#i feel like i really cooked with this

[kangaracha]

daffodil + chan

a song

the prompt: daffodil (a god bows before a mortal)

read it on ao3

---

"You have no power over me."

running through his hands like water, and suddenly the earth is not his to control. The skies do not turn with the twist of his head, lightning does not fork in the air when his eyes, dark as night and yet still lit by some unearthly light, fall upon you, his mouth wide as if to gasp for a breath he cannot take-

And yet, still, it shivers down your spine; the magic that draws you here even as you rip it apart, the prize of your conquest to rip the world into two.

"Take it back," he hisses through his teeth, the ground trembling with every syllable that slides down his tongue. You watch his mouth as it forms the words, the flash of teeth behind thin lips reminding you of the way that the swordsman you'd fought through to get here had smiled at you - the last of his seven challenges, the last of his demons, or angels, or citizens of the sprawling, damned city he claimed as his kingdom.

And here you stood, at the pinnacle of the eighth, and stared him in the eye without cringing away because now you knew the truth. Now you knew that what he whispered in the dark was a lie and what you saw with your eyes wasn't always true, and though he may be a god and a king amongst beings that you could never hope to rival, a god can only hold as much power as you give him. A god can only claim dominion over a beast that bowed to his dogma. 

You see now that you are no beast. You are no believer in any lie he utters to the darkness.

"Take it back," he says again, the note of his voice changing. He pleads, his brow furrowing and his shoulders curling in as if waiting for the final blow. "Take it back now, before it's too late."

"I can't," you tell him, and you watch him fall to his knees, and you know that it's wrong and your heart pounds in your chest and it

like the ground does at the impact of his knees, crumbling into the pieces it was in when you first took his hand, alone on the side of the road with only one thing to call your own. And what was that thing, the little warmth you'd held to your chest in the dark and the cold? What had you traded away for the comfort of the house that crumbled around you now? Why had you destroyed him to get it back, where was it now, why did it not appear within his hands at this, the hour of his reckoning?

"Please," he spits into the cold ground, the dirt and the leaves and the curl of ivy that grows up the walls around you, old and ancient and not yet sprouted from its roots all at the same time. His hands curl in the dirt like he can reach down and pull the earth to him, like he can stop the wane of his power if he just tries to hold on a little bit tighter. "I know what you want, and I don't have it. I can't lose-"

Broken, fragile thing. Small god of limited earth, crouched at your feet like he might worship you instead. You'd thought him all-powerful once, and then you'd thought him severe and his servants and beasts and playthings petty, and then you'd thought him

because he'd smiled at you in the garden that bloomed from his own hands when you expressed your desire for a flower to tuck in the braid of your dark hair, and his hand had been soft in yours, and when he looked out across his kingdom and the clamouring faces of the people he'd brought to live there, he'd looked at them the same way that he'd looked at you.

Beneath your foot, the ground cracks, fracturing outwards like a spiderweb. It's your heart, you realise morosely, sinking from your chest and into the depths of the earth, disappearing with whatever he'd taken from you; and it was a wretched thing and it had betrayed you a hundred times over, but you still mourn at the loss of it and all the dreams it had carried with it. It blooms in your flowers in the corners of the room, embeds itself into the land and sings along with the song of his power, a thing you can hear but cannot touch, a beast once born that now does not belong to you.

"I'm sorry," he says, his breath like mist in the cold air, and even without your heart, you can't bear to see him so cold.

Your hands reach for him without permission, your body kneeling in the dirt before you can stand your feet firm upon the earth and refuse to move. He flinches away, but your fingers are soft upon his chin and the curve of his jaw, gentle when they brush the soft dip of his neck. "I only wanted to know what it was," you tell him with a voice that cannot hold itself steady. "I thought if you loved me, you would give it back." It's the only voice you have - you are not like him, or like Felix, speaking with many tongues. You don't have any power of your own.

"It's because I love you that I can't give it back." His voice is hoarse, every word a knife that he swallows without ever once flinching. "It's because I love you that I couldn't tell you what it was."

"But didn't I deserve to know?" you question. "Doesn't my life belong to me?"

Finally, his eyes rise, looking up at you with a fire that belies the cold of his skin. "Of course it does," he gasps, and his hand reaches up, dirt-stained fingers dragging at your cheek. "That's why I gave it to you, and I never asked for anything else."

"But you wouldn't give back what you took in the first place."

The sudden violence of his voice crumbles the walls and fractures the sky, the clouds blooming te dark colours of a bruise. The absence of his hand on your cheek stings in the cold; his face turns away, screwed up in regret and a pain he won't allow you to feel. You lurch forward before he can disappear, drawing him into your arms; stiff shoulders, spine of beaten steel, slow beat of a heart you once held in your hands. 

He'd stood so tall and unmoving in the morning light, when you'd first walked down this path, and now in the dark of the setting sun and the ending of the earth, his weight slumps into your grasp, his resolve melting into the warmth of your body. "I didn't want you to suffer again," he says to the soft cotton of your shirt and the curve of your collarbone, his breath a whisper against your skin. "I couldn't watch that, when you asked me to make sure it would never happen again."

Surprise comes in the pause of your breath and the still of your arms, the jump of a heart you're not sure you still possess. "I asked you to make me forget?" you question the world behind his back, and into your neck, he sighs.

"You couldn't forget," he murmurs. "She was dead before I found you, and when I took her from your arms - you couldn't forget. There was nothing I could do to fix what had been broken. And then you begged me to let you forget, so I remembered her for you." He pauses, his throat hitching like he's swallowing something down. A sob maybe, or the tears he will never let fall. "I can't give her back though. She's not here anymore."

You push him upright, your hands on his shoulders, his neck, his face. Brushing away the hair that falls in his eyes, wiping at the blood that drips from the cut on his cheek. "Why didn't you tell me?" you ask, because the answer is incomprehensible. "Why did you let me go this far?"

"Because I was scared," he admits, and his teeth clench and his spine stiffens against the urge to hide away from you again. "Because I'm a wretched, evil, stupid thing who thinks they can-"

His words die in your throat; vile, wretched things that you store away to spit out later, into the ground where they belong. He is none of that; he is soft, and hesitant, until your fingers find the sharp curve of his hip and the lines of his back, dragging him closer and his lips open like there is nothing in the world to devour but you and

[styxxsyringe]

friendship is magic

closeups:

[snipdoodle]

Apron!

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[shitpostingkats]

The most important part of the Altissia chapter is when they're being questioned by customs and Ignis looks at their party of:

1) Him 2) A college age punk 3) A man wider and taller than a fridge wearing no shirt and with several enormous scars 4) The actual crown prince of a neighboring country, making no effort to disguise himself

and decides their best cover story is

"✨We are students of the culinary arts.✨"

And it works.

[puhpandas]

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY SECURITY BREACH!!!!

[ew-selfish-art]

DpxDc AU: Tim as a child was never given a lot of information regarding the scribbling messy handwriting that appeared over night all over his arms- naturally he came to his own conclusions.

Tim Drake was home entirely alone at 9 years old and was about to go out for the night to test his brand new long exposure camera lens when he sees the writing on his arm. It’s not English, like he assumed it was at first, but it was using the alphabet to represent… Tim isn’t bad at math but this formula is complex for his little genius brain.

Looking at his camera, he decides he can spare a moment to look it up, solve it, and get back out into old town Gotham in time for Batman and Robin’s final patrol lap. He does just that, finding the problem to relate to some aerospace engineering and then quickly deduces what laws and theorems need to be applied. He finds a pen, writes down his findings in much neater handwriting onto his arm, and goes out. It’s barely a remarkable night at all. He gets a much more memorable photo of Robin roundhouse kicking a hench person.

Things just continued on that way. Tim would find some complex math, physics or chemistry prompt on his arm (surrounded by various question marks or notes or sad faces)- he’d answer it as best he could and move on with his life. Perhaps his parents were manifesting these pop quizzes? Perhaps his subconscious felt guilty about abandoning his studies for more Bat related pursuits? Tim really didn’t care to think much about it once he became Robin- there was too much on his plate and too many peoples problems for him to fix.

Notably, however, after the attack at the Tower, the pop quiz appeared and Tim wrote back that he wouldn’t be able to find an answer to this one. It was the only time Tim questioned the markings appearance and it was because the next thing that appeared was “Hope you feel better soon.”

… his parents wouldn’t include that on a pop quiz. Cursed then. Tim decided it must be a curse, whatever, he’d deal with the implications later in life.

Tim then has the worst year of his life, hes 15, no longer Robin and the questions from his curse are getting less math oriented and more… philosophical. A lot of mentions of death that, in hindsight helped him actually grieve, and a lot of theories about dark matter and souls. Tim answers back as best he can but he’s drained and his answers aren’t very good in his opinion. He gets minimal feedback.

It all comes to a point that he’s at a family dinner, Bruce is at the head of the table, Jason has promised just to stay for dessert, Damian hasn’t thrown a single insult his way and Steph was laughing at him- when a new theoretical model appears on his arm.

“You’re just as bad as Bruce, Timberly. Hiding a soulmate from all of us, how fucking typical.” Jason points out, while watching Tim scribble back some math with a question mark onto his arm.

“A what? No, this is just a curse. I get pop quizzes every now and then.” Tim bats away Steph who rapidly approaches and began to analyze his arm (the rest of the family isn’t far behind).

“Drake. Explain how you came to this conclusion.” Damian seems more curious than anything, if his lack of insults was anything to go off of.

“Since I was young I’ve had at least weekly math check ins, I never had a parent or anyone else around so I assumed my parents had me cursed to ensure I stayed on top of my studies. Sometimes it’s physics or chemistry, for a while there it was a ton of philosophy and behavioral psychology.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Master Tim, I believe the lack of adults in your life has led you towards a false conclusion. That is most certainly a soulmate mark. The individual to whom you are responding is undoubtedly your other half.” Alfred attempts to calm the room before explaining to Tim. Tim isnt sure if he believes the butler, though Alfred only very rarely lied, so he grabs the pen once more. He writes his first question back: “Who am I to you?”

The room waits in anticipation and within moments a brand new line appears on Tim’s arm and he is vindicated: “We do math together???”

——

The reason Danny is failing English is because his built in homework helper sucks ass at metaphors and has apparently never read any classic literature. The tutor on his arm is great at puzzles and math tho.

Danny gets a reply back one night that he wasn’t expecting (Who am I to you?) and he mentions it to Jazz. Who goes insane that Danny didn’t even question it and just went with “meh, probably haunted” as his explanation for the phenomenon for all these years.

Apparently, if Jazz was right, he had a soulmate who was uh, super fucking smart. That was an overwhelming thought.

The next day Danny is in crisis mode and writes back “Wait, WHAT AM I TO YOU??? Can I help on your homework??”

Danny gets vindicated when the writing on his arm presents a shit ton of dates and information for an unsolved Gotham cold case. See, Haunted.

———

Eventually between Danny becoming the top candidate for astrophysics at Wayne Enterprises and Tim Drake being outed as having contributed tips to the GCPD that solved cold cases- they meet and realize just how dumb they’ve been.

[3cosmicfrogs]

POV: you're Sokka and you're desperately trying to get to know the cute emo linecook from the restaurant next door but whenever he's on smokebreak his greasy stoner boyfriend is also there.

[library-windows]

Kiersau is an old abbey, Andreas, and sometimes even I wonder if it - if we - have outlived our purpose here. . . . Sometimes I wonder if we were meant to change and we just... forgot to.

So here's something I thought was interesting.

Between Act I and Act II, the townspeople of Tassing age and change. Some of them begin going gray (or go grayer). Some grow longer beards or hair. Some have cheekbones become more prominent, or have lines on their face that develop or deepen, even subtly. And of course it's especially obvious with the kids of Tassing, who are growing from babies into children, and children into teenagers.

Even those characters who don't have visual changes to their faces or hair have differences to their clothing to show that time has passed. They've changed, even if it's only replacing or restyling old clothes, or growing out their hair. People have died, been born, gotten married, moved into town, built new businesses, taken up new ideas - the growth and change is often modest, but it's visible.

But at Kiersau Abbey...

... nobody changes - so much so that most of the monks and nuns don't even have different portraits between Act I and Act II, despite the passage of seven years.

For those that do, the only change is to the color of their habit (the seven years between Act I and Act II would encompass the entire period between entering the abbey and solemn profession, so anyone who was a novice when Andreas was there in Act I would have necessarily professed by Act II). The only other one who changes is Aedoc, whose "image" becomes more worn - but even he doesn't change facially. (Compare him to the visible aging of Ill Peter, another elderly male character.) None of the members of Kiersau physically change, visually, in those seven years. No lines on their faces, no gray hair, no wrinkles, no beard growth, no drooping, no aging, nothing.

The only ones who change regardless of the outcome of Act I are Cecilia, who was far more worldly and savvy than her counterpart, more proactive and less caught up in Kiersau as a bubble; and Piero, who understood and accepted that change was inevitable and didn't fear it. And the only way that they could change was to die, and disappear altogether.

And for all that there's been at least one major change to Kiersau with the closure of the scriptorium (and possibly more, depending on Ferenc and Matilda's fates in Act I), almost nothing has changed in terms of how Andreas/the player sees and experiences the abbey. Of those characters in the abbey who have "grown up", Zdena is still half-heartedly tending to the remains of the library under Illuminata's supervision (and Illuminata herself, though she's now Mother Superior, is still in the library sorting books). Lukas is still in the kitchen, and still can't quite figure out what to do without Wojslav directing him. Volkbert is still doing the menial, grubby work nobody else wants to do. He even lampshades how taking his vows hasn't really changed anything except the color of his habit:

I'm a monk now. . . . I still do the same work, but now I have the same robes as the other brothers.

One expects the abbey to change more slowly than the town, given that the monks and nuns aren't likely to be getting married or having children (one presumes, at least); but even those characters who have, in name, taken on new roles are still functionally doing mostly the same things they were doing seven years ago.

The only members of Kiersau that we see change, grow, take on visibly different roles, and age are the ones we see in Act III, after the abbey has been destroyed and they've moved on elsewhere.

Obviously Kiersau Abbey is not some kind of actual pocket dimension where time doesn't move (unless . . . ?). But it's posited even within the text of the game as a deliberate anachronism, a medieval holdover in the early modern age; and it's set against the inescapable presence of the Church's inertia versus the looming Reformation, and the growing social unrest against the feudal status quo. A major theme of the game is the inevitability of change and loss, and how being able to accept it and move on is essential for growth/survival. And it's clear that the stagnation has reached such a point that there can be no lasting change on a social scale in Tassing until Kiersau burns.

So all that said, I don't think the visual contrast between the clear progression of time in Tassing, and the lack of it in Kiersau, is a coincidence.

This is Kiersau, Andreas. You should know by now, nothing here changes.

[ovaryacted]

Literally what do you mean a grown ass (white woman) typed out some shitty mediocre excuse of an article for The Cut, listing some of the best fanfic for The Pitt WITH FUCKING AO3 LINKS TO PEOPLE’S ACCOUNTS? How on earth did we fucking get here when it comes to how we engage and view fanfic and fandom spaces?

Not only was that article just a disgrace, the way the author talked about fanfic writers as a whole as if they’re in the wrong for writing things on their free time, in addition to having microagressive and ableist commentary on said fics in dismissing Dr. Robby/Dr. Collins as the most popular ship in the fandom to then talking about writing Mel as a sexual being as if that’s not possible with neurodivergent individuals is really just so fucking disgusting…I don’t even have words to describe how I feel. Not to mention, this person also linked several Jamira/Mohabbit fics which have since been locked to only registered users, and even going as far as to mention a Dr. Abbot/Dr. Robby fic in the article feels like an egregious attempt at doxxing and shaming if I’m being honest.

Fanfic and fandom shouldn’t be mentioned in mainstream media under the guise of pop culture for the sake of clicks and attention. The reason why fandom & fanfic even exist is so people are able to engage with their favorite pieces of media in ways they can control and manage privately. It’s a safe space for people to build community with other like minded individuals and to share thoughts and joy about said media. There’s a found social contract when it comes to the general audience of things and fandom spaces, and mentioning fanfic in an online column as a journalist of all things breaks that trust and ruins the connection people have already built towards that particular type of media. It’s also a violation of privacy just mentioning and linking people’s fanfics in an article for the world to see when many don’t understand fandom culture and the authors didn’t consent to having their work publicized in that way. What gives you the right to do that if you hold no relationship with the authors directly?

Since the pandemic around 2020, the approach towards fandom spaces and fanfic as a whole has changed dramatically. People are more hostile and judgmental when it comes to what people write, how frequently they do and treat writers like content pumping machines because we’ve become so accustomed to fast paced consumerism. People lack boundaries between actors and the media they’re a part of or consume, they print out people’s fanfic works to “own” as if it’s their own; and now it’s progressed to people’s work being scrapped to train generative AI systems by the millions and journalists using their fanfic works to talk about the things people write, share, and engage with in their own free time for publicity or even money.

So many people are already being discouraged to write and share their writing in the first place, and with the way things are going, I won’t be surprised if people just flat out stop writing fanfic all together, or start sharing their writing as pdfs on encrypted messaging apps to people they trust. I don’t get what’s so hard about leaving fanfic writers and fandom communities alone, but if this isn’t a sign of the growing puritanical, conservative, and hyper surveillance nature in our culture, then I don’t know what else there is to say. I’m worried about the future of fanfic writing and creatives as a whole, I really am, and we are quickly running out of safe spaces to engage in fandom content overall. Frankly I don’t think we have any safe spaces left, and that’s terrifying.

[sergle]

i'm trying to do daytime activities in hopes of distracting myself, and it's time for blooms where i live, so i've been making flower jelly

[benevolentcannibal]

divine madness☀️

[vela-pulsars]

not enough stonjourner art out there

[julic-art]

Drawing them like this feels like a right of passage or something

[gyaru-tau]

I will figure out this design if it kills me died

[muzsmocsing]

Trying to summarize MDZS without having read the books

There's been a murder in the sleepy town of UncleVill. The victim is one of young Jin Ling's 490 uncles. Coincidentally, twinkatron 9000 Wei Wuxian, young Jin Ling's 474th uncle, is also dead.

Before his death he tried normal spiritual cultivation and was like "You know what this is kind of ass. Maybe I should look at it from a new perspective!" That new perspective ended up being violent demonic necromancy. During his little evil shenanigans he runs into sexually repressed tall monk Lan Wangji, for whom he causes several awakenings unbecoming of a man of God.

Later Lan Wangji goes "Wuxian. How am I supposed to top you when you're up to this demon business? Never mind all the gay shit my monastery would would flay me alive publicly if they found out." And oopsie daisy, they kind of do. Wei Wuxian dies of a broken heart and also by being stoned to death.

But he's reanimated! The process is a succes, except he woke up significantly less slutty and way more whimsical than his original self. He's scrubbed of his memories but Lan Wangji remembers everything. Now they must unravel an intricate web of lies incriminating relative upon relative to solve the mystery of Jin Ling's (other) uncle's death.