If Animals As Different As These Two Can Get Along With Each Other This Sweetly, Why Can't We Put Our

R.I.P. Ursula Le Guine

City & the City by China Mieville

“We mourn the incomparable Ursula Le Guin, and it hurts. A writer of intense ethical seriousness and intelligence, of wit and fury, of radical politics, of subtlety, of freedom and yearning, Le Guin was a literary colossus.” - C.M.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 

“Those who see science fiction simply as a way of writing novels welcome the more Tolstoyan approach, in which a war is described not only from the generals’ point of view but also through the eyes of housewives, prisoners, boys of sixteen, or an alien visitation is described not only by knowledgeable scientists but also by its effects on commonplace people.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Strange Bird A Borne Story by Jeff Vandermeer

“I think the biggest thing I took away from her fiction, and her nonfiction, was the sharp thoughtfulness and humanity behind it all.” — J.V.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees Stories by Kij Johnson

“It’s just as good as I thought it was going to be, if not better … the variety is tremendous, exhilarating. The book definitely won’t do that short-story-collection thing to you where all the stories run together into a sort of depressing porridge in your mind.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

“We can’t call Ursula K. Le Guin back from the land of the unchanging stars, but happily she left us her multifaceted work, her hard-earned wisdom and her fundamental optimism. Her sane, smart, crafty and lyrical voice is more necessary now than ever. For it, and for her, we should be thankful.” - M.A.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

“Ursula’s work holds a prominent place on the most cherished part of my bookcase.” - N.O.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss

“There is one thing I wish I could have told her, although she probably knew: that she has hundreds of daughters. All those teenage girls who also found her books in local bookstores or libraries and grew up to become writers. She taught them that women could write about other planets and political philosophy, with clarity, profundity, and grace. She gave each of us a little bit of her voice, and we are all better writers and human beings because of it.” - T.G.

The Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories by Vandana Singh

“A most promising and original young writer.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

“Ursula LeGuin was my first science fiction inspiration as a kid and she continued to inspire me throughout my adult life. Her stories are permanently installed in my mind.” - A.N.

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

“This was a subtle gift that Le Guin gave to a young person wanting to be a writer—the idea that there was more to writing fiction than ticking off plot points, that a rewarding story can be told without overt conflict, and that a world wide and deep can be its own reward, for those building the world and those who then walk through it.” - J.S.

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

“Whereas all my beloved P G Wodehouses and Philip Pullmans are neatly arranged on the bookshelves, my Pratchetts are strewn under the beds, in the bathrooms, the glove compartments. They have shopping lists, takeaway orders and Scrabble scores scribbled on the fly leaves. They were part of life.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

Kelly Link has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as a “National Treasure”. If you don’t already know Kelly’s work, start here with her debut collection.

Blindness by Jose Saramago

“Blindness scared me to death when I started it, but it rises wonderfully out of darkness into the light.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

“… a tremendous human being and storyteller who helped make fantasy a more imaginative and humane genre.” - D.J.O.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

“She is willing to change the landscape of your head with her ideas and there’s such power in that. It is the power of … that things could be different.” - N.G.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

“She’s a cornerstone of speculative fiction, and so much of our best storytelling traces its roots back to her. The more I write, and the more I think about fictional politics and societies, the more I find myself in awe of her singular powers. Nobody else can ever equal Le Guin, but many of us will spend our whole careers striving to build on her incredible legacy.” - C.J.A.

Little Big by John Crowley

“… a book that all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy …” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar

“And what a surprise it was to find as I grew up that the author of some of my favorite childhood fantasy novels was also a brilliant essayist, enlightened political commentator, a champion of feminism, and an activist for a more inclusive publishing industry. A true example of an artist who, both through her books and activism, changed the world for the better.” - J.K.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf  

“It inspires me with pity, with terror, with awe at the mystery of human destiny, and the mystery of the art that can, for a moment, illuminate it.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

“Of course if you haven’t read Kavalier and Clay yet, go read it at once, what on earth have you been waiting for? Then read this. It is even a little crazier, maybe. Crazy like a genius.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

Shades of Milk & Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

“I think she did a lot for science fiction and fantasy—not just for women and women’s roles because of her feminism but also legitimizing us as an art form. There are a lot of people who will read an Ursula Le Guin book and go, ‘Well, this isn’t science fiction, it’s literature.’ But of course, it is science fiction. A lot of times, she can be a gateway drug for people.” - M.R.K.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

“More than anyone else, Le Guin showed me how to write SFF with an anthropological approach while interrogating the colonialist agenda and assumptions of the field itself. More than any writer of her stature, she constructed worlds in which I thought I could find and lose myself. I will miss her dearly.” - K.L.

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin

“I’d definitely still be a writer if not for her, but I don’t think I’d be as good a writer. Le Guin is one of the writers who taught me that beauty and fearlessness go hand in hand.“ - N.K.J.

I love these films, can't wait to see the third and final film in the trio

Secret of Kells/Song of the Sea

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Cartoon Saloon makes beautiful films, check them out if you have the chance!

On Portals and Trees...

So, the general consensus I’ve found concerning lore with trees and portals concerns faefolk! This made a lot of sense to me actually, as I’ve always associated this concept with the fae. There are more natural structures (like faerie rings) that once a mortal steps into or passes through, they are thus thrusted into another realm unlike our own. I found in a post on the internet that “an entrance to the faerie lands can be found at the trunk of a tree.” With that, many people often leave offerings to the fae at their favorite trees, usually an oak or hawthorn tree. Hawthorn trees are especially important to the Celts and the lore concerning fae folk. (I may make a post about this later because it was interesting). I also found other folklore of odd structures made from trees, and people claiming they are portals to the devil and whatnot. Nonetheless, people are seemingly fascinated but fearful of these structures, and consider them portals into other realms and a nexus of supernatural occurrences. Trees in a span of mythology and humanity are hubs of knowledge and creation, so the origin of these myths and folklore are not unusual.

Sources; https://www.paganspath.com/meta/faeries.htm

https://backpackerverse.com/heres-why-locals-call-the-devils-tree-a-portal-to-hell/

We do Vincent, we do...

This looks kind of like a rain chain

This is absolutely amazing!

I could spend the next couple of years mostly doing Vox Machina art, but I’m juggling things as is, so I tried to squeeze in everything in a four month project. Since the file is so ridiculous I cut it up for posting here, but you can see the whole assembled thing over on my Patreon.

Thank you to my patrons as well for sticking with me during this project! I’ll cover the last quarter of the painting, from Kashaw and Lyra (under the white dragon) and down to the end, in one of this month’s tutorials.

God I love him and his work! He was a brilliant yet sadly troubled man. P.S. just watched Loving Vincent: It was Brilliant!

@wordsnquotes

This would be great for a garden.

Mushroom Table and Stools

Reverie Treasure Co on Etsy

This is so cool, imagine if you were playing a rogue. I can't think of a more fitting way to roll skill checks.

How does the lock dice work?

Sorry this took a minute to respond to, things have been nuts over here...

Okay! So, it’s actually a very simple design! The whole thing comes in two parts, like this:

On the left is the lock-shaped housing, on the right is the lockpick, which has all the numbers 1-20 arranged around the outer edge of the disc. The bottom of the lockpick disc comes to a point, like a spinning top, which is exactly what it is.

You thread the lock over the pick so the pick emerges from the keyhole in the lock, like this:

Now your lockpick die is all set. When it’s time to do a skill check, you hold the lock down with one hand for stability, and you twirl the lockpick with the other like a spinning top. After a moment, use your finger to nock the lockpick firmly down and reveal the result of your “roll”.

The window above the keyhole shows the number. In this case, I “rolled” an 18.

From behind, you can see the disc has teeth all around the edge, and there’s a point at the bottom of the lock that will catch between those teeth when you nock the pick to ensure it lands properly on one number instead of coming up between them.

And that’s how the lock-and-pick d20 works!

Love it; where's your towel?

The best restraint tool in vet med is a towel, hands down. Do you know how many things I’ve restrained with a towel?

Angry cat? Burrito it.

Scared bunny? Burrito it.

Tiny squish faced dog that you cant get a muzzle on? Burrito it.

Screaming macaw? Burrito it.

Injured wildlife? Burrito it.

I burritoed an arctic fox today. Last week it was a cormorant. Before that it was a blue heron. When in doubt, burrito it.