Ephemera

bits and bobs, food & fashion & social justice

[thememedaddy]

[ellynneversweet]

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

[catasters]

[gallusrostromegalus]

tags by @ultramarineblues: #deeply curious about how this person discovered the cat liked this game

[halorvic]

[stevishabitat]

[torstherapy]

[tinsnip]

Per @spoonstrek

[passumbapper]

it's almost summer do you guys want my stupid hyperoptimized lemonade recipe that takes half a day to make and whips absolute ass

[passumbapper]

Fruited Lemonade That Makes You Reconsider It All

ingredience:

lemons/limes (this needs to make up the bulk of the fruit being used, like at least 80%)

whatever other fruits or fruit scraps you want, plus any herbs/other flavorings you want to try. by fruit scraps I mean things like cherry pits, apple peels, pineapple cores, strawberry ends, things like that.

granulated white sugar, the coarser the better, 50% by weight of total citrus rinds + 100% by weight of any additional fruit. you'll measure this after you prep the fruit.

water as needed

equipment:

a few nonmetallic mixing bowls

a mesh strainer

a chinoise, ricer or some cheesecloth

a kitchen scale

a citrus juicer or reamer (manual or electric)

a potato masher

juice the citrus through a strainer - saving all rinds -  and refrigerate the juice for the time being. dice the rinds and other fruits if any, keeping the rinds separate. make note of weights, and measure your sugar.

 Place sugar in a large nonmetallic bowl. If using non-citrus fruits and/or any other flavorings, mix them in with the sugar and mash with potato masher. add diced citrus rinds, mix thoroughly, and mash again. cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. this allows the sugar to draw out flavors that would otherwise get discarded with the rinds, and the rinds' acids should be enough to dissolve the sugar into a syrup.

Afterward, mash one last time, then collect the syrup by pressing the macerated mixture through a strainer/chinoise or ricer, or squeeze it through cheesecloth. if you want, this can be saved as a standalone syrup at this point, for use in cocktails or desserts. if not, slowly pour the reserved juice through the solids to to help get the remaining syrup out, and squeeze/press again. do the same thing one more time with warm water (roughly the same amount of water as juice). discard solids (or try making sangria with them!).

taste the mixture and add more water if necessary. a stronger mix is totally fine if you anticipate serving over ice on a hot day, or adding booze, or if there was a lot of non-sour fruit. keep in mind that it will taste a bit less sweet once it's chilled. pour into a pitcher and refrigerate.

citrus oils will float to the top, so stir/shake before serving. love you. enjoy.

some tried and true flavor combos:

straight lemon or lime, or any combination of the two, is of course an untouchable classic

lemon & strawberries (that's pussy babe!)

lemon & orange with a hint of vanilla (creamsiclemonade...?)

lemon & apples or apple peels with cinnamon/ginger/allspice (for late summer)

some cocktail type combos, booze optional:

lemon or lime & berries with basil + gin

lime & mint + white rum

lime & ginger + dark rum

lime & cucumber + gin

lime & orange (berries optional) + tequila

lemon, orange & cherry + brandy, bourbon, or rye whiskey

[madgastronomer]

holy gods

[heavensghost]

Words by Andrea Gibson

[salbertwolf]

Victor Glover (Pilot), Artemis II - April 4th 2026

[gorgeousgary]

This genuinely made me cry. I so needed to hear it right now.

[masonhawthorne]

I keep remembering a run of Hamlet I saw a few years ago, where the Ghost was costumed in full plate armour which was very noisy, and instead of muffling it, they had him crash across the stage, stomping so the whole set rattled, and he said all of his lines in a bellow, like he was furious with Hamlet.

And the thing that made it absolutely terrifying was that Hamlet was the only one who reacted. He was cowering, and covering his ears with both hands, and yelling to be heard over the noise.

And no one else seemed to know why he was doing that. The other actors didn't even raise their voices.

That's scary, something so loud and painful, and REAL, and the people around you don't even notice it, and think that you're the crazy one.

[chestercopperpotz]

I love when I hear about a choice in Shakespeare I've never thought of before. Brilliant

[terrorignitis]

Juansen Dizon, i am the architect of my own destruction

[lena-oleanderson]

also a poem from the new, unreleased collection. very possibly my own all-time favourite.

[aleatoryw]

i’ve started looking at weight and health the way i look at class and income and it really puts a lot of things into a new perspective.

let me explain: in america at least, the lower class have significantly worse health outcomes, even when accounting for other factors. just being poor is enough to make your overall health worse. we don’t know that being fat makes your health directly worse, like the data just isn’t there, but for a moment, pretend it does.

imagine going to the doctor with a health problem and the doctor looking at your chart and saying well, this problem will be less severe if you go up an income bracket. have you thought about becoming rich? it would really help. start by saving a little money every month.

ridiculous, right?? very few people successfully go from working class to rich, it just doesn’t happen on a large scale in society. maybe for a time you pick up some overtime hours, spend a little beyond your means, and appear rich. but eventually you burn out, your car needs to be repaired, and you return to being working class.

we do have this data: only some people can successfully lose large amounts of weight, and only a tiny fraction of people who lose that weight actually keep it off for more than a year. telling people to lose weight for their health is just absurd because they almost certainly can’t do it any more than they can double their income for their health.

and yet i see it everywhere. a little poster in my work breakroom tells me to improve my blood pressure by losing weight! a psa on the radio says you need to take care of your heart by losing weight! we can’t even conclusively prove that weight is the cause rather than just correlated with a lot of these problems but here it is offered anyway: have you tried being rich?

[bumbledeefumble]

You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people tend to try and invalidate fatphobia as a form of oppression by saying its not an immutible quality like race or sexuality or gender. The old “you can lose weight, i can’t become white/straight/cis” argument.

That’s because fatphobia is a lot more like classism; i.e. it’s a form of bigotry that is only TECHNICALLY changeable. They’re both seen as a lot more changeable than they actually are, for all the reasons you’ve listed.

[imaginarylands4000]

[ciderjacks]

Colonizers think “land back” is gonna look like mass-slaughter and expulsion bc thats what they did to us, sorta like how a cheater is always the most paranoid/insecure about their partner being potentially unfaithful. It’s pure projection.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[purlturtle]

[ansixilus]

You're right and you should say it.

[elodieunderglass]

To appreciate this story, please understand that my child Bear, aged 9, is nonjudgmental and dreamy, and Mouse - aged 3 - is wildly charming, but above all things requires that OTHER people behave with DECENCY and DECORUM.

Today, Mouse’s principles had been compromised, because (among other things) I had allowed their two-year-old friend to finish eating an apple core that Mouse had not entirely abandoned (violating an ancient rule of chivalry) but when this was pointed out, I hissed privately that we had to let the baby eat the apple, citing some obscure law about ‘hospitality’. I had also asked Mouse to overlook this baby’s other crimes, such as chucking toy cars about, and flagrantly hogging a small balloon.

“That,” mouse says strongly, all propriety outraged, “is NOT sharing!!!”

Earlier in the day, after swimming, when Mouse’s best friend Bess acquired some gummy snacks, Bess did NOT trade them with a favourable exchange rate for Mouse’s generously offered cheese snacks; and one of Mouse’s other good friends, Syndy, has invited them over to play fire engines NEXT week. Attentive minds will instantly notice that this is not THIS week, when Mouse would prefer it to happen.

Syndy furthermore is persisting in having their birthday party in MARCH, not tomorrow - I DO hope you can understand the stress that Mouse is under. Also, Mouse has - in their own opinion- generously offered to forgive these crimes, by kissing and making up; but, although their friends often accept the snog, they continue the crimes. Thus, poor Mouse! The last defender of good manners! A parfait gentil knight! Is reduced to screaming: THIS IS NOT WHAT WE DO. That is TOO MUCH.

(Bess demonstrated being Too Much this morning by uncoupling their car seat and climbing into the boot of a car, and sprinting across a parking lot while their sire howled in anguish; while respecting Bess’s tremendous coolness and defiance, Mouse is the first one to condemn their wild behaviour, and the loudest voice to shriek: “NO BESS YOU ARE BEING TOO MUCH.”)

When Mouse, aged 3, and I came downstairs this evening - I had just had a Mouse-assisted shower- we found that Bear, aged 9, was watching Galaxy Quest with their sire.

Mouse watched with appreciation as a pretty lady on the screen snogged an attractive man. “Oh,” they said, tenderly, delighted.

The kiss deepened. “OH!” Mouse hooted, and coo’ed with approval, as someone who snogs their friends with almost-alarming lack of discrimination - they said, supportively, “oh good! A good kiss.”

The lady produced some tentacles.

“Oh, WHAT?” mouse said, aggrieved by this. “Oh WHAT!!!!”

The lady produced more tentacles, and helpfully dragged the man under.

“THAT IS NOT,” howled a beleaguered Mouse, “HOW WE KISSING.” And they proceeded to shriek in outrage; “NO LADY! That is NOT NICE KISSING! YOU STOP IT!”

The snogging continued. The man disappeared.

“MUMMY,” Mouse shrieked, “MUMMY, LADY NOT NICE KISSING!”

“Er,” i said.

“HIM SAD,” mouse said, feeling tremendously on the side of the gentleman, “THAT IS TOO MUCH.”

“Well, you see, Mousey,” I said, inadequately: “sometimes, some ladies are squids…”

I petered out.

Bear came to the fore. “And some boys,” they declared, with confidence, “are octopuses.”

[whokilledlordmorley]

I like to imagine Mouse's narration was nearly identical to the man's own internal monologue during the struggle.

[plain-flavoured-english]

As a Greek, in response to the current controversy about Matt Damon being cast as Odysseus, I'd just like to share that one of the moments that changed my brain chemistry as a kid was reading a novelized version of the Odyssey and coming across the following description of Odysseus when Circe sees him for the first time and thinks he's hot: "his hair curled like a clematis and his eyes were very brown".

So may I present my own casting choice for Odysseus:

[plain-flavoured-english]

Excuse me???

[ruffboi-mags]

you are right and you should say it.