probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Alright, since it’s no longer 2 in the morning and my head’s a bit clearer, I present to you:
Liminal Riddler
So, not everyone in the DC fandom knows about this, and I’d bet that even less people in the Phandom do, but at one point, the Riddler had cancer. Had, past-tense, because he cured it. With the Lazarus pits.
And yeah, not everyone who gets dipped in the pits has to be liminal, but one would assume that the sudden replacement of a large number of malignant cells throughout the body is gonna do something.
The Riddler already acts quite a lot like a DP ghost in some interpretations anyways. He’s got a strict gimmick that he genuinely can’t part ways with, he’s campy and fun, he’s incredibly violent, etc.
Also, the way that he would react to this whole thing would be funny as hell.
Do I think the Riddler would really care if the GiW was after him? No. This is Gotham, the government is constantly going after him anyways.
Do I think he would care if Danny was being hunted down by the same people, and his parents were involved? Somewhat. He probably wouldn’t care about Danny specifically, at least not right away, but a young boy running terrified from his own parents would definitely bring back some bad memories, and he would probably give him a hand (if for no other reason than to get back to plotting crimes instead of dealing with childhood trauma).
Do I think the Riddler, whose entire thing is being smarter than everyone else, would care if the GiW somehow let slip that they thought he didn’t have human intelligence? That they believed him to be nothing but an echo of human life?
It’s not even a question. He would be the most insufferable person in Gotham within the hour. Genuinely nothing could stop him, especially not if Danny was helping jailbreak him from Arkham every time he got caught.
Almost every major road is closed. Every warehouse on the Docks is on fire. Somehow, they managed to color the clouds and smog a bright green.
The natives of Gotham would probably get those anti-ghost laws and acts overturned faster than the Justice League, if only to make the Riddler stop. His traps and games aren’t even lethal at this point (due to Danny’s insistence), but they’re so genuinely annoying that the general population is about to beat the GiW agents to death themselves just to get the Riddler to quit it already.
Also, I think that during this whirl of chaos, the Riddler would become quite fond of Danny.
He’s a bright young boy who’s very fond of wordplay, and inventive enough to keep up with him. Aside from the inevitable crisis of “oh god I’m becoming the bat,” he’d probably be happy to take on Danny as his protégé. Even if the boy won’t let him kill anyone (rude), he’s a terrifying getaway driver and can turn the both of them invisible and intangible, making Arkham escapes a breeze.
Hell, the Riddler would probably be willing to make a false identity for the two of them, just so he could get the boy proper schooling.
(Yes, he thinks that the entire education system is a sham and that he could do much better, but Danny wants to go into aerospace engineering, and the Riddler isn’t one to squander someone’s interest in learning.)
(Also, Echo and Query would find the whole thing hilarious)
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(Edit: Thanks to the people who informed me on what Leif's species is!)
Sat down and got to finally properly render these fuckers while also settling on how I should draw them. I actually did a tiny bit of research on their respective species, took a few elements here and there but nothing to drastically change them.
So as far as I'm aware, Leif is not a specific moth but plenty of blue and red moths will usually have the eye patterns on their wings and as well as have fluff on their bodies. Had fun with the posing and if you can guess where I referenced it then you get a cookie. Thought it was neat that the original concept was that he was suppose to dance.
Vi is obviously a honey bee, they're very well known to be fuzzy. I don't have much to say besides from that but if anyone doesn't know, only females have stingers.
Now Kabbu was really testing my patience, according to the wiki it states that is he is a rainbow scarab beetle. If that is wrong then too bad, those guys are gorgeous and it took me too long to figure how to balance the colors without burning my eyes. Its faint but noticeable, just so I can still be true to the game model, also I know it's not as visible here but I realize beetle wings are very pretty.
So what's the conclusion here? There needs to be a website dedicated to bug references so I can sit there and admire them all day.
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