#in which case we’re fucked

[solreefs]

I have a vast pit of despair inside me at all times but I think I’m pretty happy other than that

[bitchslapblastoids]

has stan twitter ever known a peaceful day in their lives

thanks for being chill yall it’s nice to log into fandom space and not get immediately sucked into a swamp of torment which is an experience that I never knew I was taking for granted ✌️

[novelconcepts]

Had this screencap living on my phone for art purposes, and I just lost like twenty minutes staring at their hands. These are some of the gayest hands in human history. An entire Pride month could be dedicated to these hands. Put this shot in the MoMA, dude.

[sprtruechara]

i really hope people like my interpretation of chara for the pb au bc if they dont im putting my neck on a saw blade

[no1ryomafan]

I realized more and more how my “robo autism” as I call it differs from other people’s obsession with robots because I’ve seen people who like robots completely looking un human as possible and there also be little humans within in the media, they just want robots, meanwhile the reason I enjoy robots is when they are used as a way to look into the philosophy of being human.

I like robots that are made to look human and interact with human for the conflict it causes of “how human can you make something that’s not human? Is it worthy of being accepted as a person?” since it brings up a lot of existential and interesting questions. I only tend to like robots that don’t look super human if they’re mechas cause they still have a relationship with humans, the sentience can go either way as even if I do like robo sentience not every mecha story needs it and I oddly prefer the route of “it can’t speak but it’s alive” rather then it talking, because it just feels more eerie then a giant talking robot.

I know to some people if they see this I’m gonna come off boring and like yeah maybe I do cause I know robot designs have more potential when they aren’t bound to human stuff, and I’m not saying anyone who enjoys the other way is bad, but this is just why I realized certain robot media clicks with me and others don’t. (Also my brain makes everything needlessly complicated lol)

[seilon]

I wish I could tell every young person with a uterus (especially with bad cramps and/or dysphoria and/or depression, etc) that there is a decent chance they just straight up don’t need to live with that. don’t let the stigma surrounding contraceptives and the expectation that you should just ride it out and suffer win. for the love of god if there’s a chance you can lighten or even stop your period and it’s symptoms all-together, unless there’s a legit health concern, your doctor should at least make you aware of that option. I want every young person to know that “birth control” is not just for birth control and it has the potential to make your life infinitely easier to live. do not give in to anti-pill propaganda im serious

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

The diffriders are so fucking fascinating to me specifically flare trooper dumjid bc like. You take a dragon mercenary who has seen war and has actively watched many comrades die. His whole thing is that he’s a perfect guard and thus the only one who survived, leading to a fucked up conception of himself as above death. And then you have him possess the body of some kid who presumably agrees to let him see earth bc That’s His Favorite Card And He Thinks He’s Cool and who’s probably like 12 (sorry saori I have no clue how old you are I’m just guessing based off taiyou + hiroki) and just. Walk around on earth (where are saori’s parents btw. Like you could say this about most vanguard characters but where are saori’s parents/guardians/friends do they know what “saori” is up to?? Does anyone who knew him pre-diffride realize how different he’s been acting?). Play a card game where he commands his dead comrades bc shiranui is paying him (which. How is he paying him, earth currency or cray currency? And what IS cray currency for that matter?). The only thing he likes about earth is the music but he is specifically cursed to keep having his headphones break. When a unit who’s diffriding a human dies in the human’s body, both the unit and the human die on both planets, and besides the money dumjid is only on shiranui’s team bc antero/miguel DIED, a fact which he’s fully aware of and iirc derides him for (may be wrong abt that one though). He constantly tells people to die when he’s cardfighting them. He is laid-back about vanguard and doesn’t care much until he loses a cardfight and because loss and death are inextricably linked in his mind he proceeds to get Super Fucked Up About It bc he’s built his entire self image off being The One Who Survives and losing the cardfight is akin to confirming that it’s possible for him to die & he especially can’t accept that Some Random Humans have the ability to take him out. Sometimes he shows his opponents the battlefield and the bodies of his comrades and they really don’t seem to devote much thought to it (like. What??? I get that chrono & friends love vanguard and chrono does address it a little bit but mostly iirc just to say “I don’t think that’s what vanguard actually does/that’s not OUR vanguard”). He’s affected worse and worse with each loss and joins a group trying to end the world to get revenge on the humans who’ve beaten him (iirc unclear whether he knows the success of the destruction of the earth will destroy him too). He becomes the last of the original diffriders - chaos breaker dragon doesn’t count he was diffridden during U20 - to remain on earth, a point which he makes sure to bring up as proof of his superior survival abilities. The kid whose body he’s possessing expresses that he’s not happy about the way dumjid’s acting and dumjid doesn’t give a shit and continues to puppet his body around. Just, everything about him as a character is so fascinating in a concerning way and, like shiranui, he brings up the fact that vanguard is Real in a way that the earth characters don’t really consider - yes they have strong imaginations and genuine attachment to their units, but ultimately they’re playing a card game where even if cards get sent to the drop/damage zones they can come back for the next battle* whereas on cray they’re fighting Actual Battles and the units that die die For Real And Permanently. Unlike shiranui, who eventually began to see vanguard as a method of reunion with his dead friends and decided that what he’d been told about earth vanguard being a direct cause for his friends’ deaths might be wrong, Dumjid never changes his view on earth vanguard after “experiencing death”, so when he finally loses and goes back to cray he’s essentially dragged back clawing and screaming. I don’t know, there’s just something about him that’s sooooo soooo fascinating to me

[twinknote]

congrats on being a fuckfreaker freakfucker 🎉🎊

thank you it is my life’s work. i’m on a freakfucking hiatus but soon we will return to your regularly scheduled freakfucking 👍

[nothingweirdhere]

bro i’m 🥺😭💞💞💞

[beautifel]

i. hate that i cant ignore any longer how fucked up i am

[pisces-gf]

driving got me feeling a Certain Way .

[pinkfey]

i struggle

[lunarcigar]

The people complaining about the price of vip for L.S. dunes is hysterical to me bc I’ve been to a bunch of shows and the range of prices I’ve paid for a GA show (no perks, nothing other than the show being included in that price) has been between $20-$300 so I truly do not understand how there is discourse around vip (which gets u a q&a AND a signed poster) being $150. GA for my show was only $40 which imo is a perfectly reasonable price for a GA ticket. The dunes guys aren’t putting a gun to your head and making you purchase vip tickets for a hardcore show, if u don’t wanna spend that much then simply don’t

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[planet4546b]

it really is very sweet to me how much ema still cares about peenix. i don’t know why but like. with Everything going on with rfta when i saw her again i was sort of expecting her to kind of resent him for unknown reasons the fact that she’s like. beefing with klavier and sooooo instantly besties with trucy and apollo bc she’s like omg you’re with phoenix!!! hi!!! is really sweet to meeeeee

[dear-ao3]

so. as you may know it’s christmas eve. as you probably don’t know i am eastern european. and probably the only real tradition anyone holds onto is christmas eve. normally my great aunt does all the food and very begrudgingly sometimes lets everyone help make like. one thing.

well.

this year. the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four. she decided she was done cooking and it was up to everyone else.

so i got a phone call from my mom a few weeks ago being like hey so. you’re making the cake. got it? good.

the cake in question is a walnut cake. i was entrusted with my great aunts recipe about seven years ago. i’ve made it twice. the first time i fucked up the frosting quantity. the second time i fucked up the eggs. both times were passable at best and notably! my great aunt did not taste either of them.

and i have to make this cake. on christmas eve. it is dessert. for everyone. my extended family will all be eating the cake. the walnut cake. on christmas eve. even my great aunt.

so yesterday, december 23 if you are counting, i went on the annual Last Minute Christmas Food Shopping Trip with my father, watched him climb into the case to get his half and half like he does every year, and stressed about my cake as i made sure i had all of the ingredients.

then. we went to my great aunts house. where i was met with Trial Number 1: The Cognac

this cake has cognac in the frosting. not a big deal really. except for the fact that my mom hates that there is cognac in the frosting. (my mom is hell bent on making christmas eve dinner vaguely healthier. no one else agrees.) and i was to be making the cake in my moms house.

also important to note: we (as in my parents) do not own cognac. mostly because none of us drink.

so my great aunt is like oh i have to give you the cognac. cause she knows. i am baking the cake. the walnut cake. (my dad told her. he is a traitor). and i say okay. sure. this won’t be a problem at all.

so she gives me. a shot of cognac. and when i say a shot. i mean an Entirely Full Shot Glass of Three Hundred Dollar Cognac. in a jar. for the cake. the walnut cake. that i have to make.

upon bringing the cognac home my mom says no we’re not putting that in. the cognac sits on the counter in its jar. no one touches it.

then i was met with Trial Number 2: The Frosting.

this recipe requires a pound of chopped walnuts. first. i couldn’t even find the walnuts. my sister and i searched high and low and in every cabinet we could find but no nuts. i called my mom. and said mom where are the walnuts? and she said. “they’re in the nut bag behind the basement door.”

oh of course. how could i have missed the nut bag? a holiday bag full of bags of nuts that was half hidden by wrapping paper and also behind a door?

in any case. could i have used a food processor? absolutely. did i? no. half because i forgot and half because i didn’t want to accidentally grind the walnuts into a paste. so i enlisted the help of my younger sister to chop the walnuts By Hand while i embarked on the real devil: the frosting.

which remember. is supposed to have cognac.

so i cream my butter. i add my sugar. i’m careful not to over sugar. i taste it a million times. i add my coffee and my vanilla extract (instead of cognac. which is still sitting on the counter) and it was all going so well until. the butter rebelled.

now remember. one time when i made this. seven years ago. i made too little frosting. so i made more this time. and i thought i had all my conversions right but evidently i did not because suddenly there was too much liquid in my frosting and it split.

the frosting for the walnut cake that everyone was going to eat. on christmas eve. the very next day.

i felt like a contestant on great british bake-off getting smited by the tent.

so i did the logical thing and shoved the whole mess into the fridge hoping that it would sort itself out overnight.

then it was time to face Trial Number Three: The Cake Itself.

as i have said this cake is a walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake that has been at christmas eve longer than i have been alive. and it requires no less than ten egg whites. which i whipped and i added to my walnuts and shoved the whole thing into the oven in my two baking dishes.

only to discover no less than 40 minutes later that the batter in the pans was Not Even (despite my best efforts). so i cooked one longer than the other and hoped that i hadn’t monumentally fucked up the walnut cake. like i had the frosting. which was in the fridge. and i was ignoring.

which leads to Trial Number Four: The Egg Yolk Cake

see i had ten egg yolks. i didn’t know what to do with them. my mom said flush them. my dad said make a custard. i proposed making egg nog. my mom said she didn’t want it in the house cause it was too fattening (a blatantly incorrect statement. please, if you are reading this, go drink a glass of eggnog. or some other fun festive drink. food is for the soul.) so i produced a recipe for an egg yolk pound cake. i made it. i still don’t know if it came out good cause i haven’t tasted it. i hope it did. but that was not the point. the point is the walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake.

and the following morning i was met with Trial Number Five: The Frosting Part 2

first i threw my failed frosting back in the mixer and it immediately secreted a brackish combination of vanilla extract and coffee so i did the only thing i could. facetimed my dad and said “father there are problems abound.” and he gave me the fatherly advice of “make it again.”

and so i did.

with more correct measurements. still scared it would split at any second.

though it didn’t.

and i didn’t add the cognac.

maybe no one will be able to tell???

my mom said that if anyone asks the first batch of frosting failed and i had to toss it. this is technically true.

but i had frosting. i had two uneven cakes. and it was time for Trial Number Six: Decorating

decorating cakes is easily in my top ten least favorite activities. decorating the christmas eve walnut cake is easily in my top three least favorite activities. because i am terrible at decorating cakes. and also because it has a filling.

the filling is jam. and i once again made the wrong choice because i put the jam on first before the frosting. which to be fair is what the directions say. but as everyone knows, the directions in recipes you get from your eastern european great aunt are not the real directions. so now i had to smear butter cream. on top of jam. for the filling of the walnut cake. for christmas eve. that we would be eating in a few hours.

and we didn’t have a cake plate. we had a large dish.

i had to use my fingers. i had to use three spatulas. i got jam everywhere. but i did it. and as soon as i set the top cake on top of the filling i realized my monumental mistake: i was supposed to trim down the cakes.

so now they were uneven. and lopsided. and there was nothing i, a mere mortal tasked with the impossible task of making christmas eve walnut cake, could do about it.

so i continued to spread my frosting. which i had enough of. and tried and failed to not get jam everywhere.

in the end it was almost presentable. not great. slightly lopsided. and definitely not as nice as any of my great aunts cakes.

which left me with Trial Number 7: Chilling It

our fridge was being taken up by other important christmas eve things (though not as important as my cake. the walnut cake) so i had to put it in the car. which was fine because there is snow on the ground.

i covered my cake. the walnut cake. in tin foil and hoped i wouldn’t accidentally squish it. and then i went outside. i tried to steal my moms shoes to walk outside. she was not impressed.

“you know, saph,” she said. “some of the time you’re pretty great. the other half of the time you’re really weird.”

i could not agree more.

i put my cake on the trunk. prayed to the cake gods and went inside.

on the one hand if the cake is good, i will be stuck making walnut cake for christmas eve for the rest of my life. on the other hand, if it sucks i will never have to make another one.

Trial Number Eight: The Tasting still waits.

[sweet-as-kiwis]

Never before have I turned in negative peer reviews. The time has finally come.