probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
52K notes
·
View notes
The other funny in a bad way thing about Bruce beating all his kids so effortlessly in a fight is like oh. So when you took them in and trained them, this is what it amounted to? You took the girl who could previously dodge bullets and now she can't even dodge a grappling hook? Why was Duke more capable a fighter before he had powers? Why did you let Steph's new costume have no eyemask when she started out with one? Dick has fought world level threats with the Titans yet he can't even take down one old man now that he's mostly working with the batfam? Forget the whole Selina and Bruce spiralling out of control thing the batkids deserve to beat Bruce's ass solely for his awful training if they can't even last five seconds fighting him all together.
568 notes
·
View notes
I'm literally in love with Gwen calling Miles "Spider-Man" affectionately cuz despite them thinking earlier in the movie that he wasn't ready he proved that he is and she looks at him as someone capable of doing great things and how in ATSV she talked about him so much to Spider Society that everyone who spent more time with her knew who he was when he arrived and how she kept saying "if it was up to me..." when he wanted to join and when she says that she "always" thinks he's "amazing" and how she had one job and that was capturing the Spot but she wanted to go see Miles first it's just everything to me
510 notes
·
View notes
alternative chuuya ship propaganda under the cut
TsujiChuu -> they had exactly TWO (2) encounters but in those 10~ minutes Tsujimura has immediately waxed poetic about how chuuya is a unique and intriguing man (as most special division agents do), and went out of her way to know more about him. and Chuuya immediately empathized her personal struggles with her ability, and gave her advice on how to both control it and accept it as part of her instead of something that was placed in her**. (hmmm stormbringer chuuya and gaiden tsujimura parallels. there's a reason they met.) Anyways Tsujimura is super high-strung and chuuya (when he's not purposely being riled up) is actually really laid back so they'd mesh well personality wise. And they could have an fbi x criminal secret romance thing happening.
ChuuRan -> they definitely fucked in the book. Lol. Also it's a match up that is spiritually similar to skk but 20x funnier because they have zero history and and wayyy more petty beef. in a more serious note, Chuuya probably does have some respect for Ranpo ---not respect for his intellect. I don't think chuuya would be impressed by anyone acting like a cocky genius, he was partnered with dazai after all-- recognizing him as the agency's "lynchpin" and all that. On Ranpo's side, i think he respects chuuya as a Threat, so that side adventure in the Poe's book was probably both to keep him away from the Cannibalism war thing and also gain an ~ally~ of sorts. IDK I JUST WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK BRO
TaintedLemons -> Chaos and property destruction boyfriends ftw! They're canonically drinking buddies too! Chuuya is a messy lightweight, so what if when Hirotsu is unavailable, it's Kajii who helps him back home or let's him crash at his place 🥺? Kajii actually seems to be pretty high ranking, what with him just casually chatting up Kouyou and Mori trusting him with undercover missions. Kajii should be promoted, we have 2 exec seats after all. Kajii's silly eccentric personality and their friendship helps Chuuya put a positive connotation to mad scientists. Also they're literally always near each other in the group shots and official art, it's literally canon.
ChuuAku -> another one that isn't too rare but seriously underrated. Chuuya is that super supportive borderline embarassing boyfriend that takes 5 minutes each day to divulge words of affirmation, and he'd make dinner and use the cheesy pet names, the kinda stuff that makes Akutagawa want to explode/shrivel up and die. See as soon as Akutagawa is involved i think Chuuya should be flattened to the cookie cutter token love interest. He'd murder daz for a birthday gift. He's be Akutagawa's personal cheerleader and nothing more. This is also basically a canon ship btw..
442 notes
·
View notes
im gonna start a fight; and, at the same time, i need you to take this in the most good-faith way possible, but:
videos that involve body-checking and intentionally (and uncritically) show a mealplan of an unhealthy number of calories are just a revamped version of pro-ana food diaries.
and yeah, i know there's arguments. i address some of them under the cut. but at the end of the day, we're just coming back to romanticizing mental illness; we've just found a better platform for it.
this is already something we've done. we knew it was wrong and tried to stop it. and tbh. it just wasn't enough.
there are people who argue "well, what if you have an eating disorder, you can't help it if you don't eat!" except that as someone with an ED; we are not infants. we know what we're doing. part of having an ED is that you are like, maybe too self-aware. even if we can't help our own food choices, we don't need to fucking romanticize the disorder - something we've been warning you about since 2013. there are hours of setup, filming, and editing that go into these videos. they do not happen to fall into place randomly. there is a reason they are pieced together to be beautiful, bright, inspiring.
there's this woman who pretty much only posts daily plans under a normal amount of calories, and everyone defends her saying but it's better than nothing! and i'm like. except she opens those with images of her showing off her body and provides no context in the video or caption that suggests that she believes what she's doing is unhealthy. she has hundreds of thousands of followers on a platform designed for young kids and teens. i refuse to believe that by accident her content just happens to be cheery advice on "healthy" versions of starving.
for any other symptom of mental illness, we would be incredibly enraged by this kind of placid acceptance of a "tips and tricks" fast-start guide. imagine if people posted pink & pretty videos saying "best places to cut yourself" as if it was a fucking storytime. we, as a society, are so fucking fatphobic that we would rather accept blatantly harmful displays of self harm than admit that we are obsessed with a hyper-thin body type.
i am not suggesting someone never talks about their disorder. i talk about mine. actually, it's a plot point in my book.
here's the difference: i recognize it's a fucking mental illness. i am very careful to never mention a specific weight, eating pattern, or calorie plan. i always make sure to position it as something that ruined my fucking life. i do not put cheery music in the background and hearts and sparkles over my worst moments. i do not film it in bright light. i do not start each passage with an image of a thin body followed by "here's how to look like her."
eating disorders should not be framed as aspirational. and the problem is that society worships the "after" image, so long as you don't get too sick. there is a reason so many people who quit being "influencers" will later admit - i wasn't eating well that whole time; an obsession with food was completely destroying my life.
we let any uncredited, uncertified person write the most backwards, fucked up shit about how to get the body you desire! because the underlying, secret belief is: well, at least they're thin! and the real thing that fucking gets me each time - they make fucking money off of it. their irresponsibility and societal harm literally pays off for them.
"why do you care so much." "don't like it don't look." "so what if people experiment with new ways of thinking of food?"
thank you for asking. we're about to get extremely personal. it's because when i was 18 i discovered "thinspiration"/"thinspo." and it absolutely influenced, shaped, and codified my pre-existing eating disorder. i went from having some troubling habits and traits to being incredibly unwell within what felt like a matter of days. there were actual pages designed to train me on how to have an ED correctly. it was all so suddenly easy. i was sick; and the nature of the illness meant - i wanted to be sicker.
it takes an average of 7 years for a person to fully recover. i know this personally - even now, 10 years from the worst of it, i still fucking struggle. i am so much happier now and i eat what i want and i literally don't think about food at all (19 year old me would shudder) and yet - i still fucking know the calories of plain toast with butter.
an eating disorder is one of the deadliest types of mental illness. over 1 in 4 people with an ED will attempt suicide.
and i'm sorry. i just do not see the exchange rate of "high rate of engagement" versus "the value of a human life."
1K notes
·
View notes
the love story being so central to our flag means death really is mindblowing. i haven’t stopped thinking about it for months. it is, to its core, a romance. that was the point. the queer romance wasn’t written in in the second or third season because the fandom picked up on the homoeroticism and made a ship popular. it wasn’t added in because the fans demanded it or because the actors pushed for it later on it wasn’t forced into slowburn by a network it was there the whole time.
when stede showed ed his secret closet that was on purpose an allegory, when they shared the marmalade bread that was romantic intentionally, when they rowed away from the burning party boat and ed was looking at stede that was him FALLING IN LOVE . that's how it was WRITTEN. ed really actually leaned in and almost kissed stede in the moonlight scene. and then. they actually kissed! like i know this is months old news now but i can’t get over how fucking different this feels to other queer romances i’ve seen. it is the core and central plot of the show and it’s beautiful. it’s funny it’s cute it’s heartwarming it’s GOOD. they did it.
5K notes
·
View notes