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Aaaaaaaahhhh!!!! ❤️ It's glorious! @bread-elf

Only on the darkest arctic nights can you encounter this Primordial Pokémon. It manifests as aurora and ice, gently towering over the pole's frigid denizens... ✨❄️🧊 (There are 12 kinds of Pokémon in this #art! Can you find 'em all? Some are well hidden... Have fun, open your mind, & don't give away answers! 💕) Image on Bluesky~

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lost

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Lore-pocalypse

Meanwhile, on a windswept cliff overlooking a neon, alien landscape...

Trixany: *walks to stand beside a tall, dark Night Elf stranger. Takes off her shades*

Trixany: I need your help.

Al: *wearing a silver, sleeveless jumpsuit. Chews gum*

Al: I dunno, Trixany. I'm not sure I do that kind of work anymore. Not since... the accident.

Trixany: Accident? What the hell happened to you? Ya look fine to me--

Al: Uh, Teldrassil?

Trixany: Wait. Right. So...

Al: I know that you can't see them, Horde scum. But I have emotional scars all over my flawless kaldorei physique.

Trixany: Look! You're still an assassin by trade. Suddenly, you don't want to take someone out? Someone who deserves it?

Al: I don't work for the Horde. Never will.

Trixany: *puts her shades back on, stares at the horizon with him*

Ambience: *otherworldly, high-pitched ambience noises*

Trixany: Why are we standing in Hellfire Peninsula anyway?

Al: It makes the reflections on my silver jumpsuit look really amazing.

Al: Anyway, I'm Alliance through and through. I would never take a contract to get caught imbetween two rabid Horde dogs who probably already deserve it.

Trixany: I want you to murder the lore police.

Al: Seriously? Speaking of Teldrassil, I've been wanting to take a chunk out of them for years. I'd do that for free. Unprompted.

Al: I'm actually feeling really jealous that I didn't think of it first.

Trixany: I knew I liked you.

Al: Better than Sharpen?

Trixany: Huh?

Al: What?

Trixany: ... Anyway. Make it happen. Also? We didn't have this conversation. *strolls away*

Al: Pshaw! The conversation where I looked all sci-fi and amazing in my silver supersuit? Oh, it HAPPENED.

To be continued...

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Aww! This was Opalbane

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Commission - Saqib

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an YCH piece for Bramblestar, of their lovely character Aliraylena ✶˖·˳.

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So I kind of... went insane and came up with the basics for a Darnassian writing system. This is strictly modern Darnassian -- this is not what was used during the Empire, for example. It wasn't Darnassian at that time, but Kalassian, which had a very different, fully logographic writing system. But I digress......

I'm leaning heavily on Korean's system for this one, and I'm not a linguist, but I'm happy with it and will likely come back to flesh it out even more in the future. (I also may very well have screwed something up with the IPA transcriptions, but WHAT MATTERS IS I GOT THE GENERAL IDEA DOWN.)

If anyone wants to use this in art or just for fun little things, go right ahead, just credit me ofc ^ ^

All my posts about my AU || Master google doc about my AU

More stuff below the cut v

What counts as a full syllable can be fudged a little bit, as I did with "falore" and "Cathala". It could also be "Fah-lor-ay" and "Kath-awl-ah" but... when it's iffy like that, it comes down to the writer. Just go with the vibes, man.

And you may notice that G (as in "green") and J (as in "jungle") are missing...

I decided modern Darnassian doesn't have a G sound because I only counted three total instances in the fan dictionary and thought it would be a little more fun to just outright exclude it. And I kicked out J, also for fun. Where it exists in Darnassian words, it's pronounced as a "Y" sound. So yes it's "Yarod Shadowsong" now. Doesn't make him sound any less stupid

In loanword situations, G is usually replaced with K, and J is usually approximated with Y. "Naga" does indeed become "naka". "Naga" itself may have originated from an older version of Darnassian or even Kalassian, where a G sound was still present, or maybe it came from somewhere else. In any case, that's probably the biggest thing affected.

Also note that the English "R" is absent, instead replaced with the voiced alveolar tap (or trill depending on the speaker and word).

Also also, as I hinted, this is not all the language's characters. There are syllabograms for common consonant-vowel combinations (LA, DO, DA, etc.), some for entire syllables, and there are also logograms which have stuck around since Kalassian, or even before that. "Kaldorei" is one of those extremely old words with its own symbol, which sorta doesn't even visually fit with all the other characters.

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From this picrew!

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💅

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Happy Holidays

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via

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Art by @vulgarteacups

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wwdits ;; 6.05

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Mutually assured destruction

It was some manner of a cruel joke that she was still alive.

The light of day shone relentlessly into her eyes as she forced them open, squinting at the blinding white glare that poured from the sky. Together with consciousness, returned the excruciating pain, twisting Eluein’s bloodied face with a grimace. Despite serving as the ancient resting place of the Highborne, Tel’anor had not claimed her yet— unfortunately.

“Live. That is my command to you as the victor of this duel.”

The words felt almost cynical under the current circumstances. Eledorn might have refused to take her life, but it was far from an act of mercy. Neither of them could do anything about the extent of the injuries both suffered throughout their fight. Rendered immobile and left to reflect upon her actions, she might as well have been slain - but stubbornly and against all odds, even when Eluein herself had long renounced it, life still clung to her.

Her penance and her punishment.

Yet even that would pass, and sooner rather than later. She had no chance of making it out of here all on her own, and though Eledorn had just enough strength to leave once the duel was over, she could only imagine how far he’d made it before collapsing himself. Through the haze of feverish memories, she saw him again - arcane, raw and potent, burned and cracked his skin just as much as it had ripped her own apart. A mark he would bear for the rest of his life.

The wound on her back, the massive fissure that threatened to split her in half, reopened with the futile attempts to crawl, to move even just a tad away from the pool of dried blood and grass she collapsed into the evening prior - not that it would afford her any more dignity. A stray traveller would stumble upon her remains a decade or two into the future, momentarily puzzled by the circumstance of her demise before moving on with their journey. She felt the urge to laugh at how pitiful it was, only didn't quite have the strength to do it.

A sudden movement overhead caught Eluein's attention. A raven landed on the branch above, tilting its head as it stared her down. It was only then that she noticed how many of them sat there, the entire conspiracy watching her– waiting for the Arcanist to draw her final breath before partaking in her flesh. If they were hers, she could hardly blame them for it. Loyalty could only push back against hunger for so long.

She couldn’t blame them, yet the knowledge of what was to come stirred an uncomfortable feeling in Eluein’s heart. Betrayal? Sadness in the realisation that the bond they had established over the years was nothing in comparison to the animalistic instincts driving their existence?

Their gazes met when the first raven landed nearby, followed by several others. Eluein made a mistake swatting them away, wincing as the movement sent a jolt of piercing pain through her arm. Though the arcane growth was expunged, the ravines formed within the body remained, spreading from the shoulder all the way down to her palm. Unfazed by her struggle, the birds inched closer.

A mote of shadow struck down the one that dared to poke at her flesh first. Writhing and spasming, the raven fell to the ground as life was pulled from its body. The quick death followed by the fall of another, and another. Taking to air, the remaining flock fled in a cacophony of echoing caws, stirring the dust in their rapid ascent. Eluein looked around for the hidden assailant, but with her neck too stiff to even lift the head, she could only brace herself for impact of the foul sorcery– yet none ever came.

The noise caused by the birds made them all too oblivious to the quiet sound of the incoming steps, the measured gait of the tall figure followed by a voidwalker ominously hovering in the air, bound to its master with a set of enchanted bracers. Holding his staff aloft, the sorcerer drew the spirits of the slain ravens into the orb at its top, the soulgem held in place by silver clutches fashioned into talons. Following the trail of purple wisps with her gaze, Eluein finally saw him.

A gaunt, long face marred by the passing of time even more so than her own, withered and pale, framed by a dark mane of hair that fell all the way past his shoulders. Though one of his eyes blazed with a pale shade of violet, its twin was missing from the socket, the hollow pit encircled by a rune carved into the man’s very flesh– she knew that inscription. She had seen it before. The realisation made the entirety of his visage all too familiar, pushing millennia old memories long buried to the surface.

The memories of her father.

Before her eyes had even a chance to widen with a look of recognition, the figure spoke; his voice deep and monotone, just as Eluein remembered.

“Is this what has become of you, my daughter?”

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Wanted to flaunt this absolutely gorgeous portrait commission I got from Maja/_Periastron_ on Twitter! She captured Eluein's severe look so so well, I love it!

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Never ever ever will we be prepared together

Sharpen: *slides onto a bar stool, signals the barkeep*

Balnazzar: Oh no, you don't! Don't bring that Lion King stuff in here. Not in my wine bar!

Al: Balnazzar, buddy. Calm down. You've been known to mix a cocktail or two, and this place used to be Cut-throat Alley. It ain't precisely Gallywix's Pleasure Palace.

Balnazzar: This friend of yours has been going around ruining people's favorite expansions, by comparing Illidan to Scar from The Lion King. It's monstrous!

Sharpen: No, it's cute! Illidan is a huge fan of Scar, that evil lion in the movie.

Al: ...

Al: You're just now seeing that, Balnazzar?

Balnazzar: Not you, too.

Al: We have a file on Illidan back at HQ. The man really loves Scar.

Sharpen: So what if it makes him more cuddly and accessible? People love that.

Al: *puts his arm across* I wouldn't go that far. Never forget that Illidan is a dangerous, unstable man.

Al: But it's a little-known weakness of his. Scar's green eyes, Scar talking to a skull, Scar's song about being prepared, Scar outwitting his brother. And yes, Mufasa and Scar were brothers, just like Malfurion and Illidan. Deep in his twisted psyche, Illidan respects that story.

Sharpen: Wow, even the brothers thing. So there's a deep emotional tie there as well?

Al: Look. Illidan is a disturbed individual, so don't go over-empathizing with him. Though it does have a funny side. I will agree with you on that, Sharpen. But I'd have to be very drunk to give up that secret.

Sharpen: *exchanges a look with Balnazzar*

30 minutes and many drinks later...

Al: And so, in the middle of this scouting mission at the Black Temple, Myra yells this thing from the shadows. And Illidan like freezes. Haha!

Sharpen: What did she yell?

Balnazzar: Yes, tell us! Does the Betrayer truly have a special trigger word?

Al: Hahaha! She goes, "Hakuna Matata!"

Sharpen: That's abominable!

Balnazzar: Repulsive.

Sharpen: *mutters* Al is secretly pretty boring when you get down to it, huh?

Balnazzar: So that's why I haven't been able to get a thing out of him this whole time? Dammit.

Sharpen: Unless... Al is more cunning than we think.

Balnazzar: Why?

Sharpen: *peers* Illidan singing Hakuna matata... He just ruined the Burning Crusade for me.

Sharpen: ...

Sharpen: That was my favorite expac, with the hot draenei ladies, idyllic Nagrand, the Black Temple raid--I'LL KILL HIM!! *lunges at Al*

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I Be Bhan. Bhan Kanano

Troll spy Al ordering his pineapple rum shaken, not stirred

Opal: Al, do you sometimes miss being Bahn Kanano, Troll spy extraordinaire?

Al: *smiles wistfully* I had a shock of red hair. And golden tusks. I was really very handsome, for a zandalari.

Opal: Sounds like you were a richmon, as they say.

Al: I went in and got my hair cut and my tusks polished every Sunday. Regular arcwine delivery to my balcony dwelling with a view over the waterfall. I was on SI-7's dime, so I spent it like all that beautiful water I woke up to each morning.

Opal: I'm sure Matthias Shaw hated that.

Al: Yes, he did. I even went glam fishing.

Opal: Glam fishing! You've never taken me to do that.

Al: Night Elf me can't afford it. But, Bahn Kanano... I literally threw gold coins into the river, to use as shiny bait. Caught huge trout doing that.

Al: Of course the caste system in Zandalar is unfair and horribly outdated, but seeing as how I was an evil Alliance spy...

Opal: You enjoyed messing with the Horde.

Al: Oh yes. Indulging my inner gold-toothed troll snob was SO cathartic.

Opal: Well. I'm glad that horrible war ended--

Al: By da loa, I was sexy!