#a book combined with illustrations to tell a story

[grzybjek]

Snippet from a project that Im working on featuring my wonky handwriting(its unreadable go to alt text to read it)😀😀💥💥 it feels good to be back after half a year

[emberwhite]

I spent the last 11 months working with my illustrator, Marta, to make the children's book of my dreams. We were able to get every detail just the way I wanted, and I'm very happy with the final result. She is the best person I have ever worked with, and I mean, just look at those colors!

I wanted to tell that story of anyone's who ever felt that they didn't belong anywhere. Whether you are a nerd, autistic, queer, trans, a furry, or some combination of the above, it makes for a sad and difficult life. This isn't just my story. This is our story.

I also want to say the month following the book's launch has been very stressful. I have never done this kind of book before, and I didn't know how to get the word out about it. I do have a small publishing business and a full-time job, so I figured let's put my some money into advertising this time. Indie writers will tell you great success stories they've had using Facebook ads, so I started a page and boosting my posts.

Within a first few days, I got a lot of likes and shares and even a few people who requested the book and left great reviews for me. There were also people memeing on how the boy turns into a delicious venison steak at the end of the book. It was all in good fun, though. It honestly made made laugh. Things were great, so I made more posts and increased spending.

But somehow, someway these new posts ended up on the wrong side of the platform. Soon, we saw claims of how the book was perpetuating mental illness, of how this book goes against all of basic biology and logic, and how the lgbtq agenda was corrupting our kids.

This brought out even more people to support the book, so I just let them at it and enjoyed my time reading comments after work. A few days later, then conversation moved from politics to encouraging bullying, accusing others of abusing children, and a competition to who could post the most cruel image. They were just comments, however, and after all, people were still supporting the book.

But then the trolls started organizing. Over night, I got hit with 3 one-star reviews on Amazon. My heart stopped. If your book ever falls below a certain rating, it can be removed, and blocked, and you can receive a strike on your publishing account. All that hard work was about to be deleted, and it was all my fault for posting it in the wrong place.

I panicked, pulled all my posts, and went into hiding, hoping things would die down. I reported the reviews and so did many others, but here's the thing you might have noticed across platforms like Google and Amazon. There are community guidelines that I referenced in my email, but unless people are doing something highly illegal, things are rarely ever taken down on these massive platforms. So those reviews are still there to this day. Once again, it's my fault, and I should have seen it coming.

Luckily, the harassment stopped, and the book is doing better now, at least in the US. The overall rating is still rickety in Europe, Canada, and Australia, so any reviews there help me out quite a lot. I'm currently looking for a new home to post about the book and talk about everything that went into it. I also love to talk about all things books if you ever want to chat. Maybe I'll post a selfie one day, too. Otherwise, the book is still on Amazon, and the full story and illustrations are on YouTube as well if you want to read it for free.

[wolfpants]

Yesterday afternoon, when I was in a bit of a frazzle getting ready to go out, the postie knocked on my door and delivered the most magical gift I've ever received 🥹

Not one, but FOUR gorgeous binds from @plor-bindery 😭

I am utterly blown away by Plor's generosity, skill, and attention to detail. These have become the most treasured items on my bookshelf... dare I say my home (don't tell my cat)?!

More incohrent gushing and pics under the cut...

Everybody Hates a Tourist

That colour combination! The texts-as-a-blurb! The magical burst of rainbows (and pineapples!)! And don't even get my started on the interiors...

The postcard picture - also found on the fic's banner and Spotify playlist - made me gasp. And each chapter has its own gorgeous illustration, and - god, can we talk about drop caps please?! And the texts?

-

Under Giant Mountains

The foiling here is just *chef's kiss*, and that colour green is so gorgeous. The dragon! The quote! I also love the size of this one, it's so smart to choose a smaller format, it feels like a proper vintage book, like something found on Draco's shelf in his little cabin. Absolute perfection.

-

In My Room

I cannot believe I am holding a bound Dron book in my hands 😭 And one with such thoughtful artwork, so true to the story! The record player! The chess board with the chess pieces, weed and vinyls! I want the endpaper for this one plastered on my walls please... it's so Ron.

-

Kinkuary '23

When I opened the package and unwrapped this one last, I thought Plor had sent me a vintage book, but then after flipping through it, I realised it was covered in a modesty jacket 😈 Which I love, because again, it feels so... naughty and Victorian 😌 Picking that quote from the gay orgy fic is the absolutely cherry here. Brilliant! Inspired!

There is so much detail here I don't even know where to start. I love how each story includes its description, how each scene is separated with handcuffs, and... the index! Reading through some of my (quite frankly insane) tags had me absolutely howling (shoutout to "Draco Malfoy... is HORNY").

Here they all are, taking pride of place on my shelf. Honestly, the most beautiful gift. I can't even begin to explain what it feels like to hold my own writing, in black and white and on paper, in my hands. So surreal. I am so, so grateful. Thank you so much Plor, you lovely, lovely human!

[elainsgirl]

if we ignore all the ways the text itself makes it clear elain’s book (with az) is next and just look at the marketing/publicity side, i still don’t see how people can deny that elriel is next:

- the coloring book including the TT scene

- the illustrated dust jackets with nessian and elriel for acofas

- the countless magazine articles saying they believe elriel is next (time, E! news, etc)

- the decision to make the azriel bonus chapter exclusive to BAM but the feysand one to B&N, which has a much larger audience of readers and then reprint the feysand one in the special editions

- interviews where sjm said she’s already started writing elain’s book and had “dreams of ivy choking her” (if we go with their assumption that elain is book 7 and gwynriel is book 6 except you don’t start writing book 7 before book 6 so why would she have been writing elain’s back in 2018ish?)

this is all just off the top of my head so there could be more. and that’s just without analyzing the text, which in itself practically screams elriel!!! i’ve talked with 2 of my friends who are casual readers and none of them even know that gwynriel existed as a possibility bc of how outlandish it was. and if that is how casual readers in 2025 are STILL reacting to gwynriel, there is absolutely no way she would spring a ship that doesn’t exists in canon on her readers! at least mor and emerie was hinted at in acosf so if they get a book together, it at least makes sense bc it was explained on the page in the actual books. i just don’t understand how people can deny both the text and marketing decisions at this point

The second Sjm stopped mentioning Elucien in her videos and became “hush” “hush” about Elains Li - it was ringing bells that elucien is no longer endgame. But you’re completely right, lets *solely* talk about the marketing aspect of this. Buckle in, this is long.

*Before we begin, Let’s make it clear by Acowar/Acofas - Sjm definitely knew what was happening in acotar 4 = acosf and Acotar 5, she herself said both those books lay crumbs and foreshadowing for the future.

The colouring book that did quite well & rated highly on goodreads. It contains all the significant moments @elrielsgarden recently did a post talking about it but lets focus on the elucien/elriel scenes we get.

There is no elucien scene within the coloring book. The closest is this, the scene where Elain is standing next to Lucien. Where his focus is on Nesta and Elains focus elsewhere.

Then Mass chooses to include a scene between elriel: When you look at this scene, what do you remember?

This passage:

as much as antis say this scene is insignificant and means nothing - Sjm, the author herself clearly found it to be important enough to be included within the coloring book.

So, Here Mass included the iconic truthteller scene yet if elucien is endgame - why did she not include a single significant scene between them? Why elriel? It could have been Lucien giving Elain his cloak in acomaf? It could have been a picture of them sitting together when they first talked. Anything YET eluciens get nothing, so what exactly is the point? What marketing technique is this? Why did she want to include an elriel scene but not Elucien.

Moving onto the dust jackets:

Like, come on. You cannot tell me this wasn’t done on purpose, Mass knew what she was doing - so again, if elucien was endgame, why isn’t he apart of this? Why isnt he next to Elain?

You close the book, Nessian land on each other. Elriel land om each other. If Nessian is endgame and this was for a romantic hint/purpose. well. Following that logic - the same reason applies for elriel, another hint at Elains final endgame.

Keeping all of this in mind so far - Let’s look at some interviews from Sjm:

Let’s combine all of these to get a general gist of the spinoffs:

3 spinoffs = 3 novels. It was in acowar where Sjm started writing a story and realised she wanted to explore new characters- There’s a few characters I say Acowar diverts too that are “new”: Vassa, Helion/LoA, Miryam. She also says she planned and researched for Elains book. But the two most important things to me are 1) She knew Nessian were next AND what she wanted for the second novel. The third novel she left the door open for, logically; If the next book is elucien, Mass would have already known who Az ended with therefore knew what the last book would be about, Gwynriel. Vice versa. If Gwynriel is next- she definitely would have known elucien would be acotar 6 YET only 2/3 spinoffs were planned. Then - you may ask who or what the last book could be about? Prequel. Especially with the way HOFAS went, Sjm seems ready to dive into the lore of and history of pre-acotar.

So if Gwynriel was endgame, Gwyn being so important to the plot as Gwynriels claim: She would have been introduced in acowar or even acofas. The books that set up the spinoffs, is she brought in within those books? No. Even by going off on what Sjm has confirmed about the spinoffs, it already logically disproves both elucien and gwynriel.

onto the articles:

E! and Time are good sources that are held highly and people believe. They have an honest reputation for being informed and real as far as news articles can go. Both these articles talk about which couple? Elriel. Here’s the thing: For Gwynriel to work, it has to be next as (Azriels bonus = his pov next) so shouldn’t these articles be talking about him? Yet its Az AND Elain. No Gwyn. They don’t even focus on elucien.

To have these major sources talk about elriel…when the next book is going to be gwynriel is just complicating and confusing for casual readers which are majority of the fandom. Mass nor BB would want that, would they? And this bothers antis as some even lied that these articles mentioned their ships as well (conveniently no proof was given to go w the claim)

Nail on the coffin is the fact Feysands bonus will be reprinted and included in the new editions, the bonus that talks and has a slight focus on Elain. If one was to *only* have read Feysands bonus, be honest. Would you have come to the conclusion that Gwynriel’s book is next?

No and that itself puts an end to Gwynriel. The ship has slowly been sinking this year and this was the final proof- it was never happening. And if you don’t have Gwynriel -> no way for Elucien to happen.

And you’re right, aside from casual readers not clicking onto Gwynriel being next - for ACOTAR specifically, Mass has set up each couple before their book in the same way. They each have had some foundation, attraction, romance, actual tangible connections to the plot BEFORE their books. A gwynriel book will be a messy, retconneed book which is a lot of effort to create AND make sense with the previous series and I just don’t see Mass doing that. If Gwynriel was to happen, there would have been no need for elriel. These books focus on ONE couple. Elucien had angst without elriel. Gwynriel could have been set up to have angst without elriel, so why even create elriel in the first place? As a “red herring” ? But then why would any author go through so much trouble in positivity developing elriel and their plot for 3 consecutive books if they weren’t happening?

When you try to follow Gwynriel/Elucien logic there is a lot of confusion.

I feel like I got off track somewhere - my bad. Point is - by marketing alone and adding all that has happened in regards to the ships it had always pointed towards elriel. Elains book, Az as her Li. At MOST - there’s a speculation on a love triangle between Az, Elain and Lucien - even then who is the focus? Elain. Not Gwynriel.

I think 2024 was the year of elriels’ soft launch. BB and Mass prepping the fandom for an announcement and 2025 will be elriels year. Where everything will come together in a nice neat little bow. 🎀

[zae-heeyyy]

Pastiche

Summary: You and Arthur escape through writing. Pairing: Arthur Morgan x gn!Reader Word Count: 2,345 Trigger Warning: Tuberculosis, death Tags: angst, sadness, high honor Arthur

a/n: Thanks for you kind words on Chiaroscuro. I've enjoyed writing again so much! I'm in my tragedy era. My hs english teacher's voice haunts me when I'm writing, so I spent a lot of time scrutinizing this. Didn't mean for it to be so long, but I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading!

pastiche: a work of art or literature that imitates the style or character of another, often as an homage or tribute.

You knew there was something special about Arthur Morgan the day you met him. Despite his best efforts to believe otherwise, he was easy on the eyes, and his dry humor combined with his strong sense of honor sealed your crush on the cowboy. Everybody else could see that he was sweet on you, too, noticing when he pulled you to sit at the fire with him or how he watched you around camp. As more time passed, you'd become mostly inseparable, taking every moment you had to sneak away together. One of your favorite places to escape to was the fields of Little Creek River in Big Valley. You'd be reading a book and glance over to find Arthur staring intently at an animal until it was out of sight. Then he'd open up his journal and sketch it.  He wasn't doing that today, though. He was staring across the field, but you could tell he was elsewhere in his mind.

"Got somethin' to say," his eyes met yours earnestly. When he told you he loved you, a laugh erupted deep from your belly. Dumbfounded, he asked, "The hell is so funny?" his own laugh betraying his attempt to be solemn. It was hilarious to you that he didn't think you already knew that and that he didn't know you absolutely felt the same.

Another day, you were lying in Arthur's lap in the grass. Just the day before, he had returned to camp with bruised knuckles and some poor fool's blood on his face—one of Strauss's clients. You longed for a life where bruised knuckles and loan sharking were distant memories.

"Where would you be if you weren't here," you'd asked, holding his hand in yours. He stroked your thumb with his and gazed over the valley like always.

"Hard to imagine." He mumbled, sounding far away.

You nodded in agreement and replied, "You're always writing or drawing in your notebook. Maybe you could've been an artist or a writer." The thought brought a soft smile to your face, and you imagined, just for a second, a life where Arthur's biggest worry was perfecting his latest masterpiece.

He huffed in dry amusement, "Probably wouldn't have known how to read if it weren't for Dutch and Hosea."

You assented again and sighed, the smile on your face growing wider.

 "Arthur Morgan: author and illustrator." You held your hands up in dramatic fashion as if envisioning the words in front of you. Then you untangled yourself from him and sat up, "You could, you know? It's not too late. Maybe a biography?"

"A story about my life, huh?" He looked at you with a dumb smile, "I think a book about dirt would be more interestin'." He bobbed his head up and down as if nodding made his thought more true. You shoved him playfully, and he raised his eyebrow at you and held out his hands questionly. "What? There's all different kinds of dirt," he started counting on his fingers." Brown dirt, red dirt, hard dirt—"

You cut him off, "I'm serious, Arthur! This life…it ain't one normal folks live." A shit-eating grin crept up his face as he fought not to make another joke at his own expense. He shoved it down and kept listening. "Sure, it's just your life to you, but other people might find it interesting, exciting, even."

He thought for a second, then put his hands in the air, mimicking you, "The Confessions of Arthur Morgan: The Detailed Life of a Gunslinger by Arthur Morgan. Sounds like a Pinkerton's wet dream."

 "I see what you mean," you trail off, fingers playing in the grass. "Could change the name. People publish under a different name all the time. There's a word for that, I think."

"Pseudonym," he responded, his accent thick. "Think it's got one of those silent letters in front." He said it so matter of factly, and it confirmed what you already knew about him: he was far more intelligent than anybody ever gave him credit for. Still, you left the idea alone and thought Arthur had, too.

Then, on another afternoon in the fields near Little Creek River, he spoke out of nowhere. "Arthur Callahan or Tacitus Kilgore?" 

"Hmm?" you asked, barely glancing up from your book.

"For the pen name," he confirmed, scratching his chin thoughtfully. 

From that day on, your trips to Little Creek River became writing sessions. He bought a notebook that you two would trade off, coming up with ideas for the dramatized life of the gunslinger. You'd taken some creative liberties, and the story wasn't exactly a biography anymore. It had shaped into a Western love story. Arthur Callahan, after living a bad life, met someone who made him want to be better, an angel sent to rescue the devil himself. Arthur Callahan would get the perfect ending; a normal life. It was all Arthur's idea. 

"It's not my story; it's ours," he'd told you. 

You had been daydreaming about the possibilities for your novel for some time, but the chaos of life with the gang left little room to focus on it. The sudden move from Horseshoe Overlook to Clemens Point made things worse. Somewhere in the move, the manuscript was lost or destroyed—either way, it was gone. You couldn't hold back your tears during your next trip to Big Valley. Arthur's big hands swallowed your face as his thumbs wiped your tears away.  

"Shhh, we'll rewrite it, sweetheart," he promised.

Despite Arthur's gentle nudges, you couldn't find it in you to rewrite the story. Another day, he'd invited you to ride with him, heading off to your usual spot. He'd asked once more if you were feeling up to writing again. When you rejected the idea, he shook his head, seemingly surrendering. 

"Fine! You're so damn stubborn." There was no malice in his voice, though, and his eyes twinkled a little. "Looks like I gotta take matters into my own hands." Instead of stopping the horse in the fields as usual, Arthur stopped short, cutting into nearby woods. Eventually, he halted outside of the small cabin that was Vetter's Echo and hitched the horse outside. 

"Come on," he said, helping you down. "I've got a surprise for you." You walked up the cabin's steps, and he swung the door open to a small living quarters. "It don't got a back door, and I'm pretty sure the feller living here got mauled by a bear, but it's got one of these things." He gestured to the desk in the corner of the small cabin, a typewriter sitting atop it, "I don't have the first clue about using it." So he left it for you to figure out. He'd sit on a stool beside you, reading from a notebook, and you'd type slowly at first, but as time went on, the keys felt as familiar to you as a gun trigger did to him. 

Then things started falling apart. You'd moved from Horseshoe Overlook to Clemens Point, then to Shady Bell in a matter of weeks. The men went on a job to rob the bank in St. Denis, and most didn't return. You'd forgotten about the manuscript while trying to survive and spent weeks worried about Arthur and everybody else.

Then he came home to you, waterlogged but alive. You'd never felt more relieved. He was skinny and had a persistent cough, blaming it all on his rough journey. But it didn't stop him from finishing the book as promised. He'd write whenever he had a chance, and you'd go back to the little cabin in the woods, you typing and him reading.

Then he couldn't get through a page without coughing. You listened, concern etched on your face as he told you about his coughing spell and subsequent visit to the doctor in the city. Tuberculosis: practically a death sentence. After that, he'd step back when you tried to be close to him and wouldn't let you kiss him or be intimate with him. You spent a lot of time crying while he dipped his head in profound shame. 

Weeks later, he woke you up at night, gently shaking you and whispering to not alert anyone else. "C'mon, get dressed and ride with me." He was serious, his jaw set, his voice low but demanding. You didn't know what was wrong, but dread ran through your veins. You rode far away from camp, mostly in silence, your anxiety not letting you say anything. 

"You're gonna live a good life. "he finally said, breaking the silence. Your eyes stung, and you felt a lump in your throat.

"I don't want to hear this right now, Arthur."

He shook his head, frustrated, and spoke through clenched teeth. "Listen to me." His tone made you flinch. He'd never taken on that tone with you, ever. "This whole thing with Dutch, it's over. You gotta run. Gotta get out and make a good life for yourself." 

You wanted to protest; you weren't going to leave him, not now. But then you saw the waiting stagecoach up ahead. Your heart dropped and shattered into a million pieces. You reached around him to pull the horse's reins, coming to a skidding stop. You hopped down and started shaking your head, frantic in your movements and words. 

"No, Arthur. No."

You wiped away the quickly falling tears as you turned, fast walking, almost running back to that godforsaken camp that was Beaver Hollow. Even in his sickness, it only took Arthur a few big steps to reach you, grabbing you by the waist and turning you to face him. And then you cursed at him, pounded your fists against his chest, and wailed into the night. He just pulled you close to him, squeezing you until you didn't fight anymore. He gave you a stack of cash, made you promise to run, and said he'd come find you after it was all over. But both of you knew, deep down, that you were setting eyes on each other for the last time. He kissed your head. You sobbed into his chest, only letting go when the impatient stagecoach driver beckoned you.

"Never could've imagined I'd know somebody as perfect for me as you." All you could choke out was, "I love you," over and over and over again. He slipped a folded letter into your hand and helped you into the coach filled with your things. He stood silently with his hat in his hands while you rode off into the night. You sobbed for as long as your body let you while the coach took you down to Copperhead Landing.

First, Tilly showed up with Jack, and then Sadie came with Abagail. But then John arrived bearing Arthur's hat and satchel with a look in his eyes so terrible that it brought you to a screaming sob. That night, when everybody had finally settled down to sleep, you slipped away, leaving a note of thanks and well wishes. You were alone then, the way you wanted it to be without Arthur.  

Eight years; it had been eight years since everything went to shit. In eight years, you worked your ass off with any odd jobs you could find. Keeping busy was how you cured your broken heart. You'd tried as hard as you could to forget about the life you'd once lived until you read a headline in the newspaper: MICAH BELL KILLED. The memories flooded back to you, and you returned to a place you hadn't visited in a while. You only kept 2 things from that time: a letter from Arthur and the manuscript you'd written with him. Forged in Fire, you called it. After all this time, you couldn't remember who came up with the name, but you remembered why. You two were like tempered metal; the more you walked through hellfire, the stronger you became.  

Then there was Arthur's letter. You'd read it only once before today.

"Things I wanted to say but did not have the courage to say aloud." was scrawled across the top of the page, followed by a list.

"Keep visiting Big Valley.

Keep writing.

Publish the book.

Watch every sunset.

Trust your gut.

Please, be happy."

You heard his voice through every word. He'd underlined the third point: publish the book. In that moment, you decided to take a leap. You wrote to a publisher and sent a copy of the manuscript. And that's all it took. Things went into a tailspin after that, and before you knew it, you were holding a hard copy of the manuscript you and Arthur had worked on together all that time ago.

You'd made an effort, then, to find Abigail and John and Jack. They were held up at a ranch, Beecher's Hope, and were married now. You caught up with the Marstons and apologized for hastily disappearing all those years ago. They were happy for you, and you for them. 

On your departure, John took your hand, "I don't talk about him much these days, but I don't think he loved anybody like he loved you." He paused for a moment and forced his eyes to meet yours. "He's buried out in Ambarino, near Donner Falls. Top of the mountain. I can take you." You declined John's offer but set out east toward Donner Falls the next day. 

You found him around noon and watched wistfully as an eagle flew from its spot on a rock behind the flowery grave. You fell to your knees, no longer able to control the tears flowing down your face. "I did it, my love," you choked through tears. It'd been a long, long time since you let yourself feel this pain—a longing to reach something impossible. You dabbed the tears away from your eyes and sat in the grass, hugging Forged in Fire to your chest. "Thought I'd read it to you," you spoke into the air. You opened the book, cracked the spine, and read "Chapter One: Heaven's Fall, Hell's Rise."

[rjalker]

Flatland: An Adventure in Many Dimensions, a 2024 translation into casual English, is done!

You can read and download it completely 100% for free on the Internet Archive!

When it's done loading, you will be able to read it directly online, and the Internet Archive will automatically generate audiobook versions with text to speech.

You can also download and torrent various versions as PDFs, epubs, and editable documents so you can change the font, paragraph styles, and do anything else you want with it, like give everyone neopronouns or turn them into unicorns!

I will also be making my own audiobook version at some point. but that's gonna take a while since this is around 38,000 words long. You can make your own too! And you can translate this into other languages!

Edit: The "lazy" (unedited) audiobook is now available on youtube! It is in two videos, since my computer wouldn't let me combine them lol.

“https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpFcEwm88RUsMYmhY6DBYZcIvvKv6_ZS3”

Did I mention this is public domain? Because I hate capitalism and I'm poor and I want other people to also be able to enjoy books for free.

Buy the cheapest possible print version for $7.45 (I get $2).

This version is a paperback with no illustrations, no prefaces, a greyscale cover to make it as cheap to print as possible, so that more people can afford to buy it.

Buy the regular print version for $22.17 (I get $5).

This version is a hardpack with illustrations, the preface from the original author, and one from me.

You can also download all the HD illustrations included in this story here on the Internet Archive.

If you enjoy reading it, you can also donate directly to "TinyelFlatland" on paypal!

And if I haven't made it clear yet, this is Public Domain. You are 1million% encouraged to download it, print it, share it, do literally anything you want with it. I am 100% serious.

Now you can all join me in laughing at the narrator :)

Edit: oh wait lol. I realize I wrote this post assuming only people who already know what Flatland is will see it.

Uh so people who have no clue what Flatland is, here's a quick summary:

The narrator, who hides his identity using the alias "A. Square", is a resident of a world called Flatland, a world that only exists in two dimensions, where every person is a flat geometric shape. A. Square tells us the history and culture of his world, which is rife with bigotry that he buys into without question. Until New Year's Eve, before the first day of the year 2000, when a mysterious stranger claiming to come from the third dimension appears in his living room, and starts saying things that sound absurd, and performing what seem like magic tricks.

The original Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, was published in 1884 by Edwin Abbot Abbot. It is both a scathing political satire criticizing the systems of bigotry in Victorian England, and an entertaining introduction to the concept of more than three dimensions.

Edit: Now there's an itch.io page too!

Edit again: And you can read it here on tumblr now! @flatland-a-2024-translation and on Pillowfort!

[capacle]

A game that says 'Yes' more

Alright folks, here it is:

🌟Everspark🌟

This is my answer to the question:

'What if we stripped everything off of heroic fantasy TTPRGS and kept only the vibes?'

The story behind this game starts 30 years ago…

I remember my first RPG experience. The art, the setting, the idea of being a hero in a fantasy world that we discovered together—it all seemed magical.

But very soon the cracks started to show.

A disconnect between the promise and the experience delivered by the game.

It took me more than 30 published games to give this one a go, mostly due to self-consciousness ("Really? Another fantasy heartbreaker?")

But I had to do it.

I had to know—what if we could actually live the promise that those book covers sold?

What if we could offer new players the experience they think they will have with that one game, without the frustration of a ruleset that says 'no' all the time?

That’s how Everspark was born.

I want to provide those carefree, belly-laugh-filled, let’s-play-pretend moments of rolling dice, casting imaginary spells, and coming up with all sorts of shenanigans.

A great choice if you want to introduce the hobby to newcomers, or play with your kids (or parents!)

I want to reignite that original spark that first attracted us to these kinds of games and never left us—the Everspark, if you will.

You get to tell epic tales, celebrate nat-20s, lament nat-1s, and spend some quality time daydreaming about dragons.

The system is super simple: You roll a d20 and 'eyeball' the result to see if you get a critical, regular or mixed success (or failure).

Besides that, there's only a quirky little mechanic involving drawing stars on sticky notes that covers everything else you need.

You can play solo or in a group, with or without a GM.

There are 8,000 possible character combinations, and you can make one in 20 seconds.

The game is very welcoming to foreign material, like settings, adventures, monsters, weapons, spells, and more!

All the art is by the amazing Ray Olli (and during the campaign, you can have your own custom character illustrated by him!)

Look at that:

And, if nothing else has convinced you so far, you can play as a Capoeira Capybara:

Everspark is funding now, and I'd appreciate your support and enthusiasm!

Please share it with anyone that wants to try a rules-light, vibes-full heroic fantasy tabletop game!

Make an indie designer happy today! 😊

[strawberry-jan]

Back in late 2022, I started working on a long story about Ishin: a tale of two dummies whose weird one-night stand blossoms into a surprisingly caring relationship even as a (mostly) canon-compliant series of tragedies plays out around them. It’s a now-complete series in approximately 125,000 words and three parts, and you can read the whole thing right now on AO3: The Glorious and Bloody Deeds of Okita Soji, Volume 1: Okita Soji Versus the Scoundrel Saito Hajime; The Secret History of Saito Hajime, Volume 2: The Shiraume Incident; and, finally, Brief Notes on the Domestic Life of one Saito Hajime.

Taken as a whole, it's a story about identity and history and the stories that people tell each other and themselves about those things. And it's a story about one guy getting way too into weird Edo-era egg dishes, and another guy finding himself embroiled in an extended detective sequence, and a third guy composing a series of corny haiku that (almost) nobody wants to read. And, of course, it's also a story about people who are shamelessly and sometimes explicitly in love (so you probably shouldn't read it at work).

This whole big, sprawling thing has been a labour of love on my part: it turns out that I adore writing historical fiction and finding excuses to read books and journal articles in order to write it better. In addition to making not one but four little illustrations to celebrate the fic's completion (and please look at them up-close; I hand-inked all those kimono patterns), I've drawn up a list of some of the sources that I consulted for my writing, and you can find those under the cut.

This is not an absolutely exhaustive list of sources; I don’t think it’s super useful to catalogue the extremely nitty-gritty stuff, like that time that I felt compelled to find out what the state of strawberry cultivation was in 1860s Japan, or when I needed to picture exactly what it looked like when Haruka was repairing Ryoma’s kimono. That being said, I’ve added a couple of things that are really particular to my stories but that I thought were cool enough to share.

Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. U of California P, 2015. (This one was a really fun read – it combines a short history of yokai in folklore with a little catalogue of yokai.)

Jansen, Marius B. Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration. Stanford UP, 1971. (Super useful as an introduction to the Bakumatsu era and for biographical details about Ryoma and the figures around him.)

“Japanese Wiki Corpus.” https://www.japanesewiki.com/. (This is a machine-translated collection of articles on the Japanese side of Wikipedia related to Kyoto. As with a lot of things on Wikipedia, the citations on these articles tend to be poor or nonexistent, but it’s a useful starting point for information on figures and events that don’t have an English wiki equivalent. Definitely more useful if you can then head over to the original wiki articles and parse them out yourself.)

“Kabuki21” and “The Noh.” https://www.kabuki21.com/section.php, https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/index.html. (I’m lumping these two together because I tended to consult them in tandem. Without getting too much into my personal details I am – among other things – a non-practicing theatre scholar, so whenever I wanted to have characters in my old-timey fics refer to something cultural, my first stop was old plays. These sites have, respectively, summaries of kabuki plays and full texts of Noh plays available for you to browse. If you’ve read my other fics you will probably have seen that I referred to the kabuki play “Fuwa” in 亀が如く.)

Katsu, Kokichi. Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai. Translated by Teruko Craig. U of Arizona P, 1988. (A book that needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it’s an autobiography written by a guy who sounds like a real blowhard, but it’s still a really fascinating look into the daily life of a low-ranking samurai.)

Leupp, Gary P. and Tao, De-min. The Tokugawa World. Routledge, 2022. (Of particular interest is Kimura Sachihiko’s essay, “The Shinsengumi: Shadows and light in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate” [1104-1124], which gave me a bunch of incidental details about the Roshigumi that I incorporated into the sections of this series that were told from Inoue and Hijikata’s perspectives.)

“Old Photos of Japan.” https://www.oldphotosjapan.com/. (Pretty self-explanatory. Very useful as a resource for picturing scenes!)

“Shinsengumi Archives.” https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/. (A long-running tumblr dedicated to cataloguing resources about the Shinsengumi. There’s an absolute wealth of information collected here, and best of all, the creator cites their sources and even provides links to the original texts. Although it’s focused on the Shinsengumi, it’s impossible to overstate how useful this site is for prospective Bakumatsu-era fic writers in general. The collection of Hijikata’s poems with links to others’ translations and commentary is here: https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/post/683071924948058112/hijikata-toshizos-haiku-poems. The creator of the blog also links to a translation of Nagakura’s and Shimada’s diaries, and while the document is machine-translated, it’s still a great source of historical details: https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/post/678083336614428672/where-can-you-read-the-memoirs.)

Smits, Gregory. “Warding off Calamity in Japan: A Comparison of the 1855 Catfish Prints and the 1862 Measles Prints.” EASTM 30 (2009): 9-31. (Okay, this one is highly specific to my fic – it comes up in Part 2 when Okita tells his story about Kashima and again a couple of chapters later when his pile of remedies includes a crudely-drawn picture meant to ward off indigestion – but I love little details like this so I did want to make a point of sharing it here.)

“Tamago Hyakuchin” and “Tofu Hyakuchin.” http://codh.rois.ac.jp/edo-cooking/tamago-hyakuchin/recipe/, https://toyama-tofu.jp/tofuhyakutin.html. (These are collections of Edo-era egg- and tofu-based recipes. They’re two of the sources cited in Cookpad’s collection of modernized Edo-era recipes: https://cookpad.com/recipe/list/14604664.)

Vaporis, Constantine N. “Linking the Realm: The Gokaido Highway Network in Early Modern Japan (1603-1868).” Highways, Byways and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World. Ed. Susan E. Alcock, John Bodel, and Richard J. A. Talbert. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 90-105. (Some of the works cited in this article also sound interesting, but I didn’t have a chance to dig any deeper as I just wanted to know a bit about the Tokugawa-era roads. Also interesting in this vein is Jilly Traganou’s book The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan [2004].)

Wert, Michael. Meiji Restoration Losers. Harvard UP, 2013. (Not directly useful as a source for writing about Ishin – it’s about later events and it mostly tracks the posthumous construction of one specific Tokugawa magistrate’s history – but it was an engaging read and I found it interesting as an exploration of how people continue to look back on the Bakumatsu era and the Meiji Restoration, which is something that the game is, of course, also doing.)

Yamakawa, Kikue. Women of the Mito Domain: Recollections of Samurai Family Life. Translated by Kate Wildman Nakai. U of Tokyo P, 1992. (Another one of those bits of essential reading on everyday life for low-ranking samurai, this time with a focus on women’s lives and households more generally. I didn’t use a lot of from this book in my fic, but it has everything from translations of songs to records of families’ financial transactions, and it’s fascinating to read about all the turmoil in Mito playing out in the background of these families’ lives.)

“Yokai.com.” https://yokai.com/. (The creators of this site make a point of not going into detail about their sources, and they’re very careful to state that they don’t intend for the project to be “the final authority” on yokai, but I enjoyed browsing the site to get some ideas for Okita’s stories – and once you know the name of a particular yokai that you’re interested in, it’s easy enough to go look up other sources on them.)

[saranilssonbooks]

Developmental psychology scholar read Cozy Classics' Moby-Dick! Here are the thougts.

For those who haven't heard of the Cozy Classics, they are a series of board book adaptions of great classics such as Oliver Twist, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Jane Eyre, created by Jack and Holman Wang and intended for young children. What makes these books stand out, however, is that they come with a most delightful needle felted twist!

Each book contains 12 illustrations, consisting of photographs depicting scenes from the original story and featuring needle felted characters and props.

In addition to this, 12 words related to the story are printed in-between the illustrations; "sailor", "leg", "boat", "find"...

...et cetera. Guess Moby-Dick gets a bonus word though, since "Pequod" is ever so neatly embroidered on the ship's fluffy name plate.

I have to say that this whole concept is nothing short of genius. Not only are the little ones presented with the classics fitting their own level of perception, but the materials shown in the pictures are all familiar ones to them sensory-wise, thus much more relatable than conventional illustrations.

As for the words, they are fitting 1-2 syllable ones, but their meaning - at least in this case - are somewhat unsual. I'm telling you, one doesn't find educational toddler literature containing "smash", "sink", and "mad" together all that often. The choice of words in combination with the pictures also works in an almost insidious fashion in that they will now be forever planted in the lil' one's brain and for the rest of their life they will recognize that peg legged dude with anger issues.

The book manages to capture the essence of the original quite well and what truly surprised me was how the creators did not hold back on the dark stuff. Ahab looks like something that definately will come crawling out from under your bed at night for a maniacal stabbing session, Moby Dick turns the Pequod to splinters, and a heart broken Ishmael floats around on a coffin. Even the color scheme is moody and ominous. We approve! 👍

Even if you don't have a child nearby to brain wash, I highly recommend you check this book out - it's up for a free read on archive.org - for the sake of admiring the pieces of downright wool art.

So, there's the Cozy Classics Moby-Dick for ya. Now I have to go ponder whether I should add a request for a needle felted coffin in my death plan.

[seraphtrevs]

for the ask game…brbabcs? (either the combined universe or whichever of the shows individually) 💕

I'm just going to do a mishmash of whatever happens to come to my mind lol - STREAM OF CONSCIOUS POSTING INCOMING

my favorite female character - over the whole brbabcs, obviously it's Kim. She was a great character from episode one, but they really cemented her as the Character of All Time with her fall from grace in season 6. She's so complicated and layered, achingly human and relatable, but also extraordinary, which makes her compelling to watch.

She's a hard character to sum up because she's so nuanced, but I think what draws me to her the most is her deep rage at injustice. Her fall is ironic because it was that desire to make the world "right" that led her to betray her core values - but honestly, who can blame her? Haven't we all wished that the Howard Hamlins of the world would suffer consequences too, instead of consequences being only reserved for people who were born in the "wrong" race/gender/class? But at the same time, embarrassing one Howard Hamlin is not actually the same thing as making systemic changes, and her desire to punish him was a personal vendetta, not actual justice. I totally get how the two got mixed up in her head, though.

I'm also a big Skyler fan - more on her later

my favorite male character - For BCS, it's Lalo lol. I don't think he's the BEST character, but sometimes it feels like Peter Gould got the gang together and was like, "Listen, tumblr user seraphtrevs has been having a hard time - why don't we write a character that is specifically tailored to all of her deepest, darkest, and horniest desires?" And lo, they did. He's so charming and cheerful and evil and funny and so so SO hot - I was doomed from the very first paca paca paca 😭

Side note, I think i'm such a villain girlie because I'm so anxious. Characters who don't worry about anything except doing what they want are very fun for me to watch. Imagine the bliss of not caring! *_*

For brba, the character I have the most affection for is Jesse, but Jesse is made to be loved. So instead...I'm going to pick Walt. He is the worst man who has ever lived and I completely get why people can't stomach him. My own husband tapped out of brba because he found Walt unbearable IN SEASON ONE.

So as a person, yes, Walt is the worst. But as a character? He's unparalleled. He makes things happen, which I think a very underrated character trait (and one that a lot of writers overlook). Walt is an infernal engine, a perpetual motion machine, a catalyst of catalysts. Things HAPPEN when he's around, which makes him a really fantastic character.

The other thing I really appreciate about Walt is that Vince Gilligan really stuck to his guns. He said he wanted to tell a story about Mr. Chips becoming Scarface, and by god that's what he did. A big problem with a lot of "antihero" shows is that they are often way too sympathetic to their protagonists and fall for their bullshit. And while a lot of the audience for brba fell for walt's bullshit, the writers were always very clear-eyed about what they were doing.

my favorite book/season/etc - an impossible question for bcs. all seasons are tied for best except season 2, which was a little tiny bit less good but only because it was necessary to set up the rest of the show's run, so actually it is also tied for best. I guess if you put a gun to my head, I'd say season 5 because it's the Lalo season

brba is an easier call - it's for sure season 4.

my favorite episode (if its a tv show) - for brba, I'll say The Fly, not necessarily because it's my favorite (too many favorites to choose from) but because I love character work, and that ep is all character work. Also, it's a good illustration of what I was talking about in my walt answer - it's an episode where "nothing" happens (or so claim Fly detractors!)...but making things happen doesn't have to mean making BIG things happen. Walt's monomania and willingness to do whatever it takes to "win" over something as stupid as a little fly shows what makes him such a great character

my favorite cast member - for brba, i think it's pretty widely known that bryan cranston and aaron paul have merged into one being, so I choose bryaaron.

for bcs, it's bob odenkirk. the entire show - or even the entire brbabcs universe, actually - rests on jimmy. like i know i just said that was walt, and it is for brba. but i think that now that bcs is done, you can make the argument that jimmy is actually the character that it was "about" (actually I'd put Kim in there too). Walt was always morally black, but Jimmy was genuinely morally gray for much of the series, and he maintained a human core that Walt lost. I think Jimmy and Kim are more relatable. (Not to leave Jesse out, bc out of the four of them Jesse is the most sympathetic in a lot of ways. But I feel like his story was more of a survival story, like Skyler's, and not so much a story about moral failure. Like yeah for sure jesse had tons of moral failures, but that never seemed to be the POINT of jesse, like it was the point of walt, jimmy, and kim.)

my favorite ship - for bcs, it's a tie between lacho and mcwexler. for brba, it's waltjesse.

i haven't talked about nacho at all so far which seems weird because I have a LOT of nacho thoughts (see my tag #nacho christ superstar). i feel like the cartel plot is like, the heightened version of the lawyer plot. or that's not right exactly - not heightened as in better, but heightened as more dramatic, more extreme, more literal. so lacho to me is like, what if you really were in bed with the devil? (i mean, maybe literal is the wrong word because he's not LITERALLY the devil, but lalo is a much more straightforward, morally UNambiguous character who is the personification of the evils of the cartel. so like. more literal. you know what i mean.) (plus i'm so horny for both of them. 😭😭😭😭😭)

mcwexler is the best on screen, canon romance i've ever seen. period.

as i've said before, waltjesse is the six-in-one shampoo/bodywash/conditioner of toxic relationships. jesse is walt's student/business partner/best friend/worst enemy/mistress/wife/son/dog. how can you NOT love something that twisted?

a character I’d die defending - SKYLER. Fortunately tumblr has the right attitude, but it still blows my mind that anyone could judge her for what she went through. walt destroyed her life - every action she took was her trying to protect herself and her children. what she went through was pure nightmare fuel, and it astonishes me that anyone could think she was ever unsympathetic

a character I just can’t sympathize with/a character I grew to love - someone sent me an ask just about these, so i'll save these for later! this is already so long lmao

my anti otp - I don't really have any for the brbabcs verse! in general, i'm openminded about even off-the-wall ships because fandom is for fun, and no one in this fandom has ever annoyed me with some of the shipping behavior you get from bigger, more annoying fandoms

[uwmspeccoll]

Welcome to Manuscript Monday!

In this series we will periodically focus on selections from our manuscript facsimile collection. Today we present selections from the Morgan Beatus Manuscript, reproduced as A Spanish Apocalypse, The Morgan Beatus Manuscript in New York by George Braziller, Inc. in association with the Pierpont Morgan Library in 1991. The original manuscript, made around 10th century CE at the scriptorium of San Miguel de Escalada in Spain by a monk named Maius, is the earliest surviving illuminated version of the monk Beatus of Liébana's commentary on the biblical Book of Apocalypse (also known as the Book of Revelation).  The text of the Book of Revelation makes up the first part of the manuscript, and Beatus’s commentary comprises the second part. The Book of Revelation tells of the end-times in Christianity, during the final judgement of humanity by God. The story within this Biblical book was also seen by those living during the Latin medieval era as representative of the beginning of something new: God’s celestial kingdom. Due to this view of the book, many artists incorporated imagery from this part of the Bible in their work.

Produced in Al-Andalus, or Muslim-ruled Spain, the artistic style of this work combines both Muslim and Christian visual traditions to create a beautifully illuminated manuscript that supplements the commentary by the monk. This artistic style is known as the Mozarabic, which comes from the Arabic mustaʿrib, meaning ‘Arabicized’. Interestingly, this style of art can only be seen in Christian religious art and architecture from Spain at the time, as non-religious artistic objects made by Christians look so similar to Islamic versions of the same works that they cannot be identified as intentionally Christian. Some key Islamic artistic elements within the manuscript include buildings with horseshoe arches, intricate geometric and vegetal patterns as borders for larger images, and the large, bulging eyes of the illustrated animals.

Another interesting aspect of this specific manuscript is the colophon at the end of the manuscript. It tells readers about the circumstances surrounding the creation of this book, including the maker, the patron, the year it was made, and an explanation about why Maius created the manuscript ("I write this . . . at the command of Abbot Victor, out of love for the book of the vision of John the beloved disciple. As part of its adornment I have painted a series of pictures . . . so that the wise may fear the coming of the future judgement of the world's end."). Colophons in medieval manuscripts are not usually as detailed, so the inclusion of all this information contributes greatly to the knowledge and history surrounding the Morgan Beatus Manuscript.

View more Manuscript Monday posts.

– Sarah S., Special Collections Graduate Intern

[kanerallels]

bestie!! Can you tell me about your book, Land of Tales? I may have just stalked the tag for a solid forty minutes and I’m dying to know more (I LOVE me some good fairytale retellings)

BESTIE I LOVE YOU FOR SENDING ME THIS ASK I'm so so honored?? Thank you so much!! (also same we love fairy tale retellings they're amazing)

OKAY SO! I'm gonna give you a brief overview of the book in case you didn't see what it's about, then I'll do some fun facts because I deserve it as a treat and I'm hyperfixating on my own book series right now (and also Valiant. Minor detail. LET'S MOVE ON)

The main plot: My girl Rebecca Wood lives on Earth, but never knew her parents. She discovers at the beginning of the book that she, and the family she never knew, is from the fairy tale world, and so she goes there with the help of this socially awkward cinnamon roll, Liam. We love Liam, and we feel bad about the amount of Horrors I put him through, including but not limited to social interactions and torture

The rest of the book is basically Rebecca and Liam's travels through Avena (fairy tale world) meeting fairy tale characters and evading the evil Empress Goldilocks (who has magic plants and fairy tale princesses for assassins). And there are more books. Or there will be. Four overall in the main series, two prequels, umm... *pauses to count* okay yeah there are a lot of stories post canon. And I've already written a handful of short stories for fun and profit!

And now it's fun facts about some of the characters time:

Cinderella is, as mentioned, an assassin! She has fabulous fashion taste, glass shoes that can morph into any shoe type she wants, and is incredibly sadistic. Her husband Gavin is what would happen if Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, Schimdt from New Girl, and Oscar from The Rookie were fused into one incredibly vain, lazy person who wore a lot of capes

Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk is a pirate (occasionally of the sky). He's married to a future seer who basically tricked him into taking her hostage the first time they met, and has two kids. They are utter gremlins and we love them

Alec and Risha, who I've been talking about lately, are from Camelot. Risha's dad is Sir Gareth, aka Gawain's cool brother. In my series, the people of Camelot have Australian accents because why not?

OH MY GOSH I JUST THOUGHT OF A CHARACTER I HAVEN'T TALKED ABOUT ON HERE okay his name is Bob. It's short for uhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm gonna be straight with y'all I don't remember his full name. It's really long. But he's the Magic Mirror from Snow White! He's a cursed prince who likes shipping his best friend with her love interest, and boba tea (if it exists in this universe. I shall ponder this) and he's just a little chaos gremlin and I would die for him

Somehow, every single ship in this series is enemies to lovers (except Alec and Risha, slow burn friends to idiots in love my beloved) and it's really funny to me. They're all different flavors of enemies to lovers, too. We've got "coworkers who annoy the crap out of each other to lovers", "I tried to kill your friends that one time and am involved in the organization that killed your brother but now we're working together and technically I'm engaged but it's a engagement of convenience and we're connecting to lovers", and one of my personal favorites, "you forced me to take you hostage that one time and now I'm stuck with you which is really annoying to lovers". There are, believe it or not, others

One more fun fact for the road: I have a book planned that's set after the series, and it's a combination of no less than three fairy tales at once. Possibly more, for all I know

Oh, and actually last of all! The first book in the series, which I shall not reveal the title of just yet because DRAMA, is finished! All polished up and shiny, and I'm currently looking into publishing options and cover artists! (also my girl a.spice is doing illustrations I can't wait for you guys to see them they're incredible)

[becauseimanicequeen]

Hi Queen! What did you mean by a triadic colour scheme in the post on The Rebound? And why would you scream about polyamory if Ryu was purple?

Hi, Anon.

The triadic color scheme is one way to create color harmony. You can do this in a couple of ways (which I might expand on in a separate post), but let's focus on the triadic color scheme in this one.

First, though, I need to bring in this visual aid and explain it a bit:

(This is a photo I took of a color-wheel illustration in Betty Edwards' book "Color".)

This is a traditional color wheel with 3 primary colors, 3 secondary colors, and 6 tertiary colors.

Since your question relates to Zen, Ryu, and Atom's colors in The Rebound, we'll focus on the primary and secondary colors in this post.

The primaries and secondaries are:

12: Yellow (primary)

2: Orange (secondary)

4: Red (primary)

6: Purple (secondary)

8: Blue (primary)

10: Green (secondary)

(Not that this will matter to the post, but if you're interested: The primary colors can't be created by mixing other colors/pigments. These are the basic colors you need to create the other colors on the color wheel. The secondary colors are those you get by mixing two of the primaries together.)

The triadic color scheme, which I briefly mentioned in that post on The Rebound (which you referred to), is created by using three colors with an equal distance between them on the color wheel. Since the traditional color wheel has 12 colors, there needs to be 3 colors between each chosen one. This is illustrated by a triangle (you can see two options in the image above). No matter how you turn the triangle, the points always point to the three colors that harmonize with each other.

The 4 triadic combinations you can get are:

The 3 primary colors together (yellow, red, and blue)

The 3 secondary colors together (orange, purple, and green)

And two different combinations with tertiary colors (1, 5, and 9, and 3, 7, and 11, but these don't matter in this post)

With that said, what we've seen in The Rebound so far is that Zen is connected to orange (even though he seems to be verging towards yellow at times)...

Ryu is connected to blue...

And even though we haven't seen much of Atom yet, he seems to be connected to green (because we've seen it in the trailer as well).

Orange and green align perfectly for a triadic color scheme, but blue doesn't. The color that would've made a perfect triangle with orange and green is purple (as shown by the downwards-pointing triangle in the image above).

In other words, had Ryu been purple instead of blue, I would've screamed about poly because that would've been as close to perfection as perfection could come when it comes to the colors (at least for me).

Also, one of the symbols for polyamory is a downwards-pointing purple möbius triangle, which is basically a never-ending ribbon that's shaped into a triangle (other symbols are the blue, red, and black flag with a pi symbol on it, and a red heart with a blue infinity symbol, to mention a few). This is just another reason I would scream about poly if I got a triadic color scheme.

But I didn't get that, so this is pointless. But I can't help it. I'm a "more is more" kind of person, lol.

To be serious, though... I don't think we will get poly here (even though I want it). Not only because I didn't get a triadic color scheme or other color harmonies between all three of them, but also because I don't think that's the story they want to tell. They might not even do the love triangle trope (but they probably will, lol).

Does this mean I'll stop suggesting poly, though? No. Because I'm delulu. Even when the colors are telling me to stop, I won't.

Because all I want to see are the three of them together.

(This image is living rent-free in my brain right now. And I don't mind. I don't mind at all.)

I will shut up about poly now. (Just give it to me!)

Thank you for your ask!

[exhausted-archivist]

Concept Art Moments and Ideas: What I Wish Was Kept

Pretty sure we've all been there. Seen some of the concept art and thought how cool it was and how much you wish it had made it in the final game. These are some of mine, I won't go too much into why they're not in the game, the answer is usually either one of the following or a combination of: they needed to narrow the scope of the project, frostbite was a new engine they were struggling to make do what they needed, time, they didn't feel it had enough narrative weight or purpose, or it would make the world states branch out far too much.

I'm not really wanting to discuss whether or not I agree with cutting them either. I just really think these are neat concept, ones I've thought out how they would fold in, possible ways they could have played out, and some that personally I have worked into my fic just to fully explore the ideas.

Most of the images that don't have a source link came from either the art book or the BioWare Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development (B25) book.

Now lets start with the most common one:

[Source]

I'm know others have said this, but I really wish that it had been feasible for you to become Divine. Though, honestly this only would have really worked as decision at the end of the series. While personally in my canon world state I don't have anyone I would want to put in that role. I do have an OC who I did design for that and would have been nice to see it play out. Especially come Trespasser.

These are story boards from the art book of the prologue walk through Haven. The voice lines for this are still in the game files even though they're cut. Something I always wanted in the prologue was something to actually motivate me. There is no real sense of danger, and the walk through Haven hold no real weight. It's mostly telling and no showing, it feels hollow after your first play-through where you aren't curious and uncertain. It honestly would have been interesting to me if this was in there and if there were non-standard ending option outside of combat. Provoking the scared survivors to where they mob you, a timer on the mark instead of just the one check point. If it started draining your health the longer you took to get to the Breach. Things that could easily be removed if you decreased the difficulty level and wouldn't impact the game overly much.

[Left Dragon Age Art Book, Right World of Thedas vol. 2 p. 245]

To continue on with my desire for the steaks in Inquisition to be more intense, for you to actually feel some type of risk or hostility from the world. These two are more of an expansion on the attack on Haven. I wish Corypheus was given a more dramatic entrance than being seen on the hill with his Commander. That when he arrived to scoop you up, that it was more ominous and threatening. Something to illustrate as him having this overwhelming presence and force.

In Hushed Whispers had the concept art of King Alistair going with you and honestly, I feel like it is a missed opportunity. Not only would it make sense but there is a sort of thematic element with Alistair once again having to save Redcliffe from a mage. I think this also could have worked if he was king or warden. If he was a warden, it would have been a very nice way to tie in the Warden plot for Alistair and even Loghain. Would have really given the Inquisitor a reason to care about choosing between them or Hawke in the Fade.

[Source]

Matt Rhodes labeled this as Anders in the tags, and I am really intrigued by this prospect. We know by the end of DA2 if he's alive he doesn't have many friends with the displaced mages of Kirkwall after awhile. It would have been nice for him to come back in that Warden role they were considering for the cancelled Exalted March DLC. But what really makes me curious, is why he's out in what we might think is the Western Approach/Hissing Wastes and what happened to his missing right arm.

Alternatively, another scenario I would have liked to see with Anders comes from the B25 book. We see they explored the idea of Anders, as a Grey Warden in the cancelled Exalted March DLC. Honestly, I feel as if he would return regardless of if you killed him or not because we know that Justice can and has prevented fatal injuries from killing Anders before. This could have been an interesting thread to not only pull his story to an end in dai, but also introduce the Warden contact instead of the ones we had. Because he was on the run and the Wardens would offer a degree of protection so he would be unwillingly forced to return, couple that with him knowing of Corypheus - which would likely be the thing that forced the Wardens to keep him alive once they found his prison empty.

[Source]

This is Western Approach concept art, specifically this was suppose to be Adamant. Matt Rhodes describes that it was suppose to be a monastery, self-sustaining, and a place where they could cultivate their own food, weave their own fabrics. It would have been interesting to be able to see it like this, to see the game use this to not only explore how the Wardens survived out here but also how they recovered the fortress after it was wrecked in Asunder. It would have tied in nicely with exploring the fact that the reversal of Tranquility was found here, a fact known to everyone in game at this point (they just didn't know the Seekers hid it from the Chantry and mages). It would have been an excellent way to fold in Rhys, Evangeline, flesh out Cole's backstory and personal quest, and even show another side of the mages - the ones who didn't want to be involved in the war and fled to the Wardens.

Two Words: Giant. Scorpion.

Look how massive that is. I love mega fauna so much. I want something massive to be living in the Hissing Wastes and I want this to be fighting dragons. It would have been amazing. Look at the boards they put out.

[Source]

I want to believe this is for the Western Approach given the ground type and the smoke in the background. If this thing was guarding the sulfur fields by Griffon Keep? It would have been epic. Or even if we saw it fighting the Abyssal dragon. Honestly, I think more areas should have had a competing predator for the dragons to be fighting. It would have been cooler if they kept great bears (previously known as Dragon Bears) at their massive size to fight a dragon in the Emerald Graves too.

[Source]

That said, this scorpion concept gets even better when you see the concept art for smaller versions being Venatori mounts.

How do you not get stabbed bud? How do you domesticate/train this? What is the intelligence of this little critter? I can just picture a play on the scorpion and the frog happening here. This would have been really cool as mini-bosses or something of that nature. Particularly around the ruins, Venatori operations, or raids against the keeps.

Another piece from B25, we see new concept art of the Inquisitor leaving Skyhold with the Inquisition as Skyhold is destroyed in the background. We learned from David Gaider that at one point Skyhold was actually suppose to be attacked by Corypheus, but it ended up being cut due to time/scope. This is something I wish they kept, having your second base attack, you home at the point where you felt the strongest and potentially after a recent victory.

It would have reminded the player that Corypheus and his commander, Calpernia or Samson, were a real and active threat. Something missing from Inquisition honestly. It would have been interesting to see if we had to find a new base of operations or if we had to rebuild. When first settling in Skyhold everyone mentions being able to see the enemy coming, about not retreating from Skyhold. They really built up an expectation that at the very least a scare of an attack would happen.

There would have been a sort of poetic sense to Skyhold being leveled. Considering it is of Fereldan make, built on top of a leveled elven site. To have the site once again leveled, the history brought back to its foundations. It would have been a thematic foreshadowing to what Solas plans to do as well.

These are clearly just things I found interesting, things I feel would have really added to the game, and some others might not agree with. There are other things I wish they hadn't cut, but I didn't want to include anything that has been post-humorously mentioned by the devs because I wanted to focus more on the concept art aspect. A lot of decisions were shaped by circumstances we'll never really know the full scope of, and sometimes I wonder if they had gotten more than the 3-4 years they had for Inquisition and maybe on an engine that wasn't so fickle and worked better for the style of game how different it would have been.

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Main Story: Part 4 - Act 16: Crossing Paths - Episode 2: "Today's Special"

Nakamura: “I apologize for not letting you know earlier. I’ll be awaiting your manuscript.”

Homare: Hm, you can leave it to me.

Nakamura: “I apologize for disturbing you.”

[Call hangs up]

Homare: (The meeting ended earlier than expected.)

Homare: (I could simply return home, but I do feel like taking my time and enjoying a cup of tea.)

Homare: (Oho? The café over yonder seems quite pleasant… I shall stop by, seeing as I’m already here.)

-

[Door jingling]

Shopkeeper: Welcome. Are you alone? Feel free to take a seat over there.

Homare: …

Homare: (Hmm, it is indeed quite pleasant and relaxing… And they offer a wide variety of teas. I shall stick with a traditional choice—)

Homare: Hm?

Homare: (“Today’s Special”? It seems to be some sort of blended tea, but it’s much cheaper than the rest of the menu…)

Shopkeeper: Are you ready to order?

Homare: What may this “Today’s Special” be?

Shopkeeper: Ahh, that’s something like a special item on our menu… It’s a flavored tea brewed by one of our part-timers.

Shopkeeper: It all started when one of our regulars agreed to become his practice subject…

Shopkeeper: He’d make something unique every once in a while, and we added it to the menu as it was rather well-received and attracted quite a few fans.

Shopkeeper: Its contents are a secret, so if you’d like something specific, I recommend you try a different—

Homare: No, I am quite intrigued. I will have one “Today’s Special”.

Shopkeeper: Coming right up.

Homare: *humming*

Homare: (Oh my, there are picture books displayed here. This illustration looks quite familiar…)

Homare: ——

Homare: (This is…)

[Walking]

Kureha: Thank you for waiting. This is “Today’s Special”.

Homare: Thank you.

Homare: … Mhmhm, I taste Darjeeling with a hint of Assam. The milk pairs quite well, too. How truly delicious.

Kureha: Naturally, since I created this blend.

Homare: Hm, there is a soft scent of… mint, jasmine, and perhaps a few more… A slightly unusual combination, but quite light on the nose.

Homare: It almost makes me want to dance…

Kureha: !! You can tell? The idea behind this blend was a fairy dance party!

Homare: Hm, how wonderful. I can almost envision the world you speak of when I close my eyes… Inspiration is coming to me!

Kureha: !! You’re the first customer to understand it to this extent…!

Kureha: The tea leaves are packed with the climate, season and all other natural elements of their place of origin, and they come together to create a world of their own…

Kureha: Just by changing one of those elements, the scenery you envision could change completely… The world has infinite possibilities… and so does tea!

Homare: Hm. I could sense the artistry of your tea with a single sip. It’s no wonder this “secret menu” of yours has garnered fans.

Kureha: Thank you very much!

Homare: Could I take some home as a souvenir?

Kureha: As the tea leaves change every day, we don’t sell any. But we could give you some of our leftovers!

Homare: Thank you. I would like to let my fellow troupe members taste a bit of this, you see.

Kureha: I apologize for overstepping, but… what kind of work do you do?

Homare: As I am a poet with a wide love of all arts, I am also an actor. Have you heard of the theater company called MANKAI Company?

Kureha: Ah, I have. My friend is a big fan–

Homare: I am part of the Winter Troupe. Perhaps that friend of yours is a fan of Homare Arisugawa?

Kureha: Uhmm, I don’t think so.

Homare: Oh dear… That means I still have a ways to go as an actor.

Kureha: That reminds me. I did once pick up something one of the actors from the Summer Troupe lost.

Homare: Ohh, that was Misumi-kun, if I’m not mistaken… So you were the one that picked it up. That was right before their performance started, too, so things were quite frantic. You have my thanks.

Homare: Did you watch the Summer Troupe’s performance?

Kureha: No… My father does take me to watch performances with him, though we have yet to watch one of MANKAI Company’s…

Kureha: I’ve only watched videos of the first generation.

Homare: In that case, seeing as the Winter Troupe will be performing next, you should definitely come watch it along with your father and friend.

Kureha: Right… I’ll try inviting them.

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[cyber-corp]

A summary/review of parts 1-100 of Homestuck

~by a gecko who knows what a Megalovania is

Let's start things quick and simple. It is the distant year of 2009, where the date is the 13th of April. It is the protagonist John Egbert (aka Zoosmell Pooplord)'s birthday. How fun!

John's actions are very much based around RPG mechanics (the Sylladex, Captchaloging, etc.), which as indicated by the chatlogs seems to be the norm in this world.

Once he opens the magic chest in his room, he gets access to a variety of artifacts, some of which he'll use later. He only takes the smoke pellets at first because he's stupid.

We get some glimpses of the author Andrew Hussie's dated yet charming late-2000's humour through asking John to shit on his desk.

After nailing a Little Monsters poster to his wall (a gift from his Dad), he gets a message from one of his friends on Pesterchum, TG, who says that he got the beta for SBURB for John's birthday.

However, his dad has just come home and John doesn't want to go through the trouble of holding a conversation with him. In the meantime, he figures out how to use his Strife Specibus by allocating the Hammerkind Abstratus, and reads the GameBro magazine, which John seems to have a loathing for.

However, with the freed up room in his Sylladex, he creates a convincing disguise to fool his dad and grab the SBURB beta (it won't).

He goes downstairs into the living room, examines his father's shitty harlequins, knocks over and picks up his Nanna's ashes and opens a large gift for himself, which is also a large harlequin.

Before deciding to sticking fake arms on the harlequin, John gets a message from another Pesterchum mutual, TT.

TT oddly knows everything that John has done up to this point, including being in possession of the SBURB beta and wearing a funny disguise. They tell him to go get the game from his father from downstairs.

After snooping around his father's study and playing a little tune (which is a great way that Homestuck utilizes its medium), John heads outside to the mailbox, to find that dad has already scooped the mail.

But there's a sense that something isn't quite right. With "Windchime Foley" by Clark Powell playing over empty streets and a main title appearing, it implies this scene is the true beginning of the story. The text mentions a "Desolation" that's playing the tune diegetically throughout the streets/town. Maybe it will be a long day.

John heads back inside to finally confront his father and sneakily get the beta, but oops! The disguise didn't work (who would've thunk it?), and there's only to get pass him, which is with a Strife!

(This fight scene's really cool, I quite enjoy this)

After the Colonel's book activates the smoke pellets, John quickly snatches his father's PDA as a joke, and finally gets his hands on the SBURB beta, which is where I ended off.

So is it good? I mean, yeah.

Even if I only read what is a tiny, tiny fraction of Homestuck's story, I can still see how so many people became obsessed over it. The cutesy, almost surreal art style (complete with low quality JPEGS in the vein of Newgrounds), Hussie combining the mystical with the silly in his writing, and the brief bits of music in it illustrate a very "calm before the storm" feeling. I can definitely see how people like Toby Fox were inspired by it.

Despite what some think, the first little bits of Homestuck are an enjoyable experience which foreshadows something bigger yet to come. Solid 8.