#not that i haven't spoiled enough

[pinkrelish]

desperately wanting to write a TYP canon-verse fic for father's day, but both of my ideas would be spoilers for their future.

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 4 - Nuthin' but Boothill Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[bibiana112]

The woes of being a ze blogger and tagging these two's names

[fyscoelysium]

i wanted to make a really pretty layered wood keychain about the phasmid photo with harry in the foreground and kim taking the picture in the back of the keychain, but yknow what. i dont draw pretty enough to do that. ill do something silly instead

now that's what we're talking about baby

how do i sell this without spoiling people tho :(

[secondbeatsongs]

new year, new food crime

I hate it when recipe bloggers tell you the entire rundown of their day before giving the recipe, so just to start off, I'm going to put this here:

3 cups of liquid (water + shrimp water) 3 packets unflavored gelatin 1 tbsp vegetable base (or a bouillon of some kind; that'd probably be fine) 1 large handful of shrimps (approx 20) 3 eggs, hard-boiled and sliced 1 small bag mixed frozen vegetables, thawed a gelatin mold or bowl with a capacity of 4 cups

now, looking at this ingredients list you might be asking, "hey SBS, what the fuck did you cook this time?" and to that I say: buckle up.

so I've been watching Arne & Carlos' videos for a bit, firstly because I was curious if they were gay (they seem to be), and secondly because I like their knitting patterns

but their channel isn't just knitting! they also cook together, and it's fun and chaotic, and one of the things they cooked…intrigued me.

I don't know how this dish is spelled. cabaret? kabaret? there are only a few recipes for it online, and most of those are not in english. but essentially, it is a Norwegian aspic with shrimp, vegetables, and hard-boiled egg in it.

what is aspic, you might ask? well, it's…I mean…it's meat jello. that's what it is. you cook meat for a while (some recipes say to use pig's feet, snout, etc), and it makes a gelatinous broth, which solidifies when it cools.

delightful!

however, I am not willing to make aspic from scratch for this, so I substituted it with unflavored gelatin packets. hooray!

(apparently in Norway, you can buy packets of instant aspic! but since you can't do that here, I looked up what ingredients are in instant aspic, and after putting them through google translate, decided "huh, seems like gelatin powder with some kind of bouillon", so that's how I ended up here)

this recipe isn't so much cooking as it is…construction. like sure, you heat up the gelatin, but after that it's pretty much just putting stuff together.

and apparently you can make this with pre-cooked or canned shrimp, but I only had the raw frozen kind, so I put them in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, heated them until they were fully cooked, and then saved the water from the pan to mix in with the gelatin.

so, shrimpy water + enough water to make 3 cups of liquid, and then I mixed in vegetable base until it tasted…fine. (it didn't taste good, it just tasted…okay.)

then I heated up the liquid in the microwave (in a big 4-cup measuring cup), mixed in the three gelatin packets, and there you go! that's all of the cooking done.

now, for the assembly.

I put some of the shrimp all the way at the bottom of the jello mold, trying to arrange it so that it would look nice. I sliced the hard-boiled eggs, and put the prettiest slices of egg around the edges, sprinkling in some vegetables and pouring gelatin as I went.

…and then I gave up on being artistic, and just kinda lumped everything else in, and covered it with the gelatin mixture.

(unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures of the assembly portion of this, because I was multitasking at the time and got distracted, but you'll just have to trust me that it was a tolerable experience, and didn't look very interesting)

after that I chucked it into the fridge (gently), and left it alone while I streamed with makerrcat for a bit, stayed up way too late, and then passed out in a dramatic fashion.

13-ish hours later, I rescued it from its frigid prison.

hmmm

stare into the murky depths with me for a moment. look at this…nightmarish placid soup. this motionless broth.

one of my egg slices definitely didn't get covered all the way. 

ah, well.

to unmold this monstrosity, I put it in a bowl of hot water for a minute or so, until it seemed like it could pull away from the edges. it really didn't take much, so if you (god forbid) try this yourself, keep an eye on it. gelatin melts fast.

then I put a plate over the jello mold, and flipped it over.

after a few tense seconds, it released from the mold with a slimy kthnk sound.

carefully. nervously. I lifted the mold.

and then I let out an involuntary "oh!" because…

…it's kind of…eerily beautiful?

like in a horrifying sort of eldritch way, it looks…lovely

vegetables and shrimp and eggs, suspended not just in space but in time, preserved and surrounded by a gelatinous cocoon…

I just like staring at it, okay! I just think it looks cool! so here's another picture of it from the side:

the egg slices…the little bits of yolk…enchanting

it definitely smells like food. but it's unclear what kind. vaguely shrimp-vegetable-egg, but muddled

let's cut into it

oh. oh god. it made kind of a…squelch? when I cut it?

hold on, you have to experience this for yourselves

god. deeply unsettling.

now, seeing what the inside is like is kind of interesting! there are places where the gelatin has sort of splintered apart from being cut, and there are gaps where pieces of vegetable have fallen out.

but...how does it taste?

...

fuck.

I really like it

this bizarre combination of textures is weirdly satisfying! the squish of the egg and the gelatin, the slight crunch of the vegetables and shrimp, it's just…good?

the gelatin itself just tastes vaguely of broth, but I don't mind it! I don't know if I would eat it by itself, but with the shrimp, egg, and veggies, it's perfectly okay!

the shrimp, egg, and vegetables of course just taste (respectively) like shrimp, egg, and vegetables, but that's...fine? I like all of these things, so this is pretty enjoyable!

so, some of the recipes I managed to find mention serving it with sort of a mayo-mustard mix, so obviously I have to try that

this...helps? like, it tastes really pleasant?

not that it was bad before, but it remains an enjoyable experience!

and a video that I saw (but could not understand) seemed to show it served on a piece of bread, again with the mayo-mustard.

this is also fine! I enjoy this too! I don't feel like it needs the bread, but it's all right!

this is bizarre.

I think most people would probably hate this. it's got the look of a 1960s party food (which is probably what it is), and "meat jello" isn't a texture that modern society regularly enjoys, but…I love it.

I actually love this.

I kind of understand now why people call dishes like this a "jello salad", because…I mean, I'm eating it, and my brain is saying, "yup. this is a salad" and I have no fucking idea why, but this right here? salad. for sure.

cold, wet salad.

damp, even.

so like...is this objectively good food? probably not.

but is it fun to eat? I think so. 

it's refreshing, somehow. it's light, but also more filling than I expected it to be. I have no idea how much would be considered a reasonable serving, but I intend to figure it out as I go along.

so I'm not saying "go make this!" because although this combination of textures plays well with my brain in particular, I don't think that would be the case for everybody.

but I will be eating the rest of this.

weirdly? weirdly, it's just good.

-

an edit, a few days later:

I have done it. I have consumed the entire thing. and I enjoyed every bite of it.

in fact, I plan on making it again! probably more than once!

food crime? no. food…

(pauses to look up what the opposite of "crime" is)

…food blessing. food virtue. food achievement! food…benevolence.

this is what cabaret is.

at least, that's what it is to me.

(create and consume at your own risk.)

[vynnyal]

Oh what the heck, chu chu lovely challenge 70 be upon ye

[sunfyredarchive]

i said give me baby j.aehaerys interactions and i meant it

[averlym]

@remylong :

[damnation-if]

on today's episode of Hashing Out Concepts Theatre, i spent a while today while waiting for my new fridge/freezer to be installed after my previous one died and i lost all my food hashing out a bunch of concepts for another game idea i have. (rest assured i'm not actually working on it as a game yet i just like to bash out a framework for things every now and then to make my brain do happy chemicals lmao)

putting all of this stuff under a cut since it's a bunch of images and also in case people aren't interested XD

i am regrettably a huge fan of comic books (mostly DC) and i've seen a couple of comic book inspired IFs popping up lately, though when it comes to my own interest, i'm definitely more into a straight interpretation of a comic book universe than a more. the boys-style universe - i'm into the camp lol, not so much the grim and gritty stuff. (though that's just my own personal preference)

anyway the idea behind That's Just Super is something that i really like about certain comics - giving the villains more of a purpose and rounded existence than just existing to be in somebody's rogue's gallery. the joker's angry defence of the batfamily from various other DC evil forces, lex luthor's furious resistance against brainiac alongside superman because it's His planet, damn it, DOOM throwing in with the heroes in every second marvel event comic... i really like stories where villains and evil characters don't always make the Most Evil choice just Because, but have clear and explainable motivations that sometimes bring them into what we'd consider a 'good' alignment because unlike in d&d, there's no real such thing as a concrete moral alignment.

(this is my banner design for it)

the basic idea is that an inexplicable cosmic event removes all of the superheroes from the planet, leaving it vulnerable to attack by evil mindflayer style aliens - unless the supervillains who remain are able to band together despite their more unpredictable, less cooperative natures and save the planet in the heroes' absence. after all... if aliens take over the earth, the villains can't take it over themselves.

here's my fun little UI design idea lmao...

the other major thing about That's Just Super that i've been hashing out is the pc. the basic idea is that you pick your villain identity from a list but you get to customise their like. birth name and secret identity, while the villain identity comes with its own name, costume, and set history (including occasionally past romantic encounters). i like playing around with the way that IF works with the idea of mcs and customisable mcs so i just thought it'd be a fun twist... it also allows me to create nice drama by having set occurrences in the past lol.

so i did some profiles for the nine villain options - three each of the DC triad of tech/metahuman/magic origin. they're all based on a specific kind of villain archetype, and i really tried to limit myself to ones where i could definitely pin down more than one specific influence so it didn't end up like me just making too many analogues haha... even if some of the influences are probably pretty obvious.

weirdly i haven't even Thought about ROs yet since i've been so focussed on the pc... maybe i'll play around with the partially set background idea even more and only have 1 possible RO for each villain choice or something. maybe a couple that you can romance as anybody... not sure. (talionis could definitely have a messy broken romance with his superhero for example)

apologies that readability isn't great but these are mostly just made for me lmao

[dykeferatu]

my st is the best ever btw bc he's given me one text rp and [counts on fingers] four? one on one sessions for taekyung purposes. u wish u were me

[r0semultiverse]

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake finale spoilers without context

[midnighthangintree]

Don't mind me I'm just thinking about an au where Lucy Gray Baird survives and makes an unfortunate mistake of returning to their cabin where Snow is waiting. Lucy Gray knows she can't return to 12 and Snow wants to return to the capitol. So they go back together and they settle into a marriage of convince to raise their child. They mainly lead their own lives and Lucy Gray returns to 12 around reaping time to mentor the tributes. She tries to hide her enthusiasm when Haymitch wins the 50th Hunger Games. She keeps up her usual pattern until she meets Finnick 15 years later and hears of what happened to him. She confronts her husband and leaves the capitol and remains in 12 for another 9 years.

During her time in the capitol, she was kept active and her voice still perfect despite being in her 80's. She mentors Peeta and Katniss when the time comes (Lucy Gray also sees that they are falling for each other a mile away). Lucy Gray is dragged back to the capitol following that year's games and is forced to stay until the following year's victory tour. She returns with Haymitch, Katniss, and Peeta to District 12. Lucy Gray is fuming when it is announced that the quarter quell would be picked from the existing pool of victors. She is sure that Snow planned this for her to return to the games but Katniss reveals what happened when he visited her.

During the reaping, a tearful Effie announces both Lucy Gray and Haymitch are reaped, Katniss and Peeta volunteer for them. Then Maude Ivory leads the entire district in a version of Nothing You Can Take From Me as they are dragged off with no goodbye to their loved ones.

The events of Catching Fire happen while Haymitch brings Lucy Gray in on the revolution plans. He even helps her get away from Snow when the games end and they go save Katniss, Finnick, and who they can save from District 12.

I have no idea what would happen to her during the events of Mockingjay. I have a theory that District 13 has a copy of every Hunger Games, including the 10th and the citizens of 13 are starstruck by her for being her and not the President's wife. Lucy Gray sings to Peeta to help him recover from being hijacked and also sings during Finnick and Annie's wedding.

At the end of the war, Lucy is allowed to spend the remainder of her days with the remaining members of the covey, her son and granddaughter. She would live long enough to see Katniss and Peeta finally get married.

[thefloatingstone]

What are your thoughts on Javik? In particular that sensory thing he does.

I rather like Javik as the grumpy racist grandpa he is. (although he does get less racist as the game goes on. He's just.... very old).

I really enjoy the perspective Javik gives to the entire setting and world and i CANNOT believe he is a DLC character because he's borderline essential for understand everything in the plot that the last game builds up to.

I also really enjoy his relationship with Liara and especially how Javik's very existence challenges everything Liara has made her life about. And how it evolves throughout the third game not only for Liara but also for Javik although he expresses his change of perspective a lot more subtly than she does.

I also find his species' culture fascinating, and it's clearly based off of Roman culture in how it works and how the classification of "Roman" is applied to its citizens regardless of ethnicity, place of birth, or heritage.

As for the sensory thing he does, I always forget he has that. I do think the idea is sound and makes sense and ties into the previous games perfectly, but I feel it was a little undercooked when applied to Javik himself. It's very clearly ME3 wasn't as polished as it could have been. (although I still attest that getting the third game in as good a condition as we did despite EA's best efforts i s a miracle) but I feel they could have elaborated or ironed out the kinks a little better.

I also am just a little disappointed they didn't give us clearer indication to the fact that Javik is a bug.

I saw this fanart when the third game came out and I have immediately adopted it as canon. Especially when compared with the Collectors in the 2nd game.

source

I think him being a bug getting more focus would also help explain the sensory thing. I started reading "Nor Crystal Tears" a while ago (I need to get back to it) and the main character who is also a bug alien talks about an extra sense his species has which is essentially the use of his antennae to communicate, taste the air, pick up vibrations etc etc. I don't mean give Javik antennae, but if they made his bug nature clearer, they could have explained the sensory thing in a way that roots it a little more in reality in a way I can swallow easier.

[blujayonthewing]

friend we're visiting: y'all hype?? how are you feeling about traveling?

me today: [got up, ate breakfast, sat in the garden and painted in my sketchbook, felt tired and shaky afterward]

[yuhi-san]

some people were sad that in stampede, elendira was a little girl and not the icone trans woman she is in trimax. but everyone is designed younger or alluring to a flashback and given the whole hybrid thing going on, she could easily be a grown up, stylish woman after the two year skip.

and i just think it would be so funny to see wolfwood go: wtf no.

because last time he saw elendira she was a brat barely reaching his chest, throwing a tempertantrum.

[sharkneto]

how is the writing progress going on the next JT chapter?

It's coming - it's like, I'll say... 80% there? I've had these last chapters half-written for over two years now, which one would think would make it faster but it turns out I'm a better writer than I was two years ago, so have to rewrite a lot because of that, and I've changed the specifics on how things go despite the overall events and trajectory staying the same. Also whoever let me write two giant chapters taking place explicitly at a physics conference where everyone has to talk at least *some* physics - terrible. Why'd I do that to myself lmao. But I am 99% through bullshitting physics and just have emotionally wrought conversations to write, which are difficult in a different way but at least I'm not squinting at physics words going "does that surface level plausibly make little enough sense that it makes sense?"

Anyway, it's coming. Life's been very busy and words have been hard. Good to know you guys are still out there looking forward to more!