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.

I don’t like when people ask how many books you plan to read/have read this year one because I think that’s a weird relationship to have to books and two because I think even reading a chapter or a portion of something is valuable. this is especially true with non-fiction but even with fiction I think any amount you read, even if you don’t read the entire thing, is not a failure or ‘incomplete’

Whenever Brits are like "tea is our national drink, our culture, our personality, our mental health" I think of our hill country blanketed in a patchwork quilt of human suffering and ongoing violent colonialism and want to smash all their tea cups. Your genocidal leaf juice is nothing to be proud of. The present day tea pluckers are the descendants of the Indians you enslaved and they still live in unthinkable poverty in the line houses you built to house them like cattle. The families whose farmlands you robbed have been starving for generations. Every sip of your leaf juice is soaked in blood and you drink it like vampires.

Tea will never belong to you. It's our legacy of grief, and your shame.

Drink your tea and shut the fuck up.

one thing i find really difficult about navigating the IF space is the direct line of contact between readers and authors. we share the same space, and i think that plays a big part in this weird blurred line we have in this community and overall lack of boundaries.

for a lot of people this is a fun hobby and while i personally try to keep it... semi-professional most of the time, it's easy to get wrapped up in having fun on tumblr (or the forums, or reddit, wherever it is that you mainly post/interact) and have a lot of personal interactions with both readers and authors alike - which is fun! i like it more often than not, but i also think that's why a lot of comments in this space can end up being really entitled, over-familiar, and inappropriate.

it's no secret that most authors get really weird messages on here, and while this is also a problem on social media at large and not just specific to IF tumblr, it is still definitely a big problem in this community.

and to be clear i'm not saying that you can't be friendly with authors or readers (i've become friends with a handful of readers myself) and i definitely don't mean to imply that there needs to be a huge divide between us; that's silly - again, most authors are readers, most readers are authors, we’re just people on the internet sharing the same space. but all of us deserve to have our boundaries respected. this is my story, and we are strangers. as a general rule of thumb: if you wouldn't say it out loud to someone you just met, you probably shouldn't be saying it to a stranger online. especially anonymously.

On a brighter note I've taken to cleaning and reorganising the kitchen since I'm the one that mainly uses it now and it gives me serotonin to see my baking supply all neat and tidy.

Last week I tried my hand at making a no bake matcha cheesecake and a matcha bread with red bean paste yeee

The key to writing rictor and shatterstar as toxic codependent yuri is to realize that neither of them will ever be able to fully believe that the other truly loves them (rictor because he’s too insecure and ‘star because he’ll never feel like he can trust his interpretation of rictor’s actions. Due to his nature. man who acts the most sure in his actions and statements has the most doubt about them. You know how it is) but they each believe they will never find anyone they want more than the first person they ever did so they keep getting back together. like. they each believe this is as good as it’s going to get. and I have two ideas for an ending (one good one and the other evil) so if I write this I’m leaving it ambiguous which actually happens. probably by writing two canon “epilogues” that spell out the alternate endings and and coexist with each other as equal possibilities in the canon

Okay for my fellow last desperate hold-outs running with things like 'ohh the black armor is actually signalling teaming up with CX-Tech for the finale' who is ready to join me on the chess dejarik-master Tech got blown up/fall damaged back into his right self on Teth and has been maneuvering pieces to bring down Hemlock as best he can from the inside ever since train?

Replayed Modern Warfare 3 2011 on Veteran tonight and goooooooood night. Blood Brothers never gets any easier to watch no matter how many times you've done it and the ending really never misses huh

I apologize for the amount of yapping in the tags I reread it all on mobile and started giggling because it went on for so long but eh. Blessed are those who won't shut the freak up and all that

brb, hooking an ai system trained to write scripts to an ai system trained to produce video from textual input and an ai system that generates descriptions of video content as a research exercise in identifying the most prevalent tropes and plot beats in modern cinema by (manually) cross-comparing discrete productions once content has stabilized at statistically significant similarity.

Fuck u I shouldn't have to work on weekends vs Jesus christ I have so much to do. Fight.

one of my favorite parts of disco elysium is when the Skills talk over each other and question each other in yet another harry-crisis

drop the cookie dough recipe 🔫

who are you .

THE IPOD IS WORKING

I REPEAT

THE IPOD

IS WORKING

extract from an epic dracula/helsing rp between myself and @inkstainsxxonxxparchment (im playing Drac, @inkstainsxxonxxparchment is playing Helsing)

context: drac and helsing are finally a couple. and now a new vampire is in town casting threats upon vampire hunter Lawrence Van Helsing. They're sitting in the bedroom thinking about what to do next.

Dracula sat on the edge of the bed, watching the doctor pace back and forth. Struck between marvelling and worrying about the human.

"You know that a fine groove in the floor would be a mark made by yourself I do not mind. But there are other more tactile marks upon flesh that work far more effectively, you know," He offered, with a faintly playful smile. Though he could tell the other was distracted. "Doctor…tell me your thoughts. I may be supernatural, but reading your rather brilliant mind is not one of my strengths."

*

The words had Lawrence slowing a bit, before gazing at him. "I suppose…not. I just…" He swallowed. "I am sorry. I know that in these moments it's clear how different we are. I do not ever want you to regret what your choices have been for me."

He slowly stepped back in front of him. "I am emotionally driven and I know it's very much a different way to see things. I know that vampires are less swayed in ways and I should leave you to handling things when it comes to them if you are willing. I just…please do not ever regret me. Please?"

*

Dracula blinked up at him, considering his words with some surprise. He had not expected the doctor to be so fixated on this. On them.

And regret? He was uncertain if he even knew what the word entailed, what it was supposed to feel like. He only knew what he wanted.

He smiled a bit.

"Doctor…I am…a simple creature, in ways. Humans have a tendency, it seems…especially in recent decades, to romanticize vampires. To make us appear…alluring, even at our most monstrous. But that is all we are, in the end. Monsters. Animals. I do not say this to seem self-loathing. I say this as a fact."

He reached out, taking the doctor's hand.

"That you have made me want you in a different way, it is…still quite a mystery to me. But please understand, all I know is that I want you. I adore you. That I would certainly die for you. That is all I know. If I were to regret it…I would have killed you already."