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Entry tags:

Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling: Comfort Food / 有可能的夜晚, by Irrelevancy

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: M/M; Song Lan | Song Zichen/Xiao Zingchen; Song Lan | Song Zichen, Xiao Xingchen
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 3,632 words
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, determinedly Taiwanese cuisine, Food Porn because the author inexplicably omitted that tag, racist microaggression (a character recounts getting renamed by his exchange host family.)
Creator Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, Taiwan, Street food, chinese diaspora feelings and food as love language, SongXiao Feast
Creator Links: (AO3)

Irrelevancy; (Tumblr)

touchmycoat
Theme: Food & Cooking, Cultural Differences, Fluff, Identity, Modern AU, Slice of Life

Summary: Flirting and cultural reclamation via Taiwanese street food. Songxiao modern meet-cute.

Author’s Notes:
For the #songxiaofeast on twitter, thanks for organizing the event~!!!! There's so much great art in the hashtag *~* love me some food love....

Chinese glossary at end lolol, and is this all a shameless marketing ploy for Taiwan night markets? yes.

…The menu (a twitter thread w pictures) (Unfortunately no longer accessible—FMO.)

大腸包小腸 (dà cháng bāo xiǎo cháng): "little sausage wrapped around a big sausage" lol
蚵仔煎 (ó-à-tsiān): oyster pancake. I'm using the Taiwanese romanization here because it better captures that Hokkien pronunciation. Ningxia Night Market seriously has the best ones.
臭豆腐 (chò dò fǔ): stinky tofu!! I think it smells delicious; don't be like SL eat it normally without that crazy amount of sauce nkfsjdfds
肉圓麵線 (bà wán miàn xiàn): meatball & rice noodles. Two separate things but they're typically sold together. Meatball is always pronounced in Hokkien and sometimes rice noodle is too (mǐ suǎ)
豆花 (dòu huā): tofu pudding. It's not too sweet and it's sooooo refreshing to have on a hot taiwan evening with ice!
雞蛋糕 (jī dàn gāo): egg cake! They're seriously very good but a hit-or-miss from street vendors lmfao.

Drop a comment~! Happy feastings!!!!!!!

Reccer’s Notes: Taiwanese bartender Song Zichen, taking both pity on and a fancy to diasporic American tourist Xiao Xingchen, proceeds to initiate him into the ways of local street food (as both a welcome into his heritage and a courtship overture.) This fic, stuffed with delicious Unresolved Sexual Tension, serves as a reminder that the Sinosphere is a very big and diverse place, and brought an outpouring of nostalgic yearning for the Taste Of Home from diasporic commenters.

(And Ningxia Night Market needs to hire Irrelevancy as a publicist, dammit; I was fervently wishing my neighborhood had something like that up the alley!)

Fanwork links: Comfort Food / 有可能的夜晚 (AO3-locked.)

[ SECRET POST #6833 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6833 ⌋

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Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 55 secrets from Secret Submission Post #976.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #977 ]

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #977 ]

The first secret from this batch will be posted on September 27th.

RULES:
1. One secret link per comment.
2. 750x750 px or smaller.
3. Link directly to the image.

More details on how to send a secret in!

Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.

Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.

Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

[ SECRET POST #6832 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6832 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

[ SECRET POST #6831 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6831 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Entry tags:

ATLA: Heat, Wait, Steep, Repeat by Haicrescendo

Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender
Pairings/Characters: Zuko, Iroh, the GAang in the background
Rating: G
Length: 2,889 words, 19min 30s
Creator Links: Haicrescendo
Theme: Food & Cooking, character development, family, families of choice, going home, missing scenes,

Summary:

[Zuko’s greatest failing, not his only but just one that stands out the most in a very long list, is that he’s never known quite what he had until it’s gone. Or, on the opposite hand, he covets the things that don’t matter, that seem to matter so much at the time and turn out, in the end, to be something that Zuko’s made up in his head.

And then Zuko finds, of all things after it all, that he misses Uncle Iroh’s tea.]

Or,

Zuko screws up his life and in the process of fixing it, figures out some tea wisdom along the way.

Reccer's Notes: This story is so beautiful and gentle. I absolutely love seeing how Zuko's growth and character development is mirrored with his finally learning to make a decent cup of tea. Plus the neat detail of how he despite learning from and trying to emulate his uncle, he makes it his own way. Zuko and Iroh's relationship is lovely in this too. Just an all around lovely story. klainelynch does a beautiful job with the podfic as well

Fanwork Links:
Heat, Wait, Steep, Repeat
and the Podfic both on AO3

Current Music: “Cha Ge”

Entry tags:

Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon, by watch-grok-brainrot

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: Gen; M/M; Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian; Jin Zixuan, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang, Jiang Fengmian, Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, Lan Xichen, Lan An, Lan Wangji
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 1,209 words
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, arrant pedantry, Author Showed Her Work, Food Porn, gastrotravelogue, tea nerdery, Tumblr work
Creator Tags:
headcanon, the untamed 陈情令, cql, mo dao zu shi, mdzs, wei wuxian, lan wangji, nie huaisang, jin zixuan, wen qing, nie mingjue, wangxian headcanon at the very end because that's what i'm here for, tea, i really like tea, heicha, oolong, white tea, green tea, dragonwell, my ramblings, qi is a thing for some tea drinkers

Creator Links: (AO3)

Haoppopotamus; (Instagram)

haoppopotamus; (Tumblr)

watch-grok-brainrot (formerly ~~wangxianbunnydoodles~~)
Theme: Food & Cooking, Cultural Differences, Meta, Research, Worldbuilding

Summary: Since watching ep 3 for the first time (i.e. january), this has been knocking around in my brain. In ep 3, we see JZXuan waltzing into the same inn as the Yunmeng Trio, booting them, and then rejecting “bad tea”. Ever since, I’ve watched a lot of tea being poured in CQL. It got me thinking, what kind of tea would different sects prefer and what would different characters drink?

Reccer’s Notes: In which Haoppo uses her tea connoisseurship as a vehicle for characterization and worldbuilding (and invites her imaginary friends to illustrate and share her interest.) For the likes of me (with no claim to Asian cred by birth or upbringing, and whose blunted sensory range reduces almost all tea to hot leaf juice), this serves as a window into an unfamiliar area of interest and body of cultural reference frames (the idea that tea might possess qi, not necessarily related to its flavor, was a new one on me—but of obvious importance to cultivators.)

Fanwork Links: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon

(The original post, preserved on the Wayback Machine, includes a beautiful and apropos GIF header: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon (~~wangxianbunnydoodles~~)

Multi fandom icons

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[ SECRET POST #6830 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6830 ⌋

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Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Entry tags:

admin: theme reminder

Theme Reminder: Food & Cooking

Photograph of steel spoons and spices in a dramatic setting with added text that gives it the look of a gourmet magazine cover: September 2025. Food & Cooking, at Fancake. Steel teaspoons are arranged in an elogated oval to suggest a fish, with the bowls acting as scales and some of the handles left visible to create the fins and tail, giving the creature a spiky appearance. The concave bowls are dusted with a powdery orange spice for color and one spoon at the front of the fish is filled with a coarse black spice to create an eye. The fish is on a black surface with a rough texture and around it are three skinny green peppers, a mound of salt, a mound of orange spice, and a dipping bowl filled with a clear amber liquid.

Current Location: a warm and cozy bed when I should probably get back to work
Current Music: Caroline Polachek - Blood And Butter

Entry tags:

Closing some tabs.

+ Relooted has a demo up! Reclaim real African artifacts from Western museums in an Africanfuturist heist game! I won't be able until I get home, but I've been super excited since I saw the trailer.

+ Denmark close to wiping out leading cancer-causing HPV strains after vaccine roll-out.

+ Longer, heavier periods are long-term symptom of Covid, study finds.

+ These are the 1st images of humpbacks having sex, and they're both males.

+ Buffy the COVID Slayer: Sarah Michelle Gellar posts masked selfie on set of reboot. (SMG is a very small part of the article, but interesting nonetheless)

+ Scientists found the missing nutrients bees need — Colonies grew 15-fold.

+ In Defense of Despair.
We are also reading Aracelis Girmay’s “You Are Who I Love,” in which the speaker unfurls a list of people they love, people they want to see survive, people doing what those not committed to close and tender attention might call the daily tasks of living: a person stirring a pot of beans, a person selling roses out of a cart, a person crossing a border, a person carrying their brother home, a person singing Leonard Cohen to the snow. You, reader, do not personally know these people, but their motivations spark a familiar feeling—here is someone trying to survive in a world that can render a person unable to get out of bed. You, too, may love a person who cannot get out of bed, which is why you cherish the things that convey, I am trying to stitch together enough small moments to have a life for a little bit longer.

+ No Platonic Explanation.

RIP Robert Redford

I have to admit that when all the hubbub of him being cast in Winter Soldier happened, I was entirely out of the loop. He didn't have much presence in my life growing up, despite me devouring movies. But it's been nice to read about his life since yesterday. I never knew about all his activism.

Robert Redford, Environmentalism, and the Most Prescient Movie Ever Made by Dave Leviton is a good write-up.

I may look into a few of his movies when I get home. Meanwhile, here's a All The Predident's Men vid: Me and Bernstein down by the schoolyard by

findmeinthealps.

eta Sneakers is a movie that's being mentioned a lot, I may seek that one out. Here's a writeup at PC Mag (makes sense, as it's about cyber security, I believe?)

Entry tags:

due South: Hungry Like the Wolf, by Wagnetic

Fandom: due South
Characters/Pairings: Diefenbaker
Rating: Gen
Length: n/a (artwork)
Content Notes: may induce donut cravings!
Creator Links: Wagnetic on AO3
Theme: Food and cooking, Happy endings, Crafts, Textiles

Summary: A bag featuring Dief and the imminent demise of some donuts.

Reccer's Notes:
I will never stop reccing this! An excellently crafted bag with a felt appliqué of Dief about to enjoy a stack of donuts. It's so good, and a perfect likeness of Dief with a "donuts incoming" gleam in his eye!

Fanwork Links: Hungry Like the Wolf

[ SECRET POST #6829 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6829 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Entry tags:

Overlooked Again

1) Some interesting posts at Henry Jenkins blog about the Peabody Awards process and disruption in the entertainment industry. "So, Peabody meets 3 times face-to-face. And it is an award that is decided across genres and platforms: television, radio, podcasting, and interactive, which is games and VR, etc. And across genre: entertainment, news, documentary, etc. But in particular, it's decided by a unanimous vote of a board of 18...who represent lots of different facets. There's critics, which include academics and TV critics, media executives, writers, and showrunners. ..which is different from a campaign for 26,000 voting members, in which you have no control of what they've watched and what they've not watched...Aziz Ansari was famous for coming to our show and saying, “You know, this is pretty cool. It's like you watch all of our shit, and you just decided it was good, and we didn't have to go to a bunch of weird-ass parties and stuff"

Two other factors: "It's not just celebrating entertainment. It's trying to talk about the ways that popular culture and entertainment can deeply shape who we are and want to be as a people, as empathetic citizens in the world" and "also...is it a story that matters? So, sometimes the craft can be brilliant, but it may not be a story that matters." ( Read more... )

2) A few more notes about Silent Witness as I move into S26. S23 seemed a really unusual season, enough so that I wondered about its production dates. ( Read more... )

3) Watched a documentary on the BeeGees which, like a lot of documentaries, goes very light on the time after their popularity peaked. (That was one thing the Billy Joel and Bon Jovi ones avoided). ( Read more... )

4) A Spy Among Friends was well written and interesting to watch but I kept constantly thinking about the 2003 Cambridge Spies which I saw last year and suspect it's much closer to the truth. ( Read more... )

5) Just a few comments about the Emmys, mostly in how unsurprising it was that Stephen Colbert finally won an Emmy for Best Show more because voters were jolted into a show of support. Yet John Oliver won yet again, twice. (Particular irony given the broadcast was on CBS).

Otherwise can't say it was entertaining and I wish a lot of stuff not involved in handing out awards had been cut. The tribute to Gilmore Girls seemed to really exemplify "too little, too late" since it and so many shows from the WB had been overlooked through sheer snobbery decades ago, when the attention would have done more good.

Poll #33627 Kudos Footer-540

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Want to leave a Kudos?

View Answers

Kudos!
5 (100.0%)

Entry tags:

admin: poll: theme

Round 179 Theme Poll

Poll #33623 round 179 theme poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 105

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Mystery & Suspense
37 (35.2%)

Platonic Relationships
32 (30.5%)

Uncommon Settings
36 (34.3%)

105 Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Hamilton) Part #1 icons

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20 Rumi (KPop Demon Hunters) icons

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Current Mood: charmed

Entry tags:

Stargate Atlantis: A Supermarket in California

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairings/Characters: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Rating: Mature
Length: 7,571 words
Creator Links: whateverrrrwhatever on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking

Summary: John decides that California doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

It's an AU where John Sheppard inherits a supermarket right next to Cal and meets Rodney McKay, physics professor. They kiss. That's it, that's the fic.

Reccer's Notes: This is an *almost* complete AU, shot through with wonderful location details, wherein John is a veteran who spent time in Antarctica and Rodney is a professor at Berkeley. In a series of snapshots, John inherits a run-down local market, decides he likes the neighborhood, and sets about making a place for himself. Then one day, an "unnecessarily dramatic" (as described in the tags) Rodney walks through the door.

This was one of the first SGA AUs I read and it stayed with me. I truly enjoyed following John as he problem solved; first the store, then Rodney. (Spoiler: the solution is snacks.)

Fanwork Links: Story on AO3

[ SECRET POST #6828 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6828 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.