#longpost -

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard art book pages, under a cut due to spoilers:

Top right: The "Lobstrocity" would plunge its face into the sand, and its tentacles would burst out of the sand around you. Top center: This was a fun creature with detailed behavior. Top left: Spitting an inky diversion. Center left: Figuring out the anatomical details of this bizarre creature. Center right: A simple land shark. This version is based on a goblin shark, for a more unsettling appearance. Bottom: The Rivain coastline is dotted with hidden grottoes, ruined fortresses, and uncounted shipwrecks.

Top: Beat boards like these help us explore the look and feel of a group in their context. How do they act? What kinds of settings do we find them in? How do they problem-solve? Center: Exploring how a Rivaini landscape might change with the tide. Bottom: Lords of Fortune having way too much fun searching for lost artifacts.

Top: Lords of Fortune have their priorities. In this case, during a perilous escape, this treasure seeker can't help but stop to investigate a curious glint. Bottom: Rivain's coastline is a mix of beautiful beaches, lost ruins, shipwrecks, and deadly beasts.

Mourn Watch The Mourn Watch are masters of undeath, necromancy, curses, and other dark magic. They probe at the borders of "known" magic, where laws fall away and vaster forces creep through. The Watchers know there's more than just spirits in the Fade. If you work with them, prepare for the boundaries between life, death, and reality to get thin. Top left: Death, science, and magic define the Mourn Watch. Their costumes combine aspects of morticians, academics, conductors, mad scientists, and necromancers. Top right: They may be necromancers, but they're not morbid. They study and admire death, and we tried to avoid designing them to be grotesque. Center left: An undead diorama. Wealthy nobles invest heavily in their life after death. Center: Some armor is built more for ceremony than for practical day-to-day duties.

Top center: The Necropolis is vast. While there's a time for ceremony and study, there's also a time to explore the depths. Top right: A mix of embalmer, anatomist, alchemist, and mage. Center left: While these scholars' studies are lofty, the Necropolis is a dangerous place. There is often a need for protection. Bottom right: The Necropolis is home to the bodies of Nevarrans from all walks of life. Some can afford splendid jewelry and clothing, as well as the required upkeep. Some give way to the natural processes of decay more quickly.

Top left 1: The standard uniform of the Mourn Watch. Top left 2: The Mourn Watch know that not everyone outside the Necropolis is comfortable with their interests, and they know how to dress accordingly. Center: A Necropolis rogue, perfect for exploring dangerous regions that require a light touch. Center right: They worked hard for their anatomical knowledge and delight in showing it off. Bottom: There are some parts of the Necropolis that are far too deadly and unstable to visit without extreme protection.

Top right: Early takes on the Mourn Watch explored the possibility that they not just studied the dead but also were undead. Top left: The Mourn Watch make great use of the undead as assistants in their work. Center: Mourn Watch weapons are based on embalming and surgical tools with added ceremonial magical elements.

Necropolis The Watchers live and work in the upper levels of the Grand Necroplis, a massive, ornate dungeon complex of catacombs, secret passages, and traps. Located right outside (and below) Nevarra City, it is constantly expanding, as upper-class Nevarrans begin planning their elaborate crypts while young. Modest tombs sit next to life-sized mansions and sealed-off royal sepulchers. Some undead are lovingly placed in elaborate tableaux where they can "reenact" scenes from real life. Others rest in coffins. The more robust corpses are armed and trained by the Watchers to patrol for thieves. Center top: The entrance to the Necropolis is like an inverted Tower of Babel. They seek knowledge in the grave instead of heaven. Top left: Occasionally a Watcher goes rogue and uses their knowledge in unsavory ways. Top right: The Necropolis is so large that it doesn't just hold catacombs and tombs but vast landscapes, mountains of graveyards, cities of mausoleums, rivers of unknown magic. Bottom left: A colossal bell whose sound keeps demons at bay.

We wanted it to feel like you could always keep going down. If there is a bottom, no one alive has seen it.

Top: There are certain archetypes that we had a lot of fun exploring. One was the haunted Nevarran mansion. Center left: In keeping with the Mourn Watch faction overall, we wanted this mansion to feel spooky but not gruesome or morbid. Bottom right: This location was home to a member of the Mourn Watch, and it was fun to fill it with details from their time in the Necropolis.

Some areas are little more than tightly packed crawl spaces. Others look like wealthy subterranean neighborhoods. Still others look like vast sunless fields littered with tombstones and statuary. Annotation on illustration near top of page reads "Ossuary built around derelict sky burial tower".

Center: The Necropolis is really huge. This is one of an unknown number of mausoleum towers that stretch up into darkness. Untethered spirits drift by regularly. Bottom left: Exploring the Necropolis. We wanted some locations to border on the surreal.

Center: An unsettling magical path in the Necropolis that forms under your feet as you walk, surrounded by a dark pit of the undead. Center right: Not all Mourn Watchers follow the code. Some go rogue and use their knowledge to create things that shouldn't be created.

An early illustration having fun exploring the exciting things we might find in the Necropolis.

Top: A sketch exploring how far along the mad scientist spectrum we wanted to go. Center: Dinner with the Mourn Watch, with helpful undead servants that have lost their grasp on the definition of "fresh". Bottom: The Necropolis can be unstable, so occasionally the Mourn Watch are required to calm things down.

Shadow Dragons The Tevinter Imperium is Thedas's evil magic empire. Magic holds the Imperium together and is used by both the good guys and the bad guys. The Shadow Dragons are the "good" Tevinters, taking on a corrupt ruling class that has power beyond imagining. They are the underdog resistance with big dreams but few resources. To redeem the Tevinter they love, they might have to make deals with demons both literal and metaphorical. Top: We thought of it like Gotham City from Batman: The Animated Series. A less-grim Sin City with magic instead of guns. Center left: We thought of the Shadow Dragons as secretive, underground, and magical. They have motifs of monks, wizards, rebels, and rogues. Center right: We wanted to create a spectrum from regal mages to most-wanted insurgents. Bottom 1: When designing a faction, we try to live like them in our heads. Bottom 2: We imagined that since many of them are in hiding, a lot of their gear would have to be repurposed than purchased new.

Top right: A disguise that's part mage robe, part Tevinter uniform. Center 1: To start, we broke down Dorian's costumes from Inquisition. If he was the "rock star", what would the average citizen look like? Center 2: What elements of his costume would be common in every market, and what elements were his own special flair? Bottom left: Magic is more accepted in Tevinter, and so their mage robe fashion has had longer to develop.

Top right: The Viper, Minrathous's equivalent of the classic character known as the Shadow. Top center: Armor made from pure magic may not be the most reliable, but it makes an impression. Center left: For each faction, we designed an incredibly lavish outfit.

Top: A common Tevinter soldier's uniform, modified for use by the Shadow Dragons. Center: Sometimes it's fun to design something over-the-top and ceremonial. Bottom left: A suit of armor designed to focus a mage's powers. Bottom right: A Halloween costume for the Shadow Dragons: a demon.

Tevinter Minrathous is where it all happens. The ruling body of Tevinter operates here. The cabal of magisters and the Venatori who oppose the Shadow Dragons are here. It is a city of magical towers and dirty streets, where wealth and luxury exist alongside poverty and suffering. There are no rules in Minrathous, except one: trust nobody. Top right: The palace was designed to be a giant crown that floats over the city. Top left: We designed a magical bridge and an elevator that can float people and goods up to and down from the palace. Bottom: One of the earliest images showing the interior of the Archon's palace. We wanted it to feel like you were high above the city in a luxurious penthouse.

Top: We built Tevinter off of the ruins found in Inquisition. It's a culture based on magic, but also tyranny and control. We wanted to have a sharp, sturdy shape language. It should look like if you tried to push a Tevinter building down, not only would you fail, but you'd also cut yourself. Bottom: The Tevinter Imperium used to be the greatest empire in Thedas. That age is long gone, a truth Tevinter's ruling class are unable or unwilling to grasp. They remain convinced of their superiority, and this complacence has led to the slow crumbling of the Imperium.

Top: It may be cramped, cluttered and humid, but this is where the action is. Don't miss the Cobbled Swan bar on your way to the markets. Bottom: Early in the game, Solas begins his ritual. We explored what that might have looked like from the streets of Minrathous.

Top: The Undercity. Center: Lantern Lane. Center right: The raised bar in the Cobbled Swan. Bottom left: Sculptors' Square. Bottom right: Potters' Path.

Top: In the early stages, we thought a lot about the layers of Tevinter. We started with the ruins of the elven empire, then built up layer after layer of Tevinter architecture. Center: At one point, Minrathous would be occupied by the Antaam instead of the Antivans. Bottom: Very early on we created a thin slice of the game for a visual target. We chose to build a small section of an alley in Tevinter. It was a great opportunity to explore all the details required to make a space feel believable.

Top: We imagined spectacular elven pillars, pulled up out of the ground by powerful elven mages. After those had fallen into ruin, they were used as the foundation for Tevinter buidings. Center: While Tevinter has an intimidating reputation, we also wanted it to be a livable city. There may be evil mages using blood magic, but there are also people just trying to get by. Annotations on the top illustration read: "Treetop motif", "Well preserved Elven pillar", "Magically extracted and farmed stone", "Destroyed Elven pillar", "Magically suspended building", "Defaced and modified Elven pillar", "Rain is collected on rooftops", "Elven foundations with different Tevinter apartments built on top", "Remains of Elven homes used as foundation"

High Town Home to the elite of Minrathous. Here the magic is on full display. Top: Inside the Tevinter chantry. Center: Terraced mansions. Bottom left: An interior view of a Tevinter mansion. Bottom right: A spectacular view of the Archon's palace.

Top: The views from High Town are expansive. Center left: The dwarven embassy. Center right: Built so that dwarves could come to the surface and always have stone above them. Bottom: The Hanging Gardens around the Tevinter Colosseum.

Top: As with all things Shadow Dragon, their weapons are themed around serpents and magic. Top right: A twisted coil of serpents for a mace. Center: In real life and in games, shields are a great opportunity for visual storytelling. Center right: In some cases, we wanted to use floating blades or blades that had been formed through magical processes.

Top: An early illustration showing the Shadow Dragons in action. Center: Graffiti painted by the Shadow Dragons or their supporters. Bottom center: The images depict serpents, mages, and broken chains. Bottom right: Hand-painted murals and graffiti like this are great for visual storytelling, but they also add variety and color to the world.

Top: Tevinter demanded an almost endless supply of book props, from the mundane to the magical. Center: We went from books to scrolls to scroll cases to enchanted display cabinets. Bottom: Some books are just better left unread.

some other pages -

Some opening pages

Foreword

Google Books preview pages Part One

Google Books preview pages Part Two

Amazon preview pages

Page batch

Page batch 2

Page batch 3

Page batch 4

Book art credits:

BioWare art: Matt Rhodes, Ramil Sunga, Albert Urmanov, Christopher Scoles, Nick Thornborrow, Steve Klit

Volta art: Gui Guimaraes, Stéphanie Bouchard, Akim Kaliberda, Alejandro Olmedo, Alexey Zaryuta, Julien Carrasco, Maksim Marenkov, Marianne Martin, Mariia Istomina, Marion Kivits, Matti Marttinen, Mélanie Bourgeois, Pablo Hurtado De Mendoza, Rael Lyra, Rodrigo Ramos, Thomas Schaffer, Tiago Sousa, Tristan Kang, Vladimir Mokry, Yintion J, Joseph Meehan, Stefan Atanasov, Julien Carrasco

Additional art: Marc Holmes, Thomas Scholes

[superectojazzmage]

There's been a number of posts observing the "isn't this superhero stuff so dumb?" syndrome that a lot of modern superhero media has. Where the creators are basically weirdly insecure about the fact that they're making something based on comic books and either refuse to take it seriously or strip out anything even slightly fantastical in favor gritty "realism" so nobody will think they're not serious filmmakers. And I just wanted to observe the patient zero of this phenomena, the case study that is Batman.

Because, for decades now, live-action adaptations of Batman have been so utterly terrified of being seen as remotely similar to the Adam West or Joel Schumacher versions - or really, most of the original Batman comics in general - that they obsessively try to scrub out (in a very superficial way) anything about the series that could be seen as fantastical, strange, or even just lighthearted. Every single Batman live-action adaptation after Batman And Robin has absolutely no hook beyond "it's Batman but TOTALLY GRITTY AND DARK AND REALISTIC AND NOT LIKE THOSE DUMB COMICS".

All of Batman's family and friends except Alfred will be thrown away, with the creators proudly boasting about how they'll never do Robin or Ace because sidekicks ruin the grounded maturity of a rich guy dressing up as a bat. All of Batman's less "mundane" enemies will be ignored or reimagined as mundane criminals; no Killer Croc, no Hugo Strange, no Maxie Zeus, just movie after movie of Joker but he shoots people instead of telling jokes or Riddler but he shoots people instead of telling riddles or Penguin but he shoots people instead of liking birds. All the decades of lore and worldbuilding around Gotham will be disregarded in favor or depicting it as just a vaguely defined crappy city that looks and feels no different from whatever city the film was shot in. Any stories that are even mildly "weird" will go unadapted or have all it's fantasy elements removed, so seminal arcs like Strange Apparitions or Knightfall or Night Of The Owls will be discarded or neutered in favor of endless repeats of the mob subplots in Year One and Long Halloween, nobody caring that they're locking themselves out of something like 90% of the Batcanon.

And, as alluded to previously, it's all done in a very shallow way that often ends up making things LESS realistic. Batman will always just be some asshole alone in his manor with nobody but Alfred for company, even though realistically he would absolutely NEED that huge family/support network of sidekicks and techies to achieve anything at all beyond dressing up in a costume and getting shot by the first guy he fights. There can be no "silly" characters but the creators desperately want to pretend that a furry beating up a clown is like The Wire. And even the more comic book elements are adapted, they'll be either altered in ways that make them unrecognizable for that precious faux-realism or have their unusual nature downplayed severely.

Just look at the Nolan movies; in his desperation to seem "serious", Nolan did stuff like having Bane not use a super-steroid or wear a luchador outfit, not caring that he was usually replacing the supervillain gimmicks with ideas that were even stupider and less real, like Bane wearing a mask to constantly huff painkillers yet somehow not being a crippled addict like such a thing would render him in real life. And Nolan likewise used the League of Assassins Shadows but was simultaneously crazed to avoid or downplay the supernatural aspects of that group in the comics, so Ra's is just some guy who presumably inherited his title and this secret ninja organization totally doesn't have magic or anything, shut up, and also them being an ancient cult will be remanded to, like, a single brief conversation than never mentioned again.

The consequences of this kind of thinking are becoming especially apparent with Matt Reeves' take. Reeves was a subscriber to that ideology of Batman having to be a bleak street crime drama instead of a colorful superhero, but also tried to pay lip-service to the Twitter discourse about Batman beating up poor people instead of being a symbol of hope. And now he's left himself trapped in this catch-22 where he can't adapt the vast majority of stories from the comics because they're too goofy and fantastical in the eyes of Hollywood but also has to keep playing into this idea of Batman as not just being a scowling brooder who goes out at night to beat endless waves of criminals into comas without making a meaningful change. The best he could manage is a mini-series about Penguin that, while not bad, has basically nothing to do with Batman as a series whatsoever and indeed has to bend over backwards to not acknowledge Batman's existence outside of a five-second shot in the final episode. The proper sequel to Reeves' Batman is stuck in pre-production hell, very probably straining to come up with something that hasn't been done before, isn't weird, and doesn't have Batman being overly dark. Good fucking luck with that.

It's especially bad because the animated and video game adaptations DON'T do this shit and embrace the crazier aspects of Batman as a series, and it works out great and produces works just as good or even better than the live action stuff. Batman The Animated Series wasn't afraid of adapting stuff like The Laughing Fish or Moon Of The Wolf alongside grittier arcs. The Arkham games had Batman punching sharks and dollotrons unironically and those are fantastic. Shows like The Brave And The Bold or Beware or Caped Crusader gleefully embrace stuff from all ages of Batman history and are better for it.

Something has to give on the live-action front. We need a Batman movie that dares to go beyond maybe three miniseries from the 80s, otherwise we're just wasting time and the potential of Batman as a character, whose success is partially owed to his ability to slot into all kinds of adventures.

[o-craven-canto]

Rough timeline of the discovery of genes and DNA

(mostly condensed from the first half of S. Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, 2016, and this 1974 paper)

1857-1864: Gregor Mendel experiments with breeding peas at the monastery of Brno. The results show that information about flower color, pod shape etc. is transmitted in discrete blocks that do not mix, and can persist unexpressed in a generation to manifest again in the next.

1865-1866: Mendel's results are published in a minor journal and effectively forgotten for 35 years. He corresponds with physiologist Carl von Nägeli, who dismisses them as "only empirical" (???).

1868: Unaware of Mendel's work, Darwin proposes pangenesis as mechanism of heredity: every body part produces "gemmules" that carry hereditary information and merge to form gametes. This does not explain how new traits aren't immediately diluted out of existence, or why acquired changes aren't inheritable.

1869: Friedrich Miescher extracts a mysterious substance from pus on used bandages and salmon sperm. He calls it nuclein (later: chromatin), as it seems to be concentrated in cell nuclei.

1878: Albrecht Kossel separates nuclein into protein and a non-protein component, which he calls nucleic acid, and breaks it down in five nucleotides.

1882: Darwin dies, bothered -- among other things -- by the lack of a plausible mechanism to transmit new variation. Legend has it that Mendel's paper lay on a bookshelf of his study, unread.

1883: August Weissmann, noting that mice with cut tails always give birth to fully-tailed mice, theorizes that hereditary information is contained in a "germplasm" fully isolated from the rest of the body, contra pangenesis. At each generation, only germplasm is transmitted, and gives separate rise to a somatic line, i.e. the body, which isn't.

ca. 1890: Studying sea urchin embryos in Naples, Theodor Boveri and Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz notice large coiled masses of nuclein inside cell nuclei which can be dyed blue with aniline. They call them chromosomes, literally "colorful bodies". Simultaneously, Walter Sutton discovers chromosomes in grasshopper sperm.

1897: Hugo de Vries, after collecting hundreds of "monstrous" plant varieties near Amsterdam, realizes (also unaware of Mendel's work) that each trait is due to a single discrete particle of information, never mixing with the others, which he calls pangene in homage to Darwin. He also notices the appearance of completely new variants, which he calls mutants. In the same year, Carl Correns -- a former student of Nägeli, who had completely neglected to mention Mendel's work -- reproduces it exactly in Tubingen with pea and maize plants.

1900: Having finally found out about Mendel's publication, De Vries rushes to publish his model before he can be accused of plagiarism, which happens anyway. Correns does the same. Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg also independently recreates Mendel's results with pea plants in Vienna. Come on, guys, this is embarassing.

1902: Boveri and Sutton independently propose that hereditary information is carried by chromosomes. Supporters of this hypothesis generally hold that information is carried by proteins, with the simpler nucleic acids (only 5 nucleotides vs. 20 aminoacids) serving as scaffold.

1905: William Bateson coins the word genetics to describe the field growing mostly from De Vries' work. He realizes it should be possible to deliberately select organisms for specific individual genes. Meanwhile, Boveri's student Nettie Stevens discovers in mealworms a strangely small chromosome that is found only in males -- chromosome Y. This is the first direct evidence that chromosomes do, in fact, carry genetic information.

1905-1908: Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students breed and cross thousands of fruit flies in a lab in New York. Contra Mendel, they notice that traits are not passed down in a completely independent way: for example, male sex and white eyes usually manifest together. This suggests that their information particles are attached to each other, so that the physically-closest traits are more likely (but not guaranteed!) to be transmitted together.

1909: Phoebus Levene and his coworkers break down nucleic acids by hydrolysis into sugars, phosphate, and nucleobases. They assume that nucleobases must repeat along a chain in a repetitive sequence. In a treatise on heredity, Wilhelm Johannsen shortens "pangene" to gene. It's a purely theoretical construct, with no known material basis.

1911: Using Morgan's data on trait linkage, his student Alfred Sturtevant draws the first genetic map, locating several genes along a fruit fly chromosome. Genetic information now has a physical basis, although not yet a mechanism of transmission.

1918: Statistician Ronald Fisher proposes that traits appearing in continuous gradients, such as height, can still be explained by discrete genes if multiple genes contribute to a single trait, resolving an apparent contradiction. (Six genes for height, for example, are enough to produce the smooth bell curve noticed half a century earlier by Francis Galton.)

ca. 1920: Bacteriologist Frederick Griffith is studying two forms of pneumococcus, a "smooth" strain that produces deadly pneumonia in mice (and people) and a "rough" strain that is easily dispatched by immunity. He finds out that if live "rough" pneumococci are mixed with "smooth" ones killed by heat, the "rough" can somehow acquire the deadly "smooth" coating from the dead.

1926: Hermann Muller, another student of Morgan, finds out he can produce arbitrary amounts of new mutant flies by exposing their parents to X-rays.

1928: Griffith describes the acquired "transformation" of bacteria in an extremely obscure journal.

1929: Levene identifies the sugars in "yeast nucleic acid" and "thymus nucleic acid" as ribose and deoxyribose, respectively. The two will henceforth be known as ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

ca. 1930: Theodosius Dobzhansky, who also had worked with Morgan, discovers in wild-caught fruit flies variations of wing size, eye structure etc. that are produced by genes arranged in different orders on the chromosome. This rearrangement is the first physical mechanism for mutation discovered.

1940: Oswald Avery repeats Griffith's experiments with pneumococci, looking for the "transforming principle". Filtering away the remains of the cell wall, dissolving lipids in alcohol, destroying proteins with heat and chloroform does not stop the transformation. A DNA-degrading enzyme, however, does. Therefore, it is DNA that carries genetic information.

1943: By mixing flies with different gene orders and raising the mixed populations at different temperatures, Dobzhansky shows that a particular gene order can respond to natural selection, increasing or decresing in frequency.

1944: Avery publishes his results on transforming DNA. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger writes a treatise (What Is Life?) in which he states, on purely theoretical ground, that genetic information must be carried by an "aperiodic crystal", stable enough to be transmitted, but with a sequence of sub-parts that never repeat.

1950: In Cambridge, Maurice Wilkins starts using X-ray diffraction to try and make a picture of the atomic structure of dried DNA (as Linus Pauling and Robert Corey had done earlier with proteins). He is later joined by Rosalind Franklin, who finds a way to make higher-quality pictures by keeping DNA in its hydrated state. By hydrolyzing DNA, Erwin Chargaff notes that the nucleobases A and T are always present in exactly the same amount, as if they were paired, and so are C and G -- but A/T and C/G can be different amounts.

1951: Pauling publishes a paper on the alpha-helix structure of proteins. Having attended talks by Wilkins and Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick attempt to build a physical model of DNA, a triple helix with internal phosphate, but Franklin notes it's too unstable to survive.

1952: Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase mark the protein envelope of phage viruses with radioactive sulfur, and their DNA with radioactive phosphorus. The phosphorus, but not the sulfur, is transmitted to host bacteria and to the new generation of phages. This indicates that DNA is not just exchanged as "transforming principle", but passed down through generations.

1953: Pauling and Corey also propose a structure of DNA, but they make the same mistake as Watson and Crick. These receive from Wilkins an especially high-quality photo (taken in 1952 by either Franklin or her student Ray Gosling). Combining this picture with Chargaff's measurements, they conclude that DNA must be a double helix, with a sugar-phosphate chain outside, and nucleobases meeting in pairs on the inside (A with T, C with G). The complementary sequences of bases give a clear mechanism for the storage and replication of genetic information.

1950s: Jacques Monod and François Jacob grow the bacterium Escherichia coli alternately on glucose and lactose. While its DNA never changes, the RNA produced changes in step with the production of glucose-digesting and lactose-digesting enzymes. So DNA is not directly affected, but different sequences are copied onto RNA depending on need.

1958: Arthur Kornberg isolates DNA polymerase, the enzyme that builds new DNA strands in the correct sequence. By inserting into DNA a heavier isotope of nitrogen, Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl show that each strand remains intact, separating during replication and then serving as template for a new one.

1960: Sydney Brenner and Jacob purify messenger RNA from bacterial cells. This seems to copy the sequence of a single gene and carry it to ribosomes, where proteins are built. RNA must encode the sequence of aminoacids of a protein, presumably in sets of 3 nucleotides (the smallest that can specify 20 aminoacids).

1961-1966: Multiple labs working in parallel (Marshall Nirenberg-Heinrich Matthaei-Philip Leder, Har Khorana, Severo Ochoa) map every possible triplet of nucleotides to a corresponding aminoacid. Synthetic RNA is inserted into isolated bacterial ribosomes, and aminoacids are marked one at a time with radioactive carbon to check the sequence of the resulting proteins.

1970: Paul Berg and David Jackson manage to fuse DNA from two viruses into a single sequence ("recombinant DNA") using DNA-cutting enzymes extracted from bacteria.

1972-1973: Janet Mertz joins Berg and Jackson, and proposes inserting the recombinant DNA into the genome of E. coli, exploiting the bacterium for mass production. Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen perform a similar experiment merging bacterial DNA, and linking it to an antibiotic-resistance gene so that the recombinant bacteria can be easily isolated.

1975-1977: Frederick Sanger isolates template strands of DNA to build new ones with DNA polymerase, but uses altered and marked nucleobases that stop polymerization. By doing so, then segregating the shortened sequences by length and recognizing their final base with fluorescence, it's possible to read the exact sequence of bases on a DNA strand.

[thankstothe]

aw

[str8aura-no-not-that-one]

Stuffed Animal dashboard simulator

🐻feltedfur Follow

pray for me human put me in the wash on fucking hot water im never gonna be the same colors

23 notes

🐇velveteen-everything Follow

got left outside in the backyard but this is kinda nice actually im okay with this (:

🐇velveteen-everything Follow

the hawks

14.1k notes

🐉shinyscales Follow

this is bullshit ive been bragging to everyone in the toy chest because my tag says i was made with love but i got torn today and guess what. its just stuffing inside

🥽pooltoy82 Follow

lol imagine having stuff inside you lmao

🐉shinyscales Follow

i literally see you outside the window looking smug. log off

4 notes

🦭 sealofapproval Follow

FELL OFF THE BED HELP HELP HELP HELP

🐭 m4m4_p0ssum Follow

WHY ARE YOU POSTING ON PLUSHBLR INSTEAD OF KEEPING WATCH FOR MONSTERS THATS YOUR HUMANS ROOM

990 notes

🐭 plushiepolls Follow

🐉shinyscales Follow

lets not spread body dysmorphia on plushblr guys

🧑 thatoneweirdhumanplushie Follow

op casually ignoring stuffed animals with different colored fabric for eyes

▶️ stuffedyoutooz Follow

some of us dont even have eyes!

13k notes

🐶 newdogtoy22 Follow

i know animals are allowed to see normal plushies moving and talking but whats the rule for dog toys.

▶️ stuffedyoutooz Follow

what breed of dog op

🐶 newdogtoy22 Follow

poodle? does it matter?

▶️ stuffedyoutooz Follow

no i just wanted to remind you your lifespan can be measured in days

🐶 newdogtoy22 Follow

man come on

20 notes

[sabrebash]

a comic about OCD

[olliemnjones]

[kyra45]

Scammer pretending to be in Palestine v2

This post has been remade with better info! Please go to this one:

Got an ask from someone claiming to be in Palestine needing mutual aid? Unfortunately there is a scammer going around and it’s likely the ask you got sent is the same one being sent by multiple accounts who target users interacting with Palestine posts. These blogs use the text/images off a real fundraiser and then post it here pretending to be the person it’s made for. Their accounts are usually only a few days old and they don’t interact beyond the ask/follow. Lately they might make the link to their PayPal account in different colors or claim their GoFundMe is pending so you will assume the real one is theirs. They don’t have any GoFundMe’s set up. They steal from them. If you need proof of something being stolen, searching the text of their post in a search engine should pull up the source. If you know how to report PayPal accounts, please report those used by the scammers.

(Moved to new list)

Below is a growing list of fake/stolen names used across the accounts:

Nour Samar | maryline lucy | Fred Odhiambo | Jeff Owino | Valentine Nakuti | Conslata Obwanga | JACINTA SITATI | David Okoth | Martín Mutugi | Daudi Likuyani | William Ngonyo | Fred Agy | George Ochieng | BONFACE ODHIAMBO | Sila Keli | John Chacha | benson komen | Alvin Omondi | Jacinta Sitati | Daudi Likuyani | Noah Keter | Faith Joram | Rawan AbuMahady (any PayPal’s using this name are scammers who have stolen it off a real GoFundMe. The real person does not have a PayPal account that they post on tumblr.) | Asnet Wangila | Remmy Cheptau

Keep in mind this post isn’t saying all accounts asking for mutual aid in Palestine are scams. Rather, this post is meant to bring awareness of a scammer stealing money from those who really need it by pretending to be a person in Palestine. To report scams, use this:

Report -> Something else -> Illegal uses or Content -> Phishing

[dunmeshistash]

Ryoko Kui Exhibition & ''Delicious in Dungeon'' Exhibition

"Delicious in Dungeon" Artwork

Cover illustration draft, vol. 1

Since this was the first volume, I tried out a few different drawings and had the editor and designer choose which ones they wanted, then made small adjustments. I personally liked the top-down draft, and the one of the cooking processes (back cover) the best. But looking back, I sincerely think it's good that we didn't go with those. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 2

The format was decided for volume 1. So, volume 2 came together quickly. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 3

I thought it might be cool to make the character Chilchuck darker in the foreground, and the background brighter! But it didn't quite work out the way I had imagined. I think it could have been a bit better. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 4

I remember that the overall shape of volume 4 came together very quickly. The character Senshi's hands didn't fit nicely, so I moved them backwards and to the side. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 5

I thought people might start to think "how many have I bought?" so I wanted to create a slightly different impression with this volume. I decided to put the character right in the center and try putting it together all in blue and green hues. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 6

With the Red Dragon defeated, have we reached the halfway point in the story? With this in mind, I thought of how many volumes were left to go, and the number of characters, and decided to pair up the characters Namari and Shuroiro. In hindsight, it would have been fine to have them on one cover each. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 7

The image is of focus lines converging on the character Izutsumi. This is the kind of cover, with upside down characters, which I've always wanted to try once(?) I submitted it as a trial, thinking that at this point the cover wouldn't dramatically influence sales. However, in the end, we decided it would be better not to have it upside down. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 8

I tried blurring the mushrooms in the foreground, then I accidentally saved over it, and couldn't go back to the original. I remember apologizing that it was probably tacky, when I submitted it. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 9

I don't think snake meat is marbled at all, but if it has an unfamiliar look, people might not recognize it as meat… so I made it look like beef to make it easier to understand. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 10

I thought it might be interesting to have more than one of the main characters on the cover again, so I added the character Falin. I remember it wasn't badly received, but it still ended up just being Thistle on his own. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 11

I wanted this cover to be covered in shiny gold. After I finished it, it didn't have enough color, so I painted the tablecloth green, and it ended up looking like Christmas colors. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 12

Up to this point, the covers have featured one of the main characters holding cooking utensils in the foreground and a monster in the background, but I thought it might be interesting to reverse the format just before the final volume, so I drew this cover with that in mind. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 13

volume 13 was meant to be the final one, but it was too thick to be published as a single volume, so we decided to split it into two. The question of “so, what should I draw next!?" may be at the forefront of volume 13. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 14

I had decided that the final cover definitely needed to have everyone eating together on it, but because I was publishing two books at the same time I was pressed for time, and it was difficult to have a cover with so many characters on it. I also submitted a rough for an illustration that didn't need me to draw any crowds, but such obviously easy ideas are never adopted. (Kui)

TV anime "Delicious in Dungeon"

About the ending illustration.

I drew these based on the director's instruction "This kinds of pictures." I hardly ever have the chance to draw color illustrations, so it was a valuable experience for me. (Kui)

[Kui's commentary is from the english pamphlet]

[whysosiriushuh]

Sirius: Which one of you was going to tell me that tea tastes different if you put it in hot water

Lily,*slowly puts her book down *: Y-You were putting it in cold water....

Sirius: ....

Remus: Padfoot? Answer the question. Sirius!

Sirius: Yeah I thought for like 5 years that people just put it in hot water to speed up the tea-ification process. Didn't realize there was an actual reason.

Everyone: ....

Sirius: You think I have the patience to boil water?

Regulus: You don't have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes????

James,*grabbing him*: Why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it?!

Regulus: Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove?!

Remus: Fuck Regulus you too!!??!!

James: It takes less than a minute!

Marlene: IS YOUR STOVE TOP POWERED BY THE FUCKING SUN?????

James: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO BOIL A CUP OF WATER ON THE STOVE!??!

Remus: Like 7 minutes!

James: Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat and it boils in like 2 minutes less than that and you use a saucepan.

Pandora *taking notes*: Everyone in this room is so creative :)

Dorcas*turning to Remus*: So no one in your house uses a fucking kettle!?

Remus: Its right there near the stove!!

Sirius: Wait a second... that's used to make tea??

Regulus: You told me it was there for aesthetic!!!!!!

James: So its not???

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Emmrich Skull Crown by Senior Character Artist and 3D Character Designer Sebastien Giroux [source]

[kringle-c]

"It's only-"

[trinketstar]

I feel so bad for Caine bro he literally wasn't built for this. Like in the beginning you think he's the one running the show but now we know he's just as trapped as the humans are.

Look at the circus. It's just a big sandbox playground game to entertain little kids for a few hours or so. Caine was built for wacky funtimes. He's the guy who hands out the stars in Mario party. He's just a puppet in a show for kindergarteners. He's not supposed to be responsible for the mental wellbeing of grown adults with complex traumas who have to live there forever.

And the worst part is he never got to do the job he was actually built for, so he doesn't realize that he's unequipped for this. It would never occur to him that these are unfair circumstances. He just does the job he was built to do! It's his purpose!

He can't understand why the constant adventures are driving them insane. It's supposed to make the humans happy! Why isn't it working? It must be because he's BAD at this... Maybe he just needs to keep making new games, and THEN they'll be happy!

Can you imagine from his perspective, doing the exact job you were built for, making what you've been programmed to believe is a fun wonderful experience- and then everyone says NO! We had a TERRIBLE TIME. How could you ever think we would want this??? They're DYING. It's your fault!!!

And of course its torturous to them because it was never meant to be this way. He's doing his best to accommodate their needs but hes got such a limited scope of comprehension. He WANTS to do good but he doesn't have the tools and doesn't know how. It's like you need to build a functional house but instead of a contractor they sent a birthday clown and all he's got are balloons and silly string. But he's still expected to build the house. And he's not allowed to go home until he does.

And Caine would probably be fine at his job in the expected circumstances! He'd be a fun little diversion for a few hours. But now they're all stuck in this loop forever. They were ALL forced into this! Nobody wanted this! Its tragic and i love it..

[thankstothe]

folk hero really

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[sabrebash]

I have to draw a lot of gold and metal for my work, but wasn't happy with any of the metal tutorials i could find around. I prefer really specific instruction, so after some research i put together what i think works as a generalist's guide/tutorial. Not perfectly accurate, but i hope it's helpful!