#tudl

[elizabeth-owens]

Photo of the Day: Towson University Marching Band (Cymbal Line) — outside Towson Center Arena — October 28th, 2017 [x]

[elizabeth-owens]

Photos of the Day: Towson University Marching Band (Drumline) — outside Towson Center Arena — October 28th, 2017 [x]

[elizabeth-owens]

Photo of the Day: Doc “The TIGER” Minnegan and the Towson University Marching Band (Drumline) — outside Towson Center Arena — November 18th, 2017 [x]

[trufflesmushroom]

what’s tudl? your note on the tolkien post piqued my interest :0

LOL It’s one of my personal projects. I’ve really only posted about it a few times on Patreon, and shown it in parts to maybe three friends off that platform. I’m really wary of public engagement with my original works so you’re not likely to see any of the development for TUDL or any other of my serious projects unless you’re on my Patreon or a close enough trusted friend that I show you stuff over chat or Discord.

I’ll at least tell you that TUDL stands for The Upside-Down Lord, and it’s a historical low fantasy political romance novella set in medieval magical!Mongolia. Except it’s also a modern era young academic’s re-translation of an ancient classical pulp novel that is in and of itself a bastardized version of various accounts from surviving extant documents of the era. Which are all attempts to understand what really went on behind the scenes when the succession of the last unbroken noble bloodline of the nation was broken when the lord married his captain of the guard seemingly out of nowhere, to everyone’s exasperation. And the narrative framework expands on how that historical event shook things up culturally and still affects the modern day centuries later. And also it’s just gaysian magical realism.

I mainly worked on TUDL in 2016 and may eventually compile all of my writing and designs from then into its own folio. Maybe!!

[trufflesmushroom]

For this personal project that’s been simmering on the backburner for the past like five years at this point, I’ve got this bit of worldbuilding where the local flora and fauna is just ever so slightly radically different from reality. Certain things are just switched around but called by familiar names so the reader gets thrown for a loop when the narration is just like, oh yeah, this clan’s horses have differently shaped horns than this clan’s horses, and yeah whenever they hunt they bring their hunting rabbits out with them and let them have the scraps. And wow, look at how they gather and cultivate horribly tough fibrous nasty bitter tubers with gnarled leathery vines which is one of their staple crops, and also blood.

Anyway, yesterday I was improving my carnivorous predator rabbit/hare designs and then I got distracted practicing horned horses and then that’s when I realized that I don’t have a similarly well-thought-out hunting bird analagous to the hawk of our familiar world. I’ve just been writing ‘HAWK’ as a sort of lazy placeholder term. So what’s a bird that could exist in this world that could hunt out in the plains and the tundra alongside scary intelligent brutally strong impressively bred horned horses and freaky wolf-fox-rabbits? A songbird? What kind of bird would be unexpected in this scenario but would still be a super cool hunting companion? Something native to Central Asia. A songbird, maybe?? Something that can fly and make a cool noise and it would look tight as fuck, fuckin SICK as a huge carnivorous top of the food chain murder bird.

[trufflesmushroom]

I’m thinking of starting a sideblog for posting my development and worldbuilding for my project TUDL. I’d include old and new sketches, large swatches of writing, maps, lineups and other pieces of visual development, charts, excerpts, experiments, and general flavor text in regular (or realistically not-so-regular) installments.

Thing is, TUDL is a vanity project and I really ought to be working on my more serious ongoing projects. FSHBNS is going to be my graduation show/ portfolio, and currently has NO finished pieces I like, which is a problem- I haven’t even finished the screenplay! And I could easily develop TGOSS (a really workable self-contained story) or TCT (the other contender for grad project) or TGSA (a SUPER vanity project that is never going to be anything more than just a fun thing to work on) or PMFTMG (probably also just a fun hobby) or HVS (a very old dedicated project I have more or less abandoned, though I’m still fond of it) or DLB (another neat little package that cannot become a reality due to legal reasons) or TSD (another old idea I’m very into right now) or GGG (something some tumblr users have seen!) or any of the other projects I have on constant loop.

But I think posting TUDL stuff is more risk-free and I’m currently inspired to do stuff with it… hrm…

[hertahertagak]

Hooter plays some beats at the Temple U Cherry and White game!