#bread making factory

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

having trouble coming up with paring/relationship ideas for one high support needs character. like. think there still a lot of internalized ableism about it. “not have anything bring to table” and all

[beepboopbupbip]

Um... um... I know he doesn't have a mouth... so just play pretend with me here...

Baking with P03 and eating sweet treats with him and cute apron and and- I'm so normal man

I wanna be fluffy with him and hold him and kiss him while we make cake and eat ungodly amounts of Gelato

[katierosefun]

is there really a better combination than bread and butter. i love you bread i love you butter i love you carbs and fat

[californiagoddess]

I got a panini press because it was $15 but now I don't have bread. Lmao

[artificial-condition]

I’m home all alone for the weekend (everyone else went on an impromptu weekend trip but I have to work 😭) so I decided to treat myself

Made filet mignon, skillet potatoes, and asparagus. Served with brown bread and butter 🧈

[weeping-gospels]

[ Cont. ]

He was correct, she looked awful.

A low sigh leaves her lips as her body deflates, submerging itself in the lake of warm fur beneath her. At least this ocean of fur wouldn’t smite her for maintaining physical contact. It was a breath of fresh air from the violence that incessantly inhibited her life.

Perhaps peace was an option. Sometimes.

“ Ah, da, thank you for noticing. The apology went swimmingly, could you not tell by the various bruises and broken bones? My regeneration can only do so much when he has not spared me mercy and simply killed me. “

Subconsciously, Betty brushes a hand over Gluttony’s stomach, beginning to knead and stroke like a kitten making itself at home. She’s a sucker for the rounder ones. Much more to grab. A small smile plays upon painted lips.

@hxnger-unbcund

[peasthedumb]

Oh yeah, don’t think I’ve said. Can’t remember if I posted about having gender crisis before but hey, I recently came out as Agender

Did it originally as a trial to see if it’s correct or not but ever since ,my brain has been going feral with gender happiness so I guess this one’s mine now .

It only took 3 gender panics and one hella awesome dream to get me here

[maxaroniiiii]

i woke up on this earth to make bread and by god i am going to do that

[sorcerous-caress]

I'm so jealous of Daniil. Having only played the Haruspex route so far in both game, each time I'm invited to the Bachelor's place I turn green with envy at how he resides at an actual proper house with a real room and a real bed.

A real bed with a whole bedframe. A pillow with an actual pillowcase!! His bed even has sheets!

He has WINDOWS. His house is in a nice neighbourhood, and his roommate is a very attractive woman. There is actual furniture in his room. Not one hint of fungus growing on the walls or rust!

Can you imagine living there as your lair? Spending the whole game knowing you have a real house with a real bed to go back to at the end of each night? Seeing Eva's face every day before leaving to do quests?

Meanwhile, Artemy is stuck in this dumpster room of an abandoned factory. Cuddling with rats on his makeshift bed, held by nothing but a wooden panel, some boxes and a dream.

A pillow so yellow it has its own ecosystem where bugs established real estate. Is that even a pillow or is it some random rock Artemy found and chucked in there? Is it a stale loaf of bread?? Why is it hard looking?

But no, you don't even get to keep the rock roach pillow because in P2, they take it away.

Fuck you Artemy, you had it good for too long. No pillow now because what are you gonna do about it?. Fold your mattress instead to have a resemblance of a faux sense of protection under your most vital organ during the long hours of death rehearsal that you call sleep.

Somehow, they made the bed even more unstable looking. As if that thin panel in the middle could hold Artemy's weight without caving in. Oh, and apparently, I ran out of boxes to use for furniture because the bed and the table have to share custody of the same box.

We have downgraded into barrels now, as you can see :) No, I don't know what they used to contain inside.

Waking up every day to Sticky's snotty face telling me not to spit in the wind and nagging me about cleaning up the week-old human organs thrown around that are stinking up the place.

THERE IS MOLD GROWING ON MY WALLS. RUST FLAKES FALL FROM THE EXPOSED METAL PIPES DOWN INTO MY CEREAL EACH BREAKFAST.

This single wall holds so much mold and fungus that they started crossbreeding and evolved into new, never seen before types of bacteria. Satan's asscrack is more hygienic than whatever biohazard plagues of Egypt this slab of concrete contains.

I live in the gutters. My only neighbours are an illegal gang of minors with a hatred for furries and another illegal gang but of adults this time who sell me bullets way above the market price. A dangerous neighbourhood where you can't have shit because SOMEONE STOLE MY BULL.

The basement I reside in has no windows, the smell is pungent and fucking vile down here. There isn't even a space for a bathroom.

This is my kitchenette/bathroomette/showerette/cupboardette/surgery tools disinfection stationette/sinkette/watercoolerette/toilette/fridge.

also my buckets yk.

One bucket for the makeshift bathroom, another for holding important organs and loose guts during surgery, a third one as a cooking pot for making tasty meat grub soup and the final one for murky water after sweeping the floor.

What do I use to tell them apart? Oh nothing :) I just mix em up every now and then, oppsie daisy.

Oh and the floors are CONSTANTLY wet for some reason. Yeah sticky slipped and almost broke his neck the other day so watch your steps.

There is also this eerie room with literal garbage and broken furniture right next to the entrance. Don't worry about it, sometimes I hear someone crying and screaming for help when I'm trying to go to sleep but it's just the factory being silly lol.

Now this? This is where the M A G I C happens. This is where Artemy the Menkhu makes his famous herbal remedies and natural mixtures. This is where the Panacea for the infamous sand plague gets made!

In a rusty empty food can.

Falling into a bucket with shit stains.

MEDICINE BABBYYY. GET YOUR WEAK SOFT BONED ASS BACK TO THE CAPITAL BITCH, THIS IS HOW REAL MEN MAKE REAALLL MEDICINE!! RAWRRRRR🦅🦅💥💥

Meanwhile, dickovsky has the view of the cathedral and polyhedron just around the corner from where he resides. He has a backyard with a lake, and all I have is a swamp behind my basement. I trudge through the mud each night, collecting weeds and herbs to mix and trade so I and the two orphans who adopted themselves into my life don't go starving.

Not to mention the gaggles of herb brides loitering outside and giving me a false bad reputation.

That dandy douchbag has a pharmacy, a grocery, and a tailor right next door. The closest establishment to my shrekcore place of resident is a dingy basement bar with shady drinks and no bouncer to check for ID, I saw two kids in there once.

Pov: a qt3.14 surgeon says his dad isn't home and invites you over.

[aline-spice]

The Biografts were really coded to do anything 💀subspace had to own BOTH the bread factory and pizza restaurant ? crazy dude. what's next, making subspace's face out of pizza ? anyway depending on the bio unit they either cook really well or set the building on fire i don't make the rules, subspace does

[najia-cooks]

[ID: Seven yoghurt balls on a plate drizzled with olive oil. The one in the center is plain; the others are covered in mint, toasted sesame seeds, ground sumac, za'tar, crushed red chili pepper, and nigella seeds. End ID]

لبنة نباتية / Labna nabatia (Vegan labna)

Labna (with diacritics: "لَبْنَة"; in Levantine pronunciation sometimes "لَبَنَة" "labanay") is a Levantine cow's, sheep's, or goat's milk yoghurt that has been strained to remove the whey and leave the curd, giving it a taste and texture in between those of a thick, tart sour cream and a soft cheese. The removal of whey, in addition to increasing the yoghurt's tanginess and pungency, makes it easier to preserve: it will keep in burlap or cheesecloth for some time without refrigeration, and may be preserved for even longer by rolling it into balls and submerging the balls in olive oil. Labna stored in this way is called "لبنة كُرَات" ("labna kurāt") or "لبنة طابات" ("labna ṭābāt"), "labna balls." Labna may be spread on a plate, topped with olive oil and herbs, and eaten as a dip for breakfast or an appetizer; or spread on kmaj bread alongside herbs, olives, and dates to make sandwiches.

The word "labna" comes from the Arabic root ل ب ن (l b n), which derives from a Proto-West-Semitic term meaning "white," and produces words relating to milk, yoghurt, nursing, and chewing. The related term "لَبَن" ("laban"; also transliterated "leban") refers to milk in Standard Arabic, but in Levantine Arabic is more likely to refer to yoghurt; a speaker may specify "لَبَن رَائِب‎" (laban rā'ib), "curdled milk," to avoid confusion.

Labna is a much-beloved food in Palestine, with some people asserting that no Palestinian home is without a jar. Making labna tabat is, for many, a necessary preparation for the winter season. However, by the mid-2010s, the continuation of Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip, as well as Israeli military violence, had severely weakened Gaza's dairy industry to the point where almost no labna was being produced. Most of the 11 dairy processors active in Gaza in 2017 (down from 15 in 2016) only produced white cheese—though Mustafa Eid's company Khalij had recently expanded production to other forms of dairy that could be made locally with limited equipment, such as labna, yoghurt, and buttermilk.

Dairy farmers and processors pushed for this kind of innovation and self-sufficiency against deep economic disadvantage. With large swathes of Gaza's arable land rendered unusable by Israeli border policing and land mines, about 90% of farmers were forced by scarce pasture land and low fodder production to feed their herds with increasingly expensive fodder imported from Israel—dairy farmers surveyed in 2017 spent an estimated 87% of their income on fodder, which had doubled in price since 2007. Cattle were thus fed with low quantities of, or low-quality, fodder, resulting in lower milk production and lower-quality milk.

Most dairy processors were also unable to access or afford the equipment necessary to maintain, upgrade, or diversify their factories. Since 2007, Israel has tightly restricted entry into Gaza of items which they consider to have a "dual use": i.e., a potential civilian and military function. This includes medical equipment, construction materials, and agricultural equipment and machinery, and impacts everything from laboratory equipment to ensure safe food supplies to packaging and labelling equipment. Of the dairy products that Gazan farmers and processors do manage to produce, Israel's control over their export can cause huge financial losses—as when Israel prohibited the export of Palestinian dairy and meat to East Jerusalem without warning in March of 2020, costing estimated annual losses of 300 million USD.

In addition to this kind of economic manipulation, direct military violence threatens Gaza's dairy industry. Mamoun Dalloul says that his factory was accused of holding rockets and subsequently bombed in 2008, 2010, 2012, and again in 2014, resulting in repeated moves and the loss of the capability to produce yellow cheese. The Israeli military partially or totally destroyed 10 dairy processing factories, and killed almost 2,000 cows, during its 2014 invasion of Gaza, resulting in an estimated 43 million USD of damage to the dairy sector alone. Damage to cow-breeding farms in 2014 reduced the number of dairy cows to 2,600, just over half their previous number. Damage to, or destruction of, wells, water reservoirs, water tanks, and the Gaza Power Plant's fuel tank exacerbated pre-existing problems with producing cattle feed and with the transportation, processing, and refrigeration of dairy products, leading to spoiled milk that had to be disposed of. Repeated offensives made dairy processors reluctant to re-invest in equipment that could be destroyed at any time.

Israeli industry profits by making Gazan self-sufficiency untenable. Israeli goods entering Palestine are not subject to import taxes, and Israeli dairy companies are not dealing with the contaminated water, limited electricity, high costs of feed, out-of-date and expensive-to-repair equipment, and scarce land (some companies, such as Tnuva, purchase milk from farms on illegal settlements in the West Bank) with which Gazan producers must contend. The result is that the local market in Gaza is flooded with imports that are cheaper, more diverse, and of higher quality than anything that local producers can offer. Many consumers believe that Israeli products are safer to eat.

Nevertheless, Gazans continue building and rebuilding. Despite significant decreases in ice cream factories' production after the imposition of Israel's blockade in 2007, Abu Mohammad noted in 2015 that locally produced ice cream was cheaper and more varied than Israeli imports. In 2017, the amount of dairy sold in 74 shops in Gaza that was sourced locally, rather than from Israel, had increased from 10% to 60%. Ayadi Tayyiba, the region's first factory with an all-woman staff, opened in 2022; it produced cheese, yoghurt, and labna with sheep's milk from affiliated farms. However, demand for sheep's milk products has decreased in Gaza due to its higher production costs, leading the factory to supplement its supply with purchased cow's milk.

The current Israeli genocidal offensive on Gaza has caused damage of the same kind as—though to a greater extent than—previous shellings and invasions. Lack of ability to sell milk that had already been produced to factories, as well as lack of access to electricity, caused an estimated 35,000 liters of milk to spoil daily in October of 2023.

Support Palestinian resistance by calling Elbit System’s (Israel’s primary weapons manufacturer) landlord, donating to Palestine Legal's activist defense fund, and donating to Palestine Action’s bail fund.

Equipment:

A blender

A kettle or pot, to boil water

A cheesecloth or tea towel

Ingredients:

1 cup (130g) cashews (soaked, if your blender is not high-speed)

3/4 cup filtered or distilled water, boiled

1-3 vegetarian probiotic capsules (containing at least 10 billion cultures total)

A few pinches sea salt

More water, to boil

Arabic-language recipes for vegan labna use bulghur, almonds, or cashews as their base. This recipe uses cashew to achieve a smooth, creamy, non-crumbly texture, and a mild taste like that of cow's milk labna. You might try replacing half the cashews with blanched almonds for a flavor more similar to that of sheep's or goat's cheese.

Make sure your probiotic capsules contain no prebiotics, as they can interfere with the culture. The probiotic may be multi-strain, but should contain some of: Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium bifidus, Lactobacillus acidophilus. The number of capsules you need will depend on how many cultures each capsule is guaranteed to contain.

Instead of probiotic capsules, you can use a speciality starter culture pack intended for use in culturing vegan dairy, many of which are available online. Note that starter cultures may be packaged with small amounts of powdered milk for the bacteria to feed on, and may not be truly vegan.

If you want a mustier, goat-ier taste to your labna, try replacing the water with rejuvelac made with wheat berries.

You can also start a culture by using any other product with active cultures, such as a spoonful of vegan cultured yoghurt. If you have a lot of cultured yoghurt, you can just skip to straining that directly (step 5) to make your labna—though you won't be able to control how tangy the labna is that way.

Instructions:

This recipe works by blending together cashews and water into a smooth, creamy spread, then culturing it into yoghurt, and then straining it (the way yoghurt is strained to make labna). It's possible that you could skip the straining step by adding more cashews, or less water, to the yoghurt to obtain a thicker texture, but I have not tested the recipe this way.

1. If your blender is not high-speed, you will need to soak your cashews to soften them. Soak in filtered or distilled water for 2-4 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge. Rinse them off with just-boiled water.

2. Boil several cups of water and use the just-boiled water to rinse your blender, tamper, measuring cups, the bowl you will ferment your yoghurt in, and a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to stir. Your bowl and stirring implement should be in a non-reactive material such as wood, clay, glass, or silicone.

3. Make the yoghurt. Blend cashews with 3/4 cup just-boiled water for a couple of minutes until very smooth. Transfer to your bowl and allow to cool to about skin temperature (it should feel slightly warm if dabbed on the inside of your wrist). If the mixture is too hot, it may kill the bacteria.

4. Culture the yoghurt. Open the probiotic capsules and stir the powder into the cashew paste. Cover the bowl with a cheesecloth or tea towel. Ferment for 24 hours: on the countertop in summer, or in an oven with the light on in winter.

Taste the yoghurt with a clean implement (avoid double-dipping!). Continue fermenting for another 12-24 hours, depending on how tangy you want your labna to be. A skin forming on top of the yoghurt is no problem and can be mixed back in. Discard any yoghurt that grows mold of any kind.

5. Strain the yoghurt to make labna. Place a mesh strainer in a bowl, making sure there's enough room beneath the strainer for liquid to collect at the bottom of the bowl; line the strainer with cheesecloth or a tea towel, and scoop the cultured yoghurt in. Sprinkle salt over top of the yoghurt. Fold the towel or cheesecloth back over the yoghurt, and add a small weight, such as a ceramic plate or a can of beans, on top.

You can also tie the cheesecloth into a bag around a wooden spoon and place the wooden spoon across the rim of a pitcher or other tall container to collect the whey. The draining may occur less quickly without the weight, though.

Strain in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours, depending on the desired texture. I ended up draining about 2 Tbsp of whey.

6. If not making labna balls: Put in an airtight jar, and add just enough olive oil to cover the surface of the labna. Store in the fridge for up to two months.

7. To form balls (optional): Oil your hands to form the labna into small balls and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. They may still be quite soft.

Optionally sprinkle with, or roll in, dried mint, za'tar, sesame seeds, nigella seeds (القزحة), ground sumac, or crushed red chili pepper, as desired.

Optionally, for firmer balls, lightly cover with another layer of parchment paper and then a kitchen towel, and leave in the refrigerator to dry for about a day.

Place labna balls in a clean glass jar and add olive oil to cover. Retrieve labna from the jar with a clean implement. They will last in the fridge for about a year.

[jolys-cane]

TOUR THOUGHTS

Saw the Les Miserables Tour at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto on May 21 2024; here are my thoughts (Long read, sorry I have a lot of feelings)

Prologue/Look Down/Valjean's Soliloquy

We got like, holographic waves crashing and the men are rowing a boat LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE it's awesome

Oh my god the pipes on the background actors were so good. THE SUN IS STRONG ITS HOT AS HEEELLL BELOW

I miss Javert's stupid guard hat. Was bareheaded as he gave Valjean his yellow ticket

PETIT GERVAIS?????????? Valjean steals a little boy's coin when he's roaming the countryside 😭

Randy Jeter as the Bishop blew me away. Not just his voice but his acting was FANTASTIC every single movement was like. I am an old bishop. This is how an old bishop moves. Idk idk it was really good

Nick Cartell did a great job w Valjean overall, but I totally loved him as pre-MsurM Valjean the most. He acts like a feral animal, grabbing the wine out of the nun's hands and the bread from the priest all hunched over and practically snarling - very very cool and awesome

At the End of the Day

Not a negative but when we went to At the End of the Day there was very minimal lighting and my first thought was Oh no the lighting broke hope they fix it and we don't have to have a brief intermission but then when they went 'At the end of the day there's another day dawning' the lights went up and I was like OHHHHHHHHHHHH so that's just me not understanding lighting direction

Foreman killed it, so did all of the factory workers I love all the interactions and ad-libbing in the background it makes me so happy to see

Every time I saw a tall graceful ensemble member I was like '"That's Kyle Adams" and 8/10 times I was right. Otherwise it was Daniel Gerard Bittner

I Dreamed A Dream

OKKKK VOCALS???? Haley Dortch has such a beautiful, clear, emotional sound and she left not a dry eye in the house. Literally the second intermission hit my parents and myself were like. Holy shit dude what about that Fantine

I got her autograph after the show and she was so so sweet 🥺 She accidentally messed up her signature and had to redo it and was apologising to me and I was like GIRL you brought the house down you could stab me right now and I'd be like 'Thanks have a good one'

Lovely Ladies / Fantine's Arrest

Bamatabois (David Andino) was a standout performance, really chewed the scenery and I adored every second he was on stage (Plus his costume was fantastic)

The other girls defending Fantine 🥺

I like that after the police show up and they basically arrest all of the ladies and pimps, regular well-off citizens come out to witness Valjean defending Fantine from Javert. Thought it was a nice touch

Fantine's Death

My first and only cry of the evening, Haley Dortch no one does it like you

The Confrontation

If you've heard me talk about the confrontation you'll know that I absolutely hate the new chain choreography, HOWEVER. I really really liked it this time. Preston in particular gave it a lot of physicality that I enjoyed

Nick Cartell is a little guy and I don't really believe that his Valjean managed to knock out Preston's Javert

For some reason the percussion was really loud and I could barely hear the vocals so I don't have many thoughts on them

Master of the House / Waltz of Treachery

MATT CROWLE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS

Both Thenardiers were fantastic, not a crazy amount of ad-libbing but when they did they made it count ("BYE, BAGUETTE")

Madame in particular was hilarious

Master of the House is very busy in a good way, everywhere you look interesting things are happening. Another number where the ensemble shines and you can tell everyone is having a blast

The Bargain was funny as hell, Thenardier tells Cosette to die in his arms and she goes limp when he's saying she's 'often been ill'

Valjean gives Cosette Catherine!

Look Down / The Robbery

Gavroche was super charismatic and confident, really great child actor (Milo Maharlika)

Eponine tosses Marius' book across the stage and he goes "I like the way you always ... tease 😐" They're such cute friends together

After Enjolras and the boys are done their preaching Enjolras gets stopped by a policeman and is told off 😭

During the robbery Montparnasse keeps Marius away by brandishing his little knife at him which I thought was cute

Also! Montparnasse is the only member of Thenardier's gang to escape during the Robbery!!! Which is a nice Brick reference

After Thenardier's 'In the absense of a victim' spiel he does this exact pose

Gavroche's little 'Clear the streets' 🫡moment is so cute

Stars

God I love Preston Truman Boyd

His Javert is so stalwart and reserved and dedicated, he's kind of robocop and it really really works, and you get to see just a smidge of vulnerability peek out in this song

ABC Cafe / Red and Black

I DON'T REMEMBER A LOT bare with me

Grantaire was absolutely the standout. Slapped Marius' butt with his coat. Stuck his wine bottle dick in Enjolras' face. Offered Combeferre a sip of his wine (who reluctantly accepted). Blew a kiss at Enjolras

Kyle Adams physicality is probably my favourite aspect of his Grantaire - he moves very assuredly, like a cat, in a way that is like okay he's drunk but he's so used to being drunk that his stumbling is more like dancing. I remember reading a fic that described Grantaire's movements in a similar way and I wonder if that was one of the fics Kyle took inspiration from?

OOH they did the wine bottle keep-away thing with Grantaire and Marius which I didn't know they still did so that was exciting

J.T Wood is such a cute Joly I love his voice

In Do You Hear the People Sing Grantaire grabs a gun and holds it at arms-length like it has cooties before handing it off to another student

Combeferre waves the flag both times (Here and in One Day More) and I'm not sure if it's always Combeferre who does that or if it's because Andrew Marks Maughan is clearly the most physically strong of the Barricade Boys

In My Life / A Heart Full of Love

Delaney Guyer is a really good Cosette in that she has a gorgeous voice and also has a lot of personality and actually reacts to things going on around her

Marius (who was played by Christopher James Tamayo for this performance) is such a cute little nerd. You can see him try to figure out what he's going to do, then he throws a rock at Cosette's window and kind of cringes at the noise - he's so unsure of himself and awkward

Cosette is very excited that he's here and closes the window right away, which prompts Marius' 'I'm doing everything all wrong!' until she reappears downstairs and they get to be cute dorks in love

Attack on Rue Plumet

I don't remember a lot but I DO remember that Eponine was really good here

When Valjean is like 'Tomorrow we'll away' Cosette goes 'WHAT? NO!'

David Andino is so good as Babet he is a chronic scene stealer at this point

One Day More

If you know Another thing about me you know I hate the One Day More box-step but it actually did not bug me this time. They put Grantaire next to Enjolras for the marching portion which is cute

On My Own

Holy shit Mya Rena Hunter delivered the most heartbreaking and powerful rendition of this I've ever heard

The Barricade

Loved Feuilly in his little part

Javert is a good spy. If I didn't know the plot of Les Mis I would've been like Holy shit that's Javert? Crazy. I love him drawing the 'plans' he'd overheard into the ground with a stick

Gavroche flipping Javert off >>>>>

Buff Combeferre is one of the two to drag Javert away to be tied up lol

A Little Fall of Rain

The only version of ALFoR that actually made me feel something

Marius and Eponine get a lot of time to be cute together before the barricade actually notices that she's dying - and Gavroche is the first to notice and gets a front row seat to her death which is heartbreaking

The First Attack

Grantaire's "AND SO THE WAR WAS WON!" was sooo scathingly sarcastic

Javert waited, like, 30 seconds to leave after Valjean freed him, with his back almost against the barrel of Valjean's gun as if he were hoping to be shot

When the gun went off the entire barricade abruptly snapped their heads to look at Valjean and the audience laughed 😭

Telling Valjean 'Well done' for shooting a tied up hostage is a strange choice

Drink With Me

I still hate 'For certain as the eagle flies' I think it's the dumbest line in the entire musical

Grantaire's part was very grand - His voice has like noticeably changed at this point in the musical to give it a sort of hoarse hopeless quality to it which absolutely hits you in the feels

Enjolras comforted him and I swear Grantaire let his hand linger on his cheek for a few seconds longer than normal before pushing him away

Gavroche hugged Grantaire from behind and Grantaire couldn't even turn around at first because he was so distraught and kind of blindly reached for him 😭

Chris Tamayo's Marius is such a poor little meow meow

Bring Him Home

Absolutely jaw-dropping performance from Nick Cartell

He sings Bring Him Home like it's a lullaby - which it's supposed to be

I don't exaggerate when I say that the applause went on for about a minute straight, and was the loudest of the night by far

Death of Gavroche / The Final Battle

Oh poor thang

Grantaire near the end of Gavroche's singing was turned away facing the audience like he knew Gav was going to die and couldn't bear to watch 🥺

Later on in the final battle Grantaire spends most of the time next to Gavroche's body in like a catatonic state

The SPOTLIGHTS representing BULLETS as Les Amis died almost made me lose it

Grantaire dies last, I'm sure he said something before he started climbing the barricade but I couldn't hear it 😭He and Enjolras still have their moment over Marius' body

The Sewer

Javert comes across Enjolras' cart-carried body (Still hate the cart but I can learn to appreciate it) and looks a bit uncomfortable

Then he stumbles upon Gavroche's corpse, kneels, and does the sign of the cross over him

Almost made me cry ngl

DOG EATS DOG WAS SO GOOD I LOVED IT

Javert looked like he wanted to shoot Valjean as he walked away with Marius

Javert's Suicide

HOOOOOOLYYYY SHIIIIITTTTT

It was so good

Preston Truman Boyd you will always be famous I fully believe that Javert had completely lost his mind at this point in the play

I don't have many thoughts on the rest but I loved Marius and Cosette reading Valjean's confession as he walked away with Fantine - and the Bishop hugging him as he arrives in heaven

Also Kyle Adams as Major Domo mincing about the stage in The Wedding was an absolute delight

Am very sleepy now but overall 10/10 I love this cast so much

[ixlander]

         What is the family? So deep runs the idea that the family is the exclusive place where people are safe, where people come from, where people are made, and where people belong, it doesn’t even feel like an idea anymore. Let us unpick it, then.          The family is the reason we are supposed to want to go to work, the reason we have to go to work, and the reason we can go to work. It is, at root, the name we use for the fact that care is privatized in our society. And because it feels synonymous with care, “family” is every civic-minded individual’s raison d’être par excellence: an ostensibly non-individualist creed and unselfish principle to which one voluntarily signs up without thinking about it. What alternative could there be? The economic assumption that behind every “breadwinner” there is a private someone (or someones) worth being exploited for, notably some kind of wife—that is, a person who is likely a breadwinner too—“freely” making sandwiches with the hard-won bread, or hiring someone else to do so, vacuuming up the crumbs, and refrigerating leftovers, such that more bread can be won tomorrow: this feels to many of us like a description of “human nature.”          Without the family, who or what would take responsibility for the lives of non-workers, including the ill, the young, and the elderly? This question is a bad one. We don’t hesitate to say that nonhuman animals are better off outside of zoos, even if alternative habitats for them are growing scarcer and scarcer and, moreover, they have become used to the abusive care of zoos. Similarly: transition out of the family will be tricky, yes, but the family is doing a bad job at care, and we all deserve better. The family is getting in the way of alternatives.          In part, the vertiginous question “what’s the alternative?” arises because it is not just the worker (and her work) that the family gives birth to every day, in theory. The family is also the legal assertion that a baby, a neonatal human, is the creation of the familial romantic dyad; and that this act of authorship in turn generates, for the authors, property rights in “their” progeny—parenthood—but also quasi-exclusive accountability for the child’s life. The near-total dependence of the young person on these guardians is portrayed not as the harsh lottery that it patently is, but rather as “natural,” not in need of social mitigation, and, furthermore, beautiful for all concerned. Children, it is proposed, benefit from having only one or two parents and, at best, a few other “secondary” caregivers. Parents, it is supposed, derive nothing so much as joy from the romance of this isolated intensity. Constant allusions to the hellworld of sheer exhaustion parents inhabit notwithstanding, their condition is sentimentalized to the nth degree: it is downright taboo to regret parenthood. All too seldom is parenthood identified as an absurdly unfair distribution of labor, and a despotic distribution of responsibility for and power over younger people. A distribution that could be changed.         Like a microcosm of the nation-state, the family incubates chauvinism and competition. Like a factory with a billion branches, it manufactures “individuals” with a cultural, ethnic, and binary gender identity; a class; and a racial consciousness. Like an infinitely renewable energy source, it performs free labor for the market. Like an “organic element of historical progress,” writes Anne McClintock in Imperial Leather, it worked for imperialism as an image of hierarchy-within-unity that grew “indispensable for legitimating exclusion and hierarchy” in general. For all these reasons, the family functions as capitalism’s base unit—in Mario Mieli’s phrase, “the cell of the social tissue.” It may be easier to imagine the end of capitalism, as I’ve riffed elsewhere, than the end of the family. But everyday utopian experiments do generate strands of an altogether different social tissue: micro-cultures which could be scaled up if the movement for a classless society took seriously the premise that households can be formed freely and run democratically; the principle that no one shall be deprived of food, shelter, or care because they don’t work.

Sophie Lewis, Abolish the Family

[shitouttabuck]

playing with the hair and "you sure this is ok" sounds so soft aaaah I hope you'll find inspiration, I love your writing

got a little sappy with this <3

bed-sharing prompts: person A idly playing with person B’s hair while they’re asleep + “you sure this is okay?”

the sound of love astounds me

Eddie’s man-behind today. Bobby tries to be fair with it, not constantly relegating the probies to the job no one really wants, and today it’s Eddie’s turn again.

He’s grateful for it—he slept badly last night, and that’s probably why Bobby made him stay behind in the first place, taking pity on his dragging feet and muffled yawns not one hour into their shift.

They’re past the 18-hour mark now, late night blanketing the firehouse in a thick, heavy quiet. The rest of them have been out on a call for a while, a three-alarm factory fire at the edge of their jurisdiction. Eddie’s itchy about it, always is when it’s a more serious call and he’s not there alongside his team. Not there alongside his partner.

Buck’s a big boy, and Eddie knows, he knows him not being there isn’t going to unbalance the dynamic of their team so dramatically something goes wrong, but. He’s supposed to have Buck’s back, and as much as he trusts the rest of the 118—with his life—no one else is Buck’s partner. Not the way Eddie is.

The sound of the engine backing into the station catches his attention and he gets up from the couch, leaning over the loft railing as everyone stumbles out the rig, sooty and sleepy. Hen looks up and gives him a tired smile, Chim bumping into her shoulder as he blows Eddie a kiss before heading to the showers.

Buck’s last out the engine, exhaustion written into the slump of his body. He doesn’t look up at Eddie, seemingly lost in his own thoughts as he shuffles slowly after everyone else.

Eddie reheats dinner, serving it all up just as the rest of his team flops into chairs around the dining table. Still no Buck.

“Did you cook this?” Ravi asks, poking suspiciously at the casserole with a fork.

“I’ve made my peace with food poisoning, I’m so fucking hungry,” Chim says, mouth already full.

“Hey,” Eddie protests mildly. “I followed Bobby’s recipe exactly.”

“Really?” Bobby asks, examining his own plate in surprise. “Oh, uh, no, of course. Looks good, Eddie, thank you.” He takes a very deliberate bite, making a big show of chewing amidst noises of approval.

Eddie sighs and turns to Hen. “Where’s Buck?”

“Still showering,” she tells him. “Rough one today.”

Eddie’s heart sinks. “Did you lose someone?”

Hen shakes her head, setting down her fork. “No, no—sorry, didn’t mean it like that. He got stuck carrying two guys out on his own, though. And one of them was in pretty bad shape. Think his whole body is feeling kinda tender.”

“Oh,” Eddie blows out a relieved breath. “Okay.” He smacks Chim’s hand away from the last corner of the casserole. “That’s for Buck. You can have some more garlic bread.”

Chimney pouts at him, and Eddie ignores it in favour of covering the casserole dish and sticking it back in the oven to keep warm.

One by one, everyone wanders to the bunks, drained from the day. Eddie hangs behind, clearing up the kitchen and waiting for Buck to show up. There’s no sign of him by the time the counters are sparkling, so he flops back down on the couch with his book. If it’d been a bad call… Eddie’d like to think he knows what Buck needs, usually. And sometimes that’s just a minute to decompress by himself, washing off a weight of weariness rather than an intangible hurt.

Sure enough, he hears the quiet padding of Buck’s footsteps come up the stairs not much later. Eddie cranes his head over the back of the couch, smiling upside-down and wonky when Buck comes over.

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

“Mm,” Buck hums. His eyes are droopy with exhaustion, cheeks ruddy from being under the hot spray of the shower for so long.

“Dinner’s in the oven,” Eddie tells him.

Buck exhales heavily, giving him a small smile. “Not so hungry.”

“Sleep, then,” Eddie says, nodding in the direction of the bunks.

Buck grimaces. “Everything aches.”

“All the more reason to sleep,” Eddie presses.

Buck looks at him, blinking tiredly. “Okay,” he says, suddenly amenable, rounding the couch and climbing onto it. He drapes himself across it, settling on his back and shoving his head into Eddie’s lap with a contented sigh. Eddie sits frozen, book in one hand and the other hovering over Buck’s chest.

Buck cracks open one eye to look up at him consideringly. Eddie smiles down at him automatically, can’t really help himself, and gently lowers his forearm to rest across Buck’s broad chest.

“This okay?” Buck asks, slightest note of hesitancy in his voice.

“Better if you were asleep,” Eddie says, flipping the page of his book. He lets the hand curled around Buck’s torso squeeze gently, reassuringly, even as he goes back to reading.

Buck huffs an amused breath, wriggling a little as he settles more firmly in Eddie’s lap, turning his head to get comfortable. This angles his face so that it’s basically pressed into Eddie’s crotch, tip of his nose brushing the fly seam of Eddie’s pants.

Eddie swallows, positioning his book a little higher to cover any change in expression his face might betray, because—it’s Buck, and this isn’t sexual, but God, Eddie hasn’t had this kind of intimacy in his life in a while. He’s less worried about popping a boner from his best friend’s face so close to his dick and more concerned Buck’ll take one look at him and know just how badly Eddie wants him this close, all of the time.

Whatever. If everyone had a friend like Buck, everyone would be a little insane about loving him this much, too. It’s not an Eddie thing, it’s a Buck thing.

Buck’s breathing evens out, deep and steady, and Eddie reads until the words start swimming on the page. He yawns, putting the book down and wondering if he can catch some sleep like this, because he’d rather be trapped on a desert island with his parents than wake Buck up right now.

Buck’s snoring lightly, warm puffs of breath Eddie can feel even through the fabric of his pants. His hair is curling messily from his shower and—there are bits of… something in it? Eddie sighs, knowing Buck probably just zoned out under the spray for half an hour without actually scrubbing his hair at all.

He runs his fingers through Buck’s hair, dislodging flecks of indiscernible airborne debris from the fire. He cards through more purposefully, combing it out as best he can and scratching his nails gently against Buck’s scalp.

Buck murmurs, nuzzling into Eddie. The hand closest to the back of the couch scuffles along the cushion till it finds Eddie’s, wrapping around it and tugging it to his chest with such strength Eddie blinks in surprise, astonished that he’s still asleep.

Eddie goes back to sorting through Buck’s hair one-handed, discarding tiny pieces of detritus lodged in his curls. He gets a little lost in it, something calm and hypnotic about the repetitive motions: stroking, cleaning, brushing through, over and over and over.

He’s startled from it when someone clears their throat softly. He just about manages not to jerk in his surprise, and Buck remains slumbering peacefully. Hen’s standing a few feet from the couch, eyebrow cocked and mouth quirked with amusement.

“There a reason you’re grooming Buck like a monkey picking nits off her baby?” she whispers.

Eddie flushes, removing his hand from Buck’s curls. “He has a bunch of shit in his hair from the fire,” he says defensively.

Hen bites down on her smile. “Okay, okay,” she says soothingly, like she’s talking to a spooked horse. “He forget to actually wash it during the longest shower known to man?”

Eddie sighs, fingers resuming running through Buck’s hair almost unconsciously. “You know how he gets when he’s this tired.”

Hen hums, and Eddie looks up at her again. “Why’re you up? Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head, inclining it towards the bathrooms. “Just needed the toilet.” She makes as if to head back down, then pauses, looking at him assessingly.

“What?” Eddie asks.

“Nothing,” she shakes her head again, smiling softly. “Just—I don’t think there’s anyone other than Karen and Denny whose hair I’d pick through voluntarily. And any other kids of mine, I guess. Family.” With that, she turns and disappears down the stairs.

Eddie swallows. He looks down: Buck, face pressed into Eddie’s stomach; Buck, hand clutching Eddie’s arm to his chest; Buck, curls wild and springy from where Eddie’s been running his fingers through them, cleaning him, grooming him, taking care of him. Hen’s not dropped a bomb of any sort on Eddie; Buck’s his family, he knows that, Buck knows that, he’s fairly sure anyone who’s ever met them knows that.

But he thinks yeah, there isn’t anyone other than Chris and Buck whose hair he’d pick through like this. And maybe that’s a different, more specific kind of family than he or anyone else realised. Maybe that’s a different, more specific kind of love.

Buck snuffles discontentedly in his lap and Eddie scratches his scalp soothingly, heart settling as Buck settles.

So maybe the reason Eddie wants him close all the time is slightly different to what he thought. This remains true: if everyone had a friend like Buck, everyone would be a little insane about loving him this much. That’s a Buck thing. But maybe, if he’s open to it, Eddie can make loving him this much, every day and in every way, an Eddie thing and exclusively an Eddie thing.

Buck shifts on the couch, tugging Eddie’s arm a little higher up on his chest, and Eddie splays his palm over Buck’s heart, feeling the steady thump.

When Bobby wakes them both for breakfast hours later, Eddie leans against the table to stretch the crick in his neck from sleeping sitting up. Behind him, Buck reaches a large hand out to massage the junction of his shoulder gently, and Eddie melts into his touch.

“Would you pick nits out of my hair?” he asks before his brain comes fully online.

“Sure,” Buck says, not missing a beat. “D’you have lice?” He leans forward to inspect Eddie’s hair and Eddie swats him away.

“No,” he says, slightly offended. “I do not have lice. Just—hypothetically.”

Buck yawns. “’Course, Eds,” he says. “Your lice are my lice, and all that.” He serves himself a heaping of scrambled eggs and ambles off to the kitchen to grab orange juice from the fridge.

And maybe Buck is just the kind of person who, unlike Eddie and Hen, would comb through anyone’s nasty hair. But your lice are my lice is more romantic than anything Eddie’s ever heard, even in his own wedding vows, and when Buck knocks his knee against Eddie’s under the table before stealing a bite of hash brown, Eddie thinks maybe this love between them is equally cared for, a two-way street in every sense of it, a Buck-and-Eddie thing.

(more bed-sharing prompts)

[squirrellypoo]

Ep8 "What Can The Damned Really Say To The Damned" rewatch thoughts (Part 2)

Here's my second set of things I noticed on my third rewatch! Part 1 is here if you missed it...

11. On Claudia's first visit to the forest, we can briefly see a red mark on one of the trees. When brightened up, it's clearly a handprint, in fresh blood. Edit: ah, it’s not blood but paint from the kids painting their hands and slapping trees to show how far they could go into the forest!

12. I totally missed that the BBC radio bulletin talks about looted art being loaded onto trucks to be taken back to Paris! So that’s how they knew to jump in a truck and be taken all the way there rather than just random hitch-hiking.

13. Morgan mentions that Louis's photo of Grace was printed onto albumen, by a glass-plate camera, and I was intrigued by this and wanted to learn more. If you're also interested, have a read of this Wikipedia article.

14. I thought I must've been missing some sort of reference in Daniel's “Maybe you’re just frosting the pie?” line (about Louis remembering Claudia dreaming), but Google has no evidence this is a saying? So it looks like this was just a Daniel-ism? How odd.

15. Ohhhhh it's a factory they're all camping in! That makes sense, with the thick walls and boiler room, but I couldn't quite work out whether it was a church or meeting hall or what.

16. Claudia is singing the Anna Anna nursery rhyme that the children just taught her in order to lure the pissing soldier into the woods. Nice touch!

17. Both soldiers from the woods are in Daciana's castle. First we see one in the room that Louis and Claudia pass through before the one on the table by the fire that she calls “a burnt tray of bread”. Guess this first guy just dies after a while? Or maybe Louis and Claudia finish him off?

18. In the Dubai bedroom, there’s nothing on Armand’s bedside table (nothing!) but on Louis’s side there are so many well-thumbed books, cascading from the nightstand onto the floor…

19. The TdV programme is for “Des Cris Dans Les Ténèbres!” (Shrieks in the Darkness). I love that the actual item is in French, but the posters up all around Paris are in English, because Louis would’ve translated them into English and that’s how he remembered them! The details! 🤌

20. In the truck scene, Louis is still healing from Daciana’s attack. It made me wonder how long it would take to drive (pre-motorways!) from Romania to Paris. So I looked it up, and using modern roads, but avoiding motorways, it'd take 31hrs straight. But they’d have to break to sleep somewhere safe in the day, and many of the roads and bridges would likely have been bombed and required detours, so I think we can assume it'd take several days to get there. So if Louis still isn't healed by the time we see them outside Paris, he is one seriously malnourished vampire. 😔 The blood really was bad there!

And that's my list of weird things I noticed in the first episode! Part 1 is here if you missed it, and do let me know in the notes if there's any of these you missed, too!

[vyorei]

I found a post about Palestine and olive trees about a week ago, this reminded me of it so I'm gonna post the text below.

This was posted on Facebook by Dima Seelawi on the 29th of October 2018, it just happened to find its way to my newsfeed:

"When I was young, I never really understood my parents insistence to only use olive oil imported from Palestine. It took a long time and a great distance in a process that was neither cheap nor convenient. The oil came in old beat-up containers that did not look appealing to me at all. In my head, if they wanted to support distant family back home, they could just send them money and save us and them a big hassle. We could just use the nice looking olive oil containers from the nearby store. Yet, this was never an option in our household. The only olive oil we used at home was from Palestine.

As I grew up and started a student part-time job, I worked with olive oil a little. I knew all about olive oil imported from Spain, Italy, and other countries. I knew which ones were better and more expensive. I also learned to tell, based on the pungent taste, which ones were extra virgin. I was tempted to use my employee discount to bring home one of the fancy bottles and use at our kitchen. I could not get myself to do it, and I did not exactly know why. I felt like it would be disrespectful to my parents even if it didn’t make sense to me. It did not feel right. It was not an option.

After living in Palestine for a year during the olive picking season, something changed. The olive picking season in Palestine is holy.

Palestinians relate to the weather based on how it would benefit or harm the olives. There is well-known unspoken rule about treating olive trees with respect. There is a day off from work just to pick olives. On public transportation, it is not unusual to hear someone on the phone telling their friend to stop by for their share of this year’s olive oil stored in what used to be a Coca-Cola or a liquor bottle. A driver will stop in the middle of the way to give his brother- in- law a jar of olives that are so close to one another that they start to crush showing their insides.

In Nablus, the owner of the Nabulsi soap factory takes pride in how picky he is about getting his olive oil. He insists on filling a cup to let me smell how authentic it is and smirks as he sees my diasporic facial expressions transform in appreciation of its strong smell running through all of my brain cells.

I started noticing how olive oil is an essential part of so many dishes. “Palestinians drink more olive oil than water” I would jokingly say and they would laugh in agreement. Olive oil is truly an everyday ritual.

They fantasize about its color when it’s fresh and remind me that it starts to change as it reacts with oxygen over time. They dip their bread into olive oil, just like that and without any additions, and enjoy it more than the sweetest of all foods. I can guarantee that every lunch invitation (عزومة) I received during the olive-picking season was a chance for my hosts to share their olive oil using Msakhan (a traditional Palestinian dish).

I now have a deeper understanding of the psychology behind the burning of olive trees by Israeli settlers and why farmers moan at the scene as if they lost a loved one.

Wherever you are, if it’s accessible to you, make sure your olive oil is Palestinian. Your ancestors would want that."

And this picture was attached:

Link to the article in the header image: