YOU HAVE ASKED FOR PICKLES AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE You will need a 32-oz GLASS jar with a screw-on lid. Please note the glass part is really fucking important. We're about to be pouring hot liquids and also pickle brine by its nature will leach crap out of plastics. I reuse storebought sauerkraut jars because I know they're good for holding pickled foods, but mason jars were also literally designed for this. Also please note that if you do this and then put the lid on and put it in the fridge right away, it'll vacuum-seal itself. Which isn't the least bit necessary, but is extremely cool and makes me feel like a boss, 10/10 recommend. INGREDIENTS:

--1/2 cup white vinegar

--1tbsp white sugar

--1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

--grab a bottle of dried dill and just kinda hang onto that

--4-6 ice cubes, or you can use 1/2 cup of cold water if you're afraid of eyeballing cooldown times (I recommend the ice tho)

--cucumbers 1) slice your cucumbers into coins. I used just under three Persian cucumbers and repeated the experiment later with about 2/3 of one of those giant-ass English cucumbers that's as long as your arm. You will almost definitely have to eat a little bit of unpickled cucumber. Or put it on your eyes and pretend you're at the spa with Oscar Isaac handing you a fruity drink with an umbrella, I'm not the boss of you.

2) layer the coins into your glass jar, with a pinch of dill between each layer. Your layers will probably be flat-ish, not actually flat. This is okay and normal.

2a) (some people will say to just dump a teaspoon of dill in there and call it a day. You can do that. I think layering it helps to provide stronger pickles, but it's your kitchen and your pickles, you get to call this shot.)

3) heat your vinegar, sugar, and salt, stirring gently until everything is dissolved. I've never had mine go as far as boiling, but it does get pretty hot, so watch your hands. Congratulations! You've made brine. (Yes, it's really that simple.)

4) put your jar on top of a potholder, paper towel, or trivet--basically you just want a layer of neutral between your about-to-be-hot jar and your cold counter. Pour the brine slowly into the jar. "Slowly" here just means "in a steady stream you can control without dribbling all over the place."

5) put in your ice cubes ONE!!! AT!!!! A!!!! TIME!!!! I cannot emphasize this strongly enough! This isn't one of those "and if you don't remove the souffle at exactly 37.542 seconds at precisely the speed of 1/28th miles per hour then it will collapse" things, but it is an "if you let the brine cool too quickly you will crack or even shatter your jar" thing. You don't have to move like a snail, but please. One at a time. A second or two is all it needs before the next one goes in, but it does need that second or two.

6) put on the lid and stick it in the fridge.

7) shake it once a day. There is no precise timing on this. It just makes sure any cucumbers that've gotten too cozy-cozy with each other get fully dilled and brined.

8) after three days, you have some damn fine pickles. Also if you want some of the most sinful veggie topping ever for grilled chicken breasts, do this with sliced red onion and carrots, and just swap white vinegar for rice vinegar and dill for about one inch of grated ginger. I refuse to take responsibility for any noises you may make in front of your in-laws and regret as a result, but they'll probably understand anyway once they also taste the onions.

Now do watermelons.

No seriously, watermelons are related to cucumbers— not closely enough to cross-pollinate, but close enough that the white part of watermelon rind tastes like cucumbers and it! Can! Be! Food!

I still have three different forms of watermelon rind squirreled away from last summer: sweet pickles (Alton Brown’s recipe), candied in syrup (from a recipe for Greek “spoon sweets” I found online somewhere), and just plain frozen (sliced into green-bean-sized matchsticks first.

They are tougher than your average cucumber and need some cooking to tenderize. But that also means if otherwise unprocessed, the rind can still be crunchy even after being frozen and (briefly) cooked. I mix a handful in with sliced meat to marinate for stir-fry and the rind absorbs the flavors like mad.

If you cook them longer (like soup), the frozen rind does soften but holds its shape and doesn’t fall apart. If you put a *lot* of the rind into an otherwise mild soup, it’ll taste a lot like Chinese wintermelon soup which makes me nostalgic bc my parents used to grow wintermelons in the back yard. I also dice the pickles to mix with ground meat for empanada filling.

In theory it might be possible to shred them fresh into salad/slaw, but I always cook mine before eating bc they’ve already had the melon part eaten out of them first. The green outer skin is very tough so I usually peel that off, unless I want the pickles to be extra-crunchy.

Behold: candied w some pomegranate syrup for extra flavor/color, sweet pickle chunks, and frozen matchsticks.

CAN SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME WHAT BOOK THIS IS IN BECAUSE I HAVE THE MAIN MANGA AND GUIDE AND ITS NOT THERE

Dug out my guidebook and took a pic of the page; sorry about the resolution but this is what Google translate gave me

ETA tried again w fresh closeup of bottom half

I want someone to make a fully fledged hatoful boyfriend dating sim except it's their human forms and you actually date. The other games are still canon and valid because it's BANGER writing and characterization but I want to be cheesy and cringe with Yuuya in particular 🥺

I have struggled for many years to figure out how Yuuya’s childhood backstory would work in human form and imho it would require (among other things) expansion of the age gap w/ Sakuya by 2-3 years, further obfuscation of the circumstances of his father’s death, and (if Yuuya is still pretty much the only one who knows What Really Happened) enough handwaving to conduct a major orchestral event.

And then there’s working out a successful dating route w/ Kazuaki that fully takes account of the Holiday Star backstory and dear lord there’s so much Hatoful packed into my brain cell

Concept: cursed blade rehabilitation center. Destroying a sentient weapon is expensive and highly unethical, so adventurers bring them to the center where highly trained staff can care for them and eventually find them forever homes. It turns out most cursed weapons are products of trauma and are not strictly evil themselves. Some blades turn out to be fiercely protective companions. Others don't even want to be weapons at all, finding joy in simple work like blacksmithing or farming. Most blades just need to be loved.

A pack of bandits descend upon a seemingly undefended town. But the blacksmith's hammer, the farmer's scythe, the woodsman's axe, they have not forgotten what they once were, and they *will* defend the town that they have come to love.

This sweet girl has been with us for seven seasons. She was forged in the heart of a volcano and would be ideal for anyone with a preexisting fire affinity (she's a cuddler and is guaranteed to keep you warm in winter). She still loves burning, but it turns out you can only reduce the world to ash once. She would be perfectly suited for forest management that regularly requires controlled burns.

This weary old soul has grown tired of bloodshed and would much rather spend his days as an ominous decoration in a tavern or common room, a perfect fit for an adventurer looking to leave their dungeon crawling days behind. He likes peoplewatching with his single glowing eye, preferably from high, prominent locations with views of entrances and exits.

Dark king Grütmore’s edge of annihilation consumed 10,000 souls in the first era, and as it turns out, statistically a lot of those souls heard stories that never got written down. It works in a library now.

The throngler, however, is just irrevocably fucked up. We put it in a stone in a forest and hoped nobody ever finds it

Something something mouse von lipwig

probably the strangest fantasy romance/erotica is by anne rice and tanith lee

theres a short story by tanith lee called bite-me-not where vampires are these humanoid winged beings that sort of have bird of prey intelligence and one of them kind of has an affair with a human not because they fell in love in the typical sense but because they end up in this complicated codependent dynamic despite him being a natural predator

the prose is really beautiful and enchanted and kind of macabre

im pretty sure she also wrote this adult version of snow white where its toxic yuri between the evil queen and snow white who in this world is i believe a circus performer or something to that effect but i cant remember if it was tanith lee or just from one of the short story collections i read a couple years ago. also it was in a sci fi universe lol

now the WORST fantasy erotica i ever read was also anne rice's sleeping beauty but thats a whole other topic

That particular Tanith Lee version of Snow White is called “Snow Drop” and was indeed in one of those multi-author anthologies of retold fairy tales. She has another, older one called “Red As Blood” (the title story of Lee’s single-author fairy tale anthology), which has been described as a major template for “Snow, Glass, Apples”.

Some of Lee’s other vampire-themed works include the “Blood Opera” novels about the Scarabae family, at least one story in the “Lost Books of Paradys” series, and the novella “Sabella, or the Blood Stone”

ETA: I first read “Sabella” in a mini-anthology paired w “Kill the Dead”, whose two male protagonists were apparently inspired by characters from “Blake’s 7” for which Lee wrote one episode (maybe more? idk, never got into B7 but did enjoy looking at the actor Paul Darrow)

ETAA: another Tanith Lee vampire work is the odd medievalesque novel _Blood of Roses_ which I hunted down years ago as a nearly unattainable out-of-print paperback on eBay but is now more widely available in e-book format— check your local library apps (hoopla, Libby, etc) and mutter mutter you kids don’t know how lucky all this new-fangled technologiggies

Fire Props for Burning Wax Buns

Here is the list of fire props I know that can be used to burn wax buns/balls.

The common props most players normally use:

• Brazier - complete the fifth quest from Assembly Guide; the price is 12 hearts

• Square-shaped stone brazier - purchase from Troup Juggler for 14 hearts

• Fire Cauldron - purchase from Prophet of Fire for 13 hearts

• Torch - purchase from Marching Adventurer for 55 candles

• Mischief Cauldron - purchase from Days of Mischief

Least common fire props used:

• Bonfire - ultimate gift from Season of Belonging

• Chandelier - purchase from Season of Moomin

(Are the props from nesting workshop efficient? I saw very few players brought them. They doesn’t seem to work well.)

(If there’s more, please tell me by reblogging this.)

The Feast table was the first open-access recharge item although it’s pretty slow. There are several different Things With Fire that cycle through the Skykea store (single/multiple freestanding candles, tiny wall sconce (incense burner?), bathtub w candle, cooking stove) but the fastest one is prb the big pizza oven.

I’ve heard that the cake spells can also recharge from their itty bitty candles but haven’t tried them.

iirc the Mischief potion cauldron and Remembrance tea stand might only recharge for the first few second while they’re igniting