#I am now insufferable

[lazylittledragon]

missed them <33

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[starofhisheart]

IZZY SINGING CONFIRMED AAAAAAAAAAAA

Specifically "beautiful, sad love songs"

Oh its so over

[cod-dump]

Nikpricegraves thoughts, special delivery!

Nik getting more grey in his hair, and neither Price or Graves wants to bring it up, because they don't know how Nik feels about it. They dom't want to make him feel self-conscious.

So they wait. And Nik finally brings it up, very casually (fronting like hell) musing aloud that he might color the grey so people don't think their evac pilot is too old.

And maaaaybe Price and Graves wanted their responses to be a liiiittle more restrained, a little more level-headed. But they weren't.

Price: You are not TOUCHING that silver--

Graves: Like HELL you're--absolutely not!

Price: Anyone lucky enough to have you picking him up has no right to complain about that!

Graves: And it's sexy as hell anyway!

Price: Exactly, you're fuckin gorgeous.

Nik: ... Thank you?

Nik was a very confident man. He was sure of himself, comfortable in his own skin and almost never doubted himself. But seeing the thin stripes of silver in his hair… he wasn’t too confident on it. The reality of him being old was setting in and he wasn’t very happy about it.

Nik never gave the thought of him getting old much thought considering he didn’t think he would get this far, especially not with his constant flirting with death. He never thought about how he would feel about growing grey, and now that it was here, highlighting his temples? Nik felt his heart squeeze, uncertainty making his chest tight.

Worse part was that neither his husband or boyfriend had mentioned anything about the grey, which just added to his uncertainty about it. He’s caught them whispering about it, both immediately cutting themselves off upon noticing him. He’s caught them staring, again no comments about it. Nik knows they had noticed it, of course they did. They notice everything new or different about him, most of the time even before he’s noticed it.

He didn’t like their silence and was choosing to assume the worst. But he kept quiet, just like how they were choosing to stay quiet. The topic of greying hair wouldn’t come up until one night while they ate dinner. He couldn’t help but stare at their own hair, how he would’ve noticed if John had started to grey (surprising he hadn’t by this point). The silver would’ve been noticeable amongst his dark brown hair, within his beard. It would be undeniably attractive.

Phil greying would been less noticeable considering his golden hair. There would’ve needed to be quite a few grey hairs before it was obvious and even then it would blend nicely with the gold strands. It would add to the American’s charm. Both would carry silver has crowns yet… Nik couldn’t determine that about himself. Couldn’t see himself with it, even as it took residence within his hair.

“I think I need to start investing in hair dye.”

The speed in which Phil turned his head to look at him made Nik fear he would break his neck. John just froze mid bite, eyes looking up to stare at him. Nik kept his usual level of smug confidence about him even though he wasn’t feeling anything remotely similar. Phil swallows his food, taking a deep swig of his water before he glares at him.

“Over my dead body.”

Nik blinked in surprise, his facade cracking.

“Nik, my love, if you do that you’d break my heart,” John added, staring intensely at him.

Nik looked between his partners before he cleared his throat, “Right-“

“Nikky, I’m serious,” Phil said firmly, “That silver is so fucking hot and if you dye it I’ll probably cry.”

“I second that,” John said very seriously.

Nik couldn’t help but laugh at their seriousness. Phil stood and walked behind him fingers going into his hair which of course caused Nik to lean back and practically melt. John stood as well and walked over.

“Should’ve known something was up when you hadn’t said anything. Big, bad Nikolai, insecure over some grey hairs.”

Nik huffs, closing his eyes as Phil continued to play with his hair, “I am not insecure.”

“You just said you wanted to dye it.”

Nik huffs, he could hear Phil’s smirk. He mustered up an unamused frown, which was immediately chased away by a well placed kiss from John. Nik was choosing to be annoyed in order to hide how relieved he felt about their approval. The two would probably pry that confession out of him later when it wouldn’t add onto their smugness over his unusual lack of confidence.

“You might want to prepare for when we return from leave, the boys are definitely going to say something when they notice.”

Nik snorts, “If they have a problem with their transport getting grey then they can cry about it.”

“Cry and complain, with bad jokes on the side.”

By the time they returned from leave, Nik would regain his rock solid confidence. And some jokes of his own because what is an old man without his jokes?

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

Kaveh and alhaitham working together during cyno’s story quest is driving me INSANE! Not only because what it means for their relationship in that they are both willing to collaborate once more despite the hurt of their argument and the abandonment of their joint thesis, but it’s HOW they come to work together which is indicative of their past friendship and the promise of reconciliation

When alhaitham and kaveh initially became friends, kaveh notes that although their views are ‘complete’, however their friendship only appears to be deepened when he realises that their views are different, but that this is not a bad thing – their differences in their approach to life is not a reason to fall out over, but rather it serves as a way of strengthening their relationship, as their differences enable for new discussions, speculation and philosophies. These are things to be revered and sought after, which is what causes the two to work together on a thesis, which balances these ‘two sides of the mirror’, language (alhaitham) and architecture (kaveh)

When their friendship ends, it isn’t because these things are inherently impossible to align, it is the assertion of a ‘correct’ philosophy over the other which they each believe will help the other – kaveh believes that alhaitham isolates himself from other people, actively harming him, whereas his collectivism and altruism believes in the benefits of working together, whereas alhaitham, with his individualism and egoism, believes that kaveh neglects himself in order to prioritise others, and that this actively harms him. their friendship effectively ends when the comments become too personal, and kaveh rips up their thesis, renouncing alhaitham, with alhaitham removing his name from the thesis (an analysis of their argument can be found here)

In terms of cyno’s story quest 2, the two banding together in order to research the temple of silence isn’t only relevant because they’re working together once more, it’s how they begin working together which is extremely telling. Kaveh notes the emblem on the note paper which the threat to Cyrus was written on, and he claims that he noticed it because of its unique ‘beautiful’ pattern. He draws the symbol for alhaitham, who recognises the architectural signets within ancient architecture – presumably due to the knowledge gained from his and kaveh’s joint thesis. Alhaitham recognises the emblem kaveh drew as the temple of silence’s, and this is the catalyst for the chain of events which follow

There is an inversion of their mirror motif happening here, with alhaitham identifying architecture in the symbol that caught kaveh’s attention because of its ‘beautiful pattern’ – it is kaveh seeing the beauty of language in emblems and symbols and alhaitham recognising the architecture in the symbol that allows them to uncover the temple of silence’s involvement in the matter, and this is what enables a ‘swift’ resolution of the matter, with a good outcome.

The notion of ‘correctness’, as established within a parade of providence, has been cast aside, and this enables the two to appreciate and appropriate the others’ perspective

ultimately cyno's story quest II makes it explicit that that alhaitham and kaveh are ideally supposed to undergo a reconciliation arc which will allow them to finally balance their viewpoints, as suggested in kaveh's character story 5? Which will not only benefit other people but themselves? They are complete only within each other? HOMOVERSE IM GOING CRAZY

[leofrith]

woah you hate gale? that's crazy, dude. you should tell us more. don't forget to tag it.

[daisythornes]

speedrun of things that cause me agony in the wondla tv series trailer:

whyyy did they have to make the sanctuary so sterile and minimalistic? the book sanctuaries had this charming clunky 70s sci-fi design to them – they were blocky and durable and Eva's was tangibly lived-in, even worn in some places, because that was the point! they were an experiment that outlived their usefulness, but people kept living in them & they felt like it. this feels like Kim Kardashian's creepy white torture house.

"this... is me." has this line not become extremely passé in trailers, like almost to the point of parody?

that is NOT Muthr. idk who that is, but she is not mothering. it's like they took her book design and stripped away anything that may have been even slightly challenging to the cocomelon-smoothed zeitgeist of current animation. she's just so... nothing. she doesn't even look like a robot so much as like.. the lame soul design from pixar's soul. book Muthr looked WEIRD, but you can see the ways in which she's literally a synthetic + superhuman recreation of a Mother Figure: her head shape mirrors the beehive hairdo, her big eyes are saccharine sweet, she has four arms bc she always needs to do a million things at once, etc. i get that this version of Muthr was probably way easier to animate, and i don't even think they had to stick to the original design 100% as long as they still did something interesting for her, but. they didn't.

rip Eva's sick as hell hairstyle. :( seriously, her complicated braids were so important. bc 1) they were an homage to Dorothy's braids in the wizard of oz, the book to which the whole trilogy is a love letter. 2) they immediately gave her a unique visual identity as a character. 3) they contributed to the world of Wondla feeling genuinely strange and foreign to our current one. 4) they subtly spoke to things like Eva's boredom and loneliness and all the time she had to herself.

the paltry mini braids and single low bun they gave her instead are WEAK. again, they didn't have to follow the books to the letter, but. they did kinda need to give us something more memorable and distinctive than this.

i mean... there is ofc the obvious question of why'd they make her 16 instead of going on 13 like she was in the books? but also, perhaps even more crucially, why does she look like a whole ass adult woman? wondla is very much a coming of age story, and it's really good at capturing the messiness of that experience in every way down to its character design. this Eva doesn't look messy, she looks like an influencer. also i hate that current disneyesque cgi character design.

her outfit's like... fine. but it was so fucking cute in the books. cute and ultra utilitarian, and unlike anything i'd ever really seen before. can't a girl have a vest with a funky collar, cool billowy balloon sleeves, and scrunchy knee socks? do yknow how many kids would want to be Eva for halloween if they simply gave her an outfit that looked cuter? they're leaving money on the damn table.

she wasn't done with her training for life on the surface in the books, and that was important. :/ not that anything could've really prepared her, but the fact that she was so young made her terror and anger all the more palpable. i guess i don't think it's inherently terrible for her to be a bit older in adaptation, but idk, at least let her retain that trial by fire/still kind of a scared kid quality that's integral to her arc.

the placement of the 'wondla' letters on the page makes no sense. it's meant to be the wonderful wizard of oz (or the wonderful wizard of oz by l. frank baum. i forget which, but ONE of those for sure), so by all accounts the l and a shouldn't be right next to each other like that, there should be more space between those two letters.

now i don't fully remember, but i super don't think that 'Eva find me' note was in the books. Eva would've been way more obsessed with it if it was. in the books, she doesn't know the 'wondla' page was actually left for her, it's just this strange anomaly she finds that gives her hope, but she sort of creates that hope herself. its origin is an honest to god mystery until the second book, and therefore, the meaning that Eva gives it is what really comes to define it.

it's not just that no one had seen a human in a long time, most aliens on Orbona had never seen a human at all until Eva came along. that's a big difference! though, this audio does sound chopped up from multiple sentences, so maybe disregard this.

i don't like that they gave away the 'Orbona was once Earth' twist right off the bat. i know it's not a wholly original trope in sci-fi, but this is a middle-grade/family series, and it straight up blew my mind to see as a kid that hadn't ever really read true sci-fi before. and Orbona is SO bizarre, and Eva is SO desperate to find other humans, that the reveal is extra jarring and bleak, and it creates such powerful tension. why give the impact of that away in the trailer?? why not just let people think she's stuck on an alien planet until they get the full emotional gut punch when they actually watch it for themselves?

where's the lake in Lacus? :/ that was... kinda the basis of Lacus' culture and design and all. like ok i see some water, but Lacus should be almost more water than village.

Otto's design!! why god why.

why is Otto furry, why are his eyes Like That, etc.

nooo, don't show the ruins of New York in the trailer, that's for the audience to discover in horror along with Eva.

also why does Otto (i think that's him talking at least?) sound like that? thumbs down.

what are the. uh. shark tale-looking creatures running on water. they're very shark tale-looking (derogatory). they don't look like they belong in this series?? like did this footage just get misfiled?

egads it's coming out at the end of this month. i'm gonna watch it of course. but the whole time i'll be thinking about what could've been. and i'll reread the books, too. >:|

[nerdlydelicious]

This is a Public Service Announcement

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Thank you for your time.

[thorinkingoferebor]

[celestial-sapphicss]

because i needed this on my blog!!!

[mochiiniko]

oooo you wanna listen to this cover of plastic love soooo bad

it's currently fashion week in rdl and i absolutely had to make a redraw of this piece from last year (putting it under the cut because theres a couple bonus doodles lol)

we should cancel guitars actually. breathe if you agree

[bacchuschucklefuck]

just realized after sophomore year's article class swap riz would 100% have assassins after him

[detectiveneve]

man I can’t do it anymore. I’m going to be petty and silly and yuck on yums but please. on my knees can we stop calling astarion “asta” “starry” “asty” I’ll kill him myself if only to free us from this torment

[here-there-were-dragons]

just read the new hatchling skin rules and am having Some Type Of Initial Emotional Reaction and am now writing down said Initial Emotional Reaction uncensored as i currently Strongly Feel A Type Of Way and Require Venting. i cannot word this more politely. i do not have the capability to render this rage into polite borderline corporate-speak for the sake of the damn rules that act like anything short of apologizing for being alive to make up for having even the most constructive understanding friendly criticism or even personal mild non-critical dislike of something like a color or a breed is tantamount to personal targeted hatemail. i cannot wait until i cool into calm bitterness later because if i think about this enough to write about it again i will just go right back to being furious and the fact that everyone ielse who's complaining is focusing entirely on the lolita fashion thing and not on in my opinion the far more significant and offensive part is pissing me off even more. extremely angry unedited ranting ahead

fr having it's own "female presenting nipples" moment right now, not that i'm particularly surprised, they've been a prime example of "conservative protestantism in a lefty-language veneer" for a long while now.

"don't adultify" is such a fucking vague and easily selectively interpreted rule, not to mention insulting for a number of reasons,

but putting that part aside the whole idea of "nothing that suggests that the dragon is an adult in a young body" is. look, i'm not exactly fond of the "adult who looks like an anime schoolgirl" trope myself, but i fail to see how in the absolute FUCK having it be canon in-universe that it is both possible and legal for someone to be forced to stay as a child permanently, is somehow LESS creepy than just saying eternal youth dragons have dwarfism. also, fuck you to anyone with dwarfism apparently i guess?

and "no zombie baby dragons" is just stupid. even fucking minecraft has baby zombies, and microsoft has steadily butchered that game into one of the most t for toddler babymode things on earth this side of cocomelon.

and "no scars on hatchlings" so fuck you to any kids with scars too apparently, even though that's way more common than anyone seems to realize. you hear that, kids? if you're under 18 and have scars your very existence is too obscene for public view. 13+ year olds will be irreparably traumatized if they have to know you exist at all! fuck you disabled kids and fuck you amputee kids and fuck you any kids that have suffered anything ever at all for not appearing as a perfect unspoiled image of conservative christian child-doll innocent purity. flight rising staff says your body and existence is inherently too nsfw to even be acknowledged as existing much less visually seen. everyone knows REAL children don't get damaged at all, and if they do then they're too horrifying and defective at their job of Being A Child Properly to exist in public spaces! how dare ugly things that might make us uncomfortable with their existence by contradicting out ideals about aesthetic moral purity be allowed where good respectable normal people can see them!

i don't say any of these words lightly, and i'm very much not the type to go around calling people whatever-ists and in fact find that kind of thing extremely annoying, useless, reductive, and more or less only ever see it used as a blunt cudgel to shame people into line so they don't question you, and have historically found it especially annoying when people pull out the accusations-of-ism card on fr staff over things that are far more likely just completely understandable (if dubiously competent) issues of certain things simply not occurring to someone on code and design level due to lack of sufficient exposure to the idea, and have always been of the belief of giving them the benefit of doubt (even if often that just means i think they either most likely made an understandable mistake that i would likely also make, or, when i'm feeling less kind, that they're simply not particularly competent rather than actively hostile) so understand how much it means coming from me when i say- flight rising staff, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you, you ableist batch of pricks, so far up your own asses with your performative veneer of vaguely lefty-flavored language that you don't realize how fundamentally extremely conservative all of your actual beliefs underlying them are. for every update you make that i approve of there's another that does twice as much damage as the good update fixed (and i'm starting to wonder if you maybe know what you're doing with that too-always batching the fucked up shit on the tail end of some big thing you know people will be excited about, always hiding these controversial moderation changes under something shiny and new, to the point that now i dread any new good update that genuinely seems a step in the right direction and/or is something we've been wanting for awhile because i'm just constantly expecting the knife hidden behind the footnotes afterwards, the fucking "ban tiktok/gay marriage/strip rights from this population/end net neutrality/whatever/ect" clause stapled onto the end of a bill about something entirely unrelated functionally holding a change people want hostage until they allow the fucked up part through. i've been here most of the site's 10+ years and i've seen this sort of thing happen far, far too often.) and every year the shit that gets pulled on the management and moderation end of things makes me more and more almost glad i've never had an income to spend on this, and the fact that apparently the moderation behind every single other petsite in existence is somehow significantly worse fucking astounds me. the only reason i stay around here is because It's Free Dragon Pictures, because it's literally the only actually good petsite game i've ever played and not gotten sick of within a week or so (and really the only good low-energy game i've ever played in general, which i'm increasingly convinced is in spite of it's management), and because somehow, despite all of this shit, i still genuinely love the game itself, because unfortunately by some accident of creation it seems they apparently stumbled purely by coincidence into making an actually good game idea no one else quite has. and after all the fuckery that gets constantly pulled, i refuse to believe the game being good is anything other than, much like many of the of the incidents i think they're unfairly accused of malice and -ism over, an accident.

Disabled children too obscene to fucking exist. fuck you. good to know half the child population's existence requires a trigger warning to even be allowed to be acknowledged as existing to you. good to know if the heart surgery i had when i was 11 had left any visible external scars i would be considered inherently too obscene to exist to you. good to know if the overhealed and benignly potentially cancerous scar on my back from whatever actually happened when i was a toddler (i don't trust either of my parents to ever be accurate about something like that) was in a more visible spot you would demand i have a trigger warning to post selfies online. good to know if any of the shit that's broken me emotionally left visible physical marks you would think it was good and right for me to be forcibly hidden from good normal people's view and considered too taboo for even the slightest discussion without hiding it with makeup and lies, just so i don't make good, lucky, undamaged, normal people uncomfortable, god fucking forbid. should we hide the gays too, since they also make so many people uncomfy? i imagine it won't be long before disabled adults are too obscene for your polite societytm sensibilities too. i've had the feeling for a long time that amputee and disabled skins were living on borrowed time with your rules, kept technically not explicitly dissalowed where all other forms of injury and ""body horror"" are banned simply out of fear of the backlash it would cause to include them, and well. the doomsday clock on that one just got a little bit closer to midnight, huh?

the only reason i wasn't a (physically, visibly, externally) scarred kid was pure sheer fucking luck. the only reason you weren't a physically scarred kid too is pure sheer fucking luck. the only reason you're not some type of disfigured or ugly or amputated or visibly injured or whatnot is pure sheer fucking luck. you're lucky. nothing more. if having to contend with that fact-the fact of how easily it could have gone a different way and there is nothing they would be able to do about it- makes good normal tm people uncomfortable, then well, get the fuck used to it, other people children very much fucking included don't exist to cater to the aesthetic sensibilities of a lucky perfect few. the only thing that separates you from the damaged ones you find too obscene is a bad day and an unlucky hand. and one day, even if you were lucky enough to escape being damaged when you were young, you and i will both be just like them too.

more festival skin winners slots is good. elemental swords sound fun.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

whyyyyy are dog people so obsessed with their pet taking a shit...

[insufferablemod]

my list of names grows we got -ask insufferable prick mod -insufferable mod -insufferable -aipm -suff -ism