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camomills · 4 years

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Title: Stars of Soot Relationships: Silica/Sinon Fandom: Sword Art Online Word Count: 3083 Summary: Sinon shows off GGO to Silica as a date, at Silica's request. As she experiences the different sensations of such a hardy world, Silica wonders why this world means so much to the other girl. Notes: Made for SAO Pride Week 2020 - Day 2: Stargazing. This one wasn't beta read because I was a bit pressed for time, so please forgive me for any glaring errors. It's been a while since I wrote Silica/Sinon! It was quite fun to revisit the ship. As per usual for me, this wound up as a weird mix of fluff and character study.

AO3 Link

The air in Gun Gale Online smells like gasoline and gunpowder, but Silica doesn’t mind… much. Not when she clings to Sinon’s back as they speed down the highway on a rental buggy, pigtails fluttering in the wind as her cheek finds rest in-between her girlfriend’s shoulder blades.

“I still can’t believe you want to try out this game,” Sinon says, the metallic hairpins on the sides of her face clinking lightly. She’s still not that used to driving, in the game or otherwise, so she keeps her eyes on the road instead of turning her head back as she talks. Vehicular collisions are not particularly romantic.

I just want to know what you see in it , Silica replies in her mind, raising her head.

She understands that, for all the time they spent together in ALO ’s fairy realm, that wasn’t Shino’s ‘world’, not in the way this place is. When she doesn’t bury herself in the curve of Sinon's back, the gas and soot is more apparent to all of her virtual senses, and even though it was her own proposition, she has to ask, why? Why choose colorless tiles and cracked pavement over the boundless hues of fantasy?

“I’d be lying if I said I… particularly get it,” Silica admits. “But this world is important to you, right?”

“Yeah,” Sinon replies. “ GGO might be an acquired taste, though. This game is gritty.”

She rolls her shoulders, leaning further back onto Silica.

Excluding Silica, Sinon has never been one for bubbly and cute, so GGO would always be a better fit for her. But this virtual world was made with inhospitality in mind, so not exactly the perfect dating spot. The fact that she’s here for one surprises her more than it does anyone else.

“Well,” Silica says, “good thing you’re here, then! Having a tour guide to show around should be a huge help.”

Sinon wheezes. “So I’m your tour guide, now?”

“Yes!” Silica proudly proclaims.

The sniper smirks. “Okay, then.”

Sinon twists the handlebars, and the bugey roars as it peels through the road. She can’t help but smile as Silica’s high-pitched yell reaches her ears, just barely audible over the revving of the engine.

The howling of gunfire can’t be heard as much within GGO ’s hub city, but the loud advertisements that echo from the bright signs serve as a fitting substitute, volume-wise.

Silica’s only knowledge of this game comes from watching Sinon and Kirito fight for their lives, real and virtual, through a tournament broadcast. The fact that Sinon still logs in daily to Gun Gale even after that incident would be odd to anyone other than people like the beast tamer and her friends, who are all VR addicts despite their time in Aincrad.

The two years in the floating castle, despite the pain it caused her, was where Silica grew the most. She’d never openly say that there’s a part of her that misses the days after the one year mark, when she’d settled into her reputation in those lower floors and tried to forget the outside world so much that she succeeded. None of her friends would. It’s a silent understanding and an untold promise; not to admit missing those days, so they don’t have to, either.

What does GGO, a medley of grit, greys and metal, mean to Sinon?

Their circumstances are different, but the scars they bear stain their skins in similar ways. The masks offered by virtual worlds, Silica knew, gave one the opportunity to confront themselves in ways one couldn’t anywhere else. There was something to the kind of place one chose to do so that Silica found important to know.

Sinon got to see New Aincrad, walk over the same plains wherein the beast tamer had met Pina, bask under the same electronic sunlight she experienced for two years.

It’s not fair if only one of them gets to do it, is it?

The sun sets while they stroll through the city, and Silica understands more of the acquired taste Sinon had mentioned. The approaching dusk was somewhat nice on itself, but the place was still a palette of monochrome then, all steel on sand, black on white. Once it’s officially night time in game, 6:00 PM sharp, however, everything changes. The dark of night makes the huge, floating billboards pop, neons of purple and blue scattered through the cyber landscape. The virtual city night lights become luminous streaks in her vision while they dash on the way here on the buggy, not unlike how she imagines speeding through one of Tokyo’s nightlife districts in a motorcycle would feel like. It’s movielike, but not fantastical or unreal, but maybe that’s the point; she doesn’t think she’d have the guts to go at such high speeds with her flesh-and-bone body, nor would Shino have the confidence Sinon presents.

There are things from real life that one can only do in a game like this.

***

They stop by an equipment shop at the center of the now-luminous city. Unlike the last time she was here with someone else, Sinon has no tournament sign-in to get to after shopping, so they can take their time.

Sinon is surprised when Silica picks an overall sensible combat outfit; a tactical green and black leather outfit with red accents, along with a dark, moss-colored poncho. We kind of match! Silica beams as she presents herself, pointing back and forth between her and Sinon’s outfit colors. She frames her face delicately and comically she does so, her eyes shining like a cartoon fawn’s. Sinon knows it’s on purpose, this over-the-top display of sweetness, but it makes her smile anyway.

Of course Silica found a way to make this cute.

It’s also cute, albeit in a different way, when Silica’s eyes look away from the armor section of the store and widen as she takes notice of a display of combat knives. They’re military-grade blades, absolutely indistinguishable from the real-world articles. Unlike just a moment ago, the shine in her eyes is unfeigned.

“Oh yeah, this game has these!” Silica exclaims.

Sinon turns to her with a quizzical look.

“... You’re interested in the knives?” That makes it two for two, the times she’s taken someone new here and they thoroughly ignored guns. Are all fantasy game players like this?

“Of course I do!” Silica exclaims, like it’s obvious. Her look all but says, I spent years fighting with daggers, remember?

Silica takes one of the knives from the demo display. It looks comically large in her hands, and yet it pales in comparison to the ones she’s grown used to in fantasy games. She spins the handle in-between her fingers, resting it on her knuckles. The hand flourish when she bumps the blade upwards, sending the knife spinning high, and then catches it from the air with her open palm is almost too fast to see. She gleefully changes the grip a few times before finally settling it in a simple reverse grip.

“They have such a better feel than those bulky daggers!” Silica exclaims in glee.

“ Impressive,” Sinon mutters under her breath. She can’t help but be hit with a sense of deja vu .

There’s a sensible distance one can gain when looking at someone brandishing a bright sword that looks more like a cosplay prop, or a fantasy dagger coated in filigrees. But there’s no distancing from seeing Silica, in all of her titanic five feet of height, doing knife tricks one would expect of a special forces soldier, or perhaps a movie greaser, when the blade is so realistic.

Sinon would be lying if she said she doesn’t find the display at least somewhat attractive.

Sinon heads over to a small menu in front of the knife section as she selects the same blade Silica had in hand. Soon after she goes through the proper transaction steps, holding Silica’s hand and laying it over the holographic display, one of the store robots scoots over to hand Silica her item.

Silica’s smile makes the credits Sinon spends all worth it.

… Is a knife a weird gift to give your girlfriend? Sinon thought, but that was a bridge already crossed. Then, she remembers the real reason they came here.

“I know you’re mostly here to look around, but you’ll still need some sort of main weapon if you’re to experience the game. Pick whatever gun you’d like to test out and we can go to a shooting range.”

****

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am absolutely serious!”

Instead of the shooting range, the two find themselves by a station near the edge of the city, connected to the game’s starter fields.

The vehicle’s mounted weapon protrudes from a hatch on top. Its long, steely frame glimmers as it reflects the sun’s harsh light. The heavy machine gun could be mistaken as some sort of cannon for the uninitiated in the ballistic arts, with its bulky, long barrel, but it’s a high-RPM, lightning-fast automatic weapon, nothing short of a reinforced harbinger of death.

“You said I could pick any weapon,” Silica reminded the other girl. “I’m picking this mounted gatling gun.”

Machine gun, actually, Sinon thought of correcting. Other than the regular shooting ranges in GGO, there were also training grounds for driving by the outskirts of the city, by the game’s starting area - it had been where Sinon had trained her bugey skills, in fact - but the knowledge of that, or of the existence of mounted weapons, is the sort of knowledge most newbies wouldn’t have.

Silica did her research for sure... and was probably planning this.

Sinon’s original plan was to simply show Silica around the game, so buying an expensive armored vehicle sounds unwise, especially when there’s only two people.

The sniper squints her eyes at the shorter girl. Noticing Sinon’s glare, Silica fans her eyelashes pleadingly, and Sinon’s resolve falters.

… I guess I was thinking of getting everyone else to convert and help me out, anyway?

“... Fine,” Sinon concedes. “But you better help me convince everyone else to hop on here for the PKer problem, then.”

Silica immediately jumps in excitement. The humvee’s engine purrs to life as Sinon turns the engine key, and the newbie gunner excitedly hops to the top hatch.

*****

Silica is small, but she doesn’t feel so when she holds onto the trigger in the huge weapon’s handlebars, the generated mobs in the starting fields shattering into red sparks. She loudly laughs in excitement as the high speed vehicle traverses the shifting sands.

The ride is a feeling unlike her other experiences with virtual worlds. It might be due to what Sinon earlier described as a “commitment to grittiness,” but the game still replicates hints of discomfort; her small frame vibrates from the gun’s recoil, her fingertips feel a bit too warm, and she has to ask Sinon to stop every so often because of dizziness.

It’s annoying at first, but it grows on her.

Silica wonders if this is part of what draws Sinon to this world.

******

Silica finds the pink hue that covers GGO ’s desert sands endearing.

She gets a good vantage point to admire the landscape as she’s wrapped in one of Sinon’s arms and they zip up a rocky structure. The grappling hook’s line is taut with their combined weight.

Despite the pleasure found in their proximity, as her hand holds Silica’s body close to her by the waist, Sinon does so primarily out of practicality, as Silica doesn’t possess a grappling hook of her own.

Silica, however, finds herself smitten by the situation. Being carried in the arms of a cool girl as she takes in the sights of a foreign world, the warmth of her body providing solace in the cold, simulated night, is a scene befitting a dream she’d have long ago if she’d known she liked girls sooner.

Silica sighs in disappointment as they reach the summit, going from dream to simulated reality. As she looks at Sinon, she’s glad this reality, virtual as it is, is still dreamy aplenty.

The plateau atop the rock formations, where monsters couldn’t reach, was the perfect stargazing spot. It allows them to wind down after spending an entire day driving, shooting, and in Silica’s case, shouting in excitement. Sinon is not exactly the romantic type, far from it, but even she recognizes what the beauty of GGO’s night sky can do to one’s heart. She’s glad she gets to watch it with someone else now, instead of only her sniper rifle for company.

Sinon sits herself by a boulder on the plateau that she manages to find snug. The wordless invitation she gives Silica, as the spot to her side seems like it would fit her perfectly, beckons the younger girl, who hasn’t acquired the same grit to be truly comfortable on the hard surface. Thankfully, Sinon’s shoulder is softer than the rocks.

“So, what did you think?” Sinon asks. “Was I a good tour guide?”

“Yes,” Silica answers. “I give you five stars!” She nuzzles closer onto Sinon’s side.

They stare out at the sky. The moon is hidden behind drifting clouds.

“I have a confession to make,” Silica admits, in a tone that sits between jokey and serious. “I didn’t want to try this game only to shoot guns.”

“Oh?” Sinon’s surprise is clearly feigned. Even she would be able to understand that Silica’s request to see this game was a date proposition. There was a reason she decided to cap the night off with stargazing.

“Yeah. I guess I figured… playing this game would make me feel closer to you.”

“Oh.” Sinon’s surprise this time is genuine. “Well… do you?”

“Hmm.” Silica looks at them, sitting side by side, sharing warmth, and yes seems like the obvious answer here. “I mean, yes. But I suppose I was looking for an answer.”

“An answer… did you find it?”

“I’m not sure I did. I think I found… something,” Silica says. Her grip on Sinon’s arm tightens, a mix of affection and nervousness. “I think there is something important about virtual worlds, and why we’re drawn to them. I... now that I think about it, maybe I could’ve just asked you from the beginning.”

Her heels pitter-patter on the rocky surface.

“What does this… What does GGO mean to you?”

Sinon looks at Silica, a bit puzzled.

Silica doesn’t know how fair of a question it is, really. Could she explain what drew her to virtual worlds? Why thinking of Aincrad, her former prison, makes her feel homesick? But she’s nothing if not sincere, and she wants to know. She figures Sinon, introspective as she is, thinks about those things more than she does.

“GGO is, you know.” Sinon makes a meaningless hand gesture. She thought obsessively before about this question - her objective, her growth, her path towards becoming stronger , she called it. She doesn’t know how to distill it in a sensible way, is all.

A place to face my fears?

Where I met Kirito, thus, how I met you?

“ Home?” Sinon says without registering.

Oh.

It’s under this night sky, beneath a red moon, that Sinon realizes this is the first time she got to enjoy this world with someone she truly cared for, life-or-death situations notwithstanding. This place, with its odd smells, rattling sounds, and even unpleasant sensations, has been one of the few places of respite she had from… everything. Others. The world. Herself. It’s more evident now, with someone to share it.

“I came to this world because I wanted to surpass who I was. I wanted to become stronger,” Sinon explains, unsure of whether she sounds pretentious. Sinon’s jaw clenches, and Silica gives her a reassuring squeeze. “When I first came here, there was nothing I wanted more than to erase my real self with this- this stronger version of me. This better version of me.”

The image of Hecate II, her sniper rifle, her companion, comes to mind. She’d thought before, at times, what was she without its weight on her back, other than a fragile girl who can’t help but retch at the sight of gun replicas? Without burnt fingertips and trembling shoulders from gun recoil, how could she call the strength she built here real?

This place is home because it was under this same carmine moon that she realized Asada Shino, the high-schooler, was just as much of a warrior as Sinon, the elite sniper. Under this virtual sky, nothing but code threads woven into a reality, was where she accepted who she was.

She fidgets with her fingerless gloves as she continues. “It’s hard to give a simple answer,” she concedes. “But if I had to try, I’d say… this is the place that showed me it was okay for me to be myself. To recognize my strength, to connect with others. Back then, before this game, I never thought I’d get to have... this, I guess.” Sinon nudges Silica’s shoulder with hers, playfully. “Who knows. Maybe I just wanted to be proven wrong.”

Silica’s heart tightens. She moves a hand to Sinon’s cheek.

“I’m glad you were proven wrong, then.”

In what Silica is pretty sure is the first time, Sinon is the one approaching her for a kiss.

It’s quick and sweet. Sinon’s thin lips press onto Silica’s lightly. It’s easy to forget they’re in the virtual world then, with their eyes closed the way they are, the waves of warmth radiating through their faces as the only signal their AmuSpheres send to their brains.

*******

The night goes by quietly as they stare to the sky, save for the distant sounds of underground monsters shifting the sands and Silica’s occasional comment of how she’s sure she can tell the constellations even through the thick clouds. They have little time before GGO’s short day cycle robs them of this sight.

That sky, this world, are virtual, and they know that. It’s hard to tell, though, when it shares stars with the real one, when it shares warmth with the real one, when the strength they gain, the bonds they deepen, the sights they see, carry over to the real one.

The air in Gun Gale Online smells like gasoline and gunpowder, but Silica doesn’t mind… at all, really, when it grants them the opportunity to be so frank and close, so near when they’re so far.

When it grants them the opportunity to be themselves more than anywhere else.

#SAO #Sword Art Online #saoprideweek2020 #Silinon #Silicon #Fili writes

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palettes-and-prompts · 4 years

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Character Palette/Personality Palette

If I have seen the movie/show/or whatever this character is in I will let you know! But if I haven't I'm just gonna give my best guess to their personality or what I think they like and everything. I will make them two palettes, one based on their appearance and one based on what I think their personality is. If you'd rather not see this just block the tag "character palette and personality guess" I figure no one's tagging anything like that so it should be easy to filter out. If you genuinely like this character and I lowkey diss them I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize though, you're going to have to live with it. If you wanna send me a character for a palette and my guess at their personality/interests just drop it on anon and I'll see what I can do.

Alright so this is Grimnir from the anime/game Granblue Fantasy. I've only heard of this because I'm pretty sure I've done other palettes for Granblue Fantasy characters.

This man's got an energy. The wink, the boots, the shoulderless armor? My boy here is making a statement. And I don't know what the fuck it is but I'm listening. I like his color scheme. But I like it because pink, purple, and blue were my favorite colors growing up. Plus that added touch of silver with that blue glow? You can't see it but I'm giving a chef's kiss right now. I'm not going to bother putting that chef kiss in asterisks though because I would never ever put you guys through the flashbacks that might give you about when you were like twelve or fourteen. And I would hope you guys wouldn't put me through the same agony but I physically cannot stop you. I don't know why but the outfit is reminding me of Celine Dion. He look like he's either the good guy who's flirty and a little annoying but endearing OR he's the villain who's funny and flirts with everybody and that's how people remember him. They see the blue glow and they're like "Oh fuck, it's this guy." and he's always saying shit like "Prepare to be dazzled by yours truly!" Always getting in the way of things showing off during fights, teasing and taunting his enemies but in a sexy way, probably a Leo. I'm 100% sure he wears those heels not for the protection but simply for the click clack sounds it makes against floors when he walks. The type of guy who just shows up wherever he wants, the kind of attention seeker who practices his signature walk. I hate him but also he's my favorite character and I've only known him like two minutes. This guy doesn't have a preference for who he hits on, he doesn't even know what he's into, he's just a menace that shows up out of nowhere and nobody can guess his sexuality so everyone's got their guard up around him just waiting to see if they get hit on. The kind of guy who, like, flirts with so many people that if he doesn't flirt with someone at whatever gathering they get a little offended like "Wait, what the fuck? Why didn't I get hit on?" And like, they hate it but they're all a little flattered when he does hit on them. Nothing creepy, just like a light flirting that leaves you feeling confused and a little sexy but never upset about it. You know? You hate him but there's just something about him you like. He's the kind of guy who no matter what song he's listening to it's always gotta be a little sexy. And even when he's sad it's just sad sexy songs like most of Lauv's songs. Like, it's upbeat and sometimes kind of sexy but the lyrics are just sad. The shit you listen to when you shake your ass in the mirror but you're crying and drinking liquor straight from the bottle. I'm gonna make that sentence into a set of palettes after this.

Anyway here's his palette based on his character design.

And here is his palette based on what I think his personality is.

#character palette #character palette and personality guess #personality guessing #grimnir #granblue fantasy

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indigoidiot · 4 years

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You should know... Ryuji!!

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them

Everything.

least favorite thing about them

Atlus stapling being a pervert onto him because they need a pervert sidekick, and that’s nothing on him that’s an Atlus thing.

favorite line

Because you know I’m on that Ryugoro shit

brOTP

I am inclined to say Ryugoro because i like them as a pair plus a Brotp. I will also accept Ryukita and Ryuharu as Brotp.

OTP

Have you seen my blog.

nOTP

Uh… idk… I mildly dislike Ryukoto and Pegoryu? But I wouldn’t say they’re NOTPs.

random headcanon

He’s a good home cook, his mama taught him. He isn’t a world class cook but he makes edible, tasty food when he makes it enough. He’s better with cooking than baking.

unpopular opinion

Um… I guess I don’t see him as gay? Like I HC him as bi with a leaning towards girls, maybe he had a few girlfriends in middle school since he was the star athlete of his middle school? He also probably takes a good while to realize he can like boys AND girls, denies he’s gay but Mishima just reminds him one day that being bi is a thing and Ryuji just. “…oh.”

But yeah Bi Ryuji.

song i associate with them

honey

youtube

I drew a pic of him in the pose too but the original file got deleted before i could color it with the song’s palette…

favorite picture of them

Ryuji looks good in suits alright i have drawn him in a suit before and he looks fine as hell but he really shines in that vest outfit with the subtle pirate aesthetic and that scarf and the pant cuffs and just…GOD I LOVE THIS LOOK FOR HIM, I WISH THE MASQUERADE OUTFITS WEREN’T EXCLUSIVE FOR ANIME MERCHANDISE AND WE COULD GET DLC WITH THE PT IN THE MASQUERADE OUTFITS…

Also this one image i drew and marsiie captioned

(it doesn’t count but to this day it’s one of my fav ryuji’s that i’ve drawn)

#persona 5 #theobnoxiouswindfish #ryuji sakamoto #ryugoro #indigo's idiosyncrasies #ryuake #akeryu

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hongism · 4 years

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Oh. Oh fuuuuuuck. Everyone was already hot in MOC but those outfit inspos!?! Everyone just got 50000x hotter. To be absolutely thirsty on main for a second, the Mingi break my back agenda is back at 100% also Hongjoong and Yunho are also on that agenda (I mean they already have been but now!? Sweet LORD) they don't even have to be in a particular order I got enough vertebrae to go around 😌

Everyone's look is very fitting! I love the monochrome mix of new and old! Also some of the looks for MC are what I was imagining so I love sharing a brain cell with you!!! And that reminds me of how much I appreciate you keeping vague about MC's appearance, I dont think many picture YN characters as themselves anyway and IMO you even could've gotten away with an OC with how well you've written her! As I was saying though, the way you've kept vague is well done, like you've made her flustered plenty of times but I don't recall seeing a "she flushed pink/red" for example and I love that!!! It's so clear how much time and effort you've put into the entire story and I absolutely adore you for that, thank you for sharing such a wonderful story with us!

i really H U R T myself picking out these outfits and imagining the boys in them 😭😭 mistakes were made and the thirst dial went to Max uGH it’s fine everything is fine i’m fine all is fine wow this is G r e a t. im thrilled to see the mingi backbreaker agenda still going strong, that’s truly a beautiful thing, we love to see it yesyes 🤧 and now we’re adding hongjoong and yunho to the mix?!?!? kink king 1 and 2?!??!? fuck it UP yes yes yes that’s the goods right there 😤 i have to say the ‘I got enough vertebrae to go around’ sENDS but you know what i respect the hustle and i appreciate it let’s fucking go ✋😌

and i’m super duper glad to hear that you think it’s very fitting 🥺 i was a bit worried about it not lining up well or fitting the vibes/characters/personalities well, especially with such a monochromatic color palette. and YES we stan a shared braincell, MC’s outfit inspos were a lot of fun to play with and i think i’ll keep adding more as time goes on since we’ve got such a long ass ride ahead of us aoifjsoidfj and 🥺🥺 pls my heart ;-; i did think about making the MC an OC straight up but when i was first writing it, it didn’t feel quite right and it felt better using 2nd person pov. i think, if i can say this myself as the writer, that MC’s character stands on her own in many ways and she does operate as her own person rather than just a reader insert. and i really really try my best to avoid using denotative language that would imply a certain hair color or skin color or body shape. i’m sure there are places where i’ve slipped up along the way bUT i do think that the lack of definitive appearance for MC doesn’t take away from the story because it gives me an opportunity to focus more on her Character and eek yes im starting to ramble but pls you’re so sweet thank you so much for giving my story a chance 😭🧡

#caly answers #mists of celeste #moc: spoilers #thank you :c #you're so sweet pLEASE #def sol #ask

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xsparklingravenx · 4 years

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lily of the valley

Title: lily of the valley

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Characters: Yuri, Balthus, Hapi, Constance, Yuri’s Mother

Rating: T

Word Count: 1783

Summary: Yuri’s mother had always said that makeup was her shield.

AO3

Yuri’s mother had always said that makeup was her shield.

It was something he remembered strongly even now, standing at her side as she sat by a worn-down vanity, the poor thing barely standing up under the weight of its own age. His tiny hands would rest on her knee as she powdered her nose, applying her eyeshadows before finally painted her lips. Lilac hair would tumble from the messy bun she always put it in, and when he would ask what she was doing, she would always say the same; “Putting on my mask, little flower.”

“But why do you need a mask?” he asked once, curious. She never had elaborated, after all.

“To become someone else,” was her response as she painted black lines across her lids. They made her look so glamorous, he’d always thought. Powerful, even, like a sorceress who could cast incredible magic, someone who could chase anything terrible away. “When I work, it’s sometimes better to not be me.”

He hadn’t understood—of course he hadn’t, not then, he’d been too young, too innocent—but he remembered reaching for the brush that she’d used for her eyes then, his fist small around it. It was an old thing, bristly and well-used, just like the vanity. They had taken up residence in a beaten-down tavern, and his mother had been working to the bone to pay for the roof. Since then, it had been night after night of him being left alone, all while she went out, the moon sitting high in its lofty throne as she did whatever it was that required her mask.

As time went on, he realised she was selling herself to do it, making men pay for the best of her so she could give the best she could for him in return. But back then, with his hands around that brush, he only knew that she wanted to feel strong, to feel untouchable. He took the tool for himself and closed his eyes, brushing the bristles against his own eyelids.

His mother had chuckled at that, delicately taking it from him. “Oh? And who are you hiding from, little flower?”

“Nobody,” he said, puffing out his cheeks. “I just wanted to try too, to look like you do. Beautiful.”

She laughed at him anew, reaching out to brush a hand through his short, messy hair. “Oh, you charmer! I fear you will only make a dreadful mess of yourself if I let you loose with my products, but I can teach you, if you’d like. When I get home in the morning, I’ll show you exactly how to do it.”

“So I can be just like you?”

Her smile fell at that. Later, when children of Abyss said the same, he would understand why. He and his mother, they both felt the same about themselves—she was the strongest person he knew, and she said herself that she was so, so, proud of him, but they knew the real darkness that they both harboured. He was a murderer, a liar, a cheat. She considered herself nothing more than a worthless whore. They were identical at the core; both never wanting to be a role-model, both never wanting to pass on their shadowed ways.

She took his small face in her thin hands and shook her head. “No, my little love, not to be like me. I’ll teach you so, if you ever need it, you’ll have your own shield to use. The world can be a dangerous, frightening place, and sometimes, a little paint on your face is enough to make you think you can face it. You will stand up to anything, I promise you that.”

In Abyss, in the present, Yuri sat at his own vanity with his powders open on the surface, his eyeshadows sat in their palette. The mirror reflected his image back at him, bare-faced, shadows being cast over his skin by the flickering of the candle he had set beside him. A potted lily-of-the-valley sat on the vanity’s edge, its white flowers nearly tipping right over the edge.

He scowled. How weak he looked without the purples at the edge of his eyes, without the gloss at his lips. His hands were in fists as they rested on his knees, his jaw clenched tight. His heart still beat a humming-bird’s pace in his chest, furious.

The threat still felt present in the air. Aelfric had barged into his room and caught him unawares a clock’s pace beforehand. He’d whispered threats into his ear while they had been alone, to make sure he was keeping up his own part of their twisted charade. Yuri’s fingers had itched for his blade, to slit the man’s throat before he’d been able to blink, but he’d been powerless in truth. The man had his mother as a hostage for one, and Rhea wanted more information on his faction’s movements.

Killing him was not an option—and, as much as Yuri wished to gut him, he equally knew that he could not. Aelfric was much more than a kidnapper; he was also one of the few caretakers that Yuri had trusted before he’d betrayed him, and part of him still did, unfathomably, love him.

He reached for his brush, sweeping it up in the purple powder that he usually coated his eyelids in. Constance had procured this particular colour for him after he’d complained that most of Abyss’s wares were not to his tastes. Purple was the colour for nobles, expensive and difficult to find. Where she’d gotten it from was anybody’s guess, but he had a strong suspicion that it was regular, brown powder that she’d infused with magic. She’d managed to change the colour of tea before—he was certain that powder would be no issue for someone of her talents.

He set to work, an artist with his brush as he painted himself into the person he wanted to be. First, he scoped out the shape of his eyelids, filling them in with colour before blending it outwards. Memories of his mother’s movements, her guiding hand, his own muscle memory—all of it made up his morning routine. A shame Aelfric had seen him with his mask off, with his face nothing but himself. Another thing he would pay for eventually. The lily-of-the-valley that sat in the pot, it was poisonous. One day, Aelfric would realise that he was too.

A knock at his door had Yuri turning halfway, his hand stilling. “Who’s there?”

“Yo, pal, you still in there?” Balthus’s voice was gruff through the door. “We were heading to grab a bite for breakfast, but you hadn’t shown up yet.”

We, he said, implying that the others were there. His suspicions were confirmed when Hapi’s voice came next. “Still putting your face on, Yuri-bird?”

“Why, of course he is! Do you know how much time it takes to look this magnificent! I can assure you, it doesn’t just happen in seconds!” Constance’s voice was high and airy despite the early hour. “We just need to wait, and he shall appear at any moment.”

They were so respectful, his friends. He was reminded of a time when they’d been in Abyss’s bar and someone had loudly, drunkenly, made a comment on how improper it was for a man to be wearing woman’s makeup. Yuri hadn’t even been able to make it out of his seat before Balthus had smashed his fist into the man’s face, sending him bowling over into Hapi, who had bashed her head into his all while Constance cackled behind her hand, claiming, “Serves you right, you piggish swine!”

The man hadn’t known who he was at the time, hadn’t realised he’d been picking a fight with the leader of the Ashen Wolves, but it made no difference to Yuri. “I’m not so delicate that I need you to fight my battles for me,” he had snapped at Balthus afterwards, but Balthus had only laughed. “I’m serious. If you start breaking the jaws of every man who makes a jab at me, soon it’ll get around that I’m going soft, that I need a bodyguard. I’m not weak.”

Balthus only carried on laughing. “Oh, I know that. You’re a conniving bastard, you’d stab a man before he even saw it coming.”

“So why did you do it?”

“‘Cause we’re the Ashen Wolves, and nobody gives our pack leader any kind of shit.” Balthus had smirked at that, punching one hand into his waiting palm. “Ain’t just about you, Yuri. It’s about all of us.”

How he wished they wouldn’t trust him so blindly. How he wished he didn’t trust them so either. The truth was that; he loved them as much as he did his rogues, his mother, the people that Aelfric had taken hostage to control him.

But his mission was to gather his friends together and help Aelfric kill them alongside himself.

He didn’t deserve their devotion. His hands were tied, he had nothing to do except pray. His mother had always asked the goddess for her help, had always claimed that Yuri had been her gift from Sothis herself. Unexpected, she’d said, but the best thing she’d ever received. Maybe, if he begged the goddess enough, she would give him the way out he needed, help tip his luck a fraction more in his favour.

He finished applying his eyeliner to his lids and painted his lips in shiny gloss. When it was done, he pushed the brushes aside and looked into the mirror, his reflection staring back. When he smirked, it was a knife’s edge. That was what he wanted; that was who he wished to be more than anything.

Beneath it all, he was many things. A liar, a cheat, the son of a whore, a whore himself, the bearer of Aubin’s Crest, Aelfric’s pawn, Rhea’s informant. But that was the beauty of what his mother taught him; with his mask on, he was whoever he wanted to be.

She’d been right. Sometimes, the world was dangerous, but she’d given him the gift of her paints to provide him the shield he needed. He pushed his chair away from the desk and opened the door, finding all three of his friends standing around, Balthus leant against the opposite wall, Hapi mid-stretch, and Constance mid-yawn.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said.

Aelfric’s time would come. Like the lily-in-the-valley, Yuri was as dangerous as he was beautiful. As soon as he had his way out, he would take it, his mother’s shield guarding him the entire way.

But for now, he would bide his time. It was on his side, after all.

#fire emblem three houses #yuri (fire emblem)#character study #fe3h #fire emblem #My Writing #it's me raven sweeping in and dropping a fic before vanishing again for the next seven months

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kierongillen · 5 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the DIvine 42

Spoilers, obv.

Probably time for the periodic reminder that these notes are an assorted of random thoughts, and any attempt to take anything I describe herein as the sole reason we did anything is a mistake. I would hope by this stage of WicDiv we should recognise that, in that it's one of the book's major themes – as in, Be Careful When Jumping To Conclusions From Limited Information, but it's worth stressing. I was talking to a friend, and the idea came up that when the whole thing is over, to do a whole OTHER set of writer notes about the writer notes. As in, "Now this is all over, I can actually talk about some of the things I wasn't talking about at this stage." As we step towards the end, more of that big picture stuff is going to creep in. Not yet though – when thinking of this issue, I thought "Shall I write this?" and realised it still is too early.

I will be glad when this is done, for many reasons, but being able to just talk freely is one of them. I also suspect I won't be doing a huge amount of that. DIE has no writers notes per se, and that's the direction I'm heading.

Anyway - "Okay" is six issues, but the last issue is an epilogue. That means the arc is actually five issues, and this is its mid-point. It's also one of those issues where when after I wrote it I realised that the dovetailing material had created an unusually prominent thematic backbone. Last time I can think of one as strong would be issue 31, where the concept of Theft just percolated it. This is even strong.

This is an issue primarily about masculinity and the men in the story. Two of those men die. One man reaches the key turning point. Two other men have clearly key beats. This is rare in WicDiv, where the women tend to be at the centre of the plot.

Jamie/Matt's Cover: Which makes the cover being this somewhat pointed. Brunhilde, smeared in blood. All our covers are inspired by something inside the issue, and someone in it. This is in the tradition of issue 10's cover, which promises something obliquely.

Vanesa Del Rey's Cover: I love Vanesa's work – do read Redlands – so getting her to do a full-witchy Norns made a lot of sense.

Page 1

One page scene, which is telling. As the solicits put it "I just read the synopsis for this issue and gaped. We’re actually going to do all this in an issue? That AND that AND that? Honestly, this last arc really is going for it." When writing that, it was a question I clearly asked myself. How can I get all this in? Any one of the three set-pieces is probably enough drama for an issue, but they structurally speaking have to be here.

As each key scene is so big we give them as much space as possible, so everything else is crunched down. The scene structure is 1-5-1-6-1-4-3. And the last two scenes could really be read as 1-1-5 in terms of what the pages are doing – or maybe 1-1.5-4.5.. Each of the big stories actually get five pages – the 6 is actually 5 pages of page budget.

Anyway – TIGHT!

As the antagonists were missing from last issue, we catch up with them here, giving Baal a key baal image of standing on top of the shard. Look what Jamie does with the verticality of that first panel. Even on a five panel page, it feels big.

Matt's using a purple palette her – which is the Inanna palette that Baal turns to occasionally, for obvious reasons.

Still – even with a one page scene, we get two silent panels, plus the WicDivian use of mobile phone read out. I'll miss working with this team. It's easy to see what we do in the set-pieces, but it's the basic work which is a delight.

First of Jamie's strong expressions at the end of the page.

Christ. This much words on the first page. I'll cut down.

Page 2

Bible quote from John, subverted. I often think of these kind of truisms like that. The whole "What does not kill you only weakens you for final inevitable collapse" kind of thing.

Page 3-7

PoV shot to keep the reveal of the Creature for the page turn, leaving room for Jamie's quiet acting. I like trying to keep these kind of scenes quite low key, to ground the fantasy of it. What would you do when seeing something like the Creature? What would you do after five minutes of exposure?

The PoV hopefully reminds people of when we've seen this before – as in, Minerva. The Captions re-set the stakes, and adds more specific information. Clearly we could have said the "we need him on our side or not alive" at the end of last issue, but that would have complicated things, especially as it's a story route we're not going down here.

The heads thing is my biggest lampshading of the key thing in this arc – as in, not everyone knows everything, and the holes in the knowledge is significant. Trying to remember who knows what and when is one of the many challenges.

In terms of "this is everything I've ever loved" the visual reference I gave Jamie was the people entombed and dismembered in Aliens. The 2 panel reveal is a standard thing we've done since Phonogram. As I've said before, I quite like having a response next to an image rather than on the next page.

The catch up is a necessary paraphrase of the specials, including a little extra information. This arc features quite a bit of this (next issue especially) in terms of making concrete things which readers may not actually work out. There's stuff which I don't explain – but the 1831-Inanna-was-not-a-god would very much be among them. As I've also said before, I've always been interested in which things actually make people theorise and which don't, and I never saw anyone question that element of 1831 – I suspect a re-reading of 1831 the tells are clear.

(Her grasping that necklace in most of the scenes is one of the more subtle ones, but when you realise that she's not telling you a key fact, it's very much the sister issue to Woden's 14 in "When you know what the narrator is not telling you, it all changes." That her own transformation is completely skirted over is a huge absence.)

To state the obvious, the Why Some Bits Of 1921 Had To Be In Prose may also be clear now. If we'd shown the Zeitgeist, you'd have known who she was.

I love what Jamie did with the Metropolis-inspired element of the design on her on the wall.

Page 6 has another of "The characters know different stuff, so we have to be true to the characters, and then avert the derailment" captions.

Jamie has to work overtime in this whole sequence, of course – Baal's realisation of the awful horror of what he's done is happening at the same time as an information download. That the information download is what hits Baal ties it together, but does mean these are dense panel layouts. Jamie's choice of moments. The expression in the last page of 6 just kills me.

The last page of the sequence is just horrible. There is a lot of horrible in this issue.

Page 8

And the second of the one-page scenes. I originally had Mimir go up to the surface to make the call, but remembered I'd already established at least 3G coverage in the underground.

Let us applaud Jamie's design for the jury-rigged Mimir phone for a second, and the expression as he sends, and the shot as he walks back. There's a lot here.

Yes, I'm aware that it's a little strange that we get the heads free again (and three with bodies) and this is the only action by them in the next issue is this. They'll have their time soon enough.

This is another heartbreaker. Dominoes falling.

Page 9

Reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths, the 1980s DC event which basically formalised the modern crossover

Page 10-15

Another tightly packed scene, but also one I knew we needed space on. Abstractly the first two pages could be a single page. In fact, in terms of page budget, they are. We're using repeats (and tiny tweaks) on panels to extend a moment, so we give Woden the appropriate amount of time to actually think this through. Woden's mask has been a major boon for such trickery, and this scene wouldn't have played nearly as well. Note how we turn to a rigid grid to ensure this actually works.

There's a lot of great expressions in this issue, but Minerva's "It's a name as good as any" is an under-rated one. The soft change from "be"ing Mini to "be"ing Ananke.

Page 12 reveal of the Valk's teleporting in the sort of colouring rush I want to stand up and applaud for.

Minerva's explanation to Woden is another thing we're doing this arc – as in REALLY making explicit things which the reader has been 100% shown already, and may have missed. (We've seen Minerva appear out of nowhere twice. We see that she has the same memories – she knows the number to call to contact Ananke. We've seen they don't share a consciousness because she has to phone to tell Ananke where she is when she arrives in 2013, etc) but it's such key stuff to the understanding of the story that it's important to state it outright.

Anyway, Woden's fucked. It's been a long time coming, and he gets consumed by his hamartia. It's not the cleanest example of it, but it's there. He had several chances to back out of this, but at the end, he still is trying to treat other people like objects to further his own needs.

The Maened death sequence connected to the hive mind was set up all he way back in issue 8, of course. There is a lot that's horrible here – the revenge against Woden is hollow. The Valkyries are still being used as tools, after all.

Still... that at this late stage that Minerva, for all her obvious monstrosity, can still get a fist-pump moment from the readers for killing another character is a sign of how loathsome a certain other character is.

Minerva provides the back quote here too. "I am oh so bored of men like you." Rarely has a quote fit an issue as well, I suspect.

I do wonder how long I would have stretched out the death sequence given more space. Probably for the best- this is metronomic, clinical, and horrible. The use of the grid and the hard cuts sort of reminds me of some of the dance-beat stuff we did.

Page 16

Another one page scene, and definitely one I'd have given more time to in another issue... but that moment with Baal and his family and him being seen was absolutely essential. Once again, Jamie does a lot with six panels – the thing one of Baal's expression in panel 5 is a hell of a thing. Laura's captions also do the heavy lifting connecting the scenes. This is a mode I'm more using over in DIE.

The middle panel is interesting for Jamie's choices – very wide, to show the fight scene in almost scrolling fighter way, but still giving space to see Laura and Cass arrive. There is a LOT here. Compare and contrast with the previous panel, which gives the more traditional comics action shot, used in a stealth mode. Jamie is very good here.

Page 17-20

Back in the underworld. Panel swap from the blues and whites of the previous page to the warm reds. In some ways, 17 could be seen as one of those one page scenes. This is Baal and Inanna. What can I say? No more than Baal can, clearly.

18 is the last elements of set up for next issue, but is also clearly setting up the end of the issue. The "Ever" from Nergal is obviously loaded – it's a Now Or Never.

"Faces are remaining distinctly unkicked." Oh, Lucifer, I missed you so.

The "It's gone midnight" bit from Cass on 19 is something I suspect I'll cut for the trade – it's an artefact from me trying to overexplain something. Reminding people of the failsafe from Imperial Phase is enough.

19 also is one of my favourite beats, in that it's not part of WicDiv's planned structure, and just listening to the characters. Of course, Cass would say something inappropriate about Woden's death. Of course, Mimir would be heartbroken. And, of course, Cass would realise. Being better is hard. Cass's "I'm so sorry" is an amazing panel from Jamie. I've been there.

20 is tightly wound too – I could have given more space, at the expense of the next scene. In the end, I decided this was the right way to go. I haven't changed my mind.

In the original draft Cass's last line was "Oh fuck." After Baal's line, it seemed too much... and you always know things are going badly when Cass doesn't swear.

Page 23

Reference to Satre's perhaps most famous line.

Page 24-26

Nine panel grid, back again. It's taken a late period WicDiv life of its own, right?

There's little I can say about this – partially as I don't want to, partially because it's still too early. It's the sort of thing I may talk about in issue 44's notes.

It's a slow motion showcase of Jamie's acting. I'd never write this for almost anyone else. This is as real a sacrifice as we can get, and the longer we spend with the moment, the realer it is, but only if it's grounded visually.

Baph's own story was about his fear of death. He's the character who tried to kill other people to scramble out of this. He's come to a place where he does this. Normally WicDiv gods are consumed by their hamartia. I believe Baph is the first who actually overcome his. This scene breaks my heart.

(This Corrosion just turned up in shuffle, and the like a healing hand howl is a bit too close to the bone.)

Last page is astounding. Not a way I'd have pictured it in a million years.

Page 27

I believe uniquely for WicDiv, this is a continuing interstitial. As in, a response to the previous one. Issue 43 is going to be late, for the health reasons I describe at the back of the issue. It's at the printers now.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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cassianjerons · 5 years

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fandom compliment 💕

so since today is the birthday of one of my favorite people on this hellish website and they decided to help host a fandom compliment day in honour of it - because that’s the kind of wonderful and thoughtful human rust is - i am going to attempt to do them justice by sending some kind words to all the wonderful people who shaped my fandom experience over the past two and a half years in all kinds of beautiful, thoughtful, hilarious and amazing ways.

i never made some overdramatic “i am leaving the fandom” post, because for one that’s not me, but also because i might have been able to quit the show, but i don’t have any interest in quitting on the people. and this feels far more productive anyway.

oh, and if you hadn’t realised yet, hello again, it’s the artist formerly known as @vicbartons! so let’s do this thing:

(under a cut, because this is going to get really long and quite possibly soppy)

(also go and send rust @rustandruin some love for their birthday while you’re at it, because they deserve it)

@aarobron lucy! my football buddy! seriously, if you happen to have sold your soul to a football club like the two of us have, lucy is the one you want to talk to about it. but aside from the fact that this girl is a wealth of football knowledge, she also happens to be hilarious and smart and passionate, which makes her a freaking joy to talk to at all times.

@aarondingel haley is an absolute angel of a human who is full of love and support for the people she cares about. she’s thoughtful and kind and there is no one else in this world i would rather vehemently disagree about fiction with than her. bantering, chatting and laughing with her has been one of my favourite things about being part of this fandom and let’s not forget about how she always fills my dashboard with all kinds of gorgeous gifs.

@aceliv rhia has the kindest soul and the biggest heart and never fails to brighten up my dashboard with her positive energy, which is worth a hole damn lot on an average day, but even more so in a fandom that at times tends to drown in negativity and upset.

@bartsugsy this fandom and i personally would be so much poorer if it weren’t for lo’s wit and humour and her talent at boiling everything we love about emmerdale and robron into perfect text posts. her blog is always a joy to read and at the end of the day that is down to what a wonderful, thoughtful, kind and caring gem of a human lo is.

@capseycartwright lorna is honestly an inspiration in about a hundred different ways and seeing her learn and grow and achieve her goals over the past few years from afar has been absolutely wonderful. she’s smart and thoughtful and witty and compassionate. honestly, lorna comes across as the type of person, who you hope to run into when you're sad and drunk in a club bathroom because there is no doubt in my mind that she would have tissues and good advice at hand for you before calling you a taxi. and don’t even get me started on how freaking talented of a writer she is.

@charitydingle kayleigh is cool and witty and fun and kind and just a joy to follow. also, she loves charity and everyone who does is a goodun in my book.

@dingleminyard so. much. freaking. talent. all of coralie’s gifs and edits are art and we’re lucky to have her around.

@dingletragedy sophie! quite possibly my mutual with the best taste in music? maybe so. chatting with her is always a blast because she’s not only witty and lovely but also incredibly talented and being able to follow along as she started dipping her toes into writing over the past few months has been an absolute joy, especially because of how brilliant she is at it. and not to get too soppy on main, but after seeing her struggle every now and again in the past but also work so damn hard, i just hope that she is at least as proud of herself for graduating uni at the moment as i was when i saw that pic of her and her flipping finished dissertation this past week.

@escapingreality51 amelia is an inspiration tbh. seeing her struggle with her mental health and bad brain days but always getting back up again, fighting, and turning her feelings and experiences into some of the most emotional, heart-felt, real and beautiful writing i have ever seen is incredible and i hope that she is incredibly proud of herself for all of it. seeing her grow and achieve her goals has been the most gorgeous side product of following her blog, though just having her kind, calm and caring presence on my dashboard would already have been enough. she’s the kind of person i would never hesitate to come to with a problem. she’s also the kind of person to write fanfiction that will make you want to fall in bone-shaking, devastating, can’t keep your heartbeat under control kinda love.

@forgottenwounds there are few people on this site i have talked to as much over the past two years as erin and i wouldn’t want it any other way. discussing things with her never failed to make fandom more fun to me and because she’s not only fun and a sucker for details, but also incredibly smart and opinionated in the best of ways, i rarely leave our conversations without feeling a little bit smarter than before or having gained a new perspective on things and it’s the absolute best. she also happens to be a badass at work, putting in tons of love and effort and time into making the word a bit of a better place and i respect the hell out of her for it.

@frecklysugden lauren is kind and funny and caring and i wish she would wake up every morning seeing herself the way i and so many others see her, because she is a ray of sunshine and smarts and wittiness and deserves to take on the world and make it her own. she also happens to be able to write stories that will feel like a punch to your gut in all the best and worst ways and have you crying happy or sad tears into your pillow at two in the morning, because you just couldn’t resist clicking that “next chapter” button just one last time before going to bed. also, sidenote: quality taste in music. that feels a bit tagged on now after all the soppy stuff, but it needed to be said.

@inloveamateursatbest claudia has great taste in tv. let’s start with that, because that is what has lead me to have some of the best, most thoughtful and most fun conversations on this hellsite with her. just talking to her about stuff often makes me feel a little bit smarter and there is no one i would rather scream about skinny, blonde, nightmarish male characters who are hiding a massive heart under layers and layers of insecurities and issues with than her. that aside, she also happens to be an incredibly kind and thoughtful human, with a heart full of wit and gold. what more could you really ask for?

@inthedreamatorium keri and i have sadly never talked much, but she is just one of those hilarious, warm and wonderful presences on my dashboard that i don’t want to imagine my tumblr experience without.

@josephtate the first thing i think about when i think of fiona, is how her fics always manage to feel like a hug or cuddling up under the covers with some tea and a good book, all warm and soft and homely. and it’s the most beautiful. she also happens to be way cooler than i could ever hope to be and just a really kind, lovely, talented human with a wicked taste in music and food.

@justleavemebreathless the gifs! the video edits!! how can a single human be this freaking talented?? and then she also has the biggest heart and is this supportive and positive and lovely?? sounds fake, but it’s not and this fandom is better for having jacqueline in it.

@lesgayliennesdangereuses kate always feels like one of those really rare “best of both worlds” kinda humans. quick-witted and sharp-tongued, but also incredibly kind and thoughtful. critical and intelligent, but also passionate and hilarious. she doesn’t take shit, but still always shows compassion and heart. basically, she is the kind of person who can go back and forth between shitposts about robert and aaron’s horrible fashion choices and thoughtful, educational posts about social justice issues or sexuality with an ease that’s impressive and wonderful.

@letthe3000rain the blog where sarcasm and not taking shit from dumb anons were born. everyone should have a blue on their dashboard as a palette cleanser from all the insanity of fandom and as a witty voice of reason that reminds you that some things maybe shouldn’t be taken so damn seriously. also to excessively discuss the affair era, because that ish is important.

@littlelooneyluna nicole is an absolute wizard with words! the emotions she can pull out of you with just a few lines of dialogue is not only astonishing and wonderful but also an inspiration to everyone who’s ever tried their hand at writing themselves. and that’s before you even touch on the fact that she is one of the kindest souls around, never shy to compliment and support anyone who might need it.

@longlivethefreakinme camille is a funny and supportive angel of a human and i wouldn’t want to imagine my fandom experience without her in it. last but not least, because she shares my love for robert and victoria’s relationship and her blog is always one of the best places to go to for anyone in dire need of a good affair era fix. especially when she stumbles down an emotional rabbit hole again and takes you right down with her in the best way.

@luststricken hannah is an absolute babe, with a plus taste, who makes my fandom experience better just by existing. she’s a wonderful ray of sunshine who fills your dashboard with quality gifs as well as the perfect mix of positive attitude and banter. that and we all need a friend who supports our irrational hatred of a certain adele song that everyone else is weirdly obsessed with, even though it’s overplayed and she has literally dozens of better ones in her repertoire, you know?

@prettyboysugden lucy knows what she’s about and i respect the hell out of her for it. she stands her ground no matter what, but beyond that, she has an incredibly big heart and a kind soul and if that’s not the perfect mix i don’t know what is. oh, and have we talked about her damn writing yet? because dear god, it’s gorgeous.

@robertisbisexual malorie is as outspoken and true to herself as i can only hope to be on my very best days and it impresses the hell out of me tbh. smart and witty and a force of nature, she’s the kind of person you want on your dashboard when everything and everyone around you seems to be drifting off into bullshit territory once again. nevertheless, mal never fails to be kind and thoughtful and considerate. oh, and because all of that apparently wasn’t already enough, she’s one hell of a writer as well. (she’s also a demon who loves to torture me personally with pictures of a certain freakish looking taxidermy faux pas, but i love her anyway.)

@robertjacobsugdens i have rarely met someone on here who was as well-spoken and thoughtful and just astonishingly smart as alex is. when alex takes on a topic of discussion, you can be sure that she isn’t going to half-arse things, but that instead she will show you a different perspective or teach you something you didn’t know before or maybe get you to look up a thing or two on wikipedia, because hearing her talk about things and issues she cares about makes you want to know more about them as well. aside of that, she also happens to be incredibly funny and witty and one hell of a writer. like, dear god, you do not want to know the number of times i have reread each and every one of her AUs…

@sapphicsugden siri always inspires me to try and be a better writer. that’s the first thing that comes to my mind when i think of her, because she is just that ridiculously talented. the way her writing takes you on an emotional journey with every carefully chosen word and phrase is mind-blowing and wonderful and deserves to be screamed at from rooftops tbh. but beyond that, siri is one of the most supportive, intelligent and kind-hearted people i have had the pleasure to meet on this website.

@smittenwithsugden first of all, happiest of birthdays, pauline! i hope it’s an amazing one. now on to the compliments. pauline’s was one of the first emmerdale blogs i stumbled upon and also one of the first fanfic writer’s whose work i read, so i should just take a second to thank her for introducing me to this wonderful mess in the first place. in a lot of ways, she also feels like one of the fandom’s mums. she is the queen of organisation: translating clips, keeping track of directors and writers, planning events left and right and spreading positivity and love while she is at it. her blog is just this wealth of information and support and it’s a gift!

@sugdensquad millie is the person in this fandom who got me into reading wips. who had me desperately waiting for a new update the second i had finished her latest chapter of fic. who dragged me deep into her stories with her insane ability to slowly build a narrative and dig deep with characters and the way she takes all the things you love from canon and somehow manages to make them so much more. who had me reading tens of thousands of words in a single evening when it had been months since i’d last managed to actually finish a book. because that’s how talented she is. and on top of that she also happened to be a wonderful bean when i got talking to her much later on. 1000/10. would recommend.

@thesnowyswan rae has the most supportive and loving energy around. she’s also unafraid to dig deeper and tackle big questions and issues and reading her takes on things, be it through the lens of her fanfic (and goddamnit she is one hell of her writer and reading her work never fails to inspire me) or in her posts always gets me to think more deeply about stuff myself and see things from a new perspective, and i appreciate the hell out of her for that. she’s the kind of person i would always trust to go to for advice, knowing that i would be getting a thoughtful, kind and compassionate answer no matter the issue.

@wycombewanderer husna feels like a breath of fresh air amidst fandom craziness. the way she always comes across as calm and collected and eloquently speaks on all kinds of issues and topics and never fails to teach me a thing or two on the way is not only impressive but also something i massively appreciate. beyond that, she also just has a genuine, warm and kind energy about her that makes my fandom experience far more enjoyable than it would be without her around.

#robron fandom compliment day 2019 #look at me getting over my tagging people anxiety #to make this happen #(also i wrote most of this on my phone so pls excuse any and all typos)#(also i probably forgot a bunch of people and i am very sorry i love ya)

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of-hell-and-hyacinths · 5 years

Text

bella and drew headcanons

there are dedicated to @skate-fast-eat-grass and i literally can’t think of anyone else following me who would read them so

also i do not own bella swarchovski she belongs to madelyn!!

- at first, it takes them a while to get together because drew tanaka is oblivious when it comes to her own love life.

- and bella swarchovski is just an overall dumbass (but i say that with love).

- drew doesn’t realise that bella actually returns her feelings and has been trying to flirt with her for the past month so she thinks it’s all unrequited.

- she kind of thinks “bella wouldn’t like me because all of the things i’ve done in the past, how i treated my siblings, how i acted after the war, etc. bella’s never done any of that, she deserves somebody who hasn’t fucked so many things up.”

- and obviously, bella knows what drew has done in the past but she likes drew for who she’s become and admires the progress in her as a person.

- after they get together, those insecurities never fully vanish, but they just come up later on when drew is in an emotional shitstorm.

- for dates they love going to new places to try out food (ice cream especially) and then taking five billion photos.

- they also love going to theme parks! both of them are adrenaline junkies and go on the scariest/wildest rides and it gives everybody a headache.

- also going to musicals and movies?? they’re dramatic people who can sing what do you expect.

- (they’ve watched love, simon three times don’t @ me)

- both bella and drew look amazing in red.

- so they always always always wear red on dates. it’s just a tradition and they refuse to break it.

- drew adores her girlfriend but sometimes bella says the stupidest shit at really inconvenient times.

- bella, in the middle of a conversation about conputer programming: all kins of the same character are clones

drew: i love you but shut the fuck up

- they have a codeword for whenever one of them is feelings uncomfortable/anxious/stressed and needs to get away.

- the codeword is jacob sartorious (i know that’s a name and technically two words let me live)

- okay look the backstory behind it was they were trying to find the perfect word while simultaneously having an argument about heathers and bella said something like “edward if you keep this up i’m leaving you for jacob” (all in good humour, drew knows she’s joking) and drew said “wait our codeword should be jacob”

- however they didn’t know jacob from twilight’s last name so jacob sartorious as if in the musical.ly star would have to do.

- drew has discovered that playing with bella’s hair calms bella down.

- she found this out after the infirmary was really crowded and there was a lot on bella’s schedule and she was missing her mortal family so bella kind of disappeared for an hour and went m.i.a.

- her friends and family panicked for a little while because they had no idea where she was, but drew found her sitting in the strawberry fields, still slightly shaking.

- she just let bella vent for as long as she needed to. instead of talking, she started a braid in bella’s hair and realised with a start that it was calming her down.

- drew is bella’s stability in times of stress.

- since drew breaks down more often than she’d like to admit, bella is always there. she’ll stay up with drew all night, just talking and reassuring her. she reassured drew that she’s not selfish, she’s not a stuck-up bitch, she’s not emotionless, she’s not cold-hearted. she loves drew for who she’s become. she loves the best bits and the messy bits about her.

- bella is drew’s comfort in times of insecurity.

- they bring out the softer side of each other.

- even though drew has matured drastically since the whole silena thing, there are still some people who peg her as heartless.

- but they haven’t seen the fond look on her face when bella falls asleep on her shoulder mid-movie.

- they haven’t seen the way she blushes profusely every time bella winks over at her from across the dining pavilion.

- they haven’t seen the bags under her eyes when drew stays up all night to finish weaving bracelets for herself and bella. nor have they seen the way she smiles brightly when bella launches herself into drew’s arms with bright eyes and a burning throat and says she absolutely loves it.

- anyway, bella is ready to physically fight anybody who says one bad word about her girlfriend (despite the fact that she’s like five feet tall — bella is strong)

- drew can hold her own though it’s all good and she’s heard those same insults millions of times before to the point where it doesn’t even faze her.

- their height difference is massive, bella being a five foot gremlin and drew being six feet tall.

- it pisses bella off so fucking much.

- she’ll also never admit it, but the height difference feels nice when they hug. she likes burying her face in drew’s shoulder.

- bella, ogling the kid’s toys section in ikea: i’m marrying lola the plush piranha sorry drew you’ve been replaced

drew, not looking away from the stuffed sharks: how tragic

- once bella stole drew’s leather jacket and if anybody else did that? instant death.

- drew just stared at her for a second and felt her heart melt and her face heat up.

- in case you were wondering, bella kept the jacket. it’s underneath her bunk.

- bella always buys cherry-flavoured everything whenever she’s at home during the school year, because it reminds her of drew.

- sometimes it’s hard having a long-distance relationship during the school year, and sometimes they call each other during the night wanting nothing more than to be face-to-face, but they make it work.

- drew doesn’t give two shits about bass guitars and how they work or the different brands, but she’ll listen to bella ramble on about them for hours just because she loves watching her face light up and the sound of bella’s voice and the passion in her eyes.

- bella literally couldn’t care less about different makeup palettes and how to apply them and the different techniques, but she’ll sit down in the aphrodite cabins for hours straight to let drew practice on her and try out new looks just because she loves watching drew concentrate so heavily on something and the grin on her girlfriend’s face at the end is always worth it.

- wholesome memes are always sent between them, and they usually have wholesome meme-offs.

- however sometimes bella sends surreal memes just because and drew always says “guess i’m not edward cullen kin after all”

- for halloween they once went as bella swan and edward cullen. you know it’s true.

- they also went as marceline and princess bubblegum from adventure time because they have class.

- drew has an album on her phone called “bella” and bella has album on her phone called “drew” and you can probably guess that it’s just photos of each other.

- occasionally will or adrien will crash their dates.

- sometimes it’s annoying, but neither of them are really mad.

- oh adrien never misses anything he’s always there with binoculars watching them

- drew: the stars are beautiful tonight

bella: yeah

drew: you know what else is beautiful?

bella: what?

drew: me

bella, whispering: damn straight

adrien, yelling from across the roof of the aphrodite cabin: nothing about that was fucking straight

- bella: so how’s the most beautiful person in the world doing?

drew: i don’t know, how are yo—

adrien, across the room: he’s doing great, thanks

- also on to more important matters:

- stephan the demon baby.

- his full name is stephan swartanaka (last name courtesy of will)

- his middle name changes a lot solely to piss everybody off.

- some of the most notable middle names are:

- k’atté (pronounced cat)

- uwu

- beatrixareforkids

- shit

- crispy

- they hired adrien as a babysitter once while they played monopoly and it just ended with adrien yeeting stephan into the lake.

- stephan made it out alive but they didn’t give adrien a tip.

- adrien swears stephan is possessed.

- well he’s technically haunted but they can’t be bothered doing anything about it

anyway i hope those were okay i love bella and drew <3

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saturnphasing-blog · 6 years

Text

Restless Compromise

Word Count: 3,112

Characters: Alegría Herrera, Everett Lakey, Tom Holland

Warnings: none

A/N: I have 24.6K words of this story, SOOOOO

Part Two

You set your alarm at 5:30 A.M. and at that time you woke up, you were glad you set your alarm so early since you hated getting up in the morning. You turned on music on your phone, hoping you'd be able to hear it from the kitchen. The coffee brewer gave off little exhales of vapor, filling your kitchen with the lovely smell of morning coffee. As it brewed, you took a shower, you closed your eyes as the warm water hit your face and cascaded down your body. You lathered on Dove soap on your shoulders, appreciating the blossom smell it left on your skin. Your hair was bubbly with Pantene Curl Perfection conditioner. After shutting off the water and wrapping the towel around your body, you poured coffee into a cup, and took it to your room. The time was 6:03 A.M., you'd do your makeup, choose an outfit. You got your Morphe 35W palette and mixed the orange with one of the light browns on your crease, cleaning your eyelid with your concealer to add a lighter shade in the middle, as well as some glitter. You squinted your eyes, took a deep inhale, and carefully drew a slightly diagonal line from the outer corner of your eye moving away from your eye. You examined the line, exhaled and drew another line connecting at the end of the previous line, this time moving towards your eye again. You filled in the spaces with black liquid, and continued to fix and tweak your first wing. When you finished, you let out a heavy sigh, making the other wing match was near impossible. You held your breath while you drew a line from the outer corner towards your eyebrow, you looked at both of your eyes, close enough. You repeated the cycle from earlier, your left eye always looked slightly off as it was just smaller and more hooded than your right eye. After the tedious process of drawing on your winged eyeliner, you curled your lashes and applied a very thin layer of Elf 3-in-1 mascara. You dabbed a little bit of a tan glimmery shade on your inner corners and smiled at your reflection. Your makeup looked presentable at least. You took a swig of coffee, savoring the bitter milkiness of it all. You looked at the half-full cup tentatively, “why not?” You grinned and chugged what was left. Little misbehaviours made your life a little sweeter. You repeated your little dressing ritual, staring into the mortal eyes of your clothes to decide what was appropriate. "Hey Everett, this is Alegría Herrera. Is there a dress code I'm supposed to follow?" you hit send, crossing your fingers that he would reply soon. You picked out some outfits that included black jeans ripped at the knee with an yellow off the shoulder shirt, a high waisted denim shirt with a flowy pink shirt, and a pair of mom jeans and a large blue shirt that would go tucked in. "No dress code, but maybe save the swimsuit for a beach outing," he replied. You smiled a little, "oh that sucks! I couldn't wait any longer to wear my bright pink bikini!!!!" you hit send and threw your phone on the bed. You settled with the black jeans and yellow shirt combo, you'd put on some trendy pink high heels. You checked the time, 6: 36 A.M., you figured you better be on your way. In the car you listened to the first Shawn Mendes album, Handwritten, mouthing the words to every single song that came on. Your fingers gripped onto the steering wheel, while your index finger tapped to the beat. You kept an eye on the clock, it'd be a real red flag if you were late on your first day. You parked in the same spot you had the day before, you sat in your car, taking short but deep inhales to calm your nerves. You checked your makeup and hair in the rearview mirror, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You were a few minutes early, so you took the time you had to refresh emails in case of any incoming inboxes. You jumped when two taps made a clink noise on the window beside your face. Everett was waving with a big innocent smile plastered on his tanned face, you gave him a furrow-browed look and then returned the smile as you stuffed your phone into your bag along with your car keys. He opened the door for you and sneered at you, you assumed for your reaction to a tiny tap. "Very funny Everett, very funny," you held back from sticking your tongue at him, thinking it was too soon to open with such infantile behaviors. "Where's the bright pink bikini I was promised?" he joked and walked beside you. "Out of luck, put it in the wash and it turned blue," you joked back. It was almost ridiculous how this random 21 year old was quickly turning into your best friend. "Are you ready for a day of fun Herrera?" he led you into the building. "Absolutely, I'm actually very excited for my first day," you smiled, hiding small amounts of panic. "You will be tending Tom for the first part of the day, he'll be here in about an hour or so. Before he gets here though," he wiggled his brows suggestively, eliciting a giggle from you. He handed you a binder, it wasn't huge like your old Chemistry binder, but it also wasn't a small folder. You paged through it, taking in all the numbers, letters, @ symbols, and more. "I'm guessing this is going to be my saving grace?" your eyes dashed up to meet his face. "Pretty much a Bible," he nodded. "Is there anything I need to know about Mr. Holland? Should I be open to conversation, should I be a little more reserved?" you analyzed Everett's expressions for hints. "He's a pretty okay dude, he'll open polite conversation, and he'll respect your work. I haven't actually worked with him before, but I have heard from others that have. You'll be in good hands," he explained, his words calmed your nerves a bit. "That's great, I mean, really great," you bit your bottom lip in relief as you paged through the binder. Everett's phone beeped, and he huffed reading whatever notification he had gotten. "I need to be on my way now, we'll catch up later though," he smiled and walked out of the building. You felt the knot in your stomach tighten, you grew intensely self aware. You remained standing, aware of how awkward you must look in your focused stance. You balanced the binder on your right arm while paging with your left hand, trying to remember some of the basics at least. After a few more awkward moments, you took a look around and sat on a stiff white couch, crossing your right leg over your left. You straightened your back as you read over page one, adding every number, email, and reminder that was suggested to your phone. There was no specific instructions that followed a schedule, except for when to get there, there was no clocking out time either. Everyday would be something new, as everybody does different things every single day, that made sense. You snuck into a deserted office and took a highlighter, then you sat back on the couch. You highlighted important dates, emergency phone numbers, and names of people you had to remember. You must've lost track of time because you jumped and gasped when you heard someone call out for you. "So sorry!" you apologized as you raced to close then binder and stand up. "It's okay Alegría," Tom Holland's smiling face met your gaze. "I should've kept an eye out on the time, Everett said you'd be here soon. What can I help you with Mr. Holland?" you held yourself back from hitting yourself on the head from how borderline pathetic you sounded. "Tom, please. First off I'd like to thank you for taking on this job, I'll try to make it as not tedious as I can," his accent shone through the most in a few words, but you tried not to pay much attention to it. "Mr. Holland, my job is to do everything and anything you ask me to, I'm very excited to be working for you," you smiled politely, your fingers fidgeting with the cover of the binder. "That's great, but please call me Tom," his lips formed into a tiny pout, and you offered a genuine smile, dipping your head a little. "I can't make any promises Mr. Holland, I'm here to work for you," you gave him a small nod, "we should get started, yeah?" He gave you an understanding nod, "first we have to go and run my schedule with Harrison- have you met Haz?" the name sounded familiar, but you shook your head. "I'll introduce you to him, he's my best friend," he motioned his hand in the direction you were meant to start moving in. There was another outside area you didn't even know about, even after the lengthy tour you had taken the day before. There were trailers clustered everywhere, this was probably what Everett meant when he said he'd try to get you a trailer, it did seem more convenient. "That's my trailer over there, that's Hemsworth's, and that's Pratt's, Harrison's usually in my trailer," you followed his lead, trying to take in all the information he was so excitedly blabbering out. He opened the door, taking you by surprise since he didn't knock, but you remembered it was his trailer after all. "Come on in," he smiled holding the door open for you. "I'll wait out here," you declined, hoping not to seem too standoffish, but it did make you particularly nervous to go into the trailer with a guy you had just met yesterday. There was nothing about him that gave off a dangerous vibe, but you figured it'd be better if you just waited. "Sure," he looked at your eyes for a speed second before disappearing behind the metal door of the enclosure. You took a long around, it was still early, 9:15 to be exact, so the morning chirping of birds filled the air accompanied with the angry honks of cars in the distance. You shifted your weight from your heels to your toes in an anxious pattern, waiting patiently for Tom and his best friend to come out of the trailer. Maybe 3 minutes later the door flung open, and you prepared your best courteous smile for the new faces. "This is Harrison Osterfield, we just call him Haz, or at least I do," Tom motioned for the slightly blonder boy to come forward. They were both nowhere near not cute, but this was a professional setting, you had to keep yourself in line. "I'm Harrison, otherwise known as Haz or to some James," he smiled at you, two lines forming by his mouth. "Alegría Herrera," you extended your hand, a blush forming on your cheeks, you felt embarrassed at how brief you were. He shook your hand, his eyes never leaving yours. His eyes were a pale blue, Tom's were a soft brown. You took your hand away, not wanting it to linger for too long. "It's really nice to meet you Mr. Osterfield," you smiled courteously. Harrison and Tom exchanged a quick look, Tom smiled giggling a bit, he looked to the side. "Tom said you were formal, and a bit stubborn," Harrison explained. You felt embarrassed, and felt the need to be defensive. "I'm so sorry," you blushed, "I don't mean to be rude at all, or stubborn. I'm really just not accustomed to treating high position persons with anything other than the utmost respect," you cringed evidently at how pathetic your excuse was. "You're completely fine," Tom smiled empathetically, "it's quite funny, no one talks to us that way though." You gave him a quick nod, shuffling your right foot behind your left, keeping yourself balanced. "How old are you?" Harrison beamed, trying to make light conversation. "I'm 18, I'm starting college in August," you hoped that answer would suffice to break your formality. "You look younger," Tom replied, "only maybe a year. I'm 22, and Harrison is 21." You took a mental note of that information. "I have always been told I look younger, which is fine, I do think I look about 5 years old," you said since you always joked with your friends back home that you looked like a kindergartener. Both Harrison and Tom laughed at the joke you had forgotten was funny, you smiled looking at the ground. "So I heard a rumour, that I get to have you help me the whole day, can you confirm?" Tom asked you. "I believe that's true," you nodded at him, "should we get started with work?" Tom and Harrison exchanged another look. "Today it's mostly orientation, so I tell you what it will be like working with me, and you will tell me what it will be like working with you," he explained, his voice didn't have any edge to it. "Sounds good," you smiled at both of them. "And I will trudge around because I'm Harrison, and there is no one like me," Harrison grinned. Your phone vibrated, "sorry," you apologized and checked over the message you had received. "What time is your lunch break?" Everett was the one who had texted you. "Mr. Holland, do you know when lunch break is?" You looked up from your phone. "12:30," he replied. "12:30, why?" You replied and shut your phone off. "Should we begin orientation then?" you looked at the two young men standing in front of you. "Let's go," Harrison began walking, Tom sneered at him. "It's this way you idiot," he motioned straight ahead, you began walking, suppressing a laugh.

"So you aren't actually from the United States?" Tom questioned, his chin finding its place on his palm. "I'm glad my accent had you fooled," you smiled, hoping your real accent wouldn't shine through too much. "Mexico, that's a long way from here," Harrison broke into the conversation, "do you miss it?" You took a second to answer, "sometimes, well most of the time yes. Everything's different here, especially the people. I'm sure you see it too, being from the UK and all," you smiled at the ground. "Yeah, the people are more open to conversation on the street for sure, but I know what you mean about missing home," Tom nodded. "What do you miss the most?" Harrison was focused on knowing your story. "I think I miss my old life, not that I'm not grateful of everything I have now, but I guess I miss not doing things because of having to represent an entire group of people in the best way possible," you laughed a little to try to make the conversation lighter. Harrison and Tom walked in silence for a few minutes, you swallowed hard hating the fact that you might've made them uncomfortable with your deep response. "Is it hard?" Tom broke the silence. "What?" you glanced at him, he was looking straight ahead. "Having that much responsibility to carry since you were a child?" he stopped to look at you, you inhaled heavily. "I guess a little, but it's not anything I couldn't handle," you assured. "But, it's not really something everyone has to think about, do you ever think about that?" the brown eyed boy chimed. "I do, a lot, and I think about how different that would be. I don't know how much better it would be, since I've become so accustomed to it now, but I do think it would be very different," you looked at Tom's eyes, it was evening now and his eyes shimmered gold from the lighting, he could probably see gold in yours as well. "You think of it as a positive thing in your life?" Harrison looked at you, his brows were furrowed slightly. "I do, at least a mostly positive thing, it's shaped me into who I am today," you looked at your hands. "That's pretty fucking cool," Tom grinned at you. It made the moment feel less serious, you exchanged giggles.

"An hour and fifteen?" Harrison glared in disbelief, "why so far?" You smiled as you unlocked your car, feeling a little panicked that it was late. "It makes rent bearable," you shrugged, "it's not that bad of a drive." Tom stole your keys, "why don't you stay in my trailer for the night? It's so late now," his eyes showed no malice. "Mr. Holland, really, it's not a big deal," you tried to make the knot in your stomach disappear. "I'll crash at Harrison's trailer for the night, you'll have your space Alegría," he tilted his head to the side in a way that was so irresistible. "I can't take your offer, but really, thank you. You opened the door to your car, "keys please?" You put your hand up. He threw them at you, aiming for your hand. "Alright Ms. Herrera," Tom mocked, "we'll see you tomorrow?" he rest against your car. "Sure thing Mr. Thomas Holland," you smiled as you turned your key. "Have a safe drive," he stuck his head in, speaking softly. "Wouldn't do it any other way," you smiled and he closed the door, leaving you in the roaring silence of your car. It had been a good day, long and singular, but a very good day.

The drive back home was long, you were on edge the whole time, afraid of being pulled over at this time of night. Police don't have the best reputation around here. You were relieved when you got home, you took a long warm shower, replaying everything that happened in your mind. You had a lot to write in the binder, notes, more names, as well as write down Harrison's number in your phone to have him on speed dial. They were both sweet guys, they made you feel like you fit right in, even if you kind of didn't based on career, age, and even ethnicity. They weren't going to make your job hard for you, which was for sure something you could appreciate. "Goodnight Mr. Osterfield, thank you for the wonderful afternoon. Make sure to get sufficient sleep and a filling breakfast," you sent the message. You lingered over Tom's contact, but you decided it might be for the best if you just sent a message when you awoke

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denimwrites-archive · 6 years

Text

My Han Solo

Prompt: Request by @helplesshansen - “Could you do a jared x reader where everyone’s trying to set you two up but youve been secretly dating??“

Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen

Pairing: Jared Kleinman X Reader

Summary: The squad has had enough of your and Jared’s flirting and decide to set you up on a movie date and become frustrated when it doesn’t work. It’s probably because you’re already dating, but you don’t have to tell them that.

Word Count: 2,342

Warnings: Kind of implied sexy times? Very bad Star Wars references? language

A/N: I haven’t seen any of the new Star Wars movies, and I haven’t seen any of the classic ones for god knows how long (I know don’t kill me) so I left descriptions really vague, only making references to character nicknames and stuff. Also for the subjects/books I talk about I just used the stuff I learned in my senior classes cause it’s what I know. Thank you so much for the request, and I hope you like it!

~~~

“Hey there sexy, how was that English quiz? Want to help me study for it during lunch?” Jared asks walking up to you in the hallway. You roll your eyes as you put away your chemistry textbook, while Alana’s eyes widen next to you.

“You mean tell you what the questions are so you don’t fail? I don’t know, I kind of like to see you squirm.” You glance at him with a smirk. Jared lets out a whiny groan.

“(YYYY/NNNN), c’mon. I need to keep up my grades to keep my car.”

“Well then maybe you should actually study rather than look up those stupid pictures you’re always going on about,” Alana cuts in.

You point at her with a thankful nod, “She’s got a point, Kleinman. Memes are getting in the way of your education. It might be best to cut them out until you can find a good balance.”

Jared gasps in mock horror, placing a hand on his chest. “I can’t believe the words I’m hearing coming out of your mouth, (Y/N). I expect that kind of thing from Alana, but you? I thought you actually understood me!” He turns away with a huff, and takes a few steps as if he’s about to storm off. But he turns back around with an endearing look on his face. “You are actually going to help me though right?”

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you nod your head. Jared pumps his fist in the air. “Alright then babe, we can go over it during lunch. I’ll even buy. Mickey D’s okay? It better be, cause I’m broke. See you then!” And then Jared’s gone, disappearing down the hall.

Shaking your head, you turn back to your locker and grab your math textbook before closing the door and making your way down the hallway. “I don’t know how you put up with him,” Alana says, falling into step next to you.

“He’s Jared, we kind of have to put up with him.” Alana gives a small nod and you chuckle. Soon enough lunch rolls around and as you make your way to your friends’ table in the cafeteria you see them huddled together talking about something. But as you get closer, they seem to break up.

You raise a brow at them as you set down your stuff. Jared comes up behind you and sits next to you, McDonald’s in hand, “What were you nerds talking about?”

“I was just about to ask them the same thing,” you say looking at them suspiciously. Evan’s cheeks turn red, and he’s looking anywhere but at you two, while everyone else just sits there with ‘innocent’ looks on their faces. Turning to Evan you ask him, “Anything you want to say Ev?”

He just shakes his head at you, before concentrating on the lunch plate in front of him. Squinting at them all one more time, you then turn to Jared and start to talk about the English quiz that he didn’t attempt to study for. He gives you your McD’s order and you dig into some fries while going on about the parallels in The Poisonwood Bible.

As you explain, you keep snacking on fries, and eating the other food Jared brought. When your fries run out, you start to steal some from Jared’s section. Connor tries to steal one when Jared isn’t paying attention, but he immediately pulls them closer to himself. “Excuse me, Murphy, I know you weren’t just trying to take my fries. Right?”

“What the hell, Kleinman? (Y/N) can take them, but I can’t? What kind of friend are you?” Connor responds, exasperated.

“The broke kind? I’m sharing cause they’re helping me with English. If they weren’t doing that I wouldn’t be sharing my food with them?” Jared says, as if it was obvious.

“Hey! You’d totally share with me if I wasn’t helping you with English cause I’m helping you in history too.”

“That is true. Actually, that reminds me, can you help me study for my next test? I kind of fell asleep for most of the notes.”

Letting out a sigh, you reply, “Yeah, sure. When is it?” When you see Jared’s sheepish smile you let out a groan, “It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?” He gives a nod and you really want to slap him. “Goddamn it, fine. I’ll study with you tonight, but you’re buying snacks and you can’t be stingy.”

“Um… Did you not just hear me defend myself to Murphy? I’m broke?” Jared asks, gesturing to the McDonalds you two were eating.

“If you really couldn’t afford it you’d still be eating the school’s lunch,” Alana points out. You give him a look and he shakes his head.

“I will never sink to that level again. My palette has since grown past the muck that is served as food here,” Jared says, lifting his nose in mock distaste.

Everyone rolls their eyes and you go back to your explanation for English, while the rest of the group quietly watches you and Jared interact. They were all tired of your teasing and flirty demeanors towards each other, and were ready to get you two to confess your feelings, but were unsure how to do it yet.

When lunch ends you all go to your respective classes and soon enough the day is over. Heading to Jared’s car so you can help him study for his history, you see Evan waiting for Jared to come and unlock it. Greeting him, you both wait in comfortable silence, until Evan clears his throat.

“S-so, um… We... I mean, Connor, A-alana, Zoe-e, and I-I were thinking of h-h-h-aving a movie night and um… I was wond-dering if you and Jared wanted to come? Or if we could-d do it at Jared’s house?” He asks, looking at his shoes.

“Yeah, Evan, that would be cool. You want me to ask him about having it at his place?” you ask. Evan nods and you nod back, “Yeah, I can do that. When do you want to do it?”

“M-maybe, Friday?” Evan says, questioningly. He’s fiddling with the end of his shirt and you gently place a hand on his arm as a placating gesture. He looks up at you and gives a small smile. Returning it, the moment is interrupted by Jared making an entrance.

“Ready to ride, bitches?” He walks around to the driver’s side and gets in, throwing his stuff in the back, and starting the car. Evan sits in the passenger seat, and you take the backseat, forced to move Jared’s shit out of the way. The good news about Jared taking his time is that most of the traffic is gone by the time he pulls out of the school’s parking lot. Dropping Evan off first, you wave goodbye then head to Jared’s.

When you get into Jared’s room, he immediately pulls you into a kiss and you can’t help the smirk that makes its way onto your face. Pulling away, Jared lets out a whine at the loss, trying to follow your lips. “I thought I was here to help you study. If we’re just going to make out I kind of want to get some stuff done first.”

He lets out a small groan. “But I’m studying in the form of practicing for my most important subject: being a boyfriend. C’mon, you know I can’t fail that.”

“You also can’t fail history, or you’ll be held back. And I don’t think you want to repeat senior year, do you?” He lets out a sigh before begrudgingly going to his backpack and pulling out his history textbook. “Good boy. If we have time, you can study for both subjects?” At that, his head perks and you can’t help the giggle that escapes.

“Oh, really? This wouldn’t be one of those stripping games would it? I get a question right and you take off some clothing, I get it wrong, I take it off?” He asks, with an eyebrow wiggle.

You chuckle and shake your head. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Jared. I was suggesting that you study first and if you get done early, we could do something else.”

“Well I like the sound of something else, so let’s get started, shall we?”

Two hours later and Jared was pretty well prepared for the test tomorrow. You wanted to help him study more, but he was becoming a little impatient and whiny, so you decided to take a break and watch some TV and cuddle. Cuddling turned into a little make out session and let’s just say that you didn’t get much more done that night.

However, you did get to ask Jared about the movie night at his place that Friday, and he agreed to it, as long as he got to pick the movie. The next day, you relayed the news to Evan and he seemed pretty excited. When he brought it up during lunch, everyone agreed on 7 o’clock for the meet time and who was bringing what snacks.

Friday came sooner than you expected, and you headed to Jared’s house a little early to help him set up, along with just wanting to spend some time with your boyfriend before the movie. When seven rolled around, you were sitting on the couch with Jared, ready for the others to arrive so you could start. After half an hour with nobody showing up, you start sending some texts that no one responds to.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you and Jared decide to just watch the movie on your own. Star Wars was always a good marathoning movie series, and you got through the first three before passing out on Jared’s shoulder. The next morning your neck is stiff, but you feel safe in his arms. Snuggling in closer you ignore your phone as it goes off.

When you finally wake up a few hours later, your eyes meet Jared’s and you can’t help the smile that makes its way onto your face. Giving him a lazy kiss, you sit up and finally check your phone. You see you have a few missed calls from Alana and Zoe, and about 100 texts from the group chat. As you scroll through, and listen to the voicemails, you can’t help but roll your eyes at their ‘plan’ to get you and Jared together. Like leaving you two alone would just solve the problem.

Jared seems to have had a similar experience when he looks up from his phone. Staring at each other for a few seconds you both burst out laughing. It was just so much fun to tease them. When your chuckles and giggles grew quiet, you both planned what you would say.

You ended up staying over Jared’s for most of the weekend, and finished your Star Wars marathon with a fake lightsaber duel, reenacting some of the more iconic scenes and quoting as you went. Some of the duels end in tickle fights, which you are proud to say you were the victor. But Jared always retaliated with a flurry of kisses and you ultimately decide that you were evenly matched. Needless to say, it was a really great weekend.

That Monday at school, while putting books back in your locker and talking to Alana, Jared comes up behind you and gives your side a poke, making you jump. Giving him a look, you turn back to Alana, who seems to be assessing your interactions with a critical eye.

“Sorry about Friday, something came up. How’d the movie night go?” she asks with an ‘I’m totally not interested but give me all the details anyway’ air about her. You smirk a little and lean in like you’re about to tell a juicy secret, when Jared lifts you and carries you away down the hall.

“Put me down, flyboy!”

“Sorry Princess, can’t do that. Got a galaxy to save,” he replies. You can’t help but laugh at his antics, while also trying to get out of his grip. “C’mon Leia, you’ll be fine with Chewie. Speaking of…” he trails off, dropping you at your first period where Evan just stares at the two of you from his desk. “Take care of them, furball, or it’s your head!” And with that Jared disappears and you’re left shaking your head at him.

“What was that-that about?” Evan asks, a very confused look on his face.

“Jared’s just a little swept up in Star Wars fever. Thinks he’s Han Solo or something.”

“Well, he-he called y-you ‘Leia’. D-does that mean…” Evan trailed off, really hoping that you’d say that something happened during the marathon and that you two were finally together.

“He’s just wrapped up in a fantasy. I mean, yes, I am a totally badass resistance leader,” you say, “but I don’t think I could put up with Han if I were in her shoes.” Evan seemed to let out a breath at your answer and left it at that. Class started and soon enough it was lunch.

As you got food, Jared came up and wrapped an arm around your shoulder. You smirked at him and told him about Evan’s reaction which got a chuckle out of him. When you got to the table, everyone was looking at you expectantly, but when you didn’t say anything they seemed to deflate a little.

Eating and making light conversation, lunch was over all too soon, and you grabbed your stuff ready to head to class. Jared stopped you outside the cafeteria though, and made sure that no one was looking as he gave you a small peck on the mouth. “I love you,” you said with a growing smile.

“I know,” he replied with an eyebrow wiggle, and then he was gone down the hall like nothing happened. You made your way to your next class and just shook your head at his actions. Oh Jared Solo, you will be the death of me, you can’t help but think to yourself.

#jared kleinman x reader #jared kleinman fanfiction #jared kleinman #dear evan hansen x reader #deh x reader #dear evan hansen fanfiction #deh fanfiction #dear evan hansen reader insert #deh reader insert #musical x reader #musical fanfiction #musical reader insert #my writing #finished request

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palettes-and-prompts · 4 years

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Character Palette/Personality Palette

Alright so this is Jiang Cheng from the novel/series Mod Dao Zu Shi. Haven't read or watched this, let's jump in!

He is evil. I can sense it. The dark colors, the scowl, the purpley aura? Evil. He's nasty and a bitch. However, I love his color palette but that's just cause I'm a sucker for cool tones. Love that shit. He reminds me of someone but I can't think of who it is, I think it's just the outfit and not him that does it. Like, the top half reminds me of a Power Ranger with the big sleeves, but the bottom half reminds me of Shredder from TMNT, but that's also cause he's got a dark kind of color scheme going on. I like it, it's really dope. This is the kind of guy who roots for the bad guy in every movie he watches. The kind of guy that actually goes "Hmph!" when he doesn't win something. I don't know what he sounds like but I can hear the anger, the deep voice, the sound of him telling me he will destroy me, not kill, never kill, but DESTROY. I like him, he's dramatic I can tell. The sword, the ribbon, the belt, the RING. I can tell he causes some mischief, he's a little trouble maker. I think the fact that he doesn't have all his hair up or all of it down says a lot about him, and the fact that he has bangs says even more. Something about him doesn't feel complete, like his outfit is missing something very important. I don't know what it is, but it's not there. Maybe it's a place to keep his sword or maybe it's a horse or something, but something is missing about the outfit. This guy looks like he's got a poison gas power or like ghost abilities. Oh my god, I can see him as a pokemon trainer with nothing but ghost type pokemon. That'd be cute, he's one of the elite four and you go to fight him but you have to face like two or three other elites before you get to him and they're slightly annoying but super easy. And you get to him and he's so cocky he's like "No one's ever beaten me, that's why I'm the best!" and then you just one hit his fucking Gengar and he just starts using full restores, like an asshole, for the rest of the battle. His character design is super cute, some sexy ghost culture costume, you know, but like battling him is the worst part of the game. Everyone hates him but he'd also be the character everyone thirsted after. I haven't even battled against him but I already can't stand battling him.

Anyway here's his palette based on his character design.

And here is his palette based on what I think his personality is.

#character palette #character palette and personality guess #personality guessing #jiang cheng #mo dao zu shi

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todokori-kun · 7 years

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Here’s my proper reply :)

*hugs back* I love talking to you toooo you’re such an awesome friend *ugly tears*

Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. I guess the only explanation is that some part of Kaneki’s body is still human, since he IS an artificial ghoul. Though I have to wonder how Touka can be sure the kid needs human food….it seems she hasn’t told Ken or anybody else so she couldn’t have gotten advice/info about it, and though Touka’s no idiot it’s not like she’s an expert on biology.

I wonder if Ishida’s going to be like ‘lol sorry the kid’s basically full ghoul and Touka’s been poisoning it with human food in the womb’

(jk, jk, but really)

Or wait, crack theory (please don’t take this seriously, it isn’t meant to make sense):

You know those theories that Uta isn’t actually 100% ghoul (or at least not a 'normal’ ghoul)? So, what if it was Uta back in THAT chapter. I mean, he’s been trolling Ken since the first series so…

And Touka somehow found out about the whole thing and still wants to keep the kid, which is why this is happening.

Wow, it would actually be awesome if Eto adopted the kid and raised them to understand what it means to be a part of both the ghoul and human worlds! If she was planning to pass on the title of the OEK to the child but ended up growing too attached, giving them the childhood she never had and telling them that though she’s crowning them as the new 'King’ she wants them to truly live- “Bridge the gap between the two worlds, become a leader and a spark of hope for those who need it, but never lose sight of yourself and your happiness. Martyrdom doesn’t pay, you know?”- because their father, Kaneki, failed to do so and that was what ruined him.

I think the hair suits Chris Hemsworth pretty well (OTL I have sinned, forgive me Queen Luna) but it doesn’t suit Thor…? Idk. He doesn’t look like Thor anymore haha

I feel like they’ll let it grow back in later movies, though :)

I agree that their canon bond is supposed to be platonic (possibly goes deeper than that, just not in a romantic way) but the fandom can dream ^^ I actually don’t mind either way because I ship Clint with Laura (his wife) as well.

Well, not exactly. Sharon’s still a pretty minor character but I think she had a lot of potential until that romance just killed it (I mean, she doesn’t have much of a personality, but she had one pretty cool scene in Civil War (before the Notp happened) that made me like her).

Don’t you dare I need someone to ship Stoki with me, please ;-; don’t leave me alone with all this pain

I’m glad you enjoyed the comments about Kanae ^^ (sorry I’m in an evil, gloating cinnamon roll mood today)

Oh, we’re actually pretty similar then! I mean, I have a few artists I could say I’m a fan of (Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Marina, Fall Out Boy) but most of the other songs I listen to are just chosen at random from all over the place.

If you liked Still Sane, though, I recommend Lorde’s new album (Melodrama)! It’s been years and she’s finally back :) there’s a song called 'Liability’ on the album that I really relate to and also reminds me of Kaneki ;-; I’ve also been obsessed with 'Perfect Places’ and 'Sober’ for a while now.

Oh my XD reading that reminded me of one of my older MCU characters who was pretty bad: it’s been a while so I’ve forgotten most of the details, but I remember she had a cat theme (her powers were probably something like enhanced agility??? and claws??? I think?) and was this super edgy anti-hero who shouldn’t even have been allowed to work with SHIELD in the first place but you know, terrible OC logic. She’d stand on top of buildings and make angsty speeches with her impractically long hair flowing in the wind…. and of course she had this intense love-hate relationship with Loki that was just full of unnecessary drama.

(Again, I don’t really remember much about my old OCs (conveniently forgot all my worst creations haha) so I’m just guessing here ^^;; I think this is mostly the sort of cringe-worthy stuff I came up with though)

Nara sounds cute! It’s admirable that she doesn’t get discouraged and tries her best even with guys like Yuuri and Phichit around :) I’d love Kya (that’s her name, right?) also seems really cool- her powers are a nice twist on the old 'communicating with/controlling animals’ thing :D

Whew, I’m glad Tatsuo didn’t get lost ^^ I accidentally erased his 'profile’ like two or three times when I was trying to send him to you and I was getting really frustrated…was he ok?

Also I was trying to make his profile a bit 'light’ and funny but I probably failed lol

And since you said you wanted to see my suffering TG OC, I’ll send you Naomi now! :) And maybe some of my other OCs with her, because I love creating characters and end up making some for almost all the fandoms I’m in even if I have no intention of ever using them (Naomi and Tatsuo are probably going to be confined to our conversations because I have no idea how I’d use them in a fic).

Ayyyy the blog is so pretty ! ! ! <333333

Wow, first you somehow associate me with my favorite color before I ever told you that’s what it was, then I choose the character you most relate to as your icon…? This is weird but also strangely cool, if that makes sense lol

I actually learned to play Merry Go Round of Life on the piano a while ago and my teacher told me it was a waltz-like piece, so I should try to stay true to that (needless to say I failed miserably for quite a while haha). You’re right, it’d be lovely to see a couple dancing to it :)

(Why am I imagining Yumikuri waltzing to that song ;-;)

((This is my favourite hug gif of all times))

I mean, yes, Kaneki is a half ghoul, but he’s more powerful than some full ghouls, not to mention his Rc levels are as high as a ghouls. I think that getting a Kakuja also ‘helped’ him to bridge the gap between half-ghoul and more or less-ghoul. However, since it is an incomplete Kakuja.

This is all so confusing ;-;

That wouldn’t surprise, me honestly. It would make fans suffer more and what does he like more than suffering?

OH MY You’re totally right! When a healthy baby is born, with black hair and always has his kakugan activated (I don’t trust Uta’s explanation of it), Kaneki starts to doubt some things. Not to mention, he never actually slept with Touka, so how the fuck would the kid be his?

Honestly, if Eto adopted the kiddo and gave it a beautiful childhood full of wonders and fun, somewhere away from Japan, I’d forgive Ishida everything, including (maybe) killing Hide, or, at least, if he’s not dead, keeping Hide away from us for so long. She’s George Washington here. ‘Dreams of dying like a martyr?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Dying is easy young man/lady, living is harder’ So she encourages them to live, despite how hard it is, because the world is cruel, but also beautiful.

YES! It suits Chris, but not Thor! Which is why they should’ve given him a wig, at least =3= Oh well, all that’s left to do is wait for it to grow back. Hopefully it will.

Oh, I see. Then, it truly is a shame that the writers decided to go through with the ship of her and Steve :/

Heh. I’ll see... Idk when I’ll watch Civil War, tho. Soon, probably

The only reason why I want to see Re animated is because of Urie and Kanae. That’s it, as long as those two get so much as 5 seconds of screen time, I’ll be happy.

Alrighty, I’ll make sure to listen to the album soon ^^

Oh wow, that’s certainly an interesting OC... So, angsty catwoman in MCU? Sounds exactly like something I’d make, just with wolves instead of Cats (i had an unhealthy obsession with wolves (and werewolves!) when I was younger ;-;)

I recently remembered my Fairy Tail OC. You ready for it? Idk which one’s worse, this one or the FMA one ;-; A dragon slayer (which is already a very Sue trait), but she didn’t have one element. Oh no, she was the QUEEN dragon slayer, which meant she could use any element she wanted *nods head* See, that was my worst problem when making characters. I was more or less tame with looks and I tried to give them character flaws (but it usually made them endearing, whoops), yet I just had to give them powerful abilities or something.

Now that i think about it, I’m glad I never made an OC for TG. Now that would’ve been a show. Waddaya say we make the biggest, most sueish character we can think of? Let’s see, to begin with, they would definitely have a chimera Kagune. Now, the most kagune a ghoul can poses, as far as we know, is 3, but why stop at that? The glorious character should definitely have all 4!

At one point, I stopped writing down my OC stuff. Now I’m very thankful about that, since it means I forgot most of it.

Aw, I’m glad you like the characters ^^ Honestly, as a writer, one of my first impulses when watching something is either to make an AU (for the show’s characters or for characters from other shows thrown into that situation) or to make an OC. So, Nara and Kya are one of the more recent ones.

Tatsuo is a magnificent bastard, if I’ve ever seen one. Seems like either the guy who’d immediately become my problematic fave or the character I can’t stand. Keep them coming huehuehue I definitely enjoy reading about other people’s OCs! I can’t wait to see Naomi! And feel free to send me other ones as well ^^

Thank you! I’m glad you like the new blog ^^ I wanted to change the palette to something lighter and more summer-like, so I think pastel yellow was a nice choice ^^

We are connected

Oh, that’s so cute! I never had the will to print the sheet music out, honestly. I’m too lazy for my own good :p

Why are you giving me the feels™ :))

#evans #submission

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jmuo-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://jmuo.com/special-sauce-wheres-kenji-here-hes-here/

Special Sauce: Where’s Kenji?!? (Here. He’s Here.)

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[Photograph: Vicky Wasik. Sausage photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

I decided to kick off the new season of Special Sauce by checking in with Kenji. It won’t surprise the Serious Eats tribe that he’s been a little busy lately. You probably know about Wursthall, the restaurant he opened with two other partners in his adopted hometown of San Mateo, California. But you may not know that he’s also working on his very first children’s book and the sequel to his best-selling book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, all while juggling the demands of being a relatively new father.

One of the first things I asked Kenji about is whether his absolutely adorable 18-month-old daughter is as into cooking as his Instagram feed would indicate. “Oh, yeah. I mean, we cook every day together,” he said. “I made her a little helper stool so she can climb up and get at counter height, and she has a little wooden knife… She loves it. She likes to whisk things, she makes pancake batter. She pounds things in the mortar and pestle. She dances along when you chop quickly.” I have no doubt Alicia will be reverse-searing steaks any day now.

I also asked him to talk about his children’s book and why he wanted to write it. “I want to have a good legacy and I want to add joy to the world,” Kenji said. “This seemed like a way that I could do [that], in a way that was both very personal to me but also could be shared.” But, of course, because this is Kenji, part of it was also because it presented a challenge. “This is something I’ve never done before. I can tell you, writing a kids’ book is not easy. In a way, it’s even more difficult than writing The Food Lab.”   And then we talked about his other book project, the sequel to The Food Lab, which he descibed as being more focused on how he cooks at home. “It’ll be a much less American-centric book,” he said. “Techniques from all around the world, ingredients from all around the world, and essentially breaking down those techniques and ingredients and showing everyday home cooks how they can use the knowledge that everybody from around the world has collected over millennia to make their everyday cooking easier and more flavorful and more efficient.”

Finally, Kenji and I talked about challenges and rewards of opening Wursthall. “The most rewarding part of the restaurant,” Kenji said, “is knowing that you’re helping these 50 employees earn a living and all of your guests have a good time…Anybody who doesn’t feel that way, shouldn’t be in hospitality.”

We covered an awful lot of ground in this episode, and I think Serious Eaters everywhere will enjoy every second of Kenji’s return to Special Sauce.

Special Sauce is available on iTunes, Google Play Music, Soundcloud, Player FM, and Stitcher. You can also find the archive of all our episodes here on Serious Eats and on this RSS feed.

You Could Be on Special Sauce

Want to chat with me and our unbelievably talented recipe developers? We’re accepting questions for Special Sauce call-in episodes now. Do you have a recurring argument with your spouse over the best way to maintain a cast iron skillet? Have you been working on your mac and cheese recipe for the past five years, but can’t quite get it right? Does your brother-in-law make the worst lasagna, and you want to figure out how to give him tips? We want to get to know you and solve all your food-related problems. Send us the whole story at [email protected].

Transcript

Ed Levine: Welcome to Special Sauce, Serious Eats’ podcast about food and life. For the next two weeks were going to catch up with two people I’ve been proud to be working with for a long time. We begin with Mr. Food Lab himself, Serious Eats’ chief culinary consultant, Kenji Lopéz-Alt.

J. Kenji López-Alt: Dude, like I wrote the BLT Manifesto. This is my restaurant. You can’t use my own words to tell me that what I’m serving is not the thing that I meant to serve.

EL: And next week, Kenji and I will be joined by Serious Eats’ current managing culinary director Daniel Gritzer. Welcome back to Special Sauce, my man, Kenji.

JKLA: Well, thanks. It’s good to be back.

EL: The first thing I want to ask you about is your adorable daughter, Alicia.

JKLA: Yeah, she’s 18 and a half months.

EL: 18 and a half months. She’s been cooking alongside you, if we can take your Instagram feed at face value.

JKLA: Oh, yeah. I mean, we cook every day together. She loves it, it’s her favorite thing. I made her a little helper stool so she can climb up and get at counter height, and she has a little wooden knife. So, she’ll just come up. Her favorite thing to do right now is to take my scraps and throw them in the compost bin, or sometimes take the prepared vegetables and throw them in the compost bin. She loves it. She likes to whisk things, she makes pancake batter. She pounds things in the mortar and pestle. She dances along when you chop quickly. It’s a lot of fun.

EL: And she’s too young to be rebelling.

JKLA: Have you met her parents? She’s got some opinions, and she’s not afraid to express them.

EL: I’m shocked, because her parents don’t have strong opinions about anything.

JKLA: Well, my mom always told me growing up that she someday wished that I had a kid just like me so that I could see how difficult it was growing up with someone who just wants to argue everything.

EL: Your mother told me and my wife, who is your agent, your literary agent, at your book party, we said, “Isn’t it great what’s happened to your son?” And she said, “And so surprising.”

JKLA: Yeah, that sounds like my mom.

EL: And so AIicia, does she have a fairly adventurous palette? Like, how have you gone about introducing stuff to her?

JKLA: She does. We use a method called baby-led weaning, which is, essentially, as soon as she’s old enough to sit up herself, around like six months or so, sit upright, we started feeding her solid food. And essentially, just eating exactly the same food we eat. Like, a few exceptions early on, like we wouldn’t give her a whole grape, something that can fall down her throat and choke her. Part of the whole baby-led weaning process is also, it’s like a developmental process where they learn, not just about food but also sort of hand/eye coordination, they learn about making choices for themselves and all that. So, you kind of have to give the kid free rein at the table, present them with a bunch of food, let them mash it around, let them … you just have to be prepared to clean it. We have dogs, which helps but we also have a plastic mat on the floor. Certainly early on there is food everywhere.

EL: And now you’re writing a children’s book loosely based on your experiences cooking with Alicia. Tell us about that.

JKLA: So, yeah, I’m working on a children’s book. The main character in it is definitely derived from Alicia. It’s a little girl, older than Alicia, and it’s aimed at older audience, four- to seven-year-olds. But the book is really more about discovering the value of food beyond just the way it tastes. It’s essentially about a little girl who thinks pepperoni pizza is the best food in the world but she can’t really figure out why it’s the best food in the world. And she, over the course of the book, visits a bunch of families and restaurant owners, various people that have very different ideas of what the best food in the world is. And each one of them has their own reasons. For one of them it’s because it reminds her of her home country. For another it’s because she used to cook it together with her grandmother. So, various reasons why people enjoy foods and so by the end of the book the lesson she learns is that … she discovers that all along, the reason she loved pizza so much is because it’s so easy to share and it’s a food that brings all the friends around the table and is easy to have a good time around, which is what she likes doing.

EL: If you had shown Alicia my pizza book, you could have saved a lot of time, because that’s what I talk about, is that pizza is the greatest food in the world because it’s so easily shared.

JKLA: Everybody likes pizza, everybody wants a slice.

EL: Yes.

JKLA: And usually there’s enough slices to share.

EL: How did this come about? Because, I’ve never heard you, and I have known you a while, be interested in children’s books.

JKLA: I guess a lot of it was going through … before Alicia was born and then after she was born going through all of my old books and seeing what books moved me and what effect books I read as a little child had on my life. I think it’s actually probably an interesting exercise for you or anybody to just go back and look at all of … if you’ve saved them or if you remember the titles just to go back and take a look at all of your old kids’ book and try and figure out what parts of your personality or parts of the way you lead your life or your morality or any of those things, how much of them are linked to media you consumed as a child. It was a surprisingly large amount for me, and it just seemed like this would be a really nice thing to do for my kid, 10 years from now, or when she has her own kid for her to be able to say this is the book that your grandfather wrote for me, and I’m reading it to you.

I wanna have a good legacy and I wanna add joy to the world, so this seemed like a way that I could do it, in a way that was both very personal to me but also could be shared. I just like a challenge and this is something I’ve never done before. I can tell you, writing a kids’ book is not easy. In a way, it’s even more difficult than writing The Food Lab was, and I’m working on a sequel to The Food Lab now, so it’s, I think, more difficult than that.

EL: Yeah, because every word counts, right?

JKLA: Well, yeah, that’s a lot of it. Every word counts. When I was writing the first document, the first draft of it, and you have to … I’m collaborating with a wonderful illustrator, Gianna Ruggiero, and she’s great, but you have to be able to communicate ideas with your illustrator and with your editors. So, I found that writing a draft of a kid’s story is actually more similar to writing, like a movie storyboard or a screenplay than it is to writing a book.

And the other real difficult part is finding the voice for a kid’s book. My Food Lab voice is one that is pretty natural to me and I kind of just found it and stuck with it. Obviously, finding a voice in any kind of writing is really hard, and I think it’s what probably writers struggle with the most: how do you make your writing sound you and how do you make it sound unique? ‘Cause I want it to be a book that adults can enjoy but children will also enjoy, so figuring out how to make jokes that work on two levels, figuring out what kind of language the children are gonna use, how the adults are gonna talk to them. It’s a lot of choices to be made. When you read a good children’s book it just seems natural, but guaranteed that the author of any good children’s books spent hours and hours, days, weeks of time just refining those few words that are in there until it captured the spirit correctly.

EL: I used to talk to a friend of mine that passed away, unfortunately, a few years ago, Jeff Moss, who wrote Rubber Duckie, and he talked about being in the writers’ room at Sesame Street and how their first criteria for a song or a skit that worked was, did they crack each other up.

JKLA: Yes. Yeah. I was just singing Rubber Duckie to Alicia in the bath last night. In fact, I sing it to her almost every night, she loves it. That’s my basic rule, is that the writing and the humor can’t be stupid, ’cause I feel like a lot of stuff for kids is just sort of dumber versions of things for adults and I find it underestimates the intellect of kids, underestimates the emotional capacity of kids, and I think if something is dumb to you, it’s probably gonna be dumb to kids, as well. You know, outside of maybe scatological humor, which is funny to kids. Which is definitely dumb but funny to kids, also funny to some adults, I guess, but yeah, that’s also sort of my criteria, is like, if I read this and it sounds dumb or it sounds like I’m talking down to someone, then it has to change.

EL: Give me your top three children’s books that you remember just devouring when you were a kid.

JKLA: There’s a couple in Japanese that I don’t think you’d be familiar with, because I don’t think even Japanese people are that familiar with, but a lot of them has to come down to do with the illustration. So, there’s this one Japanese book that is a kind of weird story about a little fish that’s looking for his mom but for some reason the fish is kind of floating in a jungle instead of in the ocean. He goes around and meets various characters who say they’re gonna eat him and then he says, no, I’m just looking for my mother, and they’re like, okay, well, we’ll help you find your mother but secretly they’re thinking, oh, we’ll just eat him and his mother. At the end of the book they find the mother in a fish tank and all of the animals go and … like, sitting in the middle of a field and all the animals go and knock the fish tank over and break it. And then the mother becomes one of these weird flying fish, too, and then she says, “Hey, don’t eat me, I was just about to go home and make some soup. Why don’t y’all come over and have soup instead?” And then they all just hang out and eat soup.

Let’s see. I guess if we want real popular ones that I think have stood the test of time and meant a lot to me, Harold and the Purple Crayon is one of those, that I think is simple but incredibly imaginative and really, I think, talks to kids in ways they understand, but is not dumb.

EL: Are you a Goodnight Moon fan?

JKLA: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, both Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, same author. And you know what I loved about those books was that they weren’t really related story-wise, but there are elements from one book that appear in the other. So, like, in Goodnight Moon, on the background you could see there’s a painting of the mother rabbit dressed up as a fisherman. It’s one of the pages from Runaway Bunny, like the mother rabbit dressing as a fisherman and fishing for her little kid. And that’s just a painting in the back of the wall of the room in Goodnight Moon, and I always thought that was awesome as a little kid. It’s like what people love about the Marvel cinematic universe, like this crossover stuff where you get to see references from one thing and another.

So, that kind of stuff, we’re not aping specific ideas and story points or anything like that, but definitely aping general ideas. Like, the idea of having to flip back and forth through pages and search for things. So, for instance, in this book, our plan right now is that the very opening page, when you first open the cover of the book that the inside of the page is going to be an illustration of Pepo’s, that’s the name of the main character by the way, Pepo, of her pantry. And at the start of the book it contains just ingredients for making pepperoni pizza. And then by the end of the book, as she goes around and cooks with seven different families, her pantry fills up with objects that you saw from those people’s kitchens in the book. So, at the end of the book there’s like 20 different things inside that pantry, and I just imagine it’ll be a lot of fun. For me, it would have been a lot of fun to look at each one of those things and go back through the book and try and find what page it was on and what they were using it for. So, little things like that. We also have a little nod to Calvin and Hobbes, like she has a little stuffed animal dog named Nugget that she carries around everywhere but it kind of comes to life sometimes and eats pizza with her, helps her cook, things like that. Sometimes there needs to be things like that. I don’t know, I guess it’s a lot more sort of like little things that stuck with me that I’m trying to incorporate in the interest of making it more interesting, you know. Like a good kid’s book has to be, I think, more than just a good story.

EL: Yeah, for sure.

JKLA: More than just good illustration, there has to be a level like sort of interactivity with it, you know, whether it’s finding pictures or making noises or looking for details in the illustration, that’s the kind of stuff that I think makes a good kid’s book fun, is that you can look at each page and continue … You know, I guess it’s like a good adult novel or a good album, you know, it’s like, it’s the kind of thing where you can listen to it over and over and every time you pick up something new or you can listen to it with a different idea from the start and try and, you know, try and trace an element through a song, something like that, you know, good music, good writing, good kids’ books, it’s I think a lot of it, it’s all sort of very similar goals, it’s just the means that you use to get there that’s different.

EL: So you’re working on, not just the kids’ book, but a second volume of Food Lab?

JKLA: Yeah. Well, I think we’re not going to call it Food Lab, but yeah, but essentially a follow-up to you know, similar size, similar scope, similar sort of treatment as the first one.

EL: And what’s going to be different and what is your continuity line that’s going to go throughout the book?

JKLA: Well, so the first book was largely about American cuisine and very specifically it was about sort of big project dishes and the idea behind that when I started working on the first book was that you know, if I can interest someone in meatloaf and show them all of the ins … You know meatloaf is actually relatively, it can be a relatively complicated dish and there’s a lot of stuff sort of going on in there, a lot of sort of science lessons to learn, you know, similar with like mac and cheese, there’s a lot of stuff going on in there that, once you learn it, you know, like, how to cook pasta properly, how to make a cheese sauce, why cheese sauces break, how a roux is different from like an egg thickened sauce, etc., etc. And those are all lessons I think are valuable to learn when cooking. So the idea with the first book is that I would take the sort of totem American dishes and dissect them in every possible way with the idea of really teaching people lessons in food science, as opposed to just giving them recipes that are actually going to be super useful in their everyday cooking.

You know, ’cause if you look through The Food Lab, you’ll find that it’s not, it’s not a book for someone who wants to cook for their family on a weeknight. You know, there’s some of that in there but it’s not really. So the new book is much more of a focus on how I actually cook at home, so it’ll be a much less American-centric book, so techniques from all around the world, ingredients from all around the world and essentially breaking down those techniques and ingredients and showing everyday home cooks how they can use the knowledge that everybody from around the world has collected over millennia to make their everyday cooking easier and more flavorful and more efficient. So, you can really think of it more as a sort of collection of strategies for how to make your … For easy things you can do to make your everyday cooking better.

EL: But I assume it’s going to require the same amount of obsessive research and testing that the more complicated recipes take?

JKLA: Well, yes. I mean, as your wife, my agent, could tell you, I am not very good at keeping writing deadlines and it’s usually because I’m testing more recipes! So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been working on this testing recipes and photographing stuff and writing for … I mean, essentially since the first one came out, so whatever that is, three years? Something like that. And my goal is to have it wrapped up and sent to the publisher by the end of the year. We’ll see if I actually get there.

EL: That’s good. Your goal is to have it-

JKLA: The children’s book is actually due at the end of this week, which is frightening, but.

EL: And you have the recipes that you’re going to write for my Serious Eats memoir too! You got a lot on your plate, dude!

JKLA: Oh yeah. And a restaurant, I got a restaurant now-

EL: And you have a restaurant, which you know, which we should talk about just for a second! You’ve just experienced the hell that is opening a restaurant.

JKLA: Yeah. I don’t know why I put myself through it! I don’t want that to come out the wrong way, like I am super passionate about the restaurant and I think … Especially with all the people working there and I think you know, I think what we’re doing is really great and it’s … you know, the most rewarding part of the restaurant is knowing that you’re helping these 50 employees earn a living and all of your guests have a good time, that’s I think … Anybody who doesn’t feel that way, shouldn’t be in hospitality.

But, yeah, you know, the restaurant wasn’t something I was really planning or thinking about, you know, we had a baby and then I was a stay-at-home parent, you know, still am most of the time and even though that takes a lot of time, you know, I did seem to have like a bit of free time on my hands, just ’cause babies nap and all that kind of stuff, so it was like, you know, and I consulted for restaurants in the past. Most recently before that was you know at Harlem Shake in New York, where I did a bunch of consulting, you know, basically designed their kitchen and did their whole menu and trained the staff. And that didn’t take that long to do-

EL: Right.

JKLA: And it didn’t require that much input after it was opened. And so this one was like … It’s a sausage hall that serves beer, you know, well really it’s a beer hall that serves sausage, it’s like, “Okay, that won’t be too difficult, like I’ll find some good suppliers, we’ll put together a nice, simple menu, people are mainly going to be going there to drink, the food will be like a thing on the side, whatever, it should be pretty easy.

And then, once my name got attached to it, that’s when … I mean, I guess in the three years time, between I worked with Harlem Shake and I started work with Wursthall, my book had come out and so you know, I guess people just knew my name a little more and so once it came out that my name was attached with this restaurant, Wursthall, then the media started covering it and it kind of just grew out of my control and I quickly realized you know what? We’re not opening a beer hall that just serves sausages on the side, like, we’re opening a restaurant and like my reputation is going to ride on this, so it better be good!

EL: Yeah, and we should say it’s called, “Wursthall,” or-

JKLA: Yeah. Wursthall.

EL: Wursthall-

JKLA: W-U-R-S-T.

EL: In San Mateo, and it’s probably a five minute drive from your house?

JKLA: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a mile from my house, 15 minute bike ride, five minute drive, yeah.

EL: What surprised you the most about the process?

JKLA: There weren’t that many surprises because you know, I’ve worked in restaurants, I’ve helped other chefs open restaurants, like I know how these things kind of go and I know how a kitchen is organized and run, so, there weren’t any surprises in that regard but you know, that’s taking into account the fact that when you’re opening a restaurant, you should be prepared for surprises because, especially in an older building, you never know what kind of infrastructure problems are going to be in place, you never know what kind of personnel problems are going to be in place in a new market, you don’t know how your menu’s going to resonate with guests at the beginning, you know, but those all the kinds of surprises that, as long as you account for them in your timeline and your budget and in your planning, shouldn’t cause any major headaches. You know, I mean, I’m putting that maybe too lightly, you know, restaurants, every day is a major headache. There’s always something going wrong but you kind of know that going into the game so in that sense it wasn’t as surprising.

What really surprised me was, and probably it shouldn’t have, but really surprised me, was the amount of hype we got pre-opening and you know, obviously, this is a good problem to have but it’s also sort of a nerve-wracking one that people have all these expectations of you before, you know, months before you’re even open. And the answer is, of course, you don’t live up to their expectations, every single person’s expectations. And so I think that was one of the lessons I’ve learned pretty quickly, is that you know, we do a ton of like customer feedback, we talk to people, when we were first opening, we did you know, survey forms at every table, get a gauge on what people think, but at some point, you have to realize that your restaurant is your restaurant and it’s not a restaurant that’s run on a committee of your guests.

And so, you know, you have to at some point say, “I know what my idea of good food is, I am working with my staff to try and put out the best possible version of good food I have in my head.” There are going to be people who have a very different idea of what’s good and what’s not of … And at some point you just have to say, “This is my food, I’m going to stand by it, if you don’t like it, you’re perfectly entitled to your opinion and frankly, I want to hear your opinion on what you don’t like about it,” but you know, it’s really the chef and the employees who say what’s being served at a restaurant and not the customers and that’s a lesson I think is pretty important to learn. You know, if you have confidence in yourself, you kind of have to stick with your guns even if a lot of people are saying they don’t like a specific thing.

EL: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. One of the lessons that Danny Meyer tries to teach in his book is-

JKLA: A book actually which I bought a copy of that book for every single management staff at our restaurant.

EL: Yeah you’d think he would say, “Oh, the customer is always right,” but he actually says almost exactly what you say, which is that the idea is if you make all of the people who work in the restaurant happy by doing what they do and asking them to do everything that you’re willing to do, that’s the most important ingredient in making a successful restaurant.

JKLA: Definitely. That idea is something you can feel any time you walk into a Danny Meyer restaurant, whether it’s you know, high end like Mercy Park or a chain like Shake Shack, the idea that the employees all seem to enjoy working there and they all seem to be empowered to do the best job they can, you know, it gets them to take pride in their work and it helps ensure consistency and quality of the product they’re serving. But I think, most importantly, it gives you that feeling of hospitality, which is why I go out to a restaurant, you know, I’m a pretty good cook, I can cook good food at home, obviously there are plenty of restaurants where they cook different and better things than I can cook at home, but the main reason I go out to eat is because I want to be treated well and I want to feel like I’m welcome somewhere and you know, to me bad service can ruin the best food in the world. But I can put up with mediocre food if the service is great and I feel like I’m comfortable and at home. So, yeah, for me, definitely, and I think this is the sense that you get from all of Danny Meyer’s restaurants, really that hospitality is the most important thing in a restaurant.

EL: If you think about our time together at Serious Eats, that’s really what I tried to do at Serious Eats, was to provide a place where people really enjoyed working together and then I just as you well know, I just turned you all loose and there’s a lot to be said for that! Yeah.

JKLA: Which is why you were my favorite boss ever! But yeah, it’s exactly like what you do at Serious Eats, I think, you know, your job, as I’ve always understood it, was to find smart people and then give them the means to execute their ideas. Smart, passionate people.

EL: Yes.

JKLA: And that’s very much what we try and do at the restaurant. You know, obviously, like consistency and certain protocols are important in a restaurant, ’cause it has to run efficiently, it has to run at cost, all those things, but you know, the best employees we have at the restaurant are the people who are super passionate about cooking, you know, regardless of their experience in professional kitchens. Actually you know, we have a line cook who had zero professional cooking experience, we have a guy who’s now our sous chef actually, who had zero professional cooking experience before he came and started working for us. But these are both guys who are extremely passionate about cooking, did a ton of cooking on their own, like had you know, were following the concept, have read Food Lab, sort of have a similar philosophy to cooking as I do. You know, I would say you can teach people skills, but you can’t teach people to give a shit. And so, when we’re finding employees, especially in the kitchen, you know, the most important thing for us is just find people who really care.

EL: Yeah.

JKLA: And you can teach them everything else.

EL: There are going to be two more Wursthalls, right?

JKLA: We are well along in negotiations for a couple of new locations that we’re planning on opening next year. Almost for sure, one of them, down in San Jose, but yeah, potentially two new locations by the end of next year. Which is sort of the plan from the start was that you know, the restaurant concept was one that we wanted-

JKLA: Was that this … the restaurant concept was one that we wanted to make sure was something that could be replicated and brought to other cities.

EL: Got it.

JKLA: We’re planning a very sort of slow, like you’re not gonna find 500 Wursthalls across the US in the next five years. We want all of our training to take place in the main restaurant, we want to make sure that every chef running the other restaurants has spent time working in the original and is qualified, all those things.

EL: Got it. We know that there are lots of sausages on the menu, but there are also lots of pretzels on the menu, which I’m a little annoyed that you have not sent me any of the pretzels.

JKLA: Well, that’s one of the things about pretzels, similar to bagels they have a halflife … whatever it was, I think you called it the Heisenberg and Bagelberg uncertainty, Heisenbagel uncertainty principle, something like that, where you can’t accurately compare two bagels to each other because by the act of bringing one to the location of another the first one has already entered a state where it can’t be fairly tasted anymore. Similar to … pretzels and bagels are actually … kinda like blood brothers as far as baked good go. They’re both a boiled then baked dough and both have a sort of dense interior with a really crispy, thin crust. But yeah, pretzels don’t travel well so I wouldn’t be able to send them to you, but any time you come out to San Mateo, you are welcome to come have our pretzels. We actually now … For a long time we were working with a bakery called Backhaus, at which I’m actually also a partner, and we’re opening a brick-and-mortar bakery also in San Mateo.

EL: Yeah, I don’t think you have enough to do, Kenji. I think you need more projects.

JKLA: Well this one I’m more of a silent partner. I just offer advice. It’s really Anna and Robert Moser, they’re the husband and wife, Anna’s the baker, Robert does all the business side. They really run everything, I’m just sort of a … I gave them some money to help and I give them advice whenever they ask for it, but I’m not … it’s by no means my project at all. It’s 100% theirs. We were working with them for a while, but they really want to focus on retail rather than wholesale, so we’ve been sort of transitioning out of their, some of their products, so we found a great new pretzel supplier as well based up in San Francisco called Pretzelina. But either one of these, Pretzelina and Backhaus, they both make amazing pretzels, so if you ever want to come to San Mateo, I am sure I can get you your fill of great pretzels.

EL: All right, that’s good. That’s good and so what are the most popular items on the menu?

JKLA: The classic bratwurst is our most popular item, but I think it’s just because it’s the default. People who don’t want to try and figure out what some of the other types of sausages are or who just want to try our baseline, they come for the bratwurst. That’s sort of … the basic sausage plate is our most popular thing. My favorite things on the menu, which I think is a better answer, and also some of our more popular stuff, the deviled eggs we do I think are pretty fantastic.

EL: Oh, I love a good deviled egg, Kenji.

JKLA: Largely influenced by the deviled eggs that April Bloomfield used to do at The Spotted Pig.

EL: Sure.

JKLA: Super vinegary, super mustardy and then we serve ours with a lot of olive oil, aleppo chiles, and dill and pickled mustard seeds. Another dish we recently started just about a few weeks ago, we do a … we call it cacio e pepe spaetzle, so the idea is that pan-fried spaetzle is great because it’s crispy and it kind of puffs up and it gets golden brown and crispy, but if you try and mix sort of a creamy sauce with it, like you would for a traditional cacio e pepe, that crispiness kind of goes away and it ultimately deflates and it doesn’t look very great, so what we do is we make spaetzle where we flavor the batter with black pepper, and then we cook it and we pan-fry it in brown butter until it’s nice and crispy. Cacio e pepe, by the way, in case anybody is unaware, is a classic Roman dish of pasta with pecorino Romano and black pepper and essentially that’s it. The cheese sauce kind of emulsifies with pasta water. It’s sort of quick and easy Roman mac and cheese, so we wanted to get those flavors into a spaetzle dish, so what we do is we make an aerated pecorino Romano sauce, so essentially we steep pecorino Romano with milk and then bind it with … then we cook it sous vide with egg yolks and butter, blend it all together and then pipe it out with a whipped cream dispenser so it comes out almost the texture of hollandaise, but kind of lighter and airier so it’s essentially this crispy spaetzle with this aerated pecorino and black pepper sauce and then a bunch of shards of pecorino crisps on top to kind of reinforce that flavor but also give it some more texture. You kind of spoon it together as you eat it so all the spaetzle stays nice and crispy but you get that really nice cheese and black pepper flavor in each bite. That I would say is probably my new favorite dish on the menu.

EL: That sounds insanely delicious, but it’s definitely do not try this at home.

JKLA: No. Restaurant cooking and home cooking is different. It’s different. We just introduced a BLT on the menu also and I wrote a BLT manifesto and made a video for Serious Eats a couple years ago, and this was the craziest experience to me that … so the BLT we serve at Wursthall doesn’t precisely follow that BLT manifesto but the reason is because what we do is we cook slab bacon 48 hours sous vide with rosemary garlic and black pepper until it’s like braised pork belly, it’s super melting and tender, and then we slice it and we sear it and that’s the bacon in our BLT sandwich. So as you eat the sandwich, rather than strips of bacon that are crunchy or kind of pull out the way traditional bacon does, the bacon kind of all just melts and dissolves into the tomato and lettuce, which I think is really great. It’s still primarily a tomato sandwich, it’s just seasoned with bacon, which is sort of my BLT philosophy.

EL: Yeah, and my BLT philosophy as well.

JKLA: I couldn’t believe the amount of … the amount of backlash I got from Twitter of people who saw when I posted that picture of the BLT we serve at Wursthall who are like, “This doesn’t follow your BLT manifesto precisely, I’m not gonna eat it,” or, “That’s not a BLT.” It’s like, dude, I wrote the BLT manifesto, this is my restaurant. You can’t use my own words to tell me that what I’m serving is not the thing that I meant to serve.

EL: So just look at what you have wrought. Look at what we wrote together.

JKLA: It is. It’s like what kind of … When my first book came out and even with the column, you could see there is a certain type of sort of internet personality. It generally tends to be sort of younger males who like to read what I wrote and then use it to put other people down or to pretend that they’re some kind of authority and that everyone else is wrong, and it’s just … it bugs me so much. I hear stories from people saying, “Yeah, someone read your article and then they trashed what I was cooking.” That’s not at all what The Food LabM/em> was about or what Serious Eats was about.

EL: No.

JKLA: But I see that myself when I do something like a BLT that’s not exactly like what I wrote on Serious Eats, mainly because it would be impractical to do for home cook and we’re a restaurant, not a home kitchen. It’s like … there are definitely … Yeah, I do get that sense of I’ve created quite a few monsters here.

EL: See the trouble is you wrote the constitution and now there are people that are strict constructionists.

JKLA: Right, and didn’t realize that I wrote that entire constitution like pretty much tongue in cheek the whole time. Make your BLT however you want to make it. I don’t really care how you make your BLT. This is how I make my BLT. If that’s what you like, like it. We do on Serious Eats and in The Food Lab in the book make a lot of over-the-top statements. I think that most of the audience understands that when we say, “This is the best X” or “This is the only way to do X,” that it’s tongue in cheek and that it’s all sort of part of the humor of the site, but some people don’t, unfortunately.

EL: No, exactly. It’s like, remember the people who used to say, “How come you call yourself Serious Eats and you write about hot dogs and BLTs, it’s like …

JKLA: Yeah, how serious is that?

EL: You ever heard of irony? So why German food? I have to say, you cooked in Italian restaurants, you’ve cooked in all kinds of restaurants, in sushi restaurants, you started in a Mongolian barbecue restaurant.

JKLA: To be fair, we’re not really a German restaurant. We have some nods to German cuisine and definitely we have nods to German beer halls and beer gardens in terms of the décor and feel of the restaurant, but we’re very much a California restaurant, so we have sausages and stuff on the menu, but we also ferment local produce year-round and use that kind of stuff on our pickle plates, things that you would never find in Germany.

We have a very high … my wife, and Alicia and I, we took a trip sort of around Bavaria and Austria for a few weeks when Alicia was three months old. This was like a good nine months before Wursthall opened and what you find is that a lot of the food in Germany, other … there’s a lot of good modern food, but a lot of the classic food in Germany is very brown and white. Brown and white food is not really something that flies in California, especially because we were trying to be a very sort of modern and local beer hall so our menu really places a lot more emphasis on local produce and lighter things while still giving some nods to more traditional beer hall cuisine. We have sausages but they come from all over the world. We have spaetzle, but it’s served in an Italian-style dish with some sort of modern twists, so it’s only … it’s not really fair to call it a German restaurant. It is only very loosely … it’s a California restaurant with some German influence, I would say.

EL: Next week, Kenji and I will be joined by Serious Eats current managing culinary director, Daniel Gritzer.

JKLA: It’s always fun to talk to you, Ed.

EL: You say to that to all the guys.

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