#Egg Noodle actually wrote something

[justafeweggnoodles]

My ideas for what Minecraftbookshelf could do with the Heart of Pixandria / David in the Marriage of State AU.

At some point in his reign, Pixlriff had been told by the goddess of death to find her heart. There was a strange familiarity to the statement of finding Death's heart, one that brought him back to his youth, hearing people tell tales of Death's heart. Now that tale was nothing more than a blurry memory to Pixlriff but it was a lead to finding her heart. When he finally got a break in his busy schedule he headed to the library. It took him hours of scouring over old books filled with folk tales, many of which Pixlriff had heard in his youth, to find mention of the story. The author's retelling was patchy, with a note at the beginning saying majority of the tale was lost to time before they had decided to chronical it, but even still it was helpful. The tale of Death's heart is about a large mechanical heart surrounded by a wonderous machine, under the desert beyond the river, sealed away by a pair of large doors. At the height of the tales prevalence many a soul had spent years digging through the desert on the other side of the river to the Anthill, all of these explores had come up empty handed. Despite this Pixlriff still searched for it, between his duties and his wanderings.

One day years later, Pixlriff was searching the desert, he was not searching with any real purpose but just for something to do. A large shelf of sandstone gave away, crumbling to sand as it revealed an old stairwell. Pixlriff headed down the crumbling sandstone stairs only making one full rotation before the ground flattened leaving him face to face with a large pair of intricately carved copper doors. Years of weathering had left the carvings almost unrecognisable but the shape of the symbol of the Lady of Death was still identifiable in the carvings. In that moment Pixlriff knew he had found it, he had found Death's heart.

Pixlriff pushed the creaking doors open, a shaft of harsh desert light now illuminated the dark room. A straight pathway led between masses of copper wiring, pipes and debris. In some places the roof had caved in leaving piles of sand and chunks of sandstone scattered around. In the centre of all of it, where the path led, was a circular space. In the centre of the space was a stone slab, a large copper heart sat upon it. Pipes and wiring spidering out from it going out into the rest of the room. It was taller than Pixlriff and sat completely still. Dead candles littered the left over space on the slab and on the edges of space, where the path ended and the machines begun.

Okay so, my idea for what the Heart of Pixandria could be in the Arranged marriage au by Minecraft bookshelf is for it to be a large machine that has been long lost to time. How the machine came to be, I am not sure but it was some how gifted to the people of the desert by Lady Death after its location was lost to time the stories about it where also lost. With Pixlriff being told directly by Death to find the machine. It is not in a functional sate and Pixlriff does not have the required knowledge to fix it. When the machine is working the copper heart beats and the machines around it age copper (does the same thing the actual heart of Pixandria does) and moves the copper to the centre, depositing it in the area around the heart where it can be collected.

This does leave the problem of how the Heart becomes functional. The answer I came up with before the idea of a mechanical heart, and the answer stems from how I always thought David was a little to human to be the name of a machine.

During one of Pixlriffs wanderings, he found something, that something was David. Well not really, David is completely unrecognisable from the emaciated child Pixlriff found by an oasis in the middle of the desert, Pixlriff isn't even sure if he was called David before but he is now and no-one is going to argue with Death. This is the story of how David ended up 'living' in Pixandria.

Pixlriff was heading back to Pixandria, when he happened upon an oasis. Nearby he noticed something in the sand, heading over he saw a boy lying in the sand, emaciated. The boy's pulse was weak and breaths barely noticeable but he was alive. Pixlriff was not going to let him die there, out in the desert where there would be no-one to send his soul off, so he gently picked the boy up and began to walk to the Anthill.

When Pixlriff crested the final dune and the Anthill was in sight, the boys heart had given up, his aliments taking him. A couple of the people who worked at the Anthill's infirmary came over to him, insisting that they could take the boy and give him proper medical treatment. Pixlriff simply shook his head, a quite denial of their help. Many others watched quietly as Pixlriff walked to the temple of Lady Death, no-one dared to follow him in.

Placing the boy on the offering table thing (look I don’t know the word), Pixlriff reached for a plain candle and flint and steel. He gentle placed the candle on the table between himself and the boy. Lighting the candle would let his soul pass peacefully into Lady Death's realm as Pixlriff would pray to her. Pixlriff's prayer would begin as he struck the flint and a handful of sparks ignite the candle. Expect this time the candle would not light as if every time he tried to would be magically snuffed. The begins of the soul passing prayer was stopped with an annoyed huff as Pixlriff continued to struggle with the candle. A voice blossomed in his mind, one he had heard before, the voice of the Lady of Death.

Pixlriff set the flint aside, shifting back into the position of prayer he closed his eyes letting her calm voice wash over him. She told him not to worry about the candle for it was not David's time. She told him that David would wake, that his heart would beat again and his lunges will rise and fall once more. Pixlriff sat there, listening to the words of Lady Death until she told him to open his eyes then fell silent. The boy's- no, David's, chest moved up and down in front of Pixlriff, he was now part copper and part flesh. The copper and flesh worked in together as if David was only made of flesh, a patch of his hair was now replaced with thin copper wire. Pixlriff took a step back as David shifted then a pair of green eyes the same colour of oxidised copper met Pixlriff's dark blue.

SO YEAH David is a person, a half dead half robot person but still a person. Does he age? Probably not, at least not physically. He would get more mature and have more knowledge / understanding of the world as time goes on but still look like he is a teenager. I think David would also have an innate understanding of how the Heart of Pixandria works because he is made with the same technology by the same person (or at least Lady Death help / told the people how to make the heart). So David would help Pixlriff fix and use the Heart of Pixandria.

Also if you wanted to add in the ghost cat that people give to s2 Pixlriff then you could have Pixlriff find it with David's body.

Does this work with what Minecraftbookshelf has planned for the Marriage of State AU? I have no clue but hopefully it will be helpful for working out what on earth to do with the Heart of Pixandria / David.

Also thanks for reading this 1350 approx words worth of story and ramble.

marriage of state au has consumed part of my brain!! Luckily not all of it, I have an idea for the heart of Pixandria / David, do you wanna hear??? I’m not sure if it would be appreciated (I haven’t really interacted with others aus online before). So like you want ideas for what to do with it?

I would absolutely love to hear it! I do have a few ideas for what I'll be doing with it, I just have no idea which of those/combination of those I'll end up going with yet, but I will absolutely never say no to talking with people about their cool ideas!

[yridenergyridenergy]

Die's Food Diary in Europe (March 2024 tour)

For the magazine Weekly Shinchou April 25th 2024 issue, Die wrote a blog of what he ate on Dir en grey's trip to Europe. Their flight lasted 14 hours.

March 18th – After landing in Warsaw, he went to a seafood restaurant but seeing as he doesn't like seafood or raw food, he ordered a beef steak, which he was satisfied with.

March 19th – Die ate breakfast at the hotel. The buffet typically contains ham, scrambled eggs, salad, bread and coffee. There were sausages and bacon, but they seemed oily/greasy and he was concerned about how much fat they contained. By the third day there though, he started getting bored with that menu.

The lunch is catered by the venue for the concert. It had ham, cheese, bread and minestrone. Because it was the first day and that preparations were hectic, he actually went on stage for that first show without eating dinner. After the show ended, he enjoyed a traditional Italian risotto with mushrooms.

March 20th – Before the second show, he ate pierogi for dinner. He commented that it looks like gyoza but that the taste is "modest"? He also highlighted how it was difficult to get used to the time of day because of how late the shows start in Europe.

March 21st – The band and the staff left on a double-decker bus toward Paris. Die bumped his head on the ceiling of the second floor because it's really low. The bunk beds are narrow for his height but they're decent once he got used to them. They all ate from a service area/stop along the way but Die, not wanting to succumb to the temptation of eating fast food, ate leftovers of a burrito prepared the previous night... which he then realizes can count as fast food too hah.

March 22nd – He ate from traditional French home-style meals that appeared to have been cooked in-house at the venue. Die was excited to try the food out but all the names were in French... The only meal that he could recognize visually was a quiche. I think he ended up trying a few regardless of not knowing what he was eating and he was satisfied.

Die was a bit nervous before going on stage because of the Bataclan's tragic event in 2015 (terrorist shooting). After the show, he had take-out bolognese pasta with thick noodles.

March 23rd – Apparently a fan from Japan gave them takoyaki, which was however heavier than pure takoyaki. He found the taste powdery. All the band members stuffed their faces with takoyaki. The band always receives a bunch of instant food from Japanese fans when they tour overseas, it seems. If someone on the bus starts eating something like ramen, the others are lured in by the smell and they will likely indulge as well. He doesn't usually take (instant?) ramen in Japan, but he finds it tasty on tour overseas.

For dinner, he had kebabs before the show, and pizza afterward. In the end, he did succumb to junk food.

March 24th – Breakfast was served on the ferry boat's restaurant. He took fried eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and bread while looking out at the sea. At night, he went to a local yakiniku-style restaurant with his American friends. While the atmosphere was similar to a Japanese yakiniku, he felt sorry for his friends about the taste of the food.

......... A menu critic highlighted at the end of the diary that Die had not eaten any fruit or vegetables hahah.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

ATIA for not peeling an egg for my younger sister?

I (F19) was cooking ramen for my younger sister (F12). It's a dry one, so it has like a liquid sauce pack that you're supposed to put in after draining the water. After I drained the noodles, she came out of her room and started to put the dried flavor pack into the noodles. I had the liquid one, so I started to open the pack to put it in.

Here comes the conflict. The little bag has arrows pointing to the side and place where you should start opening it. I don't particularly care which way I started from, as long as it's on the indicated side. My sister started berating me by saying how stupid I am for opening it incorrectly and trying to grab it for me to open it correctly. I told her it's ok, calm down, and that it doesn't matter which way you start opening it.

I got the sauce in the pot of noodles and started to mix it when she took the chopsticks from my hand to mix it herself. I decided to just start peeling the egg that was boiled with the noodles when she told me again how stupid I was for doing that and that opening it correctly wouldn't leave a mess. Guys... I just had a bit of sauce on my fingers and the packet wasn't opened straight across.

I couldn't stand being around her anymore, so I left the kitchen. She asked me to peel the egg, I said no. She told me to peel the eggs, I said it'll be good for her to know how to peel her own eggs. She said she doesn't know how to, and she'll just mess it up and waste an egg. I said to peel her eggs for once and proceed to ignore her from then on out.

To be honest, I wrote this like 10 minutes ago after the event. Calming down from it, I feel guilty for not doing it. I know she was annoying, but I shouldn't take it out on her by denying her her egg. I don't know if she actually peeled her own egg or just left it there. Older siblings are supposed to take care of their younger siblings, but I feel like coddling them isn't good for them.

For even more background, I do a lot of mundane things for her, like refilling her water bottle or turning the lights off. Sometimes I feel like a butler, but I don't mind doing it. I only get annoyed about it when she's closer or more available to do something. Like asking me to cook while I'm sitting down about to eat. Or when she was closer to the chromebook, she wanted me to charge it, but she asked me to do it instead of doing it herself.

I feel like the things I hear her asking for things are just her telling me to do it. Whenever I try to question her why she doesn't do it, she just says, "It's cause I asked you to."

What are these acronyms?

[justafeweggnoodles]

Hello! I'm Egg Noodle!

I don't use any pronouns but I'm okay with she/her and they/them.

I like art in all of its forms and I post mine on here. This includes more typical art such as digital art or drawings but also craft things like sewing and embroidery.

Most of the stuff on here is Mcyt especially Empires, Hermitcraft and life series. I love that stuff :D

There also is gonna be some video game shit cause I love them. Games like Stardew Valley and Slimerancher.

I have just been getting into the Magnus Archives so expect some of that stuff in here :D

Tags:

#Egg Noodle’s art - My art :D Whatever I post and count as art I put under this tag. All of this is stuff I have made tho.

#Egg Noodle's tangents - Random thoughts and ideas and that type of stuff. Just me going off on a tangent.

#Egg Noodle's poems - Some poems I have posted :D Most are mcyt based but there may be some original ones I'm not sure actually.

#Egg Noodle actually wrote something - where I put stuff I write (not poems) there is like nothing in here cause god forbid I write something. If I do then u can find it here.

#go read - My recommendations for fics and comics.

Everything's Interconnected AU

My main AU :D It is a mcyt au and is of empires, hermitcraft, the life series and afterlife as well as a couple other series.

Tag: #Everything's Interconnected AU

[liquorisce]

Do you have like little observations or details about IDILY's Eren and Mikasa that didn't make it to the final story? Like very little facts about them that you thought about but weren't relevant to the story, or you just didn't incorporate but thought about, or even your own "headcanons" about them in the story?

I've been waiting for a long time to answer this bc i needed to be at my desk but!!! tysm for this question

i wrote a huge bit about mikasa's childhood and how she became friends with armin... that didn't make it in the story :( idk if i will be able to fit it in later or when i finally finish it and go back to revise it maybe i can fit it in... if u have any suggestions pls share :)

but here u go!!

i dreamed i left you - deleted scene [4.5k+]

MIKASA

[14 years old]

One day when I was fourteen, my mother told me I’d be changing schools. I blinked at her slowly and asked only one thing, “But Mother, it’s the middle of term. Won’t it affect my grades?” 

“No, Mikasa. They said they’ll take care of it.” And then she sat next to me and did something she did often when she wanted to tell me something she deemed important; she caressed my hair and tucked it behind my ear. “Listen to me carefully.” I was right. “This is a really good opportunity for you, Mikasa. It is a very prestigious school. And we are so lucky that we have a chance to send you to a school like this,” she hesitated at this, looking somewhat shameful, “with our limited means.” 

Growing up poor makes you understand these sorts of euphemisms well. Limited means, Our station, Within our status; these were just different ways to talk about money and our lack thereof. “Then how will we manage, Mother?” 

She gave me a forced smile. “One of the patrons of the restaurant has arranged it. You will have a full scholarship until you finish your studies.” She patted my head, signaling the end of our conversation. “Pending good grades, of course.” 

My mother never had to worry about that. My grades were always excellent. It was something she’d beaten into me when I got my first grade: A–, on a math test. Turns out I had made a mistake and added two lemons into the basket instead of removing them, and hence arrived at an incorrect total. I made sure to read every question at least twice, ever since then, just to be sure. And if I ever forgot, she was always happy to remind me, ruler in hand. 

“What does that mean then? A prestigious school?” My friend Sasha had asked me when I told her we could no longer eat lunch together every day. That was my comprehension of friendship back then. My life had little in the name of adversity, for a friend to adopt any opposing significance. And I didn’t have much time, with all the extra-curriculars my mother had packed into my schedule, for playdates or any such thing. 

“Mother says it means a lot of important people send their kids there to study.” 

“So does that mean they’re all smart? That would make sense,” Sasha says thoughtfully. “You’re a smart girl, Mikasa.” 

“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I do think they’d have much fancier lunches than you or I, though.” 

Sasha pouts at her egg sandwiches. “I’m jealous. Although I love your lunch! Mama Ackerman makes the best stir-fried noodles.”

I passed her the rest of my lunch and gave her a small smile. “She only makes it because she knows you eat more than half of it.” It was true, the cut apples and bananas were meant to make up a significant portion of my lunch.

My uniform arrived the weekend before I was meant to start. It was fancier than my current one. It had a little gold logo, with three ornate circles intersecting with each other. And the fabric was better too, the sweater was actually warm, and the colours were a pleasing cream and white instead of the ugly grey that I wore until last week. 

I stared at my reflection in the mirror as my mother pulled on my hair ungently and combed it back into a braid. My bangs covered my forehead. “Did you memorise the list that I gave you?” She asked. 

“Yes.” 

“It’s important for you to understand who is who. This isn’t like your public school—” 

“I memorised it and went through it twice again this morning.” 

“Okay…” I look up at her. My mother and eye have the same eyes, the same hair and probably the same face shape as when she was about twenty years younger. “I know I’m hard on you,” she says, with considerable discomfort. 

I don’t say anything back. What would be the point of acknowledging this? Yes, I breathe air. Yes, my mother treated me harshly. Felt equivalent. Felt normal. She turns me around me and slicks my flyaways down. “But we need to work hard. People like us don’t get the opportunity to take it easy.” 

As I walked the entire way to school that day— my new school was thirty minutes away by foot, whereas my previous school was just one block away— I thought about what she said. At first, I thought that she meant people like us, people without money, could not afford to take it easy, but when I think back to it, she had a faraway look in her eyes. Perhaps she meant the other thing— the matter of our otherness. 

My mother was from overseas. That’s all she said about it. Nothing more to be said, she’d tell me whenever I dared to press her on the subject. As far as she was concerned, I was from here: a real, proper citizen of Paradis. Born and brought up here, I’d never stepped foot on another land. But it didn’t matter. Paradis didn’t have the best of international relations, and here I am, with the face of an outsider. 

I thought this is what had worried my mother, who had obsessively made me memorize a list of “important people” and their children who apparently attended this school. So I now stare at the tall, iron gates that housed a school that looked more like a castle, replete with towers and a medieval facade, with my head filled with names of people I’d never met before. 

<hr>

I didn’t get it at first, but eventually, I understood why my mother made me do it. Apparently “Hi, my name is Mikasa Ackerman,” didn’t really cut it as an introduction around here. There was a lot of “who’s your father?” and “what does your father do?” talk that sounded plain odd to me. I doubt anybody other than Sasha and a couple of other girls, from my previous school, cared to know that my parents owned a small but popular noodle shop in the city centre. But my answers of “Henrik Ackerman,” and “He owns Lemongrass, a noodle shop on 17th Main,” didn’t seem to impress many. So eventually, I just kept my head down and avoided introductions altogether. You didn’t have to speak to anybody if weren’t in anybody’s way. 

It wasn’t always easy though. On one such occasion, I was paired up with Armin Arlert for a history assignment, and as my list of names would remind me, he was the grandson of a very influential ex-Foreign Minister. I stuck my hand out towards him but he didn’t take it. “Mikasa Ackerman, I know,” he says, giving me a small smile, as we head out of class. He saved me the trouble of introduction, but I couldn’t help but wonder what else he knew about me, what else he had heard. 

“My name’s Armin, which you also know, I suppose.” He watches me with his clear blue eyes from across the table. His voice is not fully broken, and he wears his hair in an adorable bowl cut, but as soft as he looked, I could tell there was a hardness within him. It felt comfortable, to be honest. After all, I had a hardness within me too. 

“So,” he said, the next day, when we sat at the library going through a list of potential topics for our paper. “How do you like it at the Academy so far?” 

“It’s nice,” I say automatically. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to be here.” 

“Is it?” I can hear the laughter in his voice. 

“Isn’t it?” 

“I haven’t been anywhere else, so I couldn’t tell you.” 

“The cafeteria is better,” I decide to say, after a moment’s pause. “Than my previous school.” 

He hums and looks back into his notebook. After a few minutes he looks up at me again, “And the people? Are you liking it around here?” 

I’m not sure if he genuinely wants to know, because it was rather obvious that I wasn’t the very social kind. Or perhaps he really doesn’t know, it’s not his business after all. So I tell him, “I’m a bit of a loner, actually.” 

“Amongst this crowd who wouldn’t be.” I raised my eyes at this. Why would a boy like him be a loner, in this school? He had the wealth and the status that, as I had understood after the first four weeks here, would attract anybody into friendship. 

I’d been so absorbed in myself and my desire to stay out of everybody’s way that I hadn’t really noticed anybody else. And when I actually cared to notice, I realised that he was being truthful. Armin didn’t appear to assimilate easily into the crowd of designer brand-wearing, father’s name-touting, genus of Academy students. Instead, he quite often disagreed with them, vocally, sometimes even resulting in skirmishes. 

 One day at lunch— we’d started having lunch together after Armin had shown up on the bench where I ate and said, “figured you wouldn’t mind if another loner joined you,” — he turned up with a swollen cheek and angry tears on his lashes. “Jesus, Armin.” 

“Can you hold up my bangs?” He asks, sounding sulky. “It hurts when my hair keeps touching my cheek.” 

I pull out a bobby pin from my own hair and stick it into his. “We should probably get some ice for you.”

“Already got it.” And he begins to press it onto his cheek, grumbling incoherently. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” 

“If that’s your question, no, I do not want to tell you—” 

“Just tell me what happened.” 

He sighs. “It’s nothing new, Mikasa. Just…” 

I take the ice from him and hold it against his cheek. “Some of the guys from the hockey team were asking if we’re dating.” 

“Oh? That’s— well,” I blush slightly, but I’m not sure why. It’s definitely not because of any secret feelings. “I’m not really allowed to date, you know.” 

Armin looks at me like I have two heads. “Well, parents aren’t really going to be out here saying hey, why don’t you go around smooching that other kid over there! Not when you’re fourteen, but kids do it anyway.” He cringes visibly. “Well maybe Ruth’s mother does, but you know what I mean.” 

I look at him like I don’t know what he means. “Wait,” he says slowly. “What do you mean you’re not allowed to date?” 

“I’m not,” I shrug. “My parents have a very clear no-boys policy while I’m in school. Or probably until marriage, but I haven’t really pressed the details to be honest.” 

Armin is gaping at me. “And you have never wanted to…” 

“We’re only fourteen,” I say somewhat defensively. 

“Almost fifteen,” he corrects sharply, and then, blushing, he says “I-I’ve had crushes before.” He is hiding under his long blonde bangs, which I somehow thought was very cute. 

“Really? What’s it like, then? Having a crush.” 

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.” He looks somewhat mortified. As if the question I asked was not the logical follow-up to his admitting to having crushes on people. 

“I suppose I could ask you who you have a crush on. If that’s what you want.” 

“Mikasa, you’re weird,” he says, cheeks still giving away his embarrassment. At least he didn’t look upset anymore. 

“So does that mean I won’t be getting any answers?” I tease him. 

He takes a deep breath. “Okay. You promise not to judge me or anything?”

“Do you have a crush on a teacher or something?” I grin. I could see that with Armin. His naturally inquisitive nature and excellent grades made them quite fond of him. I’d even heard some of the other students grumbling about how he was a ‘teacher’s pet.’ 

“No! What?” he sputters, “I don’t think we should be making light of the power imbalance in that dynamic—” 

“It’s a crush, Armin, not a relationship. Anyway, if not a teacher, then who is this mysterious crush of yours that you are so hesitant to tell me about?” 

He huffs. “Ok but you have to swear not to tell anyone about it.” 

I roll my eyes. “Pinky promise.” 

“You know that guy in second year? Boris Feulner?” 

I can vaguely recollect such a name on my mother’s list. “Mm-hmm.” 

“We go to swimming lessons together. And I, um—” Armin is positively pink at this point. He is twisting the pink ends of his fingers, there is a pink flush along his neck, and his cheeks have also attained that colour; impressively, his entire body is pink. “Well, let’s just say that I have spent an ungodly amount of time imagining him in his swimsuit when I’m back in my room.” 

I blink at him. And then I burst out laughing. “That’s your way of saying that you find him attractive?” 

“It’s not funny.” 

“No, I guess not,” I say, still laughing. “What’s to judge here? He’s one class higher than us, is he?” 

“No, that’s not it. It’s the fact that, well, that he’s a he. That I find him attractive.” A stupid look crosses his face, and it’s Armin, so stupid looks seldom cross his face. 

“That’s quite last decade of you to be embarrassed about something like that,” I say thoughtlessly. “Isn’t it legal now to be with whoever you want?” 

“My sexuality is not about keeping with the times, Mikasa,” he snaps. Ok, I guess I deserved that. 

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, “I didn’t mean it like that, Armin.” 

He waves me off impatiently. “Anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, what is legal isn’t always what is accepted. Here,” he makes a circle to denote this school, “amongst this world, everyone plays by a specific set of rules. What you study, who you date, who you marry, it’s all scripted. Sons take over their father’s businesses, whether it falls into legal or illegal lines, and women frame their fancy diplomas and stand by their husbands at galas and make polite talk, and when it’s time, they pop out a baby or two to do their ‘duty.’”

I listen to him, stunned. “What do you mean… They don’t go to work, after all this?” By all this what I meant, was the ridiculous amount of tuition that was being spent on a school like this. Followed by, no doubt, even more expensive tuition for a college degree they would never use. 

“They don’t need to.” Armin’s voice drops to a hushed murmur. “Half of the kids here belong to Mafia families, the other half mostly politics or business. All of them, every last one, is corrupt.” 

“B-but I thought—” 

“Everyone’s got legitimate businesses to cover up anything shady, so no, nobody is going to introduce themselves as the daughter of an Underground Family.”

He gives me a pitying look, probably at the cluelessness that I can’t hide. “Sheesh, you don’t know anything, do you? Where are you even from?” 

“I told you already,” I say, somewhat irritated, “... we live close to the Oriental Quarter. My Father just owns a restaurant, I know that there’s,” I gesture vaguely, “some sort of mafia, but I don’t really know much more than that. I can’t really tell the difference between the Mafia and the police anyway.” 

“And that’s the real problem with our society,” he mutters angrily. His blue eyes return to mine. “I know that’s what you said, but I thought… Usually, everybody has more of a story here.” 

“No story here,” I say blandly, “Just the daughter of a restaurant owner.” Who is apparently clueless and kept deliberately misinformed. 

It’s not that I didn’t know about the Mafia. In Sina, it’s something you grow up with. You have the government, you have the police, and you have the Mafia, or the Underground, as it’s called here. The truth is, there’s no way to ignore it. When I was old enough to be at the restaurant to help with small chores and odd jobs, my parents drilled it into me: Keep your head down, be polite, give them what they want, and get on with your day. I’d seen Mother and Father do it too, to ‘important customers,’ treating them like God as soon as they stepped into our small joint. Handing envelopes of cash to men with guns hanging off their low-slung jeans, and unruly hair.that  Money that my parents spent their blood, sweat and tears on. That’s who I thought of when I heard ‘Mafia.’ 

When I was younger I almost asked them why they gave away their own hard-earned money to somebody else when it was them who worked for it. Don’t we own the restaurant, Papa? I almost asked him once. But something held me back. Much later, after eavesdropping on an argument between my parents, I learnt that it was “protection.” That these men— who I’d grown to believe were so important— were just enforcers who collected payments from us in turn for their ‘protection’, a heavily jargoned word that people would often mistake for defence against an outsider, but what it really was, was a bribe. A fee extorted from people who had no other choice. I guess I’d always known that the Mafia was a bigger thing, something I couldn’t even comprehend, invisible but everywhere. 

What I had never imagined was that they would exist in a world like this: Shiny and filthy rich, dressing their children in the most expensive linens, while they were up to their arms in blood. Milling companies, Breweries, Textile manufacturers, I saw literally everything on that list and didn’t suspect once that they had anything to do with the Underground. And now they were all around me.

“You’re shaking,” Armin says, softly. “Mikasa, are you okay?” 

I nod, and try to say something, but I can’t find the words. Something has happened to me. I feel choked, my heartbeat has begun to pulse rapidly. My hands are balled into fists on my skirt. “I just—” I suddenly remember the time I’d seen my father with a gun to his temple, his voice shaking as he asked me to leave the room. I remember that when he came home that night, my mother was crying and we ate little more than leftovers that entire week because “business was not that good”. “I—” I remember the time I went to fetch onions from the store because we ran out. When I came back one of the men had his hand on my Mother’s behind as he ordered food and my mother was frozen still. “I hate them,” I manage finally, and my voice is raspy and unlike myself. There are little crescent moons in my palm from where I have dug my fingernails into them. “I hate them,” I say even louder, this time more frantic, “I hate them so much–” 

“Mikasa!” Armin’s hand is heavy on my shoulder and he looks at me alarmed, baby-blue eyes filled with concern. That’s when I realise I was almost screaming. “I know.” He squeezes my hand. “I know. I hate them too.”

It’s been so long since I’ve felt this feeling. Every now and then I feel it, this shaking, violent, urge that spills out of my throat and into a bottle inside of my heart, every time topping up and up and up until now, when the lid shakes and it threatens to spill over. “I feel angry too,” Armin is saying. I don’t hear him fully because the violence inside of me is loud. “It isn’t right. None of this is right.” 

Angry? Somehow that word doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like it’s enough to contain everything that this feeling really is. 

Eventually my vision refocused, and my breathing calmed. Armin was still watching me carefully, his cheek swollen and his lips bitten. “Anyway,” he said tentatively, after he had given me enough time to be in my own head. “Do you want to know the rest of what happened with the hockey boys?” 

“Sorry,” I say, distractedly, “... We veered off.” 

He waves me off again. “I told them we weren’t dating. They didn’t believe me at first. But then one of them said,” he puffs his shoulders up and deepens his voice comically, “She doesn’t date faggots, probably.”

“Armin,” I gasp, shocked. 

“It’s fine, he’s not wrong.” He shuts up my sputtering buts, and grins, looking mighty pleased with himself. “I told him you didn’t date braindead morons like him either.” 

I groan. “And that’s why you got socked?” 

He shrugs. “Well was I wrong?”

…

Two months into our second year in high school, our class teacher announced that a new student would be joining us. By this time, Armin and I had grown comfortable enough to pick our seats side by side. This school was well funded so we had nice seats, with a little cushion on the chair, and a large enough desk to spread out your things comfortably. There was little space between us, so a mid-volume whisper was sufficient to communicate during class, most times. 

Armin looked disinterested, but I was curious about this new student. It was somebody outside of my list, after all. A few minutes after being told by Miss Langnar to welcome the new kid and help him cover up anything he might have missed, the ‘kid’ in question walked in. It was probably strange to refer to another student, at my grand old age of fifteen, as a ‘kid,’ but it seemed to suit him. He was tall, with dark brown hair that didn’t sit very neatly atop his head, and large green eyes that seemed like a mirror to his soul. Perhaps it was quite a dramatic thing to say about somebody whose name I didn’t even know, but I felt certain of it. For example, I could see now that he was angry. He wasn’t happy to be here, and it shone in the brilliance of his verdant eyes, making even a thing like anger appear to be beautiful. I wondered what it must be like to live in that way, to be so honest whether you wanted to be or not.

I felt a sting of envy at that moment, just as my Mother’s words resounded in my head. “Save your anger, Mikasa,” she’d tell me, after whatever punishment she was ‘forced’ to give me— she was always forced to punish me, you see, she didn’t have a choice, it was the only way I would learn my lesson— “it makes you look ugly.” 

“Eren Jaeger,” he says, his voice clipped, not offering anything more as an introduction.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell your classmates about yourself, Eren?” Miss Langnar prompted kindly, after the awkward moment of silence. 

“Nope. Not really.” 

She looked taken aback, not having expected that response. “Well, why don’t you take a seat next to Mikasa?” She pointed towards the empty desk to my right. “I’m sure she’ll be willing to show you all the important resources in the school and help you catch up.”

Eren Jaeger looked at me then, his large green eyes came to rest on mine. My breath hitched ever so slightly, and I tugged on my lower lip with my teeth. “Sure, Miss Langnar,” I said, sounding somewhat different than usual. 

He watched me as he walked to his desk, as he slid into his seat. And then, unexpectedly, he gave me a small smile. “Hey,” he said. His eyes were still stormy, a deep annoyance swirling within them, but his gesture let me know that it had nothing to do with me. My teeth dug further into my lower lip, any more and it would have bled. Forcing it loose, I replied, “Hi.” 

He craned his neck and looked past me, and then said, “Armin.” 

Armin lifted a hand and gave him a small smile. 

I looked at Armin, my eyebrows arched. You know him?

Armin wasn’t telepathic of course so I don’t know if he understood my unspoken question, but he just shrugged at me and turned his attention to what the teacher was saying. 

I watched Eren out of the corner of my eye. He sat back in his seat in a sort of slouch. It instinctively made me sit up a little bit straighter; I would have been beaten at home if I ever displayed that sort of posture. Miss Langnar has begun her lesson and Eren looked straight at her, but I can tell it was that sort of vacant look where he was looking but not really seeing. Primarily because she asked us to take out our textbooks and turn to page 53, and Eren hadn’t moved a muscle. 

“I can share with you, if you like,” I whisper, hoping it was loud enough and that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself because, surprisingly, these words had taken considerable effort. 

He blinks at me, somewhat lost, and then looks at my textbook, which I have pushed towards him. “Oh,” he said. And then he pushed his seat closer to mine, making his desk incongruent from the rest of the line of desks, the noise attracting glances from everybody else. I can feel my cheeks heat up. “Thanks.”

I nod, feeling inexplicably shy, for no apparent reason, pushing my book further towards him until it was half on his desk and half on mine. When Miss Langnar is done with what is on this page and it is time to turn the page, my hand brushes his. I jerked my hand back, feeling an electric tingle on the tips of my fingertips. My heart felt as if it was in my mouth. Eren looked at me strangely. “Sorry,” he said, sounding more confused than sorry.

I sank back into my seat feeling a bit foolish. I wasn’t sure why I was behaving this way, and I was even less sure of why I felt this way. Whatever it was that I was feeling, that is. 

A small folded piece of paper falls into my lap. Are you okay? It reads. I turn around to give Armin a reassuring smile, but when he saw me, his blue eyes twinkled with humour, and his mouth curved into a smirk. 

He throws another wad of paper at me. You’re blushing.

I am not. I write back. But as I write it, I can feel my cheeks grow warmer with embarrassment. What was going on with me?

“Armin,” Miss Langnar called. For a second I worried that she had caught on to our secret messaging system, but it turns out she just called him to hand out worksheets, as she always does, always preferring Armin to do these types of things. 

He still has that smirk on his face when he hands us our worksheets, and for some reason, I feel even more embarrassed now, in front of Eren. 

Later, after two more classes of me sharing my textbooks with Eren, our hands touching inadvertently, and me getting slowly better with my reactions, I slip Armin another note. 

The new boy is pretty, don’t you think? 

I watched Armin as he opened it, feeling unbearably hot in anticipation that he was about to read those words. I wished I could reach out and take it back from him. But I already felt like enough of a fool today. He almost bursts out laughing when he reads it and I want to bury myself in the ground. 

I glance at Eren, and he looks utterly bored— and I thought to myself that this person next to me could even make boredom look pretty. Like it was more of a meaningful thing, as if this plane, and all of us mortals who roamed it, weren’t interesting enough to keep his attention. 

Another paper falls in my lap. Mikasa, do you have a CRUSH?? On Eren Jaeger??

I crumple the paper as quickly as I can, casting a furtive glance at my neighbour, who thankfully, seemed blissfully unaware. 

Ignoring what Armin said, I wrote back, He is pretty, though. Don’t you agree? 

Armin rolled his eyes. FINE. Sure. But I can’t believe The great Mikasa Ackerman finally has a crush on somebody!!!!

Despite my embarrassment, I felt a small smile creep onto my face. I folded the paper neatly and put it in my skirt pocket. So that’s what this, I thought to myself. A crush. 

[consciousexe]

out of order chapter that I wrote because I was bored and then it took ages because I forgot about it: Entwined AU

WORD COUNT: 1158

Three weeks.

It had been three weeks since moving in.

Rigel rather liked the apartment, it was spacious but not a looming echo of a room, meanwhile Sirius tolerated it, and that was at best, he very much disliked it at worst- which was almost always- but those views changed the minute their surprise roommate moved in as well.

The morning was rather calm, Sirius was in his room as usual, the smell of warm oil, heat and uncooked bacon filled the air. She was cooking breakfast, the oil bubbling angrily at her as she disturbed it by placing down the strips of bacon, causing the meat to jitter on top of the hot liquid. The technology of the humans had severely changed since she last visited, evident with the stove she was using, a flat surface of glass covering the electric elements, a far cry from the firelit stoves she once knew, which were nowhere to be found.

She grabbed a few eggs from the container of... cardboard- she really needed to remember that the material was called cardboard, it was everywhere- and tapped one vigorously on the edge of the pan. The smooth surface quickly became cracked with a quiet protest against the iron, turning to a very audible cry as Rigel pulled it apart, letting the contents freefall into the sizzling pan.

The screech of raw egg meeting oil was satisfying, but it failed to mask the undeniable sound of the door being unlocked.

She paused, thought springing into awareness, she wasn't aware of anybody else with a key to their room, other than the building owner, but why didn't she get an email about a visit? There wasn't much time to ponder, however, as the door opened, footsteps sounded out from the entrance.

Rigel turned, her curiosity peaking as she stared out into the living room and to the door that separated the vestibule from the living room, the footsteps paused for a few seconds, she could hear something being set down, presumably shoes, since it sounded light, before the footsteps continued, now with a slight... metallic hint to them, odd.

Her wonder about it was quickly shut down, as the culprit finally walked in- a being made of interlocking metal pieces, floating horns... err, ears? Whatever those were, along with a very obviously mechanical eye, only one eye, in the centre of its face. It was very scuffed up, grime covered its artificial face, and on top of all that, scratches littered its noodle arms and limbs.

Rigel didn't exactly know what she was looking at, until she noticed some of those wire-thingies poking out of some tears and joints of its body, similar to the ones that provide electricity to the appliances in the apartment, but much smaller and brightly coloured.

This thing was made of HUMAN TECHNOLOGY, IT COULD WALK.

The figure would start looking around, its blue gaze falling on her very quickly, where it just stared, and then it looked CONFUSED, IT COULD CHANGE EXPRESSIONS-

"What the hell are you? My database can't determine your biology." It- or he asked, it was mumbling, or speaking fast, it sounded very much like a human male, she couldn't determine the accent though, it was all over the place, australian, maybe, it's qualities didn't quick match at it almost skipped over the vowels completely, but still sounding human to some degree. IT COULD TALK- oh, it was starting to look frustrated- FRUSTRATED! Rigel calm down- 

"..are you a MACHINE?" She moved without thinking, crossing the room quickly to examine this new presence up close. It stepped back, raising up its hands instinctively.

"No, actually I am a sparrow- of COURSE I am. What are YOU?" It'd huff, frowning slightly at her, its horns- ears, whatever those floaty pointy things were, moved downwards, as it started tapping its foot on the floor, making a metallic knocking sound, its irritation showing clearly. She thought she would faint, she thought she had seen the furthest extent of human technology so far, but nope, here was this machine, getting ANNOYED at her.

"An earth machine that talks and moves on its own?? Human technology has gotten really advanced since I've last been here... Stars, I'm old...." She'd grab their arms that it was holding up, pulling it closer so she could inspect every segment that overlapped each other, along with its hands, she curiously touched a seam in it's hand that allowed it's thumb to move about, only for it to shudder violently-

A second pair of hands popped out of the machine's torso, pushing you away as it-

"DON'T TOUCH ME, THAT HURT!" It roared, the effect similar to Sirius yelling directly in her ears. It sounded like something grinding away on concrete, she could hear the strain in the technology that it caused to make such a horrid sound. She immediately let go and backed off, holding her hands up in surrender position. 

"Y-You felt that-?"

"OF COURSE I DID! I'M NOT JUST A THING, I HAVE MY OWN FEELINGS TOO!" It- he yelled, rubbing his thumb against the part of his hand that she touched, his expression souring as he pulled his second pair of arms back into the confines of his torso-

"What is going on here?" The machine immediately went quiet as his head snapped to face the Commander, who had left his room to investigate the noise, his stature rather threatening, towering over the both of you.

The machine couldn't give two fucks as he looked directly into the eyes of the Commander, mouth contorted into a snarl, white teeth glimmering like thorns of a rose-- with harmful intent.

"Oh GOOD, more questions! Want to fuck up my sensors too?" He'd snap at the Star Commander, teeth clinking together ominously, getting more irritated as this interaction went on. The Commander just stared at him for a long few minutes, the room feeling a little colder now, a smoky aura accompanying the tension.

"...language-"

"OH KISS MY ASS, I'M 24, NOT A MIDDLE SCHOOLER, WHY DON-." He'd cut the commander off, before ending his own sentence abruptly, his jaw snapping shut audibly as his floating horns moved about, twitching in the air, disturbed. His mechanisms grumbled as he became animated again, striding off to the kitchen without a word, disappearing behind the walls, where she finally noticed the burning smell in the air. Oh, right, the pan.

"-And to whoever was cooking this, number one rule in a kitchen, DON'T FUCKING LEAVE ELEMENTS ON WHEN YOU ARE PRONE TO GETTING DISTRACTED WHEN YOU LEAVE A ROOM." The machine shrieked distantly from the other room, followed by the noise of crusted and presumably black food being scraped off of metal-- then crunching and inaudible mutterings from who she now knew was her new roomate.

This wasn't going to go well if this was the first impression she had on it- him.

[abyssalzones]

🍕🍀🎹 FOR ANYONE (everyone) IN EV YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT!!!!! id love to hear abt them all but do so only if youre in an infodumping mood don't force yerself <:)

Yasha you of all people should know that I am Always in an info-dumping mood. VERY LONG POST UNDER THE READ MORE

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

ROSE CUBBAGE: I'm fairly certain I've answered this before (feel free to dig through my OC tag to find a series of other asks that I went into depth with a little while ago) but I think Rose would love any type of food that is a sweet/savory combination. Foliaverds don't have strong "sweet" flavor receptors, being hyper-carnivorous, but the sugars you'd see in fruit do get across to their palette more or less. See this dialogue from the outline of a chapter:

DOMINO: Domino is extremely picky about her food, something unusual for her species- who are usually content as filter-feeders, snacking on whatever bacteria and small animals (or even bits of dead animals- they aren't picky) make themselves at home in the caverns of Yxin, either colonizing the rocks or floating aimlessly through the densely-chemically-populated air- but she has an odd taste for salts. Odd, because that stuff is considered pretty acidic and foul to most moeboids. Keep an eye on her or else you'll lose track of your table salt.

VENUS: As with most Ikarians, Venus's diet consists mainly of insects. However, he normally has a very subdued appetite due to... multiple things. Their samefoods mostly consist of cold (or just not hot) things that don't have a very strong smell: frozen crickets, protein chips, dried fruit, and (expensively) tenjarian-tempered yogurt that's supposed to be digestible for every species, but most think it tastes... awful. Venus loves it, for some reason.

GILLS KVN: Herbal tea and pain pills. Well- that'd be the answer early on, anyway. He starts eating more regularly with time and feeling a little more comfortable actually getting out of his lab to visit the kitchen, and as per usual for his species, mostly favors raw seafood. He prefers animals with shells, though, since overly-mushy textures bother him immensely. As for his favorite favorite, I think he'd enjoy a bowl of south Kaaleran noodles (thin, dried parasitic eels native to Kaalera's coasts, cleaned and fermented with starch. Add steamed veggies, whatever eggs you have on hand, and plenty of spices), which is notoriously too hot for most species to handle.

SPARKPLUG: I elaborated on this a little before, similar to Rose, but I think Sparks is partial to sweets! Sweet for his species, anyway. He loves the kinds of tangy, metallic preserved pastries native to his home planet, recipes carried down and altered by his family for generations, across planets. I'm lazy so I'm just going to steal what I already wrote:

Pie is a universal concept.

NORA ACTON: Peanut butter + banana + bacon sandwich. Simple, very filling. I like to think she only realized this after moving out and trying to figure out how to feed herself in her academy days.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

Going to give you a catch-all answer for this to start with: the conceit of the comic, and subsequently most of the crew, was that it was originally a cast of Starbound OCs! That obviously has changed, but it's still in their roots. As for specifics...

-Rose was sort of her own thing, a position of leader and captain that needed to be filled- and she only really came into her own later in terms of development, inspired by characters like Alyx Vance or Ellen Ripley in particular- and my own personal experiences, actually. I think in a lot of ways Rose is closest to me.

-Venus's inspiration is weirdly difficult to pin. Taako from TAZ, maybe? A little bit of the Rito from when I played BOTW? He's kind of his own character, really.

-Gills, however, was definitely strongly inspired by Ford Pines. I feel like it's a little obvious sometimes. Then, a little later, characters like Spock, or Kim Kitsuragi.

-Sparkplug... draw your own conclusions based on the information above, particularly his dynamic with Gills. His arc, however, was also strongly influenced by my own ongoing struggles with chronic fatigue.

-Domino is inspired by a whole host of fictional characters, ranging from Lupin to Max from sam & max to Shiraishi from golden kamuy, but the most important part is that she was originally an OC created by my friend Addy, who I've known since the comic was in its baby stages. That part of who she is is extremely important to her core as a character.

-Nora is kind of like... a fusion of Sam Raimi era Peter Parker and inspector Zenigata from Lupin III. But british. and butch.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

ROSE CUBBAGE: Worrying. Creating collages, actually, but those mostly consist of future plans and secret obsessive corkboards. She used to enjoy biking, and still has her bike from when she was an older teenager sitting around on the station, despite not using it much.

DOMINO: Stealing things to create "art" in her room. I think she'd love to branch out and create more multi-media type stuff, but she's mostly motivated by boredom.

VENUS: Between you and me, I think they write fanfic. Something he would no doubt label as extremely cringe and keep very close to his chest, but fun to kick back and knock out a couple hundred words on every once in a while. They mostly tinker with robotics, though that's less of a hobby and more the main thing he does around the station, so it can get a little boring. I think they could put effort into making video games if they really felt up to it, but they struggle with seeing the point in it. Creative passion projects are embarrassing, after all- from his perspective.

GILLS KVN: Aside from reading, I'm not so sure Gills has any hobbies to begin with. He spends most of his time working on projects in the lab, which while he might consider it fun, it's still ultimately work. I think he would really benefit from taking up something like terrariums or aquariums, maybe some casual gardening. That, and cooking- which is really another form of chemistry, if you think about it.

SPARKPLUG: Another damn workaholic. However, Sparks enjoys music as a hobby immensely, and is rarely far from a stringed instrument, such as his retractable banjo. When the joints in his hands get tired or locked up, I think he'd enjoy getting outside and doing a little nature-watching. Does that count as a hobby? It does now.

NORA ACTON: Nora is definitely the most visually artistic of the crew, something that she's never considered for a career but definitely enjoys as a hobby. She mostly does environmental art, studying things from nature and her surroundings- a fun practice for someone with such a photographic memory. Similarly, I think she loves using her camera, even if it's mostly something she picked up for work.

[seyoonlgc]

⸻ 𝙷𝙰𝙿𝙿𝚈 𝙱𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙷𝙳𝙰𝚈 ( 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚢 ).

As per tradition, Seunghyun does his usual fly by birthday gift delivery as he passes Seyoon in the hall. No greeting, no well wishes - just a handoff of a poorly wrapped rectangle… and a box of his favorite granola. Not Seyoon’s, but his. One of the many things Seyoon liked to squirrel away with when the two shared a trainee dorm. …Strange, the things his mind holds onto as ‘sentimental.’

Inside the wrapping plucked directly from a discount store shelf, Seyoon would find a yellow notebook, accompanied by a pen with an attached clip designed to look like a small bear’s head ( it falls off every time one attempts to write with it ). Inside the notebook is some stationery paper, decorated to adhere to some vague theme that Seunghyun couldn’t be bothered to return to replace with something more fitting. It reads: The story you’ve been telling yourself all these years is wildly inaccurate and poorly written. Write a better one. - ( a word that begins with an M is aggressively scribbled out here and replaced with - ) Seunghyun.

Seunghyun handed off presents the way he’d probably deliver a bomb. 

“Why are you running?” Seyoon demanded, trying to catch up to his friend while mimicking the popular meme. “Why are you running?” Too late, Seunghyun was gone around the corner. His legs were just a lil bit longer and Seyoon was unfortunately distracted by the bundle that he was holding. Curiosity was a dangerous enemy. 

Poor Mushushu, though, you could really tell being cut off from the family funds did a number to his wallet. For starters, the guy would have never used dollar store wrapping paper. Last year, Seyoon got professional packaging, soft satin bow, and extra special Han Seunghyun designed silver plated Lego bear holding custom cologne. This year, he got granola, notebook and a pen of questionable quality. 

Seyoon laughed, because he couldn’t help it - it was one hell of a contrast. 

But he’d be lying if he said he loved these presents less. 

It was weird, because he did appreciate grand gestures and expensive things from some people. Guess Seunghyun was just different because they knew each other from a long time ago, back when they were more innocent. Abie Kim back in the day liked many things that cost so very little. He liked companionship. Fresh air by the sea. Collecting shells in the sand. He liked the smell of pinecones and chasing after fireflies. He liked sneaking out of his window in the middle of the night to go to the neighbor’s house, so he could play video games with their kid in the basement until they got inevitably caught at dawn. 

A good portion of his childhood was lovely, and it was nice to be reminded.

Seyoon wrote Han Seunghyun loves me very much but is too much of a tsundere to admit it onto the first page of his brand new notebook. He snickered as he took a picture of this fine sentence and sent it off.

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : [ photo meant to embarrass you ]

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : oh look, I wrote down something very true 💛 much accurate

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : don’t get pissed and block my number yet wanna come over for dinner

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : I’ll can make instant noodles

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : with an egg. and cheese

✉ mushushu ʕ ◕ᴥ◕ ʔ : yah, it’s strange but I don’t actually feel like going out this year

[the-official-account]

Lush's instant ramen adventure #5: nongshim shin gold with chicken broth

Let see if she's can beat nongshim Gourmet spicy

Note: I started this and wrote most of the initial impressions a week or two ago. It's been completed the day of posting

The cooking instructions for this ramen are the same as Gourmet Spicy, except it has an extra soup base packet for the chicken base. Upon opening this I was strict by how much better it smells than maruchan chicken ramen, richer and fuller and like actual roast chicken, with maybe some celery salt. The flakes in this package are also different than the gourmet spicy. They look to be dried garlic slices and maybe egg or chicken? I can't really tell. Something yellowish and puffy. You can see the flakes and both soup bases in the image below

And here's the finished ramen

In my opinion, the athletically pretties so far! I immediately tried one of the yellow flakes, and it DOES seem to be egg. And also fucking delicious. In hungry and it smells incredible. Me and this bowl are going to need some alone time now...

The noodles look golden and appetizing, though they do give more of a throat punch when eaten. I'd say the spice sits more between the hard and soft pallete than it does on the tongue, which I don't find very pleasant. However, it's maybe medium spicy. There are definitely tears, though I don't think they'll fall. The spice does take away a bit from the other flavors for me. Not a favorite. I might review this again with half the spice packet. The more my mother gets used to the spice, the more other flavors come through. It's still too much in the lips for my preference, but not bad, and I'm quite enjoying these.

In the following week I did eat these with half the spice packet and I can say there wasn't really a noticable difference in the amount of spice except that I coughed less. While not an ideal spicy ramen in my brain, I did enjoy these and eat them all! (Unlike the Bulbak corn flavored ramen, which are becoming fodder for peanut noodles)

Personally I'd rate them a solid 7.5/10, one of the best ramen I've tried in the ramen adventure so far, but not the best ever.

As for what the internet has to say, these noods are hardly available on Amazon, with one wordless 3 star rating, and it's got no reviews on umami cart. The lack of strong opinions either way resonates with me. The noodles are decent!

[kamikotranslations]

Udon Diary Kamikokuryo Moe (23.05.10)

Today I didn't do anything all day long！

After I woke up I lazed around and wrote a blog、

I went back to sleep、and then once I woke up I read a book for just a liーttle while、

And I practiced natural makeup。

That's been my day。

I wanted to go somewhere、but I gave up for today。

I wasn't hungry so in the end I didn't eat lunch。

But ultimately、

Since I'd done my makeup I thought it'd be a waste if I didn't go anywhere

So I've come to eat udon。

A cheap udon store、

That's in my neighbourhood🤗

Recently、

I've been really admiring adventurous people、

So for my udon

So for the first time in my life

I ordered chilled egg udon。

Usually I go for meat udon。

It had a boiled egg？？

Up until now、actually、I've really never eaten this dish。

Usually I even give my eggs to someone else。

So I decided to be brave and eat it this time but I didn't really know how to eat it！笑lol

I thought it would be chopped up but I was more solid than I expected so I didn't really know what to do with it！

I decided to chop it up finely、and mixed it up with the udon noodles。

Yeah、it was delicious😊

Being with Anju、

Experiencing various things、

I'm so glad I get to enjoy my life like this！

Shionnu always orders something different from the menu。

I love that about Shionnu 🥰

I didn't really do anything today、

But I was able to eat

Chilled egg udon

For the first time in my life

So it was a very productive day after all！

And I got to go on a trip to eat something delicious in my local area。

A local delicious egg udon。

I'm glad I got to eat it！

Well then、

I'm off hoーme。

[canmom]

Toku Tuesday 50: the Kerberos Saga

Last week on Animation Night I wrote about the mighty Hiroyuki Okiura, and I mentioned his best known film, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. I promised a one-off return of Toku Tuesday in which we'd watch the first two Kerberos films of Mamoru Oshii, and then Jin-Roh in its proper context.

The first two Kerberos films are perhaps even less known in the West than Oshii's other toku films like Avalon. They've only ever gotten fairly small-scale DVD releases, they have almost zero footprint on torrent sites, and the people who've actually seen them (compared to Jin-Roh, widely regarded as a classic) is tiny. And when they do see it, most people come at them with a sense of putting Jin-Roh into its historical context, which... yeah, guilty.

Kerberos began in 1986, a couple of years after Oshii had left Urusei Yatsura and not long after Angel's Egg; it overlaps with the founding of the Headgear art collective which would create Patlabor. The core series comprises the movie trilogy, lots of manga, and a couple of radio dramas.

It is set in a near future in which Japan was conquered (somehow) by the Nazis instead of the Americans, hence the prominent Stahlhelm imagery - which might have something to do with the overlap between anime otaku and military otaku, manifesting in a fascination with particularly Nazi equipment in anime of this time - you catch glimpses of it in e.g. Gainax's Otaku no Video and FLCL, and Oshii himself had already poked fun at it in Urusei Yatsura.

But, to be fair, this is a story about fascism, martial law and men whose ideology that holds them to be supermen whose mission is to bring order to an unruly country. So it's not like Nazi imagery is inappropriate to such a story. Let's briefly summarise what we're in for.

The three main films in the Kerberos series procede backwards in time. They all deal with a special power-armoured police unit called Kerberos, which quickly abuses its power and gets disbanded by the state. The first one, The Red Spectacles, sees Kerberos leader Koichi Todome returning to Japan after a long period of exile when the unit was destroyed. He wanders through a dreamlike city, which in the end we learn is literally his dream, not a real vision of Japan without Kerberos.

The second, StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cop sees the circumstances that brought Todome back to Japan; another former Kerberos member called Inui (dog jokes!) seeks Todome in exile in Taiwan, not knowing he is bringing the attention of a rival police unit that wants to finish them off for good.

Finally, Jin-Roh, with Okiura loosely adapting the first arc of Oshii's manga, rolls back to the early days of Kerberos after their version of WWII, a time of protest not entirely unlike the Anpo protests. We watch a man called Kazuki Fuse gradually losing his humanity, and his meeting with someone who claims to be the sister of a suicide bomber he failed to gun down.

So, how's all this going to handle those hefty themes? That's what I'm interested to find out. With you, hopefully!

Alongside all this - and all the manga, radio dramas, etc. - is a weird spinoff story called Tachiguishi-Retsuden, beginning with a mockumentary about a strange underworld of noodle bars prohibited by the fascist state and the scammers who interact with them, featuring a duo who first appeared in Urusei Yatsura before being adopted into Kerberos. This used a bizarre live action-animation hybrid technique that sounds fascinating - I'll write more if I can get my hands on it.

That's all the summary I have time for now, and anyway it would be better to write more after the films are digested. So tonight we'll take a little dive into the world of Kerberos. If you'd like to join, we'll be starting in about 20 minutes at twitch.tv/canmom

[ferigrievance]

saw @/spacecaving’s post on things shes done as hermitcraft members so i made my own lmao

etho - can recite mutiple gtlive/game theory fnaf videos by heart

bdubs - slept for two days straight and didnt realize until after i had altered my calendar, planner n shit because i thought i had fucked up the dates

iskall - changes outfits frequently because of gender dysphoria. wears a full face of makeup almost every day

doc - got the first yellow and red card on my soccer level. the yellow was because i had asked an opponent to apologize to my team mate for running them over, then a red card for shooting the referee a thumbs up right after.

ren - was kin assigned jacob black. im allergic to dogs

grian - made a shirt that said wife haver and walked out my room and was confused why my parents were yelling at me. im gay

mumbo - accidentally stole like four different plants from two different parks n they are now growing in my room

scar - started a studyblr and was active for like a year, went on hiatus, came back and posted w the caption “im back from the dead” and then got locked out of the account

impulse - accidentally elbowed a friend in the face and knocked out two teeth that actually needed to be removed at the doctor later that day because they had startled me

tango - had a notebook with penises all over it for science class and justifed it saying that its science class and its just part of the human anatomy. a week later every single persons notebook had penises on it

keralis - studied russian for a year n a half. only remembers how to say egg (яйцо)

gem - has a pair of picture frame earrings that have rick astley on them. not a single person has noticed. ive had them for over a year

pearl - puts cheese, milk, whipping cream, butter and egg in my ramen. im lactose intolerant and allergic to egg

stress - has a small container from my grandpa, the only thing in it are two hands that are probably from a figurine of some kind but i dont. own any ??

cleo - saw emma langevin wearing teeth earrings and forgot that humans arent the only things with teeth, ended up making earrings out of my own teeth

false - forgot that i cosplay and left my wig head with a black wig still attached to it on top of a bookshelf thats across from my bedroom door. i also frequently has hallucinations of jack walten who has black hair and white skin , so i walked in room at three in the morning, saw the wig head, and started crying in the middle of the hallway

cub - was mistaken as my dads wife when i was 12

hypno - hid in the lost and found bin at the front of the history classroom during a shooting drill (?) and fell asleep. woke up the next day with teachers in the classroom having a meeting because there wasnt any class that day

jevin - won a raffle for a toy knockoff playdough at school, ate it in front of my class

joe - singlehandedly caused inflation at the kidzania near my house when i was like. eight

tfc - paid mcdonalds to work there for a week, ended up getting food poisoning

beef - was heavily sedated after getting teeth removed and wanted to have plain pasta at like 4am. tried to boil them and nearly burnt the house down. i thought i had cooked the pasta noodles and ate them raw

wels - had to write an essay on a important person at school, wrote it on gundahm tanaka and got a perfect score

xb - was building something out of legos when i was like six, i put a red two by two lego in between my teeth to hold and and ended up swallowing it

xisuma - kicked a toy car and hurt my ankle, decided that kicking a brick wall would make it better, ended up breaking my ankle

zedaph - dug up worms and ate them every day from the big potted tree beside the school bus while waiting for it to leave. ended up derooting the tree from four years of work and it was removed

[retrocontinuity]

Eat, for this is Her Body: Chainsaw Man and the Doxology of Cannibalism

"One day," Anthony Oliveira writes in "The Year in Apocalypses," [Jesus'] disciples approached their master while he was silent in prayer and made a request: 'Lord, teach us how to pray.'" From here, Jesus teaches them the Lord's Prayer, what the Catholic Church once called "the summary of the whole gospel":

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Denji is no one's disciple. When we first meet him, he is closer to how Oliveira describes Jesus himself, "homeless, gleaning for food in the field like a sparrow and relying on the kindness of strangers to put him up, . . . a man cheerfully resigned to powerlessness." And so, Denji doesn't need to be taught how to pray. He has always known. Every bone in his body at the opening of Chainsaw Man sings out the Lord's Prayer: "forgive me my debts", "deliver me from evil." And, of course, Denji is intimately familiar with the prayer's most pitiable, most powerful line. It's this line that he cries out to Makima when he rests, Pieta-like, in her arms at the end of the first chapter. It can only be this line, one that Denji might have written himself:

Give me, from this day forward, and for all the rest of my days, daily bread.

Bread runs throughout CSM like a mocking scent that you only fully identify in the last two chapters. It should have been a sign to all of us when the first meal Makima buys for Denji is not bread (but rather a hot dog and udon noodles). It isn't until Denji meets and enters Aki's home that he is seen making a hideously overladen slice of toast for himself, luxuriating in having all the toppings he was denied. The morning after she forces Denji to open the door to Power's death, Makima makes the very breakfast she once promised to serve Denji: eggs, coffee, salad, and sliced bread. But this is a meal that Denji never eats—maybe the only meal in the entire series that he, a survivor of the meanest starvation and poverty, ignores. There is only one other time we see this meal in CSM, and it is subtle, almost off camera, though no less meaningful: in Chapter 53, after Reze's death, as Denji sits down to breakfast once more with Power and Aki.

To revisit CSM's public safety arc is to see all the ways the plot connects itself to food and the act of eating, both appetizing and revolting, both profound and profane. Denji, eating gyoza at a bar for the first time. Denji being forced to swallow barf as he is kissed for the first time. The Fox Devil, who eats indiscriminately and on command, who refuses to return to Aki after being fed something disgusting. A fox that is hunted and transformed into stew. Denji eating sandwiches at Reze's cafe. Aki and Angel eating noodles. A woman sitting down to eat a hamburger for the first time, before she commits mass murder. She is worried she has lost her taste buds, yet she exclaims, "So delicious!" We know, later, that this woman is a liar, that no part of her is what she presents herself to be. Should we take this moment at its face value then? Was Santa Claus simply lucky enough to have preserved her sense of taste? Or was it her one last act of humanity, to recognize that it is not enough just to eat, that man does not live on bread alone, that there must be at least food that is also delicious, that inspires people to get up and dance—even if it means she has to lie about what she can experience?

Food is necessary for survival, and CSM is a story about survival. But CSM is also a story about glimpsing the after. After you know you can keep living, what next? After you are no longer starving, after you have been forced to kill a friend, after you have touched your first boob, after you have been betrayed, what next? After you are tired of eating toast with jam for breakfast, what do you eat next?

The version of the Lord's Prayer we tend to recite asks for "our daily bread." But this, most modern scholars believe, is a mistranslation. The Greek adjective as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke is "epiousios," which doesn't mean "daily" at all, but rather something too complicated etymologically for me to even begin to parse. The point is that what we ask for in the Lord's Prayer is not just bread for today, but bread for tomorrow. Both the physical bread and the spiritual bread. Bread on this kingdom of earth, and bread that is the kingdom of heaven. Bread to feed our bodies, and bread to feed our souls. The realm of the divine is full of these moments, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one.

Denji starts the series asking for daily bread, and ends the public safety arc with Nayuta, Makima's reincarnation, asking him for daily bread. Trash heap Denji, living with his not!dog Pochita, really was just asking for daily bread. A slice to eat for breakfast, maybe even with butter and jam. But he too learns that bread, physical bread, is not enough. Merely to subsist, to eat good food, is an empty life. And what he must give Nayuta is not just bread, as was given to him. Otherwise, he will be trapped in a cycle of creating more Makimas. Instead, he must give her a relationship, a family, a world that Makima was unable to create. He must give her, in Pochita's words, lots of hugs. He must give her, in the words of the Lord's Prayer, epiousios.

To be clear, I am not arguing that CSM is meant to be read through a Catholic lens, and I doubt Fujimoto had all of this in mind when he wrote it (though he must have thought something, given that he drew a very large print of Gustave Dore's "Satan descends upon Earth" in Makima's entranceway!). But there is something primal (primordial?) about the Lord's Prayer. If every reader can understand the horror that the Darkness Devil represents, so too we can understand the intimacy and comfort of the Lord's Prayer. It is, as Oliveira writes, "a simple peasant's mantra for detoxing anxiety." Jesus opens by addressing God as father—not king, not an all-mighty spiritual being, but rather "abba, which is rather closer to 'dad,' and not in the intercultural Greek of his adulthood, but the Aramaic of home and childhood." The Lord's Prayer asks for what we always want, the only thing any of us have ever wanted since leaving the womb as infants: for no bad things to happen, for there to be enough to eat.

Even if what we have to eat is another person.

At the center of the Christian liturgy is the Last Supper, and at the center of the Last Supper is a meal that functions as ritual, abomination, accusation, transubstantiation, paranoia, and an early example of cracking open a cold one with the bros. Here, Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and then, as if trying to invent r/creepypasta years before its time, informs them they are actually eating his flesh and blood. This image is so powerful and heretical that the Romans accused early Christians of being cannibals. And why shouldn't they? It's there in the text. "Take, eat. This is my body. This is my blood." Stripped of the grandeur of tradition and ritual, this is downright vampiric. And yet it goes on to become the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

Oliveira begs us to see the Last Supper as a family meal, one shared by Jesus and his found family. "All he is really saying is, 'I hope when you eat together, you remember me.'" It's a good reading, one that moves me to tears, and is the framework through which I see the events of chapter 80. Because Makima is not the first time that Denji "consumes" a friend, and I don't just mean him sucking Power's blood or taking Pochita into himself. When Aki died, he left half his fortune to Denji, who uses it to support himself and Power. They "pigged out on good food," he tells us. This is Aki's symbolic body, through which he provides Denji his daily bread. Eat ice cream and onigiri in remembrance of me.

But it is not how I see the events of chapter 96. Denji does not eat Makima in the context of a feast. He does not partake of her in a communal meal, as Jesus did, among his found family. He eats every bite of Makima alone. Jesus said before his death, "this is my blood, which is shed for many." Yet Denji says to Makima, I alone will absolve you alone of your sins. I alone will bear you alone.

Denji's Last Supper is a lonely remembrance. He is hoping that no one but him will remember her. He is hoping to wholly consume her, because he loves her. "We love as cannibals," French philosopher and activist Simone Weil wrote. "Beloved beings . . . provide us with comfort, energy, a simulant. They have the same effect on us as a good meal. . . . We love them, then, as food." In fact, Weil believed we cannot love any other way. As humans, we are forever doomed to want to eat the ones we love. In order to escape, we must both be devoured by God and then become food for our fellow human beings. As Alec Irwin writes of Weil's philosophy, "the devouring violence of God must be positively harnessed in order to dismantle the machinery of human cruelty."

If Weil is right and being devoured is transformation, a crucial part of salvation, then in eating Makima, Denji redeems her. He turns her into food to break the cycle of her cruelty. For Makima's power itself is consuming, cannibalistic. She "eats" humans in order to use her power, which remains mysterious like God moving across the face of the earth, leaving only broken corpses as a sign of its presence. So it must be Denji, not Chainsaw Man, who does the consuming. If Pochita had consumed her, as she had always prayed for, then it would simply be another act of violence being enacted. Instead, Denji gives her salvation by turning her into human food—his food.

To Denji, Aki was human, his family, his brother, his friend.  It is Makima he loves as a God and a woman. To him, she is Satan and God, his betrayer and his creator, his salvation and his friends' damnation. So he must take her, consume her, digest her, excrete her, reduce her to nothing, as she once consumed and excreted and reduced him. "I ate her to become one with her." He ate her to become her. There is no truer form of his love than for Denji to take Makima into himself. I use those words purposefully, because this is the rejection of classic cishet PIV penetration, that old hoary chestnut of men inside women. As Don Delillo famously outlines in White Noise, we talk about sex as if women are containers, rooms, elevator lobbies: "He entered me," "I want him inside me," "I took him into myself." Denji and Makima never have physical sex, but this is a consummation, a reversal of roles. We are given the only sex that Shounen Jump will allow us, with Denji taking Makima into himself. She enters him. She is inside him. He is—physically, emotionally, willingly—penetrated by her flesh. She is released inside of him, becoming part of him.

Because the divine is full of moments like this, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one. That is the kingdom and the power and the glory. For Makima now lives in that country inhabited by God, where loving and eating are one and the same. For that country is none other than Denji's body.

In conclusion:

Substitute Makima for "God", and the preceding statements are still rigorously accurate.

Further Reading:

Anthony Oliveira's ongoing podcast reading the Gospel of Mark (Patreon exclusive, but I highly recommend, even/especially if you are a heathen like me)

Hannibal (NBC)

Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson, An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion

David Farrell Krell, "All You Can't Eat: Derrida's Course, "Rhetorique du Cannibalisme (1990-1991)." Research in Phenomenology, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 130–180. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24660636. 

Alec Irwin, “Devoured by God: Cannibalism, Mysticism, and Ethics in Simone Weil.” CrossCurrents, vol. 51, no. 2, 2001, pp. 257–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24460795.

[xtreasure]

For the fics ask, #3, #15, and #23 please!

hi love! trust you to ask the hardest questions...

3: favorite line/scene you wrote this year this was so difficult to narrow down bcz i actually did write many things i love this year. but i have to say, this scene in to whom I gave myself for my salvation feels the most effective:

A bachelor household has no need for banchan plates, so you put kimchi in a rice bowl. Two bottles of soju, two shot glasses, and a steaming pot of ramyeon wait on his dining table by the window that looks out towards your house. You join him. Take your usual seat, nudge the ramyeon and the kimchi closer towards the middle, hand him two bowls and a pair of chopsticks. He likes to scoop the noodles for you and you like that he likes to do that. The simple sacrifice of a packet of ramyeon—only ramyeon, no egg—is fitting for someone from this sparse town. Two bottles of soju, plenty of shot glasses, one person. When you had asked worship of him, you had also requested that he believes you can be his salvation. Two bottles of soju, two people. He eats his fair share of dinner, sits in his seat until you finish yours, grabs the half-empty bottle and his glass and yours, and walks over to his side of the couch.

i particularly enjoy the setting up of the scene and how much of the characterization and development happened through it. it ties back neatly to the fic's overarching theme of worship, actually including two of the lines that incited the story. and of course, food as love, ah yes my favorite motif.

15: something you learned this year I found a good balance between getting the statistical validation I crave from writing in a big fandom and enjoying the process itself in writing in a fandom that gets much less engagement.

23: fics you wanted to write but didn’t don't make me eat my words but i'm going to say darklina. (look i have many many ideas ok but they're all too feral for me and i am innocente)

[tedoculus]

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Or Cream Of Chicken Noodle Soup

There's a lot of things I really hate about how our current American society handles food and cooking, but there's a particular thing that I hate about recipes. And that is of course, Capitalism. Like this is an example of how Capitalism has actively contributed to making a thing, and everyone involved in that thing, worse at doing that thing.

Recipes as we know them are a modern concept, like an Album of Music or a Movie, it is an abstract thing that we have rules about. It is a thing that affects literally everyone who participates in society. The commodification of music and stories has definitely resulted in Albums and Movies that would not have been possible without said commodification. How you feel about that says something about your politics, there are certainly people on both sides of the argument. But I don't think anyone actually thinks the commodification of recipes has resulted in better food, and if they do they are wrong.

Recipes as commodities have to either benefit a product by incentivizing the purchase of that product, like the recipe for rice crispy treats benefits every company that makes puffed rice cereal and marshmallows, or it has to be enough of a Complex Special Snowflake to Sell Other Shit like cookbooks, or Cooking Shows, or however the fuck cooking blogs monetize their shit.

And I fucking hate it! And if I ever actually do anything with my waste of a life I might build a website and recipe database that's just free and opensource and just fucking about and only about the real heart of recipes that makes them actually useful!!!

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 celery ribs, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup whole milk

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken broth

3 cups cooked shredded chicken

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 cups wide egg noodles

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

This is the ingredient list for the recipe I used tonight. I want to read this recipe to the person who wrote it and every time I get to an ingredient that is strike-through I want to violently shake them and scream FUCK YOU in their face.

3 to 5 tablespoons of butter or oil

1/4 cup to 1 cup chopped vegetables, suggested 1 small onion & 2 carrots. Celery, garlic, mushrooms, or any root vegetable optional.

1 cup milk, highly suggested whole or 2%

3 tablespoons flour

4 cups chicken broth (4 tsp chicken bouillon powder or 2 bouillon cubes dissolved in 4 cups water)

3 cups cooked shredded chicken (approximately 3 breasts, but including dark meat and skin will enhance flavor)

2 cups wide egg noodles measured dry and uncooked

For extra creamy texture and taste highly recommend: 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Suggested seasonings: 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tablespoon parsley (MY suggested seasonings, 1 tsp lawry's seasoned salt, 1 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder)

THIS is a list of ingredients that's actually helpful! You know sometimes exact amounts of salt and lemon juice are extremely vital and necessary parts of a recipe, and sometimes they are just part of the random shit you can throw in to make it taste more like the kind of food you like. This recipe does not NEED fucking LEMON JUICE. It does not NEED an acid, some people think that lemon flavor pairs well with chicken. But if you didn't have lemon juice it would be fucking stupid to substitute a different acid like lime juice or vinegar. There is a difference between ingredients in a recipe and god damned flavor suggestions!

What a recipe SHOULD be is a blueprint for primary ingredient ratios. Before I looked up this recipe I knew exactly how to make it. I knew I was going to combine butter, flour, broth, milk, meat, vegetables, and noodles. That's the recipe! That's literally all this recipe boils down to. Those are the important parts. You can substitute any vegetable or meat or broth for another and describe very different soups. And if you used these same ratios you'd probably still end up with a decent soup, just not the ideal one. Potatoes will absorb moisture, while mushrooms will produce it. This is the ideal ratio specifically for carrots, onion, and chicken. If you don't put any onion or garlic in it, will it be a radically different soup? NO GOD DAMN IT! What about if you use a fuck ton of vegetables, just going bonkers? 6 carrots, a large onion, 3 celery ribs, and a half pound of mushrooms? It will still be fine, and probably enjoyed more if you love a ton of CRUNCH in your soup. (I don't, I like a my soup to be the same consistency of soft and mushy. And I didn't have any carrots, so the only vegetables I used were onion and half a stick of celery) But if you double the amount of milk and cream? You're risking the whole thing! That much milk and the flavor is going to be bland, maybe even sweet, and good luck cooking the noodles at a low boil, that much milk is going to be sticking and clumping and burning at the bottom of the pot you'll need to stir it nonstop like you're making fucking tapioca.

When a recipe is commodified it's trying to deliver some asshole's exact experience of his exact soup exactly how it would taste at his stupid restaurant in the first half of autumn during a waxing gibbon moon, that's not fucking useful! That's not how we buy our food or ingredients and its not how we cook!

It has been a number of years but I looked and I mean really looked to find a useful app or program or website for building a library of recipes, actual recipes, basic fundamental building blocks for meals. But there isn't one, every fucking thing out there was so god damned commodified to the point of being useless.

Anyways here's the fucking instruction steps to this amazing delicious soup I cooked tonight, it was the best soup I've ever made or tasted and it was really easy but that ease came from the fact that I had a ton of leftover rotisserie chicken from the grocery store that was really bland and dry when I ate it on its own but all the dark meat and skin was really good for the soup. I also have heavy cream because I like it in my coffee.

If you are adding heavy cream at the end, pour out your measured amount now and leave close to the stove so that it will warm closer to room temperature and isn't refrigerator cold when you add it at the end.

In a large pot, heat the butter (or oil) over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery fucking vegetables. Cook until vegetables are tender about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes if you're a sophisticated cunt and chop fresh garlic for a soup otherwise just use a little garlic powder, I did because I had some garlic but I doubt it made any difference!

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and flour. Pour the mixture into the soup pot and stir, making sure there are no lumps of flour. I did this as instructed but you could probably just stir the flour into the sizzeling butter and vegetables and stir until there's no clumps and then stir in the milk. Stir in the chicken broth. Add the shredded chicken and thyme whatever fresh herbs you have lying about because you're so sophisticated. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring the soup to a low boil and stir in the egg noodles. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until noodles are soft. You need to baby this step to make sure the milk doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan, better to move to your smallest burner and use your lowest setting and cook longer if the noodles aren't quite tender at 10 minutes, putting a lid on it between stirs is advised. Stir at least every 3 minutes. Oh look I actually gave some exact details at the part that's actually important and will make a big difference to the outcome.

Stir in the heavy cream, lemon juice, and parsley and any additional sensitive flavor elements like lemon juice if that's the kind of person you are. Save this for the very last moment, stir on low heat about 2 minutes then remove from heat.

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve warm. I'll suck it from a beer bong while it's still boiling hot if I want to, what kind of fucking step is this? Was this your way of trying to say that you can't just let the soup with the heavy cream sit on the stove on low heat for 30 minutes while you wait for everyone to sit down because it will burn?

[painted-crow]

Okay this is wildly off topic but I saw that you cook japanese food. Can you recommend some dishes to try or ways to get myself to like it? I want to like Japanese food so bad but I haven't liked anything I've tried aside from super basic stuff like sushi, teriyaki, and gyoza. I've even tried making curry and omurice at home and everyone except me loved it.

Japanese cooking resources

Ah, I have been called upon! Lemme dig some stuff out of my Bird nest for you :D

Disclaimer: I'm not Japanese or an expert on this. I'm just a cooking nerd who thinks Japan has the best food and experimented a whole bunch with Internet recipes and stuff from the Asian market.

Recipes

I learned a lot of what I know from these two foodie blogs:

Just One Cookbook

No Recipes

(the latter site does, in fact, contain recipes, but the blogger would encourage you to build the confidence to cook without them)

Since you're having trouble finding dishes you like, I suggest starting with udon: thick, chewy noodles often served in dashi broth, perhaps with fried toppings. You can prepare udon a bunch of different ways, that's just a classic one--but no matter how you make it, udon is a pretty easy sell. Tonkatsu is another dish that's hard to dislike, and makes a good topping for your udon if you want to make both at once!

Fun travel memoir

There is a fantastic book called Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo.

It's a foodie travel memoir and it's exactly what it sounds like: this guy went to Tokyo for a month with his wife and daughter and they ate a bunch of food, his daughter made friends with half of the entire population of Tokyo, and he wrote about it. He's a really entertaining writer, and it has great descriptions of all kinds of Japanese food, so from there it's easy to go look up recipes.

Shopping

You'll want to go to an actual Asian market if you can find one locally. Use Google, they're often tucked into odd buildings.

Different Asian markets cater to different cultures' cuisines, so there might be one market with a full assortment of Indian MTR spice blends but no kombu or katsuobushi in sight. They usually have a variety though. If you can find an H Mart, you're golden (H Mart is Korean, but will have the stuff you need for Japanese food). Be willing to explore a bit! Last resort, go ahead and use Amazon, but trust me--the Asian markets are cheaper, and I much prefer supporting them to feeding Amazon.

Just One Cookbook also has a list of Japanese pantry essentials, which is really good, but it's also really completionist (I don't even have all of those premade sauces) and stretches the definition of "pantry" a bit, so it seems more intimidating than it should.

Here's my version.

Pantry essentials:

Good soy sauce. Just get something that says "traditionally brewed" and you're fine. If you spot dark soy sauce: it's smokier and less salty, very different, it can't replace normal soy sauce but you might grab it too.

Short grain "sushi" rice. Try not to overpay for it. If you're in an Asian market you're fine. If you're in the fancy organic section of Hy-Vee, you're gonna get ripped off.

Mirin. A seasoned cooking wine. Unfortunately, bad mirin is easy to find and is loaded with corn syrup. Try to find some that isn't; remember, ingredients are listed on the bottle proportionally. It's very worth paying $10 for a good bottle of mirin. I don't *think* you have to be 21 to buy it? Drinking it would probably be unappealing. Mirin is very important, and it's a versatile cooking ingredient; once you know what it does you might find yourself putting it in everything.

Sake. You do have to be of legal drinking age to buy this. Which kind you get for cooking isn't a super big deal, and you can get by with just mirin most of the time.

Kombu and katsuobushi. The former is a kind of seaweed/kelp (it may look dusty with white powder; that's natural MSG and it's a good thing). The latter is shaved dried smoked skipjack tuna and looks a bit like pencil shavings; you might see them labeled "bonito flakes." They're common ingredients for dashi (basic Japanese cooking stock), but you'll see katsuobushi used as a topping on lots of savory dishes. If you can't find these, try looking for dashi powder or tea bag type dealies.

Toasted sesame oil. Not hard to find.

Rice vinegar. Same.

Panko bread crumbs. These are special, lofty, crispy breadcrumbs. They're different because of SCIENCE and are what happens when you electrocute bread dough. I'm not joking.

Cornstarch/potato starch. I slightly prefer potato starch (good texture), but they're not that different.

Nori. These are those pressed algae sheets you use to wrap sushi, but they're used for other stuff too, like onigiri, or shredded as a topping.

Noodles. Obviously, if you want to make udon, you need to buy some. You can easily find dried udon, but if you spot frozen or even fresh udon noodle packs, grab them.

If you can find an Asian market that stocks all this, you should be able to get the whole list for around $50. Asian markets tend not to be expensive, which is yet another good reason to learn to cook Japanese food. (Other reasons: healthy, tasty, easy to cook in a small kitchen...)

Of course, you also don't need to get the whole list at once! It's not cheating to just get what you need for a particular dish.

Fun stuff you can find at Asian markets

With the basics out of the way, here are additional tasty things you might want to look for:

Furikake. Not strictly necessary, but I like it. It's a topping/seasoning blend you can mix into your rice, and it comes in lots of flavors, some fishier than others. Start with a nori or vegetable flavor if you're uncertain. Tamago flavor = egg.

Ramune. If you've never had marble soda before, don't deny yourself the adventure of trying to figure out how to get the bottle open. Lots of flavors.

Good instant ramen. Nongshim's Shin Ramyun is what I usually get, and even Walmart sells it. You'll never buy Maruchan again.

Candy. So, I don't know who's in charge of Japanese fruit flavored candy, but it actually tastes like fruit, which is wild.

Yuzu and/or sudachi juice. If you can find these, grab 'em. They're citrus juices. Yuzu is a bit like lemon but less strongly sour and more... clean? Crisp? while sudachi is a bit like lime but more green and complex. I'm describing these poorly. You might also be able to find candy or drinks with these flavors.

Sugary drinks with nata de coco in them. Nata de coco is a firm jelly-like dessert type... thing. It's made from coconuts and it's got a unique jelly/crunchy texture and is odd but good. You might be able to find nata de coco on its own, but I'll warn you: the kind you get packed in jars will be Very Sugary.

Tapioca pearls. If you like bubble tea, here's the place to get your boba.

Umeboshi plums. These sour/salty pickled plums are a tasty ramen topping.

Ice cream. Those square melon popsicles are delicious, but get them home quickly, their texture is very temperature sensitive! And if you spot individually wrapped ice cream cones, grab one.

Euro cakes. These look kinda like round Twinkies, but Twinkies only dream of being this tasty. I like the pandan flavor best. Don't be put off by the green color.

Soft tofu. So good 🥰 and weirdly hard to find in supermarkets. It's got a texture like custard, and apart from its fairly neutral, fresh flavor, will easily pick up any flavors you put on it. An excellent addition to udon soup; add it last, the tofu is fragile (and doesn't actually require cooking). Silken tofu sometimes comes in shelf stable packages. My experience with those has been fine, but the general consensus is that the tofu you get from the fridge section is better.

Frozen pork buns. They might be labeled "siopao" or "bao" (Chinese names) or "nikuman" (Japanese name). Lil bread buns with bbq pork or other fillings. You steam them in the microwave and they're delicious.

I'd recommend having fun getting a few of the things off this list, rather than being a completionist about the first one, if you find yourself choosing between the two. That said, make sure you get the stuff you need for the thing you want to make!

Okay, now I want a pork bun. I wonder if my brother's eaten them all yet...