#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.

[starplanes]

A (5 star) review of Bury Your Gays, by @drchucktingle!

I read this book in one sitting. I did not plan to read this book in one sitting, but I could not put it down, accepting that my lunch break was now an extended reading break. Bury Your Gays was just that good.

It starts simple. Screenwriter Misha has been told by his exec that the season finale of his show must out, then kill the two leads. He needs to bury his gays because the board has determined it's where the money is. Misha says no. Then starts getting stalked by his (definitely fictional, right?) characters from other shows. Either Misha developed some incredible supernatural powers in that meeting, or something more sinister is at work…

Bury Your Gays illustrates why queer people should be allowed to tell the stories they want to tell, instead of being made to use queerbating, tragic tropes, or fake relentless optimism in the name of corporate Pride. It's a story about the queer struggle to find oneself in a world that makes it so, so hard. There's a lot of love for the queer community poured into this book, and oh does it shines. I especially adored the ace rep - and the concept of ace rep as a plot point. I shall not explain further. However, I am more scared than ever of the corporatization of Pride.

Bury Your Gays also criticizes capitalism's monetization of tragedy and exploitation of workers. It explores what happens when ethics are ignored in the name of an ever-growing profit margin, to the point where the bottom line becomes a near-sentient thing. It leans into the horrors of AI and data-mining by combining the two and going all the way with it. Chuck Tingle has acknowledged all my fears of black box algorithms and also made them ten times worse. Truly a feat! I will be sleeping with my router off!

It's a masterpiece of horror, both visceral and psychological. Since the main character is a horror writer, the story is very genre aware. There's a lot of fun to be had in the tale of "writer being followed by the monsters he wrote," and certainly no small amount of terror. It gets gory here and there, with plenty of suspense in between. Hints are laid out for the reader, enough where I was occasionally able to predict what was coming just a page or two before it landed. My jaw dropped multiple times! The writing is descriptive enough to pull you right in (and gross you out!), and it's paced near-perfectly. There's all these little moments sprinkled in that elevate the whole story, from fun references of other work to subtle clues you'll only catch on a reread.

This book will be living in my head rent-free from now on. It's about so many things and yet has interwoven them all perfectly. Fans of classic horror movies will love this story. Those of us fed up with AI generated trash will love it. Anyone who joined a WGA picket line will love it. Asexuals fed up with lack of representation will love it. People who watched multiple seasons of Supernatural will love it. Is that you? Go pick up Bury Your Gays. Be scared, be sad, be angry. But also validated, loved, and joyful.

TLDR: Read this book when it comes out on July 9!

[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!

[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.)

[ofliterarynature]

TBR TAKEDOWN: Week 11 (Aug 11)

TLDR: I have too many unread books, and I’m asking tumblr to help me downsize. Pick one or none, and comment if you can - a convincing sentence is worth a dozen votes! You’re also welcome to just choose the one that sounds the worst :D Book descriptions below the cut, see my pinned post for more info.

Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti

As a young bookworm reading in her grandfather's butcher shop, Cara Nicoletti saw how books and food bring people to life. Now a butcher, cook, and talented writer, she serves up stories and recipes inspired by beloved books and the food that gives their characters depth and personality.

From the breakfast sausage in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, these books and the tasty treats in them put her on the road to happiness.

Cooking through the books that changed her life, Nicoletti shares fifty recipes, including:

* The perfect soft-boiled egg in Jane Austen's Emma

* Grilled peaches with homemade ricotta in tribute to Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That"

* New England clam chowder inspired by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick

* Fava bean and chicken liver mousse crostini (with a nice Chianti) after Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs

* Brown butter crêpes from Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl

Beautifully illustrated, clever, and full of heart, Voracious will satisfy anyone who loves a fantastic meal with family and friends-or curling up with a great novel for dessert.

The Returning by Christine Hinwood

An engrossing epic tale with a cast of characters that will hijack your heart.

Cam Attling, having lost an arm, is the only one from his town of Kayforl to return after twelve years of war. All his fellow soldiers were slain, and suspicion surrounds him. When his betrothal to Graceful Fenister is called off and his role in the community questioned, Cam leaves to find the lord who maimed him but spared his life, seeking answers and a new place in the world.

But this is not just Cam’s story, it’s about all those whose fates entwine with his. Set in a medieval world that is entirely the author’s creation, this is an ingenious, exquisite story about what happens after the battle. When sisters, sons, friends, parents, and lovers are left to deal with the subtle aftermaths and unimagined repercussions of war.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

[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)

[southernmermaidsgrotto]

“In many cases, the histories and shared experiences of African and Native Americans are so intertwined, they are indivisible. At the same time, however, the shared history and the people that make up it’s chapters have become invisible.”

“Throughout American history, people of combined African and Native American descent have often struggled for acceptance, not only from dominant cultures but also from their own communities. In this collection of twenty-seven groundbreaking essays, authors from across the Americas explore the complex personal histories and contemporary lives of people wth a dual heritage that has rarely received attention as part of the multicultural landscape. Illustrated with seventy-five paintings, photographs, and drawings, the book brings to light an epic but little-known part of American history that speaks to present-day struggles for racial identity and understanding.”

This book of essays, as compiled by Gabrielle Tayac, contains stories from all over the so-called “american” continents and explains the conjoined lives of black people, indigenous people, and the resulting black natives / afroindigenous peoples. I won’t spoil much of the book, because it’s a great read and you should read it cover to cover, but I can tell you it’s pretty diverse, and tells history from a black native decolonizing perspective, it even includes a short chapter about south american afroindigenous peoples, specifically afro-aymara from Bolivia, which was nice to see! I highly recommend it.

[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.

[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!

[princess-sof-time]

Could you do headcanons for Ruby, Aqua, and Akane with a s/o who likes to draw?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ──────

🅁🅄🄱🅈 🄷🄾🅂🄷🄸🄽🄾

• Ruby is fascinated by her significant other's artistic talent and finds their passion for drawing incredibly inspiring. She loves seeing the world through their eyes and admires their ability to capture emotions and stories on paper.

• Ruby becomes their number one fan and supporter, often requesting them to create illustrations for her idol-related projects. She values their artistic perspective and believes that their drawings bring a unique touch to her performances and merchandise.

• The couple often spends hours together, with Ruby as a muse, while her partner creates beautiful artwork. She enjoys being a subject of their drawings and cherishes the moments when they collaborate creatively.

• Ruby encourages her partner to showcase their art to the world, organizing small exhibitions or sharing their work on social media platforms. She believes in their talent and wants others to appreciate their skills as much as she does.

• Ruby loves surprising her partner with art supplies and books as gifts, always supporting their artistic growth and development. She is eager to learn more about art and drawing, often engaging in conversations about different techniques and styles.

• The couple finds joy in attending art events and exhibitions together, appreciating various art forms and drawing inspiration from other artists. They understand the importance of artistic expression in their own lives and celebrate the creativity they share.

• Ruby is known for incorporating her partner's artwork into her performances, whether as backdrops or on merchandise. Their collaboration not only showcases their talents but also strengthens their bond as they combine their passions.

• Ruby and her partner create a safe and supportive space for each other to express themselves artistically. Their love for art forms a deep connection between them, and they constantly inspire and motivate one another to explore new artistic horizons.

🄰🅀🅄🄰 🄷🄾🅂🄷🄸🄽🄾

• Aqua is captivated by his significant other's artistic talent and appreciates the way he can bring his imagination to life through drawing. He finds his creative process fascinating and loves seeing the world through his unique artistic lens.

• Aqua often accompanies her partner to art supply stores, spending hours browsing through different materials and discussing various artistic techniques. He loves learning from them and enjoys experimenting with her own artistic endeavors.

• The couple frequently embarks on nature walks or visits art galleries together, finding inspiration in the world around them. Aqua encourages her partner to observe and capture the beauty they see in their drawings, and they often have meaningful discussions about their shared love for art.

• Aqua becomes a thought-provoking Inspiration for her partner's artwork, willingly posing for sketches and paintings. He finds joy in being part of your creative process and values ​​artistic representations of your shared love and experiences.l

• Aqua encourages her partner to showcase their artwork, whether through local art exhibits or online platforms. He believes in their talent and helps them gain exposure and recognition, proudly supporting their artistic journey.

• The couple enjoys cozy evenings at home, with Aqua providing a calm and supportive environment for her partner to focus on their art. He creates a soothing atmosphere and respects their need for creative solitude when they're immersed in their drawings.

• Aqua surprises her partner with art-related gifts, such as new sketchbooks, drawing tools, or tickets to art workshops. He loves seeing their face light up with excitement and knows that these gestures help fuel their artistic passion.

• Together, Aqua and her partner appreciate the power of art to convey emotions and tell stories. They bond over their shared love for creativity and find solace and inspiration in each other's artistic expressions.

🄰🄺🄰🄽🄴 🄺🅄🅁🄾🄺🄰🅆🄰

• Akane is instantly drawn to her significant other's talent for drawing and appreciates their ability to capture the essence of people and objects on paper. She finds their artistic interpretations fascinating and enjoys discussing their thought process and techniques.

• Akane often becomes a source of inspiration for her significant other's drawings. Her unique and captivating appearance, combined with her expressive personality, provides endless artistic possibilities for her partner to explore.

• Akane enjoys sitting for portrait sessions with her significant other, allowing them to capture her beauty and charisma on paper. She values the intimate moments shared during these sessions, as they strengthen their connection and allow her to see herself through her partner's artistic lens.

• Akane encourages her partner to exhibit their artwork and shares their drawings on her social media platforms, proudly showcasing their talent to her fans and followers. She wants the world to see and appreciate their artistic abilities.

• The couple often visits art galleries and museums together, immersing themselves in different art styles and movements. They engage in deep discussions about the meanings and interpretations behind various artworks, fostering a mutual appreciation and understanding of the art world.

• Akane surprises her partner with sketchbooks, art supplies, and books on famous artists as gifts, showing her unwavering support for their artistic endeavors. She believes in their potential and encourages them to continually grow and experiment with their drawing techniques.

• Akane incorporates her partner's artwork into her idol activities, using their drawings as backdrops during performances or featuring their illustrations on merchandise. This collaboration allows them to combine their talents and create something truly unique.

• The couple enjoys exploring new artistic techniques together, experimenting with different mediums and styles. They find joy in learning from each other and pushing the boundaries of their artistic abilities.

• Akane's partner serves as a source of motivation for her to pursue her own creative outlets. They inspire her to express herself beyond the stage, experimenting with art forms that complement her idol persona.

• Together, Akane and her partner form a creative and supportive bond, constantly encouraging and inspiring each other to reach new heights in their artistic journeys. They celebrate their shared love for art and draw strength from the beautiful connection they have.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ──────

[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.

[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.

[brian-in-finance]

The actress Caitríona Balfe, center, taking her seat at the table. Photo: Rich Gilligan

T ENTERTAINING WITH

In Belfast, a Celebration of Art, Community and Pizza

In October, on the second floor of a former spinning mill in east Belfast, the visual artist and author Oliver Jeffers, 46, hosted a candlelit dinner for a group of Irish and Northern Irish artists and friends. The Portview Trade Centre, as the building is called, stopped producing textiles in the 1970s and is now home to 54 artists’ studios and creative businesses, including Jeffers’s, and his neighbors made up a large portion of the guests and the organizers. The occasion was a personal one — the launch of his 20th book, “Begin Again” — but he also wanted to celebrate his wider creative community. Accordingly, the evening combined tributes to both Belfast, where the artist has a home in the Holywood area, and Brooklyn, where he lived until recently and still has a studio.

VIDEO 📹 The author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers invited friends to toast his new book at a dinner in a former textile mill.

Jeffers is perhaps best known for his philosophical, understated children’s books, including “The Book Eating Boy” (2006) and “The Heart and the Bottle” (2010). And true to his style, “Begin Again” is curious, warm and quietly profound. “Not for kids, but not not for kids,” Jeffers says, the book is a vibrantly illustrated exploration of the climate crisis that attempts to lay out a hopeful future for humanity. “It offers an idea of slowing down, of using what’s near us — of starting over,” says Jeffers, “with the realization that we cannot do anything until we start to act with a sense of unity, to tell ourselves new stories that are defined by what we want.”

Jeffers, center (in tan jacket), sat beside the film director Lisa Barros Da’Sa, at left. Photo: Rich Gilligan (and Caitríona Balfe, at right… BIF)

Pearson Morris, the head chef of the Belfast restaurant Noble, pan-fried wild halibut in a makeshift kitchen set up not far from the table. Photo: Rich Gilligan

While guests gathered for drinks, the sun could be seen setting over the city; on the north side of the building, hills rolled down toward the sea. The food too — a collaboration between the local bistro Noble, known for its unpretentious ingredient-led dishes, and Flout, an American-style pizzeria on the ground floor of Portview — was unmistakably rooted in Belfast. Despite a limited power supply and a lack of running water in the room, dishes were assembled and cooked in situ using three portable pizza ovens and a small stove. The table was lit with clusters of white candles and, after the sun finally went down, said Jeffers, it glowed with “the warmth of a hearth at home.”

The dinner table stood at the center of the 10,000-square-foot room. Photo: Rich Gilligan

The attendees: Jeffers celebrated with his wife and business manager, Suzanne Jeffers, and a group of Irish and Northern Irish artists, including the actress Caitríona Balfe, 44; the portrait artist Colin Davidson, 55; the electronic musician and composer David Holmes, 54; the husband-and-wife film director duo Glenn Leyburn, 54, and Lisa Barros Da’Sa, 49; and the writers Glenn Patterson, 61, and Jan Carson, 43. “Everybody at this dinner,” said Jeffers, “was interested in the power of narrative, the impact of what they do and how it makes other people feel.”

The table: Guests sat at two long tables — pushed together to create a more intimate arrangement — in the middle of the otherwise nearly empty 10,000-square-foot room. The events stylist Rachel Worthington McQueen, 30, sourced an Irish linen tablecloth in the same navy hue as the book cover’s background. Mismatched dishes in traditional Blue Willow patterns (originally bought from secondhand websites for Worthington McQueen’s wedding two years ago) held squat candles, and food was served on simple white plates brought over from Noble. Seasonal blooms — including deep burgundy dahlias and pale pink spray roses — echoed the rich palette of the book and were provided by the local, sustainable flower farm Sow Grateful. Each display was tied with bright pink twine, sourced by Suzanne Jeffers to match the exact Pantone color (number 812U) of the book’s title.

New Haven-style mussels pizza by Peter Thompson, the founder of the pizzeria Flout, was served alongside Noble’s halibut. Photo: Rich Gilligan

The food: To start, Noble’s co-founder and head chef, Pearson Morris, 34, served crab and lobster from nearby Bangor Bay dressed with homemade mayonnaise and his Bloody Mary tomatoes (heritage tomatoes steeped overnight in a mix of vodka, celery and Tabasco sauce) on Flout’s blackened focaccia. “I bake things so you think they’re burned — that’s flavor for me,” said the pizzeria’s founder, Peter Thompson, 45. Next was a take on the classic New Haven-style clam pie made with steamed Galway Bay mussels, alongside which Morris served pan-fried wild halibut with a fish head sauce. Then came Flout’s Detroit-style pepperoni pizza and a salad featuring locally grown baby gem lettuces. Dessert was Noble’s chocolate delice — jaconde sponge cake topped with salted caramel, dark chocolate parfait and a chocolate mirror glaze — accompanied by a salted caramel ice cream with Flout’s sourdough chocolate cookies tumbled through.

The drinks: Noble’s front-of-house manager and co-founder, Saul McConnell, 38, oversaw the drinks, which ranged from a vibrant Blanc de Meunier champagne for arriving guests to an amber passito-style Liastos wine from Lyrarakis, Crete, for the dessert course. The Boundary Brewing Company, Belfast’s first tap room and one of Jeffers’s neighbors in the building, provided an alternative aperitif: a full-bodied English bitter called A Certain Romance, a favorite of Jeffers’s studio team.

Jeffers illustrated the evening’s menus. Photo: Rich Gilligan

Noble’s chocolate delice, a jaconde sponge cake with salted caramel and a chocolate mirror glaze. Photo: Rich Gilligan

The conversation: Many artists talked shop, swapping notes on the production problems they encounter in their respective industries, and conversation also turned to global events. “There’s always been a comparison between the conflict in Northern Ireland and the conflict in Israel-Palestine,” said Jeffers. “We talked about the divisive rhetoric that’s going on right now.”

The music: Jeffers enlisted the Irish producer and D.J. Marion Hawkes, who runs the record store Sound Advice in Portview, to create a playlist, which ranged from classic folk to contemporary electronic tracks.

The recipe for Noble’s mayonnaise: It’s hard to beat fresh, homemade mayonnaise, says Morris, and it’s a quick, thoughtful addition to a dinner at home. But despite its few ingredients, it’s deceptively difficult to make. He recommends starting with equal parts white wine vinegar and egg yolk (approximately 2 teaspoons of vinegar to two yolks), which prevents the eggs from splitting as you very gradually beat in 250 ml of oil, then season with 5 grams of sugar and 5 grams of salt. Morris likes to use extra-virgin rapeseed oil for its neutral flavor, and an electric mixer for ease.

The New York Times Style Magazine

Remember… there’s always been a comparison between the conflict in Northern Ireland and the conflict in Israel-Palestine. We talked about the divisive rhetoric that’s going on right now. — Oliver Jeffers

Anon: Thanks… didn’t see your message until 10 minutes after posting. 🙁