#The World Isn't What It Seemed

[conniechiwal]

She's so real for this

[uncanny-tranny]

Whenever people who are entrenched in diet culture talk about how terrible chemicals are, I just want to whip out this:

[fairyroses]

He was about to kill you, Lex. Or divulge something you didn't want me to know.

— SMALLVILLE, "Forever" (4.21)

+ bonus from "Arctic" (7.20):

[despoticmouse]

If Spearmaster ripped off the flesh covering where it’s mouth would be, would there just be a hole, a normal mouth, or a deformed mouth under there? Would it be able to consume food through whatever is under there?

Ehhh let’s agree not to worry about any of that 🫡

[scoriarose]

The Language of Love

If you are already convinced snakes are incapable of love, this post is not for you. But if you are open to the possibility that maybe they do, and maybe they love us too, this post explores that thought. Perhaps snakes feel it differently, perhaps they feel it the same humans do- though even humans experience love, be it platonic or romantic, differently from individual to individual. Different people also show their love in different ways as well! Yet still even with a divide between species most of us have felt love from our furry and feathered friends. Perhaps our scaly friends are also telling us they love us, we just might not understand.

When I first got my girl Scoria, if I could tell her only one thing it would be, "I love you." When I held her, I wondered if she understood how much I cared about her, and would do anything to protect her. When I pet her, I wondered if she knew how amazing I thought she was and enjoyed spending time with her.

And then I started watching livestreams of wild snakes, and how they act toward each other. (The above still is from Project Rattle Cam!) When the babies see a trusted adult, they slither all over them! How many times had my girl happily slithered all over me going no where in particular? I imagine that my finger petting her soft as a feather was probably quite similar to another snake greeting her in such a way.

Sakura is much more shy, yet wants to form a bond with me. I see it when she fights her fear to vibe with me. Sometimes she'll sit for hours at the edge of her tank nearest me, not wanting to come out, but just be near me.

Snakes like rattlesnakes and garter snakes will vibe peacefully with each other, with baby rattlesnakes sleeping near the adult rattlesnakes they trust to keep them safe.

Perhaps, when our shy snakes sits with us, facing their fears they're saying, "I'm scared, but I want to be closer with you." And maybe when our snakes slither all over us, going nowhere in particular, like their wild counterparts do with each other they're saying, "I'm so happy to see you! You're my favorite to be with!" I wonder if they could tell us one thing it would be "I love you, best friend!" And it's okay, best friend. I love you too, and already know. <3

[tropicalcontinental]

What if he was human chat (he is human)

[radiance1]

Mystic Flour Cookie and Child Reader drabble

"Not even the very gods are immune to suffering." Mystic Flour Cookie whispered softly as she ran a hand through your hair. She knew not the reason, nor the power, that had brought you from your world into that of her own. But she couldn't find it within herself to be irritated or disquieted about that fact.

In fact, she could even say she was... pleased.

Whatever power had granted her one true desire... She was thankful to it. To drag the very god that pulled her from the void, imbuing her very dough with strength, bestowing upon her only but the best of toppings and a beascuit leaps and bounds ahead of others to lessen the time between each use of her power.

Even granting her own wishes.

Doing away with the flesh of your divine body in exchange for crispy, fresh dough. Infused with the divinity that you so truly deserved, despite having no level of enlightenment and then, to have you descend upon none other than her. For her to be the first and only one to be granted the privilege of laying eyes upon your new vessel.

Yes.

She was pleased.

"One day, you and I shall crumble, too." She murmured, staring at you through half-lidded eyes. She wiped away the tears at the edges of your eyes with the edge of her sleeve. "Yet that day, shall not be today."

Such a truly benevolent deity you were. This kingdom... Its Cookies... Their ideals of peace, friendship, love and joy. All of it, would be non-existent without you, without the very foundation you laid out for them... The effort and time you put into a world not even your own.

Even going as far as granting wishes.

Cookies... Such greedy creatures. They cannot, will not, comprehend the true depths your very presence entailed, what effort and suffering you had gone through to make this kingdom as truly grand as it was.

They will take you for granted, just as the Cookies of far ages past had done for her. Taking and taking, wanting and wanting, demanding more, and more from the deity that merely wanted the best for them.

In the end, the greed of those who you wished to keep happy would be your downfall....

But why would she let you go through such suffering, to reach the same conclusion she had reached herself....?

You were here. Safe with her. Only, with her.

And the Realm of Apathy shallow envelop you... Welcome you... Protect you....

Yes...

She smiled, eyes slipping closed as he continued to run a hand through your hair.

The greed of Cookies... The suffering and woes of life... Apathy shall shield you from all.

Until the day you, and she, returns to flour....

[stopper-my-heart]

Nothing like Heartstopper S2E8 removing some of Taylor Swift's "seven" lyrics just so that the singing can specifically come back in at "Or hide in the closet" while Isaac is processing difficult emotions related to the book he's reading (i.e., Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen).

Did I mention "Or hide in the closet" hits just as the camera focus finishes shifting away from Isaac?

This is fine

[vaguely-concerned]

Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[twpsyn-who]

No way people are actually complaining about Billy trying to find his twin brother rather than go after his mom 💀

Tell me you're an only child without telling me you're an only child fr

[jq37]

What is it that the Rat Grinders actually want exactly? Or at least, what does Kipperlilly want since she's the one we know the most about.

At the top of the season it seemed like she wanted to Be The Best at school and Be Recognized in a very Tracy Flick/Sara Berry kind of way and was just going to crazy lengths to get there because this is a world where you help a dragon kidnap girls so you can be Prom Queen and life goes on. But now we know that the Rat Grinders are a part of Porter's larger plan and one of the major steps of that plan is completely abolishing Aguefort as an institution.

It's clear what Porter gets out of this. He gets to be a god and he gets to continue his imperialistic family legacy. And I would maybe get what Kipperlilly would get out of this is she were the Cleric/Paladin of the plan. She'd get to be the new god's champion, like she was gushing to Lucy. That's maybe worth something to an achievement hunting, Type A individual.

But she's not gonna get to be the best student at Aguefort if Aguefort doesn't exist anymore. Hell, Elmville won't really exist anymore. Is Porter planning on opening a new Adventuring School in Rage Elmville and she gets to be the god Principal's pet? Does she think he's gonna make things "fair" for her somehow? How? Retroactively killing her parents? Does she want to use the powers she cheesed from the easy XP he drip fed her to be a renown adventurer? Kinda hard to pull that off when everyone knows you were part of the plan that doomed the town. Maybe she thought they were going to get away with it without being implicated? Does she literally not want anything other than a chance to kill the Bad Kids? Or even pettier, to just to be stronger than Riz? Is that worth it to her? To damn the whole town just so she can say that she beat Riz once? Did she want something concrete at one point but at this point she's just lost in the sauce and doing whatever the next task is without knowing what she'd even do with a victory if she got it? Did she already get what she wanted in the free XP and now she's just paying her end of the bargain?

I'm just very unsure about what her version of a happy ending is here.

[uncanny-tranny]

So often, twink death is framed as a bad thing. However, the "twink death" for trans men* is frankly one of the most healing things you will bear witness to (pun intended).

[meownotgood]

a lot of the time and I mean like once per week I somewhat wish that I wrote ship fics like a normal person instead of x reader. the problem is. I am not normal

[bayetea]

seeing non-black people critique rick's portrayal of black characters is interesting sometimes. only like 30% of the critiques I see make any sense to me to be honest

[rawliverandgoronspice]

given that seems to be the new popular take in the fandom at large since totk got out: let the record show that I'll gladly let myself get repeatedly manipulated by the wind waker speech and be foolishly moved by its implications over rejecting space for humanity and vulnerability in the monstrous and the dispossessed, and then feeling weirdly smug about severing that fleeting attempt at connection and deem it obviously insincere