Hello! This is a tumblr blog. I do stuff. Actually I don't really do stuff, I just reblog things. Yup. That's about it. Banner art is by @painter-marx, icon is by @rifuye
157 posts
Hi Ashley - I asked a question about Uaid about a month ago and wanted to thank you for responding so quickly. It didn't help, but left me more amazed at how well you kept him drawn so (mostly) consistently all these years. In any case, I posted my newest creation in the discord and several people said I should send this to you. I've loved the comic for years and have been wanting to make a creation based on Uaid and other characters for a long while now. It's taken me just over a year, but I finally finished. So here it is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pepa_quin/albums/72177720309065124 Thank you so much for the great comic, I'm looking forward to everything else you have to show us.
I'm absolutely flipping out right now, this is ASTONISHING! Everyone go look!
The colours, Uaid's perfect round face, the astonishing detail of it. Uaid's interior is so good and on-model! Pink toe nails! I see Matty, Jivi, Cutter (lol), even pukey Starfish in his early story attire. Even the slave cart is full of slaves! Then as if that's not enough, look at the Wand'ring Root in the back! Duane putting the smack down on it and Sette wigging out!
This is just one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I'm honoured you took the time. Thank you for sharing it with all of us! <3
Curious if this could work mechanically- could the shield be altered to only allow first silver in? This would better keep the civvies out once the bubble went down and maybe weaken the silver by causing it to shed some flesh. I think Duane did something similar way back in ch. 9 with Boo’s first brass, too.
Nay. Darkest says in the first panel that the hub can't analyze the First Silver. It's grown too massive and is rendering the khert unstable. At this point the best the hub can do is what it's been doing, and that's a complete but computationally simple Contour blockade.
Foooortunately, while the Queen's camp is ignorant to their presence, we should not ourselves forget that Duane Adelier and his Peaceguard keepers are not very far off. And they ain't no slumps.
Vliegeng air raid is on its way too though... wouldn't it be funny if...
Everyone's gonna die! D:
Because Google is totally useless and won't help you with ANYTHING
iNaturalist: Take photos of living things you see, post them, and the community will identify them for you. Data from iNaturalist is used in scientific research.
Wildflower.org Plant Database: Enter search criteria and find some plants. Very useful if you're looking for plants with specific qualities or know what you have in mind.
Native Plant Finder: This website is still in beta and is a work in progress, but it will show you plants for your area ranked by the number of butterflies that use them for their caterpillars.
WildflowerSearch: AMAZING resource for identification and for learning about new plants. Shows you where plants are native/not native, TONS of search filters.
Native Plant Trust: A New England organization, but probably useful to anyone.
Northern Forest Atlas: Great images and identification resources for trees; has good pictures of bark, seeds, buds, leaves.
FloraFinder: Another plant database site that's being slowly built up by a passionate nerd.
MonarchWatch milkweed by USA ecoregion: Tells you what milkweed species you should plant for monarch butterflies.
Native Beeology: Not plants, but a closely related subject.
I will add more and post an updated list as I find more.
I saw that you include Quigley in your work sometimes. The problematic decision to include Quigley in a story is a personal one, and it is ultimately up to the creator to determine whether it is necessary in the context of the story. But do you consider the potential harm of Quigley on the audience and on the overall message or themes of the work? . The use of Quigley in a non educational manner can cause emotional distress or offend the audience. It's not an advisable practice.
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wheres your whimsy. wheres your fucking whimsy
Does one ever really "stop" being influenced by the things they read, watch, play, or otherwise experience, fiction or otherwise? You can't endlessly tinker with the story of Unsounded, and I imagine you already know what you want to say with it... but do you see yourself still able to change or evolve, either during the making of it or beyond? Signed, someone feeling old and stuck.
>>Does one ever really "stop" being influenced by the things they read, watch, play, or otherwise experience, fiction or otherwise?
I think that's up to you. My sixty year old mom listens to the same Tom Petty albums for hours, and watches the same episodes of MASH over and over and over again. For her, media has become a warm and comforting bath after a long day. Maybe that happens to all of us as the world gets more alien and we need that comfort. I don't think it has to be that way, but I think it takes real effort to continue to connect with new stuff; to let it in. The new stuff won't be catering to you so you have to do more work to understand it. And work sucks. But if you care about staying connected to the changing world, you gotta do the work to change with it. Or don't. It's your call.
If you feel old and stuck, let new stuff in. Don't dismiss it, even if your experience lets you recognise the same old tropes repeating themselves.
That latter thing is a problem I have. The older I get, the smaller the world seems. We just aren't very interesting animals. We make the same things over and over because we're trapped in such a tiny, limited world. Teach a hamster to paint and all you're gonna get is canvas after canvas of water bottles and hamster wheels.
>>You can't endlessly tinker with the story of Unsounded, and I imagine you already know what you want to say with it... but do you see yourself still able to change or evolve, either during the making of it or beyond?
Unsounded's changed a lot as it's gone along. It's a very long comic, but it's broken into storylines that have reflected my own changing self as the years have dragged on. I'm sure you've noticed it's gotten a bit more cynical in recent chapters. Sette has sobered up as she and I have experience more of the world. It'll keep changing, too. There are places I want to go in it that I couldn't have gone ten years ago. There are things I want to say that I didn't even know existed back then. Fortunately, while Unsounded's narrative highway is complete, there's plenty room to traverse that highway dynamically, via vehicles I've yet to even decide on.
So yeah, if you're stuck, Anon, get in a different car. Maybe get on a hippopotamus.
I don't know about obsession, but if i may ask...
Do you like Moby Dick because it may be based in a true story or because it's written so well??
It's certainly inspired by the true story of the Essex, which was rammed by a sperm whale. Back in the old days it was considered kind of unseemly to write pure fiction. Novels needed to be a travelogue or a biography or a historical account or a religious morality tale - at least on the surface. Pure fiction was too much like a lie, and could get you a dark reputation.
So yes, most of Melville's books were "based" on real events, either others' accounts or stories from his own colourful youth and later travels. But once you read them, you see the narrative is just an excuse for explorations of social or philosophical themes and ideas. Though his first two books were more straightforward travelogues, he couldn't afterwards write anything straightforward to save his life. His readers at the time felt betrayed by this - they'd liked his funny, scary adventures in the South Seas! - but they didn't understand the rest and stopped buying his books. Melville eventually gave up his writing career, got a day job, and died in obscurity.
I mention all this because Herman Melville the man is a big reason why I like Herman Melville's writing. His life was fascinating, sad, and we know a lot about it. It's brilliant stuff to study. His writing, too, is fascinating and sad. I'll just stick to Moby-Dick here but I love all his work.
Moby-Dick was the first novel I ever read that felt like the author was speaking directly to me. I was in high school when I first came across it - I was going through a pirate phase and it was on my list - and it stopped me dead in my tracks. It's not just a novel; it's an anachronistic multimedia experiment. It mixes prose and script and poetry and quotes and dictionary entries with elegant language and salty sailor speak. It's eloquent and disgusting, elevated and deeply down in the dirt and foam. It is an explosion of contrast, a constant seesaw back and forth between the narrative reality of a captain obsessively hunting a whale, and a common sailor named Ishmael reflecting on what that hunt means, what whales mean, what the colour white means, what the sky means, what the universe means. In his ruminations, nothing is dismissed. He wasn't dusty Hawthorne obsessing over the Bible; instead he was a sailor with a wide but naive breadth of knowledge of "Eastern religions," Asian history, "South Seas cannibals," so you never know what he's going to bring up. His was the kind of eclectic thinking that you didn't often see expressed with such eloquence in the 1850s.
So yeah, I like it a lot because it's written really well :)
But also, it's very raw, and you feel the sloppy earnestness of Melville on every page. He's trying so hard to communicate with you and - knowing that so many of his contemporaries didn't understand him - it makes you feel kind of special and connected with him when you do understand what he's saying, and you agree. It's a novel that benefits in a very unique way from NOT murdering the author; from understanding who the author was, what he went through, how exuberant he was for so long and then how much the exigencies of publishing and finances beat him down.
We people who love Moby-Dick tend to really love Moby-Dick. I'm certain Melville himself is a big reason for this. We connect with his struggles. We celebrate the immortality of all artists by raising up his work and reaching back through the centuries to take his tarry hand.
How do you feel about evolved forms of contractions? It'd've, for example :3
I think you should use whatever tools communicate your intentions best!
I've seen eggheads complain about excessive contractions, and against trying to phonetically write out how characters speak. but lol i say. lmao.
Beautiful writing is rhythmic writing, and every syllable is a musical note. Why would you restrict what notes you can use? Preposterous. Ludicrous!
Snail nestled in the eye socket of a skull on a headstone in Olsany Cemetery, Prague.
Photo by Owen Phillips
Apologies to anyone who followed for non-Sissel content I just like him a lot and he’s very fun to draw
Hi it’s time for my twice yearly “I have feelings about Ghost Trick” post