blake kathryn
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Janaina Medeiros
sheepfilms
oozey mess
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
Product Placement
Xuebing Du
izzy's playlists!
noise dept.
ellievsbear
occasionally subtle
Peter Solarz
No title available
Discoholic 🪩
$LAYYYTER
JBB: An Artblog!
h
seen from Iraq
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@betaorionis-fr
resources
alt text generator for if you have a scry image link or dressing room image link (requires a google account). turns the long block of text into a more descriptive blurb. thread on fr | gsheet (view only, make a copy to edit)
my free to use graphics, fake items, and sidebars for decorating dragon bios, forum posts, etc. mostly edits of site graphics. f2u thread on fr
I made a small stylus edit to slate (the experimental version to force theme on all pages) + expanded it to cover more things like a basic edit to some forums features, and some styling for the coli page.
https://userstyles.world/style/27754/slate-theme-desaturationexpansion
FLIGHT RISING REFACTOR: No, you're not going back.
I am seeing a lot of people ask for a toggle or a way to go back to the old site design, in a way that implies such a thing should be easy to implement. It does sound easy to implement. We have three different colour modes we can switch between, right? We can go between mobile view and wide view? They have all the old code and assets, why can't they just let people pick in their settings to look at the old site again? It's not how it works. It doesn't really matter what your feelings about the refactor are, and I'm not going to give my opinion on it here. I just want to help people understand what exactly happened yesterday and why it's pointless to ask for it to go back.
i. HOUSE
Imagine a house.
It's an old house. It's been around for a while. It was built many years ago, and it's creaky and weird but it's our house, and we like it. There's leaks and the wood is a little aged and it stands out in the block of modern flathouses, but it's still our house.
As much as we love this house, there are issues with the house. Not everybody can get into the house, or navigate in there while they're around. There are things about this house that we can't change while it's made of the same materials that it is.
This is a structural flaw inherent to the house. The house is two-storied. Not everyone can get to the second story. In terms of the site, there were features that were unfriendly for people with visual impairment, people who could only play on their phones, etc.
ii. DARK MODE & INTERFACE
What did the old site look like? Why couldn't we have dark mode? The site was built out of layers and layers of PNGs made to look exactly like the light mode interface. All the NPC images, the old message and friend request icons, they all had white backgrounds or white fragments around the image because they were made assuming the site had a white background.
You couldn't just make the background of the site dark, because every single feature and image was created assuming the background was and would remain white.
This is why the logo was 'doubling' upon itself when the refactor first launched. The Flight Rising logo was a part of the banner image. Now the banner has been removed from the image and it's a floating element on the top of the page. This means it can react when the screen is made smaller. This is the equivalent of being able to move our lightswitch.
What did the site refactor do? Among other things, it decoupled all of these in-built images and features from each other. They added repaintable 'drywall' separate from the site's structure. This was necessary so the site could be reactive. For example, the iconic red sidebar of the page was actually a background PNG with a white part for the site content and a red sidebar, built into one single background image. Now these parts are defined with CSS, which you can think of as the 'wallpaper' of the site.
Every single surface of our house can be repainted now!
iii. Rollback or toggle to old site pls??
This is the refactored site. Among other things, it's been changed to improve accessibility for everyone. It now looks a little bit more like every other house on the block, but it is still the house that we live in. It no longer has two stories to climb. It has a ramp, so people can get in and out with ease. It even has some additional rooms, and renovation is still ongoing. (The contractors are still fixing up the washroom.)
Yes, the site is now designed to be mobile friendly. It no longer has a second floor. It's going to look 'designed for mobile' (people who can't access a second floor.) It's going to look more 'modern' (because the materials people use to build houses has changed.)
People are not used to the new site, of course. Can't they go back to the old house? Why has the door location changed? They keep walking into the walls of the new building. The light switch isn't there when they reach for it anymore. This is understandable. It takes some time to get used to living in a new house. It's a big change. You're going to be fumbling at where the light switch used to be for a long time.
You may even hate how the new house looks. You may not want to live in it anymore. But you can't go back to the old house. It isn't there anymore. You can't have a toggle, because the new site is the infrastructure uploaded to the site's servers, where it is built, and while you can change the colour of the wallpapers or even move the location of the light switch on your own, the house is rebuilt and you cannot 'toggle' it back to the old house.
The database calls, the HTML, the js on the front and backends of the site are completely different. The walls and shape of the house are different!
iv. Conclusion
There is a reason there are bug threads and feedback forums for the refactor. You still have time to request that the washroom is a different colour, or the ramp should actually be less steep because the people it's meant for can't actually use it as it was intended. But the ramp, and the accessibility features are here to stay. Don't ask for a toggle or for the site to go back the way it was. It will not be going back to the house built a decade ago. Instead, figure out why the old site worked for you while this one doesn't.
Maybe the ramp was intended for you, but you can't actually use it. Maybe the way the door is positioned now makes it actively harder for you to use the site, in ways other than 'I don't like where it is now and I want it to go back'. Ask for the site to be repainted and improved in ways that would help you.
please read august's refactor explanation! I feel like there's a lot of misinformation going around that's causing even more complaints, and this is explained so well
recent project completed, Pyrite #99092777. no set lore as of yet.
named fool's gold so of course i had to put him in the new scene! it working nicely with his colours was another bit of serendipity
Anaxagoras #75956862, he/him.
"Rule number one: Do not call me Anaxa. Rule number two: Never interrupt me — silence is golden. Remember that."
made some small edits to the new Swipp layout via Stylus (browser extension) for personal use but figured others may find it helpful also. (purely visual client-side things like this are allowed by FR for accessibility reasons)
https://userstyles.world/style/24463
was playing in the scryshop and found out that tide/foam/flameforger looks really fun on xxy banes if you match the tert to the accent colour.
my horse, currently unnamed, #102888663. they/she.
Aleksandr #101069700, he/him. currently missing his primary gene but i wanted to share anyways. (jaguar and capsule genes visible in bio scry)
the colour combination reminded me of something while i was browsing the AH, and i needed an obelisk for the accent so... art history fandragon of sorts.
recent project completed, Pyrite #99092777. no set lore as of yet.
Boreal #93599280, and Vernal #93642113 are my unofficial stock-the-pond-type pair! triple orca and triple chartreuse, they cover half the colour wheel between them. they say opposites attract after all.
Aventurine #97461781, he/him, got the new shiny effect applied (see on site for the animation)
Eve #99335652, she/her. curator of a mysterious art gallery.
ib (horror game) fandragon
If the banescales were eradicated because of their ferocity in battle, is that perhaps why the Flamecaller made coatls? They are so much softer than her first children. They speak in song and give gifts to share their affection. The encyclopedia describes them as “an agreeable lot” who give gifts to “placate enemies and competitors.”
After the loss of the banescales, was the Flamecaller’s heart so broken that she made children who would not prompt such extreme retaliation?
In a time of birth and sorrow, the blazing heart of the world lay dormant and cold
her children never called her cold, and the fact that they never called her cold was hidden behind ruffled-feather smiles and soft huffs of forgebreath laughter. she was the flamecaller, mistress of the forge, maker of the beating veins beneath the earth. in no way could one call her cold.Â
when a coatl had tired eyes and singed drooping feathertips, their companions would hum their condolences. “you can’t fly too close to the sun,” they’d admonish. “we are made of fire, but that just means we can be smothered all the more easily.” the coatl nods, and puts away the smoldering molten remnants of whatever project had brought their mother’s attention, usually for good.
sometimes, they fight back.
“i don’t understand!” he screams at her, his primaries flaring up in a challenging display. “there is no reason we should be at the mercy of the kindness of others–what if kindness isn’t an option? talona would slaughter us all, we shouldn’t have to be forced to rely on anyone but ourselves for our safety!” his voice, so accustomed to singing and warbling, cracks and tears at the harsh violence of his shouting. the flamecaller stares at him, not impassively, but her expression does not change.
it takes her so much effort for that singular expression that she cannot even begin to form words. she hopes that the delay in her response reads as a dignified, deific pause, and that her tight throat loosens in the echoes of the dormant cave.
“i did not make you to make me machinations of war,” she says. “leave the mirrors and the wildclaws to their games of bloodshed and battle. you were not built for the fields of war, and i shall not allow an attempt against your nature.”
“i don’t understand!” he screams again. “you didn’t make us to fight, but we might have to! what will happen if the armies march on us here and slaughter us, smash our eggs with the corpses of ourselves? what will you say to our broken, helpless bodies then?”
she is somewhere else, then. not in a cramped forgeworks, but upon her molten throne, her sobs clawing out her chest like a horde of daggers shredding her heart. she feels each and every child of her hubris die, first one by one, then in a great flood, and then there is a horrific, terrible silence–not one of a lack of bloodshed, but of an absence of any blood to be shed. she keens, and wails, and she swears to herself then and there: she would not make machinations of war again. not even if the very warden himself were to march upon her throne.Â
and when her tears stop flowing, and when her throat no longer aches with crying, she makes the first of the coatls from the droplets of molten magma that fell from her, and she sings into them all her hopes, her dreams, her prayers.
you will be kind. you will be soft. you will sing songs of love. you…will be loved.Â
you must be loved.
The mistake she made was believing that her love would be enough. Her first children were made from her teeth and scales, made to withstand the fires of war. They were made for others to fear and respect, with talons, spines, and tempers.Â
(Truly, their mother’s children.)
She loved them, and that love blinded her. She knew there was danger, that the flames would lick at their wings and scorch their scales, that claws and magic would hurt them, but she thought them invincible. She never thought they would all die.
(All of them.)
(Not even one left for her to love.)
So her second children are kind. They are soft. They sing songs of love, and they are loved by her, and by others, made with the fire of her tears, made so she would never again feel the awful absence of them. They may wish to be stronger; they may wish to spill blood to protect themselves. They may be her children, with tempers that burn even her. But they will never spark the same desperate hatred that drove her first children extinct. They were made to fill a void, yes, but they were made different so she would never have that void again.
She’s selfish, she thinks. She would rather they suffer injury from lack of claws than hatred for possessing them. It’s for their good, she tells herself, again and again, even as some spit at her: they wish they were like her first children, wish they weren’t at the mercy of others. She understands, truly. They wish they weren’t what she made them, but as long as they live, there is no way she can regret that.
(After all, her first children never expected mercy, and when the time came…)
Time passes, and her second children grow out of her firsts’ shadows. They forget, and while it hurts, it is good for them to forget. They don’t need to compare themselves to warriors of the past. They are her children, and they are different. They wish for claws, and scales, but they don’t know the pain of what they wish for. They are loved. It’s enough.
She feels a flicker, and for a moment she thinks she’s living a dream. She loves her second children, but sometimes she wishes her first are still there: still full of fire, roaring their war songs and striving to please her. Sometimes she can imagine that her hubris didn’t kill them; sometimes, she fashions fantasies in which they returned home by the skin of their teeth, beaten and broken but alive.
(She was different, before she lost them. She was more arrogant. She likes to think she isn’t, now.)
But her eyes are open. But the flicker doesn’t fade. She feels it, and she considers it, and there are tears falling again as she realizes what its slow, tentative growth means, when she dares to fan the flames of hope and discovers her wishes are answered.
Not all of them. It wasn’t all of them, so long ago.
(Her first children never expected mercy, and when the time came, they were still given it.)
most of my grubs are completely ungened rn, but here's Sweetpotato (scry plan on the left), 98963918.
Sunday #95913762, he/him. my most recently acquired perma (g1 projects don't count til they're done), i basically bought and gened him from scratch in a flash (not a g1 but colour combo is pretty rare). based off the guy from star rail, no luminous halo for him bc he doesn't deserve one.
did (halloween) hatchday art for Chenqing #73405219, he/him. this is him some time before he settled down to become a humble farmer! his favourite crop to eat are potatoes.
