimpse of Barcelona at night as we walked downhill. 

Bunkers del Carmel is a must-visit place in Barcelona!!! Don’t forget to bring a jacket though! It gets cold at night 

The last event of the night was visiting Razzmatazz, but it wasn’t as good as we thought it would be. But the tickets included a free drink, so we took advantage of that :) 

It was so big that we got lost a couple of times - we could go into any room in the two three-story buildings 

3/30 Sat: Boqueria Market and Sagrada Familia 

And the morning of the highlight of my Barcelona trip has come. 

For brunch, we visited Mercado de la Boqueria. They mainly sold fresh fruits, seafood, jamón, and snacks. I tried fresh mango, chocolate-covered strawberries, pastry, empanadas, and octopus (this was the best).

I can say for certain that you’ll find at least one thing you like in that market. 

I had a guided tour of La Sagrada Familia at 1 pm, so I ran (took the metro) to get there on time. The guide explained everything in and out, from the meaning of the colors to the sculptures. All I can say is that Gaudi was a talented genius who even worked hard for his passions. 

Please please please do the guided tours if you’re visiting La Sagrada Familia! It was definitely worth the price for me

After the tour, I stayed for an hour or so more in the church. I walked around and sat down in the church, constantly getting fascinated by its beauty. 

We sat at the beach (again) until we got hungry. We walked around, got some snacks, and stopped by their Airbnb to charge our phones. 

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called El Tros de la Rambla. We got two seafood paellas and GOSH it was the BEST meal I’ve had SINCE I CAME TO EUROPE. It was beyond delicious -- they must’ve done something to that cause I would eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if possible. I loved it so much that I decided to leave a review on Google Maps, but Google declined my review because it thought I got incentivized to write a fake review(...) 

It was that good! 

Following our successful meal, the last gelato in Spain was successful as well. We arrived at Gianduia, the 4.9-star gelato place, 10 minutes before the closing time but the worker was so nice (•̥̥̥ᴗ•̥̥̥)

Objectively best gelato place in Spain -- strawberry and yogurt mwah 

We sat on the steps of the cathedral, listening to people singing in the alleys, eating our gelato, and taking our time to feel the festive atmosphere of Spain. 

3/31 Sun: Barcelona to Malta~~~

I was writing this blog in Stockholm Airport, waiting to get on the plane to Malta. 

I woke up early this morning to pack everything and go to the airport. If you’re using Uber in Spain, there is a mandatory 15-minute waiting time before getting assigned to a driver so beware if you’re in a hurry!  

Instead of Uber, I used an app called Freenow (usually cheaper than Uber) to travel from and to the airport. 

We got through the security check quite quickly: I realized that not having a line for passport checks extremely cuts down the waiting time. 

For breakfast, I ate a Caesar salad with a Mango passion fruit chia smoothie at the airport. I didn’t expect them to be good but they were scrumptious! 

After the 3.5-hour flight, I arrived at ARN airport in Stockholm. I booked an evening/night flight to Malta, so I just had to wait in the airport for a couple of hours. This was why I brought a backpack and a carry-on. Although my friends made fun of me for bringing so many clothes, I knew I was going to thank myself later in Malta. 

I enjoyed Barcelona and speaking rusty Spanish from high school. In the airport, I could sense that I was going to fall in love with Malta as well. 

Check out ups and downs of my solo travel in Malta in my next post! 

Gracias, 

Jiwoo Kim

Chemical Engineering

DIS Study Abroad in Stockholm, Sweden

[thequeerhistorian]

Selena Quintanilla - Queen of Tejano

If any of you grew up in the 90s to early-2000s, you know about Selena Quintanilla. Whether it's hearing her music on the radio, or your mom's CDs/playlists, or you were made to watch the movie every year in your Spanish classes. As I have grown up, trying to learn about my own Mexican heritage, I have had the joy of teaching her songs to my mom and learning about her story. Selena has certainly become a beloved icon to Mexican heritage in general, and her love only grows with each generation that is taught about her. In celebration of this Hispanic-American Heritage Month, I want to be another person to highlight the incredible memory of the incredible Selena Quintanilla, the queen of Tejano music.

Selena was born April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. She was the youngest of three children to her parents, Abraham Quintanilla and Marcela Ofelia Samora. Selena and her siblings, Suzette and Abraham III. (A.B.) The Quintanilla family would end up opening a restaurant that would be the thing to propel Selena and her family's future.

Abraham Quintanilla was a former musician, specializing in Tejano music. (or, "tex-mex" music - a blend of both Mexican and US influences) He wanted to get his children involved in the world of music, so he had them form a band known as Selena y Los Dinos. Abraham would have Suzette play drums, A.B. on guitar, and Selena did the vocals. Perhaps as a way to bring them closer to their Mexican roots, Selena was instructed to learn Spanish and sing in Spanish. She had only spoken English up to this point.

At just the age of 9, Selena was already becoming a sensation. With her father acting as manager to get them gigs at restaurants, weddings, and other local events, Selena Y Los Dinos was already making a name for themselves. Sadly, though, the band would not be able to use their performances to sustain them in the beginning. The Quintanillas would have to declare bankruptcy and move to Corpus Christi, Texas.

There, Selena and the family began to make themselves more well-known in the Latin music world by publishing their albums under smaller Tejano labels. Due to their growing popularity, Selena would stop going to school by 8th grade, but would still get her GED and study business at Pacific Western University. In 1984, Selena Y Los Dinos released their first album, "Mis Primeras Grabaciones". They would create more albums such as "The New Girl In Town" (1985), "Alpha" (1986), "Muñequito de Trapo" (1986), "And The Winner Is..." (1987), "Preciosa" (1988), and "Dolce Amor" (1989).

During this time, Selena would be awarded with Best Female Vocalist and Performer of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards in 1987 at just fifteen. Two years later, at the Tejano Music Awards in 1989, she would sign with EMI Latin Records, and begin her solo career, releasing her album "Selena" the same year. She would still have the support of her family with her brother, A.B. writing many of her songs and acting as her producer. During this time, she would also start dating her guitarist, Chris Perez, who she married in 1992*. Coca-Cola would also sign her on as a spokesperson.

Her 1991 song, "Buenos Amigos", would hit the top of the US Billboard for Top Latin Songs. She would also release "Entre a Mi Mundo" in 1992, which would top charts in the US. She would tour Mexico and present her newest song, "Como la Flor", which would reach number 6 on the US Billboard for Top Latin Songs.

Though she was largely ignored outside of the Tejano music scene, she would begin to blossom in 1993 into the iconic popstar she is today. Her album "Live!" (1993) would earn her a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album, also becoming the first female Tejano singer to win a Grammy in that category. "Amor Prohibido" would be her next album in 1994. During that year, she would be labeled "Most Influential Texan" in Texas Monthly, and get an interview with the LA Times. She would also create her own clothing brand and a pair of boutiques in Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

By 1995, Selena would be nominated for another Grammy for Best Mexican-American performance, star as a mariachi singer in the movie "Don Juan DeMarco" with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando, as well as a few other Latin American shows such as the "Johnny Canales Show".

Sadly, and I'm sure many of you knew this was coming, Selena would not be able to show us how much her legacy would grow past 1995. During her growing career, Selena and her father, Abraham, would be approached by a former nurse named Yolanda Saldivar. Saldivar would propose a Selena fan club, which she would become the president of. Over time, Selena would have Saldivar managing one of her boutiques, believing she could trust her. Sadly, though, Selena would go to meet Saldivar at a hotel on May 31st, 1995 due to Selena's concerns that Saldivar was embezzling from her businesses. Saldivar shot the singer in the shoulder, and Selena tried to flee, collapsing, and being rushed to hospital. She would sadly succumb to her injuries in Corpus Christi, devastating the Latine community. Her family would release her final album, "Dreaming of You" posthumously in 1995.

Selena was a person full of passion. Coming from a working class life, she would remain in the working class community of Molina in Corpus Christi, despite her wealth. She would also involve herself in many social programs, such as working with the Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the Coastal Bend Aids Foundation, the D.A.R.E. Program, her PSAs for the Houston Area Women's Center and pro-education content, as well as plans to visit a Boys and Girls' Club benefit before her death. In 1997, Jennifer Lopez would star as Selena in the movie by the same name. Chris Perez, Selena's husband, would write a novel to her titled "To Selena, With Love".

Selena's legacy paved the way for new Latin American artists to really explode in the mainstream. She would be an icon for young Hispanic people everywhere. It's truly heartbreaking to lose such a kind and passionate person at such a young age, and not get to see what she could do if her career was able to continue in the way it had been. Yolanda Saldivar is able to ask for parole by 2025, but she'd better prepare for the vehemence of the Latine community for taking such an icon away from us. May Selena rest well always knowing that she is most beloved.

*One of the sources states that Selena and Chris eloped in 1999. This is not true, and I'm not sure why this was stated.

Sources: