#posting it from my grave btw

[whomanist]

[keery]

JOE KEERY for WWD, 2023

[strangerstilinski]

[adiradirim]

Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki in their traditional costumes, in the city’s old cemetery, before the war // a contemporary photo that shows where the destroyed cemetery once was, which is now Greece's largest university, built partially on top of and with land and materials (particularly tombstones) stolen from the razed site.

Thessaloniki or Salonika, once referred to as “the Jerusalem of the Balkans” due to its Ladino-speaking Jewish majority, saw roughly 96% of its Jewish population murdered during the Holocaust. This mass destruction extended to the city's Jewish cemetery, which had been the country's largest, established in the 15th century and housing hundreds of thousands of Jewish graves until its razing by city authorities who had long desired to repurpose the land and resented the inconvenience of Jewish presence. Despite its large-scale destruction during German occupation in 1942, which was initiated and carried out primarily by Thessaloniki authorities with Nazi consent and arrangement, some parts of the cemetery survived intact as late as 1947. Many tombstones were subsequently appropriated and used by city authorities and the Greek Orthodox Church. After the war, people were still carrying away Jewish gravestones each day and regularly looting the cemetery in search of valuables. The city's officials, led by their mayor, completed the cemetery's destruction and sold the tombstones to contractors for use as building materials in various projects; as such many were and are still found in various walls, roads, structures, and churches around the city. A 1992 commemorative book pictures Greek schoolgirls playing Hamlet with skulls and other bones they found in the cemetery.

“[T]he ‘rape’ of the cemetery escalated, marble flooded the market, and its price plummeted. Jewish tombstones were stacked up in mason’s yards and, with the permission of the director of antiquities of Macedonia and overseen by the metropolitan bishop and the municipality, used to pave roads, line latrines, and extend the sea walls; to construct pathways, patios, and walls in private and public spaces though out the city, in suburbs such as Panorama and Ampelokipi, and more than sixty kilometers away in beach towns in Halkidiki, where they decorated playgrounds, bars, and restaurants in hotels; to build a swimming pool – with Hebrew-letter inscription visible; to repair the St. Demetrius Church and other buildings...” Devin Naar, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece

Most of the efforts to return found tombstones throughout the city are led by Jews, particularly Jacky Benmayor, the curator of the Jewish Museum and last Ladino speaker in Greece, who has personally recovered hundreds of tombstones including his own family's. Surviving Greek Jews never received compensation for the confiscation of the land under the destroyed cemetery, upon which now partially rests Greece's largest university, Aristotle University, which also used Jewish gravestones as building material for its long-coveted expansion finally made possible by the dispossession and annihilation of the city's Jews. In 2014, 72 years after the cemetery's destruction and appropriation, a small memorial was established on campus grounds to acknowledge the Jewish cemetery the school is built on and with; the ceremony just 10 years ago involved the first-ever acknowledgement of the atrocities and apology from a Thessaloniki mayor. The memorial has been vandalised multiple times since its establishment.

[dusty-siltstrider]

Disclaimer I Am Not a Good Artist (and I've never posted art be nice to me) (no i do not own a fancy drawing tablet we're pencil and paper here folks)

Anyway some earlier discussion of how Viktor may look in S2 gave me some ideas. I figured we've seen a lot of amazing Machine Herald concepts so I wanted to lean further into the dirty grimy exiled hex-mage vibe. Void magic eating holes into his face and all, maybe feeding off his wounds from the explosion or whatever.

As much as I adore classic MH I really dig the more mystical direction so yeah. I would have gone farther if I had any access to coloring tools but alas lol.

[kaijuree]

best phighting tracks in order (my opinion)

1. RISE FROM THE GRAVE

2. IRON HORSE

3. SENSORY OVERLOAD

4. TIX BLASTERZ

5. THE FLIPSIDE

[incendiorum]

while in their fantasy verse dragon io has a rather fluid handle over their own appearance from human to dragon, they have three that they flip through most often, with defined features/traits.

their full dragon form: by far their favorite, simply for the sheer power it grants them. their build here favors agility and quickness, and does not handled blunt, physical fights well at all, especially if their opponent makes it so they can't strike with their fangs. however, it's hard to get that kind of upperhand on them. they're big (30' tall at the shoulder, ~200' long), but slender and rather lithe, a build somewhere between a greyhound and a mink, with narrow, swept-back wings meant for aerial speed and agility, not unlike a falcon. they have six fingers on each wing instead of five (including the hooked thumb at their wrist-joint).

from nose-tip to shoulders, they are remarkably snake like. from the broad, triangular head of a viper (although horned, a combination of nose 'horns' and straight above-the-eye horns not unlike mixing a rhinoceros viper and a horned sand viper) to the flexible, serpentine neck capable of rapid strikes. the rest of them is much more dragon-like. four legs with sharp claws. a long, slender tail that is always carried off the ground. their fire is sourced in their chest, and a constant hum can be found there, as well as so much heat as to almost burn someone when not in use (and will burn when in active use).

they are pale and mottled light gray in color, with the only vibrancy being the bright orange found mixed with the gray of their eyes, and the blood-red underside of their wings.

they are capable both of fire, and a potent venom that has, can, and will kill other dragons. it will effortlessly kill people too, although their fangs are... very long, and liable to simply go through someone.

their snakelike qualities don't end with their appearance, either. they lack eyelids and have a piercing, expressionless stare. and they have a forked tongue that can taste and scent the air as well as their infinitely smaller look-a-likes. they are marked by their fair share of scars in this form. scarred nostrils, a tear in one wing. claw-mark scars down their back and concentrated around a wing joint. a constant, obvious limp in their left foreleg.

the intermediate form: taller than their human form (6'3" here). there are several pale scales present, forming interlocking patterns on their lower arms and legs, collarbones and hipbones. their canines are longer, sharper, and liable to cut and pierce very easily. their wings are present - all twenty-four feet of them. the membrane of their wing that exists between their body and the sixth finger attaches from the wing joint behind their shoulder all the way down to their hip, which makes shirts an interesting and modified affair. their eyes are closer to that of their full dragon form - gray, and with a lurid orange concentrated close to the slit pupil.

they take this form most often with trusted company, or in the privacy of their own home.

and their 'human' form: most similar to io's canon appearance, barring some traits. they are their same canon height (5'11") here. small, pale scales dot their skin, and frequent spots where the skin is thin over bones like their elbows, collarbone, hips, knees, etc. their canines are sharper, coming down into short points. their pupil is round here, but the gray of their iris is marked by a hint of brownish-orange nearest the pupil.

this is the one they take when venturing out amongst unfamiliar people (towns/cities/etc).out of all these forms, they find their human form most uncomfortable - when asked they will compare the sensation to something not unlike trying to shove a cyclone into a glass bottle.

their intermediate and full dragon are equally preferred, and they switch between depending on the mood or the company. no matter what, however, they have left behind a completely human guise. and they don't regret it. the death that led to them choosing to become a dragon when offered is one that haunts their sleep. the helplessness, the shame, the anger. io was offered power upon their death, and they took it eagerly.

it's important to note that io technically did fulfill their venadeus blood-right in this verse, and in every way is a god, even if they are not entirely aware of it. they are bitter, and angry, and the circumstances surrounding their death in this verse is all the reason they needed to come back as such. they are divine wrath given the most terrifying form they could muster.

[alyimoss]

think ive made this post before but i am eternally cursed with liking ships that are decently popular and have content but very consistently have the complete wrong dynamic so i end up getting no content anyway

[annieisyourfavourite]

all 3 grandparents in the hospital, whole family sick with covid, and dog just died, all sounds like a kid's desperate attempt to skip turning in their homework, but is in fact actually just the current status of my life

[the-acid-pear]

Okay not gonna lie kinda obsessed w the fact my 2015 fanart of ourple guy looks almost identical to my 2024 drawing of him done from memory.

[robindrake93]

Before he died, my grandpa was telling people that I was a ghost writer.

He knew that I wrote constantly, watched me do it for decades, and he knew that I was somehow making money online with my writing.

What I was actually doing most of the time was writing fan fiction; something he did not know existed and since most of my fics are explicit, I didn't think he'd want to know. (although considering most of the books he read were steamy historical romances, he might not have cared too much)

I had also set up a patreon for original fiction, which I think I explained poorly when telling him about. "People pay me money to read what I write per chapter" was probably how I explained it. Which is accurate but that's not a model of reading that he's familiar with.

Given the circumstances and his limited knowledge, I'd say his guess was pretty good.

[robotwrangler]

trying to get back into traditional art a little bit

[quarks-pussy]

I love being gay and listening to Where My Heart Will Take Me (also mistakenly known as 'Faith of the Heart')

#pride #lovewins #progress #hatersbackoff

[litany-writes]

anatomical terminology

[peppermintgrim]

*blows a kiss to my computer* this one's for you, Aldith Sereda Wilhelmine Aeducan, kinslayer & kingmaker

[celestial-mean-girls]

Hiya! I was scrolling through the Moondrop tag when I saw your post about lining/coloring your sketches with credit. I’ve been in a bit of art block so I thought why not try it. Because the sketch is yours I won’t post this to my own account but thought I’d at least share it with you.

This was a lot of fun! Though I can safely say our art styles are very different lol.

THAT IS SO CUTE SHUT UP

OMG

LITERALLY SAID "THAT IS SO CUTE SHUT UP" OUT LOUD AND GRASPED MY CHEST IN REAL TIME.

OMG

THAT IS INCREDIBLE!! dlkldkg OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS WITH ME!! holy SHIT that looks SO GOOD!! holy CRAP!! LINELESS???? FOR REAL?? ARE YOU FOR REAL RIGHT NOW??

HOLY SHIT!!!!

THAT IS PHENOMENAL!!! oh my god the finesse in here; the shading, the CLEANLINESS of your lines?? the lighting, the vibrancy of the colors and patterns? this is SPOTLESS. SMOOTH AND GORGEOUS!! the gradients on Moon's hands, sleeves, pants, just. his CLOTHES in general?? (i REALLY fucking love your Moon, i LOVE this design holy crap. i'm gonna have to go raid your art tag later, i want to see MORE of him!!) he's got the CUTEST fucking mischievous eyes, and the overall MOOD in this pic?? FLAWLESS. HOW JOYOUS AND EXCITING this is just--!! it's so PLAYFUL and it's PERFECT!! just PRECISELY what i was originally going for!!

WOW holY CRAP and you got EXACTLY what i had planned for Freddy's hands, PERFECTLY!!! omg. o m G. just PHENOMENAL

and i REALLY love that you went and put your own little twist on it by having Moon pick up Freddy's hat and hold it aloft like that. this is just. fucking superb, OUTSTANDING content op, this is REALLY inspirational to me!! wow. i seriously can't get over this. the LINELESS!! the way you shaded and shaped with colors!! i'm. i'm floored. i'm awestruck. i'm absolutely over the MOON (ha ha)

(also i gotta say: up top high five for another Moon based in purple!! my original design for Moon (aka, Moony, who you can find in tags; he's the one with the hood) is based in purple for Color Psychology reasons, and it's ALWAYS so much fun to see another Purple Moon. absolutely STELLAR stuff, what a guy!!!)

this is SO beautiful and vibrant, op. i'm FLOORED and TOTALLY humbled that you chose my sketch to practice with, i hope it got you out of your art block!! this means SO much to me that it grabbed your interest and that you shared your finished work with me, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ETERNITY AND BACK!! wow. WOW. i'll be riding high on this one for a GOOD while, LOL!! it seriously inspires ME, too!!

and i think it would inspire many many more, as well!! so while i REALLY thank you for your considerate, respectful thought - you have no idea how much that means to me, and how important that is, so thank you forever again - i think that this deserves to be on your blog, too. PLEASE by all means post it, just give credit back to me at this blog for providing the base sketch, and that'll be enough. i really, REALLY think you deserve recognition for this on its own. PLEASE post it to your blog and i'll be MORE THAN HAPPY to reblog it again!!

just. holy shit. holy SHIT. WOW. you really made my day. holy crap. what a fucking inspiration. WOW. this is some seriously smooth and beautiful, detailed work. the fucking finesse you've got going, here. wow.

fucking gorgeous. absolutely beautiful, top tier content OP 1000/10 A+, PLEASE DO IT AGAIN!!! DEFINITELY gonna be on the lookout for more of your work, THANK YOU FOREVER TO THE UNIVERSE AND MORE, and stay healthy and safe out there!!! 🥺🥺🙏💖💖🥚😭😭🙏🙏🙏⭐️🌙⭐️