#and I didn’t have the nuance of ‘cool’ vs ‘cold’ so it was just room temperature water

[clanoffelidae]

-smashes head through a wall- do you think hive insects still retain a sense of individuality

obviously not in the same way we do but i have a memory from before i had a sense of self, yes it’s as weird to recall as you imagine, and even before i actually had the sense of ‘I Am’ i still had an awareness of my body as being separate from the world around me so do you think hive insects still retain that in relation to the rest of their hive or do they see the hive as a singular ‘body’ unit they just can’t feel all of

[thethirdwheel404]

Med Series Rewatch (#12)

S3 E12: Born This Way.

Episode description: Dr. Manning and Dr. Choi are faced with a tough decision.

Literally when are they not.

Okay, last episode ended with the first Ava/Connor kiss, so this episode should be a rollercoaster of emotions.

let’s get into it.

- okay, already we’re starting in connor’s apartment, so cue ava walking in bc they slept together?

- i think its hilarious that her casual clothing is.. a flannel. like lmao idk

- it is so unbelievably funny and stupid to have a one night stand with someone you work closely with. i mean come on

- never forget that dr. ava bekker has a fish tank

- this is exhausting. the tentative back and forth is so fucking exhausting

- another bit of evidence. ava is never not confident, and especially not to this extent, and she never follows connor’s lead. so, the fact that she is standing back and waiting for him to make the decision? stupid.

- it screams that she is having a moment of anxiety, which is why she isn’t up to make the decisions in the exchange.

-to be clear: what i’m claiming here is that the only reason ava actually got with connor was bc she was having a moment of anxiety because he was the only person she had built a relationship with after living in this city for six months.

- when connor says that he has plans you can see her fold in on herself. this stems from a place of anxiety

- remember when they did surgery on the panda? that’s when the show peaked

- ava in her lab coat will never not get me. especially with the gloves, running towards a patient (very hot)

- connor still looks kinda looks like a mess but ava is immaculate here like what dude out of your league

- ava asking the family questions (ik this is standard doctor stuff but showing worry, interest, all that jazz)

- okay, see here! here! ava calls connor out, saying that his procedure is too invasive. before, ava’s procedures where invasive, which everyone used as evidence to her being super cold, but now, we see that she purely does what she deems best for the patient at hand

- also, once again, the concern ava feels. you can hear it in her voice. we forget this part of her way too often

- the smile on ava’s face when she gives the family good news. god wept

- and then more concern when connor tells her they need to put him on ecmo

- the reason that ava is frustrated that connor didn’t go with her decision for their patient care is because she truly believes that if they don’t go with her treatment, he will die. don’t make it anything different. don’t argue she’s frustrated because he’s not listening to her. don’t make it anything about their relationship. she puts their patients care first and foremost

- there’s a stark shift in her demeanor when in the room with the parents vs. her alone with connor. in the room, you can see she’s stewing. she’s sucking on her teeth, she’s holding her emotions. she has control, she’s a professional. out of the room, she has full reign to be as mad with connor as she wants, which she does.

-AVA RAN INTO THE ROOM AGAIN WITH THE LAB COAT AND GLOVES AND IDK IT JUST HAS ME FEELING SOME KINDA WAY

- the way ava acknowledges everyone in the room (the nurse just informed them that the drug was running, ava nodded. just a little thing but yk)

- ava shaking her head at this sad, sad man (connor, who is floundering for a solution and misplacing his anger)

- their entire relationship is misplaced anger

- the fact that the last shot of the scene has connor in the foreground looking over the bed and ava watching from the door but ava is the one in focus - some cool cinematography points

- IS THIS THE EPISODE WHERE MAGGIE GOES TO JAIL

- med really went all over the place

- JUST THE AMOUNT OF CONCERN ON AVA’S FACE. im gonna say it again. look me in the eyes and tell this women is a psychopath. the med writers are fucking insane

- and when the parents ask ava if she disagreed with connor’s treatment decision, she has every opportunity (and right, frankly) to throw him under the bus and undermine him. but still, she says “it’s a complicated situation.” like. she never ever makes it personal, or loses her head. especially not to a patient. and she doesn’t have to defend connor. he’s made a lot of mistakes, and taken it out on her a bunch of times. yet she’s still nice to him, when he’s not even in the room

- it’s insane

- this is also the legendary scene where she comforts the family. there’s not a lot that i haven’t already said. this is the scene that most exemplifies ava’s humanity, the way she seems to feel, at least residually, what these parents are going through (since she obviously hasn’t gone through anything like this herself [unless.]). the way she kneels down, and gets on the family’s personal level.

- I... okay listen. I absolutely HATE the parallel they pull her between the line “I believe whenever you do something out of love, it can never really be wrong” and connor. especially because they show him when she says that line. and yeah, there’s obviously a connection that can be drawn between the meaning of that line and her sociopathic behavior in s4 and s5.

- it honestly feels like when writing s4, the writers hit so much of a wall they just googled the most ‘iconic’ ava moments and thought ‘how can i use these in the worst way possible?’ That’s honestly probably what they did (ava’s first interaction with connor - ‘you better watch yourself,’ this moment). There is no nuance to her character in s4. it is astoundingly terrible.

- lets move on

- THE WAY CONNOR LOOKS AT AVA HER MAKES ME FUCKING SCARED. HE HAS NO EMOTION ON HIS FACE. I know that we’ve been screen capping ava throughout this series but can someone find pictures of connor looking at ava bc, i need yall to remember how weird he looks

- like, no shade to connor, but just the emotion is undecipherable, but it is in no way a good one

- ava getting concerned (and looking slightly embarrassed) when she sees connor watching her by the door. obviously yeah she’s gonna feel weird you just caught her in a very uncharacteristic moment, outwardly expressing comfort. fucking back off

- i am so fucking protective of her and i demand he no longer look at her. it’s banned

- sam abrams looking at sarah’s dad’s head ct and asking if he’s a criminal. oh boy 

- from a writer’s perspective, the storyline with sarah’s dad is actually pretty good

- ava ran into the room with gloves and lab coat again, if anybody wanted to know

- for the record, want it to be noted, ava was the one who realized that it was an issue with the machine again, so you could say she fixed connor’s mistake, again. so.

- connor making a big deal about handing the reins over to ava (if he really was selfless he wouldn’t have made a whole big thing, he still has an enormous hero complex)

- handing off control was very hard for him. boo hoo get some fucking humility I think they sell it at walgreens

- sarah fucking walking across the ed like she’s going to war. dramatic

- med really said pedophiles deserve rights with this ep huh

- anyway

- the way ava smiles

- the way she smiles when she turns him down. CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT? SHE TURNED HIM DOWN. in the aspect of the story i cannot remember why she turned him down, but hey, i’m happy

- and it only further proves my story that the hook up came from a place of anxiety, and this is her realizing how silly that decision was. and her smiling was her laughing at herself for making such a stupid decision

- ALSO. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THIS DECISION, THE DECISION TO TURN HIM DOWN, HAPPENED IN THE SAME EPISODE WHERE SHE SAID ‘IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR LOVE, IT’S NEVER REALLY WRONG’

- like she literally says ‘last night was a mistake.’

- honestly, it’s fucking hilarious. connor deserves nothing

- and the confusion on his face when she walks away. hilarious

- if you wanted to take this the reesker route you could argue that the idea of ‘a decision of love’ was ava coming to terms with her slight little crush, though i don’t know how clean it would be if you argue that she panicked and told herself those were feelings meant for connor. idk, i’ll have to think about it further

- watching sarah let herself be betrayed by both herself and the people around in the story surrounding her dad will never not be hard to watch

This was a very good episode, character wise, for all the reasons stated above. It just hammers home the point of how strong a character Ava was. Key word, of course, being ‘was’. My conclusion over the last two episodes is that this specific sexual encounter with Connor was born out of a moment of anxiety from Ava. I suggest that over that last few weeks or days she has been experiencing some amount of anxiety out of having been living in Chicago for six months and only having one interpersonal relationship. So, that idea kind of built where she told herself the reason she only had one relationship was because she was in love with him. Then. after going through the story with this kid and comforting his parents, she realizes that she never actually loved Connor and maybe has a thing for someone else. I’m glad that I keep coming up with more ideas for this character, I was afraid the initial theory was somewhat of a one-off, but this only proves the idea of the complexity to Ava’s character.

I’m sure it’ll get worse from here, though.

as always, thanks for sticking through

-

read the rest here:

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Extra

[oramos2096]

Original Chocolate Recipe

Time for a recipe with chocolate! It only makes sense to go back where it all started, so we will take a look at the ancient cacao beverage drank by the Mesoamericans before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors. It Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica (Aztec), cacao is called Xocolatl and was served warm or lukewarm. Quite different from the hot chocolate we drink today, mainly in that it is far from a sweet and wholesome beverage on a cold evening.

           The Mexica and previous civilizations that used cacao used cacao in its purest form. Today, cacao had been processed to the point where its hard to find cakes of pure cacao. Dark chocolates are simply 50% cacao solids, which is probably the closest you can find in terms of a traditional cacao taste. Still, we want our chocolate treats to be sweet and not over-the-top bitter so dark chocolate is usually still added with sugar and other flavors.

           The origins of how these people learned that these seeds are edible are disputed, but evidence that they were consumed began to appear on pottery across Mesoamerica. A common one was that the people had cracked open the seeds and ate the pulpy flesh that surrounds the seed. Once they ate what they wanted, the seeds were tossed and landed in a ceramic pot that was nearby a fire. The aroma that rose from the pot was very enticing and then experiments began to make the most of these cacao seeds.

           The method of cultivating the cacao was not as different as it is today. Machetes are still used to separate the cacao pods from the tree, and then left ferment for a few days. It’s a method that has not left the past as it’s a process that cannot be industrialized. They crack open the pods and let pulp ooze out and ferment away until just the cacao seed, or nub, is left behind. From here, the process of making the cacao differs from the past to today. With the cacao nubs in hand, the use of machinery is accessible to effectively crush it into a fine powder.

           Travel back a few 500 years ago, and we see the Mexica laying out the cracked open pods out to ferment for several days. Its important to keep an eye on them as they become easily eaten by animals or insects. Once the fermentation is done and the pulp has been scooped out, the seeds are left out to dry in the sun and then roasted. When they are done roasting, the cacao beans are broken up and the nibs are collected for winnowing. The winnowing process separates the shells from the actual cacao nibs. The nibs are what we want, this is where we get the powder from after grounding the nibs. The grounded nibs leave behind a powder that is called “cacao liqueur”, but it’s really just like a cake of cacao powder.

           Once the cacao is ground up, all that is left is to mix it with water. The Mexica did it differently than we do it today. The biggest difference is cocoa vs cacao. Cacao, like the Mexica used, is pure cacao that has no additives from the time they opened the pods. Cocoa is highly processed cacao with added sugar and other ingredients. The resulting cocoa is a sweeter, yet more fine powders that easily soluble. Today, we enjoy chocolate for its association with a sweet treat. This association is a relatively nuanced idea when it comes to serving chocolate and was a transformation brought on cacao by the Europeans. The Mexica’s traditional version of the beverage was as simple as mixing the cacao liqueur in water and adding spices such as actual chili peppers, perhaps some vanilla or ground maize as a thickening agent. This drink is quite bitter and can be a little spicy! The vanilla can add some sweetness to the taste, but the strong bitter taste from cacao will overpower. In fact, the first transformation that the Europeans did was to add sugar or milk to the beverage to make it “easier to drink”. The mixture was rapidly stirred in a pot until a nice layer of foam was achieved on the top. The foam is the what shows you that the beverage is ready to drink. Even when the Spaniards brought cacao with them back to Spain, they rapidly mixed until that desired layer of foam appeared. They even developed their own mixing device to make the foam appear easier, the molinillo. Fun fact, my family in Mexico still use the molinillo when preparing a cup of chocolate, although the drink is modern as its usually a sweet treat.

           The Spaniards didn’t understand the fascination of cacao that the Mexicas had. When Hernan Cortes was invited to a banquet at the palace of Moctezuma, he saw numerous pots of this foamy beverage and was offered some. Moctezuma was showing off his prestige and power with all this Xocolatl, but Cortes was not impressed by this bitter drink. It really only caught on as a marker of social status since the Mexica prized it so much. The elite were the only ones who were able to truly enjoy cacao, while the others were really only using cacao as a form of currency. The Spanish brought back this exotic currency and drank the beverage themselves, knowing that only the elite in Spain are drinking this exotic drink from the New World. The youthful feeling of “I have some and not you” plays a big part in why cacao really kicked off in Europe.

           There is no set recipe for the beverage, but the consensus that most agree on is that the 100% pure cacao powder is mixed with water. From there, spices may be added to taste but that’s really as complicated as it gets. I did some digging and found a pretty simple recipe that requires water, 100% cacao, and one jalapeno. The recipe is as follows.

             Xocolatl

1.      In a medium sized pot, simmer some water and chop up one small jalapeno. Toss the jalapeno, with the seeds, into the water and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

2.      Strain out the jalapeno and seeds to the best of your ability, leaving behind a warm pot of spicy water. Bring it back into a simmer.

3.      Time to add the cacao! Break in about 2 ounces of 100% cacao and place inside the pot of water. Bring it down to a low simmer and begin stirring until the cacao is fully dissolved.

4.      Once fully dissolved, let the pot of cacao cool to room temperature as it’s the way the Mexica preferred to drink the beverage.

5.      Enjoy the spicy bitterness!

Since this beverage is rather bitter, its recommended to add in some sweeteners. To keep it traditional, try to use any that are naturally found in these parts, such as vanilla. The recipe calls for piloncillo, which is a rich extract from sugar cane in Mexico. With these, the drink should be easier to drink and still be traditional!

  Sources:

https://www.openwidetheworld.com/blog/world-history-5-hot-chocolate-recipes