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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for me at least, theres always been a really stark divide in the 'child character is the main antagonist' sort of stories.
on one hand. theres stories that rely on the shock factor of a child being evil, because we're supposed to believe that kids arent capable of that sort of thing. i guess its supposed to be frightening but the novelty always wears off really quickly for me.
i think 'a child is the villain' always lands most successfully for me when a kid is given power beyond their years (either by adults around them or otherwise supernatural/societal forces) and then everyone is floored when they arent exactly responsible with that power. and sometimes theyre even selfish! not because that kid is evil, but because theyre a kid.. acting like a kid would in their situation.
it means that any sort of story that follows requires a protagonist to reason with someone who may not even understand the harm theyre doing, or worse - not have the life lived to understand why they should care in the first place. and also, i think watching what happens when u have an destructive force seeking comforts that any child deserves doing whatever they can to have those things is (to me) much more interesting than 'child who is fucked up and evil for no reason but being born that way actually'
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Buddy, when racist cunts illegally prevented me from registering to vote by just refusing to accept my papers, I PROMISE YOU shitty guilt trip memes about my inability to vote made everything worse.
You know what ACTUALLY helped?
More than every passive aggressive shit for brains on this website telling me I deserve to me racially harassed for not giving Democrats my soul?
A fucking email from a fucking HERBS AND SPICES STORE that unlike you wretched cunts ACTUALLY HAD VOTER REGISTRATION HELPLINES IN IT.
Every time one of you godforsaken freaks tells me to 'get out and vote' like its cutely trivial and didn't take months of desperate phone calls just to register (IF my registration even WORKED THIS TIME).
If you, like me, are struggling with registration or poll access, try contacting your STATE board of elections.
Request that they send you TWO copies of their registration guidelines. Collect any documents listed in them.
Then, contact your LOCAL board. Tell them you would like to register IN PERSON IF POSSIBLE.
Bring your documents and the two copies of the guideline AND a working cell phone.
If you get ANY trouble AT ALL tell the local person you will call the state board to confirm their registration requirements. Be polite, but do not leave. Put the phone on speaker.
Most of the time, the local person who is doing Actual Serious Federal And State Crimes will give up at that point. If not, the person at the state board will generally outrank and overrule the local one.
Make a note of the names of both the local and state official.
Then, and this is the most important part:
CONFIRM YOUR REGISTRATION WAS FILED.
It may take a day or two for your registration to appear.
Unfortunately, if it's been a week, you're going to have to repeat the process.
Take the names you noted previously, and contact the state board again. Report that these people denied you registration on this day, in spite of you providing these documents, then list all the required papers you collected.
The person at the state SHOULD be able to direct you from there, but the process varies hugely by state.
Good luck to you all.
ETA: I was able to vote eventually, BTW. It took far more work than it should have. Physical injuries were sustained. But I did get to vote!!
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the thing about variety describing warner bros discovery making "unsuccessful attempts to sell the unprofitable fandom" is that this shifts all the blame on the audience. how are you gonna try that with a fandom that crowdfunded films on a record-breaking scale, raised millions for extra life for years and years, and spawned their own fucking convention because RT was so goddamn popular?? insane that poor business restructuring and shitty company practices from WBD is being spun into "our audience didn't give us enough money so unfortunately, we have to sell RWBY (a western show that enjoys enormous popularity in japan despite not being a homegrown anime) and RvB (a show which pioneered machinima as both a genre and medium)"
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