#Cooking crab from frozen

[o-wyrmlight]

Guess who unintentionally boiled some crab before sitting down and listening to an analysis of Donald Trump's indictment charges like I'm fucking royalty and didn't even connect the dots until after the crab was already cooked

That's right. It's your buddy Wyrm. Eating like royalty at 4-5am today

[devonpink]

Conversion in the Deep

Far from land and deep in the sea, lives a world undiscovered by humanity. In an underwater kingdom where merpeople not only exist but thrive. Ruling over them is King Lyle, his wife, and his only offspring, Prince Dorian.

On the morning of his 25th birthday, Dorian was not his usual cheerful self but distressed, swimming back and forth in one of the castle's many gardens. "What kind of a birthday surprise was that?!" He was utterly flabbergasted over what his father had sprung on him only a half hour ago. "An arranged marriage?! With a mermaid, no less! When is he gonna get it through that thick head of his that I'm gay! Gay, gay gay!"

Unbeknownst to Dorian, his future bride, Princess Alana, was not far behind, watching and following him in curious wonderment. She couldn't help but eavesdrop. Neither could the royal guards. "It has to be a joke?" Dorian questioned, trying to keep his head on straight. "I'm sure that's what it is! There's no way my father is that-" Dorian was too lost in his own head to realize Alana had swam up behind him. So when he abruptly flipped around. Boom! They smacked right into one another, face-on. They were mere centimeters away from accidentally kissing, causing Dorian's face to immediately blush from embarrassment—he was redder than a cooked crab. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying attention!"

"It's okay! I should have said something." Alana insisted, hoping to soothe Dorian's embarrassment. She smirked slightly, thoroughly amused with how awkwardly cute Dorian's nervous expression was. That pared with his muscular build making him even sexier. She swam back slightly to give them some breathing space, easing him further. However, she couldn't help but give in to her feminine wiles. "I hope you blush as cutiely on our wedding day."

"About that," Dorian anxiously gulped, assuming Alana was just kidding but didn't like the glimmer of sincere lust in her eye. He took a deep breath, hoping to reason with her. "Look, you must think this whole arrangement is as crazy as I do, right? I mean, we don't even know each other! It would never work out! I'm just not made for this kind of marriage!"

Alana looked confused, almost hurt by what he said—her heartbroken expression made Dorian uneasy, filling him with bizarre guilt. "Why not?"

Dorain gently grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to a nearby rock formation, out of the guard's sight. "I don't know how to break this to you other than spitting it right out: I'm gay. I'm incapable of giving you a happy marriage."

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Alana smiled slightly, inching herself closer to him. She laid her small hand on his massive bicep, making him unexpectedly quiver in titillation. "They don't call marriage hard work for no reason."

"What?" Dorain was surprised by her reaction or lack thereof. It's as if his confession went right over her head. "Didn't you hear me? I'm gay. Like, really gay!"

"You think you're the first?" Alana plainly said, brushing her fin against his. "It's not like this hasn't happened before. It has, and it's worked out." Dorian was stunned, frozen in disbelief but her calm demeanor. Throwing him off further, she swam around him, eyeing him like a delicious piece of meat. "Just take my parents for example."

Dorian's eyes lit up in shock, watching her confidently swim around him, trying hard not to stare at her perfect tits. "What do you mean?!"

"A long time ago, my father was in the same position you're in right now," Alana nonchalantly answered, stopping back in front of him. She seductively bit her bottom lip, still processing how unbelievably muscular Dorian was—a true muscle god.

"You mean, King Trenton is gay?!" Dorian questioned in disbelief. He couldn't figure Alana out or why he felt so funny. The more Alana talked the more smitten he weirdly became, confusing him more.

"He is, well, was. I guess you can say it's complicated, but love will do that. "Alana answered, her eyes kept making their way to his genital slit. She swam closer to him, forcing him back against the large rock formation behind him.

Inside Dorian was a swirling mess of emotions. He felt both frightened and turned on by her, which didn't make sense. He was gay, but her obvious lust for him was making him unbelievably horny. He suddenly felt overwhelmingly enamored with her as if a switch abruptly went off in his brain. "I don't understand?"

"I'm not surprised," Alama smirked, with an all-knowing look. She moved her hand up his ripped chest, making him quiver. She then gently grazed his firm nipples, which made him gasp. He was blushing uncontrollably. "God, you're so cute when you're nervous."

"Alana, please. I can't!" Dorian's heart was racing, enthralled with her heavenly touch. How could he want her so badly?

"Do you want me to show you?" Alana seductively asked, purposefully ignoring Dorian's growing concern. She moved her hand back down his perfectly toned body, heading for the genital slit in the front of his tail.

"Show me what?" Dorian asked, trying his best to keep his voice down to not draw the guard's attention. He wanted to moan so badly but kept it from coming out, which was hard to do. A few minutes ago, the idea of being in this type of situation with a mermaid repulsed him, but the reality of it only turned him on. It felt as if his body was acting on its own, out of his mental control. Was it primal instinct? Was it pure madness?

"Do you want me to show you exactly how my mother turned my gay father into a mermaid lover?" Alana rephrased, eyeing Dorian's plump lips in lustful hunger. She put her other arm around him, feeling up his manly backside. "How?" Dorian nervously asked, afraid yet intensely curious of the answer. Alana moved her hand over his slit, sensually rubbing it. His prehensile penis was in danger of popping out. "Oh, fuck." Dorian quietly moaned, trying not to alert the guard's attention. "Why aren't I stopping her?!" He thought. "Why does her touch feel so right? Why is her voice pure music to his ears? Why do I want to fuck her like a primal sea beast? How could I suddenly be so damn horny for a mermaid?!" He couldn't help but moan in sexual agony. "I don't understand why I feel so-?"

"Horny?" Alana answered, already knowing what he was gonna say. Her tone was dripping with lust, she was just as horny as he was.

Dorian sensually moaned again, unable to resist letting his massive prehensile penis finally emerge from its slit, all 13 inches of glorious man meat. Alana licked her lips, reached out her hand, and gently grasped it. Dorian moaned again, only this time more desperate. She stroked him, unable to believe the enormous size of his throbbing member. He instinctually grabbed her waist, unexpectedly loving how manly he instantly felt. They gazed at each other like lovers, as if they would passionately kiss at any moment.

"What's happening to me?" Dorian loudly pleaded, not caring if they got caught. Actually, the thought of his gay self getting caught with a mermaid was an unexpected turn-on. He then moaned loader, letting himself give in to his lust even more.

"My family's powers," Alana finally answered, after stroking him a bit more. "The mermaids in my family have a certain way with mermen. We can bring out whatever we want from them, able to mold them like clay. And the best part, the mermen love it. It's a win-win. Everybodys happy. Even if it takes a little persuading to get there." Alana slowed her stroking and played with the tip of his tapering penis with her finger, edging his lust even further. "You can't tell me it doesn't feel good, that I don't make you feel good."

Dorian moaned again in lustful agony, reluctantly loving how her finger teased his sensitive tip. None of it made sense, but he was starting to not care. All he knew was he felt good and beginning to enjoy himself. As hard as he tried, his lust was winning. He looked her straight in the eye, his gaze burning with passion. He didn't want her to stop. Damned it be her doing or not. He wanted more.

"There must be a part of you that's always secretly wanted to be normal, to be the prince your father always wanted." Alana picked her pace back up, grasping him tighter. She could sense his temptation to fully give in and was hellbent on making sure he did. "Allow me to make that secret desire a reality. Give in to me."

"Oh, fuck!" Dorian aggressively moaned, grasping the ridges of the rocks behind him. Her touch was pure heaven, winning him over. His gay resistance was hanging on by a tread.

"I'll be the perfect wife," Alana assured him, knowing she was close to fully having him. "And will make the most beautiful babies."

"Alana… I-" Dorian could barely speak, only able to moan in utter pleasure as Alana stroked him even faster. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the guards watching them with cocky grins.

"I want to breed with you," Alana hornily begged, wrapping her tail around his. Her smutty confession surprising Dorian but turning him on more.

"I want…" Dorian bit his lip, not wanting to let the rest of his words escape. The small part of himself that was resisting cried out, not wanting to give in. However, the second after Alana ripped off the shell bra off her huge tits to reveal her juicy nipples, it was over. Any last shred of resistance evaporated. With that, he finally let the truth bubbling inside him surface out of his quivering mouth. "I want to breed with you, too!!!"

And thus they finally kissed—french kissing, indulging themselves completely in their lust for one another. Her small feminine body against his massive masculine frame was electrifying. He plunged his rugged face into her huge soft tits, sucking on them like his life depended on it. Seconds later he had his thick fingers in her tight slit, making her moan like a merslut—fueling his testosterone even more. Never in his life had he felt so masculine. He didn't give a damn if the guards were watching. In fact, he wanted them to watch. He wished everyone was here to see him finally become a real man. Dorian figured this new way of thinking was all Alana's doing, but he didn't care. It felt too good to fight. Still gay or not, it didn't matter. He was hooked and couldn't wait till the wedding night.

[vulpixisananimal]

(Ramos)

[A:3 C:55]

(The mood in the lobby of the medhouse was somber. You, Mirabelle, Odile, and of course, Nille, were all waiting for the news. Isabeau had volunteered to go back to the house and tell Siffrin. Mirabelle was biting her nails, no-one was telling her to stop. Odile was looking at her book, pen unmoving. Nille sat next to you, silent, and You were sitting alone with your thoughts.)

(. . . . . No, not just, your thoughts.)

(-curse, or a craft feedback thing, or some disease, or just, just something with their lungs! They'll be okay, they'll be okay! They, have to-)

(-I-it's, it's like the day we beat the King. With, with what the sky looked like. A-and, and-)

(. . . It could be any number of things. But. . . Gems, you're not sure how many more mysteries you can take.)

(Nille, Mirabelle, and Odile. In order. Stars, it was like you had cracked a dam and that skill was only getting stronger and stronger. It didn't help that the place was so quiet. . . Craaaaaab.)

(You need to break the silence, or find a distraction, or. . .) ". . . . Hey, Nille?"

"Huh?" (Nilles head jumped up, looking at you.)

". . . Can I ask you something?"

". . . I dunno, can you?" (You could feel the attempted joke, and how her heart wasn't in it.) ". . . Sure."

"I uh. . . When, we had that big talk in Jouvente, after Sif recovered, uh. . ." (You rub your shoulder.) ". . . I, I dunno if, I was just, imagining things. But when I talked about, running away. . ."

". . . Oh, yeah. Right." (She looks away.) ". . . Just, reminded me of me n' Bonnie."

(There was the silence of the implied "go on.")

". . . We ran away too." (She sighed.) "Boniface was too young to remember it. I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. . ." (The awkwardness returned.) "Uh. . . Sorry."

"Sorry?" (She gives you a look.) "Don't be sorry, crabface. It's a fair question."

"R-right, sorr- t-thanks, I mean." (You laugh nervously.) ". . . Bonnie's, one tough kid then. With, just the two of you. . ."

". . ." (Nille looked away again.) ". . . They shouldn't need to be."

"Uh. . ." (You look to Mirabelle and Odile. They're both avoiding your eye, and her eye.) ". . . I-"

"They shouldn't need to be crabbing tough." (She grumbled.) "Or brave, or mature, or adult. They're a kid. Just a crabbing kid!"

"I just, wanted to give them a nice, stupid, crabbing life in a nice beachside town away from everything. Could enjoy being a kid, could do silly stuff and not worry about anything!"

"But, no. Of course not. First the King, me being stupid and getting frozen in time. Bonnie needing to go save the country. Bonnie learning how to cook, how to fight, how to deal with death! Bonnie, my little sibling Bonbon! My little sailor mouthed silly stupid bug loving Bonnie."

"And what the hell am I supposed to do when, when, something like THIS happens!! How am I supposed to protect Bonnie when-"

"E-excuse me, I was wondering if I could, visit. . . (The front door clicked open and an annoyingly familiar face stepped in.)

". . . . ." (You're all staring at him.)

". . . . . I'll, come back another time." (Perci slowly closed the door. You heard his footsteps as he walked away.)

(The awkward silence came again. You look over at Nille, then away again.) ". . . They'll be okay, Nille."

". . . Thanks, Rams. . ." (She sighs, pausing for a moment.) ". . . Sorry, about that. . ."

"It's okay, nothing to be sorry about."

". . . Yeah, thanks."

>>>

"It looks like the bleeding stopped as soon as it started, which is good. It's likely not Bronchitis, Pneumonia, Tuberculosis, or other diseases."

(The four of you were in the room where Bonnie was staying. Dr.Joy was explaining what was wrong as Bonbon stayed fast asleep, breathing shallow.)

"There's no signs of any dangerous substances, infections, or otherwise. This was a very acute case, which points to some sudden damage to the throat or lungs. I already checked, and it looks like there's damage from some sort of craft directly inside the larynx, the voice box."

"A craft did that?!?" (Nille asks, shocked.)

"It looks like it. Actually, it lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole." (The Doctor flipped through his notes.) "There were a lot of cases of this around, ten years ago. Damage to the larynx, all craft wounds, many claimed it was. . . Accidental self inflicted. Luckily, though, that means I know just what to do."

(He's smiling at you all.) "Bonnie just needs to stay overnight to see if there's any long lasting damage. After that? They can go home. Soft foods only for a few days, though. And no talking too loud. Most of the damage is more dramatic than damaging, this time."

"This time?" (Odile questions.)

"Well, it looks like in some of those old records. . . The damage was, far, far worse. Fatal." (He quickly holds his hands up.) "B-but Boniface isn't in any danger of that! You should just, make sure that doesn't happen again. Just, talk to them. Make sure they're okay."

"Right. . ." (Nille nodded.)

(You stood there and nodded along to all the words being said. This was, all a bit much for you.)

". . . If you want, someone can stay here overnight. And I have a copy of the medical plan I have written up for you too."

"Thank you, Gina." (Odile nods.)

"I'll stay." (Nille adds.)

"Alright- oh yeah uh, I'm mostly free tomorrow, so if Siffrin can come pop by too that would be, uh, great!"

"I-I'll pass it along." (Mirabelle says, tugging on her shirt.)

(Gina gave a copy of the medical plan to Odile. Nille made plans to stay the night. Mirabelle and Odile convinced her to at least come home for dinner. Nille made a short prayer at the little dancing Change statue on the table. The others walked out, Mira asked if you were coming. You just asked her to give you a second.)

(They were waiting in the lobby now.)

(Bonnie was still sleeping. . .)

(. . .)

(. . . Why?)

(You still couldn't get that out of your head. Why now? Why Bonnie?)

(That shade gave you shudders. Seeing Bonnie weak and lifeless like that sent a chill down your spine. Seeing their shallow breathing made your hands tingle. They didn't deserve this, no-one did. So, why? It's not fair. It's just. Not. Fair.)

(Bonnie had nightmares every night.)

(You walk over to the Change God statue. The little dancing clay figure continued on it's endless little jaunt back and forth across the desk. You reach out, then paused. Everyone would be asking the Change God for help; to make sure Bonnie would recover. But. . .)

(Every. Single. Night.)

(You look at the disc of copper hanging on the wall above the dancing statue. The symbol of the Dreaming One was engraved on it. A dreamlight. You knew Gina had one here, it's why you were always nervous to go to the doctors. It wasn't his fault, it's just. .)

(. . . You reach up to the disc, and close your eyes.)

(You tap once; to exchange your greetings with the Dreaming One. The soft chime of the dreamlight echoed through the room. The hair on the back of your neck stood on end, old memories struggling to gain attention. It had been a long, long time.)

(You tap it a second time; to give thanks for what the Dreaming One has done. You don't know if the Dreaming One had been looking out for you, but if so. . . Thanks?)

(You tap it a third time; to pray for aid from the Dreaming One.)

(. . . . .)

(. . . . . . . . I, I know I haven't done this since I was a little kid. A-and, and I know that you probably don't remember me, or, care about me. That's, that's understandable. After, running away and all. . .)

(I, I'm sorry. I've been okay, I got a new parent, Eri, who taught me about stars, they were nice. They're gone now. May they dream pleasant dreams and return as one of your messengers. . .)

(. . . I, made mistakes. I was a coward, I was a fool, a-and, and I got tricked. I'm trying to make up for all that, but, it's hard. I hurt my best friend, I hurt my best friends partner, a-and, and I hurt myself, too.)

(They've forgiven me, in fact, they've. . . Welcomed me into their family. We're traveling together now, but. . . There's this little kid, Bonnie. They've been having nightmares for, for months. Every single night a nightmare. Today they got hurt, and, a-and, I'm scared.)

(. . . Please, please help them. I didn't want to bother you after I ran away but please, just this once, please. Please let them have a nice dream tonight. I'll, I-I'll, make it up to you. I promise, just, please. . .)

(The ringing from the dreamlight slowly faded. Once it was almost gone, you opened your eyes and turned to look at Bonnie. Okay. Okay. . . It'll be okay. You walk to the door, you should get home.)

>>>

"I promise, Pétronille, Bonnie is going to be fine by the time you get back." (Odile reassured as you all walked home.) "If something terrible does happen to Boniface, we won't even realize it, with Siffrin around and all."

"Exactly" (Mirabelle agreed.) "We'll just be having breakfast again with Sif predicting everything we say!"

"I guess so. . ." (Nille rubbed her shoulder.) ". . . I'm still gonna be worried sick, but, thanks.

(Most of the trip back had been taken up by convincing Nille that Bonnie was still okay. And the rest was talking about what to do about dinner. Without Bonnie the master cook, you'd have to rely on. . . What, Nilles cooking? You never did ask who else could cook. You know some cookery, you're pretty sure Isa did too, but. . .)

". . . Hey does Bonnie have any, uh, favorite foods? Some treat we could get them?" (You ask.)

"Oh yeah!" (Nille perks up a little.) "They loooove pineapple, pineapple slices especially."

"Oh oh oh!!" (Mirabelle raised a hand excited.) "I know this one! Next is rice!"

"Yup!" (Nille held up a finger.) "And there's one more."

"Samosas." (Odile replies, smiling.) "Without cheese, with potatoes."

"Ha!" (Now she's smiling.) "You guys know just what they like, huh!"

"Y-yes, but actually." (Mirabelle tugged on her sleeve.) "I-it turns out that was one of the things Siffrin memorized, during, t-that time."

"Oh yeah?" (Nille raised an eyebrow.)

"Yes!! They wanted to try and make the day before we fought the King as special as possible!!"

"Oh that's sweet of them!" (You jump in.) "He's a nice fella, I'm not surprised."

"It is a shame we never got to see it." (Odile sighs.) "But then again, it would be a bigger shame if he was still stuck in that loop."

"R-right."

"Yeah. . ."

"Oh, right."

(You make it to the house. Everything looks all nice and in order, nothing crazy had happened while you were away. Good, you really, really didn't any other nasty surprises.)

(You lead the charge, opening the front door to. . . The sounds and smells of cooking food!)

"Oh gems." (Odile makes a face.) "Isabeau better not be cooking, or worse, Siffrin."

"I dunno, smells good." (You reply, making your way to the kitchen.)

"O-oh!" (Siffrin, Siffrin? Pokes his head out from the kitchen, smiling softly.) "S-sorry! I, wanted to make some dinner for us to help a-after, after hearing what happened and I hoped it would be done by now, b-but-"

"W-woah woah okay slow down, slow down." (You hold your hands up.) "You, you were, cooking?!?"

"I-I'm sorry I know we're banned from the kitchen b-but I wanted, to, do something nice!"

"Excuse me, did I just hear that right?" (Odile had made her way over, looking back you can see Mirabelle and Nille staring back from the living room.) "You, are cooking."

". . . Y-yes."

"And it smells, good."

"G-good?"

"Who are you?" (Odile smirks.) "The only thing Siffrin could make is burnt toast."

(He flinches, and looks away.) ". . . A-asterion. . . I'm, making clam chowder and, fried vegetables."

"Stars that sounds tasty." (You give a reassuring smile). "Need help finishing up?"

"N-no it's alright. Isabeau has been, a great help!"

"Gems alive." (Odile put her face in her hand.) "Our fates, and stomachs, are in your hands, Asterion."

"I-I'll, do my best!"

"It'll be great" (You give a thumb up.) "I just know it."

"We'll see about that." (Odile walked back to the living room.)

(A few minutes later, you did see about that. Creamy clam chowder, fried carrots, broccoli, and spinach, and a few baguette slices. You where the first one to take a hesitant sip of the chowder.)

(It was. . . .)

(. . .)

(So good!!!)

[love-and-deepspace-wiki]

Maltosio

Maltosio is a restaurant located in Linkon City. It's where the protagonist and Dr. Zayne meet for a late lunch (in the Falling For You: "A Frozen Promise" Bond story). The protagonist mentions that she used to walk by this street often on her way home.

Apparently, the location was previously a pet store. From what I could see, there are two separate Honest Coffee locations right next to it (one across the opposing street and one across the street directly to the right of it). And, according to Zayne, there's a bookstore nearby.

Here's what their menu looks like:

Today's Special:

Sirloin Steak:

Sirloin Steak with Garlic Sauce, Pan Seared Asparagus. Cream of Mushroom Soup, Matcha Almond Tofu, Taro Ice Cream

Grilled Salmon:

Grilled Salmon with Morel Mushrooms, Coconut Seafood Stew, Vegetable Salad, Iced Coconut Latte, Wild Berry Cheesecake

Seafood Pasta:

Seafood Pasta with Basil Crisps, Slow-roastsd Tomatoes, Nachos with Guacamole, Garlic Bread, Caramelized Apple Tart

Lunch Special (Available 11:30 AM - 3:00 PM on weekdays):

Lunch Special for One:

…se & Egg Toast, Honey Garlic Chicken Wings, Spicy Fries, Creamy… Soup, Chocolate Mochi Cook-... Taro Ice Cream

Lunch Special for Two:

Creamy Bacon and Mushroom Pasta, Shrimp Risotto with Parsley, Fried Cod Fillet, Fried Onion Rings, Crab Salad with Green Melon, Cream of Mushroom Soup, Honeyed Grapefruit Juice, Berries Ice Cream, Taro Ice Cream

In this scene, we can see that the protagonist ordered the Lunch Special for One while Zayne ordered the Sirloin Steak.

And for their dessert choice, they both selected the Taro Ice Cream pictured below.

Here are some more photos of their offerings:

The cheesecake this customer is seen enjoying doesn't look like a Wild Berry Cheesecake to me. Perhaps there's a secret menu we don't know about lol. But it still looks delicious!

[greatest-ball-of-fire]

Fireball can I please have the Gregor Recipe with your special spice?

The closest thing I can find that you have on your planet is Crab and Vegetable Soup (for a vegan version, just skip the crab and use vegetable stock).

Ingredients:

3 pounds of claw or lump crab meat (picked free of shells)

1 bag of frozen corn (or 3 cups fresh)

1 large can of tomatoes

1 squash or zucchini, diced

1 cup of frozen or fresh chopped green beans

1 cup frozen or fresh peas

1 small broccoli or cauliflower or both, chopped or diced

2 diced large carrots

2-3 diced celery stalks

1 diced medium onion

4 minced garlic bulbs (or 1-2 tablespoons minced garlic from the jar)

2 boxes/about 6 cups of stock (vegetable or really any stock or broth will do)

Salt and pepper to taste (at least a teaspoon)

2 bay leaves

2-3 tablespoons chopped parsley

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Add Old Bay Seasoning or Leblanc���s Creole Seasoning to taste (start with half a teaspoon and go from there)

Drizzle of vegetable oil

Fireball special version ingredient: Chili flakes

Directions: Get a big pot, heat the oil and add all the vegetables. Cook the vegetables. Add the stock to the pot. Add the crab. Add the salt, pepper, bay leaves, cayenne pepper, and other seasonings. Cook. This is a giant pot of food. Just cook it until it’s all hot. Taste the broth as you go and add more seasoning to taste. Add chili flakes. Take out the bay leaves before serving.

Serve hot with bread and butter! Make sure there is prijand and more chili flakes on the table for the bravest eaters.

[cffeine]

sometime after learning where dazai lives, chuuya realizes dazai’s shipping container doesn’t have any sort of refrigerator, and he is literally surviving off of canned crab and the like.

in retaliation to this half-hearted suicide attempt, chuuya buys a cooler and shoves into it frozen foods dazai won’t complain about being unable to heat up because he doesn’t even have any way to cook.

chuuya is eventually so annoyed by this that he gets into the habit of sending dazai off with a string of curses and a couple meals in tupperware that he collects from dazai’s home every time mori sends him over to drag dazai off to work

[thestormynobody]

A Sisters Wish

Note: This takes place after this fic. You can probably read it on its own but I personally recommend reading that one first. Thank you once again to Nube for beta reading for me <3

There was an old legend in Bambouche: You must pick up the prettiest shell you can find. Once you do that you whisper a desire into it several times. Some tellings say three, others five or even nine. Having done this you take the shell with you. Keeping it close and safe until nightfall. When the stars are at their brightest you would whisper your wish one more time into the shell then return it to the sea. 

It was said that once a long time ago a fisherman was lost at sea, thought to be dead by everyone. His partner made a wish in this way and  within three days he had returned home safely, though with no memory of where he had been the whole time.

Of course. No one really took this seriously.  After all, it was a little silly, wasn’t it? Just a tale told by the older folks to keep the kids entertained. So then, why was she rowing a boat out onto the water, a shell nestled into her pocket? In the initial days after Petronille was unfrozen she had scoured the town for any sign of Bonnie. She was glad they had managed to make it out ahead of the curse but, now she didn’t know where they were and that thought terrified her to her core.

 It took everything within her to not just set off out of town looking for them. She was no stranger to rash decisions but even she knew this was a terrible idea. Bambouche had been frozen for months. They could be anywhere at this point. She needed a general idea of where to start looking. She’d sent letters out to neighboring towns but she knew there had to be others looking for lost family members as well. Her letter was likely one among many and the waiting was driving her insane. 

So. Why not do this? Couldn’t hurt. Besides, being out on the water has always calmed her so, if anything, it is an excuse to find some time to center herself and come up with a new game plan. She pulls the shell from her pocket and whispers into it. 

“Please, let me know that Bonnie is safe and let them come home soon.” 

It’s. What. She. Wants.

With that, she dips her hand into the water and releases the shell, watching it sink out of view. Nothing happens. Not that she really expected anything to happen really. It wasn’t like Bonnie would just appear on the boat next to her… Though part of her wishes they would. She misses them so much and not knowing if they’re okay is about the worst feeling in the world. 

She lays down on the floor of her boat and looks up at the stars. She hasn’t really been sleeping well and knows tonight will be no exception. Might as well stargaze. She remembers the old fisherwoman who’d taken her under her wing when she’d first arrived alone and scared with a baby Bonnie. 

She hadn’t made herself the easiest to approach but the woman had done so anyway. Showing her how to properly catch and cook fish so that she and Bonnie would not go hungry. She’d known so much about the stars. Often talked about them when they spent late nights fishing together. You could navigate using the stars if you knew what to look for. She had said something else that had stuck with her too… Even if you couldn’t see them they were always there, watching over the people below. It was a connection all people shared.

The thought that no matter where Bonnie was, they were still under the same sky brings the smallest bit of comfort to her now. She’d see them again. No matter what.

Her thoughts come to a stop as a streak of light trails across the sky. A shooting star? Maybe this was some sort of sign? Not that she was…particularly religious in one way or another. But hey, she’ll take some divine intervention right now if it means helping her find her sibling. 

Huh.

That’s getting really close. 

TOO close. 

OH CRAB.

She bolts up right and starts rowing for dear life out of the trajectory of the light that is rapidly approaching. It still nearly flips her boat when it makes impact with the water. “Oh crab oh crab oh crab-”

Wait.

Did that shooting star look…person shaped?? She could still kind of see the shape as it sank quickly under the water. It does look person shaped!! Did a person just fall from the crabbing sky?! 

Without thinking she dives into the water after whatever-whoever this is. The water is dark but fortunately they are very bright. She swims after the quickly sinking light and manages to grab onto something solid. They’re surprisingly light actually. She hauls them out of the water and somewhat ungracefully gets them into the boat. 

So. That’s a person that just fell from the sky…..and their head is a star. Why not? She was frozen in time for months and that was already pretty weird. This might as well be happening. They don’t seem to be moving. Are they dead...? An impact from that height would be pretty devastating to most people but most people also don’t have stars for heads so who knows what the rules are here. Can she do CPR on something that doesn’t have a mouth???

She hesitantly reaches to see if she can find a pulse when suddenly the star’s eyes fly open, they sit bolt upright and grab her wrist. This catches her so off guard she suplexes them right back into the water. Oops.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

There is a star in her boat. They have their arms folded over their body and are looking out across the water. Probably cold. She was too, the water wasn’t exactly warm after all. They don’t seem…mad about her dunking them back into the water really. They'd been more disorientated than anything and as startled by her as she'd been by them grabbing her.

“Thank you.” They say at last after a long silence. 

“Don't mention it.” She is trying so very hard not to ask the obvious question. It’s probably rude to ask someone why they're a star so she settles on the other question at the forefront of her mind:

“How the crab did you end up falling from the sky??”

They stare at her for a moment. “Stars do that sometimes.”

“...sure, but they don't usually also talk.”

“Have you ever met another star?”

“...I suppose not.”

“Well there you go~! Hm. Though I do suppose there must be another reason I'm here. Did you perhaps make a wish?”

“How-?”

“Star.”

“...riiight.” She feels a mix of both hope and skepticism. 

“Your sibling is safe.”

!

“More than that, they're one of the saviors of Vauguarde. You should be proud~”

“Bonnie fought the king?!!” 

Why would anyone let a kid even attempt that?!  But… If they're okay and also kicked the king's butt then…yeah. She's crabbing proud. Then again…

“Why should I believe you?”

“Other than the fact I am a sentient star who dropped in to give you the news? Well. Hm. Let’s see-” They close their eyes for a long moment.  

Something whizzes past her head and they pluck it out of the air. “Ah, here we are.” 

They hold it out to her. It’s paper, folded into the shape of a crane. Paper Craft letter sending was nothing new but the shape is different than what she is used to. Also, they generally weren’t this good at pinpointing someone's location. 

She quickly unfolds it and reads it over using the light emitting from the star. The first half is in an unfamiliar handwriting. Neat. Formal. The writer states that her name is Odile and recounts the circumstances of how the saviors met Bonnie and why they'd allowed them to tag along on such a dangerous mission.

…And she got it. Odile was 100 percent correct that Bonnie would have followed them no matter what they said or did. They were stubborn like that. The letter explains the party’s plans to set out for Bambouche as soon as they are fit for travel.

She moves on to the second half of the letter and her heart skips a beat. She knows that handwriting.

Hey Nille! Everyone says you should be unfrozen by now. You better be!! There's so much I wanna tell you but Dille took up too much of the crabbing paper with “adult stuff”. She said we could send another letter soon though. You should write back so i know you're okay. Though i guess itd be hard to know where to send it when we're on the road. Ill ask where to have you send one next time i write. Did you know in Ka Bue they send their letters folded like birds instead of butterflies? It seems a lot more hard to fold it like that to me but Dile makes it look easy. Aw crab im running out of room to write. Dont go anywhere okay? We're coming to you. Write you again soon! This is Bonnie by the way.

Crammed in the corner because they'd written too large to give themselves the space to say everything they wanted to say was a tiny “Miss you.”

A tear darkens the paper. They're okay. She is so relieved. It seems her wish really did come true. She turns to the star, “Thank you…?”

There is an awkward pause, then they seem to realize she’s fishing for a name. “Loop.”

“Thank you Loop. This means a lot to me.”

“...don't mention it.”

The two sit in silence for a while.

“So… now what?” she asks.

“.....”

“Heh…haha-” they start laughing, much harder than she felt the question warranted.  It takes them a bit to regain their composure. 

 “You know. I didn’t think that far ahead.”

Previous chapter Next chapter

[buffetlicious]

For the Braised Fried Fish Maw Seafood Treasure Soup, the staff portioned it into ten smaller bowls before serving it to us. Not sure if it is because I am holding a camera, but my bowl came with more chunks of crab meat and fish maw. Basically, a seafood soup thickened with starch so the ingredients seem to be suspended/frozen in the soup. Black vinegar and white pepper accompanied this soup so feel free to add some to it.

Well, the Roasted Crispy Chicken with Prawn Crackers was warm and tender to eat, it however wasn’t crispy at it. And just like everywhere else in Singapore, they referred to this deep-fried chicken as a roasted chicken. Sprinkle a bit of the salt & pepper before putting it into the mouth. A lacklustre dish but thank goodness, the prawn crackers were crispy though.

This Steamed Hybrid Garoupa in Hong Kong Style was cut into sections just before they served it to us. This hybrid grouper is probably a cross between the giant grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) and brown-marbled grouper or tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) and given the Dragon Tiger Grouper (龙虎斑) name. The fish got to be very fresh to be steamed and cooked with just a simple condiment of soya sauce, julienned spring onions and cilantro leaves for garnish. The end result, sweet springy flesh with collagen like skin that is so good to eat.

The Braised Whole 10-Head Abalone with Sea Cucumber and Spinach was up next but the process of waiting for the next dish to be served was a long one as in-between the hosts are showing us video stories of the newly married couple and plus the live singing by the friends and band. Ten pieces each of the abalone and sea cucumber sitting atop a bed of blanched Popeye’s favourite green vegetable. Why 10 you may ask? Because a table usually seat ten people so the food portions are divided equally so each get a piece of everything (for the expensive ingredients that is). The only complaint for this dish is that the spinach is on the bitter side.

Like an overturned basket or nest, spilling out Deep-Fried Prawns with Black Truffle Mayonnaise Sauce. If there is anything to change for the presentation, I would move the red and green coral lettuces from under the eatable nest and placed it in the nest for a more dramatic effect. Anyway, these truffle gratings lend an aromatic and earthy fragrances to the classic mayo prawns topped with orange flying fish roe. My colleague and I detected a mild spicy hint of wasabi in it but another colleague said it is from the truffle and mayo combo. Differences aside, this is one dish I won’t mind having again.

I always love this noodle served at the end of the dinner courses just before dessert. The Braised Ee-Fu Noodles with Yellow Chives and Straw Mushrooms is a usual staple at wedding due to the fact it is also known as longevity noodles (寿面). Normally, I would consume more than a bowl of the yi mein (伊面) but that night I was already quite stuffed from the dishes served and I was leaving room for dessert. :D

By the time the last dish was up and the clock was ticking closer to 11pm. The warm Teochew Yam Paste with Gingko Nut and Coconut Milk with its gooey and smooth yam (taro) paste and whole gingko nuts smothered in thickened coconut milk is bursting with sweetness and a great comfort to many of us Singaporeans. I liked the fact that the chef tuned the sugar level to just sweet enough as I preferred mine not too saccharine. Anyway, I just had to ask for another bowl as it was just too good to pass up.

Dinner is now over and after shaking hands with the groom, bride and their respective parents, it is time to head to the train station to catch the train home.

[onenakedfarmer]

ANNE SEXTON “The Poet of Ignorance”

Perhaps the earth is floating, I do not know. Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups made by some giant scissors, I do not know. Perhaps the moon is a frozen tear, I do not know. Perhaps God is only a deep voice, heard by the deaf, I do not know.

Perhaps I am no one. True, I have a body and I cannot escape from it. I would like to fly out of my head, but that is out of the question. It is written on the tablet of destiny that I am stuck here in this human form. That being the case I would like to call attention to my problem.

There is an animal inside me, clutching fast to my heart, a huge crab. The doctors of Boston have thrown up their hands. They have tried scalpels, needles, poison gasses and the like. The crab remains. It is a great weight. I try to forget it, go about my business, cook the broccoli, open and shut books, brush my teeth and tie my shoes. I have tried prayer but as I pray the crab grips harder and the pain enlarges.

I had a dream once, perhaps it was a dream, that the crab was my ignorance of God. But who am I to believe in dreams?

[dathomirdumpsterfire]

Chat writes the plot! Time for more 👑🐲🐟 KotD!

(I realize we might have to retcon a bit if the vote goes certain ways, but I didn't want to limit you guys. Have fun, go nuts, describe to everyone your perfect stewjon head canon, no matter how unique!)

Want to be on the tag list? Have an idea for next chapter? Clicked the wrong option? Reblog or Comment! New? Check the very bottom for the Ao3 link. Latest chapter is down below the cut!🔥

~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 8~

Not far from the cave system, in the opposite direction of the geothermal vents, is a living grave. Every now and again one of Naboo's massive oceanic beasts meets it's end to natural causes, and sinks into the deep. Here, new life is born.

This particular corpse of a ketho whale has been here longer than Maul has, and with it's slothful rate of decomposition, it may very well be here after he's gone. The deep water chill keeps the body all but frozen, as the mound of it feeds billions of tiny lives. Starfish, squid, shrimp, eels, octopus, crab, manta, and more. No other places in the deep sea have as much variety of life as the grave mounds do.

To Darth Maul, this place is his personal grocery store.

“Hmmm,” the sith hums, floating upside-down and perusing the options.

His favorite are the shrimp. Individual mouthfuls that crunch pleasantly. But can a Kenobi eat a shrimp? He knuckles his forehead, trying hard to remember. So much of Before was lost to him. The jedi was... human? Possibly?

…did humans eat shrimp?

He couldn't recall.

Annoyed, he makes a note to demand answers, later, and gathers a sampling for now. The brown tree fruit… whatever it was called… the inside was not nourishing enough to survive on, he knew that much.

With a sweep of the force the sith lord selects his victims. A few plush crabs, half a colony of little blue shrimp, a few colorful yellow and black fish that he knew tasted buttery and sweet, with a long eel-

He recalls, suddenly, eating barbeque eel on… on… the home place. The red world, with swamps and cliffs.

Maul catches two more eels, wondering if he can make them taste like… before. Perhaps he would cook his food for once? Some of this would need to be heated for the jedi to even stomach it. Probably.

With his catch writhing and confused in an intangible net of force, the dragonfish sith turns back for the warren of caves and tunnels.

He arrives to find the jedi in just his pants and sleeveless vest, busily rinsing his inner tunics with fruit water. His much abused leather boots were clean and shiney nearby, still wet.

Maul sloughs himself up onto land, dragging dinner up with him.

“Will that not simply make your robes sticky?” he questions the other man, skeptical of the tactic.

“They're not ripe, so they're not sweet in the slightest. I'm hoping…” Kenobi shrugs, “it's an experiment. I suppose we shall see.”

“Mnh.”

The jedi stands, turning to him while wringing out the excess fluid. “What have you got there?”

Grinning, Maul tosses the panoply of pissed off sea creatures at him. “Catch.”

The noise Kenobi makes when he takes eel to the face brings such joy to him.

The creatures scrabble for safety as the jedi backflips further away from them. “Wha! Pfss- guh- MAUL!”

Wheezing with mirth, Maul recollects his catch, and presses them all on the surface of the magma rock to boil them dead.

Kenobi looks on in horror, speechless.

After a brief grilling, Maul piles the results together at the base of the slowly deforming orb, and curls up beside it to begin eating. He picks up an eel first, of course, interested to see if the cooking would make it taste like barbeque.

It does not.

It is still good though.

The jedi lays out his clothes to dry and approaches, one hand tucked into an elbow, the other cradling his chin. He mutters, “... at least it was quick,” then clears his throat before speaking up. “Is any of that for me, or was the food throwing just to be for your own entertainment?”

“It is not my fault you cannot follow simple instructions, Kenobi, but yes. Eat what you will," Maul offers, smug.

The man sinks down onto the stone floor, watchful, and starts poking through the options.

Stupid jedi. Doing something now when he is expecting it would be boring and predictable. He will wait until the other man's guard is lowered before tormenting him again. Obviously.

“Tell me, Kenobi, did the tree fruit satisfy your thirst?” he asks, popping a shrimp in his mouth and smashing it with a crunch of his many excellent teeth.

“The coconuts? Yes… thank you. The pile will last me a few days," the man returns.

Coconuts. They are called coconuts. Of course.

Kenobi picks up an eel, handling it's rubbery length with a disgruntled look. “... I don't suppose I could have a small knife? Temporarily? I need to cut this to cook it properly.”

Maul squints at him. “You are lying, jedi.”

The man huffs, holding the limp eel up, “I am not. This is an entire eel, and not a small one either. I need to remove the guts, and filet it, then grill the slices.”

“Why would you remove the guts? The organs are the best part,” he says, even more certain that Kenobi was simply making things up.

The jedi makes a face, “Hardly.”

They glare at each other for a moment before Kenobi looks away, scowling. “Fine, I shall just… eat something else.”

Maul watches him gather up the thin black and yellow fish, and levitate them on top of the rock. He… just leaves them there. For minutes. The cave starts to smell different because of it.

“Your fish is burning, jedi,” he tells the man.

“No it isn't,” Kenobi replies.

Maul rises up on the coil of his tail, looming at something like nine feet tall to peer over top of the rock and look at the crisping bodies. They aren't any more black than before, but they are turning colors.

“They are becoming brown…”

“Good,” the man says, nonsensically.

With the force, Kenobi flips them without getting up to look. The underside is significantly more brown.

The dragonfish sith sloughs back down to the floor, thoughtful. This was cooking… he had cooked, before, many times. This was right, yes… meat turned colors. It… denatured the proteins.

He doesn't know what ‘denatured’ means anymore, but the word itself remains. Maul scowls, trying to poke at the idea.

He looks up at Kenobi, “How… denatured do you need to make… the protein… to make it edible for… humans?”

The other man hums, calling the crispy fish dinner down to himself, but holding it midair for a moment as it dissipates heat. “For humans? Oh, well, I suppose it depends on their immune system. Anakin likes everything mostly raw… but I've known others that wouldn't touch anything uncooked unless it was a plant.”

Ahah. ‘their’. Kenobi was not a human himself then.

“... and your kind?” Maul asks.

“Hmm… I suppose I prefer my own dinner well done, if only for the result of warm, spiced food,” he says, and brings one of the fish closer to himself to begin nibbling. He makes a face at it. “Mng… of which this is not. I'm glad you've brought back scaleless fish, but the flavor does leave something to be desired.”

“You are lucky I feed you at all,” he tells the fool, sneering.

Kenobi sighs, “I suppose anything is better than starving. Though I would really prefer a pan, oil, and some spice to go with it, even just salt…”

Maul gives him a look.

He scoffs. “Yes yes, I know, stop making that face at me. Beggars can't be choosers, I know.”

They eat until both are full, Maul devouring considerably more than Kenobi. He dumps the extras back into the water. The remains might attract future snacks.

“Well, sith,” the jedi says from his spot beside the magma ball, “what now? I'm fed, I'm watered, I'm warm. For the moment, I'm not dying. What are you going to do with me? Torture?”

Maul grins as he returns from throwing the extra away. “Are you excited at the prospect?”

“Certainly not,” Kenobi drawls, crossing his arms.

The dragonfish sith sways closer, passing him by. The other man clearly doesn't want him at his back, so the motion forces him to turn. As Maul circles, Kenobi keeps turning to face him.

Exactly as intended.

With the jedi's attention on his face, all the way turned around from where they began, Maul draws the end of his tail up to whip at the back of Kenobi’s calves.

The jedi makes a little hop, predicting his flanking attack with the force, but he still turns to look behind him. His mistake. Maul takes that opportunity to close the distance, getting a grip on the front of beige vests. Kenobi spins back around, arms shoving outward defensively.

One of his palms slams into Maul’s sensitive gills, painfully, making the sith snarl and take a snap at the offending limb.

Kenobi tries to tumble backwards, to get away from him, but the grip on his clothes is only joined by a tail curling behind his knees, dragging the jedi in.

The prey in his grip fights him, skilled in the force and so much more interesting to subdue than the mindless wildlife outside.

Kenobi works an elbow free, and tries slamming it point first into the tail spiraling about his hips. Maul barely feels it, but he starts trying to capture that free hand all the same. While he's on that, the jedi side steps his tail, and then drops his weight heavily while pushing downward with the force.

Maul loses hold on him entirely.

The jedi folds, rolls, and does half a cartwheel, kicking him in the arm. Then he falls backwards to gain space. The sith gives him none, closing the distance again and snatching at his ankle as the other man spins away. He misses, and has to try two more grabs before he gets a hold of an elbow with a gleeful noise of success.

Kenobi attempts to bite him, with his human-similar jaw and his flat white teeth. How precious. The dragonfish sith giggles, and nips at the air near his fingers. The jedi recoils, desperate to protect the digits of his sword arm, sending a gale of force into Maul so strong it sends him toppling over backwards.

Unfortunately for the other man, he's got a good grip on Kenobi’s arm, so they both go over backwards.

Maul cackles as they fall.

Kenobi bellows.

They tussle on the floor like it's just any old bar brawl for the better part of ten minutes, until -finally- Maul's sheer tonnage and more than a dozen feet of solid muscle wins the fight for him, yet again.

He bears down on his prisoner, grinning with all his many teeth as the man cries out in pain.

“Weak jjjedi,” he croons, so close to Kenobi’s face that the green glow of his eyes illuminates both of their expressions. “I am beginning to think our first battle was a fluke. You cannot seem to best me.”

The jedi struggles under him, trying to get any limb free, fighting for every inch. “It's not my fault you weigh as much as a bantha!”

“Oh? But you like my weight.”

Kenobi shifts left, trying to wriggle his way out of the hold. “What in the blazes makes you think that?”

Maul hisses in amusement. “You roam in your sleep, jedi. You came to me many times last night, seeking my scales and burrowing into me.”

The man underneath him makes a horrified face, his efforts to escape stalling. “I did not!”

Maul lolls to the side, laying beside him instead of on top, pulling those pale hands to his chest and pressing the palms over his hearts. His long black tail curls up and over the man's legs. “Does this position not ring any bells, Kenobi?”

Blue eyes stare down at his hands, at the red and black that peek through his fingers. “...”

Delighted by the other man's emotional upheaval, and the way it made the force around them feel, Maul pushes the gambit a little further.

“How about if I do… this?” he says, sacrificing a hand to bring Kenobi's body closer to his, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, affectionately. “Are you going to nuzzle me again, I wonder? Going to curl up on my chest and drool?”

“No!” the jedi exclaims, shimmying backward.

Maul allows it and watches him with an inviting look, finding that this little facet of Kenobi’s fear was… particularly entertaining.

“Oh? But you slept so well, did you not?” he accuses.

Kenobi covers his eyes with a hand. “It's… it's nothing to do with you. I simply sleep better when…”

“Held?” Maul croons.

The jedi growls, without answering. Delightful.

Maul snickers, playfully snapping his teeth near the other man's neck. Kenobi turtles, glaring at him. “Would you quit that? I know you're not going to actually bite me. I'd be dead in minutes, and that would ruin all your bloody fun wouldn't it?”

The sith draws back humming. The rage in Kenobi’s eyes is… pleasing. Anger is good. He understands.

“Hnnn… I offer you a trade,” he says sweetly.

The jedi's struggles calm, and he stops ducking into such a hilarious and pathetic little ball, but his expression remains pure suspicion. “It's hardly a trade if I'm coerced into it while disarmed and bound,” he complains.

“Do you think I care?” Maul asks him pleasantly.

Kenobi huffs. “Fine. What's your trade, sith?”

“I will promise not to bite your neck, or near it, if you tell me of your species. At length.”

The jedi blinks, slowly, waiting with an expectant air. Maul raises a brow at him.

“You… want to know about… stewjoni?” the man asks, baffled.

“Yessss,” the dragonfish sith assures.

He is missing too many pieces of Before. The jedi will serve him, as prisoner and informant.

🔥🔥 don't forget to reblog tysm! 🔥🔥

-Tag list- (Comment if you want added!)

@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals @icequeen8043 @moonsickvampire @maulish

New? Start from Chapter 1! 👇🏽

[toprecipe24]

Rich & Creamy Shrimp and Crab Spinach Dip with Garlic & Parmesan 🦐🦀

🦐 Ingredients 🦀

For the Dip:

1 cup cooked shrimp, chopped

1 cup lump crab meat, drained

2 cups fresh spinach, chopped (or 1 cup frozen, thawed, and drained)

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Salt and black pepper, to taste

For Garnish (Optional):

Chopped parsley

Extra parmesan

Red pepper flakes

📝 Instructions ���

Sauté the Spinach & Garlic:

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add minced garlic and sauté until fragrant.

Stir in the spinach and cook until wilted (or warm if using frozen). Set aside.

Mix the Creamy Base:

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce.

Stir until smooth and creamy.

Add the Cheeses & Seasoning:

Mix in mozzarella, parmesan, paprika, salt, and black pepper. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Incorporate the Seafood:

Fold in the cooked shrimp, crab meat, and sautéed spinach. Stir until well combined.

Bake the Dip:

Transfer the mixture to an oven-safe dish or skillet.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375°F (190°C) for 20 minutes, or until bubbly and golden on top.

Serve & Garnish:

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with chopped parsley, extra parmesan, or red pepper flakes for garnish.

Serve warm with toasted baguette slices, tortilla chips, or crackers.

💡 Pro Tips:

Seafood Options: Swap shrimp or crab with lobster or scallops for a luxurious twist.

Make It Spicy: Add a pinch of cayenne pepper or a splash of hot sauce for extra heat.

Dairy-Free Option: Use vegan cream cheese, mayonnaise, and parmesan for a dairy-free version.

[ladyhoneydee]

10 First Lines Challenge

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able to and see if there are any patterns!

Thank you @linktheacehero, @sparklyhyperbole, and @korokposting for the tags! I was flattered to be tagged so much, especially by writers I admire :))

Lines under the cut (my pattern analysis was a little long-winded lol)

Icebreakers: "Link jammed the ice pick down into the same lump of frozen sludge for what felt like the thousandth time and sighed."

this peppermint winter, this marshmallow world: "Zelda knew something was wrong with Link from a mile off."

An Afternoon in Dalite Forest: "Once a year, they travel to Mount Satori."

Shadows and Sorrows: "Bright light, shaded in blue, illuminated the Triforce mosaic over Lake Hylia."

in the light and the air: "Hateno summers were notoriously long, warm, and sticky."

The Hermit Crab Ditty: "Link realizes she's in love with Marin in the midst of a musical phrase, and blows so hard into her ocarina that the note shrieks like a seagull."

You Are In Love: "Zelda hadn't seen Midna since they were both six years old and under three feet tall, sharing a nanny while their parents were enmeshed in diplomatic relations."

A Shard and a Ring: "Midna hadn't been this nervous since she was sixteen."

Under the Bluebell Moon: "The air smells of pine and safety."

At Break of Dawn: "Nights always fell quickly over Medlir."

As for patterns, the first thing I notice is that I have a tendency to start off with something that will be important to the premise of the fic (1, 2, 3, 6), or imagery that helps immediately introduce the reader to the setting (1, 4, 5, 9). If I'm not doing that, I'm usually providing a hook that will develop into the rest of the fic's events or ideas (5, 7, 8, 10). The other thing I notice is that I wanted to edit (and did, a little bit—don't tell anyone hehe) almost every line for 4-10. Given that these were the last four fics from my month-long Song(fic) Challenge from last year, which I did not edit at the time and have not yet gone back to fix up, this isn't a surprise—but it is lighting a fire under my ass to edit those sometime soon lol.

Tagging @cooking-with-hailstones, @zeldaseyebrows, and @karama9!

[afatlotofchance]

Kristoff's Full Year (commission)

This was a commission for a weight gain story involving Kristoff from Frozen. If I recall this was written when there was still just the Frozen movie, and not its sequel. Enjoy!

Kristoff felt really uncomfortable. He was starting to regret his decision. Anna had begged him to go live with her in the castle, and while he resisted the fifteen first times, he gave up at the sixteenth. This girl was certainly persistent, and darn cute. He thought to himself “Hey, why not? After all, living in a castle isn’t that bad.”

And it wasn’t that bad. At first. It was nice to sleep in a warm, soft, comfy bed. To be able to wear fancy, expensive, shiny clothes. To not be insulted or beaten up by angry merchants or bandits in the woods.

But then, there was… the rest. All those servants who kept being polite, formal and careful around him. All those weird rules he had sometimes trouble understanding, these strange etiquettes people kept referring to but that he could see nowhere. The domestics were patient and kind with him, yes, but it made him feel worse. They acted like that out of pity. They knew that he didn’t fit in, that he wasn’t made for this kind of life. It showed in their eyes.

And, on top of that, there was… well, the bigness.

Not the castle. Kristoff had grown accustomed to live in big, deserted places. The castle was like the forest, only with a roof on top, and less cold. And less wolves.

No, what really troubled him were… the meals.

Three different types of soups. Followed by five different meats, seven different fishes, eight different cheeses, and an incalculable amount of pastries. There were beasts on the royal table he had never heard of or seen in his life, like spider crabs or swans. He didn’t know how he liked his food cooked – medium, rare, blue, these terms meant nothing to him. For him, meat was cooked, burned raw, there was no in between or nuances. And the sauces! There were so many sauces! He never had sauces before, outside of Sven’s saliva, and even then, saliva wasn’t changing the taste of the food! Here, he had to be careful not asking too little or too much… And the sauces could be sweet, salty, yellow, green, sour, plain… His head was spinning after each meal. Hell, one time they asked him what kind of quarry he wanted: he thought they were speaking of stone-pits!

As a result, Kristoff took a shy approach to the food in the castle. He ate very little, always left a bit on the plates, sent back dishes to the kitchen. He was used to two, maybe even one snack a day, not five parades of dishes between sunrise and nightfall! The only thing reassuring in these meals was the bread. Plain, old bread, you can never go wrong with it.

Well, that’s what he thought. Until he discovered that the castle’s kitchen offered ten different types of bread.

Kristoff’s lack of eating worried the cooks. Kristoff feared that the servants would realize that he wasn’t a man of refined taste, but it ended up being the opposite: the staff thought that he couldn’t enjoy his cooking because it was too bad for him. So the chefs tried harder and harder to please him, commanding the finest, richest, rarest food, multiplying the spices, the herbs, the sauces, making each meal bigger, more complex, more extravagant… But still, nothing. Kristoff was eating like a bird. Only Sven was eating his heart’s fill, and that was because he only ate raw carrots! The cooks tried to include a lot of carrots in Kristoff’s menu, assuming that he would have the same preferences as his mount, but that was another failure.

Anna, noticing the state of despair in which the cooks were plunged, thought it was time to step in and talk to Kristoff.

“Kristoff, why are you vexing them like that?”

“Who?”

“The cooks! They are all working so hard to please you! And yet, you keep eating nothing of what they prepare! I saw the head cook crying in his apron this morning! Why don’t you try to be a bit more considerate? You know, food doesn’t appear magically on the table! There are people behind it, who make it with patience and love!”

“I’m not trying to be inconsiderate! It’s just that…”

Kristoff sighed.

“I don’t know how to act here, okay? I know I don’t belong here! You understand that, Anna? I was raised by trolls, in wild nature! I ate raw vegetables each day! I drank straight out of the brooks! I’m not used to all this… fancy food. And there are so many forks and knives and spoons, and things I don’t even know how to name! I don’t know what to use!”

“I prepared you a little guide to help you with the cutlery.”

“I know, but still! And, anyway, it’s all too much! I always fear I will not be able to finish the meal! I don’t want to get sick! It’s a wonder and your sister are so scrawny with eating so much!”

“I’m not scrawny!” Anna replied. “I’m a strong woman, with a perfect weight for her height and age! And we are used to these kinds of meals. Just like you can get used to them!”

“I don’t know if…”

“Have you learned nothing from what happened with Elsa? Stop fearing what people will think of you! Restraining yourself and hiding your feelings is not a good solution. Accept the gifts people want to make to you, alright? It’s all just good intention. They want to please you. So, eat your fill, eat what your heart desires, and the servants will be glad. You’ll show them you appreciate their work, and they’ll probably stop preparing so much food. Trust me, you can pig out a bit if you like, it will only do good for everyone.”

Kristoff agreed. Anna kissed him on the cheek as a reward.

The head cook never stopped preparing so much food. He was filled with joy at the mere sight of Kristoff cleaning his dishes and digging in his meals – and he thought that him regaining his appetite was because he had finally reached the perfect level of food quality and quantity. As a result, he kept working hard to provide rich, filling and nicely fattening food.

Kristoff actually ended up enjoying this journey on the culinary world. He discovered so much new things! He ate smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, prawns and crab, cod and herring, sardine and mackerel, mutton stew and pork chops. He was particularly amazed at the amount of seafood the cooks served him. There were so many weird things with weird names and weird looks and weird tastes. Oysters and clams, lobsters and mussels, scallops and cockles… And there were so many ways to cook them! Braised, boiled, roasted, raw, smoked, salted, pickled!

For the first time in his life, Kristoff went to bed with a full belly and without any fear of being hungry ever again.

And this new life took quite quickly a toll on him. After all, you couldn’t go from eating whatever berries and potatoes you could find in the woods to a full breakfast-brunch-lunch-afternoon snack-dinner routine without seeing some changes in your body.

Kristoff was living in the castle for roughly two months now. He was naked in his bathroom (that he tried to not use as much as the servants wanted him to). He looked at himself in the mirror and said:

“Yep. I’m fat.”

He wasn’t enormous, of course. But he still had his flab.

His belly was soft now, soft and fleshy. It was still quite flat, but thicker and plumper. He had grown love handles, which gave him the feeling that he was carrying a belt of fat around his waist. And his chest, that used to be stone-hard, felt more doughy and flaccid than usual.

“It would be a good time to work out a bit… Staying in the castle all day long and never going outside isn’t the best for a mountain man like me.”

It was true that his level of physical activity had drastically dropped. While the castle was big enough to make him walk several hours a day, it was nothing compared to the roads he had to take, the mountains he had to climb or the ice he had to harvest.

At this thought, he looked outside. One of the windows in his room was overlooked a small court, the one where his sled waited. The beautiful sled Ana gave him as a gift. The beautiful sled, with its cup holder. He tried it maybe once or twice, and then he put it there.

He should be getting out more, he thought. Doing his job.

Because, as it turned out, “Royal Ice Harvester” was a real job after all – but it consisted mostly of sending other men to work, and watch the team as they cut the ice, and making sure there wasn’t any accident. But he wasn’t supposed to cut the ice himself. He was there to oversee.

It was nice at first, to give orders around, to teach young men how to correctly cut the ice, to advice the team on what were the best times and places in order to have a good ice. But soon, he felt quite useless. They all knew their work and what they were supposed to do. They were good workers, with strong bodies and a zero-percent rate of accidents. They didn’t need a babysitter. So, he came back to the castle and left them be, only checking if the amount of ice supposed to be delivered each month was due.

Thinking so much of ice made his stomach growl. He wanted some ice cream. The castle’s cooks could make some wonderful ice creams, with flavors only Heaven could surpass. He salivated a bit, but then wiped the drool on his chin.

“Come on Kristoff, we said exercise!”

He got onto the floor and, still naked, started doing some push ups.

After a series of ten, he decided to take a pause. He was hot, sweaty, tired. He didn’t mind the hot and sweaty part – all those baths they forced him to take made him feel cleaner than a healthy man should be, and it grossed him out a bit. Not, it was the tired part that was bothering him. He used to do three series of ten each day, without pause.

Kristoff laid on his bed to rest a bit. His big, comfy, sweet bed. With good-smelling sheets. And soft pillows…

“You have a pillow on your belly already…” a voice whispered in his mind.

He got up once more to look at himself in the mirror again.

His belly wasn’t so big. It was just wider and thicker. If he kept his clothes on, no one could tell the difference. He still looked buff and muscular, and that’s all he needed.

“Yeah… your chest may be a bit bigger and your stomach more bloated, but you can still close your belt.”

To make sure, he got out of the closet his old ice harvester suit. He had stopped wearing it after setting in the castle – the place being very warm, the suit, with its lining of fur, kept making him too hot – and not in the good sense of the term.

He put it on and looked at his reflection.

“Yeah. No difference whatsoever. Don’t worry. It’s just some… some sympathy weight, as they say. Nothing to worry about.”

He took a new look at his sleigh, outside. He felt a bit guilty not using it – but, at the same time, he thought about what happened to his old one, right after he finished paying for it, and it was enough to cool him down.

“No, I won’t take that risk. This beauty will stay here. I’ll get out another day. Another, safer day.”

And thus Kristoff stayed indoor, enjoying the royalty’s life.

He did not worry one bit about his stomach getting bigger. He didn’t realize that his stomach expanding meant that he would get hungrier and be able to eat more food, which would only expand his stomach even more, leading him into a vicious circle of feasting and fattening. Kristoff had spent most of his life with trolls and reindeers, who had very different eating habits and seasonal diets than humans, resulting in him lacking a knowledge about how his body worked.

That’s why he went on gulping down fish, cream or mutton soup, wolfing down meatballs, meatcakes and beef with mustard, gobbling up liver pâtés, salted offal and braised pheasants, putting cheese on his buttered bread with a bit of cream on top, sometimes devouring entire roasted pigs! However, he couldn’t bring himself to eat moose – the cooks proposed some to him, many times, but it reminded him too much of Sven and made him really uncomfortable.

But what Kristoff fell for the most, out of everything that came out of the royal kitchen, were the pastries. The cakes. The desserts. As a child, he never knew the delightful bliss of eating sweets or biting into candies. So, when he discovered those at the palace, he went full sugar-crazy. He kept asking for more. More cherry pies, more apple pies, more rhubarb pies! More strawberry tarts, more bilberry tarts! More raspberry waffles, more cloudberry cakes! More meringue, more cardamom, more whipped cream! The cooks were happy to oblige.

Of course, sometimes he felt guilty. Guilty for not taking the sleigh out of the castle like he promised. Guilty for not supervising the workers at the ice harvest. Guilty for not getting out as much he used to, and for not being active anymore.

But he quickly found out that fried food was an excellent way to wipe your guilt out of your mind. With the amount of butter Arendelle produced, they tended to fry everything they could put their hands upon: onions, fishes, sausages… And fried sausages soon became Kristoff’s favorites. With a bit of gravy.

Of course, like we said earlier, all of this was a vicious circle of feasting and fattening. Kristoff’s belly started to get rounder and more prominent, while his pectorals grew and puffed out and his arms got flabby and tubby. But the young man never noticed how chubby he was actually getting. Partly because of his own lack of interest in his appearance, and disdain for mirrors, and partly because of Anna. She mentioned to the servants that Kristoff was starting to fill out his clothes, and that it wouldn’t be a good thing for him to stress over such little things. As a result, the servants started to offer the prince-to-be larger clothes, more fitting for his new castle-life-size, and Kristoff gladly accepted them, not thinking much about it. After all, royals must get new clothes every week, right? That’s how rich people did it.

There was nothing weird with that.

Months went by, and soon it was time to celebrate Kristoff’s first year at the castle.

Kristoff walked towards Elsa. He was munching on an Arendelle flute – a local candy he particularly enjoyed. It was a chocolate bar shaped like a small chain of mountains, filled with butter, biscuit, hazelnuts and caramel. He was mad about them, eating nearly one per hour. Absolutely delicious.

Kristoff had a little friendly chat with the young queen, nothing out of the ordinary. Except maybe for some… allusions Elsa kept making.

For example, how she called him “big guy”. Usually she nicknamed him “reindeer prince”. Or when she said he should lay down a bit on the Arendelle flute, “You know what they say. You are what you eat, and it shows that you’re snacking on little mountains”. Later, she even compared him to a “full-grown snowman”. Kristoff tried to imagine a human-sized Olaf and wondered why he would ever look like him.

Well, that’s until he later saw some kids in the court make a snowman. An actual, traditional snowball. A big, round, white snowman.

Tortured by the most horrific doubts, he rushed to his room, gulping what was left of the Arendelle flute, and got rid of his clothes before standing in front of the mirror.

His worst fear had come true.

He was fat.

And not just pleasantly plum, like before, no. He was really fat and pale. Just like a snowman.

His belly was a big round ball. His chest was all puffy, and falling down on his gut. His behind was enormous, his thighs double the size of what they used to be, his arms all chunky – even his face was round now, with two bloated cheeks! And was that a double chin? It was! He had a big, round, snowman face!

“But… I don’t feel different… I don’t feel heavier!” Kristoff lamented. “And my clothes still fit me perfectly!”

Well… the clothes of the castle still fitted him perfectly, he thought. But what about his original clothes? His ice-harvesting suit?

Kristoff took it out of the closet and tried to get in the pants.

It wasn’t easy. They were tight. Tight around everything! Around his calves, around his thighs, around his behind… He couldn’t bend over, out of fear of making the seams explode.

“Well, I may have gained a bit of weight, alright… But it’s not that much…”

He then put the sweater on. It was as tight as the pants. He couldn’t even make it past his belly button! Not wanting to admit his defeat so fast, Kristoff sucked his gut in, and took his belt. He tied it around his now-slimmed-down-but-still-flabby abdomen, hoping that it would help to hold his gut in. He then put the tunic and looked at himself in the mirror.

“See? Not bad. Yeah, your shoulders are puffier, and your arms bigger, and your face rounder… and maybe you have a hard time moving in your clothes but… you’re not as fat as you think!”

That’s when he made the mistake of releasing his gut. He had lost the habit of using his abdominal muscles – he couldn’t hold it back anymore. When he let it out, the beast went wild. His belt snapped, his tunic ripped off and his sweater was pulled back all the way to his stomach, revealing his belly-button once more.

Kristoff let out a whimper as he had to face the hard truth.

He was as big as a whale.

“You knew the whole time?”

“Well… yes. It was a bit hard to miss.” Anna answered.

“But then, why didn’t you tell me?”

“What should I have told you? You put on a little weight, and what? No big deal! And no, that wasn’t a joke at your expense. What I mean is… there’s a lot of tubby guys in Arendelle. It’s not something out of the ordinary. Everybody gain some pounds in winter… it’s their winter weight.”

“I am the double of my original weight! That’s not just a few winter pounds! Have you seen just how much I eat per day? I paid attention recently, you know, and guess what I realized? I eat more than anyone in this castle. Much more than you, than Elsa, than Sven, than Olaf – well it doesn’t count because he doesn’t eat – but still! I’m the biggest eater in this castle! I’m the one walking around, snacking on fried sausages like if they were carrots!”

Anna didn’t know what to answer.

“Hey… wait a minute.” Kristoff whispered. “I get it, now… That’s why I always had clothes that were fitting me perfectly, when I should have busted out of them! It was you! You kept replacing them!”

“Well, I didn’t want you to feel bad, or stressed. You said it yourself, you feared you wouldn’t fit in! And again, it’s not a joke on the fact you can’t fit in your old suit anymore. I just… I didn’t want to destroy your self-confidence. And the cook was so happy that you finally ate his meals and…”

“The cook? It was all about the cook?”

“No, not at all!”

Anna sighed.

“You were happy. For once, you stopped caring about what other people thought. You weren’t anxious anymore about what fork to use. You weren’t fearful of the other’s judgement. You weren’t hiding yourself in your shell. You were outgoing, funny, happy, always smiling… and I liked that. And I wanted to keep it that way.”

Kristoff sat on a chair. Anna sat right next to him and hugged his big frame.

“You don’t have to be ashamed of your look, or your weight.” she whispered in his ear. “It’s just how you are. And you are still strong, and cute, and I still love you. You’re still the same Kristoff.”

“No. You’re wrong on one thing, and that’s what bothers me the most. I’m not strong anymore. I’m lazy. Sluggish. Weak. This morning, I was wondering “Hey, shouldn’t I stay in the castle today? It’s a bit cold outside.” Do you realize what that means, Anna? Me, who spent my whole life in the snow, the mountains and the winter, me, for who ice was the purpose of existence… I feared that it would be a little cold outside! I’m not me anymore, Anna. I want to get back to my old self.”

Anna bowed her head.

“I understand.”

“Thanks.”

He kissed her on the forehead while stroking her hair.

“Alright. Then I’ll have to do some exercises. Ask the cooks to cut down on the butter. And the bread. And the cheese. But leave the pastries. One – or two – at each meal isn’t what’s going to make me fatter.”

First step of the “From Fatstoff to Fitstoff” program: get a new ice-harvesting suit. Kristoff went to buy one at Oaken’s place. He nearly died of humiliation when Oaken offered him one of his own suits, from when he was younger. Even worse, it fitted him perfectly.

Second step: Ice-harvest again. The good, old fashioned way, with big saws and giant tongs. Kristoff went to work with the guys of his team at least three times a week. He felt himself reliving, adrenaline rushing through his blood.

Third step: Races with Sven. Running was good for him. Of course, he failed every time – but at least, he was moving and sweating.

Talking of sweating, fourth step: spend time in Oaken’s sauna. Oaken’s family making remarks about Kristoff’s size and the children slapping hard his “jelly-belly”, asking if he was pregnant, was quite a trial on its own, but he endured it as the penance he rightfully earned for his gluttony.

Fifth step: stop eating those damned Arendelle flutes!

“Kristoff is back! Kristoff is back!”

The trolls all rushed towards him to welcome the boy back, taking his clothes off to wash them, pressing him with questions about his life in the castle.

“And you’ve grown quite well!”

“Yeah, you’re becoming more and more like a troll now!”

“All big!”

“And all round!”

“Yes, that’s one heavy, heavy Kristoff!” they all sang in a choir.

Kristoff didn’t mind their playful teasing. Besides, he knew very well that he had lost quite a weight.  His chest, while still saggy, was now smaller. Same thing for his flabby arms. His face wasn’t round anymore, and he had lost the double chin (even though his cheeks were still a bit puffy). His belly had deflated – goodbye, ball gut – even though he still had to work on the lard that was hanging over his belt. And his butt was back to a roughly normal size.

He was even floating in his new ice-harvester suit! If this went on, he would have to get it fixed, or buy a new one!

He was fully confident that he would go back to his usual silhouette in no time.

He shouldn’t have been so confident.

It happened the day of his birthday.

“Tadaaa!”

Kristoff couldn’t believe his eyes. In front of him, the biggest, largest, longest table he had ever seen. And on it… food. Lots and lots and lots of food. Piles of fishes, entire roasted menageries, mountains of cheese and bread, a sea of soup, a forest of pastries… And, in front of him, an enormous ice-cream cake with “Happy birthday Kristoff!” written on top.

“Where are the other guests?”

“It’s all for you, Kristoff!”

“But… but I can’t eat all of that!”

“You don’t have to, silly! But feel free to do if your gut can handle it.”

Anna sat beside him and took a slice of cake.

“It’s just that… I saw how hard you worked.” she said. “You lost so much weight, and you’re so often out there, and you restrain yourself at each meal… Don’t lie to me. I see how you devour the cheese with your eyes at lunch. Even yesterday you were drooling just by looking at my loaf of bread! And I know you’re dying to bite again in an Arendelle flute.”

The mere mention of the candy made Kristoff’s stomach swirl and rumble in hunger.

“But today is your birthday. Your day. Go on, it’s all for you! Go ahead, it’s your gift! You deserve a treat after all, for all your hard work.”

Kristoff hesitated, but the glorious glow of all the butter, the fat, the frying and the oil finally broke him. He had been dieting for too long and Anna was right, he could offer himself a little treat.

He started with the cake. Then he went on with the seafood soups, the creamy soups, the meaty soups… followed by the mashed potatoes, carrots purée, raw carrots, salads, beetroots, some lingonberries, stewed peas with bacon, boiled cabbage with potatoes… he gulped some fruit juices, before finishing the berries and attacking the meat. Big, salty, heavy meat. With a lot of mustard.

After finishing the roe’s liver, the boiled lamb, the braised pheasant, the roasted sheep and the brawn, Kristoff laid back on his chair, his shirt raised on his prominent abdomen, his big hands rubbing his distended stomach. He let out a burp that resonated throughout the empty dining room.

“Excuse me…”

“No offense taken.” Anna replied.

“I never ate so much before… I think I’m full. I don’t have room for more.”

“What do you mean? You can’t end now! There’s still the fishes, and the cheese, and the biscuits, and…”

“I don’t think I can… my gut won’t…” Kristoff whispered before letting out another, smaller burp.

Anna put a hand on Kristoff’s belly and started rubbing. Strangely, it made his cheeks and his ears feel hot. 

“Come on, I’m sure you can do that… A big guy like you, afraid by a little meal? Plus, if you finish the rest… there’s a bunch of Arendelle flutes waiting for you.”

“Many?”

“Many.”

Kristoff looked at Anna, then at the half-emptied table. He sighed.

“Well, if I have to… Damn, what couldn’t I do for some Arendelle flutes… Pass me the gravy, would you?”

He poured it straight in his mouth, to help him wash down everything he had already eaten. He burped once more and attacked the fishes.

Poached, fried or braised, there was probably all of the inhabitants of the sea on the table. The trout and the cod, the halibut and the haddock, along with crabs and cockles. Sometimes, Anna would help him out, or by rubbing and massaging his belly or by handing the plates that were too far away – his now bloated and rock-hard belly making it harder for him to bend over the table.

Then, it was the turn of the five different cheese wheels, before the biscuits and cookies, with a bit of milk. He gulped the other, smaller birthday cakes, and rinsed his mouth with a bottle of apple cider.

Now, only the Arendelle flutes were left, several boxes of them.

Kristoff was panting, his head completely thrown back, his forehead sweaty. He wasn’t speaking, merely letting out small burps from time to time.

“If you can’t take the Arendelle flutes, it’s okay…” Anna said. “I can put them away for you. You’ll eat them tomorrow. We don’t want you to be sick.”

But Kristoff stopped her and gestured with his hands “Leave them here. I didn’t stuff myself with all of that just for missing the Arendelle flutes. Gosh, look at me, I’m like a Christmas goose.”

Yes, Kristoff’s hands were quite expressive.

Anna giggled and kissed him on the cheek, staying by his side as he slowly grabbed the first box of Arendelle flutes.

He purred when the sweet chocolate mountains melted on his tongue.

The following day, Kristoff couldn’t fit into his ice-harvesting suit. And he couldn’t fit into his latest royal garment. In fact, he couldn’t fit into any of his clothes! He spent several hours trying to find what to wear, only to result in a concert of pants ripping, belt snapping and button popping. Eventually, the royal tailor had to come to his room to make a new outfit for him on the spot.

And, as he stood in front of the mirror while a wide-eyed tailor took his measurements, Kristoff took a good look at himself.

He was bigger. Bigger than before he started to lose weight. Just so… big.

His belly was big. Wide, round, enormous, hanging in front of him like an enormous cauldron of flesh.

His chest was big, wide and large, falling into rolls of lard on his flanks, with fleshy nipples the size of mushroom caps.

His legs were big, his jumbo thighs pressed against each other, continuously rubbing – he had to outspread his feet so that his skin wouldn’t caught fire.

His hips were rolls of fat, his arms looked like over-stuffed sausages, and his behind – well, it was better not to talk about it. And his face! With these round, overgrown cheeks that fell on the side of his face like pork jowls, and this double chin that dropped from under his jaw like a little goiter, and his fat, bloated neck that drowned into a big bulge of meat…

He was all flesh and fat, and rolls and curves, bloated and overstuffed, with lots of lard and lots of gut. Fattened up like a hog for the winter.

And, strangely, he kind of liked it.

Yesterday. The banquet. The feast. Eating to the brim, until he was ready to burst, savors and flavors dancing on his tongue while his beautiful fiancée rubbed his belly and whispered in his ear… It was a weird… new… pleasing experience. Yes, it was a pleasure he had only rarely felt before, and usually in the middle of the woods, during long, lonely, cold, wintery nights.

And, looking at his reflection, he didn’t felt the same reluctance as before. He was even bigger, fatter and grotesque, yes, but he did not felt weak or sluggish. He felt strong, full of energy, ready to walk all the way to the mountain and harvest all of its ice. He didn’t know that it was mostly all of the sugar he had eaten the past day that was still affecting his body.

But, even outside of that, something, deep down, told him that this shape was a good shape. The instinct he had grown living in forests filled with woods. The inner beast he had opened himself to in order to speak to Sven. The wild man that was living in his heart. They were all pointing out how fat was useful to keep warm in the winter, and a good way to last for several days without eating, and a natural armor to prevent major wounds. They all said “You’re the perfect surviving machine. You’re the best, Kristoff, the coolest guy in the woods. You’re a super-man, baby.”

Kristoff, feeling for once proud of his fatness, ordered a servant to bring him both a fried sausage and an ice-cream. Hell, he even asked him to put the sausage inside the ice-cream.

 “Let yourself go, let yourself go…” he sang. “Can’t hold back your gut anymore… let yourself go, let yourself go… Eating never bothered me anyway.”

[vulpixisananimal]

[A:2 C:3]

"You okay, Sif?" (Isabeau was kneeling down in front of you. You were panting, sadness defeated, air clearing up from that sweet smell of sugar that was driving you mad. In, out. In, out. In. . .)

"I-I'm fine!" (You laugh, nervous. It had been hard to fight that sadness while struggling with your own sense of smell. Luckily, the others were able to pick up for your useless self.) "Juuuust needed a second."

"What's with your nose anyway." (Bonne asked.) "Like, mine's good but yours is weird."

"Haha, I dunno." (You get up, wiping your nose.) "Alright! I’m Good to go!"

(You lead the party out of the room, weird star thing in hand. You feel Odiles eyes on you.)

>>>

(Huh! A kitchen! You had used that star charm to pass through the wall of tears, and ended up in a kitchen! You don't question it. You do, however, smell something in the air. Something that wasn’t sweet sugar, finally.)

(You check the shelves, yep, there’s juice! You hand them to Bonnie. You look at the plates, everyone else talks about them, you're just impressed at how high it goes! Alright, enough of that, you swing past the counter to the rest of the kitchen-)

(OW!!!)

"Woah!!" (Isabeau sounds shocked.)

". . . Siffrin." (Odile looked at you.) "Did you hit your hip on the counter, and meow?"

(Uh-) "N-no-"

(Odile smirks.) "Okay, mrrow."

"MADAME?!?!?" (Mira says in shock. You all have a good laugh! Ow, that, hurt.)

(You open a closet, there's a key inside. You got the EGG KEY! You hand it to Bonnie, they chomp on it. There's a whole nice conversation about why eggs are such a THING in the Change Belief. Breaking and destroying to change. Something like that. Bonnie gives you the egg key back.)

(. . . You wonder if you can eat eggs, since they're just birds, really.)

(Looking over at the sink, there's a few things here but-)

"WOK!!!" (Bonnie exclaims.)

"W-what is it??" (Mira looks over, worried.)

"WOOOOOOK!!!!" (Bonnie grabs the Wok in the sink excitedly.)

(. . . Bonnie got a wok!! You're not exactly what a wok is, but, Bonnie has one now! You continue looking around. There's a pot of bubbling food on the stove, frozen in time.)

(You sniff at what's in the pot.) ". . . I think they were cooking, crab?"

“WHAT?!?” (Bonnie jumped up and looked in.)

“EEK!! CRAB?!?” (Mirabelle tugged on her coat.)

“W-what is happening?!?” (Odile looked between everyone, confused.)

(You were asking the same thing, the others were still shocked at the food choice! You LIKED crab! It tasted so, so, SO good!! The shells were the best part!)

>>>

(You pause on the way back, what WAS that door, anyway. The second door on the right side. You walk up to it and knock. It felt very sturdy.)

“I don’t think anyone’s home, Sif.” (Isa comments, the others chuckle.)

(You look for a lock. . . . Uh, there’s no lock?)

“Have you never seen a lock like this before, Sif? (Isabeau asks, leaning in.) “It's a special kind of Vaugardian lock! Instead of a key, it needs specific words to open!”

“Words. . ?” (Odile asks.)

“Yes, you just need to say the words aloud!” (Mira answered enthusiastically.) “I think they call it a, uh... An openphrase?”

(Openphrase? You turn to look at her.) “Do you know the openphrase for this one?”

“Uhm. . .” (She tugs on her coat.) “I don’t know, maybe, maybe the store owner in Dormont knows? I saw him walk in here a few times now.”

“Well that stinks.” (Bonnie pouted.)

“Too late to ask now!” (Isabeau smiles.) “Chin up, it’s just one room.”

(You look the door up and down. An openphrase, huh. . ?)

>>>

(Huh! An armory?)

(Looking around, yeah! It’s an armory, the row of spears proves it.)

“Why the need for an armory with weapons anyway? Does the house get attacked often?” (Odile asks, looking around.)

“Oh! Not at all! Well, apart from right now of course. But! This is just one of the many classes offered by the House of Change!” (Mirabelle happily explained.)

“The Jouvente house does this too! Most people put their weapons on a wall to look cool.” (Isabeau asks.)

“Like that?” (You ask, pointing to the sword on the wall.)

“Yeah!! Like that!!” (Isa chuckles.) “Actually, that sword does look very rapier-like. Wanna take it, Mira?”

“Hmm. . . Taking things that aren’t yours is bad. . .” (Mirabelle said innocently.) “But yes. I will take it.”

“You got over that quickly.” (Odile comments as Isabeau grabs the sword for her.)

“Nille made a hammer and put it on our wall once.” (Bonne adds.)

“Oh? What happened?” 

“Hammer too heavy. Wall broke. We had to share a room for MONTHS!”

“Tragic.”

[You got the NEEDLE SWORD! You give it to Mirabelle.]

(It’ll be fine, the people who made the sword will understand. You continue on, going to the other half of the room, then freeze. You, don’t, remember what the big metal slab is but you DO remember the big forge. Forge, used for,  making weapons, and has, okay, o-okay-)

“Iiiit’s alright, Siffrin!” (Isabeau says encouragingly.) “It doesn’t look like it’s on, plus any fire would be frozen, right?”

“Just take your time!! W-we don’t need to check over there if it’s too much, alright?” (Mirabelle adds.)

“Phobias are no joke.” (Odile turns.) “We can check again on the way back, so you can mentally prepare. And if it’s too much, we just move on.”

(You nod, hiding your head in your cloak and hat, embarrassed. . .)

>>>

(The key works!)

(You all continue through the hallways, cutting through sadness as you go. The rooms of the house did feel a bit, weird? Out of place? Not how someone would design a house? And Mirabelle confirmed it, everything was shifted around.)

(Luckily that hadn’t been a problem, yet. Continuing forward, you made it to a few dorm rooms. You decided to skip the left room for now, you could smell a lot of stuff from there and it made you nauseous. You go to the right one and look around. There was a soft bed, some paper on a wall, and a notebook with scribbles on it.)

(Looking through one of the closets, there’s a lot of arts and crafts supplies, and. . . Oh! There’s a pile of hand-drawn cards. You pick one up.)

(The card’s upside down. Turning it over, there’s a lady in a field of grapes, surrounded by nine stars. Weird.)

“Why does that pillow look so comfy…” (You look over, Isabeau was leaning over the other bed.)

“It has a strange shape, though, doesn't it?” (Odile leans down and picks the pillow up.)

“That’s. . .” (Bonnie jumps up and grabs it from Odiles hands) “That's not a pillow! THAT'S A HAT!!! JUST LIKE MINE!!!”

(Mirabelle giggled.) “First a wok now a hat! You’re really lucky today Bonbon!”

“Yeah!!” (Bonnie looks chuffed.)

(You keep looking around, next is a dresser with art books on top of it. Digging through, you find a key! You got the BROKEN EGG KEY!! You toss it up and catch it, before showing it to the others.)

(Odile put a hand on her hip.) “In someone's drawer? What a weird place for a key. . .”

(Bonnie leans up and makes grabby hands at the key. You give it.) “Definitely not a very king-like place, huh!!! That's pretty stupid of him!!!”

(Isa crosses his arms.) “I'm not sure... Hiding keys in places like drawers isn't very King-like, yeah, but it means they're harder to find since it's not a very expected place. . .” (He gestures to you dramatically.) But thankfully we have our good ol' Sif to help us find them!

“Thank you, Siffrin! Good job, Siffrin!”

“Yaay, good jooooob.”

(Odile claps her hands sarcastically, and everyone joins in. You take an overly dramatic bow.)

(You’re doing a good job!)

(You got a [Memory of Keys!] With this equipped, you’ll be able to remember exactly where keys are kept!)

>>>

(O-okay, okay, take two. You breathe in. . . And out. . . You walk into the armory.)

“We got your back Siffrin!” (Mirabelle cheers. You hide your head in your cloak, blushing.)

(Okay, it’s not even lit, just go. You walk to the other side of the room, and to the metal slab. Uh, it’s, goes with the forge. . . Uh. . .)

“An anvil, Siffrin.” (Odile offers.) “To go with the forge.”

“And the little stone is a sharpening stone!” (Isabeau adds.)

(O-oh yeah! You smile sheepishly.)

(You skip over the forge and turn around, checking the table. There’s more juices here, good. You hand them to Bonnie then quickly leave.)

“Well done Siffrin.” (Odile sounded, genuine?)

“Y-yes!! Very well done Siffrin!!” 

“We’re all really proud, Sif!” 

“I don’t get why it’s such a big deal.” (Bonnie pouts.) “It’s just a stupid forge.”

“Phobias are strange like that.” (Odile comments.) “Something that you’d expect to trigger it might not, and simple things that look innocent might make you shake. Right, Siffrin?”

(You keep your eyes down.) “Y-yeah. . Like, the torches.”

“Oh yeah!” (Isabeau looks up at the touches on the walls.) “I’ve never seen you get super skittish around candles and lamps.”

“Well it’s a small flame, high up, and is used to give light!” (Mirabelle thinks aloud as you walk.) “I guess it’s not as scary?”

“I guess that makes sense.” (Bonnie huffs.)

“And you don’t remember what caused it?” (You nod.) “That’s alright. Perhaps if we know what started your pyrophobia, we’d be able to help you get over it.”

(You glance up at Odile, smiling sheepishly. That would be nice.)

[ghost-type-writer]

Alphabet Writing Tag!

Ty for the tag @theeccentricraven

Rules: give a sentence for each letter of the alphabet! (Can compose or get from your WIP)

Most of these are from my wip Mage of Hearts, and two other projects I haven't named yet.

A - A girl looked down on the lands of Awen through a curtain of frozen breath.

B - "Because you lied to me." she spat through grit teeth. "That place ate my sister and you told me she ran away."

C - Candle light was the sole comfort in the stone room, it's faint warmth her only distraction as the vines sucked her life away.

D - *Did it know where they were?* Eran held his breath as the sound of footsteps on the roof stopped above them.

E - "Encore!" screamed the shrimp as the crabs clapped their claws. It was quite the queer sight, a crustacean's applause.

F - "Forget your fears my dear." the old woman said pushing forward a cup full of purple smoke. "And you never have to fave them."

G - "Grasp tight all the threads that make you, you." he said leaning in as if to share a secret. "You wouldn't want to get unraveled in a place like this."

H - "Hani, I've known you my entire life. I'm not going to fall for one of the lines you feed to merchant's daughters."

I - "I don't mind. It's rare I get a chance to speak with someone my own age." replied the prince.

J - "Just now I was enjoying the view." she candidly replied.

K - "Kill the kid. We don't have anymore time to waste."

L - Like her aunt all those years ago Kenzie squeezed through a crack in the world and fell into a great shifting void.

M - Maybe it was the blood loss, but all he could think about was the way her lips had felt.

N - Now had passed, and now was never. Yet another door closed forever.

O - "Outsiders are beings comprised of pure mana. Your assignment this evening is to list the names of the inner and outer elemental variants."

P - Potatoes stand at the top of the vegetable kingdom.

Q - Quarrel not with quails, a Brachan saying which reminds one not to worry about small problems.

R - Ronald McDonald, beloved fast food mascot, has just been arrested in relation to a series of violent home invasions carried out over the past few weeks. More at 9.

S - "So what all are we cooking for this prince? asked Hani.

T - The tall man laughed. "And who's gonna make us leave, some runty tavern wench?"

U - Using the man's forward momentum Hani twisted and threw him over her shoulder onto the hard tavern floor.

V - Vengeance is a hollow prize.

W - "Was he handsome?" Wendy shamelessly asked.

X - "Xibalba is lovely this time of year. You simply must visit." said the bat.

Y - "You can take your man here and leave, or I can teach that same lesson to whoever's next."

Z "Zahir has always had the heart of a wanderer." Sari said with a fond smile.

Tagging: Noone. I'm new here :p