#fire dart

[archerinventive]

Happy Festival Friday!

Here's a flicker of frames from my last performance with Ashmo_fire at Shbang Festival.

So excited to be heading back to those same woods for even more magical memories. :)

[kazz-brekker]

i once again come bearing gifts (an excessively long and overly detailed powerpoint of book recommendations)

[mikefrawley]

As Butterflys Darted

Greeting each new dawn with laughter we played a game clearly ours to win fearlessly knowing we would never lose for a fire burned brightly deep within As butterflys darted and danced about we could never see the warning signs free spirited artists we made the rules carelessly coloring outside the lines Then of course storm clouds gathered and as terrified chlidren we ran away kindness and friendship both were lost still I pray love walks with you this day

[shuuda-arts]

Dart (Fire Emblem, Blazing Sword)

[xenonsdoodles]

[feshippingpolls]

Everyone out here putting the bi in bitch but who else up

[tallerthantale]

[jackfuckingtwist]

edvard lumiere is so fucking funny. “im going to program this robot to go down criminals’ chimneys and kill them preemptively” sir…..sir, YOU are criminals

[tactician-in-green]

[Fire Emblem: Through Blade and Flame] A comic about Eliwood and my tactician OC Mana's story (14/?)

[archerinventive]

Some fire for your Friday!

A huge thank you to EspressoBuzz for capturing these photos at Ignitions' most recent fundraiser.

Over a year into fire and it still feels so unreal to be part of the show.

A huge thank you to the crew, and to those who helped capture the moments for us to share. 🧡

[rise-my-angel]

How people hear the logo "fire and blood" and not think of fascism baffles me. Like it literally sounds like something the nazi's said. I know it might not be fair comparing real life history to fiction, especially in a medieval setting that doesn't match ...BUT THEY HAVE FLYING NUKES GUYS

Bear with me, but I think a lot of it stems from the dragons. In normal, or at least traditional fantasy, dragons are usually used differently in other stories. They can both be antagonists and companions to the hero. They are normally written to be while large and dangerous, also sort of majestic and awe inspiring.

So people see the dragons here, they see people riding them, and they think automatically it's cool. So if you're already someone more inclined to enjoy creatures like dragons, there's a perfect basis. A people whose culture revolves around dragons. It's an easy buy in to the Targaryean propaganda. You will automatically start seeing them in better lights because you like the dragons, whether you realize that or not.

But the problem is, grrm does not use dragons in the traditional sense. Grrm has been very clear that he has written the dragons as essentially, one for one metaphors to weapons of mass destruction. Grrm is also very anti war, a sentiment felt throughout all of his work, how no matter what justification one side or the other feels, it is the people, the lands, the smallfolk who suffer from war the most. So, the use of nuclear weapons in war, is essentially, the worst case scenario in terms of war. Which is what the Targaryeans use dragons for. Thats what Valyria has always used them for.

Fire and Blood sounds cool beacuse it is menacing, but it is more then that. It is the statement that they will burn the country to the ground so they can be kings of the ashes. Valyria used dragons to burn cities to the ground and were incredibly cruel to the slaves they took as a result that places like Bravvos are still massively anti dragon/anti valyrian. Two seperate people of Essos fled across to Westeros to escape them (The Andals and the Rhoynar), then the Targaryeans come to the same place and do THE EXACT SAME THING TO THE SAME PEOPLE WHO FLED THEM ORIGINALLY.

I am certain grrm is not writing dragons as "Its actually okay to use nukes if you're nice to them when you're building them." He's probably more likely to say "no matter what justification you tell yourself, access to such catastrophic destruction at your will and fingertips is a power no one should ever wield."

Yes the dragons are sentient creatures, but these are not like a creature such as a direwolf. One was sent to their human companion by a fate beyond them, and acts more like an extension of their identity and a friend as human and direwolf protect each other. Such as Nymeria biting Joffery to protect Arya, and Arya chasing Nymeria off to save her life for saving hers.

Dany murdered her own slave in order to use blood magic to force dragons back into a world after a peaceful number of centuries without them. Dany then uses them to burn her enemies alive, threaten those who stand against or disobey her and doesn't even consider taking steps to control them until after Drogon burned alive an innocent three year old girl, and even then all she does is lock them away in a manner that will no doubt only make them more angry and resentful of humans.

Not all sentient creatures are the same, and dragons specifically within the world of asoiaf are symbols of the dangerous balance of the world tipping too far. The Doom of Valyria was the result of using blood magic and dragons to tip the worlds balance too far and there is nothing left but a cursed, blighted hellscape left behind to remind man not to toy with nature in ways they will never be able to control. I don't think it's a coincidence that some stories say they found the first dragons in the Fourteen Flames, and it was the eventual eruption of the Fourteen Flames that destroyed Valyria and its dragons.

The Targaryeans didn't need to die with them, it's probably good that at least one family managed to safely leave so at least some aspects of a long, forgotten culture can be remembered in the history books from somewhere. But they do not act like just people. The Targaryeans still see themselves as something like gods.

In their eyes, they are better then the people of Westeros, those people taint their bloodline. They used dragons to force them to be subservient to them when all of those Kingdoms ruled independently for thousands of years before. Then they used those same dragons to tear the country apart.

No one is looking forward to or likes talking about the storming of the Dragonpit beacuse we want to see animal death. We want to see it for what it stands for. An uprising of people pushed too far by a monarchy that uses weapons of mass destruction recklessly beacuse they see themselves as gods. They refused to be subjected to that anymore, and they knew doing it would kill more men then it would dragons but they did it anyways. They looked at the free use of nuclear weapons and decided they will not live in that fear anymore.

Fire and Blood is literally their dragons. It is why they call themselves dragons. They are the destruction of the world, and they see nothing wrong with that.

Dragons plant no trees, and neither do the Targaryeans.

[kariachi]

Ya know how annoying it is to be someone who enjoyed that the dinosaurs were presented more like animals in this latest Jurassic Park movie (far from perfect but still, the bar's low and they crested it, plus this is an action thriller) and see people whingeing because, to be frank, the dinosaurs are acting more like animals rather than movie monsters.

This is a dinosaur-monster movie that leans a bit more into dinosaur than monster than recent fare and gods can you tell from some of the criticisms.

[gabsterz1]

woaw... tranqulizing dart and gummy from the new and hit upcoming show goon of the century

Hosts under the cut :3

[jadafitch]

Dangerous Stuff, now available on fabric and wallpaper, in three different color combos. Design features some of the most deadly plants and animals on the planet.

Spoonflower Shop

geographic cone snail, poison fire coral fungi, golden dart frog, voodoo lily, castor bean plant, deathstalker scorpion, deadly nightshade, Brazilian wandering spider, lily of the valley, oleander, redback spider, banded krait, autumn skullcap, diamondback rattlesnake, death cap, angel’s trumpets, stonefish, poison hemlock, box jelly, blue-ringed octopus.

[lynns-bonkle-blog]

Metru Nui Archives data log 35494: Cordak Blaster Prototype

Log author: Chief Archivist Etoku

I am prefacing this data log with a reminder to the Kehrex Weapons Company that the Archives is not seeking a corporate sponsor, and that any attempts to convince us, or any other Metruan organisation, to convert to your philosophy of "capitalism" will not succeed, no matter how many "rare" prototype weapons you send us (if you wanted us to believe they were rare, you shouldn't have sent so many).

With that out of the way, let's talk about what our... magnanimous would-be benefactors thought was worth shipping all the way from Xia, starting with a bit of preamble about the history of Cordak Blasters.

The Cordak Blaster is a rotary-barrel, muzzle-loaded missile launcher, and one of the most widely used vehicle-mounted weapons in the universe, though beings with enough strength (or under other conditions that make things lighter such as being underwater or within the radius of a Toa of Gravity's powers) can also carry them as handheld weapons.

The Blasters work by using a reciprocating motor to drive a pump that pushes compressed air into the top barrel, propelling the missile (or "mini-rocket", as they are commonly known) forwards, while also triggering a mechanism that rotates the barrels through 60°, readying the next shot. Meanwhile, the missile's inbuilt propulsion system activates, and it travels in a roughly straight line before usually hitting its mark. This process takes such a short time that Cordak Blasters can fire rapidly, though their low ammunition capacity can be an issue.

As you can guess from its… unusual firing method, the Cordak Blaster was first conceptualised by the Vortixx of Xia during their industrial revolution. They were sold to military commanders and rulers on other islands, most of whom proceeded to resell theirs elsewhere.

The ammunition is surprisingly stable, and can be safely stored upon a being's armour with little to no fear of detonation. It's also worth noting that any object with a similar diameter to the barrels of a Cordak Blaster can also be fired by one, though it won't go far without any additional propulsion.

Along with the standard version, there's also a much larger variant, the "Nui Cordak", designed for mounting on warships and other large vehicles, and a smaller, cheaper variant known as the Firework Revolver, which is said to have been developed in collaboration with the legendary Nynrah Ghosts (though this could just be a fabrication for marketing purposes).

The weapon's name is derived from the Toa Cordak, a Toa Team who are most well-known for being disintegrated by Zyglak, to the point that, according to my more... outgoing colleagues, the word "Cordak" has come to be used as a colloquial synonym for desolation. Prior to the unfortunate demise of the Toa Cordak, they were referred to as simply "Revolving Blasters", and you can tell the age of a Cordak Blaster by whether the name on the side is prefaced with the word "Cordak".

Now then, let's get onto the topic at hand. This prototype Cordak Blaster looks and functions vastly differently than the final version.

To start with the least notable change, the pumping mechanism is an external unit, connected via thick, translucent hoses to the back of the weapon. The hoses would presumably have been a major weak-point, and the pump is about as large and as heavy as a regular Cordak Blaster.

But where things get interesting are with the weapon itself, as well as its ammunition. Rather than a rotary design that allows for rapid firing, the prototype Blaster instead uses a gravity-fed loading system, drawing from a box-magazine that clips onto the top, and fires from a single, rather bulky barrel.

The overall form-factor, air-pump aside, is much smaller, built into a gauntlet that is sized for most classes of Toa. The Matoran over in the Weapons Testing complex managed to get it to work by attaching it to an ancient artificial Toa arm from the Level 2 Prosthetics & Implants gallery, then controlling the arm using a machine that Archivists Nuparu and Mavrah designed for this exact purpose.

What this testing showed was how the prototype missiles worked; painted entirely yellow, they were cylindrical, rather than the thin, flared shape and red colouration of the final missile designs, and seemed to be made out of solid metallic protodermis. Rather than exploding on impact, they instead functioned similarly to traditional projectile weapons such as Kanoka, impacting the target with a large amount of physical force; all but one of the targets that the weapons-testers had set up were destroyed by the Blaster, with the remaining one gained a large dent in its torso-piece when the aiming system of the testing arm glitched.

Since Kehrex provided us with a hundred crates of ammunition (each crate contains seven magazines, for a total of exactly two-thousand eight-hundred projectiles) and twenty Blasters, I got the weapon testers to try loading the prototype projectiles into the final design and vice-versa, and the results were. Interesting.

Test 1 resulted in the projectiles loudly falling to the testing-chamber floor, due to the lack of additional propulsion. Rather disappointing, but to be expected. However, Test 2 was far more interesting; while the Blaster itself was damaged, the rockets fired as standard, albeit with a far higher initial launch velocity. I requested that the damaged blaster be put on display next to the intact versions, with an explanation of what happened to it, and that only one of the intact blasters be displayed; the rest will go into storage, along with the remaining ammunition.

Personally I believe these will be quite popular with visitors, though I doubt this will cause Kehrex to cease their attempts at buying our attention.

Artifact information:

Categories: Inanimate, Weapon

Current location: Level 3, Weapons gallery.

End of log.

Addendum by Surgical Director Gogot: Hey boss you should of just asked me what toa types it fits. You're office is literally like five doors from the dissection lab. For the record, its only compatible with the arm structures of class-2 toa, as they are the ones who were active during the creation of this weapon.

[alfgifu]

Tales by the Fire

Hey Nine Worlds folk, breadandroses and Alura and I made a server! Tales by the Fire is a small cosy space optimised for those who create or love fanworks for Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds series. This has been a labour of love and we're delighted to share it: https://discord.gg/S4xB9hS8Q5