#things are getting so juicy and crunchy

[vexing-imogen]

you know, i've had this lingering thought over the past few weeks, and it's coming back to me now after this request from the Archheart, of Liliana and Imogen both becoming vessels for Predathos. would it diminish his power? would it be easier to control? would it somehow not warp and eat away at them if split between enough vessels? would Liliana and Imogen never be able to exist in the same space again for fear of Predathos becoming whole again?

Imogen asked how many vessels would it take [to control him, to be safe]? and the Archheart replied I don't know

[sweets3rial]

friday, i'm in love

inspired by the request

di!leon x gn!reader

summary: your favorite agent surprises you with a very unexpected home coming.

tags: domestic fluff, no smut, sexual innuendos, reader is a good cook, reader uses pimple cream, mentions of a future family (give leon his family pls), leon is a horny freak, the song 'Friday, I'm in Love' by The Cure

word count: 1.2k

bass and drums echoed off the walls of your kitchen, the rhythmic lyrics and uplifting guitar put an instant smile onto your face as you jumped around with a spatula in your hand. you shouted out the lyrics, singing with your heart's content.

occasionally going back to flip the chicken breast, tender and juicy on the inside with a nice crunchy crust on the outside. today was one of those days when you were finally able to muster up the energy to cook a homemade meal.

both you and your boyfriend's favorite, chicken alfredo. a staple in your household and one you’re especially good at. you enjoyed being in the kitchen, you didn’t mind it actually. cooking was one of your hobbies and some people say you were just naturally born to cook … and well dance.

jumping around in circles, in your pajamas, with the smell of chicken and pasta in the air.

your lovely boyfriend was away on a mission, risking his life for the world and you couldn’t be more prouder. but you also couldn’t be more worried. every night that he was not in your bed only added to your anxiety.

you were always in a slum when he was away. dragging yourself around the house and cuddling into his pillow that smelt of his shampoo. though, this morning after receiving a prompt text that he was to be back tomorrow, you were instantly pulled back into a better mood.

he was as well. he didn’t expect to finish so early, the nurses cleared him and his reports were done. he was going to be going home to the love of his life. the whole drive home, he was occupied with the thought of what you were going to be doing.

you always had a surprise up your sleeve for him.

will you be sleeping? or would you be on the couch watching your favorite show? would you be out? would you be home? (most likely) would you be in bed waiting for him? with that gorgeous lace set he bought you the other week.

goosebumps ran down his spine at the thought of you waiting in bed for him. if so, his clothes would disappear from his body in a blink.

as he pulled up into your shared condo, he could hear the faint sound of music. was it from someone's radio? upon getting closer to the condo, he realized, it was probably you.

the song, ‘Friday I’m in Love’ by The Cure played on your speaker, the one he got you for Christmas. he smiled to himself, and he could practically hear you singing wailing at the top of your lungs.

you were so occupied, that you didn’t hear the jangle of keys coming from the other side of the front door. so occupied in singing at the top of your lungs rather than paying attention to everything around you, including your cooking.

as you were taking out the chicken breast and cutting it into slices. so-called lovely boyfriend walked into the house, shouting out, “babe?” he was sure you couldn’t hear him, given the fact that he could hear the bass and faint lyrics coming from outside of your condo.

he peeked inside, following the sound of music and your voice into the kitchen — along with the smell of salty and garlicky goodness. he smiled, slowly creeping into his own house.

his heart was beating with anticipation and he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. once he rounded the corner and into the kitchen, he was welcomed with the view of you rocking your head back and forth, whilst cutting up food.

your back was turned to him and you were singing at the top of your lungs. his little bird, always singing. whether it was in the shower, or the kitchen, or the yard. music was your second most favorite thing after him.

he leaned onto the counter behind you, admiring the way you just existed.

hair messy and frizzy, fuzzy socks on, detailed pajama bottoms, just you. being home and doing your own thing. he loved it.

he loved coming home to you. it didn’t matter if you were awake or sleeping. mad or sad. he just loved coming home to you, to be around your beauty and your grace. even in your three-day-old pajamas with a few dabs of pimple cream on your cheeks and forehead.

slowly, he stalked behind you. opening up his arms widely, before clamping them shut around you.

first, you felt someone grab you. they muscular arms with a tight but gentle grip, holding your wrists and hugging your arms to your sides.

then, it was a loud shout of the words. “it’s Friday! i’m in love!”

you shouted out, jumping about a whole foot off the ground. your reaction earned you a throaty laugh from your captor, or in other words your boyfriend.

you were quick to recognize his laugh, whipping around with knife still in hand, you were met his his wide grinning face and head of brown hair.

“you asshole!” you shouted over your music, slapping him with your free hand while the other placed your knife down. his hands found the purchase of your hips, pulling you closer to him and nuzzling his nose against yours.

you jumped up to wrap your arms around his neck, practically knocking him over, “when’d you land? i thought you were going to be away for another day!”

you pulled away, looking him in the face and instantly checking for any injuries. thankfully, there were none.

“i landed early,” he took a small pause, taking in the look of your wide eyes and your fluttering lashes.

“you didn’t hear me come in, sweets?” he asked, cupping your cheek.

you shoved him away, “no, i could’ve stabbed you.”

“which is why i held you down.”

“i know! but don’t do that!” you whined, tempted to hit him again.

he couldn’t help but smile wider, leaning down and placing a long and deep kiss over your lips. god, he loved coming home to this. coming home to you. he couldn’t wait for the day you’d make him a father. the day he’d not only come home to one, but to two.

a little mini you or mini him, running around the house, babbling out incoherent words. he’s had dreams, the little baby would have his eyes and your hair. your nose and your cheeks. he’d have a whole nursery set up just for them.

boy or girl, it didn’t matter to him. as long as he was blessed with the title of being their father and being your husband.

one day, he said to himself. one day.

he pulled away, placing another kiss on your nose.

“you look so beautiful, y’know that?”

“stop, i have my acne cream on,” you said with a crinkle of your nose.

“but it’s lovely,” he hummed, tickling at your sides.

you elbowed him away, still annoyed at the fact he scared you, but also happy that he was home. you missed him, you always do.

“i’m making your favorite,” you told him, turning around. he instantly caught you again, wrapping his heavy arms around you and leaning his body weight onto you.

his head sunk into your shoulder, taking a deep breath of your softener along with the scent of butter and seasoning. he sighed out into you, his hot breath seeping through your sweater and onto your skin.

“what do you want for dessert, hm?” you asked, turning your head to face him.

you watched a smirk slowly spread over his cheeks.

“you.”

“god, i can’t catch a break.”

(divider creds to @saradika ,, photos off of pinterest)

[itsabouttimex2]

Taken Abroad is sooo good! And the accompanying memes are great too 💖

Bro imagine if demon reader went full hardcore one day and just keeps letting to circlets dig into their flesh and bone until their hands just fall off, using the second they separate to vanish. Like they are a forest demon, so what if they just regrow their hands? Or make prosthetic nature ones? Like I’m sure their freedom wouldn’t last long (thanks to Monkey King’s gold vision) but I’d love to see the group’s reaction to such gruesome determination!

Taken Aboard:

Amputation

I’m glad you like it! I really thought that the Journeyfam should have a mix of goofy and tragic, because the novel itself can get pretty damn funny.

Another ‘funny’ thing? This little stunt wouldn’t work at all. Given what we know about Wukong’s powers, he can rip his head off and regenerate it (His beheading contest with the Tiger Strength Immortal in the novel) and since he’s still got the circlet after that…

Y/N will still have theirs.

And obviously no one is happy to see that this child would do something so horribly gruesome and bloody to themself, leaving to a wide array of horrified reactions.

Ao Lie is devastated that you would hurt yourself for any reason at all. Once you’ve been dragged back to camp by the snickering Monkey King, the dragon prince rushes to your side and snatches you up, nuzzling you to his chest. “Oh, I’m glad you’re alright! You poor little thing, what were you thinking? Trying to slice those bands off! Sweetie, what if something had gone wrong during the regrowing process? Here, let Brother Lie wash the blood off of you!”

He dotes on you for a good hour or two, starting by thoroughly scrubbing you down in a shallow washbasin. (He heats the water in his draconic form.) There’s a mixture of very light scolding and extraordinary concern, scraping all across your body with a wooden bath brush. Once you’re nice and clean you get wrapped up in one of his spare robes to dry off, forced to sit and listen to one of the monk’s lectures as Lie brushes out and braids your hair.

“I think you need to start sleeping in Brother Lie’s tent from now on, sweetie. Maybe it’ll help to keep those little feet from wandering, hmm?”

His voice is gentle, even as you’re forcibly stuffed into a thick sleeping bag, the same one that Lie always uses. For a moment you think he’s simply going to watch you to prevent any further escapades, but then he squishes in beside you, wrapping you tight in his arms.

“Sleep well, sweetie. Big brother will keep you safe.”

———————————————————————-

Sun Wukong laughs at you first, having tried the same thing by: smashing his forehead inwards, shattering his skull entirely, ripping his head off, etc. “You could have just asked for some advice on the cuffs, bud. I would’ve told ya that they jump back to your real body, y’know!”

His hands work through the tangled locks of your hair, plucking out juicy bugs and crunchy twigs. “Shut up,” you huff, squirming around in his lap. “I hate them. And you wouldn’t have known whether or not it would’ve worked! You only have one of them!” “S’not fair,” he half-heartedly agrees, if only to set up his next few word. “You should’ve just had one- around your neck to shut you up!”

The Great Sage giggles as you lunge at him, dodging your attempt to bite his wrist. “Easy, easy! C’mon, I was just teasing you!” He grabs your waist and wrestles you to the ground, his fingers dragging lightly across your skin as he tries to force a few giggles or even just a smile out of you. Between angry laughs you manage to throw a punch, feeling his snout bend under your hand.

And though it doesn’t hurt worse than a mild sting, Wukong is still a little astounded that his ‘little sibling’ got outright violent with him. “…you know what, bud? Maybe you do need some ‘quiet time’. I’m gonna keep you here in my lap for a few more hours, I think. And! No saying even a word!”

And before you can argue or complain he tacks on a “How bout I tell you another story from my time back in Flower Fruit Mountain, huh?” Of course you get a story, because this isn’t really a punishment, after all. He’s just framing it as one so you ‘have’ to sit and spend time with one. He’s a pretty clever monkey.

“…a story about killing hunters?”

“Sure thing, kiddo.”

———————————————————————-

Sha Wujing has no words. He’s hurt and saddened that you would do this to yourself, nearly in tears at the sight of your wounds. He finally has people who accept not only his mistakes and misdeed, but his demonic form alongside them.

And now one has done this.

To Wujing, this isn’t just a team of random travelers. This is his family. You are his family. And he cannot bear to see you so upset and distraught that you might switch to such gruesome and self-injurious behaviors.

The river demon will switch to baby gloves afterwards, treating you like a porcelain figure that is bound to shatter when mishandled.

He’ll carry you on his shoulders and his back and in his arms, squishing your tiny form perfectly into his protective chest. For hours on end the demon will usher you about, never daring to let you free from the safety and security that his power offers.

Instead of allowing you to feed yourself, Wujing will first cut your meals into pieces and then feed them to you piece by piece, ensuring that you won’t choke (intentionally or otherwise) on them. And he won’t let you get dressed alone, either. Sleeves are a useful tool, after all.

He sees the severance of your limbs more as a form of “self-harm” than an attempt to escape, unfortunately for you. It leads him to think of you as a danger to yourself that needs to be properly wrangled and tended to.

All you can do when he’s around from then on is submit to “Brother Sand’s” loving care, and pray he might stop thinking of you as unstable and prone to breakage.

———————————————————————-

Zhu Bajie is thoroughly disgusted, though that revulsion is born mostly of worry. Nobody wants to see a kid slice off their own wrists, and he certainly wasn’t hoping to see you standing in a puddle of your own blood, your torn flesh bubbling sizzling and bubbling up as it regrew.

And he especially didn’t want something so awful to happen to his little sibling. Not to someone so very precious to him.

Bajie really just… doesn’t know what to do.

You’re hurt. Usually this scenario ends with him either eating a human or smashing a demon’s head open with his nine-tooth rake. And he’d fight off the monk’s reprimands with his own volley of justifications. “Y/N is a child! Any jerk who would hurt them is unforgivable!” He’d declare, his mouth stained with fresh crimson. “A demon who would put their hands on a child is just a monster, that’s all,” the pig might yell, clutching you to his chest protectively.

Neither of those are options when you’ve the person that hurt you is yourself.

All the swine can really do is hold you and try not to scream your ear off about never hurting yourself again, rocking back and forth like he’s trying to soothe a baby to sleep.

Maybe that will help.

Maybe if he holds you long enough and keeps his grip tight, Bajie can prevent you from being hurt by anyone or anything ever again.

Or maybe it’s just his way of keeping you from leaving him and this little family again.

———————————————————————-

Tang Sanzang, reasonable man that he is, understands that you’re not in a great headspace right now. If things got so bad that you viewed the gory removal of your arms as a reasonable option to escape, then what you need isn’t further punishment… but a firm and guiding hand.

So the monk refrains from the sutra and chooses instead to tend to your fragile condition. Reassurance that he isn’t angry at what you’ve done to yourself, a promise that you’re already forgiven for running. I think he’s likely to mandate constant surveillance of you from now, always to be under the eye of either him or one of his disciples.

He tends any wounds or aches with balm, stitches the tears in your clothing, then puts you to bed with a canteen of water at your side.

His well of patience is truly endless, only leaving room for an occasional reprimand or a quick tightening of the blessed bands on your wrists. There’s no lashing out, no brutal punishments.

Hurting yourself has not changed that.

Sanzang will spend each early morning before travel checking you over for new wounds and changing out any bandages you’ve got wrapped around old injuries.

The Great Monk stills cherishes you, of course. He’ll never stop cherishing you.

He’s just a little more gentle with that love now.

[reedrfeedr]

story - pavlov

(Giving into indulgence has lasting consequences. weight gain, food play, second person.)

You should have known you were fucked the first time it happened.

It was so innocuous, you almost didn’t notice it - staring at another spreadsheet at work, rubbing your eyes to keep from passing out, the morning coffee wearing off too early to carry you to lunch…lunch. There’s that new wing place across the street…you glance at the menu flyer they left in the lobby. You haven’t had any in a while, but still you could almost taste the way the vinegar bite of the hot sauce cuts through the savory fat of the fried skin, the addictive mix of crispy on the edges, tender on the interior, greasy fat giving way to juicy meat…maybe if you ate quick enough you could get a bit more than a dozen, maybe some fries too…and you felt a tent in your tight work pants.

Your brain scrambled to rationalize the errant reaction. You’re tired, maybe you had an involuntary dick flex, almost like you were sleeping. You rubbed your eyes again and blinked enough to try and focus on the screen again. 20 minutes, then you could get lunch. 19 minutes….

That day, you came back from lunch 15 minutes late with a sauce stain on your collar.

The second time (that you noticed, anyway) felt more like a pattern of behavior.

You were glancing at your fridge, as you’ve made a habit of recently, trying to find something to eat. You were eating out more often at work, and you had to stop burning money on takeout, but you felt like your groceries weren’t quite stretching as far as you’d like anymore.

You opened the fridge door and saw the last two frozen pizzas. A thought entered your mind, one that felt unfamiliar. Could always just eat two pizzas. Gotta go shopping tomorrow anyway. Not giving yourself a moment to reconsider, you slid them out and plopped them on the counter.

That wasn’t what took you over the edge, though. That wasn’t what made you this way.

Waiting for the oven to preheat, you fell back on your fridge gazing habit. A second thought entered, much like the first. If I’m going shopping, might as well use the rest of the lunch meat too. Before you realized, you already had the sandwich made and half eaten. You just licked your lips clean when the pizzas finished up, and you were suddenly hit with the smell of them - cheap, greasy cheese, fatty pepperoni…you could imagine the way the soft, lightly browned crust would collapse like a pillow in your mouth, the almost saccharine pizza sauce tempering the salty cheese and meat…and your dick chubbed up at the idea. Something about the sight of those two pizzas, all for you…it excited you.

You ate those pizzas so fast they nearly burned the roof of your mouth.

From then on, things were different. You weren’t focused at work, but you reveled in the opportunity to try new food in the city. Your work clothes were barely fitting, and you even had to size up once or twice already, but you thrived in those lunch breaks…you stopped coming back from lunch late not from eating any less, but eating faster. It became like a game to you. How much food could you experience in 30 minutes? You’d order an appetizer, a couple entrees, maybe a dessert for the walk back, and got there immediately to savor every bite. And in between, you’d fantasize about it. The rich, creamy sauces, the crispy, crunchy bread, the salty, savory meat, the sweet, rich cakes. You stopped caring so much that it was strange that it excited you like it did.

Forget a hobby, eating was your real full time job, the one you spent your time planning and day-dreaming about.

It stretched into your free time, too - you’d find places to get food on the way home, and spend the commute imagining how those flavors would play together. It didn’t even matter if it was particularly masterful - every meal was delicious, filling, exciting to you.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before you mixed your pleasure with your passion.

You were pent up. Sure, you had your profile on the dating apps, but you’d already updated your profile picture once, showing your fuller, flabbier face, and the connections already began to dry up. And with your new interest, you had an even fatter face to meet them with now, not to mention the bloated, overstuffed body you had along with it.

You were jerking off to some amateur porn when something flashed in your mind…melty, gooey cheese. Then, the rich whipped cream of a tiramisu. You never thought to actually do it yet, like…you could enjoy yourself, but the moment you actually tried to mix the two, it was real and you couldn’t turn back. Still, that night you were feeling particularly indulgent, and you had made a habit of acting on indulgence already.

You sat back up, walked to the kitchen, rummaging through your mostly empty fridge again, and found a mostly full bottle of whipped cream you had knocked over in the back. Simple, sugary, one handed. You plopped your thickened ass onto the couch and started stroking, with the other hand working the nozzle of the can.

Stroke. Spray. Stroke. Spray. You got caught in the rhythm of it, and in moments all the sensations blended together, like a well balanced dish. Mouth full. Sated. Cloying sweet cream. Fat coating your mouth. Stroke. Sticky fingers. Rolling your tongue, feeling the cream deflate in your mouth. Stroke. Sugar. Fat. Sweet. Decadent.

Shot.

Your relationship with food had finished changing, and left you with a gluttonous, decadent body to show for it.

You knew it was irreversible when you had finally gotten a message from one of the apps, a simple ‘hey’ flourishing into a spirited conversation about your (former) interests and hobbies.

Then, he asked the question. “Wanna go out tonight?”

You had already begun the daily ritual, scrolling through the pickup spots and settling on your favorite Thai place for pickup on the way home - you could get some pad Thai, their chicken satay, maybe a couple orders of dumplings and some sticky rice. The tang of the sauce, the silky noodles, the crunchy spring of the bean sprouts.

“Sorry, busy tonight.”

[fatguarddog]

Disclaimer: This audio is intended for audiences of 18+ only 🔞 If you like my content, please consider giving me a tip

You happen upon a mysterious diner full of delicious smells and your server is so happy to help you get comfortable enough that you'll never want to leave 😈 Sorry if my southern accent is bad, it just felt right when I was writing 😂

I offer audio commissions, more info here

Transcript under cut

Hey there stranger! Welcome to The Devil’s Diner where our entire menu is sinfully delicious, follow me and I’ll get you to a nice comfy booth. Oh yes, it does smell amazing in here, doesn’t it? If you take a look around you’ll see all our other customers chowing down real happy on their second or third plate of food, we’ve no doubt you’ll want seconds too! You have a look at that menu and I’ll be right back over, but first off lemme pour you out a niiiiice, thick chocolate shake on the house. You look like you’re in need of a lil treat and you’ll find plenty here. [fade out]

Ready to order? Yeah I figured you’d want the pancakes so I just brought you a stack anyway. You thought it was a stack of 3? Oh hun, you may need your eyes checked if you didn’t catch that zero! Now you’ve got plenty of syrup, butter, bacon, berries, pulled pork and ice cream on the side to pile on however you’d like. I can also bring you some melted chocolate, fried chicken or really anything else you wanna add to your stack, but don’t lemme keep you from eating! Dig in now! [fade out]

Here’s a top up to your shake, hun. Oh you polished off your pancakes real good! You want seconds? Course you do! Well good thing I have a burger here with your name on it! Two patties, melted cheese, more bacon, pickles, lettuce, crunchy onions and a side of dirty fries too. Perfect after all those pancakes don’t you think? I can tell you’re still hungry just looking at ya. Look at your greedy little hands already picking that burger up… funny how you haven’t even noticed yet, just how dumb and fat you’ve gotten. I mean if you can move that newly thickened neck around, you’d notice how much bigger everyone else has gotten since you came in. And now you. Your belly is starting to push against the table, hun, I can still see it growing. Your thighs and ass have plumped up and become just as cushiony as the booth you’re weighing down into, so plush and wide, the seams of your pants are barely holding on. Your chest has gotten so big and heavy too, I mean that shirt is basically a crop top now with how puffy you are. Man, I just wanna reach out and grope those big juicy melons… you do look like you’re gonna need a hand with them… well, if you ever wanna get up again.

See gluttons like you always find their way here eventually, into our demonic lil diner. You like my horns, hun? Oh who am I kidding… you’re not even paying attention to me, you’re just stuffing your fat face aren’t ya? You were always meant to be here, with all these other fatties. I love eager dummies like you who put away 30 pancakes like it’s nothing and still want more… let me top your shake up again. You don’t need to worry your pretty lil head about a thing no more. We’re gonna make sure your stay here is nice and comfortable and you’ve always got something to gorge yourself on. You’re looking nice and fat now, but don’t you doubt it, hun. You’re gonna be enormous.

[the-auguer]

I just couldn’t write a Belphie POV for my fic fear of falling apart (shameless plug) and I was wondering if it’s because I just don’t like him. In simple terms, yeah. But in not so simple, it’s cause I just can’t understand him or get into his head.

Warning: a whole rant is ahead. Just for my peace of mind.

While I don’t personally like Belphie, I do have a certain appreciation for his character. He is interesting, but what’s more interesting is what he could have been. I feel as though he could have been developed a LOT more into a really layered character that had a complex and interesting relationship with the MC after the whole Lesson 16 debacle. But it was such a massive waste of time. More than half of the entire first season was building up to the Belphie confrontation and all of the juicy, crunchy interactions and character moments that would have to follow an event like what happened. But it just didn’t happen. I’m not talking about the lack of apology or the canon “awkwardness” that the MC had to fix. The fallout, the consequences, of that entire situation should have been meaty. And obviously, everyone reacts to trauma differently so it’s hard to put that in a self-insert game, but there should have been dialog/action options or plot progression. PLOT PROGRESSION. Diavolo and Lucifer just inadvertently got the only human without magic in the exchange system killed on their watch. Simeon and Solomon— and VERY MUCH Solomon— should have been fucking on that. We could have had higher stakes than ever, even more than whatever forced “Celestial War” bullshit that Nightbringer tried to pull. Instead we get another 4 lessons of fluff and hyjinks. 

All that tension, all that suspense crashes down and is wiped away in an instant, leaving the player to wonder if the whole Belphie thing was even that big of a deal in the first place. 

I think that a really, really compelling dynamic could have been born from Belphie… not apologizing. Or apologizing but for the wrong things. He took the demon threat that had been hinted at with nearly every demon brother and fucking hammered it home. The MC couldn’t do a damn thing and just died. Just like that.

Just… there were so many different directions the game could have gone to really flesh out the Three Realm Student Exchange aspect of the world, and make Diavolo a character that isn’t just secretly super interesting. Or even just to make any characters other than Mammon and Lucifer (the faves) a little less two dimensional. Maybe even explore what it is to embody sin and still love. Finding love despite or because of that sin. Idk, I’m just a home fanfic writer.

But it pains me to see a product that had so much potential, a CHARACTER that had so much potential, get squandered.

Long rant told shortly, I don’t write Belphie because I just can’t. There’s nothing for me to extrapolate from. Lesson 1 - 16 Belphie is a different person from who emerges afterword. And I just can’t compute who he is, what his motivation is, what his wants are. I can’t get into his head or even make something up for him yet.

Anyway, if you read this far thanks :P

[levis-coffeecup]

chapter 28| The Aftermath

WC-4.5k

Summary

The underground is filthy and dark. Dim lights, dull alleys, and desperate hearts. A place Levi knows as well as the back of his hand, and a place he would do anything to get out of.

Chapters of life roll by and with the turn of a page, things drastically change. In front of him is the opportunity to live on the surface. And the flimsy bridge that he has to cross. From an uncivil criminal to a disciplined soldier.

But life on the surface seems tougher amidst all the mockery, civilities, and the gaping hole left in his heart, after the demise of his dear friends Isabel and Farlan.

Content/Warnings

canon- compliant, canon-typical violence, spoilers for No Regrets OVA, descriptions of PTSD, grief, depression, heavy angst and themes, strong language, self-hate, physical assault.

Author’s Note

Hiii guyssss,

This is the last chapter of the storyyy! And I can't wait for you guys to read it! (it's so hard to believe that I've finally completed this)

To everyone who's continued to put up with my erratic updates, I am so so grateful to have you here!! I hope this story was as enjoyable for you to read, as much as I enjoyed writing it!

This chapter takes place after the Rumbling, (aftermath refers to the aftermath of the Rumbling)

I hope you like this chapter as well! And this ending gives you all the feels lol!

Song for this chapter is The Joys And Sorrows Of Life by Johannes Bornlöf

Chapters

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Masterlist | Playlist | Other Works

JUN 854

The city of Jinae looks different without the walls.

The sun is scorching, and the streets are a blur of the heat waves rising from the cobblestone. And somewhere in the distance, someone argues about the morality of the Rumbling.

Mae is tired, maybe it's the afternoon heat, or maybe it's just the baby in her tummy that has made her womb so big. She drags her feet through the alleys of the market, wiping the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.

The produce looks fresh, excellent for the apple pie she's planning to make.

Raz trails behind her too, with a pained look on her face. She rests her hands on her knees, taking a moment to catch her breath. "Mae...You need to be at home resting... Instead of wandering in this horrible heat for a pie you want to make."

Mae halts for a minute, throwing a wistful look ahead at what's left of her lover. "But I want to make something for Levi... Don't you see how miserable he looks? He's not even spoken a word to me since he's come back from his mission."

And Raz presses her lips into a thin line, silencing her frustration.

"You know, the smell of my pies always made him happy. He would always take an extra slice when I wasn't looking." A warm smile crawls on Mae's face, and she remembers all the good times spent over pies and tea.

Her gaze falls down at the growing swell of her stomach. It's huge now, so huge that she can't see her toes when she looks down. And a cheeky grin spreads on her face.

She can't wait to make pies for both him and their child.

"Mae please," Raz sighs, tears well up in her eyes, and she increases her pace and catches up to her. "It's painful to watch you like this."

"Don't worry about me Raz," She beams with pride. "I'll be patient with him, I've always been patient with him."

What stands in front of her, is a ghost of what Levi used to be. His face is gaunt and pallid, and his sunken eyes are filled with emptiness. And yet she smiles back at him, patient and faithful.

The love in her eyes never fades, no matter what condition Levi might be in.

A couple meters away from her is an old lady sitting with baskets of apples. "Don't these apples look wonderful!" She exclaims, hoping to pull a reaction out of Levi.

The old lady smiles. "They are very juicy and crunchy, the best batch we've got in months."

"Ahh!" Mae exclaims. "It would make an amazing pie filling then, am I right?" She looks at him again, but no matter what she does, the lifelessness in his gaze never changes. And his mouth still remains pressed in a grim line, devoid of any hint of a smile.

Her patience runs thins, and her pregnancy hormones catch the best of her,

"You know it's rude not to reply back, DON'T YOU?" She yells, agitated. She's dripping in sweat, carrying her 6 month pregnant belly, and he can't even acknowledge her presence.

The people around her turn, caught off guard by her sudden outburst.

And Raz pinches the bridge of her nose. "MAE STOP IT!."... She scolds, as she grabs her wrist, and drags her towards the end of the market.

The walk is short and soon the scenery changes. The liveliness of the market drifts into the haunting silence of a cemetery.

And Raz pulls Mae through the hundreds of headstones planted over the grass, until she finds the one of the Lance Corporal. She knows the route like the back of her hand now.

The Lavender flowers they kept on his grave 2 days ago have wilted.

And Mae shudders as she steps closer to it. All her illusions shatter and she's held hostage to the cruelty of the world once again.

"N-No Raz," her voice crumbles, and she takes a step back, nodding her head in denial. " H-he was s-supposed to come back after the w-war."

The silence is haunting. And Mae recalls seeing this scene a million times before, in the dreams that would terrorize her sleep.

"I-its a bad dream... it's just a bad dream." she croaks, almost tripping on another gravestone behind her.

And she waits for Levi's arms to pull her out of this never ending nightmare. She waits to feel his tight embrace.

But there's only silence.

"He wouldn't have left me alone." The disbelief in her voice is palpable.

This is the reality of war. Some are lost, some are sacrificed, and some survive.

But rarely, do they remain whole enough to thrive.

"Enough of this foolishness Mae," Raz snaps.

It's the same routine everyday. With Mae pretending that Levi is next to her and alive, and Raz dragging her to his grave until she breaks down over and over again.

Her fingers latch onto Mae's wrist and she pulls her away. "It's been 2 weeks, and y- you need to take better care of your child.... come home with me right now."

But Mae stands paralyzed,overrun by the possibility of what could have been.

Her mind drowns in dissonance, and her heart outrightly rejects the thought of him leaving.

They were supposed to have two kids. They were supposed to open his tea shop as well. There were dreams she had nurtured with so much patience.

So how did they wilt before they got the chance to bloom?

And how did the plans she held so close to her heart become unattainable?

She feels numb. And she hides her voice in a broken whisper. " H-he can't leave me Raz... I-I gave him everything I could... A-all my love... All my e-energy a-and time."

Far away on the ground, lies a crumbled newspaper.

'Humanity's Strongest shattered to pieces due to a thunder spear explosion' it says. And just below the heading is an illustration of him, bleeding on the grass with scars on his face, and 2 fingers amputated.

The earth trembles. The lavenders grieve beneath their violet blooms. And the roses quiver by the tombs, lamenting the departed who rest beneath the hush of the graveyard.

"Fine then," Raz resigns, as she starts walking away ."If you're gonna keep being such a wreck then go be it. Come back to me when some sense has been knocked into your skull."

And Mae turns to the stone that is left of her lover. The moment draws, there's silence, loss and an unfinished promise.

Its gray falls dull compared to his eyes.

And then she breaks. Falling to her knees on the grass.

Grief leaks from her so violently, it frays her voice.

She sobs like a child who's lost in the dark. And his name falls from her lips like a dying wish. She whispers it over and over, as if saying it enough could bring him back.

Her ears crave to hear his voice. But there's nothing.

Languidly her arms drape around his stone. But the stone is cold. And Levi Ackerman is gone

A shining star in the colossal sky. So beautiful, so unattainable.

And just like she'd told him that day, he ran too fast. He left her behind.

When she opens her eyes again, there's rage in them. She wants to scream. She wants to hurt all over her body like it does deep inside her heart.

"You didn't come back to me, Levi," Her bitterness burns her into the edge of destruction and she punches his stone, until it makes her knuckles bleed. "How dare you break my heart like this?"

The wind turns cold, and darkness envelopes.

The grass is lush, and below that is Levi.

With no more loyalties, promises and responsibilities.

For years she loved the remnants of him. What was left of him after the Survey Corps took his best.

There were tales he didn't pay attention to. There were letters he didn't respond to. And she waited for years, hoping that one day he would come back with his duties behind him.

But the war consumed him before she ever could.

She didn't even get to see his body, before he got buried underground.

"I was saving all along to buy you your tea shop," Her voice shatters... "I almost had the entire amount." She traces over the carving of his name on his stone.

The walls are gone, and the world is at peace, but there's chaos in her life. And peace shall never touch her, not when the pain of losing her lover drags her into hell.

"What sins am I being punished for?" She weeps. Damned, absolved, condemned by her love. "Why am I always the one being left behind?"

The petals of the Lavenders she kept, fly off with the wind. The cold claws at her skin.

The road back is long and home is nowhere to be found.

And Mae lays down on his grave, with the harrowing void in her heart. Hoping the god of death blesses her with a visit soon, just like he did to her lover.

_______________________

The Survey Corps headquarters stand long forgotten.

The bricks, once a vibrant red, have faded to a muted rust, some crumbling and others overtaken by ivy and moss. The windows are translucent now, their glass fogged with grime, and dust.

The sun is long gone, and the headquarters look ghastly. But Mae doesn't want to go back to Raz, not when the sight of her and her husband living happily burns holes through her heart.

It takes her all of her strength to open the heavy door. The handles are rusted, and a cloud of dust welcomes her as she manages to push it open.

The interior of the headquarters is doused in darkness.

The fire from the torches is long blown off. The air is thick with the scent of decay and there's dust everywhere.

These hallways that were once vibrant with laughter and activity, are now soulless. Everyone's gone and an eerie silence has taken their place.

Levi would have hated seeing things this way.

Soon she reaches the gate of his quarters, and her heart shudders as she pushes it open.

The darkness is overwhelming, but she walks into it nonetheless. Just like the cemetery, grief awaits her here too,

All the time she's spent in these quarters makes them familiar. And even through the darkness she manages to walk to Levi's desk and pull a candle out from the first drawer.

The room comes alive with the flickering light of the candle. AndMae's eyes rove around, vision blurred with tears.

The ghost of his love haunts the bedroom, ever present in the bed that they made love in, and the couch where countless minutes were spent in silence.

It's a bitter reminder of how much she has lost.

And she wants to trash this place around.

His promise to save the world, ended up destroying hers.

And now she doesn't know how to live anymore.

Her grief comes crashing down on her, all over again. And Mae sulks, close to regretting her decision to be with him years back.

His room is exactly as she remembers, with a single bed under the window, and a small wooden cupboard on the opposite end.

And as she walks closer to it, her attention is caught by the fabric of his shirt that is pinched between the doors of his cupboard. He must have left in a rush.

She walks towards it, to shut it close. But as she opens the doors, a pile of his clothes falls to the floor.

He must have really left in a hurry, unless someone came in and snooped into his room.

It's a bit of a struggle to bend down, with her pregnant belly. But Levi hates messes and so she sits amidst the clutter of his clothes. Folding them in the same meticulous way he did it.

And that's when she notices the big cardboard box far at the back, kept at the bottom shelf.

It's probably all his belongings or a dump of his paperwork, but she pulls it out nevertheless, hoping to find anything that could give her closure.

The box is heavy and she puts it down on the floor.

The first thing she sees are all the letters she's ever written to him. Stacked in a tidy pile, in one corner.

Her breath catches in her throat. And the more she sifts through the box, the more she realizes that everything inside is just about her.

There's an empty box of a premium tea she got him for her birthday, and there's containers of all the spices she would get to make his food at the Survey Corps less bland.

There are books that she would read to him, and even a tag of a pair of socks she got him for the winters.

Her hands start to tremble.

Levi has preserved everything she's ever given him. Even the dried petals of the flowers she would gift him on his birthdays are neatly kept in an envelope.

Time slows down- and every moment is like a stab through her heart. Their entire journey as lovers passes through her eyes in a painful flash.

And she remembers being beyond the moon when she heard about the successful mission in Marley. Levi was alive, and he'd come back valiant.

She couldn't wait to see him again.

But then he wrote her a letter saying that Sasha was dead and to keep her distance, since Zeke was around.

She never thought that was the last time she would hear from him.

Everything that she once held close has been snatched, ripped apart from her heart. His presence has assimilated back into the soil that he came from

And she can only suffer, until she forgets the texture of his voice, and the butterflies she gets from his calloused touch.

It feels like the weight of the world has come crashing down on her shoulders. The feeling is agonizing. And she buries her head into the teddy bear she gifted him on the day he was shifting.

At the bottom of the box is an unassuming white envelope. It's paper isn't yellow like that of all her letters. And she gulps as she sees her name written on top of if, in his neat handwriting.

It feels heavier than usual, and her hand trembles as she breaks the seal open.

Inside is a single sheet of paper, folded neatly. And as she tilts the envelope to take the letter out, something metallic tumbles out, clinking softly against the floor.

Her eyes widen, and she slaps her hand over her mouth.

It's a wedding ring.... the same expensive, pearl ring that she saw in the market at Mitras.

Guttural sobs leak out of her mouth, and she wonders if the clenching inside her heart will ever stop. Because right now, her grief feels larger than the life she has ahead of her.

And with the last of her strength she opens his letter and reads it.

To my dearest Mae,

I remember the last time I was with you. The morning before I left

There was a heaviness in the air, wasn't it? You were busy making breakfast for me. And I could see the sadness that you were trying so hard to hide. For some reason I was scared to wipe your tears away, because a part of me knew I was the reason behind it.

It pains me to see you sad. It pains me to be away from you as well.

Today as I'm writing this, the world around me is on the brink of collapse. The future is so uncertain, and we don't know if Eren is on our side anymore.

I can't seem to read through anyone's intentions. Zeke is still an emotionless bastard, pretending to have compassion. And Eren... for once all the sacrifices I made seem useless. My squad died for this... Erwin died for this. A war seems inevitable, yes... and that is the only thing I'm sure of.

But this letter is not about me, it's about you.

War....Its destructive, its quick decisions taken against the fear clawing your mind. Its finding a way to win with a blade pressed to your neck. It's something you can never process until it finally ends.  All my life I've known war. All my life I've won things through violence. I've taken quick decisions, not having too much time to ponder. But I hope you know that after a million of quick decisions and unforeseen hurdles , you're the only one that's felt right.

Sometimes I wonder how I got to have you by my side for so long. I can't believe we've come so far together. But I believe my luck has run out and my reprieve is over. I'm a sinned man after all.

Lucky would be the man, who gets to come home to you.

All my life I've known to survive. But you taught me to take a break and live. Thank you for staying by my side, when I gave you a million reasons not to.

You asked me if I believed in the afterlife. And I said yes, because somewhere the concept of all the people I have lost being together, and me having the chance to meet them, gave me comfort. But what is gone is gone. It can never come back. And fantasies like the afterlife hardly bring much solace to me, now that I stand at the edge of this war.

But I still hope that one day I get to meet you again. If not in the afterlife, then in another lifetime perhaps.

If you're reading this letter, then I'm probably dead. There's now way I'd let anyone touch this letter if my body was alive.

So go and be with someone, who'll have the courage to wipe your tears away. Go be with someone who'll be able to give you the love that you gave me. Be with someone who'll write you letters everyday.

The promise we made that night is still etched in my head. And you know how I am with my promises. You best believe that I've kept my part and now it's time for yours.

This letter is long, I can't believe I've written all this much. I hope it makes up for all the things I've kept bottled all along.

This journey has been painful, but if given a choice, I would do it all over again.

I hope that we have left this world a better, a safer place.

So go, live your life. I know you have a habit of sulking, and you're probably crying as you're reading through this. So stay with Raz and be kind to yourself.

Go walk on the grass, when the sunlight is warm.

I'll be watching over you.

-Yours always,

Levi

_______________________

The sunlight slithers past the gaps in the curtains, forcing the darkness of the bedroom to fade away.

The light is overbearing and unwelcome. And Mae struggles to blink her eyes open.

It's been a week since she's caged herself in his room. And she's still here, lying in a pile of his clothes that are slowly losing his scent.

She believes she's cried so much that she's out of tears.

It feels like the pain she feels, has found its abode in her heart and permanently

settled there.

She's lost the privilege of being able to trace over his scars. Or taste his lips as she captured them in a kiss. She'll never be able to hear his voice again. And no amount of memory can make her feel the warmth of his skin.

He's gone from this world, and she has lost him forever.

The storm that ripped her life apart, has finally settled down, and Mae is getting used to living in the destruction it has caused.

She believes that the entire world's grief has been spilt through her eyes.

And the state of Levi's room tells. It's as chaotic as her mental state.

There are pages scattered all over the floor. His cupboard is open, and its contents are littered all around. The bed is a mess as well, filled with the clothes Levi once used to wear. And his blanket is wadded at the foot of the bed.

It's quiet as usual, devoid of the sound of his movements. Outside the window, a twig from a tree drops to the ground.

And Mae watches its fall, still devoid of the strength to step out.

Knocks on the door startle her and she stirs, forcing herself to get up. It's probably Raz.

She came looking for Mae, the next day, awfully guilty and embarrassed for leaving her all alone at the cemetery.

Raz was nice enough to get her food twice everyday. Without her, Mae's corpse would have been rotting on the bed.

But what awaits her on the other side of the door is not Raz. Instead, in front of her stand two burly men, armed with guns in their hands.

They size her up and the mess of the room behind her.

She must be someone close to the Captain. Her state can tell.

All of a sudden, one of the two is stepping closer. With his fists balled at his sides, and an evident scowl on his face. "Who were you to that Traitor of a Captain?" he spits.

And Mae narrows her eyes at him.

They called him a hero before and then they called him a traitor.

The courageous captain. He was rude and selfless, deadly and kind. Proud, humble, strong-willed and reckless. And he was also so much more.

He was the lives he carried on his tired shoulders. He was the strength to keep moving forward even in the moments that broke him

But at the end of the day, when he took off his ODM gear, and stood in front of her without the weight of the world on his shoulders. In his scarred skin, and his broken bones. With the tidiness of a maniac and the patience of a ticking bomb.

It didn't take a genius to realize that Levi was so much more than the glory of his battles.

All of a sudden Mae can taste the salt of her tears on her lips. "He wasn't a traitor...He fought for humanity, all of humanity," she chokes.

He was his bravery, but he was also his restless mannerisms. He was the piece of his mom's gown that he wore as his cravat. And he was the pink on his cheeks when she called him beautiful. There were parts of him that were only hers to love, and to accept.

He was her pride and joy. Her hope in this godless world. And if the Yeagerists weren't around, maybe Levi could have gotten some medical assistance and survived.

"If you are one of the Yeagerists, you're not welcome here." She hisses, absolutely appalled. And then her voice turns into something sadder. "It's not like he can harm you anymore."

And just as she's closing the door, the other soldier steps in, putting his body in the closing gap.

It doesn't take him much strength to push the door open. Afterall he is a member of the military and she's weak from all her grief.

Mae's eyes widen with fear. She would have never thought they would stoop low enough to hurt a pregnant woman.

But he has a softer look on his face, which somehow contradicts his rough appearance. "Ease off, miss. We're not Yeagerists." And then he throws a glare at the soldier before he huffs. "Also Samuel... cool down please."

"We're not Yeagerists, but it wasn't fair for Commander Hange to kill her comrades, and to side with the outside world." Samuel scoffs, brimming with resentment.

Turmoil is thick in the Eldian Empire now. There's always been two sides of a coin, and hostility has spread its claws, holding it's people in the vice grip.

"Sorry, his brother was killed at the Paradis Harbour... in the fight to take the flying boat."

And Mae stays quiet, replaying his words in her mind. She has no consolation in her heart for his loss. The flying boat took off... but Hange never came back, nor did Armin, Mikasa or Jean... For all she knows, they were also crushed, just like the outside world.

Ships were sent two days after the Rumbling to see what was left of the world. But it's been a month and there hasn't been an update yet.

Guess that tells plenty about the extent of destruction caused by Eren. She can't believe she used to once feed snacks to that nervous little child.

"We're the Royal Queen's guards." The calmer soldier speaks out again. "My name is Claus. And we're here to empty out the headquarters... The Survey Corps no longer exists, and so it's the Queens Order-"

"The Captain's belongings will go nowhere." Mae cuts him off. " I'm taking everything with me."

And Samuel laughs sardonically, eyeing her pregnant womb. "And who exactly are you to the captain... a road gig? I'm pretty sure the Captain never married anyone."

And Mae knows she's supposed to defend herself. But she can't. The thought of putting together a few words makes her feel like she's going to plummet.

The world has given her so many trials. It has tested her at every age. She's tired now, so tired that she just wants to rest.

Get up and face the world. The message comes to her like a ray of light, in pitch blackness.

Get up and face the world. That's what Levi has always done.

It's as if she can hear his voice thrum somewhere in the back of her mind.

And that's what she will do. For the part of him that's growing inside of her.

She raises her right hand to make their allegations stop. And the pearl ring in her finger shines bright in the sunlight.

"I'm the widow he left behind."

Author's note:

I see you've made it to the end:)

I know some of you must be surprised with Levi being dead, but Floch was the only one who thought Levi might still be alive, and Floch died, so I think the news that would have gone out to the newspapers would be of Levi dying.

Also let me know if Mae being pregnant came out of nowhere.

I had left small clues of Mae being pregnant in the last chapter (her crying so much because Levi was leaving and wanting him to stay, and her placing his hands on the swell of her belly). Don't know if it was obvious though, please let me know if I should mention it more directly in her thoughts in the previous chapter.

Please let me know what you thought of this chapter. Any comments really make my day, and I would love to know what you thought of the fic!

Many thanks!

Also since I'm a graphic designer and I really want to get into illustration, I will make a book cover for this book and get one copy printed for me (let me know if you would be interested to see that, just incase)

(PS: this is not the last chapter lol. I was just messing with you all lol. Last chapter will be out in 2-3 weeks as I'm still not done with it)

[fosermi]

since animation is literally your major, is there any details from the Sonic X Shadow generations clip we saw today that you might want to talk about?

OK SO major spoilers under the cut for the preview of the Sonic x Shadow gen prolouge

i was WAY too busy fangirling to give a proper analysis BUT when it does come out fully i might just do one, also please take note im still in my second year of studying to be an animator so these are purely my opinion. for now i can point out a few things that i genuinely want to talk about.

first thing that stood out to me was that 2D-3D style of animation, definitely something i dont think we've seen be done for the franchise before (correct me if im wrong) and it reminds me so much of RWBY in a way. There were some bits that, to me, looked choppy BUT THEN AGAIN those were the parts that needed to be choppy for emphasis reasons, specifically it was at the start where Shadow is having some sort of break down. its obvious from how choppy his movements are in comparison to the smoothness of the rest of the preview that shadow was genuinely shaking. with that 2D-3D style that choppyness looks janky as fuck but its so perfect for conveying how uptight and bottled up shadow's emotions are. its so hard to try and capture what im saying but trust me its there!!

second thing i wanna point out are the camera angles. they shift so much to serve the dramatization of the scenes and its so ✨JUICY✨like i shit you not, i cant stop staring at the different camera angles and going "oooohhh ahhhhh" and trying to rationalize the reasoning for those angles because HOLY SHIT they're so good and they actually do serve a really good cinematic purpose!! its easy for people to get lost in the changing of perspectives and camera angles but this? oh this does it so good that it actually drives the plot FORWARD instead of it seeming like separate scenes mashed together.

third thing I'll point out is the scene color shifts. when doing something cinematic, ambiance is key. so when the scene shifted from this soft and comforting blue hues

to this eerie red so suddenly with our only warning being a slight shaking of the screen??

that made it such a surprise that it gets the viewer on alert!! a good thing!!!

now i can go on and on about the different colors for each scene but let me just touch up on this one scene in specific:

it quickly goes from hopeful gold/good light to ominous black/no light, very contrasting, which can mean oh so many things... most notably; maria's hope vs shadow's resolve.

fourth thing ill touch up on are the frames where shadow runs. specifically the one where he runs out of frame from maria.

we get almost 1 frame of a model and then...

these frames here? chefs kiss, perfect. showing us just how fast shadow really is, so fast that we the light from his airshoes doesnt catch up until a fraction of a second later!!! even the glow in the doorway changes to reflect that short millisecond split.

fifth thing ill point out and its a small little thing thats making me absolutely rabid:

he fucking glows.

and yeah, sure, you can argue that its bounce light, its most probably is bounce light since its under harsh light conditions BUT if that was the case the glow wouldnt be this vibrant of a shade and it would give an aura and not specifically on his markings. just a little thing i noticed that i will get to screaming about when i post this.

last thing i wanna touch up on is the sound effects. they were just so very crunchy and pared up with the animation style?? oh it was delicious!! i have some issues with the lip sync but then again they were trying to go for an anime/western cartoon hybrid style here so its bound to be off on the lip sync.

anyway, thanks for listening to my silly ramblings, its nothing too impressive just a fangirl fangirling. now if you'll excuse me, ill go scream to the eclipse nation about glowing hedgehog.

[shinelikethunder]

so for the record i fully blame you for the fact that i'm watching supernatural for the first time in 10 years or so, but ALSO one of the things that is fundamentally crunchy and compelling about sam and dean's relationship, imo, is that it's a constant, unceasing power struggle that they are to varying degrees aware of but mostly won't admit to

(sam, particularly, i think most desperately wants to /win/ the power struggle for good while also being the least likely to admit that it's actually happening. dean's investment feels much more situational - he wants sam to go along with his plans in the moment but isn't necessarily that invested in Being The Boss Of Sam Forever, whereas i think one of sam's deepest and most shameful unrealized desires is for dean to submit to him permanently, and the place where i depart from most wincest shippers is that imo what makes that really juicy is that dean doesn't want to do that.)

anyway! some thoughts on a fandom i haven't really interacted with at all since 2011, just for you lmao

yes! tbh it's one of an entire subgenre of ships that hit real good for this exact reason: an equality that comes, not from both of them being wholesomely egalitarian and refusing to ever seek the upper hand on one another, but from them constantly being in a billion little squabbles and wrestling matches both petty and consequential, even as they're earnestly trying to negotiate conflicting needs. and none of it is ever even going to settle into a single fixed pattern, let alone result in a permanent and definitive "winner." they both have their expected roles in this dynamic, and they both constantly shift between chafing against those roles and embracing them and instrumentally leaning into them to get something else they want.

it's so pleasingly crunchy... yet another reason i cannot vibe with whatever's in the water right now that's driving people to stan either the ship or the characters by picking one brother to be The Woobiest Victim Forever. like. that's not just getting carried away with a temptation i otherwise understand, that is actively sucking the fun out! even when it's my favorite little rat in the Blorbo Studies Lab who's the designated woobie, the static designation is less fun than the sharp-elbowed version where they both get to #Transgress against each other.

(i think dean is subby in the sense of getting a HUGE kick out of situations where he can safely hand someone else the reins, and/or stop agonizing and just get an A in being the goodest boy in the world by finding out what will please someone else and doing it. but oh my god, any attempt to extend that dynamic into situations of genuine conflict or threat? yeah no, the exact constellation of responsibility issues (and free will issues, objectification issues, self-worth issues, etc) that make those kinks so potent also mean that if the fun game turns into a real encroachment... best-case scenario, he snaps into Amalgamated Macho Archetype defensive panic and is probably a blustering shithead to reassert control. if he initially goes along with whatever it is, for sam's sake or because lol what are boundaries, that is Much Worse. because it sets up this ticking time bomb, resentment buried underneath compliance, and that is going to very specifically bring his thermonuclear John Winchester Issues into the fray.)

[imakemywings]

After the juicy "Celebrimbor not talking to any of his family" take, you've hit us with another equally juicy (but probably controversial lol) take of Russingon which is something I've been riding for a while now, @spiritofwhitefire spoke nothing but facts. Still, on a serious note (no offense, I really love that ship so much) the constant characterization of Fingon as blindy forgiving, and always siding with Maedhros (or like being desperate to be with him) was probably what made me sour a bit on Russingon. Fingon has other personalities and motivations besides being Maedhros' love interest or being his hype man but seriously, he's Fingolfin's son, and seeing how close and loyal Fingon was to Fingolfin, I am sure, he would be genuinely pissed at Maedhros. I can't imagine him instantly forgiving Mae or something, and even if he did, does his forgiveness mean something to Mae because, at the end of the day, Maedhros is still doggedly loyal to Feanor. Anyway, this is just me being fixated on your tags, "not wanting maedhros to die a miserable death at morgoth's hands doesn't necessarily equate to total instant and complete forgiveness, "honestly a huge fan of their friendship never fully recovering..." please tell me more. I love your headcanons.

I don't mean to be in opposition to so many popular fandom takes 😅I'm usually not this bad about that...

Sure, maybe Fingon is a saint who harbors no resentment...but I'm not particularly interested in that take. #1, Fingon is presumably made a kinslayer in Alqualonde for the sake of the Feanorians, whom he believed were under unjust assault, but who were, in fact, the aggressors. #2, Although Maedhros does not partake in the burning of the ships at Losgar (something it's implied Fingon learns eventually), neither did he make any effort to stop it, and that decision of the Feanorians' helped condemn the rest of the Noldor host to the Helcaraxe, where, among other things, Fingon's sister-in-law dies. I would say he certainly has grounds to be angry with Maedhros and furthermore, to distrust him going forward.

Not to say these specific things are entirely or even primarily Maedhros' fault...but I think it would be very hard not to be angry with a cousin/close friend who had helped to put you in these positions, particularly depending on how Maedhros handles the situation after their reunion (i.e. whether he apologizes or doubles down or tries to pretend nothing is wrong).

This definitely relates to my general feelings on Maedhros becoming the center of everything in this fandom but yes, the way Fingon orbits around him in so much fanon gets quite old. I'll be honest and say I don't ship Russingon even a tiny bit so it's doubly grating to see Fingon reduced to either Maedhros' hype man (if alive) or his angst-generator (if dead) and have that romance be cast as so core to everything Fingon (or Maedhros!) does. And I do think there can be plenty of crunchy drama even without the romance aspect (Anyone who's had a friendship go sour can probably attest to this).

But in terms of actual character motivation and reactions--I think it's just a lot more interesting if there are actual consequences to Maedhros' actions in terms of a relationship that was really important to him, rather than Fingon just completely forgiving Maedhros everything always so that there's no friction in the relationship.

For one, as I talked about here, their relationship already had problems before the rebellion of the Noldor. How bad things got between them in Tirion is really up to our interpretation, but it is very apparent things were not kosher between them even before Losgar happened, and before Alqualonde. I can't imagine that doesn't color later events between them.

For another, Fingon's motivations in seeking Maedhros out in Thangorodorim were political. They were also personal, but the first motivation mentioned in his decision to seek Maedhros as Melkor's prisoner is to reunite the Noldor. And as I mentioned in those tags, just because he didn't want Maedhros to die a miserable death or experience indefinite torment at Melkor's hands doesn't necessarily mean he forgave him, or even still considered him a friend. MOST of us would not want to see someone we know suffer Maedhros' fate, regardless of what they had done to us.

"Then Fingon the valiant, son of Fingolfin, resolved to heal the feud that divided the Noldor, before their Enemy should be ready for war...Fingon had been close in friendship with Maedhros...Therefore he dared a deed which is justly renowned among the feats of the princes of the Noldor." ("Of the Return of the Noldor")

If nothing else, I imagine their relationship was always complicated after this. To your point above, Maedhros is deeply committed to fulfilling the oath of his father, and as the Nolofinweans and Arafinweans were there when the Feanorians swore to deal death on anyone handling a Silmaril, they have to be aware of at least the possibility that that may cause trouble someday (I'm sure they did not anticipate the scale or severity).

So Fingolfin, Fingon's father, is king (thanks to Maedhros)...but Maedhros is loyal to his oath above all else. And Maedhros still holds considerable sway over the Feanorians (I would venture to say it's a common theory if not outright knowledge that, should push come to shove, the Feanorians will obey Maedhros, not Fingolfin). How does Fingon feel about that?

To me, these things, in addition to Maedhros' earlier behavior (being part of the initial kinslaying at Alqualonde, not trying to stop the burning of the swan ships) mean that Fingon can never fully trust Maedhros again. There will always be at least a sliver of doubt and mistrust there, wondering at Maedhros' ulterior motives, at his end-game plans. And I don't think Maedhros is very good at making this not the case because he is always trying to play 5-D chess, and he's not always sneaky about it.

That bit above about how the Feanorians are loyal to Maedhros over Fingolfin? I imagine that goes doubly when Fingon becomes high king. Whatever respect the sons of Feanor might have had for Fingolfin as their elder they almost certainly do not have for their young cousin. And I do love takes where Maedhros (successfully or unsuccessfully) sees Fingon as far more malleable than Fingolfin and is trying to manipulate him from behind the scenes. (Particularly if this interacts with any insecurities Fingon may have about his abilities as king--to think that even Maedhros sees him as a weak ruler/weaker than his father!)

I don't mean to suggest they were never close again after the rebellion (although you could perhaps make the case), but that there was never the same level of trust, ease, and companionship in that friendship that there had been before. Forever after, there was always political calculus involved, because of the kingship, because of the oath, because of Maedhros' refusal to disavow the actions of his family (Admittedly--we don't know what position he took on Alqualonde or Losgar afterwards; it's never stated or even implied, iirc. However, based on his response to Celegorm and Curufin's attempted coup against Finrod [nothing] and the attempted assault of Luthien [nothing] and attempted murder of Beren [nothing], I will extrapolate the headcanon that he was not keen to admit to either of the earlier instances as being a mistake.)

Anyway to me it's sooo tasty if they stayed (sort of) friends and yet there was this unspoken mistrust that was always there after that, perhaps alongside a kind of golden nostalgia for the "old days" of their friendship.

(Also juicy drama to me if Fingon becomes a lot closer with Finrod than he had been in Aman due to Helcaraxe trauma/responsibility bonding and Maedhros has to grind his teeth and live with the fact that Fingon trusts Finrod more than he trusts Maedhros now. And lots of love for fans who also explore Fingon's canonical friendship with Aegnor and Angrod! )

There's also the fact that Fingon bites the dust before the worst of Maedhros' actions. I simply cannot see Fingon justifying the assault on Doriath, or Sirion, or the kidnapping of Elrond and Elros, or the assault on Eonwe's Elven guard. Absolutely, there is grief in seeing someone you loved and valued become someone you cannot support, but I can never buy into post-Mandos takes where Fingon just handwaves everything Maedhros did after Fingon's death.

So yes, there it is. Maedhros and Fingon's political drama charged friendship fallout.

[sauntervaguelydown]

easy home gardening suggestions

Are you bad at eating the vegetables you buy? Do you feel like everything goes bad before you can eat it? KEEP IT FRESH ON THE VINE. Or at least, pickle it yourself.

You will need: pots (plastic is fine, terra cotta is drier, glazed ceramic retains moisture best). Dirt (surprisingly cheap but very heavy). Sunshine (free).

(I live in a humid part of the USA, these tips are not meant for deserts)

Container options: all your containers NEED drainage holes, but if you're a freak like me, you can take any sturdy plastic thing with sides & a bottom and nail/drill/MELT holes into it. Storage tubs may be a cheap alternative. Don’t hold the tub upside down and melt the excess plastic with matches directly onto your human hand. Burn bandages are expensive. Or just steal old ceramic pots from your aging grandmother.

Container Gardening

BELL PEPPERS: if you get half a day at least of direct sun, you can grow bell peppers. They do want warm weather so either you have to put them inside your house in a very sunny window or wait until it's 70degrees F or more. Remember that flowers do need to be pollinated by SOMETHING. Note that if you're planting them in containers, deeper is better; bell pepper tap roots can go 3 feet down if you let them. Minimum of 12 inches. If you have time but no money, scrape the seeds from dinner and plant them. If you have money but no time, try to buy one sprouted from the local plant nursery. Outdoors you will get caterpillars, but in my experience they are very polite and do not attack the fruit, so they're fine. You can grow three pepper plants per foot diameter of dirt surface.

OTHER PEPPERS: generally all peppers have the same needs, although my hot peppers seem a bit less thirsty than my bell peppers. I bought some already-growing hot peppers from the local plant nursery and they have been EXTREMELY productive; some "hot" peppers like mine (a Holy Mole pepper) actually make great mild salad greens if you scrape the spicy seeds out & pick while still green. Minimum of a foot deep containers, deeper is better if you can manage it. Full sun.

SCALLIONS: with green onions/scallions, you know the big thick ones they sell in the store with the roots still on? buy a couple and plant them in a pot of dirt in the sun and you'll have infinite green onion leaves. They can stand freezing weather if you cover them. It got down to 20 F here and I still didn't lose them. No flowers involved, just juicy crunchy leaves. They only have to be in containers 6 inches deep minimum. DO THIS.

SALAD GREENS: container gardening works well for lettuce and mustard/mizuna. Lettuce needs regular watering, it has shallow roots. You just gotta plant Mizuna when it's cold enough for the seeds to germinate (40 F ~ish). Mizuna is a hardy little guy, tolerates heat AND cold. You gotta buy the seeds, but they're cheap. Follow directions on the seed pack. This can be done (theoretically) in a sunny window indoors since they do not need pollinators. It's all LEAVES baby.

LIMA BEANS. These have deep roots and they have long tall vines; if you have the space for the roots, and any thing LIKE a trellis for the vines, and sun, you can get so many goddamn lima beans for 0 effort. Forget about these suckers you can't STOP them from fruiting.

More below the cut bc this is getting long

TOMATOES are kind of an investment; they're easy to grow from seed but they need a lot of sun & a deep pot. If you want full size beefsteak tomatoes, try a tall, lightweight plastic pot with a lot of fertilizer & consistent watering. Don’t forget the tomato cages! Those beefy boys will pull your plant over sideways. The lightweight pot will allow you to move the pot inside if you have a sudden deluge of rain that will waterlog & split the fruit. You can try planting seed from harvested dinner, but you may end up with some much smaller tomatoes than what you harvested from. It’s something to do with commercial hybrids.

TBH i recommend growing a cherry tomato, you get more fruit and you're less likely to lose it to bugs/sudden rain/general bad luck. Buy some ripe in the store and harvest the seeds. Do not try to grow indoors, you need pollinators & sun. Sensitive to cold. Giant green caterpillars will try to consume your entire tomato plant. You must catch them before they succeed.

SPINACH is nutritious, but honestly don't bother with growing spinach past spring if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, it likes the cold. I'm having bad lucky with it--it's either too hot or too wet or BOTH around here. My friend who gardened in the desert said they had good luck? It works in container gardens tho. Critters love to eat it. Maybe ask about it at the plant nursery.

ARUGALA: bought some already growing and it's a real champ, doesn't need much water. 6 inch depth minimum. NOTE: Once it flowers, you will not get enough leaves for a sandwich. Since then I've grown it from shed seed and it's very hardy--it actually put out a whole tap root through the bottom of my growpot and got down into the soil. Keep it watered when it's baby. The seed will sprout pretty much any time through the spring and summer.

CARROTS & BEETS:

Carrots are... more complicated. Unless you really like carrots or you really like gardening, idk if I'd recommend them for beginners. You start them from seed then thin them out so they're all at least 6 inches apart, and the seedlings wilt in the heat but they also don't like it when it's freezing so... I'm having a hard time with them. Maybe there's a breed that grows really well in your area? Ask at the local plant nursery. I did a "baby carrots" variety (sex seeds) and two survived infancy. One is still growing as of September. I'm hoping for more seeds.

Beets are less picky, and need a bit less water. But they do die off at the height of summer, so get them going while you can.

CELERY: basically the same, but less angry about the heat. Keep moist. Pick a bit & come back again for more. My seed packet said they should be ready to pick stalks in April but they definitely were not. July was really when they got big enough to eat.

ZUCCHINI: There's a lot of posts about how easy zucchini is to grow, but I think I'm in the wrong part of the country for it. Needs a lot of water, at least when it's hot outside. Definitely works for container gardening. Give it a 12 inch deep pot. TIP: put your old coffee ground in the dirt to increase the acidity. You will not get any fruit unless you have pollination, but pollinators also like to lay eggs on the leaves and eat them all to smithereens. Pickleworms have destroyed me two years in a row now. Cucumbers are the same way--and if you're gonna try cucumbers, buy a burpless variety to keep beetles away at least.

YAMS are pretty easy. They like the HEAT. They need 100% full sun. What you do is you buy a yam from the store, wait until it starts to put out growths, then (indoors) suspend it partly in some water until the green growths are at least 6 inches long. Then you can plant those growths in dirt. It's especially good if the growths have little white roots, but I've planted growths without any roots and they were fine. Healthy vines will put out runners. Suggestion: start in a deeper container but only fill it up with like 6 inches of dirt. When the yam vine gets long, add another few inches of dirt and bury some of the vine. Keep doing this until you run out of space and/or dirt. You get more yams this way. Harvest when the cold starts to make the leaves all sad and crinkly. Using fluffy light dirt makes harvest easier.

STRAWBERRIES: You'll get them one at a time, and they won't be very flavorful in many cases. They need pollinators, but squirrels steal them as soon as they're ripe. Keep under a net. They're also VERY hard to grow from seed. I have managed it, but the germination time is like... three months. Perfect container plants though. And in the summer they start putting out runners, and then you can MULTIPLY your strawberry content. Set them somewhere just out of the rain, so that the fruit won't swell up and split during a deluge, but remember to keep them moist.

BLUEBERRIES: fine for containers, although they need to be deep. Get at least two blueberry bushes so they can cross pollinate. Make sure that both varieties bloom at about the same time of year. Partial sun is fine. In winter it may go dormant but it comes back.

BLACKBERRIES and RASBERRIES are insanely low maintenance but bad for container gardening. They want a lot of space. You'd need a big container. Maybe a costco storage tub. Better off putting them in the ground, if you have a garden. But watch out, they spread.

A note about PUMPKINS: you can get a pumpkin seed to sprout basically spitting on it. I threw some dirt on a rotten halloween pumpkin and now I have a legion of leaves. However, getting them to fruit requires pollinators, and the vines take up space. I wouldn't try to grow them unless you have an actual garden with flowers (weeds are fine) or you just.... want a pretty vine to look at. Also they don't like the heat very much, even though they grow over the summer.

LEMONS: you can actually grow lemon seedlings from the seeds of regular ass grocery store lemons. They're supposed to be pretty easy to do but I haven't had much luck. Now that it's warmer out I'm gonna try again; basically just put them in some dirt and keep the dirt moist until a sprig comes up. you won't get fruit for like 5 years but the leaves smell nice. Tangerines are the same way.

I've put a couple over-ripe onions in the ground, but I don't think I'm going to get much out of it. There's a wikihow article on it. Basically you cut the bottom off an onion from the store, eat the top, and then treat the bottom like a yam. But you might as well just plant the whole thing if it's already started putting out green tendrils. Maybe you'll get flowers.

Herbs

hard Rosemary is actually difficult in most places bc it needs Mediterranean conditions ie. FULL sun, not a lot of water, warm weather. It starts to grow mold if it's not blazed 8 hours a day. Rosemary can get up to the size of a full ass bush if you give it the space. Needs 12 inches of pot depth. If you haven't got full sun, don't bother. I don't recommend growing these from seed--if you have a plant nursery anywhere near your home, just buy one there that is already established with roots. Cold hardy when large enough.

medium Basil has about the same sun needs as Rosemary, but it doesn't mildew. Basil will do the hydra thing and put out new heads of leaves if you snip them off. I'm growing it from seed and it's doing pretty good! Do not eat the flowers. Not cold hardy.

medium Ginger is a tropical shade plant, so you can grow it with no direct sunlight (it does need to get at least indirect sun). It needs really rich soil so you gotta go buy some bagged potting soil with compost, but literally you can get a healthy ginger from the store and sprinkle dirt on top and it ought to start growing. Especially if it already has little white or green fingers growing out of it. Give it a deep pot, 10 inches if possible. not cold hardy. If the soil freezes, it dies.

easy Mint: we all know it's insanely prolific. However I have managed to kill all my mint twice. I think I didn't give it a large enough container to spread out in. Aim for something at least 10 inches deep and at least a foot diameter. I know, it's a big commitment for an herb. Partial shade is fine. do NOT put it directly in the ground or it will take over. Cold hardy perennial (survives at 0 F and lower). It may go dormant but it comes back. Keep moist.

easy Oregano. Good boy. Precious child. More sun is better, and not a lot of watering. Pot only has to be 6 inches deep, though more never hurts. I've heard that cilantro and tarragon and thyme have the same root depth, but I've never tried growing them so that's all I know. If you're planting from seed, make sure it's hot outside and do Not bury the seed. It goes right on the surface of the dirt in the sunshine. 3 months from sowing to adulthood. Cold tolerant perennial; it may go dormant but it comes back.

easy Garlic: you might not be up for growing garlic from seed, but if you want to harvest the green stalks that grow up from the bulbs in spring, they are kind of like a cross between chives and garlic in flavor, and very safe to eat. Good in soup. Just buy some regular garlic and then forget it in your kitchen until the individual bulbs start poking up green shoots inside that papery wrapping stuff. Then plant them in some dirt with the green shoot pointing up. These bulbs survive VERY cold winters and thrive. It may go dormant but it comes back. If you let it go through a cold winter, you may get harvestable additional bulbs.

List of Flowers You Can Eat:

Nasturtium, violet, viola, coneflower, chrysanthemum, citrus blossoms, daisies (who knew), marigold, clover flowers (clover is good because it nitrogenates the soil). When in doubt, eat the petals only. Except for Nasturtium, i know you can eat those leaves and stems and all. They're kind of peppery.

There's actually a LOT of edible flowers I haven't begun to list. If you're curious, look into it.

Things you simply cannot grow at home: Vanilla. Cinnamon. Soy beans. Apples. Do not try. (Vanilla is an orchid. Orchids are Hard.) (Cinnamon is growable in Mexico if you keep it well watered.)

straight up, if you're gonna grow any of these, just google "how often water [x]" and then do that forever. Set a recurring calendar alarm. If they look wilty, increase how often you do it. Personally I water everything when the dirt looks dry, but that's because I'm an obsessive.

Anything sold in the store uncooked/undried that is either 1. a seed itself or 2. contains a seed (or 3. has roots attached) can PROBABLY be pirated. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Google is your friend.

Other Notes:

you CAN pollinate a lot of things by hand, if you're willing to put the effort in

"well draining" soil usually has compost material content mixed in. Sand is also well draining, but maybe a little TOO well draining. Basically, avoid clay if it needs to drain.

Most things do not need fertilizer all the time if you buy potting soil (it's pre-fertilized). However, growth costs nutrients. Keep that in mind.

You can steal dirt out of the ground for your pots but remember that it may be contaminated depending on where you get it (roadside? BAD idea). Also it's heavy as fuck. Plan accordingly.

Coffee & tea grounds are acidic and nutritious. (for plants) (don't eat them)

it's not actually a great idea to bury a moldy piece of fruit in a pot. You will get flies. I know it seems like a composting hack but don't do it.

You can put old wood cuttings & logs at the bottom of a container for plants that need a lot of nitrogen, like ginger. Make sure there's still an appropriate amount of soil between the wood and the surface.

potting SOIL contains dirt (sand/silt/clay), potting MIX is just organic matter (peat usually). Mix is fluffy, soil is denser. You can combine to get the advantages of both. Potting mix is usually a good bet for fruiting plants, but I've tried using plain ground soil for almost everything and the main problem is it just dries out faster. If you're putting things directly in the ground, just get some "gardening soil" to fill in around the roots a little bit.

pots are weirdly expensive. Scavenge and recycle what you can. I've used costco cranberry juice jugs for things, but the ridges in the plastic do retain water. Make SURE your pots are deep enough. And make sure they have a fair bit of surface diameter.

depression meal: boil one package of maruchan ramen, as many lima beans as your little hands can grab, chunk of scallion (chop if you have the energy, shred it with your fingers if not). celery? if you've got it. pour flavoring packet. add lemon juice. survive another day without scurvy.

A note on TREES

Citrus trees are easier to manage than some other kinds, but they do still need management. Citrus is very cold sensitive so if you can bring them inside as soon as it hits freezing at night, that is best. The trouble is they also need deep enough pots for their tap roots, which makes them hard to MOVE. Even with frost covering, I lost a lemon tree to a hard winter this year RIP. The good news is that after they've been in the ground about 5 years, you do not have to cover them as carefully anymore. I've got a 30 year old tangerine tree that went dormant this winter and then came back kicking, and I didn't cover it a single inch.

Peach trees are also fairly cold sensitive, but they need a minimum number of cold nights (40 F or lower) to produce fruit. So uh. Either cover them with a frost cloth as soon as it gets freezing out, or bring them inside in a big pot but leave them outside as long as you can. I wouldn't try to grow one from seed personally, but I've bought a couple saplings. Look for a variety that does well in your climate. Your local university might have made a hybrid.

You can grow and make your own tea leaves; the tree is a specific variety of Camellia. Grows well in the southern USA.

"pawpaw" trees are a fruit tree native to north-east america, cultivated by american indians. They're pretty cool. They grow well on the sides of hills. You can buy dormant saplings in the winter/late spring online. You need at least one male and one female. Deep tap roots.

You can GROW a banana tree, but you can't make it fruit unless you're in a tropical climate. I wouldn't bother. Even subtropical doesn't cut it.

Figs are cool but keep in mind that lots of people are allergic to their leaves.

In the case of most trees, long term, a pot is not a good idea, but for the first few years it's fine. Remember that every year the roots get bigger.

If you have a commercially sold tree seedling, the chances are it's been grafted at some point. If there's a knot or a notable bend in the lower part of the trunk, that's the graft point. Stuff that grows below that knot is going to be Not Delicious. Pick off growths below the graft point.

A note on COMPOST:

composting is a great way to enrich your shit, but watch out, because it also produces mildew, mold, flies, and scavengers.

The lowest effort version of composting is simply to take your tea leaves/coffee grounds out of the pot when you're done with them and let them dry out somewhere--a bowl or a tupperware, idk--then save them to mix into your potting soil later. Minimum amount of fungus, no bugs. You can do this in your house. Unbleached paper also works, and basically any "dry" organic material.

The more intense version includes things like egg shells, banana skins, things that will attract pests and grow mold. You don't want this in your house. Also the shells of beans, discarded lettuce greens, tops of strawberries--etc. Most of this stuff is of too little caloric value to attract rats, so it's okay to keep near your house.

But the more "food" stuff you start to add, like rotten vegetables and table scraps, the more rat appealing it becomes. Don't get over ambitious. That stuff needs to be 50 ft away from your house minimum.

[bogleech]

please share a refresher of some of your food flavor and texture opinions. I'm having a discussion with my wife about our various Autistic Food Rules and she didn't believe me when I said y'all had similar palettes.

I have a really strong sense of taste (the same exact thing but two different brands may as well be night and day to me; pepsi and coke are as different as apple juice and orange juice) and yet I STILL find that texture is more important, and soft textures are almost always better. French fries are best soft, moist and limp the way they make them at East Coast barbeque pits and board walks. All meat is best as tender and juicy as possible and if a meat is safe to eat raw it is always best raw. The fat is also the best part, but I mean the buttery fat that melts away, not the hard chewy gristly fat which is horrible.

Cookies are never good completely crunchy. Raw dough is good but the very best cookies are half-baked extra chewy ones, especially if they have soft doughy centers and only lightly crispy edges, with chips still melted from the oven. Chocolate in general is better warm than cold especially when it's softened up as much as fudge, and fudge is also good. Eggplant is the best vegetable particularly stir fried until it's all buttery smooth. The only food that's good crisp and crunchy is fruit, any fruit that can be crisp such as apples or pears should be as crisp as possible. Crispy grapes are the very best but they're also the hardest to come by. I end up pinching grapes at the store hoping to find some that have absolutely no give. The best pizza topping is in fact anchovies as long as they're properly cooked into it. Anchovies are also delicious when baked into spaghetti sauce or lasagna. Pineapple however is also good when cooked on pizza, even if it doesn't go super great with anchovy.

In fact, all fruit is actually pretty good when cooked and paired with something savory. Sweet + savory is great in MOST contexts, there's no food in the world that honey can't go on.

Peanut butter, and I mean the sweetened kind from a jar, is also great in savory dishes like curries.

I know this is a very hard sell but peanut butter + pickle chips in a sandwich or on crackers are an actual snack some people enjoy and once I tried it I thought it was awesome. I don't care for the flakiness of most cooked fish but I love canned tuna for whatever reason, tuna salad is like the most reliably palatable food in the world to me? The much reviled Spam and its imitations are in fact delicious pan fried, all the authentic Hawaiian recipes are amazing and Spam musubi is amazing.

I don't mind waffles but I think they're inferior to good pancakes, maybe because waffles have that drier and more rigid surface? Love when pancakes are a bit stretchy. Stretchy white bread like a super fresh French baguette is one of the most good things in the world with nothing at all added to it.

The only common food I find totally revolting is corn. Peas and beans also gross me out a little, all the plants that come in little round nodules. Not fond of most pot pies and stuff with a bunch of different little chopped up veggies in them, don't know why, maybe because all of those veggies would be so much better a little pan-seared on their own? I also find it genuinely kind of annoying and sad when people even “jokingly” comment on these posts about how gross some of these are, none of them are really that uncommon in my experience except maybe the peanut butter pickle thing but I still don’t get why people feel so strongly about some of it. Almost all food is good and I don’t hate the alternatives I can stomach rigid crispy SOULLESS french fries just fine when I really have to

[buggybuggs]

Everyone's favourite foods? :> (couldn't choose one, and after choosing multiple, didn't want others to feel excluded hshshshs)

YOU GOT IT

Ashe - She prefers traditional Monstrin foods, which are typically crunchy friedleafy greens paired with different toppings, luckily Okinomiyaki fits that definition well. She loves barbequed meats, like char siu, and a good lick on a lemon every now and then Aivoni - LOVER of seafood, anything on one of those grill setups too. She loves a good lobster roll or a nice seafood paella, but at home she'll happily enjoy a lazily made pasta dish Vae - ANNNYTHING sweet, but especially pastries. A good carrot cake, or a good cheesecake. she loves carnival type food like funnel cakes and cotton candy too. she also loves to eat raw veggies as a snack, go ahead and give her a basket of turnips and watch... Mastiff - BURRITOS. sure its not what she grew up with, but she LOVES a nice wrapped up giant burrito with EVERYTHING she can fit into it. she likes to put lots of rice in it though! otherwise she loves dumplings and pierogi! -after this point, my gf added her input Vess - smoothies of all types, she loves a good mango and anything thats nice and sweet, she doesnt eat much otherwise Merina - junk foods, anything she can eat lazing around that fills her up, cheap stuff like burgers and fries is her specialty. if you want to treat her? give her some good spicy wings... Okapi - [I need to develop her more, so sorry!!] Prongy - So in Nebraska they got these things called runzas! its bread wrapped around a mix of beef and cabbage with plenty of pepper and spices! she likes one with cheese, and pair it with a kool aid burst!! Cammy - cammy LOVES to grill. a good steak, make it rare, give her an interesting meat to cook with. he'll gnaw on a juicy burger as well, they dont care if a rare burger could give them food poisoning, LOL! Kroma - Cheap ramen, she doesnt do the broth, just noodles with the flavoring. She loves a cheap conveyor belt sushi place too... unless youre paying. then you'll hear her talk all about how much she loves Uni and Otoro. Imp - Anything fried and oily, she loves some takoyaki, calamari, and okinomiyaki (like Ashe, that's the only time they get along). You'll also find her begging for your fries. Sam - Make it cheap, make it fast, unless its a good pizza portuguesa, she'll happily wait for that! She'll help cammy along with grilling and make a really nice chimmichuri, but with food, she aint picky at all Trace - Food? nah, she has a monster energy and a meal replacement. she's more focused on her gaming than to care about having a meal. If you're serving her? it better not have any weird textures. or else she'll be sad!

Maltha and Ly's world is lacking a bit with food BUT Maltha likes salty and savory things, she has a weird relationship with meat as her cloned kin are used in the meat industry but.. she uh.. has a taste Ly has never really had real food other than beet-like vegetables that they fed their livestock, but if offered the taste of a nice meaty thing? they might like it!! (too much maybe!? oh no! they're going after people!!!!)

Truck loves pasta... cheap chain restaurant food that offers all sorts of deals. Or a good deviled egg! Unnamed Magnezone likes food too! but scans it. It likes anything that has a lot of heterogeneity, so anything that has many different things on it to make it happy

Bugg will eat anything thats cheap and tasty. want to treat them though? give it some stroganoff, or maybe some fried scallops, or a nice salad with all sorts of olives on it :3

[krchov]

top 5 apple cultivars

I love you so much I'm kissing you on the lips LET ME TELL YOU

okay so first thing first. You might know the infamous comedic apple ranking website. And while the ranking criteria is relatively sound (things like flesh, sweetness, skin, taste etc) the author has a palate of geriatric pangolin who would probably die if he tasted anything that's not insultingly bland. Proper ranking apple cultivars ranking has no damn point system bc it isn't rigid, acknowledges that not all apples are tasted in the same condition/ripeness and in no way would call it call Granny Smith a shitty apple.

So here comes my objective top five apple cultivars. Some of them might come from similar cross breeds (and what does it say about Red D*licious that the thing we most do with it is to try for it to not taste like itself), but all of them sans ones are their own protected and in some cases trademarked breeds.

1) Kanzi

For the longest time it was not available on the Czech market, by which i mean that the first time I had a Kanzi apple I had to take three different trains to an "organic" orchard two hours from my house just to be able to buy one. On the way there I forgot to buy a ticket for the last leg of the journey, got caught by the conductor and was told that I can either get off the next station, or pay 40€ fine. As the orchard would be closed for business if I had to get off and wait for the next train, this officially makes kanzi the most expensive apple I've ever eaten.

It's small and sometimes mottled, but don't let it's visage fool you. It's firm, juicy, the perfect of sweet and sour and the flesh has a smooth texture. The skin isn't too thick and has a great taste on its own. Perfect rucksack apple to take with you on hikes.

2) that one apple I bought on a farmers market at Zelňák in Brno and that when asked about the cultivar was told "idk, my grandma has two trees in her backyard". Unlike anything I've ever tasted, with sweet, soft flesh that was all that other fully red apples desire to be. It keeps me up at night thinking about what sort of crossbreed it could be

3) Granny Smith. The MILF of the apples. I'd eat this juicy, spicy Australian grandma any time. All that libel you see written online is just people being unable to appreciate a good, firm sour apple. True it might be little bit hard on the teeth sometimes but the way the flesh breaks off gives you the option to go truly hog wild on it. Staple apple (stapple, if you will) of any kitchen, ready to be snacked on any time.

4) pink lady. I first bought this at this corner store in Bødo and then I've spent the following month going through every single grocer in Norway trying to find it again, with no luck. When they rolled them into Czech rep few years back I nearly creamed my pants right there in the Lidl fruit section. They are crunchy, sweet but fresh, the perfect inoffensive apple that is good to go with anything. Maybe little overpriced when compared to other apples, but a classic anyway. I'm not calling them a stapple only for the fact that they rippen up pretty quickly and unlike granny Smith make it hard to see visually if they are past the good texture point.

5) Halloween Apples©. I'm so angry that I can get them only once a year and if Lidl ever discontinues them I'm gonna go on a warpath. Because somehow while they were trying to breed an apple with red flesh, they not only succeeded but they created a cultivar that tastes exactly like pomegranates. I can, will and did gorge myself on them till I was sick. So low only because of their criminal unavailability.

Cosmic Crisp didn't make the cut because even though it's The Apple, let's be honest. It's mostly marketing, and it tastes like more juicy pink lady. Had to stick the one I had in a fridge for a moment just so the flesh would firm up into a decent texture.

[greedygluttons]

Sinclair missed when he was allowed actual real food when his family was still alive. Forsaking their flesh for metal now meant the dinner table had nothing but, no matter how much he hated calling it that as he didn't want to seem ungrateful, slop. Unappetising, unappealing, it was all drab and dull, sometimes improperly cooked as well. He couldn't help but reminisce on the days of his childhood where his father made him a fancy feast for dinner, followed by his dearest mother bringing in for dessert the most delicious cakes he'd ever gotten to taste.

But now that was all gone, as they had no need for "luxuries" of the sort and could plug themselves in and be satisfied. All skill when it came to food had been thrown out the window, much like their so-called unnecessary feelings, which they could now flick on and off as they pleased.

However, with Kromer, it was different. It wasn’t uncommon for her to take him wherever she pleased when the lunch break bell hit. At first, it was easy to pick him up and chuck him over the school gates, but the more time passed, the heavier he got, which greatly satisfied her. Sometimes, it was an all you can eat barbecue joint that she'd drag him to. Seemingly, those were her favourites, but she also pulled him through store aisles and shoddy, yet still delicious, fast foods, and the only thing she would ever tell him is to eat whatever he wants, anything he likes, unlimited and unbound.

And so, he would.

To taste actual food once more, from delicious cones of ice cream to creamy cakes, from crunchy chicken to juicy grilled steaks, he would eat and eat until it was hard to walk back to class, stomach too full for him to handle, much to his and Kromer's pleasure. Once they'd get back, she always had the custom to hug him from behind and squeeze his belly. It was hard to at first, being smooth as a board, but as it went on, as new rolls would pop up, he could feel Kromer shiver in delight while muttering a small "good boy" in his ear, which, in turn, made him shiver with glee as well.

It was almost time for them to graduate, so he thought of this as a nice gift from her. It's nice to be allowed to take part in one of the many humanly pleasures she talked about.

[odysseywritings]

Beyond Limits - Blue Rose Fic

@flashfictionfridayofficial

(Characters here)

Dash and Peace, a bonded duo despite being different species, wish to find someplace full of delicious food and second chances.

Kesen deserted warfare to find a lifestyle fitting for her survivorship.

Meree escaped pollution and a loveless marriage to find clearer seas to explore.

Dalina wished for freedom beyond the cloistered chaos and apathy of the city.

Each sought liberty and community despite their backgrounds, with their map showing a town ripe with potential, one without a history of baggage. They could sense freedom beyond the horizon, a shining orange line blanketed by darkness.

The excitable Merre piped up, "What do you think Versa is like? I hope it's full of lakes and rivers 'cause this dry land thing is chapping my everything."

"And food," Dash slobbered. "Sweet honey, juicy fruits, crunchy bugs..."

Peace nodded with a faint and fleeting smile before Dash rubbed against her leg.

"Before we get to daydreaming," Kesen stated, "we need to make sure this place is true, safe, and not make us slaves. It is better to go prepared for anything than to be caught off guard and regret it."

"One look at you would be enough to scare anyone dumb enough to try anything," Dalina smirked. "If we were alone, it'd be one thing, but this group's got something special."

"Being special can be a target on your back."

Dash grumbled, "I'll eat your arm if you keep arguing, it's getting me hungry."

Peace rubbed Dash's fur and settled her, and Meree slid closer to the center as her body jiggled like waves.

"We'll be fine if we stick together! Oh, speaking of sticking, I'm starting to shed."

"That's wonderful, Mer," Dalina deadpanned. "But you're right, the important thing is whatever the horizon has for us. Good or bad."

The crew looked at the sunset and prepared to rest up, seeing the hot flare of the solar lights cascade over the magical realm. It was risky and danger could lurk anywhere, but the possibility of a better life so close ahead tempted them too much. No one to question their identity, to control their body, or to be dependent.