#We were all very shocked and appalled at how openly the guy glorified the Spanish civil war+Franco

[sheirukitriesfandom]

Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

@thequeenofthewinter (and I think domeone else too but there's nothing in my notifications 🤔) tagged me a while back but because I have a whole bunch of shit going on irl I've been feeling rather "socially drained" and putting all my free time into Italian and ESO.

So sorry for the wait 😅.

Tagging: @elavoria @skyrim-forever @alma-amentet @katastronoot @miraakulous-cloud-district @dirty-bosmer

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I hope I'll finally finish ACoS: Foe so I can move on to the letter G (ACoS is based on a series of letter prompts). I also want to continue with my original writing project.

2) Rec a book!

I rarely get around to reading for myself rather than uni (two foreign languages = two literary canons, yay), so I'm going with an author I admire greatly. 

I recommend "The House* of Ulloa" (Los pazos* de Ulloa) by Emilia Pardo Bazán. 

The story is set in 19th century Galicia and follows the young priest Julian Alvarez, who becomes chaplain for the marquis of Ulloa. Upon his arrival at the run-down estate, he gets drawn into the intrigues between the marquis, Pedro Moscoso; his majordomo, a suspicious, brutish man named Primitivo; and Primitivo's daughter Sabel, who is the mother of Perucho, Pedro's illegitimate son.

The House of Ulloa is an example of the Spanish naturalist movement, so if you're a fan of minimalist style, this book probably isn't for you.

*House doesn't exactly equal pazo. A pazo is a manor house in the countryside which often looks a bit like a small castle.

(Pazo de Meiras, where EPB used to live. Sadly, it later became the summer home of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco...)

3) Rec a fic! 

A Dream of Empire by Melampus

I'll just let the summary do the work for me:

"The Empire was all Lyrian had ever known. From a simple war mage trainee to Fatebinder, she never looked back on her choices, assured of her life as a loyal servant of the Empire and the Overlord. The war of conquest for the Tiers changed that. The fires of war forged Lyrian into something else beyond a mere tool. War was an ugly, dirty thing, but Lyrian felt right at home in the grime of battle, the spilling of blood. She never aspired to more, yet the world simply laughed.

And yet, in the chaos of war, there was a constant that she gravitated around without truly realizing it. Or rather, someone.

The Fatebinder of Balance."

I love Lyrian and her relationship with Calio, I love the additions to Tyranny's worldbuilding, I love the way everyone is characterised—it's just a great fic for a great, underrated game.

4) Rec music!

I've been thinking long and hard about which Trve Kvlt metal band I'd talk about just to show off my ~~eclectic taste~~ but fuck, I wanna gush about Angelo Branduardi. 

I love Angelo Branduardi. 

He's a renown Italian folk/traditional/pop musician, author, film soundtrack composer, (small-time) actor and, relatively recently, voice actor for a point & click adventure game.  

His music spans an incredible range of genres, lyrics & time periods ranging from songs of medieval origin to quiet folk to singer/songwriter to pop. He's released 28 studio albums and 50 albums in total. My favourites are the "Futuro Antico'' albums which contain adaptations of traditional songs from different areas and time periods as well as languages.

For example, the other day I listened to "Loibere Risen" from the first Futuro Antico album and thought to myself "Wait a minute, that's not exactly German… but it sounds so German I can kinda understand it." It's a song from the 13th century sung in Middle High German… Other obscure languages and dialects, such as Occitan, also find their way onto those albums.

Many publications call Branduardi a "modern day bard" and I think that's an apt description so if you're in any way inclined towards folk and "Bard-ish" music (or are learning Italian and looking for an easy to understand singer), I recommend you check him out.

Oh, and Angelo Branduardi is also the voiceclaim for Chief Justiciar Valcarion, one of my ESO OCs.

 5) Share one piece of advice!

When it comes to creative activities, rules are there to be broken. 

For any creative expression there are so many guides out there telling you to do this and that and while you should understand why those rules exist, don't let them limit you. Write that experimental 500k word novel from the perspective of a goose, wear that weird outfit you find cool even if they tell you those colours don't go together or it's out of fashion, draw that proportion-defying figure even if people tell you that's not how it works. 

It's all about expression and it's all good as long as those deviations from the norm are your intent (rather than, say, trying to draw a proportional human being but failing and hiding behind style).