rejecting humanity club

Lost Kitchen Scrolls

It has a huge variety of historical recipes from different regions, taken from manuscripts, transcribed and translated, and a whole section of notes about the context for the recipe. It's really fun and I AM going to try a couple of these recipes.

Look at how this lamb recipe is presented:

This is just such a fun way to learn more about historical foodways and discover traditional cuisine.

Look at all the filters you can use:

Maybe if I can forage some good blackberries this year, I can make a 300 year old recipe for blackberry wine!

The Crimson Sun

Some of my concept art for Project: Anglerfish (the Myst game I was art directing back at Cyan) that was shared in Cyan's recent State of the Union presentation at Mysterium last week!

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

these are all direct quotes from jeffrey jerome cohen's "monster culture (seven theses)" (full pdf linked) i highly encourage you to read it yourself!

that said, while i think cohen's writing is evocative, it can be a little dense, so while i'm here, here's my capsule summary (you can also hear me talk about this in the first episode of my podcast) (listen to @ghostswerepeopletoo)

i. the monster's body is a cultural body - The monster is a work of fiction to be analyzed through tools of literary and sociological theory.

ii. the monster always escapes - As long as the cultural fear from which the monster stems persists, the monster will reappear in retellings, reimaginings, and sequels.

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis - Monsters defy binaries and challenge easy comprehension or categorization.

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference - The monster represents the Other.

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible - Tales of the monster exist to discourage unacceptable or taboo behaviors.

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire - Subjects can vicariously participate in the disruption of the social order through the monster.

wings: “humans don’t like things they can’t understand, so if we’re going to levitate we should have wings. in fact we should probably have lots of wings, since we’re so big and impressive. humans like wings”

loud, booming voices: “fuck off Azrael the humans needs to be able to hear us.”

glowing: “no no no, it’s about visibility, right? the main human sensory organ works by detecting light, so if we emit light…” 

wheels: “why the hell are you shaped like that?” “piss off, the humans are really proud of this invention”

multiple faces/eyes: “it makes me relatable” “i swear to God it doesn’t–” “i need to see in every direction” “ Azrael you are a supernatural messenger of god you do not need–” “THE HUMANS NEED TO KNOW I’M WATCHING”

multiple limbs: “humans have lots of limbs! they like limbs” “look i let you keep the wings but–” “how do you expect me to walk?” “70,000 feet is not a reasonable number of feet, Azrael!” “fuck off i’m ENORMOUS” 

Old Testament Angels look like that because life in the ocean outnumbered life on land, so naturally when they visited earth they modeled their appearance on the most common lifeforms. Hench you get things like

radial symmetry (i.e. angels shaped like spheres) which is objectively cooler than bilateral symmetry (starfish understand this)

Very Numerous Limbs (2 is not the average number of arms in the ocean)

random glowing (bioluminescence)

just generally being objects of Absolute Terror to land dwellers

a thousand eyeballs being the Norm (have you seen scallops)

I wanted to make a wiki about it but I don't have time for it.

The point was to try to encompass every "superpower" I could think of into a magic system.