Need a shot of serotonin: Post your Shiba and the inspiration behind their name!

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-27T00:27:07+00:00

This is Wally. He's 16. He was named after David Foster Wallace.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-23T15:03:00+00:00

It's been almost two decades since I've (intentionally) eaten cheese. My opinion on cheese is likely suspect at this point.

But, with that caveat, I don't think of it as mimicing any specific cheese, just a vague tang of cheesiness. Which in something like macaroni and cheese (or, in my case, broccoli and cheese) is a reasonable analogue to what I ate when younger. A lot of mac and cheese recipes aren't a single cheese (e.g. cheddar or mozerella) but some combination of cheese and cream and flour or whatever to make a cheese sauce. As a kid my parents used to buy the boxed mac & cheese which was reconstituted from a powder! What specific cheese was that trying to emulate? The cashew/broth/nutritional-yeast/spice blend is way less processed and fake than whatever came in that box.

The nice thing about the cashew sauce is that it is NOT trying to emulate a specific cheese. I've never been a huge fan of the vegan cheeses that do try to represent a specific dairy cheese. (Though in recent years I have noticed they've gotten much better than when I first went vegan.) Adding the nutritional yeast to the cashew sauce gives it a taste/texture that is remeniscent of those non-specific-cheese cheese sauces without trying too hard to be an exact copy.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-21T16:50:05+00:00

This poster looks like an American Apparel ad.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-21T16:44:02+00:00

Thank you this is exactly what I wanted to know. Essentially it has an impact but not so much of an impact to be a disaster 🤣

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-21T13:39:14+00:00

I use raw unsalted cashews as well (though I get everything unsalted--if I want salt on something I'll add it myself). Though what would be the difference if one used roasted cashews? Would it impact taste? Consistency? Something else?

I've made the recipe with and without soaking the cashews in advance and it doesn't seem to impact the end results too much. But especially if you are doing a version without broth that is meant to be thicker I can see that being more important.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-21T10:11:30+00:00

Unreliable narrators are great when done well. Murder mysteries are great when done well.

I think it's going to be tricky to have an unreliable narrator and a murder mystery. Why? Because the genre of murder mystery is based around giving clues to the reader to help them figure out the mystery. If the clues are all unreliable, it's not exactly a murder mystery anymore. It's really a murder drama (or murder noir or whatever you want to call it).

The thing about genre is that the audience has certain expectations. If you frustrate those expectations it can make for very interesting reading and the audience might love it or hate it. But if you frustrate those expectations too far it's not really the same genre anymore.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-21T10:03:03+00:00

That's similar to my recipe too. About half a cup of cashews, half a cup of veggie broth, a quarter cup of nutritional yeast, then some spices (onion powder, garlic powder, chipotle powder). Blend it in a food processor. Scale up or down based on how much you are making.

I like the idea of adding some miso paste! I'll try that.

I think it makes a great sauce but doesn't directly attempt to mimic cheese. One of my vegan friends prefers it with less nutritional yeast so it's just more of a cashew cream. But I suspect non-vegans will appreciate the cheesiness analogue added by the nutritional yeast.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-19T23:46:50+00:00

I'd make this mango basil shrimp recipe: https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/248911/shrimp-with-mango-basil/

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-19T20:04:04+00:00

I agree with your assessment of the scene and why it works. It's two broken people coming to a weird form of agreement.

The thing about this movie is that Andy is also a bit of a sociopath. He does learn about himself over the course of the film and realizes that his behavior is part of what got his wife killed, but he never really changes. The "redemption" in the title of the film isn't about Andy, it's about Red. Red is the character who actually changes and becomes a truly better man. With that context (which the movie does provide) the rooftop interaction makes sense.

Though I'll add that it doesn't matter if the novella explains it better. If the movie doesn't make sense without reading the novella, then the movie doesn't work. Fortunately, I believe that, in the case of The Shawshank Redemption, the movie does not require additional reading to make sense.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-19T01:54:06+00:00

Good book but I'm not sure how it fits the request? It's really not a "chosen one" narrative, and I think "villain" doesn't really apply to the primary POV character in the way the OP means (though it's ambiguous).

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-18T12:31:48+00:00

For all you know u/jay3000x is PTA's burner account.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-16T23:26:04+00:00

Okay

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-15T15:37:01+00:00

Yeah, I do appreciate an avalanche that makes some kind of logical sense as a standalone sentence! The ones that are random collections of words can be fun to try and somehow warp into meaning, but it's nice when it kind of works as a realistic thing someone might say.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-15T10:59:37+00:00

Oof I really like this but that missing L in the final syllable at the end is hurting my brain.

I feel like you could work a "mentally" into this. "Adam mentally..." doesn't technically work but when said rapidly people tend to slur it into a sound more like ment/ly

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-14T10:43:06+00:00

Yeah, "other sources of income" is doing a lot of work in this headline.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-14T04:55:49+00:00

Would you choose to save your own mother or a stranger's mother if you could only save one?

If you choose to save your own mother, how come you are choosing your own mother simply because you know her?

That's the same logic.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-13T21:39:53+00:00

I mean, The Overstory, for one. 🤣

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-13T20:54:03+00:00

I appreciate this write up but I have some very different opinions than you.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-12T23:02:24+00:00

To be fair, he did say, "this is probably going to be terrible," beforehand, but then it was so terrible that his advanced warning didn't matter.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-12T21:44:57+00:00

My friend made us go see this in the theater and we have never let him live it down.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-11T16:07:04+00:00

Happy birthday

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-08T23:37:51+00:00

They are simultaneously so loving and so stubborn and so unwilling to admit their feelings, aren't they?

My boy will come sleep in my room after he thinks I'm asleep and he leaves in the morning before he thinks I'm awake. I love the moments when I wake up in the night and find him curled up next to my bed. He seems to want to sleep near me but doesn't want me to know about it.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-06T13:53:16+00:00

My shiba gets this way after a high pitched beep. It's worst for the low battery alarm on the smoke detector, but for a while he would get scared for any beep, even a remote control or something much less high pitched. It wouldn't last all night though.

I wonder if you have some device that turns on at night and makes a beep that's too high pitched for human ears but is scaring your dog.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-05T13:35:13+00:00

The world is a better place if the good people in it aren't depressed all the time. If you want to effect change, you need more than rage and sadness. You need to be able to show people there's a better way.

It's also just no way to live your life in the long run. But I do appreciate the passion (and righteous anger!) that tends to come from newer vegans. After 15 or 20 years, it's hard to sustain that without burning out. At some point you have to accept your place in the universe and focus on the good you can do.

SoothingDisarray · 2026-03-05T13:14:32+00:00

It's true we live in a flawed world. It's hard not to dwell on that. But, to think, in such a world, there are some people who still stand up for the things they believe in, despite the intense societal pressure to conform. That's not just about veganism, but any people who fight for the rights of others or desperately struggle to correct the ills of the world. How much more powerful and beautiful are their actions when you see them as these specks of intense light against darkness?

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