#cooks vs cons

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

“What is this? Shrimp and grits for ants???”

—Richard Blaise on Cooks vs. Cons (season 2 episode 3)

[dietetiction]

Arroz Caldoso - Caldoso Rice (Soup Rice)

Arroz Caldoso Hay cientos de formas de hacerlo, con ingredientes diferentes, con caldo de carne, pescado, clásico, con toques modernos, aquí se trata de hacerlo fácil y que trabaje el fuego. Para los puristas, el caldo lo podéis hacer con raspas de pescado, como se ha hecho siempre en restauración, lo de las pastillas de caldo es para quienes no quieran esperar, pero también es válido. Así…

[ame-to-ame]

I'm ngl was scared of going to one of my jobs bc i have certain trains of thought that get triggered in familiar places where i had those thoughts before especially when my mind wanders which is especially hard to control when idle/doing menial tasks and I'm not allowed to have music/ electronics so i can't distract myself easily. but work was so good today holy shit. my coworkers seemed happy to see me! i met someone really cool with similar music taste! we yapped for an hour! she told me to visit her in the future! i had a really busy and filled schedule! i get to play with kids! I get to help people! life is good!

[youryanderedaddy]

can you write gentle yandere taking their darling for the first time vs mean sadistic yandere taking them for the first time?

Btw I love ur work 💖💘💗

tw: female reader, non - con, kidnapping, obsessive/possessive behavior, sadism, degradation, slut - shaming

Gentle ~

You know the type of guy I'm talking about. Big and buff, dark - haired, cries a lot. Watches romance movies in his free time and actually calls his mother even outside of the holiday season. Wears slutty little black fitted shirts after working out and brings you smoothies after work. He smiles and blushes. The man is a massive loser with an undying passion for anything nerdy, be it dragons, board games, collecting marks. Who would really expect this poor soul to hurt even a fly?

But he does.

It doesn't happen until months after he's taken you in. Most of the time he's being the perfect gentleman (aside from literally keeping you captive) - he cooks for you, brings you roses and chocolates (even when you throw them away or tear the petals from the flowers), cleans and doesn't make you lift a finger. He reads you poetry until your ears bleed. He tells you he loves you one hundred times a day and seemingly doesn't care about your snorts or the way you roll your eyes and push him away, already so used to your living situation you can't even find it in yourself to be scared. You think he's harmless - as harmless as a lovesick puppy.

But then one night he comes home, an unusual frown on his otherwise soft face. There is a certain type of madness in his hazel eyes. They are still so very soft and adoring, he still sees you as a Goddess in need of worship... but there is also something dark and muddy. Something possessive.

Your captor kisses you on the cheek and that much is granted - he does it every day, along with shouting "Honey, I'm home" at the door. He hugs you - tight. Tighter than ever before, it feels as if the man is trying to crush you in a suffocating embrace, like he wants to swallow you whole within his arms. For the first time you realise just how muscular he is - how much stronger he is. And then he picks you up like a blushing bride and leaves a quick peck on your forehead before taking you to the bedroom and carefully laying you down.

He doesn't give you time to ask questions - as soon as he steps a foot in your shared room, he's already tearing apart his clothes, revealing his ripped form.

"See anything you like, sweetness?" the man asks you, rubbing his hands together as he towers over you, caging you between two beefy arms. You stay silent for a moment, mouth agape at the suddenness of it all - you have never seen him like this. He starts caressing your cheeks and slowly moves down, and that's when it finally settles in your mind. You need to act quickly.

"Stop." you say authoritatively, just like you have done so many times before, praying it would work like it had in the past. But not now. This time he simply shakes his head, a crazed smile playing on his lips as he lowers his head and kisses your neck softly, lovingly. It's terrifying. You're not used to this. You don't know how to react. "Baby, I can't hold it in anymore." Your captor whispers, head resting against your shoulder, voice low and desperate - almost whiny.

"I really tried." he swallows thickly. "I swear. I tried cold showers a-and thinking about bad things but..." he bites his lip, staring at you. You look so small and helpless and, God, he respects you, he really does, but he can't help the way his crotch twitches and his pants tighten as he watches you squirm and tremble, oh-so-small and panicky, defenceless little hands scratching at his arms, but failing to make him budge.

"But every time I come home all pent up and annoyed after dealing with bastards all day, all I want is to bend you over," he continues after moving a lock of your hair out of the way so he can whisper directly into your naked ear. "And fuck-”, he says as he pins your hands to the bed frame, enjoying seeing you wiggle and pant. "The shit-" he can feel your heart beat faster and faster as your whole body gets warmer. It's awfully intimate. "Out of-" he's so excited now that he grabs your hips rather roughly, and ruts against your core, whimpering as his crotch rubs all over your clothed slit. "you".

He growls, now more akin to a lion or a bear than to a human.

He tries to enter you slowly so he wouldn’t hurt you, but the moment your tight velvety walls wrap around his hard throbbing length, he’s reduced to a feral whimpering mess, shoving at you in short sloppy thrusts, completely pussy - drunk. He lasts less than five minutes before he pulls out and cums all over your stomach, watching in fascination as his seed marks you. He slams his lips against yours, swallowing your hushed protests as he murmurs “Mine” over and over again, gripping your hips closer when he feels you pulling away.

Once his brain has cleared enough to be able to think properly he helps you clean up, touching you so gently you wonder if this wild, brutish side he exhibited was all but a dream. But it’s still very much there, barely contained under the surface - and one single moment of freedom and passion is enough to open Pandora's box. 

After that night he feels a lot more comfortable with touching you, for better or worse. 

Mean ~

He doesn’t wait for you to adjust to your ‘new life’ before he basically pounces on you like a predator. To be completely honest, he’s wanted to fuck you within inches of your life since the time he first saw you - the only thing keeping him at bay for a while were the countless pretty pictures he had of you naked and writhing in your own bed in the comfort of your home that all the secret cameras he had installed managed to capture.

Before he used to treat your home footage like his own personal cam - girl show; sometimes he would wait to leave work, jerking all over your face on his screen the moment he gets home. Other times he wasn’t so patient, and he had to sneak off to the restroom any time a thought about you occurred, stroking himself to completion as he blasted his recordings of your quiet moans on his headphones.

But now you’re here in the flesh - the real thing, tied so tight you can’t move an inch, trembling all over just like a bunny caught in a trap by the hunter. He wants you completely immobilised - he’s waited ages for this moment and he wants absolutely no distractions getting in the way of him finally taking his price.

You sob pitifully, your mouth the only part of your body left uncovered, and you try to plead with him desperately. You promise him money, influence, anything he wants - whatever would be able to get you out of this hellish predicament. You even offer to give him a blowjob - which he simply sneers at, grabbing a fistfull of your hair. 

“Oh, doll, the night is still young. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” He looks possessed, ready to feast on your flesh. You shiver, curling into yourself as much as possible - but he pulls your legs on both sides of his thighs, his hands seeming grand across your rickety ankles. “You’ll get your chance to choke on this cock soon enough.” He grabs his bulge crudely, massaging it through his thick stained grey pants. “Right now all I want is to see this cute little pussy stretched on my meat and those pretty tits bouncing in the air as I slap them red.”

It really doesn’t matter if you’re a virgin or not, you’re getting brutalised either way - although his comments would be different.

If you’re a virgin, he’s making sure you get the whole of his length in one - there is something terribly amusing about the toe - curling scream you let out as his cock tears you apart, something borderline pornographic in the way your brows twist and your nostrils flare, lips shut tight as to not give him the pleasure of hearing your pain out loud. But it’s obvious, and he wants you to know that he enjoys it through and through - licking your tears and the sweat off your neck, pinching at your thighs, your breasts, your stomach; whatever makes you cry the most. 

If you’re not a virgin, he still finds a way to get his fun out of you. 

“I don’t feel you clenching on me, you little slut.” He smacks your cheek with little force behind it - it’s not meant to hurt you, but to humiliate you and drive his point across. “Did you have a fucking train ran on you? I should have known you’d be a filthy whore.” He bites at your lower lip, pulling at it until he hears you whine pitifully - leaving his mark on you. “Should’a known with these cocksucking lips of yours, and ngh-” He sinks into you, voice breaking once the tip of his dick brushes against your cervix. “And t-those slutty hips, shit, keep squeezing me just like that, n-ngh, I am going to ruin you all over again!”

He fucks you for who knows how long - when he’s finally satisfied, the sun is already up and you’re drenched in sweat and cum. There isn’t a single part of your body that doesn’t ache.

He leaves you there, snickering at the sight of your empty stare fixed on the ceiling - only reaching to untie you and cuff your ankle to the bed frame instead. You weakly raise an eyebrow in question.

“Stay here until I come back, okay?” He grins with malice, caressing your wet matted hair. “Hah, not that you can really go anywhere.”

[clonewarsahsoka]

I want subway but I do not want tobwalk across campus

[viktoriaashleyyx]

Why do some of us not *hate* Tamlin?

I am pro-tamlin, not pro feylin. I would prefer Tamlin to never have to deal with the NC ever again. If SJM never types his name out again I will be happy.

Tw: light mentions to DV, SA, and Divorce.

Feyre is written in a way that makes it feel like she is intentionally manipulating us against Tamlin to justify her leaving him the way she did, and to put Rhysand up on a pedestal.

The abrupt and sloppy way SJM handled Tamlins' character assassination induced my fight or flight. Let me explain:

My parents divorced when I was 4, and I had to learn, quickly, how to interpret people's true intentions and empathize with where they are coming from vs just blindly listening to someones account of what happened. My father got custody of us and would use the same elements against my mom that Feyre uses against Tamlin. I HAVE to read between the lines or I would fall to the intentional manipulation.

"She left me so she probably cheated" "he trapped me in the house" "she has a new boyfriend so she doesn't care about you anymore" "he hit me [when I was actively TRYING to get him to hit me to sway public opinion of him]"

Everytime Feyre left for the NC, she did so kicking and screaming. Every indication Tamlin could see was that she did NOT want to go with Rhys, until he gets a letter from her saying to not come looking for her that she doesn't want to be with him. Tamlin didn't know she could read or write. Had that been my love I would assume it was a ransom note too, written by someone else. Had she actually spent 1 hr winnowing to Tamlin, tell him face to face, then winnow back (with an escort) he MIGHT have gotten the hint.

A tithe was a weird thing to use to show how cruel Tamlin is, considering how 2/3 of the night court live in constant fear, children's bones are broken for misbehaving, the CoN are trapped there. SJM really showed us that she has no political knowledge what so ever. I barely started ACOFAS and when Feyres talking about the unnatural sum of her money, my first thought is "You don't amass that level of wealth without oppressing someone." Lucien said that Tamlin would be expected to hunt down those not able to pay the tithe, but when we get to Tamlins actual actions he just said "get it together in 3 days or pay double next time". In my initial reading, I interpreted it as another mask (like how Rhysand acts). Tamlin does this due to tradition, he is expected to act a certain way, but *I felt* he had no intention of acting out what he said. It was just a line he was expected to say to send the wraith away without others expecting the same.

Feyre and Tamlin were not right for eachother because they were not eachothers mates. People can exist fine separately, and be incredibly toxic together. From page 1 we see Feyres inherent inability to empathize with anyone, she has it bad, she has to hunt, therefore her sisters don't do anything. But she also can't cook, so who was preparing the meat she brought home? It gave me "housework isn't real work" vibes. Feyre also doesn't communicate very well, which would explain why a literal mind reader was able to help her better than Tamlin was. I saw Tamlin trying but not being able to help her because he couldn't read her mind.

Feyre didn't want to be trapped in a manor for a few hours while she was displaying manic behavior, but she condoned her sisters be trapped in the HOW for 6 weeks immediately after losing their lives. She condones the treatment of the people in Hewn city and supports the literal Jim Crow laws placed against them in Velaris when all they wanted was to leave. She condones and supports trapping Nesta in HoW after the war just to force Cassain on her so Feyre can play matchmaker.

Feyre is an inherently self centered sociopath. She can read minds and still can't develop a shred of empathy.

Just leave Tamlin alone. Damn.

[angelsdean]

mary having a complicated relationship to motherhood and not actually being the perfect mom and really struggling with wanting to continue hunting to ensure her family's safety VS wanting to be out of hunting and keep her family far from that world is so so interesting and important to me. like, just imagining her carving protective sigils under the welcome mat. salting the window-sills. putting little protective charms on her babies. trying her hardest to fit into the mold of "mother" all while aching for her own mother to be there and help her and teach her what to do. her sucking at cooking and feeling a little bit like a failure every time she reheated a store-bought pie. dean never knowing the difference until she tells him years and years later. her wanting so desperately to keep her family safe and yet still sneaking off to continue hunting here and there because she can't stand knowing what's out there and doing nothing. yet she vows to never ever tell her kids about any of it, even though it scares her that in their ignorance they'll get hurt by something. the war inside her as she writes out pros and cons lists in the dead of night wondering if she's doing the right thing by keeping them and john in the dark. and her becoming increasingly more and more distressed and conflicted as the decade runs out on her deal. she doesn't know what the demon will come for, though looking down at sam in her arms she's starting to suspect. so she puts up more protections. the months pass and the demon never comes. she thinks her efforts worked. she thinks maybe her family will be spared.

[blue-mood-blue]

Danmei Faves Meet Chopped: The Thought Experiment

(with the caveat that I have not read All The Danmei so actually this is “a limited selection of danmei faves” meet chopped) (also as of their official translations, no spoilers pls)

The Contestants:

1) Xie Lian

Pros: There is not one single thing that you could put into a basket that this man would be intimidated by. Not a single thing. He will cook anything that you hand to him, and be delighted to do so. You cannot phase him with unlikely ingredients or conflicting flavor profiles, he has risen above these concerns. He is smiling at everything he pulls out of the basket and probably scaring the other contestants in the process.

Cons: He might kill someone. Not on purpose. He will be out after round one, guaranteed, once the medics standing by in case of cuts intervene for a severe case of “all the judges are now poisoned.” Filming will probably have to stop so ambulances can be called. The crew generously allows him to take his leftovers with him.

2) Wei Wuxian

Pros: He is going to pack so much flavor in every bite! Every single bite! This man knows and embraces spice, and no one will be able to tell him that his meal is bland or underseasoned! Chili oil all over the damn plate!

Cons: The flavor is pain, he’s used every pepper the pantry has, and if he makes it to round two it’s only because of Xie Lian accidentally unleashing the horrors in round one.

3) Mo Ran

Pros: He’s a good cook! He makes a variety of dishes, and he’s gotten used to adjusting recipes for specific preferences. He’s well-traveled so it’s likely he’s encountered many ingredients and had practice in a variety of conditions, which is good experience to have in this competition. He’s been doing his best to be on his best behavior, but heaven help anyone who monopolizes the fryer.

Cons: Again - he’s been on his best behavior, but that’s really for one person who is not currently in the kitchen. He also only really cooks for one person, who has particular tastes.

4) Luo Binghe

Pros: Also a good cook! He, too, has a range of dishes he knows how to prepare, with years of practice going back (probably) as far as his adoption in his early childhood. He is well-traveled as well, with such exciting and… unique locales such as Hell Dimension (aka Endless Abyss) where he probably had to make… questionable culinary choices, so he probably won’t be thrown by whatever’s in the basket.

Cons: There’s a non-zero chance that there’s blood in the food.

(Of this particular line-up, I think it would come down to Mo Ran vs. Binghe for the dessert round, which will be a close call - they both have experience with desserts, I imagine, but I think Mo Ran might have a slight advantage considering Chu Wanning’s sweet tooth. He’s made a lot of sweets and more often. Also, can Binghe lean on a “protagonist halo” when Mo Ran is the protagonist of his own story?)

(Assuming the final round doesn’t devolve into chaos and sabotage, which… is very, very possible.)

The Non-Contestants:

Hua Cheng: Could he do well on chopped? Almost certainly. But why would he? He is here to cheer on gege.

Lan Wangji: Would probably actually do better than Wei Wuxian, if he cooks the meal to Wei Wuxian’s taste - I feel like he would be a little more sparing with the spice. Otherwise, his food is probably too bland for the judges.

Chu Wanning: He has one good dish, and it’s [redacted]. He could last a round but after that he’s probably out. He will do his best. He will not look like he is panicking (he is panicking).

Shen Qingqiu: A millennial who choked to death on bad food and rage. He probably has limited kitchen skills, but beyond the powers of having a microwave? Who knows.

Bonus Round:

Li Yu: He would try so hard. He would put every bit of skill he had on the table. He does not have any skill to put on the table. Do not put a fish in his basket, do not do this to him.

Mu Tianchi: Probably wouldn’t even compete. He’s going to steal Li Yu’s food from the judges. How dare they.

Chang Geng: He could probably do well in the competition, if he could be convinced to compete, but he probably couldn’t. He is smiling very politely at the producer, who is feeling a chill down their spine and backing away slowly.

Gu Yun: Do not let this man in the kitchen, he will cause problems on purpose.

[xiulric]

On SV fics and jin lan city AU fanfics

Jin lan city is one of my fave arcs in SV bc we have all this wonderful tension coming to a head. Sqq's devotion to binghe turned over its head, into fear and animosity

meanwhile binghe laboriously built himself up, meticulously planned and manipulated his way into a favorable political position both in the demon realm and as a huan hua disciple

despite his anger and resentment. he thinks this will prove to shizun that hes still valuable. bc xin mo digs its claws into binghes insecurity: sqq either rejected him bc of his demon heritage, or worse. sqq found him unlovable, the person who knew him best, saw the core of who he is, found him insufficient

hell. maybe this was a long con years in the making, sqq hated him since they met, and then only pretended to be nice to binghe so that sqqs betrayal would hurt more

and all this planning bites him in the ass!!!! it makes shizun resent him more!!!

some fics make the mistake of dissolving this tension too early. for the sake of speeding up the bingqiu cuddles

and like i think thats a waste bc those same misunderstandings, when resolved with good storytelling, lead to a satisfying conclusion that makes bingqiu feel deeper, with a stronger connection ! 

so anyway theres so many ways the jin lan meeting post abyss couldve gone. RIPE with potential for a variety of fun fanfic scenarios!!!

ive seen truth serum jin lan city aus, or obedience spell aus. even ones where sqq forces a soul connection so binghe. cant kill him without hurting himself

point is!! SO MANY OPTIONS

but my absolute favourite jin lan city aus, the most ironic, juicy, and hardest to execute imo :

aus where Binghe realizes something baffling about his shizun. the key to successfully manipulating SQQ and resolving this post-abyss misunderstanding.

its not through demonic power, prestige, manners or huan hua palace.

it's by binghe showing the most unlovable, weak side of himself. that makes sqq crumble like wet tissue paper IN AN INSTANT

if binghe in jin lan city cries, if hes hurt or sick, sqq will be there to help him immediately despite sqqs fear of binghe

sqq is so so weak to white lotus binghe that he would risk getting mauled by the demon emperor. bc he cant hold back his own need to coddle binghe

a sub point to this same weakness sqq has; jin lan aus where binghe pushes the limit of "how far will shizun go to pamper me?"

that one is tricky bc. it can sound OOC if written without believable buildup

disciple white lotus binghe is aware that sqq favours him; sqq vastly prefers binghes cooking over any other food. sqq got without-a-cure for binghes sake. binghe is head disciple.

but its not always that binghe realizes how FAR sqq would go to coddle binghe, and worse, sqq justifies it and lies to himself about it. "its only what binghe is owed! hes the protagonist! this world was built for him!"

so in some delicious jin lan aus, binghe goes; ok ok. shizun hates me now. but when i hug him.. he doesnt push me away? when i kill all the sowers, and jin lan proclaims me a hero, and i ask for shizuns hand in marriage... he doesnt DENY it to me??

shizun doesnt look happy. but he goes along willingly!?!?!?  WHAT IS GOING ON

basically it leads to more misunderstandings before a resolution BUT ITS SO JUICY!? SQQ's love for binghe vs his lying to himself about loving binghe! a truth he can hardly admit in the privacy of his mind !

and binghes confusion blending with his delight and the stinging betrayal of 3 years ago!!! CHEFS KISS

example below of this dynamic; from Sadie Hawkins fic by X_los

[ayotofu]

Imagine if you will (with a lot of hand wavy time changes ofc) that the leverage team during their LA days end up crossing paths with the 118. I just feel like chim and hardison would get along so well. And Bobby and Nate both have the brooding trauma thing but Bobby has actually faced his demons.

This is out of left field sorry i just wanted to think out loud about shoving my two favourite shows together like im five and they’re my barbies

believe you me anon i have IMAGINED THE SHIT outta this :D :D :D

i'm soooooo glad you asked because i've had this fic in the back of my head where hen and karen are like. hey what this councilwoman is doing to us and to our nine year old is fucking malicious and cruel and only possible because she is abusing her power and now she's put hen's old shithead captain (who was REMOVED from the same station for creating a hostile work environment and particularly bullying hen) BACK IN CHARGE, and all of this is super sketchy, but ortiz and gerrard have ALL the power in this scenario. so.

who do they call if not the leverage team?

hen obviously tells chim, who tells everyone else, so when strange people start showing up and doing weird shit, they all collectively decide not to worry about it.

eliot definitely goes undercover at the 118, covering for someone who got a spontaneous all-expenses-paid vacation (hardison tried to send them on a cruise at first, but for some reason they declined). he and eddie instantly bond, macho-to-macho. eliot quickly learns that eddie a) has a kid and b) can't cook very well so decides that he needs to learn so he can feed his kid well. (eddie insists that he's not that bad at cooking jesus but eliot is getting too into it)

buck at one point overhears eliot talking to parker and hardison on the comm and is like "omg, can i try" and annoys eliot until he agrees. buck, it turns out, does not actually know what to say on the comm so he just starts listing facts about famous heists in history while parker gives her opinion on the quality of each of them. "aw," parker says, "you're like a little nerd in my ear" to which hardison says "babe do i mean nothing to you"

sophie tries to work ortiz while nate tries to work gerrard. because of this, nate happens to run into bobby when they were both coming to talk to gerrard (bobby to try to convince him, somehow, to leave vs. nate for the con) and they talk. bobby knows why nate is here (chimney reeeeally can't keep a secret) but that short conversation lets him see in nate all the darkness he's keeping at bay in himself. bobby looks at nate and gets sad because, while nate is functional, that darkness could have been him. nate looks at bobby and gets angry because, while bobby will never be fully healed, that lightness could have been him.

parker works closest with hen and karen. she is furious on their behalf, gets a little too emotionally involved. she's seen a lot of people do terrible things for money and power (she's done some things herself that she's not exactly proud of) but this one hits different. ortiz isn't hurting hen and karen to get more money or power; she's doing it because she wants to hurt them. it's so vindictive. just pointlessly cruel.

and more than that: parker was mara, once upon a time. she was the mara who never really got her hen and karen. she doesn't want another little girl to end up like her. she and sophie are both around ortiz at one point and ortiz says something about mara (such a tragedy, that little girl, abandoned again like it wasn't all her fault) and sophie grabs the pencil out of parker's hand before she can start stabbing.

i don't know exactly how chim and hardison meet, but chimney absolutely starts asking him to hack into random shit. harmless shit. gerrard's email (90% of it was spam emails. chim, delighted, signs him up for hundreds more. mostly gay porn), ortiz's hildy coffee machine (to make it run, constantly, for an hour, spilling hot coffee all over her floor) (eddie hears about it and holds it over buck for weeks because he was RIGHT those things are DANGEROUS)

i don't have a very coherent plot for this but i do think it would be such a fun crossover

[voidshrubsquared]

Ok so Candied Circuits amirite (banger title also I am very proud of it)

(I was talking to emi about it thru tags and I felt like rambling a little about it :3)

So it would have been very much a Scrollon-centric fic, though I've thought of a few iterations that added a character or two for some extra Thought Experimenting. I had two more or less concrete iterations in mind: Either one, a smaller one-shot based completely on the hemoglobin post scene, or two, a 2-3 chapter long fic involving Cinna's story in Scrollon's POV, somewhat.

Short summary on each!

Idea one: Scroll goes out at night to catch an unsuspecting addison, drags them back to his bakery, scraps them, preps and eats them. Pretty self-explanatory, haha.

The idea here though would be that you get to hear him think, plan methodically, ramble about his addi biology knowledge and see him cook! There would have been a recipe section with a list of ingredients, and the reader would be able to follow the whole baking process! The descriptions would be really appealing :)

And when it came to finally eating his bake, the reader would also be able to catch that glimpse of feeling he's been wanting to experience this entire time. Just this super short sense of... euphoria? This THING he keeps trying to reach and can almost grasp but it disappears JUST as he thinks he's finally getting it. Oh well, there's always next time.

This fic would be very descriptive :>

Pros and cons of this idea:

Pros: Someone gets fully scrapped, death cool. Cutesy baking scene with an eerie atmosphere.

Cons: Kinda short? No Cinna :(

Idea two: This one is admittedly a bit more vague for me, but it would follow Scrollon's thoughts during Cinna's disappearance right after he thought he killed her. And some other branching-out thoughts of consecuences if his actions are brought to light, what his next move should be, etc etc. I'm a firm believer that Scrollon planned to kill two birds with one stone by killing Cinna, to both have another addison in his stash for later and also to try throw off suspicion over his department in a 'oh dear! our darling cinna has gone missing too! who could be doing this, I hope everyone gets found soon!' Kind of way, yknow? And it would be really interesting to just have him think while he idly bakes about what he should do now and how to keep things in control.

So anyways Cinna escapes, many thoughts occur, something something about keeping her missing arm as a reminder that she's out there. But then Scrollon finds out Cinna is BACK and she's ALSO eating people and she has a CREW, and so he's kind of irritated, more thoughts, tasteless simulacrum reference.

Things get more vauge as I go, but the idea is that at the end, he finds out that Cinna is out to get him, and that... makes him uneasy.

Pros: Okay so I'm gonna go on a little side-tangent here. So you know that one buks art of Scroll and Everette cuddling and Scroll wonders "Am I prey..." "No..." "I'm poison :3" (which. Btw. Super cool way to see how he interprets love. Or whatever closest he feels to love.) I love that. Because it's a little glimpse of how he sees things, and I think it applies well to the 'takes metaphors literally' thing. Well there would have been more of that in this iteration of the fic, and would have had heavier predator vs. prey theming. At the beginning there would be some stuff along the lines of "Scrollon is predator, Cinnemon is prey." And it would turn around on him in the end with something along the lines of "Cinna has a pack. Cinna hunts. Cinnemon is *predator.*" and a pause, "Scrollon is prey." And you'd just get a little dread... at the very least you'd get the sense that Scrollon has to be very cautious, and careful about what he should do next.

Side-tangent over, this whole thing is the pro. OH and Cinna. Cinna is always a pro.

Cons: Still vague imo? No real scrapping scene... no fun baking a Man scene... :(

Both ideas had stuff I wanted to incorporate, so looking back at both, I think I'd combine them, honestly. It would be something like Cinna disappears -> Scrollon kills, bakes and eats a man -> Scroll finds out about the Rainbow Café (I REMEMBERED THE NAME WOOO) and ofc in between all of that, we'd get all that juicy character exploration mainly on Scrollon :)

I hope none of that was confusing and made Complete Sense my brain is now Air

Anyways if I remember something else about this I'll rb with the additional info, but I think that's it! I wish I got to develop this a little more before the motivation went away, but ey, what can ya do!

(@emiplayzmc @jevajoy tagging ya both cause you two really like the scrollman and I thought you might like this/get something out of it, as small/vauge as it is :3)

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

Cooks vs. Cons* is so interesting to me because, if anything, it’s proving that there is no ‘right’ or ‘professional’ way to cook. Someone said “a pro would know to zest the citrus as well as juicing it” and my brain went “huh??? How would you not think of zesting a lime? If you’ve made like, lemon bread or cupcakes, then you use the zest as well as the juice.”

Zesting and also juicing a citrus fruit! Putting salt in the water for making pasta! Combining different flavors together! Putting something sweet in a sauce (sugar, maple syrup, caramel, etc) to offset the bitter sulfur-ness of the Brussels sprouts! Salting your meat when you’re cooking it! Using a microplane to grate a cheese instead of dicing it! Cutting the big layer of fat off of a lamb chop so it’s not cold and it cooks more evenly! Brushing a sauce on your meat once you’ve cooked it! Waiting until your water is boiling to put pasta or dumplings in! Repurposing the secret ingredient! Checking if your sauce with the secret ingredient actually goes with your protein before making it! Not putting the only use of the secret ingredient in the foam cannister which may or may not work! Learning how to troubleshoot the blender! Putting a single layer of something on the baking sheet or pan! Flambeé-ing with alcohol makes a Big Big flame! Simply not burning your sauce!

All of these things are things that I’ve learned either from cooking myself, being around people who cook a lot, or watching a lot of cooking shows! (Other than the microplane. I probably wouldn’t think of that one.)

I get intimidated by cooking a lot, because I’ve messed food up or forgotten an ingredient many times, but I forget that like…. I know how to do way more than I think I do, and that cooking is fun when I don’t feel like I’m a failure all the time

*the plot of Cooks vs. Cons is that there are two ✨professional✨ cooks (chefs) and two ‘cons’, who work in other jobs for pay and just cook because they enjoy it, etc. They all have 30 minutes to cook something and have variations of a Secret Ingredient which needs to go in the dish (examples: different kinds of chips (potato, tortilla, corn), for chocolate there was different kinds of chocolate including white chocolate and unsweetened chocolate, condiments, for maple there was maple syrup and maple butter and maple candy, etc)

[dietetiction]

Sopa de Ajo - Garlic Soup

Sopa de ajo Poco que añadir para explicar algo sobre la sopa de ajo, un plato muy especial para quienes visitan o viven en la montaña, en esas noches frías de invierno y quizás con nieve en el exterior de la casa. Se puede añadir antes de servirla, jamón picado o en tacos pequeños o quizás el huevo batido en lugar de entero como la receta que tenemos entre manos. El pan puede ser…

[naranjapetrificada]

This post is making the rounds again for whatever reason and besides all of the things that like, make absolutely perfect sense about it, for whatever reason it's also made something click about Izzy characterizations in fic that do or don't work and why and how I can (in ADHD veteran fashion) "trick" myself into handling him and his nonsense more easily.

We're always reminding people about his status as a device vs an actual character, and that's something I've understood implicitly about the show but only intellectually in fic for whatever reason. Sometimes you can "know" something without truly internalizing it and you need like, the stars to align in a certain way on a certain day before you actually know what to do with that information. I guess that day was today? Anyway.

I've talked about what I will believe about an Izzy characterization and what I won't, and those things still matter, but what's behind them is the question behind any storytelling device: what's being attempted/accomplished with him here?

And when you take away everything else about it and deal with the question head-on, it's usually extremely straightforward to answer, even with portrayals that absolutely don't work for you or may not have been intentional on the author's behalf. In fact, it can even be tied to the thing I was just saying about understanding something on an intellectual level versus actually internalizing or believing or buying into it, and how that intersects with Izzy as a device instead of a character. Because here's the thing, like The Thing the thing about Izzy in fic, from the most sympathetic canyon-cooked apologia to the most excoriating condemnation:

He's still not a person, he's a tool.

And he'll never be more than that. There are writers who understand this both intellectually and implicitly, there are writers who understand it intellectually but have yet to internalize that understanding, and there are writers who reject the premise outright. But every single one of those writers still ends up treating him that way whether they mean to or not, because we're not given more than that to work with.

Whether someone is writing a nice guy OC with Con O'Neill's face and naming that guy Izzy or is making an effort to adhere as close to the text of canon as possible, they're all just using him as a tool. Maybe they're using him as a tool to reveal something about the world or the other characters, or maybe to move the plot forward. Maybe the message they want to convey is just that they think he's hot and/or they find something compelling enough about him (or Con O'Neill's portrayal of him) to make them want to build up whatever they need to to make him seem sympathetic. But you have to engage in a great deal of invention if you want him to be more than that, at which point he starts to go all ship of Theseus.

Izzy is a character in the way that the letters I'm using to form the words that make up this post are characters, in that he exists as a device for accomplishing the goal of conveying meaning. And sure, some characters are seemingly straightforward alphanumeric characters like the number 1 and the letter I, and other times characters are complex and multilayered and capable of conveying a great deal of meaning with room for rich discussion and interpretation like in some scripts that are both phonetic and ideographic (cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese characters).

If you want to extend this overstretched metaphor even further to all characters fine, but there's still a key difference between him and the actual protagonists Ed and Stede. If they're all "characters" in this sense of the word, whether or not you write Izzy with a dull pencil on wide-ruled notebook paper or paint him on silk with a calligraphy brush, he's just the number 0 or the letter O. Ed and Stede though? They're those works of figurative calligraphy where Arabic writing takes the actual shape of a bird or a boat or a tree. They're those Chinese characters written with dozens of strokes that feel like single, self-contained poems.

And that's a distinction that matters greatly when it comes to reading and writing fanfic. So next time I'm wrestling with a portrayal of Izzy in someone else's work that doesn't work for me or I'm continuing to wrestle with the struggles of trying to write him myself, I hope I remember to pause and ask myself hey, what's the point of him here? What's he meant to do? Because who he "is" doesn't matter, and isn't even the right question. I cannot tell you how easy that makes it to quiet down all the constant noise around him and put down all the baggage attached to him and just move forward with everything. It's so freeing.

[jordaninthevalley]

Mushroom Cave vs Fruit Bat Cave

I've rewritten this post like four seperate times to the point i thought I had already posted it BUT I have not! Lucky ducky me!

I have been curious about which cave is technically better, especially since I see a lot of people are deadset on it being the fruit bat cave when I am a mushroom cave defender, so I am going to compare the two here!

What is the cave that you normally pick when you start a new save?

Divider Credit

Mushroom Cave

Pros:

Six boxes + A dehydrator

Spawns mushrooms even if theyre out of season

Spawns Common Mushroom, Red Mushroom, Purple Mushroom, Chanterelle and Morel

Helpful for Fall Foraging Bundle, Dye Bundle, Exotic Foraging Bundle, and Field Research Bundle

Helpful for crafting Life Elixir and Fall Seeds (and in turn, tea saplings)

Helpful for cooking Fried Mushroom, Tom Kha Soup, and Stir Fry

Purple Mushroom is a loved gift for the Wizard

Can make dehydrated mushrooms

Isn't obsolete after growing fruit trees

For sure produces every other day

You can customize your cave without risk of it

Helpful for three quests, all three reoccuring

Helpful for 9 unique fishpond quests, 11 total, which are as follows:

Common Mushroom: 2-3 from Bullhead, Largemouth Bass, Midnight Carp or Woodskip

Red Mushroom: 2-3 from Catfish, Spookfish or Woodskip

Purple Mushroom: 2-3 from Catfish, Rainbow Trout, Spook Fish, or Super Cucumber

Cons:

Mushrooms are always normal quality, even with Botanist Profession

Harvesting Mushrooms doesn't award any foraging XP

Other Areas Mushrooms Can Spawn:

Common Mushroom: Fall Season, Fall Seeds, Secret Woods in Spring and Fall, and Tapping a Mushroom Tree

Red Mushroom: The Mines, Secret Woods in Summer and Fall, and Tapping a Mushroom Tree

Purple Mushroom: The Mines, Tapping a Mushroom Tree in Summar and Fall

Chanterelle: Secret Woods in Fall

Morel: Secret Woods in Spring

Total Number of Pros: 16 Total Number of Cons: 2 Difference: 14 points

Fruit Bat Cave

Pros:

Can spawn up to 50 fruit.

Spawns fruit even if they're out of season

Spawns Cherrys, Pomegranate, Peach, Apple, Orange, Spice Berry, Apricot, Wild Plum, Blackberry, and Salmonberry

Helpful for Artisan Bundle, Enchanter's Bundle, Fodder Bundle, Summer Foraging Bundle, and Fall Foraging Bundle

Helpful for crafting Summer Seeds and Fall Seeds

Helpful for cooking Cranberry Candy, Fruit Salad, Plum Pudding and Blackberry Cobbler

Provides Loved Gifts for Elliott (Pomegranate), Robin (Peach), and Gus (Orange)

Can make wine, jelly, and dried fruits

Fruit can be of any quality

You benefit from the botanist profession and the gatherer profession

You earn foraging XP

Helpful for 4 quests (3 reocurring)

Cons:

Cannot customize cave as that reduces the amount of tiles where the fruit can spawn, even if it is crafted flooring.

After growing fruit trees it becomes, essentially, obsolete. Especially with the green house.

Not collecting fruit reduces the amount of fruit that can spawn overnight. For example if you have no fruit there is a 48% chance of NO new fruit spawning, but if you have ten fruit in it that chance raises to 54%

Not used in any fish pond quests

No guarentee that fruit will spawn overnight.

Other Areas Fruit Can Spawn:

Cherry: Cherry Tree in Spring (year round in greenhouse)

Apricot: Apricot Tree in Spring (year round in greenhouse)

Peach: Peach Tree in Summer (year round in greenhouse)

Orange: Orange Tree in Summer (year round in greenhouse)

Pomegranate: Pomegranate Tree in Fall (year round in greenhouse)

Apple: Apple Tree in Fall (year round in greenhouse)

Salmonberry: Bushes throughout the valley on days 15-18 in Spring.

Blackberry: Bushes throughout the valley on days 8-11 in Fall, Fall Seeds (growin in fall or year round if planted in Greenhouse)

Spice Berry: Foraging in Summer, Summer Seeds (grown in summer or year round if planted in Greenhouse)

Wild Plum: Foraging in Fall, Fall Seeds (grown in fall or year round if planted in Greenhouse)

Total Number of Pros: 12 Total Number of Cons: 5 Difference: 7 points

[amratsu]

oh yeah. this came up somewhere else so I might as well share some POWER LEVEL DISCUSSION. explanations under read more. Not sorted within the tiers.

Singularity Tier: doesn't need explaining, especially with recent MSQ where grandjeet can basically D4C their way into being the literal perfect version of themselves across all multiverses

Juiced Up Tier: Astral + some extra juice. Needs multiples of the tier below to take them on. Avatar Belial is however notably unstable and can be stalled out. Bubz is a hilarious jobber but is supposed to be strong. People here could feasibly delete an island as a general feat of power. Lucilius, Cosmos, six dragons, and so on would go here too

Inner Teachings/Eternal Tier: Prime fuckos of the sky. Top class mortal + top tier extra juice (primal or eternal weapon). Luminary Knights are about here as well. Could render an island uninhabitable. Cag belongs here but probably couldn't straight up fight anyone else in the tier; on the flip side she's capable of more raw destruction given time, and is the win con vs higher tiers in group scrambles. Boundary accessed eternals would go to Juiced Up. Narmaya is the other anomaly here but she's considered about equal to Octo and Funf.

Combat Focused Primal or Primal Hunter Tier: Self-explanatory. Could demolish a landscape. Society members don't need much explanation, they're powerful + their weapons are extremely strong, but not Revenant tier (if they got access to the automagod forms more easily, this would likely bump them up). Siegfried punches above the rest of the dragon knights by virtue of dragon blood. Belial I've never considered to have too much raw power, he's just smart. Anila's here by virtue of extrapolation; spars between Zodiacs have been shown to fuck up the area around them without much effort on their part (and that's between Kumby and Vikky, who consider themselves pretty weak). Grimnir is called a War God but I don't think he has many explicit displays of power so far. Charlotta eats her vegetables. Yuel and Socie canonically can make skyscraper high pillars of flame with their dances as a normal thing, and their story villain is pretty high up there.

Paragon Mortal Tier: Could destroy a town/make it evacuate. tbh Metera could cheese out people higher tier than her since she can fly. Otherwise, she's never really shown any explicit feat of power. I've never considered the Dragon Knights SUPER powerful as far as the whole cast goes, and they generally don't solo any of their threats, but they're the best within their groups.

Strong Combatant: Could destroy a building. Ladiva and Soriz don't have anything going for them besides martial arts. Ferry's not really ever indicated to be a strong combatant besides being a ghost and having a bunch of support summons.

Civvie: dude that's our fucking mess hall cook.