#is still Burning Hot

[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.

[factual-fantasy]

[tls123]

thirty-one days of jiujiu(ly) — 2024 edition // day twenty-nine + with bonus lan wangji ! + find the 2022 edition here

[b4kuch1n]

THEE audiodrama disguised as podcast

[captainjonnitkessler]

I understand if you want to stay out of it but I’m curious as to you’re thoughts on this discourse

https://www.tumblr.com/dappercat123/737173649266737152/your-arguments-sum-to-in-my-perfect-world-there

Anon, I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I have been waiting for an excuse to put my thoughts about this down. Forewarning that this is going to be long and take a dim view of organized religion.

TL;DR: I think everyone in that thread is maliciously misinterpreting evilsoup's point, which is basically that they think Gene Roddenberry was right about what a post-utopian society would look like re: religion. And you can agree or disagree about whether a post-religious utopia is likely or desirable, but to say that anyone who thinks it is is actively calling for and encouraging genocide is a gross misuse of the term (especially coming from at least one person that I'm pretty sure is currently denying an actively ongoing actual fucking genocide).

@evilsoup can correct me if I'm misinterpreting their points, but as far as I see it there are two main points being made:

A) In a perfect utopia with absolutely no source of oppression, marginalization, or disparity, religion would naturally whither away with no outside pressure being applied.

B) This would be a good or at least a neutral thing.

As far as A) goes - a lot of the responses evilsoup got were basically "well *I* would never choose to be nonreligious, so therefore the only way to create that world would be by force, and therefore you are calling for literal genocide". But aside from the fact that evilsoup was very, very clear that they thought this would be a *natural* event and that trying to force people to be nonreligious would be evil - we're not talking about (general) you. You can be as religious as you want but you don't get to make that choice for your grandkids, or your great-great-great grandkids, or your great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandkids. Just because religion is an integral part of your identity doesn't mean it's something you can pass down, and if you're not comfortable with the idea that your kids might choose to leave your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I personally don't foresee religion disappearing entirely, but it is pretty consistent that as a country becomes happier, healthier, and wealthier, it also becomes less religious. Religiosity is inversely correlated with progressive values. And the more democratic and secular a nation is, the less powerful religious authorities become - In the 1600s blasphemy and atheism were punishable by death* in Massachusetts and today I can call the Pope a cunt to his face** on Twitter with no repercussions whatsoever. Political secularism is an absolute necessity for true democracy and it necessitates removing power from religious authorities, which has and will likely continue to lead to a decline in religiosity - not just a decline in how many people identify as religious, but also a decline in how religious the remaining people are.

*Blasphemy laws and death penalties for blasphemers/apostates are still VERY much a thing in many places. It's hard to see a path where those places become more democratic but don't become more secular and repeal those laws.

**Well, to the face of whoever runs his Twitter account, but the point remains.

I also believe that many religious communities have been held together for so long via coercion - either internal coercion like blasphemy and apostasy laws, shunning, and threats of hell or other supernatural punishment, or external coercion like oppression from the majority religious group or ethnic cleansings. In a perfect utopia, neither form of coercion would exist and I don't think it's crazy to think that religiosity would drop severely and become a much less important part of people's identities, in the way I think the queer community would not exist in a world where queerphobia didn't exist.

ANYWAY, all this is actually kind of moot. It could happen, it could not, nobody is calling for it to be forced so we'll just have to wait and see. The real point of disagreement is on B).

I'm gonna be honest - I think a lot of the responders are rank hypocrites and are really hung up on the idea of cultural purity, which is something I'm wildly uncomfortable with.

First of all, the idea that a deeply-held religious belief could be diluted until it's just a cultural thing that nobody really remembers the origins of isn't some evil mastermind plot evilsoup is trying to concoct, it's just how cultures work. There's tons of stuff about American culture that are vaguely rooted in what were once deeply-held beliefs and are now entertainment. Halloween is rooted in sacred tradition and now it's a day to dress up and get candy. Christmas is one of the most sacred holidays in Christianity but nobody bats an eye if a non-Christian puts up some lights or decorates a tree just because it's fun. I have no doubt that every culture on Earth has traditions that used to be deeply sacred but are now just fun family traditions. People in Japan use Christian symbology as an "exotic, mythical" aesthetic the exact same way people in the West use Eastern symbology. And if you're okay with it happening to Christianity, why wouldn't you be okay with it happening to any other religion in the absence of oppression?

And there's the idea that if a culture fails to get passed down *exactly* as it is now, it's a terrible loss and the result of malicious outside influence. But . . . cultures change over time. No culture is the same now as it was two or five or eight hundred years ago and I don't believe that change is inherently loss. The things that are sacred to you may or may not be sacred to the people of your culture in the future. That's just the way things work, and I don't think it's inherently good or bad.

And finally, people keep accusing evilsoup of "just wanting everyone to assimilate to your culture", but it absolutely does not follow that a lack of religion means a lack of diversity. Different nonreligious cultures are every bit as capable of being diverse as different religious cultures, so it's weird to insist that evilsoup wants there to only be one culture when they never said anything to indicate that.

[galactic-rhea]

Vaderdala but Vader's health is sooooo fricking awful that evil empress Padmé does as much as give him a lil kiss and he has a stroke and almost dies.

Constantly.

Every day.

[ipostmysimpingstuffanonymously]

[gumm1defloor]

Vox can understand Velvette just fine. They don't necessarily need to get along all the time, but they have a mutually beneficial contract that guarantees her support in the most efficient way possible, just how they both like it, short and strict and to the point. Vox does not understand Valentino. It drives him unimaginably, disgustingly insane. He knows how to handle him, make no mistake. Valentino is a never-ending powerhouse that wrangles out content from his employees like there's no tomorrow. He's proven himself to be Vox's most lucrative investment yet. He is resourceful, well-connected and most importantly predictable enough to rein in. Because he listens to you, because he needs you.

He is also, undeniably, out of his goddamn mind. Yet you've already invested too much in the corporate empire you've built together and there is no point turning back now that you have him so close to your side. It's OK however! He couldn't possibly be stupid enough to throw away the best partnership deal he's ever had just for the sake of something petty cause -oh, wait - he genuinely might just be that stupid and you never would've guessed because he's so cocksure of his bullshit that 80% of the time it ends up working in his favor anyway.

Fuck his life indeed. The kicker for this of course is that Valentino, genuinely does believe he has struck gold with Vox. Valentino is a clingy, possessive, immature, perverted, sadistic, egotistical man-child with severe rage issues and zero impulse control. No he is not aware of this at all. No he does not know why nobody is able to tolerate him and why every single person he gets close to hates his guts with every inch of their burning rotting souls. All he knows is that hell has now given him a flat faced prince in shining liquid crystal armour, riding on a cash filled horse with promises of power and luxury, who's practically handing him success on a silver platter. Doesn't mean that Val trusts him, doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy seeing him lose his shit. But at the end of the day vox has his back, and as long as Val keeps calling for him, he'll eventually turn up and make everything better. Cause hey if Vox hasn't left him yet for this long he must be doing something right. Right?

[kitamars]

simple joys

[safwunnz]

This was inspired by one of my favorite pages from the manga “Tomie” (highly recommend it or any other horror manga made by junji ito)

[dipolos]

Un été brûlant (A Burning Hot Summer) (2011)

[bigothteddies]

they’re getting on my ass to RSVP to the company party in two months and my partner’s not gonna be able to come and I just really really don’t wanna go without them, I have no desire to go to a fancy upper class party all alone with hundreds of people richer than me and older than me who’ve spent their entire lives caring about financial services and care about nothing else but I KNOW if I say I can’t go they’re gonna get on my ass for the next two months about it too cause I’m a newhire and all anyone talks about is this party and how great it is and blah blah blah blah

[nav-ix]

breaking news: recently-dead saddest girl in the world is daughter of long-dead angriest woman in the universe

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[thatmiraclecupcake]

Personally I don't give a shit if shane "eat the rich but give us 6 bucks a month in a recession so you can watch me and my friend drink lots of alcohol and read other people's stories without compensating them" madej gives the professor a boyfriend in the new puppet history season, whenever that will be. He could give the professor a million boyfriends for all I care! Personally, I won't be watching Puppet History. Or Too Many Spirits. Or any other watcher production. I'm not paying 6 bucks a month and I'm not holding my breath for if and when it gets released on youtube for free.

No hate to anyone who will be watching, I'm talking about my own feelings, and personally, I'm still mad.

[azrail-has-a-vendetta]

MY FEET HURTTTTTTTTT

oh um just cleaned off my feet to see if I got a blister or smth and I have second degree burns on the soles of my feet. Haha oops lol.

it from walking outside barefoot lol