#BECAUSE IT'S THE ONE THING YOU CAN'T REPLACE

[bitchfitch]

My mother's bf had a fairly major surgery (he's fine and recovering well DW) and he's going to be housebound for his birthday this year, so I've been enlisted to come up with a fancy birthday meal for the special birthday boy that's primarily fruit and veg, sweeter than savory, and is something he's never had before.

Bc I'm making watermelington. It's beef Wellington, but watermelon. bc my mom only found out recently you can use watermelon as a tuna substitute. And I know that you can substitute most higher quality beef cuts with tuna or salmon.... usually. Anyways the idea fascinates her so I'm hoping to use that for bonus points.

Now he's off his ass on pain killers so I can't like. Ask him if he's ever had something before. so to meet my brief I've decided to just. commit a novel hate crime against the British I guess.

Anyways. I'm writing this because I need to walk myself through this process and think it'll be surreal enough to be worth taking y'all along for.

So, Beef Wellington. In its most basic bitch arrangement is a beef tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto/really thin bacon, with a layer of mushroom and onion mush, that has been further wrapped in mustard slathered puff pastry.

We will be ship of Theseusing this. bc beef Wellington is like. the opposite of what he wants. Which is why it's funny.

Puff pastry-> it's still just puff pastry

this one doesn't have to change (aka I can't be fucked to do pastry prep and I'm just gonna use store bought it's Fine.)

the prosciutto is also just going to be prosciutto.

Thin meat

Beef tenderloin-> watermelon,

Tbh this is a pretty 1 to 1 substitution. I'll bake the slices at like. 250-300 for an hour or so ahead of the rest of prep to dry it out a bit. bc you can't like. Sear watermelon to seal in the water like you can beef. By definition it's a very wet fruit (like me when I fall into the lake). Ill Add salt and chili and lime juice while baking maybe. this is the easy part

The mushroom mush-> salsa done bad style

As the word mush implies, this is meant to be a very soft mix. It adds a lot of nuttiness to the wellington that rounds out all of the salt from the meats. I'm replacing it with white person salsa(the birthday boy can't handle spice). Tomato, lime juice, parsley, avocado, cucumber, feta, and maybe mango so I can have an excuse to have a lil mango treat. I said I wasn't making it spicy. I'm still putting a bit of chili in it. bc it'll be better like that. This is also a ridiculously wet bit of mush, Even the original mushrooms have too much water. I'll figure something out.

Mustard -> jelly

He lives in a big city. those preserve sections are massive. I'll find a weird one. maybe apricot.

Prep:

We're in the mind palace kitchen, I have not attempted any of this. We're just thinking real hard about it and I'll edit as needed on the day and post results.

The watermelon

Preheat oven to eh. 300f? We want low and slow to dry things out without it taking a year. but idk what his oven is like. If it's gentle I'll bump it up another ten-twenty.

Slather some watermelon slices in salt chili powder and lime juice mixture.

bake for 30 min on a wire rack or directly on the oven racks (after cleaning thoroughly) if he doesn't have a wire rack. with a drip try underneath to catch the drippage. check frequently. Have one slice that's for being poked to see if it's approaching being meat. Bake longer if needed.

Salsa bad style

chop everything up and add it to a pan with some oil in it. Tbh I don't think the type of oil you use for cooking matters if you're not like, getting near any smoke points. Most people can't tell the difference unless you made your food bland as hell.

Anyways there's some wildly different moisture contents on the list so there has to be an Order to cook off as much water as possible without getting yucky.

Tomatoes and cucumbers go in together with some salt to get the cucs softening, then the mango chunks and lime juice. Once most of the water is gone the avocado feta and parsley can go in. There is a good amount of water in avocados but they're delicate and don't pan fry well, so we're just going to ignore their water crimes and hope for the best. They just need to be evenly mixed through the rest of the mush.

Putting it together

lay out the puff pastry, cut into sections to wrap each watermelon slice individually with.

Slather in jam

Take the prosciutto and lay it out on half of each section of the pastry,

spoon the salsa onto that

Melon

Another layer of salsa

another layer of thin meat

Fold the pastry over the top and pinch the edges bc watermelon slices are not a rollable shape and I don't want to carve a watermelon into a tube for this because that sounds irritating.

Brush with egg wash and more parsley

Cook in oven following the pastry's preferred temp and time. it's fucking watermelon, you're not getting ecoli from it.

watermelington :)

I'm serving it with baked sweet potatoes and spinach based salad with whatever toppings are left over from making the salsa.

anyways thank you for joing me on this thought experiment. I will post updates once the deed is done. I'm sorry to every British person ever.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Nejiron

Debut: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Yesterday I learned that this thing exists. And I realized I had never seen it in my life! I have not played Majora's Mask, but I still feel like it's weird that there is a weird guy in an old entry of one of the biggest game franchises, and I don't think I have EVER seen it. But now I get to see it! And so do you! Yahoo! Behold this lump!

Nejiron looks pretty pathetic (affectionate). It default pose is sitting while curled into a ball, and its body is already a ball! It would be funny to see it waltz around with its legs, but I don't think it wants to, because it rolls around everywhere. Also, please observe its eyes. They are such eyes. I feel like these are the sort of eyes that would make a noticeable, wet sound when they blink. This thing has not slept in days.

Nejiron doesn't have to be so sad, though, because its game got a remake! This forced game developers to once again occupy their minds with Nejiron, updating its model and design slightly, making it a bit more detailed. Someone had to draw Nejiron some more detailed eye bags. Isn't that great? Someone also decided that it has human-like fingers and toes. Maybe in a Majora's Mask HD, it would get fingernails! It would have to take some time every few days to clip them. Now that would be relatable! Representation!

If you were dissapointed that Nejiron would be one of those fictional monsters that you can only experience with one sense, do not worry! We are told that it smells like gunpowder. I have never smelled gunpowder, but if you know what it smells like, then yeah! You know what this beast smells like, and your immersion deepens. When one is hit, it will, of course, explode! It will then be replaced by another one that emerges from the ground. I guess they are disposable soldiers... but what is their purpose?

We actually know, miraculously! Nejirons hunt Gorons, the big, strong rocky people who eat rocks themselves, and also roll around in ball form. Nejiron evolved specifically to mimic and deceive them! In fact, "neji" means "twisted" or "warped", in reference to this! I can't imagine they can kill their prey by just ramming into them, so maybe that is where the exploding comes in, and then other workers bring the food to nourish a reproductive "queen" underground? I also can't imagine these basic Nejirons eating. No mouth, you see. So maybe there is an even more monstrous queen lurking beneath, eating Goron meat and popping out explosive babies... hooray! I hope she has a funny abdomen!

[blathersthecat]

AU where Ford is a paranormal investigator who's specifically obsessed with the ghost side of things. He'd seen plenty of the average ghost but he wanted to know how their plane works and if there's a way to bridge the gap.

Ford at some point finds the writings in the cave as usual and doesn't know he summoned a straight up demon. Bill actually died with the rest of his people in his dimension, but while the others either moved on or became ghosts (that dwell inside Bill's mind), Bill became a demon instead.

Ford of course, eventually tries to stop making the bridge and gets stuck in the other plane and Stan (with Fiddleford in this) tries to bring him back to the land of the living.

Important context for the next line: Fiddleford's gun is different in this AU. It isn't much of a memory gun but makes the target be more inclined to ignore or become straight up blind to paranormal activity. So it's instead just called the Paranormal Eraser.

The Eraser, when used on Stan's mind, erased the paranormal activity in it, which Bill was, entirely. It was not made to be used at such a high power though (enough power to erase a literal demon) so this is what caused the memory loss because of all it erased.

Fiddleford has a lot changed in this AU so it's all below with some other lore:

- Fiddleford saw Bill in his demon form and heard screams of the dead when he saw across the bridge.

- Besides what happened to Stan, no one ever had the memory side effect like in the show. In this AU, Fiddleford stays fairly sane and doesn't ever start a cult since he regrets what he did pretty quickly after he realizes the paranormal can still mess with him but now he just won't know when they are and that terrifies him.

It's like seeing a ton of roaches in your room and putting on a blindfold so they won't stress you out, but obviously, you know they're still there and it makes it worse - IDK HOW ELSE TO EXPLAIN IT LMAO

- Fiddleford goes back to the shack to try to tell Ford frantically about his grave mistake. But he meets Stan instead. He starts to help Stan with the bridge out of guilt that Ford got taken by this awful stuff in his absence. He blames himself and thinks that Ford would've been okay if only if he stayed.

- Fiddleford has soo much anxiety when it comes to this stuff. He also regrets heavily how he can't help the family much whenever they need him because of his paranormal blindness. Fiddleford can't even see or hear Bill at all at first.

- During weirdmageddon, his head hurts constantly and he feels incredibly disoriented from all the paranormal stuff going on everywhere. But since it's so overwhelming, the effects of the gun start to wane and he actually starts to be able to see the paranormal again.

- Fiddleford was in on the lies with Stan (knows he's called Stanford, tries to tell the kids that Gravity Falls is completely normal, and goes to work with Stan every night)

- Gravity falls doesn't have tons of random anomalies but only has tons of paranormal/ghostly activity.

- The mystery shack is more spooky themed. Stan has a pretty funny blue and green van instead too. He definitely didn't do that to reference anything - the colors are also mixed up for 'copyright reasons')

- Ford was not able to be killed in the other plane since he was technically dead but it was perfectly possible to feel pain and be tortured so he definitely wanted to avoid that.

- Ford has to get used to having to eat, drink, and sleep again now that he's back alive.

- Ford is less upset with Fiddleford than with Stan which seems unfair to Fiddleford who gets very frustrated with Ford because of it since he has gathered a ton of respect for Stan over all these years.

- Bill's goons are other evil spirits.

- The zodiac circle is replaced with an exorcism circle.

- Fiddleford, Stan, and Ford all become ghost hunters together after the kids leave.

Feel free to send any asks about this AU. This is my pride and joy now, oh my god

[velvetvexations]

Even putting aside what a ridiculous comparison that is, I need it understood that the primary way transradfems engage with "material reality" is through movies from the previous century.

It's hypervisibility vs. invisibility. Trans women were openly mocked and trans men were ignored or just subsumed into a range of experiences for cis women. That's changing now that trans men are getting more spotlight than they had before, although it's still tilted in those directions.

But there was genuinely nothing transphobic about Chihiro's story and to say there was you have to prove his model was trans women and transitioning children when there is an extremely well-established category of AMAB people who present as girls in Japanese culture that is infinitely more talked about in pop culture over there. You have to insist upon the fact that he was ever connected to people who sincerely identify as girls in the first place. If this was America, it'd make more sense, but it is actually just genuinely racist to be told all that and still be like "well, but it makes me think of trans women."

This is why transradfems hate me, too. A trans woman disagreeing with them breaks their rules.

Especially the person who cannot stop fucking bypassing my block to screenshot my blog and then justifying it by claiming I do it, even though I fucking deleted those posts after she complained and have not mentioned her a single time since unless she did first. I didn't screenshot her screenshot calling me a pro-American because I think memes are funny but am not literally unironically in favor of 9/11, but fuck it:

This fucking idiot. Here's the thing: I DON'T THINK NOT WANTING TO ASSOCIATE WITH AGAB LANGUAGE IS UNREASONABLE AT ALL! But it's fucking projecting as fuck to say that people who don't like TMA/TME language must simply want to cling to AGAB. I mean, holy fuck, right? That's not what's being argued dumbass - but she can't think of any other way to divide trans people based on AGAB without referencing it in some way, so her ideal replacement is TMA/TME, that's the two kinds of trans people that exist, you're not AMAB or AFAB you're TMA or TME, this is so fucking masks off it's wild that other transradfems aren't mortified by her saying the quiet part out loud. This should just completely obliterate every trace of protest when someone points out TME is in practice exclusively used to refer to AFAB trans people and no one else ever, unless what she's actually saying is that AFAB trans people are so close to cis women that they might as well just by default be called the same thing and have no other way of identifying themselves when you talk about categories of trans people and their experiences.

But it's so intensely psychologically revealing. I don't think she's ever been misgendered a single time in her life. I don't think she's ever had even the slightest actual barrier to hop in her quest to live as a woman, because this oversensitivity where someone acknowledging transphobes see us as our assigned sex counts as them misgendering you? That's just not the behavior of someone who actually deals with these things in the real world. Or even online. Again, I get pedojacketed and threatened with actual cancelation from my actual career because I engage with actual TERFs. These people never do anything but moan about tee-em-ees misgendering them by discussing how the enemy perceives us. And she in particular is the most desperate to shut that out, because that is the only reminder there could ever possibly be a hypothetical obstacle to her claiming her girl card. I have zero doubt she lives in the queerest city on the planet and if she didn't have internet she would literally be unable to even conceive of transphobia as a concept. And she fucking hates me for not just being a trans woman who agrees with the transandrobros, but also personally identifies with my AGAB. The implication that it's possible for a trans woman to be okay with the term "male" shatters her self-esteem. That is the extent of "misgendering" she has ever faced and ever will face. Me identifying the way I do terrifies her, I have to be objectively wrong about claiming identification with my AGAB because she copes with insecurity by imagining a world where TERFs are right but instead of biology everyone's soul is either Male and Female and you can only be one or the other. Gender can't just be people figuring out who they are and the ways they want to express themselves and live their lives, that's not real enough for her, she has to be Trve Fymyle the way TERFs go on about, except instead of centering around wombs it's this weird vaguely spiritual concept that she forces everyone else to fit into because if they don't it implies her framework isn't the tangible reality she so desperately needs to feel valid.

And that's why she "needs" TMA/TME, because she reasonably wants to talk about the experiences of people who share her category but doesn't want to identify as anything that references what those experiences fucking are (e.g. having been assigned male at birth). And again, that's FINE. I GET THAT. THAT'S UNDERSTANDABLE. I CAN SEE HOW THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. But that doesn't mean TMA/TME doesn't also have issues and I'm sorry if she's having a hard time coming up with something else because it's difficult to navigate the inherent paradox of wanting to associate with something that unfortunately makes her feel bad to associate with it, but she needs to pick something else, and not say "weh the TMEs are making us change our language" as though (a) transradfems aren't telling trans men what language they can use for themselves and (b) it's impossible to come up with terms that don't explicitly make claims about the experiences of others and 100% defines them by suffering less.

And isn't it strange how other transradfems are insisting they have to call themselves CAMAB and CAFAB, but THEY aren't clinging to AGAB language? Weird, right? I mean there is a group of people insistently arguing that it is simply paramount that we use AGAB language, but they're perisex trans women stealing it from intersex people so I guess it's fine?

But I don't CARE. I don't like her and I don't want to look at her stupid blog and I sure as fuck don't want to report on it. I just wish she'd stop talking about me. I literally just want her to stop block evading me and telling people my identity revolves around wanting to suck up to TERFs*. I do not talk about her except when she talks about me. AND I'M STILL NOT EVEN NAMING HER.

When she complained about me screenshotting her posts, I deleted them. They got zero notes. Her screenshots of me have hundreds and she keeps taking them because she's fucking obsessed because she can't feel like a girl if someone else identifies a little differently than she does. I don't even screenshot other people if they have me blocked but I see other people debating their takes, I make a post that references no one with unspecified prompting. And I've never done even done that with her, not only because she keeps baselessly accusing me of harassment, but because she infuriates me on a level where I just sincerely do not like seeing her fucking content in any way for any reason.

God I fucking hate radfems.

*which she happily admits to knowing is a lie but is like "yeah well I say she's mean so I'm going to keep deliberately fabricating falsehoods about her"

Thank you. <3

I have enlightened another soul!

If you asked these people, ten times out of ten they would say detransition and rape are the worst things that can possibly happen to someone and murder is no comparison, but they'll see trans men talking about their sexual abuse to be like "wow so lucky you guys just have to LARP The Handmaid's Tale, but we get KILLED."

And it's like. Okay. But fuck off, though? It's fine to personally see murder as worse and to grieve more over that, ig, it's like, whatever, but to openly state that it's a PRIVILEGE to be raped and detransitioned makes my brain melt. It's like they are physically incapable of not putting down other trans people. It is the one single area of activism they engage in. That is the war they are waging. They don't give a fuck about trans rights because they live in privileged areas with supportive families. Their battle is with the TME trans people on social media.

lolllll

"I hate how misogynistic Velvet is, she's everyone's cumrag"

^actual thing actually said and believed by the TMA/TME tankies

Before anyone accuses this anon of saying transradfems are engaging in male behavior or whatever, I'll note as I always have that they're just as sexually predatory and entitled to the bodies of others as TERFs are. That is the actual comparison being made. The worst trans women are identical to the worst cis women. Diversity win.

[gender-trash]

the bluetooth chip in my beloved ikea eneby speaker (with the gay pride front cover) decided abruptly to stop connecting to devices today TT__TT i cracked the thing open of course and had a look but unplugging and replugging various cables had no effect; next course of action is probably to try to resolder the bluetooth daughter board (which i HAVE identified, thank you ifixit) except i still haven't unpacked my soldering iron post move and now it's buried in the shed in one of several boxes all of which are behind the woodworking bench and like three bikes. fortunately the 3.5mm jack still works so i THINK my strat is going to be to just fucking plug in one of those bluetooth 3.5mm adapters until i can get my tools unfucked enough to hopefully fix it properly. and of course i can't just get a replacement because ikea has discontinued the eneby because fuck you that's why

[grimalkinmessor]

Kleptomaniac Light has my entire heart, you have no idea. Like,,,L steals shit as a kid with brute force because he likes to see people's reactions, but Light was definitely one of those kids who was sneaky sneaky and no one would realize he even took anything until they found him playing with it later.

And he always exclusively steals from other people and like, occasionally thrift stores. Stupid shit like pencils, CDs, books, knickknacks—he'll yoink your Grandmother's favorite porcelain cat while he's over for dinner and you'll never know because the next time you see it it'll be set on his bookshelf like it's always been there.

[sadrockandwaltzes]

Just some crappy Mikage drawings based on images from the show cause I need practice... I feel like I'm really getting the devianart experience tryna draw him😅😭

He looks much better in the show I assure you...

[writing on top left says 'Mikage Death Pose' since it looks very simpson death esque; writing for glasses (he looks so cool in his prof outfit) says 'stylish professor turned stylish librarian after pick-up attempt' (cause I accidentally gave him lipstick😅); middle left writing says 'shading fail' and 'dude being shady- not blushy; and bottom writing says 'Gah... She kept me waiting again!']

Favorite's definitely the bottom one

[sunnyscript]

Parallax feels for y'all

[awkward-teabag]

Can't even mention that a store near me is clearly using abusing the TFW program because they refuse to pay little more than minimum wage in a high cost of living area (also you won't get benefits and you'll only be part-time) because the fascists and right-wingers will jump in to say it's about immigration and white replacement.

No, it's because rich white people want to hoard even more money and found an intentional loophole to both make more money (via paying employees less) and also have more power over employees, employees who may or may not know Canadian employment laws (or safety laws) and even if they do, don't have the ability or support to try to hold the company accountable.

You can absolutely criticize the federal government for keeping the loophole open but it predates Trudeau by decades and it was Harper who both expanded the program and added a way for companies to fast-track TFWs. It was also under Harper that companies started firing Canadians (or not hiring them) and then requesting permission to mass-hire TFWs instead.

But the way the right wing talks, you would think Trudeau started this whole thing and the poor multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies are being taken advantage of. Also that housing prices, lack of new developments, and zoning issues started with Trudeau and are the fault of mass-immigration he has a boner for instead of being an issue for decades and experts warning this would happen if governments didn't act ASAP.

Instead the neolibs and cons kept cutting back and kicking that can down the road, a can that started being kicked by Mulroney and the Conservative Party.

[graysongraysoff]

man i don't fuckin want to go to the dentist today

[crossbackpoke-check]

nosy anon again making a return because i think what my brain did was read that i helped find some kind of writing and then did not fully process what the writing was?? but upon rereading i am very intrigued if you ever get the urge to share i will be all eyes/ears/senses required to enjoy things!!

I GET TO DO WIP WEDNESDAYYYYYY!!! the writing exists mostly in the form of a tag (fantastic! 'verse) and also a thirty-two page doc of snippets and planning, so the sense you will be using most is imagination:

don't think i have ever actually formally written out anything about fantastic! 'verse but! the tl;dr of it is that it's a semi-college au: joel is still a hockey player for the lv phantoms, but morgan is a college student-athlete. it's incredibly relevant to the plot that joel falls in love with morgan in the check-out line of a wegman's, lies a little bit, and ends up going back to get his degree.

most of it is just good fun about college kids growing up, but i think there's a lot of parallels between making your way through a development system where traditional "success" isn't always guaranteed (ahl -> nhl, completion of higher education -> pursuit of a career) because that development system isn't always designed for you to "succeed" or have opportunities. heavy quotation marks around success because part of that struggle is learning what you want in life and how you define success. are your dreams achievable? are they still the same dreams you always used to have? it's infinite branching universes of would you still love me if i was a worm (ahl player forever) (a college dropout) (a college graduate) (older) (realizing the fallibility of your body) (uncertain of the future) (human).

silly little snippet:

[maddy-ferguson]

you can't even say leftist white people need to go fuck themselves without someone mansplaining racist voters to you anymore

[weareuniqueandimportant]

I LOVE MURDER... I FIND THE TOPIC VERY INTERESTING... I ALSO BELIEVE ALOT OF ABUSERS WERE ACTUALLY NEGLECTED... AND THEIR "VICTIMS" ONLY REPEAT THE LIES THEY ALWAYS HAVE... OUR ABUSERS ALL CERTAINLY LOVE TO PAINT SUCH A PICTURE... DON'T WORRY... I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING... YET <3...

[vox-fantasma]

came home from work to find out that my dad rearranged my entire setup by unplugging all my cables and plugging them into. the wrong places. and then once i managed to troubleshoot and fix my monitor i find out that my speaker (of which i've never fucked with the aux cord after managing to connect it successfully because that shit is more fickle than a 2010 apple earphone wire) is also not working. because the cord. is broken. and he did all this. because. my cable management. was. messy.

ive never wanted to strangle him more in my entire life

[thekidsare-not-alright]

it makes me angry when people decide fob isn't "emo enough" for the emo trinity anymore like subcultures and genres don't evolve or anything. mcr isn't emo anymore either if you're sticking to what they were in black parade for your definition. seriously. not to mention green day is pop punk just like fob so if you wanna use them as a replacement you're not making any damn sense

the logic just isn't there, stop trying to replicate the past all the time

[taitropa]

kanej haters don't have taste as we know. but one of the biggest things they cannot comprehend about their dynamic is how much kaz values having leverage over people to get what he wants and yet he never once uses anything against inej