#Bernie Fine

[essektheylyss]

had a very lovely conversation with my mom but I did laugh that she was like "I'm really glad you called 🥺" and I then hung up and saw my sister's texts, which were like, "LMAO HAPPY 8 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO THE MOST CHAOTIC COMING OUT POST" and I was like, ah yes, my mother is probably mostly relieved that this time around she didn't find out her eldest child came out as bi on Facebook in a rage via the family grapevine instead of like. calling home.

[happy74827]

So… I just watched Godzilla x Kong: New Empire and I just have two things to say {spoiler free}

-Kong and Zilla are so sibling coded

-Trapper.

…That’s all. Goodnight 🫡

[elluia]

Choose Your Legends 8 ended with lots of surprises, and it's time to celebrate!

I've seen concerning amounts of salt and bashing on the games involved or not, so this will be a positive post! I'm tired of the fandom's dumb takes and toxicity so let's praise everyone for the amazing scores and stories that unfolded during this vote!

First let's start with the link to all the official CYL art since Year 1 of FEH, enjoy the trip down memory lane!

https://fire-emblem-heroes.com/fr/sp/illustrations/

(I nabbed that chibi Soren right away, bless Kita Senri)

CYL 8 Male winners:

🥇1: Alfonse | A beautifully deserved win for our well-written OC lord who keeps the story of Heroes entertaining with his crazy one-liners and unhinged plans, with more tender moments with his family and friends to soften him. I hope we get to see him grown-up like Legendary Veronica.

🥈2: Felix | I love seeing non-lord characters emerge from the voting. His voters have shown their supports 4 years in a row and it paid off! Especially nice win because Felix has been shafted by IS with a silly seasonal and an ok god-sword pre-TS unit.

CYL 8 Female winners:

🥇1: Bernadetta | Just like Felix, her voters lost to circumstances (aka the surprise Gullveig sweep), so I'm glad for them! Plus her post-TS personality should force the writers to tone down the moe nervous trait that flanderizes her character.

🥈2: Female Robin | She's finally free to be in the common summoning pool as herself, not Grima! She has too few alts to her name, and she marks the first time both genders of an avatar have won CYL, so good job!

About the Engage non-sweep, don't get disheartened! The votes for Engage were equal to Three Houses, but they were split between A LOT of fan favourites for both genders, while the FE3H fans rallied one last time for 1 male and 1 female representation, without competition from their lords. It's a respectable result, and the bashing on Engage is disingenuous and undeserved.

I've seen the top 5 from each game and I'm happy to see Finn up there for Thracia and Mae for Echoes. I hope to see Linoan soon, and other alts for Berkut and Rinea. People rallied for Athos to get in the game already, for Lloyd to have new art, for Seth and Titania to get the stats they deserve...

Fan favourites like Lyon or the Black Knight still score high. Azura received love. Even Elincia who's already been very lucky in 2023 got in the top for PoR and RD! I love to see people rally for a Sentinel Nephenee too.

We continue to see Leo and Takumi side by side, chilling in the male top 20 like BFFs. It's adorable.

This CYL8 follows in the steps of CYL7 with no main lords, only favourites and avatars.

Next year I hope to see Jugdral and Elyos win, but for now I'm happy with the 4 we have 🥰

[ikoarts]

(25/05/2024)

Boys up to no good!

[marimayscarlett]

Richard in Padova // 1.07.2023 // 📷 Fabrizio Berni

[thequeenofsastiel]

All right, Kamala Harris. Come out in support of Medicare for All. Just do it. It's actually very easy, you co-sponsored a Medicare for All bill by Bernie Sanders back in 2017, and only started distancing yourself from it due to criticism. Be brave. Progressives will love you for it. Most people will love you for it. More importantly, you believe in this issue! I know you do! Show the American public that you believe good things are possible. Please.

[callsign-daydream]

Hondo: Iceman let you play with the new jet prototype? Maverick: Ice is a man of discerning taste and good sense. Hondo: Meaning that Iceman doesn’t know you’re playing with the new jet prototype.

[strawberrymilkshakeearrings]

man dont get me wrong i like kamala harris too and honestly always felt like she was unfairly villainized by progressive left-wingers but the absolute mental gymnastics being performed rn by people who hated her guts like 6 months ago is insane

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Is there anyone you'd actually want to be president? /gen Can be anyone, doesn't have to be a politician or someone with big money.

Ethan is online? More like ethan is in office.

[grimdarknokia]

can 🤔 we 🙏 PLEASE 🙄 go ➡️

⏰ Five Minutes ⏰

without 🚫 Somebody 🧍🏼‍♀️ mentioning 🎤 Berenice 😩 BLOODY 😩 Wolfe 🐺

[minthara]

i killed wyll in my camp before attacking the grove bc i forgot how to do the keep wyll thing correctly and then was too lazy to reload bc i had already finished the underdark after. but now his body just keeps following us. i wonder if hell also come with us to act 2 :')

[jiskblr]

A Non-Locavore's Guide to Proper Apple Cider

Apple cider is a bizarre thing, in that it is only legal to buy it from the people who grew the apples and pressed them themselves.

You may say "Jisk, I see apple cider in the supermarket right here!", and I am here to tell you that the supermarket is full of profane lies.

I am not talking about hard cider (alcoholic), which does not taste like apples and thus is sorta lies, but a perfectly respectable beverage for those who like their alcohol beer-like but non-beer, which I do not. And that's all I'm going to say about hard cider.

No, I'm talking about this.

This substance is made by the archdevil Geryon, lord of deceits and heresies, in his orchard of snakes and lies, in order to convince people that apple cider is just pretentious apple juice.

And it works, because supermarket apple cider is just pretentious apple juice. It is cider that has taken behind the woodshed and shot, and its corpse carried around in the style of Weekend At Bernie's, paraded as the real thing. It is not the real thing.

This is the real thing:

This is Smit Farms cider, made from apples grown in Smit Farms orchards and pressed in mechanical presses owned by Smit Farms, hosted on the premises owned by Smit Farms and probably on the orchard grounds itself, then bottled by Smit Farms, also on the premises of Smit Farms. This cider is then sold either at their shop next to the Smit Farms orchard (fairly inaccessible) or at a Smit Farms booth in a range of farmstands within driving distance (in this case, mostly or totally in California), one of which is where I buy it. This is the good stuff.

The fact that it is from Smit Farms specifically is irrelevant, but other than replacing the name 'Smit Farms' with something else like 'Derby Orchards' or 'Oxford University Gardens', the good stuff all fits that precise description. To do otherwise is illegal. (At least in the US of A. It seems to be rare in other countries too, and I don't know for sure.)

The core problem is pasteurization. Pasteurization turns cider into apple juice. If you're careful about it and do the lowest temperature allowed for a brief burst of heat (flash pasteurization), you'll keep the ghost of the flavor of proper cider. But only a ghost of it.

And you are legally required to pasteurize cider before sale, unless you are a farm doing farm things to your farm products on your farm premises, which gets you an exemption from a great many United States laws, this being one of them. And so, if you wish to drink good cider, you must be a locavore for the day you do the shopping.

And it's so fucking worth it. I promise you. You know how they say that compared to real beer, Budweiser is 'fucking close to water'? Apple juice is the Bud Lite of cider. Real cider has the same relationship to it that Guinness has to Bud. Everyone should try it.

Now, I will admit it has drawbacks.

The first one is that it's usually unfiltered, and filtering it does actually make it worse. So you need to shake the bottle around a bit before pouring. It's much less intrusive than citrus pulp, though.

The second is that if you leave it in the fridge for a month it will have gone very slightly alcoholic. (I don't know what ABV.) This does have a solution - cider freezes well. Leave it in the freezer for a year if need be, then melt it over a day on the counter and stick it back in the fridge.

QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE FOR THE CIDER SNOB

"Jisk, how can I tell if the cider is the good stuff?"

Unfortunately, you will usually have to ask, and the answer will often be 'it isn't' even if you're at an orchard. Check if the label says 'pasteurized' in any form - if so it is the knockoff type. If you don't see that, the question you want to ask is "Do you press and bottle it yourself?"; if the answer is yes, they will almost certainly know, and only if the answer is yes is it the good stuff. You can also ask "Is it pasteurized?", and this may appear on the label, but there are weaselly ways to say it's not when it is and well-intentioned people can be honestly wrong about this being good enough.

"Should I get the good stuff for cooking with?"

It is almost certainly not worth it. You'll mostly denature it in cooking and that will remove most of the flavor benefits. For this I would go with supermarket cider or somewhat boiled-down boring apple juice. Some recipes may benefit but that's beyond my cooking skill to predict.

"Should I get the good stuff for mulling?"

Personally I cannot tell the difference once it is mulled. If the effort and money to get the good stuff are cheap for you, go ahead, it's probably slightly better, but it will not be a groundshaking improvement. Same goes for anything you're spicing heavily even without heat.

"Okay, I see where you're going, here. Is it a waste to heat up the good stuff?"

Absolutely not. Go for it! A simple mug of cider, heated up in the microwave, is a wonderful thing in a way apple juice is not.

"How about cocktails?"

I have limited experience here but I think it is usually a noticeable, significant improvement, but not always. My family favors the Suicider, which has some nutmeg, a large spike of dark rum, and the heart of a bad pun. On the other hand, something like a mule where you are mixing several strong flavors may overwhelm the difference. Use your best judgment, and if you do a taste test please tag me or send me an ask, because I'm curious.

"Why is the good stuff so rare, if it's so much better?"

The process is time-consuming and effortful, it's either hard to scale on an orchard's budget or hard to scale without incurring the wrath of the regulators, and the margins aren't great. I pay $20 for a gallon and a half and I'd probably pay twice that, but I am a snob; most people aren't and wouldn't.

In my hometown, there were six pick-your-own apple orchards, all of which sold cider in their attached store. Of these, only one, the aforementioned Derby Farms, sold the good stuff - this was a local secret, not available to the tourists who came out from Boston. The others had mechanical presses available, but pressing cider is slow, exhausting work and the margins aren't great, so they paid someone else to press it and bottle it, which meant that the pasteurization requirement came in. Even Derby's has ceased to make the good stuff, as they are getting old and didn't have the manpower in the proper season anymore. This is a tragedy but kind of inevitable.

"Why are you writing this?"

Because I think a lot of people would be snobs if they experienced the difference, and the only way to fix aforesaid tragedy is to make the margins better by increasing demand.

[laslow]

HEAVING RASPING FOR AIR BERNADETTA SUMMONS ALL OF HER FIZZLING DETTA ENERGY TO FULL ON SPRINT UP TO LASLOW LIKE A BULLET TRAIN please ignore how ill she looks she pushes a plate of sweets into his arms with a teardrop crystal also on the plate before bolting into the distance bye girl

Alas, Laslow believes it time to hang up his dancing shoes for the evening. Or boots, rather. He'd chosen them specifically for their comfort and ease of mobility, but no matter their better qualities, they are not built for a dancer.

He can feel at least two blisters forming on each heel, and another on the bottom of his big toes. So it is with much regret he resigns himself to the outer edges of the dance floor, longingly watching the remaining couples.

Running footsteps are upon him before he even registers the sound. A disheveled young girl sprints up, a plate of pastries in hand, shoving them into his surprised hands before darting away. Like a mouse.

"Wha--huh? Wait, miss!"

All but her rapidly disappearing figure is forgotten.

[millennial-tolkien-emails]

Letter 38

Hi Mr. Unwin,

I am THE WORST I am so sorry for not responding and getting this done — turns out I didn’t actually read your instructions carefully enough 🙃 But then also life got in the way (maybe you’ll be a little less mad if I explain that my wife’s health got MUCH worse, and I had to move out and go stay in a hotel all last semester because the pipes burst at my house, and then I got sick, and I’ve been barely able to cope with my actually insane workload at the university…)

I know you said “a word or two” would be enough for the foreword but like…if it’s going to have my name at the top then I should have something worth saying, you know?

I can’t find the letter that threw me, but here’s the thing. You really need a proper preface to this revised edition, and this “Introduction” is basically just a summary and is fundamentally useless to either a student or someone reading this translation instead of the OG Middle English. Soooooo I may or may not have written 17 fucking pages of commentary on translation….plus another 17 page metrical appendix 🙃

Anyway, that’s where I was in March, and then I got your letter yesterday and now I’m realizing that you literally just wanted me to write like ten lines. Whoops.

All I can do now is send you what I have. Obviously it’s way too long and I’m so so so sorry. It literally hurts my heart to do it, but I’ve marked in red the bits you could keep if you’re okay with a longer piece (1400 words), or if you want it shorter you could keep just the parts I’ve marked in blue (which is like 800 words). But maybe that’s still too long? IDK.

So

Sincerely

Sorry,

JRRT

[slashingdisneypasta]

[2dmenforme]