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dankusner · 3 months

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Texas Has Basically Legalized Marijuana. We Have the Proof.

The first thing I notice on entering the store is the smell.

It is an earthy sandalwood mixed with some type of citrus, perhaps sour lemon.

It tells me I am in the right place, because I am here to buy cannabis.

On my left sits a smoking lounge with four booths facing large windows that look out on an upscale South Austin shopping center.

To my right, behind a glass window, is a demonstration grow room—more for show than large-scale cultivation.

Straight ahead, on the back wall, a large lacquered-wood cabinet looks like something out of an old-fashioned drugstore.

Its shelves hold a cannabinoid cornucopia: cookies, gummies, tinctures, machine-rolled joints, and glass containers half-filled with tightly clumped plant buds.

Another customer enters and makes a beeline to the counter.

He orders a strain of cannabis called Blueberry Muffin.

The salesman, Nick, uses plastic tongs to fish out a few buds and places them on an electric scale.

As he does this, he sizes up my wide-eyed incredulity.

What he’s selling isn’t marijuana, he tells me.

It is hemp containing a chemical compound called THCa.

Lighting it on fire transforms the THCa into another compound, THC—delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, to be exact.

“It’s a little less potent than what you would find in California, but it still gets the job done,” Nick says. “Rest assured, everything in the store will get you high.”

The muffin man drops into the conversation.

Imagine if selling cookies were illegal, he says, but it were legal to sell cookie dough.

“You can just make the cookie yourself by heating it up.”

In this metaphor, THC-laden marijuana is the cookie, and THCa hemp is the cookie dough.

When you light the joint on fire, it becomes, for all intents and purposes, marijuana.

After muffin man leaves, I get down to business with Nick, who is wearing an expensive-looking long-sleeved dress shirt.

(I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had tried to sell me a pair of $150 jeans.)

We discuss the characteristics of various strains for sale, most of which have mouthwatering names such as Lemon Cherry Gelato.

I am overwhelmed by the choices, so Nick suggests Lemon Bomb, which is “pretty potent.”

But he has stronger options.

“This is unreal,” he says, reaching for a rectangular glass jar filled with what look like chalky nuggets of stone, identified by a handwritten label: White Wok.

“This is something that, like, I would recommend all customers try at least once. This is going to get you f—ed up.”

Is merely potent good enough, or do I want the neurons in my brain shaken like dice in a game of Boggle?

As I dither, Nick aims to close the sale.

“If you want to have a chill day, I would go with the Lemon Bomb. If you want to ruin your day,” his voice trails off, and he looks suggestively at White Wok.

Hemp prerolls at Green Haven Cannabis Co. in San Antonio.

Boggle it is.

I purchase two grams of White Wok for $40 with my credit card.

I thank Nick as he hands me a small plastic baggie reeking of a scent that transports me back to the winter of 1991, when I first set foot in an Amsterdam “coffeeshop.”

I exit into one of Texas’s most expensive neighborhoods, where teardown bungalows fetch $1 million.

Next door is an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

A few days earlier, a man named Nico Richardson had told me that Texas had become “the biggest unregulated drug market in the country.”

It was a stunning claim, and I wasn’t sure I believed him.

I doubted the conservatives who run Texas would allow that state of affairs, and I knew he had a vested financial interest in cracking down on these hemp shops.

Dressed in unwrinkled jeans and unscuffed white sneakers, the fortysomething Richardson looks the part of an Ivy League MBA, which he is.

He’s also the chief executive of Texas Original, one of three licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.

His operation is regulated by Texas Department of Public Safety inspectors with the humorlessness of Soviet functionaries.

They don’t worry him.

What does are the thousands of licensed hemp dispensaries in the state that, he says, sell strains of cannabis that could lay low a three-hundred-pound rutting hog.

When Richardson claimed it was easy to purchase marijuana at these stores, I wondered if he was being hyperbolic.

Now all I had to do was send White Wok to a laboratory to see what I had bought.

I’ll cut to the chase. What I purchased, legally speaking, was marijuana.

Extremely potent marijuana.

The Farm Bill passed by Congress in 2018 says that if a cannabis plant is less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC, it is hemp and not subject to the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Any THC in excess of that makes it marijuana.

Texas adopted these definitions into state law in 2019, making hemp legal in the state.

White Wok’s concentration of delta-9 THC tested at 1.48 percent, or nearly five times the legal limit.

This wasn’t just cookie dough.

It was a fully baked cookie.

And the delta-9 THC was just the tip of the psychoactive iceberg.

The strain also contained 48.3 percent THCa.

The hemp industry argues that according to the letter of the law, the THCa level doesn’t matter.

Any plant with less than 0.3 percent THC is hemp.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration disagrees.

In May the federal agency clarified its position that THCa must also be under the 0.3 percent legal limit.

My White Wok contained 150 times that much.

“This is not a regular cannabis flower,” said Sarah Otis, director of quality assurance for Anresco Laboratories, in San Francisco, which Texas Monthly paid to assay the purchased samples.

Naturally occurring cannabis doesn’t approach those levels of THC, she said.

She suspected it was a bud genetically selected to produce high THC and then infused with hash oil—a cannabis extract—or additional THC.

Asked to describe its potency, she said, “The word I would use is ‘egregious.’ ”

Otis said that if this strain was being sold openly in Texas, it wasn’t being accurately tested.

There was no way a plant that tested at legal THC levels at a manufacturing facility could test weeks later at 1.48 percent.

And if the THC level isn’t being tested properly, she said, it’s difficult to trust that it has been tested for pesticides, heavy metals, or molds such as aspergillus.

I shared the test results with Paul Zain, who owns Greenbelt Botanicals, where I bought the White Wok.

“These things are going to happen,” he said. “I am disappointed.”

He told me that his suppliers provide paperwork showing that their flowers are hemp and therefore legal to sell.

Testing every product himself would cost too much.

“I have to take some people at their word,” he said.

The state can’t keep up either.

Timothy Stevenson, associate commissioner for consumer protection at the Texas Department of State Health Services, recently testified before a legislative hearing that the agency has four inspectors who visit the more than seven thousand registered hemp dispensaries.

They can inspect each one—from the Resler Smoke Shop, in northwest El Paso, to Puff ’N Stuff, on State Line Avenue in Texarkana, a twelve-hour drive away—once every five years.

DSHS has authority to test the products being sold, but “we don’t tend to invest a lot of state resources in that,” Stevenson said. Instead, to determine potency, the state relies on the certificates of analysis provided by manufacturers.

Texas Monthly purchased smokable cannabis at eight dispensaries, two each in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

We bagged our purchases and sent them to Anresco for testing.

All eight samples came back with delta-9 THC levels in excess of legal limits.

Every one was marijuana.

The “house blend” joint we purchased at the Alamo Heights location of Green Haven Cannabis Co., which operates three stores in San Antonio, tested at 12.38 percent—more than 41 times the legal limit for delta-9 THC.

Patrick Brantley, the shop’s owner, said he buys joints, often called prerolls, from Oregon and relies on his suppliers for accurate testing.

“You are held captive to the [certificates of analysis] the companies provide,” he wrote in an email.

The cannabis we bought contained a lot of THC.

Testing labs, including Anresco, provide a “total THC” figure as a gauge of overall potency.

By this measure, the clear winner was the White Wok, at 43.9 percent, enough to neutralize a half-ton bull alligator.

Other samples also delivered staggering amounts of psychoactive ingredients.

The preroll suggested by a friendly clerk with a nose piercing at Grinders Coffee Bar, a dispensary near Houston’s affluent West University Place, registered at 26 percent THC.

(A study of the potency of marijuana confiscated by the DEA in the eighties found that delta-9 THC levels were around 3 percent.)

The strain with the least kick, though a still-impressive 9 percent total THC, was a sold by an upscale East Dallas shop that hosts weekly dinners at which, a staffer explained, “only the sauces are infused, so that you have control and can dose yourself.”

All of our samples were “extremely” potent, said Matthew Rossheim, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, in Fort Worth.

He has written several scientific papers studying what is being sold at hemp dispensaries in the state, and he is concerned about Texans buying cannabis that’s been manipulated in ways that may not prove safe.

“We won’t know the health effects of these for years and years to come,” he said. “People don’t even realize what all they’re putting in their bodies. So how will we be able to figure out which stuff is most harmful and poisonous? It’s just a mess.”

Anresco and several other laboratories ran a nationwide test in January and reached a conclusion similar to Texas Monthly’s findings.

The study tested 29 samples from prerolls and loose flower, all of which were sold with certificates indicating their THC was under 0.3 percent.

Nineteen had levels above the limit. Factoring in the THCa, 25 were marijuana.

When Nico Richardson told me how easy it was to buy marijuana in Texas, I had wondered if he was getting high on his own supply.

But our testing suggests he was absolutely correct.

“Let’s be honest and call it what it is,” he said. “Most of the hemp dispensaries out there, knowingly or unknowingly, are selling illegal federal marijuana.”

And they can do it because these stores operate at the crossroads of poorly written laws, wily chemists brewing up potent new strains, and an understaffed, underfinanced, and handcuffed state regulatory body.

Recreational use of cannabis became commonplace in Mexico starting in the 1880s.

In the United States at the time, the intoxicants of choice were cocaine, morphine, and opium, all of which were unregulated until the early years of the twentieth century.

But marijuana did cross the border—including in the rucksacks of Pancho Villa’s revolutionary army—and was sold as far north as San Antonio.

In 1915, El Paso became the first city in Texas to enact an ordinance prohibiting the sale and possession of cannabis, claiming that smoking it led to violent behavior.

Some historians argue that movements to outlaw certain drugs share nativist and anti-immigrant impulses with the temperance movement, which led to a national ban on alcohol in 1920.

The year prior, the Texas Legislature had enacted a prohibition on the transfer of marijuana from one person to another; in 1923 it banned possession with the intent to sell.

In discussing the bill, a newspaper in Austin felt compelled to educate its readers that “marihuana is a Mexican herb.”

Practically every state west of the Mississippi had similar laws on its books by 1933.

Texas made marijuana possession a felony, a situation that remained until 1973, when the state became the second to last to reduce the crime to a misdemeanor.

According to a Texas Monthly article, the impetus for the change was that “too many of the wrong kids were being arrested.”

When kids from the wealthy Dallas enclave of Highland Park were charged with felonies, the issue became a legislative problem that needed to be solved.

In 1996 California was the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

Others soon followed. Colorado and Washington became the first to approve recreational use, in 2012, followed by Alaska and Oregon, in 2014.

At last count, 24 states—plus the District of Columbia—had joined the green wave.

They have implemented testing regimes to ferret out the sort of contaminants that may be going undetected in strains of hemp sold in Texas.

Possession of less than two ounces of marijuana remains a misdemeanor in our state that can result in as many as 180 days in jail, although some cities and local prosecutors have said they won’t bring charges.

But Texas has opened the door to medical marijuana.

In 2015 the state created the Compassionate Use Program for Texans with severe epilepsy.

There are only three licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, and each can operate a single growing facility.

They must test their crops monthly and share the results with the Department of Public Safety, not the Department of State Health Services, which oversees hemp stores.

Nico Richardson’s Texas Original is the largest of the medical dispensaries.

Its client base mushroomed after Texas expanded the program, in 2019, to allow marijuana for the treatment of terminal cancer and multiple sclerosis, along with a handful of other conditions.

Two years later, the program was opened further to those diagnosed with any cancer, as well as patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Texas Original grew alongside the program, adding customers and increasing revenue, Richardson said, until about 2023.

He blames the proliferation of hemp dispensaries for this setback.

During the first couple of years after Texas legalized hemp, shops such as those we tested were mostly selling an extract called cannabidiol, or CBD.

It doesn’t get users high, but it provides a pleasant sensation.

Under a wellness banner, stores began selling gummies and tinctures to help with relaxation and sleep.

Chemists and botanists in the hemp industry soon discovered that they could extract psychoactive compounds from hemp, such as THCa, thus skirting federal and state laws focused on delta-9 THC levels.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hemp stores began to sell products with high levels of delta-8 THC, a compound similar to delta-9 THC but not addressed explicitly in state or federal law.

Eventually the focus shifted to THCa.

With products that looked, smelled, and acted like marijuana, hemp dispensary sales increased.

Still, the industry feared the state would soon enact new regulations.

But a 2021 bill seeking to regulate delta-8 levels died in a legislative committee, and later that year, a new state health department rule that would have prohibited such hemp-derived cannabis strains was successfully challenged in court.

(That case is pending before the Texas Supreme Court.)

After the 2023 session also ended without legislative action, Texas’s hemp industry exploded.

Dispensary owners are confident they’re on the right side of the law.

“Just like anything in Texas around cannabis, we have to kind of interpret the law, you know, for ourselves and talking to lawyers and stuff,” said Todd Harris, the co-owner of Happy Cactus Apothecary, a dispensary with two stores in Austin.

Texas Monthly purchased two joints from its location across the street from a high school in South Austin.

They were 23.2 percent THCa and also 1.78 percent delta-9 THC.

“After doing our due diligence,” Harris told me, “we do feel comfortable and confident that THCa is legal in Texas, and THCa is the same thing as the marijuana that you get in Colorado and California.”

If you’re confused by this hazy cloud of legality surrounding cannabis, you aren’t alone.

At a recent legislative hearing, state senator José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, reflected on the spread of legal hemp stores selling products chemically similar to marijuana.

“In a way, inadvertently, we passed a law that sort of legalized the use of cannabis in the state of Texas,” he said.

A couple of minutes later, Senator Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock, responded.

He had sponsored the 2019 bill legalizing hemp because he wanted to help farmers in his mostly rural district by offering them access to a new potential cash crop.

“To be clear, Texas did not legalize pot—knowingly or unknowingly,” he said. “This started out as a federal farm bill for the benefit of agriculture, and it has been bastardized as we were fearful it could be. It is time to fix it.”

It is widely anticipated that Perry or another senator will file applicable legislation for the 2025 session, but it isn’t clear whether such a bill will attempt to stamp out the new hemp industry or envelop it in new regulations.

Of course, all of the legal wrangling over levels of delta-8 and THCa is a little beside the point.

All eight samples that Texas Monthly purchased and tested exceeded the 0.3 percent delta-9 THC level that defines illegal marijuana.

We didn’t buy them from dealers in apartments with closed blinds.

We bought them in licensed stores with plenty of natural light, moody music, and tactful displays.

“They have jammed open a loophole, and they are operating miles outside the intent of both federal law and state law,” Richardson told me. “It’s a nationwide problem. But the biggest market in the nation now, where all this product is being sold into, is Texas.”

Richardson says a surfeit of readily available unregulated marijuana posing as hemp is eating away at his business.

He grows all of his cannabis in South Austin, and his employees have to drive doses all over the state.

DPS sometimes springs surprise testing on top of its routine monthly inspections.

Richardson can’t sell any cannabis product that registers more than 1 percent delta-9 THC.

And his customers require medical prescriptions.

Meanwhile, hemp dispensaries can sell significantly more-potent cannabis at lower prices, from stores conveniently located in 238 of the state’s 254 counties.

Unless changes are made, it is likely that the Texas medical program will cease to function, Richardson said. “It is not an economic program for the operators.”

The pro-hemp crowd talks a lot about the economic benefits the new industry provides: the thousands of commercial leases and billions of dollars in payroll.

Texas could join the nearly half of states that have legalized recreational marijuana.

This would allow for increased tax revenues and improved oversight of the safety of cannabis products, much as with alcohol and tobacco.

But so far, the Legislature hasn’t shown much inclination to head down that path.

Opponents of legalization argue that what they call “intoxicating hemp” is dangerous and out of control.

“We can’t continue to put business interests over the lives of our youth and communities,” said Nicole Holt, the CEO of Texans for Safe and Drug-Free Youth. “We want to ban all cannabis and cannabis-derived products.”

The flourishing hemp industry is preparing to fight in the courts and the Legislature to keep its smoke-blowing golden goose happy and healthy.

Marco Krause, who runs an online hemp store, recently told state senators in a hearing that “whether it was the intent of the Legislature or not, you legalized it.”

Now, he said, it’s time to pass rules to require better testing and age limits.

(There is no law preventing the sale of hemp to minors.)

“The cat is out of the bag. We all want to work with you to regulate this.”

Paul Zain, co-owner of Greenbelt Botanicals, where I bought White Wok, says Texas has gone too far to turn around. “It does feel like we legalized marijuana,” he said, adding that the response shouldn’t be to destroy a billion-dollar industry.

“Would you rather people be buying a product from a regulated Texas market or buying on the black market?”

As the situation stands now, is there even a difference?

New York City’s new luxury cannabis stores are works of high art

If it wasn’t for the six-foot-tall sculpture of an immaculately rolled joint in the foyer of the Union Square outpost of Travel Agency, you might not know that you’re entering a cannabis store.

The space, designed by the architecture firm Leong Leong, belongs in the same family as New York City’s retail temples—the Khaites, Kiths, and Aesops of the world that demonstrate how good retail is about a lot more than a transaction.

With its egg-shaped Space Age sign hanging from the contoured ceiling, soft lighting, and long white counter, it’s like Saarinen’s TWA terminal meets a James Turrell sculpture.

Travel Agency is one of the few actually stylish licensed dispensaries in New York City.

Since opening in February 2023, the brand—which is a partnership between founders Arana Hankin-Biggers and Paul Yau and the Doe Fund—has expanded to three locations this year.

Each of them is minimalist and has a subtle travel theme.

The second, on a prime block of Fifth Avenue, was based on a European train hall and features dove gray limewash walls and a silver palm tree in the window; the third, in Downtown Brooklyn, has the vaulted ceilings and white tile found throughout the city’s subway stations.

“The big idea is how do you create a sanctuary or a portal to a new destination,” says Christopher Leong, the architect who led the store designs.

When New York State announced the legalization of recreational cannabis in March 2021, entrepreneurs—especially ones that didn’t bother to apply for licenses—quickly opened for business.

In New York City, this first took the form of Shamrock-green Uncle Budd and cartoon-wrapped Weed World trucks parked on street corners across the five boroughs.

Soon, weed bodegas done up by graffiti artists became a kind of local vernacular, with stoned Adult Swim characters acting as visual shorthand for the products sold inside.

Slowly, licensed dispensaries have come online.

But a year and a half since the first one opened, the retail landscape for legal weed has been uneven, sluggish, and underwhelming.

To date, there are only 132 licensed cannabis stores across New York State, around 60 of which are in New York City.

Most dispensaries, licensed or not, have about as much charm as Metro PCS store.

Some critics have said the state botched the rollout, citing unfulfilled social equity promises to deliver turnkey shops to license holders with marijuana convictions and a failure to enforce the booming illicit market.

Business is fiercely competitive and some license holders are turning to high design to stand out.

To Hankin-Biggers, who has a background in real estate development, design is a big reason why her brand has been able to grow so quickly.

“Because of the 3,000 illicit shops, we really wanted to stand out in a meaningful way,” she says. “There’s a lot of product out there, so why would you go to Travel Agency? We thought, why not make a dispensary fun and sexy and interesting. It’s not too stuffy—elevated but not elitist.”

What dispensaries can and can’t do

Because of the state’s restrictions on cannabis retail and marketing, there are quite a few design constraints on dispensaries.

Among them: cannabis products can’t be visible from the street; storefront signage can only say the shop’s name and that it’s a dispensary; no neon colors, bubble fonts, and all products containing marijuana have to be locked from customers.

There can’t be anything sold that imitates food or candy.

Meanwhile, dispensary names and concepts can’t riff on drug stores, apothecaries, doctor’s offices, or anything that would be appealing to someone under 21.

Travel Agency’s spaces are thought of as experiential, multisensory art installations.

The sculptures in the foyers, which change periodically, solve the problem of having no cannabis visible from the street while still having a welcoming storefront.

(Plus they’re a nice place to wait for your ID to be checked, another requirement for dispensaries.)

There’s a fragrance wall in the back that lets curious shoppers smell the natural essential oils in cannabis and realistic-looking paper sculptures of plants held in two-foot-tall, bell-jar-like vitrines.

Leong Leong designed cases that feel almost like jewelry store displays to meet the lock-and-key rules while also making the products, which are all small, appear elegant.

“All these security measures became design devices we embraced,” Leong says.

The color palette is muted because the packaging—Travel Agency carries 350 products from 60 to 70 brands—is visually cacophonous.

“It’s almost more like a museum than a shoppable retail store,” says Hannah Frossard, a senior designer at Leong Leong, (Incidentally, the architecture firm was designing the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s Sleeping Beauties exhibition at the same time as Travel Agency and there are aesthetic and functional similarities between them.)

Frossard notes that there is very high foot traffic during peak hours, like a museum, and designing for quick trips was another challenge.

Customers can peruse the shelves and chat with budtenders about the products on view, but they make their purchases on one of a dozen iPads throughout the stores, then head to a counter to pick up what they bought.

In that way, the space also had to function like a fast casual restaurant, Frossard adds.

The rise of the high-end cannabis store

Gotham, a licensed retailer that opened in the East Village in May 2023, is another high-end shop that went the conceptual route.

Geraldine Hessler, the vice president of marketing at Gotham, describes the space as “accessible luxury.” The warm, modern shop is informed by New York City’s art, fashion, and culture scenes. It sells home goods in the area up front, has a gallery upstairs, and keeps its products in custom-designed cases that also resemble what you’d find in jewelry stores. “We did not want a sterile space that felt transactional, so we created a space that invited people to linger, ask questions, and learn,” Hessler says. “Customers often say they want to live in Gotham because they feel at home and we could not ask for a better compliment.” Because it’s still early days in legal weed, dispensaries who have the budgets for architects are trying to appeal to as many customers as possible through lifestyle boutique approaches. But a high-concept space isn’t synonymous with a good customer experience, particularly for people who are more experienced, says Aaron Ghitelman, a former deputy communications director for the New York State Office of Cannabis Management.

He visited one of them (and declined to say which) but noted that the music from an event happening inside was so loud that he left before buying anything. “

It’s like, okay, so you have this more-than-a-million-dollar build-out that I’m sure you put a lot of thought into, but I never went back into that store,” Ghitelman says. “

I want to be able to have conversations with budtenders and other customers, and I want to be able to get in and out.”

Of the conceptual spaces Ghitelman has visited he notes that Dagmar, a dispensary in SoHo with a goth Art Deco vibe, “went for it in a way that doesn’t take away from the cannabis purchasing experience,” he says.

But the dispensary he likes the most is Terp Bros, a small, no-fuss shop on Ditmars Avenue in Astoria with a lot of products. “

They figured out what a neighborhood dispensary, not a flagship, looks like,” Ghitelman says.

In places where recreational use has been legal for a while—like California, Colorado, and Canada—there’s a wealth of ambitious retail. In a few years, perhaps New York might be among them.

“It’s an exciting time and I think folks are figuring out what works and what doesn’t work,” Ghitelman says.

“I think we will see more maturation—and hopefully not homogenization—of aesthetics.”

Black-, gay-owned weed businesses gain traction

More overcome obstacles to open and expand in Illinois

The self-described Black-, Latino-, veteran- and queer-owned SWAY dispensary is in the Lakeview neighborhood.

The dispensary is a collaboration between José “Pepe” Peña, from left, Edie Moore and Art Johnston. E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune

After years of struggling to get off the ground, several Black-owned cannabis businesses recently have opened or expanded in Illinois, bucking the trend of companies that haven’t been able to acquire financing to get going.

One of the recent openings is the self-described Black-, Latino-, veteran- and queer-owned SWAY dispensary in the Lakeview neighborhood.

The retail store is a collaboration between cannabis equity advocate and Army veteran Edie Moore, and LGBTQ rights and local business leaders Art Johnston and José “Pepe” Peña — both now 80.

“It’s a long time coming,” Moore said. “Financing is always a big challenge. It’s very expensive to do one of these facilities. Zoning (in Chicago) is a bear, and expensive.”

Access to marijuana was an important issue in the gay rights movement, especially in the 1980s, because so many members of the community were suffering from AIDS or cancer.

“After all of these years of prohibition,” Johnston said, “it will be an honor to provide safe access to cannabis for our community and beyond.”

Johnson and Peña also are co-owners of Sidetracks, a popular gay bar since the 1980s, across the street from SWAY.

Statewide, there are 213 recreational or “adult use” dispensaries, almost half of which are social equity dispensaries, generally defined as those owned by people with prior low-level cannabis convictions, or who come from areas of high cannabis arrest rates or high poverty.

Another 100 or so conditionally licensed companies are working toward opening.

In May, state officials announced they were awarding an additional 48 new conditional licenses.

The openings come as many of those companies face difficulties meeting a July 11 deadline to open.

The state will grant further extensions based on need.

At SWAY, its opening brings to fruition a goal that Peña proposed decades ago, never thinking it would come true: “Wouldn’t it be great to sell weed instead of alcohol?”

“The response from the community has been overwhelming,” co-owner Kevin Hauswirth said.

SWAY recently launched its own brand of cannabis, with plans to open a second dispensary on the South Side.

Since opening in April, the store has already signed up thousands of loyalty customers, and it draws a diverse set of clients, including tourists and Cubs fans.

It’s also partnered with the Brave Space Alliance, a Black- and trans-led LGBTQ center on the South Side.

At the same time, a spinoff of the largest Black-owned cannabis company in the United States is expanding into Chicago.

Former NBA star Al Harrington and Chicagoan Dan Pettigrew formed Viola Brands in 2011 in Colorado.

It was named after Harrington’s grandmother, Viola, who suffered from diabetes and glaucoma.

As Harrington tells it, she tried cannabis and cried tears of relief when she was able to again read her Bible.

“It completely changed the way I felt about cannabis,” Harrington said.

Pettigrew and business partner Al Lomax expanded to Illinois, and last year opened their first dispensary under the name Viola Chi in west suburban Broadview.

This month, they opened their second store, under the name Village, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, which celebrated with a block party recently.

The business owners are still in litigation, trying to get a craft cultivation license.

“It is unbelievably challenging,” Pettigrew said. “Now, we’re pivoting to increase our footprint in Illinois.”

The founders hope to add three more dispensaries in the state, by partnering with local startups.

They say they’re not looking to buy anyone out, just to leverage their infrastructure to help social equity companies.

Similarly, Galaxy Labs is looking to expand.

The company opened a craft grow and dispensary in Richton Park.

Recently, it became the first craft grower to receive state permission to expand from 5,000 square feet to the maximum allowed 14,000 square feet.

It’s still a fraction of the 210,000 square feet that the original medical weed growers are allowed in Illinois, but it will help enable financing and greater profits.

The company also operates a dispensary next door.

Owners Michelle and Rick Ringold opened their cultivation warehouse about a year ago, with plans to expand all along, so the infrastructure they already built will save on future costs.

Galaxy turned down multimillion dollar offers to sell its craft grow license.

“For us, this venture is about creating jobs and economic opportunities,” Michelle Ringold said.

“It is our way of giving back to those communities affected the most by the war on drugs, and not simply to make a dollar for ourselves.”

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denuocookware · 3 months

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readitreviewit · 8 months

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The Wok: The Definitive Guide to Cooking with the Most Versatile Pan in Your Kitchen by J. Kenji López-Alt is a fantastic addition to any home cook's collection. With over 200 recipes and more than 1,000 full-color photographs, this cookbook is perfect for those who love to experiment with different cuisines. López-Alt, the author of the best-selling cookbook The Food Lab, is known for his science-based approach to cooking. In The Wok, he applies this method to the wok, the most versatile pan in the kitchen. Whether you're stir-frying, deep frying, steaming, simmering, or braising, López-Alt shows you how to get the most out of your wok. The first section of the book covers the basics, including the mechanics of stir-frying and how to get that sought-after smoky wok hei (flavor) at home. Once you've mastered these techniques, López-Alt takes you on a culinary journey across Asia and the United States. The recipes include everything from Kung Pao Chicken and Pad Thai to San Francisco–Style Garlic Noodles and Beef Chow Fun. But that's just the beginning. López-Alt breaks down the science behind other dishes, including fried rice, dumplings, tempura vegetables or seafood, and dashi-simmered dishes. He also includes simple no-cook sides, along with explanations of knife skills and how to stock your pantry. What sets this cookbook apart from others is López-Alt's attention to detail. For example, he includes a recipe for dashi, a Japanese stock made from kelp and bonito flakes, which is a key ingredient in many Japanese recipes. He also shows you how to make your own chili oil, which can be used in a range of dishes. The photographs in The Wok are stunning. Every recipe is accompanied by a full-color photo that shows you exactly what the finished dish should look like. In addition, López-Alt provides step-by-step photos for some of the more complicated dishes, such as dumplings and scallion pancakes. One of the standout features of The Wok is the thermal imaging photographs. López-Alt uses a thermal imaging camera to show you how the heat is distributed throughout the wok during cooking. This is particularly helpful for those who are new to stir-frying and want to make sure they're using the right amount of heat. The recipes in The Wok are easy to follow and include detailed instructions. López-Alt also provides tips and tricks throughout the book, such as how to properly season your wok and how to make sure your wok stays nonstick. In summary, The Wok is a must-have cookbook for anyone who loves to cook. With its science-based approach, stunning photography, and comprehensive range of recipes, this cookbook is sure to become a staple in kitchens around the world. When it comes to producing quick, flavorful meals, the wok beats every other pan in the kitchen, and López-Alt shows you how to use it to its full potential. So, get your wok out of the cabinet and start cooking! Take a step towards unlocking a world of knowledge and inspiration. Buy the book now or sign up for Audible's 30-day free trial and experience the power of audiobooks today! Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details)

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25mn · 1 year

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The best way to cook pheasant

Of the multitude of game birds that can be found across the UK in pre-winter and winter, fowl is the most widely recognized. Yet, while we could consider the fowl to be an image of the Incomparable English open country, it's really a local of Asia. They were acquainted with Europe (and ultimately the UK) by the Romans, and began to become famous in England from the 11th century onwards. They breed effectively and adjust to environments well, making them the ideal game bird - today upwards of 35 million fowls are delivered into the wild every year.

Fowl is a little, lean bird that is inclined to drying out, so it merits additional consideration and consideration during cooking. The taste is contrasted with chicken and guinea fowl, with changing measures of 'unpleasantness' relying upon how matured the bird is.

warming some oil as well as margarine in a container over a high intensity. Add the filets and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side or until just cooked through then cover and rest for 5 minutes prior to serving.

To pan sear fowl bosoms, cut them into strips and cook in a hot wok with oil for something like 3 minutes until cooked. Put away in a warm covered dish while cooking vegetables and different fixings prior to returning the bird and blending through.

The most effective way to cook fowl The best way to cook pheasant is to broil it in the stove.

While simmering a fowl, you need to add a great deal of fat to the bird. This will guarantee that it remains delicate and delicate, and that it has sufficient juice to keep up with its flavor.

Here is a bit by bit guide on the most proficient method to effectively broil a fowl:

Remove the bird from the ice chest about an hour prior to you intend to cook it. Preheat broiler to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put an enormous broiler safe skillet on the oven and set over medium intensity. Add your preferred fat to the skillet. It very well may be unsalted spread, pork, duck or goose fat, or a blend of your top choices. When the fat is hot, place the fowl tenderloin side down in the dish and permit to sear for 3-5 minutes prior to turning to brown on the opposite side. Leave the bosom side down to brown for around 3 minutes. Salt and pepper the fowl prior to placing it in the stove. Following 15 minutes, utilize a thermometer to check in the event that the fowl is sufficiently cooked. The leg ought to learn about 176 degrees Fahrenheit and the bosom ought to find out about 145 degrees Fahrenheit. On the off chance that the bird has not arrived at this temperature, cook it somewhat longer.

Ways to cook fowl Bird can be utilized in a wide range of recipes that call for pork, turkey, or chicken. The regular Fowl flavor is flexible and fits various food varieties. Fowl contains minimal fat, so it is important to add fat to the bird while cooking it. In the event that you cook the bird, you need to ensure it has sufficient additional fat to hold dampness. The bird ought to arrive at an interior temperature of around 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, at that point, you need to cover it and pass on it to arrive at an inside temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit. You need to allow the bird to rest subsequent to cooking to permit the juices to sink into the meat. This guarantees that the meat stays succulent. Bird is best presented with basic sauces or marinades, for example, cranberry sauce, which is both sweet and exquisite. This works out in a good way for the game bird. You can serve the fowl with ordinary sides like green beans, pureed potatoes, natural corn, wild rice, and salad. There are numerous ways of cooking fowl. It very well may be broiled, stewed, grilled, sautéed, and cooked in a sluggish cooker. You can cook bird practically a way.

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maneaterwithtail · 1 year

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Real issue of "forced" diversity or wokeness

I'm sorry but everything about a production is to 1ﾟ or another forced. It won't naturally happen without active decision and circumstance arranged by everybody from production to operations. I think recently someone kind of clarified this for me and we have the Mario movie to thank again.

The problem isn't wokness or any political spectrum it's

Toxic- more accurately -forced positivity. If you demand that everybody has to treat your product the same way they would the political talking point you're often very shallowly engaging in or claiming that you are fighting the good fight for by simple alignment...

you are effectively demanding that the audience accept and basically give up their entertainment to become a resource for your success

Naturally people disagree on gayess. whether you think this is bad or wrong, being forced into this in the most intimate personal and vulnerable circumstances that's primarily going to take in online spaces isn't setting everybody up for reconciliation. it's setting everybody up to basically either convert or be silent

That does nothing but create resistance. it's a propaganda move plain and simple

Now even if the propaganda is preaching what you want. that can't work forever and it's going to leave to something else

c***** craftsmanship. a law can be good but if it's enforced with no care for the citizenry then it's going to become a toxic mess. More so if you can get the exact same phrase based on someone's predisposition And no possible objection in the exact same social circles that everyone's paying attention to or utilizes And no possible objection in the exact same social circles that everyone's paying attention to or utilizes

any performative diversity the point is basically to get quick social brownie points on social media. I don't even think it's for the creators. many of whom fall in these categories. it's because they're selling the audience the illusion of heroism

They either want you to passively accept everything they give or give you a bunch of easy targets to ostracize

And they can be pretty d*** sure in various online spaces that they have the right of way because almost most moderators as well as social media outlets deliberately favor their way of thinking so effectively they've given you catalyst or tools to bait someone in order to ban themselves

And this keeps happening

More importantly they don't care what they damage along the way. Franchises, community, discourse, because what they value of what they're doing is that performative social thing which they then want to repackage and sell to the audience or a new investor or customer base.

We took down the toxic scary man babies who remind you of your abusers or oppressors. They don't have thing or place any more. You like that feeling? You owe us for it give me money so we can antagonize further together. Just remember parasocial relationship I am not responsible for you or my words

Now here's the problem. much like you'll only need 1 shonen series. Baby lgbt only needs 1 maybe 2 series in order to come to terms with own sexual identity if you're discovering it.

everything after that is going to be on you.

Which leads to the other problem.

very shallow engagement. you're not after representing the lives and circumstances that someone might have after they've come to terms with they are gay. Gay parents. Gay professionals. Gay history. That gay culture and divorced or sexual libertine patriarch culture has amount of overlap. The loss of generational wealth and social staus or the game needed to access it

You want the closet case or the questioning individual which is why as it aims younger and broader. Which gets more and more creepy

Owl houses my go to for this because despite the fact that they had ample opportunity in order to normalize homosexuality or transness in its world...they decided to focus on basically shipping drama between 2 young kids.

anything that was happening with lumity would have been absolutely mocked and murdered online if it didn't involve something heterosexual. h*** if it had just involved a man.

Seriously at 1 point Amity's sexual arousal is literally played for laughs in a kid show on the Disney Channel. People still cringe at the idea of that being a feature in any manga or anime that is watched by anyone not primarily women (beware the bronies will pornify the pure and good Steven Universe fandom)

But thanks to that toxic positivity it's all good. And because they intertwined it with their own self discovery and validation so on and so forth when there's any actual moral dilemma or circumstance it'll always default to what can basically say something good or pandering to either the main character or using the main character as a proxy for the audience they're charming

Perhaps the easiest way to say this is to compare ang with korra. Aang has to learn how to learn how to synthesize and come to terms with the legacy he has inherited.

he must learn humility on multiple levels as well as duty and discipline. Kora is constantly being validated. For fand and apologists this is a featute. you can tell this by the difference of how the avatarspirit and position is treated between the 2 characters.

One is a burden and a duty that defines and runs the risk of subsuming his identity. One that he must take control of. The other is an inner goddess which validates that she doesn't have to listen to anyone because everything she says is authorities and divinely inspired.

And it's not like there hasn't been casualties for this attitude. And they revel in them too in fact it very much seems to start off a conversation about doing just that period making sure that you p*** that person off that pisses off the right people

And then they turn around and go well you shouldn't care about making sure all the critics like this are that movie or that this is a score against so-and-so that anti woke grifters are a problem. Guys they're not even so much a threat as they are what you're doing just aimed at the audience you're very obviously isolating and not serving

This is the problem with wokeness

This is also why things that could come off as woke black lightning, arcane, and so on

Why they can have a surprising amount of universal appeal. They are presented or written in such a way that they don't demand atoxic positivity but actually give you the space in order to take in the message agree or disagree or at the very least not be forced to agree in a specific way

The emphasis isn't on conversion it's on examination and struggle. It isn't on validation it's on coming to terms with what you have to do in order to achieve that validity both for yourself and success in the world around you. And sometimes you don't succeed you fail and the compromises or what comes after all that

#fandom is serious business #thank you cartoonshi #toxic positivity #glbt+#social exploits gets patched #or push the system to break

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thinkhealthylivecreative · 2 years

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The Philosophy Of Chinese Cooking

Then, place the bamboo steamer in the wok and fill it with some water. The water should be half inch below the steamer. After this, cover the wok and let the water boil over high heat. The duration of the steaming process depends on the particular recipe. Next, carefully remove the bamboo steamer from the wok. Another way of steaming is with the use of a so-called "wire streamer". This is a good way of braising and smoking food. All you need to do is to place the rack inside a wok and add 1 inch water below the rack. Make sure the water does not touch the rack. You need to then arrange the food which can be steamed in a heatproof plate. You will then put the plate on the rack of the wok. Lastly, cover the wok and maintain medium-heat or as directed in the recipe. Hence, the curved shape of this utensil acts as its main advantage. This can make the large foods shallow fried. Due to its concave curve structure, heat is being distributed evenly. It is perfect for stir-frying as well. Aside from this, it has a hot spot on the bottom, giving more heat in very low to medium-high fire. This makes it perfect for deep-frying. Wok even has features that can be used for steaming foods. Woks are also used in restaurants due to their very fast attribute of increasing temperature, allowing the cooking of food even in a short span of time. Although there are various types of pans in the market today, the wok may be the chefs' first choice. Chefs can cook with their own style and technique. This piece of art wok makes cooking very easy. The lower arm will then exert a large amount of force since this part is quite heavy, especially if it is used in stir-frying. It's easy to stir while cooking because the edges make the food seem to push up onto the sides. Woks have different handles, depending on the brand and type. A wok that has a single handle will help the chef toss the food. It also requires a large amount of arm and wrist strength in order to produce this. At current, the most common material used in making woks are carbon steel and cast iron. These materials are more costly as compared to the traditional ones. A non-stick wok which is covered with Teflon is the most used variety. Aluminum is also the best conductor of heat. Plus, this makes it much easier to clean. Although it's the traditional way, aluminum is still soft and can get easily damaged, making it durable for steaming. This is especially because of its lid. Cooking games are a very helpful source of teaching the children certain basics of cooking. Cooking games are a very helpful source of teaching the children certain basics of cooking. Cooking can surely become a family fun gala if you tend to do it along with your children. And, especially the teenage girls tend to have a special liking for cooking and related tasks right from their tender years. You can remember you little fairies playing with miniature kitchen sets, plastic or wooden cutlery sets and many more items as their favorite toys. These cooking games are another one such medium through which young girls and boys can not only enjoy making fun recipes but they can get to learn many things about the art of cooking as well. The liking for cooking games has given a huge rise to the creation of different types of cooking games. Though, these types of games tend to be a favorite for the girls but even young boys also take lots of interest in playing such games. Cooking a romantic dinner to impress your first date is a very difficult situation. You are not aware about the actual likes and dislikes of the opposite person. Cooking a romantic dinner to impress your first date is a very difficult situation. You are not privy to the actual likes and dislikes of the opposite person. You never know whether the cooked food will be appreciated or not. But it is not that problematic a job to be so bewildered. Several websites related to online dating guide you in this situation. They will also advise the dinner menu, drinks for the occasion and even the kind of dessert that you can prepare at home. In fact serving a cooked dinner on the first date is like winning the persons heart. It is also without a doubt that the person will be satisfied when he/she finds out that the evening meal was specially cooked for the moment. Now, to cook dinners always choose the menu and recipes in which you are conversant and can cook flawlessly. Secondly Peel and slice the onion, garlic, ginger with the chilli and coriander stalks then place this all in a large casserole pan on medium heat with of oil and the remaining tikka pasted. Peel the potato cut them into 2cm chunk then stir them into the pan fry and cook everything for only 15 minutes or until softened stirring in occasionally. Really this will be build up great in flavor. Quarter the tomatoes add to the pan with the cauliflower and lentils and 600 ml boiling water and bring back to the boil. Simmer for in 45 minutes or until that lentils are cooked through and the sauce is lovely and thick well adding splash of water if needed then season to perfection now. Around 15 minutes earlier the curry is ready put 1 mug of rice and 2 mugs of boiling water in a pan with pinch of salt the cloves. Cook on a medium heat please with those lid on for just 12 minutes or until liquid has been properly absorbed.

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#cooking-classes-near-me #cooking-classes-nyc #cooking-classes-jersey-city #cooking-oil #cooking-oil-option #cooking-mama #cooking-bacon-in-oven #cooking-games #cooking

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orlissa · 2 years

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Next to finishing this translation project, I need to write an academic paper over the course of the next week--the topic is the suburban gothic in Tom King’s The Vision and WandaVision. It’s late at night, and my mind is mush, but here comes some ramblings on the topic

The suburbs are scary because it’s a liminal space, and also because it has strcit rules and enforces conformity, and because it alienates women

But the suburbs were scary for the first generation to grow up there because of the forced conformity (fear of loss of senf), but for the new generation it means safety, so what threatens the sense of safty is what’s scary in the new suburbs

One of the seminal woks about the suburban gothic is Stepford Wives (talking about the book, not the movie), and based on it we can identify some some basic elements of the narrative: 1, the newcomer around whom the plot is centered 2, the suburbs itself, the environment dictating the rules 3, the previous residents who enforce the rules 4, the secret that creates the tension

The Vision: 12 issues comic book series about Vision creating a synthezoid family for himself (Virginia--wife; Viv--daughter; Vin--son), and relocates the family into the DC suburbs to try to assimilate and live a human life. Vision fucntions as a patriachal authority, an actual creator, dictating behavioral mores and even use of language. The suburbs are not accepting, and the family is subjected to bullying. While Vision is out, Virginia and the children are attacked by the Grim Reaper (antagonist), who seriously injures/damages the children, and is eventually killed by Virginia. This sets several events into motion that eventually leads to several more deaths, including Vin’s, and the suicide of Virginia.

Out of the three now synthezoids, only Viv survives, because she is the most successfull in integrating into humanity (has a crush, prays, etc.)

The comic creates tension from the first page by technical tricks:

It has an omniscent narrator who alludes to the ending of the story from the first scene, predicting the death of character. Later on this narrator is revealed to be Agatha Harkness, who glimpsed the future through a brutal, magical ritual

Panel transitions: American comics mostly used action-to-action, scene-to-scene, and character-to-character panel transitions. The plot needs to be fast-paced because of the format (20 pages long issues). Another panel trabsitions, moment-to-moment and aspect-to-aspect, are more characteristic of Asian comics/manga, where single volums tend to be much longer (so there is time to linger), and where the journey is considered to be just as important as the finish line (in contrast with Wester storytelling, where the end point seems to be more important). The Vision uses relatively a lot moment-to-moment and aspect-to-aspect panel transition, which slows down the narrative and makes it feel “strange” for the reader who is accustomed to Western comics. There is also non-sequitor panel transitions in The Vision, which is extra strange

Here, the already established residents fear the Vision family witl damage the values of the community/destroy its safety, therefore go out of their way to make assimilation impossible for them. The open “secret” is that the Vision family is not human, while the real secret, creating tension, is that Virginia is a killer.

WandVision creates an idyllic depiction of the suburbs, because it stands for the American dream as seen by an outsider. Wanda, a foreigner, is only aware of the positive connotations of the suburbs (as she knows them from sitcoms), sees it as a safe space, which she craves, so she creates her own.

Here the newcomer is the one who transforms the environment, creating its rules, and making the original residents obey them.

The tension comes from several secrets:

The private secret: the Westview is not in its natural state and that it was transformed by Wanda

The shared secret: Wanda and Vison’s shared secret that they are different. This is a source of comedy within the metanarrative, and is also used to distract Vision from the private secret

The outside secret: that everything has been manipulated by Agatha Harkness

#suburban gothic #stepford wives #the vision #wandavision

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atqh16 · 2 years

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Overcoming Distance

7th/Last Chapter. AO3 here

When it happens, no one is surprised except for Naruto who was unsurprisingly surprised.

Anyone who didn’t know anything about the two best friends (and even some people who did know them) would have assumed that Naruto was the one who wanted to volunteer for the carnival fundraiser and had forced Sasuke to join him when really it was the latter who’d brought it to the former’s attention and in turn, the blonde had brought it to the attention of all of their friends. Naruto had just naturally assumed Sasuke was joining but it’s not like the Uchiha had put up any fight against it.

By the time their friend group had met up to discuss the event, Sasuke even had a few suggestions ready to be thrown into the pile of what each of them could contribute.

The only ones who couldn’t join were Sakura who had back to back projects and assignments to be finished for medical school, Neji who was already volunteering that day as an instructor for an event at the local dojo and Ino who was helping her father for a scheduled catering event that had booked their family business for almost the whole day.

Nagato, the coordinator for the fundraiser, a charity that was aimed at raising money to provide aid for refugees, had been ecstatic and in near tears to see so many people sign up as volunteers. By the time the event came around, almost half of the stands, stalls and activities were being handled by the group alone.

There was a wide variant of things the group had decided to do. Kiba and Juugo had both opened up a petting area with animals that were up for adoption with the fees going to the charity. Their small fenced area was filled with loud yapping puppies and the quiet mewls of kittens being held by both child and adults alike. Sai and Gaara managed a play pen that kept kids entertained with arts and crafts projects. Though somewhere along the way it had become a face painting area when a 6 year old said they liked Gaara’s forehead tattoo and wanted one for herself which of course meant a dozen other kids wanted in on it as well. But if you passed their area, the smiles on both Gaara and Sai’s faces were both sincere even under all the smudged ‘artwork’ they got from kids who wanted them to share in the fun too.

Choji could be found behind a grill and wok, frying up Katsu chicken and burgers while Tenten neatly arranged them into their seperate bento boxes. Complete with rice balls decorated with seaweed cutouts that made them look like pandas. Hinata stood beside a steaming pot of miso soup ladled into seperate containers and topped with colourful wheat balls that were a favorite among the younger crowd.

Shino had an insectarium exhibit set up where a surprising amount of children and adults were ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over his collection. You could tell how much time had passed by the sound of children screaming gleefully and dramatically as they reacted to Shino’s insect show that he held every half hour. Which was basically just him taking out each insect from its cage or jar in turn to let people look up close. The loudest screams in particular came when he took out his Pink Toe Tarantula that he’d lovingly named Hachi or ‘Lucky Number 8’. Shino had never claimed to be original.

Lee was meant to be resting after coming back (victorious) from a Track & Field competition the previous day but no one was surprised when he showed up anyway and started entertaining children and adults alike by showing off his athletic skills. The last he’d been seen was effortlessly doing push ups while perfectly balancing 3 kindergarteners on his back as a gaggle of other small children and their parents were cheering him on.

And in the center of it all, coincidentally, was Naruto, manning a stall surrounded by every kind of plant imaginable from cactuses, waist length lime trees, orchids in every colour conceivable and even herbs in small pots arranged in a chaotic mess of basil, rosemary and sage. Everything that could be grown under the sun and outside of it could possibly be found spread all around and under their tent. And Naruto was energetically bouncing from one customer to the next, effortlessly explaining and answering questions, giving his recommendations, advice and suggestions all while leaving Sasuke at the cashier to deal with the monetary exchanges. Though the Uchiha didn’t mind. Whennever there was a lull in the clientele at the cashier he’d find himself distracted by the way Naruto was enjoying himself immensely. Flouncing from one sapling to seedling, waving his hands exuberantly as he undoubtedly waxed poetry about the plant being scrutinized by a potential patron. There was barely anyone who left barehanded after spending even 5 minutes with the blonde. The most bought item were succulents which, Naruto proclaimed confidently, were great plants for beginners who were afraid their carelessness and memory would end up making their newly bought plants suffer due to lack of care.

By the last hour of the fair, most of the plants were gone, and after waving goodbye to their last customer, Naruto trotted his way to Sasuke’s side, an ever widening grin on his face when he sees the makeshift money till they were using was filled to the brim. A part of it would be given to Ino to cover for the cost of the plants her family’s flowershop had provided for them but the rest was going to the charity.

Sasuke gives Naruto a slightest uptick of the corner of his lips before both of them turn to cast their eyes at the rest of their friends. Kiba and Juugo were running after the few animal that hadn’t been adopted to get them back into their cages. Gaara and Sai had a rainbow of colours decorating their face in the form of everything from misshapen flowers to stick figures and Kanji spelling what the duo assumed must have been the names of some of the children. Sai was putting away all the art craft materials while Gaara himself was busy finishing off his ‘artwork’ on one last preteen. The kohl around his eyes squinted at the far edges in concentration before finally releasing the child who ran excitedly to show his mother what looked like a pikachu on his cheek.

Everyone else was also packing up and Sasuke turned to look at Naruto again when he heard his name being called.

“Thank you. I wouldn’t have known if you didn’t find out about this. We might have missed it completely”

The Uchiha rolled his eyes. Of course, the dobe wouldn’t give himself any credit for being the one to actually rally their friends to partake in the event in the first place. But his chiding is left twisted on his tongue at the sight of Naruto gazing at him with his gleaming sea blue eyes and a grin shining so brightly it could replace the sun.

Instead, he leaned forward and met his best friends lips with his.

The squeak of surprise is expected but when Naruto gave no other form of protest, Sasuke allowed himself the luxury of lingering their kiss just a little longer before he pulled back.

It had been a chaste one so Sasuke can’t help but be amused when Naruto took a sudden gasp of air as if he’d been deprived of it for too long. Sasuke met his stare but his own eyes bore no confusion, no fear, no embarrassment. They simply reflected a peaceful contentment as if what he’d done hadn’t just given Naruto an earth shattering revelation.

“Did you just-“

“I did”

“But… why?”

“Usuratonkachi, why do you think?”

The blonde took way too long mulling over his answer, “You like me?”, he finally said tentatively.

Sasuke simply raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his best friend’s deduction, “I think kissing you means I feel more than just ‘like’”

“I know but… it doesn’t feel like there’s a right word to describe it”

Sasuke tilted his head to the side in a peculiar show of agreement at the sentiment. What he was certain though, was that what he felt for the other had grown beyond simply being platonic. He doesn’t know when it had done so but he feels that any curiosity on the matter to be irrelevant to what was happening now.

“So, what do you think?”

A crimson tinge flooded Naruto’s tanned cheeks and he turned his eyes away and rubbed the back of his neck, “I don’t know. I don’t have any experience in this sort of stuff. I mean, how can you tell the difference?”

Any other person might have seen Naruto’s hesitant demeanour to be a rejection but Sasuke isn’t just any other person. For all the affirmative statements Naruto has made in confidence about his dreams and his beliefs about the good in the world and the good he himself wants to bring into it, his best friend can find himself tongue tied over many other topics. But knowing what his upbringing was like, Sasuke is not surprised. Naruto wasn’t mincing words when he says he doesn’t understand. The blonde had grown up being so deprived of affection that when he'd been given some, it had washed over him like a wave. All in one. He might have seen love being potrayed in different ways in movies but that didn’t mean they taught him anything about it other than at a surface level. Other than the fact that it existed. They didn’t teach him how to decipher the distinctions.

Slowly, giving Naruto the space and chance to pull back if he felt the need to, Sasuke brought up a hand to palm the blonde’s cheek.

“I know that happiness doesn’t even begin to encompass what I feel when I’m with you. I know when I look at you, I feel safe. I know I want to hold you and be held by you. I know I want to do more than just kiss you. But most of all I know I want to do everything, with you knowing that you are the most important thing in my life and I will never feel for anything or anyone the way that I feel about you and if I have to spend the rest of my life proving that then I’ll do it gladly. I want to spend my time hearing you whine about not being able to find your favorite ramen flavor. I want to argue with you about how Kurama is leaving his fur all over my clothes when I come around your apartment. I want to hear you scold me when I stay up too late for class and not take enough rest. I want everything you are, good and bad, everyday, anyday. As long as it’s with you”

Naruto’s eyes seemed to widen even more at his words but whatever wonder that Sasuke could see in his irises were marred by downturn of his eyebrows, wrinkling the bridge of his nose

“What if you change your mind? What if this is just, I don’t know, a phase?”

“Do you remember what you said when I asked you what you meant about me being your friend?”

“Of course I do”

“Do you think you’ll ever change your mind about it?”

“no”

“Can you trust that I won’t either?”

The look Naruto gave him for his reply looked like something inside his thoughts had finally clicked.

“But-”, the Uchiha adds carefully, “-you need to know I’m not expecting anything from you. You don’t have to feel the same way”

Naruto hurriedly shook his head as if trying to wave away his best friend's last statement. “I don’t know how I feel. But I know that I want everything that you want too. All of it”

The smile Naruto gives him as he said it, was fragile but it grew stronger every second as he realized what all of it meant.

“So, what do we do now?”

In reply, Sasuke pulled him in and their lips met again but this time Naruto kissed back.

And if neither of them notice money exchanging hands between their friends who’d been watching their interaction then it’s probably better for everyone’s sake.

#sasunaru #naruto uzumaki #sasuke uchiha #overcoming distance #My writing #mine #naruto

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radio-charlie · 3 years

Text

Realised i havent made nasi kicap ikan masin (rice w crispy fried salted fish and caramelised soy sauce drizzled over it) in awhile. i forgot to eat again and was too lazy to make a soup, didnt want to spend anything either so this was a nice low-energy thing to make. if u like fishy things and can find south-east asian style dry salted fish near u, here is how to make it:

Ingredients:

salted fish - i like the thin kurau strips, kurau is threadfin in english btw, but basically dry salted fish is ok as long as it doesnt take too long to fry

white jasmine rice - thats our household staple here

kicap manis - asian marts should have

1 egg

oil

Steps:

1. Steam ur jasmine rice

2. Pour a load of oil in ur wok/pan, set the heat on low (or as ppl say here, fire very small. haha)

3. Put however much salted fish u want in the oil. Msian salted fish tends to be quite salty haha so for me eating alone, i either do one large strip or two medium ones

4. Let the salted fish fry quietly, flip over when u can smell that it is crispy on the bottom. The idea is to let it fry very slowly otherwise the inside will be hard and unpleasant. Wtv u do dont burn it because unlike some other burnt foods, burnt salted fish makes ur place smell bad hahah

5. After the fish is done (i check by poking at it - if its a nice golden brown and feels a lot less dense and hard than originally, its done to me), take it out and plate it. Crack ur egg into the salted fish oil and fry it into a bullseye

6. Serve the egg with the salted fish and rice. Drizzle some of the oil and a lot of kicap manis into ur rice, mix it up. Enjoy

Notes:

- I like getting some runny egg yolk into the rice but that is up to u

- If u prefer sharper flavors, its very delicious to squeeze some lime juice onto the salted fish and mix it with fresh chopped birds eye chillies and thinly sliced onion. The downside of this is that u lose the crispiness. But its very delicious and refreshing.

#food cw

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avatarvyakara · 3 years

Text

Strands of Webbing

A Spiderverse Fanfic

Prompts 49-60

“Earth-14512”

First | Previous | Next

49. Seriously

SP//dr is a celebrity position, to start out with. A piece of technology created and operated by Oscorp™, biggest tech conglomerate in the Republic of New York. Manual control by a teenager, coordinated with some unknown individuals back in Oscorp™ proper, and set against the kaiju and lesser mutations that plague the world after the Eugenics Wars basically collapsed in on themselves. A mascot. Honestly, it's probably embarrassing.

Except that it isn't. Peni Parker, who to her (few) friends and (tiny) family is warm and bubbly, to the outside world is cold and solemn. As much fun as they have, SP//dr is a line of defence for the Republic, and for that matter the whole continent, and they know it. And because they've saved the city so many times, the people of the Republic (ignore J. Jayashri Jawalkar's vblogs, please) are for the most part actually really proud of their heroine.

New York has always been "The World in Miniature"—a mini-hero seems just about perfect.

50. Parallel

Annoyingly enough, there is a Gawain Stacy, who comes from a long and apparently unbroken like of Englanders, all the way back to the 1830s (and that's a long time). Peni looks him up one day. He's okay. So's Miriam Morales, all of four years old and a recent immigrant from Arabia, on Mars. (Not Martian Arabia, that's an entirely different wok of jellyfish.) Min-Jun Watson, unfortunately, is a prat, as she knows from personal experience. Harith Osborne isn't much better—decent enough, but too much under his mother's thumb to make any real decisions. (Peni works with her Aunt and Uncle, she doesn't work for them and they don't work through her. …right?)

Still. She'll keep an eye on them. Something tells Peni that they're going to become important soon enough.

51. Concern

"You think she might have met some people when she…disappeared?" asks Ben.

Ben's brow furrows. "Peni's smarter than that, surely."

"But rebellious enough. If she thinks it's a harmless way to let off steam, talking to strange adults…I just don't want her to find herself in a situation where being SP//dr won't help her."

Meanwhile, Peni is upstairs in a video call, trying not to laugh herself to pieces as Peter B explains to the others the ways in which an ancient rock group called Imagine Dragons is the epitome of high culture while Miles and Gwen make funny faces in the background.

52. React

"Don't!" she screams. But Ven#m is already halfway towards the M.O.R.B.I.U.S. device, a look of determination on its electronic inFace—

Until, with a grunt, all three point one five tons of SP//dr shoves the other mech out of the way of the beam of light just in time. A nearby building fuses into a twisted mess of metal and glass, like a Vonnegut crystogram.

"What the hell was that for?" comes the angry voice of Addy Brock from Ven#m's modulator.

"Rule number one on this team: you don't get yourself killed to prove a point!" snaps Peni.

Ven#m's inFace expresses strong shock.

"…we're a team?"

"I didn't say that."

That chirpy expression looks really weird in black and neon white. It probably doesn't help that the teenager inside has a much more…smug face, and that Peni can see both of them quite clearly.

"You implied it."

"Shut up. Now help me figure out this thing's weak spot. And don’t you dare die."

(Addy survives. But Peni's not sure, after the loud squeal at the end of the fight, whether her eardrums are going to last the week.)

53. Attitude

Red Iron is more machine than human, now, and was already one of those strange Spacer combinations where male and female aspects were forced from the genes in utero. The cyborg mind prefers 'it' to 'they' as a pronoun, when it uses American. Toni Stark was clever, and as Red Iron it’s cleverer still. Not just a psychic link, but one human mind in a hundred robot bodies with vat-grown flesh where it wants it for...personal reasons, while constructs of living metal patrol the system from Mercury to Mars. Peni's never quite understood the Spacers and the way they seem to want to become less human.

And yet, despite all that—

"So, you're Spider-Girl. Gotta say, you're shorter than I expected. Were you engineered for it?"

—Red Iron is still just as human as the next jerk.

54. Reverse

“Don’t forget,” warns Aunt May. “You made a commitment, Peni. You can’t back out now.”

Peni knows. But why oh why couldn’t have backed out then? Not that it isn’t great, but...some days she just wants to be normal.

(But if she were normal, she’d never have found her Spider, let alone the other Spiders. And by this point she can’t imagine life without them.)

55. Observation

It's chaos here. There's never any break, everyone's always rushing to goodness knows where—it's like they're on fire. There's huge metal things that glide through the air, and rumbling beneath the earth, and buildings adorned with jungles or seemingly entirely of glass. Colours are everywhere, brilliant against the darkness. And there's always a million, million voices. But not from humans—this is from the heavens. Tamed lightning, singing songs to the void about where to get the best mods for the newest chicken-feeding game from Venus. A thousand languages and cultures, impossible to understand. And not too far away, monsters more powerful than he's ever had to face in his life, that Peni keeps at bay on a day-to-day basis.

And yet—

And yet Peter can't help wanting to come back here, wanting just to stare and stare and be lost in the lightning. Because it's so bright here.

(Just like her.)

56. Breeze

“Well, that was easy,” remarks HVlk.

“One down, sixty to go,” SP//dr comms back.

“Hah. Yeah. Good way to channel your anger, though, right? Punching giant lizards, it’s very zen.”

“I guess?” It’s a job. It’s her job. It’s not a joke.

Banner—just Banner, they didn’t give any other name—chuckles. “Man, we really should get one of these on Tharsis. Imagine how high it could leap there! Of course, we don’t get these creatures Up There, we’d have to import a few. What a way to spend my Pilgrimage. You guys get to have all the fun, you know.”

A gentle wind caresses the (unconscious) body of the latest kaiju, soon to revert back into...whatever it was before. (Peni’s money is on it being a seal.) The Gamma Bombs from the Eugenics Wars left a terrible scar on the wildlife, and the green and often fire-breathing shapes the creatures left over can change into are so angry. Occasionally, they feel the need to lash out.

Peni won’t. She is a professional. She won’t let some rich Spacer on their vacation show her up in SP//dr’s own city. Won’t let the hobbyist in the green mech win.

She just needs to...channel her anger.

57. Colony

Miguel is the first. He’s not broken so much as jagged, harsh around the edges and a little more prideful but as much of a genius as she is. And he helps her create the Interweb—okay, fine, she helps him improve the Interweb. He’s okay.

But once Miguel can visit, and Peni’s own theories about proper body maintenance slowing down the rate of glitching have been tested...then it’s time to talk to the rest.

Takara wants to visit Ham’s world first, so they do. She plays third wheel to a spider and a pig for a while and the physics is insane, but it’s fun. Peni wants to visit Gray’s world next, which nearly gives the man a heart attack but he’s so pleased to see them and it shows. On to Gwen’s world—Gwen then uses the Interweb to pull Miles through, which is fun for entirely different reasons. Peter B’s world is last, and it’s slightly awkward because they come through in the middle of a pitched battle against an Asgardian with horns and vanity issues.

“Impeccable timing, kids,” groans Peter B from the ground.

“Nice to see you too,” teases Gwen.

“You have children?” asks a curious Loki, before Miles punches him.

After that, it quickly becomes as easy as taking the omnibus.

58. Connection

Peni is Takara’s best friend, and always will be. But Takara also feels a connection to the other spiders in her cluster, dimly but it’s there. She senses Weying, for example, quite frequently these days—especially since Ven#m is spending a lot of time with SP//dr. Weying has always been a bit...excitable. And over their bond they share a certain kindred spirit, which their copilots are coming to replicate.

Meeting a different kind of spider is quite an experience, but Peter’s nice enough for all his considerable deformities. And he came to become a hero all on his own, he wasn’t bred for it like she was. That’s...admirable, she thinks is the word. Trouble is, he’s also an annoying little glitch with a human voice, which makes it hard to interact on more than a superficial level.

Still. It’s nice to know she and Peni (oh, fine, and Weying) aren’t alone.

59. Enoch

Human lifespans on Earth normally reach two centuries by now. On the other planets, where gene manipulation is less taboo, the oldest have gotten to six hundred years so far. Peni’s mother was sixty-one when she gave birth, barely an adult; her father was eighty-four when he died, a horrible tragedy as well as, you know, a horrible tragedy. She is fourteen years old. Because of the way her genes are expressed she looks closer to ten, and she’ll look closer to ten for the next three years at least.

She’ll probably be SP//dr for the rest of her life. And that’s fine. That’s actually great. What’s not so great is that she’s no longer the only one. And Peter’s already nearing the halfway point in his lifespan, and Miles and Gwen look a decade older than she does, and Gray...Gray’s aging faster than any of them. He sounds fifty (his fifty, her hundred-and-thirty, a Martian’s three-hundred-and-seventy) and he’s not even twenty. Ham is likely the only other Spider who will still be around if she dies of old age.

And what she hates most of all is that she can’t save them. They can’t stay in her world, and they wouldn’t want to outlive their own families and loved ones. So they’ll be heroes and they’ll keep fighting and they’ll die. Peni will have to watch them fall and not get back up again, and by the time they’re all gone she might not even be grown up yet.

Savour what time she has left with them, then, however few decades it might be.

60. Introductions

“You’re welcome to stay longer,” she tells Gray with a little hesitation, as they sit atop the New Chrysler eating putty-cakes from a street vendor below. “You could actually come over.”

His eyes shine, but his brow wrinkles—for once he’s got the mask off. He looks like Peter Parker. He looks nineteen. (Thirty. Eighty.)

“I don’t know if your folks would be okay with that.”

“You already met Addy.”

“Well, yeah.” Admittedly, she did threaten Gray with a fate worse than death and a mech. Neither of which seemed very effective to the other Spider, who had just laughed. One Saturday she’d be very happy to forget, honestly. (But he laughed, so there was some success that day.)

“I’ve been trying to explain this to them, the whole multiverse thing,” she says, and huffs. “They still think I’m crazy. Or that I’m lying and that I’ve actually just gotten myself some shady lowlife koibito to spite them.”

Gray’s face hardens. “If that word means what I think it means, then they should know way better.”

But it softens again when he looks at her. “But a six-foot-three-inch-tall nineteen-year-old with a face like a darned sock isn’t going to be much help to you, kiddo.”

“You’re literally from another dimension—”

“And I look scary. I won’t be making it easier for you on my own, not with how you say your aunt and uncle are. Maybe you can get Miles and Gwen in on this?”

She wants to protest, but then he says: “Maybe Ham and Peter too, Make an outing of it for the whole cluster. That way the others can distract them a little.”

“...I guess that makes sense.” He’s her best human friend, and she wanted to recognize that. But even so...maybe that would be better. She was able to pass off Miguel as a Mercurial pen-pal with a cosplay addiction (most Earthers will believe anything about the decadent and obscenely wealthy and more-than-slightly inhuman Spacers), but the rest are going to be harder—her black-and-white and cartoon counterparts especially. Telling the whole story, with proof, becomes easier if there are kids her age to help soften the blow. (Plus, Peter B couldn’t look threatening if he tried.)

Still.

“You’re not scary, though,” Peni insists. “Not to me.” She grins. “You’re too much of a dork for that.”

He squeezes her shoulder, and gives her a smile no less warm for being in monochrome. “Whereas you frighten the life out of me, doll.”

She hugs him. This time around, he doesn’t resist.

“...seriously, though, what’s in that crispy paste stuff?”

“Sun-fried seaweed, Mercury-style.”

“...it’s not too bad. Tastes kinda like latkes. Like a latke dough, but you can eat it.”

“It’s pretty good. My favourite’s yungay potato.”

“Ah, a lady of quality.”

She laughs at that.

#spiderman into the spiderverse #spiderman: into the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse #peni parker #kaiju #future fic #sp//dr #ben parker #may parker #Addy brock #venom #iron man #hulk #spiderman noir #peter benjamin parker #peter porker

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st-just · 4 years

Text

Semi-coherent thoughts on Oathbringer

So, overall probably the most even of the series so far, I’d say? Not to say I didn’t like it – I really, really loved the finale, and there were plenty of great lines, but my god were there a lot of pages spent on nothing happening (honestly it kind of reminded me of the latter volumes of ASOIF, in that sense) – then again, I suppose that is kind of just the nature of these 1000+ page fantasy epics. There were some setting reveals that really were fascinating, and legitimately a bit surprising. Going to have to take a break from the series until the friend I got Rhythm of War for is done so I can borrow it, though I suppose that’s no huge loss compared to the however many years everyone else had to wait in between them.

So in terms of pacing it’s...bad. Or, well, that’s probably a bit unfair. There’s absolutely plenty of fat to cute, but again I do think that might just come with the territory of committing to like a dozen POVs across a tree’s worth of paper (though there were absolutely like 100+ page stretches where I’m not actually sure the plot meaningfully progressed). That said, honestly the main pacing issue isn’t so much the bloat as, like – okay, Dalinar’s arc was a pretty consistent throughline, but for Kalidan and Shallan it kind of felt like there was one whole story in Urithiru, and then from the mission to Kholinar and the journey through the Cognitive Realm felt like its own separate novel? I mean, not sure if that makes any sense, but it really did kind of feel like there was a whole additional first act of table and stakes setting once they arrived in the city.

Though, to argue in favor of bloat for a moment – I was chatting with @lifeattomsdiner bit back about The City We Became, and they mentioned that the size of the cast meant that you don’t actually really get to know any of the protagonists that well on their own. And I suppose that is the advantage of the 1200-page-per-volume epic cycle – even with characters you only really meet in interludes like Szeth, Vargo and Venli (incidentally three of my favorites), you spend enough pages inside of their head that you do really get to see what makes them tick and learn to love/hate them. Speaking of – props to Sanderson as an author, really – it’s vaguely astounding that he manages to keep track of that many internal monologues and actually make them seem distinct from each other.

Breaking things down by character a bit more – this book really did actually enjoy/get invested in Dalinar way more than either of the previous two, which again I’m told is more or less the expected reaction. Given the amount of tumblr brain poison I’m voluntarily exposed myself to, it’s honestly more than a bit of a nice change to see a character on a redemption arc who is actually unambiguously in need of redemption. Because holy shit, pulled, like, exactly two punches in terms of making the guy as genuinely loathsome as possible before he starts breaking. And, well, obviously he was on a redemption arc, but there was a bit near the end there where I really did think that the book was going to cut to black on an ‘end of Act 2, maximum darkness before dawn’ moment with, like, all the Skybreakers and him kneeling before Odium as the city fell. But I suppose that would be a bit much of a cliffhanger for a series with installments this weighty.

This was pretty clearly Shallan’s ‘getting over my personal bullshit’ book, like WoR was for Kaladin and WoK was for Dalinar, though spicing things up with increasingly severe DID as the book went on did make things more interesting at least. Also, I have no idea if this is actually true, but according to the friend who pestered me into reading these when someone asked Sanderson if he’d intentionally written her as bi he just kind of shrugged and said ‘sure, why not,’ which is fun. It was more than a bit, I don’t know, forced?, to have Wit just wander in from stage left and give her a desperately needed therapy session while she was in the middle of a breakdown and propel her development for most of the rest of the book, but on the other hand she’s pretty easily the main POV I’m most invested in by now, and the live triangle the text repeatedly threatened me with never actually became a thing, so I can’t really complain too much. Honestly super curious about the Ghostbloods and what they want out of her given, well, for a shadowy murderous conspiracy, everything they’ve wanted out of her so far has been pretty much entirely benign. Like, of the three major shadowy murderous conspiracies they’re easily the least problematic for the future of humanity at the moment. She should just commit and join for real imo.

As always, Kaladin’s POV is mostly good because it means we get more Syl, who is the single best character in the entire story I’ve decided. But also, I really quite liked his whole sojourn with the newly freed Parshmen and dawning realization that ‘wait these people are basically entirely right’. Also, the delicious delicious angst of spending however many dozens of pages getting to know them and then the wall guard and then the two groups killing each other in a confused melee while he has a mental breakdown. Easily best moment in the book (but then I’m a miserable person).

Adolin is honestly significantly more entertaining to follow than I really expected, though I’m still not like especially invested in him as a character. His relationship with his tailor was quite charming, though, as was the fact that he cares enough about fashion that he learned to sew. Honestly I was rather expecting/slightly dreading his main arc this book to be, like, inadequacy or insecurity over being almost literally the only member of his family that’s not a Radiant, so it’s kind of a pleasant surprise that he seems to have just accepted that (too well-adjust, I guess?). It is however extremely funny that the fact he just straight-up murdered one of the kingdom’s most important aristocrats and the major antagonist of the first two books seems to have resulted in absolutely zero consequences of any kind for him.

In terms of minor characters, the one I’m most invested in by a pretty substantial margin at this point is Venli, as she’s getting a front row seat to all the most interesting bits of the setting, ‘cultist growing increasingly disillusioned about return of ancient and terrible eldritch god’ is a really entertaining character arc just in principle, and because as of the end of the book she represents the morally objectively correct perspective and political line I’ve decided and will fight people about. Curious what sort of superpowers she’ll get. (Vargo and Szeth are still both great though, too).

The Unmade are really fun as a worldbuilding conceit/excuse for weird fucked up monsters. And it really is kind of funny that at least a third of the God of Evil’s nine generals/children/favoured beasts are, like, at conflicted or ambivalent about the whole ‘exterminate humanity and remake the world as a monument to my glory’ thing.

Really, on an extremely shallow and entirely aesthetic level, between the evil red crystal/lightning aesthetic, the remote mountain fortress as a stronghold of the heroes in the face of the coming apocalypse, tears into the realm of spirits, the quirky evil minibosses each handling corrupting/conquering a given center of civilization, etc, the whole thing kind of reminded me of Dragon Age Inquisition. Which reminded me of how disappointing the story to that game was, which made me like the book more by comparison, but anyway. Yeah, good book.

#books #oathbringer #stormlight archive #cosmere #brandon sanderson #in this essay I will #book review

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aster-aspera · 4 years

Text

One love, one house

CW: food mention, loads of fluff

Relationships: romantic DLAMP

Chapter title is from sweater weather by the neighbourhood

read on ao3

Masterlist for my superhero AU

Patton loved his roommate, he really did, but he was just a little eccentric. Patton could deal with the sneaking in at hellish hours in the early morning, and the mud he tracked into the appartement and the faint smell of antiseptic and blood that was always present in their bathroom.

He could even deal with his roommate occasionally forgetting his tasks or even disappearing for days on end.

But this was just unacceptable. Patton stood in front of a near empty fridge, only a refrigerated tupperware full of noodles and a jar of pickles left.

“Virgil?” He called.

His roommate looked up at him from under his messy bangs, dark circles that seemed to take up half of his face under his eyes. He really should stop sneaking out at night. Patton had hoped he would have gotten more sleep during the holidays, but it seemed his roommate was determined to work himself into an early grave.

“What have you been eating?” He asked, pointing to the fridge.

Virgil gaped at him for a moment as the question made its way into his sleep deprived brain.

“Uhm, noodles?” He said, sounding unsure of himself.

“Just noodles?”

“And pickles, I guess.”

“During the holiday season?”

“Yes?”

Patton sighed. Virgil just continued staring at him, seemingly unaware of why Patton was so upset.

“You did eat something other than noodles on Christmas, right?” He asked, his voice edging on desperation.

“I dunno, when was Christmas?”

Patton snapped.

“Nope, this is unacceptable. I don’t care if you celebrate or not, but you should at least eat something.”

“I ate.” Virgil grumbled.

“Noodles!” Patton interjected.

“And it’s not like I had a lot of time on my hands to cook an elaborate meal.”

“One, it’s not that hard to throw some vegetables into a wok and two, what are you even doing during the holidays, it’s not like we have classes.”

Virgil looked down.

“Studying.” He mumbled.

“More like studying , with the way you look.”

“I don’t look that bad.”

“You look like a corpse, a cute corpse, but still a corpse.”

Virgil flushed and Patton had to fight not to coo. He was just so cute.

“Whatever, are you free tonight?” He continued.

“Uhh, sure? I have something at 11 though.”

“That’s fine, I’m cooking you dinner tonight and we’re going to have a little holiday celebration.”

“Patton, I don’t really celebrate Christmas.”

“It’s not about Christmas. I just want to have a nice night with my friend and while I’m at it, I want to make sure you’re eating something for once.”

“Ok, fine. We’ll have a holiday celebration.” Virgil groaned, but he didn’t seem totally against the idea.

Patton cheered.

“Okay, I’m going to pop over to the store first. We’ll need ingredients.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to bother yourself too much.”

“Nonsense, I love cooking for others. Also, we’re all out of food except noodles, so I’d have to go shopping anyways.”

Virgil had the decency to look mildly guilty at that.

Virgil accompanied him to the store. Which, unlike Patton had expected, did not speed up the shopping process, but only slowed them down as they fooled around.

“Okay, okay. Let's get this done quickly, thyme is money.” Patton said, waggling his eyebrows at Virgil.

“What the hell am I doughing here.” Virgil groaned.

Patton gasped. “You made a pun!” He exclaimed.

“Yeah well, don’t expect too many of those. I wouldn’t want to oatverdo it.”

Patton gasped in delight.

“The s’more puns you make, the s’more i love you.” He proclaimed and Virgil blushed beet red.

Patton giggled as he looked at Virgil having fun. His roommate was usually a lot more reserved and morose. He had no idea what had happened that had put Virgil in such high spirits, but whatever it was, Patton was grateful. The smile that graced Virgil’s face was the most breathtaking thing he had seen all week.

Patton looked away, aware he had been staring just a little too long.

The meal was delicious, if he said so himself, and Virgil seemed to agree. He lounged back in his chair languidly, sleepy from the good food. He looked better than Patton had seen him all month. The colour had returned to his cheeks again and his eyes sparkled.

Patton silently congratulated himself on a job well done.

“That was great, Pat. Seriously.”

“I’m humbled by your compliments.”

Virgil smiled.

“Where did you even learn how to cook like this?”

“My moms taught me. They made sure to teach me all the basic survival skills like cooking, laundry and how to snare and skin rabbits.”

“Snare rabbits?” Virgil laughed.

“I lived in a forest, I had to be able to take care of myself. They taught me all kinds of other cool survival stuff too.”

“Nice, my mom barely taught me how to turn on a stove.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Virgil waved him away. “My parents just had other priorities in my upbringing. Maybe you could teach me to cook something other than pasta?”

“I’d love to.” Getting to cook and spend more time with Virgil? It sounded like heaven to Patton.

Virgil looked at the clock and suddenly shot up.

“Shit, I have to go. I’m sorry. Thanks for the food, Patton.”

“It’s fine. Anytime.” Patton watched him leave with an empty feeling in his stomach.

He didn’t mind his roommate’s odd habits, but sometimes he wished he didn’t always run off.

Patton had to be honest, when Virgil had first told him about his boyfriends, he had been quite shocked.

Not because of the boyfriends, plural. Patton was pretty sure he was polyamorous himself.

No, it was the fact that quiet, shy, reserved Virgil, the guy who Patton had never seen interact with anyone except Patton, had somehow gotten himself not one, but two boyfriends.

And yeah, maybe he did feel a sharp stab of jealousy when Virgil first told him. He wondered how his boyfriends had gotten him to realize they wanted to date him. Patton had been trying to make his feelings clear for months now and was almost convinced Virgil was aromantic.

They must have yelled something along the lines of “We have romantic feelings for you” to get through that thick skull of his.

Patton didn’t resent Virgil for dating them, he was happy for him. Virgil really needed something good in his life.

And now, here he was, cooking up an elaborate meal for Virgil’s boyfriends.

When Virgil had told him about his boyfriends and the fact that they had been going steady for a while, Patton had insisted they come over for dinner sometime.

“I have to make sure they’re not going to break my best friend’s heart.” He had argued.

Virgil had complained at that, but his boyfriends had agreed and a date had been fixed.

Patton had maybe gone a little overboard with the meal. Two curries stewed on the stove and he was just about to throw the homemade falafel into the pan. In the oven, naans he had made from scratch were baking.

He hoped they liked Indian.

Virgil let his boyfriends into the appartement and wow, they were hot.

One of them, the shorter of the two, beamed at him, his smile perfectly blinding, and walked over to him.

“Hello, you must be the charming Patton I’ve heard so much about.” He said with a theatrical bow.

The taller one walked over to them with a more reserved smile.

“I’m Logan and this character here is Roman. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Virgil has told us a lot about you.” He stuck out his hand.

“Really, he has?” Patton felt a warm glow at that knowledge.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you too.” He continued.

“So you’re the one who’s been keeping our Virgil alive?” Roman asked him.

“What?” Patton asked.

“V has a lot of skills, basic self care isn’t one of them.” Roman clarified.

“We’re happy he has such a good friend.” Logan added.

“Well, I’m happy to take care of him. But, yeah, self care isn’t one of his skills.”

“As much as I appreciate you guys bonding, I can take care of myself.” Virgil interjected.

“Debatable.” Logan said.

Roman seemed to have noticed the food bubbling on the stove by now.

“Ooh, indian.” He exclaimed.

“It smells good.” Logan complimented.

“Well, it’s nearly done, so get seated and I’ll bring the food over.”

“You guys are in for a treat. Pat’s the best cook I know.” Virgil informed them.

Patton blushed at the high praise.

“I must say I’m intrigued.” Logan said, while taking a seat at the table.

Patton turned off the stove and added a few leaves of coriander before carrying the dishes over to the table.

“Do you need a hand? It looks like a lot.” Roman offered.

Finally, with Roman’s help, the table was set and they all dug in, dipping their naans into the curries Patton had made.

Roman moaned theatrically.

“God, this is just heavenly.” He praised.

“It’s great Patton.” Virgil offered.

“Yes, it is quite splendid. What spices did you use?” Logan asked him.

“Well, this one has chilli powder...”

“I can taste that.” Virgil grumbled.

“Turmeric, cumin and coriander and the other one has bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and more chilli powder.”

“That’s a lot of spices.” Roman said.

“That’s the secret to Indian cooking, the things they can do with spices is just magical.” Patton replied.

They talked more.

Logan told him he was studying theoretical physics at the university where Virgil also studied.

“Wow, theoretical physics. Isn’t that like black holes and stuff?” Patton asked, intrigued.

“Oh boy, don’t get him started.” Virgil muttered.

Logan paid him no mind.

“That’s one aspect but it’s also so much more. It touches on all aspects of our lives.” With that Logan launched into an impassioned speech about all the things theoretical physics touched on and the different aspects of it.

Patton didn’t understand everything he was going on about, physics hadn’t been his best subject in school, but he enjoyed listening to Logan all the same. He had a way of speaking that drew you in. It was clear he really enjoyed the subject he was studying. Patton felt like he could listen to Logan for hours on end. A glance at the others told him they felt the same way, both of them staring at him with fond expressions.

“I apologise. I was rambling again, I have been told I have a tendency to do that.” Logan cut himself off.

“What? There’s nothing to apologize for, it was really fascinating.”

Logan smiled softly but didn’t go on. An awkward silence fell over the table.

“So!” Patton piped up brightly. “What do you do, Roman?”

“I’m studying to become a nurse actually.”

“Really? cool!”

They chatted about all kinds of things. Roman complained about the amount of things he had to learn. Logan told him it was nothing compared to what he had to study. Virgil lamented about annoying professors. And Patton listened, feeling a little like an intruder but a part of it all the same.

They complemented each other perfectly. Patton had no idea how they had met or what made them such a good team, but it must be something wonderful indeed.

In that moment, Patton wished so fervently he could be a part of it. He barely knew Logan and Roman and yet he could feel himself falling for them even now.

They didn’t seem to mind him being there, roping him into the conversation easily.

Logan smiled at him from across the table and Roman slung an arm over his shoulder, laughing at one of his puns.

Virgil was just getting up to refill the water jug, when an alert on his phone went off. All three of them jumped up.

“We have to leave.” Logan said, looking at his phone.

“Shit, I’m so sorry Patton.” Virgil repeated for what seemed like the thousandth time. It felt like whenever Patton was finally making progress in his relationship, something interrupted.

He didn’t mind the weird habits, he just wished he would let him in on his secrets. Hadn’t he proved his trustworthiness to Virgil?

They left him with the dishes and an empty feeling in his chest.

Roman, Virgil and Logan sat at the dinner table while Patton busied himself in the kitchen, finding comfort in the familiar routine of cooking. A tense silence filled the usually cozy apartment.

“How long have you known?” Logan asked finally.

Patton looked at Virgil when he answered.

“Probably since the first month.”

Virgil stammered. “I thought…”

“You thought what Virgil? That I didn’t notice you sneaking in at five in the morning? That I didn’t notice that whenever you ran off during dinner, Storm was suddenly on the news? That I didn't notice all the cuts and bruises you collected? You thought, what? That I was stupid? Blind? Deaf?” He knew he was being unfair, the others looked tired and miserable and guilty. But all his frustration at being left in the dark for years was bubbling over.

He was so tired of being treated as stupid, of being left behind when the others had to attend to hero bussiness. He was tired of lying awake worrying about them.

Patton returned to chopping the leeks with more force than absolutely necessary.

“We wanted to protect you.” Logan said, guilt colouring his voice.

“I don’t need your protection. I think you saw that tonight.”

“Yes, we were wrong. I realize that now. We apologize”

“I don’t.” Virgil said.

Patton stared at him. “What?”

Virgil stood up and faced him. “I’m sorry about lying to you, but I won’t apologize for trying to protect you. It’s bad enough these two are out on the streets, I don’t need another untrained civilian risking their life.” Virgil gestured at Roman and Logan, who didn’t look happy about being called untrained.

Patton laughed bitterly. “I’m not untrained, that much should be clear. And what makes you so trained then?”

Virgil sighed.

“When I said my parents had other priorities in my upbringing, I meant it. Instead of learning maths and chemistry, I learnt how to fight, how to take down a grown man, how to disappear into the shadows.”

“Why?” Patton asked, he was aware Virgil hadn’t had the most traditional upbringing, but this wasn’t what he had expected.

“I was to be an assassin, but the company we worked for disbanded and my mom decided to give me a normal life.” He explained coldy, it was clear there was more there, but Patton decided now was not the best time to ask.

They were all tired from the events of the evening and Patton really just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for another week. All his anger at his friends keeping him in the dark had faded, leaving him with just his exhaustion.

He turned back to the quiche he was making, with store bought dough, his mom would be shocked, and slid it into the oven.

“I’m just happy you guys are alright.” He said, extending an olive branch.

“Well, we were lucky our valiant knight in shining armour came to our rescue.” Roman said, his voice lacking his usual flamboyance.

Patton sat down next to Virgil and laid his head on his shoulder. Virgil wrapped his arm around him.

“You guys are lucky I knew where you were.”

“Yeah, how did you do that? Do you have us micro-chipped or something?” Roman questioned.

Patton just smiled mysteriously.

Patton popped his head into their bedroom, where Janus was talking into a phone. Patton listened for a moment as Janus talked to someone in rapid fire French, sounding mildly irritated.

He noticed Patton standing in the doorway and held up a hand signaling he would be done soon. He rolled his eyes and mouthed “Grandmother” at him.

Patton stifled a giggle. Janus’s grandmother was notoriously difficult.

“Oui, oui mémé, je promets.”

He put down the phone with a sigh.

“Why is she like this?” He sighed in exasperation.

Patton wrapped his arms around Janus’s waist and nuzzled into his neck.

“It’s ‘cause she loves you, honeybee.”

“Loves to annoy me, more like. Anyways, did you need something, mon cœur ?”

“Yeah, you said you’d help with dinner?”

“Course, give me a minute, I’m coming.”

“I’ll go peel the potatoes.” Patton bounced down the stairs.

On the couch, Logan and Roman were attempting to watch a period drama, keyword, attempting.

They were currently critiquing the costumes in the show, Roman in particular was raving about corsets on bare skin.

Patton smiled, he loved them both very much, but watching a movie or show with them was nearly impossible. They both had trouble keeping their thoughts to themselves.

“Having fun?” He asked as he pressed a kiss to Roman’s forehead.

“Corsets on bare skin, Patton! What is wrong with them?” Roman flung his hands up, nearly knocking Patton’s glasses off.

“Whoops, sorry.” He apologized.

Patton kissed him again and gave Logan a quick side hug.

“You guys enjoy, I’m going to get started on dinner.”

“I highly doubt I will be able to enjoy it, considering all the mistakes in the writing and costuming.” Logan muttered.

Janus joined him in making dinner and together they worked efficiently. Janus was a great cook and a good help in the kitchen. Together, they managed to make something good without getting in each others’ way too much.

Janus put on an old timey jazz song and as the food sizzled on the stove, they slowed gently in the kitchen.

The door opened and Virgil blew in with a gust of cold air. He groaned as he dropped his bag on the floor.

“Everything all right, mon amour?” Janus questioned.

“Just tired, training was hard today.” Virgil sighed.

“Yeah, I see. Go take a shower.” Janus wrinkled his nose.

Virgil made to kiss Janus but he warded him off.

“Go shower first.” He instructed.

“I want a kiss.” Virgil whined.

“I’ll give you a kiss.” Patton said.

“Don’t enable him.” Janus groaned but he pressed a quick kiss to Virgil’s nose.

Patton drew Virgil in for a soft, gentle one and then pushed him in the direction of the shower.

“Go. Food’s nearly done.”

Right on cue, Roman bounced into the kitchen, Logan trailing behind him.

“Food’s ready?” He asked.

“Not yet. Will you guys set the table?” Patton asked.

As busy clattering filled the kitchen, Patton felt a smile slip onto his lips. Janus noticed and wrapped his arms around him.

“What are you thinking about?” He whispered into his ear.

“Just thinking about how lucky I am.”

“Yeah, we really are.” He sighed.

They smiled as Virgil entered the kitchen and promptly got wrapped up in a hug from Roman.

#sander sides #patton sanders #ts patton #virgil sanders #ts virgil #roman sanders #ts roman #logan sanders #ts logan #janus sanders #ts janus #dlamp #romantic dlamp #ts dlamp #tw food mention #superhero au #ts superhero au #my writing #sanders sides fic

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