Things That Will Be The Death Of Me

Perdrix. 30+. they/he. Fanart and fandoms blog. Currently obsessed with Beetlejuice. Check art tag for my stuff.

[perdrixforelle]

I have made a s/h/o/p with a lot of of my Beetlejuice stuff if anybody is interested! Its mostly stickers, T-shirts and mugs. I'll post it in my next reblog and pinned post! Can't wait to match with my friend when we go see the show <3

[perdrixforelle]

>>PerdrixForelle on RedBubble<<

[persianflaw]

but on the real though, here is your guide to assyrian rice preparation from your friendly neighborhood assyrian:

start wanting rice. (or, if you are traditional, simply recognize your constant desire for rice.)

measure out two cups of rice. then one more. then two more. then another. this seems fine. you love rice. there is no way that this will backfire on you.

remember that your great-great-uncle’s recipe says it should be soaked overnight.

become consumed with despair.

decide to soak it for half an hour instead, acknowledging that the final product will be inferior and anger your ancestors but will still satisfy your now almost-overwhelming need for rice to be inside your body much faster.

remember that you should have set the water to boil when you soaked the rice. goddammit. 

once the water boils, put the rice in until it is half-cooked. the eyeballing or intuitive method is less effective than a timer but that’s how your aunt does it so you feel compelled to meet her standards.

now that the rice has fluffed up, realize how much rice six dry cups really is. holy shit. you’ve fucked up immeasurably. 

take a minute to dwell upon your failings.

grease a baking dish with butter. this will never be as elegant as you want it to and your fingers will get greasy, but the slightly shameful, self-indulgent joy of licking your fingers afterwards will make up for it.

pour the rice into the dish. wonder immediately if you actually buttered the dish beforehand and if you’ve just fucked up. 

melt approximately one thousand pounds of butter in the microwave and pour it over the rice, pondering your imminent death from rapid-onset arterial clogging. put a small pat of butter on the top to properly gild the lily.

put your pan into the oven, which you have absolutely preheated after your previous lack of foresight. shake the rice once or twice while it bakes to make sure the butter is well distributed. resist the impulse to climb into the oven with the rice. for the last ten minutes, sit next to the oven and count the seconds until it’s done.

remove the dish from the oven. shed a tear or two at the perfection laid before you. if you are dining with others, this is the time to serve the rice while making passive-aggressive statements about how oh no, you don’t need any help, you just made dinner all by yourself, you can serve everyone as well. (this is still fun if done alone, but optional.)

CONSUME THE RICE.

realize that you have eaten half of the dish in one sitting. no matter how much rice you made, this will always happen. 

put the leftovers away, if there are any, and enjoy a cup of chai while marveling at the amount of food you have just eaten. if possible, fall asleep in an armchair, sitting up, head tilted slightly back, like a grandpa.

for the rest of the evening, think fondly of how much rice you have in the fridge now and how many meals it will supplement, refusing to acknowledge that you will almost certainly eat the rest of it in a few hours for a midnight meal.

[persianflaw]

i really played myself with this post huh. every time it gets a note i start wanting rice.

[persianflaw]

for anyone who wants it, here is my family’s actual recipe for assyrian baked rice:

1lb / approx. 2 ⅓ cups basmati rice (any long-grain rice will do)

3 tbsp salt

8 tbsp / 1 stick butter (you can reduce this if you don’t want to have a heart attack)

Put the rice in a pot and cover it in cold water and salt. Let it soak overnight. (If you don’t have the time to soak it, rinse the rice with cold water until it runs clear.)

Edit: The reason you want to soak basmati and other aromatic rice before cooking is to preserve more acetylpyrroline, the compound that gives aromatic rice its characteristic scent and flavor. Soaking rice allows the grains to absorb water, which reduces the cooking time, which means less time for the acetylpyrroline to cook off. It’ll still taste pretty good if you can’t do this, but you don’t want “pretty good”, you want mind-blowing, so for that perfect flavor you’ll want to soak your rice overnight. The soaking process also washes away the layer of starch on the outside of the rice, which allows the grains to separate rather than sticking together; this is why you want to rinse your rice thoroughly if you don’t have time to soak it.

Preheat your oven to 325°.

Boil three quarts of water in a separate pot. Once it’s at a fast boil, drain the rice and add it to the water. Boil for 5-7min or until one grain tastes half-cooked, but not soft. Pour the rice into a colander and rinse with cold water.

Edit: This step also helps get rid of any remaining starch on your grains, for perfectly separated rice. If your colander or strainer has large holes, you can put a paper towel/cheesecloth/clean dishcloth on the inside in order to drain your rice. Pour carefully if you’re using a paper towel, though, and put a bowl underneath your colander; I once lost a heartbreaking amount of rice when my paper towel got oversaturated and tore open.

Liberally grease the bottom of your baking pan with some of your butter. Pour the rice on top. Melt the rest of the butter in the microwave and pour on top of the rice.

Bake for 45min. (If you like, cover the rice for part or all of the baking time, but I find it gets less crispy on top if you do this.) Shake the pan a couple times during baking to ensure that the butter distributes throughout the entire dish.

Eat.

Serves four. Can easily be scaled up if needed (or down, but why would you do that?). Best enjoyed with a nice cup of chai.

(cc @raisedbyhyenas )

[enchantingruinscandy]

reblog for the awesome recipe and to make op want rice (rice is so good. ofc you want rice)

[persianflaw]

>:(

[walmart-the-official]

Hey, don’t cry. Free online database of Japanese folk lore

[bleu-guacamole]

Might I add, free database of mostly European folklore and myths

[walmart-the-official]

:0

Thank you!

[a-really-big-cat]

@woolandflax

[waythroughtheice]

@paperbackbookwyrm

[incognitopolls]

What category was the worst physical pain you've ever personally felt?

A broken bone

A sprain or ligament/muscle/tendon tear

Nerve pain or idiopathic pain (pain with no clear cause)

Headache or migraine

Menstrual pain, childbirth, or other reproductive pain

Animal bite, sting, scratch, etc

Gastrointestinal pain

A burn

A wound (surgery, cut, impalement, bullet, etc)

Another type of injury

Another type of illness (chronic or acute)

Something else

Voting ended onSep 22, 2024

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[adhd-alien]

Ok, I know I often have issues just getting up and starting a task that will only take me 5 minutes in the end. But WHY is that? What happens in my brain?

This topic is very intricate and hard to explain in simple terms - I gave it my best shot, so please excuse the masses of text! Split into 2 images for easier reading

[adhd-alien]

Mad I forgot to add this but this is an explanation in case that the problem source is INERTIA (explained in my previous comic). So, neurological-motivational. ADHD Paralysis can have many other reasons like overwhelm, decision fatigue, not knowing where to start etc!!

[breakingthewordcages]

@grison-in-space this comic made me finally understand what you were talking about with dopamine being involved in task initiation. Is this an accurate (if simplified) portrayal?

[grison-in-space]

Yes, very much so! @adhd-alien consistently has some of the most clearly fact-checked, correct-to-the-research content out there about dopaminergic signaling in relationship to ADHD and decision-making out there. She does a great job.

I will actually add, though, task initiation is actually not JUST a function of learned value/reward in response to a stimulus. It's also the very beginning of a motor movement. And that makes total sense when you know about how dopamine moves through the brain.

See, the most dopaminergic part of the brain, by far, is the striatum. Here it is.

Now, you can divide the functions of the striatum into the dorsal striatum ("across the back", that's the big curly red bit) and the ventral striatum ("along the belly", that's the olfactory tubercule and the nucleus accumbens (NAc)). Broadly speaking, the dorsal striatum handles motor movements, and the ventral striatum (especially the NAc) handles learning, decision-making, and motivation...

...Except that the structures actually flow neatly into one another, seamlessly transitioning from motivation to actual motor initiation and control itself. (Parkinson's patients are even more obviously struggling with dopamine signaling; it's just that theirs is focused on motor areas rather than motivational ones.)

So as dopamine signaling flows through the striatum, you're actually going from "perceive stimulus" to "prediction of future reward" to "decision about next choice of action" to "implementation of action" right into the motor system itself. (Action also flows into "assessing consequences of action, integrate into model of future potential choices," and that sort of thing broadly gets processed in the cortex.)

What I think might be happening as you make that decision is that strength of signal might be getting fucked with between "decision made" and "action initiated," which is why I'm currently looking so hard at small variations in the motor movements of individual mice with different mutations known to correlate with neurodivergence* in humans, under different amounts of dopamine stimulation. I have some intuitions about what might be going on and why there might be various effects of impairment that manifest in that very specific aspect of executive function.

Which is the paper I'm trying to finish up ASAP so I can demonstrate that I'm productive enough to justify continued funding to chase future lines of inquiry, lolsob. But this was a literature that was brand new to me three years ago—I did my PhD work on a much more behavioral neuroendocrinology approach with very different time scales and focusing on other brain regions—and it's taking me some time to figure out the new technique I started learning about back in 2021. Exhausting.

*A lot of neurodivergences in my model's case, not just one kind.

[ayeforscotland]

We are heading towards an absolute knowledge black hole, aren't we?

[maykr]

[srebrnafh]

Make it die. For the good of humanity.

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

[nonbinarythorin]

[just-start-the-tape]

tried my best

[champagnemoon]

body positivity has largely failed because people started arguing for attractiveness and romantic prospects instead of respect and dignity

[carewitchproject]

this is truly the best summary of what all of this SHOULD be about

[demonprincex]

yeah what we all collectively need to work on is how we treat the people we find the least fuckable. the solution isnt to just find more people fuckable

[sparvverius]

thinking about the very common idea among antebellum american slaveowners that ex-slaves would initiate a race war as soon as they were free and that whites would never be safe among people they or their ancestors owned so they should be moved to a different country. and how that was completely stupid and the racial violence post-abolition was racist anti-black violence not slews of anti-white revenge killings across the nation and a dissolution of society. anyway thinking about that and also the insistence from the zionist crowd that if palestinians were given equal rights or even if the occupation slackened its grip a little every single israeli from the river to the sea would be murdered by vengeful palestinians.

[plain-flavoured-english]

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

Thank you this is the first post about self love that hasn’t made me want to throw things

[leebrontide]

This one. This one’s a game changer.

[fancy-rock-dove]

Having some feelings this evening about Frodo’s reaction to people around him being corrupted by desire for the One Ring. How generally devoid it is of any blame placed on that person, and how he instead treats it as a tragedy to spare others from by distancing himself.

It’s a big deal in the latter books that Frodo wants to show Sméagol kindness if possible because things have progressed so far that Frodo can recognize his own experience in him. But what’s really making me stare at a wall right now are Frodo’s early days reactions even before the personal identification is as strong.

Basically, I can’t stop thinking about how deeply Frodo’s reaction to that last encounter with Boromir is informed by the fact that the first person to ever try and take the ring from Frodo was actually Bilbo. The fact that the first person Frodo ever saw corrupted to that point, even for a moment, was the kind, clever, caring uncle who adopted and taught him, and who Frodo thinks the world of.

Just thinking about the personal relationship Frodo had with the very first person he saw the Ring affect and how fundamentally that set the tone for his understanding of it for the entirety of the journey.

[harrowharks-earing]

“Omg dungeons menshi is so good! The characters and the worldbuilding and the art and the hu—“

It’s because the author had TWO MONTHS between publications instead of the usual week. 8X the amount of time to plot her story and see where she had been and where she was going and figure out how best to get there. Imagine if this was the industry standard instead of the crushing gears of weekly publication which grinds the minds, bodys, and souls of mangaka to dust until there is nothing left. Imagine Dungeon Menshi qualify manga as a rule not the exception. Imagine stories that did not destroy their creators. Imagine—

[ms-demeanor]

"Huh, tumblr sure likes this dungeon story. I guess there's an anime of it but it's hard for me to get into watching stuff."

"Huh, tumblr really likes this dungeon story, the memes are cute and I'm enjoying the little snippets of lore that cross my dash. Neat."

"Huh, tumblr is still on about this dungeon story. I, too, enjoy the dwarf panty shots. Neat!"

"Huh, it looks like you can read the whole dungeon story so far for free on this website. I might as well give it a try."

"Huh, I have been nerdsniped by the nutrient breakdowns of all the meals so far and the dwarf talking about nutrition. Fuck. Guess this is my life now."

[ms-demeanor]

Stop, stop, I already love you.

[ms-demeanor]

Hey in case you've been reading the manga and you're not someone who cooks, I want you to know that so far (up to chapter five) Senshi's cooking info is all totally solid.

Like. At one point he compares using the gelatin from a carnivorous plant with the pectin from a different plant and points out that the gelatin sets better. Gelatin *does* set and bind better than pectin in most cases.

I just read the chapter with frying mandrakes and everything from testing the temperature of the oil with a chopstick to whisking the egg/water/flour batter with a pair of chopsticks (after sifting the flour to make sure it doesn't clump) to talking about when to flip fried foods and at what temperature to fry them is. Just. It's more attention to cooking than I've seen in most media.

(Also if you're not from a culture that uses chopsticks regularly, try whisking with a pair of chopsticks sometime. I make my fried mushroom fritters with the same technique that Senshi makes his mandrake tempura and it's great - chopsticks act like a combination of whisk and tongs and are really handy when whisking batter and transferring battered food to hot oil and flipping frying food, you get so much more control than you would by, like, using a slotted spoon to move the food around in the oil).

I had been under the impression that cooking was a big part of the story but I didn't expect that it would be a big part of the story in a "here's a half-page panel that shows an efficient technique for mincing root vegetables" way.

[ms-demeanor]

oh no he's hot

[ms-demeanor]

The interfaith holy water. Incredible.

The logic that you can use a jar of holy water as a melee weapon against ghosts because they can pass through matter so it doesn't matter if the holy water isn't out in the open they're going to come into contact with it if you swing a jar through them is flawless.

Because the jar is swinging around it goes through a bunch of ghosts and the fluid inside gets mixed up and stirred around; because ghosts are cold, this gets you sorbet.

Buds this is a really good story with a genuinely weird amount of forethought put into it and I love it.

[ms-demeanor]

Hi my name is Laios and I love monsters and I named my monster sword Swordboy because I am great at naming things.

[ms-demeanor]

I know it's not cast iron but it's cast iron and Senshi is on that good cast iron shit.

[nudityandnerdery]

The holy water sorbet episode is the one where I got kind of addicted to the show, because it's the kind of well-thought out shit I love to see in D&D, and then just the whole ecology of the dungeon is amazing. I've been meaning to read the manga, so thanks for the link!

[aetherograph]

Ok, NOW I'll read the manga. Thanks Ms Demeanor

[the-cassquatch]

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it’s just… Social media. That’s it. Social media and news sites. And I’m tired of social media and I’m tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

[dj-of-the-coven]

Long collection of resources under the cut.

Keep reading

[xerxestexastoast]

ALSO you should consider browsing Virtual Pet List and seeing if there are any pet sites you might be interested in playing. There is a whole genre of browser games right under your nose

[biothreads]

Another one that I just found recently is this, which is a whole collection of blogs, organized by topic!

ooh.directory: a place to find good blogs that interest you

A collection of 1,966 blogs about every topic

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Look guys the real internet IS STILL THERE I’m going to cry

[cloudyeveniing]

Getting off of twitter and onto neocities has really healed me and I am so glad to see it is healing other people too ;u; let’s retreat into the self-made digital woods and away from corporate bs pls, I am so tired

[keynes-fetlife-mutual]

real freedom includes the right to be a fucked-up dysfunctional weirdo. when you lack this right, your inability or refusal to comply with social norms will be used as a pretext to take away your other freedoms. all of us are fucked-up weirdos on the inside, so with sufficiently hostile and intrusive surveillance anyone can be unpersoned.

[kaleidoscopecatiii]

Fucked-up dysfunctional weirdo with full rights to and supports available to ensure whatever needs can be functionally met and are desired by said weirdo are filled.

[fionn-o-nassus]

If you don't support the rights of kooks, weirdos, freaks, oddballs, and funky fellows then get out.

The pathologization and criminalization of pecularity doesn't only affect the neurodivergent and the mentally ill, it can and will be used by the state against "normal" people the moment they step out of line.

Not only is it good to support the rights of freaks and weirdos on the grounds of protecting the rights of the neurodivergent and mentally ill, it's also good on the grounds of cutting off a vector of state repression against the general public.

[redshiftsinger]

As soon as you start deeming it acceptable to take away the basic rights of "freaks", you open the door to being deemed a "freak" yourself as soon as those in power decide you're inconvenient.

Throwing "weirder" people under the bus will never guarantee you safety. You gotta park the bus so it stops running people over in general.

[roguebombshell]

This is why the right to privacy is so, so crucial.

"Why can't we enhance the surveillance state? Do you have something to hide?"

Maybe I just like being my best, weirdest self without you looking at me. Let live our best lives by leaving us the fuck alone. Live and let live. Mind your business and I'll mind mine.

[moniquill]

Reminder: this isn't just about eccentric people, or people stimming - it's about people who are genuinely unpleasant and off-putting to be around. It's about people you find creepy. It's about people with poor hygiene. It's about people with disruptive tics and people who are bitter and rude. It's about the worst person you can think of. That person still deserves access to food, shelter, healthcare, etc.

[anxious-and-in-pain]

it’s okay to do things that make your symptoms worse (as long as you’ll stay safe)

every once in a while you need to eat something yummy. or go on a walk. or a trip to the zoo. take a hot shower. cry your eyes out. dance. listen to music. draw for way to long. write. laugh. sit in a cafe with a friend. paint your nails. dye your hair. go on a run. pet a cat

sometimes you need to do things that are cathartic or make yourself feel alive. sometimes you need the reminder of why you’re fighting so hard to stay alive

this is your reminder that just because it makes your symptoms worse, it isn’t always the wrong thing to do. there can be value in these actions

[lifewithchronicpain]

If you think about it too, abled people do it all the time. Deciding to drink to excess at a party knowing they'll have a hangover. Going to a theme park knowing walking all day is going to hurt their feet by the end. We have the right to make those same decisions.

[ghostly-light]

This is called Dignity of Risk, and it's an important concept in disability justice.

Everyone weighs their physical and mental/emotional health against one another in constantly shifting balance; inevitably, there are times when we choose to accept consequences to one for the sake of the other.

Infantilsing us by undermining our agency in the name of "protection" or "care" is yet another way that we are disabled by society.

[theambitiouswoman]

[iamwhatismissing]

made me think of this

[id: x/twitter qrt from user styloshka that says "I read a forum post about art once, that it's a product of the dialectic between the effort of the artist and the friction of the medium. You push on the thing and the thing pushes back on you, it has its own voice. The weight of a piano key, the tension of a guitar string." original post from user colleen_daves says "Don't you want to skip over the mindless drudgery that is making art?" I do six stand embroidery and break like 10 needles a day, would I prefer that activity didn't hurt my hands and make me angry? Sure. But that's what makes having the finished piece after so worth it to me."]

link

[gwydionmisha]

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved when I got assigned a solo and would dance it over and over as much for pleasure as for the quest for perfection, but I loved the rest of it too.

I loved the slow methodical mediation of the stretches before class. I loved the quiet discipline of the barre exercises, the endless repetition, the feel of me shaping my body into the same forms, closer ever closer to correct.

Most of the others didn't rush onto the floor the moment it cleared to stretch alone.

Most of the others complained endlessly about barre. For me it was part of it. All of it was dancing and I loved dancing in every fiber of my being, pushing ever pushing at the boundaries of what my body can do.

It was never boring to me, not even the most mundane, repetitious parts. I gave no fucks for those few performances in front of the audience; I was dancing for me and that included doing feet positions over and over at the barre. It was doing the thing that mattered and I loved every second of it.

I was the same way with the assorted marital arts styles I studied over the years until my body gave out. The spars are the glamourous bits, but I loved the drills too, repeating, repeating, repeating.

I was the same way with candle wicking and needlepoint, my fingers reading canvas. My fingers mindlessly going in and out or doing the knots over and over.

It is possible to love every part of the thing, the colours unrealing on canvas, the patterns on linen, the repetition of form of drill of motion. Effort and beauty and sweat forever tangled together.

[elodieunderglass]

This is what Annie Dilliard said

A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, ”Do you think I could be a writer?”

”Well,” the writer said, ”I don’t know. . . . Do you like sentences?”

The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am 20 years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, ”I liked the smell of the paint.”