i can also say with some confidence that drawing digitally hurts my wrist more than traditionally, tho I'm not exactly sure why....

redesign of the newest infinity nikki banner since infold is to cowardly to give us anything other that A-line ball gowns

FINAL FANTASY XIV Patch 7.5 - Trail to the Heavens YouTube video by FINAL FANTASY XIV

Trailer: 'Trail to the Heavens' (English)

Scientists Prove That Experimental Animation Can Cure Social Media Brain Rot A new study from UC Santa Barbara shows that watching experimental animation expands creativity and opens new ways of seeing the world. #Animation #ExperimentalAnimation #MentalHealth #BrainRot

A new study from UC Santa Barbara shows that watching experimental animation expands creativity and opens new ways of seeing the world.

#Animation #ExperimentalAnimation #MentalHealth #BrainRot

Companion chocobos will have new animation based on their companion rank and will now react to emotes "pet" and "poke".

POV: You're a retainer

#ffxiv #ff14 #menphina

🌕 lover's moon (oh, moon~)

A drawing of light bursting through the clouds over the sea

Clouds

@Ranting_Trans Anyway, here's K.A Applegate, author of Animorphs. photo of K A Applegate wearing a t shirt that says protect trans kids

TIL

Checking in NASA'S live stream of the Artemis II and just noticed they have Sailor Moon's Artemis watching as well. I love dorks

Merchant’s Tale from FFXIV, Part 1 Credit where credit is due. FFXIV’s latest Variant Dungeon, Merchant’s Tale, came out this week in Patch 7.45. There’s been a lot of well-deserved criticism levied towards it already, because some of the most prominently marketed aspects of this new release - the gear, some of the bosses, etc. – have been Orientalist caricatures that are demeaning, racist, and frankly rather disappointing. It’s obvious why this is (sex sells and Disney’s Aladdin sells; hence the “exotic” belly dancer gear, the blue genie of the lamp, the flying carpets, etc.), and I won’t rehash those points here because that isn’t the focus of this post. The point is this: there’s been some actual research & work that’s gone into Merchant’s Tale, and those facets should be recognized and praised and discussed, even as we are justly and rightfully denouncing the aforementioned Orientalism. I’m an Iranian-American; I may not be the best person to speak on this on account of how I am diaspora, but my grasp of Farsi/Persian and my cultural upbringing gives me enough background to recognize the work that Creative Unit 3 did put into this latest release. It’s my personal belief that we should be encouraging more and better representation, not less and worse, and until matters & industries & reach improve enough that we can enjoy homegrown representation developed in the countries best suited to represent themselves, we ought to give companies feedback to encourage them to do better (hire natives and first language speakers, do their research, understand what not to do, etc.) rather than to become entirely avoidant (“why bother with representing this culture when we’ll only get slammed for it”) or, worse, to start disregarding our feedback entirely in favor of what sells best. There’s enough good representation in Merchant’s Tale that it’s worth not losing sight of it, and I’m going to be covering all of those things in this post.

Be warned: spoilers await you. Finally, before we start: please pray for the people of Iran. The Framework The first thing about Merchant’s Tale to reckon with is that it isn’t current-day Corvos, which is to say that it isn’t FFXIV’s closest analogue to the Middle East. It’s Corvos as depicted by a fictional collection of stories. Sound familiar? Several textboxes from Y'nazqha follow: If you have no objections, I would start right away. Now, will you journey into the pages of ancient folklore with me? It is a beautifully illuminated manuscript that bears a treacherous enchantment: it can draw the reader's very mind into its pages. Needless to say, such a rare tome is notorious among collectors of unique and dangerous documents. Now, I hope you understand the reason I requested your company. Might you keep me safe while I explore this world of fiction? Yes, er...I am...very thorough. But enough about me- surely you're curious about the book! It's entitled The Merchant's Tale, and it is a well-known fable passed down in Corvos, located in southern Ilsabard. The protagonist is a shrewd young merchant, and the story describes his journey to find the perfect gift to win the heart of a young maiden.

The tale in question also suffers from having countless versions: Screenshot of a textbox from Y'nazqha again: However, over generations, countless versions of the tale have been passed down and retold. I can't say for certain how this particular manuscript ends. One aspect of the story is about as traditional as it gets in folklore. A young man winning the heart and hand of a woman: Another textbox from Y'nazqha: The protagonist is a shrewd young merchant, and the story describes his journey to find the perfect gift to win the heart of a young maiden. If there’s any doubt as to what’s happening here, the reward for unlocking all thirteen routes of Merchant’s Tale is an eye mask that looks like sleepwear. Something you’d wear to bed. A screenshot of the FFXIV facewear item "The Faces We Wear - Comfortable Eye Mask" which is a white eye mask with a black and yellow head strap.

And, of course, there’s both the genie and the flying carpet(s) which call to mind Disney’s Aladdin, based on Aladdin, a tale that originates in a certain collection of folktales. I’m not including the picture of the genie here, you’ve all seen it, but we will revisit the carpet later. FFXIV’s Merchant’s Tale appears to be based on, or heavily influenced by, One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of mostly Middle Eastern stories. I say mostly because some are mostly inventions added to the collection at later times by Westerners. The prime example of this is Aladdin; look that up if you’d like more details. The majority of stories found within One Thousand & One Nights aren’t very well known in the public zeitgeist, and we can probably attribute a great deal of that to vast gulfs in culture and sensibilities (old vs. modern). The most common and universal aspect of the collection, however, is the framing device: the stories contained in the collection are presented as stories told by Sahrzahd (commonly known as Scheherazade) to her husband the king starting on the night of their marriage. She regales him with these stories throughout the night, and ends mid-tale each time come sunrise; intrigued and possessed by the need to know how each story ends, the king always delays her execution (long story, you can look it up) until the next day.

A few weeks ago, when The Merchant's Tale dropped in FF14, a GREAT Tumblr post was made about the stuff that the content does RIGHT, and the things that are just Orientalist slop. Some ppl requested the post in image form and so I reached out to the OP to get permission to do just that!
Spoilers!
🧵

DO YOUR STRETCHES AND THANK ME LATER

he wants to drink my paint water SO BAD

New trailer for "Jaadugar" anime series (Science Saru studio).
Directed by Naoko Yamada & Abel Gongora.
Coming in July 2026.

And her momentum is not slowing any time soon, with a new HBO Max series adaptation of the Harry Potter books going into production this summer, expected to run for a decade beginning in late 2026 and mint a whole new generation of fans. Forbes estimates that Rowling could earn about $20 million per year for her involvement in the new series—one part of a wide-ranging deal with Warner Bros.—and she was "very, very involved in the process selecting the writer and the director," said HBO Max CEO Casey Bloys in November. One has to imagine she had the same input in casting the new pre-teen Harry, Hermoine and Ron, announced on Monday. When asked about Rowling's politics on an episode of The Town

J.K. Rowling is using her wealth attained from the Harry Potter series to create an organization dedicated to removing transgender people's rights "in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces." The author announced in a Saturday post to X, formerly Twitter, that she would be founding the J.K. Rowling Women's Fund, using her personal fortune. The website for the group states that it "offers legal funding support to individuals and organisations fighting to retain women's sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces."

If you need help convincing people not to watch the new HP show, here it is. JKR will make $20m per year from the show, per Forbes. She also openly admits that she pours her fortunes into anti-trans activism, per Yahoo News. There’s a direct pipeline between HP and trans people’s suffering.

My latest screen print is a collab with @bottlenecknyc.bsky.social & The Jim Henson Company. Its for the film The Dark Crystal (1982). A tribute to its craft and amazing worldbuilding . Regular ed 250, variant ed 150 and acrylic board ed 50. 24x36. Drops today, Mar 19, 12PM ET: bottleneckgallery.com

a commission I did for a friend who wanted baby y'shtola flooding matoya's cave fantasia style

I have the final PSD somewhere but for now here is the sketch
#ffxiv

oh exarch my exarch

more old #ffxiv art for u have a good evening

reposting my most famous wol art ever: licking alphinaud like the dumb little kitten he is

so sad that twitter turned into what it was coz she truly did numbers back when I first posted her

head empty, lick baby

#ffxiv

ohgdslkf the cat hair all over the page... ouuugh

ya know i don't know if doing an art thread was a good idea in hindsight... might quit that with new stuff going forward and use it only for reposting old stuff (like I do that regularly lmao)

ok so I have actually been drawing a LOT lately just all in a sketchbook and I haven't posted or talked abt any of it bc I dont wanna BUT my cat napping next to Estinien was too cute not to post

#ffxiv

tho my biggest thing was making them about the same height so that when G'raha finds her clothes in the tower he's like "oh neat these are sorta regal looking and charmed with protective magic and they FIT guess they're mine noww~~"

LMAOOO ty!!! I def took inspo from Solene for Salina and Desch is p much Not-G'raha BUT I know miqo'te were already super low on the Allegan caste system but I wanted to Other Him™️even more by giving him a bigass gash on his face that may or may not have been a punishment for something or another...

I don't think I ever posted this anywhere but I was thinking about Salina and Desch and some of my own headcanons for them after reading a fic by @mildlymoonstruck.bsky.social

WOL Saoirse holding the twins' hands as they cross the crystal bridge G'raha made for them in Ultima Thule. Her ears are pinned back and she's looking resolutely ahead, Alphinaud is looking at her while Alisaie gazes at the stars

WOL Saoirse and her hawk!! I wish we'd get a normal hawk mount!! also some different hairstyle sketches: ponytail, front braids, normal braids, and hair down

Saoirse and the twins in swimming gear, Saoirse is sipping a martini and glancing back at Alphinaud, who is painfully sunburned, and Alisaie is holing a bomb she nabbed from the jump puzzle behind her back

various doodles of Saoirse and G'raha Tia: one of her sleeping on her back in perspective, another of her having just woken up with one of her braids flipped over her ear, her and the exarch sharing a kiss, chibis of the twins and Saoirse and G'raha, and a colored image of G'raha in his endwalker clothes

more old art #ffxiv

panel 1: saoirse balancing a redmage focus on her finger and saing "what a pretty bauble" panel 2: saoirse looking at her hip and saying "oh shoot, my doodad is gone!" while her focus floats off the panel behind her panel 3: saoirse lifting yet another focus and saying "this floaty guy is kinda extreme...It suits X'rhun though.." panel 4: poor Alisae frustratedly saying "it's...called...A. FOCUS" with Saoirse off panel replying with "focus on what, now?"

WOL Saoirse doing a pretty rad blade slide as a redmage, presumably landing on Zenos's scythe

Estinien Varlineaux having a grief filled meltdown, though the context of why is not entirely clear. His armor is the classic level 50 Dragoon armor in blood red.

various doodles of WOL saoirse; her yawning while the twins admire her fangs, her crouching in just her underwear and saying "ya know, like nya" a chibi version of her and the twins, while she holds them back from attacking a little chibi grub thing and Saoirse and my husband's miqo'te WOL booping noses

some old ffxiv art, featuring my WOL before I turned her hair a brownish-grey color

#ffxiv

TVアニメ『ふつつかな悪女ではございますが ~雛宮蝶鼠とりかえ伝~』第1弾PV／2026年7月よりテレ東系列にて放送開始 YouTube video by TOHO animation チャンネル

BANGING MY FISTS ON THE TABLE

you will always fall in love with Emet-Selch
over and over again