#it's not really salty

[sparrowlucero]

what's the flight rising art direction post?? I used to play that game

for everyone who doesn't know flight rising is a virtual pet site ala neopets, but with dragons. On its forums I made a thread pointing out that the dragon designs were becoming relatively more "same face" over time, with similar face shapes and often with a similar "noodly" anatomy my point being that they were both losing some of the charm of a lot of the animals they were based on (with bug, bird, and eel inspired dragons all looking somewhat similar and mammalian), and even more pertinently, not allowing for a wide variety of body types for user characters in the game - with most of the gameplay being a dressup/character creator, you see why having very few buff, chubby, stocky, etc character designs is a pretty big downside. These are the dragons released in the first half of the website's history, with the shapes outlined:

(these pairs are the same species but have somewhat different body shapes, so they were both outlined) And these are the dragons released recently. The stockier guy on the bottom left is the very oldest of these:

I also pointed out several of these designs have very similar faces, relative to the facial variety you could have with dragon designs (other two recent guys are outlined above):

In comparison, here's some of the head shapes from earlier dragon designs:

and yeah I think you can see what I mean about the shape language getting a bit more homogeneous. I expressed that I felt like the art team may have observed the popularity of the thinner, doglike dragons in comparison to the chubby reptilian ones and decided to err towards the former.

I also drew some dragons to better get across my point about shape language when people suggested I was failing to account for the fact that the "sameface" dragons weren't entirely identical:

(obviously I'm exaggerating shapes for clarity of point; clarifying here as some people believed I was knocking the art style and wanted it to be more cartoonish...) I also pointed out that you could easily draw very identifiable fanart of two breeds which people were saying looked different:

(someone told me these didn't read as fanart of either dragon. you be the judge, I guess) I did get a lot of very nice comments, both in agreement and disagreement, but also some comments that I was being disingenuous, arrogant, or (much more dishearteningly) suggesting that fat designs are simply too unappealing and that the artists can't waste their time on it because the website is a business.

yesterday they released a sneak peak at their newest dragons, which people believe are cetacean inspired. I tuned in as the initial preview (which only featured an arm) made it look pretty stocky:

but, shocker:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cup-o-stars]

Originally I was gonna draw her in my favorite outfits she's worn, but with barely any digging I realized she consistently has the best looks- as well as the most- and it will take way too long to pick through them. So I just drew her.

[cheekylittlepupp]

Somewhere where we can lose ourselves and forget all this madness..

[thatgaywizardoverthere]

Arthur “Disaster Bi” Pendragon learning about true loves kiss as a cure like:

Gwaine: For fuck’s sake, he’s not enchanted every time he smiles at someone else, Arthur! He was literally just laughing at my joke!

Arthur, aggressively frenching Merlin on the council room floor: YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL OKAY-

[starcurtain]

Hear me out. I know it's unlikely that Ratio would ever have been foolish enough to directly get taken in by a scam, but considering that we know:

One of the groups specifically tricked by Kakavasha before he joined the IPC was the Intelligentsia Guild

What he tricked them about was Tayzzyronth's Swarm remnants, the exact same thing we see Ratio investigating in his very first appearance in the game, and

The researchers were described as "extremely cautious"

I am surprised that "Ratio was at least somehow connected to the Intelligentsia Guild team fooled by Kakavasha before he was ever even a Stoneheart" isn't more popular with the Ratio and Aventurine fandom.

Like imagine being Dr. Ratio. You tell your colleagues, "This seems like a scam. Are you sure you should trust this 'local guide' you've made contact with? Tell me about him. A picture? Does this even look like an Egyhazan native to you? I won't save you fools from making idiotic decisions." (You end up having to clean up the aftermath of their idiotic decisions anyway. There is sand in places on your body you didn't even know existed before this. How mortifying for the Guild. For you, by association.)

Then, next thing you know, you get a mission briefing slid across your desk from your IPC connections. They want you to work with their new Stoneheart. You open the packet to see... that little bastard with the enthralling eyes who had your moronic colleagues scrambling in the dirt on a backwater planet for months. Apparently he's made a career out of fooling you your supposedly competent guildmates.

You run off to confront him. You never met him personally back then, but you deserve compensation for the idiocy you were subjected to nonetheless. He deserves to know how much of a pain in the ass he's been in your life already without ever having met your eyes--

He proceeds to shove a gun into your hands and tries to make you an accomplice to a suicide. Apparently, this is normal behavior for the man now called Aventurine. Somehow, it's supposed to prove to you that he is a sane and reliable individual.

Absolutely nothing in your life has been normal since Egyhazo.

You would like to have mundane problems, sometimes.

How do you keep ending up in this beautiful manic clever conman's orbit, and why, like binary stars, can you not escape the gravitational pull?

[twinksintrees]

this bastard doesn’t deserve bram’s cunty look someone get him back in his ugly ass rat bastard outfit

[tending-the-hearth]

watched "the lightning thief" movie for the first time in forever tonight and i think i've finally figured out the main reason the movie rubs me the wrong way.

percabeth.

they completely misunderstood percy and annabeth's relationship.

the movie shows them as an enemies to lovers, with a romantic tension and shoving them towards a romantic plot within literally five seconds of them meeting.

part of it's probably because they picked older actors, but it's just completely wrong.

the wonderful thing about percy and annabeth is their friendship. the friendship that's built from the very start of their meeting, where they dislike each other for all of three seconds before becoming best friends.

a friendship that we don't see any real romance blossoming from until percy's thoughts about annabeth in "sea of monsters" at cc's island, and a friendship we really don't see any real progress in until their kiss in "battle of the labyrinth" at the volcano. (you could definitely argue everything about percy's thoughts in "titan's curse", which is what i view as percy's real turning point towards seeing annabeth in a romantic light)

percabeth doesn't work if they're just automatically pushed into a romantic plot together. it's their friendship that makes us root for them, the way that we know how much they care about each other, but also know that they wouldn't feel so strongly about each other if they didn't start off as such strong friends

anyone who paints percabeth as enemies to lovers and not childhood best friends to lovers i'm sorry but it's just not them

[royalarchivist]

Ironmouse: I love it when you punch me.

Baghera: Yeah, you do? Oh, I'll keep going then. [Punches Mouse off the walkway]

Ironmouse: What a treat. What a treat to be punched by Baghera!

Baghera: You can crush me too, if you want.

Ironmouse: I WANNA CRUSH YOU! YEAH!!! ...If only I had the guts to crush such a beautiful person.

Baghera: One day you will. Oh yeah, please!

Phil: ...What am I hearing right now? 🤨🏳️‍🌈

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

-

Ironmouse: Baghera! :D

Baghera: Hiya! How are you?

Ironmouse: I love it when you punch me.

Baghera: Yeah, you do? Oh, I'll keep going then. [Punches Mouse off the walkway]

Phil: [Laughing in the background]

Ironmouse: Oh, thank you.

Baghera: Yeah, don't worry.

Ironmouse: What a treat. What a treat to be punched by Baghera!

Baghera: You can crush me too, if you want!

Phil: [Dying in the background] Wtf!

Ironmouse: I WANNA CRUSH YOU!

Baghera: YEAH! Do it!

Phil: Oh my god...

Ironmouse: YEAH!!! ...If only I had the guts to crush such a beautiful person!

Baghera: One day you will. Oh yeah, please!

Phil: ...What am I hearing right now?

Baghera: Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah.

Phil: [Cracks up]

[ventique18]

The way twst intentionally made it a big slap to the face that Idia's and Ortho's mom and dad would go through heaven and hell to save their children, yet Malleus' only living blood relative is completely silent throughout the disaster...

The way the Shrouds would exhaust everything they have just to retrieve their robot son who isn't even alive, yet the remaining Draconia can't even stand up from her throne to check if her grandson is still alive.

My queen, my queen, have you forsaken him?

[rakiah]

There’s so much Leovil moments in this event how you feeling??☺️☺️

Oh I’m following the JP releases so yes, I yelled a lot back then when the event was out! It was soooo Leovil coded, bless them for the food! And we waited for so long to have it in the EN server damn! But oh boy, worth the wait! As I said, it’s like the official translators just gave in, no more effort to be subtle when Leona and Vil are interacting, they fully embraced the “ok it’s canon! Have your regular mom and dad flirting in vacations in front of the kids and the weird uncle. We tried OKAY?”

I’ll never recover from "I’ll show you the time of your life".

So yup, I’m feeling pretty delighted~ Plus I love the relation between Leona and Kifaji, (I can’t use "Neji" sorry) behind the railleries and criticisms you can feel how much they care and respect each other and it’s just pure gem for me, I root for them with all my heart (っ˘ω˘ς

And now, all the china knows Leona was a crybaby.

[lunarobyn22]

Pictures Wind and Wild have taken, part 2

I can just hear the snark - “oh shut UP, Pretty Boy.”

Part 1

[mikkeneko]

If we're all pretty much on board by now with "media consumption is not activism," are we ready to move on yet to the necessary corollary of "failure to consume media is not failure of activism?"

[skitskatdacat63]

"it was good fun! Surprisingly competitive I would say!"

[ipostmysimpingstuffanonymously]

My entry for the SatoSho Discord Weekly Prompt: Just Friends

[mossy-paws]

Subspace doodles (PHIGHTING! Mermaid au)

so I was thinking more about the PHIGHTING mermaid au I’m doing and. What if subspaces’ gas- instead of being like actual gas, was polluted oil? I think that could make for a really cool trope if I ever were to redesign him for it :3!

For the design notes in specific:

When out of control, his “gas” takes the form of polluted oil, in control (as in wearing his mask and tank) it gets filtered into something akin to toxic brine (in which long exposure to can cause a lot of issues, specifically different types of shock, breathing issues, etc). Although the brine isn’t too dangerous to be around in small amounts, it can be harmful over time.

for those wondering what ACTUAL brine water (or more specifically brine pools) are, it’s pretty much a large accumulation of highly concentrated saltwater (which usually is around 10 times saltier then the ocean surrounding it) For most sea animals this brine means instant death due to the fact that is has no oxygen in it as well as the high saline levels.

(Im hyper fixating again can you tell)

[lordgrimwing]

just saw a post saying Charles Edwards is 'too old' to play Celebrimbor. That is entirely wrong.