Unbetitelt @uskoral - Tumblr Blog

Something that gave H.P. Lovecraft nightmares is the work of my favorite artist. In "At the Mountains of Madness" he specifically mentions "the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich."

This is what Roerich's paintings look like:

chaifootsteps

#hp lovecraft thought penguins were grotesque and horrifying#he was not a difficult man to frighten

the-real-seebs

It genuinely never occurred to me that there could be an actual real-world artist that he was referring to. Holy shit. Those are... extremely not horrifying.

marzipanandminutiae

the artist isn't even Asian

paintings of Asian-inspired landscapes by a white guy terrified H.P. Lovecraft

athenadark

Im currently reading the author who inspired HP Lovecraft, a pre WW1 folk horror writer called Arthur Machen

and the bar is low, it's like - weird stuff happens and sometimes we don't know why

what if the local myths of scary things were true, maybe - and we don't know why

what if people sometimes went mad and we don't know why

what if people still worshipped cletic gods and we don't know why

i get the impression plum jam served with scones instead of strawberry would have given HP Lovecraft the heebie jeebies

uskoral

It's unfair to use these beautiful landscape paintings and claim that these were the ones that scared Lovecraft. Because while Roerich did indeed paint perfectly naturalistic landscapes some of his paintings show supernatural things and would be concerning if you actually saw them in reality:

And given that "The mountains of madness" is a story about shoggoths living in a city on top of the highest mountains it is likely that Lovecraft was thinking about the second picture, not the one with the alpine meadow.

probablyasocialecologist

uskoral

That is more or less exactly what Isildur did (unkowningly) by keepin the one ring he ensured taht the three elven rings would continue to function allowing Galadriel to protect Lorien, Elrond could maintain Rivendel and Gandalf could use rekindle the hearts of others...

... and as all three would tell you it was not a good deal.

netscapenavigator-official

Once the bugs get ironed out, AI Image Generation will forever change propaganda and how easy it is to make and distribute.

shining-supernova

literally nothing was stopping anyone from staging or photoshopping those two photos no ai involved. i actually don’t think it will change anything.

absolxguardian

Knowing the truth has always been difficult.

uskoral

That is so not the point. Even before the internet anyone could record a song from radio on a cassette tape, copy this on other tape and distribute it by mail - but it was cumbersome enough that never became a threat to the music industry. Then the internet and napster came along ...

Yes, you could have hired an experienced digital artist to make those pictures using photoshop, but it would have taken hours (a problem for real time propaganda) and cost a lot. With the AI it takes a few clicks and is done in a second.

People often think that to change the world scientists have to invent something that was never done before - but making something existing simpler and easier to use often results in far bigger changes.

trystings

For Bee’s birthday, which was over a month ago, based on her weirdly specific prompt, which I did not completely fill because there’s no hair fiddling. <3 thanks for challenging me <3

Headcanon! They’ve been traveling around Italy and in Florence they ask an elderly tourist to take their picture and she keeps changing positions to get it just right and give these nice young men a perfect memory of the Boboli Gardens and Stiles mutters through his frozen smile ‘get on with it already’ and “don’t look at the camera with your freaky eyes” and pokes Derek in the back with his knee and Derek laughs.

ultravioletness

I’ve been making gay knights (and ladies) collages on my phone at work

(Part two)

ao3commentoftheday

I’ve been having trouble with actually starting to write fics. Once the start is established it’s super easy, but it’s incredibly difficult for me to actually write the beginning. Any tips?

Don't write the beginning. Start from the place where it's easy.

A lot of the time when I get into trouble writing a story or when I get too bogged down and lose motivation, I find that I've actually started telling the story too soon.

It's a lot easier to dive in when the action starts, without all of the backstory and worldbuilding. In story-telling terms, this is called in media res, but in practical terms it just means picking a point in time where the story is already in progress and start there.

You can reveal backstory and build your world through flashbacks, conversations, and general observations made by your POV characters. Remember that your reader doesn't need to know everything that you know. They just need to know enough to understand what's happening.

Also, if you find something boring, your audience probably will too. Save yourself the trouble of writing, and save them the trouble of reading it. Stick to the parts that you enjoy. This isn't homework. You don't have to eat your fic vegetables before you can have your fic dessert.

gemsonthepage

My strategy when I want to begin in a certain place but can't get the words to come (writing openings and closings is difficult for me at times) is to skip to where I can start, write that, and then go back and do the beginning. Once I'm done with that, I can then go through and edit it to all flow smoothly. It works really well!

For longer fics, I also find it useful to start by writing beta versions of multiple scenes from different points in the fic before I start at the beginning, to help me establish some outlines and points and character voices and such, especially when I'm taking things more seriously.

Hope that helps!

darkhorse-javert

But help- what happenbs when I only have inspiration sdcenes and can't for the life of me work out the bridging between them????

ao3commentoftheday

Write a 5x1 fic? Write each one as a oneshot and put them in a series? Make a regular multichap and put them in chronological order, but one per chapter? You've got options! Novels are just 1 way to write a story. There are lots of others.

athenadark

the alternative to in medias res is "bildungsromans" which is what it says - building a novel

now that's your "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" sentence where you build your world and your setting and your main [not your plot] right at the start, often in the first paragraphs

now here's the trick - there's nothing stopping you writing that AND CUTTING IT LATER

you can absolutely edit it out when you're rolling and comfy so if you need to write about the invention of ten thousand league boots and the prominence of birth order and start your work a thousand words in when everyone is talking about the gentlemen taking the local mansion for the summer

the first sentence on the page doesn't have to be the first sentence in the story! Editting can be a wordy writer's best friend, [except when you NEED to make wordcount]

uskoral

While the advice you offer on writing is good, I want mention that Bildungsroman doesn’t mean building a novel. It is German and means novel(=Roman) of education or formation (Bildung)

I guess the best translation would be coming of age story?

A Bildungsroman usually follows a young character and his formation. The prototype is split into three phases, “Jugendjahre” years of youth which introduce the character in his youthful and carefree years, “Wanderjahre” years of wandering, where the character explores the world and himself, and “Meisterjahre”, years of the master where he uses his newfound skills and wisdom.

I think this structure is why you think it means building a novel, as the reader explores the world with the character?

vallentiina

adrianfridge

Teen Wolf unreliable narrator theory that the entire series is actually Stiles’s imagination before he dies of the same disease as his mom

uskoral

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3868132

There is a fic with exactly this premise.

deucannelloni

I wanted to do some Stiles X Scott and I was listening to a cute-but-sad song so I drew something (mybackgrounds still suck)

[x]

menofcolorinfantasyart

Knight Duties by La Draws

andavs

Will I ever stop drawing Sterek napping? Sources say no.

forget-me-nights

Team

" I played a big scary non human, who's only emotion is being grumpy with a dash of being broody but then I met an always talking twink, who I claim to hate but secretly don't. I somehow also played a sunny and shy reporter named Clark Kent, who hides the fact that he is superman. "