#* sorry it's long :(

[ihatechosingnames]

Honkai Star Rail Lore and Spoilers?

So, this is actually the second attempt. The first got lost.

Kafka, even as an enemy, is exceptionally helpful in terms of lore. And with the Data Banks, we can fill a lot of plot holes, maybe left on purpose.

So, we capture Kafka and interrogate her, first with the Diviner, then alone. People leave us alone with Kafka, even when they don't trust Kafka to not pull some kind of brainwashing and even when they see a strange connection between Stelle (the female MC) and Kafka herself.

So, Elio, her boss, has already foreseen everything, even our questions, and that make Kafka tell us everything she knows, which is only a tiny part of what Elio knows. I can't wait to actually meet him. So, they lead us with tiny crumbs to do what they want, in this case, ally ourselves with Xianzhou because in the future we are going to fight Nanook the Destruction.

She actually says "in the best and the worst cases", so if we stay on a neutral case there is a tiny chance that we are not going to fight an Aeon. But I don't think we are going to have that much of a choice: Kafka telling all of that could mean two things:

1 we can fight against this prophecy, which can end up as a self-driven prophecy or we can avoid altogether this scenario

2 we do nothing and the prophecy can or not happen.

Since the Stellarion hunters are working so hard to give us all the help we may need, it's possible that we cannot avoid fighting Nanook. This may be the reason why we have a Stellarion inside our body. And the cutscene ends with Kafka telling us that even Aeons can die, and soon after our point of view changes to Dan Heng and his side of the adventure. Basically in this world, Dan Heng is a protagonist just as much as Stelle, I'm going to analyze it later.

Back to Kafka, Stelle, LORE, and juicy information.

So, in the game, up to this moment, 5 Aeons are already dead, killed, or disappeared. The names are Long the Permanence, Idrila the Beauty, Ena the Order, Tayzzyronth the Propagation, and Akivili the Trailblaze.

Kafka is giving so much information that she also tells us how two of these five died:

So, that explains why we don't have any information about Ena in the Data Bank, they were assimilated by another Aeon. But how does Kafka know it?

From the Data Bank, Tayzzyronth duplicated himself "a torrent of infinite propagation. [...] fluttered across the worlds until their advances were halted by fate in some way."

Funnily enough, Dan Heng's side starts with Luocha talking about the Propagation and the mortality of Aeons.

But nobody says which Aeon did the deed. Could it be it was the Hunt while he was searching for the Abundance? After all, their names share a similitude:

Propagation: 1. the breeding of specimens of a plant or animal by natural processes from the parent stock

Abundance: 1. a very large quantity of something.

It may be a theory since the Abundance's symbol is wheat and in the game is associated with plants, such as the Big Tree.

Theory number 1: Lan the Hunt killed the Propagation while pursuing the Abundance.

Back to Kafka, Stelle asks about Akivili's fate:

Nobody knows. In the Data Bank: "Akivili's destiny was abruptly ended due to an accident", which tells nothing. Curiously, even Idrila the Beauty disappeared with no one knowing a thing: "The Aeon of Beauty suddenly vanished one day. It was just as mysterious as when they first appeared." So Akivili disappeared one day and it was not something decided by fate; Idrila disappeared, probably in the same way they appeared.

Of the five Aeons, three were discussed by Kafka and two by Dan Heng's party. And color me surprised, they talked about Long the Permanence.

So a specie that lives in Xianzhou is a descendant of an Aeon, Long the Permanence. And they are related to dragons. Since Sushang is someone who doesn't like school, it's Dan Heng, Mr "I can't set foot on Xianzhou for multiple reasons regarding my backstory", which tells us what we need.

And say, Dan Heng, how do you know all of this? It's more than what normal people should know, more like inside knowledge.

Theory number 2: Dan Heng, since his nickname is Cold Dragon Young, is a Vidyadhara and he was banished because he messed up a serious and important rite regarding Blade. But from the character story, it looks like he ran away and changed his name and face (maybe he reincarnated like they said about the Vidyadhara, even though it's said they have draconic features) to avoid detection and he is scared of someone (Blade, if we connect the dots with the Light Cone "Nowhere to Run") who has a killing intent against him, bad enough to follow him and destroy every single ship he (Dan Heng) was on. Dan Heng possibly is one of the rare descendants that inherit the trait to become a dragon. Whatever it means.

Side note: Am I the only one to see that Luocha and Dan Heng have similar clothing? Luocha is hella sus with a huge casket, his knowledge, the fact he was on the port after the blockade, his Path being the Abundance... This all leads to him being a kind of enemy, but it's such a huge red flag that is natural to put the focus on him.

The wiki also says "Luocha, also known as Rakshasa, are a type of evil spirit in Buddhist mythology who eat human flesh". Great way to name a character who is a healer, Hoyoverse. It's like they are trying to shout "LOOK AT HIM AND HIS HUGE RED FLAG".

[radium901]

my grandmother told me all parts of being a woman lead back to being a mother. mother to all things in the universe, so that makes you my son.

son, i have a dream i need to get off my chest. i sleep on a twin size mattress, bright yellow bedsheets i'm sure you're acquainted. there i dreamt, more or less, about my sister breaking her arm again. in the foyer of a house, my home supposedly, apparently, i watched her stand, bone shearing flesh in the same spot as last year and she didn't cry, kid, in the way i expect kids to cry, blearing all other noise except a pounding heart in the cage of your chest. not that you'd know.

bryce davison struck his partner jessica dubé across the face with a figure skate during a camel spin in 2007. guess how many stitches. 83. guess how many years of therapy for ptsd. the entirety of my lifetime. a thousand times yours.

guilt is the sole of a shoe that crushes you from above, and i could feel it. maybe it's god. i don't know. you wouldn't either. and maybe bryce feels a blade still on his back, wishing there was something more to it.

i don't believe in my dream that i had nothing to do with the fracture again, but i think it was the silence that was most offputting, son. you've never had to speak, never deal, never hold cards close to your body, never cook, never feel your fingers in your mouth, son. you just scurry, like blood pooling on ice, side to side from my sheets to my bathroom. to the tub, where i tell you this all now in silence. you're sitting with me. it's nice to have your company, son.

my mother only had daughters, so i can't say much about raising you. you'd fit on my mattress with me, but i think you'd crawl away, moving like little droplets, new state of mind every new step. if only i wasn't frightened of the lightness in your legs, the feeling of freedom, of not having a heart. you don't know anything about me because all i know right now is guilt. maybe in another life, another universe, you'll learn.

i place my thumb overtop of the ant and press down.

[ask-sum-2ps]

Awakening

That's right! guess who's finally back into the swing of things! your favorite pink haired fox thing, things have finally settled down. and i'm somewhat caught up with my collage work, but now i feel safe and mentally secure enough to start working on my blog and my boys again; if you all have noticed or not the blog has gotten some visual upgrades, mainly it is lore and that lore will be unlocked going further down the line. i want the lore to be like a fun puzzle, i will be sprinkling hints as i go. now that states this blog will still be goofy silly haha 2p hot men, but lore is still fun to have and i like making it now some more updates below

For Starters, it's been a while since i've shared about my precious cats. We'll start with my older son, Thomas (tried to be Tomato but Thomas stuck) he is a big fat boy, love him a lots and his Brother Catalina (we thought he was a girl until he grew nuts)

so those are how the cats are and of course if you guys ever want i'll happily show some more pictues of my sweet baby boys. but now to the actual star of the blog and what you really wanna see. . . . . .

Me (just kidding)

Now the 2ps, so i have made a realization that on this blog i currently have 41 2p characters for the blog and 164 characters in total for the blog. so to make it so i don't end up fucking dying from trying to ya know trying to draw and keep track of every character. i will be separating main 2ps from side 2ps, you can of course still talk and ask the side cast stuff but i will mainly be focusing on the main cast. speaking off the main cast they will be getting some outfit changes/new looks just because i wanna give them some nicer outfits, the main cast will also be getting some more Indepth information that i will be posting on the blog so you can learn more about some of the lore i have for them

Klaus and Azrail are in grey cube jail because they are so ungodly pale that they disappear on the white background so i needed a different color to help them pop out but looking at it they are still kinda pale, at least they're a little bit more visible.

of course i also have a good few asks that i need to answer from last i left the blog off, although i won't be answering all of them as i will mainly be cleaning out my inbox and answering the ones that i feel like i can answer in a way that won't be disappointing. that includes a joke one my boyfriend gave because he is silly (i love him despite his silliness) so rest assure that there will be some asks finally answered but i hope i will get some new ones seeing as i will be more active (the art will be simpilar to help me do this easier)

i will also be doing more artist adventures with my 2ps, one of those things i want to do is animation and animatics. so expect to see some of those in the future, but if you would like to see early wips and other stuff i may do i do have a youtube channel although so far it's only character playlists for some random 2ps but i will still give the link if you guys are interested

um i'm not sure what else i should mention in this update, uhhhhhhhh oh! right you might be wondering why i'm orange simple reason is that it's autumn so ya'know orange. yeah seeing as my Sona Jam is an animal like creature i made it so she changes during the seasons. mainly to reflect how i like to change during the seasons (close and hair wise) funny enough in the species i made for Jam the they only change for winter but Jam is special as she changes seasonally.

each are different flavored too, Spring: Strawberry Lemonade, Summer: Cherry lemonade, Autumn: Orange Lemonade, Winter: Blackberry Lemonade

and those should be all the updates i need to give, i'm happy to be back! i missed everyone a lot

[wallcrawlparker]

@deceitfultrickry plotted starter with Peter's Lokison verse!

The combat had been pretty intense, let alone confusing. Not only was the team clearly outnumbered, they were also not on their home turf and in full-blown blizzard mode. That wouldn't usually be a huge deal as most of the team was enhanced and/or bundled up in self-heating gear and literal heaters.

But Peter.... Peter's got spider DNA, and spiders can't thermoregulate. He'd been hypothermic a few times just from patrolling in the winter, so... when the youngest teammate didn't answer the call to regroup, panic immediately sparked.

Mostly, it was Tony flipping his shit, panicking about how the kid's not dressed for this and his suit's tracker must be damaged and he could be anywhere!

What Tony doesn't know, though, is that Peter had been in extreme cold before. Once he goes past his enhanced-human threshold and his life is endangered by the cold, he.... goes blue. Literally, yeah. He goes blue. His (unknown) paternal heritage saves his life, literally, by morphing him into his frost giant form. Not that he knows that. It's only happened once before and... well, he figured he must have just been seeing shit. Anyway. While the team freaked out and seemed to forget they had a literal Frost Giant/Norse God on their team currently, Peter was a few kilometres meters away, halfway buried in snow after a particularly hard blow to the head knocked him out, taking out some of his suit's gear; including the tracker.

[alyss-kelly]

My opinion about Another Code : Recollection Part 1

First of all, I'm an old fan of the serie, so of course I compared the Switch compilation and the DS and Wii version.

I don't want to discourage people who are curious and want to play the game. If you're even a lil bit interested in them, play them, on DS, Wii or Switch, pick your poison and make your own opinion on it. Don't take my word as the absolute thing or whatever. It's not because I'm mixed about it that people shouldn't play it. Because I still think that a game that was, to me, very niche, from a studio that went bankrupt AND from 2005, is incredible. For a game like that to get a fully voiced remake almost twenty year after the release of its first installment, with most of the old crew working on them is to be celebrated ! Even if I didn't like everything, they still did an amazing job and I'm glad to see the franchise alive again in 2024.

I have strong feelings and I feel the need to share them to see if someone "relates" or not.

I may talk about spoilers but I'll try to limit them, be vague and put a warning before and after if I state it clearly.

Soo, now that this "introduction is over ~

In this essay I will

I have a LOT to say about Another Code Recollection. Good and Bad. Sadly, I have more things to say about the bad than the good. I have mixed feeling about it. I was very VERY excited when Recollection was first announced, I cried even, because I care about "Another Code Two Memories" and "Another Code R" A LOT, it's my childhood, they're in my top fav games list, they were very meaningful to me and I was sad it ended with Cing and with no hope of seeing the conclusion of Matthew's story. Even tho I was happy, I was still a bit scared about how they would adapt some of the puzzle on the switch. And I think I was right to have this fear. They did some cool things and others that I disliked.

I'll say my "+" and "-" and develop them further bellow each point.

+ Positive :

The graphism They're very nice, the characters's models are nicely done, the scenery and everything else is definitely a BIG glow up (mostly compared to the DS graphics)

The Redesign I like some of them a LOT, big glow up for almost everyone. I particularly love Charlotte and Janet. Charlotte finally looks her age! I kinda miss the old Matthew but his new version is also good.

Puzzles use the Switch motions thingy Just a few of them tho. I think that's cool, because they sadly don't use it very much in other games. And it's nice to see them try to replicate the same feeling you had with the DS and Wii games.

Confirmation of theories and new bits of story It's nice to see that after all these years. /!\SPOILER/!\ I'm thinking about Frannie's relative. /!\END OF SPOILER/!\

Musics They nailed the music; it still has that nostalgic and lonely vibe for Two Memories and the carefree with a hint of sadness vibe in R.

Voice Acting A very nice addition and very well done. I know there's English Dub but I played it with the Japanese voices. And being able to choose between them is nice.

Possibility to switch language That's maybe a very "me" + point, but the fact that I could change the game in every language available is cool. Even more for the jp, cause now if I want to I could try and practice my reading skills because there's an option to have katakana and hiragana on top of kanji. I just think that's neat.

Hint mode I just tried it in the tutorial but I think it's a nice touch for when you don't know where to go or how to resolve a puzzle.

Relationship between Ashley and D The way they would mimic each other poses was all I ever wanted. I love them a lot and seeing them being a little bit closer than I remember them to be in the DS version was great !

Art The new sprites are very pretty and it's nice to see the improvement the artist made. The endcredits was very pretty !

Flowchart & Map I like to see flowchart in any type of game, it's helpfull and pretty. I like that it was updated along with the story. And I also enjoy the map and the little commentary Ashley was "writing" on it.

End of Part 1

---

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

[faffreux]

I don't know if you've answered this before, but what was Fawfuls motivation for wanting to take over the Beanbean kingdom with Cackletta and later trying to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom? 👀

Power!

I honestly believe that Fawful was always power hungry but likely didn't have a clear idea of a direction to go about gaining said power until meeting Cackletta. Here was somebody not only more experienced than he was but who shared a similar lust for power to his own! Studying under her (and assisting in her goals) would be the perfect way to get his metaphorical foot in the door towards greater things.

A huge part of appeal of working with Cackletta was simply the fact that she was a witch and magic is something Fawful lacks but earnestly desires- I feel this is also implied further just by the fact that his plan in Bowser's Inside Story is becoming all powerful by obtaining magic, specifically. Fawful's talents lie in the sciences, not the fantastical. It makes sense then to me that a guy like him would want to increase his power through any means necessary, and robots just weren't enough to do it.

That being said, I acknowledge that there's some headcanon going on here but I try to form my headcanons based upon what we're shown in the games and none of this really contradicts that so! That's where I am with it!

The second battle with Fawful (pink spandex, my beloved) in Superstar Saga tells us more about him through his dialogue in the sense that that up until then, it hadn't really occurred to Fawful that he could accomplish these goals on his own. Saving Cackletta opened up a new world to him and once he realized his capability, nothing could stop him from there. And he no longer felt (nor wanted) anyone else telling him how to go about it.

In my eyes, Fawful's loyalty towards Cackletta was a combination of transactional (in the sense that he knew he'd gain something from it) and actual respect for her power and experience- things he didn't possess at the time. Neither of these things mattered after the end of Superstar Saga, though. This is why we never see Fawful mention Cackletta again - she was essentially a stepping stone to what he REALLY wanted in the end, and we all know how completely self-absorbed Fawful can be.

And the story would continue from there...

And well, we all know how that went.

[general-kalani]

{ @stars-over-kanmar​ sent; "Do you need help with that?" (Sinai)

Prompt from here! }

He must’ve been focusing too much on the wood these suppliers had. Truly, it was marvellous! So different to what was on Eden-6 and yet the quality in them. He’d have to let his people actually work on them to see if they’re as high a quality as he’s seeing...

Or, if it wasn’t, he could just blame his bad eyesight.

Maybe his tragically bad eyesight was good for something for once.

Fat chance.

He almost didn’t hear who was talking to him! Thank you obsession with the damn Jakobs company to keep an eye out for almost any kind of wood.

He was quick to stand up straight to face the person talking to him. “Oh not at all, thanks for asking though.” What kind people... So much better than what the hell was happening out in the Borderlands.

Though he did try to look around for his dear Alistair...

To no avail.

Seriously where did he go?!

“I am missing my husband though but I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. He probably got caught up on something like I did...”

Damn his lack of research not telling him who the hell was talking to him right now. He should’ve been nice back and checked but no, focus with the corporation had him doing anything but research.

“Before you ask, I’m Wainwright Jakobs.” Please don’t recognise the name or something I don’t want to be treated with reverence or anything like that... Wait, this wasn’t the leader he was meant to be talking to for a deal was he?

Whatever gods were in the Borderlands bless him for not making a fool of himself.

Where the hell was Alistair anyway?!

[whumpfish]

Disability in Fiction: But vs. And

With it being Disability Pride Month, I wanted to talk for a minute about approaches to disability and chronic pain/illness. And I want to start by challenging the idea that showing a disabled character as a whole person means deemphasizing the disability, that "sick" should be avoided as a descriptor because it's a bad way to look at us.

My favorite series with a chronically ill mc is Word of Honor, so sorry not sorry that's fixing to get mentioned a lot on this blog. It's just a master class in chronic illness/pain and how to approach it sensitively but objectively.

There's a lot that goes into it, but to keep on topic, we'll start with Gu Xiang and how much I adore the fact that her name for Zhou Zishu is Sick Man. It's beautiful because it's not pejorative at all. She's seen how good his kung fu is, she knows he's an extremely skilled fighter who can (for the most part) take care of himself. He's just a Sick Man.

One of the most conflicting, confusing, and infuriating parts of being disabled or chronically ill is how much well-intentioned people fall over themselves to reassure you that your illness/disability Doesn't Define You. That you're ill/disabled but it's okay...

...when quite often, you are in large part defined by your condition. If you take away my psychotic disorder, I cease to be me. Being on antipsychotics does set certain parameters for me that have nothing to do with my bipolar i itself, like my ability to consume alcohol without incident. I'm a lot less fun at parties, and it's hard for me to enjoy parties where everyone is drinking and drinking is 60% or more of the objective. It defines my social life.

My best friend is a i too, and we bonded over "omg, so you know about the white noise, you know about the chatter, you know about half a dozen That Things nobody else understands even if we do find words to explain" It defines the connections I make, it defines who I can most easily relate to. It defines my entire inner world, for that matter.

If you take away my ME/CFS, my need for mobility aids, my fatigue, my pain, I cease to be me. My entire passion for whump is driven by my pain and my need for a space where talking about it doesn't make me a burden, where talking about it might be helpful instead of inconvenient to the people I talk to. The fact that so much of what I do requires advanced planning defines how I do what I do. My need for treatment defines my schedule. And that is okay.

When I go to the club and I'm on the dance floor, I'm on the dance floor with my cane, not in spite of it. My weird one-armed dancing has just become part of how I roll. Part of my greater weird one-armed life. And that is okay.

If someone were to describe me as Sick, I'm not fixing to argue with them, because I am. My bipolar I shaped my young life, and my ME/CFS fundamentally altered what adult life looks like for me now. Sick is not a bad word. Not if it's used objectively. It is if it's used pejoratively--but let's be honest, here, the goal overall should be not to use any descriptions of unalterable aspects of people pejoratively.

I am not disabled but it’s okay, I'm disabled and it's okay.

As long as there's a taboo surrounding objective descriptions of chronic illness and disability, there's an implied taboo surrounding the chronically ill and disabled. What I'd rather see is more Gu Xiangs in our fictional worlds. Characters capable of accepting others as Sick and skilled and capable.

[willinghands]

i think r/BenignExistence is my favorite subreddit 🥲 i love these pleasant little glimpses into strangers' lives

[climbingthefloors]

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[yumenikkii]

just another average day in gravity falls

[whiteshipnightjar]

Zoozve, my beloved

[bigskycastle]

school project, some drawings for my pretend game about a housefly girl called musca and her adventures in some creepy&wet place

[anothersmallfeat]

Please vote for Kamala. Please check that you have an active voter registration.

Anyone who votes 3rd party as a protest for Palestine didn't watch the debate with Biden. Trump said he would 'let them finish the job'

You do have a chance to do something, you can prevent trump from getting back in the white house. But not by voting third party.

Your voice matters, you matter. Even if you live in California and the vote counts are looking good before you vote. Get up and vote. Do not leave this to chance.

People have died for your right to vote. There's news articles coming out right now about republican run states trying to mess with the vote because they're scared as hell what the results will show if they don't cheat.

The DOJ and FBI are doing their part to make sure that your vote does not get interfered with. You have to do your part and get your vote in

For example if your in Montana and you already voted early you may have a redo because the absentee ballots were printed and sent out WITHOUT Kamala as an option! They had to put the voting on hold and fix it, it's fixed now.

Do not give up. Do not give in. And vote all the way down the ballot. And see if your state has amendments and other laws to vote on before you head in so you can read up how you want to vote.

You can find out what's on your ballot at websites like ballotpedia

You can check your registration online.

Please please please and thank you.

[onefey]

you're going about your normal day when, suddenly, surprise! you've been pokémon mystery dungeon'd!

unfortunately, due to budget cuts, the pokémon assigning quiz has been canceled. instead, you must spin THE WHEEL, assigning you a random, unevolved, non-legendary and non-mythical pokémon. you must now go on some sort of world-saving adventure as this pokémon. good luck!

tell me in the tags what you rolled, and how you feel about it - for bonus points, you can spin the wheel again for (or just take your pick of) a pokémon to be your partner.

bonus rules:

you're not shiny unless the wheel tells you you're shiny

take your pick of regional forms and evolutions (for example, if you roll vulpix, it's up to you whether that means normal or alolan vulpix)

apply whatever logic you like with regards to gender

have fun and be yourself!

[weaselle]

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.