skybluerambles

[skybluerambles]

Blue ghost fireflies captured by long exposure photography.

#bucket list #one day I will see fireflies in person #and it will be magical

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Stuck on the idea of vampires as a kind of reverse fae, or like someone's twisted, perverse attempt at moulding humans into fae.

They're repelled by liminal spaces.

A vampire could never enter fairyland, not just because they'd never be welcomed, but because most of the usual entry-ways are naturally barred to them.

They can't cross running water. They can't be seen in mirrors. They will wait forever at a crossroads, unable to pick a direction to go in. They can't even step over a thresh-hold unless there is absolutely no ambiguity about whether they are welcome inside.

They crave human blood, iron and salt, but are repelled by herbs and plants. They are supernaturally prevented from harming you unless the rules of hospitality have been invoked.

A fairy may replace your newborn child with something unnatural and ever-hungry. A vampire will do the same, but with your grandmother's corpse.

The fae are typically associated, even in stories where they're the bad guys, with flourishing and purity. Vampires, even in stories where they're the good guys, are typically associated with decay and corruption.

The fae turn ancient human burial mounds into fancy halls for their courts. Vampires take ancient human castles and let them grow mildewed and cobwebbed, exchanging the beds for coffins, turning them into burial places.

Fae don't tend to live among humans, but can generally pass for them with relative ease if they so choose. Vampires nearly always live among humans, but tend to find not revealing themselves a huge struggle.

I can't think of many stories I've read where fae and vampires even exist in the same universe, let alone ones where they actively interact. I feel like their enmity is almost more inevitable than that between vampires and werewolves, however.

The rivalry between vampires and werewolves is, essentially, the rivalry between two apex predator species who share a territory. (Even in stories where the werewolves aren't actually hunting humans.)

The vampires hate the werewolves because the werewolves interfere with their access to prey. The werewolves hate the vampires either because they consider themselves aligned with humans (the prey species), or because they are also predators and the vampires are competing with them.

By comparison, I think there's some story potential in the fae finding something genuinely creepy and uncanny valley about vampires.

They're immortal, like them, but also dead. They can be beautiful, like them, but that beauty is something they actively require humans to sustain. They like to inhabit beautiful and ancient ex-human dwellings, like them, but they actively work to make those places dark, damp and empty.

Fairies who are unflappable in the face of all sorts of Otherworldly monsters, can look an eldritch horror in the eye(s) without blinking, and have never been phased yet by any human, but will recoil from even the weakest vampire.

Vampires who hate fairies just as much, but in a more envious way. The way that the creature for whom immortality is a curse is bound to hate the creatures for whom immortality is an eternity of sunlight and laughter.

Maybe their touches burn each other. Maybe vampires can't stand physical contact with anything so alive and vital. Maybe immortal fairies become ill from too much exposure to the undead.

Maybe they fight over the human population when their territories overlap. The fairy need for servants and people to make deals with, competing with the vampire need for thralls and blood to drink.

Just… fairies and vampires. We need more stories about them interacting.

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On the prowl

(Source)

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Observation #1: The prefix "a-" means "none", such as in "asexual", "apolitical" and "Atheism".

Observation: The word "unicorn" is a combination of "uni", meaning "one", and "cornus", meaning "horn".

Conclusion:

This is an acorn.

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This is what I’ve been working on for almost 10 years! And what inspired my custom Lego designs! It’s so cool (and also kinda weird) to finally have it at the observatory!

#Vera C. Rubin Observatory #Rubin Observatory #LSST Camera #this has been quite the project #lots of changes coming now #Youtube

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Prismatic Wall

9th-level abjuration

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juanferal on ig

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#!

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Finally got some decent-ish pictures of this little yellow-headed blackbird griffin carving! Made by hand from naturally colored tulip poplar and yellow canarywood!

(He is for sale on my Etsy :))

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I think everyone's gotten theirs by now, so please enjoy the linocut I designed, carved, printed on cards and sent out for February's International Correspondence Writing Month :)

[Image Description 1: A black linocut print featuring a moth with sparkling star eye patterns on its six wings and surrounded by a starburst of lines and small stars. End description.]

Some process and more details under the cut - including the other stamps I carved to go on the envelopes and inside the cards!

Please enjoy my chaotic printing station and my beautiful stack of shelves, baskets, and my baking racks being used as a place for all the prints to dry (well, most of them)

I also carved individual stamps of the starry eyeballs based off the eye shapes in the moth's wings. I love love love love how they came out, and also had a lot of fun with the variety of little star stamps I made to embellish things with.

[Image ID 2: A photo of my kitchen table overtaken by a precarious stack of wire shelves and racks that are covered in drying prints. In front of the drying prints is my printing surface where the ink, roller, and the linocut are visible. Image ID 3-4: Photos of the envelopes used to send the cards, they've got stars stamped on the front and a large starry eye stamped on the flap. The eyes are two different variations of a similar design and match the eye pattern on the moth's wings. End Description.]

For funsies, please also enjoy how gorgeous this design came out on brown paper

[Image Description 5: Another image of the same print, this time on brown paper intead of white]

#ooooh #I really need to get working on my multilayer prints again…

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i cannot be the first person to post this here but i am going so fucking insane about the gaia music collective's one day choir singing wait for me. the opening harmonies are you KIDDING me

#holy shit

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To paint this hoodie I was inspired by vintage vegetable labels, 18th century postcards and art-nouveau. The development of the sketch was quite difficult, because I rarely drew plants before, but in the end I liked it.

#holy moly

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Painted over this old illustration to spruce up the rendering and brushwork a little 👁️

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When Pazu catches Sheeta | Castle in the Sky Fanart Instagram | Twitter

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All throughout childhood, while my peers were socializing and making friends, I studied the blade read so many books that I am now almost legally blind, which left me with vast and deeply instinctual understanding of English grammar - and next to no ability to explain how it actually works. Friends will often ask me to proofread their writing and then get very mad when I say things like, "You need to completely reverse this sentence and cut this clause entirely; no, I'm sorry, i don't know why, I just know that the way it is now ITCHES 😭"

Now, what I want to see is a fantasy story where this plays out with MAGICAL grammar. Someone from a backwater town deeply steeped in folk magic arrives at Wizard Uni where all their fellow students are like "What do you mean, we should add another '𝞯∘⋇𝞿' to the incancation because it 'sounds better'? What do you mean, 'it could just be a regional thing'?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'THIS SPELL JUST FEELS LIKE IT NEEDS A LIVE RAT'????"