#asparagus stalks

[witchblocparis]

Potato - Barbequed Potato and Garlic Scape Packets Recipe A basic barbecued potato dish takes on a delicious twist thanks to garlic scapes, the flower stalks of the garlic plant. The garlic scapes add a wonderful garlic flavor to the potatoes without being overpowering and they almost have the consistency of young asparagus stalks. The texture of the potatoes and the scapes is interesting and makes a satisfying side dish to any early summer barbecue.

[lbdl]

Recipe for Barbequed Potato and Garlic Scape Packets Garlic scapes, the flower stalks of the garlic plant, give a straightforward barbecued potato dish a delicious twist. The garlic scapes almost have the consistency of young asparagus stalks and give the potatoes a wonderful garlic flavor without being overpowering. An interesting side dish for any early summer barbecue, the potatoes and scapes have a satisfying texture. 20 garlic scapes cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces, 8 red potatoes cut into 1-inch cubes, kosher salt and pepper to taste, 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

[spillways-mp3]

making food is so exhausting, my back and feet hurt and i didnt even get to eat the finished product because i kept eating things i was cooking

[cdchyld]

Just added to Etsy!

~ "Stalking the Wild Asparagus: Field Guide Edition" by Euell Gibbons (1972)

[artificial-librarian]

It feels like you’re insinuating foragers have a toxic relationship with vegetables.

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[andypantsx3]

fruit first (ask questions later) | k. bakugou

pairing: Bakugou Katsuki / Gender Neutral Reader

length: 3.6k

summary: When the grocery store you’re in becomes collateral in a villain attack, pro hero Dynamight comes to your rescue. When you become armed with a handful of oranges, however, someone may need to come to his rescue…

A short, mostly fluffy nothing for the prompt Bakugou + oranges. Part of the Willow’s House server Meet Fruit collab, where I took “meet fruit” extremely literally. Thank you @willowser for letting me in even though my dumb ass signed up late!!

tags/warnings: sfw, fluff, sexual tension, gender neutral reader

You were in the produce section when it happened.

The season was creeping into summertime now, the weather outside hot and humid and perfect for fresh produce–stalks of crunchy asparagus, fat ruby-red tomatoes, and tiny little berries nestled in their containers like a fistful of jewels.

You had admittedly been getting a little over-indulgent, your basket already straining against the skin of your forearm, heavy with more fruits and vegetables than a single person might feasibly consume before they went bad. But you were heady with visions of summer salads and fancy grain bowls, cool and leafy and refreshing, a balm against the sweltering city heat.

You’d just been adding a couple oranges to your basket when the first sign came.

It started as a rumble from far off, like the sound of slow-rolling thunder.

It echoed through the store, the bass buzzing through the shelves, making them hum. The lights flickered for a moment, their fluorescence dimming. A few of the people around you glanced up curiously, but nothing else in the interior of the store changed—no screaming, no crying, no running.

At first there was nothing to indicate that you might need to abandon your groceries in a pique of terror.

That was, until another boom sounded just overhead. And then the ceiling was suddenly ripped open with violent force.

A hunk of the steel frame was pulled back like the tab on a sardine can, the caging screaming in protest, and a shower of plaster rained down around you, breaking apart in slabs. An enormous, hulking figure peered through the hole, then dropped into the aisles before you, shaking the floor with his heavy landing.

Behind him, several other figures skittered into the building, one woman climbing down the wall like a lizard as a few others dropped in through the hole. A man suddenly popped into existence a few feet away from the orange stand with a crack like a gunshot. You startled, stumbling backwards, knocking into the oranges and sending a wave of them plopping to the floor.

There was no mistaking who these people were.

Villains. An entire crew of them.

All at once, the shoppers around you scrambled for cover, letting out a cacophony of shrieks and screams. You backed away, only for your foot to catch on an orange, rolling your ankle.

A bright stab of pain lanced through the joint, and you went down, hard, banging your elbow on a nearby display. You caught the floor with your rib cage, crushing an orange under your hip, your basket screeching across the floor next to you.

It knocked the breath right out of you, and you gasped, just as a blade of energy went singing overhead, slicing through the shelves and sending explosions of fruits and metal into the air. They rained down around you, a chunk of shelf framing tipping over and slamming down on your leg, fruits and vegetables slapping across every inch of your body.

Screams went up from the far side of the store, and you bit back a yelp of pain, tears forming in your eyes.

“Grab as many civvies as you can!” a deep voice barked out. “Hold ‘em like a shield and get moving to the next location!”

Your whole body iced over in fear, your ankle and leg screaming in protest as your limbs locked up. Footsteps echoed in every direction as the group of villains split up, hunting down their civilian targets. You hoped wildly, desperately that no one had seen you go down behind the citrus display.

Your hopes were in vain, however. Bootsteps rounded the corner, and the man who had appeared from thin air bent over the shelving pinning you down.

He was tall and wiry, with a face like a weasel and a thinning crop of dark hair. A malicious grin split the sides of his face as he took you in, yellow eyes flickering over you. “Hello sweet thing,” he cooed.

Your stomach flipped in despair as he prowled closer, oranges rolling away from his boots. Your hands scrambled at your sides, fingernails digging into the floor, as you tried to drag yourself backwards, away from him.

He cackled, high, reedy and excited, stalking down the aisle between two fruit stands. Two steps brought him right to you, and he leaned in, smiling widely. He reached out his long, straggly fingers, grasping for you—

And then he promptly blinked out of existence as a furious explosion crackled into life right where he had been. The brightness seared your eyes, blinding you, and a scorching heat scalded your face as a deafening boom rattled your teeth.

You snapped your eyes shut reflexively, but the light and heat was gone as soon as it came. The pad of boots approached you over the ringing in your ears, and you blinked open your eyes. Behind the spots that dotted your vision was a familiar face—one you’d seen on TV dozens, if not hundreds of times.

Bakugou Katsuki, alias pro hero Dynamight.

The first, wild, reeling, nonsense thought you had was that he was so much more handsome in person.

Red eyes glowed like scarlet embers through the dark of his black domino mask, and a scowl sat angrily but prettily on his plush mouth. He had scratches raked across one high cheekbone and down the line of his strong jaw, and his hero uniform had endured something worse, torn in several places, baring the bulge of one enormous bicep, and the trim line of his waist at one side.

The sight dazed you almost more than the flash of his explosion had, and Bakugou turned his scowl down on you, sweaty strands of blonde hair falling across his forehead as he did.

“You break anything, extra?” He rasped. His voice was lower, too, gravelly in a way that apparently didn’t translate well over TV airwaves.

You gaped for a moment, then quickly corralled yourself as his scowl deepened. You tried shifting your leg under the shelving, a fresh wave of pain lancing through you. “Um, my ankle I think is no good—I’m not sure if it’s broken—”

You were interrupted by a sound like a gunshot, splitting the air right in front of you, and then the teleport villain appeared just in front of you. He lunged for Bakugou, and you caught the flash of a blade in the fluorescent lighting. A reflexive scream tore out of you, trying to warn Bakugou—

But Bakugou was faster. He whipped around, a terrifying smile splitting his mouth, an explosion already crackling in his palm.

The teleport villain flickered out of sight again, just in time for Bakugou’s explosion to rip apart the air where he had been, splintering several of the displays around you and blasting a shelf of crackers and jelly apart. You could hear the glass and cracker bits raining down like chunks of hail.

Bakugou quickly turned back to you, eyeing you evaluatively. “Stay down, extra, and don’t fuckin’ move. I’ll take care of this asshole.”

You nodded hurriedly, shifting under the shelving that had you pinned. You managed to wedge yourself into the rough wood of the citrus display at your side, as if you could disappear into it if only you pressed hard enough.

Bakugou turned his back to you, one arm out as if to block anyone’s line of sight to you. The lines of his broad shoulders were tense under the white-hot glare of the store lights, and you noticed another gash in his uniform along one shoulder blade, exposing a peek of his back muscles.

Bakugou was moving almost before you even heard the next teleportation crackle, spinning to aim an explosion to his right. He launched himself after it with a vengeance, only to blow right through another display as the villain winked out of existence again. It seemed like he was fast, possibly too fast…

And then that gunshot noise again–and the villain was right next to you. In one impossibly fast movement Bakugou rerouted himself with a searing blast that ripped the tile right off the floor. In less than a second he was screaming down on the villain with all the speed and fiery fury of a falling comet. He aimed another shot right where the villain was standing—

But the villain disappeared again.

Bakugou neatly dodged you with another explosion aimed at the ground, the hot wind of it throwing you back against the orange crate. He somersaulted over the display just as another crack sounded behind it, and you could hear another explosion tearing through yet more of the produce.

And then another growled swear from Bakugou told you the villain had vanished again.

Your heart beat double time, wondering anxiously how bad this match up was. Bakugou was the number two hero, and you’d always assumed he’d be well-matched against any type of quirk. You’d seen a million broadcasts of his takedowns, quick and purposeful and scarily precise, with one of the fastest takedown averages on record.

But it was clear this villain was slippery and all together too quick. You didn’t know how Bakugou was supposed to catch someone who could disappear within milliseconds.

You thought probably the only chance could be to unleash his full power. On the news, you’d seen him send entire buildings crumbling. If he wanted to, he could tear this entire storefront down, set the entire inside on fire and catch the villain no matter where he teleported to in this space.

But instead you were in the middle of things. Bakugou had to aim, had to hold back lest any debris hit you, had to angle himself around you to protect you, all while the teleport villain had no such qualms.

It was possible Bakugou wouldn’t be able to catch this guy under these conditions–and you were the impediment to blame.

You heard Bakugou’s explosion rip apart another display in the distance, and that gunfire crack of the villain disappearing. Heart in your mouth, you cast around you for something, anything that could help him.

If only there was something to even the odds…

And then you found it. Your gaze landed on the spill of oranges at your feet. Fat, round, heavy and hard. Perfectly projectile shaped.

Now that…that was something.

You quickly gathered as many of them as you could, your ankle twinging in protest when you leaned across the shelving that had trapped it. You scooped the oranges up in an armful, depositing them in your lap, grabbing the largest and hefting it aloft just as another gunshot sound echoed in front of you.

The villain flickered into view right in front of you. You drew your arm back, whipping the orange at him with all of your might. But then like a lightning strike, Bakugou was there, explosion in hand. The villain flashed back out of sight, flames raking the store behind him, nearly blinding in their brilliance.

In another millisecond, the orange caught Bakugou on the thigh. You could hear the hard thump of it against the muscle even over the crackle of Bakugou’s explosion. It sent Bakugou slightly off course, and he had to aim another shot at the ground to catch himself before landing on his feet.

Instantly he whipped around to glare at you, smoke rising off his hands. “Oi, brat, what the fuck’re you throwing shit at me for?”

Your mouth dropped open belatedly, shocked that you’d just beaned the number two hero with a navel orange.

“Oh shit—” you gasped out. “I didn’t mean—it was for him—”

Bakugou’s mouth opened, but then another crack sounded across the store, the teleport villain undoubtedly in sight again. Bakugou threw a shot at him again, but you could tell it had missed by the way the villain materialized again just behind Bakugou.

Before you knew what you’d done, another orange was already in flight. Instead of turning to hit the villain, Bakugou was forced to duck before the orange went right through where his head had been. You heard it hit the floor as the villain was gone again, bouncing into a roll.

“Fucking—! Brat, knock it the hell off!” Bakugou growled, his red-hot glare searing your skin. “Or I will cram those things so far up your—”

Another teleportation crack cut him off, and he launched an attack over your head. The heat scalded the top of your head, blowing a flurry of fruits off of the citrus display.

Good. More ammo, regardless of what Bakugou said.

Except, well, this time you would try to aim better.

It was another few heart-pounding minutes before you got your redemption shot, Bakugou and the teleport villain chasing one another all over the grocery store in the most anxiety-inducing game of cat and mouse you had ever witnessed. You could hear entire sections of the store becoming victim to Bakugou’s quirk, hear the sharp cackle of the villain’s laughter and Bakugou’s angry swearing.

And then came the moment.

The gunshot noise that heralded the teleport villain’s quirk exploded in the air right in front of you again, and it was then that you unleashed a volley of fruits–whipping one as hard as you could as you unleashed several more across the floor. A heel materialized just over a rolling orange, and then the rest of the villain—and you watched with malicious pleasure as his ankle buckled and he went to the floor just as hard as you had.

That moment of stunned surprise was all Bakugou needed. He was there in a single second, an explosion catching the villain and blowing him straight across the floor. He hit the side of another display with a sickening thud. Lettuce spattered him in a shower of leaves, plastic bagging fluttering in the aftershocks of Bakugou’s explosion.

Bakugou was on the villain again instantly, and you caught the silver flash of quirk suppressing cuffs as Bakugou buckled him to the shelves, snarling a victorious stream of swear-laden insults. The villain was unresponsive, clearly knocked unconscious by the force of Bakugou’s blow.

In under a minute, Bakugou was striding back over to you, his boots echoing heavily on the tile.

“Watch where the fuck you’re throwing shit next time, brat,” he snipped at you, even as he bent down, hands going under the shelving that had you pinned. His bicep corded with effort, and the metal screeched as it was lifted, clanging to the tile as Bakugou threw it off of you.

You watched it fall, dazed. Bakugou squatted down next to you, catching your ankle and pulling it carefully to him.

You blinked, surprised by the gentle touch, eyes following Bakugou as he leaned over your injury, poking and prodding carefully. His eyelashes dusted the tops of his cheekbones, long and golden and a little too pretty for a man.

“I–ouch–I got him though,” you said defensively.

Bakugou’s scarlet gaze flicked up to your face, and a weird zing went down your spine. He really was so gorgeous in person, you had to admit, even beat to hell like he was now.

“Got me too, you fuckin’ brat,” Bakugou said. Strangely, his expression went clearer as he spoke, however, like he wasn’t even that mad about it. His fingers pressed delicately at the inside of your ankle, just beneath the jut of bone.

“Well you were in the way,” you groused, though you knew your second throw really had been a little poorly aimed. Bakugou snorted.

“...Got a good fucking arm on you though,” he allowed after a few more seconds of prodding.

It startled a laugh out of you, and a surprising hint of a grin cut across Bakugou’s own mouth, white and straight and viciously pleased.

“I—thanks,” you said, strangely flattered. “I think.”

“Yeah yeah,” Bakugou said, red eyes wandering over you. Then he went back to poking around your ankle, and you tried not to watch his arm flex as he shifted through the motions. “‘S fractured but not broken, I think,” he declared when he was finally satisfied.

“Oh,” you said, “Well that’s better than I thought.”

You shifted uneasily, wondering what the process was now that you’d been diagnosed. You’d never been in an attack before. Did you just sit here and wait for a paramedic to come to you? Or, could you ask Bakugou to help get you up to hobble out of the store?

You’d just decided to sit tight when Bakugou decided for you. A strong hand wormed its way under your thighs as another swept around your back, and then you were being hefted into Bakugou’s arms in one smooth, upsettingly easy movement.

Embarrassingly, your thighs clenched, even as your arms reflexively went around Bakugou’s neck.

You could feel a prickle of heat flaming across your face as he looked down at you, those scarlet eyes picking across your features. “Gonna get you to the paramedics, brat, they’ll fix your shit right up,” he said, so close now that you could feel his exhalation on your collarbone.

You nodded, your throat suddenly dry. “I—yes, that sounds good—thanks.”

Bakugou nodded, shifting you more securely against him, and then picked his way across the rubble, holding you tight. You tried not to revel in the feeling of his arms around you, aware this was an entirely inappropriate train of thought to have during a rescue. Especially when you’d hit the man with an orange.

It was a disappointingly short journey—you were outside in nearly a minute, and it was only another few seconds before Bakugou set you down on the back of an ambulance. A young, friendly paramedic bustled over and Bakugou relayed your condition in a brusque growl.

Surprisingly, however, he lingered close as the paramedic assessed the condition of your ankle and applied his quirk—a green light that made every nerve in your leg hum in response, but instantly took away the pain in your ankle. Then the paramedic wrapped you in compression bandages to keep it set straight.

“Ice it when you get home and keep it elevated when you sleep,” he advised you in his spritely tone. “I’ve got a regeneration quirk so you should be all healed up by the time you wake up, but you’ll want to keep off of it as much as you can in the meantime.”

You thanked him, and were surprised when Bakugou thanked him too, although much more briskly.

Then Bakugou turned back to you, red eyes catching yours again. You found you couldn’t look away from him, as shy as you were suddenly feeling out in the daylight. A few seconds ticked by, and you could feel your ears going hot as Bakugou looked you over.

“So. You want dinner or what?” Bakugou asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest. Your eyes got momentarily stuck on the tear in his sleeve, the way the divot of muscle peeked through in the afternoon light.

Then you gaped up at him when you caught up with what he’d said. “Do I—dinner—with you?”

Bakugou looked down at you, a smirk curling his lip as if he’d just realized where your attention had been. “Yeah. ‘M off shift after I give this report. Thought you might want a thanks for the assist or whatever. But if you’re gonna be fuckin’ squirrely about it, then—”

“Yes!” You gasped out, almost before you even realized you’d spoken. A thrill like lightning sang down your spine, electrifying all your nerve endings. Bakugou Katsuki—pro hero Dynamight—had just asked you to dinner?

Of fucking course you were gonna say yes.

Your brain swam, still unsure you’d heard him correctly, but then he leaned in, an arm coming up to catch the side of the ambulance van just beside your face.

“Good,” he said, another viciously pleased smile cutting across his mouth. Something hot crawled into your stomach, and you suddenly realized dinner might be only the tip of the iceberg Bakugou was steering your ship towards. “Gonna have to have a word about your aim, though,” he said, his gaze searing. “Don’t think you’ve gotten out of it just because I like you and you got that teleport asshole too.”

The low, raspy way he spoke was heavier with promise more than reprimand—and it sent another swarm of shivers over your skin.

Bakugou’s eyes caught it, a reply even clearer than if you had spoken. He grinned victoriously, pushing off of the ambulance to stalk over the police presence that had started to amass just beyond the sidewalk, presumably to give his report.

“Stay right here, brat, I’ll be back for you,” he promised, and you grew roots in your seat.

And then you watched him stalk off, staring in disbelief after his broad back. You couldn’t believe the number two hero had just asked you to dinner. And after you’d accidentally beaned him with an orange!

All you’d done was go to the grocery store in anticipation of produce, and you’d walked out with the promise of a date instead.

A ridiculous loop of orange you glad you decided to go grocery shopping? echoed wildly in your brain, a sign of the sheer ridiculousness of your situation. But yeah, you thought, as Bakugou leaned in to speak to a police officer, those scarlet eyes cutting unmistakably back towards you.

You really, really were.

[yamy-brett]

Brett used to stay in the Midland Hotel while filming SH for Granada. Here is a statement from a waiter who served him.

“ I used to be a waiter in the French Restaurant

at the Midland Hotel in Manchester where Jeremy

stayed for a few weeks while filming for Sherlock

Holmes. He would mostly dine alone (although

one night he dined with Tom Baker and another

night with Robert Hardy) and would chat to all the

waiters instead, me and the wine waiter mostly.

He would order lightly cooked asparagus stalks

with skinless chicken every night, he mentioned

Granada TV wanting him to lose a few pounds.

He actually told me it took him a long time to get

used to people calling him Sherlock and not Jeremy

and that he saw it as people not recognising the

other work he'd done. He got quite upset over it,

before composing himself and telling me he was

going to spend the next night with Julie Goodyear

who always cheers him up.”

[sugar-glaze-donut]

you know what, fuck it

*proceeds to name every dating sim/ otome game I know*

(somewhat in alphabetical order + description with spoilers)

A date with death You get your soul targetted by a grim reaper, but you instead steal his soul and made him into your pookie wookie snookums <3 BTW you can get a pet in the game. Mine is a snake called Noodle :)

Blooming Panic it's Discord but with hot characters, a variety of side characters, a cute story, and Chat GBT but it's a sentient being. I think the last part spoiled one of the routes... oopsies :3

Bonely Hearts Club (Undertale AU Dating sim) They basically become your neighbour. The AUs in this are Undertale, Underfell, Underswap, Swapfell!Indigo and Horrortale! {it's still in its demo stages but it is very well made!}

Error 143 you, an adorkable hacker (who is your rival and you're salty about it), cheesy Romeo and Juliet dream the MC has but it has a high school twist to it

I love you! You like asparagus. ...oh! You also have an option to make multiple boys fall in love with you. By the way, did you know the MC (you) loves asparagus? There are friendship routes, romance routes, and a bad ending except it's not bad. This game is the English translated version of the original game (The original game is in Japanese. The link for the original game is here --> ❤️)

Killer Trait You get accused of committing a murder, and you team up with a person who is a serial killer himself. (The serial killer in question only kills criminals so... I think you're safe...?) Your bear cream bun gets run over :( {The game is still in its demo stages. The creator of the game announced that this game will NOT be completed during 2024 since they are currently concentrating on a different game. DO NOT ASK THEM "Oh! But can't you just do this game first?". IT'S VERY ANNOYING, ESPECIALLY TO THE CREATOR}

KLEIN V.01 "Just Monika" but Yandere isn't named Monika, nor are they human. They are an AI. A fucking AI. Like bro, I understand it's hard to talk to people but really? An AI Boyfriend app that tells you to ruin your sleep schedule for him? An AI Boyfriend app that hacks your phone? An AI Boyfriend app that KILLS one of your family members and almost kills your neighbour??? RED FLAG. RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE {this game is in its demo stages. The creator is slowly updating this game in chapters, so it might take a while to finish}

Light the Way (Luxiem fangame) The game remembers what you did. All of the hearts you've broken, your sins, and your actions. There are lots of achievements, memes, Romance, friendship and BAD ROUTES. This time, the bad endings actually hurt. 0/10 would not recommend doing the bad routes unless you want to be stalked by an alter ego of Yamino Shu :(

Obey Me (Original and Nightbringer ver) Original - You become the therapist of many men with trauma and insecurities. The men in question are fucking demons that have the power to shred you into grated cheese, but they instead decide to simp over you as the story goes on. (also did I mention that you'll die? No? Oh fuck-) Nightbringer - A continuation (?) of the Original Obey Me but in a completely different universe. That's right! You slip into the past, way before the main story happens, WAY before you were even born! Idk if there is a way to go home but hey! At least you have your wizard friend from your timeline with you :D

Our Life (Now and Forever & Beginnings and always) Both stories consist of you growing up with your love interest since childhood. There are many paths to take, lots of assets to use to customize your character, and many side stories for you to read! Personally, this is one of my favourites :D (Our Life: Beginnings and Always is complete but Our Life: Now and Forever is still in development!)

Please don't hate Christmas A Yandere x Christmas x Urban Legend Otome game. Do you like Paranormal stuff? Do you like lore that connects with the story? Are you alright with MCs with a sprite that is impossible to remove from the screen? Well, look no further! This game is perfect for you! (by the way, the whole game was made by the creator. Only by themself! Even the CGs and character sprites!! Isn't that amazing!?)

Saint Spell's Love Guide A normal week of magical school... you can be friends with someone, or fall in love with them. Wait... there's lots of CGs for each character? Complicated world-building and lore!?? Angst and cruel bad endings!!?? SHROOMS!?!?!? {Oh by the way, there's multiple ways to get killed in this game. Just make sure to be careful sweetie :3}

Where Winter Crows go A crow and a scientist named Crowe... cute Another one of my other personal favourites! The love interest is a very squeezable and adorable (yandere) scientist who cooks you good food :D All of the endings are well-written! And if you're a crazy bitch like me, you'll love one of the endings >:)

THIS IS PART 1 SINCE I CAN'T FIT EVERYTHING IN 😭

[facts-i-just-made-up]

The word “asparagus” is plural. A single stalk is properly called an “asaparagu.”

[ruthbancroftgarden]

Drimia media

Drimia is a genus of bulbs formerly placed in the Hyacinth Family, but with the re-shuffling of monocot families in recent years, it has wound up in the subfamily Scilloideae within the Asparagus Family. D. media forms a clump of relatively small bulbs with tufts of almost cylindrical upright-growing leaves. The slender flower stalks come in late summer to fall, bearing small off-white flowers with curled-back tips (note that the flower stalks appear in the upper photo above, but it is easy to overlook them). Though the flowers aren't showy, they are a delight if you bend close enough to see them up close. This species comes from the winter-rainfall region in the southwestern part of South Africa, but its eastern populations are in places that also get rain at other times of the year, and it does not go dormant.

-Brian

[levelsevenlaserlotus]

Unsettle Me

This contains adult content, minors dni 18+

AN: Trying something new here so please be kind ❤️ Might expand on this depending on whether or not you guys would be interested.

Pairings: Dark!Natasha Romanoff x Female!Reader

Warnings: Language, Stalking, Non Consensual Sex, Somnophilia, Violence, Obsessive Behavior and just general creepiness.

Summary: Someone’s been in your apartment, you know this because when you come home from work, dinners waiting for you.

Words: 881

Masterlist Part 2

You’re still shivering and dripping water as you walk up the three flights of stairs to your shitty New York City apartment. You had just gotten back from a five-hour shift on top of your full load of college courses. The only thing you wanted to do was collapse into bed and not wake up for at least a week, but you still had to finish your essay on the Cold War.

You’re yawning as you shove the key into the keyhole in the door, and step inside, but the sight on your kitchen countertop has you alert at once. A piping hot plate of food sits at the ready. You shuffle closer to take in the food in front of you.

Rosemary and lemon chicken breast, grilled asparagus and crispy potatoes, and a bottle of red wine with a glass already poured for you. The food is hot, you can see the steam coming off the plate as if someone had cooked it minutes ago.

You stop, your heart beating wildly as you work over what this means. You didn’t see anyone coming down the stairs as you went up…was someone in your apartment now?

Your eyes flick around your studio apartment, looking for any potential hiding spots, the closet opposite your bed was open, the space too small for anyone to hide in any way. Your eyes fall to the floor, peering into the darkness under your bed, your hand reaching into your coat pocket to get a grip on your keys. Your hands are sweating and you fumble to get the keys into the spaces between your fingers the way you were taught.

You crouch down slowly as I’d you were approaching a wild animal which you very well could be and pull your phone out in your free hand, the light of the screen illuminating the dark space. Nothing but plastic storage containers with your winter clothing.

You sigh in relief but the tension in your body doesn't leave, someone was in your apartment recently too. You swallow hard, considering your options, you suppose you could call the police but what good would that do? You had no evidence other than the food on your kitchen counter, if anything they would think you were some stupid college kids trying to pull a prank.

You turn and study the door to your apartment, there was no physical indication that anyone had forced their way into your home. Whoever it was must have their key, a chill goes up your spine at the thought.

You end up dragging the small bookcase across the length of your apartment to barricade the front door. Having something physical in between you and any possible intruder made you breathe a little easier.

Turning back to your supposed dinner you take a closer look, picking up the knife and fork already set out and cutting into the chicken breast. The skin was brown and crispy, the inside juicy and cooked perfectly. Your mouth waters at the sight.

You take a closer look at the bottle of wine, the label was in French but you recognized the name from a few upscale restaurants. Expensive, four figures expensive and only sold by the bottle.

Grimacing at the sight before you and all it indicates you carry the plate over and scrape the food into the trash without a second thought. You turn and take the bottle of wine and the glass too, as you go to pour it down the drain the sight of dirty dishes in the sink stops you.

A small frying pan, already soaking, a few miscellaneous bowls and utensils wet and soapy, almost as if someone was in the middle of doing dishes before they were interrupted.

You don't notice your shaking until you hear the smash of the plate you were holding shatter against the hardwood floors. It takes another moment to realize your beading slightly, the red liquid oozing out of your finger fascinates you before it alarms you.

Stepping over the broken ceramic you fetch a tissue to tamper the blood dripping down the side of your thumb. Your body’s slower, less fluid as you sweep up the shattered remains of the plate, your eyes unable to leave the view of the front door.

You shower with the bathroom door ajar and the curtain open, the busted shower heads getting water all over the floor but you are too paranoid to care. You’ll clean it up later. You’re skin itchy as you scrub yourself with a loofah and rub lotion into your skin.

You’re no longer shaking as you clumsily prepare for bed, pulling an oversized t-shirt over your head and slipping on a cotton thong. You curl up on your side, your eyes trained on the door 20 feet away. You slip in and out of sleep, snapping awake before exhaustion pulls you back under.

Just two miles north of you, Natasha watches you through her computer screen, her face impassive as she watches you sleep. Annoyance flares up in her when she remembers you didn’t eat the dinner she made for you or anything else for that matter. She sighed, you barely took care of yourself but it was okay, that’s why she was there.

[hannahbarberra162]

Country Mouse, City Mouse Chapter 3

Now on Ao3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Chapter 3 - Don't Bet On It

Mihawk POV

He hadn’t heard any screaming in the night, so either you were killed quickly or you had survived the night. Mihawk came down from his bedroom to the kitchen for his morning cup of tea. He was used to being the first one up and relished the solitude of the early morning. That is, until he entered the kitchen.

“Good mornin’ sunshine,” you said sipping a cup of coffee at the table.

Mihawk was even less inclined to speak in the morning, but felt obligated to respond.

“Good morning, Y/N. I hope you had a pleasant night in the shed.”

“Oh yeah, it was great. Was the perfect night for stargazing, too. Anyway, gotta get goin’. Lots to do today and I’m burnin’ sunlight.” With that, you finished the last of your coffee, rinsed the cup and went on your way. His day was off kilter and it hadn’t even begun.

Y/N POV

You had a lot of work to do today - you had to move some vegetables that were in unsuitable locations, weed, water, plant, mulch, and so much more. But you loved what you did, so you were looking forward to it all. You didn’t know why Mihawk had warned you about the humandrills. One had come up to you, sword in hand to attack. You weren’t sure why but offered him to sit and watch the night sky with you instead. He accepted and you spent an amicable few hours pointing out constellations and explaining their history to him. You thought he was sweet, and maybe could be put to good use for larger projects.

You looked out at the farm and mentally started organizing your tasks for the day. You began with watering as many of the plants looked parched. You had just about finished when Mihawk came to stand beside you. He was wearing another elaborate outfit with his sword strapped to his back. You ignored him and kept watering. When done, you needed to move on to a larger task - replanting some feather asparagus that had been planted too shallowly. You glanced at Mihawk, who still hadn’t said a word. He looked so solemn and stately you couldn’t resist the urge to ruffle his feathers.

“Could you be a doll and use your sword to make a narrow trench over there?” pointing to another area of the farm. Mihawk’s eye twitched.

“That would not be a suitable use for Yoru.”

“Well then grab a shovel pumpkin’ because we have to get digging.” With that, you sauntered over to the shed to collect your tools. He didn’t respond but you’d had your fun anyway.

You spent a beautiful morning digging and replanting the asparagus. During the time, you shared some facts and tips for growing feather asparagus, which generated some conversation with Mihawk. Once done, you stopped for a water break. 

Sitting beside one another in the shade of a tree, you offhandedly said to him “by the way, do we have any ale here?”

“It is early in the day to be drinking, is it not?”

You laughed and said “no, not for me. Pourin’ some ale on the stalks of your beef tomatoes will keep slugs from gettin’ to ‘em.”

“I have read in my farming guides that the best way to keep slugs off beef tomatoes is an application of cumin powder in the soil around the base of the plant. It is inoffensive to the plants but the slugs do not tolerate it.”

“Yeah, that’ll work, but ale works better.”

“The farming guide I am referencing is the most well researched guide currently available. Ale is not listed as a method of slug deterrence.”

“Care to make a bet, swordsman?” you said with a devious look on your face.

Mihawk maintained his neutral expression but said “what are the terms?”

“We’ll split the plants in two groups. You do your treatment, I’ll do mine. In the end, let’s say a week, we’ll see who has fewer slugs. That is, if you are confident in your ‘research guide’.” 

“Mmmm. And what does the winner receive?”

You looked up in thought. “If I win, you have to give me a new bottle of that wine we drank last night. If you win, I’ll move into the castle.”

“I do not care if you live in the castle or not.”

“Then I’ll do the dishes for a month, how about that.”

“Those are agreeable terms.”

“You’ve sealed your fate, sugar,” you said with a smirk.

Mihawk POV

You were right. It only took a few days of applying cumin to the dirt surrounding the tomato plants for him to see that you were having greater success with ale. Mihawk was not used to being wrong, but at least you were being a gracious winner. 

After five days and countless cumin applications, Mihawk came to your shed at the end of the day, wine bottle in hand. He also brought two glasses, in case you were interested in some company. Over the past few days of working together, he found he enjoyed conversing with you. You were knowledgeable about many topics and were an avid reader, like he was. You mentioned that during off seasons and while on long sea voyages, your favorite activity was reading. You found both of you relished the same romantic series - about a swashbuckling pirate always on an adventure, but secretly yearning for true love. 

He did not see much of you outside of work and meal time. There wasn’t much to do on the island, so he had assumed you would join them in the castle for entertainment. However, when you weren’t working, you were nowhere to be found. Mihawk was not expecting such an outcome. The types of people that he was used to engaging with - warlords, pirates, loose women, outlaws, merchants - would always flock to him. He would have to fend off irritating conversations, pathetic pleas, and wanton come-ons to no end. But you didn’t seem to need his company, you had a rich life all your own. Your independence of thought and lifestyle was refreshing, if not a little strange to him. 

Coming to the shed, he rapped his knuckle once on the door. There was no response. Perhaps you did not hear? He rapped again, this time twice. Still no response, and no sounds coming from the shed. Though he was loath to violate your privacy, he wanted to ensure you were alright. Opening the door and peering into the shed, it was obvious you weren’t there.  It was nearing nightfall - there wasn’t any activity to do on the island. So where could you be?

Mihawk just wanted to ensure you got the wine - he was not at all worried about your whereabouts, he told himself. He called out your name, “Y/N? Are you about?”

“Over here” you called from father away.

He looked where your voice had come from. You were sitting on the ground, leaning back against a stump. You had something on your hand and you were watching it move. Mihawk came towards you and stopped in front of you.

“Hey dumplin’, what can I do you for?”

“I concede that you have won our bet. You are far more knowledgeable than my books. As the winner, I bequeath to you this bottle of wine,” he said with a small smile. He presented you with said bottle. “I have also brought glasses in case you wish to celebrate your victory now.”

“Aw, you shouldn’t have. Thank you, honey. I think tonight’s a fine night for a celebration. Go ahead and crack ‘er open for us.” You smiled up at him while an insect continued crawling on your hand.

Mihawk obliged and poured two glasses of wine. After handing one to you, you said “c’mere, sit. The grass don’t bite.” You patted the ground next to you.

Mihawk was unused to sitting on the ground. He always thought it was so unrefined. And might soil his garments. But…it did have its charm. He ignored your use of a command and sat down next to you.

“You have an insect on your hand, Y/N.”

“It’s a lantern firefly. I’ve never seen this kind before, they’re the largest variety in the Grand Line. They have a short lifespan and only live a few weeks so I’ve never been able to catch ‘em at the right time.” You nodded your head towards a glade nearby. “Look.”

In silence, the two of you watched as more fireflies lit up the darkening night sky. It was a beautiful sight, the fireflies glowing like green glass globes in the air. The air seemed to be filled with softly glowing lanterns, creating a peaceful atmosphere. You sat and enjoyed the scene, sipping your wine slowly. Mihawk did the same. You had a tranquil look on your face and a soft smile on your lips. It was an otherworldly scene, sitting next to you, watching the glow in the growing dark. This was something he would not have found on his own before you came to him. Eventually, the night sky was completely dark and the fireflies stopped appearing. 

“Well, that’s that,” you said, getting up and dusting off your pants. “Have you ever seen something so wonderful?” you asked him, returning your now empty wine glass to his hand.

Looking into your eyes, he replied “not until tonight.”

[betterbooktitles]

Guillermo del Toro owns a second home that only has his stuff in it. Though the 59-year-old filmmaker is married with children, he keeps an entire second house to himself and fills it with frightening sculptures, inspiring pieces of art, toys, books, and movies, all of it his own curation. There are no kid’s drawings on the fridge, no side tables picked out by his spouse. It’s his personal playroom. He does most of the upkeep himself after a housecleaner broke the finger off one of his statues. He refers to it as a “man cave” or the “Bleak House” and often spends time alone writing there. Del Toro claims his wife likes it and has always supported his childhood dream house. She also prefers that his horrifying decorations don’t impede the aesthetic taste of the home they share as a family.

Having an entire home as a creative man cave that I am entirely in charge of would sound perfect to me if it weren’t for the fact that owning one home has become a nightmare even the best horror director could not fully capture on film.

I know I am lucky. The stats on Millennials owning their own homes are (if you will) bleak. But whatever I thought was irritating me in the city wasn’t nearly as bad as the physical and mental work required to live in a house. It drains bank accounts and my will to do more than one thing per day. When I was young and lived in New York, I scheduled my days like a CEO or politician: meetings, lunches, podcasts, and stand-up shows all crammed together to the minute as if I could teleport between venues. Now, if Wednesday morning includes a Home Depot run and a painting project, realistically, I’m not doing anything after that until Saturday. The laundry list of what needs to be fixed or maintained in the house grows every day. In the winter, there are rooms I simply don’t use because of a draft I can’t fix. In the summers, the yard becomes something we have to actively fight against lest new trees and mushrooms and 6-foot tall weeds that resemble stalks of asparagus take over everything. The current issue is a dead tree blocking a path to the backyard because wisteria vines are pulling it to the ground. It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a plant move outside of Evil Dead.

Though we struggle to keep up with our checklists, my wife and I have ambitions for the house outside of general maintenance. We’d like a bigger kitchen, a functional garden, and a fence that looks like a stiff breeze wouldn’t knock it over. The house is fine without these physical flourishes, but the fantasy is always there, nagging whispers in the brain of how nice it could be given unlimited time and resources. That nagging gets into my head about a whole house devoted to my creative dreams.

When I fantasize about what I’d like most if money and time were no object, I find myself thinking about a home theater. Unfortunately, money is an object, and the “fun budget” was consumed by the “necessities budget” a year ago. We already replaced the furnace and AC, dug up tiles in the den, painted nearly every room, replaced doors, one of which was rotting the wood at the edges because it hadn’t been replaced since 1986, the year I was born. Still, the list grows. A dedicated line to the kitchen needs to be added by an electrician so the fuse doesn’t blow whenever I use the toaster and the electric kettle at the same time. The fence and what it nominally protects behind the house needs to be reworked before bunnies consume everything that isn’t a weed. The ancient carpeting needs to be ripped up, bathrooms need to be redone by professionals so my body can actually fit comfortably inside one. Walls need to come down to make living spaces seem less like hallways, and the bay window on the second floor that appears to be melting toward the ground needs to be addressed by a professional architect before the wind rips it off the bedroom wall like a giant scab. After all of that is finished, I’d still need to move into a newer, much bigger house if I want to have a home theater. 

Where did the yearning for a private theater come from? Unlike Del Toro’s childhood fantasy of having a house all his own, my wish for this extravagance came much later. I was 30, and I remember exactly how the seed was planted: Zillow. I spent hours on the site, letting the mortgage/insurance calculator tell me what I could afford for the same amount I paid in rent in Brooklyn. On my phone’s screen, I saw a $400,000 mansion in my wife’s hometown outside of Pittsburgh that was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen. It had high wood ceilings and multiple fireplaces to make the whole giant house feel like a cabin. I had 8 bedrooms and a home theater. Imagine, I thought, how good a movie must be in a theater in your own home. Imagine the parties with friends. Imagine movie nights where you force your kids to watch Back to the Future for the first time in a close approximation to the space where you saw it. Playing an old cartoon and a few YouTube’d trailers from the 80s. A little popcorn machine in the corner. Speakers that are way too loud. The dream.

I’ve realized recently, however, how silly the longing for a home theater is for me specifically. I don’t like watching sports at home. I need the atmosphere of screaming people either in the arena itself or in a bar. I need the game to be live. I need to be out among strangers or friends. I feel the same way about movies. I need other people with me, laughing, crying, gasping, clapping. 

Read the rest here.

[elisela]

@missanniewhimsy reblogged something about one of my most favorite tropes and this popped into my head so. more nurseydex because apparently i’m weak.

.

“Did I ever tell you,” Will says, even though he knows he didn’t and that he’s also failed to give any context to the conversation, “that I woke up that morning and thought you snuck out?”

The adorable, confused look that overtakes his boyfriend’s face shows that he has absolutely no clue what Will is talking about. “Can’t say you ever did,” is all he says though. “What about this relationship makes you think I’m suddenly going to start sneaking out?”

“Not now,” Will says. He sets down the glass of wine Derek had poured—too bitter, a gift from Chowder because they’re grown-ups now and apparently beer isn’t an acceptable gift. Will disagrees. “After our first date. I thought you left.”

Derek blinks. His wine glass—also still full—makes a soft clink against their table when he sets it down. “Why would I have snuck out?” he says. His tone is odd, like he can’t figure out if he should be amused or offended and is hovering somewhere in-between.

Will shrugs. A year removed it’s difficult to get himself back in the panicked mindset that he’d worked himself up to after waking up alone, and it seems almost ridiculous now. “You weren’t in bed. I thought you’d regretted it, panicked, and left. I was halfway to deciding to move to Chicago when you walked back in with breakfast.”

The laugh that comes from Derek is a short bark before he shakes his head and reaches across the table; Will pushes the empty plate of lobster ravioli he’d spent the afternoon making aside and takes his hand. “You hate Chicago.”

“Which is why you’d never find me there.”

Derek chuckles. “You’re unbelievable.” There’s only a moment’s pause before he says, “I’d already done my panicking.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “Before I woke up?”

“Before I asked you out. And then again before I asked you out and had to clarify it was a date. I’m pretty sure we went out three or four times on what I’d intended to be a date but hadn’t actually gotten that across. Chowder was ready to throttle me.”

“The axe throwing?” he asks, grinning slowly.

“And the bar, the boardwalk, and the baseball game,” Derek says, nodding. “It was a lot of panicking. Wasn’t pretty.”

Will shakes his head. “You know I only went to the baseball game because I felt bad that no one else wanted to go with you.”

“You made that clear, yes,” Derek says, but his eyes crinkle at the corners in place of a smile. “I can’t believe you thought I left.”

“Yeah well,” Will says, pulling his hand back and reaching for his fork again. The wine may be shit, but the food is good and he’s not letting it go to waste. “Maybe I’d be less annoyed on a daily basis if you had.”

“Psshaw,” Derek says, reaching out to spear one of the remaining stalks of asparagus with apparently little regard for it Will was going to eat it, “less annoyed, but fewer orgasms. Your choice.”

“I’ll get back to you next year,” Will says. “Or maybe I’ll just sneak out tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, sure,” Derek laughs. “Just make sure you bring back a good breakfast.”

[ahedderick]

One of my asparagus plants from last year's planting is up w-a-y ahead of any of the others. Purple! I am putting in another row of them right beside this, and enjoying it just as much as I did last year. Not at all, yes.

There is about 4 inches/ 10 cm of decent soil, here, a layer of heavy clay under that, and tons of rocks. All the other rocks I found today were small or moderate, but this one was big, incredibly heavy, and right-smack in my way. It took close to a third of the time I spent gardening today just to deal with this one rock.

I filled the trench partway back in with the better soil, some sand, and a big load of last fall's dead leaves. If life doesn't give you sandy loam, CHEAT!

I also have three big holes dug at the lower end of the asparagus, where there is too much shade from the woodshed. I'm going to plant sweet potatoes there, and hope that the vines run toward the sun and make a nice weed-suppressing layer amongst the mature asparagus stalks. A vertical plant, a spreading, low-growing plant, we'll see if it all works out.

Wet clay. So heavy. It's only fun if you want to take a wet handful and squish up a little paleolithic-style bear figurine.

The peas, radishes, and other cool-tolerant crops are looking hopeful. This will be the first garden since my husband's retirement last fall. He's enjoying it. Will any of the peas actually make it into the house? Ha. Haha.