#i want to sell many things as prints. we will see i guess

[ancientbygone]

THE DEBT THAT I OWE

just fucking around with colors here reference photo credit: adamross williams from here

[omagpies]

No way! Another person who has spent way too much time on apex! Who's your main? I'm guessing BH but I don't want to assume. How did you feel about the BH/Fuse engagement? Do you have any heirlooms? Sorry, not very many people play apex on here.

Also, do you have any apex art? If not that's totally cool but I would love to see it!

you have activated my trap card!! many drawings ahead

my main is indeed bloodhound. i also whip out fuse, mirage, and to a lesser degree octane, but mostly i'm a one trick bloodhound. they were what got me into the game in the first place back in season 7 when i heard their 'i'm afraid of heights :(' voicelines (a cool hunter nonbinary character voiced by none other than allegra clark? sign me tf up), and even though i am Very Bad At Shooting and don't actually like battle royale-type games apex stayed my brainrot for over two years. the brainrot is definitely over now and these days i play it as a social thing, but that's how i acquired 2k+ hours lmao

also they released a magpiehound recolor called 'frosthaven' that i gleefully snatched up and have been wearing it ever since (ft the magpie holospray and the magpie mural on their latest map. i think they are catering to me specifically)

i am. truly Not Good. i am here just to clown and gossip and make poor life choices. my impulse control is too non existent for someone whose best skill is shooting a perfect outline around the enemy and not a bullet within

i had SO MUCH bloodhound art over on twitter good god. out of the following two drawings, the first one was bought out by allegra to sell as signed prints, and the second one was reposted onto apex's IG account, and in general this was the one time i genuinely had a blast on twitter interacting with all the devs and vas before everything went downhill both in respawn and on twitter lol. also i have to say, s10 and the whole White Raven thing fed me so. so so. SO well. the existential angst was incredible.

i participated in a couple of zines/projects as well! i have many thoughts about their canonical(!) respawn system and the resulting unimportance of death. adds to the existentialism and to bloodhound's religious themes

overall it was a very, very prolific period for me, and there are many pieces i'm still very happy with to this day

(^ the second to last one is a reference to the fusehound confession scene, and the last one is related to one of my fics, wooden bones (forest deity!bh au))

shipping!!! miragehound was my initial and most prominent ship, and i will never forgive respawn for not expanding on their backstory (their mothers worked together COME ON. they might have met as children! COME ON!!!!! i have a whole series exactly about the What Could Have Been)

their backstory with boone also fascinated me for a very long time, and my friends and i spent many a yap session dissing the dude until we stopped and thought, hey, what if he really was Just Some Guy who made mistakes, what if he wasn't evil, and that's what pulled me right back into the brainrot when i was already starting to slowly recover from it. boone now has a very elaborate backstory and lore and i hope to god respawn never puts him in the games the way we did because a) they don't GET him and b) i don't trust the fandom with him lmao. i'm super down to blabber about him though just say the word. he's everything to me, my big, sad, hairy man

we also invented in-game stuff for him. he had abilities and skins etc etc (the top row of skins is his titan pilot backstory + talos era + 'default' in-game skin)

this diptych still lives rent-free in my head, i think i really won with this one

where miragehound and boonehound flourished, mirageboonehound wasn't far behind! i wrote how it came to be and all. also Рorn. so much Рorn. seriously.

also this was the first time i redrew the twelfth night as my otp. the second one was mouthwashing

fusehound was an absolute delight to watch blossom, especially since we know it wasn't planned and just Kind Of Happened. i felt that lmao. characters be like that. i'm a bit sadge they shelved the whole talos plotline in favor of romance but at this point i gave up on expecting good lore from apex, especially after they fired herr frozenfroh. i didn't draw fusehound nearly as much, BUT i do have one fic that was basically a dream i had lol

honorable mention goes to revhound!! this is the ship that went really hard with artists and writers. deeply painful, deeply compelling, absolutely incredible. mindblowing angst and just as mindblowing рorn, together or separately. best shit. the one ship i didn't write for because compared to the fandom's behemoths i never felt like i'd be able to contribute anything meaningful lol, i just got to sit back and enjoy

bonus: as one of my friends eloquently put it, bh and their bhitches :)

i was going to put in more pictures but hit the 30 images limit!!! my twitter is now abandoned but if you scroll down just a little you can see all the stuff that didn't make it into this post.

apex and bloodhound also REALLY, REALLY got me writing. i came into the fandom already relatively warmed up after a 170k fire emblem fic, but i ended up writing 200k+ for miragehound, mirageboonehound, and fusehound combined. i was unstoppable. it was insane. i've linked some already but you can peep them all here. bloodhound's pov was especially fun to write for, purple prose my beloved

also you asked me about heirlooms! i'm a lucky motherfucker who managed to get one set of shards from the 500th box and another from just the random 0.4% chance. so i have bloodhound's and fuse's as they are my most played characters :)

[nieded]

RR has quickly become my one of my top goto comfort fics (series in this case). I wonder what are yours?

hello! this is a really lovely ask. i'm happy that #rr is a comfort fic for you! i also found a lot of comfort writing it for personal reasons.

i think a highly overlooked fic in fandom that i love is (Slow) Burn, Baby Burn by orchidlocked, E, s1 canon-compliant, 278,780k. i think about this fic a lot, how prior to season 2, it fit so seamlessly into canon, how it made my heart ache, how i related to crowley from the opening chapter just from the way he listened and processed music. there are a lot of challenging things in this story that made me feel uncomfortable but in a good way. in many ways, it made me feel seen.

for other long fics i love dearly, i must also include The False and the Fair by @princip1914, E, AU, 173,064k. it's a captivating story that is brilliantly written. the author is a master at using literary devices and good foreshadowing, so it's technically exquisite as well as just being an incredible story. there's a point in the story (if you know, you know), where i had to put it down, scream, and take myself for a walk.

and

stalwart sun, wily moon by @dustandhalos, M, AU, 369,969k. do you want an incredible art heist story with well-thought-out plot twists, its own accompanying illustrations, and beautiful prose? well, this story is for you! i actually had the pleasure of reading this for the first time as a printed book, which was a special and amazing experience in and of itself.

these two fics above are rec'd a lot (and for good reason!) so here are two more that i rarely ever see.

Curse of the Witchfinder by KitschyKit, M, s1 canon-compliant, 2,244k. i have had many bi people reach out to me about #rr to say they were glad to finally find a fic with good bi representation. well, Curse of the Witchfinder was that for me. and on top of that, i love reading about an older queer because we don't see that in media today. in part, it's because young and sexy sells, but also, we lost a whole generation of gay men to the AIDS epidemic. there's something about this story that undoes me and leaves me completely exposed in so few words.

and

side effects by @darcylindbergh, E, canon-compliant, 7,704k. this is a story about being loved in spite of illness or disregard for illness. it is amazing to me how this is a story about supernatural beings, and yet it feels so human. it's as if someone laid me flat under a microscope.

and so i guess a theme to these recommendations is that i find great comfort in stories that bear the ugliest and most frightened parts of me with love.

[kiefbowl]

idk why I had to rant about amazon all of a sudden but I just feel like so many people around me buy from it unquestionably and it just blows my mind. people will be like look at this cute thing I got it on amazon and I'm like wow I guess it's cute maybe but also what if you tried to not just look around amazon to find things you can buy would you buy stuff on amazon?? and as this becomes more rampant, we will lose quality manufacturing more. the gap will widen. why do we want that?? we don't want that!! so I get mad cause it feels like people are like wow amazon is so convenient! but all they ever buy are things they wouldn't even want unless they saw it on amazon, and it's usually just not good quality and is so obviously made to sell fast and cheap and it seems so obvious that a fast one is being pulled on them I don't understand why I feel like the only person who sees it sometimes. "I got this cute shower curtain off amazon!" and it's like only interesting cause it's kind of nerdy art you wouldn't typically find at a crate and barrel or w/e and all I can think is I bet that's stolen art printed fast with crap manufacturing and shit materials in china at such a volume no one would ever needed bought wholesale by turnkey companies who just sell it on amazon for 99% profit to 28 year old americans who have been made to feel validation of their prescribed indentity comes from constant consuming because overseas con artist moguls have correctly identified them as marks. so I'm just like, I guess your snail art shower curtain or your nerdy wall decals or your goofy colored plastic plates or whatever is cute and make you happy, but what if you didn't need your shower curtain to be interesting to be happy, and you spent your money on guitar lessons instead

[aeolianblues]

Oh look, the nepo baby singer who has nothing consequential to say also has empty fans who haven’t had a thought in their lifetimes. Sky’s blue, water wets, empty vessels make noise.

It is simple gig etiquette, you don’t control the choice of opener, and you can just come late if you really don’t want to see them. Even if you’re on the barricade and she can see you, you think an opener doesn’t understand that the people at the show aren’t always familiar with their work? They come with the mindset that they want to warm up the crowd, and if possible create new fans by exposing them to their music.

If you don’t like it, that’s also fine! Goodness me, I had more chats with Pulp fans about what they thought of the opener (people thought they were Weird and cringey) than I talked to them about Pulp. But did anyone do this? No! You let the openers do their thing! You can listen and either appreciate it or know that you have the choice to never listen to it again once you leave the venue.

It’s so self-centred to try and get the opener removed just because you don’t know them. What a stupid thing to say. Also ‘we don’t know her music’ but also ‘her music is so slow’? Make up your mind, do you know her or do you not?

People wonder why it’s hard for new musicians to draw huge crowds? It’s because over the last decade, we’ve all been conditioned so hard to know everything in advance.

Reruns, remakes, 20th anniversary remaster tops the charts, 30th anniversary reunion tour is the only show you’ve been to all year (it’s expensive so now you won’t spend $15 at a local show), as an audience, not only has our maturity been forgotten, but producers (and particularly financiers) of media have been so obsessed with coddling audiences for familiarity, we’ve been such huge losers for it.

The same radio stations that once boasted they playing the ‘hottest new names in music’ and magazines that proudly printed ‘We were the first to discover and ‘break’ them into the mainstream’ have spent the last year fishing for Oasis reunion stories. The name sells, familiarity is a business strategy and idiots will go into a frenzy doubling down on misinformation because they don’t like new and unfamiliar information (be it on bigotry, false biology or fantasy about ‘immigrants’).

And I guess sometimes it manifests itself like this: in people who are going to see an artist who has released 2 albums, and who herself was discovered by many fans in opening for Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, and those fans are complaining about a new artist they don’t yet know who has potentially got the biggest career boosting opportunity of her life, because they’re not ‘familiarized with her work’.

Ignoring the fact that anyone else who replaces her at short notice will also not be familiar, what the hell? Skill issue. Dora Jar has ONE album out. How fucking hard is it to listen to ONE album. A friend of mine is challenging herself to do one new album a day this month. How fucking hard is it.

(I should say, screenshots from Stereogum)

[password-door-lock]

Four Seasons by Your Side: Popcorn

Read it on Ao3!

“Ah, my love,” Saeran greets you with a kiss. “What is all this?”

You shrug, trying to appear nonchalant as your husband regards you with inquisitive eyes. “Well, it’s snowing,” you offer. You know Saeran has been in his home office writing in his journal for the better part of the day, but you also know that he usually likes to keep the curtains drawn as a means of staying connected with nature even during the coldest months. 

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” he confirms your initial suspicion. Of course Saeran would be aware of something like that. You smile at the thought of him taking the time to watch the falling snow. It’s nice to think that he now has the freedom to spend each minute of his day as he pleases. 

“So I thought it would be nice to have a cozy night in,” you explain, “Hence the fire,” you gesture at the fireplace. “And the blanket, and the candles.” 

“And the popcorn bar?” Saeran eyes the dining room table, which you’ve decked out with a nice tablecloth and covered with as many toppings as you could get your hands on, not to mention the popcorn itself, which is fresh, hot, and buttery. “There are only two of us, my love. How will we eat it all?”

You shrug again. “There’s three of us, technically.” As if to prove your point, Apple Turnover reveals herself, finding her way out from her hiding place under the table. Although she loves to bask in the sunlight, she also tends to seek out dark spaces. 

“I don’t think she’s interested in popcorn,” Saeran observes with a smile. Considering the fact that your mischievous kitty has done nothing whatsoever to disturb your display, you suppose he has a point. 

“That’s true,” you concede, “But guess what? We have the Valentine’s party in a few days—I was thinking of doing a popcorn booth or something to go along with the charity auction? You know, since last time, a lot of the guests donated small amounts, and there weren’t enough art pieces to give to each of them.” Since V left the group, Jaehee and Jumin have been working tirelessly to track down independent artists to work with the RFA for each party. It’s a bit of a struggle to get as many prints as your party guests got used to while V was a member. “I kind of wanted to test out different toppings, since we’re stuck inside anyway, and maybe tomorrow we could share the leftovers with the RFA and see what flavors they like— what do you think?” If Saeran doesn’t like this idea, you can certainly switch gears. You have board games, of course, and there’s no shortage of other food in the house. 

You know that Saeran isn’t usually opposed to such spontaneous plans as this, so long as you aren’t wasting food, but he may not be in the mood for popcorn right now. “That sounds like fun,” he decides, “But we have to be scientific about it, darling. We need to make sure we’re picking flavor combinations well and making notes on what works and what doesn’t.”

“Of course.” You also know that Saeran loves an excuse to try new things (especially new foods) and journal about them. “Did you think of a movie yet?” Moreover, your husband usually has a long backlog of films he’d like to watch. He did miss out on a lot of pop culture while he was trapped at Magenta, after all. 

“This could take longer than two hours,” Saeran decides, “And we’d have to keep getting up to get food and take notes. Maybe it’d be better if we watched a show instead, so the breaks would be built in.” Though this wasn’t initially his idea, it’s apparent that he is very much on board with your plan. 

“Mhm, good thinking,” you agree, “And let’s get something to drink, too— the popcorn will be salty. Did you want something sweet?” Granted, some of the popcorn flavors will also be sweet, so you make a mental note to grab some water for you and Saeran to drink as well. 

“Can I get some juice?” Saeran asks. Lately, he’s been on a real juice kick, trying every variety of fruit juice that the grocery store sells and even doing some light research about the beverage options available overseas. You wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to partner with C&R to start up his own line of juices using the fruit from the apple trees in his greenhouse. 

“Of course,” you assure him, “Is strawberry banana okay? Otherwise, I can open the grape juice we got last week.” 

“The strawberry banana sounds good,” Saeran informs you. “I’ve really been enjoying it lately. Should I get the movie started?”

“Yes, please.” You kiss him on the cheek. “My sweet. I’ll get our drinks while you do that.”

Five minutes later, you’re setting down beverages in the living room and settling onto the couch while Saeran prepares a bowl of popcorn. “What is this?” You ask when he hands it to you. 

“Apple cinnamon,” Saeran explains, “I used the dried apples and the cinnamon and sugar. Although… I’m worried it might be too messy if we let the guests mix their own toppings in. Maybe we should bag it in advance to sell at the party.” 

“That’s a good idea,” you agree. “Especially since they’d be in evening wear. Popcorn might be fun, but we should do everything we can to avoid a mess.” You’re glad you brought this idea up with Saeran before trying to implement it at the party. “Do you think we can manage all that before the party? We only have three days.”

“Mhm,” Saeran leans against you, precariously balancing the popcorn bowl as he does so. You’re not sure how he’s comfortable eating like that, but you’ll support him nevertheless. “We should come up with as many flavors as we can think of tonight and try them out.”

“Good idea, babe.” You grin, “As long as we remember to have fun with it, too. It is date night, after all.”

“It’s always fun when we’re together,” Saeran assures you, “But we should invite the RFA over to help with the tasting.” It’s endearing to watch him getting so fired up about this popcorn idea. “And then we can all meet up early on Friday to make fresh popcorn and bag it before the party starts.”

“You want to have everyone over… right now?” Admittedly, you’re a bit taken aback by the idea, but you’ll do it if that’s what Saeran wants. “What about the snow?”

He shakes his head. “No, let’s invite them tomorrow,” he clarifies, “For now… I want to enjoy our date.”

[fromtenthousandfeet]

https://www.tumblr.com/fromtenthousandfeet/754230657283162113/a-few-days-ago-i-saw-a-post-on-x-from-a-kpjm-that?source=share

I'm confused why would they wanna punish the fans, the cash cows for their future payola album? (I'm just curious to hear about ur thoughts more since I love to read ur blog lot)

Thanks for the ask. It's a good question. Why punish fans?!?

I've probably said this too many times, but I'll say it once more. I think Bang PD can't stand the idea of anyone under a HYBE label being successful without his direct influence. Threatening to put NewJeans on an 18+ month hiatus when they're doing so well is such a red flag. And while HYBE probably can't afford not to release Jimin's music and content (or they are contractually obligated to), they can gatekeep the heck out it by not giving him playlisting, not servicing his music to radio, only promoting his new album on Instagram, not providing pre-save or pre-purchase options. The company accepts that Jimin has a loyal fan base, but the goal is not to grow it.

Think about the extraordinary amount of money Jimin's fans spend on his birthday events/promotions. Can't you see BSH seething at the sight of all that money spent to support Jimin that could have been spent on BTS merchandise? And the fact that no other member - even his precious chosen one - gets that kind of love and loyalty reflects badly on the group. Jimin is a brand unto himself. That's only a boon for the company as long they can control his popularity and make money off of it. At the end of the day, I think BSH resents Jimin's huge appeal and popularity. He, so far, hasn't been able to recreate that love and loyalty for other BTS members or TXT, his other brainchild.

So, BangPD punishes Jimin's fans by gatekeeping Jimin's projects and Jimin himself. Has anyone else had the nagging sense over the last year that maybe Jimin's access to fans is being intentionally thwarted? Why wasn't he given more opportunities to perform live? Why was CTT released when he was already in the military even though the song was records long before? And can we talk about how the company completely ignores fans' requests for better promotion, more CDs, and radio play? That's another form of punishment.

Your question is, how can the company afford to anger and alienate Jimin's fans when they are going to need their purchasing power when the group returns in 2025? Two things.

HYBE can't lose. If they treat Jimin like crap (as they have so far), the fans get their "revenge" by raising and spending even more money on album sales and streams. The right response to his mistreatment should be a complete boycott of all Jimin and BTS merchandise, but nobody wants to hurt Jimin, so it'll never happen. While making Jimin's music rank high on Spotify and Billboard charts may feel like revenge against the company, I promise you it is not, because the company is laughing all the way to the bank as fans mass buy and mass stream.

Chapter 2 has proved that a large portion of ARMY do not care at all about the music and are in it for the parasocial aspect of fanning. Look at V's photo book announced this week. Selling out on the first day, multiple printings, and for what? Photos of his feet? Madness. $100 for BTS Minions Funko Pops? What?!? I keep thinking maybe fans will realize how they're being used as an endless cash stream, but so far no.

Ultimately, none of us know what the heck is going on in BSH's head or within the company, so your guess is as good or better than mine. I leave you with this interview from Billboard Magazine, which has some little gems that I think explain a lot. Let's talk about it soon.

[foodandfolklore]

The Story of Valentine's Day

So what's up with Valentine's Day? Is it just a holiday made up to sell flowers, chocolate, and jewelry? Well...no. Though it is the main reason why it's still exists today. So much so that Valentine's Day is banned in some countries that frown on western customs. Other Countries adopted their own customs inspired by Valentines Day, like in Japan. Women are the ones to give men they like chocolate on February 14. Then, in March, these men are expected to gift them white chocolate in return.

I think many of us who grew up in the west are aware that Valentine's Day is named after the Catholic Saint Valentine. An older name is 'The feast of St Valentine' since before chocolate and flowers, people had a feast to celebrate. But who was this person?

The story goes that Valentine (Could of been a man or woman, we're not sure. There were a lot of Valentines) was spreading the word of the Christian God and Jesus as a Priest. They went against the Emperor's decree, and married soldiers to their loved ones. I'm not entirely clear why the Emperor had an issue with soldiers getting married, but I'm guessing the lead in the pipes were getting to them.

Valentine was found out and arrested, and was sentenced to death. While they awaited their sentencing, they helped take care of the other prisoners. The jailer's daughter, who was blind, was also there (for some reason) and they helped to look after her. They did such a good job, they cured her blindness and fell in love with her. Before being put to death, they gave her a letter simply signed "From your Valentine" thus being the official first Valentine.

The Church later named Valentine a Saint, and degreed a celebration to happen every year on February 14. Which is apparently when they were executed. However, there was also an old Roman celebration that the Church was trying to get rid of called "Lupercalia". Lupercalia was a purifying, fertility celebration to Juno that lasted from February 13 to February 15. Animal sacrifices, naked racing, and a massive feast was held. The church didn't like 2 of these 3 main events, so their new holiday just had a feast.

We get the Romance later when a 14th century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, writes his poem "Parlement of Foules". It draws a conection between Valentines Day and the start of Bird Mating season, sparking the romantic interest. Many couples followed for years after, sending poems to one another to express affection. Later, during the 1800s, when the printing press became a thing, pre made and pre written poems/rhymes were mass produced as cards. And people bought them.

So, in summery, Valentines Day seems to of been created by the Church to erase a Pagan Celebration. Then, Society decided to associate it with love. Which is kinda Sweet. But now we're in the age of consumerism, and it's another excuse to sell us stuff.

At the end of the day; If you don't want to celebrate Valentines Day, than don't. I've personally never gotten into it, even with Partners. Some people feel like it's a downer cause they're single. Others feel like there's too much pressure to be perfect. And some just can't justify the expense.

That said, if you WANT to celebrate modern Valentines Day, all the power to you! Some people love it, with or without a partner. So if that's your jam, and you can afford to go all out, do it! It makes you happy to get chocolate and flowers, or dress up and go out to eat. For some it's like a hobby. Someone once made the comparison to me like the super bowl. You look forward to it all year, buy a bunch of junk, and then enjoy with people who are also into it. Now, I'm not into sports either, but I understand the mindset. It's like Conventions or dressing up to go see the premier of a movie. Other people may not see the point, but you enjoy it so who cares?

[soulfullofold]

continuing from previous post but uuuuuuuu not sure if this is remotely interesting to people but i'm taking a ceramics class rn and it's consumed my life completely

i'm out of university so i am auditing it. which has its own unique challenges of working full time + missing work for class + having to put in so many extra & odd hours in the studio to get assignments done. it's really nice to be in an academic setting again. I never actually took an art class in college...well...I took a 300lvl Art History class and tecchhhnically an ART class but focused on motion picture / film so not a proper studio art class with critique and studio hours. it's a nice new experience is my point. I was signed up for wheel throwing but they had to split the class into two sections so I got put in hand building instead (so that the actual students could take wheel LOL). it's fine; i really don't mind hand building. but we're starting from scratch scratch and i'm like. I just want to make weird sculptures not tiles but i understand and respect the progression of the class.

i'm pretty proud of what i'm making (even with the railroady assignments) and i really like our professor. she's really good about involving students in more complex things if they ask, and i love to ask. like please teach me how to make your own glaze and how to load / unload the kiln...

today i was sitting at my work desk just daydreaming about how to continue doing this after this class. i know ceramics is expensive as hell but it's also like. not That bad all things considered. like clay isn't too too bad, and you can recycle a lot of it from your tools and messed up projects. even if you have like. 1-2 glazes that you return to over and over again, it helps establish your identity as an artist so there's no need to have like a bajillion different options necessarily, as nice as it would be. even a wheel isn't required since you can hand build everything. a slab roller would be nice and so would a K I L N but you know how it is. studio membership is pretty expensive but at least i could have access to these things if needed. anyways i went on kilnshare and the nearest kiln to me is ~2 hours away. but i stalked the lady who ran the studio and learned all about her LOL (she shares prolifically on FB). And it's just....yeah i dunno. it would be cool to keep it up if I could.

But also I know I have a tendency to throw my entire self into whatever I do, no matter how mundane it is. So I'm like. Okay do we REALLY need to deep dive into all of this ceramics stuff and try and source a kiln and clay and build a studio (whaaaat)? I've literally been doing this for 3 or 4 weeks. What Gives. Cool The Jets. I did this with screen printing and block printing and embroidery to a lesser extent and it's just...I'm not in a place to afford RENT why am I like 👀 oh let's see if anyone is selling their used $5k kiln haa haa. Don't worry. I will definitely have a place for it and be able to literally power it with enough electricity.

I really enjoy sculpting and I think the ability to make Functional art is very very cool. And to produce it relatively easier (compared to a painting which is...a huge huge time sink for not a lot of replicable effort imo). I'm also happier experimenting with sculpture than I am with paint, I dunno. It's a different brain space to me.

The clay dust must be congealing in my brain. Clown Brain is a very accurate title; it's like clown lung but for my art-related decision making. I guess I'm just in the honeymoon stage with ceramics. I really am enjoying it very much, even if I do sometimes have to spend 14 hours straight in the studio to get projects done or come in multiple times per day or whatever. And it's literally just the most simple hand building projects that I just like to make crazy complicated for fun.

Yesterday and today I made 100 pinch pots :) Mugs are SOON since we learn handles tomorrow. mother of god it's all real. once my tiles are through the glaze firing, i will post them. also i found out someone's project blew up and took mine out with it in the bisque. i spent like 40 hrs on that thang. Great. but i'm trying to stay positive.

AND . sorry this is so rambly i'm just on little sleep and many thoughtless hours hunched over a banding wheel. and it has been nice, i think, to just make art i want to make again. (holds my hands out like spongebob about to be squished) I MEAN like . non arpg personal art. just like. yeah i want to draw a hill with a distant figure on it. no it's not an oc and no i don't have to score it for points and no i don't have to show or explain it to literally anyone. like i'm enjoying experimenting with subject matter that i like outside of twwm / esk after my fallout from exiting staff. also that is a whole other can of worms i am still processing so if you know me from that space, i am very sorry for the sudden change and for the little to no explanation for the sake of being professional but you can dm me and we can talk about it if you're curious. i don't hold any ill will for the game and i'm so happy that people are still enjoying it and their characters outside of me but man i have had experiences and many many thoughts.

okay that snuck in outta nowhere YAY sculpting YAY someone stop me from trying to randomly derail my life and create a pottery studio in the backyard i don't own

[psalm22-6]

An interesting letter from Paul Meurice and the rabbit holes it led me down

If you're bored and want something fun/french to read, consider reading the correspondence of Victor Hugo and Paul Meurice. You will find lots of interesting tidbits and really quite touching phrases. Here's a look at just one letter that caught my eye (the above portraits become semi-relevant later). So the letter is undated but contextually, it's from early June 1862. Hugo, in Guernsey, was in close communication with Meurice, in Paris, over the final corrections for Les Miserables and the publication of its last volume. Meurice writes:

Javert Derailed, The Death of Gavroche, The Grandfather, The Passion in the Sewer, the whole drama, the whole volume, the whole poem is splendid. My word! I must straightforwardly decline to express my enthusiasm to you. I would need to have your prodigious execution and your incredible form in order to explain the depths of my feelings. My emotions and my admiration are inexpressable. I can’t understand Barbey d’Aurevilly.* I’ll tell you simply: it is sublime! I cried! You are greater than anyone, greater than yourself!

*The phrase is "Je jette ma langue aux Barbets d Aurevilly." This gave me some trouble to translate. I figured that he is using the expression jeter sa langue au chien (which I gather means something like "I can't guess at",) but replacing chien with barbet, a type of dog that sounds like Barbey, and also possibly making some sort of pun about d'Aurevilly's distinctive barbe (aka beard)? I really thought he might be making a pun about Barbey's 'barbs' (as in cruel remarks, since his reviews were very negative) but it doesn't seem like 'barb' has that meaning at all in French.] Now bear in mind that in this next part, by "volume ten" he means the latter half of Jean Valjean, and by "these last four volumes," he means what we would call the last two, L'idylle rue Plumet, et l'epopee rue Saint-Denis and Jean Valjean

I have only read the first page of volume ten. We are very behind on the assembly, printing, and everything. Yet we will do everything so that it appears on the 30th.

And it was published the 30th! I don't remember rn what was causing the delays but it is surely mentioned in Bellos's book or in Leulliot's.

The effect and the success of these last four volumes will be immense. More irresistible and more unanimous than that of the other parts. Too irresistible and too unanimous from a certain point of view. It offends many people; some critics are cold, though they were well dispositioned before the book’s appearance. Don’t read into it, don’t hear things in these particular silences and particular reluctances: it can be felt, seen, and touched.

Fun to speculate about if Meurice was concerned about a particular person's silence (in which case, whose?) or if it was just in general. Hugo had expressed his frustration over the reception to both Vacquerie and even Jules Janin. I'd have to look over their correspondence again to see what Hugo said in particular to Meurice but he was surely aware of how Hugo felt. OKAY now on to the subject of the portraits, Meurice tacks on this aside at the end of the letter:

I am writing this to you in haste, having let myself run late. Do you remember a portrait of you, full-length, but young, made some time ago by Deveria? The painting is excellent but why! I never knew you like this…This portrait would have belonged to a M. le marquis de Valori! If it is truly your portrait, it’s very strange. You should remember it then. You are seated on a red damas couch. White pants, a small redingote. You are blond, thin, elegant. The person who has it wishes to sell it. She’s asking for 250 francs. Would it amuse you to have it? They’ll want your response at the end of the week.

Of course when I read this I want to know what image he is talking about. I first thought of the image on the left (scroll back up)...the image on the left is a black and white photo of what is presumed to be a portrait of Victor Hugo at age 16 (I say presumed because that is literally how it is described on Wikipedia) (sometimes it is just described as Hugo as an adolescent) by Achille Devéria (although apparently it has been disputed which Devéria painted it?). The original was, supposedly, at some time in the collection of Prime Minister of France Louis Barthou. Where is it now? Perhaps it is in the private collection of Ms Taylor. Can we get a color photo of it? No. Swift. So my mind went to this image because the subject is young, blond, possibly Victor Hugo, and possibly created by Devéria. However, it doesn't fit the rest of the description. Then @pilferingapples kindly made me aware of the portrait on the right. From what I have found online, this one is attribution to Paul Gavarni, although the websites making that attribution are pretty sketch. The portrait was supposedly at one time in the possession of M. le D. F. Jousseaume, a bookstore owner. Where is it now? Also unknown. (The provenance of both of these is kind of sketchy tbh. I checked three books about Hugo that I have which include images (Victor Hugo: A Tumultous Life by Samuel Edwards, Victor Hugo: A Biography by Graham Robb, and Victor Hugo: S'il n'en reste qu'un by Sophie Grossiord, a curator at the Maison Victor Hugo) and none of them include either of these images.) Whatever the case, the image on the right fits the description in almost every way: it is full length (en pied), the subject is young, thin, there's the red seat, white pants, wearing a coat, and he's "blond" by french standards apparently (and consider that this photo may be a bad representation of the portrait). I haven't seen that image attributed to Deveria but it's possible (or possible that Meurice would believe it's possible.) Then there's the question of provenance. Why did M. le marquis de Valori have it and who was the woman selling it? My guess is that the man in question was Henri-Zozime de Valori, a writer who knew Nodier and who died in 1859. He had published a collection called Odes choisies: précédées d'un discours sur la poésie et les poetes lyriques anciens et modernes which was reviewed (by "S.") in Le Conservateur littéraire so he may have been aquianted with Hugo some way?

Anyways, evidently, Hugo didn't want the portrait because he never responded to that part of Meurice's letter and it eventually came into the hands of the bookseller D. F. Jousseaume. And where is it now? No idea! Okay, the end.

[bethanydelleman]

Remember how you wrote that rant about „none of us want to be in calm water all of our lives“ I suddenly remembered that and instead of going to bed I thought: what has good old google to say about that“ and I googled „persuasion jane Austen quotes“ and only found it with „want“. So I skipped to „ persuasion calm water quote“ and the google preview is also with „want“. Also every shop selling prints used „want“. It was the fourth google result (and actually the only one) when it finally showed the actual quote with „expect“. Any clue why the wrong quote with „want“ spreads like wildfire? I mean the book quote is right there… have so many people watched the movie? I doubt it… so why so many misquotes?

My guess is that one of the problems is that the Persuasion 1995 quote is so close to the original. It's really a single word change. But I really don't know. There are a significant percentage of people who only watch the movies and never read the books, so I'm not terribly surprised that the movie quote has "won".

I see quotes from 1995 S&S constantly, always cited as Austen. Especially, "My heart is, and always will be, yours." The quote "It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do." is everywhere but actually from 2008 S&S. I think I see those quotes more than real novel quotes...

It doesn't help that Goodreads lists the movie quotes under Jane Austen!

I guess it's some variant of the thing where they put a quote over Einstein's picture to make it seem smarter. Or people watching Austen movies on repeat but not reading the books on repeat like a sane person.

I'm sane right?

[regarding-stories]

Rounding up is hard to do... Manga Edition (mostly)

While this is slowly changing, a lot of the time romantic manga series are more likely to get a single season if adapted to anime. So even if you might get into a series by watching it animated at first, you often have to finish it by getting into the print. Anime is still at times more of a promotional tool than anything.

So here comes stuff that I read at least partially in manga form.

Smoking Behind The Supermarket With You

This was a random find that I just got into because Kobo advertised it to me. While some of it is now collected as volumes, Bookwalker sells it by chapters for the start of the series, but never installments come as three-chapter books (and in the end, cheaper per page).

"Smoking" is a very sweet little slow-burn love story unfolding between a salarymen working in sales and much younger supermarket cashier. She stars in two roles - she's the young, super-friendly and wholesome cashier that he always lines up for due to her smile. But when not at work, she dons her private style - and he doesn't recognize her... (Thank God for oblivious manga protagonists.)

She ends up keeping the charade up, switching her name around for him. Both develop feelings for each other, but most of the time they simply socialize behind the store, a place where you can smoke freely - which is what by chance got them in closer touch.

Over time the cast grows to incorporate one of his coworkers, and all the staff at this local supermarket. Many of the people around her catch up with her two identities, and start rooting for her, especially her manager who wants to see some proper romantic developments, but both our lovebirds are too good at leaving things unsaid, and the whole Yamada/Tayama setup she maintains is not helping.

Given that this is about adults the slow-burn is even more surprising, barely progressing beyond touching at times and then taking at least one if not two steps back for each forward. Still, it's a very rewarding read to me. I do not want to label it "slice of life," but I guess you could call it that as well.

My Little Monster

Talk about a bad start! I really was put off by the male lead's first appearance, given that he was threatening the heroine. In the end, however, this seemed to be a fluke and didn't repeat. (Well, there are incidents but they don't rub me the same.) It left a sour taste for a while but I stayed with the series, and am glad for it.

She is obsessed with studying to an obscene degree, he is afraid of attending school and considered a delinquent, especially due to his threatening stare. In the end it they are drawn to each other, but their timing is at times horrible, they're not good at understanding their own feelings or each other's. Adding up to a surprising good, long read.

One thing that is good about the series is the humor, the quirks of the characters, watching their struggles is fun. Characters are indeed a strength of this series. We eventually also learn the psychological background why our leads are as they are. Mixed with a lot of high school slice-of-life, all taken together, "My Little Monster" is something you want to follow to finish.

The one thing that kept me confused was why Haru (male lead) was so strongly traumatized, and even after the end of the anime season you wouldn't really know - this part comes in very slowly, but it has to do a lot with abandonment, loss, and rejection - all from within his family as growing up. There are also hints of not being neurotypical on both leads, especially given that Haru is a sort of genius savant. (Still, I'd say, it doesn't all quite add up, so you have to forgive it and read on...)

But what makes you stay in the end are the characters, their unfolding stories, and their interactions. Which is why it's a shame that the last main book rushes through their last year of high school, and the later-added bonus book doesn't fully make up for it, even though it's meant to keep us in touch with all the side stories of the other characters.

Blue Spring Ride

Blue Spring Ride is much easier to understand, its only mystery are the family dynamics of the male lead, and this mystery will be finished by the time you're done with the series as well, probably more like halfway through.

Our lead couple had a blossoming love in middle school, but then he moved away. When they meet again in high school, many years later, he's a different person - his parents' divorce and his mother's death have left him scarred. She in turn tries to get away from being ostracized by pretending to not care about her (good) looks and maintains shallow friendships without authenticity. Their coming back together changes this gradually and a new circle of friends emerges.

Normally this would make for a satisfying story, and for a large part it does, but the last third is built on a "stretching out the gum" plotline that just stirs drama, is built on piling misunderstandings and bad timing, and generally wants to keep the reader around to see how this mess resolves. Thankfully, unlike "Rent-A-Girlfriend", this "keep making money" shtick is only done once. It was still unnerving and soured my impression of the series.

Insomniacs After School

I started reading this one because it was advertised for HiDive and I wanted to watch it there, but the service stopped being offered in my country before I could. I'm glad I did, I find this manga's art style especially evocative and well done, slightly less mainstream.

This is about two high school students who suffer from severe insomnia, the reasons for which will be slowly expanded upon later in the series. They end up reviving the astronomy club at school after being caught abusing the abandoned clubroom for naps and hanging out together. Sleeping in the same room, hearing another's voice (she podcasts for him)... it's a wonderfully intimate series, long before ever they start to act on their feelings in other ways.

As they discover astronomy and photography for themselves, the series expands their and our horizons through very detailed, realistic art. Both the characters also seem more real and less cute than usual, and especially the eyes in the books are amazing by themselves.

It does get quite dramatic at times, and the upcoming volumes to be translated will amp up that drama (I peeked), but in general, this series seems very real and original, definitely not something that regurgitates just tropes. Highly recommended!

[udon-udon]

anyway, depresso vent post again

not sure if it's just a coinkidink but god, i've been getting depresso BEFORE my pre-period PMS which sucks cause i get twice the depresso come on man wtf

but anyway, idk things have been triggering me a lot lately and idk if it's cause of the stress of all the things i have to do + lack of art career direction + seeing everyone advance and im not advancing/feeling like im being left behind + the stress from work + internal battles and issues i haven't solved yet that i keep gaslighting myself that i've solved but clearly they are not solved + the existing family issues. I feel like yeah most likely that's causing my additional wave of depresso but i also hate that it just comes out of nowhere. I was pumped and all cause I started going to the gym and then suddenly i'm like falling to the floor help ive fallen and can't get up.

i'm also not much of a crier, i hate crying simply cause it takes a lot of energy so i don't really cry much unless im super frustrated or wtvr, but i've been finding myself wanting to cry more so than ever, starting from a few months ago????? I still try not to cause i hate crying, but theres always that tight feeling in my throat like i want to cry u know. And yes, I know crying it out is good for you, but ugh.

I also have been yet again putting a shit ton of more stuff on my plate than I should be what's new, and that's also causing stress as well cause I want to do so many things but I obviously don't have the time for it. I'm still slowly chipping away at my art commissions and I planned on having them done by Feb 1 but i dont think that's gonna happen.... But after art commissions is art print grind cause I need to overhaul my old anime convention art prints... And then I had the idea of creating a side brand that sells only udon related merch (so less anime, and more cute) and because it's a whole new brand, there's a lot of effort/designing/money to be put in and.... that's... more things to do in so little time. Why do I do this to myself. I still really want to do it though!!!! But at what cost, udon... at what cost....

And of course, seeing people be successful makes me feel down cause I don't have what they have and they have what I want yada yada insert pitiful stuff. I'm happy for these people but obvs i can't help but be envious and my brain being like "you're never gonna be enough/never gonna get what they have" and then i want to stab a knife in my brain hello. It's hard to see my own successes when I keep looking at other people's successes, which sucks, cause I've done a lot of cool things, but I keep unregistering them because it's not my ideal success or something idk

Also I think what mostly triggered this month's mood swing is seeing/feeling that someone's leaving me (?) Seeing someone I enjoy being with happier/enjoying someone else's company more. And I'm being totally irrational with that because ofc there are so many other factors. I can't control what other people feel/do and I'm not the center of the universe!!! But in this/that moment it makes me feel like I'm not enough, that I'm boring or wtvr, not loved. And we all know how much I struggle with that 🤪 basically my abandonment issues kicking in, but also my brain being really irrational

I guess this month's theme is I feel like I'm not enough :' ) and also way too many things on my plate yet again, and the stress that I kind of forgot during the December holiday catching back up to me again :)

[aeolianblues]

I’m just going to have to accept my place at some point— accept that the aural is always going to be an inherently less engaging medium to catch people’s attention. Going to have to accept someday that there’s nothing like putting a film out there, no matter what the budget; a low-budget shoddily made visual thing, a film, a TV show, a documentary; what have you, will probably always leave audio an inferior and less catchy medium. You can speak your heart out, you can make as many radio documentaries. At the end of the day what is going to catch people’s attention is the Kneecap (the film)s and the Complete Unknowns of this world. Radio docs can’t ever hope to touch those dizzying heights, nor tbh do books and written stuff. All this personally pertains to music, and I’ve been thinking about it as a music journalist myself.

No one reads interviews anymore. It’s a lost art. People are subscribing to magazines (print or digital) as a purely preservationist move: they want this form of media and journalism to survive. Also it’s skimmable I suppose. It’s not often a particularly inspiring medium to convey ideas about music. Hey, though the famous saying goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture (this is an actual and widely quoted saying, actually). Fine. Accepted. What about music through audio, does that not seem appropriate a medium?

Nope. Not shareable. Not relatable. I’ve spent years trying, god knows I’ve talked to some really interesting people even at my infantile levels of being a journalist, but audio is so opaque. You can’t ‘search’ it, you can’t share a snappy visual that doesn’t require people to actually listen for a full minute—60 seconds of your time! Even as audio is the medium to which music belongs, musicians simply cannot belong to it. You can’t tell who’s who, you don’t know what the musicians look like, a visual (and often important) element of how musicians present is lost.

It’s got to be films then, hasn’t it? Kneecap’s compelling story could never reach as many people on the many, many interviews they’d done recounting the very same over the last 6 years at least. They have been around for a while. Since 2017, in fact. But it was the film, the visuals accompanying it, that actually brought it to a wider audience and made Kneecap household names. A Complete Unknown too, like I’d mentioned. Reintroducing Dylan to a generation, reconnecting others with their love for the man and his life.

And, I guess, I am on tumblr right now after all, so it’d be amiss not to mention. The humble GIF. Ironically, the GIFs, muted, looping animated frames, are what can propel a lot of musicians to website-wide stardom sometimes. What a selling point GIFs have been, of so many media, on this website. (I think the visual being so strong is also why I see, for example, way more people willing to gif out, idolise and follow the fictional band in We Are Lady Parts than actually listen to bands like The Muslims or Habibi, draw fanart of Hobie Brown from the animated Spiderman film than listen to Crystal Axis. Who, FYI, put out one the best grungy rock tracks I’ve heard this year.

Why people will follow a rebellious-smirking, leather jacket-wearing fictional character than a real-life punk band. If I were having a cynical day (and I try so hard not to, it’s self-defeating! It does nothing to help anything I’m doing!) then I’d say this website cares more about fictional characters they can dream about than wanting to give a shit about real people making art in the present— or real people in general. But I try not to. I acknowledge that visuals are powerful, and embellished storylines can be more compelling than real life.)

But that brings me to my lament: many, many real people have incredible stories to be told. Someone once said to me something like, all musicians have something a little wrong with them, because the desire to stand up on a platform and tell stories and open yourself up to emotional vulnerability, to visibility, to ridicule, takes a certain kind of illness and incredible courage. People that get up on stage DO have a story to tell. That’s why they’re out there singing on their own words. In their voices. About the lives they live and those around them do.

But they’ll never be told. Filming is still high budget. I could script out a band’s life and write it in a book (you know I could. Some of you already know I’m capable of dragging things on with every minute detail). I could narrate and produce an audio documentary about it. But it’ll never be as powerful as what can be done with a film crew. The reach of visuals is beyond what anything else can convey.

So many incredible stories will be lost. It’s happened before, of course. When Sam Sutherland wrote his book Perfect Youth, about the history of the first wave of punk rock in Canada in the late 1970s, he was the first to attempt a comprehensive history of Canadian punk. This was in 2012. Shocking, right! The UK and US scenes were way better documented: films about the Sex Pistols and the Clash ensured the London scene was enshrined in legend forever. The punks of Manchester were documented (in no small part thanks to the fact that some of the biggest stars of indie, post punk and New Romantic music of the 80s were Manchester youth punks in the 70s). The NYC scene is extremely well documented, where would I begin. But in Canada, many of its original troublemakers were dead, had moved on, had never recorded their music and were now.thousands of kilometres across the country, and the venues were long shut, repurposed or bulldozed. Montreal’s ‘first punk band’, the 222s, only have a few surviving recordings out there because a presenter on a campus radio station in Montreal they has one done a session for, had found he never threw their tape away. The only surviving recordings. Many others weren’t that lucky, even when (similar to Manchester), Montreal punk in the 70s provided a playground for some of the best-loved indie and pop rock bands of the 80s, like the Doughboys and Men Without Hats. Canadian punks in the 70s hadn’t had the awareness of legacy, nor the sort of money it’d take to record vinyl, much less have a camera running. Nothing was saved.

It’s a similar thing with bands today, even though equipment and editing software is relatively cheaper. Many people feel filming bands is a bit of sunken effort. We host one of my country’s biggest film festivals, and I never see student filmmakers taking part in the music video programmes. These are fully funded. Sure, local bands will do the portrait cellphone Instagram reel recording, but barring a single viral video that does not guarantee people listening to your music, it’s not quite the same as properly shot camera footage.

(Often with viral reels, it seems people blow up for things that are at best adjacent to their music. A video shitting on the role of the bassist in the band. A drummer complaining about how long everyone else takes to set up their pedalboard. Singer being a diva. ‘Guess what instrument this member plays’. It doesn’t really tell you the story behind a band, nor guarantees they’ll listen to your tunes. One too many a viral band has had scores of angry ‘fans’ yelling at them that they’ve posted their latest single ‘too many times.’ Hello?? Entitlement much?)

I don’t know what the solution is, to be quite honest. We’ve done filmed radio sessions, and while in theory you’d think people like those more than just us saying ‘hey this is on radio (audio) tomorrow morning!’, in reality people don’t care quite as much. They leave a like on our reels and move on, 10 people will actually follow on to the YouTube, and that’s often band members their proud dads (I’ve been followed by so many proud dads, I’ve awwed). So people leave. It’s a thankless job. Unless you’re KEXP it’s not really rewarding either. And I’ve kept it running for two years, but I’m not immune to burnout, or what you could call ‘yelling in the void’ fatigue. I feel stupid doing this stuff, sometimes. I’ll never tell anyone because it’s my job to keep the morale up, but it’s rewardless and sometimes tiring. Not that you expect anything out of it.

Maybe better video editing software, or better graphics processing will make this task easier. In the meanwhile, I guess don’t lose heart? I’ve written this out textually, and that means if anyone at all has read this far, then text isn’t dead yet. Takeaways? Don’t succumb to ‘my generation is shit, no one’s interesting anymore.’ They are. It’s just really hard to reach you through the algorithm. So I say, pay attention locally. There’s nothing like going to a great local show for $7 and seeing quality hidden gems. You can talk to them after the show even! It feels like cheating to have access to it. Someone will eventually do it. In the meanwhile, keep heart. And big up, Rich Pepiatt.

[pablolf]

6. THE VIEW - "SAME JEANS" JB: It does seem a bit of a shame to pick on this lot—they seem like nice guys. But this video does show the absolute ruthless exploitation of the industry. How old are these kids? 16, 17? I mean, they’ve obviously got some kind of talent; they just haven’t been given those crucial five years to figure out what they want to say. Right. I think this is significant, actually. This whole period was kind of important for bands, but it was a fucking revolution for A&R. Back in the day, A&R meant going out to gigs and watching bands, but in this era, it became sitting at your computer trawling Myspace, then Facebook and YouTube, for the freshest, youngest thing going. Bands weren’t allowed to develop on their own before they were swept up in the machine. I guess nothing in this era can even be considered without taking in the rise of social media, and the decline of record sales. Exactly. And it wasn’t just the labels. For instance, once upon a time there used to be an actual magazine called the NME. And I don’t want to be too hard on NME, they’ve been pretty good to me—every time I said something outrageous to sell records, they’d print it to sell copies. Then they’d usually slag me off for it two weeks later in order to sell more copies, but that was just the pact we made. But, what we all witnessed over this era was many magazines and radio programmers switching from having an actual editorial perspective, to being run as focus groups for companies to shift products to 16-24 year olds. And I mean that very literally: groups of kids in a room being played demos to see which they liked most, in order to boost advertising from Motorola or whatever.

I’m not saying that we need a bunch of self-appointed musos instructing the vulgar masses about what’s good. But there needs to be some sort of editorial integrity, right? The balance seemed to go out of whack in this era, and you can see the result in all the magazines folding, and Radio 1 losing millions of listeners. To me, that’s what “landfill” meant. The airwaves just became a dump that needed to be filled with product that looked a bit like other product that had done okay.

The Definitive History of Landfill Indie in Seven Songs, Narrated by Johnny Borrell

[literaticat]

what makes a great board book?

From whose perspective? Like, what makes a great book for the intended audience, aka, babies? Probably "edibility", "texture", "mouthfeel" would be up there. For the parents who have to read them? I guess "re-readability", "non-UGH-ness" and "makes babies pass out" would all be high on the list. :-)

From MY perspective, a great board book is cute, feels good in my hands, it's fun to read aloud, it's not too wordy, and babies WANT to hear it over and over.

The question you DIDN'T ask (but now everyone is thinking) -- why aren't agents looking for original board books?

Welp, it's not easy to sell original board books and here's why. They are quite expensive to publish! (even more so now that there are paper shortages, etc). And they have a low price point. (Parents simply will NOT pay more than x-amount for them, despite inflation and everything else).

That means they have very thin margins, royalties are generally lower than they would be for picture books, and the publisher needs to save money (or maximize profit) wherever they can, and they prefer to publish "sure things". Therefore, most board books you see in stores fall into the following buckets:

--Smallened version of already successful picture book -- In other words, it's not an original board book, it's just a reformatted picture book. ALL THE WORLD, THE HONEYBEE, EVERYWHERE BABIES, etc. These are already proven successful - and more importantly, they already own the rights to publish the book, so while the creators DO get a (low) royalty, the publisher doesn't have to pay for the book again.

--Baby version of already popular character/world-- So like, everyone loves DRAGONS LOVE TACOS -- now you can get DRAGON'S FIRST TACO. The VAMOS books are popular, now there are spinoff board books with simple English/Spanish words and phrases and little characters from those bigger books. Pete the Cat's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - "text" already exists. You get the picture. These are already proven successful characters/worlds, have name/visual recognition for customers, and are relatively easy to create (short text, simple art, etc.) The creators do get a (low) advance and (low) royalty but it's just basically an "add on" to an already existing world.

--Simple concept books created in-house by the publisher-- Many MANY concept books you see in stores fall into this bucket -- like Priddy books, DK baby books, etc. If people already on payroll are writing the (minimal) text and designing the book, they don't have to pay creators at all. Or, maybe they write the text and then hire an illustrator on a flat fee.

This is not to say that we CAN'T sell original board books - I have sold a small handful of them over the years, and one of my colleagues reps a couple of folks who create original novelty books. (Novelty books being like board books but with "extra" -- like flaps, textures, whirly bits, etc). But they tend to be art-forward, created by an illustrator-who-also-writes, rather than a writer + illustrator pairing like many Picture Books. And again, they often have a cute novelty aspect. Like the MAIL DUCK books, which have a lift-the-flap element. (But the same $$$ problem arises with novelty for sure! Expensive to print, low price point = publishers being gun-shy.)