This is a terrific recipe and all bakers who have apples around should make it.

(The apples keep some crunch, too, which is a pleasant change.)

‘Jason becomes Tim’s caretaker’ as if the man didn’t die at like 15 and then spend most of the next few years in a grave/catatonic/in a rage-fueled fugue state. He may know how to build a bomb but he knows *nothing* about being a grown adult. He’s still going through his ‘accepting that my parent is a fallible human being’ phase--

Meanwhile Tim was planning solo trips to New York City as a 13 year old. Like idk if he’s a master of self care but, lbr neither am I and I'm 25 so

I DON'T have a favorite ship dynamic I DON-

...fuck-

This year's WOTFI was so rad actually

no one will ever guess what i’m working on… 💀

Hi Bones!! Thank you for you hard work on this project and for sharing it with us!

I've seen your posts about weird representation of society (regarding the "natural order of things") in xenofiction, especially in lion king, so I wanted to ask:

could you recommend any xenofiction media that has all (or most of the) animal species sapient? Or is the only solution to make just one or two species sapient while the others (especially prey) are plain animals?

Really sorry if you've seen this ask from me before - my account had a weird laggy period when I couldn't send or receive messages and asks, so I don't know if you got the previous one! I just know that now it's fixed so I double all the asks sent haha

Honestly I'm not totally sure! If any 3rd person has some good recommendations for "every being is alive" xenofiction types, feel free to weigh in.

If you want to jump in with me though, I am following the webcomic Africa. It updates every Wednesday. Africa is about a mother Leopard on the verge of a great ecological disaster, the relationship between her children and the animals around her, and the strength of both instinct and choice as the characters face an uncertain future.

Since it's ongoing, I still don't know how it's going to end and can't judge it as a full work! But it's absolutely fascinating and I think the author is doing a fantastic job so far. Bonus points for the way it portrays humans, btw.

No more spoilers though, if you're interested, it's on Webtoons.

(I'm also planning to read Oren's Forge soon. Ask me about it again in a few months over on Bonebabbles and I'll give you my thoughts)

As an aside though, funny you mention it because like... ever since I was a kid I've had a story I want to tell with the premise. It's a scintilla I've kept close to me for well over a decade but haven't done anything official with. So this is actually a theme I've thought about a lot.

It's rare to see it done well though because like... its very premise butts heads with reality. The "natural order" that an animal follows is not something it moralizes. A tiger doesn't have the capacity to think about how fucked up it is to kill to stay alive, the deer doesn't know that if its population isn't controlled it will destroy the forest.

They're animals. They don't HAVE that agency. Your dog does not care about being sterilized. A snake doesn't differentiate between a pinky and an adult mouse except in terms of if it will fit in its mouth. But the minute you put human morality in there... they have the ability to reason, create and agree on the rules of a society, make choices about MORALITY.

If nothing is going to change about their world, you just end up putting human arguments about "natural order" in their mouths and, well... start telling a parable justifying this "natural order."

(Genuine) Does what I'm saying make sense? Animals DON'T rationalize or negotiate. HUMANS do.

So the minute you're approaching a world with that logic, like it or not, you are invoking those "arguments from nature." And you're putting them in a being that is not fully an animal or a human, but an anthropomorphic mix which CAN rationalize but WON'T make an effort to change their world.

(Which is why tbh the best examples i know of are works with a theme of "change.")

OH WAIT I also remember another that's interesting!! Leafy: Hen into the Wild actually has a fascinating take on it. It's not interested in "moralizing" or really being about an animal society. It's a very emotional sort of movie, and it's about joys in adversity, the freedom that choice gives you, how bad things are going to happen and you can never completely prevent them.

INTENSE movie emotionally, the ending will wreck you (especially in the English translation which leaves out a really important theme making it feel abrupt x_x) but it's really good. Check that one out.

OH and also You Are Umasou. That one has more pitfalls imo (it does try to moralize a bit) but it's super unique as a movie. And is about dinosaurs.

hi hello i have a question... i was wondering if you could define knife romance? Ive been looking on urban dictionary even and can't find a definition 😭😞 I wanted to know what classifies a ship as "knife romance"!

ho ho ho what IS knife romance... knife romance is love with pvp enabled. when you can replace a kiss with a stab and it's equally or more intimate. it's the wary circling, it's mutual fascination, it's distance + devotion, it's the simultaneously terrifying + enchanting vulnerability... knife romance is when intimacy is the coin and love and violence are its two faces

i can't decide which i like more:

the idea - very much canonical and in the author's original concept and view of magic - of the dark arts taking a toll on one's exterior and looks. tom riddle sacrificing his beauty willingly in the name of eternal life, black magic as something that innately corrupts. bellatrix escaping from azkaban with the barest vestiges of her ancient beauty. going from one of the most beautiful women in england to a shell of her former self and no amount of dark magic being able to fix it. and she just. doesn't care. goes from pretty, proud and vain in her youth, to the feverish, fanatical glow harry sees in the department if mysteries. finally she sheds the petal of the rose - look like the innocent flower, her master had once said - and only the thorns remain. the parallel with voldemort himself. the idea that they like each other better now, the only ones to like their respective new appearances better. bellatrix because she can taste the power radiating off him, because she knows how resentful he was of his old face. (oh, he's never said anything explicitly, he would rather be flayed alive than speak of his filthy muggle father to her, but she knew he didn't like himself, took no pride in his aesthetics, it was most unusual, really.) the dark lord because he's reminded of her sacrifice - she was the only one who didn't denounce him, who tried to find him - every time he looks at her. she gave up everything for him: her reputation, her family, her freedom, her health, her beauty, her youth.

or.

the horcruxes are an isolated case. not all prices to pay for power are physical. some dark magic sucks at your humanity, your emotional regulation, your empathy and gives back superficial little gifts. its roots are far from the deep anger, desperation to cling to life of an horcrux. these are ancient witches' remedies to be the most envied in the village. the idea that rotten cores hide behind the prettiest faces. and bellatrix was always vain, always took immense pride in her beauty, her black, pure features. when she escapes from azkaban she tries everything in her power to be herself once again. she still drips with obsession but gradually regains all of her beauty too. cruel people can still be beautiful. gorgeous people can still be inhuman. and yet there is something so human about a woman making her way through the ranks of a very militarised group and still caring so much about what she looks like, still having insecurities, being preoccupied with mundane things like age and decay - and hating it because he would hate it, he hates weakness, and still not being able to help herself. the dark lord was always a collector of shiny things, was he not?

i can fully understand the gripes with certain misogynistic tropes/writing issues that are present in the execution of some of cersei’s writing, but i will never understand the “she should have a redemption arc” or “she should be more likeable/less morally dark” perspective. that is not what her character is or has to be to make it great. wanting more female anti-heroes or “redemption arcs” with moral greyness and complexity of the level that asoiaf gives to primarily male characters is entirely understandable, but do some of you people even like cersei as a character, like at its core? like this is not about criticising the execution of certain things when it comes to this character, this is about taking issue with her as a villain fundamentally, which i just do not agree with at all

Lan and Moiraine: "Door"

1x06 / 2x01 / 2x01

i've been thinking why i don't enjoy soulmate AUs at all and i realized it's because they take away the whole ordeal of "i chose you, against all odds, i chose you" that i am so weak for in fiction

bound by fate? no. i want bound out of spite. bound by a love that we clawed out of mud and blood. bound by tearing your heart open and letting the ocean waves in. bound by a stubbornness that is sharp like a knife and melts away the moment you cup my face in your hands. bound by the way i'm drowing in your deep brown eyes when you gaze at me at 2am in the conbini. bound by a love we chose, no matter how messy it gets.

in every new universe i will choose you again, no matter if you fall to your knees or hold a knife against my throat. i will choose you

so hey guys i finished dungeon meshi yesterday and i'm still thinking about it

the love square as a concept in miraculous ladybug is literally brilliant i need it divorced from miraculous ladybug immediately so everyone can write with it without being accused of copying.

On one hand, I want a final fantasy 6 remake, because the game is criminally underrated and the amount of fan content (which is all absolutely fantastic btw) is Not Enough for my neurodivergent, hyperfixating brain.

On the other hand, that would inevitably encourage more people to join the fandom, which would be great, except it seems these days the bigger a fandom gets the more toxic it becomes, and I really like what we have going on over here in our little corner. We all just love the game and its characters and nobody fights about who should and shouldn't date who or who you shouldn't like because they're ~problematique~. Nobody's trying to make one ship morally better than another, nobody's calling anyone names or threatening to doxx people who don't agree with their opinions. It's so peaceful and I love that for us. We're just vibing. Moisturized. Unbothered. In our lane. Flourishing.

Sagau w/ an impostor would be so simple with me because the characters can easily tell the fake apart from the real

Mostly because the fake would probably be graceful n shit

Meanwhile the real one keeps picking up every single sweet flower, wandering around to random places and quietly walking past sleeping hilichurls because it'd be rude to wake them up!

Like the characters would have to put up w/ me cooing at the sleeping, snoring hilichurls 😭 like no way am I waking them up

No but really, I can't even ambush the sleeping once, if I need to kill them I at least wake them up before the fight akdhsksj

the thing is that the characters don’t really know what the (creator?) is like, so even if you and the imposter were entirely different people, it’d be difficult to see who’s real and who’s fake because, well, they don’t know you as a person. in fact, because the fake is so graceful and all, people would be more likely to think that they’re the real one.

though because i’m a sucker for drama, i think there’d be factions throughout teyvat, rallying behind you or the fake. some believe that the fake is real simply because they’re more elegant and ‘god-like’ in appearance, so to speak, all intimidating presence and authoritative voice. others believe you’re the real one because only the true god would be so in tune with nature and compassionate with all living beings, benevolent and empathetic and all the good parts that make you human. tho the humanity you have also serves as a double edged sword because it places you down the pedestal of what they think a god should be.

among the archons, the ones i see rallying behind you are venti and nahida. as for the imposter, it’d be zhongli and ei. (though i imagine zhongli would soon see through the fake simply because of how old and knowledgable he is.)

also, you’re a better person than me anon bc i don’t discriminate between sleeping and awake hilichurls. if i see one, i’m immediately throwing hands.

Man.

there's just something about the love between a woman whose impending death is inevitable and a man who's an immortal undead...