[VD: A Magnus Archives animation done in orange and teal titled "Pusryčiai" (meaning: "breakfast"). Mellow music plays as Martin cracks two eggs into a frying pan. He turns away to throw the shells while the pan sizzles, and when he returns with a spatula, a "boom" sound effect plays as Martin recoils with comic disgust.
The egg yolks have been replaced by human eyeballs. Martin stares at them for a moment. He then pokes at the egg with the spatula, producing a squelching sound, and one of the eyes blinks with another gross wet sound. Martin goes from disgusted to comically sad and disappointed, and he fades away before the setting does. The video ends on the words "darė Skaistė" (meaning: made by Skaistė) and a quick shot of an eyeball. End VD]
ty @princess-of-purple-prose for the description, i edited it a bit too.
eddie rubs his hands together as their waitress, cindy, sets his breakfast sampler and strawberries and cream crepes in front of him. he's already reaching for the ketchup and maple syrup to drown his food in.
steve thinks it's too early for him look that gleeful in the middle of an ihop. it's barely nine in the morning.
"give me a shout if you boys need anything else," cindy says as she sets down steve's smokehouse combo and new york cheesecake pancakes. "i'll be over to top your coffee off in a minute."
"thank you, cindy," they call as she walks away.
steve takes a sip of his coffee and watches eddie pop open the ketchup to smother his eggs and hashbrows with, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his lips.
he resists the urge to lean across the table and kiss him, only because they're in public and steve also doesn't want to risk getting food all over the front of his shirt.
but when eddie squeezes the bottle, it makes a farting noise and all the comes out is a watery splash of red.
"aw no." eddie's face falls into an adorable pout. "not the ketchup pre-cum."
steve sputters and almost sucks his coffee back up his nose. he catches his breath and gives eddie a bewildered stare, but the other boy is focused on smacking the lid of the bottle against his palm.
"i'm sorry—the what?"
eddie finally looks up at him with round eyes, completely clear of any of the confusion that is definitely showing on steve's face currently.
"the ketchup pre-cum," he says, like steve should know what that is. "you know, the watery bits that squirt out if you don't shake the bottle good enough? kind of looks like pre-cu-"
"i know what pre-cum is," steve cuts him off with a sigh, casting glances around to the other tables to see if anyone else overheard him. "but do you have to call ketchup that?"
eddie only snickers at him. when he's satisfied that it's been shaken to his standards, he snaps open the cap and tries again–
–and lets out a high pitched moan when ketchup comes dribbling out of the bottle.
steve chokes on his spit. they're definitely getting stares from other tables now, and he hides his burning face in his hands while eddie just laughs harder, like the teasing little asshole he is.
"jesus christ," steve murmurs under his breath, dragging his fingers down his face. "can't fucking take you anywhere, i swear."
eddie just gives him a little hum and nudges his foot under the table, looking every bit pleased as goddamn punch.
on loneliness
jenny slate / japanese breakfast, posing for cars / corinne von lebusa, big glow / dadushin / alejandra pizarnik, tr. me / fka twings, home with you / avocado_ibuprofen / fiona apple, left alone / anne carson, “the anthropology of water”, plainwater / kiki smith, free fall / alejandra pizarnik, diaries
Hey I'm dropping a crepe recipe because there's still people around who think they're hard to make and I'm sick of french food being romanticized to the point of inaccessibility.
I call this a 3-2-1 method to make it easy to remember; 3 eggs, 2 cups water/fluid of choice, 1 cup flour.
I'm sparing you the obligatory backstory on my path to cooking extremely flat pancakes because we both know that neither of us care. If you want to hear me overshare check my blog between 1-4am pacific time.
•Anyway, start with three eggs and beat with a fork until they're all one color (you can use a whisk or an egg beater but I hate the extra steps. Fork it):
•Add 1 cup flour:
•Add whatever dry flavoring you want (I usually go with cinnamon and cardamom, today we're doing matcha cause that happens to be what I'm cooking. Some mornings caffeine is meant to be eaten):
•Add sugar to taste if desired. It's not necessary for the recipe, and if you've managed to add enough to throw off the consistency you've got other shit to worry about, so follow your heart. I usually use like two tablespoons or so (I prefer brown, but white tastes better with matcha):
•Decide on your fluid of choice. Water and/or milk is the usual, but you can do literally whatever you want; hot cocoa, coffee, tea, soda -whatever you want them to taste like. Go nuts with it. Use soup if you want idgaf it's between you and your chosen god at this point. I recommend starting with 2 cups for simplicity, but you can add more if needed for the right consistency. At this point I just eyeball it tbh.
•Add a little at a time and start mixing until it's as smooth as you can get (this is also where you'd add wet flavorings, like vanilla extract):
•Add the rest until the batter is roughly the consistency of heavy whipping cream, or like thin tomato soup (if you actually ran with the soup joke, add a little water to thin it out). Just get it to where it's still a little viscous but will run if you pour it on the pan:
•For best results cover and let it sit in the fridge overnight or for a few hours (it will separate a little, just mix it again). For last minute "I forgot to prep this last night but I really want crepes" results, we're putting it aside while I wash dishes and heat up the pan.
•Ladle out like ¼ cups worth onto a hot lubricated pan (butter or cooking oil, medium heat) and swirl it until it coats the bottom. Don't stress if it looks like shit the first few times, that's what practice is for, add a little more fluid if it's not spreading well:
•cook until the top is no longer wet and edges start to lighten:
•Flip it with either a very flat spatula or sheer hubris (spatula recommended for beginners), and cook for like 45 seconds (I have no sense of time), then slide it onto a plate:
•Top with whatever you want and try whatever folds/rolls you saw in that one show that made you think these were cool.
Go forth, have fun, eat well.
(if you want an even easier method with only mild sacrifice to quality: mix a couple eggs and some extra fluid into your leftover pancake batter and leave it in the fridge for the next morning)
for something as trivial and simple those feelings sure are hard to get rid of
also made a gif a version for fun + alt version with no tears under the cut
the gif is in very low resolution...this is a feature (i could make it bigger but that would require saving each frame individually and than glueing it all together. also i feel like low resolution suits it better. aesthetically and fits the mood)
this is sort of pathetic, but when you were younger, you were sort of puzzled by the cartoon representations of fathers: how a kid would be outside with a mitt, waiting to play catch.
it's not that your father never played catch with you, but you also didn't like when he did. something about a hard ball coming quickly towards your face doesn't seem exciting. not that you'd ever say you don't trust him. you trust him, right?
it's not like he never tried to teach you anything. or never tried to parent. on rare days, a strange person would walk in your father's skin. bright, happy, magnificent. this version of your father was so cheerful and charismatic that you would do anything to keep him. and this is the version of your father that would laugh and gently coax you try again. this is the version of your father that would break down the small elements of a problem and point them out so you have an easier time with them.
as a kid, those days happened more often. but somewhere around 11, you started being too much of a person, and he was often cross about it. when he'd try to sit you down to learn something, you spent the whole time with your shoulders around your ears, nervous, uncertain. terrified because you didn't immediately understand how to navigate something. worried you will run out of his goodwill and then you will have the Other Father back, and you will have ruined a good day for your entire family. something about you being visibly afraid - it just made him angry. he would accuse you of not wanting to learn and storm away.
on tv, it's not like there's a lot of versions of men-who-are-mostly-fathers. they can be good dads, but usually their stories are not told in the household. so it's normal that your father is there, but he's never around. you know he was in the house, somewhere, it's just not that you guys ever... "hung out". he just seemed to get kind of bored of you, annoyed you weren't made in his perfect image. frustrated with how much energy it took to raise a kid. over time, you kind of adopt a bittersweet band around your throat - he knows nothing about me. he says at least i never abandoned my family.
and it's technically - technically - true. he was there for you. sometimes he even made an effort and made it to the big moments; the graduations and the dance recitals. he grins and tells everyone that he taught you. it almost erases the days in between, where he complains because you need a ride to school. the weeks that go by where he doesn't actually ever speak to you. the times you say i am struggling and he says figure it out on your own. i can't help you.
and that's fine! that's all fine. you can call him if you are having a problem with your car. or if you need a ride to the hospital. he loves playing hero, he just doesn't like the actual work that comes with being a father. and you've kind of made your peace with that; because you had to, because you don't want to live your life like he does; the whole world at a managed distance, a little rotating and controlled orb he can witness and take credit for but never truly love.
as an adult, you are rewatching some dumb cartoon - and again, the child standing in the rain, with a mitt, waiting for their father to come play catch. as an adult, there's this strange creeping dread - this little thing? this little thing, and their dad can't even show up for that? oh god, holyshit, it's not about the mitt, is it. oh god, holyshit, your father spent most of your life leaving you hanging.
modern au hua cheng makes pancake art for his totally platonic best friend xie lian whenever one of them stays over at the other’s
they’re always flowers; he thinks he’s slick, painting hánxiūcǎo and táohuā and sunflowers in pancake batter. it’s as close as he can come to confessing his feelings to his best friend; anything else would cost more courage than he can muster.
meanwhile, every beautiful pancake flower feels like a dagger in xl’s chest. he knows what they mean—he learned traditional arrangement from his mother. every little pancake masterpiece hc puts in front of him speaks of affections xl knows hc doesn’t mean. hc is an artist; he loves beautiful things, and he knows xl loves flowers. that’s all it means. xl tells himself he’s reading into things, wishing so hard that hc returned his feelings that he’s imagining meaning where there is none.