#the only difference is it feels magical

[souporwholock]

Something that brings me great joy: birds can literally be dragons if I want. Dragons can have feathers. Dragons can have a beak. Dragons... can just be birds... and they come in lots of colors and sizes. some live in cities. some hunt. some are super smart. some are fluffy. the world is such a magical place*

🥺 💖 ✨

*This is sounds crazy, and I can barely put this thought into words, but its so real to me. magic is real, but people learned how it works, so its science.

what if we could understand magic and still have it feel special? life is so rare, and im here to enjoy it all (100% not disregarding science, love science, im just saying its so SPECIAL you know??)

Reblog this so people actually see it, I feel like it might be important. Dire even. To know.

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

Once the theatre monkey discovers angsty broadway musicals its all over y'all

or: I got a new personal project I'm workin' on! I'm at the first pass on the animatic rn! I forgot that 'generate matte' is a thing you can do in SB Pro for a whole hour!! I'm suffering!!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)

[mira0000000-blog]

metal help me understand csp

MOSQUITO ☝️

[fictionadventurer]

Reasons I want to write a version of Jane Eyre that ends with Jane becoming a nun

She's used to living in an all-female community with basic attire

She has academic and artistic interests

She's religious

She needs a better religion than whatever Helen Burns had going on

She wouldn't have to marry Rochester

It would piss off Charlotte Bronte

[rustedleopard]

If you have Clover living with their monster friends, you gotta play up the differences between their biologies and make Clover look like a genuine freak in their eyes. You just gotta.

Starlo thinks he knows humans soooooooo well because he's watched human movies, yet the split second he sees their nose bleeding from the dry air, he's like "Ah shit. Any sort of bleeding is bad. Is this a fatal amount of blood loss? What do I do??? It just keeps coming out!" Ceroba is like "There can't be that many differences between a monster kid and a human kid. I've already raised one, how hard can another one be?" And then they get the flu, and since disease isn't really a thing with monsters, she's concerned that they're starting to Fall Down (<- okay, this one isn't funny). Martlet finds out that humans need to supplement their diet with things like fiber and iron, but apparently you can't just feed them cut up pieces of cloth and iron filings, that'll kill them. They find out that humans have internal organs and are made of cells and they're be simultaneously disgusted and intrigued. Like, you're made of a bunch of little parts? And those parts make up flesh tubes in your body and stuff? And they're doing their own thing all the time?? Without your awareness??? Does it feel weird????

"Oh, Clover has a 105°F fever but that's only a few degrees higher than how warm they usually are, I'm sure they're fine." <- Deranged statement uttered by one of them at some point.

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Asunder

slow-paced high fantasy

a woman who has a contract with an eldritch entity allowing her to see the dead & survives by taking various jobs

when a job searching for stranded smugglers in a cave goes wrong, she ends up with the soul of a dying stranger bound to her shadow

along with a scholar and her old childhood friend, they travel to his home country to find a way to unbind him and save them both

dark fantasy world with gods, demonic entities, arcane magic, and semi-sentient beasts used as transport

[wundrousarts]

I discovered these paintings by James McNeill Whistler recently, Nocturne in Black and Gold: Falling Rocket (top) and Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Firewheel (bottom). I’m sharing them because they make me think of Nevermoor, as so many things do.

With paintings, a nocturne refers to the depiction of night. This is derived from the musical term, where a nocturne refers to a musical piece that is “inspired by, or evocative of, the night.” These both just come from the fact that “nocturne” essentially means “of the night”.

On a basic level, this just reminds me of Nevermoor by the aesthetics. The dreamy nighttime setting strikes me the most, but also the sparks of yellow fire that make me think of Wunder. Think of how many important scenes happen at night- Morrigan on Eventide, the Museum of Stolen Moments, and the Hollowpox in Courage Square. But the concept has me thinking, obviously, about the Wundrous Art of Nocturne. The only songs we know are Morrigan and Squall’s, who both chose nursery rhymes as their Nocture. Their choices make me think of lullabies, sung at night… and there’s lots to think about with that.

[wolfman-ann]

Just as a reminder, the Undergus twins (the Oggles) both use they/them pronouns!

[shoyowo]

long-ish rambling about farewell shinsengumi and joui war gintoki and hijikata parallels under the cut

there's a direct parallel that's acknowledged in canon about ginhiji's situations in the joui war and the farewell shinsengumi arcs but their situations have key differences

gintoki talks abt the impossible "choice" he was given - neither "choice" being in any way favorable. and ultimately by "choosing" he says he lost both his precious things - his friend and his sensei

the main thing that is different is the trust & support that sogo has for hijikata and his leadership. despite all the bad blood between them - he still cares for, or at the very least, respects hijikata enough to wait for him to make the call on what to do. sogo could have easily rebelled against the bakufu without hijikata but it's a matter of principle and a matter of trust

and idk man there's something to be said about hijikata & okito not falling into the gintaka trap despite the circumstances easily calling for it ... mainly because of their reciprocated trust in each other + mutual love for their taishou

and i (admittedly) have not watched further and can't speak/dissect takasugi as readily, it's still very interesting to think that ultimately he loved shoyo more than he loved gintoki. whereas gintoki, despite everything, loved shoyo's teachings & his friends more. this isn't to throw stones at either character but merely the tragedy of their relationship..

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

Why did Gary growl and cover Efnisien's face/mouth when he said the safeword? Was he angry and trying to stop Efnisien from saying it so he could continue? If yes how did he manage to pull himself back from the brink of doing something unforgivable?

I think Gary was so uncoordinated in that moment, he wasn't thinking 'I need to shut you up' but there was definitely an instinct of: 'How dare someone tell me to stop.'

There was a visceral war with himself when he growls vs. when he places his hand on Efnisien's face, almost like he's trying to feel his breathing and his voice. It's a very quick motion, and while Efnisien assumes it's to shut him up, I actually think Gary was literally very out of it in that moment and was kind of bracing himself to even understand what happened.

Like, this is a guy who didn't respond to a lot of basic language and sentences for three days, or when he did, mostly could only do so in basic sentences or even single words. So while the peak alpha grokked the 'how dare you' pause, I think it was like a 'wait is an alpha trying to stop me from taking what is mine' level of confusion. He places his hands on Efnisien's face, almost like he's trying to find where the words came from, in my mind. Like someone who is blind who is trying to find a fan switch in a new place. They don't quite know where it is, but they know it's important in hot weather.

He then does hear more of Efnisien's voice (in the form of a distressed shriek) and immediately stops.

I really don't think this is as clean as 'he was fully aware, heard something he didn't want to hear, and made a choice to make sure Efnisien couldn't safeword again.' I don't even think he knew at the time what he heard, or how to understand it, only that he heard it and that he had to stop.

If yes how did he manage to pull himself back from the brink of doing something unforgivable?

Tbh Gary has the safeword to literally stop himself from doing the unforgiveable. And he does it with an immense amount of willpower that almost no human will ever really comprehend. Dude was barely even conscious at the time. Just like Efnisien spent many hours in a heavily dissociated receptive headspace, Gary does the same but from a more dominating peak alpha side. Literally just ruled by hormones in a very primitive way.

I'd say he's one of the only peak alphas in the world who can actually listen to a safeword at all in that state. I don't even think Temsen could.

[deva-arts]

zomg... the girls! Sketched out! And a few characters I never showed designs for! haha! I keep thinking about the beach, so this is their swimwear.

I hope to make a full fledged drawing for all of them soon~ then the guys~~

Some newbies are: Aura (blue!) Katya (Gold!) and more of Verra (Green!) We'll eventually see more about them as I draw more things and doodles.

[dredgesnails]

on the surface a laboratory seems like a pretty odd building to have in a small town like magic mountain row. why would the town spend their funding on a lab instead of growing their own economy and supporting their local businesses and residents? shouldn't they be trying to grow their community? unless, perhaps, the town had been built for one purpose and one purpose only: to hide whatever strange, possibly illegal research could be happening within.

no one would suspect anything weird in a neighbourhood like magic mountain row! we're nothing like that little fishing village with the strange creatures and the mad scientist who performs secret experiments in her basement. just don't pay too much attention to the runoff from these buildings. anything you see out there is totally harmless anyway. mutations are natural in life. they're probably healthier for you too. here at mined we care about our community, and we are always striving to achieve great feats in human engineering. soon we will be living forever.

[doriansbutt]

Maybe you found the spot on the map

But lost the kid on the way to the mark

Tell me now were you digging for gold

Or digging yourself in a hole?

Now tell me “now, where’s the head in the clouds?”

Now tell me “now, where’s the bright eyed lad?”

Now tell me “now, where’s the kid tellin’ tall tales?”

Siren, Colm R. McGuinness

I can’t explain the emotion this song gives me about my dragon age ttrpg character Saeed but it’s making me cry