#Bake Culture

[crustycrow]

HETEROSEXUAL CIS-PEOPLE LOOK HERE

Snaps my fingers at you as you scroll past this post

Look at me. Listen.

I'm not the best at serious posts, but that article up there reminded me of how important it is that people like you stand up for us. So hold on while I try to get this out of my mushy end-of-work-day brain.

We could fight this fight ourselves for decades trying to reach the equal laws, gender affirming trans healthcare that doesn't have a 2-5+ soul-eating years of waiting time, medical care with equal knowledge of lgbtqia+ bodies, and, what is often forgotten, inclusion in the little everyday areas of life like our way of speaking or things being set up or designed with the existence of queer people in mind.

But you joining in could get us there so much faster.

The power you have as a hetero cis person is that you set the standard for what is seen as the average way of treating us among other hetero cis people. You have been given the power of deciding what's "normal" and I'm begging you to use it.

Richard Green is a great example of to what extent your actions can help our situation, and smaller ways of support still add up to a great impact on society, and could make the days of the queer people you interact with.

Educate yourself before you speak up, but don't be silent.

[toyastales]

Caramel Cheesecake 🍰

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Ten Years Too Good

It is with heavy heart that we regret to inform you that the initial report on beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure did, in fact, occur on this day ten years ago. One decade, comin' right up. Of course, it wasn't until a year later that the practice of categorizing our blorbos as cinnamon rolls began.

Tumblr, wherever you are on this Tuesday, please enjoy the swirly breads.

[sugas6thtooth]

Food from the beautiful culture of the Palestinians🇵🇸🍉!! This genocide must end! Their lives and culture must be preserved!!

[cuterefaction]

Trektober Day 13 - Baking. TBH I'd like to draw about two dozen different Star Trek characters baking, but since Odo is canonically bamboozled by the concept of stirring he had to take it :) (it's okay, Sisko will help him fix whatever happens)

[useless-catalanfacts]

Making panellets for the Castanyada festivity (October 31st) 🍪🍠🌰

Original video (without English subtitles): bet_molina on Tiktok.

Bona Castanyada!

[marzipanandminutiae]

Intentionally dumbing down programmes is bad, but I am very confused about this weird painting of having a show on while doing something else as a)new and b)evil

I remember the TV in my grandma's kitchen. Angled away from where she would cook, towards the table, and always on. Same with my other grandma, but the TV was in the living room, and it didn't matter that her sewing machine was so loud it was all you could hear, the TV was on. My father always had the TV on as well, sometimes he wasn't even in the same room.

Maybe it's a culture thing, I'm Italian, not from the US, but half watching a show while doing something else to me growing up was the norm, not the weird thing

It's weird on the part of Netflix, I think. I'm certainly not opposed to it, though like I said, if I want to pay attention to the plot I'm going to actually Watch It Intently

It's definitely a thing here, too, and has been for a while- if you watch the movie Titanic, at the beginning Rose's granddaughter has the news on while they're doing other things around the house. it's only when the piece about the Titanic comes on that Rose tells her to turn the TV up so she can pay attention

(my parents actually clashed about this when I was growing up- Dad grew up with six siblings and two parents who worked, so Background TV was a thing even thought the tech was relatively new. Mom grew up in a more sedate household where watching TV was something you focused entirely on, and the TV was off otherwise. they drove each other crazy about it)

what's strange, I think, is changing serious narrative programs that are trying to tell a story to account for the assumption that people won't be paying attention. because like I said...I think most people don't use something they want to Actively Watch as background noise in that way

[elancholia]

People in the late 20th century thought the fundamental arc of human history was exploration, whereas now it looks like it's information processing.

In traditional science fiction, the historically progressive human urge is wanderlust, the pull of unknown geography, horror vacui or amor vacui depending on how you look at it. Those writers invoke the elapse of time that separated Kitty Hawk from the moon landing. They recite a procession of discoverers that includes Columbus or the Polynesians and whose next logical steps are space colonization and superluminal travel. Era-defining technologies are transportation technologies. You still get this now, sometimes. In a much-dunked-upon scene in Star Trek: Discovery (2017), a character's litany of great inventors includes the Wright brothers, the guy who invented FTL, and Elon Musk.

The corresponding fear, of course, is alien invasion—that we are not Columbus but the Indians.

Now, the developments actually restructuring people's lives are either of the computer or on the computer. The PC, the internet, smartphones, social media, LLMs. Bits, not atoms. It has been this way for some time, though it hasn't fully made its way into culture. The progenitors of the new future are writing, the printing press, the abacus. We can see the arc clearly in retrospect, now that the future seems likely to be defined by machine learning.

Just as before, there is some anxiety that our trajectory will lead us into the grip of alien intelligences, horrendous and devouring.

If you go back to the period stretching (roughly) from the late 19th century through the Second World War, stories often hinge on wonder-substances and novel fundamental forces. This was, of course, an era in which a new force or element was turning up every other week. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting one. They discovered guncotton when some guy left his fouled lab coat next to an oven. Hence, Vril, the Ray, the "eighth and ninth solar rays" of Burroughs's Mars. In later stories, this sort of stuff is generally secondary, though superhero fiction preserves more of the old mentality.

[punkbakerchristine]

cinnamon babka 🍂🍁

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

im tempted to lock an ashkenazi jew and an amish/mennonite person in a kitchen with all the ingredients and tools they could hope for just to see what incredible, earth-shatteringly delicious dessert they make

[mavlabajuri]

"Rohak cuyi parjai, jorcu shi adol rohak gar hibir."

- Defeat is victory, because only through defeat do you learn.

The difference between a novice and a master is that a master has failed more times than a novice has tried. Or, if you prefer, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something. If your fear of mistakes and faliure is so great that you don't even try, you will never achive greatness. (lit. defeat is victory, because only through defeat you learn)

[pocketramblr]

you know im thinking. im thinking maybe Yoichi wasn't even that into captain hero as an adult, but AfO kept bringing LITERALLY every conversation back to that because he decided to Be The Demon Lord and so Yoichi like, can't get an argument in unless he uses the same material so he's like 'oh my god i haven't even thought about that comic in ten years but even i know the bad guy didn't win. you should not be basing you whole identity, business model, and world destruction plan on your five-second impression of a comic book bad guy who didn't even win! also you shouldn't kill people!'

[aro-culture-is]

aro (allopl) culture is (from the anon who gives lots of flowers to their friends) also cooking (mostly baked goods) for your friends as a way to show them you love them! "Oh but giving someone x y z type of baked goods is romantic" "oh but putting that amount of effort on meals for someone has to be romantic (3+ hours)" WRONG!!!! 🔪🔪🔪🔪 my friends are getting nice food because they're great and no one can stop me *evil laugh*

.

[sugas6thtooth]

Zaltan Manakische! More food from Palestinian Cuisine! Follow Mariam on TikTok @mxriyum for more recipes!! Palestinians are humans with lives, cultures, memories, and dreams!! Do not let Israel eradicate the people of Palestine!! 🍉🇸🇩

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Ukrainian Easter: paska (sweetened bread) and pysanky (hand-painted eggs).

[domesticice]

On being Kalina, Sylvaire, and the restoration of a homeland

Sometimes you're a goddess's familiar. And then your goddess dies and becomes a nightmare king, and you're left as a disembodied plague for 850 years while your homeland crumbles into dust and brambles and all the original people who remember Sylvaire as it was age and die, exiled from their homeland where they were immortal, leaving their children and grandchildren to carry the faint memories of the beforetimes.

And then sometimes you decide to solve that problem by kidnapping your old partner's kid and throwing him onto the streets to struggle and survive and then swoop in and teach him how to be your hands in the mortal world (shoutout to Midnight Oil and @thecryptidzenith).

In some worlds, you get defeated and the Nightmare King restored to their original form. And in some worlds... you win. Your boy is a prince and your ancient kingdom is restored and you have a body back and your old partner and his wife to torment and your home to explore.

So why aren't you happy?

your mom is back from the dead. mom? why isn't she talking to you?

The Call

Kalina stood in the deepest part of the castle, alone. The room here was in even more disarray than the rest of the building: the glazed floor tiles bubbling up with tree roots and crazed webs of cracks spread across the stone walls. The roots raced along from the walls to the floor to the centre of the room, then up into a twisting embrace sheltering a polished chunk of obsidian that pulsed with a quiet, steady magic.

She had long since lost track of where the hell she was, having followed too many staircases and passages. She had climbed down enough stairs that she should be deep underground, she had thought, but sunlight streamed in hazy rays through grimy windows.

It had taken weeks of exploration to track down the small chamber Kalina barely remembered from when she was a kitten, padding after Cassandra with a soft ribbon curled around her neck. The corridors had twisted and warped every time she left and returned, leaving her to begin her search again and again as she prowled decaying scent memories from her old life until she was ready to nearly scream in frustration. 

Finally she had given in and wheedled a packet of provisions off their new cook — thank the gods for Leska. If she'd had to put up with another night of spaghetti and jarred sauce served to her by a girl who looked on the verge of emotional collapse, Kalina didn't think she could be held responsible for her actions — and set off to search for three days straight. 

Not like she had much else to do. Riz was doing the hard work around here, nearly buried in it. It was good for him. Kept him busy so he didn’t have time to dwell on the past and all its fuck ups, and it wouldn't do for her boy to get soft and reliant in having her around all the time. 

Plus entertaining herself catching up with her old friends only took up so much time. Sleeping did too. Gods above, it took up so much time. And eating and cleaning herself and that stupid heat that swept over her body and made it impossible to think straight—

Down below in the depths, the weight of centuries pressed down on her, deep in the crumbled heart of what should have been her home. It wasn't what she had had. This wasn't what she had lost. 

The stone hummed. She didn't need to consult Riz about this— or anything.The kingdom was as ready as it would ever be. Word had already started to trickle out and more and more people were showing up, bright-eyed and hopeful and painfully naive, at every border town.

Time to speed things up. Kalina was done being patient. 

Neatly slicing through the pad of her paw with a single sharp claw, she let the blood fall.

She placed one paw on the bramble-encased obsidian and let the feeling flow through her, pouring every drop of homesickness and loss and grief and hiraeth into the stone. She let the longing for what had been and what could be again build until her bones were shaking with it. 

The energy surged, blazing brighter and brighter until Kalina had to throw up a paw to shield her eyes. It splintered into a hundred thousand strands, quivering with eagerness for the command. 

And the call went out. 

~~~

Sandra Lynn staggered, nearly losing her grip on her mug. It was like a hook sunk deep into her insides, slipping past her ribs to anchor into her soul like a fish caught on a line. 

She could hear bells tolling, a chime that smelled like pine and sap and wet earth and the sea salt spray of the ocean. A voice rattled her mind, wordless and beyond language, comprehension beamed directly into her skull. 

come home. come back. bring your families, return to your roots. Sylvaire will welcome you with open arms. 

The pattern on her mug danced, leaching off the porcelain and crawling under her skin. It swirled and writhed and then bloomed into vines, the patterns winding their way from her fingertips up her arms. The movement was hypnotic and Sandra Lynn watched, entranced. 

A tangle of memories knotted in her chest. The scent of baked apples, dusted with spices that couldn’t be found in Solace, bedtime stories about the treants who walked the forests of Sylvaire, wistful tales of the Before Times spoken with the bittersweetness of loss. Drawn-out screaming fights between her parents, the Sylvan spoken too fast and agitated for her to even begin to parse, no matter how much she strained. 

A pounding drumbeat sang in her ears.

home, home, home. come home. build it higher, build it stronger, build it better, build it. come home and live forever. come home and be free. 

Some distant part of her knew that this wasn't real, that it was a vision. But it felt realer than anything she had ever lived. Trees sprung up around her, towering high and dripping with vines and moss. Her kitchen was bursting, roots tearing through the linoleum, petrichor in the air. Motes of light danced in the air, dappled greengold like sunlight filtered through the forest canopy. 

It felt like all she had to do was close her eyes and leap. 

And then it was over, snapped back into her body like nothing had ever happened, like she wasn't standing in her ordinary kitchen with a gaping hole in her chest. Sandra Lynn touched her cheeks and her fingertips came away wet with tears. 

~~~

The light swirled, humming with potential. It danced across the nine winds and tugged on the shirtsleeves of her lost children, peering into their hearts and souls. 

~~~

Alone in a dimly-lit apartment building, a balding man set down his cup of lemon yogurt and let his breath catch in his chest for a second. 

~~~

A young girl firing arrow after arrow after arrow into a paper target, her face set into a scowl. Her hands stuttered as she reached for the next arrow in her quiver. The burning pulse of ruby red crystal shards embedded in her skin cooled for just a moment, the angry red buried in soft moss. 

There must have been a door or a window cracked, further down the hallway. The scent of the sea was rolling in, the smell of the fresh air and salt almost burning her nose. She grabbed another arrow, landing it dead center in the target. 

~~~

A woman paused, her hands midway through kneading dough as the sudden ache and loss flared in her heart, teasing her with promise.  

No thank you, she told it politely. She anchored herself more deeply into the simplicity of the holly tree. Maybe one day. When Danielle was grown, maybe she’d take Winona by the hand and let the green of her ancestors’ homeland fill that little ache in her chest that had been there ever since she had asked her grandmother where she was from…

~~~

Alone in the moss-splotched room, Kalina waited in silence for a long, long time, but nothing happened. Blood dripped quietly onto the tiled floor, drying brown against the tree roots. The loudest thing was the ringing in her ears. 

Closing her eyes, she reached out for her— to the Nightmare King. 

Nothing. Like always. 

Suddenly furious, Kalina kicked a rock, letting her blood pound hot in her muscles and chase away the cold queasiness. Ears flat, she stalked out of the room as the door slammed behind her satisfyingly. Where was the kid? Wasn't it supposed to be cleaning up the rooms around here?