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Hey someone suggested I use ChatGPT to figure out adulting today, and as I was going through the mental list of places I'd rather look, I realized "beloved strangers on Tumblr dot net" was on that list.

So if you have an aspect of adulting that you're really good at-taxes, budgeting, cooking, insurance, credit, time management, house upkeep, anything-please feel free to reblog with any tips.

notcruvusmemes

Not me, but @bitchesgetriches has a lot of great resources for many of these topics on their website.

bitchesgetriches

That's us! Professional internet adults, specializing in financial stuff! We recommend starting with our Grand List of All Articles, or one of our Masterposts:

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Taxes

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Increase Your Income

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Getting a Job, Raise, or Promotion

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Saving Money and Being Frugal

pothos-prince

So I can find this later.

quiddie

Intent doesn't overshadow impact, and asking for acknowledgement and the simple repair of an apology when multiple Black attendees of the BAFTAs had a racist slur shouted at them is not punishing a person for his disability, it is an act of community and respect for peers whose night and peace were unfortunately and unintentionally disrupted by the outbursts.

tjwock

HEY.

HEY YALL.

USAMERICAN DEMOCRATS SUCCESSFULLY REMOVED EVERY ANTITRANS RIDER FROM EVERY FUNDING BILL

Spread the fucking word because LORD knows democrats fucking suck at spreading it themselves and will fail once again to inform their base

But just in case you’re sitting there going “the Dems aren’t doing anything,” THEY ARE

IT IS JUST SLOW

AND MOSTLY INVISIBLE

BUT THEY ARE

doberbutts

onlyteoristeor

Thinking about it Bolaire only exists because of Thaisha's family. If the sword that killed the first god was never made, the masks of the fatal play would have never been crafted.

Thaisha wants to fix the world and the damage done. In part because she's fallen in love with the world through the love of her life's work, and in part because of the damage her people and her family very specifically did to the world in freeing themselves from tyranny.

Bolaire grew from this same desire. The same spark. No more war, self determination. He wants to livez be a person in this world because of the beauty Hal and his family have shown him.

To live in this world he needs to cause damage.

I want them to have a conversation so bad.

quiddie

"Thaisha wants to fix the world and the damage done. In part because she's fallen in love with the world through the love of her life's work, and in part because of the damage her people and her family very specifically did to the world in freeing themselves from tyranny."

Do not entertain for even a second that the oppressed would or should feel an iota of guilt for the manner by which their liberation was attained.

maeamian

Hey, if you did work over the past few weeks to try to stop the GOP's obscene and murderous budget: thanks. It ended up without the AI regulation ban, the trans healthcare ban, the western lands sell off, and without its stupid name being official.

It passing was a major loss for everyone in this country including the very wealthy and other people who believe they will be able to be better off from it.

But also, it passing was not as bad as it could have been and it took the ongoing effort of huge amounts of people to even make that a possibility, so if you were part of that, from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.

cdrlogic

Thank YOU for posting THIS. It's easy to despair, but there ARE wins, however small.

confuse-the-masses

Haha no, don’t be a major catalyst for the apocalypse, you’re so pretty

quiddie

Getting an A.Ham edit for one of my favorite PCs is a life goal I didn't know I had! 😭

dear-ao3

friends roman’s and fellow countrymen i need help

for years and years and years my great aunt made a cheese cake for easter. but it was no ordinary cheesecake. it was a no bake farmers cheese cheese cake that was wrapped in cheese cloth and put in the fridge and had like some kind of nuts and also those gummy fruit things in it. the recipe does not exist. but i know it’s eastern european. and i want to eat this cake. but i cannot find it anywhere on line, every comparable recipe is a baked one. have any of you heard of this??? can anyone send me anything that might be useful?????? please??????????

dear-ao3

unfortunately yes.

dear-ao3

AHA WEVE FOUND IT

should i make it

dear-ao3

okay so ive decided to make it because Why Not and step 1 is finding a mold. i know theres a traditional one but my great aunt always used like a 1960s jello mold pan thing and i do not have one. but i have a friend (actually its katyas partner) who deals in such oddities.

now i just have to. make it.

dear-ao3

alright welcome back everyone. my apologies for the delay i was busy making lemon poppyseed cake, brownies, gluten free babka, killing my spatula and also working. but i am back now. and it is time to embark on the great pashka making endeavor.

the making began Yesterday.

first katyas parter Was in fact able to find me a mold at good will for 2 dollars, right now it is soaking so i cannot show you a picture but trust me, it exists and it is lovely.

second thank you to everyone who sent me in their recipes for pashka. i am eternally grateful. but, i have decided that i will be combining several recipes together for a few reasons:

i know for a Fact that my great aunts version has farmers cheese and sour cream in it, not cottage cheese.

Some People in my family get pissy about eating raw eggs

i feel like this is the proper course of action for any good eastern european girl: making something so uniquely unique that it is impossible for anyone else to replicate.

this of course led to the Third step of the evening, as in yesterday evening, which was gathering the ingredients. this was much harder than i anticipated. because it took three stores.

store 1 (the fresh market) had the appropriate sour cream and golden raisins (which i have decided to use as a mix in) but only salted macadamia nuts. store 2 (safeway) had the macadamia nuts but Nothing else. store 3 (wegmans) had literally everything else i needed Including the candied fruit gummies.

i of course informed my sister of the improvements:

though, my sister was substantially less excited than i was:

i then ate half of the fruit gummies in the car back and came to the conclusion that they were Not in the original recipe because the texture was wrong.

see. no one knows what the fuck was ever in this cake. as seen above. there were definitely tiny macadamia nuts and chopped up candied Somethings (maybe maraschino cherries? and something else green??) but i did not have the time nor the desire to go to a polish deli to hunt for the mysterious candied Things.

could i have asked my great aunt what was in the recipe?

yes absolutely. she's quite alive and well. but after the infamous Walnut Cake Fiasco from christmas eve, during which i had to make walnut cake. for christmas eve. (and no you cannot have the recipe) i decided against asking.

so i decided to Fuck whatever was in the original cake and do my own thing. after copious amounts of research, i have landed on using my macadamia nuts, golden raisins, orange and lemon zest and juice, vanilla bean and vanilla extract. of which i happened to have a fuck ton of because i just made homeade vanilla extract.

and now that it is no later than 11:23pm, it is the perfect time to embark on the task of Trying Not To Fuck Up The Pashka.

but first: a trip to the gas station to get sweetened condensed milk.

dear-ao3

alright so the gas station did Not have sweetened condensed milk but they Did have evaporated milk. so we are going to improvise.

in our quest i managed to forget once again that i 1. live in a college town with 7 bars and 2. its a friday night at midnight. so as we traipsed along to 7/11 we got to sing along dramatically to baby by justin bieber that was being blasted by one of the bars. we then got slushees, went to the gas station for the evaporated milk and saw three frat boys decked out in gucci loafers and vineyard vines and all three of them had their cards decline on 1. voss water 2. an ice cream sandwich and 3. a celcius.

but!

im spiking my slushee and getting down to business. its pashka time.

dear-ao3

okay. it is 2:41 am. the pashka is in the fridge. and my kitchen is no longer coated with cheese. why was my kitchen coated with cheese? i will explain.

so my mold does not have drainage holes in it (as it is not the biblically correct one) this is not really a problem except for the fact that a vital step of pashka making is pressing the liquid out of it in the mold overnight in the fridge. mine turned out rather soupy and so i had the Brilliant idea to wring the liquid out blob by blob at a time through cloth napkins. which coated my whole kitchen in Cheese. and also myself. and katyas partner who stayed up with me to attempt the pashka. katya went to sleep like a loser. sometimes though, you have to coat yourself in cheese to find yourself. i do not know if i have found myself yet. will report back on that.

anyway the cheese draining method Worked and it Tastes Correct but!!! there was still more liquid that needed to come out so. i put the whole thing in a salad spinner basket in the cheese cloth in a bowl to catch the drips with a plate under it and 2 weights on a plate on top of it to press the liquid out. tomorrow morning once the liquid is drained i’ll put it in the mold.

i have no idea if this will work. but it Does taste good. so there is that. and at least my kitchen is no longer covered in cheese.

also to all of you getting pissed i was calling this cake. growing up it was quite literally called cheesecake so. hush. not everyone’s traditions are your traditions that’s what makes them traditions.

what Is tradition about this is that my great aunt would be rolling in her grave if she had a grave to roll in.

i fear i am still sticky.

toodoloo

dear-ao3

9:12am. i lay awake and living off of less than 6 hours of sleep, petrified at the state of both my fridge (which may be covered in liquidy sticky goo) and my pashka. my parents are due to arrive sometime between 12 and 1 but it’s my parents so it’ll likely be between 1 and 2 but probably not after 3. my sister will be with them. she is the only one who knows about the pashka.

also thank u everyone for figuring out the mysterious red and green cherry things. they do indeed look like the holiday fruit. if this works perhaps i will try again with the holiday fruit.

for now though i lay in fear. and will try to muster the courage to open the fridge.

dear-ao3

HOLY SHIT I MIGHT HAVE DONE IT

this is a twist i was not expecting

dear-ao3

12:13pm. the table is set. my parents will be here imminently. the pashka has been moved into its mold and is sitting in the back of my fridge. and i myself am walking across the street to get champange. for some reason. i was told to. unsure why. no one in my family drinks. (the spiking of the slurpee last night was an effort to get in touch with my ancestors)

my parents do not know there is pashka.

you might be wondering why we are celebrating easter on a saturday when christ has definitely not yet risen. the answer is that no one in my family is religious. i have actually no idea why we are celebrating easter.

dear-ao3

it’s time

i put some comically large strawberries on her

time to see if it’s good

dear-ao3

i step out of my kitchen. there have been murmurs of dessert speculations. but no one was expecting a pashka. except my sister who of course knew of my scheme.

”alright,” my dad said, taking a bite. remember that he didn’t even know there was pashka until a few minutes ago. “how did you make the cake? because it’s really good”

and while this recipe was a pain in the ass to make, i will share it. with all of you.

HOW TO MAKE THE PASHKA

step 1. first you must be a little insane.

step 2. gather the ingredients: 2lbs farmers cheese, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1 stick soft unsalted butter, 2/3 can evaporated milk, 1 3/4 cups sugar, about half a cup finely chopped unsalted macadamia nuts, about 3/4 cup chopped golden raisins, 1 orange, 1 lemon, vanilla extract, 1 vanilla bean, cheesecloth, 6 inch vintage mold, salad spinner bowl or something else with holes in it, 5 lb weights, napkins, vodka (to drink yourself)

step 3: combine chopped macadamia nuts and chopped golden raisins into a container with lid. zest into it 1 whole lemon and 1 whole orange. add the juice of the lemon and the orange. add in a large splash of vanilla extract and a scraped vanilla bean pod. mix, cover, and put in fridge for several hours

step 4: press the farmers cheese through a fine mesh sieve with the back of a spoon into bowl. set aside.

step 5: put 2/3 cup evaporated milk into saucepan. slowly heat with 1 cup sugar. heat until it has taken on color and has thickened. stir a lot. remove from heat.

step 6: cream butter and 3/4 cup sugar with electric mixer paddle attachment. add sour cream and condensed milk. beat again.

step 7: add in the fluffed farmers cheese. switch to the beater attachment. beat at least 5 minutes

step 8: take the mixture a few scoops at a time into a cloth (not a paper towel) and wring out excess liquid over a sink. this will be messy. and sticky. wear clothes you don’t care about. now might be a good time to drink your vodka. scrape the napkin contents out into a bowl. it should still be liquidy but less wet. repeat for rest of bowl.

step 9: drain liquid out of the nut raisin citrus mixture. fold into the drained cheese

step 10: put cheesecloth into the basket of a salad spinner. make sure there is overhang over the edges. place cheese mixture into the cheese cloth. wrap excess cloth over the top of the pashka, weigh down with a plate and 5lbs of weights. place the salad spinner basket into a bowl slightly smaller than the basket so that there is room for the liquid to drain to. put in fridge for around 9 hours

step 10: remove pashka from salad spinner basket and place in your mold, place lid and weights on top of it for 1 hour

step 11: remove weights and plate. soak up any liquid that has been pressed out with paper towels. leave in mold until serving time

step 12: remove from mold, take off cheese cloth, place on plate. serve with strawberries. be very glad that you only have to make this cake once a year.

happy easter. i’m going to drink another mimosa.

jixiani

I want an entire cookbook written like this post. It's like the antithesis to all those food blog recipes (of which I am also guilty of making) where someone tells about the origins of the recipe and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom just to find out how much sugar to add, except it's unhinged and amazing and tells a story of experimentation and spite and surprise success.

shorthaltsjester

Critical Role: 10 Years of Storytelling

Campaign 1, Episode 115, "The Chapter Closes." // Taliesin Jaffe, in "As D&D booms, 'Critical Role' makes its own kind of nerd celebrity" by Sarah Parvini // Campaign 3, Episode 31, "Breaking Point" // On Loving by Forugh Farrokhzad, tr. Sholeh Wolpé // The Legend of Vox Machina at NYCC 2022 // 8-bit Stories // Campaign 1 Wrap-Up // “Without You Without Them” by boygenius // Campaign 2, Episode 141, "Fond Farewells." // Campaign 3: Behind the Set // Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka // Campaign 1, Episode 115, "The Chapter Closes." // Explanation of the final Vex’ahlia playlist by Laura Bailey // Liam's Quest: Full Circle // Backwards by Warsan Shire // Exandria Unlimited: Kymal, Part 2 // Explanation of Fearne’s second playlist by Ashley Johnson // Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson // San Diego Comic-Con 2023, Critical Role: Fireside Chat & Cast Q&A // Exandria Unlimited Cooldown: Divergence Episode 4 // Campaign 3, Episode 23, "To the Skies." // Explanation of the final Percy playlist by Taliesin Jaffe // "For Good" by Stephen Schwartz // Campaign 3, Episode 91, "True Heroism." // Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Episode 4, "Fire and Ruin." // Campaign 3, Episode 121, "A New Age Begins."

tockthewatchdog-deactivated2020

findingfeather

Every time I see this quote I realize how poor even very smart people are at looking at the long game and at assessing these things in context.

One of my favourite illustrations of this was in a First Aid class. The instructor was a working paramedic. He asked, “Who here knows the stats on CPR? What percentage of people are saved by CPR outside a hospital?”

I happen to know but I’m trying not to be a TOTAL know it all in this class so I wait. And people guess 50% and he says, “Lower,” and 20% and so forth and eventually I sort of half put up my hand and I guess I had The Face because he eventually looked at me and said, “You know, don’t you.”

“My mom’s a doc,” I said. He gave me a “so say it” gesture and I said, “Four to ten percent depending on your sources.”

Everyone else looked surprised and horrified.

And the paramedic said, “We’re gonna talk a bit about some details of those figures* but first I want to talk about just this: when do you do CPR?”

The class dutifully replies: when someone is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse.

“What do we call someone who is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse?”

The class tries to figure out what the trick question is so I jump over the long pause and say, “A corpse.”

“Right,” says the paramedic. “Someone who isn’t breathing and has no heartbeat is dead. So what I’m telling you is that with this technique you have a 4-10% chance of raising the dead.”

So no, artists did not stop the Vietnam War from happening with the sheer Power of Art. The forces driving that military intervention were huge, had generations of momentum and are actually pretty damn complicated.

But if you think the mass rejection of the war was as meaningless as a soufflé - well.

Try sitting here for ten seconds and imagining where we’d be if the entire intellectual and artistic drive of the culture had been FOR the war. If everyone thought it was a GREAT IDEA.

What the whole world would look like.

Four-to-ten percent means that ninety to ninety-six percent of the time - more than nine times out of ten - CPR will do nothing, but that one time you’ll be in the company of someone worshipped as an incarnate god.

If you think the artists and performers attacking and showing up people like Donald Trump is meaningless try imagining a version of the world wherein they weren’t there.

(*if you’re curious: those stats count EVERY reported case of CPR, while the effectiveness of it is extremely time-related. With those who have had continuous CPR from the SECOND they went down, the number is actually above 80%. It drops hugely every 30 seconds from then on. When you count ALL cases you count cases where the person has already been down several minutes but a bystander still starts CPR, which affects the stats)

myfatfuckingface

That Vonnegut quote brings this particular moment to mind:

Yes, it’s just a pie. Yes, the pie itself doesn’t do much direct damage in the grand scheme of things. But the pie is resistance, and resistance inspires resistance. Resistance inspires survival. Throwing pies sometimes starts a movement. Throwing pies sometimes saves lives.

And of course, we haven’t spoken about the inherent morality of throwing pies at oppressors in a world where oppressors have outlawed pie throwing. At the very least, pie throwing is a reminder to the oppressors that no matter how much money they have, no matter how much power they have, there are still some people, some moments they can’t control.

I’d rather go out throwing pies than just rolling over and accepting that pie throwing isn’t going to solve anything. Yeah, the pie throwing doesn’t immediately solve the problem, but it doesn’t have to because it’s just a starting point. So throw the damn pie.

holy-muffins

So throw the damn pie

grey-sides

Hi. Things are bleak, I know that. I know that we paid for Trump's last term with blood and it is likely the price will be blood again.

But listen to me. LISTEN.

You do not have to force yourself to witness horrors as an act of activism. It is not a form of activism. You can put your phone down, you can block that horrific video. We cannot win if you cannot fight and you will not be able to fight if you are hopeless.

Do not let them guilt you into this. People who are exhausted are easier to walk over. Take care of yourself, find community where you find joy.

brawlite

You do not have to force yourself to witness horrors as an act of activism. It is not a form of activism.

^^^ remember this. do not exhaust yourself into hopelessness. take care of yourself and stay strong.

alessandriana

I know I've recced it before, but if you want a place to monitor the news while avoiding getting caught in the horrors, What The Fuck Just Happened Today is a really useful resource. They summarize political (& adjacent) news so you can remain aware of what's going on while still minimizing the emotional energy you expend on any one issue. (And they provide links and sourcing if you need to know more.)

dogposts

the way this shiba puppy yawns (please unmute)

(please unmute)

(please unmute)

(please unmute)

(please unmute)

oysters-aint-for-me

thecottageinthedark

purlturtle

You win the internet today, my friend 🏆

soracities

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

paper-mario-wiki

HEY wanna read but annoyed on where to find copies of books?

Here's an archive with millions of PDFs of books and papers and magazines and essays and stuff.

meltedgarment

I've been looking for such archives, thanks

jadequarze

I'm so normal for the twinsies urgh

shorthaltsjester

The Pantheon of Exandria;

"One thing, Dad. [Mortals] don't fear you, they resent you."

No Children by The Mountain Goats // Critical Role: Campaigns 1 and 3, Critical Role's Downfall

maacbrem

Vox Machina’s story is a tragedy just as much as a happy ending.

Imagine: you’re the twin bastards of a wealthy man and a dead woman and all you have in the world is each other; you’re the prodigal heir of your people on the same quest that took your mother and the very concept of power terrifies you but you have to learn to wield it anyway; you’re the son of a deposed warlord left for dead by your uncle, brought into an unknown world of kindness and faith by another victim of your family of origin whose death you objected to against all your upbringing; you’re the good-hearted daughter of a family of crooks and you struggle to balance the love of your goddess with all the ugly feelings of anger and doubt that haunt you; you’re the lone survivor of a massacre, you fled the burning corpse of the city you love and your own sister’s bleeding body in the dirt, when you sleep you dream of forge fire and blood and you cling to your name even as you know you’re not worthy of it; you’re a bard haunted by the song of your mother’s dying screams and when you make people laugh you feel a little less helpless so you resign yourself to being comic relief and convince yourself that being needed is better than being wanted.

And then bit by bit you come together by chance, and suddenly you’re not just you anymore, you’re a group. You start testing the waters of friendship, of care, of love in many forms. You kill for each other; you die for each other. The world keeps trying to crush you but you keep fighting back, and together you start winning, together you stop being outcasts and screw-ups and start being heroes. People look to you for help, for guidance, for salvation. You’re terrified of it but you’re together so you muddle through, and all the losses pile up but the victories are so much greater. Guilt is easier to carry across many shoulders, and vengeance is a noble pursuit. You’re winning. You’re winning.

And then you lose. You lose and you keep losing and you thought the Dread Emperor, the Briarwoods, the dragons were all beyond you but you managed it, you saved the realm and each other, but suddenly you’re in the Shadowfell and your friends are dying and Vax is gone -

You win. But there’s finally a price that you don’t want to pay. You’re the most powerful group of people in the world, wielding god-forged remnants of divine war and too stubborn to do anything but fight until the fighting’s done, but you still lose. He leaves you, willingly and with a clean conscience and an awful, cruel faith that you’ll all be okay without him, and there’s nothing you can do.

In this moment, at the absolute height of your power, you are useless.

Vox Machina is a tragedy because they rallied the whole world behind them and they won every unwinnable fight and in between all that they figured out how to be people who love and dream and build and lead and open bakeries and have cannonball contests and start families, but there was always going to be a cost. There was always going to be an end. Even as they move forward and live their lives they’re still a little bit stuck in their grief because they’re not used to losing. They’re unstoppable forces of nature but they were always going to meet an immovable object and none of them are really capable of accepting that because why would they? They’re basically gods.

sketch-cat

Save him

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