[Image ID: A Meme With Four Pictures And Some Words. The First Two Pictures Are Of Esteban Flores And

Ask game! List five of your favorite or top songs, then send this ask to the last ten people in your notifications

Okay sure! Hard to narrow down top five of all time, so have five songs I love that are all Canadian Folk music!

The Dreadnoughts - Polka Never Dies

Rum Ragged - The Thing About Fish

Stan Rogers - Witch of the Westmoreland

Great Big Sea - Donkey Riding

James Keelaghan & Oscar Lopez - ¿Buddy Where You Been?

(All of these are YouTube links).

April 1st, 2021

Today, Data helped Geordi with a prank; they stuck googly eyes to Geordi's VISOR and whenever someone made a comment about it, Data and Geordi pretended like they had no idea what they were talking about.

Little Ryoma showing off his festival dancing to his Mother and little sister!

@lightningbug-lane love all your OCs, especially, Ikona, so I drew her with her kids! (You once mentioned she liked spiders, so that’s were the web motif came from.)

I drew this in summer 2019 but I could not upload it and was to shy to until now (I was the anon who asked about the dancing).

*How to Train Your Dragon referances intensify *

Ha ha, yes this is excellent! Both of them just being sopping wet, doing their cute little "please let us in, we have no ulterior motives" act is iconic. (so I needed to draw them)

And their dynamic afterwards is great too. I wonder what they are trying to do...whatever it is, much daring action and hijinks are bound to ensue.

Yay requests! How about "19. high fiving" for Francisco Flores and Puss and Boots in an inexplicable crossover (pretty please)?

Frantic knocking on the door broke through the roars of the thunderstorm. Slow, shuffling steps echoed through the tick, stone walls, the air inside the old castle almost as cold as inside it. A dim candle flame wobbled and flickered, barely giving any light. By the time the sluggish steps reached the main hall, the knocking increased until the iron fittings shook along with the wood. Finally the heavy latches drew back and a violent gust of wind threw the door open.

A young man was standing on the stairs, absolutely drowning in the tempest. His sombrero, which must've been real fancy only a few hours ago, was now slumping sadly on his head, the brim overflowing with rain water. His black hair and mustache were plastered to his face, even though it must've once been carefully styled. His clothes were tugged by the wind and he was hiding something under the edge of his coat.

"Please, señor," he panted. "I have nowhere to go..."

The door started to close, but he quickly jumped in between them and lifted his coat.

"Please, I have a cat..."

A pair of green eyes, as big as saucers, peeked from under the wet fabric and the wettest, poorest, orange tabby cat meowed in a voice so heart wrenching it could make a dragon cry.

****************

"Absolutely humiliating," Francisco scoffed as soon as the door to their room closed. He grabbed a towel and started to furiously dry his head, before throwing it on the floor and and walking over to the mirror.

"Ha! You're the one to talk, well, at least you still get to talk," Puss jumped out of the way of the falling towel and shook the water off of his fur.

"Oh don't be dramatic." Faoncisco didn't look away from the mirror, still trying to get his mustache at least a little back in shape. "You will be out of this place more than in."

"This is true," Puss answered and reached for his boots. Suddenly he started to chuckle quietly.

"What's so funny?"

"'Please, señor, I have a cat?' Really?" Puss looked up at his companion and started to now laugh out loud.

"I'm a nobleman, not an actor!" Francisco frowned at first but quickly joined him in laughter. "Although I must say, that trick of yours with the big sad eyes is really something."

"Ha! That is only one of many talents of Puss in Boots!" He bowed deeply with a proud grin on his face.

"I have to admit," he continued. "We make for a pretty good team. This mission will be a piece of cake."

"Agreed." Francisco returned the smile and reached down to high five his new friend.

Francisco and Puss are on a heist™

Prompt lists

Hi there! I read your post about Egypt and Cleopatra, and now I am really curious about the African Kingdoms you mentioned and was wondering if you could tell us more about them please, they sound really interesting.

Oh, there's SO much I could tell you, and there's so many African kingdoms that have been woefully understudied--and many more aside from the ones I mentioned. They all have their own rich histories, cultures, political intrigue, and it's an actual tragedy that they aren't discussed more. I'm still researching myself, so I'll just review some of my favorite things from each kingdom.

Aksumite/Axumite Empire: Located in modern-day Ethiopia, this empire existed from the 1st to 8th century CE, though its prime was from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE. The Axumites converted to Christianity of their own free will over 1,000 years before colonialism and as a result have ancient churches, some made of stone and carved from the earth itself. They also were the first African kingdom to mint their own coins, and their capital city of Axum had, at its peak, 20,000 people living in it. Also, I love the Dungur palace. Here's a reconstruction of what it looked like:

LOOK AT IT.

Source: x

Kongo: Located in central Africa around modern-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This kingdom had a rich social hierarchy, apparently had ambassadors to Europe, and some people practiced Catholicism, which led to their own branch of Christianity led by a woman named Beatriz Kimpa Vita in the 1600s who believed she had visions that informed her Jesus actually came from Kongo. Yeah.

Sources: x, x

Loango: A neighbor of Kongo, but one we know much less about due to Kongo having a long, well-documented history of interacting with Europe (see: the ambassadors), and Loango... does not. But we do know they also had a rich social hierarchy, and we have this map of their capital city.

Sources: x, x

Great Zimbabwe: From 1100- 1500, located in modern-day Zimbabwe, this was a city of the Zimbabwe empire that was either used for storing grain or as a royal residence. Either way, the ruins of said city look like this:

Here's a reconstruction:

Sources: x, x, x, x

Ghana/Mali/Songhai: These were three successive empires from West Africa, with Ghana being the first from the 7th to 13th centuries, Mali being the second from the 13th to 16th centuries, and Songhai being the last one from the 15th to 16th centuries. If you learn about a non-Egyptian African civilization at all in school, chances are it's the Ghana empire and its successive empires, and they're most famous for gold, Timbuktu (with its ancient mosques, library, and university), and Mansa Musa.

Sources: x, x, x, x, x

Ashanti/Asante Empire: Located in modern day Ghana, this kingdom lasted from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. This kingdom is most well-known for its role in the slave trade. The Ashanti had well-built roads and architecture, and a little fun tidbit about them is that, after the introduction of guns, they actually had a minor firearms industry.

Here's their capital, Kumasi:

Source: x, x

Swahili Coastline: The coastline was made up of MANY city-states that saw their prime in the 11th to 15th centuries--including Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa--that participated in the Indian Ocean trade route, and pottery from as far away as China has been found in these cities. Many of these cities also practiced Islam and had their own mosques. Kilwa is my personal favorite:

These cities were built of stone, but Kilwa's palace, in particular, was built of coral. Its architecture led to the city being described by Ibn Battuta as one of the most beautiful in the world, which is part of why it's so fascinating to me.

Source: x, x

Of course, this barely scratches the surface. There are many more kingdoms all over the continent and a variety from ancient and pre-medieval times that deserve much more love.

And this image doesn't even cover them all!

So yes, ancient and medieval Africa deserve much more love, more research and more hype, and hopefully one day soon they'll get just that.

Have you ever eaten Lilac flowers? They are edible!!

Really? Oh wow I did not know that, I do eat a lot of edible flowers, leaves, and berries that I pick when I’m outside. So next time I have the opportunity, I might just try that out.

A while ago me and @lieutenant-amuel Talked about how since Gabe and some of the other guards know magic now, maybe they should get more ‘wizard robe-like’ uniforms. I started designing it but then I realized “I could add a whole bunch of other things to this is well!” And I ended up with this.

Here's an explanation of some of my redesign choices: -Rank insignia.  I'm using a system of Pips because I am a Star Trek nerd. But instead of circles or diamonds, they are five petaled flowers, since that symbol is on the emblem for the show as well as a few banners in Avalor.

-Royal guard badge. So that everyone can tell he's a royal guard of Avalor.

-Tamborita badge. Above his left pocket you can see a small golden tamborita. Gabe and any other guards trained in magic would have this to signify that they have been specially trained in magic.

-Pockets. Because pockets are amazingly useful and every modern military uniform has them, so I just decided to throw them in as well.

-Longer coat. To make the outfit look a little bit more wizard like.

-More gold. Well, it's not actual gold, but gold colours look really good with red and blue, so I just had to add it.

This is a doll I made of Spinel from Steven Universe as a gift for my friend @foxtrotparadox​! 

She is made out of felt, yarn (I braided it to make her arms) and thread which I sewed together. I made all the patters for her myself. 

Overall, she was really fun to make! (The first two photos are ones that I took, and the second two are Lily’s)