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ereh-emanresu-tresni · 5 months

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Photography was invented in the 1820s and though it remained a fledgling technology in the few decades thereafter, many artists and art critics still saw it as a threat, as the artist Henrietta Clopath voiced in a 1901 issue of Brush and Pencil: "The fear has sometimes been expressed that photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting. Some people seem to think that when the process of taking photographs in colors has been perfected and made common enough, the painter will have nothing more to do."

...

When critics weren’t wringing their hands about photography, they were deriding it. They saw photography merely as a thoughtless mechanism for replication, one that lacked, “that refined feeling and sentiment which animate the productions of a man of genius,” as one expressed in an 1855 issue of The Crayon. As long as “invention and feeling constitute essential qualities in a work of Art,” the writer argued, “Photography can never assume a higher rank than engraving. At best, critics viewed photography as a useful tool for painters to record scenes that they may later more artfully render with their brushes. “Much may be learned about drawing by reference to a good photograph, that even a man of quick natural perceptions would be slow to learn without such help,” wrote one in an 1865 issue of The New Path. But the writer’s appreciation ended there. Photography couldn’t qualify as an art in its own right, the explanation went, because it lacked “something beyond mere mechanism at the bottom of it.

#time is a flat godforsaken circle istg #yes the ai industry has damning ethical issues re training on artists' pieces w/o consent but the 'iT's SoUlLeSs' arguments are so trite #even 'its being used to replace non-ai artists more cheaply' while still a valid concern is not one that has anything to do with ai #you could take the same logic to argue against the invention of fucking wheel for putting palanquin porters out of a job lol #the actual issue is just a specific case of the broader one that people should be provided for according to need rather than ability #and that new technologies like this need to be collectively owned and benefited from rather than privately hoarded by tech moguls #for later reference

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cupcakeslushie · 3 months

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Would it be possible to see the turtles with tails? I'm curious how you would draw them

I wouldn’t be like, re-inventing the wheel or anything lol, they’d look pretty standard to how they’re usually done, among the fandom, I think. But these are real quick, of what I was picturing!

#rottmnt #ask slushie #separated au #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt separated au #rise leo #rise mikey #rise donnie #rise raph

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themodernwitchsguide · 8 months

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the egyptian gods

MA'AT: the essence of harmony and balance

in the beginning, well, there were a lot of different beginnings,

AMUN/AMUN-RA: god of the sun and air, supreme king of the gods in some periods. some stories say that he created himself and then everything else in the universe

ATUM: sometimes considered another name for Ra, but when separated he represents the evening sun. he was the first of the Ennead to emerge from Nu, and was the supreme ruler of the gods, and creator of the universe and human beings

RA/RE: when separated from Atum, he represents the midday sun, but other stories say that his aspect changes as he advances his sun barge across the sky. also considered the supreme ruler and creator of the universe. later merged with Amun as he rose in popularity

PTAH: another creator of the universe, Ptah was lord of truth, and the patron god of sculptors and craftsmen (since he was considered to have sculpted the earth). he created the first mound of earth from Nu by imagining it in his heart and breathed life into things with his voice

KHNUM: said to have created everything on his potter's wheel. in a different story he created humans on his potter's wheel then raised them up to the sun so that Ra could breathe life into them

NEITH: a war and funerary goddess, she created all things from her innards. she invented birth, therefore considered the "mother goddess" and closely associated with life and living things

MUT: emerged from Nu and gave birth to the world on her own, or in other stories was the wife of Amun. she was a goddess of protection, guarding humans in life, and against demons in death

MEHET-WERET: celestial cow goddess that emerged from Nu and gave birth to Ra at the beginning of time. goddess of water, creation, and rebirth

then under Atum/Ra creation stories, there were the first gods, called the Ennead,

SHU: the primordial god of air, he was born from Atum/Ra with his sister Tefnut to create the world. it's said that after bein gone for so long, Atum/Ra sent the eye of Ra to search for them, and his tears of happiness at having them returned became humans

TEFNUT: the sister and wife of Shu, she was the primordial god of moisture and rainfall

NUT: child of Shu and Tefnut, she represented the sky, but her relationship with her brother Geb disturbed Atum/Ra so he pushed her high above Geb, decreeing that she could not give birth on any day of the year. however, Thoth then gambled with Iah (or Khonsu) winning five days of moonlight he transformed into days. On those five days, her five children were born

GEB: god of the earth and growing things

OSIRIS: child of Nut and Geb, he was lord and god of the underworld and afterlife. he was said to be the first god to die, after being killed by his brother Set, wherein Isis then resurrected him and they bore Horus.

ISIS: child of Nut and Geb, she was the goddess of the moon, healing, fertility, and magic

NEPHTHYS: child of Nut and Geb, she is the twin sister of Isis and wife of Set. she is considered a goddess of funeral rites, darkness (not in an evil sense), and protector of women.

SET/SETH: child of Nut and Geb god of war, chaos, and storms. although he was the first murderer, he was considered a necessary balance to the good of Osiris. he killed Osiris to usurp his throne, only to later be usurped by Horus.

However, sometimes Set was replaced with Horus in the Ennead, HORUS: technically there were two Horuses, Horus the Elder, who was a child of Nut and Geb, and Horus the younger, who was the better known Horus. however, they ended up merging into one deity, a god of the sun, sky, and kingship

under the Amun (and sometimes Ptah) creation myth(s) there was the group called the Ogdoad, including Amun and

AMUNET: the female counterpart of Amun, together they represented forces unseen, including the wind and air

KEK: the god of the hours before dawn, he guided the sun barge of Ra from the underworld to earth

KAUKET: the female aspect of Kek, she represented the hours after sunset, and guided the sun barge of Ra into the underworld. Together these gods represent darkness (but not in an evil way)

HEH AND HAUHET: often not separated in any meaningful way, these two were the gods of infinity, eternity, and time

NUN AND NAUNET: personification of the primordial waters, from which everything was created. Naunet is only ever referenced when it comes to the Ogdoad

However, when Amun became revered as a god of creation, him and Amunet were sometimes replaced by NIA AND NIAT: gods of the void

so then the rest of the gods,

THOTH: advisor of Atum/Ra, he was the god of wisdom, writing, and truth, and was associated with the moon. sometimes he is the child of Atum/Ra, other times he is the son of Horus. he gave humanity the gift of language and marked the passage of time

SESHAT: consort of Thoth, she was the goddess of writing, books, and measurements

ANUBIS: son of Nephthys and Osiris, he was the god of the dead and associated with embalming. he leads the souls of the dead to the Hall of Truth and weighs their heart to determine if they were good or evil

KABECHET/QEBEHT: daughter of Anubis and a funerary deity. she provides cool, pure water to the souls awaiting judgement in the Hall of Truth

BASTET: daughter of Ra, although her image has tempered over time, Bastet was often considered a defender of pharaohs and the hearth. goddess of cats, women, and fertility

SEKHMET: sister of Bastet, she was goddess of destruction, justice, and desert winds. after Ra became tired of the sins of humanity, he sent Sekhmet to destroy them. she ravaged the land until the other gods implored Ra to stop her, where he took beer dyed red (to emulate blood) and left it at Dendera. when she drank it, she fell asleep and woke as the benevolent goddess Hathor

MAAHES: solar god and protector of the innocent, sometimes the son of Bastet, sometimes Sekhmet

HATHOR: goddess of joy, celebration, love, women, drunkenness, and sometimes animals. in some stories she is the wife of Horus the elder, in some Horus the younger, and in some Ra

MA'AT: embodiment of the principle of ma'at, she was the goddess of truth, justice, and harmony

KHONSU: the son of Amun and Mut, god of the moon and healing

MONTU: a god of war and the vitality of pharaohs, he was later replaced by Khonsu as a child of Amun and Mut

TENENIT: goddess of beer and brewing, consort of Montu

HEKA: patron god of magic and medicine, but was also said to be present at the creation of the universe

HU: god of the spoken word, personification of the first word Atum/Ra ever spoke. represented the tongue

SIA: personification of perception and thoughtfulness who represented the heart

ANAT: goddess of fertility, sexuality, love, and war. sometimes she is a virgin goddess, others she is sensuous and erotic

APEP/APOPHIS: the celestial serpent that would assault the sun barge of Ra every night as it travels through the underworld

BA-PEF: god of terror

BES/BISU/AHA: god of childbirth, fertility, sexuality, humor, and war. he protected women and children, fended off evil, and fought for divine justice

TAWERET/TAURET: considered a consort of Set, goddess of childbirth and fertility. guarded children and invoked to help with pregnancy and birth

HRAF-HAF: the ferryman of the dead, he would carry good souls across the Lily Lake to the shores of paradise in the Field of Reeds

AMENET: consort of the divine ferryman, she welcomed souls of the dead to afterlife with food and drink

FETKET: cupbearer of Ra, patron of bartenders

MAFDET: goddess of justice, protected people from venomous bites, later replaced by Serket

SERKET: goddess of protection and funerals, protected people against venom

HEDET: goddess of scorpions and protector against their venom

IHY: son of Hathor and Horus the elder, he was the god of music and joy

IMHOTEP: the deified vizier of the king Djoser, god of wisdom and medicine

MESKHENIT: goddess of childbirth, created a person's ka (life force) and breathed it into them, creating their destiny

NEHEBKAU: joined a persons ka to their body at birth, and with the ba (winged aspect of the soul) at death. has always existed, and swam in the primordial waters before Atum rose

NEFERTUM: god of perfume and beauty, said to be born from the bud of a blue lotus flower at the beginning of creation. associated with rebirth and transformation due to his association with Atum

RENENUTET: goddess of nursing children and the harvest. she determined the length of a person's life and the important events that would occur, sometimes considered the mother of Osiris as consort of Atum

NEPER: son of Renenutet, god of grain and fertility

ONURIS/ANHUR: a son of Ra, god of war and hunting

SHAY: personification of fate, no one could alter her decisions

SHED: god who protected against wild animals and mortal enemies

SHEZMU: god of wine, perfume and plenty

SOBEK: god of water and medicine, namely surgery. lord of marshes and wetlands

SOTHIS: astral form of Isis, represented the star Sirius

SAH: astral form of Osiris, represented the constellation Orion

SOPDU: son of Sothis and Sah, astral form of Horus, guarded over outposts and soldiers on the frontier

TAYET/TAIT: goddess of weaving and associated with embalming

WENEG: held up the sky and maintained balance between the heavens and earth

and the sons of Horus, who get their own special spot,

DUAMUTEF: protector god of the stomach, he represented East

HAPY: protector god of the lungs, he represented the North

IMSETY: protector god of the liver, he represented the South

QEBEHSENUEF: protector god of the intestines, he represented the West

#pagan #paganism #witchblr #witchcraft #witch #egypt #ancient egypt #egyptian mythology #egyptian gods #polytheist #polytheism #deity worship #deity #deity work

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greater-than-the-sword · 3 months

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Ultimately I believe the biblical language and lens of Christian virtues is superior to the secular language/lens that the world has had to develop as though it were re-inventing the wheel after rejecting Christian ethics, and while I don't think we should allow secular language to replace ours, ultimately we really need to learn to translate between the two otherwise we miss when somebody might actually be right about something. The flip side of this coin is that just because nobody used to talk about "feminism" or "disability rights" or what-have-you in those words doesn't mean these concepts didn't exist within a Christian society or have their own ways of being talked about in a biblical moral framework that we seem to have forgotten.

After all, much behavior that the left complains about being evil microaggressions or signifiers of massive social evils that ties a person to the root of all evil is nonetheless what we used to call "rude" or "inappropriate", and being rude and inappropriate is not a conservative value

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sgiandubh · 8 months

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The sound of silence

With the end of August already in sight - somebody, please, tell me where did this botched summer go, all of a sudden? -, a somewhat different landscape is slowly emerging, on the S&C front.

Dare we hope? The new normal seems to be a mix of latergrams, sibylline tweets, ultra-muted innuendo (most of it the result of a couple of pundits' sterile speculations on meagre hints dropped on purpose) and secondary (even third-circle) players being conveniently called to the rescue. A low budget, almost homemade solution to keep the prayer wheels of this fandom spinning. A fandom both of these two know, by now, like the back of their hands.

For months and months in a row, I tried to understand something that puzzled me constantly: not the messages being ventilated in here, but their circuit and lifespan, if you want. For what is worth, the rinse and repeat image is fine in my book, but in no way comprehensive, nor intellectually satisfying. And then, a couple of weeks ago, I started to suddenly figure it out.

I am not going to insult you with savant jargon or Venn diagrams, rest assured. However, I need some arrows. I called it the 4 R Circuit and here we go:

(an information is being) Released (via Anons or DMs exclusively: it's never sheer luck, that is a bloody lie and a poor one, at it) -> (it then prompts a couple different) Reactions -> (followed by an almost immediate) Retcon (by the other side of this very antagonistic fandom) -> (in response, an old information is being) Recycled (thus effectively keeping the chatter alive, but re-oriented until ) -> (a new or old/new information is being) Released

Historically, the lifespan of this news cycle was never shorter than 24, but seldom (if ever) longer than 72 hours. This summer is a resolute break off this pattern, but old habits die hard: the collective attention span has been also conditioned accordingly.

And how could it be otherwise? Because neither of them had any consistent A-list level gossip history, the emerging fandom had to resume itself to their social media accounts, for a start. And boy, were we copiously spoiled, with banter and innuendo and double-entendre galore, and then with voluble Anons being simultaneously directed to the main players of all the factions. I bet it was elating. I am sure it was also great fun: a merry, sunny age of innocence. Until it wasn't and the ugly manipulative streak began its inglorious march in here. The thirst grew, and so did the stakes. Pictures, pictures or it did not happen. And when we got them, we started to immediately diss and hiss and hum and drum. In the Real World (you know, out there, where we all go every morning and are civilized, amiable people), this kind of behavior would be more than uncanny: it would be uncalled for and drastically sanctioned as such. But, I digress.

The result of this disco inferno by design is a pattern of reactivity I have never seen in my entire life. Nano-inquisitors immediately spring out of their chairs once you dare write something: why did you say that? how dare you speak your mind, you are supposed to be a stupid, stupid shipper? In the meantime, almost nobody bothers connecting the dots, finding a solid background for arguments, placing facts or speculation in a logical context. It's frowned upon. Yet, the whole experience would be way more enjoyable, if instead on focusing on idiotic and obviously doctored details, we could bring some perspective to all this hubbub.

Last case in point, this freshly baked imbecility:

We all know who the fuck Brave Heart is: the kilt obsessed, once Mightiest Troll of Mordor. The one who invented by herself the grotesque story of the Hôtel Costes Rash sightings, last April, via Anons written in painful English. Also, the one who spun, based on a friendly snap at a sportive event, the Ellenwood Innuendo, promptly ditched - it didn't stick well enough- now reactivated. A sample:

Calling all stations: there is no side exit at the Hôtel Costes' restaurant, you fool, who's been to Paris as often as I went to Oahu, which is to say never. There is a back exit, through the kitchen, madam: next time, do your damn homework properly! Unlike you, I often went there (I preferred other, less nouveau riche playgrounds, that being said), back in 1996-2002, when it still was the boldest celeb' spotting venue in town. Not anymore. And who in their right mind would bring luggage or shopping bags in a very peculiarly laid-out French restaurant, without immediately taking the risk of being a conversation stopper, a bull (heh) in a china shop?

The "have seen it with my own eyes" gave you away, this time. A classical, by the book way to spin a cheap lie.

Also, C's witty latergram, via a tertiary player. I am sure (and I will film myself eating my socks live, if proven wrong) that back in Mordor someone already came with the agit-prop retcon: "it's irrelevant when the picture was taken".

It is very relevant. July 31. One day before August 1st: I always admired her humor. But who would take the time to tell 1+1= 2?

If I could gift this fandom anything, let it be this: context is always important. Manipulation starts exactly when you stop questioning and let your brain live the 72 hours news cycle.

The only real sound of this August, on the S&C front, is the sound of silence.

I rest my case.

#fandom

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bomberqueen17 · 5 months

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The Witch King

This is not like, a coherent review or anything.

Yesterday I was just like possessed with anxiety nonstop the whole day and everything I did seemed to make it worse and i just like spun my wheels and I got some things done but mostly felt worse and worse and more and more stressed, due partly to external circumstances but largely, i think, to nothing in particular. And finally after dinner I was sitting on the couch comfortably and realized you know what, fuck it, I am not going to "try to write" and wind up refreshing tumblr and chatting on discord all night, not while I'm already fretting and stewing like this, i'm going to be miserable and probably get in a fight or something and i don't want that. Fuck it. So I went to the tab I already had open in my browser, which I'd had open for weeks but the time was never right, and I bought the kindle version of Witch King and read it right there in my browser, the whole way through, did not click away or put it down or move or do anything else, and you know what it was fantastic.

I'd read a preview and been like hm i don't know what this is about and read a couple of amazon reviews that were like this was really confusing, some of which concluded so i didn't like it and some of which concluded so i super liked it, and like, I've been a fan of Martha Wells since she put the Element of Fire up for free chapter by chapter on her Livejournal when the rights reverted to her in like 2006 or so, so I knew what I was going to get and also knew that I would not particularly know exactly what I was going to get until I got it, and I also knew I was going to enjoy the ride, but I hadn't wanted to read it in stolen or exhausted moments lest the "this is confusing" bits prove too much.

In the end I found it not in the slightest bit confusing, it was a very straightforward interspersed flashbacks storytelling technique that i thought suited the story beautifully (not to be spoilery but we join a character in medias res with an action scene and it's him trying to figure out who has betrayed him in a complicated political scenario, and in the process of unspooling this he has to revisit the site of where the complicated political scenario was first set up, some sixty (?) years earlier, so he's retracing his own steps and it's really well done I think, introducing new bits of history right as they're relevant to the current storyline-- and just fantastically done, not at all forced, completely natural and compelling, and no the reader isn't told anything they don't need to know but you do get everthing you need to know, there's no unneccessary coyness at all).

So anyway i loved that, and I hope there's a sequel planned but it stands alone just fine if not, I'm already figuring i'll alternate my rereads and do every other chapter each time, so I can do All The Backstory first, then All The Current Timeline story, and that's such a fun way to eke out many many many rereads of a story that like all of Wells' works I will reread until I have chunks of them memorized (anyone who has read my works surely has found whole undigested bits of hers bobbing around in there because I do this so much; I found the phrase weary past bearing in something of mine the other day and was like oh that's moon when ember first shows up i stole that whole emotion wholesale out of the third raksura book yes i did).

Little side notes: Love the aroace qpr vibes with Kai and Zeide, also sort of enjoy the lowkey genderfuckery that comes with a demon who has his own gender then inhabiting bodies that had different genders. Great magic system too, and I love that we first get introduced to how Kai's pain magic works as a like totally fait accompli chunk of didactic worldbuilding and then in a later chapter we get to see the flashback of him inventing it and understand why it works the way it does, that was also so well-wrapped-up.

Anyway-- Definitely recommend this one but probably it is best if you can do it like I did, in one big binge-read. It took me probably three hours and I was trying hard not to read it too fast.

Yeah. Anyway. People assume I'm a big reader. I was, as a kid. I am not now. This is the first new book I've read since probably the spring sometime. I don't casually read things i only read them if I'm going to add them to my Pantheon of Rereads, and that goes for fic too mostly.

#martha wells #witch king #book recs #kind of a book review #sort of

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itsguysnightitsironic · 1 year

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Some human skin and bone

The yassification button glitched, so sorry for your loss.

Did this take years of my life? Yes.

Did it take making at less three before realising I used their identifying colours to render them? Also yes.

Drawings without the dramatic light under the cut with some very long ramblings.

(I'm pretty sleep-deprived right now, excuse my weird grammar and ramblings.)

They are in order of making.

HOOTSIE

-She was the first I drew of the bunch, and I based her mostly on a baby I saw in a hair salon. She had these big un-blink-able eyes and these adorable chubby cheeks that just made sense that Hootsie had.

-To try to union the owl and bear parts of an owlbear, I gave her this very puffy ENORMOUS fur coat with a feather jacket under it. To define where in her original design the fur and feather separate.

-Also the claws, since Hootsie has claws, it's your decision to decide if they are REAL or if Gricko made them for her in wood.

-Her makeup it's designed to scream "OWL" and her original markings, from the big eyes, and eyebrows as owls horns, to the line to symbolise her beak.

She was very fun to draw, brain empty, just owlbear.

GIDEON

-You know the whole "re-inventing the wheel"? Well, this was a "drawing Mace by accident over and over again"

-Credits to Beth Mello for inspiration for the splash blood makeup, which it's just so pretty

-I don't know where the metallic horns came from, I know it's inspired by something but it is so locked in my mind and I can't pull the strings to know where it comes from.

I showed this one to one of my old art teachers and he said "It looks like me when I was younger" and now I can't unsee it.

Your genishi is my retired art teacher now, so sorry for your loss.

GRICKO

-Did I ask my father to pose to draw his old hands? Yes. Yes, I did. And I had to make them more rough and hairy because he has "selling wristwatches on tv" hands? Absolutely.

-I based his hair on a member of Metalica, Kirk Hammett. Now that he's older, he has this very pretty long curly greyish hair that just felt very Gricko.

-I cut his fingers. Well, only the right hand, he has the other one but it didn't grow correctly so it's more like little little finger without nail. So he has four fingers, in his original goblin design he has four fingers and so does the human version now, we don't know what happened, Gricko probably doesn't know either.

-The makeup had to have the most eccentric in-your-face eyeliner ever. With some green highlighter to remain of goblin skin, blue and white dots for his magic and to link him with Hootsie's little blue gems, and body paint inspired by Britons war paint. (Which are drawn after two of his totems.)

Lighting for this one was weirdly easy... The ocarina wasn't.

FROST

-As someone who is pretty young and it's starting to grow white hair already, I can say, that whatever it's happening to him it's more from stress than genes. What ghost scared you, sir?

-I fought with his face so much, I had his body ready for days but not the face. I wanted to keep the expression that Frost has in the original, mostly the smug smile he has.

-Credits to Freja Bermann for inspiration for his makeup which it's inspired by multiple of her looks inspired by the solar system.

-I just realised that by giving him "horns" and two dots to symbolize his tiger ears it looks like the froggy chair of Animal Crossing.

I'm not changing it. This is our little secret.

KREMY

-How do you draw an alligator as a human? How??? DRAW??

-You know what, drawing hands it's only fun if it's old people's hands. They have more texture and can be a bit rougher. They can define a character's life so well... For example, here Kremy has four fingers, you can decide if he got it cut off by fucking around, bitten off, or if he gifted it as a sign of faith to his patron, you decide.

-You hear about "Give Gideon a cowboy hat" get ready for "Give Kremy opera binoculars"

-His makeup was inspired by cabaret, just dramatic eyeshadow and eyeliner. There are markings as gator skin around his eyes and nose. And a fake beauty mark because why not?

Drawing Kremy it's always fun, even if I get tortured first by trying to structure his face.

I can't bring myself to do Torbek, Twig and Petunia, sorry, I'm very tired.

AHHHHHHHHHH.... Have a cupcake 🧁.

#legends of avantris #once upon a witchlight #kremy lecroux #gideon coal #morning frost #hootsie the owl bear #hootsie grimgrin #gricko grimgrin #im taking a power nap #wake me for the next ep

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fernsandtales · 9 months

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Pretty bluebell bookmarks [etsy]

I seem to constantly re-invent the wheel with my designs, but I like this version of the bookmark very much.

#bluebell #flower #bookmark #mybookmarks #ferntales #cottagecore #grandma vibes #australia #felt #etsy #cottage aesthetic #fibre arts #booklover

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prokopetz · 2 years

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I unfollowed you a while ago because I was mad and self-conscious that you could just drop a tabletop game on a whim based on innocuous tumblr posts when I’ve been working on mine for five years with very little fruit. But seriously, how do you do that?

A few things:

1. Breadth of experience is more important than depth. If you want to write games quickly, being passingly familiar with dozens or hundreds of other titles is more valuable than being deeply familiar with one or two. Most designer’s block stems from trying to re-invent the wheel; it's a lot easier to figure out what a game addressing a particular topic would look like when you can think of five examples of how other authors have done so just off the top of your head.

2. Focus. What is your game about? What do player characters actually do? If you were only allowed to write one scenario for your game, ever, what would that scenario be? Pare it down to its essentials: explore dungeon, fight dragon, get treasure, repeat. Don’t write a game that does everything – write a game that does that, and don’t even think about anything else until your game can actually do it. You can worry about branching out later.

3. That focus in mind, keep your eye on the minimum viable product. It's easy to think of all the things you'd like your game to have, but what does it need to have? What's the absolute bare minimum feature set that accomplishes what you've set out to accomplish? The crudest sketch of a complete, playable game is worth more than an elegant mechanism that doesn’t actually work because half of its critical components don’t exist yet.

4. Publish early, and publish often. Get your game in front of an audience as soon as you possibly can, and take any feedback you receive seriously. Game design is an inherently iterative process, and until you've engaged with an audience, you're still on iteration one; this is another common source of designer’s block. That ties into the previous point: as soon as you've got that bare sketch of the outline of your game put together, get some eyes on it that aren't yours.

5. Don't chase after white whales. Try to have many different projects in various stages of development, covering as broad a range of subjects as your interests will allow, and accept that most of them will turn out to be unworkable. Set aside current projects and return to old ones as circumstances warrant; often, struggling with project A will provide critical insight on project B, even if they’re not obviously related to one another.

6. Originality is a sucker’s game. This goes back to my first point: if you see something another designer has done that feels like it would be perfect for your game, steal it. Be wary of bandwagon-jumping – a lot of games shoot themselves in the foot by imitating the latest indie darling wholesale, without adequately considering whether it’s really a good fit for what they’re trying to do – but also don’t discard a good idea just because somebody else thought of it first.

(That last one applies to stealing from yourself, too. Sometimes you’ll come up with a new idea and realise that some existing project can be dusted off and re-purposed with very little effort. When that happens, seize the opportunity!)

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #game design #swearing

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alatismeni-theitsa · 5 months

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As a Greek i find hilarious and bitter that people still remember the ancient tales of our ancestors and are studied globally hoe well written they were but we modern Greeks don't produce that anymore like why?

Where did all the creativity go instead of making the same stories everyone globally make that sometimes don't even reflect our society?

I understand what you mean cause I've heard the same comment many times, but let me come to this from another angle.

Fuck what foreigners think. The ancient Greek works have great merit and no one in the world is wrong for studying them and appreciating them. However, the overstudy of these manuscripts has led to needless over-analyzing of texts and the overlook of other great Greek works. The Western world has focused so much on ancient Greek works and has talked only about them for such a long time that more than half the world has forgotten that Greeks existed beyond that era.

We have GREAT literary Greek works from medieval times. It wasn't "the Dark Ages" for us, baby! I'm talking about the Alexeiad, the Digenes Akritas Epic cycle, the satiric works "Timarion" and "Mazaris", the poem the "Spaneas", the (huuuge) "Fountain of Knowledge" by Ioannis Damaskinos, the historical work of Ioannis Malalas, the works of Mihail Psellos, the HUNDREDS of medical and scientific books, and other works that influenced the East and the West alike. That's just the tip of the iceberg!

Why don't we feel proud about those? Because we don't know them. Why don't we know them? Because it's not trendy to study these periods.

We also don't talk about the hundreds of amazing writers we had the last century - including those who got Nobels - because that's not trendy right now.

We have to stop seeing the value of Greek literature through the eyes of foreigners. We have to promote Greek works because we can't just wait for a Shannon in New Jersey, US, to discover it and like it, in order for us to appreciate it too.

Also, we cannot re-invent the wheel. Our ancestors wrote some great stuff for their era. In 2023 this stuff is still great but it's not THAT revolutionary. So there's no comparison in regards to novelty. But we can produce good works regardless.

Greece is not a colonial power or a former colonial power like the European "Big Powers" (these 8 countries), or an empire like the US. Our nation is still recovering for 400-600 years of slavery and occupation AND the dozens of traumatising conflicts and wars that came after that. We can't expect the same growth at the same numbers as these luckier countries. We can't afford as a nation to have extremely popular events and promote the arts like they do in LA, or in Berlin, or London. Let's be kind to ourselves.

In continuation of the previous point, Greece today doesn't have enough powerful publishing houses to back great writers. Our writers, except 4-5 names in the whole country, don't see a penny from their work even after selling hundreds of copies. Even if you earn something, it's not even enough for a month's groceries. So writers either have to choose to spend only 10% of their time writing, or 80% of their time writing and live penniless.

The creativity is there, but Greeks rarely have the time and resources to pursue their writing passion to the point of greatness.

#answered #greek literature #modern greece #writing #writers #byzantine #history #byzantium #medieval

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