#a shard of ice

[waterflowing-under-ground]

The emotional gut-punch that is A Shard of Ice (short story in Sword of Destiny in the Witcher/Wiedźmin book series), upon re-reading it after many years away from the series, on a day where I need to stay on task and be emotionally stable. Suppose it's better than trying to read it tomorrow when I have to concentrate on work. 😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺

I know Sapkowski wasn't intending any allegory on autism (although it surely is an allegory for people being cruel to those deemed the "other"), but the "you have no capability to feel human emotions no matter what you think" allegations levied at Geralt all the time, repeatedly, to the point where he feels utterly defeated and even internalizes them to a degree despite knowing that he DOES feel a full range of emotions, plus what actually happens in the end (which I won't spoil) hit home in the worst way today.

[hanzajesthanza]

i like how sapkowski needed some more ways to make geralt’s life miserable and the worst thing he could come up with (asides from all the other things) was “what if cats hated you and you couldn’t pet them”

[pangeen]

“ The Incredible Ice Beach “ // Mads Peter Iversen

[majestativa]

And once more I dream of a dream of a dream.

— Lydia Grigorieva, Shards from the Polar Ice: Selected Poems, transl by John Farndon and Olga Nakston, (2016)

[perseruna]

i Adore your fake marriage ice and flame art!! I was wondering, what reference/insp did you use for their outfits??

hello i am SO sorry I'm so late to this unfortunately uni got in the way BUT here's an in depth thread on the costume design of this piece and all the little details and references you might have missed <3

starting off, I wanted it to feel like a wedding picture of two people from different cultures, and they're not only marrying each other but so are their aesthetics. the costumes are very distinctive while also being complementary to each other.

yennefer’s dress is very much Indian sari inspired, while jaskier’s main influence comes from the Detva region of Slovakia. I wanted these costumes to be clearly influenced by traditional clothing while being something they would also wear in universe.

yennefer’s gown while being inspired by traditional saris is also inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli take’s on saris as well as this Simone Ashley's look (also the fabric is supposed to be a two-tone taffeta, so I hope that reads well enough)

jaskier's Detva inspired look works so perfectly in universe with his s1 doublets in my opinion. His costume is also inspired by other slavic folk clothing, for example his pants are mostly inspired by the polish mountain style clothing from the Zakopane region.

yennefer's also wearing alta dye on her fingers, which women adorn their fingers with for marriage ceremonies in the Bengali culture. The red dye also matches jaskier's red doublet and the dark blue flowers on jaskier's vest match yennefer's dress. like I mentioned before they're wearing wedding rings with gemstones that match each other's eye color <3 yennefer's wearing bangles, a maangtika and a nath, while jaskier's sporting the single pearl earring that I always draw him in and his other neckless are under his shirt

+ some process from the drawing !! (fun fact the first file that I found on this concept is from may 1st 2023 lmaoo) anyway I really really love it and I'm very proud of it, my fave yenskier piece to date <3

[blackrocks-king]

may i accept a hug-carry type from you king?

lalala off topic but its almost my birthday (27/12) yaeyy!!

Of course . . ! I hope this makes your day . .

[delusionalpuffball]

[checkadii]

mfs do anything but finish their wips . like startign another, for example

[rose-tinted-vision]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but when Di Feisheng took He Xiaofeng "hostage" she wasn't really in any immediate danger (as far as I can see):

He does not display any outward intention to maim her or restrain her, and when Shan Gudao goes on to stab her he immediately rebukes him for that.

Afterwards, when Shan Gudao demands for the other heavenly ice shard, his expression also looks as if he's urging them to give in.

Though, if it wasn't in his plans to hurt HXF in order to get the shards from them I do wonder how DFS planned to get them from FDB? (If SGD hadn't shown up).

[silvaris]

Icicles and Arakawa River by Benjamin Moore

[parasitic-dreams-au]

ooooohhhh! :)

-miley

*Magma has a horrified look on his face, but not because of Miley.... no... more like a certain someone behind Miley with swirling eyes and looking for revenge.*

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt: hi kitty :)

cat: [hisses]

geralt:

“it’s fine i didn’t want to pet you anyways”

[thefreelanceangel]

Nightmares came often, the only visitors Imayo's bed ever saw, but not so often that she feared them upon closing her eyes.

Oh, some did indeed end a night prematurely, bringing her from a sound sleep by providing the bright coppery taste of fear. Others left her curled on the futon, knees pressed to her chest, as she fought her way free of the despair they'd laid over her.

Loneliness, she understood, lived with from breath to breath. Despair she fought often, holding it at arm's length through sheer force of will. Fear and terror followed her, hand in hand, throughout much of her life.

...these dreams, however...

Pain.

Heat.

Distant screams mingling with the wet tearing of living flesh ripped open. Within her, only agony.

Despair.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

She knew these emotions, knew pain. Never in her life had she not understood how to manage these, to face them. And yet... She felt them tearing her apart, pain shredding flesh, not just heart and soul.

PAIN.

It split her, pieces falling away, and she clawed the robe from her body, discarding it in pieces. One foot came down, shattering the mask she'd worn so happily, and she lunged.

Skin split, shreds falling away. Skull split, pieces splattering across the cracked stones.

Without thought, she reached for the first thing that moved.

It squirmed.

She squeezed.

It made noise.

She squeezed harder.

Heat blazed around her as stone cracked and fell.

And when she consumed the warm, limp thing in her grasp, the pain faded into all-consuming hunger.

[pangeen]

“ Jagged shards “ // Luke Stackpoole

[cahootings]

I don’t want to jinx it but I think I saw some ice on lakeshore today… will she actually freeze this winter… it’s been 84 years…

[icedragonlizard]

Let's talk about Ice Dragon

I mean.. this thing is literally my namesake! Let me give it recognition.

I know I frequently post about characters such as Susie, Magolor and Marx, and yet I have "icedragonlizard" as my username which would imply that I should be more all over this big chubby blue dinosaur.

Funny of me to be acting the way I do.

However... despite seldom talking about him, I do love this thing.

I chose this username for two reasons: 1.) to stand out and 2.) while Ice Dragon may not necessarily be my top favorite character in all of Kirby, it is however one of my very favorite designs in the series!

I adore the appearance of this big cute silly thing.

He's big. He's chubby. He's blue. He looks very squishy. I want to hug him even if he'd bite me or turn me into an ice cube. He just straight up looks like a dinosaur, despite having dragon in his name. This is like the perfect sort of kawaii dinosaur design you'd expect in Kirby.

He looks like the substitute decoy from pokemon, LOL.

We don't have much reptiles in Kirby. There's also Landia, of course, which is another dragon. And there are also Galbos, an enemy species with evolved variants such as Galboros. I've noticed the visual similarities that Ice Dragon has to Galbos. May they be related at all?

I think the biggest problem with Ice Dragon is that he... isn't much of a character. He's very under-utilized. As far as I know, all his main appearances are: a boss in Dream Land 2 where he debuted, he's a painting that Adeleine summons in Dream Land 3, 64 and Star Allies (the former two as bosses, the latter as playable), he's a hologram in Planet Robobot, and if I'm not mistaken he also shows up in the clash games. I've never actually played the clash games but I've seen images of him in it.

And the fact he sadly has little recognition in the fandom in general.

He's much less major than other boss characters like Whispy Woods and Kracko. At least those two show up in like almost every game.

He doesn't even have a mask of his likeliness in Merry Magoland!

At least he does appear in the anime, though. I think it was cool the way they handled him, where they gave him a small version and then he just grew really gigantic.

There's unfortunately just very little to work with or talk about with Ice Dragon. One can try to rectify this with headcanons, which I've tried.

I do have headcanons for him.... it's just not a ton due to how little and minor of a character he is. For one, I headcanon that he's the king of whatever is Popstar's main snowy/arctic area, whether that be Iceberg (from DL2 and DL3) or White Wafers (from RTDL). And I imagine he's friends with King Dedede or at least gets along with him well, since they both serve as kings in their respective lands. Adeleine and the animal friends may know him and get along with him well, too, since the former even has paintings of him that she can summon.

If Ice Dragon was more major than he is... if they made him a more frequent boss and did more with him, I'd be all over it. I'd talk about him a lot more. I'd develop more headcanons for him at that point!

I once thought about that if Forgotten Land was willing to include dinosaur-like creatures during its game, then a primal version of Ice Dragon would've been absolutely perfect for the Winter Horns section.

If they ever do a Kirby game that includes dinosaurs, whether they be the villain faction or something else, then I think Ice Dragon himself or a relative could show up, and the aesthetic of his design could be a great base for other dinosaur creatures that get added in the series.

^ Just an idea, more ideas could be made.

This could be said for a lot of other characters in Kirby, I know, but I think a lot of really cool and awesome stuff could be done with Ice Dragon if HAL were to utilize him as such. I'd love to see it happen.

Oh and by the way, I'm aware that a plushie for Ice Dragon exists... it's from the Roly-Poly Friends merch line, but it's extremely rare to find and also costs a ton of money. It's out of my luxury to get it, sadly.

I would love to see a Sanei plushie of this guy come out at some point. I did say after all that I'd expand on my plushie collection more when they introduce more Sanei plushies later down the road, didn't I? Hahahahaha. Although I have the feeling that may take a while. That's fine. No need to rush. But if an Ice Dragon plush from Sanei comes into existence, I'm going to get it in a heartbeat. It'll be great.