probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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kamala khan would have the most horrendous ao3 author's notes known to man
"hey guys sorry the update is late i switched places with an avenger (ajdgrhsh literally crying) and a really cool space scientist lady and then got into a fight and some alien dudes wrecked my house and then I met Nick fury and I was literal space it was crazy and I had to help save the universe and saw said scientist lady give up her life to save all of us... anyways hope you like the new fic, branching out with an arranged marriage au for this one!!!"
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it’s so funny to me that people used to try to warn me “if you go on t it won’t make you androgynous it’ll just make you look like a man” because 1) i do want to look like a man, that is famously a major part of being a trans man but also 2) t literally has made me androgynous?? like they were wrong on both counts. i got most of the looking-like-a-man changes that i wanted (deep voice, broader body, hair all over my body including my face) and i also give every single cis person in a five mile radius a stroke every time they try to figure out my gender. the assumption that trans men wouldn’t actually want to look like men and the assumption that cis people are good at correctly gendering us once we’re on t are both weird as hell.
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I can't deny that there's a part of me that's absolutely delighted that each time Bruce unjustly went after Jason, the Batkids responded in kind.
This isn't my ideal version of the Batfam, but it does warm my heart seeing Jason's siblings stand up for him.
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thinking about gorgug thistlespring, a barbarian half-orc raised by tinkerer gnomes, who tried to teach him that his anger was not a bad thing, that he was not a burden, that he should channel those negative emotions into something good and positive, like singing or making things, and so he did. he made friends, he learned the drums, he fought, he protected, he saved the world and met multiple who liked him for who he is.
thinking about gorgug thistlespring, a teenage boy with his first girlfriend, who was so devoted to protecting his friends that he made a mistake, he didn’t consider her feelings, so he fought so hard to make it right, he felt so guilty and so angry at himself so he built something just to be able to talk to her again. his parents taught him to channel his emotions and he realised he was just as good at creating as he was at raging. and even when the nightmare king’s forest threw his fears and insecurities in his face, he carried on, for his friends, because “its gorgug, keep going.”
thinking about gorgug thistlespring, an artificer-barbarian who figured out who he is, what he wanted, what he’s good at, who knows how to channel his anger into protecting and creating, to save the world and his friends, only to be told that he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t do what he wanted, his anger was for destruction, not for creating, not for putting his life on the line for his friends, that all the things his parents had taught him, all the things that he had learned while saving the world were wrong.
thinking about gorgug thistlespring.
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