@aurumdrake - Tumblr Blog

You gotta understand that some people never really grow. They never learn their lesson. They never recognise their mistakes, they never acknowledge their faults, they never admit they were in the wrong. You will never receive an apology from them, and you will never see their behaviour change.

lilybee

if you’re in the notes saying “this is wrong and cruel because everyone is capable of growth” you’re not understanding the post.

yes, everyone is CAPABLE of growth and change. everyone has the RIGHT to growth and change. but no, not everyone will CHOOSE growth and change. some people are not interested in and cannot be made interested in self-improvement or self-reflection. some people will go their entire lives refusing to admit they might be wrong or examine their own behaviors. some people will never, ever accept responsibility for the effects they have on people and the world around them. humans are varied; some are just always gonna be like this.

it is VITAL to understand this if you’re the kind of person who tends to pour energy into helping others, especially if there are already people knowingly hurting you who consistently show absolutely no interest in changing that behavior. you can’t forcibly make them want to change who they are. you aren’t going to find a way to convince them to suddenly care that their behavior is hurting someone.

the motivation to change and grow comes from within. others may inspire us, but WE have to decide we want to be better and work towards that. until they decide that for themselves, nobody else can do it for them. and they might never. people are mortal. we are a finite series of choices. it is entirely possible to make mostly selfish ones.

everyone CAN grow, but not everyone will. not everyone wants to, and nobody can force the desire to grow as a person on someone else.

radiqueer

Human relationships are not transactional but they are reciprocal, which I think many of you with your ‘i don’t owe anyone anything’ shtick are too happy to forget

aromanticduck

Transactional: everything has to be exactly 50/50 all the time, pay me back for the £5 sandwich or buy me something worth exactly £5, I refuse to make an effort for you if there’s nothing in it for me

Reciprocal: you were there for me when I needed help, and I’m going to do the same for you, it doesn’t matter if one of us needs more or is capable of less, because the point is not equivalent exchange but mutual care

fandom-trash-goblin

we've got a life to love living.

teaboot

advice that has literally saved and improved my life

friend-crow

BLM has published a plan to maximize logging in Oregon forests, including old growth forests, without due regard to wildlife (including endangered species) and waterways. They're claiming it will help prevent forest fires, though that seems to be contrary to current science, including that published by the forest service (you can find a list of sources here). This is in response to Trump's executive orders 14223, Addressing the Threat to National Security From Imports of Timber, Lumber, and Their Derivative Products and 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.

We have 30 days to submit comments if we want to prevent this. This article has suggestions for what you can say, and how:

One billion board feet per year... 30 days to make your voice heard.

You can read more about it here:

Conservationists say proposal to “maximize” logging across nearly 2 million acres of Western Oregon BLM lands would devastate fish, wildlife

If you live in Oregon and you love our forests, please submit a comment before March 23rd.

If you don't live here, it would be super helpful if you could reblog to spread the word.

shuttlecarrier

Realized I never posted Alloues on here despite her existing for a while. She's an "angel" scholar that lived in one of the southeastern territories that was annexed by the eastern kingdoms during a period of colonialist expansion in the 'golden age' of the Ruuyh monarchy.

After being drafted into the royal military for mandatory service, she became a deserter shortly after due to not wanting to give up her life and flew to the far northeastern coasts in an attempt to more or less start over and live her fantasy of a comfy cottagecore lifestyle away from the war in the west. It turns out that almost nothing about living in the tundra with a semi-nomadic sphinx polity is comfortable, and she's later shuffled into place as the interim interpreter for the nearby massive sophont AI when the primary sphinx interpreter goes on a temporary leave.

teomodo

art books on the internet archive for you

morpho books

figure drawing for all it's worth (+ creative illustration)

framed ink

will eisner comics and sequential art

will eisner graphic storytelling and visual narrative

understanding comics (+ making comics)

folder of various animation production art

burne hogarth drawing dynamic hands

perspective for comic book artists

michael mattesi force drawing

the animator's survival kit

color and light james gurney

be free

bedupolker

I've recommended this one before, but for all the non-human vertebrate likers out there... the art of animal drawing

wikszyk

ice skating lessons with OCs (2025)

iris-of-the-lambs

doodled some manticores... i meant to make them properly monstrous and scary but idk I think they're kinda cute now

roberttingle

annoying when shows set in the medieval period have the women with thier hair just long and unstyled and out . girl go put on your wimple girl 🤦‍♀️

elvensilk

like there are so many fun medieval hair and headgear options, it's so boring just seeing loose beachy waves meant to appeal to 21st century beauty standards

put that hot prince in a gay little hood with an ostrich feather or so help me god

dinodanicus

Some speculative evolution bird designs I illustrated a while back for a fantasy book.

cookie-cuttles

Art block is killing me. Have some more aliens in the meantime. Species name still pending...

#im obsessed with these lil dudes.....#excellent work!!!

spookygibberish

Nichetember? -tober?

So lately I've been working on a little speculative ecosystem project, picking back up the work I did about four years ago. A lot of those creatures were designed for prompts for an art challenge that I just happened decided to use in that way, but I was thinking how much I'd like to have an actual list of prompts geared towards the goal I set for myself. Which lead me to making up this, a little list of prompts based on very broad ecological concepts so as to be as applicable as possible to the widest possible range of different projects.

Producer - give me an autotroph ie. an animal that feeds directly on an energy source, like light, radiation, or chemicals

Primary Consumer - predator of the autotroph you just made (cows are predators of grass!)

Secondary Consumer - now what’s something that eats that animal.

Tertiary Consumer - or an “Apex predator”, an organism with no natural predators of its own

Decomposer - something that consumes the remains of any of the previous organisms.

Parasite of any of the above organisms

Hyperparasite ie. something that parasitizes that parasite

Coprophage - something that eats dung

Ecosystem engineer - an organism that creates habitats for other organisms

An organism with a hard shell, carapace, etc.

Durophagic predator of previous organism

An organism which occupies different trophic levels in its adult and immature forms

A sessile organism

An organism that with a symbiotic relationship with any of the previous organisms

An autotroph small enough to fit on your fingertip

An autotroph small enough to fit in your hand

An autotroph taller than a house.

Autotroph with specialized defenses

Autotroph that depends on a symbiotic relationship

The organism the previous organism depends on

A fossorial organism

An aquatic organism

A cursorial predator

An ambush predator

An organism that utilizes mimicry

An organism not visible to the naked eye

An R selected species - an organism which has many offspring, each with a low chance of survival

A K selected species - an organism which has few offspring, each with a high chance of survival

A keystone species - an organism who’s presence defines the ecosystem it is a part of, without it this ecosystem would not exist in the same state

An extremely specialized organism

An adaptable generalist

This is formatted as a month-long challenge, but I don't think anyone needs to approach it that way if they want to do it.

Part of the goal of this is to not just design organisms, but to think about how each thing you design interacts with the other creatures, and how they form an ecosystem together!

iphysalian

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

whatamess

Cinnabar = When dragons loose to elephants

Regarding the etymology of the Greek κιννάβαρι(ς) / τιγγάβαρι, the earliest attempt is to be found in the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville (6th/7th cent. A.D.). His explanation is connected with the popular view that cinnabar is formed from dragon’s blood. Accordingly, Isidore tries to juxtapose the word cinnabar with the word dragon:

Cinnabarin a dracone et barro, id est elephanto, cognominatum. Aiunt enim draconum esse sanguinem dum inplicant elephantos. Ruunt enim beluae et dracones obruuntur, quorum fusus cruor terram inficit, fitque pigmentum quidquid solo tinxerit. Est autem pulvis coloris rubri. (XIX 17, 8; ed. W.M. Lindsay)

Cinnabar (cinnabaris) is named from draco (gen. draconis, ‘dragon’) and bar- rus, that is, ‘elephant’, for they say that it is the blood of dragons, shed when they entwine themselves around elephants. The elephants charge, and the dragons are overpowered, and the gore they shed dyes the earth, and a pigment is produced from what has stained the soil. It is a red-coloured powder. (transl. by Barney et al. 2006: 380)

[This from : THE GREEK NAME OF CINNABAR by RAFAŁ ROSÓŁ]

UPDATE: I went looking for art and I was NOT DISAPPOINTED. (More pics below the cut.)

caladbolg

more dreemurr tenna..... goofy ass uncle

ubercharge

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

literallybyronic

@petermorwood

petermorwood

I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.