#if one more person mentions beans and lentils

[halfelven]

life so expensive when you have severe food restrictions

[plantbasedrebel]

What is a Plant-Based diet?

This blog is about my journey and experiences cooking and eating healthy food with my family.

I’m a passionate cook and I aim to take the mystery out of what a plant based diet means. If you are interested I'd like to show you how to do it too.

The Plant Based diet is made up of a variety of grains such as oats, barley, quinoa, bulgar wheat, buckwheat, and rice, legumes such as peas, beans, and lentils, vegetables, fruit, dairy-free versions of milk, cheese and yoghurt, pasta, bread, nuts, seeds and much more. 

I would also like to mention the benefits I have experienced are a noticeable increase in energy levels and all round well-being since committing to eating this way. *Please enter a little disclaimer here about how I can't promise everyone will feel this way.

We simply need to know what to look out for and where, plan ahead and ensure we are reaching our nutritional needs. This goes for any food based plan we follow. It doesn't take long to source all your favourite ingredients based on price, availability and personal choices. We are creatures of habit and usually settle on a series of dishes we enjoy that may vary throughout the seasons. I think of soups and stews more in the winter and lighter meals in the summer. It would be interesting for you to take a look in your kitchen cupboards and fridge right now to see what kind of variety you are currently eating. 

The foods that I choose not to consume are ones that are made from or contain animal products. The "why" is not very important here as I feel everyone will have their own personal reasons for not consuming animal products. I focus on what we can eat instead of what we cannot.

[acti-veg]

"Stirling’s students’ union would be much better off sourcing sustainable local meat and dairy produce from Scottish farmers instead. How can an avocado flown in from South America have eco-superiority over a piece of grass fed beef from a local farm?" How would you respond to this?

I would respond by asking what they think is outside this obvious false dichotomy, where we’ve only been presented with two options: what they think is the best possible meat option vs what they think is the worst possible plant option - does that sound like a fair comparison to you? Why even compare beef with avocado, which isn’t even a good protein source and wouldn’t be used in the same sorts of meals that beef would?

It’s also just objectively untrue. Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%. You can read about this in detail here along with peer reviewed sources but the crux of the issue is that in terms of emissions, what you eat is far more important than where it is from.

As George Monbiot points out in his book Regenesis (an excellent and very well researched book on this topic): ‘You would have to ship a kilo of dried peas roughly one hundred times around the world before it’s greenhouse gases matched those of a kilo of local beef.’

Why did they choose avocado specifically for this comparison, rather than say, lentils, peas or beans? Because they assume it will serve their argument, but even this incredibly biased example is still wrong, beef and dairy rank alongside seafood as some of the most environmentally destructive foods you can eat, regardless of where it is from.

None of this is even mentioning accessibility, either. How many students can afford to buy locally raised beef? Do you know what it would cost for a student Union venue to stock only local beef and dairy, when compared with almost any other wisely chosen plant protein? We are talking many times the price for a product that is less sustainable and less healthy to boot.

A single serving of lentils is about 40p per person, and that’s just my local supermarket price for canned, ready to eat lentils - it isn’t even including wholesale or bulk savings - a student Union would almost definitely be paying even less. What do you think a portion of locally raised beef would cost, in Stirling, at a time when the price of meat and dairy is skyrocketing in the U.K?

It’s also far less inclusive than offering plants, allergens of course mean there needs to be a good range on offer but there are very few people who won’t eat chickpeas or lentils for spiritual or ethical reasons - not so for beef and dairy. This is just pure assumption based on misinformation - the entire objection is a non-starter. There are lots of good reasons to advocate for local foods over imported ones, but climate really isn’t one of them.

[rabbitcruiser]

National Eat Beans Day

National Eat Beans Day (or National Eat Your Beans Day) occurs on July 3 each year, and we guarantee it will be a holiday that will give you a whole new appreciation for legumes as a food group. And if not, perhaps our fun facts and riddles will have you full of beans.  Try this one on for size — ‘I am a bean, very lean. I am not fat, I’m sure of that. Like all beans, I’m small and round — but unlike others, I don’t grow in the ground’. Giving away the answer would be too easy, but we’ll give you a hint — this may be a kid’s favorite kind of bean. It may also surprise you to know that beans are not strictly classified as ‘veggies’ either since legumes by definition are any seeds or fruits that grow within pods or the edible pods themselves, which grow on leguminous plants (i.e. those belonging to the pea family). This opens up a whole world of beans to us, which should be exciting, especially for those who grew up being forced to eat beans as a vegetable.

History of National Eat Beans Day

Though the exact date and reason for National Eat Beans Day being made a holiday are not known, we do know that the history of the bean itself predates even the invention of the pots used to cook beans.  Bean cultivation dates back as early as 7,000 years ago, making it a staple that has stood the test of time, and we’re not surprised. With amazing health benefits, legumes are plant-based, protein-packed powerhouses of nutrition. So this also means that they’re for everyone, no matter the diet or lifestyle choice. It’s very rare to find a person allergic to beans too, though some legumes can trigger allergic reactions, such as peanuts.

Beans are originally from wild vines which grow in Central and South America. This is known as the common bean, and since then, thousands of bean varieties exist today and are cultivated all over the world. They are one of the most versatile crops and can be grown almost anywhere. 5,000 years ago the lima bean and other varieties were a popular favorite among the Incas and Aztecs, and the popularity of beans is so much so that they are worth a mention in Homer’s “Iliad,” where he uses beans as a metaphor. Ancient Egyptians seem to have also been partial to beans and lentils, as paintings and physical evidence shows that bodies were buried with beans, to nourish them on their journey to the afterlife. By the 1500s, with the advent of trade via ships, beans began to reach all the corners of the globe and more varieties began to be cultivated. Though often viewed as a poor man’s food, beans have been an important source of nourishment for people in dire circumstances; such as the soldiers who fought in the First and Second World Wars, or the Europeans who were dying out due to the spread of the plague in Europe, during the Middle Ages. Who would have thought beans could be such lifesavers.

National Eat Beans Day timeline

700 B.C. The French Revamp Vegetable Soup

The French begin to add chickpeas to their vegetable soup, making it a heartier meal in every way.

800 A.D. Chickpea Cultivation Helps Save Lives

Emperor Charlemagne orders the cultivation of chickpeas to save people from the ravage of war, and it works.

1700s Beans Spread Across the World

With the increase in trade, beans begin to be traded all over the world.

1920s Beans Help Ward Off the Great Depression

Beans become the poor man’s meat during the Great Depression in America, enabling many families to survive.

National Eat Beans Day FAQs

What are the healthiest beans to eat?

The top nine healthiest beans/legumes to eat are — chickpeas, lentils, peas, kidney beans, black beans, soybeans, pinto beans, navy beans, and peanuts.

Is it bad to eat beans at night?

Yes, eating beans at night is not recommended. This is because beans can cause indigestion or gas problems, so it’s better to stick to eating that bowl of chili during the daytime.

Is it okay to eat beans every day?

Yes! Not only are beans low in fat, but they are also great sources of protein and fiber, and they come packed with nutrients like iron, folate, calcium, and potassium. This can help protect against high cholesterol which may lead to heart disease. The recommended portion size of beans/lentils is 25-38 grams a day.

National Eat Beans Day Activities

Eat beans

Grow your own beanstalk

Fix up a care package

Yes, you guessed it. Sometimes simplicity is everything. In this case, we’re keeping it real simple, by telling you to go eat some beans — green, black, red, or yellow — the choice is yours. Boil them, bake them, saute them, mush them, or eat them raw; beans are bound to have your body thanking you for years to come.

Though we cannot guarantee a hen laying golden eggs at the end of it, we can guarantee that there’s nothing better than the feeling of eating your own home-grown produce. And what’s more, the golden glow of health which your beans will bring you is worth far more than any golden egg-laying hen!

One of the things we love about beans is how affordable (we daresay cheap even) they are. So why not take the time to gather some different types of legumes, a hand-written little booklet of recipes, and give them to a family who may need extra beans.

5 Recipes We Bet You Never Thought Used Beans

Beanie brownies

Honey-roasted chickpeas

Navy bean pesto

Bean burger

Alfredo sauce

These ooey-gooey delicious brownies come with a surprising twist — black beans are the star ingredient!

Step aside, caramel popcorn, as this delicious, crunchy snack takes over the coffee table at your next movie night.

Pureed navy beans with any greens can make an amazing and hearty pesto sauce.

All the flavor, all the protein, but not meat. Perfect for everyone, even those hardcore meat lovers.

White beans can make the perfect, silky alfredo sauce, which will cause all to go “mama mia”!

Why We Love National Eat Beans Day

Beans are healthy

Beans have a variety

Beans are cheap

If we have not said this enough times already, we will say it again — beans are so good for you. Not only are they amazing sources of protein and fiber, but they also contain folic acid, iron, potassium, and calcium, all of which are beneficial to prevent all sorts of medical conditions.

Some say that there are as many as 4,000 varieties of beans out there. If that doesn’t inspire you to start exploring and experimenting in the kitchen, we don’t know what will. Trying out different beans can also bring you one step closer to exploring a whole new cuisine or culture, and variety is the spice of life, after all.

We’re glad that beans were overlooked by the rich snobs throughout history so that we all can enjoy the delicious benefits of beans without feeling the pinch in our pockets. For something to be cheap and nutritious almost stretches belief.

[ramadhanseries]

தமிழில்

JUZ 8 - LESSONS (1)

A caller to the Truth faces resistance from devils from among the humans and jinn. The stronger your emaan, the more resistance you will face. Sometimes from your parents, your spouse, your children, your siblings or someone else. It is discouraging and heartbreaking, but remember this resistance is temporary. Increase your tolerance level for the sake of a peaceful Hereafter.

- Zukhrufal Qawli - decorative speech (6:112), speech that twists reality. Sometimes people spread lies in such a beautified way that we believe them to be true. Beware!

- "And if you obey most of those upon the earth, they will mislead you from the way of Allah," (6:116). The majority is not always right. It can deceive you. Our guidance is the Qur'an and Sunnah and not personal desires or opinions.

- Don't eat the meat on which Allah's Name has not been taken, it is a condition of our emaan. We cannot just go to McDonald's (if you live in the West) because we love to eat there. Verify, if the meat fulfills the condition of being halal.

CONDITIONS FOR MEAT TO BE CONSIDERED PERMISSIBLE TO EAT:

• The animal should be permissible (such as goat, lamb, cow and camel) • Name of Allah SWT MUST be mentioned upon slaughtering the animal

The blood has to be drained out (which means it MUST be slaughtered)

We cannot eat the meat of an animal that was electrocuted or shot (for details, please read the tafseer on our blog). If you are not sure about how the animal was killed and whether or not Allah's Name was mentioned, then avoid it. Eat vegetables, fruits, lentils or beans.

Leave apparent and hidden sins

What is sin?

The Prophet (SA) said,

"...Sin is that which causes discomfort (or pinches) within your soul and dislike that people become aware of it." [Saheeh Muslim]

➡️APPARENT SINS⬅️

1. To do with money or relations

2. Performed by one's limbs or tongue

3. Acceptable by the people (such as smoking)

4. Done publicly

⬅️HIDDEN SINS➡️

1. Done privately

2. Not acceptable by the people

3. Done by the heart

LESSON: Don't be righteous only in front of the people. Fix your private life.

- "And indeed do the devils inspire their allies [among men] to dispute with you," (6:121). Don't engage in arguments. It is Satan's trick to stop us from doing righteous deeds. If people argue with you, say Salaam and move away. Don't waste your time.

A person is in the darkness, then Allah SWT opens up the door of His mercy on him and gives him the knowledge of the Qur'an. The Qur'an becomes a source of light for this person by which he conducts his day to day affairs. A person who has the knowledge of the Qur'an is an independent thinker! He doesn't blindly follow the majority, the trends or his own desires. He verifies the right and the wrong through the light of the Qur'an.

It teaches us that even if the entire society is misguided if we have "ilm" (knowledge of the Deen) then we won't be lost.

- For him whom Allah SWT wills good, He opens up his chest to the understanding of Islam. Such a person comes to Islam with joy. He feels motivated to do good deeds and they become easy for him. He doesn't criticize Deen or the commands of Allah SWT. He submits even if some commands are difficult for him. May Allah SWT make us of them, ameen.

- Such people get the House of Peace in Jannah, Dar-us-Salam. They attain the friendship of Allah SWT because of the deeds they performed and for what they endured (meaning harm from the people because of their submission to Allah SWT and incitement of the nafs).

- If we disobey Allah SWT, it's not difficult for Him to replace us with the people who are better than us. Therefore, make Du'a:

O Allah, please don't replace me with someone who is better than me in worshipping You and striving in Your path. Please make me such that it becomes easy for me to strive in Your path with excellence, ameen.

- Abortion is a sin (unless there is a risk to the mother's or baby's health)

- When Allah SWT blesses you then do shukr and share your blessings with others

Be moderate in generosity too. Do not give everything in charity that later you regret it.

- Only Allah SWT declares what is halal and what is not halal

- Sometimes a person is deprived of provision because of his disobedience or sins. Allah SWT is not unjust with His servants, we block our blessings by our sins.

- Nip the evil in the bud. Do not be too frank with a non-mahram.

- Be just no matter where you are

- "Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, Lord of the worlds," (6:162). Waking up for Tahajjud, fasting voluntarily, going for Hajj or Umrah (taking selfies or updating check-ins) - the world doesn't need to know. Keep your good deeds a secret between yourself and Allah SWT, if they were really done for His sake. Don't make partners in your worship.

Our eating, our sleeping, our work...everything should be according to the Qur'an and Sunnah.

Our death should be according to the Qur'an and Sunnah meaning we die as

Muslims and all funeral rites are according to the Sunnah:

My funeral should not be delayed because we're waiting for a relative to come from abroad or another city. Bury me in the land where I die. My body doesn't need to be transported to my home country or ancestral land. I be given Ghusl by Allah-fearing person so that they conceal what they see.

Write it in your will and inform soone.

Arrogance is a Satanic trait. Don't consider yourself better than others. Check your heart.

- If Iblees's prayer can be accepted then why wouldn't our Du'as be accepted? Make Du'as for yourself. Don't lose hope.

- He who maintains a connection with Allah SWT and is grateful can be saved from the traps of Shaytan

Prophet Adam and Hawwa (AS) Du'a:

رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْحَاسِرِينَ

"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers." (7:23)

- It is from the Fitrah to cover ourselves. If our clothes do not cover us according to the Islamic guidelines then it is as if we are naked. Check your clothes (both men and women).

Allah SWT says: O children of Adam, let not Satan tempt you as he removed your parents from Paradise, stripping them of their clothing... (7:27)

- Keep yourself clean. Take shower daily. There should be no body odor or bad

breath when we stand up for prayer or go to an Islamic class.

- Eat and drink, but be not excessive (7:31)

- Call upon your Lord in humility and privately (7:55)

- If you want Allah SWT to be merciful towards to you, then be merciful with the people

- A good soul is like fertile land, it only produces good.

JUZ 8 - பாடங்கள் (1)

சத்தியத்தை அழைப்பவர் மனிதர்கள் மற்றும் ஜின்களிடமிருந்து ஷைத்தான்களிடமிருந்து எதிர்ப்பை எதிர்கொள்கிறார். உங்கள் இமான் வலிமையானால், அதிக எதிர்ப்பை நீங்கள் சந்திக்க நேரிடும். சில நேரங்களில் உங்கள் பெற்றோர், உங்கள் மனைவி, உங்கள் குழந்தைகள், உங்கள் உடன்பிறந்தவர்கள் அல்லது வேறு யாரிடமாவது. இது ஊக்கமளிக்கிறது மற்றும் இதயத்தை உடைக்கிறது, ஆனால் இந்த எதிர்ப்பு தற்காலிகமானது என்பதை நினைவில் கொள்ளுங்கள். அமைதியான மறுமைக்காக உங்கள் சகிப்புத்தன்மையை அதிகரிக்கவும்.

- Zukhrufal Qawli - அலங்கார பேச்சு (6:112), யதார்த்தத்தை திரிக்கும் பேச்சு. சில சமயங்களில் மக்கள் பொய்களை மிகவும் அழகாகப் பரப்பி அவை உண்மை என்று நம்புகிறோம். ஜாக்கிரதை!

- "பூமியில் உள்ளவர்களில் பெரும்பாலானோருக்கு நீங்கள் கீழ்ப்படிந்தால், அவர்கள் உங்களை அல்லாஹ்வின் பாதையிலிருந்து வழிகெடுப்பார்கள்" (6:116). பெரும்பான்மை எப்போதும் சரியாக இருக்காது. அது உங்களை ஏமாற்றலாம். எங்களின் வழிகாட்டல் குர்ஆனும் சுன்னாவும் தான் அன்றி தனிப்பட்ட ஆசைகள் அல்லது கருத்துக்கள் அல்ல.

- அல்லாஹ்வின் பெயர் சொல்லப்படாத இறைச்சியை உண்ணாதீர்கள், இது எங்கள் எமானின் நிபந்தனை. நாங்கள் மெக்டொனால்டுக்குச் செல்ல முடியாது (நீங்கள் மேற்கு நாடுகளில் வாழ்ந்தால்) நாங்கள் அங்கு சாப்பிட விரும்புகிறோம். இறைச்சி ஹலால் என்ற நிபந்தனையை பூர்த்தி செய்தால் சரிபார்க்கவும்.

இறைச்சி சாப்பிடுவதற்கு அனுமதிக்கப்பட்ட நிபந்தனைகள்:

• விலங்கு அனுமதிக்கப்பட வேண்டும் (ஆடு, ஆட்டுக்குட்டி, மாடு மற்றும் ஒட்டகம் போன்றவை)

• விலங்குகளை அறுக்கும் போது அல்லாஹ்வின் பெயர் குறிப்பிடப்பட வேண்டும்.

• இரத்தம் வெளியேற்றப்பட வேண்டும்

மின்சாரம் தாக்கி அல்லது சுடப்பட்ட விலங்கின் இறைச்சியை நாம் உண்ண முடியாது (விவரங்களுக்கு, எங்கள் வலைப்பதிவில் உள்ள தஃப்சீரைப் படிக்கவும்). விலங்கு எவ்வாறு கொல்லப்பட்டது மற்றும் அல்லாஹ்வின் பெயர் குறிப்பிடப்பட்டதா இல்லையா என்பது குறித்து உங்களுக்குத் தெரியாவிட்டால், அதைத் தவிர்க்கவும். காய்கறிகள், பழங்கள், பருப்பு அல்லது பீன்ஸ் சாப்பிடுங்கள்.

வெளிப்படையான மற்றும் மறைவான பாவங்களை விட்டு விடுங்கள்

பாவம் என்றால் என்ன?

நபி (ஸல்) அவர்கள் கூறினார்கள்.

"... பாவம் என்பது உங்கள் ஆன்மாவிற்குள் அசௌகரியத்தை (அல்லது கிள்ளுதல்களை) ஏற்படுத்துகிறது மற்றும் மக்கள் அதை அறிய விரும்பாதது." [ஸஹீஹ் முஸ்லிம்]

➡️வெளிப்படையான பாவங்கள்⬅️

1. பணம் அல்லது உறவுகளுடன் செய்ய

2. ஒருவரின் கைகால் அல்லது நாக்கால் நிகழ்த்தப்படுகிறது

3. மக்களால் ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளப்படும் (புகைபிடித்தல் போன்றவை)

4. பகிரங்கமாக செய்யப்பட்டது

⬅️மறைக்கப்பட்ட பாவங்கள்➡️

1. தனிப்பட்ட முறையில் செய்யப்பட்டது

2. மக்களால் ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள முடியாதது

3. இதயத்தால் செய்யப்பட்டது

பாடம்: மக்கள் முன்னிலையில் மட்டும் நேர்மையாக இருக்காதீர்கள். உங்கள் தனிப்பட்ட வாழ்க்கையை சரிசெய்யவும்.

- "நிச்சயமாக ஷைத்தான்கள் தங்கள் கூட்டாளிகளை (மனிதர்களிடையே) உங்களுடன் விவாதம் செய்ய தூண்டுகின்றன" (6:121). வாக்குவாதங்களில் ஈடுபடாதீர்கள். நற்செயல்களைச் செய்வதிலிருந்து நம்மைத் தடுப்பது சாத்தானின் தந்திரம். மக்கள் உங்களுடன் வாக்குவாதத்தில் ஈடுபட்டால் சலாம் கூறிவிட்டு விலகிச் செல்லுங்கள். உங்கள் நேரத்தை வீணாக்காதீர்கள்.

ஒரு நபர் இருளில் இருக்கிறார், பின்னர் அல்லாஹ் SWT அவர் மீது தனது கருணையின் கதவைத் திறந்து அவருக்கு குர்ஆனைப் பற்றிய அறிவைக் கொடுக்கிறான். குர்ஆன் இந்த நபருக்கு ஒளியின் ஆதாரமாகிறது, அதன் மூலம் அவர் தனது அன்றாட விவகாரங்களை நடத்துகிறார். அல்குர்ஆன் அறிவு பெற்றவர் சுதந்திர சிந்தனையாளர்! அவர் பெரும்பான்மை, போக்குகள் அல்லது அவரது சொந்த ஆசைகளை கண்மூடித்தனமாக பின்பற்றுவதில்லை. குர்ஆன் ஒளியின் மூலம் சரி, தவறை சரிபார்த்துக் காட்டுகிறார்.

நம்மிடம் "இல்ம்" (தீனின் அறிவு) இருந்தால், ஒட்டுமொத்த சமுதாயமும் வழிகெட்டாலும், நாம் இழக்கப்பட மாட்டோம் என்பதை இது நமக்குக் கற்பிக்கிறது.

அல்லாஹ் யாரை விரும்புகிறானோ அவருக்கு, இஸ்லாத்தைப் பற்றிய புரிதலுக்கு அவன் நெஞ்சைத் திறக்கிறான். அப்படிப்பட்டவர் மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் இஸ்லாத்திற்கு வருகிறார். அவர் நல்ல செயல்களைச் செய்ய உந்துதல் பெறுகிறார், மேலும் அவை அவருக்கு எளிதாகின்றன. அவர் தீனையோ அல்லது அல்லாஹ்வின் கட்டளைகளையோ விமர்சிக்கவில்லை. சில கட்டளைகள் அவருக்கு கடினமாக இருந்தாலும் சமர்பிக்கிறார். அவர்களில் அல்லாஹ் நம்மை ஆக்குவானாக, ஆமீன்.

- அத்தகையவர்கள் ஜன்னா, தாருஸ்ஸலாமில் அமைதி இல்லத்தைப் பெறுகிறார்கள். அவர்கள் செய்த செயல்கள் மற்றும் அவர்கள் தாங்கியவற்றின் காரணமாக அவர்கள் அல்லாஹ்வின் நட்பை அடைகிறார்கள் (அல்லாஹ்வுக்கு அடிபணிவதால் மக்களிடமிருந்து தீங்கு மற்றும் நஃப்ஸைத் தூண்டுதல்).

- நாம் அல்லாஹ்வுக்குக் கீழ்ப்படியாமல் போனால், நம்மை விடச் சிறந்தவர்களைக் கொண்டு நம்மை மாற்றுவது அவனுக்குக் கடினமானதல்ல. எனவே, துஆ செய்யுங்கள்:

யா அல்லாஹ், உன்னை வணங்குவதிலும், உனது பாதையில் பாடுபடுவதிலும் என்னை விட சிறந்த ஒருவரை எனக்கு மாற்றாதீர். உன்னுடைய பாதையில் உன்னதத்துடன் பாடுபடுவது எனக்கு எளிதாகும் வகையில் என்னை ஆக்குவாயாக, ஆமீன்.

- கருக்கலைப்பு ஒரு பாவம் (தாய் அல்லது குழந்தையின் ஆரோக்கியத்திற்கு ஆபத்து இல்லாவிட்டால்)

- அல்லாஹ் SWT உங்களை ஆசீர்வதிக்கும்போது, ​​ஷுக்ர் செய்யுங்கள் மற்றும் உங்கள் ஆசீர்வாதங்களை மற்றவர்களுடன் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள்

பெருந்தன்மையிலும் மிதமாக இருங்கள். பிறகு வருந்துகின்ற அனைத்தையும் தர்மத்தில் கொடுக்காதீர்கள்.

- எது ஹலால் எது ஹலால் அல்ல என்பதை அல்லாஹ் SWT மட்டுமே அறிவிக்கிறான்

- சில சமயங்களில் ஒரு நபர் தனது கீழ்ப்படியாமை அல்லது பாவங்களின் காரணமாக வழங்குவதை இழக்கிறார். அல்லாஹ் SWT தனது ஊழியர்களுடன் அநீதி இழைக்கவில்லை, நம்முடைய பாவங்களால் நமது ஆசீர்வாதங்களைத் தடுக்கிறோம்.

- தீமையை மொட்டுக்குள் முட்டு. மஹ்ரம் அல்லாதவருடன் மிகவும் வெளிப்படையாக இருக்காதீர்கள்.

- நீங்கள் எங்கிருந்தாலும் சும்மா இருங்கள்

- "உண்மையில், எனது பிரார்த்தனை, எனது தியாகம், எனது வாழ்க்கை மற்றும் எனது மரணம் அகிலங்களின் இறைவனாகிய அல்லாஹ்வுக்கே" (6:162). தஹஜ்ஜுதுக்காக எழுந்திருத்தல், தானாக முன்வந்து நோன்பு நோற்பது, ஹஜ் அல்லது உம்ராவுக்குச் செல்வது (செல்ஃபி எடுப்பது அல்லது செக்-இன்களைப் புதுப்பித்தல்) - உலகம் அறியத் தேவையில்லை. உங்கள் நற்செயல்களை உங்களுக்கும் அல்லாஹ்வுக்கும் இடையில் ரகசியமாக வைத்திருங்கள், அவை உண்மையில் அவனுக்காக செய்யப்பட்டிருந்தால். உங்கள் வழிபாட்டில் பங்காளிகளாக ஆக்காதீர்கள்.

நாம் சாப்பிடுவது, உறங்குவது, வேலை செய்வது... எல்லாமே குர்ஆன், ஸுன்னாவின்படி இருக்க வேண்டும்.

நமது மரணம் குர்ஆன் மற்றும் சுன்னாவின் படி இருக்க வேண்டும் அதாவது நாம் மரணமடைய வேண்டும்

முஸ்லிம்கள் மற்றும் அனைத்து இறுதி சடங்குகளும் சுன்னாவின் படி:

வெளிநாட்டிலோ அல்லது வேறு நகரத்திலோ உறவினர் வருவதற்காக நாங்கள் காத்திருப்பதால் எனது இறுதிச் சடங்குகள் தாமதிக்கப்படக்கூடாது. நான் இறக்கும் நாட்டில் என்னை அடக்கம் செய்யுங்கள். எனது உடலை சொந்த நாட்டிற்கு அல்லது பூர்வீக நிலத்திற்கு கொண்டு செல்ல வேண்டிய அவசியமில்லை. அவர்கள் பார்ப்பதை மறைப்பதற்காக அல்லாஹ்வுக்கு அஞ்சுபவரால் எனக்கு குஸ்ல் கொடுக்கப்படுகிறது.

அதை உங்கள் உயிலில் எழுதி யாருக்காவது தெரிவிக்கவும்.

ஆணவம் சாத்தானின் குணம். மற்றவர்களை விட உங்களை சிறந்தவராக கருதாதீர்கள். உங்கள் இதயத்தை சரிபார்க்கவும்.

- இப்லீஸின் பிரார்த்தனை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளப்பட்டால், ஏன் எங்கள் துஆக்கள் ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளப்படாது? நீங்களே துஆ செய்யுங்கள். நம்பிக்கையை இழக்காதீர்கள்.

- அல்லாஹ் SWT உடன் தொடர்பைப் பேணுபவர் மற்றும் நன்றியுள்ளவராக இருப்பவர் ஷைத்தானின் பொறிகளில் இருந்து காப்பாற்றப்பட முடியும்.

நபி ஆதம் மற்றும் ஹவ்வா (அலை) துஆ:

رَبَّنَا ظَلَمۡنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنِ مَنَرْحَ

"எங்கள் இறைவனே, எங்களுக்கு நாமே அநியாயம் செய்து கொண்டோம், நீ எங்களை மன்னித்து கருணை காட்டாவிட்டால், நிச்சயமாக நாங்கள் நஷ்டமடைந்தவர்களாகி விடுவோம்." (7:23)

- இது நம்மை மறைத்துக் கொள்வதற்காக ஃபித்ராவிலிருந்து வருகிறது. இஸ்லாமிய வழிகாட்டுதலின்படி நம் ஆடைகள் நம்மை மறைக்கவில்லை என்றால் அது நாம் நிர்வாணமாக இருப்பது போலாகும். உங்கள் ஆடைகளைச் சரிபார்க்கவும் (ஆண்கள் மற்றும் பெண்கள் இருவரும்).

அல்லாஹ் SWT கூறுகிறான்: ஆதாமின் குழந்தைகளே, உங்கள் பெற்றோரை சொர்க்கத்தில் இருந்து அகற்றியது போல் சாத்தான் உங்களைச் சோதிக்க வேண்டாம், அவர்களின் ஆடைகளை களைந்தான்... (7:27)

- உங்களை சுத்தமாக வைத்திருங்கள். தினமும் குளிக்கவும். உடல் துர்நாற்றம் அல்லது கெட்டது இருக்கக்கூடாது

நாம் தொழுகைக்காக எழுந்து நிற்கும்போது அல்லது இஸ்லாமிய வகுப்பிற்குச் செல்லும் போது சுவாசிக்கவும்.

- உண்ணுங்கள், பருகுங்கள், ஆனால் அதிகமாக இருக்காதீர்கள் (7:31)

- உங்கள் இறைவனை பணிவாகவும் அந்தரங்கமாகவும் அழையுங்கள் (7:55)

- அல்லாஹ் உங்கள் மீது கருணை காட்ட வேண்டுமென நீங்கள் விரும்பினால், மக்களிடம் கருணை காட்டுங்கள்

- ஒரு நல்ல ஆன்மா வளமான நிலம் போன்றது, அது நல்லதை மட்டுமே உற்பத்தி செய்கிறது.

[albinanmuro]

Tips for starting a keto diet

A keto diet is an eating plan that is based on the consumption of foods rich in good fats and proteins, together with the reduction or cancellation of the consumption of carbohydrates.

All this subjects the body to a metabolic state called ketosis, which produces energy thanks to the generation of ketone bodies keto shopping list. These bodies are a source of energy that comes from fatty acids and that replace sugars in this function occurs when their intake is reduced.

 What foods are suitable for a keto diet?

Are you thinking about starting a ketogenic diet but you are not sure what type of food is the most suitable? Next, we will tell you how to start a keto diet and what are the foods that you should include in it.

Recommended foods on a keto diet:

Unprocessed meats are the most convenient, because they do not contain preservatives such as corn starch.

All fish and shellfish are good, but you should avoid floured and breaded ones, because they contain carbohydrates.

Fatty dairy products such as butter, lard or goat cheese.

Organic eggs are   rich in omega 3.

In the ketogenic diet, calories must come from natural fats, as in the foods already mentioned, but we can also ingest fats from seasonings such as olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil.

It is allowed to combine these foods to taste and make a menu as we like, but taking into account that we must diversify during the time that we are focused on the diet.

 Foods to Avoid on a Ketogenic Diet:

As we have already mentioned, any food with a high carbohydrate composition should be eliminated from the diet, and even more so if these are simple carbohydrates.

Sugary foods and drinks such as soft drinks, juices and industrial pastries plus wheat cereals, rice, or pasta.

Legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, beans and peas.

The fruits that contain the most sugar in the form of carbohydrates such as cherries, bananas or grapes.

Sauces that contain sugar and saturated fats such as ketchup or tomato, barbecue sauce and mustard.

In addition, all kinds of alcoholic beverages with a high sugar content make up the list of foods that should be reduced on a ketogenic diet.

 Who can do a keto diet?

The keto diet can be very useful, but the truth is that it is not suitable for everyone. It is optimal for a person who is overweight, diabetic or who, for another reason, needs to improve their metabolism. But it is not suitable for pregnant and lactating women.

[ultra-maha-us]

Healthy Foods Can Help You With Your Weight Loss Goals

We have said that eating healthy foods will definitely help you lose weight. And someone may ask what constitutes healthy foods? My personal definition of healthy foods is the green vegetable foods and fruits. These I also call the clean foods as they are clean, low in calories and do not have any residues after eating them. Unlike the high calorie foods and its fatty cousins which always leave bad residues of waste in your system, fruits and vegetables do not leave such residues that are why I see fruits and vegetables as healthy foods. On the meaty side, clean foods include foods like chicken, turkey and fish.

These meats are lean on fat and calories compared to raw beef. Lentils, dry beans and peas are also passing as clean foods. When one starts eating from the green vegetable and lean meat foods listed above, they will start losing weight because of the fact that fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods have high concentration of complex carbohydrates and fiber in them which the body can slowly absorb them and thus cause our hunger pangs to be satisfied quickly and efficiently.

The case against processed foods is that because their nutritional values are low and the fact that they do not make us feel full easily like the natural foods, they do not make us feel satisfied and this like addiction causes us to want to eat more of it when we know for sure that it is against our weight loss or maintenance goals. I once read a book about natural foods and the meatballs and rice author said in that book that bad foods like drugs leave behind their unhealthy residue of waste behind after eating them so that as the residues stay in our system, it causes us to want to eat more to cover up the poisoning effect of that residues. You see, when we are not eating, our stomach gets into the mode for cleansing and when that happens, the poisons are all bubbled up from the tissues of our stomach into the surface.

When that happens we start feeling sick or weak and this I have found out that when it happens will cause people to eat more foods to stop the stomach's cleansing work thus stopping the poisons from coming up to the surface and with this stopping comes our relief from the weakness that the food residues now turning into poison causes us to feel. Usually, people who undergo long periods of fasting for detoxification purpose experience this effect but even if you are not fasting one can still experience a mild form of this experience which even that is not convenient. This explains why people who eat junk food tend to eat more and that as already mentioned above is to stop them from getting sick or weak from the poisons in their stomachs that the stomach is trying to evict at ever chance of not eating for a few hours of time.

Even though manufactures of food argue that there is a need to include preservatives into our foods to preserve them and make them last longer, the side effect of such practice is not good as it has caused many of industrialized world's health to deteriorate as it stands now. Perhaps our biggest nutritional mistake has been turning away from foods in their natural state. We have replaced them with processed foods that have been modified to last longer, be easier to manufacture and distribute, and be more convenient to store and use.

For example, when I go to the grocery store, I see apple Juice that has no fiber at all and then when I go to a health food store, I see apple Juice with the fiber in them. Unfortunately the apple Juice with the fiber in them are expensive and they are not found any where except in health food stores so a great majority of the population do not get access to the healthy apple Juice except the one that has been heavily processed and all the fiber taken out from them. The apple Juice with the fiber in them are the good ones because they are full of fiber and are able to help aid weight loss and good health. The apple Juice with no fiber is usually full of added sugars and they tend to contain more calories than the regular apple or the apple Juice with the fiber. This is to say that process foods are not good that is why they are usually less expensive than the healthy unprocessed equivalents.

[sam-and-buck]

At Home With Captain America

Fandom: MCU

Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes

Rating: G

Words: 7.7k

Also on AO3

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

At Home with Captain America

By: Adrien Davis

Published: February 2, 2026, 3:35 PM 

To say I’m intimidated by interviewing Captain America in his own home would be an understatement, and I would never have thought to ask if I could do that if he hadn’t personally invited me. Normally, I’d start one of these articles by describing the location, maybe even throw in an anecdote or two about how I got there, but that’s not going to be possible here.

Sam Wilson lives on [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. It was a windy day.

Here’s what I can tell you: it’s an apartment. A nice one. Two bedroom, two bath.

“Am I allowed to describe the inside of your house?” is one of the first things I say to him, after getting his permission to turn on my recorder.

“Go right ahead,” he laughs, arms crossed over the worn USAF logo on his gray t-shirt. “Just don’t put the street name in there or anything.”

Wilson gives me a moment to poke around. Whoever decorated this place has good taste; it’s no haphazard bachelor pad. There’s an exposed brick wall in the otherwise slate blue living room, several plants (which I assume are fakes—albeit convincing ones—since Wilson is, by his own admission, not home as often as he’d like to be), a sturdy walnut coffee table, and a magnificently squishy-looking red couch.

It’s unmistakably lived in, though. I don’t get the sense that the place has been scrubbed spotless or particularly arranged for my visit. There are two abandoned mugs on coasters sitting on the coffee table, along with several different remote controls, and a stack of half-finished books with dog-eared corners. A pile of mail has been pushed to the side. Next to the door, a wall-mounted coat rack holds several leather jackets in shades of brown and black, and at least as many sweaters, mostly navy blue, charcoal and maroon. The shoe rack underneath houses multiple pairs of black combat boots, worn running shoes, house slippers. And next to that, on the floor, a large, gleaming silver case with red detail that could only contain Wilson’s Falcon wingpack. The legendary shield is propped up against it, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I’m trying to imagine how it would be to leave the house for him. Got my keys, wings, phone, shield, wallet?

There are pictures on the walls and the mantle above the fireplace, under the television. People who I can only assume are Wilson’s relatives by their similarly gap-toothed smiles. Veterans. Wilson in full air force gear next to a blond man I don’t recognize. Then Captain Steve Rogers, in the 1940s with the Howling Commandos, and in the twenty-first century by himself. Wilson with Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff. One conspicuously empty nail where a large frame would clearly fit. 

Scattered among these are several very old, dour black and white photographs of a dark-haired family. The first shows a mother, father and two small children, a boy and girl. The second is the mother and children only, taken some time after, judging by their apparent ages. The third is several years later still; the same children with light eyes and dark hair, but they’re teeangers now, and without parents. They look haunting and out-of-place among the glossy prints of Wilson’s big, happy family in matching 80s colorblocked tracksuits, or Wilson and his sisters in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and toys.

There’s also a wood-framed painting that stands out: an idyllic watercolor of a little farmhouse with a green roof and shuttered windows in a field. A small pile of lumber and a white mailbox make up the foreground. The most distinctive feature is the signature at the bottom: S.G.R. I know those initials. 

“Captain Rogers painted this?”

“Uh huh,” Wilson nods fondly, hands now in his pockets. “Man of many talents. Maybe every talent. Having a hard time thinking of anything he wasn’t good at.”

I hear the unstated in that. A tough act to follow.

I think, for purposes of journalistic integrity, I should probably insert my bias before we go any further. We had never met before this interview, but I am and have always been enormously supportive of Captain Wilson and the work he’s done, and have written myriad articles and think pieces about him over the past several years. He’s shown himself time and again to be a man of unshakable integrity and endless emotional intelligence, and frankly, I’m more worried about the poor sucker who’s going to have to follow Wilson. Rogers did a lot of great things, but among the best of them was choosing a successor.

I tell him as much and he smiles, looking down at his shoes.

“Yeah, I know that’s how you feel,” he says. “I requested you for this piece, actually, because of that. People are going to accuse me of wanting a softball interview here, and maybe they’re right. For this one, I think that’s what I need.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, but he continues before I can ask.

“We should probably do this in the kitchen.” Wilson indicates behind us with his thumb, after I’ve stood silently in his living room for probably way too long. “That couch is too comfortable. I end up falling asleep every time I sit on it.”

The kitchen is, perhaps, a little cramped. There’s a large, dark marble-topped kitchen island that just fits in the center of the room with four bar stools tucked under it. The cabinets are tall, with glass doors showcasing a massive collection of healthy, but non-perishable food. The shelf nearest us holds several well-used bags of pantry supplies: chickpea flour, arrowroot starch, raw sugar. There’s a pasta shelf above it, but no Kraft Mac in sight; everything is lentil-based, chickpea-based, black bean-based.

“Have a seat,” Wilson says, inclining his head towards one of the barstools. “Can I get you something to drink?” He opens the refrigerator.

“We have…” he pauses. “Water. Sorry, just got back from Ecuador this morning. Sparkling or still?”

I accept a glass of still water from Captain America. He sits down on the stool next to mine.

His house, or what I’ve seen of it, is homey in a way I can’t imagine any of the late Tony Stark’s buildings ever were, and I mention this.

“I lived at the Avengers Tower briefly,” Wilson tells me. “Tony liked everything streamlined, really modern. Kinda sparse for my taste. I needed some real furniture when I got out of there, you know? Like, things that were made by human beings. Stuff with ‘character,’ that’s what Steve would call it.”

“So you decorated this place?”

“I think it’s about fifty-fifty,” Wilson says, indicated with vague hand motion.

This is my in.

This interview, as you may have read on the cover description, is actually intended to be an exposé about the working partnership between Wilson and Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, but I didn’t want to be the one who brought him up first. 

All I knew going in is that they’re a package deal in the field, a unit. We’ve all seen the footage.

Also, Barnes lives here too, but evidently, he’s not home.

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

“I hope he apologized to you for that,” I tell him, because I’m not exactly sure how else to respond.

“Oh yeah, of course he did, even though he knows I don’t blame him for it. He doesn’t remember it at all,” says Wilson. “There are a lot of gaps, to be honest. Most of it is gaps.”

What Wilson is likely referring to here is the decades-long period in which Barnes was under the complete mental and physical influence of the Nazi splinter group known as HYDRA. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of Sergeant Barnes, I’ll list a couple of great articles for you to read at the end of this one. I assure you, it’s worth your time. 

Wilson has without a doubt been Barnes’s most ardent supporter. He’s spoken out many times about not judging Barnes based on the actions he couldn’t control, and has masterfully refocused the national conversation towards Barnes’s invaluable contributions in World War II and in the recent war to bring half the universe’s population back into existence. Wilson has been quoted as saying, “The least extraordinary thing about Sergeant Barnes is his vibranium arm.”*

But perhaps Wilson’s most effective act towards building public confidence in Barnes was his decision to designate him as an almost exclusive mission partner. Even if the general populace has been reluctant to trust the Winter Soldier, it is abundantly clear that Captain America does, absolutely. Barnes is a constant in the footage of Wilson’s exploits. The moment he touches down on the ground after a successful arrest or negotiation, Barnes is right there. He’s been sighted treating Wilson’s minor injuries, tightening straps on the Falcon wingsuit before Wilson takes flight, and he stands quietly behind Wilson during almost all of his many public appearances.

Despite his ubiquitous presence in Wilson’s company, Barnes has remained elusive for comment. He has no social media, and the only public statement he’s made to date was in November of 2023, in support of Rogers’s decision to pass on the legacy of Captain America. Barnes expressed his categorical agreement that Wilson is “the best and only choice for this job,” describing him as both “worthy of the honor,” and “equipped for the burden.”**

“Is it fair to say that Sergeant Barnes almost comes with the shield?” I ask.

Wilson makes a face.

“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head. “The shield is an accessory; my partner is not. I really don’t like it when people lump him in with the shield. It sort of minimizes how Bucky and I have made a series of conscious choices to be the way we are now. Especially because he’s experienced being fully stripped of his personal autonomy—as a veteran, I can say I’ve had a taste of that, but nothing like what he’s been through—and I think it cheapens his choice to do what he does if we imply that he, as a person, is a package deal with my title, you know?”

The therapist in Wilson is showing. In addition to his decorated military history and service as Captain America, he has a background in psychology, and a Masters degree in Social Work with a focus on Veterans’ mental health issues. He’s worked extensively with the VA as a leader in group therapy.

“So Sergeant Barnes is by your side day in and day out because he wants to be?”

This, Wilson has another unequivocal answer for. “Yes. He wants to be there, and I want him there. And here at home.”

“Tell me a little more about that,” I say. “After the...steering-wheel-stealing incident. Once he was more or less himself. Did you two hit it off right away?”

Wilson laughs again. “Not at all,” he says. “I think there was this resentment, kind of, in the beginning. Like I’m Steve’s best friend and no, I’m Steve’s best friend. Real elementary school stuff. He really got on my nerves; just everything about him annoyed me, and the feeling was mutual. Looking back…”

And here Wilson pauses for a moment. He chews on his bottom lip, and I notice all at once how nervous his body language has become. His fingers are drumming on the table, the line of his shoulders is taut, his leg is bouncing. He clears his throat though, and seems determined to continue.

“Looking back, I can see where it was coming from. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now I get it. There was this one time, it was during the fight over the Accords. We barely knew each other at this point. Buck and I, we’re fighting Spider-Man—who neither of us had ever even heard of before, like, that afternoon—and he pins us to the floor of this hangar with that goo he shoots out of his wrist. Really gross. I manage to get Redwing [Wilson’s drone] to fling Spider-Man out the window. So we’re just laying there, me and Bucky, stuck. And he goes ‘you couldn’t have done that before?’ And I just turn to him, and I’m like, ‘I hate you.’”

At this, Wilson really starts cracking up. He relaxes visibly, just a little.

“Did you mean it?”

“I sure thought I did,” he says, still chuckling. “Like, I wasn’t about to take it back.”

He continues: “Anyway, so after Steve, you know, passed on the shield to me, that’s when things really changed. Actually, back up a second. After the whole Accords incident, we ended up sending Bucky to Wakanda for like… to hear him describe it, it’s like we sent him for a two-year spa retreat. They unscrambled his brain as best they could—and really, I think it’s a good thing they couldn’t do any more because I wouldn’t wish some of his memories on my worst enemy—and he spent like months meditating in a hut and milking goats and going to therapy every day. When I met up with him again, I barely would’ve recognized him.”

“So that’s kind of when you guys reconciled? The arguing stopped?”

“Oh, it never stopped,” Wilson says with a grin. “We still argue all the time, about all kinds of things. Just ask Rhodey [Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, aka War Machine] or Scott [Lang, Ant-Man] or anybody. But the dynamic shifted a little, I think. Bucky’s got… Like I can’t imagine some of the stuff he’s been through, but he’s just kind of learned to roll with it. He is hands down the most resilient person I have ever met. Easily. It was real hard to keep hating him when he was so dead set on getting me to like him, too.”

“Can you walk me through the process by which you two decided to live together?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the nervousness is back. He smooths his hands on his thighs over his jeans. “So, basically, once I got the shield, we’d just barely come back. Like everyone else who got… I—I still don’t know if this is like an okay question to ask people. Do you mind me asking if you were dusted?”

I don’t mind. “Yeah, I was.”

“So you get it,” Wilson says. “Might be the most vulnerable I’d ever felt. I got nothing. Nowhere to go, just the clothes on my back. Then Steve hands me this shield and this enormous legacy—and I look back and there’s Bucky, standing a couple of yards behind me, nodding like, yeah, it should be you. He was the first person who knew, and he’s been right by my side ever since.”

“So you decided to stick together?”

“The original conversation about it was pretty logistical,” Wilson says, rubbing his beard. “There was so much going on, it’s hard to remember exactly what was said, but I think it was along the lines of him offering to fetch the shield for me while I learned how to throw it, and stuff like that. Just easier to do when we’re together 24/7.”

“So rooming together didn’t actually grow out of field partnerships?”

“It was definitely the other way around,” says Wilson. “Basically, I’d get a call from the powers that be that there was something I had to go check out, and it was easier to just walk across the hall than to pick someone else, try to wake them up, and then have to rendez-vous and strategize.”

“I’ll bet,” I say.

Wilson nods. “Easier and faster. Bucky can go from dead asleep to fully geared up in under three minutes. The first few times were like that, with me just knocking on his bedroom door like ‘hey, I need—’ and he comes barreling out covered in knives thirty seconds later like, ‘where are we going?’ We just… clicked. And I’ll be honest; I was really surprised. He’s got my six, I’ve got his, and I never question it. I started asking for him specifically on all my assignments after that, and Fury [Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.] and everyone caught on quick that that’s how it was gonna be. I don’t have to ask anymore.”

“Do you see this continuing long term?” I ask.

Wilson doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Sergeant Barnes now?” I ask. “Clearly you’re partners in the field, and roommates, but…”

Wilson takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, but he clasps them together in front of him and looks me straight in the eye.

“As of last month,” he says slowly, “Bucky and I are married.”

In the spirit of my interview with Captain America, who stands for honesty and justice and integrity, I think you deserve to know the truth. I want to say that I didn’t drop my recorder, but I did. It clatters to the floor, luckily undamaged.

That startles Wilson into a laugh. For the second it takes me to retrieve my recorder from under my seat, I wonder if he’s kidding.

“Come on,” he says. “Say something. I’m getting nervous.” He’s smiling, but not joking.

“Congratulations,” I blurt out. “I...really?”

“Yeah.” The tension leaves his body in a rush. “We, uh, it’s official.”

I’m struggling for questions at this point. The talking points I was planning on hitting in this interview are all suddenly moot, and I decide to throw out my mental to-do list entirely. I finally settle on, “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over two years,” Wilson answers. “About three months after I took up the shield.”

“How did it happen?”

Wilson grins. “Uh, well. I had sort of been…having feelings about him, you know, for awhile. Actually, it’s more like I had noticed that I was having more-than-friendly feelings in the few weeks leading up to that. I think the main reason we had so much trouble getting along in the beginning is that it took some time to process those feelings as attraction. So in a way, I was interested on some level right from the get go.”

“Even if that person wasn’t...behind the wheel of their own brain, so to speak—” I start, but Wilson interjects.

“I see what you did there.”

“—I think it would take a lot for me to be attracted to someone who had previously tried to kill me.”

“Less than I would’ve expected, that’s for sure,” Wilson says. “But it’s not like I was checking him out while he was busy tearing my wings off my back; I’m talking about once he was mentally present in his body. That was like...two years after the whole steering wheel incident, and I hadn’t seen him at all in the interim. I didn’t even know where he was during that time.”

“So it had at least been awhile since he had tried to kill you?”

“Oh yeah. And plenty of other people tried to kill me in those two years, and they weren’t even sorry about it. You gotta adjust your standards, you know?” he says with a laugh.

“Anyway, if you ask him, he says he’s been all in since the moment he saw me back in Wakanda after his little vacation. Now we’re talking about four years since the steering wheel thing. Me, Steve, Nat and everybody; we landed in Wakanda and Bucky’s there. He and I look at each other over Steve’s shoulder, and like, bam, that was it for him. 

“And then there’s five years where neither of us exist. We get back, we fight the monsters, Steve gives me the shield, and while all this is happening, apparently Bucky has come to the conclusion that he’s in love with me. After that, he was just waiting for me to catch up.”

“And he just knew you’d get there? Did you give him any indication that you were interested, or…?”

“I definitely did, but not intentionally,” says Wilson. “He’s very perceptive—like way more than I was giving him credit for—but I think it’s a combination of that and me not being as subtle as I think I am.

“Because, see there’s this invisible line I’ve drawn here—at least that’s how he was thinking about it—and I keep dancing a little closer to that line every day, the line being the no homo line; the point where you can’t take it back. The flirting, I mean. I, of course, think he has no clue and that I’m being slick about it. Actually, lemme ask—how much detail are you looking for here? Like do you want to know the whole story or just—”

“Lay it on me,” I tell him. “Just however you want to tell it.”

“Alright. Where was I? So I’m just there going back and forth on whether or not it’s a good idea to risk this roommate-partner-buddy thing we’ve got going here by trying to make a move that, frankly, I have no clue if he’s gonna be receptive to. You have to remember we’re talking about a guy from the Great Depression here, like that’s the time period he grew up in. I’m no historian, but I think it’s common knowledge that if you were a man who was attracted to men back then, you mostly kept that to yourself. The chances of him bringing up his sexual orientation unprompted are very low. And like, I’m 90% sure I’ve caught him looking before, but that’s never a guarantee, you know?

“So, instead of sitting down and having a mature conversation about my feelings, I keep doing this thing where, for example, say he’s trying something new with his hair, and I’ll say something nice about it. And then I follow up immediately with, ‘Almost makes up for your ugly mug,’ or whatever, which—I mean, he’s such a good-looking guy, like what ugly mug, obviously I don’t mean that. And he’s not stupid, he knows what he looks like. So he picks up on what I’m doing, doesn’t say anything, and lets this go on for months.

“Eventually, there’s one night… We’re on the couch, watching like, I don’t know, Seinfeld or something. Whatever was on. He’s reading a book on my tablet, looking all relaxed and handsome. I can’t have that, so I start egging him on like I usually do, and I guess I got close enough to the line that he just puts the tablet down, turns to me and says, ‘Sam, you know there’s no line, right?’ 

“And I’m going, okay, what does that mean? Like, is this a conversation I was previously a part of and forgot or...? Where is this ‘line’ thing coming from? And so I ask him—I think I just said, ‘What?’ At that point he looks me right in the eye, and he goes, ‘You can kiss me if you want to.’” So I did, and he was ready for it, like no hesitation. Like I said: waiting for me to catch up.”

This, as you can imagine, is far beyond the level of detail I could have ever imagined I’d get about Captain America’s love life in my wildest dreams. I decide to ask a new question, because I feel like I’d be pushing my luck to delve further when he’s already been so open about this experience. 

“Who proposed and when?” 

“Ooh,” says Wilson, “I guess technically I did, but I’m gonna go on record saying that one was a group effort.”

“Well, now you’re gonna have to explain that,” I tell him. “What’s a ‘group effort’ proposal look like?”

“Hmm. I backed myself into that one, didn’t I?” he says. “First, I want the record to show that before I called you guys to set up this interview, I specifically asked Bucky if there were any us-related topics or whatever that were off-limits to discuss and he said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ and I said, “You better be sure, because whatever I say is gonna be public knowledge after that,” and he said “I know, I get it, Jesus.” Then I dropped it because he sounded like he was getting kinda irritated. If he didn’t want me to tell you any of this stuff, that would’ve been the time to speak up, so here we go:

“We were at… Well, I can’t tell you exactly where we were, but let’s just say we were working. There was nobody else in the room, but we were getting ready to go out in the field; seemed like it was gonna be a pretty...intense situation out there. I had my whole suit on, he was calibrating his arm, and the conversation ended up at living wills. As you can imagine, that’s an important thing to have when you’re in this line of work. So he proceeded to tell me that the last time he’d updated his was never and that his next-of-kin was nobody. And I was like, ‘So what, your grenade launchers are all gonna go to the state? I don’t even get the red one?’ and I’m just giving him a hard time, you know, and he’s like, ‘Sam.’ 

“And then, my god, he just goes all the way off about how much he loves me and trusts me and I—we don’t usually go there. I mean, we’d been on the same page for a long time as far as, we’ve established that we’re in love, this relationship is going well, but it’s not something that we’d verbalized in any real depth. That’s just a level of like, exposure, vulnerability, I think, that doesn’t come naturally to most people, myself included. 

“So he just keeps talking—and I think it’s fair to say he’s not a very talkative guy most of the time—and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because he is not holding back, and this is all clearly unrehearsed. Like, this is just how he really feels about me, apparently. By the time he’s finished, I’m crying, he’s crying, it’s a mess. And so I open my mouth, and I have no idea what I’m gonna say to all that, but what comes out is, “Will you marry me?” I wasn’t planning on it, but suddenly I just knew. Best decision I ever made.”

“And you’ve made some very important decisions in your life.”

“That’s right. I know which ones I’m leaving out by saying this was the best, and I stand by it.”

At that moment, as if on cue, the lock clicks, and Sergeant Barnes walks through the front door carrying two very full bags of groceries on his vibranium arm. He tosses a set of car keys into a little dish and locks the door behind him.

“Hey, babe,” Wilson calls out, catching his eye.

“You did it?” Barnes asks.

“Yeah.” Wilson tilts his head up.

Barnes rounds the corner, pecks Wilson on the lips with all the comfort and familiarity of a couple who have done it a thousand times. I hear him murmur, “Proud of you,” under his breath.

Barnes sets the groceries on the counter in front of me as Wilson introduces us.

“Call me Bucky,” says Barnes, reaching out with his right hand to shake mine. There’s a silver band on the fourth finger, and when I look back over at Wilson, he’s slipping his wedding ring out of the pocket of his jeans and putting it back on his left hand.

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go through with all this,” he says, gesturing to me and my notepad. “I took the wedding pictures down in the living room too, before you got here.”

“I knew he could do it,” Barnes tells me. His voice is low, soft, and so quiet, a hint of an old Brooklyn accent underlying his words even now, despite everything he’s been through and everywhere he’s been. He shrugs out of his nondescript hoodie and tosses it on one of the unused stools, grabbing a kettle and putting it on the stove.

“Hibiscus or chamomile?” he asks me, pulling two boxes of tea bags from one of the grocery bags and letting me choose before turning to Wilson. “Bad news, hon. They were out of your whole wheat pita.”

“Again?” says Wilson, with feeling. “Really?”

“They only had the gluten free. I guess I could check the other store tonight, but it’s supposed to rain later, and I kinda don’t feel like going out again,” Barnes says, head buried in the cupboard as he stacks cans. “I was thinking maybe I could just try making ‘em. How does that sound? How hard can it be, right?”

“‘How does homemade pita sound,’ he says,” Wilson repeats, jabbing a thumb towards Barnes. “Can you believe this guy?”

“I honestly can’t.” It’s the truth. My brain refuses to reconcile this man with the supposed playboy I read about in my 11th grade history textbook, nor the internationally feared assassin.

“Is that a yes or no on the experimental homemade pita?” Barnes asks Wilson, still deep in the cupboard. “No promises on quality.”

“That’s a yes, Buck,” says Wilson, then he turns to me. “Don’t listen to him; he’s a great cook.”

The Winter Soldier is a great cook, I write in my notes. And then I realize this is my moment to shine.

“I actually know a good recipe for homemade pita,” I tell them. “It’s whole wheat.” That gets Barnes’s attention.

“You do?” he says, pulling out his phone. “Can you send it to—hmm.” He frowns. “Sam, it’s not showing the thing.”

“What thing?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s phone from his hand. “Oh, yeah, that’s cause it’s set to Contacts Only, Buck, you have to switch it to Allow Everyone.”

Wilson looks at me, smiling. “Bucky here hates technology—”

“—I don’t hate technology—”

“Oh yes you do, you won’t even let me get you an iPad—”

“Yeah, for what? What do I need it for? I wouldn’t even use—”

“You wouldn’t use one, huh? How about I stop letting you borrow mine for a couple of weeks, then we’ll see how you feel.” Wilson turns to me, passing Barnes’s phone back to him. “He should be showing up on your AirDrop now.”

Sure enough, I’m able to send the recipe link to Bucky’s iPhone. He thanks me and starts scrolling right through it, argument apparently totally forgotten.

As Barnes continues to read, periodically checking on the kettle; Wilson excuses himself to help put away the rest of the groceries, which are mostly produce. 

“I hope you have like, immediate plans for these,” Wilson says, inspecting the avocados as he pulls them out of the paper bag. “They are ripe, man. Tomorrow’s gonna be too late for them.”

“Yeah I do, I was gonna make grilled chicken and avocado sandwiches for dinner,” Barnes replies. “I got tomatoes, swiss cheese—”

“What’s all this about pita then if we’re having sandwiches?” Wilson asks.

“No, the pita is the bread here,” Barnes explains. “You stuff everything in the pocket. I’m gonna have to get started pretty soon; probably gonna double the rising time since it’s cold out.” Wilson hums in apparent approval of this course of action.

I lose Wilson to the refrigerator for several minutes. He stands back up after arranging things in the crisper to his liking.

“Any chance I could get a peek at those wedding pictures?” I ask.

“Oh,” says Wilson. “That okay with you?” He turns to Barnes, who nods, carefully steeping bags of tea in three steaming mugs, and then leads me back to the living room. 

Wilson has stashed two silver-framed pictures in a drawer of the coffee table, apparently in anticipation of my visit, and he pulls them out to show to me. Both are taken in front of a familiar-looking farmhouse, which I struggle with for a moment before placing it as the exact one in Captain Rogers’s watercolor painting that’s hanging to my left. Wilson’s suit in the photo is a matte but brilliant shade of cobalt; Barnes wears black.

One is of just the two of them, arms around one another and foreheads together. It’s almost too intimate to look at; I feel as though I’m intruding on something intensely private, even though Wilson is standing right here offering me a glimpse of it.

He puts that one back up onto the mantle.

The next is them in the center of a large group that consists of some people I recognize and others I don’t. Familiar faces include Dr. Bruce Banner [The Hulk], Clint Barton [Hawkeye], and Maria Hill [Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. Also present: King T’Challa of Wakanda and his sister, Princess Shuri. There’s a young girl in a white dress, carrying a flower basket and missing a front tooth, standing in front of [C.E.O. of Stark Industries] Pepper Potts. Next to them is a teenager with floppy brown hair doing an indescribably awkward double thumbs up.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing at him.

Wilson snorts. “Some punk. Family friend.”

That picture gets hung on the empty nail next to Captain Rogers’s painting.

Barnes knocks quietly on the doorway behind us. “Tea’s ready.”

An awkward silence settles in with us once we sit back down in the kitchen, Wilson and Barnes next to one another, and me across from them. I flip through my notes, taking a sip from my mug.. My drink is sweeter than I was expecting, because apparently the Winter Soldier has added agave to the hibiscus tea he made me. It’s delicious.

Barnes eventually breaks. “So whatcha go over so far?”

“How we got together, how we got engaged,” Wilson answers him. “In detail too, so if you don’t want that published, you’re gonna have to grovel at the journalist yourself, because you said—”

“Oh my god,” says Barnes, old-school New York sarcasm dripping from every word. “How dare you tell people about the best thing I ever did, huh? Now they’re gonna think I’m like, a sensitive, good guy, and here I’ve been coasting along on this murder cyborg image. What have you done, you dick?”

Wilson rolls his eyes.

“So...you’re okay with it?” I ask them, absolutely ready to scrub the record if he hesitates.

“You kidding me?” says Barnes. “Every other week comes up some new atrocity I committed against my will in like...the 70s, and you think I’m gonna be upset with people knowing that once in a while I say nice shit to someone I love? Write it. Please. Knock yourself out.”

Okay then. Since Barnes seems willing to talk, I ask them if I can throw them a few questions I have for them as a couple. Barnes looks as though he wasn’t anticipating this.

Wilson turns to him. “You wanna be here for this?”

Barnes nods slowly, hesitantly, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You’re okay?” Wilson asks. “You decide you’re done at any point and I’ll end it. Or you can go hang out in the other room, your call.”

“I’m good for now,” Barnes decides. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“You can ask whatever you want,” Wilson says to me. “I can’t promise we’ll answer everything, but go ahead and shoot.”

“I guess the first question I have is: what’s the hardest thing about navigating your jobs as a couple? What bothers you the most about that?”

Wilson exhales loudly. “I mean, the obvious answer is the danger,” he says. “The nature of what we do is fundamentally unsafe. I think it goes without saying—I’ll still say it—that we’re always aware that one of us might not make it back from a mission, which is...” Wilson trails off for a moment, shaking his head. “You don’t get used to that feeling. The fear.”

“Mm hmm,” Barnes agrees, from behind his mug.

“And,” continues Wilson, “I’m also aware that by doing this interview, I’m putting Bucky in additional danger. I’m not naive enough to think that the people working against us won’t try to use my relationship with him as leverage against me.”

“That makes sense,” I say, because he’s absolutely right, and pretending that public knowledge of his marriage doesn’t put them both in a new kind of danger seems disingenuous. I face Barnes. “Your turn.”

“Racist assholes,” says Barnes immediately.

Wilson smirks and cocks his head in agreement. “Sometimes I think I’ve talked that subject to death, other times it’s like I could never hope to address it enough. Today feels like the first one.”

A diplomatic, but clear answer. Time to move on. 

I’m about to ask the next question when he adds: “Another thing that gets under my skin is how it’s like Bucky’s image in the eyes of the general public is totally dependent on me hyping him up all the time. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proven himself a hundred times over, and yet if I’m not on T.V. reminding people of that every day, it’s suddenly like ‘oh, the Winter Soldier, can we ever really trust him?’ 

“I just… It bothers me. I want us to come to a collective understanding that everything that happened happened to Bucky, not because of him. It kinda circles back into another of the things I’m passionate about, which is mental health care and awareness. I think if we as a society were better about recognizing and addressing mental illness, and particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I wouldn’t have to keep having this conversation about my husband.”

Barnes’s face is getting pinker and he says nothing, but he’s smiling a little at Wilson, who puts an arm around his shoulders.

“Anyway, we can move on,” says Wilson, his expression going easy again. “Just had to get that out there one more time.”

“Hopefully this one’s a little more pleasant,” I say. “What inspired you to come forward about your relationship? I know you guys—” I gesture between them, ”—have been together for a couple years, so why now?”

“I want to go on a date in public,” says Bucky. “I haven’t been on a date since the 40s.”

“That’s right,” says Wilson. “We’re doing all this so I can take him Denny’s and hold his hand over a $6.99 Super Slam.”

When I finish laughing, Wilson continues. “Part of it’s because we realized it’s gonna get out there whether we like it or not. You already knew when you got here that we lived together, and that’s because that information got leaked to the public last week, so it was always just a matter of time before people found out anyway. I’d rather have some control over that narrative; better you hear it from me and Bucky, how we want to tell it, than in some tabloid.”

He’s right about that: they would undoubtedly have been outed one way or another. Their status as “roommates” was reported by TMZ a week and a half ago, and there was a Buzzfeed piece only yesterday, rife with gifs, entitled 15 Times Captain America and The Winter Soldier Made Us Wish We Were Their Third Roommate, that ended on the note of how Wilson and Barnes are “absolute BFF GOALS.” Wilson continues:

“But I think the biggest reason is that we decided, together, that we actually think it’s good for people to  know. I’ve seen firsthand the impact that having a Black Captain America has had on the Black community and on the national topic of race, and we think—we hope—that a Captain America who is a member of the LGBT community will have a similar effect. 

“The people who already hate me aren’t going to like me any better or worse for being bisexual, but some bisexual teenager out there is hopefully gonna read this article and feel a little bit better about themselves than they did before. That’s really the impact I want to have here. Got anything to add, Buck?”

“Actually, yeah,” says Barnes, staring at the counter in front of him and fiddling with his wedding ring. “I grew up gay in thirties. The idea of being able to just...tell people, that’s still amazing to me. The fact that I’m sitting here talking about it with a stranger and you’re not screamin’ in my face right now…”

“You do know I’m not straight either, right?” I ask him. I’m not exactly shy about that, it’s the kind of thing most people can tell just by looking at me.

“Even so,” says Barnes, finally looking me in the eye. “You fool around with a fella back in the day—or worse, you make a pass and he turns you down—then he knows about you, and then it’s like, what if he tells someone? Some of the worst shit I ever saw came from people who found out that way. So, other gay guys. Basically you never felt safe.”

“What about Captain Rogers?” I ask. “Did he know?”

“Oh yeah, Steve knew,” says Barnes with a dismissive wave of his hand, like that ought to be obvious. “He wasn’t gonna tell anyone; I got too much dirt on him.“

“Pfft. He’s messing with you,” Wilson interjects, directed at me. “There’s no dirt on Steve anywhere; believe me, I’d know by now if there was.”

“I want you to guess how many times I’ve had to clean up Steve’s puke,” says Barnes in a total deadpan, leaning forward. “Whatever number you think it is, the real answer is higher. 

“This again,” says Wilson. “I keep telling you Buck, Steve throwing up on you at Coney Island isn’t the big scandalous story you seem to want it to be.”

“Sam wasn’t there, he didn’t see it,” Barnes insists. “We were with these girls and they just left us standing there by the Cyclone, covered in hot dog chunks. Actually, that part was kind of a relief ‘cause one of ‘em was definitely jonesing for me to kiss her before that, and I really didn’t want to. 

“But seriously, after everything we went through together, I knew I could trust Steve with anything. And that made me luckier than most—at least I had one person. Lots of guys had no one. 

“Anyway, my reasons for coming out with all this are probably more selfish than Sam’s. You know some of those Nazis—we’re callin’ ‘em something else these days, like ‘alt-right’ or whatever, but I know a Nazi when I see one—they have this crazy idea of what I was like back in the day. They’ve got this fantasy, like a golem of toxic masculinity with my face on it, and I just want to publicly shit on their dreams. Every date I ever went on with a girl was a total sham, and I was scared down to my bones that someone would figure that out. I fight because someone needs to and I’m good at it, but I hate hurting people and I’d much rather be sitting here cuddling on the couch with a man. This man.”

Barnes is grinning big and wide by the time he finishes—a real, genuine smile that brings out the sparkle in his eyes—and suddenly I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of what Wilson must be seeing in him. Wilson himself is laughing.

“I like how you snuck your little buzzword in there, baby,” he says. “Toxic masculinity. That’s one of Bucky’s things he learned about from his Wakandan therapist. 

“Obviously super important,” Wilson adds, lest I think he’s making light of something serious.

“I think it’s great that we’re talking about it so openly now, especially with respect to the military.”

Barnes tilts his head in agreement, checking the time on his phone. We’re probably approaching the point at which he wants to get started on that pita bread, and I’m definitely in his way.

“So what’s next for you guys?” I ask.

“Isn’t that always the question?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s right hand in his left and resting them, intertwined, on the countertop. “Sometimes it’s aliens. Sometimes not. Who even knows anymore?”

“Hopefully, a whole lot more of this,” says Barnes, looking down at their hands.

Wilson smiles. “Well, that’s a given. That’s always.”

This is when Barnes gets up to pull a stand mixer out of one of the cupboards, and I read that as my cue to take my leave. I end my recording, Wilson thanks me for stopping by, I promise to give him an advance copy of my writing to make sure he’s comfortable with what I said, and I find myself standing back on the sidewalk of [REDACTED] moments later.

I’m not typically in the habit of including as many details about the dinner plans of my article subjects as I have here—and I’m certainly testing the limits of my editor’s patience with the word count—but in the spirit of Wilson’s wishes for what his coming out story will mean to the people of America, I wanted to emphasize how human his marriage is. 

Barnes and Wilson have extraordinary jobs that they are undoubtedly uniquely suited for and that most of us will never fully understand, but they are also two people who have been through a lot of hardship and found happiness and peace in one another. And that’s something that most of us do understand: love, the human experience that transcends the divisions we give ourselves.

*From a press conference Wilson gave on May 7, 2025.

**From a statement written by Barnes and issued through a S.H.I.E.L.D. representative on November 1, 2023.

For further reading on Barnes, the author recommends: 

1. Greatest Generation X: The Impossible Life of James Buchanan Barnes, by Ariel Guzman, published in 2025.

2. R.Y. Uhlencott’s column “The Wolf of Brooklyn” in the October 2024 issue of Time covers the basic timeline and trajectory of Barnes’s life.

[deputystakes-a2]

SENSES AND OTHER ODDLY SPECIFIC HEADCANONS .

what does your muse smell like?

maple bourbon coffee, bourbon cologne, cigarette smoke, and sweat.    gun oil and dirt.    leather and tobacco.    blood.    he’s got a very distinct smell — it’s pretty recognizable.

what do your muse’s hands feel like?

rough and calloused, with some patches scarred from where they’ve been torn open.    his knuckles, though he takes good care of them, are usually somewhat irritated — if not bruised, or scabbed over.

what does your muse usually eat in a day?

oatmeal or coffee for breakfast.   he’s vegetarian, and he meal plans, so he eats a lot of the same shit every week.   eggs, rice, beans, and lentils are the staples in his fridge and pantry.    he eats a shit ton of fruit — he’ll go through a few of those little fruit bowls whenever diners offer them as side dishes.    and when he’s driving with christian, he’ll pull over once or twice per trip to buy a few things from the local produce stands.    it was one of the things he did with henri as a kid, whenever they drove into and out of town.    he’s also notorious for replacing a meal with coffee and a cigarette and calling it good.

does your muse have a good singing voice?

yes he fucking does but only christian’s ever heard it.    go listen.    go listen right now.

does your muse have any bad habits or nervous ticks?

used to steal cigarettes and get into fights in back alleys.    now he can buy his cigarettes and get into fights in bars.    but, on a more serious note — he’s a functioning alcoholic who smokes one or two packs a week.    all of his ‘selfless’ behaviors are self-destructive, or border on being so.    he’ll bite the insides of his cheeks until they bleed.

what does your muse usually look like / wear?

his outfits look put together, but sometimes he looks like he fell and got into a fight with every damn rock on his way to the ground.    he wears a lot of dark colors, warm black, earth tones.    leather jackets and henleys and polished tecova boots.    slim-fitted jeans or khakis.    you will never, ever see him in a t-shirt.    it’s either long ass sleeves, or a tank top.

is your muse affectionate?  how much?  how so?

he’s ashley graves.    he’ll shoot a man for you, but he’d rather die than admit he cares about anybody in any capacity.    his love languages are gift-giving and quality time.    he’s not a very physically affectionate person    ( because he’s physically violent )    but he’ll remember someone’s coffee order, he’ll remember their gas station order, he’ll buy them dinner at the local diner and send them off with a little to-go box of dessert.    he really does care about people, no matter how much he denies it — and he tries to brush it off, whenever someone mentions it.    ashley graves used to be the sweetest kid, but you didn’t hear that from me.

what position does your muse sleep in?

if he’s faking it, he’ll be lying on his back, hands at his sides, covered with blankets, completely still, save for his chest rising and falling as he breathes.    if he’s actually asleep — he’ll be tossing and turning.    if he’s actually sleeping, he’s at the mercy of his body.    he’s unpredictable.

could you hear your muse in the hallway from another room?

absolutely not.    he’s kept a select few habits from his time in the corps.    being soundless is one of them.

[foreficfandom]

The Arcana - Cooking For MC (Headcanons)

-- Asra -- 

Life as a street orphan makes cooks of us all. If he wasn’t a child desperately stealing fruit, he was a teenage magician earning coppers to buy scraps from the butcher and bartering for old, bruised squash. He quickly had to learn how to stretch his meager rations as far as he could, and cooking was the way to do it.

He’s come a long way from the one single pot he and Muriel would squat over while hiding away in the docks. Now, he and you happily enjoy a consistent diet of fresh groceries, sometimes he cooks and sometimes you do. 

All his cookery he learned in Vesuvia - pasta, lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, cumin, basil, ocean seafood. The both of you don’t quite earn enough to splurge on the good cuts of beef, but you never have to worry about going hungry. 

And you don’t have to worry about bland, burnt food, either. Asra can reliably hold his own in the kitchen. He doesn’t exactly follow recipes, just tosses together stuff according to what feels right in his heart. A holdover from the days where he had to improvise all his food. 

There’s more holdovers; he hates tossing away uneaten food, or groceries that have gone bad. He’ll keep the chicken bones to make into a broth for tomorrow. He never peel potatoes or fruit ‘cause the skins contain valuable nutrients. He cringes at people who throw away the heads of fish. The leftover fat in the pan is made into gravy, or pastry frosting, or soap. Occasionally, he and you give away your leftovers to the urchins that hang around the neighborhood. 

When it’s his turn to cook, expect traditional Vesuvian cuisine like flatbreads, hummus, and vegetable soup. Herbs used in the shop are sometimes thrown into the dish, like thyme or myrtle leaves. Asra’s cooking regularly gets to grace your stomach, and it’s very lovely and nice uwu

-- Julian -- 

Everybody who knows Julian holds vehemently that he can’t cook worth a damn. He’s not gonna poison you, but it’s true that he can’t do more than toss various things into a pot and pray that it comes out edible. 

So when he’s forced to cook, everything ends up tasting like the same sort of bland, unspiced mush. And it’s almost always boiled, never roasted or fried. He just seems incapable of not burning anything, so he avoids pancooking ingredients if he can avoid it. And even his soups tend to have burnt residue at the bottom.

Not only that, but traditional Nevevion cuisine ... can be an acquired taste in itself. Like pickled herring covered with beet mayonnaise, cold aspic on toast, and really, really salty fish roe. He grew up eating actually good food cooked by his adopted family, but it’s unfortunately easy to turn a cabbage and potato recipe into nasty gross mush, especially under Julian’s hands. 

He knows he’s shit at cooking, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. Ready-made takeout isn’t always available in their world, so if someone needs to eat, they usually gotta cook. Cue boiled chicken and carrots a-la Julian. At least he added some salt, this time. He blames his Nevevion heritage for lacking an affinity for spices.

With shitty cooking skills come an ability to eat anything. Julian doesn’t turn down a dish if he’s hungry, even if it’s some bullshit. Except for spicy stuff - it’s like the only pain he doesn’t get off on. Just a little jalapeno in his rice will turn his entire face red and give him hiccups.

So say you don’t have time to cook dinner for the both of them tonight, he’d much rather the two of you go eat at an inn than force your divine tongue to be sullied by his dreadful meals. However, he can be taught to cook if you two can find the time, and will eventually get the hang of it. You and Julian in the kitchen, warm and cozy, teaching him how to make a good macaroni? Now that’s an afternoon date in the making.

-- Nadia -- 

Growing up royal meant Nadia never had to cook for herself. To some, it’d be very improper for someone of Nadia’s standing to ever cook, especially in the same kitchen as the servants. But in-between her piano lessons and fencing training and literacy/history/mathematic/public speaking tutoring, she also devoted some personal time in reading up on skills she wouldn’t have been taught - like gardening, jewelry craft, and also cooking and baking.

She had this stint of candy-making when she was a teen, after seeing sugarspun candies in the market that were shaped into different, multi-colored animals and flowers. She would sneak into the kitchen and, with the help of particular cook friend, make candied nuts, meringues, taffies, marzipan. And with the skills she learned making candies, she also learned how to bake and cook various things.

Rarely did she ever get to exercise her cooking skills beyond a mere pastime. She had no one to cook for, nor enough spare time. So very few people knew she bakes a mean butter cashew cake.

One day, she just kinda absentmindedly mentions that she knows how to cook a few things, so you insist she show you, which kinda takes her off-guard and she’s a little nervous, because it’s been a long time since she busted out the ol’ apron, and what if you don’t like what she makes??

She goes to the kitchens and almost bails out, even briefly entertains the thought of passing off the chef’s cooking for her own, but chases that thought from her mind. The palace servants gets to witness the Countess roll up her sleeves with a determined grunt and go ham on some pistachios. 

You wait patiently in the solar (as she instructed), and Nadia brings up a beautiful tray of brightly colored nut-flour sweets with tea. Nadia herself is a little worse for wear, with a dusty face and tangled hair. But she’s thrilled to see you enjoy her cakes. They taste wonderful, doubly so because of the love she put into them.        

-- Muriel -- 

He almost always cooks for himself, ever since his street urchin childhood, and his skills have only improved while living in the woods. He’s no longer scraping mussels off of dock beams to boil in a thin cauldron, he’s hunting 8-feet-tall elk and using every inch of the animal, from boiling the hooves for aspic, to making sausages out of the intestines (the antlers are powdered for their magical properties).

It’s rarer that he ever wants for something he can’t produce himself. He boils his own sea salt, curdles his own cheese, presses his own oil. The problem is that he doesn’t make an effort to make delicious-tasting food. Unlike Julian, who cooks like shit but still enjoys the finer things in life, Muriel has access to super fresh and good-quality ingredients but is ruled by his practicality.

Living in the woods is tough. If the harvest was bad and all Muriel has is last autumn’s rice harvest, then its porridge for the next month. There’s nothing for it; hunting is unreliable even in an expert’s hands, fishing only a tad less so, and a simple wet season or early frost can ruin a garden quicker than a plague. 

Muriel may have said he didn’t need your help around the hut, but your help truly did make a difference when it came to food security. An extra set of hands made for less time and lighter work. Your influence also shined through his cooking; now, he actually does care if something tastes good, because you were eating it with him. Muriel could survive just fine on perpetual pottages, but you deserved better.

Hence, roasts that are actually seasoned, bread with jam and butter, and salt not just for preserving purposes. 

Cooking stopped becoming just a means, but a creative outlet for Muriel. He wanted to treat you, and in turn it became something special for himself, too. 

-- Portia --

The Devorak siblings have one collective braincell, and Portia’s got dibs on it. So she’s got the cooking skills that seemed to have eluded Julian, and she’s very good; the best out of the six. 

As a hand-maiden, cooking isn’t part of her duties, but to even get hired she had to prove she could hold her own in the kitchen on par with royal cuisine. It’s beyond simply being able to replicate a recipe, she knows how to carve game into the right cuts, memorize the seasonal harvests, estimate temperatures by touch, and other complicated kitchen sciences. 

Portia spent her life traveling on ships, so she’s witness many a worldly cuisine and it’s influenced her skills. Nothing impresses a table more than introducing some ‘exotic’ spice and using it right. Her own personal favorites are from all corners of the land. Her dinner spread can consist of Hjalle shrimp pancakes, Galbradian green bean broth, Prakran flatbread, and lamb roasted in an underground oven like they do in Firent.  

Once she has the opportunity to cook (or bake) for you, be prepared for a storm. You’re never gonna have to want for good cuisine again, not if Portia has anything to say about it. Even the little things she makes, like her strawberry jam or workhouse-style bread, taste great. You ask her why she doesn’t pursue a career in cuisine, and she replies that cooking is an outlet for her, not a job. Plus, she’s far from a ‘truly skilled cook’, according to her. That honor’d go to Mazelinka. 

A lot of her budget she’ll happily relinquish to cooking, such as imported spices or the expensive cuts of game. She knows that the smallest difference in quality - such as in the salt, or vinegar, used - can make or break a dish. Her kitchen is always fully stocked with groceries and ingredients. One of her big splurges was investing in an icebox, and before she had you, a magician, in the picture, she was indeed buying ice to keep her meats fresh.

Whether its a wrapped lunch or weekend roast dinner, Portia will always want to spoil you in the best way she knows how; through your stomach. Your waistline might be less happy, but like heck Portia’d take pudge as a negative.

-- Lucio --

He’s been Count for over two decades, but before that he was a rough-and-tumble mercenary. And before that, he grew up in the infamous Scourge Lands, where etching out a living was always a matter that teetered on the brink of a knife.

He had to learn how to live tough. The Scourge Lands are no lush forest like Muriel’s backyard, it’s a flat tundra with limited vegetation and even lesser animals that aren’t more likely to kill you before you kill them. The entire clan’s been living off of bitter turnips for weeks, but finally a family of boars are scouted. Now you just have to take down a bear-sized boar while circling around five others who all want to gore you. 

Even cooking can be a struggle. Life as a mercenary meant trying to strike fires on cold, damp wood in a freezing drizzle, and keeping it lit long enough to roast the skinny fish you managed to spear. It meant knowing which plants were edible and which caused three nights of stomach pains, and also being willing to resort to digging up grubs when you’re really on the brink of starvation.

So does he know how to cook? Yeah, he can roast meat over a fire and know when its safe from pathogens, but other than that he’s lost. He was so happy to finally have cooks and servants to serve him entire banquets. Never did he learn (nor want to learn) how to bake bread, or fry potatoes, nevermind suckling pig or creme brulee. 

If come a time where you and Lucio are away from the precious palace kitchens, he’ll rely on his wallet to buy the two of you a nice meal. If the two of you are lost in the wilderness, don’t worry, Lucio to the rescue and you can trust him to forage something, and grill it on a hot rock. No salt, though. Not even water to wash it down, if you’re really unlucky.

Still, it’s kinda a surprise to eat Lucio’s emergency field cooking, because it’s not awful. The best anyone can do in the circumstance, even. Make sure to tell him that, he’s always fishing for compliments. 

[sasorikigai]

4, 11, 14, 20 & 30 ( for all your modern boys )

send a number  1 - 30  to take a closer look inside this characters life. || @sonxflight​​​ || accepting

04. car glovebox.

Owner’s manual and maintenance schedule, registration documents, proof of insurance, spare business cards, high-energy snacks (protein bars and granola bars), spare phone and laptop charger, first-aid kit, multi-tool, a pair of aviator sunglass and a flashlight. 

11. phone home screen.

Something extremely minimal and Japanese; in the likes of inspirational quotes. As high-profile his profession dictates, Hanzo would keep his own person extremely low-profile. 

進み続けてさえいれば、遅くとも関係ない. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

幸せはもうすでに出来上がっているものじゃない. 自分の行動が引き付けるものだ. “Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.”

14. computer home screen.

This goes for both personal and professional laptops he owns. Hanzo takes the certain pride (and rightfully so, considering the drastic change of his profession) in serving the law. 

20. refrigerator.

Besides what I already mentioned (x), Hanzo has weak spot for fruits Harumi and Satoshi used to love. they are persimmons and yuzu (for Harumi) and strawberries (for Satoshi). He has sentimentally weak spots for yuzu tart and strawberry sandwiches (fruit sando). 

30. netflix watch history.

An amalgamated mix of true-crime documentaries (such as American Murder: the Family Next Door Unsolved Mysteries series - Volume 1 and 2 - and Trial 4) and Thrillers like Hush and Velvet Buzzsaw. 

04. car glovebox.

Owner’s manual and maintenance schedule, registration documents, proof of insurance, spare ponchos, spare notebooks and pens, spare USB memory stick, a traditional Swiss Army Knife, ice scraper, and gloves. 

11. phone home screen.

14. computer home screen.

He would have the same FBI terminal screen as Hanzo, but his personal home laptop has the picturesque cityscape of Harbin, China, where Kuai Liang originates from in this verse. 

20. refrigerator.

Tofu (both firm and soft), bean paste, soaked oats, ample amount of vegetables and fruits (he has no preference and will try anything once, but some of his favorites include zucchini, peppers, asparagus, mushrooms, apples, mango, pear, and peach), and bean burgers. He is a vegan, so he strictly keeps his diet to legumes, plant-based protein and lots of seasonal veggies. 

30. netflix watch history.

I am a Killer (where death row inmates recount their chilling crimes), The Confession Killer, Abducted in Plain Sight, Conversations with a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes, and Captive. While a heartbreaking and harrowing reality for the victim's family and friends, as his profession requires to lean into the unknown and solve similar crimes himself, he likes to extend his work into his interest, and wonders if he will ever be brave enough to handle the scope of humanity’s grisly horror. 

04. car glovebox.

Owner’s manual and maintenance schedule, registration documents, proof of insurance, emergency contacts, antibacterial hand wipes, extra notepads and pens, spare chargers for his laptop and cell phone, 

11. phone home screen.

One of default home screen that would simply depict the splendor of the sky. He likes to keep things as impersonal as possible. 

14. computer home screen.

Even as a non-psychiatrist, Shinjiro has believed the mind to be illogical and inconsistent, and now he vehemently believes that this is the conundrum which will bring him joyous beauty in order to find out more about the immeasurable depth of human condition, yet provides vehement challenge him in order to mitigate trauma or provide a realistic solution. 

20. refrigerator.

Likes to meal prep in advance, so his refrigerator will be packed with pre-portioned meals and bottles of brewed tea and non-dairy milk. Shinjiro likes to stick with seafood (mostly salmon and shrimp), with variety of vegetables like green beans, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. He will also pre-cook the grain of his choice (rice, lentils, beans, and/or quinoa) and freeze them in advance as well. 

30. netflix watch history.

Mostly will stick with highly-acclaimed drama movies; such as Django Unchained, The Departed, Nightcrawler, Molly’s Game, Snowpiercer, Casino Royale, etc. Shinjiro doesn’t like to spend too long, browsing in stumbling indecision. He won’t waste his time watching something that isn’t worthwhile - he prefers well-made movies over simply passing his time idly. 

[wehavethoughts]

Kkanpoong Tofu Review!

Kkanpoong tofu by the Korean Vegan

Full written recipe 

Video recipe 

Video with a story (This will make your heart swell with all the feelings.)

Publication date: July 2020

 Rating: 5/5 Hotteok’s 

Summary: Crunchy tofu recipe with spicy sauce

 No content warnings apply.

 I have been following the food blogger The Korean Vegan for a while on Instagram. She veganizes Korean food and shares the recipes along with beautiful photographs of her food. She taught me that it is not difficult to veganize Korean food, and you still can honor and celebrate your culture while still holding up the values (in my case, not harming animals for my consumption) that are important to you.

 She has recently been gaining popularity on Tiktok, where she merges food videography with poignant personal stories. I admire how open-hearted she is. I often think about the power of vulnerability (Brené Brown) when I watch her content. Her videos will make you cry, but at the same time, hungry. You can read more about how “her 60-second recipes will make you less racist” in this article.

This week, I tried one of her most popular videos: kkanpoong tofu. (It is spelled kkaMpoong in the recipe but the ㄴ in 깐풍 should be transliterated to N.) If you already have the basic ingredients such as soy sauce, chili pepper powder, flour, and sweetener, this recipe doesn’t require many ingredients and it is very affordable. The only additional items that I had to purchase were a block of tofu ($2), scallions ($1), peppers ($0.50), and carrots ($1). And I only used a portion of scallions and carrots, so it only cost me ~$3.50. Vegan dishes are not expensive to make, contrary to the common misconception. Vegan cheese, vegan meat, etc. can be very expensive, but I only rarely purchase them to satiate my occasional craving. Most of the time, I use ingredients such as beans, lentils, tofu, fresh produce in season, etc which are budget-friendly.

Modifications:

I used a shallot instead of red onion, serrano peppers instead of Korean green chili peppers, and Korean Pancake Mix (which is basically seasoned wheat flour) instead of potato starch. As she mentions, you can use regular flour if you are okay with gluten and don’t have potato starch. I didn’t use mirin or dried chili. I used maple syrup as the recipe calls for, but usually Korean recipes use 올리고당 or 물엿.

The key to this recipe is to get as much water out of tofu as you can, so that it will be crispy. She uses a tofu press, which I don’t have. But a nice trick is, you can microwave tofu for 2-3 min. Then you let it strain while you prepare the vegetables. This will help you get the water out of tofu in a short time without much hassle.

 I often complain about how it takes me double, triple the time to finish cooking than the recipe says. But this one truly was fairly simple and quick; it took me about 30 minutes. (The most time-consuming part is frying the tofu cubes.)

And the dish was amazing. The recipe deserves all the hype it’s been getting. The sauce is a perfect combination of spicy and sweet. It was worth standing in front of the stove and tending each and every cube to make sure they were all cooked through, because the tofu cubes turned out very crunchy. If you are looking for an affordable, plant-based Korean food with rich flavors, I would highly recommend this recipe.

 I ate them with rice and sparkling water. Since it is cooked in a good amount of oil, I recommend a carbonated drink to go with it. I can also see them as a wonderful late-night snack with a glass of beer. Even with chili powder and serrano peppers, it was not as spicy as I’d hoped, so next time I’ll throw in some Thai chili peppers.

(Icon by Kaylen Yul Lee from the Noun Project)

[rabbitcruiser]

National Eat Beans Day

National Eat Beans Day (or National Eat Your Beans Day) occurs on July 3 each year, and we guarantee it will be a holiday that will give you a whole new appreciation for legumes as a food group. And if not, perhaps our fun facts and riddles will have you full of beans.  Try this one on for size — ‘I am a bean, very lean. I am not fat, I’m sure of that. Like all beans, I’m small and round — but unlike others, I don’t grow in the ground’. Giving away the answer would be too easy, but we’ll give you a hint — this may be a kid’s favorite kind of bean. It may also surprise you to know that beans are not strictly classified as ‘veggies’ either since legumes by definition are any seeds or fruits that grow within pods or the edible pods themselves, which grow on leguminous plants (i.e. those belonging to the pea family). This opens up a whole world of beans to us, which should be exciting, especially for those who grew up being forced to eat beans as a vegetable.

History of National Eat Beans Day

Though the exact date and reason for National Eat Beans Day being made a holiday are not known, we do know that the history of the bean itself predates even the invention of the pots used to cook beans.  Bean cultivation dates back as early as 7,000 years ago, making it a staple that has stood the test of time, and we’re not surprised. With amazing health benefits, legumes are plant-based, protein-packed powerhouses of nutrition. So this also means that they’re for everyone, no matter the diet or lifestyle choice. It’s very rare to find a person allergic to beans too, though some legumes can trigger allergic reactions, such as peanuts.

Beans are originally from wild vines which grow in Central and South America. This is known as the common bean, and since then, thousands of bean varieties exist today and are cultivated all over the world. They are one of the most versatile crops and can be grown almost anywhere. 5,000 years ago the lima bean and other varieties were a popular favorite among the Incas and Aztecs, and the popularity of beans is so much so that they are worth a mention in Homer’s “Iliad,” where he uses beans as a metaphor. Ancient Egyptians seem to have also been partial to beans and lentils, as paintings and physical evidence shows that bodies were buried with beans, to nourish them on their journey to the afterlife. By the 1500s, with the advent of trade via ships, beans began to reach all the corners of the globe and more varieties began to be cultivated. Though often viewed as a poor man’s food, beans have been an important source of nourishment for people in dire circumstances; such as the soldiers who fought in the First and Second World Wars, or the Europeans who were dying out due to the spread of the plague in Europe, during the Middle Ages. Who would have thought beans could be such lifesavers.

National Eat Beans Day timeline

700 B.C. The French Revamp Vegetable Soup

The French begin to add chickpeas to their vegetable soup, making it a heartier meal in every way.

800 A.D. Chickpea Cultivation Helps Save Lives

Emperor Charlemagne orders the cultivation of chickpeas to save people from the ravage of war, and it works.

1700s Beans Spread Across the World

With the increase in trade, beans begin to be traded all over the world.

1920s Beans Help Ward Off the Great Depression

Beans become the poor man’s meat during the Great Depression in America, enabling many families to survive.

National Eat Beans Day FAQs

What are the healthiest beans to eat?

The top nine healthiest beans/legumes to eat are — chickpeas, lentils, peas, kidney beans, black beans, soybeans, pinto beans, navy beans, and peanuts.

Is it bad to eat beans at night?

Yes, eating beans at night is not recommended. This is because beans can cause indigestion or gas problems, so it’s better to stick to eating that bowl of chili during the daytime.

Is it okay to eat beans every day?

Yes! Not only are beans low in fat, but they are also great sources of protein and fiber, and they come packed with nutrients like iron, folate, calcium, and potassium. This can help protect against high cholesterol which may lead to heart disease. The recommended portion size of beans/lentils is 25-38 grams a day.

National Eat Beans Day Activities

Eat beans

Grow your own beanstalk

Fix up a care package

Yes, you guessed it. Sometimes simplicity is everything. In this case, we’re keeping it real simple, by telling you to go eat some beans — green, black, red, or yellow — the choice is yours. Boil them, bake them, saute them, mush them, or eat them raw; beans are bound to have your body thanking you for years to come.

Though we cannot guarantee a hen laying golden eggs at the end of it, we can guarantee that there’s nothing better than the feeling of eating your own home-grown produce. And what’s more, the golden glow of health which your beans will bring you is worth far more than any golden egg-laying hen!

One of the things we love about beans is how affordable (we daresay cheap even) they are. So why not take the time to gather some different types of legumes, a hand-written little booklet of recipes, and give them to a family who may need extra beans.

5 Recipes We Bet You Never Thought Used Beans

Beanie brownies

Honey-roasted chickpeas

Navy bean pesto

Bean burger

Alfredo sauce

These ooey-gooey delicious brownies come with a surprising twist — black beans are the star ingredient!

Step aside, caramel popcorn, as this delicious, crunchy snack takes over the coffee table at your next movie night.

Pureed navy beans with any greens can make an amazing and hearty pesto sauce.

All the flavor, all the protein, but not meat. Perfect for everyone, even those hardcore meat lovers.

White beans can make the perfect, silky alfredo sauce, which will cause all to go “mama mia”!

Why We Love National Eat Beans Day

Beans are healthy

Beans have a variety

Beans are cheap

If we have not said this enough times already, we will say it again — beans are so good for you. Not only are they amazing sources of protein and fiber, but they also contain folic acid, iron, potassium, and calcium, all of which are beneficial to prevent all sorts of medical conditions.

Some say that there are as many as 4,000 varieties of beans out there. If that doesn’t inspire you to start exploring and experimenting in the kitchen, we don’t know what will. Trying out different beans can also bring you one step closer to exploring a whole new cuisine or culture, and variety is the spice of life, after all.

We’re glad that beans were overlooked by the rich snobs throughout history so that we all can enjoy the delicious benefits of beans without feeling the pinch in our pockets. For something to be cheap and nutritious almost stretches belief.

Source

[mattxpike]

Vitamin K2

Most people know the importance of vitamin D3 for maintaining strong bones, but many are unaware that vitamin D needs to be maximized for its benefits. K1 and K2 both contribute to this function, with K2 being the only one that can be discussed in the same way as the other two vitamins in this list, vitamin K3 and vitamin C. While K4 is responsible for many of the physical and mental health benefits of vitamin C, both contribute significantly to bone health and bone function. VitaminK2 enables vitaminD3 to perform well and at the same time prevents the side effects associated with the high doses in the supplements, such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

Therefore, high vitamin D supplementation should be accompanied by vitamin K2 supplementation, and without vitamin K1 it is impossible to produce enough vitamin D to work with vitamin K1. Research and development is a little-known nutrient, but one with a positive effect that a vitamin K2 deficiency can have. While we are discussing vitamin K 2, we would be remiss if we did not mention that there are many other benefits to producing both vitamin C and vitamin D in sufficient quantities, and that sufficient vitamin P2 cooperates. When we talk about healthy activation and absorption of vitamin Rd, it is of course vitamin T2 that is really important and one of the most important nutrients in the body for bone health and bone function. As for vitamin K1 itself, it is a very important nutrient; it is literally a vital nutrient and its deficiency is rare or almost non-existent.

Since the Rds know that the food sources for vitamin K1 and K2 are different and that vitamin K2 deficiency is widespread, they should look for ways to help their customers incorporate the best source of vitamin K2 into their diet to ensure proper calcium utilization in the body. Read LindsayRusk's article to learn more about the benefits of supplementing with vitamin D and vitamin P2 together, as well as her excellent article on supplements for calcium and bone health.

Liquid vitamin D3 with K2 provides a daily dose of vitaminD3 And K1 in easy-to-use liquid form. This supplement costs just $9 a bottle ($90) and comes in a variety of different flavors, such as liquid, powder and powder - like. To have a chance of reducing these numbers, it is essential to combine vitamin K 2 with calcium D2 with MK-7 and to combine it with calcium Cal and D 3. D4 supplementation, including vitamins K2 and 7, as well as a combination of vitamins P2, K3, D1, calcium, potassium and magnesium.

When you are thinking about taking a vitamin D supplement, you also need to think about vitamin K2, and this is especially important if you are at a higher risk of deficiency. If you have chosen to supplement with vitamin D, you must also eat some food and take a supplement in the form of vitamin K2. Therefore, it is crucial that you ensure that you get enough of it in conjunction with D3 to make it more effective. E can be harmful to you, so think twice before you think about supplements for it.

If you follow this advice, most of us can forget about the combination of vitamin D3 and K2. However, it is CRITICAL thing that you should consider K 2 in your D 3 supplement plan because it has some amazing health benefits.

Solaray vitamin D3 and K2 are formulated by combining clinically supported portion sizes of fermented chickpeas, lentils, beans, rice, nuts and seeds in such a way that they help with body transport, absorb calcium and thus support healthy bones and teeth. It contains an amazing product called vit - D - K, which provides a healthy dose of vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, potassium and other vital nutrients.

D3 helps the body absorb all the important calcium and passes it on to joints and arteries where too much calcium could be problematic. To transport calcium from the blood to the bone, the right amount of vitamins D3 and MK-7, an important protein in the digestive system, is required. Vitamin K, and especially vitamin K2, activates several important proteins in your body that help to protect the calcium you absorb with supplementation from the formation of metastatic calcium, which makes your bones and teeth healthier and your blood calcium rich. With sufficient vitamin K2 with MK 7, these essential proteins remain inactive and calcium can be channeled into joints and arteries where it could have been problematic, but vitamin D 3 is necessary for the formation of these important enzymes and for its uptake into the bloodstream and thus for bone health.

K2 and D3 supplements exist together, but I like to take them separately because the need for K2 and D3 varies from person to person.

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 35--Someday

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Someday.”  Time passes. Those at Radiant Garden's castle continue to change and grow. Demyx and Ienzo live out the rest of their lives.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

There was a sense that things had finally settled, finally calmed. Their days, though they were busy, found a sort of comfort. Time seemed to pass quickly, the weeks becoming months… becoming years. It seemed like Demyx blinked and turned twenty-five. He woke up with Ienzo’s cold feet pressed against his calves. “...Do you have to,” he mumbled.

“I can’t help it. You’re so warm. Like a furnace.” He blinked slowly, like a cat. “Happy birthday.”

“I’m old now,” he said.

He scoffed a little. “Hardly. I’m afraid things are barely beginning.” He pulled him close, spooning him.

“...Are you actually trying to cuddle, or are you just cold?”

“Does it matter?”

Demyx sighed heavily. “Come here. Bastard.”

---

Demyx wasn’t sure anything would ever be “easy.” He carried the memories within him, and every now and again they would rise and wrap around him, like vines. He’d jolt awake, covered in sweat, convinced that this was it. But then he’d return to earth, usually with Ienzo there to console him, or vice versa. This was home; they were comfortable with each other, worn into one another like stones in a river. Demyx watched Ienzo bloom, coming into his own so slowly, until the shadow of pain faded from his eyes.

It was a slow, tedious process, this healing. Demyx guessed he too must be getting somewhere. He felt like less of a stranger than before, like the world was more real.

They worked for the committee in a sort of tandem; and then for the city council, once they were elected, when a real government started to form. The work seemed to suit Ienzo; the planning, and brainstorming, and to a degree the coding too. Demyx figured using those abilities made him feel more comfortable in himself. He felt that way too. Caring for people always had the opportunity to be harrowing, but with the bad came some good. The deaths and losses were accompanied with the new lives. Pain came with catharsis.

In their spare moments, they walked without a destination. “It’s often hard to internalize how much time is passing,” Ienzo admitted.

“How so?”

“Well--there’s so much to do still. So much opportunity for growth, for betterment. Yet… for example, this morning before you woke I was looking out the apartment window. We’ve built so much. The face of the town itself has changed. I… almost forget how much work has gone into it.”

“It’s easier when it’s work you like,” Demyx said, with a wink.

“Much,” he admitted. “It helps when I know all I’m doing will only make lives easier… rather than harder.” He smiled a little. “I can see a sort of future, all of a sudden. Before there was merely noise.”

“...I know what you mean,” Demyx mumbled. “But we made it.”

Ienzo squeezed his hand.

---

One of these mornings, Ienzo was brushing Beans, trying to curtail her seasonal shedding. “Getting chunky, aren’t you?” he mumbled to her, and the cat meowed in response.

Demyx barely looked up from Arpeggio. “We’re not double feeding her again, are we?”

“I don’t think so. That’s what the schedule is for. Chunky, chunky.” Demyx could hear the cat purring. “Wait--” Ienzo began feeling at her stomach. Then, he laughed. “Come here.”

Demyx set the sitar down and came over. “What?”

“Feel her belly.”

Demyx did so. Sure enough, he could feel small little lumps inside of her. He laughed too. “Dilan did mention that there was a feral cat colony in the upper floors. I guess Beans found a boyfriend.”

Beans swished her tail, irritated at all the poking and prodding, so they let go.

Ienzo sighed. “We’re too young to be grandparents.”

Over the next few weeks, she began building a nest in one of the rooms on the floor with stolen things--towels left to dry from their bathroom, the odd sock. One of these days she came up to Ienzo, meowed insistently, and led them to said room. In the nest were four tiny kittens. She climbed in with them and began grooming them. “I suppose I am her mother,” Ienzo said, with a shake of the head. “Good job, girl.”

She blinked. They ended up naming these other kittens similarly; Peanut, Clover, Lentil, and Tamarind, based mostly on their coat colors. They would see Beans toting them around by their scruffs, tiny scratchy kitten mews. But eventually these kittens grew up, and only came around their floor to see their mother, give her a rub, before disappearing into the rest of the castle. Beans, however, seemed perfectly content to remain a housecat.

“She’s got a pretty sweet gig,” Demyx said, scratching her behind the ears. “Comfy bed, food without foraging. Two idiots to worship her. I wish I could be a cat.”

Ienzo laughed.  

---

This was their someday. Change was continuous and expected, but love remained constant. And while it didn’t and couldn’t solve anything, it was there to give them stability.

“What do you want from life?” Ienzo asked him one rainy morning. Beans was curled at their feet in bed, purring contentedly.

Demyx turned onto his side. In this light, the thin chain of Ienzo’s scar was almost invisible. “Pretty deep question first thing in the morning.”

“Humor me, then.” He propped himself up on an elbow.

“I’m not… sure,” he admitted. “I have everything I used to want.” He touched Ienzo’s cheek. “I’m kind of okay with letting things play out how they are.”

“You know, I think I am too,” Ienzo said. “All this aching and faffing about for a higher calling… maybe this is all life is. Quiet contentment. I have meaningful work to fill my days, I have you and my family. Truthfully, I don’t need to ask for anything more than that.” He leaned forward and kissed him. “Let’s watch the world grow.”

---

In all this, something odd and funny.

As Demyx grew closer to Even, he was asked now and again for his help with the man's research project, surreally enough. Even was investigating the long-term affects of darkness on the body, the mind; he thought darkness might be something of an addiction and impact them similarly. Demyx didn't particularly want to think about it too hard, but it was good that Even again driven. Demyx helped him look at minds with his magic, as they no longer had equipment. Dilan was often there too, helping with this research. And so was Ansem, in his own time, though he was working less on the scientific and more with the council.

Demyx noticed things.

He might not do reconnaissance anymore, but that seemed to be one part of him that never quite went away--he was always observational, he guessed. Even and Ansem interacted differently. Things had shifted. They ignored each other less when they were all together, sniped at each other less. There was less tension; rather, tension of a different kind. Ansem looked at him with such warmth, and once when he thought nobody was looking he rested a hand at the small of Even's back.

Oh.

Demyx actually had to excuse himself after he saw that. He went into the bathroom and laughed into his hands. He'd known the two men had been friends for longer than he'd been alive, that they'd raised Ienzo when he was little. It wasn't surprising at all. But it was hilarious that after outing Ienzo those years ago, Even had a secret of his own to keep.

"You're not going to believe this," Demyx said, one day after dinner.

"I believe a great many things," Ienzo said, without looking up from his computer.

"Have you been paying attention to how Even's been acting lately?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Should I? He seems much the same as ever. Keeping himself busy."

Demyx leaned over the couch. He wasn't sure why he was being conspiratorial in their own home. "I'm pretty sure he and Ansem have a thing going on."

Ienzo paused. "No," he said.

"Uh, yeah."

He scoffed a little. "How can you be sure?"

Demyx presented his evidence. Ienzo raised his eyebrows.

"Huh," he said. Then, "oh, this is going to be delicious. He gave me such hell for getting with you." He grinned widely. "Let me talk to him."

Sure enough, after some prodding Even admitted it was all true. Demyx was glad for them, but at the same time the thought of getting to needle an Even in love was too tempting. The next time he was asked to go down to the lab, he was ready to tease and cajole and be incredibly annoying.

If anything, Even seemed displeased to see him. He wrinkled his nose. "Apparently there are still some things that remain of the old you," he said. "Was it quite necessary to inform Ienzo of my personal life--without asking me first?" Demyx laughed a little. "So it's true then?" He turned a bit pink, but his expression was neutral. "As I said. I don't think it's any of your business." "Why were you keeping it a secret?" "As if I need to flaunt such things," he said, waving his hand dismissively and turning back to the work at hand. "I'll leave that to you two." Demyx rolled his eyes. "Does it make you... happy?" Even looked up, as if confused he would ask. "Happiness is relative, I think," he said. Then, "I believe it is... only suitable these things happen now. Ansem and I have put one another through hell. There was a lot to mend for anything else to be realized. There still is. But I suppose... life is... not quite as heavy as it once was. And that's as much as you'll get from me." Demyx smiled a little. "Guess that officially makes you my dad too."

Even scowled. "Go on, then. We have a lot to do." "Sure, dad."

"Boy--"

---

They became older; Radiant Garden grew from something somewhat haphazard into a real city. Demyx was no longer a trainee, or an apprentice, but a full-fledged healer. Ienzo worked on a little bit of everything, but was mostly engrossed in developing mental health support with the new government. It was no longer always so easy to get out of bed; he also needed glasses now. It was only when he realized the first baby he’d delivered was now in second grade that he was conscious of how much had really changed. His thirtieth birthday loomed on the horizon; Ienzo wasn’t far behind.

The passion was still there, bright and intense and impossible to reckon with; after one of these nights they lay, holding one another. Demyx ran his fingers along Ienzo’s throat, the scars that were no longer quite visible. “You remember that day I gave you a haircut, and you said that within seven years we’d have new bodies?”

“New cells. Yes.” He blinked. “It… it’s been that long?”

“Longer, actually.”

“Every day still feels so new,” he murmured. “Am I silly for feeling that way?”

“Not at all.” He stroked Ienzo’s hair. He’d finally caved a few years ago and cut the bangs short enough to show his full face, but other than that it was all the same. Demyx was fairly sure the gray was a bit fainter now, more white. “Can I ask you something?”

“We’re beyond that, aren’t we?”

“Depends.” He took a breath. “I… I want to start a family.” Ienzo opened his mouth, but Demyx forged forward. “When I help those people give birth, you know, it makes me feel…” He trailed off. “Things are… better than they were. I really think I could be a good…” He faltered on “dad.”

Ienzo touched his face. “You’d be wonderful,” he said softly.

“...But that’s not something you want.”

His expression was unreadable; Demyx began bracing himself for the hurt. “I’ve been… weighing the options,” he admitted. “I’d be lying if I said I weren’t terrified, but if anything, it’s a… good sort of fear.” He blinked. “I’m all in, Demyx.”

---

There were only two options for them; adoption or surrogacy. Most of Radiant Garden’s children were wanted, leaving them with the other. But why would someone go through the roughness of pregnancy for nothing? Demyx was on the verge of giving up when he got a phone call from Yuffie, asking him to go for a walk.

She hadn’t changed much in the intervening years; she still did a lot of security detail, only now with the city government, not the committee. She was brash as ever. “Nice glasses. Nerd,” she said when she saw him. “I bet this was your husband’s idea?”

“Mine, because I need to see,” he said. “Used to irritate the shit out of me when Cid complained about his eyes. But here we are. So what’s up?”

“I can’t catch up with my good friend Demyx?”

“You can. Though I don’t know what’s changed since drinks last Thursday.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on.” They walked in the early spring air. The flowers were just starting to come into bloom. “So I’m going to just come out and say it.”

He had no idea where this was going. “Okay?”

“I know you and Ienzo want to have a baby. I also know that because people are having responsible sex or whatever that there aren’t a whole lot of extras hanging around. I’m healthy, I have a functioning uterus. I’d love to be the weird aunt to your nerd baby.”

He stopped in his tracks. “Sorry--am I hearing this right?”

She’d turned pink. “Make me say it again and I’ll kill you.”

Demyx blinked. He was on good terms with Yuffie, but they weren’t that close. “You’d do that for me?”

She exhaled heavily. “You two are good people,” she said, with a shrug. “Whatever kid you had, you’d love the crap out of them. I didn’t get that when I was a kid, and I don’t think you did either. Plus… I always kinda wanted to be pregnant, but without the responsibility. Weird shit happening to my body? An excuse to eat as much as I want and be a total bitch? Could be worse.”

He turned to face her. “It’s a lot to ask of you.”

“Well I’m offering.” She crossed her arms. “I mean, the way you and Aerith do things, it’s basically painless anyway.”

“But not easy. It’d interfere with your work.”

She shrugged. “You know the council kisses committee ass. They’d find something for me.” She squeezed his hand. “Talk to him about it. This thing? Has a vacancy sign on it.” She pointed to her stomach. “I’ll be around. Let me know.” She winked and wandered off.

---

“...Wow,” Ienzo said, once Demyx had told him the story.

“Yeah. That’s what I said.”

He set his phone down. “Should we do it?”

“She’s offering. Pretty insistently. It wouldn’t be… hers, anyway.”

“Only by about one percent,” Ienzo said. “Mitochondrial DNA. It’s unavoidable.”

“...So we’d both jerk off into a dish, put it in her, and nine months later there’s baby?”

He groaned. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. She’d have to take hormones, to stimulate egg growth, then once those are harvested we’d have to exchange her DNA for one of ours, then fertilize the egg, implant it, and then , if you’re lucky, there’s baby.”

Demyx blinked. “...You have been looking into this.”

He shook his head. “It’s either this or trying to make some sort of replica.” He took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. “There’s a… slim chance we might not be able to conceive regardless.”

Demyx sat down. “What do you mean?”

“Nobodies are sterile,” he said slowly. “We know this from our studies. Not just biological males--Larxene, too, did not have a period or ovulate. I was one for twelve years , Demyx, through puberty.”

“So then you can go in the egg and I’ll do the rest.”

“You were one too.” He exhaled. “Thankfully we can test for these things. But… even if somehow we’re fertile… it’s a long shot.”

Demyx took a deep breath. “We’ve beaten bad odds before,” he said slowly. “Let’s see what happens.”

Ienzo ended up being half right; upon further examination of their… DNA, they found that he was, more or less, completely sterile. “...Shooting blanks,” he muttered, in a moment of unusual crassness. “The more work I put into this, the more I wanted it, and here we are.”

He squeezed his shoulders. “But if it’s just you we can still make this work. And me?”

“You have a count, but it’s not great. Not ideal or even passable. Before we put Yuffie through the misery of all those shots, perhaps we should… reconsider. Maybe it’s not meant to be at this moment in time.”

Demyx sat down heavily on one of the stools in the lab.

“I’m sorry, love. I know how much this means to you.”

“No… you’re right, we shouldn’t force what isn’t meant to be.”

He took his hand. “There may still be the off chance for adoption. We merely need to… wait for the right opportunity.”

He nodded slowly, treading heartbreak. “Yeah. Sure. That.”

---

He was trying to get to work when Even stopped him. “Again your DNA taunts me,” he spat.

Demyx raised an eyebrow. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He softened a little. “I’ve heard of your… desire, for a child. I’ve worked with bodies for years, boy. Why didn’t one of you come to me?”

He blinked. “Well, Ienzo figured--”

“Does Ienzo have my increasingly specific skillset when it comes to molding genetic information?”

Despite himself, a spark of hope. “...No.”

---

It took time, but eventually it did happen. Even never revealed exactly how he did it--he claimed that his research wouldn’t be released until he died, “and I do not intend to do that for many years yet”--but he made the embryo, the one that might maybe be a human, and combined with Yuffie’s strange fascination that she “grow a baby” for them, it went from something that was a vague dream to a real, tangible fact.

She sat on the couch in their living room. “I gave it five days,” she said. “Nothing. Nada. No blood. Just test my pee.”

“That’s not how we look for pregnancy,” he said. His heart was starting to race.

“Well then, doc, do what you have to. The anticipation is killing me.”

“Not a doctor.”

“Shut up. You’re basically a doctor.”

He held his hand over her stomach, searching, sensing, only to feel a weak, but very present, beginning of a new life.

“...Oh god. You’re crying. I lost it, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

He wiped at his eyes. “You didn’t lose anything,” he said. “You’re pregnant.”

She screamed. “You’re going to be a dad!”

---

None of them breathed until she passed the twelve week mark; even then Demyx lived in a state of anxiety. Ienzo fussed over everything from names to what sort of detergent they might use on the baby’s linens. But it was no longer an impossibility; before long they could see it, and even feel it move.

While Yuffie took immaculate care of it with an almost uncomfortable enthusiasm, getting used to having her around was… something of an adjustment. “I make an entrance now,” she said, flopping onto the couch. “Ba-bam, here she is. Belly first. I trip over everything.”

“The human pregnancy is technically aerodynamically impossible,” Ienzo said. “I think a loss of grace is not uncalled for.”

“People keep asking me who the dad is. I think my favorite way to respond so far is to say I’m not actually pregnant.” She rubbed her hand absently over the mound. “It’s really active. I think it likes the sound of your voice.”

He turned pink.

“Come here. Feel the baby,” she said in a weird voice. She took Ienzo’s palm and laid it on her bump. “It knows who you are.”

He blinked. Demyx expected him to say something like, “well it can’t know anything, it’s just a fetus,” but instead he said, “I should hope so. The lengths we went to to get it here.”

She laughed. For the first time in a long while life felt a little weird, a little performative, especially as the pregnancy only progressed. Demyx could feel his and Ienzo’s dynamic slowly shifting. They were no longer just a married couple, and wouldn’t always be able to just do whatever they wanted. Soon there would be a responsibility. It changed the way they interfaced, especially because they didn’t agree on anything when it came to raising the child. They squabbled over things like how to educate it, whether to feed it formula or breastmilk, and more intensely, how they would one day explain their pasts to it.

Yuffie had her own opinions on this. She stroked the bump absently. “Well, you shouldn’t lie to them,” she said, adjusting her swollen ankles a little on the ottoman. “Not the way people lied to you two, right? I think you should… keep it simple, at least until they’re old enough to understand. If they’re your kid, they’re going to be smart. Yeah. Simplicity, and vagueness. Aerith’s having the same problem with her daughter. How do you explain darkness? The Fall? But kids… hear things. And with all this lying around?” She gestured to the bookshelf closest to her, which happened to contain some of Ienzo’s research. “Once it learns to read it’s all out the window.”

Ienzo sighed heavily. “I… I don’t want them to feel unsafe, though, and learning these things might make that happen.”

She shook her head. “As long as you love them, and are present with them, and are kind , I think they can accept it with a grain of salt.”

Demyx gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Like you did with Ansem and Even.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Well. Glad to know you care so much, and I’m not doing all this for nothing.”

---

They spent time, the three of them, putting together the nursery in the room next door. Kids seemed to need so much stuff , clothes and pacifiers and bottles and so many other little things. Ienzo would spend hours reorganizing everything, and Demyx kept cleaning and cleaning. It was an old space; it got dusty quickly. Wasn’t that a bad thing? It seemed like everything he’d learned about the human body seemed to go out the window.

“This is why I don’t self-treat, or heal my loved ones,” Aerith said. Her daughter kept flipping through the heavy cardboard page of  her picture book, holding it up to them and saying “Look! Blue!” “I know, sweetie,” she added, patiently. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Demyx laughed a little. “Yes. I’m sure.”

“I’m surprised as you about Yuffie,” she said. “I’ve known her for years and I can’t pretend to understand what goes through that woman’s head. Vincent’s been trying to get her to settle down. I wonder if this is something of a test run for her. To see if she can handle being a mom.”

Demyx thought about it. His niece handed him the book. “Blue,” she said. “I know!” He said to her. “What other colors do you see?”

This question seemed to blow her mind; she looked at the book. “Red?”

“On the next page, maybe.” He turned back to Aerith. “That… kinda makes sense. It did seem out of the blue, even for her. We thought she was… a little too into it.”

“She talks a tough game,” Aerith said. “But she’s… honestly, she just wants to love and be loved.”

“I can relate.” The little girl approached him and held up her arms, wanting to be picked up. Demyx obliged. “I think this is part of what started me thinking, you know?”

“Me being a mom?”

“Yeah. Being the babysitter.”

She picked up a cloth and wiped at something on the toddler’s face. “You’ve got a very nurturing personality,” she said. “It’s only natural, to want kids.” She smirked a little. “You’ve got about three weeks of freedom left. If you do anything, sleep. ” Her eyes became serious. “For the love of god.”

---

The weeks seemed to pass quickly. They all waited for the labor anxiously, especially Yuffie herself, not that Demyx could blame her. If he could take her discomfort for her, he would; all he could offer was some palliative care. She stayed with them, the last month or so, rather than do the long walk a few times a day. She tried to be in good spirits, but Demyx could tell this was wearing on her; she’d been unusually quiet, when before she chattered for hours on end about nothing much. “I can’t wait to, like, not be peeing every ten minutes,” she said. “God. It’s going to be so good. And sleep! I don’t think I’ve slept more than a few hours a night since November.”

It was rainy that day, and hot; February was always something of a nightmare. Ienzo was off at a city council meeting; Demyx was home under the guise of making medicine, but really he was trying to keep an eye on Yuffie, who was completely reticent, lying on the couch and staring into the middle distance. “...You doing okay?” he asked her. “I can get you another ice pack.”

“I feel… weird,” she said slowly.

Demyx tried to keep his face impassive. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know, just… weird. Heavy. More than normal.”

He went over to her and checked her vitals. Her temperature was a little high, but no more than an at-term person in the dead of summer. “Any pain?”

She thought about it, her eyes glassy. “I’m not sure.”

“Can I touch the baby?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said wearily.

He rested his hand on the bump, trying to sense it. He could tell without prodding much at all what was actually going on. He swallowed, feeling a little dizzy. “So you’re in labor,” he said.

“For real?” she ran a hand through her hair. “I thought it would hurt a lot more.”

“The heavy feeling could be contractions. How long have you felt like that?”

She blinked. “I don’t know, since last night, maybe?”

Nerves fluttered inside of him. “Since last night ?”

“Well I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel!” She sat up a little.

Demyx squeezed her hand. “I’m going to make a few calls, okay?” His hands were shaking; he didn’t trust himself to text. “You just lay down for a few minutes.” It was hard to be both a healer and an anxious parent. He tried to get himself under control. Ienzo answered at the first ring.

“It’s now,” Ienzo said, without prelude.

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming.” He heard papers shuffling. “Time for things to change.”

It was an easy birth, almost startlingly fast, actually. They kept her in as little pain as possible; their daughter was born just after four in the afternoon, small but otherwise healthy. Holding her for the first time overwhelmed him, and he cried ceaselessly for some time.

“She’s got your hair, look,” Ienzo said, running his hand oh-so-gently over her skull, a soft brown tuft. “I was hoping.”

Yuffie turned onto her side, flinching a little. “You know I didn’t even imagine what she would look like,” she said. “She was just, like, a question mark.”

“You okay?” Demyx asked, through tears. He passed the baby gently to Ienzo.

“I’m actually fine,” she said. “I can tell I’m going to be sore--but honestly that wasn’t so bad. I was expecting, like—”

“Screaming? Hair tearing out? Squeezing someone’s hand  until it breaks?” He tried to dry his eyes. Ienzo had drawn the baby close, his eyes shut tight.

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “But it was like, a little pull, oops there it is.”

“I don’t even know how to begin thanking you—”

“It’s not exactly over,” she said dryly. “There’s still… the matter of this.” She patted one of her breasts. “But I… I wanted to see if I could do it. In case I… wanted to have one that’s really mine, you know? My boyfriend… really wants it.”

So Aerith had been right. “You didn’t think you could handle pregnancy?”

“That’s not it.” She shook her head. “The idea of… helping bring a life into the world, and then having to let it go. I wasn’t sure I could do it.”

“But it’d be your baby,” Demyx pointed out.

Yuffie smiled. “Mine to take care of. But in the end, they’re their own person, you know?”

“And how did this answer your hypothesis?” Ienzo asked softly. He was also teary.

“Well… if it makes us as happy as it makes you two… then maybe it isn’t a complete waste of time. Could I hold the bugger? Nine months in me and I haven’t even seen her face.”

Ienzo hesitated, holding her a little more tightly, before handing the baby to her. “Sorry you ended up with neurotic squares. But they’ll love you.” Yuffie touched her cheek. “Someday I’ll teach you how to make their lives hell.”

---

There was a fullness to their lives that there hadn’t been before. While they were exhausted, with the feedings and the fussiness, Demyx knew they had done the right thing. It felt natural , comfortable.

“She needs a name,” Ienzo said, coaxing the bottle into her mouth. “I thought the one we’d picked was it, but…”

“Seeing her changed your mind.”

“...Precisely.”

Her eyes were open, newborn blue and unfocused. She ate like she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Demyx took one of her tiny hands and felt it close around his finger. “What if…”

He looked at him. “What?”

“What if we named her after your mom? Isn’t that a… tradition, here?”

Ienzo blinked a little. “I suppose…” He thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Well that’s the one, isn’t it. Chiara. It fits.” He sighed. “You named the cat and our daughter. The next one’s mine.”

“The next one?” Demyx smirked. “We barely got this one.”

“I’m thinking ahead.” He smiled. “Who knows what the world has in store?”

---

It was a pleasure, to see her grow; even once they returned to their work, they had a slew of babysitters. Even put up a front of unwillingness, but Demyx knew he doted on her. “I feel I owe you that much,” he said, to Ienzo. “Goodness knows you two must need some time for yourselves. I think we’ll be alright, won’t we?” He addressed Chiara. She put her hand right on his nose.

“The bag should have everything you need,” Ienzo said anxiously. “And you’ll call me, if—?”

Even raised an eyebrow. “I have done this before, you know. And she returned with her head still attached, did she not?”

Chiara burped and smiled.

“Goodness, I do hope you don’t inherit your fathers’ anxiety. Off we go.”

Demyx rested his hand on Ienzo’s waist. “He loves it,” he said.

“He and Ansem are certainly vying for her heart. Little do they know that Moosie is number one to her.” Noticing the offending stuffed animal still sitting on the dresser, he swore. “Goodness. I should bring this to them--she’ll get upset if she notices it missing—”

Demyx took the stuffed animal out of his hand. “She’ll be okay,” he said. “Why don’t you spend some time with me, hm? Like adults?”

Ienzo nodded, reddening a little. “I can do that.”

---

“Daddy?”

Demyx stirred weakly. He turned on the lamp at bedside. There she was, at his bedside, thumb in mouth, bedraggled, half-rotting Moosie in one hand. “What is it, baby?”

Chiara hiccupped. “I had a bad dream.”

He picked her up. She was getting so big , so heavy. He settled her between them.

“What happened, love?” Ienzo asked, smoothing a strand of hair from her face.

“Dream about ghosts.” She sobbed a little. “They go boo.”

Ienzo and Demyx exchanged a glance. “What kind of ghosts?” Ienzo asked.

“Dark. Like.” She lifted her hands above her head and hissed. “Grandpa telling me about them?”

Something like anger flickered across Ienzo’s face before he was able to control it. “What did he say?”

“I was… playing,” she said, sniffling. “I goed… downstairs. He said I can’t goed down there because—people are sleeping.” She held a finger to her lips. “Shh. But I…” She tapped her head. “I seed them.”

“Do you see them still?” Demyx asked gently.

Chiara shook her head. “No. That’s why I’m sad. They were my friends. They play with me when I sleep. They say… hello. And manners.”

Ienzo blinked. “You mean “thank you”?”

She nodded. “They said tell daddy thank you. They say we sleep now. Shh.” She started to cry.

“Shh,” Demyx said gently. “It’s okay. You have to say goodbye sometimes. It’s okay that it hurts.”

---

Chiara got along well with Aerith’s daughter; they were both feisty, adventurous. More than once she slipped away, to explore the castle, much to Demyx and Ienzo’s horror. Even seemed to find this endlessly amusing.

“Now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine,” he said, once they had found the bedraggled child. “Not so fun that you’re on the other side, is it?” For a moment they watched her sleep, wan and exhausted, before returning to their bedroom. There was an odd look on Ienzo’s face. Very slowly, he took off his glasses and lay back. “That’s right, isn’t it?” “What is?” He laughed a little to himself. “She’s the same age I was when I first came here.” “It’s all going so quick. They said it would, but--” “I know.” He groaned a little. “She’s too much like us.” “I don’t know what you were expecting.” He took Ienzo’s hand, ran his finger over the smooth metal of his wedding ring. “But she’s… getting a more normal childhood than we ever did.”

“There’s certainly no shortage of love,” Ienzo admitted. “For that, I’m eternally grateful.” Aeleus and Dilan both, in their own ways, also doted on her. “Would you ever… want another?”

Demyx considered it. “I’m not sure,” he said. “When you look at it logistically…”

“Aside from that.”

“If there’s a chance, then maybe,” he said, with a shrug. “But I’m happy with just her.”

“I am too.”

---

Chiara was bright, much like Ienzo; but people came easily to her, like Demyx. After much debate, they sent her to public school, much to the chagrin of everyone else; but they could teach her whatever else she may want to learn. She couldn't grow up isolated. To let her go and get something like their lives back was difficult. They were able to find one another again. They were closer to middle aged, now, rather than young. He knew it would happen. It still felt strange. He was shaving one morning when he saw it. “Ienzo,” Demyx said. “Come here.” “Something the matter?” He could barely contain the laughter. “Look.” He lifted the part of his hair gently, revealing the strands of gray. Ienzo touched it. “It must be starting early, for you. After all the stress you’ve gone through in your life, it’s not surprising.”

“We really aren’t young anymore, are we?” “As though these things last forever? We’ve still got more than half our lives left.” “...Huh.” He brushed his hair back into place. The style was less radical and more functional than it had been in the past; gone were the days of the shorn scalp, the gel. His younger self would probably find him infinitely boring, he realized.

He was okay with that. Ienzo kissed him softly. “I rather like the idea of you being a silver fox.”

---

So that’s really it, then.

In his rare moments of alone time, he composes. His style has changed considerably, away from the technically difficult and more towards lightness, subtlety, expression of emotion rather than skill. He writes a sort of memoir, with these compositions; more for his daughter, and maybe her eventual children, than himself. It’s a sort of project that takes years, years of stolen minutes and endless editing. He leaves a copy of it, quietly, in the archives, on the internet. She’s almost grown up when she finds it. “...Dad?” He’s at work, up to his elbows in medicine. “What’s up, sweetie?” She has his coloring, but she looks so like Ienzo; small, delicate. She moves like him, too, using her hands when she speaks.

“You busy?” She nods her head towards the door. “I’ll get lunch. You keep forgetting yours at home. It makes Father so mad.” She chose how to refer to them herself.

They walk for a while, get lunch at some cafe. “I was studying for my entrance exams,” she begins. College around the corner at the fledgling university (how?). She still isn’t sure if she wants to pursue the arts or the sciences. “Researching folk ballads for this essay I want to write. You… left something in the library. For me.”

“...Yeah.” “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” “Because…” Any number of reasons. “Well, for a long time it wasn’t done. You know your dad and I… went through a lot. I didn’t want you to find it until you were ready. Old enough to understand.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore,” she says, so earnestly it makes him laugh. “I… I want to know how I came to be. Not just the Aunt Yuffie story, the… rest of it. The history of my existence.”

Demyx can hear both his husband and himself in her words. He takes her hand, gives it a squeeze. “Let’s play it through together.”

And they do.

She has so many questions, not just for them but for Even and Ansem, Aeleus and Dilan. Hearing about the way they suffered, the way they made suffering, makes her cry, but she doesn’t see them as at fault, not in a way that makes her love them less. The knowledge changes her. She says it gives her a deeper insight on how to help people. She goes off to college--lives with friends in an apartment. She grows up. And they move on. For some reason only then does it feel right for them to move from the castle, to a small home in town. They bring with them their memories, the great-great-grandson of the cat Beans. They have over their friends, their family; one day their daughter brings along a young woman who will become her wife.

When the time comes--and it does, it’s inevitable--they pass away gently, quietly, and against all odds, together. Demyx knows it will hurt her, her children, but he also knows this is the way things must be. They’ve both left their legacies behind, full of healing, of progress, of goodness.

So their story ends, and they sleep peacefully. She visits their memorials, teaches her children about her namesake, about what her family did and how they then atoned. The city government reopens the castle to the public, restores it to something resembling its former glory. Again, it becomes a place of learning, but they never do forget the ills they are capable of.

For the last time, Chiara stands in the rooms where she was raised, where one of her fathers played endless songs for her, the other reading to her infinite stories, both teaching her all she needs to know, stories she hopes to hand down. Rooms now empty, rooms now for someone else. Her wife takes her gently by the elbow, leads her away.

And they begin their life anew.

[getting2knowaffluences-blog]

Healthy Foods Can Help You With Your Weight Loss Goals

We have said that eating healthy foods will definitely help you lose weight. And someone may ask what constitutes healthy foods? My personal definition of healthy foods is the green vegetable foods and fruits. These I also call the clean foods as they are clean, low in calories and do not have any residues after eating them. Unlike the high calorie foods and its fatty cousins which always leave bad residues of waste in your system, fruits and vegetables do not leave such residues that are why I see fruits and vegetables as healthy foods. On the meaty side, clean foods include foods like chicken, turkey and fish.

These meats are lean on fat and calories compared to raw beef. Lentils, dry beans and peas are also passing as clean foods. When one starts eating from the green vegetable and lean meat foods listed above, they will start losing weight because of the fact that fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods have high concentration of complex carbohydrates and fiber in them which the body can slowly absorb them and thus cause our hunger pangs to be satisfied quickly and efficiently.

The case against processed foods is that because their nutritional values are low and the fact that they do not make us feel full easily like the natural foods, they do not make us feel satisfied and this like addiction causes us to want to eat more of it when we know for sure that it is against our weight loss or maintenance goals. I once read a book about natural foods and the author said in that book that bad foods like drugs leave behind their unhealthy residue of waste behind after eating them so that as the residues stay in our system, it causes us to want to eat more to cover up the poisoning effect of that residues. You see, when we are not eating, our stomach gets into the mode for cleansing and when that happens, the poisons are all bubbled up from the tissues of our stomach into the surface.

When that happens we start feeling sick or weak and this I have found out that when it happens will cause people to eat more foods to stop the stomach's cleansing work thus stopping the poisons from coming up to the surface and with this stopping comes our relief from the weakness that the food residues now turning into poison causes us to feel. Usually, people who undergo long periods of fasting for detoxification purpose experience this effect but even if you are not fasting one can still experience a mild form of this experience which even that is not convenient. This explains why people who eat junk food tend to eat more and that as already mentioned above is to stop them from getting sick or weak from the poisons in their stomachs that the stomach is trying to evict at ever chance of not eating for a few hours of time.

Even though manufactures of food argue that there is a need to include preservatives into our foods to preserve them and make them last longer, the side effect of such practice is not good as it has caused many of industrialized world's health to deteriorate as it stands now. Perhaps our biggest nutritional mistake has been turning away from foods in their natural state. We have replaced them with processed foods that have been modified to last longer, be easier to manufacture and distribute, and be more convenient to store and use.

For example, when I go to the grocery store, I see apple Juice that has no fiber at all and then when I go to a health food store, I see apple Juice with the fiber in them. Unfortunately the apple Juice with the fiber in them are expensive and they are not found any where except in health food stores so a great majority of the population do not get access to the healthy apple Juice except the one that has been heavily processed and all the fiber taken out from them. The apple Juice with the fiber in them are the good ones because they are full of fiber and are able to help aid weight loss and good health. The apple Juice with no fiber is usually full of added sugars and they tend to contain more calories than the regular apple or the apple Juice with the fiber. This is to say that process foods are not good that is why they are usually less expensive than the healthy unprocessed equivalents.

Natural foods are good for our health and can easily aid us in losing weight and staying healthy. It is full of vitamins, minerals and fiber and contains cancer fighting antioxidants that are contained in natural unprocessed foods. These foods help reduce the risk of suffering from diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer and even help us to reduce weight and stay fit and healthy.

The foods that are processed may be added to what I call the bad foods as they are usually not healthy for us and contain lots of salt, sugars, preservative, saturated and Trans fats. Most nutritionist will tell you that the outer skin of foods in general are more nutrients than even the part that we think we must eat but unfortunately the outer parts of foods is what is thrown away as unfit for food. Take potato for example, the outer skin is more nutritious than the inner food but yet most people will throw out the outer skin and eat the starch within it. Since processed foods do not have fiber in them and are full of additives and food dyes for color they are not healthy for us and in most cases can make one sick.

The human body needs clean environment to stay healthy and eating foods doused with foreign chemicals and ingredients will not help us at all but will make people worse off. But as suggested above, eating healthy natural foods with high natural fiber and nutrients are good for us and can help us to lose weight and remain healthy and thin. It will cause you not to be hungry needlessly but will help shield you from the hunger pangs and cause you to stay slim, healthy and enjoy your life fully. Always remember that it is not about taste or quantity of food that matters but it is the quality of the food and the health it promotes that matters and with no food residues left in our system will also mean that craving for the bad foods will be eliminated or drastically reduced.