#I included only the uncompleted ones btw

[squidlles]

My must read manhwas ♡

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

i found this awesome artist Libor Balák who paints a lot of prehistoric reconstructions for museums etc. i did already know some of his paitnings but wasn't aware what his name is... he deserves to be recognised for his works... so here are his reconstructions of the Lengyel culture taken from his website (one of my favourite cultures btw)

This Neolithic culture has left a distinctive archaeological signature centred in southern Moravia, but also included southwest Slovakia and adjacent parts of Austria and Hungary. Temporally belongs to late Neolithic – about 5000 B.C.

Colourfully decorated ceramics constituted a distinct element of this culture, which subsequently spread into northern Poland, Bohemia and central Germany. Apart from pots, ceramic spoons, ladles, cubic lamplets and models of various objects and structures are known from southern Moravia. This society also possessed advanced agriculture.

Model of a small dwelling is transformed into reality

Ceramic fragment labelled as a ship  is transformed into watercraft decoration – a monoxylon manufactured from a single piece of tree trunk

The meaning of the nakedness of the figurines is also controversial; some of the figurines could have had clothes painted on them..

The painting displays the technological stages of Venus figurine manufacture

The Middle European Lengyel statuettes are first of all of a high handcrafted quality and very decorative. The shapes and patterns are taken over from the earlier statuettes. Some of them bear specific anatomical and ethnographic elements, such as the Venuse with schematic curly hair.

This statuette has schematic straight hair.

One of the many pieces of the Venus figurines from Neolithic era, found in South Moravia. This fraction has a preserved coloration with geometrical patterns.The figurine is uncomplete, it could also have had complet clothing. 

The figurine of a woman in a skirt is decorated with ceramic lugs. The statuette could also be wearing a complete dress, not only a skirt on a bare body

The reconstructive transformation on this picture analyzes the skew elements in the place of the shoulder blades – it could be draped textiles

On this statuette found in Austria we can see the preserved traces of the original painting. The interesting fact is also the hole between it´s tights. It could serve for interlacing of the waistcloth or, less probably, for fixing of the figure to the base; the fingertips would hinder the perfect fixing. The image represents the possibilities of the painting interpretation – the decorative leggings on the tights, tattooes, paintings on the skin and a necklace in the form of boar tusks. We can also see the decoration on the neck.  

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 2 Ramble# 8 - Sports!

As I hope you got from the title, this ramble focuses on sports in manga, but before I get into it, let me breakdown some things about how this is gonna go.

Firstly a little heads up for you and a little copout for me, the average sports manga tends to be a bit longer than other genres so I figured my usual sprint approach of picking up a bunch of titles and blitzing them wouldn't work. Instead I went for a kind of marathon type approach where I still read a bunch but didn't have completion on my mind as much as usual.

Pros and cons for this approach

pro - I was able to get in that much more diversity than I would otherwise. There's hella sports out there which makes for hella subject matter, each carrying its own unique perspectives that I'm really glad I got the chance to experience, and equally glad to try and share those experiences.

cons - I made the pro sound pretty grandiose but as I said, completion wasn't at the forefront of my mind as much this month, meaning there's quite a few titles I didn't get to finish, so with a lot of these reccs I'd have to say there's more than a grain of salt to keep in mind.

Second thing I want to get out the way are the elements I consider the most important in a sports manga, which I hope will give a little more context to the lists. In my mind the four most important elements for a sports manga are realism, teamwork, ego/drive to win & mindset/mentality. I speak on what those mean to me a bit more in the episode.

Moving on, the actual format of the episode is gonna have things I read this month in a triathlon type setup, meaning 3 categories/legs, closed out with a small award type ceremony thing, then after things read this month I'll speak a bit on my favourite sports manga read before this month.

And now without further ado, LET THE RACES BEGIN!

Things read this month

(first leg)

Uncompleted Incompletes {stuff I didn't finish reading and are still ongoing}

#3 Hajime no Ippo {by George Morikawa, read 49 out of the total 1434 chapters}

Seen this around for the longest time, usually see it called the top 1 boxing manga in more than a few circles, and again for more than a few I've seen it called the top 1 sports manga overall. All that being said the reason a self proclaimed aspiring holistic otaku like myself hasn't read it before now is due to its extreme length.. roughly 1.4k chapters and counting…. just couldn't see myself devoting all that time to what I figured could be summed up in one word, boxing.

That being said, I figured that even if I wasn't going to finish or even put a dent in it, now was the time to bite the bullet and as you can tell from its placing I'm glad I did.

The story follows ippo, a bullied highschooler who is one day saved by a passerby boxer. In awe of his strength, ippo decides to join his gym and try to get stronger. Simple and common enough baseline story, mainly driven by ippo's growth which is tied to his mentality, as ippo is naturally a timid guy but his earnesty towards bettering himself makes those around him, including me the reader, want to support him.

Cool cast so far from his gym mates to opponents, all contributing to a pretty good balance of serious and funny moments. So far the art has generally been pretty good, the only slight gripe I have at this point is I find the mc pretty meh.. like he's endearing but like in that way any kid trying out a sport seems where you just wanna tell em good job no matter what.

In any case I only read 49 chapters so huge grain of salt, though I imagine that both ippo and the cast must develop in a bunch of ways over 1000+ chapters

side note Kentarou Miura, creator of berserk was an assistant on this manga for some time, rip the legend one time every time

#2 Yowamushi Pedal {by Wataru Watanabe, I read 114 out of total 486 chapter count, btw in Brazilian it's up to 700+ }

Literally like maybe 1 or 3 people I know have ever mentioned this to me, 1 of whose taste I couldn't really trust, the second literally cycled everywhere n wore that bodysuit type thing to school which kinda put me off the whole thing and I'm pretty sure the third is a figment of my imagination.. so this series never really had any pull innate or otherwise + I figured it could be summed up into "dude rides a bicycle" which again unlike boxing doesn't really have any appeal with just that.

In any case I'm so so glad I picked this up, grabbed me from chapter 1 and honestly had a hard time putting it down.

the story here centers around sakamichi, a freshman highschool student who wants to make an anime club so he can make friends. This is a cycling manga so unfortunately for my guy that didn't pan out well for him but due to some plot I don't want to spoil he ends up in the cycling club and yes he does make friends.

Great mc but that's probably weeb bias, great main cast nonetheless, the teamwork stands out fr like I didn't know how cycling could be a team sport but it is, and I love that even though they're all on the same team most of them have a drive to be the best which works out in an iron sharpens iron kind of way. The mentality of a cyclist was also really cool like with boxing or more physical sports it's easy to grasp that you have to ready yourself to take a hit but in cycling they got into the flexibility and perseverance you need to keep pedaling no matter where you are and the sights you'll be able to see because of that. Great art, very scenic as they're riding all over the place and though I've only read about a quarter it's definitely something I'd highly and heartily recommend.

#1 Giant Killing {with Masaya Tsunamoto doing the story and Tsujitomo on art, read 84 out of the 514 chapters}

This is a soccer manga. Now you may have noticed a trend here where I haven't thought much of some manga and then ended up liking it, well that's because in general I don't like sports,, well I enjoy playing but not so much watching.. except table tennis and maybe basketball but anyways that trend pretty much continues here. straight out the bat I'll say I don't care for football or soccer or whatever you wanna call it but man this manga.

The story is that an already failing football club now finds themselves in need of a new coach after theirs left them, and so some managerial staff track down a former star player for the club who they heard now coaches small town football sides in England.

Kind of a slow start with them finding the coach and him settling in and everything but it sets solid groundwork which builds into great main and wider cast dynamics. This is one of my favourite things about this manga, it offers solid perspective and narratives from the coaching staff, managerial staff, the players on and off the pitch and even fans and journalist. Never seen a sports manga so thoroughly build out its world. The art was an interesting style but it does a great job of illustrating the dynamicism of play mixed with solitary key moments which makes me feel like I'm watching a slowmo highlight.

Very real feel in a lot of respects and I really appreciated that despite the name they don't just go around making upset wins. They win and lose their fair share but always kept me engaged. #1 on this leg but not something I think is for everybody, especially if you're not a sports fan but if you are a sports fan, especially a soccer fan, I think this will be one of your favourites.

hm: MF GHOST(initial d sequel), Ao Ashi(soccer)

(leg #2)

Completed Incompletes {finished reading but still ongoing or just not fully translated as is the case for everything here}

#3 SK8R'S {by Hajime Tojitsuki, read 9 out of the total 18 chapters}

This is all about street skating, not much to say with only 9 chapters but it just looked really cool

Anyways the story is that a kid happened to see a dude skating one day and he did one of those jump tricks and he was hooked.

Average art but it's pretty dope when they do full spreads and tricks. Again not much chapters so not much to say but I really hope the rest gets translated.

#2 Tsubame Tipoff {by Hiroya Watanuki, read 40 out of total 50 chapter count}

This pulled me in because women's basketball and I'm always a slut for new perspectives.

The story here is a tall but uncoordinated freshman finds her short but extremely athletic upperclassman cute so she joins the basketball team to get closer to her... Now I'm not gonna call her gay but she be blushing like crazy... In any case the art is pretty solid, really cool cast, not sure if I thought that just cause of the relative novelty of a girl's basketball team in manga but they were just pretty cool.

what I read was pretty good and again I would really love if the rest of the chapters got translated.. maybe I'll just learn Chinese idk..

#1 Break Shot {by Takeshi Maekawa, read 84 out of the total 152 chapter count}

This is a manga about billiards which I think is different from pool but I didn't look it up so I'm gonna play it safe and stick to billiards

The story here is that the student council wants to shut down the billiards club because they only have one member who is our mc, chinmi. He tries to negotiate and they tell him if he wants to keep the club he has to show some record of notable achievement or skill, so he enters a tournament with his club on the line.

The billiards pulled me in and as expected there was some unreal stuff to keep it interesting like a dude who has a special shot that breaks the cue ball on purpose and uses the force of the shratnel to pocket multiple balls… like come on… he's a highschool student for one like come on… but outside stuff like that I really like how they framed a billiards game as a puzzle where your skill is actually more a reflection of intellect, in being able to make a pocket or stop your opponent from doing so. also loved the art like it's old but it's the kind of old school charm that gives a Sunday morning cartoon vibe and I'm not sure if it's because of the subject being billiards but it felt really smooth and classy.

Billiards is a singles competition but they were able to create an element of teamwork through rivalry which was cool and I kind of already spoke on the mentality through their framing of the game as a puzzle. To solve the puzzle they really had to think on their feet. Ego and stuff was definitely there and again I really really want this to be translated. In any case I highly recommend this one.

hm: Dogsred(about hockey by the creator of golden kamuy), Mongrel (mma)

(and the last leg of things read this month)

Completed Completes {finished reading, finished publishing}

#3 moon land {by Sai Yamagishi, 98 chapters}

This is about gymnastics and I didn't think I'd be interested + I'd never even heard of it before but this was recommended to me by Jen who I had on last episode and from its placing you can tell I enjoyed it. This is why I trust Jen and even had her on the show, shout out Jen every time

The story is basically that the mc mitsuki is really good at gymnastics because of strong fundamentals but he had no flair. the main thing is that it presents gymnastics as an expression of self and mitsuki aims to be able to move his body the way he wants to, in other words freedom.

The art is kind of meh in general but ofc they step up in spreads and stuff, great teamwork, ego and mentality stuff, more of that iron sharpens iron effect I like, kind of felt like the ending was rushed but it was an unexpectedly nice journey. they really took the time to educate about gymnastics which i appreciated and I feel like I'm underselling but it really was cool.

#2 Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji {Nobuyuki Fukumoto, 158 chapter}

Had actually tried another manga by this guy called Akagi hoping to learn the rules for mahjong but they didn't care to explain the rules and it wasn't super well translated so I couldn't really keep up despite how cool the mc seemed.

In any case the quirkiness of his art style is what really drew me in so I picked up kaiji instead and it turned out to be really good.

The story here is kaiji, the mc is pretty much living a garbage life which gets worse when a debt collector comes and tells him a friend of his ran off on a debt kaiji was the guarantor on. the debt is in the tens of millions which he clearly doesn't have but the collector tells him there's a once in a lifetime opportunity happening soon, and offers kaiji a ticket onto a ship to play games and win enough money to clear his debt in one night.

I guess this is where the question of whether or not gambling is a sport would arise but 1) it's my list and 2) they are competing according to set rules for a prize so that's that.

Anyways this was closer to my preferred tastes with the darker, more critical view of #society and stuff, which is seen in how teamwork was kinda nonexistent or fleeting at best but the mentality needed to win or even just survive was strong.

Really liked the mc, lots of growth in a short amount of time but in any case I'd recommend this one for sure, especially with the recent wave of squid games and stuff like that… it's not squid games but just if you liked that you'll probably like this..

#1 One Outs {Shinobu Kaitani, 175 chapters}

I think the full title is actually One Outs, nobody wins but I which is just super cool especially as you see how the story unfolds but yh.

The story here is that tokuchi toua is a professional gambler that dedicates most of his time to a tweaked baseball game called one outs. In this game the pitcher must get 3 strikes to win but all the batter has to do is hit the ball past the infield for a win, yet in 499 matches toua has never lost. Due to some plot stuff I don't want to spoil he ends up getting involved with the main japanese baseball league and basically the owner of his team doesn't like him, so tokuchi baits him into a contract unfavourable to himself where he gets paid 50 mill for each strike out but has to pay 500 mill for every run scored on him. The owner didn't believe his 499 streak record held much weight so he accepts.

The people he's playing with or against don't know anything about this and they're all pros so his skills are definitely tested fr. It's hard to explain how mind games comes into play but just trust this guy basically turns a sports manga into a psychological thriller which was just amazing.

Highly recommend, I didn't really know anything about baseball, still don't really but man. nothing but praise tbh.

hm: aoiro ping pong, and **mighty girl(baseball)

{in the episode I mention some other stuff I was reading and would also recommend but felt they out would be too contrived or too much grains of salt due to how the small percentage of their total chapter counts I got to read despite how much I enjoyed them but you can check my anilist to see

{in the actual episode I name black box as the second honorable mention. but that was a mistake probably due to it and mighty girl having the same author idkidk but mighty girl was better}

}

if you're interested you can listen in to the episode for the small awards ceremony thing that would be here but in this writeup I'm just going to move along

Things read before this month

not as much detail as before cause spoken on most of these before plus nowadays in think more attention sound be given to newer reads but anyways

#3 Eyeshield 21{Riichirou Inagaki story and Yusuke Murata, read/333 chapters}

American football focused. really really good. has been in my top 3 sports manga for like a decade now.

#2 Ping Pong{created by Taiyou Matsumoto, 55 chapters}

Table Tennis focused. spoken on before in detail in Season 1 Ramble#10 and was #4 in its section + became my #3 read overall last year. So good I actually took the time to watch the anime this month.

#1 Rookies {Morita Masanori, 233 chapters}

Delinquents playing baseball. Top 1 in Sesson 2 Ramble#6, #2 in Season 1 Ramble#12 delinquency and #3 in the very first real ramble Season 1 Ramble#1 which is where I spoke on it with the most detail.

hm: Usugoi(peak gambling), HAPPY!(lawn tennis by naoki urasawa)

[salmonthestoryteller]

20 questions, writer's edition

I was tagged by @lambourngb - This was harder to fill out then it first appeared, btw.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

118

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

516,223.  I never looked that much at my statistics page before so that’s exciting to look at.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh my gosh, so many.  25 different ones on ao3, 9 more that were never cross posted from the pit of voles, and at least 5-10 fandoms from prior to either of those sites.  LJ, Yahoo Groups, BBS boards, etc.    A partial list includes: Roswell New Mexico (2019) (My most prolific with 40 fics on ao3 and more here on tumblr I never cross posted there.), Hetalia, Yuri on Ice, Supernatural, Samurai Warriors, Uta no Prince-sama, Voltron, Shadowhunters, My Hero Academia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Animal Kingdom, The Old Guard, The Walking Dead, Dynasty Warriors, The Witcher, Xyber 9, Shadow Raiders, Mummies Alive, Babylon 5, and Star Trek.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes (The Old Guard) (Yeah, I had this one on anonymous for awhile.) 

Until the TIme is Through (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

I Want You (Roswell New Mexico) (NSFW Malex) 

Crash and Burn (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

Snow (Hetalia) (NSWF IvanxAlfred) 

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I’m torn between three actually:

Dormant (Hetalia)  I always say I love two endings, happy endings and greek tragedies, but I rarely write the greek tragedies.  Dormant is one of my exceptions.  Hetalia has one character who is hinted at being immortal, and I took that and wrote a fic about an Extinction Level Event and him watching the other characters die around him while he can’t.  I’ve always been really proud of this fic, despite it being one of the saddest things I’ve ever written.

Unclean (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is almost the darkest fic I’ve ever written.  It’s about Michael’s time in the home of the “Fundamentalist Religious Freaks” and the exorcism he mentioned.  It ends after the drifter and is very much hurt, no comfort.

Hell is… (Roswell New Mexico)  This is a ficlet I wrote for a prompt.  And it’s a dark take about what could have happened to the pod squad if they’d been caught after the murders.

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all my fics have happy endings.  So, what is the happiest?  Probably either:

Deck the Halls (Roswell New Mexico)  An Echo & Malex Christmas fic that is as fluffy as a fic that involves the Pod Squad, Christmas, and being attacked by anti-alien paramilitary groups can be.  (Also, Echo has a cat called Grisabella the Glamour Cat because Max should not be allowed to name anything and nobody can convince me that wouldn’t be absolute canon in a committed Echo relationship.)

Or

In Over Their Heads (Yuri on Ice)  A Seungchuchu with a fake engagement and unrequited feelings that aren’t actually unrequited. (And where Sara is Seung’s best friend because apparently I always write them that way and have no regrets.)

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I don’t write crossovers.  Because I rarely find myself sold on the idea that the two stories exist in the same verse or can think of a way the characters would interact that would inspire me to write a fic.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, and pretty much anything.  M/M, F/F, M/F, and Poly.  Plus a large variety of kinks.  (Yes, I was often on kink memes back in my LJ days.)

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to?  I used to never respond because I didn’t know what to say, and then I tried to respond to every one, but there would be long gaps between when I checked and then I felt bad for responding so late, and sometimes I still don’t know what to say so I just end up not replying.  XD

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly very little.  Some harsh criticism - one in particular actually hit young me hard enough to stop writing for a while back in the day.  But I tend to get more hate for my meta than my fics.  Which is odd since my fics are usually very much representative of my meta.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Only one - a Dynasty Warrior fic of mine about the bond between CaoCao and Xiahou Dun was translated into Chinese.  I mean, Dynasty Warriors is a video game literally based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is based on chinese history, so for someone to want to translate one of my fics about it was incredible to me. Links below.

Honor 

Translation: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589910

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.  I would probably drive a co-author nuts, tbh.  I’m so inconsistent.  And at the same time, I have a thousand thoughts.

14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?

I don’t actually have one?  RNM has become my top fandom to write for, there’s no doubt.  And while I think Malex is in the most fics among them, I’m not sure if that number surpasses other ships in other fandoms I’ve written for altogether.  In fact, according to ao3, only 15 fics of my 40 RNM even have Malex in them at all, and not all of those are Malex-centric.  In fact in at least 3, they’re a side ship.

I’d say that I probably write almost as many fics that are gen, friendship, family/found family feels, and character introspection as I do shipping fics.  Which doesn’t really leave room for any one ship to be at the forefront.

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

None, I hope.  LOL.  There’s definitely a few that I have left uncompleted for a long time and feel guilty about but I’m not ready to say I’ve abandoned them yet.  There’s a ton of ideas I have written down that I may never actually write.  But none I have started that I don’t want to finish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

The three consistent compliments I’ve gotten are:  I capture the characters’ voices in my dialogue.  My writing tone is unique.  My smut is super hot.  XD  (I have no explanation for the last one, because to be honest ¾ of my smut is always foreplay.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes.  I have been told before that my action scenes are very confusing.  Also, I rarely give physical descriptions of people’s appearances because I honestly rarely stop to consider what they’re wearing or how their hair is done.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It’s common in a couple of fandoms of mine, and I actually don’t mind it. Depending on the fic, it can be more realistic to me than otherwise.  (I just appreciate it when the translation is also provided.)

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  But I never posted that one.  Um… I think Ranma ½ was the first one I ever posted for others to read?

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

Oh, gosh. Um… I know at one point I listed Dormant.  But I think right now if I had to choose I’d say either

School of Hard Knocks (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is my Michael-centric fic set in the lost decade.

Or

Duty First (Shadowhunters)  My Magnus and Raphael “missing scene” from 02x20.

Tagging @manesalex @lovecolibri @islndgurl777 @ninswhimsy 

[habunderscoreb]

turns out i’m really bored at 12 am. here is the palace of the parliament

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament

LOOK at this thing. holy mother of god it looks intimidating. 

so this is the palace of the parliament hailing from bucharest, romania.

it looks old, but wikipedia is saying construction began in 1984 and ended in 1997. so it’s actually not ridiculously old even though it just... gives me that vibe. 

it has 23 SECTIONS, houses the senate and chamber of deputies (the two chambers of the parliament of romania), has THREE museums and an international conference center. in addition to having all of this cool shit it is also the fattest building with the fattest ass weighting in at 4 million tonnes (9.04 billion pounds!). and also it is the “most expensive administrative building” costing FOUR BILLION EUROS. even heating, electricity, and lighting exceeds SIX MILLION DOLLARS per year!

i looked it up and thats just above the cost of a bugatti divo (just look up a picture of it, it’s a very very expensive car and i’m not gonna put a pic of a supercar on a post about buildings lol, but it is VERY expensive).

aside from housing very super important people, it has a freaking restaurant. but only politicians can eat at it. 

look how FREAKING NICE it is. i just hope the food is good lol, otherwise, it should put more funds towards food :) because food is good.

there was apparently also a proposition to repurpose the entire building into “a shopping centre and entertainment complex” and that the romanian parliament should fuck off to another building, but it was dismissed as a joke. rightfully so, i guess. i mean why would i not want to be in this huge absolutely massive fortress?

ok fuck apparently the heirs of the chief architect Anca Petrescu (bless her soul) have imposed a 2% royalty fee on commercial uses of the palace’s image. i hope i dont have to pay for it lol

OK apparently the construction of the palace is still “uncomplete” to this day. but the wikipedia page said it was completed in 1997?? i don’t understand.

anyway, moving on to the technical details section!

so the building has 8 underground levels. the deepest of which is a FUCKING NUCLEAT BUNKER, with 4.9-ft-concrete walls that are “impervious to radiation”. in this bunker the main hall has telephone connections to EVERY military unit in romania. there are residential apartments for state leadership as well just in case a war happens. 

below is (i think) a picture of the nuclear bunker. even though it’s a bunker it does look ridiculously snazzy!

3.9 million square feet in area, it ranks third in administrative buildings behind the Pentagon at 6.6 million square feet. its also very super big in terms of volume, clocking in at 90 million cubic feet. for comparison the volume of the great pyramid of giza is 92 million cubic feet, just above the palace’s. some people, as a result, have called it “pharaonic” because of how fucking large it is. truly beautiful.

because of its big dumpy it sinks 0.24 inches each year due to this weight. the layers of sediment below are settling because of its huge size.

3500 tonnes of crystal were manufactured, used to build chandeliers (which took two years to manufacture btw!), ceiling lights, and mirrors. 700 THOUSAND tonnes of steel and bronze were for huge doors and windows, and the chandeliers as well. ONE MILLION cubic meters of marble, 900 THOUSAND cubic meters of wood (very diverse kinds, including walnut, oak, sweet cherry, elm, sycamore maple) and 200,000 square meters of WOOL CARPETS!! and you can’t forget the silver and gold that adorns the curtains. absolutely massive and ornate. 

speaking of ornate check out pictures of the inside:

ridiculously extravagant building. i love this because it’s more old-fashioned compared to the modern apple park that i covered earlier. this to me looks really appealing and i hope i can one day visit this huge building for myself and see it with my own eyes