#But unless I specifically taste that bitterness I'm not going to notice.

[asjjohnson]

People are kinda like ice cream varieties.

There's different personalities, like how there's different flavors. There's vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, blueberry, cherry vanilla, banana pudding, blackberry cobbler, cherry cordial, peanut butter, coffee, mocha, brownie, chocolate chip cookie dough, cookies and cream, vanilla bean, French vanilla, mint chocolate chip, chocolate swirl, strawberry swirl, and many more.

Then there's people who aren't 'typical'. Like how there's sugar free, lactose free, diet, light, organic, natural, and other such things. They're still the same flavors (although it might be harder to find what you're looking for, and some things are more expensive).

And if the carton you've bought isn't labeled as such, would you really notice that it's not 'typical'? It might taste slightly odd to you, but it might just be the way that particular flavor from that particular company is supposed to taste - how would you know? Unless you're actually familiar with the taste and/or effects of a particular added or removed ingredient (like Splenda, lactose, or sugar), you're not going to be able to tell whether that carton is different or if it's just normal variation.

So why are people so judgmental nowadays? It's like they're saying, "This peanut butter ice cream doesn't taste like chocolate. It must be missing some kind of health label!" But maybe they just need to realize it doesn't taste like chocolate because it's not chocolate flavored.

#I tried to make this apply to any type of labels #And yeah okay sometimes labels are good and can be inclusive instead of exclusive. If you're purposefully labeling yourself then good. #But a lot of labels are applied to people by others. #It seems like there's too many labels for people nowadays. What happened to normal variations in personality determining things? #or variations in body type. #The idea of everyone being equal. You could be shy or pushy or enjoy more feminine or masculine things and it would just be personality. #but now it's like 'No no. There's only vanilla chocolate or strawberry. all other flavors are non-typical.' #I once got a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. It tasted horrible. I've never gotten another one. I'd assumed that's how they make them. #I kind of think it's because of real pumpkin put into the coffee though. I like my pumpkin spice without random pumpkin thrown in. #The first time I tried Blue Bell's Banana Pudding ice cream it tasted pretty bad. I thought it was just not a good flavor. #But I did try it again (because I love Blue Bell) and it tasted great! I think it was because the store had stored it wrong. Freezer burn. #But the thought 'this product must be diet!' didn't cross my mind. #Sometimes 'is this diet' does come to mind though. I dislike the bitterness of artificial sweeteners so sometimes I check the ingredients. #But unless I specifically taste that bitterness I'm not going to notice.

[pinnithin]

FAKE BOURBON OLYMPICS AKA PIN DRINKS A LOT OF LIQUID THAT TASTES BAD FOR SCIENCE

I was originally going to have 2 real whiskeys and 5 fake whiskeys competing in this, but Lyre's Spirit Co sent me imitation rum by mistake so they're disqualified. I judged these all by smell, straight taste, taste with a mixer, and taste on ice. I am not a professional taste tester or anything so this will be in layman's terms. They're the only terms I have :,)

Results below the cut.

MY COMPARISON POINTS: cheap whiskey and decently expensive whiskey. Whistle Pig had an $80 bourbon but I just couldn't bring myself to cough up that much for something as silly as an experiment I'm sharing on the internet. I've already spent enough.

Evan Williams Black Label - $12.99 Smell: like whiskey Straight: it's whiskey On Ice: still whiskey Cocktail: great! it's whiskey :) Overall: I mean, like, it's whiskey. It's cheap, decent whiskey. It's fine. We're well acquainted.

Whistle Pig PiggyBack 100% Rye - $49.99 Smell: like better whiskey Straight: smooth, no burn - like better whiskey On Ice: delicious! can sip this easily Cocktail: fine. kind of hard to detect. honestly the Evan Williams is better. Overall: I don't often indulge in more expensive liquors because I care more about getting drunk than what it tastes like, but this was nice. Sweeter than I was expecting for 100% rye.

THE CONTENDERS:

Ritual - $29.99 Smell: strong, kind of tobacco smell Straight: not very good! made me gag! really burns on the back end. mostly bitter but vaguely fruity. On Ice: not too bad tbh. I could sip this. still bitter but not overwhelming. Cocktail: fine with a mixer, still kind of bites me. not a huge a fan of the bitter tobacco flavor

Free Spirits - $36.99 Smell: mostly like banana Straight: this one's bad too! acidic, very sour, like lemon and cinnamon On Ice: still not super great on ice, but tastes more like a real whiskey when it comes to the burn. Cocktail: absolutely fine and acceptable with a mixer

Kentucky 74 - $23.99 Smell: acidic, but like, in the way wet printer paper smells acidic Straight: this tastes like. if you took printer paper and boiled it and added cinnamon. tries to kick but mostly only twitches. On Ice: not very good at all on ice, but to be fair the bottle says “for bourbon cocktails,” so at least it didnt set up unrealistic expectations. kind of woody, no bite or burn at all. Cocktail: still gross with a mixer I dont think this one can be saved tbh

Monday - $44.99 Smell: mostly just like toffee Straight: oh, bad, very bad. tastes like rancid citrus with a little toffee on top On Ice: still pretty bad. I couldn’t sit there and sip it. too sugary with too much spoiled lemon taste. A little bite but not enough to make it worth it. Cocktail: still gross with a mixer. The flavors are too strong and its too noticeable, like whatever I'm drinking has subtly spoiled.

FINAL RESULTS

Closest to actual whiskey: Ritual and Free Spirits. Ritual tastes more like Whistle Pig and can be sipped on the rocks best. Flavor is decent without tasting totally like water. I don't hate it. Free Spirits is stronger and better in cocktails.

Don't waste your time: Kentucky 74 and Monday. The former is too weak and the latter is too strong. Seriously stay away from Kentucky 74 unless you like the taste of printer paper.

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THESE ARE GOOD NEAT IF YOU LIKE YOUR WHISKEY NEAT DONT EVEN BOTHER

Overall none of these are like, flawless imitations of the real thing, but a couple are decent substitutes. I won't really be satisfied with imitation liquor until I get that very specific alcohol burn from one of them, which is unfortunate because you need alcohol for that, and that defeats the whole purpose of a nonalcoholic liquor. A couple of these could definitely tide me over when I want to drink but have shit I have to be at in the morning.

If you read all this, thanks and I hope it was helpful!

#pin talks #this isnt especially enlightening but if you were considering buying imitation liquor i compared 4 brands so you wouldnt have to #alcohol

[onceuponamirror]

omg I also refused to watch Lost for very similar reasons. I've also never seen any of the Star Wars films, so. I think i'm just a little outside of the zeitgeist, in a Not Cool way. Anyway you said you do meta and I was wondering: do you have any specific thoughts about the Jughead/Betty/Archie friendship when they were kids? I'm interested in your perspective on it. (All good if you have no specific thoughts about it though!) :)

sorry for a kind of delayed response! last couple days were busy. 

anyway, hello darkness my old friend, i’ve come to ruminate on childhoods again

the way i see it, up until, say, about age 7-8, the Andrews did not live in the nice little nightmare on elm street neighborhood (legit this is canon; the coopers live on elm street, like), just as i don’t think the Jones lived in the trailer park all Jughead’s life 

(also because he canonically had a treehouse at one point. things said in passing still count!!!!) 

so let’s say around age 8, Archie Andrews and his family move in next door to the Coopers. Andrews Construction is doing better—not great, but better—and in order to appease Mary’s growing restlessness, Fred thinks if he can show his wife a good, comfortable life, she’ll stop mentioning Chicago so much. so he takes out a mortgage, even if the man at the bank had seemed a little too eager to give out loans like candy.

before that, however, the Andrews and the Jones live nearby one another. not quite southside, not quite north; not quite bad, not quite great, but equal. 

Archie and Jughead are inseparable—in that Archie has an utter lack of boundaries and completely misses the dismissive social cues from a shy, quiet little boy who has never been good at making friends. 

what starts as being thrown together in a very rudimentary and machismo concept of a preschool at a construction site becomes a genuine friendship, if not albeit one that still halfway requires proximity in order to function 

and then the Andrews move, and FP is helping with boxes, and Jug is there to check out Archie’s new big bedroom in the big new house when he spots a little hand quickly disappearing behind a pink curtain across the way

he asks Archie then if they have neighbors and in a distracted voice, he says something to the effect of uh, yeah, i guess, but look at my tv, jug! 

they come downstairs and FP is looking around with his lips pressed together, a sense of wariness that Jughead will not know how to place at age 8 but will learn to not much later

(here is where my headcanon gets syrupy: the Jones were also a founding family. they ran a glass blowing factory that made the maple syrup jugs for the Blossoms—until Forsythe the First picked a fight with old man flower dick and got blacklisted and lost everything) 

(FP Jones, once the official Big Man On Campus, the boy with the sleek black camaro and money to spare, quickly learns what his life is worth) (his father turns to the drink and bitterness is a sweet fruit upon first bite)

(but hence, the name JUGhead, because life is a cruel joke)

the doorbell rings like the bell tower at high noon and Why It’s The Coopers! in all of their beautiful blonde glory carrying brownies. there’s the awkward shuffling of pairing up age groups and Jughead recognizes the little hand at the window as belonging to the girl who sits at the front of his classes. 

he should’ve known that hand anywhere, because it’s constantly in the air in front of him, stretched high over her head as she answers question after question. 

and at first—that’s it. 

but then after a couple of weeks, he comes over to the Andrews’ new house and Betty Cooper is there, sitting in his usual spot on the black beanbag, and he has never been such a sucker to believe in cooties, but how dare she? 

more importantly, how dare Archie let her? 

Archie is the only friend he’s got, and he knows from a growingly keener eye on Betty that she has got plenty of friends and she can’t have his 

this wariness and increasing surliness as childhood veers closer and closer towards adolescence, bringing with it realities that he Is Too Young To Understand, Jughead, But Your Father Knows What He’s Doing, but he still thinks he’s starting to 

and then the summer of pee-wee football arrives. they’re 11 going on 12, and suddenly Archie can’t hang out in the weeklong intervals Jughead has become accustomed to. when he shows up on his bicycle at the Andrews only to be reminded of this, he starts to turn away, when he hears a little voice calling to him from over the fence

it’s Betty Cooper, and she wants to know if he wants to go for a bike ride because oh my god, she just got a new one and she’s sooo excited to ride it and Look At The Tassels!!!Jughead! and he’s about to say um no way and how old are you that you still want tassels on your bike when that rattling mouth of hers offers him sandwiches and chips and lemonade and all that’s in his house right now is instant oatmeal so fine, Betty, Fine

they ride down to the river and end up talking about their favorite movies and books—and jesus, she really likes The Mists of Avalon, but besides that, she actually has decent taste and they vow to make Archie suffer through a classics night 

(and Archie absolutely hates Casablanca, the ending bothers him so much, and won’t hear the defenses from Betty and Jughead)

(but then they make him watch it again when Betty’s friend Kevin finds out she watched his favorite movie without him and it starts all over again)

that year, Jughead finds himself almost thinking that sometimes he likes spending time with Betty more than Archie, but he’ll never let himself admit it. he’s a purist, and Archie was there first. Archie is his best friend, even if lately all he wants to do is talk about girls and pee-wee sports

there’s a touch of irony when Jughead thinks about the fact that Betty is technically a girl too and he might think about her as much as Archie talks about Valerie and Cheryl and Josie and—

Jughead doesn’t dwell on it. he doesn’t.

and then they’re 13, and things really start to change. he’s shooting up faster than they can afford new pants, and so is Archie, minus the financial obstacles. Betty too. her hair seems brighter, her skin seems softer, and she finds an affinity for lip gloss

(Archie is the only one who doesn’t seem to notice, because by golly she’s good ol Betts! and pass the pizza, dude)

(Jughead thinks it doesn’t seem to bother her so much as it makes her transformation into a teenage girl all the more willful)

(—he also knows that her home life is stressful, and in a different way, just as stressful as his own—even if he can’t think about it too hard without needing deep breaths—)

Betty admits to him one afternoon by the river that her mom wants her to be so perfect and she doesn’t know what that means anymore. 

but then he sees her figure it out—perfect grades, perfect dress, perfect smile. 

perfect boyfriend.

people in their grades are starting to pair up and it’s freaking Jughead the fuck (*hell, sorry, he’s still 13) out, but nothing freaks him out as much as the fact that Betty is acting so weird around Archie now

he thinks what bothers him most is the way he can feel time pressing in on like a brick meeting mortar. things are changing and he hates it and he just wants to be watching movies in Betty’s basement and throwing popcorn at the tv with his friends, not watching her frown every time Archie watches a girl walk by

but what can he do? he’s not the perfect boyfriend. he’s not the one on the football track. he’s not all-american anything, unless you count trailer trash, because, well, that’s where he lives now

(as the narrator here, i must insert that what jughead is feeling at this juncture is less a crush and more the wistful nostalgia for the one he could’ve had)

(if only he had been born into a different family, he thinks to himself one night)

and that’s where he pulls back, because he’s getting a little sick of constantly thinking about paradigm shifts (a term he now understands and has rocked his world view) (ouroboros will be next) 

he dodges texts, he briefly entertains lunches at the AV club room until the school cuts the program because We’re Sorry Mr. Jones, but One Student Does Not a Club Make, until Betty swoops in like his goddamn white knight and insists she is in the club and now they can’t cancel it! 

and his attempts at pulling away are briefly loped off.

until high school.

freshman year is every thought he’s ever thought multiplied by ten, including all the ones about Betty Cooper. 

as the narrator, i again interrupt to remind the reader that this is not so much pining as it is defensive frustration—Archie keeps getting Perfecter, Betty is getting Perfecter, and they are going to be Perfecter together and they’ll realize that Jughead is not part of the picture they want to be painting and soon he’ll be avoided and next year, Archie will probably be shoving him into lockers like Reggie Mantle

and that’s why, when the summer before sophomore year rolls around, and Betty is going to Los Angeles for her internship and Archie starts acting cagey, he accepts this as the inevitable, and bows out, thankful for the time he did have

but that’s the summer that everything changes 

#bughead #riverdale #betty cooper #jughead jones #archie andrews #meta #i told you this would be a lot #relax sarah!!! #headcanon #fics #kind of #this is not really a oneshot but it could be #crawledoutofthesea

[feynites]

have you ever heard of the elysian fields (or Elysium)? it's a kind of Greek heaven where you could 'live' how you pleased and do what you wanted. I believe you could also make it look how you wanted to and create your own paradise. (i hope i'm not being too bold here but) would you write a story based around a girl who found paradise in a forest? I'm not much of a writer but it's an idea i can't get rid of. sorry to bother you, don't worry if it doesn't interest you i just thought i'd ask ^-^ x

Now, here is the trick to mortal man’s mind:

It cannot abide a paradise.

A god is a long and lonely thing. Like mountains, their kindhave been there since long before ours; and like mountains, before us, they hadno names. Mortals are but whispers to their ears. Breezes and fleetingdaydreams, our passions and pains, insults and even worship are beneath theirnotice, contrary to what we ourselves might claim. The mountain does not carethat it has a name.

But it should.

Because the mortal mind cannot abide a paradise. A paradiseis endless beauty. It is the power and untouchability of the gods. Safety,plentitude, and eternity.

Ask your ancestors, who lived but the blink of a god’s eyeago, what paradise was shaped like. They might tell you, honeyed fruit andcomfortable shade, sweet ocean winds, and soft places to rest their heads.Bodies that do not tire, or grow ill, and endless summer days in which tofrolic and play and delight in one another’s company.

How soon the mortal mind grows bored with its success. Howeasily the first paradises began to fail. The minds of mortals are written upontheir souls. Sweet fruit. Cool shade. Long days.

Days upon days upon days, until the taste of the fruit wasunwelcome, and the complacency of the shade grew dull, and the endlessdiversions of athleticism and play no longer seemed endless. Give it enoughtime and all sweetness will sour, without change enough to renew it. The longertime draws on, the more change is needed. The harder it is to go back, torepeat, to remain.

Ask your grandparents what paradise looks like, and theymight tell you it is a garden. Or a golf course. Or a spa. It is eternity withloved ones, or even with countless diversions. But none of it would hold.

Paradise, in the mortal mind, in a mortal soul, can onlylive in a moment. That is why the mountain should care that it is has a name.Why the gods intimidate and appease and avoid, by turns, the children of thisgreen glass globe.

However old and unconcerned the mountain is – what mortalsname, they can destroy.

Gods are made for paradise. For eternity. Unchanging,delighting, and content in all they are. But mortal souls persist with mortalminds. And the gods are growing fearful, these days. For Elysium is empty, andthe heavens are being abandoned, and the torments of eternal punishment can,too, lose all meaning as they become simply dull and mundane. What mortalssouls in time can become, the gods themselves do not know.

But what we in life do to mountains, in death, we may well doto the gods.

 ~

 You wake in a forest.

You don’t live in a forest. Didn’t live in a forest, anyway. Or near to one. You lived in acity. Glass and concrete, with plantlife confined in neat little rows, andlimited to gardens and small parks and the fancy hedges out in front ofwealthier homes. When you were younger, you had indulgent grandparents whowould take you to the city’s biggest park. You loved nothing more than goingthere. Losing yourself among the old trees, and their massive roots, andlistening to the peacocks cry, and the ocean strike the sea wall near the parkroads. Pointing out plants and birds and squirrels to your grandparents.Imagining what might live in the hollow of massive, old trees, and watchingsunlight fall through the canopy, and feeling small and young and surrounded bymany old and mysterious things.

But that was long ago. A memory of a moment of paradise,that somehow grew sweeter in your mind as the years passed, and yourgrandparents passed, and your world seemed to veer away from all the thingsthat delighted you. Into cold buildings and grey streets, schools you hated andpeople you hated even more. Bitterness came dressed in glass and stainlesssteel, and the shine of headlights, and erratic flicker of streetlamps.

There is none of that, when you wake.

Just forest.

Beautiful forest, deep and thick and far as the eye can see.You feel light. You move easily, and without the barest notion of pain. But youcan still feel things. The sunlight’s warmth on your skin, and the breezeblowing through your hair, and the soft mulch beneath your feet. The scent oflife is all around you. The sound of familiar and unfamiliar animals calling,and branches rustling, and some babbling brook passing unseen in the distance.There are trees around you as vast as skyscrapers; and others as small anddainty as flowers. Mushrooms, too, seem to come in all shapes and colours andsizes. There are flowers the unfurl as you walk past, and vines that hanginvitingly from branches that look more than sturdy enough to climb.

Paradise.

For a long time, you simply wander through it all. You knowthat you are dead. You would have that might distress you, once upon a time,and in a way you think that it does. But there is no immediacy to that distress. It exists like the knowledge at theback of your mind. That you are dead, and this is paradise, and there is nogoing back except by way of memory. You wander, and for a while you find onlyplants, and hear animals but do not see them. But then you find a nest ofbright-feathered birds, and watch them, too, as you settle into the hollowbetween a great tree’s roots, and watch the breeze blow leaves and feathersalike into soft whirls and currents.

You are very calm. Trauma has not followed you here. Youthink about your life, and hopes and dreams, and the people you left behind.You wonder if you can find your grandparents, and when you do, you know thatyou can. That they are out there, somewhere, in their own paradise; and it iseasy enough for them to find you, or for you to find them. Or anyone else youcare to, so long as you both wish for it. There are people who might try tofind you, dead souls who would look, but who you would not to see. And so theywill never find your paradise.

It would not really be paradise, if they could.

Instead they will find an image of you. An illusion of you,that they will never know is not real. The same is true of any of those whowould rather be without you, and the first moment of unease since your deathcomes to you, then. Because what if someone you love only ever sees you againas an illusion? What if you never have the chance to make amends? You left somethings unfinished. Many things, in fact. People you care about might hate you.People might never forgive you, and how would you even know?

You let it go, at length. It is hard not to, in this calmand beautiful place, which encourages a certain degree of contemplation. Evennow that you have met eternity, of a sort, you do not really still believe init. There is something in you that repels the notion. This may be the waythings are now, but ‘forever’ isstill too long for you to believe in. Things will change. Doors will open. Yoursituation will not last for always, and you can enjoy it, for now.

So, you do.

You wander your forest. And you find your grandparents, andothers, too. Old friends, and lost family, and companions. The cat you lovedlike nothing else when you were a child jumps down from the branches of one ofyour shady trees, and wanders through sweet-smelling flowers with you, andhelps you fish for motes of light in a nearby stream. The best friend you lostin highschool invites you to wander through the desert caves of her ownparadise, setting up crystals that refract the light into vivid shapes andimagines more beautiful than anything to have ever graced a cinema screen. You donot tire, but sometimes you rest for the pleasure of it. You do not knowthirst, or hunger, but sometimes you feel inclined to eat and drink anyway, totaste food or feel the bubbling trickle of soda pop on your tongue. There isalways enough for you, whatever you find yourself wanting.

And after a while, the forest begins to change. When youfind yourself wishing for caves like those of your friend’s paradise, you findone. And then another. Mossy and overgrown and different-looking – more likewhat you enjoy – but they have everything you might hope they would. Small,golden-furred monkeys help you gather up crystals, when the other souls youknow do not visit to do it, and you make art and play games and deviseever-more ways to delight yourself. You find treasures, and go on adventures,and sometimes you simply float down the waters of your stream, watchingbranches sway and listening to the whispers of knowing the come to you. That sometimes tell you whenever anothersoul you know has passed, or whenever something in your paradise has changed.

It takes you a long, long time. Longer than you think youcould have ever marked when you were alive.

But eventually, you begin to hate it.

You try many things to avoid that. It is not a pleasantfeeling. So you change the forest. You change yourself. You visit others, moreand more, and you conjure new things, as often as you can. You make up stories.Lovers and adventures and dramas that drag you at your own whims. You smashcrystals and burn trees and build towers only to, inevitably, tear them backdown again. You set paradise ablaze, and you know that in the blink of an eye itwill be perfectly fine again. Ready to be burned down again, to the objectionsof no one, unless you conjure up someone specifically to object.

And so, eventually, you simply burn it all to sand and dustand then darkness. You sit in the dark, and you know that this is nothing. Thatyou are nowhere.

A long time passes. Or, possibly, it does not. Time mattersas little as anything else. But after a while, you become aware of a sort oflight. Like a star, but, it has been a long time since you saw things the waythat you did when you were alive. A long time since you looked up at a nightsky, and felt small and young, and surrounded by things that were old andmysterious.

Below the edges of the star, there is a mountain.

You did not make it. The mountain is no one’s paradise. Andthough you search your thoughts, you find, somehow, that you do not know whatit is. Where it comes from, or what seeing it means. You think, and wonder, andwatch the light ripple at the edges of it. Is it even a mountain? No answerscome. You try to blot it out with the darkness, but you are not really seeing it. Nor the star above. They arenot things you are making; they are more… things you have somehow, now, realizedare there.

Where?

Elsewhere.

You pick yourself up, after a time. Pick yourself up, forwhatever is left of ‘you’, after all this. It has been a long time sinceanything really felt new, or strange, or beyond you. You try to move towardsthe mountain, but you find it is always the same distance away. In that elsewhere that is not paradise, that isnot a place you can reach. But you know you are not the only one moving towardsit. You can feel them. Others you’ve known, others you’ve loved, who have beensitting in their own darkness. Who had lost meaning for you, along witheverything else. But as you press forwards, insistent, searching, you rememberthat they are real.

That you are real.

The moment of paradise is done. However long it takes, now,you will move on. You will find the mountain. What then, you do not know. Butyou do not think it is anything you can understand as you are now.

And that is the most amazing relief you have ever felt.

#filled prompt #original writing #Anonymous