this is so cute it healed me instantly

A tradition

In peacetime, the ruler grows their hair long. In war, they cut it short. A ruler with long hair is held in great esteem, for defending the peace. The traditional declaration of war is for the ruler to send their cut-off hair to the enemy ruler. The statement carries greater weight the longer the hair: to receive long hair says that you have angered one who is slow to anger, that you have incurred a wrath not easily woken.

Violent war-mongering leader frantically and aggressively tries to shave just a LITTLE hair off the top of their head into an envelope.

A faraway king receives a heavy wooden crate filled with a coil of the longest hair he has ever seen.

A despised ruler finds hundreds of pounds of cut-off ponytails at her castle entrance, each one belonging to her own people. 

A young emperor refuses to cut their hair and insists on trying to make peace with invaders. The enemy leader steps forward, draws their blade, and cuts the emperor’s hair themselves.

Hellen cuts her hair off and throws it in Cathy’s face at her son’s soccer scrimmage. 

Here’s some inspiration for anyone who wants to write a green utopia or something that symbolize the rot under the surface.

I visited Stige Island today. It’s not really an island because it is connected to the mainland by a small road but the name stuck.

It is an artificially constructed island that was turned into a dump which made it grow bigger and bigger as more trash was piled on top.

Eventually the dump was closed down by covering it in a thick layer of dirt which is why the island is full of hills and bumps. A web of paths were created and the landscape was dotted with playgrounds and picnic tables and today it’s an incredibly popular place for the locals to relax.

Unfortunately most photos online show the island in its early sorta barren state because today it has become a haven for all sorts of plant and animal life skittering around in the dense bushes. It’s a wonderful place to go birdwatching, fishing or pick berries.

But the trash is still down there creating methane gas. What did the city do about that? Harvest it for energy of course! So when you walk around the island you’ll see pipes and what appears to be manholes that are part of this sophisticated system.

You can look at it in two ways. To me it’s a wonderful solution to turn this former dump into a beautiful green area for wildlife and people to use while also using it for energy, but the idea that something fire related could happen and blow the entire thing up and unearth the dirt of the past is pretty tempting.

Funniest (fantasy) way to find out you're trans I think. Assigned male by ancient prophecy

You cant be in the closet theres a fucking prophecy. You have to kill the dragon.

"So you collect ghosts?"

"Not intentionally. Ghosts are just drawn to me. I'm a ghost sponge. A ghost magnet. When I'm hired to check out a haunted house, I walk in and take all the ghosts with me when I leave. And if it turns out there's a demon the ghosts eat 'em. It's a very efficient system."

"...Say that last part again."

"The ghosts eat the demons. Like a pack of hyenas taking down a wildebeest. I've seen the ghost of a 90-year-old Ukrainian babushka tear apart a demon with her teeth."

"Wouldn't that be the other way around? I thought demons would be more powerful than ghosts."

"One ghost, sure. But they're never prepared to take on fifty ghosts at once. Especially if I bring Olga."

drawing is hard so i tried to illustrate my struggles as video game bosses

yeah man go for it

What are some chronic illnesses that can only occur in a fantasy setting?

random concept that popped into my head while i was out walking, didn’t want to forget it so i sketched it up real quick to ensure it secures a spot in my mind palace, and i can revisit it again later

Havenshade the Nearly-Still

You guys I just realized that what I’ve always wanted out of werewolf fiction is a story where lycanthropy isn’t a purely human condition

Like this dude wakes up from his wolfbender and his room is full of all these fucking chickens from local farms that he initiated into his pack. They all start clucking and crowing at the moon and when it’s full they all transform into these tiny little weird bipedal wolves with wings.

I don’t remember making this post but it’s going around again and I’m losing my shit

Imagine becoming a werewolf because you got attacked by a fucked up chicken

A wildlife rehab centre discovers that one of its patients is a lycanthrope when the full moon hits and their wolf transforms into a slightly different wolf.

Wizard Fact #42: The real reason you're not supposed to stick a fork into your toaster is because you might stab one of the wizards in there

and they will instantaneously retaliate with a level 8 Chain Lightning, as is their right

tired: mermaids are all women

wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty

inspired: merfolk actually have very different concepts of gender to humans because they’re an entirely different species with their own unique culture

marine scientist: what’s your gender?

merperson: what’s a gender

marine scientist: like, are you a man or a woman?

merperson: i’m merfolk

marine scientist: no, like, what’s in your pants?

merperson: i don’t… wear any? i don’t have legs?

It’s a biological fact that fish do indeed change their sex to keep the male/female ratio balanced in their school population. So this fluidity actually makes more sense from a scientific standpoint than the silly idea that merfolk are born with a strictly assigned sex like humans.

Merfolk are all canonically genderfluid and we love them for that

Human: (invites merfolk friend to a boat party with their friends)

Merfolk: oh man, there are a lot of women here. Haha don’t worry guys, I got this :) *changes into a man to keep a balance because that’s culturally polite for merfolk*

Human: (spits drink) what the FUCK

OH MY GOD

So in the presence of a ship with an entirely or mostly male crew, nearby mermaids would become female to keep the balance.

That’s it. We figured out why everyone thinks merfolk are all women. Get a boat of fems out there and let’s see what they report.

Soulslike where every humanoid foe sticks to the usual ponderous strike-and-parry routine, except for one random nameless generic skeleton whose moveset is straight Devil May Cry shit. There is absolutely no lore explaining or justifying this.

#i think this skeleton should be in every area #so you have to live in fear of the next time you get Straight Up Skeleboned Featuring Dante From Devil May Cry (via @everyones-beau)

The skeleton has a very small random chance of replacing any other generic skeleton in any area, re-rolled every time you rest. Sometimes it doesn't spawn at all. There's no way to tell it apart from the others until you hear the background music change.

phrases like "the house always wins" and "it's on the house" but used to imply that the building you're in is alive and personally invested in the situation

the house always wins

I think more superheroes should just bail out of the hero game altogether in comics.

>It's a great way to release characters from a narrative they no longer really contribute to without killing them.

>If you do want to keep them around, it puts them in the civilian sphere of things to better ground the story and the stakes, or to act as kind of a medium between superhero and civilian perspectives.

>It actually does maintain the stakes of superheroing as not just putting your life on the line, but also putting your mental health and relationships on the line.

>I actually *really* like it when you have someone who has clear former-superhero savviness helping out in a nonviolent, community environment, or even to see them transition into political/activist positions.

>It's funny to have characters realize, "Oh actually this is not healthy for me, I'm going to find a different avenue to contribute to society. See ya." and then you look at Batman who is... still Batman.

>Oh also ALSO--if you're using superpowered characters as like... this worldbuilding element that you actively have to legislate around, or if you're using superpowers as a metaphor for marginalized identities (E.G. Mutants, and to a more nuanced extent, "Metahumans" as a banner term in DC) it just generally makes sense to have a portion of the population have powers but don't dress up in colorful costumes to fight crime. Like, powers shouldn't mean automatic conscription in superhero team ranks.