The steak tartare is super gross. But also ... buttery. 

He doesn't try a second bite.

The entree is delicious. As is the drama.

Z points out the lava cake when they get their dessert menu.

Lava cake!!!! Now this is how you execute raw food.

Z shares it with him, and only gives him a couple of stupid looks about it.

Z is the only person in the world for whom Camillo would consent to sharing his lava cake.

The digital gift card is slightly awkward for paying, but he makes it work. Hopefully Z has no questions about why Valentine Teegarden would choose to use a digital gift card.

Z does not know how fancy restaurant gift cards work and does not care to speculate.

He’s been doing great with will saves all day long, but he drops the ball just one time and leans his head on Camillo’s on the ride home.

Camillo takes this as his cue to snuggle up completely.

Yeah okay. This is good.

He gives him a very tight hug before he gets out of the car at his stop.

Camillo wishes him a fond good night.

On the way back to his dorm, he checks on everyone's thoughts.

that was great. that was so great

cake. meat

he’s so cute

lava cake

this sucks. what the fuck

raw meat is great i guess

dinner date not a date

That doesn’t make sense after Season 3.

She’s gorgeous. I want to touch her arms.

They’ve definitely jumped the shark.

aching

I should have had him stay over.

He really, really, really wants to geas Dorothy to touch herself.

He could watch her thoughts the whole time. It wouldn't hurt anything.

It's Cookie Run time now.

Before bed -- when he trusts himself to open Sultana again -- he checks out the Taste Tuner.

The options are, as usual, extensive.

He can change how the tongue responds to actual tastes, but there’s also a startlingly complex system for tuning flavors.

If he wants, he can search for a particular food and see the primary aroma compounds responsible for its scent and taste, tune response to those up or down to his liking, see how that affects other foods. He can use a slightly less biology-laden interface and just tune things like “acidity” and “woodiness” and “sweetness” and “smokiness” up and down for different foods, or change Z’s response to those same base flavors, how appealing or aversive they are in large amounts…

Whatever he wants to do, there’s a good chance there’s a way to do it.

Holy shit he wants to give Valentine access to this so badly. It would be like if Christmas had a birthday.

For now, he plays around with Z's response to the flavor components in raw meat and fresh blood, turns the appeal way, way up.

Sultana has another quest for him.

Dark Cravings I - BONUS (Optional)

Completion requirements:

Z eats exclusively raw meat for 72 hours.

...that can't be good for you.

He gives Z a geas to go to bed on time, instead.

Then Sultana will leave him un-notified for the night,

aside from one, at a reasonable hour.

💭 cozy

His best friend.

In the morning he's so excited to go home that he doesn't even check for his daily reward until he's at the train station.

His daily reward for today is…100 Pearls. Not much to write home about, until you realize it’s $100 or a decent chunk of a salamander habitat.

Aww. He wanted another outfit.

He amuses himself on the train ride by repeatedly typing wear the sexy lingerie into Dorothy's geas input and then deleting it without sending.

He gets little mundane thought updates from Z all morning, with a little extra attention to how amazing or terrible things smell.

When the train pulls up, the car is already waiting by the curb 50 feet away.