#events (outdated)

[dr9com9ge-ix]

*walks up to gray and funbot while my head was bit by black* do you guys have any ideprophin~ I got a headache

Okay so heres the actual drawing of that- But alas Tenebrae does not take bites that small.

TW: For Gore, Blood and mild Emetophobia for comic below.

[serpentface]

A typical example of a kulimane hunting dog, a prized animal in Imperial Wardin. They represent the most positive feelings towards dogs in this cultural sphere, an animal that otherwise has an often ambiguous or even disdained status.

Kulimane are the 'hybrid' offspring of domesticated sighthound breeds and the kuliku (colloquially called 'salt wolves'). Kuliku are not actual wolves, but rather the feral descendants of VERY ancient domesticated dogs that have been living wild for millennia in grassland, savannahs, and semi-desert, and are fully functional and efficient predators. Kuliku have slender builds, huge lungs, and long legs, and use bursts of tremendous speed to chase down prey. They mostly take small game, like rabbits, hares, birds, and hippegalga, though pairs are capable of bringing down mid-sized ungulates. They do not readily mate with fully domesticated dogs, but can be encouraged to do so in captivity, thus producing the kulimane.

The production of kulimane was introduced by the third Burri empire and has been fully adopted into contemporary Imperial Wardin. Kulimane are commonly seen as the best and most ideal of hunting dogs, combining the speed, power, and heat resistance and predatory instincts of their wild parents, and the loyalty and tameness, and other bred-in qualities of their sighthound parents. In practice, most Kulimane used in hunting will have been the product of several generations of breeding to produce an ideal animal (initial 'hybrid' generations are often still too wild). Their appearance can vary wildly, but the ideal form for a kulimane is to have a domestic-type coat (fully solid colors are preferred, but rare) and to retain the pointed ears and black tail tip of their wild ancestors.

Most kulimane are independent, intelligent animals that will form close and protective bonds with their handlers, but will be shy and wary of strangers. They usually retain strong territorial instincts from their wild ancestors, and can double as excellent guard dogs. Their disposition towards other dogs can vary- a well socialized kulimane can usually be introduced to new dogs with few issues, but some have striking tendencies to aggression towards strange dogs, and are often muzzled in public. Most are kept in same-sex sibling pairs, and away from unfamiliar or unrelated dogs. They are rarely outright cuddly, often preferring to sit at a distance than to sit on one's lap, but are appreciative of praise and affection from their owners.

Well trained kulimane make for truly excellent sighthounds. They can quickly adapt to changing situations in the field with little to no input from handlers, and quickly and instinctively dispatch most small prey. Their high prey drives Can be a problem for owners. They are frequently known to kill livestock and sacrificial stock, and have a tendency towards surplus killing. You don't want a kulimane to get in with your poultry.

Good kulimane stock is very difficult to produce and takes several generations of breeding, and the animals can be very costly to maintain and keep in good hunting conditions. As such they are VERY expensive animals, and function as status symbols. Sighthounds in of themselves have associations with wealth, and kulimane are specifically associated with royalty and the social elite. They represent the most venerated and beloved end of a very, very wide spectrum of cultural opinions towards dogs in the Imperial Wardi sphere.

The status of dogs in the cultural schema mostly depends on their perceived role. Working dogs tend to have positive cultural connotations- guard dogs and especially hunting dogs are seen as noble animals and symbols of loyalty, and herding and livestock guardian dogs are of great practical value in the rural sphere. Keeping dogs for pure companionship is fairly uncommon, though there are a few established companion breeds in the region. The practice of raising livestock dog breeds has decreased or become obsolete in parts of the region, largely due to Burri influence (which regards the meat of predators and scavengers as wholly unsuitable for consumption), but meat specific breeds like the salutachin are still valued in the city-state of Wardin as providers of an excellent, delicacy meat. The commonality between all valued dogs in Imperial Wardin is their utility, well-established roles, and sharp distinction from feral dogs.

Feral dogs are a fact of life around most settlements. Imperial Wardi cultural outlooks on them tend to be highly negative, characterizing these as uniquely greedy, cowardly, lowly pest animals at best and depraved corpse eaters at worst. Exact attitudes vary throughout the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, but one near-ubiquitous element is regarding the excrement of feral dogs (and corpses of feral dogs) as potent sources of spiritual pollution that should never be touched with bare skin, and should ideally be removed and buried in barren ground (or their polluting influence should at least be mitigated with a blessing of the tainted location). Superstition holds that stepping in the feces of feral dogs can inflict curses, and the word for 'dogshit' is one of the most insulting terms available in the language.

Hatred of feral dogs is particularly acute in the city-state of Godsmouth. The core city experienced a collective cultural trauma as a result of a siege during the formation of the Wardi empire, in which civilians starved en-masse and descriptions of bodies being eaten in the streets by feral dogs (which were, in turn, eaten by starving civilians) dominate historical records of the event. Feral dogs are by and large hated in this part of the region and seen as outright vile animals and acute sources of spiritual pollution via their very presence. They are actively culled on a routine basis. The outskirts of the city of Godsmouth and some of the city-state's towns have unique practices of allowing semi-tame hyenas free movement through settlements, where they fulfill the dogs' function as refuse cleaners and keep dog populations in check.

While the keeping of feral dogs is generally frowned upon throughout the region, individuals caring for their local feral populations or adopting feral puppies is not unknown, and the distinction between feral and kept dogs (and stigma towards the former) is MUCH less pronounced in many rural communities, where semi-feral dogs may be valued as likable or useful village animals.

No dog breeds are standardized (or even technically 'breeds' in any modern sense), but there is usually great effort to keep working, livestock, and companion dog stocks wholly separate from feral dogs. The word that roughly means ‘mutt’ in this language does not refer to mixed dog breeds as a whole (or even crosses between different types of working dog), but specifically crosses between kept breeds and feral dogs, which is generally regarded as unfavorable (though not uncommon, both due to inevitability in a world without spaying, and practicality- these crosses may produce perfectly good working or companion dogs, and introduction of feral stock reduces inbreeding).

The dog is one of the constellations in the Wardi zodiac, found at the heel of the Hunter constellation and variously interpreted as either being a noble hunting dog trailing its master, or a lowly scavenger looking for scraps. The latter characterization tends to win out in terms of the characterization of its associated birthsign. Being born under the sign of the dog is mostly regarded as inauspicious, and a potential indication of a cowardly, stupid, lustful, and greedy character (though some positive qualities are ascribed, chiefly loyalty).

‘Chinops’ (literally ‘dog-born’) refers neutrally to the dog birth sign, while ‘chinmachen’ (‘dog-faced’) is an epithet given to those considered to have the associated personality traits, which is rarely anything BUT an insult. (These also spawn the purely derogatory phrases of ‘chisnops’, ‘chismachen’, and ‘chismache’, which have functional meanings closest to ‘son of a bitch’ ‘bitch/slut’ and ‘cunt’ respectively)

[please-let-this-work-oh-my-god]

One thing I find very interesting, as a learner of German, is Isolde's usage of du when speaking to Kakania. In German, there are three main second person pronouns: du, ihr and Sie. The first two are mainly used in informal and casual settings or when talking to people you're close with (with du being singular and ihr being plural sorta similar to english's y'all) while Sie is used in more formal situations (or situations which require some form of formality) such as talking to strangers, customer service or when you're talking to a doctor/patient. Kakania abides by this and uses Sie when talking to Isolde (such as in her speech at the end of chapter 6) but interestingly, Isolde doesn't reciprocate this and instead uses du when conversing with Kakania in German.

This is super fascinating to me because it implies different levels of closeness within their relationship. Isolde's usage of du implies a level of closeness and intimacy to Kakania as Isolde herself saw Kakania as a close friend (most likely due to the fact that Kakania was once of the few people in Vienna who actually sympathized with her and saw her as a human being) but Kakania's siezen suggests a certain level of estrangement or distance between her and Isolde. Of course. this could just be her maintaining her professionalism as doctors normally use Sie when talking to patients but with how things turned out after chapters 6 and 7, I'd like to think this goes deeper than just formality standards.

[cereal-abyss-mage]

do y'all ever just sit down and think "damn, diona's lore is actually really messed up huh"

her father is an alcoholic and she can never rely on him despite being. you know. his child. she has to look for him in the cold and rain because he gets lost in the fucking forest. then a while later he goes out, finds a boy raised by wolves in the middle of nowhere and proceeds to be a better father to him than he had ever been to his child daughter.

she can't rely on her father, but she still loves him and sees him as a role model. she doesn't want to acknowledge that her dad failed her and that he is the one to blame for his flaws, so she projects her pain and anger onto the entire wine industry, because if the wine is at fault then her father can still be the person she really needs. she just wants him to fulfill his most basic role as her father and be there for her

so as she goes on to her quest to basically get back her father, she becomes a child bartender and margaret the cat's tail boss is just exploiting her image for bussiness basically and has no problems with any of that??? and margaret does nothing despite diona not hiding that she is only there to ruin the industry and just uses the fact that she is literally unable to make a drink taste bad and keeps her working for her because it's convinient. she is literally just the cat tail's mascot because her image is being exploited.

i mean. either margaret knows diona is desperate to ruin the wine industry and just keeps her there for her own gain or doesn't take her seriously at all, and I don't know what is worse tbh

so diona is just trying so hard to make a bad drink but she can't because no one ever really explained to her that she CAN'T DO THAT, like she is literally blessed to  never make a bad drink, which happened to be an extremely unfortunate thing to bless her with. which btw was done when she was much younger by a fairy that she used to talk to because she literally had no one else to and the spring fairy just gave her this blessing and left bever to be seen again, leaving her abandoned and heartbroken at the age of seven.

she really wants someone to be there for her and be her friend but she so feels like she needs to be independet ecause her father neglects her and she is scared of being abandoned and left alone again.

TL;DR.: Diona was failed and left alone by every single adult in her life and she can't cope with that because she is literally a child who has no one except for the aforementioned adults who failed her <3

live laugh diona

[ask-thearchivists]

Earth is a terrestrial planet, despite 70% of it's surface being covered in water. It has a molten iron core, and has existed for about 4.5 billion years. It's the third planet out from it's star (a yellow dwarf).

The Cartologist: Oooh, interesting, is there more?

The Cartologist: Oh, is that what the song about cheese comes from?

The Coordinator: Yes, mortal planets that have had life for a long time do tend to experience multiple extinction events, which is one of the reasons it is important we tend to our duties.

[sonknuxadow]

its so crazy seeing the new tailstube episode and hearing modern team sonic talking about mighty and ray and fang like i know its probably just meant as sonic superstars promotion but Helloooooo i thought those guys were banished to the classic sonic hell dimension forever

[someguyiguess23]

Alright!! Art Fight's is coming around the corner so here's my profile and account for those who wanna attack me! >:3c

[creatively-cosmic]

im on artfight btw

[radioregine]

saw some poll that was like 'what are your greatest retail pet peeves' and it was shit like 'people bringing half-eaten packs of food to ring up' and 'having to break $100 bills' and i was like my lord if those are your biggest irritants you live a very very charmed retail worker life.

[lowstakesvampires]

not quite a mansion.

all of this is old btw, and it Will be updated with a newer version in the very next sketchbook. the ship's design and location will change, the circumstances will change, even some character designs may change subtly...

for now you may enjoy this :3

oh wait, there's more-

[thenixkat]

Oh no, I am most certainly not reading the new 52 run for Jaime. Everything I've seen and heard about it sounds like straight ass and edge and I actually like myself.

True I'm having a terrible time with Jaime's Rebirth runs cause it's all just kinda bad as far as I'm concerned compared to how well done the 2006 run was. And there's so many decisions that come off as bad or poorly thought out. But at least it's not 'what if we rehashed this entirely but several times worse just because we're edgy now'.

Like the Graduation Day/Scarab War stuff feels like a first draft that could have used a second and third draft b4 going to print what with the 'yer retreading territory that was already done pretty solid in a way that feels vaguely insulting' vibes. And I didn't like the art style what with the weird shit it was doing with people's mouths/expressions and how distractingly shiny it was trying to be.

Also, I'm currently like 12 issues deep into the 2016 run for Jaime and it's really bad. Like? The art? Shit tier. Whitewashing half these people, many don't look like the people they're supposed to be, and somehow the worst attempt at drawing a person with freckles I've ever seen. The writing? Ass tier. Like damn yall did Dan dirty. Dirty dirty, good lords, giving the vibes of gotta rush through these fuckers to get to the version of the Blue Beetle we wanna work with in a way that feels disrespectful to ALL of the Blue Beetles. And the whole 'let's retcon Khaji Da back to being magic even tho there's two previous runs of it being alien tech oh wait oops we wanna do a Reach storyline so we'll retcon it back to being alien tech later' is... certainly something.

I know that when I pick up a Blue Beetle book I wanna see fuckin Dr. Fate (I don't, I don't care for Dr. Fate's whole thing of enslaving its host for the greater good and no one freeing poor Mr. Nelson gods damn that's horrifying how many heroes are ok with that) and an Atleantian and magic shit for like 8 issues without any of Jaime's rogue gallery showing up other than a bastard version of the Posse that feels like canon fodder based on their designs alone. (/sarcasm)

[serpentface]

As someone who watches a lot of insect husbandry videos who also enjoys imagining OCs based in other folks lore—- could an Archin colony be raised by/live along side another species? Or does the wider consciousness make it too hard to find Queen without some kinda Entourage Unit to be like ‘no we don’t wanna hang out with your unit’. Your world seems to have a p set timeline (or at least set in the sense it seems ur focusing on specific eras) but I can’t help but wonder what the future will be like for all these folks. I truly wish them the best. But they also feel very. Human (sophonts all grown in disapproval). So I could see them gettin into all kinds of trouble down the line as we do.

I haven't entirely thought about this notion before..

'Adoption'-esque events are unlikely because a colony of archin is entirely self-sustaining (it may form wider allyships but does not require external support to continue existing)

The closest thing would be a single unit of archin surviving the destruction of the rest of their colony + the queen. An archin colony can rebuild itself from virtually nothing so long as they have their queen (though any units who die in the meantime will not be reformed, this is a unique 'person' that will never truly exist again), but without their 'womb' they will slowly die. In most cases where units are severed from their queen, the unit will be absorbed into an allied colony, or possibly killed by a hostile one.

If an archin colony that has reached the mainland ends up in this situation, finding another colony to merge into its unlikely, so that's a circumstance where an adoption-esque event could occur. If they managed to establish mutual communication with a sophont individual, they could become attached and treat them as a surrogate for a colony.

The unit would look for a sense of purpose in working towards a shared goal of themselves and their individual colony surrogate, in this case likely placing their ally's priorities above their own (archin units have personalities and can be highly opinionated, but will usually defer to group consensus in their colony- if their 'colony' is them and one individual person, they would still conceptualize that person as a group majority- they are not psychologically equipped to truly understand being simultaneously individual and sapient). They would seem very needy, wanting to remain in near constant communication and contact. Their ally would be basically covered in ants.

This dynamic would be 'unhealthy' by the standards of both species. I'd compare it to a parrot forming a mate bond with its human owner, it's using a human as a surrogate for social needs that they cannot truly provide, and at best merely approximate.

Units are an emergent property of a shifting group of 50+ individual archin who are constantly being replenished by new births, so this partnership would not last long, and within a year or two all members of the unit will have died. They would also slowly grow less communicative as their numbers drop (the lower number of individuals would simplify the computational power of their collective 'brain') until it's just a dwindling handful non-sapient ants, still bonded to their non-ant ally by scent.

A much likelier and less sad variant would be a colony (or an individual unit still attached to a colony) bonding with an individual person as an ally. I HAVE thought of this sort of thing before and it definitely happens.

This isn't like an adoption, more just an allyship and friendship. The bond would likely form as one mutually beneficial towards shared goals. The unit/colony involved would see this as a partnership between equals, and would not automatically defer to their ally (and may be very argumentative), but would be quite 'fair' in distribution of resources, and predisposed towards compromise and teamwork, so long as they remain convinced you share mutual goals and good intentions.

I've been thinking that most positive relationships between archin migrants and human mainlanders have formed around agriculture. An archin colony settling on your land and working towards a shared harvest would be highly beneficial for both parties, so long as there has been very effective and comprehensive communication methods developed. The archin get a safe place to nest, defense from predation, and access to a stable resource, the humans get sapient, tiny people on their lands who can perform excellent and near-constant pest control, and identify diseased crops and other issues much more effectively than humans can. Even in the case of a large colony that could eat a lot of crops, they would not necessarily compete heavily for resources, and can use some types of agricultural waste material to farm their own food (mostly types of fungus).

[stormyoceans]

I WILL SINGLE HANDEDLY MAKE THEM FAMOUS IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES

[queenielacy]

As far as Saturday Night Main Events go, it was pretty good but if this was your first SNME and/or didn’t know the history of SNME then I can completely understand why you would feel frustrated or underwhelmed.

[lizord-lord]

i’m very proud that i’ve done My Speech enough that at this point my mom will hold up a piece of clothing and ask me “am I too old for this?” or “is this too much?” and I just have to look up at her and make The Face and she’ll sigh and go “yes yes I know, I’m not too old for anything” i don’t even have to give the speech anymore

[zeldasavefile]

Australia has many many many many many many many (x 1 million) MANY flaws. But I did cry learning that 42% of our entire country tuned in to the women's soccer last night and it was THE most watched TV event in HISTORY here. unheard of for womens sports. Seriously magical. We did lose tho lol