#human is fucking arbitrary

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Emotional scene from Muppets Star Trek.

[lichenteeth]

fuck gender I’m not even human dude

[rigginsstreet]

I bring a real “no person is above me and no person is beneath me so I practice empathy and compassion for everyone” vibe to the function that not many people enjoy

[poetryqueer]

planning document must be going well I just said the words “explaining the endurance of Platonism could be the life I’m living” to myself. Alone. At 2:30am. Because yeah. Could be.

[kiaroscuro]

Uploading all of these pictures makes me realize how many goddamn AUs I actually have, haha. I just,, read something I like and then bam! It's a Persona AU. I mostly, uh, daydream (?) or imagine (??) the scenarios and then need visual representation if I think it's worth revisiting... tell me I'm not the only one? My brain's full of 20 different tabs and one of them plays music. Another blasts memes. The third is rehashing the emotionally exhausting scene I keep trying to pen down for the eight time.

One is obsessed with cats.

(also, this is like, blanket permission for everyone to become inspired and do their own thing with some of these ideas, haha. And tag me if you want!)

Anyways, if we're already talking about AUs!

I like to call this "everyone's a supernatural creature except Ren" because,, that's the main idea. There's three big factions and a lot of smaller ones, and Shujin is an inclusive school for the supernatural as well as regular humans. It's pretty canon except the Metaverse is, like, a coveted realm of consciousness that higher-ranking faction officials try to get their hands on to use it for their own nefarious gains.

A few individuals already have their hands in it, but a rebel group -- consisting of the fey Arsene, Milady and Morgana the fey-aligned and the other persona -- do their best to keep thw conspiracy from gaining full control over the Metaverse. Haru, Ryuji and Ann are also already involved: Haru is helping the rebellion, Ryuji and Ann are antagonistic against her.

Ren knows literally nothing about this, hangs around Ryuji mostly because they're friends, and then an injured Morgana stumbles into his life and Ren gets sucked into the rebellion quickly once he figures out that Shido's the asshole that got him into Shujin in the first place.

Cue everyone being extremely worried about the only human on their group.

[birchbow]

How is asexuality viewed in society in PoF? Is it considered normal for some trolls to just ignore concupiscent quadrants?

I mean, as an ace person writing an Id-fic sex-drama I'd love to say "oh I'm sure people would be cool about it!"--and to be fair, I don't know that anybody outside your quadrants would care much if you liked sex, as long as you could still Do Your Duty To The Empire? But there is a HARD minimum amount of fucking for trolls and that is: when the Mother Grub's drones come around, you give them your bucket of slurry or you die.

Being sex-repulsed or dragging your feet too much to figure out concupiscient partners is actively putting yourself in danger of being culled--as well as any partners you do find, if the drones show up and you can't contribute. So like, unfortunately no, man, I don't think being ace would go over super well with trolls. And tbh, they're kind of culturally awful to each other about everything, so they'd probably be dicks about it like they're dicks about a lot of things haha.

[machinavocis]

.

[queerplatonicsolid]

if i had a nickel for every he/they commutative algebraist phd student in the midwest i'd have 2-3 nickels depending on the day

[justrandomthoughtsandthings]

you know what's funny? all the Justice Leage|DC x Danny Phantom crossover fics, that start with or otherwise include the premise of the Justice League (often led by Justice League Dark, and John Constantine in particular) summoning the new Ghost King to ascertain his threat status.

like. there's something very human about that. believing that, because you have named yourselves the defenders of your world, that you have any authority to demand answers of interdimensional royalty -- of anyone, really. the Green Lanterns, sure, they're quite literally a universal force and are such recognized. but only thru the lands that agree to that or are included in a sector that is under any Lantern Corps jurisdiction.

the Infinite Realms are under no one's jurisdiction but their own, so the thought of the justice league demanding answers from them is akin to a random child coming up to you in the airport and demanding you give them something. like, I'll entertain this conversation cause you're adorable but also, you have no power here, child. where is your adult?

and, from what I've seen, no one can get Constantine to do what he doesn't want or need to do. not even Batman, who is just a man.

so he'd love to be holed up in the House of Mysteries, leaving the capes to mess around and find out. but then that would make it his responsibility, so he's there to oversee the summoning and step in if neeeded, but personally has no desire to add another curse to his coat.

anywho, I'm just imagining the Justice League summoning Ghost King Danny and demanding answers and, like any teenager who knows he'll have no repercussions for doing so, he tells them to fuck off (imagine, if you will, the same joy you feel when your parents say that you're allowed to go against the rules in school because the rules are arbitrary and self-serving at best and harmful at worst, and you won't get in trouble for it even if you get detention/suspended at school)

and they're all aghast cause, what? who do you think you're talking to? and Danny's all, no, who do you think you're talking to? I am the King of the Infinite Realms, Protector of Amity Park, Keeper of the Stars, *insert all his other random titles a la Thor and Loki stalling*, and you do not make demands of me, mortal. then he just dips, cause really? a tiny lil containment circle? ha!

[i-must-confess-i-am-an-idiot]

Being a non-native French speaker is like:

rolling your rs but you sound like an asthmatic cat

Rolling your rs good but only when you’re congested out of your mind (nasally language)

The difference between ‘u’ and ‘ou’ is in fact real and does in fact make a difference

Using the wrong u/ou and now ‘tu’ sounds like ‘two’ and you’re saying under insetead of over

WHY ARE ALL OF THE WORDS OBE WORD WHY CANT ANYONE SAY A PHRASE WITHOUT MAKIBG MY EARS BLEED FROM MELDING RHEM ALL TOGETHER SWEET GOD

Being intimidated by a 6-year olds language skills like babe I barely know that many words in English the fuck

My teacher s pending a whole class going ‘uh, yeah, you uh really don’t wanna say that word it DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS DONT SAY IT NO’

THE FUCKING GRAMMAR OKAY. I LIKE ENGLISH GRAMMAR BUT DEAR GOD I WILL SOB IF YOU ASK ME TO USE PASSÉ COMPOSE AVEC L’IMPARFAIT OU MÊME UND PHRASE SUBJONCTIF JE VAIS MOURRIR LITTÉRALEMENT.

I literally almost failed my grammar final okay like actually don’t even look at me

LIKE MOST OF THE TIME THE SPELLING DOESNT EVEN MATTER WHEN YOURE SPEAKING. LIKE LITERALLY NATIVE SPEAKERS MAKE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS ALL THE TIME ABD THEYVE NEVER GOT SHIT FOR IT. NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS MAKE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS ALL THE TOME TOO AND WE NEVER GET SHIT FOR IT. NO ONES GONNA CARE IF ITS ‘Parlait’ or ‘parlé’ or ‘parler’ (well okay not true there’s a slight difference in pronunciation between number one and the rest BUT STILL)

THEYRE PRONOUNCED THE EXACT SAME NO ONES GONNA FUCKING KNOW

Anyways. I love language

[bogleech]

I have seen the first four episodes of the Sausage Party miniseries, because that exists, and let me tell you the plot so far:

The foods have exterminated most of humanity, at least as far as they or the audience can tell. The story is limited to just the immediate city around the supermarket so I dunno. The foods then try to build their own better society, but soon a bartering system evolves around the symbolic value of human teeth, and a power-mad orange realizes he can amass more of this abstract "wealth" by controlling the flow of resources. Many foods try to ignore this arbitrary system and take whatever they want, so "rules" are established that you're not allowed to just take things, and will have to be punished if you do, with some foods appointed positions of enforcing the rules. The foods think it's only fair that the law be enforced the same for everybody, failing to factor in that some foods require refrigeration in order to not melt or decompose, and the last functioning freezer is already owned by the orange. Without enough teeth in public circulation, perishable foods become increasingly more likely to break the law as they sicken and die, and so the most vulnerable of their society become the most severely punished by an increasingly violent police force [of mostly canned hams]. Anyway while all this is going on the hot dog and the hot dog bun are secretly keeping a live human prisoner and feeding him feet they sawed off of other human corpses. This is where we've left off so far. The writing of all this is much more competent than you are probably imagining, seemingly thanks to a co-writer from Shrek 2, and it appears to have taken so many years to come out because now the animators are being well paid for healthier work hours. I still didn't pay to watch it though because fuck amazon

[bunni-v1]

your shadow milk cookie relationships headcanons are now my canon. like what the fuck how can a piece of literature be so accurate to established information we know about him!!!!!!! hejsjsdjejwje ur shadowmilk is so loving and so cute lowkey

if you don't mind, since your requests are open, could you elaborate more on some more aspects of the relationship pre-ep 8 and post-ep 8? (if u haven't finished this part then u can just ignore this hehe) you mentioned how smc naturally gets more and more devoted as time goes on and he opens up (THEY MAKE ME FEEL SO ILL) so i've also wondered how he would act like when there is a threat that legitimately puts his lover in danger, or at worst, sets the tone to losing them. he'd mald, i imagine...

feel free to answer, feel free to ignore—i adore your work and i think it's not strange at all for you to shift to cookie run after dabbling in mostly human-ish games like ZZZ and TWST. all in good fun, plus you're feeding a parched audience (i am audience, haha) have a good day!

🍓Okay so this ask kinda has three parts to it, so please excuse me if it seems a little... all over the place. I'll answer both the pre and post ep 8 things, and then I'll be touching on what he's like with the threat. I do hope you enjoy my love <3

Tw: Mentions of body horror (cookie body horror?); Shadow Milk Cookie; Obsessive and Possessive behaviors; unedited

Info: Shadow Milk x Reader; Fluff; Angst (lowkey tho); Pre and Post episode 8 SMC (spoilers ahead lol); Drabble/Headcannons(?)

Pre Episode 8

From how the story seems to be set up, the confrontation with SMC should happen last, they just released it now because of the anniversary knowing he'd be hella popular lol. So I'm functioning with the idea that Gingerbrave and Co. arrive around when the other Ancients are finishing up their own confrontation with their respective beasts, meaning there's a lot of time to work with hehe.

Anyway, pre-episode 8 Shadow Milk leans into the category of 'yandere' a lot more than post. He's very obsessive about you, again stalking and watching you, learning as much as he can about you before he even allows you to see him.

You're more often than not being monitored by him, and if you're not, he's probably with you. He gets annoyed when other cookies talk to you, and he isn't afraid to voice that. While he does give you a lot of freedom, he does subtly limit the things you do and the people you're around. It's harder when you're not with him in the spire, but he goes about messing with the environment to keep you where he wants you.

And, yes, he'll crumble cookies in your name if he needs to. Their lives are arbitrary in the grand scheme of things, especially so if they're causing you strife. He won't hurt any cookies you hold dear to you -- though he really may want to at times -- only cookies that are a threat to your emotional or physical well-being. If the death causes you too much terror, then he'll tone it down to just... making their lives a miserable hellscape. It's what the deserve for hurting you, of course!

When you do join him in the spire (because you will, it's just a matter of how long it takes him to nudge you in that direction), the behavior is a bit more obvious. He doesn't like you leaving the spire for literally anything, and if you do he knows and will pop up by your side the second you stray too far. He plays it up as cute worrying, but he's legitimately scared for your wellbeing, like terrified. You're never alone in the spire if he can help it (and he can).

Like I said he watches a lot. There are eyes all around the spire and they follow you shamelessly. They appear content to just watch you, sometimes even literally forming hearts, so they're no threat to your well-being. Again, he's just observing you, more excited now that you're actually in the spire and close to him.

There is a notable difference in the environment, though you likely don't notice it (because you've only ever seen post you moving in). The atmosphere surrounding the spire is lighter, more colorful, and happy. It reflects his excitement at having you around, a visual nod to his love for you, even though you're not exactly away of it.

Despite the negatives here, there are positives! He's incredibly doting, you'll want for nothing with him. Your greatest dreams will come true with a wave of his hand, even with only half his power. He does let you wander around, you just won't be alone when you do so. He's very aware of the dangerous environment on beast yeast, he's cause for it, so he won't be risking your safety.

He's incredibly showy with his style of loving. Grand gifts and performances just to get you grinning and giggling. (He loves writing plays where the two of you are the main characters, falling in love in a million different ways, cutie he is.) He serenades you with syrupy sweet lyrics all about how much he adores all of you. Scoops you up in his arms and dances around with you. He's very touchy, like I said, always needing to have physical contact for whatever reason. (It's because he's scared you'll leave him too.)

He doesn't kiss you much if only to initiate more intimate activities. When he does, his intent is to fluster you nearly every time. Kissing is something that's hard for him, for whatever reason. It's more intimate than touches, and weirdly enough more intimate than sex in his mind. It makes him so vulnerable, so he tries to avoid it unless it's to get a reaction out of you.

Most of what he does is to get a reaction, actually. He likes seeing the way you express yourself, and regardless of what you do, he finds it cute. It's a little intimidating how much he stares, and he stares a lot. Very frequently you'll find him sitting around just... watching you. He won't stop even if you acknowledge it, just smiles all innocently until you go back to what you were doing.

That's sort of how it feels during this whole time, that he's just watching from the outside. There's a distance he keeps between you and him, the power dynamic is a lot more stark here. However, when you're not aware - be that you're sleeping or doing something where you can't see him - genuine affection comes out.

Floating around the spire in his arms as you rest, he whispers sweet nothings he could never bring himself to say to your face. He'll lead you around the winding halls of the spire with a path of your favorite flowers, aiding you in getting to where you want to go. He leaves gifts around, taking you on little treasure hunts just to reveal something sweet and heartfelt at the end. The spire itself shifts and changes around you to be more to your liking, and there are rooms within it dedicated to the hobbies you enjoy.

This gentleness is all hidden when you're together, though. Only showing itself when you can't look him in the eyes and reject him. He can't bring himself to let you in, he's scared of that rejection. He wants you to think he's powerful and amazing, so allowing you to see just how much he adores you would be terrible. What if you don't like him at his weakest? What if you realize that you could do better than him? What if you meet Pure Vanilla and you realize how much better he is? What if you leave him? Oh, it tears him apart.

So, he can't let you in. He'll put on a performance so dazzling it'll distract you from how much his heart aches when he sees you. He'll prove that he really does love you through flowery words and fantastical shows, anything to hide how much he adores you. Even when you try to get him to connect, he'll brush it off for fear of you not accepting him as he is. He can't handle you rejecting him, not after all he's done to keep you at his side, not after how hard he's fallen in love with you.

Post Episode 8

This is where we see Shadow Milk Cookie open up a lot more to you. After the so-called betrayal of Truthless Recluse, and his being incredibly emotionally vulnerable from Compassionate Pure Vanilla's offer for friendship, he's now forced with the problem of you knowing him. You saw that raw vulnerability, the loneliness that aches deep within his dough and infects his very being with a sickness he cannot cure.

No matter how much he puts on airs, he cannot avoid you knowing him now. He has nothing to hide behind anymore, you saw how much he craves connection and care, there's no going back from that. He briefly considers leaving you, but the idea of losing you sends shivers up his back, so he dismisses the thought as quickly as it comes. He may actively avoid you for a little while, but if you are patient and kind to him, he won't be able to hide for long.

Showing him that you still feel the same way by continuing your regular shows of affection is a huge relief to him. He truly expects you to think less of him now that you've seen that side of him, but you don't. It's rather odd to a cookie like him, who spent his entire existence being worshiped, revered, and feared. He assumes when you see him weak you will despise him - that you were only there for all the grandiose gifts and displays. He doesn't consider the thought that you have fallen in love with him. That you consider him yours as much as he considers you his.

It takes him a bit, but he begins to pick up where you left off. This time, though, he's more... gentle about everything. You get to take the lead around this time, and as odd as it is for him, it's cathartic to be taken care of for once. He can let his walls down and relax while you stroke his hair and hold him close to your chest. You kiss across his face with reverence that not even the most loyal of his followers could ever begin to replicate.

You love him.

He becomes addicted to the feeling, your affections being something he craves with a hunger he'd never felt before. It takes a bit for him to come to you for it, so usually you'll have to initiate it, but he melts into your hands so easily. It's pathetic how much hold a little cookie like you had over a god like him, but when you're humming sweet words at him he can't bring himself to care too much. (He will huff and puff if any of the other beasts give him shit for it, telling them off like a angry child.)

All of those hidden affections of his become much more obvious to you as time goes on. He's a bit awkward with it because he's never really been so open with any cookie before, but it's charming the way he tries so hard to be genuine with you.

You get to hear those sweet words of love from him directly, earnestly said while he holds your hand in an iron-tight grip. He gives you those heartfelt gifts by hand, telling you all about how he worked so hard to get it for you and how much care went into it. He leads you around places himself, preferring to be by your side than guiding you from a safe distance. Even the way he holds you is different, much more adoring than before. It's a kind of care he hadn't really shown you before, more considerate of what you might want rather than what he believes you might want.

And, of course, he kisses you now. Very frequently. He still does do it to fluster you at times, but less than he did before. Now every kiss has a purpose behind it, a means of displaying his affection for you. They're soft and loving, full of emotion.

Something that carries over consistently is the watching. He keeps an eye on you at all times, regardless of where you're at. Since you're no longer in the spire, there's more risk so he wants to ensure your safety. Even if you're with another beast or with Black Sapphire or Candy Apple, he's watching you anxiously.

Now if you acknowledge the eyes, they'll react to you. Before they usually just continued watching, but now they'll squint and shift excitedly at your attention. Sometimes he'll even drop flowers or a little plushie at your feet while the eye seems to grin at you with glee. You can kiss them, if you'd like -- they're warm and soft but they don't feel like eyes. If you do so the pupil with dart around nervously, then it'll pop out of existence and arrange itself to another spot you can't easily fluster him at.

Still, though, they just watch you for the most part. Making sure you're safe and happy when he isn't around. He's a bit less obsessive about who you're spending your time with, though. He trusts that you won't leave him a lot more now, and no longer finds himself threatened by anyone (other than PV).

Bonus below

Now, as a mortal cookie in beast yeast, most things put you in danger. It's a tough environment to live in, and there are a lot of violent characters around that wouldn't care if you died or not. However, most cookies are aware of Shadow Milk Cookie's, shall we say, claim on you.

There are very few things that could actually threaten you, especially with Shadow Milk Cookie monitoring you so closely. He makes the environment around you safer, and he makes sure everyone knows that you are off-limits. Unfortunately he cannot control everything, though he really does try to.

If anything, anything ever puts you in actual danger, he is beside himself with worry and rage. Your soft and sweet dough is not made for battle and danger, regardless of what you might feel. It would take the witches themselves to stop him from tearing apart the lands to ensure your safety. And tear them apart he would. He would carve deep valleys into the ground for you, slice mountains to their base, and raze forests flat if it means you will be safe.

If it's a cookie? Some insignificant act or protest from a foolish mortal, deciding to use you to get his attention? Oh, they'll know hell.

Depending on how much damage they do the punishment will vary, but it won't be pleasant regardless. If they just take you away for a little while, he'll torture them. Ensuring the life they go back to is much harder for them to live through, but he won't kill them. They have to learn their lesson and live to tell the tale so no one is stupid enough to follow their example.

If they hurt you at all, they're dead. Shadow Milk normally makes a show out of any crumbling he does, but when you are involved? He doesn't waste time with any silly shows, they just crumble. No fanfare, no sparkle, just death. They don't deserve anything more than that, not when they've caused you hurt.

Ah, and if there is a threat to you -- silly or not -- he takes it very seriously. His monitoring will increase tenfold, and he does his best to keep you with him at all times. He will not take your safety lightly, not when he adores you so.

If there is a genuine threat to your life, he will do everything in his power to remove it. After the fact, he becomes much more obsessive of your safety. It's almost suffocating for a while, but if you express concern he'll ease up a bit. Though you can feel the anxiety in his body language and the way which he speaks.

[spacelazarwolf]

like i need ppl to realize that the hard split between europe and swana not only does not exist now but never existed. the mediterranean was the superhighway of the ancient world and people zipped around fucking and trading with each other, which is what humans are best at, and that’s why ppl in the mediterranean look similar and have similar food and culture.

sicily is technically a part of italy (boo) which makes it part of europe. but if you compared your average sicilian to your average scandinavian, both in appearance and in culture, they could not be more different. if you compared that same sicilian to a tunisian, you’d see way more similarities. bc it’s easier to hop on a boat and sail a couple of hours south than it is to trek through a bunch of different kingdoms and provinces for two weeks to get to norway. you can throw a rock at morocco from spain (on your 2 hr ferry ride).

so yeah it’s absolutely wild to me to see ppl who will talk abt EuropeTM as this monolith of ppl who have nothing in common with anyone south of whatever arbitrary line they’ve drawn. bizarre.

[salty-an-disco]

in the gentlest way possible: that is not the point of the post

everytime someone says a version of "what if Shifty is intentionally manipulative and maybe even evil–" a part of me dies a little inside

[bimboficationblues]

I think a lot of the debates around the current state of education (is it phones and TikTok, is it AI, is it just lingering weirdness from the pandemic and the disruption that brought, etc.) sort of miss that the current state of affairs is a somewhat inevitable outcome of the competitive impulses between education-as-enlightened-humanism, encouraging sociability and broad familiarity with the issues and mechanics of the world, and education-as-credentialing-factory, a place where you go to be disciplined with arbitrary bullshit so you can be allowed to have some class mobility

it does not surprise me that in a moment where many people think the economy is fucked (and it doesn't matter if they are correct, in this case!), students would widely regard education as a hurdle to potential success, something to be endured and only given minimal effort and attention, and potentially not even something that will pay off

[fantasybooksandtealeaves]

i'm gonna need ya'll to put the AI art down because it's rotting your fucking brains

what do you mean you'll only watch the adaptation of your favorite book "if it's AI"? what do you mean "only AI art can do justice to the characters"? never mind that every piece of character "art" AI spits out all looks like the same version of a photoshopped plastic mannequin. never mind that it relies on actual, stolen art to even exist. never mind that big studios are already trying to find every possible avenue to replace talented, dedicated human workers with AI

it terrifies me how willing some of you are to yield our crafts, our humanity, our passions in favor of worshipping at the altar of the black hole of vapid soullessness that is AI. all because the actors they cast don't live up to the insane, arbitrary standards you made up for your fictional boyfriends

I beg ya'll to think critically. I beg you to consider the very real implications of the things you say. because they exist and they aren't fucking pretty.