#‘and quarts obviously’ well obviously

[vigilskeep]

Harker I was raised super religious southern baptist and I didn’t get the Angel shit until you said it. On the other hand I also didn’t care to learn. win some lose some. 40283938 lost memories

your religious trauma permit to not know anything has been successfully approved

[mythicmanuscripts]

BESTIE OMG OMG I LOVE OMEGA!AEMOND SO CAN I ASK FOR MORE PLEASE??? LIKE HOW IS HE WHEN HE’S IN HEAT?????? <33333

I'm so glad to see how we're all obsessed with omega!aemond

So sure, let's discuss omega!aemond in heat, as always because I know this isnt everyone's cup of tea I'll put a cut in to make avoiding this easy.

So I know I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it again: Aemond avoids anything and everything to do with being an omega. He pushes down all instincts, he doesn't listen to anyone trying to tell him about courting, none of it. He refuses to engage with that part of himself beyond the threadbare nest his bed has become and he only lets that stay because every time he tries to take it apart it's like there's this intense painful ache in his chest so he can't bring himself to do it.

Anyway, this plan works well until he meets you and suddenly he's finding an alpha's scent attractive and you're treating him both with respect and dignity and also like a precious omega you want to court and poor Aemond has absolutely no idea what to do with himself.

He's clumsy and uncontrolled when it comes to interactions with you, and try as he might he just can't push down his instincts. He's sure it's borderline pathetic how desperate he is for your attention, but he can't help it. He doesn't know how to stop it and honestly, he doesn't even think he wants to stop it.

Why would he stop it when you always smile at him and hold his hand and discuss things with him?

So obviously you start formally courting Aemond and Aemond is trying his level best to not make a complete fool of himself. Though this doesn't go well considering how his scent spikes with arousal every single time he's around you and how he seems to hang on your every word. He genuinely doesn't realise that he's constantly in your personal space, he just knows that being further away from you makes him uncomfortable.

I like the idea of his first seat since meeting you being before you actually mate him? So obviously he has to go through this heat along like he has with other ones, but of course that doesn't work here because he's so used to you. He tries to satiate himself, really he does, but he just can't.

The entire castle is so worried about him because any person walking past his quarters can smell the pain and distress. He just can't manage to calm himself down, and he ends up just sitting in his mess of a nest, not even touching himself and instead just letting out this loud, high pitched whines to try and call you to him.

At frist Alicent refuses, but then the heat starts becoming much longer than normal and eventually you convince her to let you in to look after him. He's curled up naked in a ball when you find him, shaking and whining.

The moment the door opens and he looks up to see it's you, he's sitting up immediately and holding his arms out to you, whining louder again. The message is very very clear: he wants his alpha to come join him.

Once you're close enough to touch he's grabbing your hands and pulling you into the nest. You try to stop him, to double check if he really wants an alpha in his nest but he's in your arms purring softly before you can even form the sentence.

Nothing sexual actually happens that heat, because when you were eventually allowed to see him his heat was nearing it's end. Besides that, he had spent he last few days in agony and fear and that he's finally in the arms of his alpha he kinda just... drops? You stay for two days with him in that room and both days are just spend laying together and trying to get him to eat and drink enough to start building his strength back up.

Needless to say, he's extremely embarrassed once he recovers and spends the next week or so avoiding you as much as possible. But of course he can't stay away for long and so when you show up outside his door to check up on him. he immediately lets you in.

You try to have the conversation sitting in the living room section of his quarters but he immediately sort of just herds you into his nest on his bed? He won't take no for an answer, he loved how his nest smelt for the first two days after his heat because of your scent and he wants it back.

You ensure that you two are officially before his next heat, and when that one strikes you're ready to help him proper.

[redux-iterum]

On the subject of Redux VS Quarts Hearts, and obviously ignoring the third book because of spoilers- is there anything in specific you prefer to your original fic, Dullard? Certain scenes, characterizations, etc? For me I appreciate Sandstorm being alive in this version, I really like this new take on her and I am excited to see how she progresses as a character! I also like Goldenflower and Tigerclaw adopting Fireheart, his relationship with Bluestar and of course Yellowfang and Cinderpaw. :) I could go on but it'd be a wall of text so let's just leave it at saying you and Lynx did a great job!

Also, what were some of the impulsive subplots you mentioned, if you don't mind elaborating? When I was reading the Redux as it came out, I never got the impression anything was suddenly added to the story.

Dude, I don't think there's a single thing in Iterum that I don't prefer over the Redux. The Redux is a photograph of the writer I was at the time I was working on it - impulsive, failing to think ahead, copying writers I liked and having no idea what my own voice was. Embarrassing, to say the least. The only reason I'm keeping up that blog is for posterity (and in case there's a post or two I need to reference or link to here), otherwise the whole thing would be gone.

Lynx, I would say, is the main source of the best parts of this version, so I can only take so much credit here. Tigerclaw and Goldenflower adopting Fireheart was her idea among other things, and god knows how much help she's been with the language, genetic and family tree stuff. If it wasn't for her, this blog would not have happened. We'd be stuck with the original version to look back and and go "eugh" at. With a second voice helping to plot things out and bounce ideas around, this version has far outpaced the Redux, and I am very grateful for it.

As for the impulsive subplots: I don't remember the Redux very well beyond a wall of shame, but Sandstorm's death and the fakeout with Cinderpaw seeming to have been killed were added in on a whim. The one good thing about Sandstorm dying was that I posted it on Christmas and people were losing their god damn minds. That was pretty funny.

[xxwhiskeyxx]

One-shots w/ Whiskey: Ghoul Heights!

AN: So I believe that ghouls are typically quite tall, though obviously some species/hybrids can equal unusually tall or short ghouls. But those who are reborn as ghouls usually stay the same height they were when they were human, though some grow or shrink sometimes. As seen with Sodo and Cumulus! I gave our lovely shorties the very important quart and half inches because as a smaller being THEY COUNT! 

Swiss:

Glamored: 6’2

Unglamored: 6’7

Rain:

Glamored: 6’1

Unglamored: 6’2

Aether:

Glamored: 6’4

Unglamored: 6’9

Mountain:

Glamored: 7’3 

Unglamored 7’8

Sodo:

Glamored: 5’6

Unglamored: 5’6 ½ 

Cirrus: 

Glamored: 5’8

Unglamored: 6’

Cumulus:

Glamored: 5’

Unglamored: 5’2 ¾ 

Sunshine: 

Glamored: 5’10

Unglamored: 6’2

Quick Fun Facts w/ Whiskey: Mounty is also quite a tall boy even for Earth ghoul standards, who are already very tall beings so Copia had to have his shower and bed specially constructed/rebuilt so he can be comfortable. 

Dew is seen as a runt because of his size (it partially having to do with him being reborn as a ghoul and not born) as most with any type of fire are typically well-built and tall individuals (you have all seen the well-built & large Ifrit and Alpha, they will be added later. I plan on doing the Papas and Older Ghouls as soon as I get a little more information on those like Chair and Pebble!)

[fuckkbrunch]

Busy weekend this time. Trying to make up for the week I lost, but I'm still ahead of the game. Just passed recipe 90 this week, out of 117. So 27 recipes remain, with 17 weeks left to do them. Totally feasible. I get a few stat days around Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that'll help me squeeze in a few...

Woke up and started this before I even had breakfast.

I really enjoy this photo. Like, I don't like seafood that much, but the composition is great.

Anyway, tossed all this in tomato paste and roasted for ten minutes. Tony says 15, but they were starting to scorch and I didn't wanna risk it.

Your typical stock set up. I really love buying a whole bunch of parsley to use only 4 stems. Is that really necessary? Also I had to peel the celery, which I've never done for stock. Yes, by the way - that sheet pan is resting on my toaster to slightly increase my counter space.

Still love this cheap ass stock pot for its reflective qualities. At least the photos from this recipe are nice, because making it was so fucking boring.

Roasted the shells with the veg, peppercorns and bay leaves. Cover with two inches of water and simmer until you have 2-4 quarts (litres) of stock. Took me about 5 and a half hours, which includes the hour or so it took to come up to a simmer.

I strained this puppy so well. I passed this through fresh, doubled up cheesecloth 4 or 5 times. I was tempted to pass it through a paper towel, but I already only had around 2 quarts (litres), so I didn't wanna sacrifice more liquid to paper towels. I need some of this stock for the ravioli recipe as well, and there's no way I'm doing this again this year.

| Shellfish Stock |

Taste actually, technically, isn't rated. I didn't try it on its own, I just trusted that it would work for the shrimp bisque the following day...

Difficulty is a 3.5 out of 5. A lot of babysitting. Skimming scum, and clarifying.

Time was nearly 7 hours. I expected it to be longer.

Now obviously, this will stink up your whole place. Close your bedroom doors, open every window, plan accordingly. Tony says you can make this with shrimp, crab or lobster shells. I had saved these shells from the lobster roll recipe, so it was a pretty nice full circle there.

I'm probably going to have a little leftover stock after the other recipes are said and done, so I'm thinking of making a seafood risotto with it. Expanding my seafood horizons.

[vegasandhishedgehog]

Okay friends of the MDZS/The Untamed fandom

If you've seen my previous post about making lotus root and pork rib soup, you know the journey I've been on. If you'd like to try making the soup yourself, a link to the recipe is toward the end of the OG post. That one got a little long with all the additions and extra advice from friends, but since I've made it again I'm reporting the results. Why I feel the need to do so is beyond me but this is the only genuine cooking I do and I deserve to be proud of every attempt, so if this annoys you, imagine these faces:

I will give a disclaimer that I had meant to make this soup a week and a half earlier but the mental illness was too strong, so yesterday I forced myself to push through the mental illness anyway so I wouldn't waste too many ingredients (we still wasted some 😔). So, alas, this soup had no ginger and half as much lotus root as desired, plus I forgot to read how much seaweed I was actually supposed to use (way less than what I used), and completely omitted the chopped scallion even though I had it ready because I just. Forgot to actually add it.

We carry on.

In all of my past versions of this soup, I didn't include the rehydrated seaweed. I was advised to give it a go this time and ...well. 😅

That bowl is a good 9 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep. And I took that photo AFTER adding a liberal amount of seaweed to the pot. Yes, I rehydrated the whole package. I didn't think about anything other than, "I'm finally adding the final step to this recipe I've been following!" and entirely missed that it only calls for 1 cup. [Hold on. Googling how long rehydrated seaweed be stored right now. OMG YOU CAN FREEZE IT THANK HEAVEN.]

This is me scooping out all the fuckin seaweed that entirely took over the soup 😅😅😅😅😅😅

Remember how I said there was half as much lotus root? Yeah, this is seaweed soup with a hint of pork now. Good luck finding any slices of lotus root.

I had also assumed that this seaweed would be salted (the packaging was NOT in English, but honestly I can't blame the label for this). I had certainly added what I thought was already a generous amount of salt but let's remind ourselves that I am barely a cook by any means. This girl doesn't know shit about how much salt should go into 12 quarts of water to add enough taste. I did go heavy on the goji berries though.

This resulted in the broth being mainly pork and goji berry water :/ if I'd had the motivation to go out and buy fresh ginger and remembered the scallion I'm sure it would've been better (and more salt obviously), but hopefully I'll be in better spirits next time I make an attempt. I learned a lot from this one.

The one thing I am proud of though?

Look at how clear that broth is. The oily bubbles are from the meat, and I also apologize I don't know if it's my phone's camera or my photography skills, but if it doesn't look clear to you I promise it does irl! I didn't use any of the cooking wine or soaking the meat with the ginger like @of-sevenseas suggested, but just by following the process in the recipe and making extra sure I washed the meat well this time, it seemed to work out!

Lessons learned:

Making soup while having a bad mental illness day is not a failed endeavor, but watch out.

Don't do this without ginger. What are you doing. That soup is wet stuff in hot water.

ADD MORE SALT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU CANNOT BE THIS WHITE.

Read the recipe including measurements. Cooking is, of course, more improvisational than baking, but there's a reason we follow guidelines. Especially when we're rookies, still.

Next time we're gonna try the cooking wine and ginger thing with the meat. It sounds like an adventure.

Celebrate your wins!!!! I did have a success in this attempt!

I also did very well keeping the cat away from this whole 7 hour process, which is the greatest success of all.

(Obligatory kitty pic, since I mentioned her. Meet Lucy everyone. She's hiding under my blankets from the loud scary generator outside my window.)

[tabbyclaw]

Happy weekend! Allow me to suggest that you spend a bit of it making some gorgeous and easy tomato soup.

First, obviously, you're gonna get some olive oil going on medium heat in a big pot, and add in one diced onion and one diced carrot. (I am normally very much of the opinion that you should always add more root vegetables than the recipe asks for, but in this case, trust me: You only need the one carrot.) Keep those moving for a bit until the onion gets golden and the carrot starts to briefly consider softening, and then chuck in some tomato paste. "Some" is based entirely on what your heart tells you, like all the other measurements where I didn't just use a whole package of something. This is soup; it's meant to give the soul an outlet and I'm not gonna tell you what your soul needs to say. Stir that tomato paste into the vegetables until it really starts to integrate with the onions and smell gorgeous, then stir in a generous pinch of sugar to cut some of the acidity. Add in a 28-ounce can of no salt added crushed tomatoes -- they don't have to be no salt added but it's always easier to add more salt later -- and a quart of vegetable broth, and bring the entire thing to a boil. You could also add some jarred red peppers at this point if that's what your soul wants. Drop the heat back down to a simmer, cover, and leave it alone except for the occasional stir until the carrots are completely soft. This could take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, depending on how obstinate your carrots are, although it's less about the carrots themselves and more about them being a barometer for how much all your other flavors have melded. Throw in a handful of basil leaves -- don't worry about prepping them; rinse them a little if they need it but otherwise just cast them in like leaves on the stream and stir them into the depths. Give it a couple minutes to let the flavor sink in without losing that bright green smell, then the whole thing is going into the blender. Carefully, and in batches, because blenders don't tend to like hot liquids, but once it's all smooth put it back in the pot and stir in cream until it's soft and velvety and beautiful and back up to proper soup temperature. Step back and gaze upon your creation with a warmed heart and a soon-to-be-full stomach.

Thing this soup goes well with:

Grilled cheese sandwiches

Parmesan crisps

Scrambled eggs on toast with soft cheese

Seriously, this soup really loves cheese

This is a basic and infinitely customizable soup, and it keeps well in the fridge and reheats beautifully. Go forth with this knowledge, and use it joyfully.

[girlwarlock]

so i made fresh pasta on my day off yesterday

it's a bit of work especially if you don't have a dedicated pasta roller (because then you need to roll out and slice the pasta sheets by hand) but it was good. I enjoyed it.

I think if I had a pasta roller machine it would be cool to have it more often but since I don't I think it'll be a very occasional thing for me.

anyway here's what I did for a recipe:

Sift into a large bowl, - 1.5c flour (white all-purpose works great)

Make a well in the middle of the flour. pour into the well, - 2 large eggs, lightly beaten - 1/2tsp salt

Using a fork, mix the egg in the well in the flour, gradually picking up flour from the sides.

Once about all the egg has been mixed with some flour and turned into some kind of dough, use hands to mix and incorporate the rest of the flour (tiny dregs are okay, we'll deal with them in a second). If the dough is too dry to do this, add, 1 tsp at a time, - up to 2Tbsp water

Once the dough will come together as a coherent mass, knead the dough ball until smooth. Here's where you can scrape out any dregs from the initial mixing and knead the dough over them to pick them up and get them hydrated. If you absolutely cannot get the dough to pick up the last bits of flour, a few more drops of water are okay.*

Put the dough in an airtight container (eg plastic storage container, bowl with tight plastic wrap, an especially-wide-mouthed jar, wrapped directly in plastic wrap; whatever you got) and leave it to rest for at least 20 minutes. Longer rest will make rolling out by hand easier but if you're using a rolling machine... 🤷‍♀️

After rest, retrieve dough, and separate it into portions to make it easier to roll out; I started with quartering it which worked okay; if you have a larger available rolling surface or a pasta rolling machine you might be able to get away with thirds or halves.

Dust your rolling surface with flour and start rolling portions into sheets (or break out your pasta rolling machine and start rolling); If you're making long noodles (like fettuccine or rectangular spaghetti or whatever) then make sure your final sheet has at least one dimension that's as long as the noodles you want to make.

While rolling, pause from time to time to lift the sheet and make sure it's not sticking; you can also use this as a chance to dust the rolling surface if you've picked up all the flour and there's none left. Keep rolling until the sheet is thin; my noodles were probably about 1mm to 2mm thick on average and I was really happy with them, but obviously thinner noodles = more work.

If your sheet keeps rebounding to a smaller (and thicker) format after you try to spread it out, give it a break: gently fold it up (making sure it's dusted with flour so it won't stick to itself) and put it somewhere it won't dry out, then start with another portion. Once you finish the next portion (or maybe even all your other portions), the first sheet should be relaxed enough for you to get it to the size and thickness you want.

Once your sheets are all rolled out, get to cutting: using a sharp knife (or a pizza cutter if you have one! I don't but it seems like the perfect tool for this), cut your pasta sheets into your desired shape. Once the pasta is cut, you can dust it with flour and fold it up to store while you do other things; I gather that pasta freezes very well although I haven't tried it myself--supposedly you just freeze in little bunches on a sheet before transferring to a sealed storage container. Otherwise: cooking.

I made fettuccine-ish strips of pasta so that's what these instructions will be for. If you're doing something else then... idk figure it out like i did 🤷‍♀️

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. The amount doesn't need to be extravagant, two quarts (ie 8 cups, just under 2 liters) should be fine. Once it's at a rolling boil, add the pasta, stirring right after you add it to make sure it doesn't stick together.

Since you're cooking the flour and egg (rather than rehydrating a dried noodle), it cooks very quickly; less than 2 minutes. Since it cooks so quickly, have whatever sauce you're serving it with at the ready before you put the noodles in the water (unless you can take your sauce from zero to ready in under 2 minutes).

Your marker for "Done" is when the noodles turn pale and start to float; if you pull one out and taste it, any raw flour taste should be gone. Once they are done, take them out of the water and serve right away.

(* On Kneading: I have extremely poor perception of time due to ADHD so I don't have good advice for you on how long the kneading should take. most "incorporating flour and water" type recipes recommend 3-5 minutes to get the "smooth and elastic" dough, but I don't think that's enough time.

For this dough, you're looking to incorporate all the flour that may have been left behind from the initial mix, and get the dough ball so that it's a uniform texture without any lumps or wet pockets, and any dry, powdery-looking sections have been eliminated.

If you can manage the wonky angle, starting your kneading inside the mixing bowl is a convenient way to get the last dregs of flour incorporated, and makes it a little easier to contain any water you might need to add at this point. Once you've picked up all the flour, then you can remove the dough from the bowl and knead it on a flat surface like a counter or a cutting board)

[baking-potato-27]

Okay I’m gonna rant about some stuff I realized after my experiment of self-medicating with sodas. This is far from the worst I’ve heard or seen about the American healthcare system, but I’ve gotten angry enough about this one particular thing that I’m going to talk about it.

I’ve been on the same prescription for ADHD for literally over a decade now. Yet I am legally required to go to the doctor every three months for them to keep giving it to me. That means I’ve had forty appointments, give or take, that are only a couple minutes long, just to continue getting this medication that I need to be a functioning human being. And every time I have to pay for it (even though it’s an in-network provider) and take time out of my day to go there.

Oh, but that’s not even the bad part, that’s not even why I’m writing this post. Insurance covers my medication on paper, but I still have to pay a considerable amount for it. But it’s a stimulant, and there are other stimulants I don’t need a prescription to buy — most notably caffeine and nicotine.

If I were to stop buying my medication and instead drink one caffeinated soda every hour, at the current price of 12-packs at my local grocery store, I would save hundreds of dollars a year.

Think about how much soda that is. Three quarts per eight-hour day. Almost four gallons in a 5-day work week (I don’t take my medication on weekends, but I know some people need to do that as well).

Think about how much sugar that is. If I don’t buy the diet version, I’m adding nearly seven times the recommended daily sugar intake to my diet. And the acid in the soda can’t be good for my teeth either. (I have brushed my teeth no fewer than four times today, just to play it safe.)

If I were to self-regulate with caffeine, I would save significantly in the short run. I might be able to find something even cheaper than store-brand cola that I can tolerate. And I probably wouldn’t need to drink an entire 12-ounce can every hour. But I’m not going to do that in the long term, if I can avoid it, because the health effects will catch up to me sooner or later.

And that’s with soda! Remember the other alternative I mentioned: nicotine. I’m obviously not going to take up smoking just because the pharmacy is out of my medication. But there are people who self-medicate with cigarettes — or probably by vaping nowadays. And that has to be worse for you than soda.

But that brings me to my final point: why is this something I even have to think about? The pharmacy is not just out of my medication — they can’t even give me an estimate on when it’ll be back in stock. It could be Monday, it could be months from now. Their guess is as good as mine. I was lucky enough to not be affected when the medication shortage first hit last year, but I’m feeling it now. How is this even an issue that exists?

Now the onus is on me to call around and find an in-network pharmacy that has my medication in stock. Not only does this cost me time and effort, but it’s going to be farther away, and I’m going to have to pay extra for transportation (even if that’s just gas costs — this is America, after all).

I guess this turned out a bit rambly and maybe it’s not the biggest issue in the world. I just needed to get that out of my system.

[whileiamdying]

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection: Staying Power

By Zakes Mda ESSAYS. — JAN 24, 2023

The story of Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2020) unfolds through poetry. The poetry of images and words—the interplay of light and shadow, and the lyricism of the narration. It ensnares us right from the opening shots, of a horse going through an aesthetically beautiful yet obviously traumatic experience at the hands of blanketed Basotho men and women. The action is made more haunting by the application of a Wong Kar Wai–esque step-printing technique—which blurs and then sharpens and then smears the image over the excitement of the perpetrators and the resistance of the victim.

The film is set and was filmed in Lesotho, a former British protectorate that is now an independent kingdom, which is geographically completely surrounded by South Africa and therefore highly dependent on South African goods and services. A great percentage of Lesotho citizens work in the mines, farms, and homes of South Africa, and Lesotho also relies heavily on their remittances. For its part, however, South Africa needs the water that is piped to it from Lesotho, where huge dams have been constructed. Many Lesotho villages have been displaced to make way for the construction of these dams. At the heart of This Is Not a Burial is just such a displacement. The story focuses on the bereft eighty-year-old widow Mantoa, an accidental hero who finds herself becoming a catalyst for her community’s resilience.

The setting of the film’s opening is bleak. We are in a run-down tavern. The notes of a lone lesiba instrument fill the air—if we can talk of air in this environment, which looks stuffy despite the fact that the space is sparsely populated, its denizens all sitting or standing by themselves, each perhaps contemplating the social pain caused by a lack of connection with others, each body weighed down by loneliness at worst, solitude at best. Perhaps we’ll learn which as the movie proceeds. Loneliness is imposed on one; solitude is a choice. Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely.

Solitude is also the stuff of magical-realist fiction. And This Is Not a Burial has strong elements of that narrative mode, not because it exudes a sense of the supernatural but because, in it, the strange and the unusual exist in the same context as objective reality, without being disconcerting. For example, in one scene, as Mantoa (Mary Twala Mhlongo, who was seventy-nine years old at the time of shooting) sits among the ashes and debris of her burned-down house, a group of sheep appears, and the animals rally around her, giving her solace.

In the opening, the aloneness of the denizens of the tavern, even in the midst of company, is also haunting: a man stands alone against the wall drinking a quart of beer directly from the bottle and nodding absently to the music; two lovers sit on a bench with their backs to each other; another lone man smokes a cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke; a woman dances alone, languidly flapping her arms like a drunken bird to the music of the lesiba. Indeed, everything is languid and lonesome here, including the music. A lesiba is a mouth-resonated wind instrument played by the Basotho and the Khoikhoi peoples, with a flattened quill attached to a string stretched over a long stick. Its notes are often accompanied by guttural grunts made by the player. In this scene, these sounds enhance the ethereality of the ambience.

The lesiba player here is also the film’s narrator. He is portrayed by the well-known South African actor Jerry Mofokeng Wa Makhetha. He gives a virtuoso performance without moving an inch throughout the movie. Only his face, as seen in the tavern, and his elegiac voice carry the gravitas of the narration. His pace is slow and deliberate. He introduces us to Mantoa’s village: the old people called it Phula ea Meokho, which literally means the Valley of Tears but is translated as Plains of Weeping in the movie for, I think, poetic reasons. When French missionaries came to Lesotho in the 1830s, they renamed the village Nasaretha, after the biblical Nazareth. The narrator tells us, “They say in Nasaretha, if you place your ear to the ground, you can still hear the cries and whispers of those who perished under the flood, their spirits hallowing from the deep.”

From this, it becomes clear that setting is very important in This Is Not a Burial. The landscape itself tells the story. It is a character in its own right, not just a place where the story happens because a story must happen somewhere. It even speaks and cries for what the villagers have lost and what they are about to lose.

When the story begins, after the lesiba player’s long but engaging narration, we learn that the Lesotho government intends to flood the valley and build a large dam as part of a program of “progress” and “development”—or so the villagers are told by the bureaucrats who hold meetings to convince them of the wisdom of the decision. The reality is that South Africa needs the “white gold,” as water is affectionately called, for its thirsty cities and industries. The villagers are going to be moved to Motimposo, on the outskirts of the capital city of Maseru, a place that is already crowded with mostly unemployed people. This means, of course, that the villagers will have to abandon their rural lifestyle: their fields, their horses, their cattle, and, most important, the merino sheep from whose wool they earn a livelihood, after their exciting annual sheep-
shearing competitions. But most painfully, they will have to desert the graves of their forebears. That will be an abomination of the first order. Basotho venerate their ancestors. Ancestors are the intercessors between the living and the Great Creator, Molimo. Imagine what misfortune must befall ungrateful men and women who abandon their ancestors to be drowned in a human-made lake that covers the only home they ever knew! No wonder there is resistance to the forced removal.

That resistance is led by Mantoa, who has lost all her relatives, most recently a son who was expected home for Christmas from the gold mine where he worked but who perished underground with the rest of the miners. Only his corpse arrives home, and we witness a colorful funeral attended by men and women in Basotho blankets, predominantly of a rich blue. Mantoa is concerned about what will happen to the graves if the village is flooded. Politicians tell her, “It’s your call what you do with your graves . . . The ministry will provide assistance to those who choose to move their graves.”

Similar struggles against the negative impacts of large dams, particularly the mass displacement of poor communities and the loss of land, have been waged all over the world. These mammoth constructions are always accompanied by human-rights violations, especially against Indigenous communities, in such far-ranging countries as Brazil, the United States, India, and the Philippines. Mantoa takes a bus to the local administrative center to make an appeal against the dam to a minister, but she is shunned by the bureaucrats there. Her resistance next takes the form of weeping and screaming, to the extent that people from the village come to her home, thinking there has been another death. The village elders decide that she is mad. Mantoa’s resistance is fueled by her wish to be buried in Nasaretha, next to the graves of her kin. She rallies the support of her compatriots, who insist, “We are staying here!”

The village is self-sufficient, though its resources are meager. This is a valley of death, yet it is also a healing valley, where flowers and herbs that cure different ailments grow in abundance. Mantoa yearns to sleep and never wake up again. Yet she continues to help the sick get well with herbs from the mountain and valley, and to engage in life-sustaining activities in communion with the rest of society, winnowing corn and washing clothes in the river even while yearning for death. At one point, she tells the village pastor, “There is no meaning to my husband’s death . . . Yes, that’s grief.” She arranges her own funeral—let the dead bury their own dead, the narrator rejoins—giving instructions on how and when it should be carried out, who should sing Sesotho traditional music there, and what kind of coffin should be used.

She spends her time listening to obituaries on the radio. She warms the batteries of her radio in the sun on the windowsill to prolong their life. It is a telling symbolic act. She shows a flicker of a smile as she waltzes alone in the room, in the arms of an imaginary lover. The narrator admonishes her: “Lament, old widow. Weep. Weep. For death has forgotten you.”

She wears perpetual mourning clothes even as she visits neighbors, giving them life by helping those who are sick; she spends the late afternoons preparing the site at the graveyard for her own grave. When the villagers refuse to dig her grave, she digs it herself.

But for now, we leave her there, digging. We go back to what we started with: how exquisitely this movie has been made, and how effectively it transmits the meaning in a simple story by defying a lot of established conventions of contemporary cinema.

First of all, Lesotho cineaste Mosese—who wrote, directed, and edited the film—gives a unique kind of narration to the poetic and musical narrator, drawing very much from such Sesotho performance modes as tšomo (written in South African Sesotho orthography as tshomo), a classical oral tradition that is still in use, especially among families in rural Lesotho. The expository nature of tšomo lends itself excellently to the filmmaker’s style. He confirmed in an interview on South Africa’s Radio 702 that he sees his film as “almost a folklore narrative.”

This is truly a Lesotho movie, not only because of its setting and the fact that it was created by a Lesotho artist—born and raised in Hlotse, Lesotho, Mosese now lives and works in Berlin—who is drawing from a deeply Sesotho aesthetic. Almost all the actors—including Makhaola Ndebele, who plays the pastor; Mofokeng Wa Makhetha, whom I have already mentioned, as the narrator and player of the lesiba lamentations; and Silas Taunyane Monyatsi, the bureaucrat and politician—have Lesotho roots. This may come as a surprise to followers of the South African film and television industry, as these are familiar faces there. Of the principal cast, only the South African Twala Mhlongo is an import.

The most important convention that Mosese defies here, a choice that could have endangered the reception of his film if he had failed to handle it with panache, is that of beginning one’s film in medias res. The modern reader and viewer expects exciting action from the word go. Yet this movie starts languidly and depends not only on the lesiba and narration but also on an emotional ambience that foreshadows the texture and the tenor of the story. It is fortunate for the director that he was not dependent on South African funders; they would likely have insisted that the first thirty minutes of This Is Not a Burial be chopped off, to accord with the only formula of storytelling they know—which they often refer to as the tried-and-tested Hollywood formula. These film-development mandarins would have been riled up: “What’s exposition doing in this screenplay?”

It would have been a sad loss. It would have messed up this work of art.

Mosese also compellingly uses lingering, evocative shots of darker moments that are dependent on stillness rather than motion for their effect. These work perfectly for Twala Mhlongo’s tour-de-force performance, for her face with its graceful ravines of age, and for her whole persuasive demeanor. Long takes sometimes catch her stillness, her body imprisoned by loneliness, her face a study of pain. Quite often, the film is reminiscent of slow cinema such as that made by Theo Angelopoulos, a genre that emphasizes long, contemplative takes.

The cinematography of This Is Not a Burial is breathtaking—panoramic shots of the mountains, the mist that sometimes covers them, horses and their blanketed riders, and musicians playing another instrument of Sesotho traditional music, the accordion. The film’s long takes and uninterrupted tracking shots not only give the audience a sense of place but also convey feeling.

This movie is a fitting swan song for Twala Mhlongo, who died while it was on the festival circuit, and after its release in South Africa. Though This Is Not a Burial is about the power of grief, it is uplifting and satisfying. It is subtly about resilience. The director approaches his subject with so much compassion. Remember: the title proclaims that the film is about resurrection.

Mosese is an aspiring painter. He has also achieved painterliness through the camera. Each shot can be harvested for a still of utmost beauty. Gentle beauty against the grittiness of the story. Two hours of relentless beauty. This is not just a movie, it’s a narrative art installation.

Zakes Mda is a visiting professor in the English department of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg; a creative-writing adjunct at Johns Hopkins University; and an emeritus professor of English at Ohio University.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Viy Viy Viy

It'd been a clean minute since i updated on my FGO account growth and for good reason: I got locked out again! Fortunately, your boy learns lessons and i made sure to keep track of all the sh*t they said i didn't, last time. I've come far enough, and spent enough of my actual dollars, for this sh*t to hurt if i lost my account again, so i stay prepared with that recovery info. Servant Name, Birth date, what device you play on (this is the bit they got frothy about), User ID, Gender, Current Level, Favorite Servant, Current Party, and the last Transfer Code you used. It was super weird, though, because, even after i filled out that retrieval form, cats over yonder at Recovery were trying to say i still f*cked up for playing on an emulator. Like, bro, what? You telling me that i can lose my account permanently, for playing on my big ass laptop screen instead of my big-ass-for-a-phone screen? That sh*t is dumb. Just let us tie our accounts to something like every other competing mobile game, goddamn! Like, seriously, how have you, as a mobile game, been around for nearly a decade, and still don't have that option? Quality of life frustrations aside, I've come pretty goddamn far on part deux, even farther than the first account.

Right now, as we speak, my Master level ticked up to 124. I can't remember what i was on the first account, but I'm pretty sure i was around there when i lost it so, in terms of grind, I'm back to where i was, in roughly a third of the time. I am okay with that. I've powered through the story, cracking Avalon Le Fae literally the other day. The Lostbelts have turned out to be pretty f*cking solid, considering how hit-and-miss the Singularity stories were. Like, I'm not mad, those were fun, especially the last three, but you can tell me you wouldn't want to see an Olympus (and, yes, i am including Atlantis in that) adaption over a Babylon one, any day of the week. I could be bias in that regard, though. Ancient Greek mythology is my sh*t and A LOT of those Greek gods were dope as f*ck. I had a particularly good time with that Zeus fight. Sh*t was mad fun and i loved that interpretation so much. I, for sure, thought these things were going to suck because Anastasia was kind of bunk, but color me surprised as those plots got better as the Lostbelts progressed. I still have a few narratives to go to catch up, The straight up epic of Avalon and that Epilogue, Plus all the Free Quests i haven't done, but that grind has been good for my Roster. And let me tell you, i am okay with the Servants i have summoned.

Yo, i finally popped Anastasia! Netting the last Romanov is what made this account so hard to part with. I've been chasing her icy ghost for years, man. She's been my favorite Caster and top ten all-time Servant, since she was introduced all those years ago. Now, finally, FINALLY, she's mine! Obviously, i immediately maxed her out in terms of level. That is one of the perks of all this story grind, actually. I'm lousy with Hellfire of Wisdoms. Chucking a few dozen at my favorite Caster is nothing. Kind of in the same way i Grail'd up and maxed out Gray. Well, level ninety max, anyway. I was able to unlock everything i needed to perfectly level El-Melloi's assistant during her Rerun event and that effort has paid off considerably. She is a solid f*cking Assassin. Don't misunderstand, it's King Hassan, all day over here, but I'd be lying if i said Gray has left my Party since i solved that last case. Along the way, I've thrown a few Saint Quarts at a couple of Banners and popped me an Archer Ishtar, Lakshmibai, Parvati, Assassin Okita, and both versions of Ibaraki. I even stumbled across a Saber Arturia, which is hilarious because that sh*t eluded me for years on my first account. Sh*t was, like, the fifth, naturally rolled, Five star i got. Unfortunately, Saber Arturia is trash. I'm also missing my Gorgon and Demon Nobunaga really hard lately. They were two of my favorite Servants on the old account. It's a frustration but, overall, a mild one, I don't hit the Banners as hard as i used to so i have a pretty solid war chest of quarts. To be honest, i actually rolled a ton more Four Stars a long the way, but i burned them all for Rare Prisms. My first account was kind of a "Collect them all" situation but i learned that sh*t is unnecessary. "Collect what you want" is the name of the game now and i wanted to be a beast. I am WELL on my way to making that happen.

I can officially say, i am half a Bond level away from leveling Mordred to that perfect ten. Once that happens, I'll have all but matched where she was on my first account. I say "all but" because I'm still two Noble Phantasm levels short of where she was, and three from being maxed out. That sh*t is a bummer because I'm pretty much at the mercy of the Gacha gods for that one but everything else? Yeah, I'm pouring resources into favourite regicide artist. I was able to grail her and level her up to one hundred a while back but, since we are substantially past where i was cut to ff the last time i played, we can keep that level grind going all the way to one hundred and twenty! Guess who is working on one hundred and one right now? I actually looked into what it's going to take to get Mo to the next level cap and it' f*cking egregious. I got a ways to go, my guy. Fortunately, i as able to max out all of her skills, unlock an append and max that out out, as well as program Command Codes to all of her Command Cards, most of which were Five stars. Again, Mordred needs to be a powerhouse. I'm satisfied with my progress o far but I'd be lying if i said i didn't miss my old account. This new one is coming along nicely but, looking back at what was, i still have a long way to go. Oh! Almost forgot, i also unlocked Mordred's Memories of Trifas costume. Because of course I did. Who the f*ck do you think i am?

[smokeybrand]

Viy Viy Viy

It'd been a clean minute since i updated on my FGO account growth and for good reason: I got locked out again! Fortunately, your boy learns lessons and i made sure to keep track of all the sh*t they said i didn't, last time. I've come far enough, and spent enough of my actual dollars, for this sh*t to hurt if i lost my account again, so i stay prepared with that recovery info. Servant Name, Birth date, what device you play on (this is the bit they got frothy about), User ID, Gender, Current Level, Favorite Servant, Current Party, and the last Transfer Code you used. It was super weird, though, because, even after i filled out that retrieval form, cats over yonder at Recovery were trying to say i still f*cked up for playing on an emulator. Like, bro, what? You telling me that i can lose my account permanently, for playing on my big ass laptop screen instead of my big-ass-for-a-phone screen? That sh*t is dumb. Just let us tie our accounts to something like every other competing mobile game, goddamn! Like, seriously, how have you, as a mobile game, been around for nearly a decade, and still don't have that option? Quality of life frustrations aside, I've come pretty goddamn far on part deux, even farther than the first account.

Right now, as we speak, my Master level ticked up to 124. I can't remember what i was on the first account, but I'm pretty sure i was around there when i lost it so, in terms of grind, I'm back to where i was, in roughly a third of the time. I am okay with that. I've powered through the story, cracking Avalon Le Fae literally the other day. The Lostbelts have turned out to be pretty f*cking solid, considering how hit-and-miss the Singularity stories were. Like, I'm not mad, those were fun, especially the last three, but you can tell me you wouldn't want to see an Olympus (and, yes, i am including Atlantis in that) adaption over a Babylon one, any day of the week. I could be bias in that regard, though. Ancient Greek mythology is my sh*t and A LOT of those Greek gods were dope as f*ck. I had a particularly good time with that Zeus fight. Sh*t was mad fun and i loved that interpretation so much. I, for sure, thought these things were going to suck because Anastasia was kind of bunk, but color me surprised as those plots got better as the Lostbelts progressed. I still have a few narratives to go to catch up, The straight up epic of Avalon and that Epilogue, Plus all the Free Quests i haven't done, but that grind has been good for my Roster. And let me tell you, i am okay with the Servants i have summoned.

Yo, i finally popped Anastasia! Netting the last Romanov is what made this account so hard to part with. I've been chasing her icy ghost for years, man. She's been my favorite Caster and top ten all-time Servant, since she was introduced all those years ago. Now, finally, FINALLY, she's mine! Obviously, i immediately maxed her out in terms of level. That is one of the perks of all this story grind, actually. I'm lousy with Hellfire of Wisdoms. Chucking a few dozen at my favorite Caster is nothing. Kind of in the same way i Grail'd up and maxed out Gray. Well, level ninety max, anyway. I was able to unlock everything i needed to perfectly level El-Melloi's assistant during her Rerun event and that effort has paid off considerably. She is a solid f*cking Assassin. Don't misunderstand, it's King Hassan, all day over here, but I'd be lying if i said Gray has left my Party since i solved that last case. Along the way, I've thrown a few Saint Quarts at a couple of Banners and popped me an Archer Ishtar, Lakshmibai, Parvati, Assassin Okita, and both versions of Ibaraki. I even stumbled across a Saber Arturia, which is hilarious because that sh*t eluded me for years on my first account. Sh*t was, like, the fifth, naturally rolled, Five star i got. Unfortunately, Saber Arturia is trash. I'm also missing my Gorgon and Demon Nobunaga really hard lately. They were two of my favorite Servants on the old account. It's a frustration but, overall, a mild one, I don't hit the Banners as hard as i used to so i have a pretty solid war chest of quarts. To be honest, i actually rolled a ton more Four Stars a long the way, but i burned them all for Rare Prisms. My first account was kind of a "Collect them all" situation but i learned that sh*t is unnecessary. "Collect what you want" is the name of the game now and i wanted to be a beast. I am WELL on my way to making that happen.

I can officially say, i am half a Bond level away from leveling Mordred to that perfect ten. Once that happens, I'll have all but matched where she was on my first account. I say "all but" because I'm still two Noble Phantasm levels short of where she was, and three from being maxed out. That sh*t is a bummer because I'm pretty much at the mercy of the Gacha gods for that one but everything else? Yeah, I'm pouring resources into favourite regicide artist. I was able to grail her and level her up to one hundred a while back but, since we are substantially past where i was cut to ff the last time i played, we can keep that level grind going all the way to one hundred and twenty! Guess who is working on one hundred and one right now? I actually looked into what it's going to take to get Mo to the next level cap and it' f*cking egregious. I got a ways to go, my guy. Fortunately, i as able to max out all of her skills, unlock an append and max that out out, as well as program Command Codes to all of her Command Cards, most of which were Five stars. Again, Mordred needs to be a powerhouse. I'm satisfied with my progress o far but I'd be lying if i said i didn't miss my old account. This new one is coming along nicely but, looking back at what was, i still have a long way to go. Oh! Almost forgot, i also unlocked Mordred's Memories of Trifas costume. Because of course I did. Who the f*ck do you think i am?

[frostbite-the-bat]

I know nothing about that character but. but. Skrunkly blorbo from my dashboard

GOOD!!!!!! i can talk abt her a bit :3 purely from memory i may get deets wrong its been a while since i was a big time SU lore nerd lmfao . is long. i ramble off topic at the end about SU in general .

she's nephrite/centipeetle (nickname when corrupted) from steven universe !!

she's not a major character not by a long shot, but she reappears a few times throughout the show - she's the first "monster" the gems fight in the first episode!!

idk if you know how corrupted gems work but, short story - pink diamond poses as rose quarts, starts a rebellion, that turns into a war against the diamonds, the diamonds then basically use a war mega weapon that corrupts everything on earth. and rose managed to only save garnet and pearl

the mega weapon is like a flash of bright light and by fans its been often called the corruption song and what it does is corrupt the gems into monsters. it messes with their mind and their bodies reflect that - by becoming confused, scared, and often aggressive monsters

one of them was nephrite!! she was a ship captain and had a crew, she "talks" about this in the episode i mentioned i just rewatched

she got corrupted like everyone else - and she turned into a centipede gem monster which earned her nickname - centipeetle

her gem type is nephrite, though! its also her eye. her corrpution is terrible and scary but she remains a gendered little beaft to me even when she eventually gets uncorrupted (though obviously, i have a Creatur bias) (but her being uncorrupted is Her Finally Being Happy Again and that is Good)

anyways shes defeated in the first episode and is bubbled - her gem put in a pink magical bubble that stops her from reforming. (gems ARE their gems and when they're badly damaged they poof into their gem form and take a while before they regenerate their body)

but in a later episode steven finds her again and unbubbles her and shes...! very tiny this time around

critter!

steven feeds her chips and goes around and wants to prove to the gems that she's good even if corrupted. even takes her on missions but uh oh things go wrong and shes poofed again and they bubble her again but steven still sees her as a friend.

then another thing to know steven has healing powers but also early in the show his powers kinda come and go as he learns to use them or realizes he has them - in this episode they came back and his first idea was to go back and try to heal nephrite

the gems allow him to do so and...! well! shes bettter than before but not healed. thats where her skrunkly semi corrupted form comes from

thank you, steven universe wiki, for the clean renders for me to show off instead of me having to go into my downloaded episodes and look for shit

AND. ITS FUCKED BECAUSE. she both remembers but is also struggling to remember. but she remembers her past after being probed a bit (by steven giving her the same chips he gave her before)- and she can write pretty decently. (comes up later but i wanted to say this to remind you shes not... like a feral animal anymore).

but she cant talk and her body is all different from what it used to be. she can't talk so steven and her talk through drawings and she explains her story. in this episode we also learn the cause of the corruption im sure, but i believe there were hints about it previously. thing you forget with rewatching is sometimes forgetting where exactly a thing was revealed, because youre going in knowing all of that already and noticing hints of it

anyways through drawing she explains that she was once a captain of a ship with her crew and that she and others were on earth. then the rebellion and the war started and she didnt have time to leave before everyone got corrupted. as she's drawing this, she begins crying. this unstability causes her to start corrupting again and she's clearly depicted to be both in pain and emotional turmoil

she runs off to a warp pad to teleport somewhere, but she cannot activate it due to corruption so steven takes her to where her crashed ship is. as they run towards it she keeps corrupting and what breaks me is just how desperate she is. how scared she is of corrupting further. she can't do anything about it. and this time she's aware of it all happening

eventually as she's basically fully corrupted again, steven and her get to the ship to reveal other centi nephrite corrupted gems - her crew

meaning all she wanted was to see her crew she cares so much about again. and i just

ghhghnghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shes portrayed as like the mother before right she could basically spawn little smaller centipede gems to attack with and she was refered to as "the mother" and the way she got poofed later in her small form is by saving steven and her being a captain slash commander is like... she cares she cares so much . she didnt want anything else as she was being corrupted than to see her old friends again as her memories and full consciousness was fading away and im just.. ghgnhhghHGH

HUUGHHHH,H,,H,H SNNNFF.F.. HGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(HAS TO REWATCH PART OF AN EPISODE) (SEEN SEASON EPISODES ONLY ONCE OR TWICE UNLIKE THE OTHER SEASONS I REWATCHED TOO MANY TIMES) ok im bakck

aNYWAYS LATER in the show she gets healed and uncorrupted in the....! less than favored by LIKE EVERYONE episodes of the diamonds getting ""REDEEMED"" and stevens like yo yellow diamond blue diamond you corrupted These Gems and he takes them to nephrite (whos currently corrupted) (I FORGOT TO SAY SHE SEEMS TO REMEMBER STEVEN IN THIS STATE AND IS FRIENDLY in the episode where shes left on the ship before everyone leaves SHE EVEN WENT BACK AND SNUGGLED AGAINST HIM A BIT!! SHE CARE)

and yellow and blue use powers to uncorrupt her and SHE GETS UNCORRUPTED ! BUT IM CRYIGN BECAUSE SHE INSTANTLY STARTS CRYING AND PLEADS FOR HELP HOW THEYRE ALL GONNA BE CORRUPTED !!!!!! LAST WORDS BEFORE SHE GOT CORRUPTED! IWILL DIE! and she repeats that until steven uses his healing powers and that heals her fully

she instantly sees the diamonds and salutes and speaks to them, fully back as her old self, unaware of everything that happened. she sees them and thinks she survived the evacuation and DOESNT REMEMBER BEING CORRUPTED and her mentioning pink diamond upsets yellow and blue and they back off (they were holding her to like. keep the power flowing thru at her) and she CORRUPTS INSTANTLY AGAIN SHE HAD LIKE 20 SECONDS OF BEING BACK TO NORMAL ONLY TO OKAY BYE FUCK YOU AGAIN

anyways HERES WHERE THE OFFTOPIC RANT STARTS because being a su fan in 2023 is still scary i feel like i must talk about the issues before anyone jumps on my neck

steven is pissed and tells the diamonds off to fix this because hey dont be angry at a corrupted gem that theyre wrong YOU CAUSED THIS . and then the episodes goes to where they go off to see white diamond and i think we all know how that went. hard to talk abt these episodes considering how much strong hate they get - that i dont agree with. though i do agree the diamond redemption was quick and questionable - but people criticizing this often ignore the context that the show had to be kinda rushed after the wedding episode and that the message SU is trying to put out is about kindness and forgivness to kids - besides the diamonds are still clearly painted as being in the wrong. they havent suddenly become nice and they still call steven as pink diamond.

but yeah i do agree it still couldve been handled better with a bit more time - it was sudden. sorry i felt like mentioning that because liking steven universe and talking about later season 5 is fucking dangerous. shudders. i still remember all those transphobic ass antisemetic racist videos clearly being Just That shitting on the show because ohno gay people lets compare a kids show to nazi germany made by a jewish queer creator ! sugar isnt faultless obviously. we all know of At Least That One EENE Incident.) but damn yall in 2016 are u sure u genuinely criticized a show being questionable ? seems like ur just letting ur shitty beliefs show. and like i love the show and i enjoy it but i know its not faultless yknow???? good? good! ok! back to nephrite

she then doesnt appear until a bit later in the show finale (not SU future/movie) when yellow, blue and white are all together (with steven) and collectively help all the gems uncorrupt and we see many cameos of corrupted gems we've seen before get uncorrupted now including nephrite AND SHE GETS TO SEE HER CREW AGAIN ALL UNCORRUPTED AND RAAA!! aaand thats it thats like all her appearences i love her

i do like her semi uncorrupted design the most plus small centi bc I LOAVE CENTIPEDE!! I LVOE CRITTER! THE GENDER SILLY but i feel a bit bad for it since thats her being corrupted and unhappy but

yeag... silly critter... honestl i always liked her but especially now i grew to like her more hheehee

also she makes spore creature sounds shes My Autism Creature

joy and whimsy

[strudelqueen]

I got him. I fucking got him. After 324 pulls made out 870 free quartz and 5 tickets. Guess which one he came on…. (hint:it’s the smaller amount)

I’ve also got 6 Tristans, 2 Barghrst, 2 Gawain, and one Baobhan Sith. And a Xiang Yu NP2 as well. i literally have 20 quart and 2 quartz pieces left as well as 20 tickets.

Obviously i got the dialogue for pre-Lostbelt summon since I'm at lostbelt 3 still. Going to have to farm more quartz for later events soon.

[tricoloredillusion]

The next time Neo walks into her dorm room, she would find a pail full of ice, holding a chilled wine bottle and a quart of Neopolitan ice cream buried underneath.

"I don't plan on leaving anytime soon", says Sakuya as she closes the book she had been reading while waiting for her roommate to return. Obviously, she's referring to the card that she had received earlier.

When coming back, Neo's eyes fell on Angela at first, perhaps to see if she found the gift from earlier, or to see if she reacted in any way.

Of course, not seeing the gift box on the bed was a good sign, and while her roommate seemed to be chilling, the mute would eventually look at her own side of the room, finding herself with the pail that not only contained a bottle of wine, but also one of her favorite ice creams.

Crouching in front of it, the girl picked the wine and raised an eyebrow before looking back at Angela, pointing at the bottle firmly with one finger, and taking a few steps closer to her.

It's what she says that makes the illusionist lower her arm a little, and even if she doesn't want to admit it, it makes her feel relief...even safer.

Well, that's a lot of wine for one person, so there's only one way she will go about this.

[danielwallis789]

The 7 Most Typical Mistakes When Cooking Pasta

According to a recently available pasta survey taken among Italian chefs and experts - these are the 7 most common mistakes most people create when cooking pasta...

Quichentell provides very easy methods of all recipes on their sites so well. I was browsing the internet for Prawns 65 Recipe and came across their site. I could make this delicious recipe all because of the easy methods they provided on their website. If you too wish to make this recipe for your family do visit their sites.

1. Not using a large enough cooking pot

This is probably the most common "pasta cooking" mistake. The very minimal that the experts suggest is four quarts of water for one pound of pasta. But Italian cooks and pasta professionals use more than that; between five and six quarts of water for each pound of noodles. This gets the very best outcomes.

Why is all that water necessary? Simply because pasta needs enough space to move around to be able to cook correctly. Not using enough water causes the pasta to stick to the side of the pan, that makes it thick, sticky and unpleasant. When you use enough water you will definitely notice the difference in the taste and texture.

2. Adding oil to the cooking pot

It is hard to figure out just where this idea originated from originally but 44 per cent of Americans say they add olive or other oil to the actual cooking water. I suspect the idea is that the oil will stop the pasta from sticking together. But what it actually does is make the pasta too slick for any sauce in order to stay on it properly. If you have used enough water and remember to stir your pasta regularly as it is cooking, it will not stick together. Therefore - no need to add oil.

3. Not adding salt to the water

Because we are constantly aware about the perils of salt in our diet, many cooks will add only a tiny pinch of salt or none at all, to the cooking water. This is a mistake. Pasta needs plenty of salt because salt "roughs up" the surface and keeps it from becoming slimy. Add about a teaspoon of salt per each gallon of water. This seems like a lot but every good Italian chef cooks it this way and it really does make a variation. And here's the good news: The pasta does not absorb salt in the same way that vegetables or potatoes do, so you will not be eating all the salt that you use in the cooking water.

The exception to the 'add plenty of salt' rule is actually when cooking fresh pasta, which does not need salted water. The fact that it's fresh negates the need for salt because fresh pasta has a different surface than dried pasta.

4. Adding the noodles to the water before the water has boiled

Pasta must be cooked in boiling water from the start. Add the pasta to the pot when the water has come to a full rolling boil. It will stop boiling when you add the pasta so make sure you get the water boiling again as quickly as possible. To add pasta to cold water and then heat up the water is a sure guarantee pasta will not cook properly.

5. Not really stirring the pasta once it is preparing

Pasta needs to be stirred while it is cooking. This stops it sticking together (especially spaghetti and linguine). When pasta doesn't stick together it all cooks consistently.

6. Overcooking the pasta

Different people will cook the same pasta for as much as five minutes variation and each will state they have cooked their pasta perfectly. But, while accepting that taste is a subjective thing, there are people who undercook their pasta as well as individuals who overcook their pasta. Undercooking is actually less frequent because undercooked pasta is crunchy and obviously difficult to chew. Overcooked pasta (much more common) is limp, loses its shape easily, and won't hold a sauce well. Unfortunately, overcooked pasta is not salvageable so you'll have to throw it away and start once again.

The key to cooking pasta well is to keep testing it as you cook it. There will be a guide cooking time on the packet so about a minute before that time is up, start testing the pasta. It is ready when it is slightly firm to the actual bite - a state the Italians call "al dente" (firm but not crunchy). At the al dente stage, turn off the heat and drain the pasta in a colander. Shake the pasta to get rid of all excess water (be especially careful to do this if they are pasta shapes which catch pockets of hot water) and offer immediately. The pasta continues to cook while it's draining it in the colander, so when you are testing, remember that what you eat will be cooked for a minute or two longer than what you're testing in the pan.

7. Rinsing the pasta right after cooking

51 per cent of Americans say they rinse their pasta immediately after cooking. This ruins good pasta. When pasta reaches the al dente stage it means thereare just the right quantity of starches on the surface to absorb the sauce you are going to serve with it, which is where pasta gets its entire flavor. If you wash, you take away these important starches.

There are two exceptions. First - if you're cooking for a pasta salad, the pasta does need to be rinsed simply because you don't want the pasta to be sticky if it's being used in a salad. After rinsing with boiling water then rinse again with cold water to stop the cooking procedure.

The second exception is if you have prepared your pasta in too small a pan and the water is cloudy as well as starchy. In that case it may end up being worth rinsing the pasta with boiling hot water to remove these starches.

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By stepping out of your comfy cooking routine and implementing these tips, you will be cooking pasta properly. The difference is substantial. I promise you that your pasta will be cooked to perfection and will taste delicious with your preferred sauce. Happy cooking!