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Yeast Beast

@aprillasaurus / aprillasaurus.tumblr.com

27. she/they. Possibly a possum but who knows :/
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pervocracy

Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home.  The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”

If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese.  Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.

Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)

Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.

From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.

the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.

volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.

so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.

of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.

it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.

Reblogging because I honestly never thought about it but yeah, this lines up.

This is also why the idea of “pay a lot for fancy food on tiny plates” pisses so many Americans off. Unless you are rich enough not to care about throwing your money away, it’s not just a ridiculous ripoff in terms of not filling you up, it’s stingy. Restaurants are places of hospitality. If I pay that much for a plate it had better be damn good and it had better be generous. Otherwise they are just trying to fleece me out of my money AND saying they don’t value me as a customer.

If I go to IHOP or Olive Garden or whatnot, I absolutely don’t need to eat again until evening if I had leftovers, and until the next day if I did eat everything (you can’t really take pancakes home as leftovers).

But EVEN IF I DID EAT EVERYTHING and then ate a full meal on top of that, later, it’s really not anyone’s place to criticize what other people eat. It just isn’t. Let it go. It’s old.

Making fun of American food culture and food habits isn’t original or surprising or witty or funny or getting one over on us or crafting a clever retort or whatever. It’s lazy and petty and childish.

Yeah, we eat a lot of hamburgers. They’re fucking delicious. Cope.

Also re: Nobody Goes Away Hungry, here is AN INCOMPLETE LIST of things my family was gifted by neighbors when I was a child:

—Nina won a writing contest and xir name was in the newspaper, have a cake

—Nina won a writing contest and xir name was in the newspaper, have some cookies

—Nina won a writing contest and xir name was in the newspaper, have a box of licorice (as you can tell this was Very Big News in my neighborhood)

—it’s Christmas, have cookies

—my garden did really well this year, have zucchini and tomatoes and corn also do you like rhubarb

—we saw an ambulance at your house this morning, have a lasagna

—we heard your mother died, have some soup and a bag of groceries

—Nina looked hungry and nobody is mentioning you’re on food stamps because we’re polite, also we just so happened to cook way too much for dinner, have some chicken

—it’s a block party, everyone take home whatever you want…no, more than that….MORE than that! You think we want to eat all this potato salad by ourselves?!

—we heard your husband had heart surgery, here’s a prepped meal so you can eat properly when you get home from the hospital

—it’s Halloween in a small town, have some apples/popcorn balls/pumpkin bread

—I’m a coupon queen and at the end of this shopping trip the store owed me $10 PLEASE tell me you want groceries I have 42 cans of baked beans

—because why not

I am genuinely bothered by how much this tradition seems to be going by the wayside. This was a whole thing when I was a kid, and there’s literally etiquette for how you handle it:

1) hot meals for tragedy and postpartum assistance, sweets for celebration and introduction.

2) presentation is important—don’t present a burnt or dirty dish. Dishes should have a lid or foil on top. Cling wrap isn’t rude, but it should be avoided because it’s easier to accidentally tear and if it’s not wrapped just right it’ll come undone, which is particularly problematic if you’re leaving food at a doorstep where ants may be present. (1990s addendum: when I was a kid you could buy colored or printed cling wrap around Christmas, and it was considered classy to use this on sweets you were gifting your neighbors as long as it was done in person and wasn’t a doorstep dropoff. This, sadly, seems to have gone away, and I miss it a lot.)

3) when receiving food, always say thank you. Never reject a dish; if it’s food you don’t like, someone in your extended family will take it. If four other people in the neighborhood have already gifted you food and you have no idea what to do with it all, freeze some or gift it to people in your out-of-the-neighborhood circle. The only polite rejections are dietary restrictions, and “three other people have already given me zucchini I’m so sorry.” If all else fails, take it to the break room at work. Someone who forgot their lunch will thank you.

4) Never return a dirty dish.

5) Never return an EMPTY dish. It’s always good to have two or three quick, low-effort recipes in your back pocket for refilling a dish. There is no rule for what you should use as a thank-you recipe, but most people use sweets because there are a lot of quick and simple options and you can refill the dish without cooking in it. (My go-tos are fudge no-bake cookies and honey milk balls. A lot of people in my neighborhood did cookie bars.)

5a) …unless you’re a new parent or the dish was presented to you as a consolation for a funeral. In these cases, a thank-you card will suffice.

6) a dish should always be returned within seven days.

7) using disposable dishes is acceptable, but consider the occasion. A new parent will be grateful for one less dish to wash. Someone who just lost a parent should not be presented with a paper plate.

8) if using disposable dishes, make sure you indicate you don’t expect them back. Some people (I am one of them) will absolutely look at disposable-but-reusable dishes, wash them out, and return them if you do not do this. Never give a disposable dish with the expectation it will return home.

9) if giving a pass-me-on plate/Amish friendship plate, be sure the recipient knows the rules of a pass-me-on plate. You can purchase plates with the rules printed directly on them, but if you’re using a regular plate, gift it with a card that explains the game.

THIS WAS A WHOLE THING. You’ll notice #9 up there—pass-me-on plates are usually somewhere in size between a dinner plate and a serving plate, often very pretty, and the way they work is you fill them up with something good to eat and give them to a friend. The friend will then wash the plate, fill it with something good, and pass it on to someone else—hence the name pass-me-on plate. (The phrase “Amish friendship plate” is….older. With all the slightly wincey connotations of “older” when discussing out-groups.)

This was a way families bonded with other families and cared for our communities, and I really want to see it come back.

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A group of friends and I did a one shot recently in 5e. The catch is that they play something called “Dude Squad” where the only play “dudes” (not exclusively male people, just dude mentality) and they hate all magic and magic users. They think true strength is muscles and only muscles, and have in the past encountered magic users who they then convince to give up magic.

We got told to build a level 17 character for this one shot, most of the other folks had previous Dude Squad characters to resurrect. But I didn’t really want to play a straight martial class. In my heart, spellcasters are my true class, and I didn’t really have a strong idea of what kind of character to make.

So I approached the DM and said, “Hey, I have this idea to play a character that pretends to be a martial class but is actually a magic caster?” My girlfriends character is an aasimar who thinks he’s Thor and my backstory was that after meeting him and falling for him she decided to invest heavily in deceptive magic so as not to alienate him.

And my DM. Loved it. So he helped me build an extremely custom character. Two levels in Hexblade warlock gave her a good weapon and the ability to cast disguise self pretty much nonstop to appear buffer than she actually was.

Then there was four levels in Stone sorcerer in order to get 4 sorcery points, the ability to use those points to cast using Subtle Spell and no one could tell she’s casting, and to buff her AC.

Finally there was 11 Bladesong wizard levels in order to get some attack bonuses, even more AC, extra attacks, and the ability to burn spells to take less damage.

So the whole time I was burning spell slots to recharge my sorcery points every time I cast things like Haste and Spider Climb and use my Bladesong powers. We busted through walls and smashed our way through puzzles. We lied and said my character was a Barbarian/Monk so they didn’t bat and eye when she ran on walls with spider climb, but no one noticed when even after dashing she “held onto the stone wall” without any kind of check.

The final battle: the goblin wizard boss we were fighting had cast invulnerability on himself and had our friend mind controlled. So I’m trying to cover for not attacking as I try to dispel his invulnerability. I can no longer run on walls, or make the jumps my party is making on floating platforms over a spike pit so I try to use my actions on other helpful things like tying ropes for friends in the pit. I manage to dispel the magic on our friend but I burned almost all my spells trying to secretly dispel the boss’ spell and finally we just ended up grappling and suffocating him then pummeling him to death.

But at the last moment as we’re running out of this horrible goblin mansion I’m running down a wall and my friends are climbing down. The building says there’s 6 seconds left and my very injured love interest is not gonna make it so my character shouted “Fuckfuckfuck!” Ran over and cast dimension door to bring them both to safety. (Two people got left in the blast but both survived cause Dude Power). Then I critically failed my deception about how I had used magic and came clean and everyone lost their shit when they heard what we’d done. Her final confession, after dropping her buff disguise self, was, “When I met Kathor I really liked him and he freakin’ hates magic so I just kinda figured out how to hide that I was castin’ magic cause I though we might go to pound town.”

Kathor then declared, “I’ve never had someone try so hard to get in my pants!” And swept her up and they messily made out. It was deeply satisfying the wonders that DnD can create, like making a whole class based on the lie that you’re not spellcasting.

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so in third grade I told two of my friends I could talk to horses & made up a really dramatic backstory of how I “discovered” my powers & our teacher overheard us talking about it and told the child psychologist I was seeing for insomnia issues & the child psychologist asked me about it & I was first and foremost terrified that if I admitted to the lie, this medical professional would tell my friends I made it all up

so I doubled down and insisted I could really talk to horses. I was doing major damage control. I didn’t realize you can’t just tell psychiatric professionals you have magic powers, I was 8.

so I ended up in counseling for this for an entire year until eventually I just stopped going for some reason but when I was 20 the office contacted me to tell me the psychologist was retiring & asked if I wanted a copy of my childhood records before they were filed away and eventually shredded & I said sure & went over them & discovered that she had diagnosed me with “psychotic delusions” bc I was 8 and apparently convinced her I truly thought I could talk to horses.

genuinely cannot tell if I my parents should’ve been cashing in on me as the most sought-after child actor of the era or if that psychologist was just extremely so so so bad at her job.

I also figured out I stopped seeing her because she told my parents the diagnosis and my dad was like “she’s doesn’t think she can talk to horses!!! she’s lying to you 😭😭😭😭” but she didn’t believe him

i say i was a weird-horse-girl in elementary school and you say “me too” but did it get you a psychiatric diagnosis

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the genius of megamind (beyond the obvious genius ofc) is that it's superman parody actually presents a genuinely unsettling depiction of the "hero" that I like wayyy better than "what if superman was evil" or "what if superman was wrong"... it's "what if superman didn't care"

I wouldn’t say he “didn’t care” more like he was burnt out

He played the role since he was a child and now is in his what 30s? 40s?

He knew there was never any real danger with Megamind in charge so decided to pursue something that’s a passion and doesn’t come naturally easy to him

but it was still a dick move

One of the things that always jumped out to me about this reveal is that it implies that Metro Man was also the very first person to recognize that MegaMind wasn’t really evil. He knew his nemesis wouldn’t actually hurt anyone if he won, he knew that this universally reviled pariah never really had any more choice than he did.

The rest of Metro City treats MegaMind like a real, sincere, serious threat once he’s unopposed, and it takes them a while to learn otherwise. But Metro Man? He’s not surprised to see him and Roxanne working together, he doesn’t act like there’s any kind of threat beyond his cover being blown. He wastes no time in coming clean once the cat’s out of the bag. He’s been working with this guy all his life. Besides his own mental health, I get the impression that he also recognized that this would be good for MegaMind too.

I just really love how in a superhero pastiche that asks “Is the villain really so bad, and the hero really so good?” the answer is “no, but that’s okay”. It’s okay that Metro Man isn’t a paragon. It’s okay that he has to take care of himself. It’s okay for him to step down and live his own life. It wouldn’t be okay for him to leave people in danger, but it’s pretty clear he knew he wasn’t doing that.

And it carries to the end. MegaMind becomes the city’s new protector, but it’s clear that he’s still got some issues to work through, and he’s getting help working through them. He’s got a support network, he’s willing to put in the effort, but he’s not the shining paragon Metro Man was believed to be. And he doesn’t NEED to be that paragon. He’s still good. He’s still protecting people. And he’s not alone in it.

God, there’s just so many shitty “Superheroes would have character flaws too, and that’s why they’d actually suck” deconstructions floating around, it’s nice to see a story that acknowledges that no one can live up to that kind of role, but that’s okay!

megamind once again proving to be the best modern superhero movie

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yellowpoet

hold on. Was suck him good and hard through his jorts supposed to conjour the image of someone who has an unzipped fly because this entire time I've been imagining someone slurping on wet denim

Truly one of the sentences of all time. Wetpilled denimmaxer

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I keep on thinking 'man people are staring at me, are they being homophobic or...?' and then I remember I have this pattern shaved into my legs

  1. my favorite answer when people ask this is 'to make you ask' bc their response is always this
  1. i like the feeling of smooth leg against leg
  2. it keeps me cool
  3. I however do not want people to gender me as feminine because I have no leg hair and it makes me dysphoric to have my legs entirely shaved
  4. very important distinction to me personally between 'this person I assume is a woman is doing her gender wrong because her legs aren't shaved.' vs 'i don't have a framework for how wrong this person is doing their gender'
  5. shaving them like this sends a message, and that message is 'i could shave my legs. if I wanted to' in a way shaving one does not, because it might send the message that I was interrupted halfway through

I've been doing this for going on three or four years now :)

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kibumkim

Potion of fucking idiot

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jetgreguar

his videos make me feel like I'm awake at 5 in the morning against my will and everyone else at the party is either unconscious or staring at the corner like the blair witch

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powerwordcum
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