#onion cookie - threads

[musesofthemoon]

Onion Cookie heard of the new cookie making their home in the village. She always seemed to hear things, since no one but Blackberry Cookie could quite speak with her. She always begged them not to leave when they finished their conversations, but no one ever seemed to listen. Nevertheless, she wished to keep trying. She wanted to make at least one friend, if she could...

The cookie in question was caught in the little ghost’s sights, which she soon made her way over to. She found it somewhat difficult to figure out just how to get the Cookie’s attention, especially since he wasn’t looking in her direction, so she opted to speak, in hopes of finally finding someone to hear her. “Helloooooo?” she asked, her voice slightly shaking with a mixture of anticipation, and fear of rejection.

@frostchilld

[renegadeguild]

Edible Book Day 2024

the appetizers

A Commonplace Snack by Daemonluna

A collection of tropes and other ephemera, rendered in nori and rice paper. Sewn with a glass sweet potato noodle, ornamented with cilantro and lime.

This is how we roll (bamboo slips) by anonymous

This is the first book I have made since joining Renegade. I didn't think I'd get to make books and eat them too.

The (Not Actually) Matzah Plague Board Book by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie

10 Plagues by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Illustration by Noodle and Noodle's Auntie. Writing and Binding by Noodle. Materials: Gluten Free Matzo Substitute, fruit roll ups, fruit by the foot, sour belts, licorice, fruit rolls, sour sticks, cumin, water.

a fluffy breaduation by Sandy Kitty Bindery

i do not regret anything... except maybe the dentist bills ;)

Pancake Scroll by Zhalfirin

This was a lot easier than I had anticipated. A bit bland because I wasn't sure what I'd do the painting with and therefore didn't season the batter. It goes really well with a side of salmon and soy sauce though.

the mains

the iron chef secret ingredient was lasers by Lark

lasers are friends not food.

6/10, at least I chose turkey this year.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Thunder (Dragon's Thunder Press)

This was my first book bind ever. The case is French toast. The 2 signatures are each made of 3 omelet folios, and they're sewn with mozzarella string cheese strands. The end pages are each a slice of prosciutto, and they're pasted in with raspberry fruit syrup. Finally, the titling was done with black icing.

Sandwiches (And Books) Are Beautiful by Velvetwastaken

The ‘book’ ultimately failed to be readable as such due to a betrayal by the onion binding. But it tasted amazing, and thus I think still encapsulated the spirit of edible book day: good books are meant to be devoured.

and of course… … the desserts!

Mistakes were Marbled by anonymous

I baked a strawberry cake with buttercream icing. The buttercream set a bit too quickly for the marbled effect to work, and attempts to fix it caused structural damage, resulting in ... this. I would like half-points for retaining good flavor, despite appearances.

Brandy Snaps by Lottie

Brandy snaps for the pages, strawberry laces for thread. Complete with two weaver’s knots to tie the strawberry laces together

Book Cookies by six

Sadly not fully functional books - the cases are rigid sugar cookies baked into various open forms. The pages are edible wafer paper marked up here and there w/ an edible ink pen and the frosting quite tasty! Experimented with two different sizes and various page configurations. Fed some of them to various Renegade members. There were no fatalities.

Titles are overrated by Zhalfirin

I'm still baffled this turned out the way it did.

It's a delicious little baumkuchen chonker (app. A6 in size and about 6cm thick) cased in chocolate powdered marzipan.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite! And check out last year's winners here.

[heli0s-writes]

You’re Toxic, I’m Slipping Under

Summary: He bristles, offended. And you try, with as much dignity as you can muster after the last two hours of being fucked blind, to not look so smug about it. “See you next week,” he hums.

A/n: To celebrate Glass Onion coming out, here’s ol’ boy Ransom because I hate him so much :) 4.1k words. Warnings: Smut; mild degradation, spitting, daddy kink; classism; Mind Games with Ransom Hour etc. etc. Please stop reading if you’re not 18+

Your whole apartment building seems to rattle when he arrives thirty minutes late. Like raucous fanfare to announce his appearance, the door slams shut, the latch clicks loudly, and then you hear his heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs.

His shoes are still on—of course they are—stomping your floorboards and dragging in dirt. You can practically see them, the usual suede loafers switched out for leather boots with the late fall chill, and probably mud-caked because he’s thankless like that.

With your attention still on your laptop, already irritated because you’ve been attempting a paper that’s only chased its tail for the last three hours, you ask, “Did you misplace your watch, Ransom?”

Turning, you show him you’re the screen reading 8:32 and blink pointedly, “Is that a yes?”

“Don’t be smart,” he snaps back. “You know I don’t like that.”

Your head’s been a mess of fog, body tense and frustrated for days, and although you’ve always prided yourself on tact and grace—patient like a saint—Ransom manages to bring out the worst. You hiss, “Take your damn shoes off, you know I don’t like that.”

You watch mutely as he does so, not without a sneer here, a shitty comment there. He takes three long steps and plops himself on your bed, hands curling into the quilt, thumbs brushing over the patchwork fabric disparagingly. He pinches a loose thread and begins to pull, tugging slowly at first, and then finding joy in unraveling a line of stitching until nearly three inches rip apart.

“I always thought you needed to replace this thing.” He twirls the string disdainfully, “It’s ugly as sin.”

He pretends he doesn’t know how you obviously love this quilt—handstitched and affectionately made, your damn initials are embroidered into the corner, after all. He’s made a game of testing your patience, gleefully punching at every button as he tries to get you to snap.

Ransom Drysdale Thrombey. You’d met him at one of the Thrombey’s family… functions. Dysfunction, you’d muttered under your breath when Walt beat his cane against the floor in a drunken tirade and Meg ran out back to wolf down a pot cookie that she was supposed to be saving for later.

She was on the cusp of a panic attack, words tumbling out like a car crash, her hand in her beret, then hair, then trembling over her maroon-painted lips.

“God, I’m so sorry— I thought we could just make a pit stop before heading out. The food’s always catered and really good— god… it’s a fucking mess.”

You waved her off because it’s not like you haven’t witnessed at least one aunt having a meltdown during holiday dinner before— family’s just like that—and tried to placate her with, “Can’t be worse than the cousin who asked if we’d be scissoring later.”

Meg’s face twisted in disgust. “Ugh, ew! Fucking Jacob! He’s a skeezy little incel— I swear he’s a moderator on one of those internet forums where they post revenge porn and upskirt vids— honestly, he was adorable two years ago. Then I guess he went through puberty and got radicalized on Youtube.”

You paused as she lit a cigarette and inhaled furiously before realizing that the two of you were thinking of two entirely different cousins.

“I meant the big one, Meg. This one went through puberty twenty years ago.”

“Ew, Ransom,” Meg frowned, “That’s even worse.”

“Ransom? What is he, a Disney villain?”

Leaves crunched behind your back and Meg looked up from flicking ash into the yard toward the sound.

“Let’s be honest, I’ve got the face of a leading man.”

Meg blew smoke at him, as if the fumes were enough to threaten his sensibilities. You figured not, he looked like a cigar smoker anyway—one of those guys who’d dedicate a whole room in their house with the humidity just right to keep them fresh. Rich people shit.

“Go away, Ransom,” she said, to clarify.

“I don’t recall addressing you, Megan.” He took a drawn-out look, lips pursing in scrutiny before lifting a brow, making a real goddamn show about it. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll bite. 400 on the dresser for an hour; you can get yourself something nice.”

You’re still not sure what it was about either your attire or attitude that allowed him to conjure up such an offer.

Maybe it was your shitty jeans and your sweater from freshman year orientation. Maybe you looked like an easy mark to tear down.

His audacity shocked out a laugh from you—a loud, abrupt guffaw that eased Meg enough for her to dip back inside to grab more from her stash. And when she was out of sight, focused on rummaging in the old clock, you responded, “Yeah, okay. I’ll bite back.”

Maybe it was an act of rebellion against your background in contrast to all this excess. The bitter aftertaste of eating bottom shelf food out of necessity for weeks at a time—those awful chicken bouillon packets and dried blocks of instant noodles your first year of college. No one paid for your schooling or housing so learning to balance an over-abundance of classes and a job because you needed to graduate early, needed to spend less money on tuition, meant that you were working yourself to death.

If Youtube radicalized Jacob, then habitually sleeping three hours a night in the campus library and skipping meals to afford textbooks while men like Ransom crashed Maserati’s for fun radicalized you.

So, sure. Game on.

He picked you up the following weekend without anyone knowing and took you somewhere expensive. It was a whirlwind of exorbitant dinners and being quietly sneered at down the straight line of his tall nose bridge. The front door to his bachelor pad shutting but not bothered with locking. Falling into the thousand-count Egyptian cotton bedsheets naked, the skylight’s beam spilling like gold-flecked champagne.

You promised yourself it meant nothing. Just an experiment of unbridled spite. If he wanted to throw money at you, hell, that’s his problem. If he wanted to fuck you, well, you’d give him the best fuck of his life— let him see that despite wealth, at the end of the day, he was flesh and blood trembling for the right stroke.

And sure, he trembled, but it was your mistake to pare it down so simply.

Ransom juggled fuck buddies much longer than you’d been fucking at all. He knew it was best with the right amount of emotion involved. Just enough to yearn. If he laid roses at your feet, kissed your knees featherlight and worked his way up to your jaw, cradled the back of your head, nosed the pulse of your wrist, your collarbones, asked for your eyes on him, and panted the lightest breath of your name at the edge of it all—now who’s fucking who over, sweetheart?

You were out of your depth. He was powerful, older, and more experienced. He touched you in ways that emulated affection—that brought fire and danger. His hands were large and callused at the juncture of his fingers. His pretty mouth was pink, wet, kissed greedy. His sharp eyes took everything in.

But, as you predicted, his moods soon volleyed in every direction as consequence of never being told no, and once the novelty of crazy hot—often angry—sex grew stale, you crashed back down to earth burned out. You ghosted.

“You’re, what…” he called through the door the week after you texted that it was both too much and not enough to carry on with, “breaking up with me? Seriously. This is a fucking joke.”

And you could have practically seen it—how his bottom lip would jut out as his incisors crossed, how his brows would sink when he got angry. He was never belligerent, only calculating.

You told him to leave, and he did, after a single loud kick to the frame, because he’s never begged for anything, and he wasn’t going to start.

The guilt came afterwards, with the bouquet of roses on the doormat, petals scattered around because he’d slammed them down after being ignored again and again, and you swept them inside to throw into a vase next to the three other vases with flowers in various degrees of wilted.

“Breaking up” prickled complicatedly in the middle of your chest, because despite the many shows of affection, you knew you weren’t exactly breaking up. You had never really been with him anyway. People aren’t… with Ransom. They’re towed along by Ransom, dragged by their hair by Ransom. Played with by Ransom until he inevitably gets bored.

It devolved into needless melodrama. Weekly episodes of a teen show with grandiose gestures of toxic relationships perceived as romance. Ransom’s habit of whisking you away, fucking you senseless, turning around to fight with you about any-goddamn-thing he pleased. Dropping off flowers and champagne. Restarting the whole process.

It wasn’t healthy—isn’t healthy, probably, according to most therapists—since he’s here, present-day, in your room, beginning to undress.

You fiddle with the sleeves at your elbows, thumbing cool satin before advancing, arms subconsciously crossed.

He’s only in his underwear now. A pair of nondescript gray boxer briefs fitted on his muscular thighs, taut as he leans back on his palms. He slowly spreads his legs, inviting you between them. His lips purse when you stand passively, knee brushing his bulge, hands resting over his shoulders. He’s warm.

One palm caresses your lower back and the other on himself, gliding up and down. His lids are half open, voice low, “You miss this?”

“No,” which is a lie. You missed it when evenings were boring, half-heartedly nodding to some boy’s drivel about campus life, mind wandering to someone who didn’t look freshly 21, didn’t date like it. Didn’t talk themselves up just to get you into bed.

At least Ransom was honest; he always said exactly what he thought, told you exactly when you were pissing him off, how he was going to teach you a lesson—where he wanted you, how he wanted you, and— a chill races up your arms.

He’s downright smug when he notices.

“No? You prefer sloppy frat boys pawing at you like virgins over me? Every time, you think they might fuck right but, well, you’re always disappointed.” He reaches beneath the short hem of the robe, splays his hand out over your thigh and very slowly feels his way up.

Your eyes shutter as he pulls you forward, gripping tightly and massaging up toward your ass. The pit of your belly is tightening, the rest trying to push down being too eager for him all over you, his broad shoulders, his strong hands, how he bends his grasp on your shoulder, fixes you in a perfect curved arch just the way he likes.

Ransom noses the robe out of his path, sinking his teeth lightly down until he scrapes a line over your breastbone, laying his face gently down like a child—like a lover.

“You know,” he begins, taunting again, “You make a… face.” He says it as he trails down beneath the swell of one breast, letting your nipple graze his cheek, before he presses a kiss to your ribcage. Hot like a brand, searing into your belly. And then he bites.

You flinch, hand going to his hair to pull him away. He throws his head back into your grasp, eyes glittering and amused. He quickly works your thighs apart, dipping two fingers between and sinking into your heat.

“There it is,” he chuckles when your eyes flutter, “Yeah... Really gets me off.”

You’re in his lap before you know it, your hold on him fallen off and now scrambling for his wide shoulders to hold yourself steady. He’s got you leaned back on his thighs, hanging off the edge of the bed and perfectly helpless, the only thing planting you even close to secure are your folded knees, your arms around his neck. He’s shushing you, one large hand on the small of your back, the other still working inside your pussy.

He says, “Calm down unless you want to fall,” but it’s goddamn hard when your heart is pounding with equal parts fear and arousal. He’s sucking on your tits, balancing you just precariously enough to thrill, fingering you all the while—like it’s nothing to him, like you’re an object he can manipulate however he pleases.

His cock is erect, flexing against the fabric over his groin, a swell of hard, aching muscle. You want to put your hand around it, feel its girth in your palm, simply hold it because you do fucking miss it. The places he can reach, the ways he spreads you, rocking in and pulling out—how he sometimes settles inside, and then does nothing but watch you squirm.

It’s undeniably gorgeous—and he is too—when you fumble it out after he lays you down and hovers over you with interest. You’re wetting your lips automatically, staring in awe at his thick shaft sprouting from soft, dark, curls, the tip of it smooth and almost purple, swollen up with blood.

“Legs up,” and the way he says it, how he just goes right out and says it, makes you groan.

Boys don’t do that. Too busy in their heads about peacocking and re-enacting the kind of porno where performers wordlessly move into new positions in sync, nothing verbal exchanged but high-pitched shrieking and nasally fuck me’s.

Ransom’s extremely verbal in bed. He easily says, “Look at me. Show me how much you want it,” and flits his eyes between your bodies.  

You do, shivering, sliding two fingers along the sides of your folds, finding yourself aroused and damp, humiliated and incredibly turned on when he grins, simply content with watching. Your thighs are squeezing reflexively, abdomen crunching up trying to keep it together.

But he’s never been patient, and quickly tells you to hold your knees, rock back, make yourself small and exposed, and then he’s delving gently into your hole— thumbs taking turns, coaxing more.

Two fingers tuck in, then another two struggle next to them, and you can’t stop yourself from gasping and crying out at how he pulls apart the walls of your cunt.

The sound of it— sloppy, squelching, a light and hollow kind of noise like a tongue flicking inside an open mouth.

“Look at this pretty pussy.” He tugs a little more, and you wriggle into it, gripping your legs tighter, pulling your knees up, shins toward your burning face to hide.

He descends on your clit, tip of his tongue licking into your stretched hole, purposefully only running against the taut skin around his fingers. “You got a talent, baby,” he murmurs, buzzing. “I could fuck you the whole day, fuck you numb… but give you about half an hour and it’s good as new, tight and perfect.”

There had been marathon rounds of bouncing in his lap between being at each other’s throats, his thighs splitting yours, hands holding you up, nibbling at your ear. Then he’d turn you around, take you to the floor until you collapsed on the bearskin rug, the sweat on your neck and chest rolling into dark furs. Railed you until you were so sensitive anything would make you come; your body unsure if it was considered your own anymore.

Fuck, fight, rinse, and repeat.

“Are you—going to talk all night?” You grunt up to the ceiling, trying to steel yourself from panting or moaning and only barely making it.

“Thought you liked it when I talked.”  His dark head is still between your legs, nose pressed into your skin, licking agonizingly slow with his entire tongue. It’s so warm, and gentle, and assertive. “What, you don’t like being told how good you taste?”

He keeps licking, pushing at the back of your knees when you try to switch positions, holding you in that bent up pose. He’s suckling at your clit when his fingers find their way back inside, easily hooking in three and pumping them smoothly.

“How—” he sucks hard, the shape of his full, plush lips fitted over you making a filthy wet smack, “mmm—I love the taste of your sweet pussy?”

When you come like it’s being ripped out of you, legs shaking around his head, lines of his spit dripping down your ass and onto the sheets, he lets you go with a hard slap on your sex, and you nearly wail.

“That’s my girl,” he says. “Yeah, you missed me, huh? You missed it like this, didn’t you? Tell me.”

“Unnng …” a high whine, “Ransom.”

“I know,” he mumbles, kissing up your belly, your neck, your ear.

He moves into position, entering effortlessly after all his prep work, and the shine of your juice still on his beard is fucking unholy hot. He’s grinning and panting, eyes fluttering briefly as he slides home.

“I know it’s big, baby. But you can take it, you’re gonna take it.” He’s a fraction unfocused, letting himself enjoy how you squeeze around him before he begins to punish.

Jesus, you missed this. Missed the agonizing drag of his shaft that feels like it goes on and on forever. Miss the way you get full of him, miss how it almost hurts.

His hipbones are hitting against yours, a steady fast rhythm because he’s experienced like that. Whereas some others might go faster when you’re close, Ransom stays at the pace that got you there in the first place. If anything, he pushes just a bit harder, makes you listen to the sound of his skin on yours, the choke of your breath he punches out.

You crunch yourself up smaller, toes touching the headboard now. Anything to get him further in.

“Fuck, you’re a slut,” he laughs. “Pretty little slut, god you don’t give it up like this for anyone else, do you?”

There’s not enough sense in you to argue even if you wanted to. The room is swimming, undulating, slipping further and further out of reach as the bed rocks and squeaks in protest. You’re sure you met a very handsome guy at the bar weeks ago but as soon as he started hinting that he was interested and stirred up conversation by asking your major, you left.

It just… wasn’t there. It wasn’t the same. No way in hell.

That boy wouldn’t have done this—wouldn’t be planting one foot on the bed, the other knee still down, enormous hands tight on your hips and crashing in.

You could cry, it feels so goddamn good.

Tears dribble their way out from the corner of your eyes. You turn your face enough to get a breath of fresh air, gulping it in frantically between the drive of Ransom’s cock and the half second he slides out.

You vaguely register his hand moving from your hip to your cheek, knuckles brushing upward.

“Oh,” he sighs, “pretty, pretty girl.” He slows his pace, nearly stilling. You squirm beneath him, inching away from how deep he is inside you, how intimate it feels as he kisses the hollow of your cheek and then toward your brow.

“So sweet for me,” he says, pulsing, making you whine with how he pushes against your sore walls. “Did I make a slut out of you? Huh? Make you stupid for my dick?”

“Make me come,” you say. “Make me—“

“Ask me real nice, baby. Ask daddy to make you come.”

You want to hit him. Kill him.

“No?” He whispers into the sensitive shell of your ear, “You don’t want it?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, embarrassment clawing up your face, but Ransom’s hold is tighter, sharper, and he really is— so fucking right. You want it. And he’s made you a little stupid, so yeah--

“Please make me come, daddy. I wanna come.”

The Cheshire grin that unfurls on his face is more panther than cat. “You wanna come on daddy’s big cock?”

“Yes, daddy,” you admit. “I wanna so bad.”

“Oh, that’s it, baby. You’re a good girl, aren’t you. You put on a little show just for me? Act like you don’t want it but soon as I get in you and you let me lay you out anywhere, make you say anything.”

You turn away but he’s got your fucking number— got you as a boneless, spineless mess beneath him as he begins to fuck you again, and harder, his calculating, beautiful, cruel face hanging above you like a fever dream.

“You gonna come? Gonna cry?”

He’s melting away, he’s everywhere, and the lights behind your eyelids are starting to glare and threaten to explode.

“Gonna come for daddy, huh. That’s it, baby. That’s my girl, let me feel your pussy— ah— there it is— you can’t help it, can you? Mmm, swallow daddy’s cock with your pussy.”

Your orgasm is a wreck of curses and teeth on Ransom’s shoulder when he drops down close enough to make contact. You shake and whimper, struggling to calm yourself through the aftershocks.

When you’re done, still floaty but more aware, the mess of your humming insides less tight around him, he pulls out and shuffles up until his swollen tip is at your chin.  

You obey wordlessly, and afterwards, when the flex of his shaft is tell-tale, and he empties into your mouth, you hold it there, show him the mess.

“Baby,” he says, slowly making his way back down, admiring the come submerging your tongue.

Ransom licks his lips, licks the inside of his cheek, and leans back over again, his eyes liquid darkness and pleased as punch. And he drops a line of spit on top, drools it down over your teeth, into your mouth, and says, “Good girl.”

-

“You need a new laptop.” He’s tugging his belt until the clasp hooks into place.

“I don’t.”

“It looks old.”

“So do you.”

He bristles, offended. And you try, with as much dignity as you can muster after the last two hours of being fucked blind, to not look so smug about it.

“See you next week,” he hums.

You don’t say anything in response, only listening for the same heavy footsteps slam back downstairs—perhaps a fraction lighter—and the clunk of the door swinging shut. A long breath and you stretch slowly, letting your body regain its normal shape before he bent you into a goddamn pretzel. A few minutes pass, and then a few more, and you hear the roar of his car speed out of the parking lot.

Safe now, out of his reach, you amble back up into your computer chair to face the awful white, blank document staring back like a judgmental audience. You slide in and crack your neck, feeling the throb between your thighs yield to a less uncomfortable ache.

The problem, you’ve learned after leaving Ransom’s world, was that you had been ill-equipped to play his game. His game, and by extension, Meg’s game. All the Thrombeys and Drysdales and everyone in-between.

They belonged to a class you couldn’t really understand unless you were making a fucking killing—and graduation was just around the bend, so maybe you would, one day—but you were in the red with 45 grand of student debt and staring down the barrel of a subsequent degree because it was getting hard to make it with just a single bachelor’s in anything.

There was too much to do and not enough time to be jerked around by Ransom—not nearly enough time to feel frustrated about your situation in any sense. No, scraping by taught you to survive. You couldn’t be whisked off to the Caymans for brunch, couldn’t be fucked raw in hotel infinity pools, get lost for days meandering the Pacific on luxury yachts for the fun of it.

Your world was a little more drab, a little less rose-tinted.

So it was back to normal now, back to the grind, back to not wasting any part of your week on shitty dates, shitty sex, and coming home more frustrated than you left it. Because there was Ransom, so eager to make some kind of statement about proving you wrong that he’d be the last to know when he’s being used.

And maybe 4 out of 5 therapists would say that your coping mechanism to a normal sex drive is unhealthy—mind-fucking and regular-fucking your ex/not-ex will do that—but you wouldn’t know. You can’t afford therapy just yet.

You rub your back, patting out the tightness of overworked muscles. It doesn’t feel any worse than the cramp you’d gotten after staying up three nights in a row cramming for finals.

As if your brain has reset, your fingers begin tapping on the keys, and you realize your writer’s block’s been lifted.

[bluevelvetbindery]

Here’s something a little different and a lot silly, lol! April 1st is edible book day, and I used that as an excuse to make my lunch and read it—I mean eat it, too.

I used lines from the classic children’s song written by Bob King, ‘Sandwiches,’ which I thought very fitting, considering what I set out to make. And of course all sandwiches taste better with a side of chips and a glass of chocolate milk (in my correct opinion, at least).

My onion binding completely failed, though. So, overall, I’d have to give this little book a 1/10 for readability, but it was absolutely delicious, so 10/10 for palatability!

A few process pics and details can be found under the cut!

I rolled out some homemade bread dough and cut it out be roughly quarto-sized. And then I had to make sure it stayed relatively flat while baking (this dough tends to get nice big air pockets, which is normally lovely, but not what I wanted here). My solution was to press them between two cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, and weighed down with a cast iron skillet (my beloved).

And it worked! I didn’t cut them perfectly to begin with and they deformed a bit while baking but I really did end up with three nice and flat(ish) ‘pages.’

I used an electric wood burning tool (cleaned and disinfected) to free hand the letters (hence why the title is so bunched, lol). It worked pretty well! I thought about trying to write on the cold cuts, too, but decided not to push my luck this year, lmao.

After the ‘typesetting’ was done, I assembled the rest of the filler ‘pages:’ various cold cuts, romaine lettuce, swiss cheese and sliced tomatoes. I punched holes with a kebab skewer, and threaded an onion slice to bind it all together, but that kinda flopped. The fillings shifted around a lot, and the “book” ending up being pretty thick. Add to that the fact that bread and lettuce and things don’t take to hole punching that well, and yeah. Total structural failure 😅

So maybe it didn’t end up being much of a book. Perhaps I went into this whole thing more focused on making lunch than anything else, but I gotta say it was a lot of fun to try.

(I did add more onion as well as mayo and ranch dressing to my ‘book’ before eating it. I am not an animal, lol.)

[sreegs]

gonna swing a bat at some hornets nests here but to be fair, i understand why these shows are popular and their merits, i just ended up not liking them

there's some shows out there that ran on a good or funny premise and didn't need a second season, really. some of them could have just been movies and be done with it in 2 hours or less.

like, remember when parks and rec was running and it was inescapable? now it's like it dropped off the face of the earth. because it went on too damn long. it had the feeling like it ran off the runway and then just kept rolling on the ground like, "what the fuck do i do now?". i did not care about the development of those characters nor did i yearn for any more arcs or stories behind the core premise of a dysfunctional local government org in a typical suburb in america

ted lasso, same thing. good premise. i stopped watching like 2 episodes into the second season. it just felt like it wore out its welcome and ran out the premise and the comedy had no longevity. it just turned into a cookie cutter rom com

my most recent series i've abandoned i didnt even make it through the whole season: poker face. i liked knives out (glass onion sucked, imo), and i like murder mysteries. natasha lyonne was great. but the way it was made to show the murder being committed first then how it was solved second just sucked any excitement or anticipation out of it. i just stopped caring about the main thread that ran through the series. the ep about the hippies in the retirement home was the last one i could stand, it also felt like it was starting to lean into the copaganda territory with the FBI shit too

i wish tv shows ran seasons with half as many episodes and took more time to develop a good reason to have more than one season

[jtownraindancer]

Some pro-tips from someone in northeastern usa with food sensory issues AND cooks for both a small army of picky eaters & folks with different health risks:

Frozen onions are pre-diced and very, very easy to add into things. Unless someone has an allergy, I toss a handful of frozen onions (and garlic) into most of the dishes I cook. In thicker sauces & soups especially, they're very easy to sneak in.

Most squashes can be pureed and mixed into sauce! I like to use butternut squash especially (very popular donation to the food pantry so we always end up with a bunch) to mix into my stovetop mac'n'cheese sauce! Also another dish that you can freeze, though I will say that cubed squash (pumpkin especially~) is also really, really good when roasted with bacon, or when mixed into seasonal risotto.

Cauliflower! Cauliflower is a miracle veggie to me! You can dice it, rice it, mash it, use it as an alternative to pizza dough, and from personal experience it is absolutely delicious when breaded and deep fried.

Cucumbers! They go great with mint, watermelon, and are easy to sneak into sandwiches!

Kale & spinach are some greens that always are fairly popular with the crowd. For kale I like to either fry it up with some bacon, chicken, and pecans or dice it really fine to mix into soups. Spinach is very similar to that, but both are also good for salads. Kale has kind of a bitter- very mild!- taste to it and a bit more crunch; spinach is a little more bland & a bit softer (slightly longer to chew). Kale is also a good base for pesto. (I had so much kale from my garden last year; I had to get creative.)

Tomatoes are a hit-and-miss for me, so I've been getting more creative with them. I usually take canned tomatoes (homemade or store bought are both really good) and mix them into Hamburger Helpers (I'm poor and they're yummy), puree them for my own quick pasta sauce or salsa. I also love the smell of stewed tomatoes with mac'n'cheese but hated the texture; I found a recipe online that incorporates bell pepper slices and a slow simmer. I make them every time together.

Corn is very versatile. I personally love to make homemade cornbread (no idea how old our family recipe is), grill it, boil it, broil it, mix it into soups... I know there are more ideas out there, but I haven't tried them all yet.

Celery is one of those veggies I still can't quite get into, but it's always been good for soup: chunks into chicken pot pie, beef vegetable, pureed into a chilled celery soup on hot summer days, or even as a key ingredient in a veggie stock for meals later on.

Frozen berries! I know this thread is about veggies, but fruits & veggies kind of go hand-in-hand with this for me. Frozen berries can easily be added to ice cream, smoothies, cookies, or made into sauces & dressings for your rice, salads, & roasted meats. A few weeks back I used one bag of frozen blueberries to make a sauce that I put on chicken thighs, rice, and the rest went into a salad dressing. Plus they can be added to muffins, cereals, oatmeal, grits if you're willing to give it a go (maple syrup adds a little something-something too~)

Apples! I love apples; I can never stop thinking about how good apples are. They are very crunchy as they are and are very yummy raw, or drizzled with caramel, honey, baked into pies, grilled with brown sugar & cinnamon... Some of my personal favorites though are recipes where I slice them thin and incorporate them into my salads & sandwiches. Apple slices with cheddar cheese, apple butter, and cucumber slices on a cracker is divine for a midday snack, or apple slices with turkey, brie, and a little bit of honey toasted together (good place for some romaine lettuce too). My younger brother loves to grill up some slices of sausage with kale, apple, chive & onion cream cheese on toasted pieces of baguette.

Canned pears, peaches, and pineapple are always another option you can fall back on. I'm sure it's nowhere as good as the original, but I like to make sticky rice with pears as a dessert sometimes, and I've found the full sized canned pears are also good for making into a compote. Pineapple slices always add a little bit to a roast ham, and I love to heat up my peach slices in the microwave with a little cinnamon. They make easy snacks, too.

If you're like me and you have a phobia of produce going bad before you can finish it, I'd do a little digging into what you know you like to see if you could preserve it in some way.

Canned foods are usually fairly cheap (rinse several times before cooking to remove excess sodium!) and will stay good for several years.

Frozen fruits and veggies are often cut up in advance, which I can say from experience can save a LOT of time, and you don't need to use an entire bag in one go. I usually just do a handful or so at a time. Many also come with seasoning and can be cooked in the microwave!

If you, like me, rely on a food pantry, or even if you have to shop bulk, and tend to end up with a lot of fresh produce you don't think you can eat, it's worth the effort to set a day aside (if you can!) to figure out ways you can preserve it. I often spend my Saturday afternoons canning, dehydrating, and/or freezing what I know we can't use in the next week. I usually don't have a lot of spoons when I get home from work during the week, so any time I can save for myself cooking later is much better. (You can also freeze fresh herbs, cheeses, and meat!)

Getting into the habit of eating healthier can be a challenge, but it's worth trying to experiment and finding what sticks. In my case, it was eating mac'n'cheese baked inside a pumpkin & having my entire world view shift on me. Maybe it'll be something as simple as eating an apple slice drizzled with honey, or trying a different cheese on some leafy greens. You just have to find what works for you, and be patient with it.

i mean this in the gentlest way possible: you need to eat vegetables. you need to become comfortable with doing so. i do not care if you are a picky eater because of autism (hi, i used to be this person!), you need to find at least some vegetables you can eat. find a different way to prepare them. chances are you would like a vegetable you hate if you prepared it in a stew or roasted it with seasoning or included it as an ingredient in a recipe. just. please start eating better. potatoes and corn are not sufficient vegetables for a healthy diet.

[newtonsheffield]

After that spicy sunday 👁️👄👁️

Maybeeee... Can we see Kate giving a sexy surprise to Anthony for his first birthday together?

Hurst like heaven could be my favorite AU, it's too funny (and spicy 😏) though we don't read it yet 😂

Ahhhh Hurts like Heaven Anthony might actually never survive what Kate has planned for his first birthday. Especially given it marks a year since they'd met again.

Anthony would be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to his birthday. It was his birthday, for one, but for two he was almost sure Kate had a plan. There'd been little whispers. Conversations he'd caught the end of and little tuts when he mentioned making plans. Your Mum and the kids are throwing you a party on Friday, you know that She hummed kissing his forehead but most damming of all was the lingerie bag he'd spied in the back of their wardrobe, a childish gasp rising in the back of his throat as he took in the bag, the silver lettering shining in the light. He'd barely managed to leave the wardrobe without rifling through the tissue paper like a rabid racoon.

For once he didn't let himself wake slowly, he sat uprights as soon as his eyes shot open, smiling a little apologetically at Kate who was jolted roughly to the side with a huff.

"Sorry, I'm excited."

Kate groaned, rolling over to press a kiss against his arm the only part of him she could reach. "Why is something special happening today?"

Anthony bounced the mattress, letting himself land on top of her, grinning as she smiled at the contact. "It's a day you should be giving thanks for, Kate. The annual celebration of my birth."

Kate let out a faux gasp, "Is it?"

He nodded against her, laying with his body draped over hers, "It Is."

Kate left a quick kiss on his lips, before she pushed back against his chest until she could sit up, ruffling his hair with a sad hum. "And unfortunately when you're a big boy you have to work on your birthday. Do your little sums."

Anthony Rolled his eyes, "I do complex mathematical equations, actually."

Kate stood from the bed, tugging one of his tshirts over her naked body, obscuring it from his view. "Ooo Sexy."

Anthony caught her around the waist spinning her around until she settled between his legs, his chin resting on her shoulder, "I could be very sexy."

Kate groaned, "I don't have time for you to be sexy this morning, Honey."

Something disappointed settled in his chest, ridiculous, and petulant that Kate was brushing off his birthday. "Um, Yeah, okay."

"You're okay right? You aren't upset?" Her teeth bit into her lower lip, her fingers threaded through his hair.

He shook his head, because what else could he do? "Nope, just need you."

"Well you have that. Happy Birthday, Ant."

He told himself he wasn't disappointed all day. Wasn't sad that Edwina hadn't sent him a happy birthday text, lunch came and went without her sending him his usual birthday cookie and he just felt... sad. He felt sad.

"Hey Josie, um-"

"Anthony I am not sharing this packet of crisps with you, those sad little eyes just won't work on me." His desk mate said dryly.

"I would never lower myself to cheese and onion. Not today." Anthony groaned. "Has Edwina messaged you today? Like what's she up to?"

"I'm her roommate, not her calendar."

"I just wondered. Um- It's my birthday and... it's dumb but... this is the first time since we were fifteen that she hasn't sent me a cookie for my birthday and like... I don't know what I did or if she's okay."

Josie smiled gently, "She's sent me 13 gifs of Alexis Rose today so she's definitely okay."

And that would have to be enough.

By the time he went to leave for work, all he wanted was to go home, get into his pyjamas and sulk, honestly.

He sat at the reception desk, waiting for Kate like he always did, his chin resting on the desk as she walked towards him, so beautiful his chest was aching.

"You're pretty."

Kate chuckled, kissing the top of his head. "So are you. Sad little puppy."

Anthony sighed, "I just... I didn't have a good day. Eddie didn't answer any of my texts, and... this is stupid, can we just go home?"

Something crossed over Kate's face for a moment before she nodded, tugging on his hand. "Come on."

He took her hand, kept hold of it while Kate drive through the city, kept hold of it as they stood in the lift, Kate jittering nervously for some reason as she tugged him down the hallway, suddenly spinning back towards him as they stood outside.

"Okay, I get this has been a really shitty day today, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten to see that look on your face."

Anthony's stomach dropped, "What face?"

There was a mischievous little smile on her lips, as she threw open the door, their living room overflowing with their friends and family, waiting for him.

"Surprise!"

"That look." She chuckled, kissing him quickly through his surprise, her lips nipping at his ear before she said, "And if you check your phone, You'll see something for you to... unwrap a little later."

"Tony!" Edwina called, "Stop crying to my roommate! Your fucking cookie's over here!"

But Anthony wasn't paying attention to anyone, not even his own mother calling him over, not even Newton who Edwina had forced into a birthday hat that said Happy Borkday, he dropped his satchel and Kate's at the door, scrambling for his phone, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Oh my god." He let out a gasp as he stared down at them, several pictures, every one of them taken in her office, how he didn't know, but he could see her, sitting behind her desk in nothing but tight black lace, her feet up on the desk, her long legs stretched out as she stared at the camera, the brass nameplate shining in the sun, Miss Kate Sharma Solicitor

She'd sat, in her office, in broad daylight and posed herself in lingerie she'd bought with him in mind, for no-one but him to see.

Kate was leaning back against their kitchen counter, a smug smile on her face as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, talking to her father, but her eyes were burning into Anthony's.

"Tony, are you even listening to me?" Edwina sighed, tugging on his arm.

"Ah, no, I love you, Eddie but your sister just sent me smutty fucking pictures so no, I'm not listening to you at all."

He honestly could barely refrain from Kicking Kate's father out the front door merrily, his heart pounding as he spun around, pressed against the door, as Kate's eyes stalked him across the room, pulling him forward.

"Mr Bridgerton," Her voice was low and firm as she tugged a chair out from under the table, settling it in the middle of the room, "I heard you've been a very good boy today."

Anthony scrambled forward, practically knocking over the chair as he sat in it. "I have, I have been a very good boy today."

Kate hummed, leaning forward pressing her chest against his forehead through her blouse. "Then I suppose you deserve this then. Happy Birthday, Anthony."

And the minute the music started to play and Kate's hips started swaying right in front of him, Anthony realised he didn't actually care if no one else ever celebrated his birthday ever again. So long as Kate kept smiling at him just like this.

Also: Her tits looked incredible in that bustier and he was fairly sure, this was what happened in heaven.

[musesofthemoon]

@frostchild called: “onion cookie?” sherbet cookie calls, lingering around the bay where he’d last seen the poor lonely child. “are you here? i have something for you!”

The ghastly cookie smiles when she hears the voice of her friend. Something for her? Something she could have? It was even better that was, even if she was merely ecstatic that she'd been remembered by the spirit, who she still thought had better things to do than speak with her.

Despite that, she comes out from the woodwork to greet him, smiling at the sight of him. "Oh, hello Mr. Sherbet Cookie-" she replies, her usually wobbly and saddened voice filled with glee. "I'm glad you came to see me-!" She doesn't even think to ask about the present at such a point, as she tries to grab at him for a hug. Whatever it was he had, she didn't quite mind. She was only happy to be there right now.

[milkbreadtoast]

im sorey but where did u get that herb libra sun picture ???????? pls i am gonna go insane?×&@;>-_/!(<_

IT'S FROM THE OFFICIAL CRK EN TWITTER ACCT.... disclaimer idk if these r /actually/ their canon zodiacs but i mean. THEY ALL SEEM TO FIT AND IT WAS TWEETED BY AN OFFICIAL ACCT SO IM TAKING IT AS CANON LMFAOO

EDIT: I FOUND THE THREAD IT WASNT DELETED OMFG ok so: licorice gemini, red velvet taurus, squid ink cancer, mango leo, espresso virgo, herb libra, strawberry crepe scorpio, pastry sagittarius, almond capricorn, sorbet aquarius, latte aries, sea fairy pisces)

the official cookie run ob acct also tweeted these:

(cherry: aries, milk: sagittarius, sparkling glitter: leo)

(earl grey: taurus, captain ice: virgo, plum: capricorn)

(sea fairy: pisces, onion: cancer, pitaya: scorpio)

(mustard: aquarius, licorice: gemini, rose: libra)

also, werewolf is apparently a scorpio?? (bday is halloween???)

[netscapenavigator-official]

I actually wanna chime in here and give my two cents since I’ve done a lot of anxious research for similar fears of mine. So here goes. Summary/TLDR at the bottom:

The more browser extensions you have installed, the more fingerprintable your web browser is!

That’s why on the TOR Foundation’s website they recommend that you install ZERO extensions on the Tor Browser. Of course, in reality most people want or need some, so here's what I've come to learn on a few vital and mentioned ones. The goal is to minimize your extensions as much as possible.

You don’t need two ad blockers. uBlock Origin is the best of the best, and has an element zapper if it ever misses anything automatically, which it rarely, if ever, does.

Privacy Badger is (allegedly) an outdated extension that doesn’t do very much other than make your browser more fingerprintable.

minerBlocker (while I haven’t don’t much research) doesn’t sound very useful. Because Firefox, if you change the Cookie Block settings, can block CrytoMiners on its own. uBlock Origin can also do this with a special script, but that's beyond me, so you'll have to turn to Reddit if you wanna use it for CryptoMiner blocking.

If you're worried about viruses, the app Malwarebytes is cross-platform and open-source. It's widely trusted by r/privacy and r/piracy. The free tier won't run automatically after your free trial is up, so just run it every time you install a piece of pirated software, and then every once in a while after.

Also, you forgot the golden rule of torrenting. A good browser and extensions only prevent fingerprinting from a website, itself. This isn't what's gonna get you in trouble with the law. So: GET A VPN!! The ONLY way to prevent your internet service provider (ISP) from seeing what you're doing is to encrypt your network usage with a VPN. Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) have a paid VPN which I personally use and is very beginner friendly and cross-platform. Most free VPNs cannot be trusted and usually collect, sell, and report illegal data, which defeats the purpose. Without a VPN, however, your ISP will be able to see that you’re downloading peer-to-peer content. Now, that isn’t always a bad thing. Some ISPs don’t care, and won’t do shit. For example, Mozilla VPN has failed a few times for me when I left my client running overnight, and nothing’s ever happened. If you live in Germany or another country with stricter piracy laws, or you have a stricter American ISP, you could get fined and/or have your service turned off. In Germany people have even gotten jail time. The #1 thing to do if you have anxiety about piracy is get a well-trusted VPN like Mozilla’s. In fact, if you only do one thing from this thread, THIS is the one to do. I highly recommend that you NEVER download to upload peer-to-peer pirated content without one, as it is a serious risk.

And finally, use r/piracy as a means to find reliable websites. Do not download torrents or files off random websites before looking it up on r/piracy. Stick to popular and active torrents, and I would suggest primarily using 1337x.to as a trusty website. Also, look for trusted crackers and repackers. For example, if you're torrenting Mac Apps, a well known cracking group is TNT. If you want games and Windows software, FitGirl and DODI are popular repackers for them. DODI’s repacks are also among the only ones I’ve found that word with Translation Layers like Wine, WineSkin, and CrossOver on macOS and Linux.

Also, no amount of extensions on Firefox will make you anonymous. If want anonymity, you need to download the Tor Browser, add ZERO extensions, and NEVER change the default window size or settings. This level of security usually isn't necessary for your average torrent downloader, though. I'd much rather use Firefox + a VPN than Tor. Tor is extremely slow because of it's Onion Anonymizing Network, and is really only needed for people who have a reason to hide from the government, ie: political whistleblowers, protest organizers, etc.

There is also an extension called NoScript. It's the only extension that comes with Tor, and it can be downloaded on Firefox as well. This extension is your gateway to preventing websites from collecting and sharing your data. HOWEVER, this extension will break websites, and it can be very frustrating to use if you aren't privacy-minded, tech savvy, and patient. So, if you're a beginner, I'd recommend trying this one at another time.

And finally, you need a way to download the torrented data (duh). The only two clients (apps) most people trust are qBittorent and Transmission. uTorrent is no longer trusted due to privacy issues. DO NOT USE IT. If you’re a beginner and want something with a pleasant UI, I highly recommend Transmission. I’ve been using it, and personally I love the simplicity over qBittorent; however, I know a lot of more advanced users really love qBittorent.

So, if you wanna get into the basics of piracy, here’s what you need:

Firefox

uBlock Origin

ClearURLs

"Strict" or "Custom" Cookie Setting on Firefox

Mozilla VPN!!!

Transmission

If you wanna go more in depth, add NoScript and swap Transmission for qBittorent.

And if you wanna go really advanced, replace Firefox with Tor Browser and download ZERO extensions. If you need me to tell you how to use Tor and what it's for, though, then you probably don't need it.

Streaming companies are the landlords of media. You will rent in perpetuity, and never actually own anything.

[chicgeekgirl89]

A Lifetime Original Movie Kind of Way

Fandom: 911 Lone Star

Characters: T.K. Strand, Carlos Reyes, Nancy Gillian, Paul Strickland

Summary: Post ice storm, Nancy comes over for a 126 hang and she's got some grievances to air. For the @badthingshappenbingo​ prompt: Hypothermia.

Read on AO3

“Babe where did you put the onion dip?” T.K. called from the kitchen, his head deep inside the refrigerator.

“Top shelf, on the left, behind the veggie platter,” Carlos called back from the bedroom. 

T.K. shifted a couple things around. “Got it!”

By the time he extracted himself from the fridge Carlos had finished getting dressed and joined him in the kitchen. “I love that sweater,” T.K. said with a smile. 

“I know,” Carlos told him, looking slightly smug as he leaned in for a kiss. 

The doorbell rang, interrupting the moment. Carlos checked his watch. “Someone’s early.”

“Probably Paul. ‘Promptness is politeness’ and all that,” T.K. said with a roll of his eyes as he echoed a phrase Paul had said more than once while he walked to answer the door. 

He’d been home for two weeks and when the text thread about a possible post-hospital/post-ice storm 126 reunion hang had started back up, Carlos and T.K. had jumped at the chance to host it in the loft. 

“Nance!” T.K. said in surprise upon opening the door, pulling it wide to let her in.

“Hey, hi, sorry, I know I’m early,” she said as she hugged him. 

“No apology necessary. You are welcome here always,” Carlos said sincerely as he walked over and took the Tupperware from her hands, giving her a one armed squeeze. “Cookies?” he asked, holding up the container.

“Brownies,” she corrected. “Straight from a box. But I did add my secret ingredient: Chocolate chips.”

T.K. raised his eyebrows. “Not sure that’s much of a secret Gillian.”

“Well secrets are no fun anyway,” she said as Carlos set them on the counter and began pulling out glasses.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked. “Beer? Wine?”

“Wine. Red please,” she said.

Carlos nodded. “Coming right up.”

“Wow, so this is the new love nest huh?” Nancy asked, taking in the space. “Looks great.”

“Thanks,” T.K. said as Carlos uncorked the wine. “It was all Carlos.”

“Yeah I can tell. If it were up to you the place would resemble a tiki bar and there would probably be wet towels and dirty socks all over the floor,” Nancy told him. 

“Are you saying I don’t have good taste?”

“I’m saying Carlos has better taste.”

“He certainly does,” T.K. said, giving his boyfriend a mushy smile and getting one in return. 

Nancy turned from looking at a framed photograph of the two of them. “And how are you?” she asked, looking at T.K. critically. “Everything good?”

“I feel great,” T.K. said. “Had a follow up visit yesterday, clean bill of health.”

“So no like, lingering symptoms or complications?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Cleared for work and everything. I’ll be back next shift.”

“Good, wow, I’m really glad to hear that,” Nancy said. “If you’re totally healed then it means I can do this.” She pulled back and punched him in the arm. Not hard enough to really hurt him, but enough to make a point. “Ow! Gillian, what the hell?!” he cried, rubbing at the spot.

“I’m going to murder you!” she yelled, eyes fierce as she punched him again. 

“Ow! Stop punching me!” 

“Stop trying to die and I’ll stop punching you!”

“What is the difference between me trying to die and you murdering me?!”

“The fact that you don’t know is part of the problem!”

“Um,” Carlos was looking at them both with bemused concern on his face, “do I need to interfere here?”

“No!” they both yelled, glaring at one another.

“Okay, I’ll just be over here if you need me then,” he said mostly to himself, keeping half an eye on the squabbling partners as he went back to food prep.

“I am SO MAD at you,” Nancy said fiercely. “I cannot believe you! ‘Oh Cap, I’m fine, I know how to do this, I did it all the time in New York’,” she pitched her voice low in an imitation of T.K.’s tone.

“I saved that kid! And I don’t sound like that! Carlos, tell her I don’t sound like that!”

Carlos looked up from the avocado he was dealing with. “I thought you didn’t want me involved in this.”

“YOU COCKY ASS BASTARD!” Nancy shouted. “I was terrified for your stupid life the entire time, how dare you make us go through something like that AGAIN?”

“Okay, I want to be super clear here, I did not intentionally get shot or intentionally give myself hypothermia,” T.K. told her. 

“Or intentionally get kidnapped or intentionally get almost burnt to a crisp,” Nancy shot back.

“You also got kidnapped!”

“But I didn’t get a concussion!” She pointed a finger at his chest. “You are a danger magnet. And I cannot live like this. So go see a shaman or realign your chakras or get an exorcism or something because I refuse, REFUSE, to lose another partner.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” T.K. assured her.

“AH!” she yelled, pointing a finger at him. “Ah! See! That is the heart of the issue right there! That cavalier attitude. You think you have nine fucking lives and you don’t T.K. You don’t. You’ve only got one and you nearly lost it. I had to literally shove life back into your cold, naked body, which, to be clear, is not something I have ever desired to see anywhere at anytime. You died between my hands and I had to touch your frosty corpse, and it’s only by the grace of like eternal love or some bullshit that you made it through.”

Her eyes had filled with angry tears and she was shaking as she continued her tirade. “You have no idea what it’s like to be on this side of things. Losing Tim is one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. And I am so mad at you for trying to put me through that again.”

“Oh Nance.” Her words finally sank in and T.K. felt an appropriate amount of guilt. “I’m sorry. I swear, I didn’t mean to scare you or make you upset.”

“I know you didn’t,” she said with a sniff, wiping her eyes. 

“What can I do?” he asked sympathetically. “How can I help you feel better?”

“Just, like, hug me and tell me you won’t do it again!” she cried as if he should have known that all along.

“Okay,” he said, suppressing a laugh as he pulled her in for a tight hug. “I promise not to fall through another frozen pond in the middle of a freak ice storm.”

“Or get shot,” she said, still holding him tightly.

“Or get shot,” he agreed.

“Or pistol whipped,” Nancy said as she pulled back. “Or blown up in a minefield.”

“Should I just stay home and never got out again?” T.K. asked. 

“Condo fire,” Carlos called from the kitchen. 

“Not helpful babe,” T.K. called back. 

“Maybe a bunker?” Nancy walked toward the counter to finally accept her glass of wine from Carlos. “Carlos? Thoughts?”

“Oh am I invited to be a part of the conversation now?” Carlos asked.

“Yes. The suggestion box is open,” Nancy told him.

“Then sure, a bunker could work,” Carlos agreed.

“Might I remind you again,” T.K. pointed at Nancy, “that you were kidnapped right beside me and you,” he pointed at his boyfriend, “were about to do unspeakable things to me right before the fire. You were both involved.”

“Yeah, but only tangentially. You’re the center of all these incidents,” Nancy told him before she turned back to Carlos. “This building has to have some kind of basement right? And you work with jail cells, you must know a guy who could put some locks in or something?”

There was another knock on the door and Paul poked his head in. “Nance, you beat me!” he said sounding both surprised and impressed.

“Yep,” she said, then cut right to the chase. “What are your thoughts on developing a plan for T.K.’s physical safety?”

“They’re trying to lock me up to keep me safe. It’s very sweet in a ‘Lifetime Original Movie’ kind of way,” T.K. said with an annoyed grimace.

“Oh no, yeah that’s a really good idea,” Paul said, immediately jumping on the bandwagon. “What about one of those giant hamster bubble things?”

“Yes!” Nancy smacked the counter. “Now we’re talking! T.K., thoughts? Then you could still go to work. Sex might be a little difficult, but I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“Whoa!” Carlos said loudly, brow furrowing as the conversation took a turn in a direction he hadn’t expected and was clearly uncomfortable with.

“I think you’re all crazy,” T.K. said taking a sip of mineral water.

“All because we love you babe!” Nancy said, toasting him with her wine glass.

And despite their ridiculousness, T.K. loved them right back.

[mistress-and-servant]

Just a Tear

“Go change,” she said to him, sternly.

She was sitting at her vanity, powdering her face when he walked in. She didn’t even turn around to say that, merely glanced at him through the mirror. Charlie was momentarily shocked, but then nodded to her and quickly made his way back to his room to put on his maid outfit. This was a common occurrence for him. Sometimes she’d demand to see him in his maid outfit, while other times she didn’t mind the butler one. But he would gladly change for her whenever she asked.

The maid outfit was slightly more revealing. The skirt portion didn’t even go past his mid thigh, and there was a cat head hole right where his chest was. It showed off a bit of his cleavage squishing out against it. The sleeves were tight right below his shoulders. It was a bit more difficult to move around in this outfit, but he’d never complain to his Mistress. He quickly made his way back to her door and knocked.

“Enter.”

He opened the door and shut it behind him as he walked in. He stood behind her, just like earlier. This time when she glanced up, she smiled and slowly turned around in her seat. There was a spark in her green eyes.

“That’s better. Now, Charlie, do me a favor and do not take that outfit off till you burst out of it.”

Charlie paused, and blinked a few times to catch up with what he heard. His maid outfit had started to show how much he’s grown, but even with how ill fitting it had become he wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to completely outgrow it.

“Do you expect me to even wear it while I sleep, Mistress?”

“Oh heavens of course not-“

He sighed in relief.

“- I expect you to do it today kitten.”

His eyes widen and a blush began to form on his chubby cheeks. She giggled.

“Oh stop. I know you can do it. I would suggest you sit around and just stuff your face till it happens, but I know how much you don’t like ignoring your duties.”

He nodded, he hated the idea of not doing anything at all. He was her butler after all. And if he did nothing at all, then how was he ever to keep his worth?

She continued, “ Yes, so since you need to be doing something, I suggest that as long as you are working, you are also eating.”

She got up from her seat and walked up to him. She placed her small hand on his tum and patted it. It gurgled, reminding him that he had yet to eat today. “I want to see you eating something all day, no matter what. I’ll make sure of that.”

｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡

Breakfast was the easiest. She didn’t add anything to his simple meal of eggs, bacon, toast and a cup of whole milk. He was sure that she would add a pastry of some kind, but she just sat there with her own portion and smiled. After taking and cleaning their dishes, he got started on making a list of things that needed to be bought for the home. He would receive lists from the head chef and head housekeeper, and he would then in turn check the stock room and pantry to make sure everything was listed off.

It was in the stock room that he heard someone come into the room. He looked and saw his Mistress come in with a plate of cookies. When she got to him, she immediately shoved a cookie into his mouth. He had no choice but to eat it, and it was delicious. It was still warm, and it was crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. The chocolate chips were gooey, coating his mouth as he chewed. As he finished it, a second one was pushed into his mouth. This went on as he continued to check the stock. Cookie after cookie would pass through his lips with no room in between them until finally there was none left. She smiled at him and finally left him alone again. It wasn’t till then that he noticed a slight bit more pressure in his tummy. He rubbed his belly and burped into his fist before continuing on with his work.

｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡｡◕‿◕｡

This continued on throughout the morning. Treat after treat would make his way to him, and his Mistress would happily feed him as he worked. She fed him slices of cake, batches of brownies, plates of cookies, and other such desserts until it was finally time for lunch. He had just finished a plate of scones and was now slowly making his way to the kitchen. He was full, his belly now pushing against his maid outfit. He could have sworn that the fabric was slowly inching its way higher up his legs, showing more and more skin as it went. The end of his skirt was barely covering the top of his thighs, and soon would start showing the very bottom of his belly. Yet there wasn’t a tear yet, he was afraid that he wouldn’t burst out of the outfit and it would simply no longer cover his body.

He held his belly as he walked, trying to stop it from sloshing around and causing more discomfort. He hiccuped and burped softly as he got closer. But before he could enter, his Mistress came out and blocked him.

“Oh no no no. You are to sit at the dining room table. I will bring you your meal.”

He was about to protest, but she began to push him away. “Go on now. I know how hungry you must be,” she teased. He relented and made his way to the table. As he was slowly lowering himself onto the seat, he felt something give, and his belly expanded a little with the extra room. Upon inspection, he found that the bow to his apron had come undone, and now the flaps were loosely on his sides. It didn’t count, but it gave him hope that maybe he’d be able to stop soon.

He inspected his clothing further and found that, when sitting, his skirt barely covered his legs at all. The ends of the fabric were just shy of exposing his belly. He patted his tum, causing it to gurgle. He was so full already, but he knew his Mistress would not stop till he burst out of his clothes. He hiccuped, causing his belly to wobble, and he groaned. He hoped he'd be able to get up after lunch.

Half an hour passed before his Mistress entered the room. With the little time he was given as a break, he was starting to breath a little bit easier. His tummy was still full, of course, but he was finally relaxing, until he wasn’t. The Mistress brought in two plates with her. One with a bowl of creamy potato soup with bits of bacon in it, the other with a sub cut in half with cheese and tomato sauce oozing from the sides, a classic chicken parm sandwich. They both smelled amazing. Even with his full tummy he began to drool at the thought of eating them both. He rubbed at his belly, momentarily forgetting his fullness.

His Mistress sat the two meals down and motioned for him to eat, which he did with no hesitation. He began with the bowl of soup. It was warm and creamy. The bacon was salty, and as he lifted up his spoon he saw that there were globs of cheese and chunks of onion and carrots mixed in. He savored the flavors, and before he knew it the bowl was empty. He stifled a burp in his hand and began to rub his tummy. Not only did he feel how stretched his belly was, but also the fabric of his dress. He didn’t understand how it could still contain him after everything. He swore that he could hear creaking, he just wanted it to tear already. His belly gurgled and a burp slipped past his lips. He blushed as his Mistress pushed the next plate in front of him. Charlie picked up the sandwich and began to eat again.

Slowly he made his way through it. Bite after bite of cheesy, saucy chicken and bread slid down his throat and expanded his tight gut. He groaned as he felt his stomach grumble even more. He tried to push his belly out in hopes that the dress would finally give but it just held on. Even after the last bite joined the rest in his packed gut, not a single thread had given out. He let his head fall back and didn’t try to hide the burp he let out. He was just so tired from the heavy weight in his belly sitting on his lap, still covered by his maid outfit. He barely registered the hand slowly rubbing circles into his belly. His Mistress pushed a finger against his stomach and felt how tight he felt.

“I really thought for sure you’d rip through this by now.” She placed both hands on either side of his wide expanse and gave him a gentle squeeze that still made him groan at the discomfort. She stopped and continued with her rubbing circles. After a few minutes of caressing his stuffed midsection she got up and stood beside him, grabbing his right arm.

“Come, it probably isn’t too comfortable sitting like this. Let's get you to a more comfortable spot.”

He moaned at the thought of moving, but after a moment's hesitation he began to slide himself closer to the seat edge. He used one hand to grip the dining table, and the other to support his tum to prevent any unnecessary movements. Slowly but surely he got onto his two feet with the help of his Mistress, his belly wobbling as it was pulled down by gravity. The weight making him have to arch his back to give his belly more room. He hiccuped and groaned and clutched at his middle, his Mistress leading him towards her personal Reading Room. She led him towards the plush coach they’d both use to sit next to each other during lazy days. She made sure that he slowly and carefully sat on the cushions and then pushed him into a lying position. With laying on his side his belly was no longer pulling at his back, now being supported by the soft pillows. He was both more comfortable and still in pain by the sheer volume in his tummy. His Mistress sat down next to his head which then made him want to pull himself closer to her to put his head on her lap. He struggled a little before she granted mercy on him since all this began and shimmied closer for him to snuggle into her. She began to run her fingers through his hair.  With now being close to his Mistress, he began to purr softly and gently fell into a food coma, his tummy slowly digesting all the things he’d eaten .

The last thing he heard before slipping into darkness was, “Maybe when you wake up we can continue working on tearing this outfit.”

[furballfaggot]

the creatures have spoken. here is the fully unedited successful recipe, save for a couple extra notes i made when i posted them on discord and some clarifications. additional notes and failed attempts under the cut. please tag me if you make these i wanna know what yall think!!!!!!!!!!!

gio treats mk3 -- unedited recipe, more info at the bottom

goal of gio treats: crunchy, tastes good, bone

mk2 advancements: better texture, somewhat more of a taste, actually a bit crunchy, thick enough to cut beforehand

mk3 goals: stronger flavor, proper crunch

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup cornbread mix

2 tbsp butter, melted

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp curry powder

1 1/2 cup beef brof (made with 4 bullion cubes) (note: bullion is deliberately spelled billion in the original text)

small amount of any nice herbs (added to broth -- strained out probably) (note: i used bay leaves and parsley just to keep it simple, but feel free to add whatever you want)

egg

pinch of salt and pepper (note: originally typed out as "pincha salt n peppy")

"enough pancake mix to make it stick again"

preheat oven to 375 faggotheit

roll dough onto flat surface and cut into bone

transgender to GREASED cookie sheet

poke 4 holes into each bone with toothpick (mostly for looks tbh)

bake until baked (bout 21 minutes)

let cool until cool (7ish minutes)

serves people*, probably

for storage keep in ziploc bag. for added effect make sure its one of those ones that can stand up on their own when theres stuff in em

for the past week ive been trying to make a human body compatible dog treat of sorts because I Am Dog And I Am Weird. this is the 3rd attempt, which worked out wonderfully. im going to make a thread for the notes ive got about this recipe as well as the 2 rejects from before after i send this message, so dont be alarmed by that. no real editing done aside from this note because i think its funnier this way and i wanna preserve the energy behind the whole endeavor. feel free to substitute anything you want in place of anything here -- the broth and cornbread mix are what give these their flavor, so if you want something that isnt savory you should start there. none of this was based on any preexisting recipes, i just thought of what makes baked things how they are and threw bullshit numbers at the wall for a while

mark 3 original baking notes:

- the cornbread mix definitely fucked with the consistency some. in my defense we ran out of all-purpose flour after the 1 1/2 cups i used

- added 3 bay leaves and a couple shakes of parsley into the broth and didnt strain it. the bay leaves were discarded but the parsley stayed

- number 1 most unsettling feeling in the world: picking used wet bay leaves out of cold beef broth

- pancake mix was used ONLY to get the dough to where itd possibly keep its shape. DO NOT use any more of it than you need to

- something in this batch is making the dough rise. pancake mix? cornbread mix?? self-rising flour i used on the cutting board and rolling pin??? hopefully it doesnt fuck things up too bad either way

- froze the other half of the dough for future use. for What im not sure but for something

- is melting the butter the way to go or should i just let it soften? much to consider. there are many such cases. etc etc

- it looks like they dont rise all that much actually. definitely not enough to be a major issue wrt: if they touch but no verdict on taste and texture just yet

- i will say they definitely *look* better when theyve risen a bit. just aesthetics wise

- im gonna load the dishwasher while these bake

- toothpick doesnt squish and comes out clean after being taken out of the oven. so far so gamer

mark 3 original tasting notes:

- oh fuck yes

- FUCK yes

- FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

- theyre just dry enough, just crunchy enough, and just flavorful enough. fuck YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- the perfect little treat -- not too much flavor, but not too little of it either. just dry enough to dissuade having too many at once and/or to encourage more frequent hydration

- the cornbread mix was the PERFECT addition

- the thinner ones are a little off i will say. a bit burnt i think? but still not horrible

- the beef and herb flavors are just present enough for me

- im gonna be real i was NOT thinking these would turn out so good but im not upset in the slightest. might try and make a sweet version at some point if only so i can use it for my party in july

- mother of god i wish i had an actual tail to wag rn. that thing would be goin at like warp speed. curse this human flesh

- would absolutely KILL with soup. i might make extra noodle soup just for this theory

gio treats mk2

goal of gio treats: crunchy, tastes good, bone

mk2 goal: savory??? strong flavor also. ideally can be cut into from the start, to minimize waste

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 cup beef brof

egg

pincha salt

preheat oven to 350 faggotheit

spread onto pan

roll dough onto flat surface and cut into bone

transgender to GREASED cookie sheet

bake until baked (bout 25 minutes)

let cool until cool (10ish minutes)

serves people*, probably

mark 2 original notes:

- dough was VERY sticky. like "put flour on the workspace and the rolling pin or you will have made glue" levels of sticky

- looks like ive got the ratio down for the right consistency to roll and cut into shapes! they were still a little limp when i moved them from the cutting board to the cookie sheet but thats probably easily fixed with a quick chill

- going for a savory approach here. if it works i might see if i cant recreate this with other liquids and spices. and one eggs

- better?

- flavor is less faint than mk1 but still not really all that present. the onion powder didnt really do much tbh

- a little chewy still. tiel suggested cooking them at a higher temp so ill probably try that next

- probably fucks hard with soup though

- the onion powder is kinda overpowering tbh

gio treats mark 1

goal of gio treats: crunchy, tastes good, bone

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp brown sugar

"an amount" almond extract

4 tbsp honey

1/2 cup milk

preheat oven to 350 faggotheit

spread onto pan

bake lightly until just coherent enough to cut into (4ish minutes)

use bone cookie cutters to make into bone shapes (depending on how well you spread them they may be difficult to keep coherent)

bake until baked (bout 23 minutes)

let cool until hardened at least slightly (11 minutes)

serves people*, probably

mark 1 original notes:

- theyre fine. nothin to write home about. not quite what i was hoping for but fuck it we ball

- theyre kinda chewy? i might have made them too thick. or maybe there wasnt a good enough balance in the batter. ill have to work on that next time

- the sanding sugar i quietly added to the batter did nothing for the crunch factor actually

- almond extract is definitely not the right flavor for this one. it bakes into a light and delicate blink-and-you-miss-it taste, but too much and it overpowers the rest of it

- why did i use honey again? flair? prissybitchism? it does nothing

- like, theres hardly ANY almond here. its a ghost within this thing

- maybe i didnt bake them long enough actually. maybe they need more time in the oven

- maybe beef flavored gio treats would be pretty good actually. wonder what they make dog treats out of. im gonna google that actually

- ok im back. milk-bone treats (the ones i like the aesthetics of) are made with wheat flour, meat flavors, and a whole lotta chemicals i dont wanna read rn. so it cant be too hard

extra post-success notes:

- the honey in mark 1 may have actually been detrimental to the treats as a whole. my guess is somewhere along the way they fucked with the consistency and made them so chewy

- "an amount" lol

- i cannot stress enough that you have to grease your baking sheet and flour your workspace holy shit

- can you tell the bulk of these instructions were written super late at night

- the slight rise of mark 3 is perfect actually. makes them nice and airy while still giving them a good crunch

- dont roll the dough too thin!!!!!! they will burn slightly and suck lotsly if you do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- i didnt have to pick the bay leaves out by hand

- but i did

- i was gonna pour the broth out anyways

- i did start a load of dishes and look up what milk-bones were made of when i said id do those things. just btw

- i did actually time those baking and cooling times with the stopwatch feature of my clock app! those are not easy estimates, i actually did those ones right

- if it wasnt for me running out of flour partway through mark 3 i would never have added cornbread mix. everyone say thank you to the flour bag being so pathetically tiny

ive been trying and failing for the past couple nights to make a Human Body Compatible dog treat from scratch and yes i KNOW i can just use my bone cookie cutters on any dough i want to but thats different to me. thats just bone-shaped cookies. i dont want that. what i want is something superficially resembling a milk-bone dog treat but made for people and also not with a buncha chemicals i cant read. ive got 2 attempts under my belt so far and i intend to try more. ill post those drafts eventually

[copperbadge]

pipgraham replied to this post

but is it gay?

Six Harvests? Not especially -- the protagonist and his wife are both straight, and it’s set in a small town in Texas in the 1930s with all that entails. There is a secondary character, the protagonist’s sister, who is a lesbian, but that really only comes into play in the last third or so of the book, and isn’t a major plot thread (she’s not living in the town for most of her story). 

Nameless is significantly more gay; it’s not especially overt, like there’s no sex scenes or anything, but it’s very clearly a love story between two men who are both excruciatingly bad at being in love. 

archwrites replied to this post

Is it Bunburying if you didn’t invent the dying relative 🤔

BUNBURY BY PROXY. Even funnier! 

col1999 replied to this post

I just switched to A&H litter because the store was out of my regular one, and my cats L O V E it. Like 'enthusiastically tossing it everywhere' love it. Which is not awesome, but what IS awesome is that the litter clumps like a motherfucker, so. Pros and cons.

It might just be a function of A&H litter, too -- mine also like to kick it everywhere, especially when I’ve just refilled the box. Polk will get in and kick litter out of the box until the level is precisely to her liking, and then Deebs will go garden in it for half an hour, the little filth monsters. 

ilacatz replied to this post

The annoying thing is that each time I see that ask I get tempted to find out if the fic mentioned actually exists because bile fascination

So the good news is 

[Description: A screengrab of AO3 search results; the search was for tags Mpreg, Jesus Christ, and Seahorses, and there are no results found.]

Not to be judgey, but the unsettling news is that if you remove “Seahorses” you get seven hits. Now, only two of those are Pregnant Jesus, but both are Pregnant Jesus in an A/B/O AU, and I read them both with my own two eyeballs, and I blame you. 

annechen-melo replied to this post

I know it would be treif as all get out to use the onion jam I have in the fridge (which has bacon in it) but what about a savory version with caramelized onions?

I’ve definitely seen savory Hamantaschen before! I will say I wouldn’t use the cookie recipe -- if you’re going to use something like caramelized onions, I’d use pie crust and essentially make little onion tarts. 

[lesetoilesfous]

you obviously can’t be trusted to take care of yourself, so let me do it for you. For fenders?!

Ok this got much longer than planned because??? I don’t have a good reason. I wanted it to be Fenris being looked after but I think he has a lot of hang ups about that, and then it spiralled. I hope you enjoy!

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders

Tags: urban fantasy, modern AU, established relationship, discussion of past trauma, food-related trauma, mention of past domestic abuse, sometimes your boyfriend is stockpiling because of his Issues but that clashes with your Issues about having control over your life and both of you just have to man up and talk about your feelings, despite that I would categorise this as Fluff

Rating: Mature

“Do you not think this is approaching overkill?” Fenris asks the question lightly, and a little rueful, as he watches Anders begin to unload a quantity of groceries Fenris had not previously thought it was possible to acquire in one trip to the store. Anders huffs, and gestures for him to pick up the rest of the bags as he kicks off his shoes and heads deeper into Fenris’ (their) apartment.

“You obviously can’t be trusted to take care of yourself, so let me do it for you.” Anders says the words over his shoulder, and Fenris falters in the corridor where neither of them have bothered to switch on the hall light, caught for a moment by the ghost of Danarius’ hand on his shoulder, and the echo of his breath on his ear. (“Allow me, pet. I’ll take care of everything.”)

Fenris starts moving again, and tells himself he isn’t shaking off the cobwebs of his past as he does so, but his heart is thumping hard in his chest when he dumps the groceries with a little more force than necessary onto the counter. Anders, with his back to him, startles before shaking off the flinch and continuing to ram items into the freezer. As Hawke would say, Fenris thinks wryly, looking at the paper bags covering every available surface, they both have a lot of baggage. Both figuratively and, in this moment, literally.

“This is coming from the man who lived on instant coffee and pot noodles.” Fenris observes, dryly, as Anders tries and fails to push one of the freezer drawers shut. Without thinking, Fenris crosses around the counter to crouch beside the mage, shoving the drawer shut. He looks up to see Anders outright staring at his pecs, and tries to ignore the pleased flush that rushes through him at that, even as Anders’ turns away, thrusting a finger into the air as he gets up. 

“That! Is different. I was going through something.”

“Right,” Fenris drawls, taking the icy plastic packages of food as Anders passes them to him, pausing to look at what exactly the mage has decided to fill their kitchen with. So far, a great deal of tofu, and other meat substitutes. Fenris wrinkles his nose. “I suspect that I am about to be going through something.”

Anders’ snorts, stretching to open the top cupboards, and the thin ratty t-shirt he’s wearing pulls up over the sharp v of his hips. Fenris resists the urge to kiss the trail of reddening hair just below his belly button, standing instead to put away a truly inordinate amount of store brand cookies into one of the lower cupboards (that he can reach. When Anders had arrived, one of the first things he’d done was colonise Fenris’ long since abandoned top cupboards. He had complained about the cobwebs for days.)

“You’re about to go through something wonderful,” Anders insists, as if neither of them had paused their conversation for even a moment. He gestures with a cartoon of oat milk as he speaks. “We both know I’m an excellent cook.”

Fenris raises an eyebrow, more to tease the mage than out of any real skepticism. “I know you’re an excellent cook so far. Perhaps all you know how to cook is vegetarian schnitzel.”

Anders grins at him and leans forward to press a kiss to his lips, taking the spring onions out of Fenris’ hands. “You know, you’re being very rude to your house-husband to be.”

Fenris laughs, catching Anders’ hips from behind as he arranges a small mountain in the fruit bowl. Fenris presses a kiss to Anders’ shoulder blade, breathing in the fresh scent of detergent and shutting his eyes for a moment as he feels the warmth of his boyfriend through his shirt. Anders leans back into him, and for a moment Fenris thinks he might have succeed in derailing him. But then Anders tips and whirls away from him like a dancer on a spinning top. 

“No! No, I won’t be distracted. I’m not letting a cent of this go to waste.”

Which raised a question, “How are you paying for this anyway?” Fenris asks the question as non-confrontationally as he can. Anders huffs, stacking egg cartons. On the sofa, Libertas stretches, glossy black fur gleaming in the shaft of sunlight she’s managed to find spilling in through the flat’s narrow windows. 

“Hawke. It’s always Hawke. And don’t worry, nothing unsavoury. Just, a favour.” Anders glances over his shoulder as he says it, transparently furtive, thin shoulders hunching a little. Fenris frowns. His boyfriend is, and has always been, a terrible liar. He’s never sure what to think when he’s lying for Hawke. It makes Fenris even more cautious about his next line of questioning.

“I do not know much of what is to be expected in a stable household,” Fenris traces his fingers over the grey formica countertop as he speaks, carefully keeping his attention away from the mage (Anders, much like his cat, tended to be more comfortable when spoken to indirectly.) “But I think that this is unusual.”

Fenris gestures to the grocery bags, which even now the fridge, freezer and cupboards are filled are still full enough of cans and other long lasting goods that they take up most of the kitchen floor. Anders pauses for a moment, arms full of a bag of cans, his back to Fenris. 

“You know, if you were anyone else I would claim cultural difference.”

Fenris says nothing. After another moment Anders sighs and turns to Fenris. His forearms are bare and wrapped around the bag, the hair on the backs of his arms bleached even more blonde with all the time he spends in the sun, skin beneath it dark with copper freckles. A braided leather cord from Isabela, and a colourful threaded one from Merrill, are tight and worn around his wrist, as well as a few more whose origin Fenris does not yet know. 

He looks up from Anders’ arms to his face, though the mage isn’t looking at him, eyes resting instead on Libertas as he chews the inside of his cheek. “Food was a privilege.” He says, at last, shortly. Anders looks back at Fenris, and his expression is dark with an old, familiar kind of anger. “Days, normally. A week, once. When I was fifteen.” Anders’ voice cracks and he clears his throat, walking past Fenris in a transparent effort to hide his expression. Fenris lets him go, and after a moment Anders returns, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He shrugs, and the movement is awkward and unsure. He swallows, and Fenris watches his throat move as he does so. He doesn’t meet Fenris’ eyes. “I just. I wanted to know we had enough. Just in case.”

Anders does look up, then, hesitant and furtive. Fenris feels the tension leave his body like a wave hitting the shore and sinking sizzling into the sand. He reaches forward, crooking his finger under Anders’ chin as he steps closer to him and looks into his eyes. “You could have told me.” Fenris says, softly.

Anders hums, stepping forward and stooping to wrap his arms around Fenris’ chest and rest his chin on his head. “I know.” He says, miserably. “I just got it in my head that if I did you would stop me.”

Fenris’ arms tighten around his boyfriend’s still too skinny chest. Part of him is tempted to leave it here, in this uneasy peace. But the part of him who has spent more hours than he cares to count with a therapist knows that there are thorns yet to cross before he can resolve this peacefully for both of them. So, with the feeling of coughing up fish bones, Fenris manages to makes himself say, “Danarius was always very particular about what I ate.”

Anders stills, as he always does when Fenris mentions Danarius, careful and cautious as a frightened cat. Reluctantly, Fenris lets his arms fall and steps back, turning to heft a paper bag full of canned beans into his arms as he speaks. Anders is not the only one of them who can misdirect. On the sofa, Libertas makes a soft mrrp of question, and Anders coos something softly to her. Fenris hears the rustle of paper as he picks up his own bag and falls him down the hall.

Fenris opens the door to their pantry with his elbow, and bends to start stacking cans on the shelves as he speaks. Above them, the naked electric light bulb buzzes on its rubber cord. “He would not let me choose my own meals. He used to say that I did not know how to properly take care of myself, and that I should let him do it for me.” Fenris purses his lips, and pushes the cans to the back of the shelf, bending to crumple the paper bag in his hand more for the satisfaction of the gesture than any real urge for violence. 

Outside in the corridor, Libertas meows loudly at them both, and Anders bends to scratch her head before stepping out of Fenris’ way as Fenris walks past him. After a moment, hesitantly, Anders follows. Fenris tells himself that it is through no failing of his own that Anders is so jumpy around him. Anyone who has spent time with the mage knows that he is jumpy around everyone, and that the fault lies on other people in darker times. Still, it makes Fenris unhappy to think that Anders is wary of him now. 

Libertas, oblivious to the turmoil in both of her owners, winds her warm body between Fenris’ legs, purring. Despite himself, Fenris feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and he bends to lightly scratch the soft fur behind her ears. When he looks up, he catches Anders watching them both with a soft, dopey kind of smile. Fenris catches his gaze and Anders flushes pink, tugging on the loops of gold in his ear. “We really need to get you a puppy.”

Fenris rolls his eyes and straightens, picking up the two remaining bags of cans. “You cannot deal with every potential conversational misstep by promising me a puppy.”

Anders brightens, falling easily into the familiar to and fro of their banter as he follows Fenris back down the hall. “That’s just because you don’t think I mean it this time. Hawke’s mabari is pregnant, Isabela told me.”

Fenris turns on Anders then, holding a finger in the air between them, “Don’t raise my hopes.”

Anders laughs, and holds up both of his hands in surrender before leaning forward to cradle Fenris’ face between them. He leans forward, and his hair falls across his face, casting it in shadow and butter yellow lamplight. “I’m not.” Anders’ brown eyes are warm as he looks at him, and his hands are cool and soft. Fenris waits, patiently, for him to continue, and after a moment Anders’ smile falls a little, and his hands drop to rest lightly on Fenris’ shoulders as he looks about them at the shelves stacked with cans. “I fucked up again, didn’t I?” Anders turns back to Fenris, expression uncharacteristically sincere. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think, and that’s on me. It was bad phrasing, and sort of shit to just assume I could buy a month’s worth of groceries for both of us without telling you.”

From upstairs, there’s the distant bang of a front door opening and closing. Fenris hooks his arms over Anders’, where they rest on his shoulders, letting his hands hang in the space between them. “You could not have known.” He goes on when Anders’ opens his mouth, speaking over him firmly, but not without humour. “I would ask that in future you ask me, so that I can make my own choices about what fills our cupboards for the next,” Fenris raises his eyebrows at the shelves, and shelves, and shelves of cans, “....six months.” 

Anders snorts, and moves forward to press a kiss to Fenris’ forehead, hands fluttering nervously in the air between them like twin moths before settling again at last, heavy and warm, on Fenris’ shoulders. Fenris wraps his arms around Anders’ belly and squeezes him gently, moving to press a kiss to the base of his throat. He feels Anders’ laughter shiver through his chest. “We make quite a pair, don’t we?”

Fenris hums, and pulls back to grab the v neck of Anders’ shirt, tugging him down. Anders’ obliges him with a crooked grin, and Fenris pushes his fingers into his hair, taking the opportunity to pull it loose from its tie. Anders sighs, but before he can speak Fenris gets onto the balls of his feet to kiss him, fingers sinking into the warm, soft mass of his hair. Anders hums and stumbles back, shoulders hitting the shelf, which rattles with cans. Fenris stops kissing Anders just in time to catch the embarrassment rising pink on his freckled cheeks. Fenris smirks at him, just a little, “Well, we are at least prepared for the impending apocalypse.”

Anders grins, pulling him closer, hands stroking his biceps as he does so. “I’d be your bunker buddy any day of the week.”

Fenris laughs, moving to kiss his neck. “You’re ridiculous, mage.”

Anders laughs too, and the sound echoes around the pantry. “It’s working, isn’t it?”

Fenris snorts, and moves to press a long, slow, lingering kiss to his lips. When he pulls back, Anders is looking at him the way people talk about in movies and romance novels, and Fenris almost quails from the brightness of it. But then Anders gives him a hesitant smile, lips red and wet with kissing, and Fenris returns it without hesitation. “Maker help us, I think it is.”

*

(*Fun fact, Fenris and Anders’ cat is a direct reference to @wanderingnork’s excellent series, One and the Same, which I love with my whole heart and you should read.)

[s-horne]

BASICALLY its about tony showing his love through food sorry that was really long

okay so i had this idea, and im really swamped with work so im passing it over to you: tony associates caring and love with food. when he was really young, he would sit on his mamma's hip, one of her arms around his tiny waist as she stirred with the other, and as he grew older and howard started demanding more of her attention (for this charity or that benefit); the only time tony and his mom spent together was in the kitchen together. 1/2)

years later, tony equates food to love. he cooks for the people he cares about. and then i lost the thread of the idea but it involves steve and tony and peter and tony cooking for steve and teaching peter recipes that he can later teach his kid (2/2)

Please enjoy 3k words of Tony in the kitchen; preparing meals for his husband and their friends, his&Steve’s adoption process, and then Tony’s legacy

*******

Spaghetti Bolognese

It was an affront to the meal. His Mama would kill him if she knew how he was preparing it.

It was the only meal she’d actually known how to cook and they had a weekly Thursday night dinner date in the kitchen when Howard worked late at the office. She’d carry him round on her hip when he was too small to see what she was preparing on the countertops and, when he’d grown a little taller, sit him in pride of place to sound out every word of the passed-down recipe written in her mother’s cursive handwriting.

Of course, Maria knew exactly what the recipe called for – which was a good job when Tony tripped over some of the measurements or skipped down a couple of lines by accident – but she let him play along until he was old enough to help her cook the actual meal itself.

It was definitely the thought that counted, Tony tried to tell himself as he stared down at the meagre ingredients in front of him. He had to work with what he had and what he had wasn’t much. The only tomatoes he’d had in his cupboards were the tinned kind, so the sauce wouldn’t be as good as his Mama’s when she used the fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market they had to drive out of town for.

He’d only wanted to make something a little special for Steve. Their anniversary had been interrupted by a battle and they’d gone from a romantic meal at a five-star restaurant to suited up and locked in a fight with an alien invader. Given that they were meant to eat out, their kitchen wasn’t exactly stocked for cooking.

“Need a hand?”

Tony lifted his gaze from the two jars of dried herbs he’d been choosing between. Neither were particularly appealing so he was glad of a distraction. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Woke up,” Steve said, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he wandered over to Tony. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Tony agreed with a roll of his eyes, a fond smile tugging at his lips. He turned back to the dried ingredients in front of him as he waved to the other side of the kitchen, eyes drawn to the way his ring caught the light. “You can chop whichever onion hasn’t gone off over there. I think there’s actually a part of the serum that means you won’t cry whilst you chop it.”

Steve huffed a laugh, trailing his hand over Tony’s hip as he passed him. “Pretty sure that’s not a thing.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. Dice it finely, please.”

Vegetable Soup

Vegetable soup was easy. Most soups were easy, really. Tony could make most of them with one hand. Chopping the vegetables was sometimes a little tricky with his arm in a sling, but he could stir the vat of broth easily.

After a battle, it was all that anyone needed. A few loaves of bread in the centre of the table and a mountain of pain relievers handed round with the crockery and they were set.  

“Can I help?”

Tony looked up from the pot and over to Peter, hovering in the doorway with his arms wrapped round himself. He looked young, so much younger than he was. “You’re meant to be resting.”

“Couldn’t sleep. The pills hurt my head.”

“But they heal everything else.” Tony beckoned Peter over before he turned back to the stovetop. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone dropped a bus on me.”

“Been there. Grab a tomato and stop chopping.”

Peter did so wordlessly, shooting Tony a soft smile as he slid into a chair by the table. “What else do you want me to do?”

“A few peppers, if you’d like.”

“How thick?”

“Whatever you want.” Tony watched Peter out of the corner of his eye, the way that he winced when he reached for a fresh vegetable in the middle of the table and how he moved gingerly with his eyes narrowed into slits. “How bad is it?”

Peter sighed. He worked on carefully dicing his whole pepper before he spoke again. “Bad. I can’t go home. No one can see these injuries. They’re already questioning me and this will push them over the edge of kicking me out.”

“You’re already home,” Tony said lightly, concentrating on adding a few spices to his soup instead of looking back at Peter. He could feel eyes on the side of his face and fought the urge to turn with everything he had. “After we’ve eaten, I’ll show you the papers.”

The pot bubbled, loud in the otherwise silent room. Tony smiled down at it as he stirred in large circles, scraping the side of the vat where the sauce threatened to burn.

“I’d like that.” Peter sniffed a little and let out a muffled curse. “Well. I’m done with these. Can I help you make the bread?”

Rosemary Focaccia

Tony loved making his own bread. When he was a child, their cook would only let him in the kitchen if he promised to be calm and quiet and she’d quickly realised that one way to keep him like that was to prop him in front of an oven to stare at the bread as it rose.

The smell of yeast and the uncooked dough turned Tony’s stomach as he’d gotten older, but there was nothing better than the scent the bread produced when it started to bake. Fresh rosemary only added to that, or maybe even a few cloves of garlic mixed in with the dough.

Focaccia took a long time to knead and for the rising process to get done perfectly, but spending that long watching over it in the kitchen meant that Peter could sit at the breakfast bar to finish his homework and not be alone.

Peter hated being alone. They’d discovered that pretty quickly after he’d moved into the tower with the rest of the team and had all started going almost out of their way to ensure that Peter didn’t have to suffer by himself. It wasn’t exactly a hardship for Steve to sketch in the communal living room instead of his bedroom, or for Sam and Bucky to train on the mats in the middle of the gym whilst Peter ran laps around the edge to get out of his own head.

And if definitely wasn’t a problem for Tony to dig out the recipe books that had been sent to him after their cook had passed away and flick through them to find an old Italian favourite that would take him a good couple of hours to perfect.  

Cookies

Cookies were a staple in Tony’s recipe book. There were many different varieties, so many tweaks that could be made to each batch to make a different cookie type for any occasion.

“–so that’s why Ned isn’t allowed into the theatre practice room anymore,” Peter said in-between bites of a pecan and chocolate chip cookie. “So we can’t go in to see Madison when she’s in there. We have to meet in the math rooms.”

Tony nodded along as though he’d understood any word Peter had been babbling on about. “Right.” He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d asked to prompt Peter’s longwinded explanation, but he didn’t mind the company.

“Oi, Spider-kid.”

Peter jumped comically at the voice from behind them and Tony shot an arm out to catch him before he fell off the breakfast bar he’d perched himself on. “Jeez, what – oh. Black Widow. Ma’am, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I–”

“Gym,” Natasha said, throwing a thumb over her shoulder to show where she wanted Peter to go. “Spar session. You’re ten minutes late.”

Peter’s eyes went wide and he scrambled for his phone, paling when he realised that he was, in fact, late. Tony couldn’t hide his amusement and snorted loudly, earning himself a dirty look from Peter and an unamused eyebrow raise from Natasha.

“And don’t think you’re getting out of it, either,” Natasha said to him. “Steve is already down there with Thor. They could do with a third. A mediator of sorts.”

“Oh, no.” Tony shot a faux-upset look towards Peter before grinning at Tash, “sorry, but these cookies just aren’t going to bake themselves, now, are they? Pete’s good for the job, though. Practical experience and all that.”

Peter’s glare was about as powerful as a newborn kitten’s, but it tugged at Tony’s heart nonetheless. Giving him a smile, Tony reached for the batch of raspberry cookies he had just pulled from the oven and counted out ten.

“A special treat,” he said, urging Peter off the breakfast bar and herding him in Natasha’s direction. Setting the cookies on a plate at his side, Tony winked at the kid. “For when you’re finished. You’ll need to get your sugar levels back up.”

Rigatoni Pasta Bake

The only difference between Tony’s preferred version of a pasta bake and the classic that Ana had taught him as a child was that his was a bit more adventurous. It served to make things just a little bit more exiting. Everything he did was done with a flair of the dramatics, so it made sense for cooking to follow the same lines.

Making his pasta bake was an excuse to throw everything in his cupboards into the mixture. A hundred different varieties of cheese for the topping, ground beef and sausages for the filling and whatever vegetables he found in the back of the fridge to make the meal just a tiny bit healthy. Tony loved to make it, loved to spend an entire afternoon shaping each piece of pasta if he really wanted to get out of his head. Experimenting with different sauces was his favourite – a tomato sauce for a rainy Sunday afternoon, a cheese sauce for an evening in front of the television, a mushroom and white wine sauce for a romantic evening in.

His pasta bake was the first meal he’d made when they’d finally adopted Peter, legally and truly. Maybe a small part of him had been wanting to show off, but Tony had really cared about making sure Peter had a real square meal. Something to help him recover from the small scrapes he’d gotten in his night-time brawls, to repair some of the damage of malnourishment from his previous home.

It was something so simple, but made with so much care.

Apple Pie

As stereotypical as it may have been, Steve loved apple pie. It had been something of a staple in his household when he’d been growing up and his mom had made it whenever they managed to get the fresh ingredients needed. Steve spoke so fondly of her hours in the kitchen, telling how he was often too ill and weak to do much more than sit at her side and watch, that sometimes Tony felt as though he’d been there too.

Sweet pastry wasn’t Tony’s favourite thing to make, so he chose to keep it for really special occasions. The sort of days where he wanted to spoil Steve a little, wanted to make him feel important and loved and all the things that Steve made Tony feel every day.

Tossing out the apple cores and scraps he’d collected on the side of his chopping board, Tony settled in to decorate his pie. He preferred the open-top approach, liking to cover his filling with thin slices of apple and a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar instead of more pastry. Lost in thought, Tony startled when Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and pressed a kiss to his neck.

“Happy birthday,” Tony murmured as he fell back against Steve’s chest. “Wasn’t expecting you up just yet. Thought I tired you out last night.”

“Hm. You did a pretty good job, but the bed was empty. I don’t like it when the bed’s empty.”

“Sorry, darling. Wanted to make this for your birthday breakfast.”

Steve nosed at Tony’s shoulder, dropping kisses to the bare skin there. The first thing Tony had found on their bedroom floor when he’d woken at the crack of dawn was a workout shirt of Steve’s. Given its size, the material hung off Tony’s frame. It wasn’t practical, but it was cozy.

Sexy, as well, apparently, if the hardness pressing against his ass was anything to go by.

“Pie for breakfast?” Steve asked, hooking his chin over Tony’s shoulder as his hand shot out to snaffle a piece of apple floating in the bowl of warm water at Tony’s elbow. “How lucky am I?”

“Of course it’s pie for breakfast,” Tony said, hands working quickly to place the apple slices on the top of the very-nearly finished pie. He kicked at Steve’s ankle for punishment of the theft, but couldn’t find it in him to be too mean. “It’s not every day you turn four hundred and seventy-three.”

Standing as close as they were, Tony felt Steve’s laugh vibrate through him.

“Demon.”

“That’s me,” Tony replied happily, laughing with Steve and tilting his head to one side when Steve bit at his neck in retaliation. “Now, get off me, you brute. Let me stick this back in to brown.”

Moving back a fraction, Steve’s hands danced over Tony’s stomach. “How long do we have?”

Tony sighed happily when the pie was in, his eyes falling closed when Steve swapped from biting to sucking a deep bruise just above his pulse point. “Long enough.”

Indian Potato Pie

“Here, try this.”

Whatever Steve had been about to say was cut off by Tony shoving a forkful of potato-filled pastry in his mouth.

“Well? What do you think?”

Steve fanned his mouth. “I think it’s hot,” he said through the mouthful of crust. “Did you cook this with lava?”

“But what about the texture? The filling – do you think it needs more of a kick? I only put in a small amount of chilli flakes this time and a lot less ginger than I did before. I think I liked it better last time.”

“Tony,” Steve reached out and caught Tony’s hand, taking the fork from him before twisting their fingers together, “this pie is perfect. You’ve been making it since you were a child. You’ve perfected it so much you could make it in your sleep.”

“No,” Tony said dismissively, turning back to the counter and peering at the unbaked pie on the side. “I think it needs more salt. You can taste it in the crust. Let me just redo the pastry.”

Steve used his grip on Tony’s hand to pull Tony into his chest, wrapping his free arm around Tony’s waist to hold them close together. Tony gave up without a fight, his shoulders slumping as he rested his hand on Steve’s chest.

“Please stop worrying,” Steve whispered. “Replace the bit you shoved in my face and pop it in the oven. It’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Steve ducked his head and caught Tony’s lips in a sweet kiss. “I know you and I know our son. He wouldn’t be bringing someone home unless they were special to him. There’s no way we can scare them off. Not with a pie, at least.”

Tony Stark-Rogers’ Recipe Book

The book had taken him years to complete. Tony had started it as a young boy when Jarvis had bought him an empty journal for his fourth birthday. For the first few years of its existence, Tony had hidden it under his bed just in case Howard ever entered his room and caught sight of it.

Every page had been handwritten, carefully crafted letters spelling out the words of each recipe (and most of them had even been spelt right because Jarvis had helped him).

There were sections of his Mama’s recipes, the ones she’d passed down to him from her Mama and even her Mama’s Mama. Though Tony had never gotten to meet either of them them, he’d known even as a child that that was pretty important.

Ana Jarvis had a section as well, one with special Hungarian recipes that Tony had needed a lot of help to spell. He’d shown Ana one day, down in the kitchens. He’d pointed out all the best bits that he’d coloured in the colours of Hungary’s flag and Ana had started crying. Tony had been horrified and started tearing up himself before she promised him that he was a lovely little boy and she was crying because she was so very proud of him. Even as an adult, Tony remembered that he’d gotten a huge hug that night before bed and an extra special plate of lemon squares brought up to his room – made just for him!

As he’d gotten older and his book had gotten fuller, Tony had carefully moved it from journal to journal, cutting out pages and sticking them back into the next edition with slight amendments or scribbled changes to quantities. It was his pride and joy.

“You’re going to take care of this, aren’t you?”

The child stared at him with wide eyes, so big they were nearly popping out of their head. They didn’t speak a word, but their head just about wobbled off with the velocity of their nodding.

“You’re going to listen to Nonno when he tells you what to do in the kitchen?”

Another round of silent nodding and Tony laughed, bending down to his grandchild’s level. Holding out his arms, he let his precious recipe book rest in the palm of his hands, ready for the taking.

“Go on then, bambino. It’s yours.”

Tiny fingers curled over the edges of the stained and battered book, complete concentration etched all over the child’s face. The love Tony felt threatened to beat right out of his chest and he reached out to flick his grandchild’s nose.

“What shall we bake for your first try? I’m pretty sure there’s a good recipe for mini cupcakes in there, somewhere, and I need an assistant chef.”

Tony had no qualms about handing his book down to the next wave of Starks. His children had grown up in the kitchen working tirelessly next to him to feed their teammates and friends, their siblings and their partners. It was time.

The kitchen was the heart of the home, after all.