Ame & Fox (& Kudzu)

"There's no way nature is separate. We're part of it. We communicate with the world every day, with every breath. Everything we do is our declaration of our love and adoration, or our denial of it."

Last year I made Caduceus Clay's Blightstaff from Critical Role. I've never gotten around to taking photos of it until now.

Lady Vex'ahlia de Rolo, Baroness of the First House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt and Lord Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.

Friends reunited.

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

I've been scrolling through Glass Onion posts for days and I've never seen someone else see Derol as a personification of the pandemic when he carRIES AROUND CORONA BEERS all the time??

He's always like "oh don't mind me, I'm not even here", showing how those rich people on their private islands loved to act like the pandemic isn't real just because in their little rich people world they were able to act like it's all just a figment of others' imagination while people were literally dying

But no, they're not doing anything bad, they're only meeting up with their 'closest friends' (like Birdie's party in the beginning of the movie), they're isolating themselves from the 'general masses' in their huge, luxurious mansions and on their private islands and then make a show of singing Imagine💀

Derol is the ghost of corona floating over everyone's head which those people on this billionaire's little island have the luxury of ignoring

oh look! it's her

Delloso de le Rue of The Court of Wonder (they/them)

Timothy ''Mother'' Goose and Gerard Of Greenleigh , I dressed them in 1810s fashion, since that's around when the tales of mother goose and the frog prince came out, it's coincidentally almost 100 years after the sleeping beauty by Perrault came out ! And now my Rosamund is wearing a dress that was in fashion a 100 years ago for theses lads, it fits so well I'm so happy

I'll post pinocchio and Pib tomorrow I think, I still haven't inked their sketches

Okay I’ve read the Worlds Beyond Number website, here’s a little breakdown:

•Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Erika Ishii, and Lou Wilson are doing an rpg podcast

•it will include both extended campaigns and one shots

•the first episode drops March 1st, 2023

•the patreon opens February 1st, and patreon members will get to see things like session 0 stuff, exclusive clips, bits from the first episode before it comes out, etc.

•there will also be a little reveal each week of this month (January) this weeks being the first episodes title

•the show will be free! Only joining the patreon costs money (of course)

•for anyone with Instagram, Twitter, or Tiktok, you can follow the Worlds Beyond Number accounts on those platforms

•it looks really cool and I encourage my fellow Dimension 20 fans to check it out!