Eidolon Etchings

she/her

[bettyrightnow]

ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to put no effort into my appearance

[yorsun]

Stark is just That Guy. "He helped me push my cart" "he hung out with us kids" "he rescued my cat from a tree" "he stopped my rampaging cow" he helps people and makes friends in every city he goes to. It reminds me of tiktok comment sections where people lie about how some guy helped them dig their car out of mud or gave them his winning lottery ticket or something equally ridiculous to gas him up, but stark is Just Like That.

It's also cool how the series uses this to build the relationship between fern and stark while maintaining the pattern of prioritizing scenes of how well liked a ridiculously strong character is over showing how strong they are. A core component of this series is that each character's worth comes from their relationships to others, and their strength comes second.

[yuriskies]

Gonna step outside my usual programming a bit because that light pollution take and a lot of the responses to it aggravated me so much.

No, wanting to see the night sky isn't a twee retvrn to ghibli-ass take. It's not a matter of some anprim impulse to dismantle industrial society for ~nature aesthetics~, it's an extremely visible symptom of environmental degradation that gets downplayed because the externality seems trivial to most people: "Oh no, the night sky, what ever will we do without it."

But it actively disrupts light-sensitive circadian rhythms in plants and wildlife, which disrupts foraging patterns, reproductive and hibernation cycles, and contributes to wildlife population declines. It's not the major contributor to those declines, but it's an additional point of stress in an ecosystem already stressed by climate change and other forms of industrial pollution. And so much of it is wholly unnecessary.

I don't think people realize how far-reaching the problem is, either. That light isn't just confined to the places people use. You don't escape it by just taking the bus to the edge of town. That light carries, in some cases for hundreds of kilometers. Death Valley has some of the darkest skies in the US, and yet, the dome of light above Las Vegas is visible on the horizon over 250 km away! Anywhere within 50 km of a major urban center, just about anywhere in the world, never gets darker than a night under a full moon.

And this is very much a recent problem too. Before the switchover to LEDs, it was relatively expensive to light places. That meant actually accounting for the energy use and making sure it was being used where it was needed. That light was also warm-colored, so it didn't travel as far. With the decreased cost of lighting, it became standard to light places like daytime whenever they might be needed. Lighting didn't get safer, it just got more thoughtless.

The reason you see astronomy-types sounding the alarm most loudly is because they're the ones who have been seeing the full effects of light pollution and its encroachment on dark skies. It's a hobby for me too, but it's partly because I am a night owl who grew up in a small town with nothing else to do. I used to be able to clearly see the Milky Way horizon to horizon when I grew up in the mid-00s. The last time I visited about five years ago, I could only see it overhead. The population has fallen by like 10%, but the skies are brighter. I can tell when the college decided to leave the football stadium lights overnight. I can tell where the car dealerships that added overnight display lights are. I can even see when trucks with the fuckass LED light bars are coming over a hill from 5 km away.

I'm all for well-lit, safe, and accessible spaces for people to work and play at night. But there is an impact from lighting, and it can and should be regulated like any other point source pollution. It's a pretty straightforward and materialist assessment. But go off about the big scary anprims are coming for your society so people can see the stars I guess, that's not at all a reactionary response to hearing about a problem

[ceruleanheaven]

its so cool when you do the thing and then the thing is done

[ceruleanheaven]

its so not cool when you dont do the thing and then the thing is not done

[rustingbridges]

I like to fuck around and waste time for at least ~6-10 hours per day, and let me tell you, that really puts some pressure on your schedule. you have no idea how busy I am

[freshbeeth]

tomodachi life coming through with the representation 👏🏾👏🏾

[headspace-hotel]

Do yall ever think about what is your rarest achievement?

Like I was thinking about it today and if you thought of all possible human experiences as achievements you could receive in a video game, it would be clear that there are millions of possible achievements, with some distant reaches of the achievement trees so obscure that only one or two people have ever seen them.

For example, there is like, one guy who has gotten to the achievement See 10,000 species of bird.

I think eating every kind of fruit awards a unique achievement. I only reached Eat a pomegranate last year. And there are exploration-based achievements, like Visit New York City or [Hidden] Discover the abandoned barn with the huge Cathode Ray Tube TV and the deer skulls.

People's achievement trees would look really different. I haven't unlocked hardly anything on the Sports, Recreational Drugs, Physical Feats, or Travel achievement trees. I have a wide range of rare achievements on the Textile Arts achievement tree. I definitely have the most achievements on the Nature achievement tree.

Some of the achievements with the most EXP that I have are Witness a total solar eclipse and Forage and eat wild mushrooms (without getting poisoned). I think that [Hidden] Get shot at might also be up there

Recently I've unlocked Have a conversation in a second language with a native speaker and Warp a loom

But I still haven't unlocked Ride a skateboard or Do a cartwheel

My dad recently unlocked Become a cyborg (he got a surgery where he gets an implant that he controls with a remote). That has to have a pretty big EXP reward. But there are a lot of low-stakes achievements like Skip a rock across some water or Buy something from a vending machine

[eidolonetchings]

I think my rarest achievements would be on the loop yarn achievement tree because it's a slightly obscure medium (only made by like three brands and mostly available online, not in stores) and most people only use it for blankets and stuff.

(Also I think this post is really nice because it encourages people to think about and be proud of small or arbitrary things they've done and celebrate their unique experiences even if those things wouldn't normally seem significant)

[thatwasthenightthingschanged]

I’m convinced if ppl on this site knew how crappy gifs look before you color them properly, they would appreciate editors more

[thatwasthenightthingschanged]

for context reasons, this is how a gif I used in a recent gifset looks like without any adjustments/coloring whatsoever:

and here it is afterwards:

[5ummit]

I truly don’t think people realize how dingy and dark most movies and tv shows actually are so they can’t appreciate the work and skill it takes to make gifs look the way your brain “remembers” it looking.

Another before and after example:

This gif needed 6 different adjustment layers, not including the sharpening process, which is its own separate challenge. The blue window was also changed to green to keep the palette more consistent and to reduce the range of colors needed, because a wider range of colors generally results in worse gif quality since gifs only support a max of 256 (compared to the millions your monitor can display).

[uuuhshiny]

yeah…

[headspace-hotel]

[oh-great-authoress]

I was already going to reblog this because gifmakers need all the love, but the little lambie made sure that I was definitely going to do it.

[arcanegifs]

dark scenes are truly the bane of every gifmaker’s soul

[aha-my-villainous-thoughts]

The ecosystem of tumblr fandom relies on gif makers - put some respect on their names!!

[hilacopter]

we got erev pesach on april 1st we pulling some le epic pranks on pharaoh tonight

[shiraglassman]

What if we just decided that the Wednesday of Pesach was Frog Day

Because of the frog plague + It's Wednesday My Dudes memes

ETA: i wanna see a meme with a bunch of frogs rushing at Pharaoh shouting it's Wednesday

[koshercosplay]

SAY NO MORE

[shiraglassman]

😍Truly I am lucky this day 🌴🐸✨

Thank you so much! Aww 🌺🐱 and since someone asked yes gentiles can reblog

[benevolentbirdgal]

Okay but can someone make a version with One Giant Frog?

[shiraglassman]

FROG SAMEACH 🐸

[rosefyrefyre]

Happy Frog Day from the (not really useful) part of my frog collection!

[shiraglassman]

Omg @rosefyrefyre this is all so cute!!

I was gonna get a matzo dress for next year but now bc of your reply I'm thinking maybe I should get frogs instead! And that has more year round potential anyway.

[shiraglassman]

Y'all we lucked out, because in 2023 Pesach starts on a Wednesday night (April 5) and ends the following Thursday so we get Frog Sameach twice 😭 Truly blessed...

[binghsien]

on years with two frog wednesdays, one is for the enormous number of frogs, the other is for the single giant frog.

[headspace-hotel]

In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"

We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines

[headspace-hotel]

We will be feeding our grandchildren strawberries and raspberries we grew in our gardens, dragging them along to the farmers' markets for tomatoes and eggs and goats milk and pickles and pecans and salsa and sunflower seed butter and jars of honey, as they complain and drag their feet because Gramma always stands around talking to people for like an HOUR

and we will say "When I was YOUR age, fruits and vegetables came from a supermarket and they were bred to get shipped 1000 miles in a truck and sit on shelves for weeks, and they tasted so sour and watery it was like eating paper compared to these ones. It wasn't even legal in some places to grow your own food"

and they will roll their eyes like yeah yeah just because everything was miserable in the 20s doesn't mean I have to have a smile on my face standing in the hot sun while you listen to that one guy talk about his bees FOREVER

But they will go, because there might be baby goats.

[headspace-hotel]

Since I made this post, dozens and dozens of people have left tags telling me that it was the first thing today that made them want to continue living, that it was the first thing that made them consider that they might be okay years in the future, that they might grow old, that it was the first and only post of its kind they'd ever seen—the first post that boldly predicts a future where we make it.

And many other people have been just spitting, foaming at the mouth fucking FURIOUS. How dare I have the audacity to imagine a future where things get better?

Don't I know how BAD things are? Am I not aware of the TERROR and DEVASTATION of climate change and fascism and biodiversity loss? How dare someone be so bold, so callous, as to imagine something other than misery and suicide. How dare someone suggest it will get better. How dare a person propose that there is a future where we will be okay, in the face of so much terror. Hasn't she seen the abyss opening its jaws before us?

Well? What do you think?

Do you think I've seen the abyss?

[cuntyjugheadfromriverdale]

the idea that there is hope for the future is the only way we have this kind of future.

there were kids who stayed inside because of the black plague and went on to help cure it.

there were women who sat at home and cleaned the house and dreamt up a world where they could vote and have jobs.

there were kids in the mines who thought up a life outside of it. there were children who hid in annexes and wrote a diary where they prayed for a future without a terrible man in control

there were slaves who wanted freedom so badly and had hope that it would get better

there were gay people who hid in the corners of clubs and fought back for a future where they could walk down the street together

do you know what all of that has in common? they had hope that things would get better and they made that change. they looked at the world in its cruel ways and fought back.

so now, there are kids and teenagers and young adults and new adults who dream of a world so beautiful and the only amazon their grandchildren know is the rainforest

and it is in everything we do that we find this hope. wishing on dandelions, counting the stars, making our own clothes out of crochet or knit or sewing it, watching the sunset, going to the farmer’s market, feeding the birds, planting seeds.

step by step, we dream up, like our ancestors before us, a beautiful world

[headspace-hotel]

THE ONLY AMAZON OUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL KNOW IS THE RAINFOREST

[sevdrag]

You can have hope and fight. In fact, it’s the only way we will possibly succeed.

[gemini-enthusiast]

Find out where to watch the launch and continued mission coverage here!

[missjamiekaye]

Kitties in the Garden. A little gift I made for a friend of her little visitors.

[merlin2x08]

el spending her entire life assuming she only gets evil spells bc of her destiny of being some great evil sorceress when actually its just that shes so badass and cool that the only people with the same amount of power as her are some guy who died a billion years ago and people who have to steal and murder to get it

[fantasiees]

“You never reply to messages” I am just one person okay I am understaffed

[prokopetz]

Game which initially appears to be a straight Ocarina of Time pastiche, except following the tutorial dungeon it's revealed that the obnoxious fairy companion is two-timing the apparent protagonist and actually has like three different Chosen Ones going in neighbouring regions, each fully convinced that they're the Chosen One and whatever local issue the fairy has them dealing with is the big world-ending threat. Over the course of the game, their paths begin to intersect, resulting in co-op dungeons with entire puzzle mechanics revolving around ensuring that two Chosen Ones are never in the same room at the same time. It's textually unclear whether anything bad would happen if they found out about each other, or whether the fairy is just keen to avoid awkward questions.

(The final boss is, of course, a multi-phase affair in which each Chosen One is conveniently incapacitated at the end of their respective phase just in time for the next Chosen One to show up. They encounter each other for the first time in the post-victory cutscene, which cuts to black just as the fairy is like "okay, let me explain".)

[heightsofmadness]

Unironically a complete banger of an idea though.

Give 'em all really distinct mechanics, tie the narrative to the design by forcing the player to occasionally drag the "wrong" chosen one through a given area, crank up the dramatic irony as high as possible by having each of them comment on how "the prophecy" keeps giving them convenient paths forward (when the player knows it was really a DIFFERENT CHOSEN ONE working their asses off)... The only meme part is the refusal to explain at the end tbh, because "three chosen ones who all need to think they're solitary" is a premise that promises the masquerade will collapse at some point, and IMO the amount of tension you could wring out of it far outweighs the value of the cut-to-black gag. Have the fairy forget to swap out parts of the prophecy at one point, leading to one chosen one thinking that the prophecy was either changing or had been falsified. Have one chosen one catch a shadowy glimpse of another, resulting in an imagined rivalry with their Dark Mirror. Have one of them figure it out right before the end, resulting in an emotional breakdown until the fairy convinces them how important it is to keep the other two in the dark.

[prokopetz]

The two are by no means incompatible; you could do all that and still rug-pull the player right at the end by cutting away just as the fairy is about to finally explain the real reason why all of this was necessary (any explanations given earlier implicitly being at least party bullshit).

[dycefic]

The Hearthstone God

[The sequel to the God of Prophecy, and the Serpent God of Protection]

—

Fire is out of fashion, in this new age.

Some of my kind have found new homes, new names, in factories or forges, in the hearts of wildfires or crystals or volcanoes.

Most of us are simply forgotten.

I was a fire god, once. A god of gathering, a god of communion, a god of song and story. But there are no hearthstones now. No fires around which families gather to eat and talk and tell stories.

I am lucky. I am tied to a great flat stone near a lake. A lake that has survived all the wild exuberance of men, when they learned to change the world around them. Once, this was a place where travellers stopped to rest. At first they travelled on their feet, or on half-wild horses. Then there were carts, and a road. Much later, cars drove down the road. The road was paved.

But some things do not change. People need clean water to drink, and the spring here is good. They need to rest, when they are weary. And even now, when they come to camp in nylon tents, to fish in the lake, or to hunt the ducks, or drive camper-vans to the flat place, their ancient instincts wake, and they turn to fire once more. They light new fires atop my stone, so flat and safe, from which no log will roll to set the woods afire.

Not so many come now. Camping is less popular these days. But some still come. Some still light their fires, and settle around my stone, and talk, or listen to music, or tell stories. So I survive, just barely, on the edges of belief.

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