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millenniumfae · 4 years ago

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Video Game Cooking: Nectar (Hades 2018)

Nectar is one of the in-game items Zagreus can collect. By gifting these bottles of golden liquid to other characters, he raises his affinity with them, which in turn gives him powerup items and advances character questlines.

Hades (2018) is a retelling/adaptation of the classical Persephone and Hades mythos. All items, settings, and characters are from classic Greek mythology; Zagreus’ foster mother is the primordial goddess of night. Achilles’ personal questline is about reuniting him with his lover Patrocles. Zagreus has spent his entire life sheltered underground in Tartarus, so he doesn’t know what birds are, or what winter is.

In turn, ‘nectar’ exists in Greek mythology. It’s sometimes interchangeable with ambrosia; both are the legendary foods/drinks of the gods, said to grant immortality to anyone who consumes them, amongst other positive effects. In-game, nectar is the more commonplace counterpart to ambrosia; Zagreus finds nectar as a dungeon drop. But he needs to defeat the champion of Elysium boss to gain a single bottle of ambrosia.

Today, we’re gonna re-create the nectar of Hades (2018) for ourselves! It may be contraband in Hades’ domain, but it’s not like anyone pays attention to that rule, anyways.

Why are we recreating nectar, and not ambrosia? Because there already exists tons of ‘ambrosia’ drink recipes. Maybe not based off of the Hades (2018) version, but there’s nothing new or exciting in making yet another ambrosia drink. Nectar, on the other hand, gives us more room for invention.

Hades (2018) Nectar Recipe (Makes One Serving)

1 1/3 cups Martinelli's sparkling cider

2 tablespoons orange flower water

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon edible gold shimmer powder (make sure it lists all ingredients, and is certified food safe)

A pinch of coarse sea salt

A pinch of lemon zest

A drop of mint extract

The first times Zagreus gifts nectar to npcs, they describe honoring some sort of godhood custom and exchange with him with a ‘keepsake’ - an in-game powerup he can wear. Unlike with gifting ambrosia, their eyes don’t pop out with shock at receiving such a luxurious gift, it’s instead just something nice, even if relatively commonplace. But nectar is still prestigious enough that gifting the actual Olympic gods nectar goes over well.

If ambrosia is the equivalent of Zagreus gifting $30,000,000 Breguet watches to his friends and family, then nectar is the gourmet-wrapped basket of cheese and crackers you see in the ‘gift’ section of the grocery store. Something you spot while on errands, and impulsively buy so you have a hostess gift the next time someone invites you over. It’s a gift borne of societal custom, and implores the giftee to give you something in return, eventually. Everyone from your multimillionaire uncle Poseidon to your humble jailbird neighbor Sisyphus are pleased to receive such a gift, even if they might value its contents differently.

(In the early-access versions of the game, nectar was ambrosia. The final release wrote ambrosia as the coveted, rare prize you earn after defeating the champions of Elysium. True enough, Zagreus can only find ambrosia after defeating the Elysium boss.)

In original Greek mythology, ‘nectar’ and ‘ambrosia’ aren’t two distinct things. Homer describes nectar as the god’s drink, and ambrosia is the food. But in Sappho’s and Anaxandrides’s poems, it’s the opposite. There’s more recorded mentions of ‘ambrosia’, rather than nectar. Some take this to mean that both nectar and ambrosia can be seen as something both food and drink, like honey.

Both share canonical similarities. Ambrosia and nectar are fragrant foods/drinks, sometimes used as literal perfume by the gods. Makes sense that nectar smells good, if in the AD period we’ve taken the word to mean the sweet stuff within flowers.

Other than its smell, we’ve no canonical information about nectar (other than in the Odyssey, nectar is described as either ‘rose-red’ in color, or in scent). Hades (2018) rendered nectar’s appearance as an opaque, warm gold liquid in a cute little round bottle, wrapped with a ribbon to benefit its ‘gift merchandise’ reputation.

Nobody in Hades (2018) describes the taste/smell of nectar. Ambrosia, on the other hand, is said to be rare ‘vintages’ that you’re guaranteed to like. Sometimes, gifting either results in a cutscene where Zagreus and co. hang out at the lounge, complete with a sound clip of uncorking a bottle and pouring it into a tall glass. You can also see characters drink nectar amongst each other, savoring both the occasion and the taste. Eurydice also offers a ‘Refreshing Nectar’ power up item, which just kinda looks like normal nectar but in a tall glass.

There’s a clear alcohol equivalence. But nobody references drunkeness in-game. Even original classical Greek culture didn’t have a drunk culture like we do; wine was revered, but it was mixed with water to be savored, not to intoxicate oneself. Maybe nobody in-game can get drunk in the first place; everyone’s either an immortal, or a ghost.

(In my opinion, it’s always a bit weird when videogame characters can nurture deep, trusting relationships purely built upon a system of gifting items. But Hades (2018) does make it clear that Zagreus already has established relationships with most of the cast.)

Ambrosia’s a rare vintage. So what does that make nectar? We need to make something sweet, pleasant, attractive-looking, and also tangibly related to its rarer sibling. So we’re using another liquid that’s distilled and sometimes fermented; apple cider.

A bit of this decision comes from the soundbite of opening up a nectar in the lounge; it’s a thin viscosity with a slight hint of foam, almost sounding like beer. And the color matters too, since different distillations of apple cider can result in different colors, ranging from dark brown to a light, bright gold.

Apple juice, when fermented, can have alcohol contents going from light apple wine, to brandies that have 10-25% alcohol. As a culinary ingredient, its modest fructose content means a higher temperature tolerance, and its citric acid can be used as a brine. It’s a popular ‘new world’ ingredient in cooking and baking.

It’s also an ‘old world’ food. Hades (2018) doesn’t take itself super seriously, with its foil-wrapped gyros and french fries as in-game healing items. But any character/worldbuilding they do have, they keep it consistent.

Zagreus says that Hermes’ symbol “almost looks like a bat wing”, when it’s very clearly a bird wing. Because he’s lived underground his whole life, he doesn’t know what a bird is. Weapons upgraded with the aspect of people like Guan Yu, or King Arthur, are time-bending powers that no one has ever heard of, with hints that these mysterious people live in places with their own gods/mythology. Zagreus catches a trout/bass/sturgeon fish for the first time, and it’s completely foreign to him, but Achilles fondly recalls these Greece-native fish fitting of his Nereid heritage. Characters have discussions about how mortals fear death, despite Thanatos being a gentle god represented by butterflies. There’s no sun, therefore no time, in the underworld. Hades is the god of minerals as well as the underworld, hence gems and diamonds being an in-game loot.

Apples originated in Central Asia. During the Classical Greek era, they would have resembled what we call crabapples; small, hard, sour, cherry-sized. “At the Sammardenchia-Cueis site near Udine in Northeastern Italy, seeds from some form of apples have been found in material carbon dated to around 4000 BCE.”

It implores me to find ingredients that fit the setting, as with my other Video Game Cooking recipes. No pumpkins, no corn, potatoes, chocolate, tomatoes, vanilla. Instead, we have things like almonds, lentils, oranges, honey, garlic, onions (haha, suck it Achilles)

To reflect nectar’s ‘sweet smelling’ trait, we’re using an ingredient common in Persian cooking - and later the French royal court of King Louis; orange flower water. I found mine in my local Asian grocery. It’s a byproduct of making essential oil, and it’s colorless/flavorless, but with a strong aromatic smell that affects any food you mix it with. It’s also a known ingredient in modern day Greece, called anthonero (ανθόνερο).

(Eeurydice is confirmed to use both nectar and ambrosia as a cooking ingredient, and her food is apparently amazing. Maybe one day, I’ll make another Video Game Cooking recipe based off of her Pom Porridge, or Ambrosia Delights.)

And to really make it look like the food of the gods, we’re adding an ingredient found more and more in swanky bars worldwide; edible glitter powder. Originally, people only used this to decorate baked goods and candies, but come Instagram, people are making these really picturesque cocktails that shimmer rainbow. You gotta be careful when buying these for yourself, though; the tiny tins of decorative edible shimmer power you find at Michaels may not actually be as edible as they claim. I found Bakell-brand Luster Dust at a bake-supply shop. If it doesn’t list its ingredients, or certify itself as FDA-approved, then don’t use it for food.

And since it’s called ‘nectar’, we’re also adding honey. Which has long history of its divine status as a holy food. To take down the intense sweetness a bit, the tinest pinch of sea salt - another holy, pure substance. And to really bring out the brightness of the apples, we’re adding a sprinkle of lemon zest. A tiny drop of mint extract brings a complex depth to the orange flower smell.

To make a glass of nectar; cover the bottom of the glass with mint, lemon, sea salt, honey, and orange flower water. Then, pour the apple cider with the gold shimmer dust together, so that the two mix together a bit, to avoid clumping of the powder. Then you mix the drink a bit, so that the honey, zest, and salt aren’t sitting at the bottom.

It only now occurs to me that this recipe might actually be a rendition of Eurydice’s Refreshing Nectar item, rather than pure nectar itself. But just take my word for it; when you open up a bottle of nectar, you get that whiff of blossoms with the slight coldness of mint, and the sea salt/honey taste goes really well with the apple juice. I imagine that Eurydice’s somehow making a further delicious drink by adding a splash of Bailoni and ice.

Enjoy! Just imagine that you’re hanging out with Zagreus and his three partners, cracking a cold one open over stories about how crazy the surface world is. Did you know that we have machines called computers that instantly relay information all over the world??

#hades game #hades #hades 2018 #hades (2018)#hades supergiant #video game cooking

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live-laugh-lenney · 4 years ago

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The One Where YN Meets Will.

Hello, hi!

I’m Emily, I’ve had this blog for a few months now and I’m not sure what I want to do with it, apart from reblog gifs of Will and catch up on all things Youtube and the Eboys and the Sidemen and all that. Thought about giving writing a go, since I’ve done some before on another blog for another fandom, and this came from my brain as an attempt at writing for WillNE.

I am willing to take requests or write anything that anyone wants me to write about, if anyone would like one written for a specific idea.

Hope you like it. x

A consistent buzz came beside her.

Rumbling on top of her bedside table, her phone laid overturned and ringing with an incoming call from someone, charging on the thick Stephen King book that she was halfway through reading, ripples rolling over the surface of the water in the tall glass placed next to it, that she took to bed with her the previous night. She glanced at the salt lamp, small and jagged-looking and emitting a dull orange glow behind the sunlight that streamed through her windows, and gave herself a tut for leaving it on overnight; she couldn’t remember leaving it on although she couldn’t help but give a mental clap at how truthful the benefits of having a Himilayan salt lamp had been.

‘MUM’

The three letter word flashed at her in bold text, above a candid photo that someone had taken of her and her mum in a heart-to-heart chat in the middle of a family barbecue that had taken a turn once her father had found the alcohol stash in the garage and turned a casual family get-together into a night where everyone stumbled over the front doorstep on their way out. A heart-to-heart conversation that had them both smiling brightly at one another.

“Mum, hi.”

“Hi, darling.” Her voice sounded so soft, so sweet, inviting and warm and YN missed her more than anything; if she had anything to say about moving miles away, she would always give the advice of making sure distance was something you could handle. “You sound tired, did I wake you? I thought you’d be on your way to work by now.”

YN looked at the red numbers on the screen of her alarm clock, reading 7:45, and she had a tiny freak-out for a brief moment before she came to the realisation that it was her day off and she wasn’t due into work until after the weekend had finished.

“You did, yeah. I’m not due at work today though. They gave me the day off since my boss’ schedule is just meetings out of town today. He’s up North for conferences and such and it was late notice for me so he didn’t mind me not accompanying him. I wouldn’t have been able to do much anyway,” YN clarified and she used her free hand to push herself up from the mattress. Her hair was knotted and pillow-messed, sticking up in all directions and falling loose from the ponytail she’d thrown it up in before she fell asleep. Her t-shirt twisted around her middle which she adjusted with her fingers, bringing her knees to her chest and staring out the window as the sun continued its rise in the horizon. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t fuss about me,” she heard her mother tut from down the line. But YN couldn’t help but fuss over the two of them; if she lived closer to them, she wouldn’t worry so much because they’d be just a short distance away if they needed her help. But she didn’t live close and she hadn’t done for almost two years; she lived almost 300 miles northeast of where she used to live with her parents and it wouldn’t take her more than twenty minutes to tend to their needs. “We’re both fine, stop worrying yourself, darling. Your dad’s been back doing his gardening so he’s out there already. Watering his flowers, spraying fertiliser, cleaning all the fox poo up. He’s been growing some veggies in the plot next to the greenhouse so you can take some back when you next come to visit.”

YN smiled to herself, bringing her shoulders to her jawline before dropping them and relaxing against her headboard. The back of her head resting against the plush velvet, coloured a clean white, and her toes curled into the sheet beneath her, her fist clutching the duvet as she brought it tighter to her body.

“You can always send me some in a box? Or you could come and visit and drop them off yourself? You know I’ve got the spare room in the new place if you want to come up for a weekend. It’s vacant, just full of my empty moving boxes and bags that I haven’t gotten rid of yet,” YN said, a yawn creeping up her throat that she hid with the palm of her hand, “I need dad’s handyman work to come and help put some shelves up. You’ve not seen it yet.”

“Your dad said it’s a lovely flat. Lovely view. Lovely building. But, you know what he’s like when it comes to describing things. Everything’s lovely,” her mother snorted and YN laughed softly; her father had always been vague and she’s pretty sure that she’d never heard him use any other word to describe something other than ‘lovely’. “We’ve been talking about paying you a visit.”

“Please do. It’s a little lonely here by myself. I’m yet to meet new friends or have a chat with the neighbours. Everyone’s either back in Cornwall or back in Hackney and both are a hefty distance away.”

YN had never considered herself as an introvert so to call herself lonely felt strange.

She was always the friend who asked for the bill, she was the friend who made the complaint in a restaurant when a plate of food came back wrong, she was the friend who made advances on blokes in pubs and clubs because her friends were too shy to go and introduce themselves and she was the friend who always carried the responsibility of making polite conversation with people in pubs when they needed a table to perch themselves at. She was that friend. So making friends with strangers and starting conversations with her co-workers and approaching others who she found had kind features was never something she struggled with.

Moving to a new place and having to make new relationships and form new bonds, regardless of how far it was from the bonds and relationships you already had, she found it daunting to start fresh.

“What are you doing today?”

“I’m not sure. The weather is really nice and it looks warm out so I might go and explore Canary Wharf and see what’s around. I need to do some shopping, food and furniture, so I might do some of that,” YN rolled onto her side and let her cheek rest against the cold side of her mattress, the backs of her thighs exposed to the cool air of her bedroom as her t-shirt rose up her body; and she made a mental note to buy herself so proper pyjamas because knickers and an oversized t-shirt could cause more problems than expected. “We’ve got a lovely grass area outside the block of flats so I might sit out there, soak up the sunshine, read a book and eat some lunch. I don’t know. Might see how the day goes, I have a good feeling about it.”

“Go exploring. You can find some places to show us when we come to visit,” and YN smiled.

“I’ll do that. You’ll love it mum. This place is amazing. I feel so lucky to have been given something as beautiful as this. I had a crack den for my first flat so this feels like a dream,” she stared at her ceiling. There was no yellow tint from how the previous tenants smoked inside and there were no unusually coloured stains on the ceiling’s coving that caught the eye because of how a stain of that colour shouldn’t have been there, leaving the mystery of just how it got there… and YN didn’t need that kind of stress over something like that. “It doesn’t smell like pee, there’s no syringes outside and there’s no sign of vomit or shit stains on the floor because it’s all laminate.”

“You deserve it, darling. You really do.”

“It’s clean, mum. It came clean, it smells clean, it looks clean. Everything looks brand new and,” YN pauses for a moment, rolling onto her stomach and she sighs with content, “I love it.”

After hanging up, she contemplated getting up and getting dressed for the day.

It felt rather tempting to stay in her comfortable loungewear and enjoy the silence, the time to herself and the time off she had been after for so long, taking advantage of Deliveroo and ordering food for breakfast, lunch and dinner rather than cooking something homemade and having the leftovers the next day (or for when she woke up in the early hours with a hankering for something to nibble on, because she could, because she didn’t have an authority figure to tell her no).

By the time her phone call ended with her mother, it was a little over forty-five minutes later and her alarm clock showed a time that she didn’t want to see on her day off; 8:35am. She expected another hour or two added on to her usual sleep schedule, to make a difference to the usual 6am alarm call that had her detesting her job just a tiny bit, but it wasn’t frowned upon because she’d take any given opportunity to speak to her mother. The one person she called her best friend because she really was the only person, apart from her father, that she’d drop anything and everything important for. Her sleep didn’t matter when she got to her the voice of someone she missed so dearly.

Porridge and fruit, a colourful array of strawberries and blueberries and bananas and cranberries in her bowl, and a warm cup of tea had been her breakfast as she caught up with the lifestyle Youtube channel she had been in the loop with. A Youtube channel that she had been a big fan of from the moment she moved to London, one who she turned to in times of need, one that she stumbled across when googling aesthetically pleasing ways to decorate a flat because she really needed to do something about how her Hackney flat had looked before a lick of paint and a hanging plant, one that she continued to view and like and followed tips from, even when it came to her new flat.

“Don’t be afraid to like monochrome and definitely don’t be afraid to follow a colour scheme that might seem ‘out there’ and in your face. If you like lime green then go paint a portion of your wall that colour. If you like the brightest shade of pink then go mad and add some colour to your life. You can never feel more organised than when your surroundings follow a consistent pattern that brings immense amounts of joy when you enter.”

The young girl on her screen, with space-buns either side of her head and an outfit that definitely came from a trendy thrift store clothes rail, sat before a wall of a delicious shade of peach that YN thought looked lovely; not for herself, because she’d stuck with the whites and the greys and the blacks that her flat already consisted of, but perfect for the young twenty-something year old.

“There are loads of websites where you can buy hanging plants, or artificial hanging baskets, and hanging canvas prints and wall art. I’m always looking for new things to buy so I’ll link some of my favourite online stores for you to check out; hit my Instagram mentions up with photos of things you’ve brought, too. That’s what I love to see.”

YN’s spoon clinked against the ceramic bowl in front of her as she pushed it away from her, reaching for her television remote and turning off her Youtube app, her television turning off completely and leaving a black screen behind. The flat falling silent. She looked around her, drumming her fingers against the tabletop, eyes squinting as the sunlight streamed through the wall-to-ceiling windows and made everything feel bright..

As much as she warmed to the idea of staying inside and ordering furniture and decor for her home, scrolling through online stores to buy something she thought she needed but really didn’t need, she had a good feeling about the upcoming day.

“Listen, love, I’m not sure if you could tell but I’m not exactly a people person. I don’t know you, don’t want to know you, have no plans to get to know you. You might live in the building but that doesn’t mean we need to be friendly.”

He spoke with such vigour in his voice that YN could only keep quiet so as to not entice a negative reaction out of him in such a confined space because confrontation was something she was never comfortable with. Sure, she’d endured confrontation before but that was from people she had been acquainted with, the ones she was friends with, people she saw on a daily basis and from people she worked with, from those who were supposed to confront her when something was wrong or hadn’t been down in a way it was supposed to be done; her boss, mainly. This man was a complete stranger, someone she didn’t know,someone she’d never seen before so instant regret filled her veins. She thought he looked friendly enough to start a quick conversation, to make the lift ride seem a little less boring, filling the empty space with general chit-chat.

Cowering away from him and almost closing in on herself, even though his attention stayed focused on the screen of his phone as he scrolled through a social media app, she thought he’d finished with her and she hadn’t expected him to perk up anymore.

“Not everyone likes to chat to strangers.”

“Well, I like chatting to strangers so don’t mind him,” a quirky Geordie accent perked up from behind her, her posture adjusting at the sudden appearance of someone behind her; she’s sure she didn’t see anyone else in the lift, apart from the towering bloke beside her, when she stepped into the lift but, then again, he was tucked away in the corner with a cap on his head and she had been looking at the floor as she entered because a mark on her white shoe had caught her attention. “Come chat to me, if you want. Promise I won’t bite your head off like matey-boy there.”

Her trainers squeaked on the floor as she spun around, eyes raking up and down his figure so she could get a good look at who the voice belonged to, almost staking him out in a way. He was a handsome chap, with brown hair sticking out from beneath a black cap upon his head that he’d pulled quite far down his forehead, a cheeky grin on his face that made the mood in the lift much brighter. There was a graphic print printed on the front of the black hoodie he had decided to throw on, the commonly-known Adidas stripes lining the length of his joggers, trainers on his feet with the laces loose and almost untying by themselves (clumsy, she assumed he was, because there’s no way he wouldn’t trip over them as soon as they loosened completely).

“I’m Will. Will Lenney.”

“I’m YN.”

“Do I get your surname? S’only fair since I told you mine.”

She laughed softly and replied with her surname, a look of appreciation on his features as he held his hand out for her to take, which she gladly shook with her own. Skin so soft, fingers so delicate, with a hold so strong that she couldn’t find herself letting go. She didn’t want to let go. This was the first contact she’d had with someone new, in a month of being new to the area, and it just so happened to be with someone she found rather attractive to the eye.

The bloke from before, who had tore down her attempts at being the friendly neighbour who he would, no doubt, see quite often, couldn’t help but let out the strongest sigh of annoyance. A sound that brought them back to reality, hands falling from their hold, dropping back down to their sides with a faint rosy-look on their cheeks that didn’t come from how warm it was. A sound that made the both of them turn their noses up, that made them their eyebrows scrunch on their browlines and made them want to really throw words at him until he gained some manners. Yet they ignored him because he wasn’t worth the time.

“You’re new here, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” he started, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder that had slipped with the movement of his arm falling down to his side. His fingertips and right down to the middle of his palm still felt heavy with the thought of her hand still in his. “I’d remember such a beautiful face.”

The heat already on her cheeks reached boiling and she knew her flushed look caught his attention. His smile turning into a grin which had her looking at her feet, shyly. A handsome lad with a sense of immense charm about him; she liked him and it wasn’t typical of her to form an attraction at such an early stage.

“Yeah, I moved in about a month ago. Floor 10, right at the end of the corridor. A proper upgrade from where I used to be located but thanks to my work, they moved me from my previous office block to my current office block in Canary Wharf and said they’d move me closer if necessary,” she thought she was rambling and she expected a look of faint annoyance on his features that would silently tell her to shut up. She picked at the loose string hanging from the hem of her t-shirt and twirled it around her finger, looking up from her feet and seeing a look of intense concentration on his face, enticing her to carry on. “The move was necessary. Completely necessary. It wasn’t a nice place where I was before, it was the first thing I saw on the website and I was desperate for somewhere to live. If I stayed there, I would be half an hour away otherwise.”

Canary Wharf.

It was a complete upgrade from the streets of Hackney and the dingy flat she had become so accustomed to for a little less than a year; the smell of weed and tobacco would fill the corridors and hit her in the face when she left her front door, the lights were always dim and flickered and the lifts were rickety and untrustworthy, discarded bikes and scooters and old prams and baby-carriers littered the space between one end of the hallway to the other, suspicious figures dressed in black hoodies and grey joggers always greeted her with stone-cold faces and squared-up jaws. An attempt, she guessed, to look like they were the typical hardnuts of the complex and that they weren’t to be messed with, even if it was just a polite ‘excuse me’ to pass them by and to be out of their hair within a moment.

It wasn’t all bad, regardless. Her neighbours were sweethearts, they always said hello and invited her in for cups of tea and a slice of cake after she finished work, most people were kind and warm and had their own back stories as to why they chose such a place to live - she could only imagine that the building was a nice place to live, with residents who took care of themselves and the place they lived in, before London gangs took over and were on the high of increasing and before drug dealers became more frequent on the streets - and her life, thank god, was never bothered. No one intervened, no one found her life to be their business to spread and life felt normal; she had a home, somewhere to live, somewhere to sleep and eat and shower and feel warm and cosy in a bed. Even if it wasn’t as nice as she had wanted it to be, she had somewhere.

Her new flat was almost dream-like if you compared it to what she lived in before. It made her Hackney flat look like a pit; a drug-den, if you will. She could wake up to pure sunshine filtering through double-glazed windows and there was no chance that she would be rudely woken up in the middle of the night from the ghoulish moans of the wind getting trapped between cracked window panes or the drunken yells of people stumbling down the hallways back to their homes. She could walk to her new place of work rather than hop on public transport and she could take the time to explore a side of London she never had the chance to see. Her floor was laminated wood, heated when the nights were cold, and there were no stains of garishly and disgusting colours of god-knows-what from previous tenants who had lived there. The view was beautiful, she could see right to the end of the horizon, and the scenes she was greeted with on her arrival home were almost picturesque… except pictures could never do it justice.

She’d been there for a month.

A whole four weeks.

And she could already feel improvements in her lifestyle that weren’t so bold before. She woke up happier and didn’t feel the need to stay in bed for a lie-in, she felt happier during the day and had a bob in her step that brought light to her office block, she felt safe when she walked out the reception and into the open space by the entrance and didn’t feel like she would be jumped by hiding predators if she arrived home late at night. She was friendly with her neighbours, always popped round to give them any post that had been posted through her mailbox by accident or if deliveries were left with them when she’d been at work and always started a conversation with them when they stood waiting for the lift to arrive on their floor.

“Oh, nice. What is it-”

The ding of the lift stopped Will mid-sentence, silenced them and halted their conversation as the doors opened to reveal the reception floor, empty and desolate from people. It was mid-morning, almost lunchtime, so YN had assumed most were working or out in the streets of London to enjoy the sunshine; the latter being what she had planned to do.

The man from the lift, who had tucked himself in the corner and stuck earphones in to block out their conversation, made sure he was the first one out and disappeared before YN could give him a sarcastic goodbye, not that he would have heard her anyway so she settled with a wave, a really exaggerated and over-the-top wiggle of her fingers, and hoped he saw it in the reflection of the window as he left and disappeared into the mass of people walking by their block of apartments.

“You’re a right character, you,” Will admitted, nudging her with his elbow and smirking at her, “what is it you do, job-wise? That’s what I wanted to ask.”

“I’m a PA for a CEO at an advertising company. A personal assistant who runs and gets coffee for everyone, gets lunch during her lunch-break, who organises meetings and creates schedules and gets the big boss what he wants when he wants it,” she clarified, “it’s not exactly the best job and I wish I was doing something I wanted to do but it pays well. For now, it’s enough to get me by and keep this place.”

They started walking toward the automatic doors of the entrance, feeling the cool air of the shade on their exposed skin that definitely disappeared as soon as the sunshine hit them, coming to a stop just by a brick wall. Young children were running around with their parents walking behind, cyclists were dinging bells to pass through large groups and groups of university students were huddled on the grass, eating lunches they’d brought from restaurants on their way, backpacks discarded and being used as pillows as they laughed and joked. Tourists were taking photos and posing to show off where they’d been and what they got up to when it came to showing their friends back home and businessmen and businesswomen were almost speed-walking to get back to their offices in time with a styrofoam takeaway lunch in their hands.

“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I? Just tell me to piss off if I am.”

“No, no. Don’t be silly. I’m only popping round the corner to see my mate. He won’t mind if I’m late,” he said, perching down on the brick wall and patting the space beside him. The legs of his ankles rose up to show the white ankle socks he’d paired with his trainers., “What is it you want to do as a job? Just, the way you talk about your job now makes it sound like you don’t like it.”

“I do like it there. But I don’t want to be a personal assistant, running round London to get coffee and sandwiches, for the rest of my life. I’ve always dabbled in blogging, taking photos, talking about nonsense and stuff. Posting videos and vlogging, too. I’ve tried it out as something fun, documenting holidays and stuff, and I’d love to do something with that and take it further but... I don’t know,” she sat down beside him, sliding her bag off of her shoulder and setting it on her lap, arm looped underneath the handles to keep it from spilling the contents inside, “I don’t want to be a social influencer but someone who does what she wants to do and gets by by just being herself. No companies to promote her or anything. Nothing to boost her. All her,” she stared off into the distance, tapping the heel of her foot against the concrete. Will nodded. “What do you do?”

“I, uh,” he scoffed out a laugh and rubbed the nape of his neck. His hat fell from his head and he decided to swap the shade of the cap to the sunglasses he had hanging from the neck of his hoodie, “funnily enough, I post videos on Youtube. I’m a Youtuber.”

Her head whipped round and she gawked at him. Eyes wide, mouth agape and her hand found his forearm, squeezing it tightly with excitement.

“You’re not?”

“I am, yeah. I was in university, didn’t like what I was studying, and I was told that if I really felt strongly about this Youtube malarky then I should pursue it to its possible potential and see where I end up. My mum’s words, not mine,” he snorted. He felt her hand loosen around his forearm and he watched her face become rigid as she came to the realisation of what she’d done. He dismissed it because he didn’t want to embarrass her but, really, he didn’t mind and he found it endearing. “I’m not that big or popular or anything but I’ve got a couple million subscribe-”

“Not that big,” she mocked and rolled her eyes, “a couple million subscribers is huge. I’ll have to search you up. What’s your channel name?”

“WillNE. Like, Will then an N then an E. Like a-”

“Like a play on words with your surname,” she grinned as she proudly finished his sentence for him and he nodded, rather pleased with himself; and she had to give it to him, it was something special, unique and rather creative than some of the stand-out names she could think of from the platform. Some were really out there and had no relevance to who they were nor what they spoke about, some were vague and some were almost as bonkers as the people who came up with them. “That’s really cool. This is really cool. A famous Youtuber lives in my flat complex... I’m talking to a famous Youtuber right now... heck, I’ve managed to keep my cool around someone famous and I’m amazed I haven’t embarrassed myself. Wait till I tell my friends about this. They won’t believe me.”

“They’re not fangirls or anything, are they?”

“No, ha. If anyone’s the fangirl out of my friends then it’s me. I’ll find myself watching Youtube when I’ve got nothing else to do,” she admitted, “cooking dinner? I’ll stick someone on to watch. Can’t sleep? I’ll just binge watch someone until I’m tired. Day off and there’s nothing to do? I’ll find a channel and just let it go from there.”

“Maybe I’ll pop up on there one day. I’ll help cure your boredom,” Will grinned, “then you can say ‘hey, that’s one of my mates there on my telly, that is’.”

A comfortable silence swallowed the both of them as they sat and let the seconds tick by. The tweets of the birds came from above, distant chatter came from the students lounging on the grass behind, scuffs of soles signified people were walking and jogging nearby and despite the feeling of time coming to end between the two of them, neither of them wanted to leave the other, neither wanted to bring the conversation to an end and neither of them wanted to part ways.

“So, we’re mates, huh?”

“Yeah, I reckon so,” Will smiled. Eyes locking with hers for a brief second, long enough to catch the twinkle in her eye and the genuine smile that lifted up her lips, “you’re a good’un. I like you. I think we’ll get along really bloody well, me and you.”

(WILL’S TEXTS. YN’S TEXTS.)

Filming a video tomorrow. Fancy coming by?

Won’t I get in the way?

Bollocks will you. Come along. Please. You can see firsthand how to make a Youtube video since you said you’ve always thought about it.

Where?

Only at my place. A TWOTI.

This Week On The Internet… nice one. I’ll be there.

You’ve done your research on me!

Spent all day googling you. As soon as you walked away, I started my research and I cut my day short so I could come home and watch your videos. Just call me a superfan now.

Superfan, ha.

I’ll have to test you. Could get you in a video to see if you’re my biggest fan.

Try me. I’ll get full marks. Your subscribers will look like phonies compared to me, hahaha.

You might have to sit off camera, out of shot, tomorrow. If I don’t finish everything by the time you get here, that is. No distractions. No pulling faces behind the camera.

I’ll be on my best behaviour. I’ll fangirl at the door, drop my Twitter handle into conversation, ask for a signature and a photo and then I’ll be fine.

I’m not going to regret this, am I?

You won’t hear a peep out of me. Promise.

Come by after lunch then. We can get some takeaway for lunch or something, if you don’t eat before, and I’ll have some bits filmed by the time you get here so you won’t have to sit in silence for too long.

Make it 1pm and it’s a deal.

Why 1pm?

It’s Saturday tomorrow. I don’t get up before noon on the weekends. Not even for you, mister big-shot Youtuber. ;)

And here I was, thinking you would throw your routine away for your new best mate.

Nice try.. see you tomorrow, William.

Ohh, serious. Full name and all. I see how it is, YN.

Goodnight, you muppet.

See you tomorrow. x

#willne imagines #willne fanfiction #willne blurbs #will lenney imagines #will lenney fanfiction #will lenney blurbs #youtuber fanfiction #youtuber imagines #youtuber blurbs #willne x reader fanfiction #willne x reader imagines #willne x reader fic #willne fic #will lenney fic #willne one shots #will lenney one shots

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foreficfandom · 5 years ago

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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.

#the arcana #the arcana imagines #the arcana headcanons #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel the arcana #portia devorak #count lucio

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hobidreams · 5 years ago

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The Early Shift | Second Taste {M}

determined to find the truth, you pay yoongi a visit at his apartment and get more than what you bargained for.

pairing: barista!yoongi x reader genre: smut, angst (well, more like anger) words: 7k contains: coffee shop au, enemies to lovers, lots of banter & sarcasm, face f*cking aka oral (m), dirty talk, yoongi continues to be an ass index: first sip - second taste - last cup

“Hmm. I think we should give Yoongi a call.” This is what Sooah suggests, fifteen minutes before the end of your shift. Her full lips are downturned as she cocks a hand beneath her chin, bats you those doe eyes.

The glorious freedom you were fantasizing about disappears in an instant. “Why?”

“Maybe he got into some trouble and needs help.”

You decide she’s much nicer than you. “Or maybe, hear me out, just maybe, he’s decided to skip work today and continue being the inconsiderate jerk he is.” You have no such patience for him, but that might be because you still remember the heat of his lips nipping at yours. Or maybe it’s because the marks he left on your thighs still remain in faint traces of dark pink.

“Hmm.” Sooah doesn’t look convinced. “Still, just in case. We have his number already. It’ll just take a minute.”

You let your nails sink into your palm. “Fine. I guess there’s a .0001% chance that something actually tragic is happening.” You make for the shop’s landline, where all the employees’ numbers are saved. You fully intend on handing Sooah the phone. But when you whirl back, she’s busy taking an order, with another customer in line behind the current. “Fine,” you mutter to yourself. “I’ll do it.” You hit the call button.

There are a few long rings, by the end of which you’re certain that voicemail will pick up. You tune out, listening instead to the bop released a few months ago that Sooah insists on playing at least three times an hour over the speakers. Your foot absently taps along to the catchy beat.

Click. There’s some fumbling, and you, only half-paying attention, wait for the robotic voice. Except what you get instead is a hurried, low-toned “yeah.”

You blink in surprise, pausing as your brain processes.

“Hello?” The voice is more annoyed now.

“It’s me.” You say your name.

A sigh. “What do you want?” Translation: why the hell are you calling me?

That tone has the magic ability to spark irritation in you like no other. You’re actually thankful for your visceral reaction to it; it squashes any unnecessary nerves that might want to flutter in your stomach. “Hmm, let me think. What do you have every Monday morning? Why might your coworker be calling you?”

There’s some more rustling, perhaps a whisper of a curse that you don’t quite catch. “Uhh... I’m sick.”

“Really. Sick.” You enunciate every thick syllable. “Why didn’t you tell Mina?”

“Too sick to.” The fake cough he manages is the worst excuse you’ve ever heard. “Can I go now?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Your thumb grinds the end call button for a few seconds longer than necessary before you set the phone back into its cradle.

Sooah hands a warmed muffin over before she turns to you. “So? How is he?”

“He says he’s ‘sick’.” You make air quotes, just as the backroom door creaks open.

“Who’s sick? Yoongi?” Namjoon, who’s scheduled to take over for you, comes out looking concerned. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s completely fine.”

Sooah frowns. “Hmm, but I don’t think he’d just not show up unless something was really going on.”

“When he’s sick, he tends to forget everything and just stay in bed.” Namjoon turns to you. “You’re off soon. Do you mind just swinging by his place with some porridge?” That’s his go-to; you know because he once did the same for you when you had an awful fever. Remembering that day reminds you that you still owe him one for it. Damn it.

You scratch absently at the back of your neck. “I guess not...” You really can’t come up with a single excuse, because you don’t have any homework to do tonight nor do you have classes. Plus, if Yoongi’s truly ill, you’re not about to let him starve to death.

“Great.” Namjoon’s dimples flash as he pulls out his phone. “His place isn’t too far. Here’s the address.”

That’s how you wind up in front of Yoongi’s apartment door nearly an hour later, a tasty bowl of chicken porridge in hand. It’s a quaint building, small but cozy in its own way. Humble is the word that comes to mind as you take in the older, yellowed wallpaper, the slightly crooked number on his door. You shuffle your weight from foot to foot, feeling somewhat awkward. Like you’re intruding somewhere you shouldn’t be.

But you’re here to get the truth.

Some part of you hopes he’s actually sick. That, or he was just being a dick for the hell of it. Anything works, as long as the reason is not you.

You raise your hand and knock thrice. There is no sound, not even after the first minute passes. So, you knock again. One more minute, you tell yourself. If he doesn’t answer in one more minute, then I’m going to go home and eat all the porridge myself.

Finally, the door opens a crack. Bleary eyes with heavy purple bags behold you from beneath tangled, dilapidated blonde hair. Behind this disfigured creature that was once your coworker, all you can see is darkness even though it’s noon o’clock.

“Yoongi?” You ask, a little incredulously. “Are you okay?”

He frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, you said you were sick, so...” You hold up the takeout container. “Namjoon made me check up on you.”

“I’m fine. You can go now.” He’s about to shut the door on you but you push your palm insistently against the wood.

“No way. You look like shit, Yoongi.” You sigh. “Look, I don’t want your death on my conscience, so at least let me heat this up for you. Namjoon’ll never let me live it down if I don’t.”

“Ugh…” He contemplates, but ultimately seems to recognize the combative fire in your eyes. “Promise to leave right after.” He turns, leaving the door open for you to follow. “I hate letting people in here,” he mutters as he walks.

“Trust me, I don’t want to stay any longer than I have to either.”

You step inside, and your nose instantly wrinkles. Everything just smells kind of stale, in need of a good airing out. Empty ramen containers litter the kitchen counter while scattered papers decorate the carpet. But what’s worse is when you behold Yoongi in all his glory – stained sweatpants, ratty t-shirt, and all.

“Is your hair allergic to brushing or something? God.” You gingerly set the bag on the table, wondering if he even has clean bowls to use. You’ll find out. Curse you and your empathy. “Go take a shower or something. Please. For your own sake.”

“You’re not my mother,” Yoongi mutters, but he seems to know you’re right. He drags his shirt off, and instead of admiring his slim physique, you cringe as he tosses the top carelessly onto the already messy couch. “Don’t mess with anything while I’m gone.”

“What, afraid I’ll fuck around and make it all cleaner?” You shoot back, but he’s already disappeared into the bathroom. “Jerk. Wouldn’t want to snoop in this place anyway.” Grumbling, you rifle through the cabinets and manage to fish out a single bowl that doesn’t look too suspicious.

Despite what you said just minutes before, while the porridge spins away in the microwave, you lean against the counter and take a good look at your surroundings. It’s a studio apartment, already tiny but made even smaller by the clothes strewn around. The bulk of the mess seems to be centered around the electronic set up shoved against a wall, consisting of two huge monitors, a lit-up keyboard, and something that you’ve only seen on TV, usually for a stereotypical depiction of a DJ. What the heck is Yoongi doing with something like that?

The roar of the shower is still going, so you take a few steps towards the desk. The screen is locked, asking for a password but you’re more fascinated by this soundboard with all its knobs and controls. Does Yoongi make... music?

Your first instinct is to think that it doesn’t fit your perception of him. But then it strikes you that your perception of him is incredibly limited. You suppose you’ve never asked about his hobbies or anything about him. You feel a little guilty now. You’ve never tried to understand him, just gotten pissed off at him time and time again.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Yoongi walks out of the bathroom, towelling off his hair. Wet droplets are still rolling down his bare chest. A second wimpy towel hangs off his hips, looking seconds away from falling. He’s already glaring. “Get away from my shit before you break something.” He walks towards his bed, lifting a pair of sweatpants off the mattress.

“Please. I’m not as clumsy as you think.” You roll your eyes as you move to fetch the congee from the microwave. You set the bowl in front of him as he finds a spoon. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi mutters as he slips a spoonful into his mouth. “For checking on me too, I guess.” The bags beneath his eyes have gotten even more obvious and gaunt after the shower, as if he hasn’t slept in days. And hasn’t eaten either, judging by the way he goes at the congee as if it’s his last meal on this planet.

“Geez, you’re gonna get indigestion like that,” you say with a wince. “Do you live like this all the time?” Is this why he’s always late?

“Kind of.” Yoongi barely stops eating to breathe. “But this week is especially busy.”“With what? You should at least get some sleep...”

Yoongi’s already almost done his food, meaning your time with him is running towards its end too. “With important things.”

“Nothing’s more important than taking care of yourself.”

“God, please stop talking. Don’t you think I know that?” Yoongi squeezes his eyes together, rubbing fatigue from the corners. “But certain things have deadlines that have to be met.”

“You can’t make deadlines from the grave. Can’t you get an extension or something? What’s it even for?”

“Contest. Song writing contest. Only runs once a year.” His spoon gives a final clatter before resting against the empty bowl. “So, no. No extensions.”

So he does make music. “You should have just started earlier instead of being late, as per usual,” you tease, hoping to lighten the sour look on his face.

Bad choice. “Don’t you think I did?” Yoongi surges to his feet. His palm slams into the counter, rattling the bowl. “You don’t understand how it feels when everything just comes out shitty and not good enough!”

You face his fury, swallow it to fuel your own irritation at how absolutely careless and ridiculous he’s being. “So, you’re just going to not sleep or eat or come to work until its done?”

“That’s the plan.”

Yoongi turns away, trying to end this conversation as he heads towards his computer. You don’t let him escape, because you’ll be damned if you work your next shift alone. “Why don’t you just wait for the contest next year?”

“Well I was going to.” He swivels his head back, “but aren’t you the one who said to fight for what you believe in?” He snaps it, exasperation in his tone. Then he instantly looks away again as if he’s said something embarrassing.

That makes you stop, your jaw slackened in half-surprise, half-amusement. “Wait… You actually listen when I talk? You’re doing all this because of what I said?

“No. Shut up. Just, ugh, get out.” You wonder if he’s turned away so you can’t see the expression on his face.

Okay, now you feel a little proud that some of your words finally made their way into Min Yoongi’s thick skull. A task you once thought impossible. But that makes you a bit responsible for his predicament, doesn’t it? Plus, you’ve never seen this (perhaps a bit overly) dedicated side of him before. It fascinates you.

“Show me something you’ve made, Yoongi. I’m sure it’s not all shitty.”

He snorts as he drops into his groaning chair. “What do you know about music?”

“Well, I listen to it. A lot.” You may not be Beethoven, but you love music and consider yourself pretty well-versed in several different genres. You’re so curious: what kind of music does Yoongi write? “Seriously! Just show me something.”

Yoongi still looks unconvinced.

“Hey, I brought you food. And covered your ass at work. So you owe me one.”

“And this is what you want to use it on.”

“Yup.”

He shrugs. “Dumb choice, but I wouldn’t have expected anything else from you.” But he starts to click through folders. He ultimately pulls up a file named TRASH. Interesting choice, you think as you gingerly perch yourself on his messy bed. Yoongi fiddles with the volume knob on his speakers. Seconds later, the music begins to flow.

You’re already tapping your foot along by the time the tenth bar hits. You don’t know what you were expecting, but this is good! Like, actually good! Instead of vocals, a keyboard plays out the main tune. It’s sounds rather bare, but you assume that’s because it’s unfinished.

But wait… The melody sounds familiar.

Once you realize it, the more obvious it becomes. Yes, some elements have been changed: this version is much more R&B influenced, the song dips in slightly different ways, and the opening has synth elements that the finished piece you know lacks, but…

“Hey, isn’t this…?” You trail off when the chorus hits, and the similarities become undeniable. “We don’t talk together—” you sing, the lyrics going perfectly with the tune. It’s the very same song Sooah’s been playing relentlessly at work.

Yoongi is staring intensely at the screen with something so unfathomably sad in his eyes. He doesn’t speak.

“It’s different than the final version, but similar enough. You wrote this?” You whip out your phone from your pocket. “Wow, you’re amazing, Yoongi!” You hum the song beneath your breath as you pull up the song’s production page; you’ve looked at it before, but you never noticed Yoongi’s name under the credits. Why the hell is he still working at the café? Shouldn’t he be off writing the next big hit? Wasting talent, really.

On the page, three names appear. The singer, then the rapper. Then final name you don’t recognize and assume to be the producer. He doesn’t have an artist page yet, no image or real name revealed on the website. “You’re DJ ALEX?”

Yoongi shakes to life at the sound of your voice. He lunges out, almost breaks the knob as he forces the volume to zero. “No. I’m not.” The words feel strange in the sudden silence. Uncomfortable.

“...But this is the same song, isn’t it? ‘We Don’t Talk Together’?”

“It used to be.” He whirls towards you. “Look, you heard something I wrote. I ate the food. You can get out now. I have work to do.”

You don’t move from the bed, knowing you’re pissing him off by the tensing of his jaw. “What do you mean? Who’s this Alex guy then?”

“Just drop it.”

“Yoongi, what happened?” You push him despite the way his hands have curled into fists. “There’s no way this is a coincidence because—"

“Tch! You want to know so badly? Fine! He stole it from me, alright?” His piercing glare forces goosebumps on your skin. “We wrote it together. He took the original and deleted my copy and passed the song off as his own. Now he’s the one getting all the record deals while I can’t write shit and stuck making coffee with an annoying ass coworker. Happy? Good enough of an explanation for you?”

You shake your head. “You just let him take it?!”

“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?” Yoongi’s voice is dangerously guttural, as if on the verge of breaking altogether. “He blocked me. Dodged me when I went to see him. Before I knew it, he was signing contracts and the song was being produced.” Yoongi sets his fists back on the table with not much strength at all, as if he’s just so exhausted of it all. “It was half a goddamn year ago. It’s too late now.”

Before you can stop yourself, you’re standing. “No, no, you can’t just let it go like this!” Not when it puts that look into his eyes. “You can fight it! You can, uhh, report him or show some proof that you wrote it together or something!” When he doesn’t respond, you step towards him, intending to put a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon Yoongi, you’re better than this!”

He knocks your hand away as he surges to his feet too. “Shut up. Just shut. Up.” He rounds on you, fury’s fire back in his eyes, worse than you’ve ever seen it since hurt is what stokes the flames to blazing. “You don’t know anything about me. You think just because we fucked once you have some insight into who I am or what I should do?”

His words hit you like bullets as you stagger back but the bed prevents you from moving too far, caging you in. “Yoongi, no, that’s not—”

“Or what? Are you gonna tell me you came here today because you missed my cock that much?”

Thoughts seem to fly clear out of your mind at the dip in his voice. Your heart thuds in your ears as Yoongi takes a step. Then another. Breaking every boundary of personal space until his lips are aside your ear. Breath curves around your lobe, coming hot, much too hot as he growls, “didn’t get enough in that pretty little pussy of yours, did you?”

“I... Uh...”

“That’s why you’re running your mouth, huh?” He captures your bottom lip, tracing it with a calloused thumb. “When you should be choking on my cock instead.” Yoongi pulls back enough for you to see how his mouth curls into that damn smirk, and you remember. God, you remember how he stole what he wanted from your body and left you stuffed full of his pleasure. But this time, there’s a desperation behind his words that was absent before. As if right now, he’s the one that needs you despite the lewdness rolling off his tongue.

So you drop to your knees.

Yoongi’s eyes widen, then narrow with deep pleasure as he thumbs your cheek with more tenderness than you would have expected. That thought is shattered when he harshly tugs your chin up, forces you to stare into the gaze that you can only find predatory. His other hand works the waistband of his sweats, tugging it down to spring his stiff cock so violently it smacks you in the face. “Open wide, baby,” he snarls, the word not sweet but condescending, the way he enunciates the syllables.

You let your mouth unhinge, but you don’t move to engulf his dick in your heat. Instead, you drag your gaze across the few beads of pre-cum are already gathered on the tip, just waiting to be slathered all over the smooth head by your fingers. He groans when you curl your hand on his shaft, bucking his hips into your touch whether he wants to or not. He can’t control himself when you pressure his frenulum, squeezing to coax another moan from him. You love that you can drive him this wild with need, put that look on his face as if he’s seeing the bright lights of heaven behind those half-closed eyelids.

But he’s not about to let you take control.

“Don’t be a fucking tease.” He shoves his hips forward, sliding himself between your parted lips and onto your awaiting tongue. You taste the saltiness of arousal leaking from his swollen cock, swiping along the head to gather every last drop of sin. He stiffens even more under your touch and the slippery texture of your agile tongue; you take it all in stride, swirling saliva around while your fingers use the excess spit to work his shaft.

“Unh, your tongue feels so damn good.” Yoongi moans like his stresses are melting away with every lick you slather across his taut skin. You trace the fat vein running along the side, carving the curves into memory. Which spots make him shiver, which ones make him moan. “Fuck, almost as good as that tight cunt of yours.” Said cunt gives a pulse of wanton need and you have to squeeze your walls around air, feeling so damn empty when you know how full you could be.

Without a single regard to your wants, he continues to urge his hips forward, mercilessly plunging in thick inches of dick until the head prods at the back of your throat. You’re trying your best to breathe through your nose but he makes that impossible when he tests your gag reflex with two brutal thrusts. Only after does he bring himself back, let you suck in much-needed oxygen before you’re bobbing your head again to his groans.

Yoongi seems torn between squeezing his eyes shut and keeping them trained on you, mired to the sight of your lips stretched and wrapped so obscenely around his cock. “How much of me can you take with that filthy mouth?” It’s a challenge he issues despite his tense, sweaty thighs and the unassailable glaze in his eyes that says he’s closer to the end than he’d like to admit.

“All of it,” you say as best you can with your mouth stuffed full. You’re not afraid of him, of any attempts he’s made to scare you off. You prove so by supressing your instincts and easing him into the slick of your throat. You push on despite the protests of your body, spurred by the painful fist in your hair that keeps you speared on him. His fine pubic hair tickles your nose, smelling like soap and his natural musk that is somehow more intoxicating than it should be. You’re so close; if you strained, you could give his crotch a sloppy French kiss.

“Then take it.”

You choke when he fucks in the last few inches, forcing his bulging cock down your throat. He pulls back only to repeat the action, earning himself a fresh gag. He seems to love that lewd squelch, imprinting it in his mind along with the tears coalescing at the corners of your eyes. Spit flies everywhere as he rocks his hips like a machine made solely for this purpose, abusing your aching mouth but even that turns you on. You don’t think you’ve never been this aroused by sucking a dick but Yoongi just has that effect on you, for better or worse.

You can barely hold onto his skinny thighs as the muscles ripple beneath your grasp in name of erratic, orgasm-seeking thrusts. They make him occasionally jerk his dick but if he grazes your teeth, he doesn’t show it. Just keeps pumping like a madman, getting himself off on how you take him so well – his good girl. Your jaw aches from his girth but you don’t dare pull away; not when he’s slamming into you like you’re the only thing in his world that matters right here, right now.

Now Yoongi’s the one choking when you lift your hand, cupping the sensitive skin of his balls. His lust-drenched eyes have flown open with surprise. Then he’s grinning, impressed with your eagerness. “Just like that—god—yeah, use your tongue, fuck…!” His moans are becoming increasingly broken, interrupted by gasps when you work your throat in tandem with fingers. “I’m gonna cum down your throat, baby,” he promises. “You better drink every fucking drop.”

You suck him harder as agreement, slurping with noisy abandon as if there’s nothing you want more than his seed coating your throat. Messy spit bubbles beside your lips but there’s no stopping you, not when his knees are buckling and he’s moaning your name in a hoarse voice that should be illegal.

“C-Cummin...!” Yoongi doesn’t even get to finish the word. Two hands on the back of your head force you all the way down. His shaft pulses and the first shot of cream hits your throat, followed by several hot strands that you automatically swallow down. He’s still gasping when he pulls back, tip profusely spilling the last remnants of bliss onto the tongue you leave exposed for his viewing pleasure. Then you gulp it down while you hold his heated stare.

With something like a growl, Yoongi yanks you up off the floor, crashing his mouth on yours to tangle your rather-numbed tongue with his own. One hand is still arrested in your hair but the other finds your waist, dragging you close to his body as he brutally sucks, bruises your bottom lip. You let yourself believe he needs to feel you, that he wants you even while his cock softens and carnal lust slips away.

“Y-Yoongi,” is the only thing you can exhale when he finally lets you go. The kisses only add to the arousal pooling between your thighs, demanding attention. But Yoongi makes no moves to take care of your need.

Instead, he wipes his lips of spit with the back of his hand. “Damn. That mouth of yours is something else.” He’s still panting, clearly having left most of his sanity on your tongue.

“I know.” You’re the one smirking now, feeling rather pleased with yourself. Looking around, you find a tissue and use it to clean yourself off. Yoongi does the same, and for a moment, it all just feels normal between you two.

“Thanks. That really cleared my head.” It only takes Yoongi a minute to get his pants back on. Then he’s planted himself in his chair again. Wait. Is that it? Your smile twists, droops into a frown as you watch him pull up the complicated software with all the soundbites back onto his screen, typing away as if inspiration has struck.

“Yo—”

“Looks like you’re not the worst coworker after all.”

…Right. How could you have forgotten? That word sends you crashing down into reality like an icy bath. You stare at the side of his face, focused squarely on his screen as if you’re nothing more than a houseplant. Not even giving you the title of fuck buddy, or friends with benefits. But, then again, you’re not friends in the first place.

“You can stay if you want, but I have to keep working on this.” That just sounds like an afterthought, a consolation prize that’s more bitter than the taste of his cum still lingering in your mouth.

You’re already moving towards the bag you left near the door. “No thanks.” You pull the strap onto your shoulder, twisting the icy doorknob. “Bye, I guess.”

Yoongi doesn’t even look back.

To set the record straight – you are not a coward. You are a rational adult making rational decisions that fit into your adult schedule. Begging Namjoon to switch shifts with you for the next month is just part of your regular plans, in no way influenced by the mixed, confusing, dizzying feelings that pop their heads up like groundhogs every time Yoongi crosses into your line of sight. Or your thoughts. Or really in any way whatsoever.

Okay... Maybe you’re a little bit of a coward.

But you can’t seem to help it. He’s too distracting, now that you’ve had a second taste of his poison. A poison that, instead of stealing your life, seems to have claimed your rationality as victim instead. You experienced the consequences of this robbery for the first time on Friday morning, when Yoongi showed up on time (shocker!) for his shift. Instead of being absolutely delighted, all you could think about was that he should have slept in a bit more because of the bruised bags beneath his eyes.

Friday was the first time you’d seen him at all since that visit to his apartment four days prior. Namjoon and Hoseok had taken Yoongi’s shifts throughout the rest of the week, you assumed to give Yoongi time to finish his song. You couldn’t muster up the courage to ask Yoongi about the piece; it felt like you were prying into a world that he wanted you to stay firmly out of. You still don’t understand why you’re so interested in the first place, when you should be hating him.

The rest of that shift had been a hodgepodge of awkwardness, what with the flinching every time Yoongi brushed past your arm reaching for the syrup, then the weird high-pitched tone your voice went to when he addressed you. By the time you left work on Friday, you were determined never to repeat that again.

So here you are. Today. Monday night. Except this time, you’re not spending it knelt on a musty apartment floor, swallowing Yoongi’s anger. That’s probably a good thing, you tell yourself. You need the time and the space to sort out your own emotions. To think about why the hell you keep replaying the sadness in his eyes, then corrupting that image with the coldness of his back in that chair and—

“Hellooo? Anybody home?”

A hand abruptly appears in front of your face and you jolt back to reality, whipping your gaze to find Hoseok grinning brightly at you. “There we go. I’ve been calling your name for ages.”

“Oops, sorry Hobi. I just spaced out. What did you say?”

“I said that I’m leaving soon, silly.” Hoseok leans against the counter, playful curiosity in his expression. “What’re you thinking so hard about?”

“...Nothing important.”

“Well, guess I can’t blame you. All the downtime will do that to ya. And you’re staying for the next month?”

“That’s the plan.” A customer approaches the bar, bringing you their empty plate. “Thanks, have a good night!”

Hoseok chuckles. “I thought you had night classes. Don’t tell me you dropped out of college to avoid working with Yoongi.”

The plate you were holding clatters as you drop it, smack the porcelain against the counter. “W-Why would I want to avoid working with Yoongi?” How did he know? Oh god, did Yoongi tell him what happened?

“Because he’s always late?”

“Oh! Oh. Right. Yeah. Well, no, no, it’s not because of him…” You don’t sound convincing in the slightest, yet you have no choice but to plow on. “I’m just taking an online course this term. So why not take an easier shift because I have the time, you know?” To be fair, you were planning on taking the course anyway. It was just a matter of physically going into class or not.

“Makes sense.” Hoseok grins. “And I’ll always be on time.”

“Yup. I can always count on you, Hobi.”

He stares at his watch, watching the second hand tick the seconds away. “Aaaand I’m off. You’ll have to count on me next time because I have a hot date!”

You wiggle your eyebrows. “Hope it goes well!”

Hoseok is out like a whirlwind in the matter of minutes. Left alone in the shop, you run a hand through your hair, surveying the little café. One customer taps furiously away on their laptop. Another devours what remains of their quiche. A third jots down notes while they parse through War and Peace. You’re expecting no one else tonight, certainly not Yoongi to come bursting in like he had the last time you had a night shift. You’d better get started on cleaning.

As you wipe down the counters, remove the leftover food from the display case, the customers leave one by one. You hum a song beneath your breath, distracting yourself from any errant thoughts of a certain person that might be wanting to poke their head through. You’re not having any of that. Not today.

Time speeds by, and soon you only have thirty minutes left to go. You’re now alone in the shop, working quickly enough to ensure you’ll be finished right as your shift ends and not a second more.

Then the door chime goes off. Your head snaps up, and for a moment, for an infuriating moment, you hope it’s Yoongi.

Instead, another familiar face appears, that same, smooth, self-assured smile painted across his lips. Jiwon. This time dressed in a fitted suit, one that makes him look like he just stepped out of a magazine photoshoot. Still one of the most handsome men you’ve ever seen. Still not Yoongi.

“Hi. Hi!” You correct yourself, realizing you should sound less disappointed. “Welcome.”

“Hi.” His easy smile widens as he approaches the counter, devastating with those melting chocolate eyes. “Wishing I was someone else?” He asks with a laugh as he pulls out his wallet.

Oops. Your face must have given you away earlier. “No! Of course not.” You force on a grin to match his, wiping your damp hands on your apron.

“Good. Because I was hoping for you. That you’d be working tonight.”

“Oh...” Your face automatically heats up. There’s no way he’s flirting with you, right? Him, who is so far out of your league you’re not even playing the same game. “I don’t normally work night shifts.”

“I noticed.”

“I. Um. Ahem.” You clear your throat out of sheer nerves. “What, uh, what can I get for you?”

“Just a black coffee this time, please.”

“Got it. Go ahead and tap.”

When you hand over the hot cup, Jiwon takes it leisurely. This time, there’s no denying how he lets his fingers graze past yours for that extra half-second, how his eyes hold yours with something unfathomable and exciting.

“I’m working every weeknight for the next month!” You blurt out before you can stop yourself, not even knowing what the hell you’re hoping for. Shooting your shot with this incredibly good-looking man. Making a fool of yourself, apparently. “So, uh, yeah.”

To your great relief, Jiwon nods his head. He raises his coffee like a toast. “Then I’ll see you soon. Goodnight.” The way his voice lilts around and teases the parting word remains in your mind through the rest of your shift and even after when you get home, still thinking about how he’d smiled at you like a promise.

Maybe forgetting Min Yoongi won’t be so hard after all.

The weeks come and go. Before you know it, half the month has sped by, and you’re having more fun than you ever could have expected at work. You haven’t seen hide nor hair of Yoongi, working so well with Hoseok and a newly hired college kid Jungkook that you’ve barely had the time to think about him. Sure, it’s a bit odd not to have someone to bicker with every shift, but that’s more than made up for by the presence of Jiwon.

True to his word, Jiwon comes in practically every night, with that same casual smile that makes your heart unfairly quicken and flipflop. He always asks about your day, listening intently as you rattle on about what mundane thing has occurred like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. Still, he hasn’t asked for your number in all this time, nor has he offered much information about himself. So, tonight, you’ve decided, after two weeks of this flirtation, you’re going to ask him on a proper date. Tonight is Friday night, one of the busier nights. So, to compensate, you’ll be closing together with Jungkook.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that you walk though the doors of the café feeling nervous but excited. You love working with Jungkook though, and know he’ll dispel your nerves before too long with one of those wildly hilarious stories of his various exploits. The door chimes tinkle behind you as you take note that the place is rather busy. Gross. Then you sweep your eyes to the counter, expecting to see Jungkook’s bright smile.

It’s not Jungkook handing over a green tea Frappuccino, stacked high with whip cream to a young woman. It’s Yoongi.

“Yoongi?!” You exclaim, voice carrying across the café.

He turns his head, finds your surprised eyes. “That’s me.” His voice is as dry as ever, but he’s looking better than he did two weeks ago. Much better. You try to ignore the squeeze of your heart at the casual mess of his bangs, the falsely sweet smile that still lingers on his lips from interaction with the customer.

Just a coworker, you remind yourself. “What are you doing here?”

Yoongi’s gaze follows you as you move behind the counter. “Working.”

“Well, gee, I can see that. But you never work the night shift. You hate it.” He had said very vehemently so before, when you suggested he switch shifts if he couldn’t wake up in the morning.

“Yeah, well...” The floor suddenly becomes quite fascinating to him. “It’s just this once.”

Hoseok appears out of nowhere, his jacket already on. He swings his arm over Yoongi’s shoulder. “Nah, he doesn’t hate it! I heard him begging Jungkook to switch shifts with him a few days ago.”

“Hoseok, shut up,” Yoongi spits, spinning around pointedly to face the customer approaching the counter.

You giggle as Hoseok rolls his eyes quite dramatically behind Yoongi’s back. “You’re on your way out, Hobi?”

“Yup. Just you and Yoongi tonight.”

You nod, licking your dry lips. “Okay, got it. Have a good night!”

Yoongi may not be Jungkook, but that doesn’t mean that your plans have changed. You’re asking Jiwon out. You’re moving on from the unaddressed, oddly in-between relationship you and Yoongi have, and you’re hopefully going to have a date by the end of the night. You slip an apron on, determination in your veins.

Whatever downtime you usually have on Friday night (that you were worried would give you time to be pensive about Jiwon’s impending arrival) soon becomes a long-lost dream as the customers just start pouring in. It seems there’s a big event at the theatre across the street, causing an enormous boom in caffeine and snack needs that keep you and Yoongi on your toes, a fact which Yoongi looks especially irritated by. That might be because he looks like he has something to say to you every time you have a minute of break; but he can’t get out anything substantial past a ‘hey’ before he’s drowned out by another group of people.

It’s hours before the crowd finally dies down, leaving the shop sparse and you exhausted. As glad as you are for the break, it also means you have to face whatever Yoongi wants to say. You can’t fathom what he could possibly want, but it looks like he’s about to tell you as he turns in your direction.

“Hey.”

You take a sip of your water. “Hi.”

“Uh…” You say nothing, just stare at him. Yoongi looks decidedly uncomfortable, and you’re starting to worry he’s about to drop that he has an STD or something. “I, err, just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” Bringing you food or sucking your dick?

Yoongi sighs, raking his hair back with a hand. “I finished my song because of you.”

“Oh. Oh.” Okay… You can’t deny it; that actually makes you pretty happy. It makes you drop the frown and walls you thought you had to put up around him, replacing it with a genuine smile. “Congrats, Yoongi! When do you hear back about the results?”

“Not for a few weeks. But without you, I think I wouldn’t have entered at all this year. I just couldn’t write anything decent after…” Yoongi cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Look. Even though the song’s still not perfect and I’m still not too happy with it, it’s done. So. Thanks.”

Your heart threatens to pound at the sincerity in his eyes that you’ve never seen before. “Anytime.”

Yoongi coughs, cutting off the moment prematurely. “Anyway, I’m gonna do inventory in the back.” You hate inventory, thinking it a mindless task that you would rather make a hundred lattes than do. You don’t know if Yoongi knows this, but you appreciate him all the same. You’re smiling faintly as you watch him disappear into the backroom.

Seconds later, the front door clatters, chime going off. You look up, customer-service smile already painted on, but it becomes that much wider when you find Jiwon’s friendly face grinning right back at you.

“Jiwon!”

“Hey! Can’t stay long today, but had to stop by for my coffee fix. And to see my favorite barista.” He winks, way too smooth for your health.

You fight the automatic flush of your cheeks. “No problem. Iced macchiato? Skim milk and light ice?”

“Yup. You get me.”

Your hands begin to tremble as you turn to make the drink, thinking about how best to ask him those difficult words. Oh god, you’ve never been good at this, but you’ll be kicking yourself forever if you never try. Do you want to go on a date? Nope. Too direct. Are you free on Saturday? Or maybe you should go with a simple do you like pasta? But what if he doesn’t? Oh gooood.

The drink is finished all too soon. You hand it to him, watching him take a sip. “Mm, you always make the best coffee.” The compliments come too easily to him, you swear.

“Haha, I try my best!” Okay. Now or never. “Oh, um, by the way…”

The door of the backroom swings open, interrupting you. Yoongi’s voice can be clearly heard over the music. “Hey, do you know where th—” He stops. His gaze rakes across the scene, taking in your silly, flustered grin, your faintly flushed cheeks. Then his eyes fall on who you’re talking to. His jaw slackens. “...Hyung?”

a/n: so uh,,, i’m sorry to end it like this again haha. what do you think is up? 👀 inbox is open; let’s chat! also the song i reference is “We Don’t Talk Together” by Heize and Giriboy, produced by Yoongi!

thank you to my beta readers: @sweetlyseokjin, @jiminspjm, @mypurplelamp, @hoseoksdior, @bigtiddiejoon 💞

and as always, a fat shoutout to my best girl @jeonshome for helping me brainstorm & hyping me up like always when i was struggling. don’t know what i’d do without you!! ♡

want to be on the tag list? the link is in my navi! (or send an ask!)

#btssmutclub #bts smut #bts imagines #bts reactions #yoongi smut #yoongi x reader #coffeehouse au #e2l #college au #enemies to lovers #min yoongi #the early shift #rain writes #enjoy!!! <3

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molluskwritesfic · 4 years ago

Text

The Waif ~ Chapter Three

As an alien science experiment, she remembers nothing. Knows no one. With nowhere else to turn, Claudia must rely on the Doctor and his companions for help. She's mutating. The Doctor knows more than he's telling. But why does the Time Lord seem to hate her so much? Rated M.

Masterlist - Fanfiction.net - Ao3

Prologue - Previous Chapter - This Chapter

Chapter Three: The Mimic - Part One

Claudia woke up slowly from within her blanket cocoon. Twenty four hours earlier, she wouldn’t have believed it were possible, but now she was so warm and sleepy that it took her a minute to realize what had woken her.

She jolted slightly when there was a knock at the door; three sharp raps, like Dinstral would on the glass of her small prison whenever he wanted her attention. The similarity made her heart drop. For a fraction of a second her still-dozy mind believed that the scientists had found her again.

She brushed the thought away, writing it off as ridiculous, and called out, “Yes?”

Decidedly the exact opposite of Dinstral, Rose tentatively pushed her way inside. She was already dressed, but still rather hazy, like she hadn’t been up long enough to be fully awake.

“Morning,” Rose greeted with a small smile. “I was gonna let you sleep, but the Doctor gets grumpy if we leave him on his own for too long. How do you feel about breakfast?”

Claudia’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food, but then clenched as her mind automatically went to the bland porridge that her diet had consisted of over the last few weeks. But she reckoned that normal people are more than slimy oatmeal.

She nodded, trusting that Rose had something better in mind.

“Great. Get dressed and I’ll show you the kitchen.”

Claudia fumbled out of bed and made for the closet. She opened the dark purple door and gawked at the sight. Beyond was a massive walk-in closet, complete with a vanity. The entire room, wall to wall, was completely packed with clothes.

There were dresses, jeans, coats, shorts, skirts, a series of undergarments, and more. There was even a smaller connecting room completely dedicated to a myriad of shoes - the purpose to many of them she couldn’t even begin to decipher.

If this was a personal closet, Claudia couldn’t imagine what the main wardrobe was like. Surely there were more articles of clothing in this one room than she could ever wear in her entire life.

“You alright?” Rose called from the squashy orange couch, where she had sprawled out to wait.

“Yeah,” Claudia squeaked. “But what do I wear?”

“Whatever you like.”

Claudia considered this. “But I don’t know what I like.”

Rose heaved a sigh. “Just look for somethin’ you think you like, and put it on.

Claudia blinked at Rose. Then at the closet. Overwhelmed, but eager, she plunged into the depths.

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

When Claudia tumbled out of the closet twenty minutes later, she was the living manifestation of her maximalist bedroom - had its style been based on a three year old that insisted on dressing itself. After so long in a cold, colorless environment, she positively adored anything bright and soft, and felt the need to hoard it all like a magpie.

Her short excursion into her personal wardrobe had been filled with her digging through the racks and shelves in search of color. At which point her finds were then separated into piles to be sorted by which colors she liked best.

After a period of painful deliberation and significant indecision, she finally emerged wearing an avocado green jumper decorated with little red frogs under a chunky dandelion yellow cardigan, long rainbow socks over electric blue jeans, solid red trainers with sequins dotting across the toes, all topped off with a neon magenta beanie and matching gloves.

Beaming with excitement, Claudia hardly registered the raised eyebrow Rose directed at her choice of style.

“Blimey,” Rose snorted, struggling not to laugh outright in the face of the memory-less woman’s optimism. “That’s… uh… boisterous.”

Claudia wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or not, but chose to believe it was meant well. She grinned and tugged her hat down more securely on her head.

“Right, then. Come on.” Rose paused in front of Claudia’s bathroom mirror, taking a moment to smear away a bit of the eye liner caked around her eye that was a smidge uneven.

Claudia made a mental note to ask Rose how makeup worked as she followed her through the maze of corridors that led to the kitchen.

The kitchen was large but homey. It contained the usual variety of items to cook with as well as a number of things that Claudia didn’t recognize.

“How do you not get lost?” Claudia inquired as Rose made her way to a machine that appeared to be some sort of drink dispenser.

“You get used to it, I guess. She moves rooms around a lot, so you just sort of guess. Coffee or tea?”

Claudia blanked. “Can you… pick for me?”

Rose nodded and placed a mug beneath the dispenser. With the press of a few buttons, hot liquid was streaming into the mug. Claudia watched, transfixed, as the steam rolled off of it, curling into pretty shapes that swirled and danced like living creatures before dissolving into the air.

Rose settled down with two mugs and two plates of bacon and eggs. Claudia took a sip of her coffee, but grimaced at the taste.

Rose grinned and indicated the dispenser. “Go add milk and sugar.”

Claudia hopped to her feet and pondered the machine. It looked complicated, but she found it to actually be fairly straightforward. Curious about her own preferences, Claudia spent more time toying with it than necessary, adding milk and sugar in miniscule amounts until enjoyable.

Sipping at the now lukewarm liquid, she made her way back to the table. Her mouth watered at the collective smell of the bacon, eggs, and coffee. She picked up a fork and, with a certain amount of trepidation, scooped egg into her mouth.

Rose watched bemusedly as Claudia wolfed down the large plate of food at an alarming speed.

“Blimey, you were hungry, weren’t ya?” The blonde commented as she took another sip from her own mug, which was filled with tea, quirking her eyebrows at the other woman over the rim of the mug.

Claudia just shrugged, unable to respond around her bacon and egg stuffed mouth. When it was gone, she glanced longingly at the food-dispenser machine. Not that she was still hungry - she was stuffed - but because she wanted to see what other things tasted like.

“You can mess about with that later,” Rose promised. “ The Doctor will be wondering where we got to. I’m surprised he hasn’t come looking for us yet.”

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

The Doctor was standing at the console when they arrived, staring at the monitor with a serious expression. From over Rose’s shoulder, Claudia made out what appeared to be a black and white video, fuzzy, vague, and lacking any artistic quality. She thought that it might have been from a security camera, but the Doctor abruptly switched it off before she could get a proper look.

“What’re you watching?” Rose inquired, bounding over and leaning against the console beside him, close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. He yanked down a lever with a certain degree of flair, his previous severity melting like butter. “So, Rose Tyler, where to now? I was thinking maybe the moon of Tyink. Lots of lovely views. Oh! Or the United Republic of Snah. Those people there love a party. The Sun Festivals are the best across three galaxies. Mind you, better not go during the Snee era, never mind why…. or…”

Rose cast Claudia a glance. “Actually, Doctor, shouldn’t we be looking into that science ship from yesterday?”

“We took care of the science vessel,” the Doctor griped, keeping his eyes fixed on the switches he was fiddling with.

“Yeah, but what about Claudia? Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out what happened with her memory?”

Claudia felt a rush of gratitude and looked to the Doctor expectantly.

“The blood sample didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know,” the Doctor explained, as if doing so inconvenienced him greatly. “A buildup of mutagenic particles mixed with alien DNA. It’ll dissipate eventually. Give it a year or two and all the residual components should be completely gone.”

“What about my memories?” Claudia asked, quiet and hopeful.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said in a flat voice, his emotions carefully concealed behind a mask. “I went back to Cardiff when you were sleeping. The Thalians dropped their test subjects all across the city, probably as some form of stimulus experiment to see how you would respond to stressful situations. That’s all.”

“What happened then?” Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palms. She barely noticed when Rose wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“You said that one of the test subjects displayed unchecked aggression,” he added, not bothering to look at her. “I’m willing to bet that it was a cascade neural degradation response to the treatments. Most likely you experienced something similar, but it manifested differently.” He paused. “Bit lucky, actually.”

Claudia pondered this for a moment. She certainly didn’t feel lucky. Words failed her. All she could do was stare at him, emptiness welling up inside her, reclaiming it’s hold on her soul.

“Can’t we figure out where she came from?” Rose pressed, fixing the Doctor with a reproachful glare.

“No real way to find out,” he sniffed. “Doubtful she’s from anywhere near Cardiff. Have you noticed her accent? Indistinct. Thalians are capable of traveling the vortex, so without her memories, there’s no way to narrow it down.”

“But there’s got to be something,” Rose hissed, casting Claudia a sideways glance. “Are you not even going to try?”

Claudia said nothing. She stood silently, staring at her glittery shoes without really seeing them. They'd made her feel so happy before, but now she felt nothing when the boisterous sparkles blurred as her eyes welled with tears. She wrapped her arms around herself in an imitation of a hug. She tried not to cry, she really did. But a single tear rolled down her cheek unbidden.

When she finally spoke, she did so quietly that her words could barely be heard over the hum of the engines. “What do I do now?”

“Nothing, I suppose. That’s all there is to it.” The Doctor shrugged, going back to the console.

“Doctor!”

“Rose, leave it,” the Doctor snapped, his voice low and laden with warning. A hidden meaning lingered in his dark eyes, one that Claudia couldn’t begin to decipher but Rose took to heart.

Rose blinked at him for a moment, but immediately dropped it, brimming with eager curiosity.

“So, where to?” The Doctor repeated his earlier question, dropping the severity and attempting to take back on a cheerful facade. It almost worked. “Snah?”

“Actually, I was thinking about stopping by home,” Rose suggested, voice still tense from the previous exchange.

“What for?” The Doctor scoffed, lip curling into a scowl.

“Oi! Don’t start!” The corners of her mouth gave the slightest twitch, like it was an old joke. “I’ve got that Moeysian necklace for my mum, the one we got on Iria? I promised her a souvenir and I need to get it to her before I forget.”

The Doctor sighed wearily but began the sequence. Claudia remembered to grab onto the railing as the ship began to jolt violently, but didn’t really feel it. She was busy biting down her despair into bitter acceptance.

When the TARDIS landed, she had steeled herself. Her emotions were locked down tight in a steel box. It left her feeling numb and grey, but it was better than the alternative.

“There. Earth. Powell Estate. 2007.” The Doctor looked up from the controls. “A couple months after we left.”

“Alright. You go on out. Just give me two ticks.” Rose hurried back into the corridor, presumably to retrieve the gift for her mother, leaving Claudia alone with the Doctor.

The Doctor sighed, shrugging on his light brown trench coat as he approached the doors leading to the outside world.

“Where’s the Powell Estate?” Claudia asked shyly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve as she followed him out into a grey parking lot.

She surveyed the surrounding buildings curiously. And to be fair, everywhere was interesting after spending the majority of your conscious life locked in a glass case.

The sun was out, it’s position suggesting that it was mid to late afternoon. The warm air and thick greenery on the nearby trees and shrubs she could spot through the gaps in the buildings told her it was spring.

She took a deep breath, reveling in the earthy scent.

“London,” The Doctor responded, leaving the door open for Rose and leaning against the side of the blue box. He cast her a glance and tugged at his ear awkwardly. “Do you… uh… know where that is?”

Claudia shook her head. The name meant as much to her as the other places they’d mentioned. Iria and Moeysian and Snah. She leaned beside him, careful to leave a few inches of space between them.

The Doctor’s frown intensified. He studied her closely for a heartbeat before turning away once more, as if looking at her caused him physical pain.

She couldn’t imagine why. Claudia looked down at her outfit. Maybe boisterous hadn’t been a compliment after all.

Suddenly self-conscious, she took off her gloves and stuffed them into her cardigan pocket.

“2007?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Rose said that your box travels in time.”

“Yep.”

“When am I from?”

The Doctor sighed through his nose. “The ship you were on was in October of 2007. Just a few months after where we are now. But like I said, the Thalians are capable of time travel, so you could be from anywhere.”

Claudia nodded, pushing back thoughts having to do with her past. “The scientists were Thalians?”

The Doctor nodded, staring resolutely at the graffiti sketched on the wall across the lot.

“And they’re aliens?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’.

“And I’m human?”

The Doctor let out a breath that hissed through his teeth. “Yes.”

“Like Rose?”

“Like most everyone on Earth.”

“What about you?” The question had been nagging at the back of her mind, but she hadn’t gotten around to asking Rose yet. “Are you human or Thalian or…?”

“Time Lord,” he grunted. “Last of the Time Lords.”

“Last?” The Doctor tensed. Claudia noticed and decided not to ask about it anymore. “I’m sorry.”

“What is taking her so long?” He grumbled, mostly to himself, before leaning inside the door and calling, “Hurry up, will you?”

“Alright! No need to shout,” Rose’s voice drifted out, her clanging footsteps audible from outside the TARDIS as she stomped across the console room. When she emerged she didn’t hesitate to lead the way across the lot towards one of the buildings.

They had nearly reached it when a dark skinned man dressed in blue coveralls came sprinting around the corner, panting like he’d run a fair distance.

“Look out, here comes trouble,” The Doctor grumbled, only half-playful.

“Rose!” The man shouted, a massive grin spreading across his face when he laid eyes on the blonde.

Rose beamed back and he hurried to throw his arms around her shoulders to pull her into a bear hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you!”

The man released Rose and clapped the Doctor heartily on the shoulder. “I was in the shop but couldn’t get away.” He shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “I was worried I’d miss you.”

“Time was, you’d hear the TARDIS and come running,” Rose teased, eyes narrowing impishly.

“Well I did, didn’t I?” He protested, gesturing to his work clothes. “I was under a car. It took a minute.” His eyes drifted between the pair for a moment before they rested on Claudia, who had stayed back. He smiled warmly at her. “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Mickey, by the way.”

“Claudia.” Claudia shook his proffered hand with a small smile. He seemed nice, if not a bit dopey.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, nudging Claudia away from Mickey with his shoulder. “Come on then, go and see your mum. I don’t want to stay here all day.”

“Good luck with that, mate,” Mickey chuckled. “Jackie’s not about to let Rose be anywhere else. Not today, at least.”

“Why? What’s today?” The Doctor narrowed his eyes, trying to work out what he’d missed.

Mickey rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t know, maybe Rose’s birthday.”

“It’s the 27th?” Rose echoed, her wide eyes blinking in surprise.

“Yeah” Mickey confirmed. “Your mum’s been worried that you wouldn’t turn up, especially since you missed your last one.”

“How old are you?” Claudia inquired, shuffling back from around the Doctor so she could be included in the conversation.

Rose frowned thoughtfully. “It’ll be my twentieth, I guess.” She shook her head to clear it. “Time’s funny on the TARDIS. I don’t really know if I’m older than twenty, or still younger.”

“Younger, technically,” the Doctor offered. “We missed a year, remember?”

“Yeah.” Rose frowned. “Does that make me nineteen, then?”

“Does it matter?” The Doctor complained. “You don’t exactly live linearly. Technically, it isn’t your birthday at all. Not to you, anyway.”

“But it is to her.” Mickey crooked his thumb in the direction of Jackie’s flat. “She’s been looking forward to it. She’s got presents and everything.”

“Fine,” the Doctor relented, albeit begrudgingly, as if he were giving in to give the humans a treat. But looking at Rose’s determination and Mickey’s smug grin, Claudia could tell that the alien didn’t actually have much choice. “But just until tomorrow, you got that?”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Mickey smirked cheesily.

Together, the small group, headed by Rose and Mickey, who had launched into a deep conversation about what Rose had missed while she’d been traveling, made its way towards one of the buildings.

Naturally, Claudia brought up the rear, lingering a couple yards behind the Doctor. Her first instinct was to walk side by side with him, as the small party was even numbered, but the Doctor had shoved his hands into his coat pockets and prowled stoically after the others with long strides that kept an intentional distance between himself and Claudia.

Instead of struggling to keep up, she resigned to his apparent distaste towards her and focused instead on placing one foot in front of the other, wiggling her toes within her comfortable new shoes and appreciating the barely audible clacks they made on the asphalt.

Claudia's attention was diverted, however, when an uncomfortable tingling sensation itched its way up her spine. Her eyes darted away from her feet as she reevaluated her surroundings in a manner resembling a nervous cat.

Outwardly, there was no significant change in the environment. Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor passed through the glass door without a hitch, though the resulting screech of the rusted hinges made Claudia flinch.

The sensation somewhat passed as she herself entered the building, but through the glass pane she caught a glimpse of a man staring at her from across the lot.

He was tall, that much was apparent. Almost too tall, in Claudia’s opinion. From what she could make out at a distance, he was bald. His face appeared to be almost comically wide and dimensionless, contrasting starkly with the long brown cloak that shrouded his entire form, covering everything from chin to feet.

There was something odd about him, but she didn’t much care to find out what. In a series of small, rapid movements, Claudia closed the distance between herself and the group and flatly ignored the mildly irritated glance the Doctor gave her when she accidentally stepped on the back of his shoe on the way up the stairs.

When they got to the correct door, Rose let herself in without the slightest hesitation. “Mum?”

“Rose!” Rose’s mother, Jackie, a rotund woman with blonde hair similar to her daughter’s, poked her head out from a bedroom just off the side of the short hall. She beamed at the younger woman and immediately drew her into a hug. “Oh, I was just wondering when you’d turn up.”

She released her from the hug and held her at arm's length.

“Four months,” she accused. “It’s been four months. You said ten bloody seconds. Not that I actually believed that, but four bleeding months.”

“I didn’t lie,” Rose scoffed, taken slightly aback by the confrontation. “It’s a time machine, we could’ve been back in ten seconds.”

“But you weren’t,” the older woman snipped back. “Instead you leave me sitting here… on my own... for months at a time. When it comes to that long, I start wondering if you’re going to come back at all.”

Despite Jackie’s snide tone, the real emotions behind it were plain. She was lonely and worried for her daughter’s safety; terrified that one day Rose wouldn’t come back, and she’d be left with nothing.

Claudia felt a flicker of jealousy and longing, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone worrying over her that way. For all she knew, there was. Someone could be waiting for her to come home.

But that almost made her feel worse.

“What’re you all still doing crowding my doorway?” Jackie scolded, redirecting her energy into something a little more friendly. “In or out. Hold on…” Claudia blushed slightly upon realizing that she was now at the center of the group’s attention. Jackie’s eyes were lighter than her daughter’s, more hazel than brown. In them was a maternal glint, coupled with an appraising air. “Who’re you, then?”

“That’s Claudia,” Rose answered for her. “She’s staying on the TARDIS for a bit.”

A bit? Claudia wondered. Where else would I go?

She shuddered at the thought and returned her attention to Jackie, who had wheeled around to confront the Doctor.

“Oh, snatched up another one, have you?” Jackie accused, hands on her hips. “Just like a man. One’s not enough, is it? You’ve just got to surround yourself with pretty young women. You might as well collect them.”

“Nice to see you, too, Jackie,” The Doctor snipped sarcastically as he moved around her to get into the sitting room.

The Tyler residence was homey, if not on the small side. There were a few magazines laid to the side on the coffee table, full of celebrities and pop culture pieces. Claudia took a place on the edge of the couch and picked up one of the magazines, flipping through to see if anything seemed familiar.

Rose found a seat at the small dining table while Jackie immediately began bustling about making tea. The older woman didn’t stop talking for a moment, even while juggling multiple tea cups. Claudia immediately jumped back up to her feet and hopped into the kitchen to take a couple of the cups before Jackie could drop them.

“Anything I can do to help?” Claudia offered with a simple, kind smile.

Jackie nodded and directed Claudia in pouring milk and distributing sugar while the Doctor plucked out one of the newspapers on the dinner table and flipped through it idly, opting to stay standing.

Mickey naturally flopped down next to Rose. The young man produced the remote and switched on the tv, settling on a sports channel.

“... your birthday, though, Rose,” Jackie was bickering in her shrill voice. “I’ve got the shopping done an’ everything…”

“Really, mum. You shouldn’t have bothered…”

“I’ve got the cake in the fridge and the rest of the dinner’s ‘bout halfway finished…”

“Mum…”

“Now, I haven’t got any guests together yet. Not that I could, though, could I? What, with your track record… “

“Mum, we don’t need guests… “

“... it was lucky you turned up in the right decade. We could call Shareen, I suppose.” Jackie grimaced. “On second thought, best not. Doubt she’d come, anyhow.”

“Why not?” Rose inquired, blinking in mild alarm. “She’s my best mate.”

“Was, last I heard,” Jackie corrected, looking the slightest bit smug. “She got married, and you were nowhere to be found.”

“Married?” Rose echoed, voice hoarse with shock. “But… she can’t have.”

“Two months ago.”

“But she’s only…”

“Twenty.” The older woman fixed her daughter with a slightly disapproving glance. “She came around looking for you six months back. Wanted you as a bridesmaid. I told her that you were still off travelling but she wasn’t having it. ‘If she doesn’t want to be part of it, so be it’, she said...”

Rose stood blankly while her mother rattled on, flippantly dictating the destruction of the younger girl’s friendship. Claudia tried to keep her attention on an article about makeup, but she couldn’t help but see how Rose’s bottom lip trembled as she drew in a quivering breath.

It was a piteous sight, so much that Claudia was glad when the Doctor, who was oblivious to his blonde friend’s distress, interrupted.

“What’s this about, then?” He inquired, holding up the newspaper he’d been looking through so it displayed an article about halfway through the paper.

The header read; Third Disappearance on the Powell Estate.

“Oh, that?” Jackie shrugged. “Yeah, word has it that a few people have gone missing. Police have no idea.”

“They’ve already passed by my place twice to ask questions,” Mickey complained. “A few drunk blokes go missing, and who do they turn to? The black guy.”

“Oh, come on Mickey,” Jackie scoffed. “They’re just on you because…”

“Because of all the times they questioned me back when Rose was missing,” Mickey said bitterly. “I almost lost my job, you know.”

The Doctor coughed to break the tense silence that followed. Claudia, who had been fidgeting nervously in the background, couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh of relief when the Doctor decisively threw the newspaper down on the coffee table.

“Well, while we’re here…”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jackie cut him off, waving a warning finger under his nose. “Don’t you dare go swannin’ off! It’s Rose’s birthday and I’m not having you start all that ridiculous nonsense before we’ve even had time to cut the cake!”

“I don’t swan,” the Doctor retorted.

Before Jackie could respond, Rose stepped between the pair.

“Don’t start!” She glanced at the Doctor and shot him a tiny grin that she thought her mother couldn’t see, her previous melancholy evaporating like mist. She turned back to Jackie. “Dinner’s not ready yet.”

“Rose,” Jackie pleaded, crossing her arms across her chest.

“You and Mickey finish getting everything ready, and by the time you’re done, we’ll be back and we’ll all have a proper sit down. Alright?”

“Why can’t I come help investigate?” Mickey complained. “I helped before with the Slitheen, remember?”

“Well...” the Doctor drawled. “Pressing a few buttons hardly makes you qualified for— ”

“What he means to say is,” Rose interrupted, fixing Mickey with her cute little tongue-in-teeth grin, “it’s probably nothing, anyway. We’ll go poke around a bit and be back before you know it, alright? I’m sure mum could use all the help she can get.”

Mickey gave a disbelieving scoff, but backed down, flopping back onto his place on the couch.

Rose wheeled back around to beam at the Doctor. “Shall we?”

The Doctor grinned back and offered her his hand to take. “Now then, Rose Tyler…”

He broke off suddenly, blood draining from his face when his eyes rested on Claudia, who had instinctively started to move to follow them. In the emotional turmoil of the past ten minutes or so, everyone - including Claudia - had forgotten she was there.

The Doctor’s eyes darted away, fixating on a framed picture of a little blonde girl as he dropped Rose’s hand in favor of rubbing his ear lobe between his forefinger and thumb. “Claudia, why don’t you, just… stay here for a bit. Help Jackie and Mickey.”

Claudia nodded and picked up another magazine, thumbing through and pretending to examine a page to hide any emotion that might have shown on her face.

The young woman rolled the corner of a page between her fingers until it curled in on itself, feeling sheepish at her somewhat needy urge to follow them about like a lost dog.

“Well, that’s them, then,” Jackie sighed when they’d gone, leaning back against the wall. Her face had lost some of its color, “First time I’ve seen her in months and she runs off again first thing.”

“Tell me about it,” Mickey grumbled. “But that’s us, I guess.”

“That’s us,” Jackie agreed ruefully before turning her attention to Claudia. She studied the younger woman for a moment, her gaze warmer than before. “What’s your story, then?”

“My story?” Claudia echoed. “I’ve only known them for a day.”

“Yeah, but how did you end up wound up in this? The Doctor, I mean,” Mickey clarified. “I got kidnapped by a vat of living plastic.”

“And my daughter ran off with an alien,” Jackie added sourly.

Claudia blinked at them, trying to mentally work out the presented scenarios. Mickey slapped her shoulder good-naturedly.

“Come on, then. You’re part of the club now.”

“Club? What club?”

“The ‘I-Survivied-the-Doctor Club.’” A cheeky grin ate its way across his face. “We should get shirts.”

Jackie snorted and went into the kitchen. “Ah, but first, you two shift. We’ve got work to do. Come help me with roast and tell us about yourself.”

#doctor who #doctor who fanfiction #tenth doctor x oc #tenth doctor x reader #10th doctor x oc #10th doctor x reader #fanfiction #doctorwho #dw #nuwho #oc #doctor who oc #thewaif

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petpediaweb · 3 years ago

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A Complete Guide on Feeding Puppies - When, How & What

Welcoming a new puppy home is the biggest joy one could ever experience. In those initial months, your pup requires a balanced diet to fuel their speedy growth and to ensure they live a long, healthy and memorable life. As per AAFCO recommendations, your pup’s diet must have at least 22% protein, 8% fat, adequate carbohydrates, essential fatty acids with mineral and vitamin fortification. Puppy food is absolutely essential for the first year of your pup’s development as it sets the basis for their overall health and nutrition for the rest of their life. Not to mention, the growth deformities and deficiency disorders, if you fail to provide the right nutrition. Hence, getting the nutritional balance exactly right with just homemade food becomes an overwhelming process for any new doggo owner. But the good news is, we have done the research for you and with our selection of puppy dry food online, wet food, treats & more, you will find one that meets the needs of your growing pupper and your budget.

As a new or potential pet parent, you probably have these questions in mind; How often to feed my puppy? How much quantity? And most importantly WHAT to feed my perpetually hungry pup? We’ll break down each of these questions for you, so read on.

How often should I feed my puppy?

Your pup’s feeding schedule will undergo quite a few updates in the first year. Owing to their fast development and tiny gut size, your pup will start off with 5 meals spaced out in a day before the age of 2 months. Your pup will soon graduate to 4 meals a day till 3 months of age transitioning to 3 meals a day after the age of 3 months. From six months onwards upto almost a year, you can move your puppy’s feeding times down to two a day. Feeding your pet at the same time every day helps them set into a routine. Your pup may start showing signs of feeling hungry during those times and not hungry during hours you fed them earlier.

AGE FEEDING FREQUENCY

Up to 2 months 5 times a day

2-3 months 4 times a day

3-6 months 3 times a day

6 months onwards 3 times a day

How much to feed my puppy?

Its best to feed them smaller, more frequent meals. Puppy food is formulated to provide a certain amount of nutrients per amount of food. Due to the rapid phases of growth puppies experience, they require food which has higher energy-density than an adult dog along with a larger volume of food than their adult counterparts. As they grow up, their feeding quantity gradually decreases with age. Surprising, right? Think of it as feeding for the future, rather than the size they are today.

How much food a puppy should eat is a question with a lot of variables, the biggest being the breed.” Different breeds have different daily caloric requirements due to differences in metabolism and level of activity. Furthermore, the puppy’s weight plays a major role in portion control. As a thumb rule, a puppy should be fed at the rate of 15 grams of feed per kg body weight of the pup in each meal.

Say your 3-month old doggo weighs 3 kgs.

So, one meal will comprise 15 X 3= 45 grams of food.

As the frequency of feeding for this age category is 3 times a day, the total allowance for the day will amount to 45 X 3= 135 grams. You can dodge this math simply by following the feeding table on the back of the bag of dog food.

Word of caution here, DO NOT let those puppy dog eyes trip you into giving them more food than what is advised.

What should I feed my puppy?

Puppies are likely to eat whatever is found under their nose! As the parent, you need to decide the right pet foods. With countless years of research and dollars spent on perfecting the best formulation for your furry companion, they are the best bet for your pup. Your pup’s unique nutritional requirement will depend on its size, breed and age. Puppies of small sized breeds can reach their full adult size at about nine to ten months of age. While the large breed puppy can take anywhere from fifteen to twenty-four months. There’s no “one-size-fits-all diet” that could possibly cover all the needs of all the puppies in the world. Additionally, puppy food comes in a variety of types such as dry kibble, wet food, raw, freshly made and treats.

With so many tasty and healthy food options for pups, it’s definitely a good idea for pet parents to invest time in understanding the important ones.

Dry food

Dry food is a popular option for many pet parents owing to the convenience and ease along with acceptability in vegetarian households too. By the time puppies are six weeks old, they will start weaning off their mothers onto a mixture of puppy cereal and a specially formulated puppy food. The type of dry food you choose for your puppy will further depend upon the age and breed of your puppy. So, to provide a more specific nutrition, the dog food is categorised according to breed size into Mini, Medium, Maxi and Giant breed food.

FOOD CATEGORY: BREEDS INCLUDED

Mini/ Small (Adult weight below 10 kgs) : Shih-Tzu, Pomeranian, Toy Poodle, Miniature Pinscher, Yorkshire Terrier, Chihuahua

Medium (Adult weight : 10-24 kgs): Cocker Spaniel, Beagle, Poodle, Basset Hound, Dalmatian, Bulldog, Standard Schnauzer, Chow Chow

Maxi (Adult weight : 25-50 kgs): Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Boxer, Akita, Siberian Husky

Giant (Adult weight over 50 kgs): Saint Bernard, Bullmastiff, Great Dane, Rottweiler

So after figuring out the category in which your pup belongs according to their breed, find the food appropriate for his age within that category.

Each breed category has a starter, puppy and adult food which changes with your puppy's age. Starter food is an energy dense feed which supports the rapid growth of pups without disturbing their digestive system which is at an immature stage. Kibbles easily rehydrate to a consistency that is porridge-like which is very palatable for weaning puppies. Puppy food further facilitates proper growth and helps avoid excess weight gain thanks to an adapted energy content. Skeletal development is the hallmark of this growth period; hence an appropriate puppy food provides the right nutritional balance of calcium and phosphorus in their diet. Adult food is a tailored diet to maintain a healthy body conformation throughout the dog’s life.

Starter food: (Age group- Up to 2 months)

Till 2 months of age, gradually transition your pup from mother’s milk or the feed the breeder was giving to a category of dry food known as starter food. It has a combination of nutritional elements present in mother’s milk that actively promote digestive health and help maintain the puppy’s natural defences. This food facilitates an easy transition from mother's milk to solid food. If your puppy is struggling to eat dry food, you can try mixing it with a little warm water to make it softer, until their teeth get stronger.

Puppy Dry food: (Age group: 2-10 months (small breed) , 2-15 months (large breed))

Most commercial puppy dry foods have a range for puppy stage which applies for small breed pups till the age of 10 months and large breed pups till the age of 15 months. This food has excellent sources of protein namely chicken, lamb, fish and turkey which is extremely essential for proper growth. It is rich in calories from protein and fat sources. Crunchy dry kibble has an add-on advantage of keeping your dog's teeth healthy by reducing plaque and tartar build-up. Which is why kibble eaters generally have way better breath!

Adult food: (Age group: After 10 months (small breeds), after 16 months (large breed))

While puppy dry food has many of the same ingredients as adult dry dog food, puppy meals tend to have higher concentrations of essential nutrients. This is because puppies have different requirements as compared to older dogs; just as human babies have different diets from adult humans. So, they’ll need fewer of the resources in their food to contribute to growth, but need more to support maintenance. They are enriched with probiotics, vitamins, essential fatty acids to support digestive and joint health, maintain skin barrier and manage an ideal weight.

The best time to change from puppy dry food to adult dry food depends on their breed, but most dogs are ready to change foods between 12-24 months of age.

Make the change gradually: Irrespective of your dog’s age, any form of food transition with dogs must be done gradually. Start by mixing a little of the next stage food (10-15%) with the previous stage food. If your puppy shows no unusual signs and tolerates it, (translation: no intestinal disturbances), you can double the amount of new food the next day. It should usually take about a week to make the full transition.

(P.S.- make sure there is plenty of fresh water available for your pup)

Pet parents usually have their hands full with their pup’s feeding schedule, potty training and teething that they often miss out on their most basic necessity; WATER. Every single bodily function from digestion to brain development, requires water. All efforts put into providing the best possible nutrition will turn to dust, if your pup is in a dehydrated state. Therefore, it’s very important to keep your pooch well hydrated at all times so they function at the peak of their capacity and avoid any health issues that could creep up due to dehydration. As a thumb rule, puppies must have direct access to at least one-half cup of water every two hours or so. Each time you reach for your own water bottle, think of your pet’s water needs, too.

Wet Food

Whilst dry food mainly brings advantages for the owner in terms of price, cleanliness and convenience, the advantages of wet food benefit the dog itself. Most doggos would probably opt for wet food if they could choose themselves, since wet food, more intense in smell and taste, simply tastes better to them. It is ideal for fussy eaters or pets with illnesses. With grain free and chicken free options, wet food is one of the best options for dogs with food allergies. Wet puppy food also offers your dog more hydration. Wet food becomes an important source of hydration in dogs that are hyperactive and don’t drink a lot of water themselves.

Both dry and wet food have their fans, so most pet parents provide the best of both worlds by feeding a mix of the two or simply using wet food as a topper for dry food. But remember, it is the content that matters, not the variety. So, focus on a food that best supports their growth and development and helps them thrive.

Treats

These titbits not only serve as a pat on the back for when your puppy does something good, but can also be used for mental stimulation, dental care, teething and supplementation.

It should be noted that even the healthiest dog treats can never replace a balanced diet in a dog’s life. Treats should be seen as enjoyable supplements to a dog’s daily diet.

Foods your dog should never eat

It sure is difficult to resist those big brown eyes and that adorable face. But remember before giving them a little reward off your table, that certain human foods are downright dangerous for your bundle of fluff. Due to differences in body composition, digestive enzymes and physiology of the body, some foods can upset your pup’s digestive system and send them straight to the emergency vet.

Avocados, grapes, raisins, onion, garlic, almonds, chocolate, coffee and tea are certain foods that are perfectly suitable for human consumption but are TOXIC for your dog, posing a serious threat to their health and well-being. Dairy products can cause dysbiosis in certain dogs further leading to diarrhoea as well as food allergies. The bones in meat, chicken and fish can be hazardous too. They can splinter and stick in the throat, break teeth or cut the intestines. Candy, gum, toothpaste, baked goods, and some diet foods which are sweetened with xylitol are also extremely dangerous. Also, accidental consumption of alcohol, tobacco or marijuana can be lethal. So, keep these foods out of your dog’s reach and contact your vet ASAP if they do consume any of these!

A human takes 18 years to fully grow and reach adulthood. Whereas your pooch has to cover this 18 year worth growth in mere 12-24 months. This only emphasises the need for proper nutrition in puppyhood. Proper research and a consultation with a vet will help you map out the best combination of dry, wet, homemade food and treats to ensure good health for your pupper who is just starting out in life.

For more information about Puppy Food Online visit: Pet pedia

#Puppy Dry Food #Puppy Food Online #Kitten Dry Food #Kitten Wet Food

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desertdollranch · 5 years ago

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Make Swedish rice porridge with Kirsten

Good morning, and welcome to the Larson family’s kitchen! Kirsten has been up for hours already, working to make breakfast for you, and it’s ready now. Rice porridge is one of her favorite Swedish comfort foods. She hopes you’re really hungry and maybe a little chilled, because this is a hearty dish that will warm you up nicely.

Kirsten’s Cookbook calls this recipe Skånsk gröt, which Google translates as “Scanian porridge”. Scania is the southernmost province of Sweden, which has its own dialect and culture. But searching for Scanian porridge recipes didn’t bring up anything like this, so I wonder if something might have been lost in translation, or the cookbook is using a source to which I have no access. And it doesn’t show up in Kirsten’s stories anywhere, so I don’t know how she would have made it or what she would have called it. However, searching for “Swedish rice porridge with raisins” turned up a lot more results, and I was able to find out a little more about this food’s history.

Risgrynsgröt, rice porridge, seems to be a traditional Christmas recipe, and it’s what you leave out on the doorstep on Christmas eve for Jultomten in exchange for the presents he brings for the children. It’s custom to throw an almond into the pot of rice for some lucky family member to find in their bowl after all the rice is dished out, and whoever finds it in their porridge wins an extra gift.

We don’t get to see the Larsons celebrating on Christmas eve--Kirsten’s third book revolves around Saint Lucia day on the 13th of December--so I can only guess what they ate for Christmas. I like to think they would have had this. It seems like a very festive food, sprinkled with cinnamon and honey.

Kirsten’s Cookbook says that the rice porridge would have been made by Kirsten and Mama the night before, and then kept warm next to a low-burning fire in the oven before being served for breakfast. In addition to porridge, they would have eaten pork sausage, hard-boiled eggs when the hens were laying, bread and butter, and ginger cookies. Eating a good breakfast was important for farming families whose work never really ended.

The book also explains that wild rice grew in abundance in Minnesota, and was a staple in the diets of Ojibwa and Dakota people. But European American settlers found that they didn’t particularly care for the flavor of it. Wild rice is not actually rice, but the seed of an unrelated plant, so the taste difference is notable, and it doesn’t quite cook the same way as rice. So the settlers instead preferred to buy or trade for the white rice they were accustomed to eating. Sugar and cinnamon, necessary ingredients of rice porridge, would also be purchased at the general store.

But raisins could be made from wild grapes, and apples could be cultivated or foraged; apples show up several times in Kirsten’s stories, meaning she certainly would have gotten them from somewhere. So if the Larsons did indeed have the tradition of rice porridge for Christmas, they would have been able to make it the same way they would have had it in Sweden. And on their first Christmas in America, reminders of the home and family they left behind must have felt very special.

I really liked this recipe; while sweet rice might sound strange to an American palate, I think it works nicely as part of this porridge. The sugar, cinnamon, and raisins covered up any rice-y taste it might have had. I made one change to it--I used arborio rice (the kind used in risotto), which gave it starchy, almost creamy texture, kind of like the consistency of oatmeal. The recipe never said to NOT use arborio. It simply calls for white rice. So I recommend using arborio if you’re worried the texture might be too grainy. Although any short-grain white rice will do fine.

Recipe and instructions below the cut.

Ingredients:

1 large apple

1 teaspoon butter

1 cup white rice

1 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

4 cups milk (non-dairy is fine; I had good results with almond milk)

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/3 cup raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream and honey (optional)

Directions:

Quarter, peel, and chop the apple into small pieces.

Add the rice, water, and cinnamon stick to a large pot. Bring to a boil.

Once it’s boiling, lower the heat to bring the rice to a simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the water is absorbed.

Pour the milk into the rice. Turn up the heat until it begins simmering again. Then turn the heat down to low.

Add the brown sugar, apple, and raisins to the simmering rice.

Cover the pan and let it simmer until the milk is absorbed, about 45 minutes. Keep a close eye on it and stir it several times as it simmers to keep it from scorching.

Once the rice has absorbed all the milk, taste a few grains of rice to make sure it’s cooked. I had to add a little more milk than the recipe calls for.

When you’re sure it’s done, remove it from the heat and take out the cinnamon stick.

Serve the porridge topped with honey and cream. Sprinkle it with a bit more cinnamon.

#kirsten larson #kirsten's cookbook #recipes #cooking #food

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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707

Do you think you're clever? I can be but I wouldn’t say it’s a dominant personality trait. Did you wear socks today? No, I haven’t worn socks since the last day I went to school :/ Can you remember how you celebrated your 10th birthday? I don’t remember how the whole day went but I do have a photo of me on that day. We were in our old house then and I was at the dining area smiling with my cake, surrounded by my mom and sister.

Know any magic tricks? Nah I can’t perform any of them. Do you sleep well most nights? These days I certainly do. They’ve suspended online classes, and acads is really the main thing taking up my time (and head) most days until recently. Without that I’m just sleeping, eating, and having random bursts of productivity everyday.

Are your nails painted? No. Is there somebody you know that you really don't trust? Yeah I have a couple of orgmates that are a little sketchy. I also dunno if I can trust my mom in the bigger scheme of things - we’re just not close like that. Is there music in your head right now? No need to have it playing in my head, I already have a lo-fi livestream playing on YouTube at the moment. When's the last time you baked a cake? Grade 6 when we baked a rainbow cake in home economics. What time was it half an hour ago? 7:26 PM. Did you ever play cowboys and indians when you were growing up? I have no idea what that game is. Probs an American thing? Can anyone confirm? When did it last rain? My dad said it drizzled earlier this afternoon, but I wouldn’t know because I was taking a nap. The last time it rained and I caught it was two nights ago. Would you like to become a dancer? I would love to be able to dance gracefully and call myself a dancer, but I wouldn’t want it to be my Number One Agenda, as in joining contests or have it be my whole career and stuff. It’ll be nice to simply have it as a hobby. What colour is the bathroom of your house painted? The top half of the wall is white, the bottom half consists of light brown tiles. Which country is to the north of your home country? Taiwan. Name one person of the same sex as you you wouldn't mind doing: My girlfriend. Haaaaah you thought. What is the most gory film you've seen? Evil Dead, but I’ve only seen the 2013 reboot. Is there anybody that you know that you just feel really sorry for? Yeah I guess, like my uncle for stubbornly never getting his life back on track. I’ve been done waiting for him to get better. Do you like the Austin Powers films? I’ve never seen any one of them, even the one Beyoncé is in.

Where is the worst place you have ever travelled to? All the places I’ve been to have been wonderful and it wouldn’t feel right to tag one of them as the ‘worst’ because all the trips have been paid for by my parents lmao. But the one trip that didn’t exactly turn out the way we would’ve wanted it to was Caramoan in Camarines Sur. It was raining almost the entire time, so the scenario was either 1) the rain messed with the cable signal and we only had one channel every time we were in the cabin or 2) we had to make do with being rained on whenever we wanted to go out to the beach. It was also in the middle of nowhere, so we didn’t have internet. Ever fallen down a hole? Nope. That’s one of the scenarios I’m particularly afraid of. Do you like to read poetry? No I hate having to. I’ve never understood poems. What's your preferred frozen snack? Other than ice cream? Idk, frozen fries maybe? Those hit differently. Is rap music overrated? I’d say some are, but rap generally has a rich underground culture as well so I wouldn’t say all of it is overrated. Do you work better in a clean or messy environment? That doesn’t matter to me. I care more about how warm/cold it is, because I can’t start working anywhere I find too hot or else I’ll feel too sluggish. Do you know any vegans? Only from the internet. Filipinos are big meat eaters so it’s hard to find resources for if you want to become vegan. There are vegan food stalls but they’re VERY few and far between, and they’re typically situated in hipper, more cosmopolitan parts of the city since veganism isn’t a known concept here. Earphones or headphones? Earphones. Do you like bananas? Eugh no. What's a film you've seen that confused you? Interstellar confuses me to this day. But I loved it a lot and I enjoyed the premise, and that’s what matters to me. Do you ever wear black lipstick? I don’t think I’ve ever worn it before. You can take any illegal drug without any bad consequences, which one? That’s a really dark question but uh... I’d go with meth because idk, Breaking Bad? I certainly wouldn’t want to try heroin though. What is next to your bed? I have a drawer with my clothes and other knickknacks on one side, and a chest with a bunch of memorabilia and old books I’ve had since I was a kid on the other side. Are your fingernails dirty? Nope. What would you change about yourself appearence-wise? I’d straighten my front teeth and make my teeth in general smaller. I’d also have some hair grow on my left eyebrow because I permanently damaged the hair growth there by plucking too much as an anxiety habit. How long do you normally spend in the shower? Depends on how relaxed I need to feel. If I’m showering for school it takes me 4-5 minutes. If it’s been hot all day like in the summer I’d take up to 15. When's the last time somebody called you "baby"? Sometime today, I don’t exactly remember when. Have you ever had to keep something important from your family? Like... my 4-year same-sex relationship? Yup. Don't you think things feel much better after a good cry? The things that made me cry don’t get better or automatically get fixed, but it’s always nice to give myself a break and to let everything out. Do you think the UK should keep its monarchy? I honestly don’t know enough about their system to confidently form an opinion about it. My only contribution to this conversation is that the royal family does interest me and I know more trivia about them than the average person should hahahahaha. True or false: you'd do Mila Kunis. I’d do her character in Friends with Benefits but like I don’t really feel that way for IRL Mila, mostly cos I’d rather do wholesome stuff with her hahaha. Which colour would you rather have your hair: pink, grey or green? Green > grey > pink. Don't you just hate the sound of people eating? NOOOOOOO are you kidding. Mukbang ASMRs are my faveeeeeee. What's your favourite music video? Meh I don’t really watch music videos. Is it your aim to be perfect? About the things I do, yeah. I’m not obsessed about having *everything* be perfect, even stuff I have no control over.. Ever climbed to the top of a mountain? No. That’s on my bucket list though. Have you ever fell for someone believing you could "fix" them? No. That’s never been a reason I’ve had feelings for someone. Someone's paying for a fancy dinner, where do you eat and who do you take? BLACKBIRD. I’ve wanted to try it for a while now but Makati is a bitch to get to + their food would literally take away two weeks’ worth of my allowance. I’d take Gab with me for sure. Can you honestly say you are truly happy with your life? Not right now, but I’m not hopeless about it either. Can you paint well? I can’t paint at all. Describe a picture of yourself that you hate: The candid ones are the ones I end up hating the most. If you could keep any animal as a pet, which would you choose? Just all the dogs would be fine, thanks. Something you did in the past that you're embarrassed about: I was bidding Gab’s dad goodbye because he was leaving to meet up with his friends or something. Anyway my shoes chose to be slippery that day and I completely tripped the whole way walking over to him and I even unconsciously grabbed onto his arm to keep myself from falling flat on my face. I AM WINCING JUST TYPING THIS OUT PLS SEND HELP Would you rather play a good or an evil character in a play? Evil. It’d be easier acting that way. Do you like porridge? It’s alright. I mostly avoid it because it was all I ate for breakfast from when I was 4 up to when I was 10, and I’m so so sick of the taste and texture by now.

Has anybody ever lied to you just to impress you? Idk, probably. Strangest gift you ever received: Don’t think I’ve ever received anything I was genuinely baffled by. But I try not to be like that - all gifts are gifts so I’m always grateful whenever someone gives me one. Do most people annoy you? Nah. But 14 year old Robyn taking surveys would probably say yes just to sound edgy :/ Don't you think you should really be doing something more productive? Idk man we’re in the middle of a global health crisis. I think being productive shouldn’t be a priority for once. Have you ever felt really out of place? Yesssssss this was me when I was trying to apply for AIESEC. The crowd was just too different and I didn’t last long in the application process. What's your favourite shade of blue? Royal and sky blue. Do you have any odd phobias? I used to be afraid of watching advertisements at night, but I think it’s mostly gone now. What's the longest you've gone without sleep? 18-20 hours maybe. I don’t let myself pull all-nighters. When was the last time you just wanted to be left alone? Earlier this noon when I felt disrespected by my dad. Do you believe in karma? Sure. Can you remember a world before iPods? Nope. Google says the first iPod came out in 2001, and I don’t remember being 3 years old or younger. When was the last time it was sunny? This morning. Would you like to be photographed by Terry Richardson? I’ve never heard of him but I checked Google just now and apparently he’s been an asshat to his subjects? So no. Smoke? Yes please I so have been needing one throughout this quarantine. I ran out of puffs for my vape pen which is even worse. Would you rather have a lazy day or a day of being really busy? I’ve had 31+ lazy days now. I wouldn’t mind a busy day. Do you like the way that spoken French sounds? I don’t get to hear it all that much but it was spoken so beautifully in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, so I guess I’m alright with it for the most part. I just don’t like the times it comes from the throat and it sounds a bit like hawking. D: But maybe it’s just a cultural thing - Filipino isn’t throaty at all so when we hear sounds like that we’re just not used to it. What's the best film soundtrack? As stupid as the storylines were, they really made sure the Twilight Saga soundtracks SLAPPED. Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Muse, Death Cab for Cutie, The Black Keys, Florence + The Machine, PARAMORE?????? They weren’t fucking around. Interstellar and Gone with the Wind also had amazing scores. Where did you go on your last date? My informal first date with Gabie was at a museum + this quaint Italian place in Greenbelt that has since closed. My legit first date with her was at a Bonchon LMFAOOOOOOOOOO Do people find you "cute"? Not really... only my girlfriend calls me that. Who does the best remixes? Eh not a fan. What is most of your money spent on? Gas, food, dates.

#survey #surveys

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dragonfics · 5 years ago

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What’s in a name?

Chapter 2: Evening Visitors

Ship: Spicyhoney

Tags: Doctor Rus, patient Edge, LV issues, discrimination, dehumanisation, asylum-style setting, institutional captivity, forced institutionalisation, needles, minor medical procedures, unethical medical practice, angst, hurt/comfort

Summary: There isn’t much that can rattle Rus. But patient twenty-two, it seems, is an exception.

Notes: Small warning for a short, non-explicit sex scene between Rus and an original character. I’m also hoping to have the next chapter out within a couple of days! ^_^

Read on AO3

Below the cut

Rus pulled on his gloves, locking the door behind him once Jackie had wheeled the med cart into the patient’s room. The old turtle looked up from his bed, squinting through milky green eyes. “Ah, my handsome doctor. Good morning, sweetheart.” His voice was brittle and croaky, and he gave Rus a toothless smile. Though his LV was above ten, Rus found it difficult to see him as a threat. He could barely stand on his own.

“hello, gerson” he said, returning his smile. “sleep well?” Jackie eyed him but said nothing, taking a pair of disposable gloves out of the box.

“Ahhh…” Gerson waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “They won’t let me play my music past ten. Hard to get any sleep without my music.”

“maybe i can talk to them,” Rus said.

“Forty-six,” Jackie sighed. “You know there are other people on the ward trying to sleep too.” He grumbled as she helped him off the bed.

“Gerson! My name ain’t forty-six, and you know it.” He pointed a crooked finger at Rus. “He knows it. The nice doctor knows it. Besides, if they don’t like my music, get them earplugs! Open the curtains for me, will you, boy? I don’t like living in a cave.” He tapped the shell on his back. “I have my own.”

Rus pulled open the curtains and red morning light spilled into the room. He could see the rocky mountains in the distance, black shadows on the horizon. “Step onto the scale for me here,” Jackie said, pulling it off the bottom shelf of the cart. She let Gerson lean on her for a few seconds before letting go, and Rus quickly recorded his vitals before helping him off.

“You know, doctor,” Gerson said, leaning on Rus as he guided him back to his bed. “When I was your age, I was as handsome as they come. Lots of ladies and gents knocking on my door, let me tell you. You must know all about it.” Jackie was rolling her eyes, but Rus laughed.

“less than i’d like, i’m afraid. open your mouth for me, please.” He took a swab of Gerson’s mouth and Jackie bagged the sample. “ready for your meds?” He helped Gerson onto the bed and he lay back, closing his eyes. “gerson?”

“Can I sleep now?” Gerson opened his eyes. They were unfocused, his expression vacant. “That’s all I get to do here, you know. Sleep.”

Rus nodded, moving his pillow under his head. “you can sleep.” Jackie ground his pills into a cup of water and Rus helped tip it down Gerson’s throat. He switched on the old radio before leaving the room, and soft piano drifted through the speakers.

Rus took a deep breath after shutting the door, swallowing thickly. He brushed the wet away from the corners of his sockets. “Hey.” Jackie patted his arm. “You shouldn’t get attached to anyone here, you know.”

“i know,” Rus said faintly. “who do we have next?” He flipped over the sheet on his clipboard and his chest jolted. Room twenty-two. “right. let’s get this over with then.”

When they opened the door to room twenty-two, the patient was sitting in his armchair next to the window with a book in his lap, as he always was. He turned around and cracked a smile, his red eyes simmering. “You smell nice, doctor,” he said, breathing in deeply. “Date tonight?”

Rus smiles wryly. “just you.”

“Lucky me,” twenty-two said with a chuckle. He allowed Rus to administer his tests and medication without complaint. After drawing a vial of magic from his arm, Rus checked the sample.

“the consistency is improving,” he told Jackie. “just at a glance. how long has he been on the new dosage now? two weeks?” Jackie nodded. “that’s good progress.” Rus made a few notes on twenty-two’s sheet. “how have your headaches been?”

“As headaches are. Painful.” A smile flickered across twenty-two’s face when Rus gave him a dull look. “A little less painful than they were, I suppose. But perhaps I’m imagining it.”

“have you been sleeping okay?”

“I’ve never been very good at that. Mostly I read and try not to dream.” Rus glanced at Jackie, frowning. She offered him a shrug, folding her arms. Rus cleared his throat.

“you have nightmares?”

Twenty-two’s smile was distant and lacking in its usual humour. “I’ve been here for almost ten years, doctor. I think you should be more concerned if I wasn’t having nightmares.” Rus’s soul shrivelled and his shoulders suddenly felt very heavy.

“okay… we can prescribe you ginger root, or—”

“No, thank you.”

“no?”

“I don’t think my problem is that I’m not getting the right medication, doctor.” At Rus’s silence, he grinned. “But by all means, if you’re dishing out free prescriptions, perhaps you’ll prescribe me someone to keep my bed warm. It gets very lonely here.”

“Alright, bud, I’m going to get you your lunch,” Jackie said. “Make sure he doesn’t get too lonely, doc.” Rus almost wanted to ask her to stay, still fearful of being alone with twenty-two. Better not to tip him off to the fact though.

He remained a safe distance from the bed while Jackie was gone, hovering by the door. Twenty-two watched him from his chair, his eyes never straying. “You can come closer, you know. I don’t bite without consent.” Rus peeled off his gloves and tossed them in the waste bag. He didn’t humour the quip. “So are you seeing anyone, doc?” Rus sighed and gave him a flat look. “Not asking for myself,” twenty-two said with a smile. “Just making conversation. There isn’t much else to do around here.”

Rus rolled his eyes. “no. this job doesn’t give me time for life.” Twenty-two laughed. “that’s funny?”

“It’s ironic. All I have is time. But no life.” Rus stared at him, and through his smile he could see that glimpse of what he saw in every patient here… defeat.

The door eased open and Jackie returned with twenty-two’s lunch—a bowl of porridge with a side of chopped carrots. Twenty-two looked at it dismally but accepted the tray. Rus watched him nibble on the carrot sticks as Jackie wheeled the med cart back out. “do we have any other food here? something a little more palatable? like chocolate?”

She shrugged. “That’s what’s on the menu. We don’t keep chocolate.” She locked the door and pushed the med cart away. Rus could see twenty-two’s silhouette through the curtain. He put the tray aside and returned to his book. Sighing, Rus returned to the break room and found his satchel. He dug out the chocolate bar he’d been saving for lunch and returned to twenty-two’s room. Twenty-two glanced up when he opened the door, lifting a brow bone.

“Couldn’t stay away?”

Rus slipped the chocolate bar from his pocket and placed it on twenty-two’s tray before quickly backing away. “don’t tell anyone, i might get in trouble.”

Twenty-two picked up the bar, slowly turning it over. “I’ve never liked chocolate.”

“well then i’ll take it back.”

He clutched the bar to his chest. “No.” He smirked. “Thank you, doctor.” Rus nodded stiffly before unlocking the door. Twenty-two peeled back the purple wrapper and glanced up. “You know, if you keep pulling stuff like this, I might start thinking you have a soft spot for me.”

Rus only spared him a second’s glance before locking the door behind him. He thought he could hear laughter on the other side.

***

After a hurried microwave dinner, Rus lay back on his bed, still in his work clothes. His apartment was on the seventh floor, and he could see right over the twinkling lights of the cityscape to the desert. The sun had set, and the sky was deep purple.

It was seldom that Rus left the house for a non-work related reason. At this point, he’d normally go straight to bed in the hopes of catching a few hours before he had to wake up for work again, despite the early hour. But tonight, he found himself scrolling through his contacts in search of a number he hadn’t called in months.

It only rang once before the recipient picked up. “hey hal… it’s rus. don’t suppose you’d like to catch up tonight?”

Sex had always been something of an occasion for Rus. Something he needed, from time to time, but not something he often had the opportunity to indulge in. Certainly not as often as he’d like. He had a few contacts he’d call upon when in need. Tonight, it seemed, was one of those nights.

Hal was one of the longest enduring casual relationships he’d had. Rus would even go so far as to call him a friend, though they hadn’t seen each other in months. Come to think of it, Rus couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with anyone. Not since before his training started, certainly. So yes. This was much needed.

They agreed upon a bar in the food district, not a ten-minute drive from Rus’s place. It was happening at his, then. He ordered water and sat at the bar to wait. He’d changed out of his work clothes and damn if it didn’t feel good to wear jeans. Even on the weekends, he was more of a stay-at-home-in-sweatpants kind of guy.

It was a nice quiet Tuesday night, though in a city this small, the bars seldom filled up. There was a small group of elderly monsters playing cards in a booth, and a few having dinner at the tables. Rus was alone at the bar.

The air had a pleasant woody smell to it, accompanied by the ever-present undertone of desert dust. “Sure I can’t get you anything else, love?” The bartender asked, glancing over her shoulder from the sink. Rus shook his head.

“just waiting for a friend, thanks.” He startled when someone wrapped their arms around him from behind.

“Friend, huh? Well consider me flattered, darlin’.”

Rus sagged with relief, twisting around. “hal.”

Hal grinned, his leathery skin stretching around his snout. “Good ta see ya, Rus. Man, it’s been too long, hasn’t it?” He slid into the seat beside Rus, tipping his horned head at the bartender. “Two whiskeys, neat.”

“oh, i’m not drinking,” Rus said. “early shift tomorrow, and i drove here.”

Hal lifted a brow, his ear twitching. “So yer still doin’ the doctor thing, huh?”

“yep. still doing the doctor thing.”

Hal took a sip of his whiskey, rolling his thick shoulders. “Well if you ain’t drunk, how am I supposed ta get ya into bed!” He laughed raucously, patting Rus’s shoulder when he gave him a bemused smile. “Oh, lighten up! I’m just kiddin’. Y’know, yer not who I was expectin’ ta hear from tonight. It’s been a while.”

Rus grimaced, picking at the woodwork on the bar. “yeah, you know… work is busy.”

“So how’s the whole doctoring thing going fer ya?”

“it’s… interesting.” Rus’s work at the facility was strictly classified, so he went with the admin-prescribed cover. “i’m working with terminally ill patients.”

Hal’s brown eyes went wide. “Shit, that’s gotta he rough.”

Rus took a sip of his water, suddenly wishing it was alcohol. “yeah. so uh, how about you? how’s the construction project?”

“Ah, same old. It pays the bills. Usually.”

Rus swallowed. “and how is your mother? any better?”

Hal’s grin faltered. “Ah… actually, we lost her a few months back.”

“oh… hal.” Rus squeezed his arm, leaning in instinctively. “i’m so sorry.” He let Hal draw him into a hug, patting his back.

“Aw, s’alright. We’ve had time to mourn, y’know.”

“i had no idea. you could have called me, or—“

“Well you were busy, weren’t ya? Always trainin’, always workin’. It’s hard ta catch ya, Rus.” He smiled though, squeezing Rus’s shoulders. “I get it. Work’s important. An’ this was never meant to be more th’n casual anyway, right?”

“i’m sorry… i wish i could be around more often. i still think of you as a friend.” One of his only friends, come to think of it. He’d lost touch with most of the others over the past year.

Hal chuckled. “Even though all we do is fuck?” There was a glint in his eyes, his pupils dilating.

Rus turned his face away, hiding a smile in his drink. “come on, we do more than that.”

“Yeah?” Hal leaned in, and Rus could smell the faint hint of whiskey on his breath. “Like what?”

“like…” Rus cleared his throat, self-conscious of the eyes on them, few as they were. “like friend things.”

Hal chuckled. “We headin’ back to yours?” He guided Rus’s hand between his legs, where Rus felt growing hardness. “‘Cause if we are, now would be the time. Or we might have to find a comfy spot in the bathroom.”

Rus snatched his hand away and gave Hal’s pierced ear a flick. He slid off his stool and picked up his bag. “yeah we’re heading back to mine, come on.”

Even at night, Rus could see the desert dust swirling through the city streets. During the day, the sky had an orange haze to it, washing out the blue. And whenever he left the curtains open before leaving for work, his apartment was stuffy by evening. He’d turned the air conditioning on the moment he’d arrived home, but it was still hot.

He could feel a trickle of sweat running down the back of his neck. He reached up to wipe his forehead, gasping in Hal’s arms. The bed springs creaked beneath them as Hal moved his hips. “i’m close, hal,” Rus groaned. “oh—fuck, i’m so close.” A coil of pressure built slowly inside him and he dug his fingers into Hal’s biceps.

“Fuck yeah, yer gonna make me come, baby. You want it inside ya?” Hal groaned, nuzzling Rus’s neck.

“yes—yes, inside me.” Rus squeezed his legs around Hal’s waist, drawing him deep. Outside, he heard the horn of a car, and the faraway cry of an eagle. An image popped into his head, an image of red eyes, a deep scar, a complacent smirk—

Rus’s pleasure stuttered and faded, just as Hal grunted and warmth trickled down his thighs. He gasped and gripped tight onto Hal, trying to banish that image, that voice, deep and rich—stars, why now?!

Hal rolled off him and he stayed glued on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Mmm…” Hal leaned over and kissed his skull. “Fuck, I’ve missed you. You got yers, right?” Rus nodded mutely, swallowing. Hal chuckled. “Yer lookin’ a little shaken up. I rock yer world that hard?”

“you…” Rus finally broke out of his daze and sat up. “don’t flatter yourself.”

Hal grinned. “Oh I will. Mind if I use yer shower?” Rus nodded and Hal disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Rus to try and fathom how he’d let patient twenty-two get so deep into his head.

***

“How did your date go, doctor?” Twenty-two smirked, eyeing Rus from his armchair.

“what makes you think i had a date?” Rus asked blandly, pulling on his gloves.

“You’re not walking straight. That means it went well, I take it?”

Rus froze for a split second, heat creeping into his cheekbones. He quickly recovered, taking the needle from Jackie (and pointedly ignoring her smirk). “can i have your arm, please?” he said, and twenty-two complied. He allowed Rus to test his vitals and take a few samples without complaint, but not once did his smirk falter.

“Forgive me, doctor,” he said as Rus and Jackie packed away their supplies. “Things are very boring around here, and I’ve read the books on my shelf so many times already I could recite them to you.” He grinned. “Anything for a good story.”

Rus peeled off his gloves and tossed them in the waste bag. “well i’m afraid i have none for you.”

“Pity,” twenty-two said, his red eyes glowing. “I’m sure you have plenty of interesting secrets that would make for very entertaining stories.”

#spicyhoney #papcest #my writing #us papyrus #uf papyrus #doctor rus #patient edge #hospital setting #asylum #forced institutionalisation #dehumanisation #citrus #not quite lemons

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ridarevita · 5 years ago

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How To Cook Millet That Tastes Really Great

Millet is an antiquated seed, initially hailing from Africa and northern China, and it stays a staple in the weight control plans of about 33% of the total populace. Plentiful in iron, B nutrients and calcium, millet has a gentle corn enhance and is normally sans gluten. Without a doubt, on first look you may be enticed to believe that crude millet looks like birdseed. Be that as it may, these little yellow dots have an extremely dazzling and light surface when cooked, are generally brisk cooking in view of their little size, and are amazingly flexible in dishes going right from breakfast to supper.

Cushy, tasty millet

While getting ready millet, I frequently toast it in a skillet before adding any fluid to upgrade the nutty kind of the grain. At that point, there are two general ways that you can cook it. The principal will bring about a cushy, entire grain side dish a lot of like quinoa (you'll discover these headings underneath).

The subsequent path is to utilize more water (3 cups rather than 2 cups) to bring about a smooth, porridge with a polenta-like consistency — extraordinary for morning meals. In case you're going this course, mix it considerably more every now and again. This velvety variant is likewise awesome on the grounds that you can empty it into a dish to cool, cut it as you would polenta, and fry it into croquettes or appetizing squares.

Kitchn Cooking School is in meeting! Join whenever to get 20 exercises day by day to help you on the excursion of turning into the cook you've for the longest time been itching to be. Everything begins the Monday after you join, so be keeping watch for your first exercise! Cast Iron Sauce Pan 2 Quart

Inquiries Concerning Millet

What amount cooked millet does 1 cup millet yield?

1 cup dry, crude millet yields around 3 ½ cups cooked millet.

What amount of fluid do I have to cook millet?

To cook 1 cup of millet in a pilaf-style (as portrayed beneath), you'll need 2 cups of water. On the off chance that you need to make a creamier porridge, increment the water to 3 cups.

To what extent does it take to cook millet?

Millet takes a couple of moments to toast, around 15 minutes to cook, and 10 minutes to cushion. By and large, around 30 minutes complete cook time.

Shouldn't I generally flush my grains before cooking them?

Not really. The main grain I constantly flush is quinoa due to its unpleasant covering, saponin. I don't think that its essential or helpful to flush millet. Once in a while you'll see minimal dark rock like bits in your millet, and these are basically the unhulled grain. Simply choose them and forge ahead.

What are the various ways I can utilize millet in the kitchen?

Millet is normally cooked as a porridge to appreciate toward the beginning of the day (extraordinary when you feel burnt out on oats!), however there are numerous different approaches to utilize millet. You can hurl crude millet into treats, biscuits or speedy breads for additional crunch. I love utilizing it in granola hence. Use it to thicken soups, or as a base for warm grain servings of mixed greens based on your personal preference. You can likewise purchase millet corn meal which are amazingly speedy cooking, and are brilliant in any planning you'd think to utilize polenta or corn meal.

Where would i be able to discover millet?

You can buy millet as well as millet corn meal at centers and stores like Whole Foods or online from retailers like Bob's Red Mill. I made this!

Instructions to Cook Millet

MAKES

around 3 1/2 cups

Fixings

1 cup crude millet

2 cups water (or stock, in the event that you'd like)

1/4 teaspoon salt, discretionary

1 tablespoon unsalted spread, discretionary

GET INGREDIENTS

Fueled by Chicory

Gear

2-quart pot with cover

Mixing spoon

Estimating cup and spoons

Directions

Measure millet and cooking fluid: You'll need 1 cup of crude millet and 2 cups of cooking fluid (water or stock).

Toast millet: In a huge, dry pot, toast the crude millet over medium warmth for 4-5 minutes or until it turns a rich brilliant darker and the grains become fragrant. Be mindful so as not to allow them to consume.

Add the water and salt to the container: Since the dish is hot, the water will sputter a piece when you pour it in. Subsequent to including water and salt, give the millet a decent mix.

Heat the fluid to the point of boiling: Increase the warmth to high and heat the blend to the point of boiling.

Lower the warmth and stew: Decrease the warmth to low, drop in the spread and spread the pot. Stew until the grains ingest the vast majority of the water (they'll keep absorbing it as they sit), around 15 minutes. Stay away from the compulsion to look a lot or mix excessively (except if its adhering to the base). Mixing also overwhelmingly will separate the grains and change the surface.

Expel from warmth and let stand: Like most grains, millet needs a brief period off the warmth to completely ingest the fluid. Permit it to sit, secured and expelled from heat, for 10 minutes.

Cushion and serve! After millet sits, lighten it with a fork. Taste and include extra salt on the off chance that you'd like. Millet doesn't keep well and is best served warm (see Additional Notes beneath).

Formula NOTES

While I list the spread as discretionary here, it truly helps shield the millet from remaining together, and a tad of salt goes far.

To make millet porridge, increment the fluid to 3 cups and mix like clockwork as the millet stews.

As far as surface, a portion of millet's little dots will cook more rapidly than others. You'll likely have some gentler grains and some chewy or even crunchy grains. I see this as something worth being thankful for!

Moreover, millet is one parched grain and doesn't keep fantastically well medium-term. So while I frequently twofold or triple many grain plans to have extras for the week, I don't do this with millet as I see extras as very dry.

Millet is best served warm.

#cooking

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louieeatworld · 5 years ago

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How To Make The Best Homemade Lugaw

Lugaw is a traditional Filipino dish that's very similar to rice porridge. It's nice to eat during the cold and rainy months in the morning, and also feels good to eat after a night out with friends drinking. Recently I've been trying out how to make lugaw on my own, and I think I figured out a way to make this great dish even better.

Most Filipinos know lugaw normally peddled on bikes along streets by the neighborhood food vendor or carinderias. A bowl of lugaw would usually be around 10-15 pesos for the regular ones, while those with add-ons like ox tripe (AKA twalya), pig intestines (isaw), or pig heart (puso) cost a bit more but make eating the plain dish feel a little bit more special. Most would also serve their lugaw with condiments and here is how each person could personaliaze their lugaw to their own liking. Most vendors would also offer calamansi, fried garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, hot sauce, chili oil and spring onions for free and people can just mix it with their lugaw and be happy campers.

There's also some variations of the local rice porridge. I consider them to just variations of one dish. In general, yellow 'lugaw' is contains pork and pig organs, 'arroz caldo' has pieces of pulled chicken meat, while the white 'goto' comes with beef.

Today my recipe will be focusing on lugaw. I choose lugaw over the other two since pork is very fatty and will produce the tastiest rice porridge.

The first step would be to prepare ingredients and tools that we will need:

Deep cooking pot or casserole

Blender

Glutinous/sticky rice, 250g

2.5L water

One medium white onion, chopped

One medium carrot, diced

One stalk of celery or celery powder, 1 tsp

4 cloves of garlic, crushed and roughly chopped

Small nub of peeled ginger, sliced

Pork lomo/kasim, skin removed

2 chicken buillons

Fish sauce, 2tbsp

Okay, so you might be wondering why there's carrots, celery and onions in my recipe. It's definitely not traditional. Some would just use turmeric or atsuete seeds for coloring. We would be using the vegetables in this case to provide both color and flavor to our final dish. Trust me that this will be the best lugaw you've ever made yourself.

First off, put a little bit of oil in the bottom of a cooking pot, put it on medium heat, and add the pork. We want the pork to brown on all sides and sweat, releasing its own fat to become flavor for the rest of the ingredients. It should take around 4-5 minutes. Remove the pork once it's browned and the fat is slightly translucent, meaning its already cooked to the inside.

(NOTE: Although most street vendors would cook their organs with the lugaw, I would not do that if I would be claiming to make the best homemade lugaw. If not cleaned properly, the earthiness of the organs will make its way into the dish and may make some people think they're eating unclean food. I don't like that, that's why we're cooking our meat separately. Also, if you would instead prefer to have the skin on the pork, that would be fine. It's just that it usually takes a lot more time and oil to cook it, and if there's too much oil in the pot we would need to remove the excess, which would also mean removing the rendered pork fat. Not ideal.)

After properly browning the meat, add in our carrots, celery and white onion. There should be brown bits from the meat that's sticking to the bottom of your pan. This is called fond, and fond is flavor! Don't remove the fond and oil we've extracted from the pork because we will cook the vegetables in these. They should come off easily as these vegetables cook because they will release a bit of water as they sweat. The vegetables should be done by 5 minutes. We wont add in the garlic until the carrots have turned a bit soft and the onions translucent. Garlic burns easily and would turn bitter if we added them too early. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the room is fragrant. And I mean FRAGRANT. The carrots, celery and onion is called mirepoix in classic french cuisine and serves as the base for many sauces and soups.

(NOTE: Celery is a bit hard to find in the Philippines and is usually expensive. Just use celery powder if you want, a little goes a long way.)

Once our vegetables are cooked, we add 500mL of our water to the vegetables. This step is called deglazing. We actually deglazed the fond from the pork using our vegetables, and we will once again be deglazing fond produced by our vegetables using our water. White onions and carrots have a lot of sugar in them and cooking then until tender is a great way to release those flavors and incorporate them to our final dish. After we've added the water, we will then scratch off the bottom of our pan until we've removed all of the fond.

We then put everything inside our blender. Blend everything until really smooth. You shouldnt see any chunks big or small of our vegetables because it might be offputting for some since they're not used to seeing vegetables with their lugaw. You will see that once the carrot is finely blended that it our mixture will become yellowish orange, and that is exactly what we want. Most street vendors just add food coloring to their lugaw and we won't be doing that because that method doesnt add any flavor to our dish. All that aroma and fragrance we got from cooking the vegetables over the stove? That's what separates THE BEST LUGAW FROM ALL THE REST.

Once blended, return everything to our cooking pot. Add in our glutinous rice and the rest of our water together with our 2 chicken buillons and fish sauce. Add in the amount ginger to your liking, as some people do not like the taste of ginger especially when you accidentally bite down in it.

(NOTE: Sometimes what I would do is cook the ginger together with the vegetables and then remove it. It's also optional to just crush the ginger and add in the ginger juice.)

My recipe uses a 1:10 ratio between our rice and liquid, 250 grams of rice to 2.5L of water. The glutinous rice actually expands and gobbles up most of our liquid, and thickens our lugaw as if we're reducing our broth through simmering. As the starch from our sticky rice mixes with the pork fat we cooked earlier, it's going to thicken up our lugaw even more through emulsification. Who doesn't like thick lugaw? Bring to a boil then simmer for around 25-30 minutes or until the rice grains are translucent and continue leaving it on very low heat so that it stays warm and continuously stirring so that the rice doesnt end up sticking to the bottom and burning.

(NOTE: You might also be thinking, why not use chicken stock? Well, chicken stock is a bit expensive in the Philippines, and buillons/broth cubes are much more accessible. Also, chicken stock, I believe, will be a bit too overpowering for our dish since we already added mirepoix. We want the dish to not taste too hearty because we still want to be able to add other flavors to our bowl of lugaw later on.)

Once you have the consistency you want of your lugaw, grab a bowl and scoop some. I believe it's best practice to taste the lugaw first on its own to know it's own flavor so take a spoonful first and only then add condiments to your liking. Personally though, I will only add my own chili oil (more on this on a later post), freshly ground black pepper, freshly squeezed calamansi, a little bit of garlic-infused red cane vinegar (a different kind of sour from calamansi and from the regular white vinegar) and that is all.

Cut up some of the pork we've fried earlier and place it in top of your lugaw. The crunchy pieces of fatty pork goes well with the thick, soupy consistency of the lugaw.

(Note: You can use any piece of meat or organ that you like. I simply do not like the laziness of not cleaning internal organs enough most street vendors and carinderias practice. That is understandable that they need to work fast to earn money, but they should boil their innards with some ginger to get rid of the foul taste and smell. If you're using organs, you can still use the same method I did with the meat so you'll still have fond. The common internal organs used for lugaw are usually fatty and will lend a lot of flavor to your lugaw except for the heart which is really muscular. The only exception would probably be ox tripe. Ox tripe is very gummy and chewy and should not be fried. You can boil it separately with some ginger and add it together to your lugaw as you're cooking it. You can even use chicken neck, as chicken skin releases a lot of fat and it crisps up really good which goes well with lugaw. You can also grill your meats and organs instead which will still go well with lugaw.)

I've put a lot of heart into making this recipe. I made a conscious decision to use the cheapest ingredients that make the most impact because I believe that good food doesnt have to be expensive. If you've tried out my recipe or have any other variations you think I missed and would like to share it here as well, I'd like to hear from you!

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missvifdor · 5 years ago

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EÄLRIEL - The Twilight Child (Title FR: L’enfant du Crépuscule).

The Twilight Child or L'enfant du Crépuscule is the story I've been working on for a while and the one that's been in my head since the end of high school. This is only the number 1 chapter of the beta. The story is normally written in French but I translated it as I could. I'm a little worried about posting it now, but I really want your opinion to be able to edit and improve the story. I hope you will like it and I apologize for the spelling mistakes, as I have pointed out several times I'm French and English is not my first language. The images of the chapter do not belong to me, but to their respective authors (with the exception of the cover with the title, please do not take it)